It seems like an elementary question with a simple answer. Almost every Sunday school child at gospel-preaching churches knows that the gospel is the good news about Jesus dying on the cross to save sinners through faith so they can be forgiven and have eternal life.
While there’s a beautiful simplicity to the gospel that even a child can understand and savingly believe (Matt 18:3, 6; 19:14), there’s also a depth and multifaceted richness to the gospel that drops the jaws of the inhabitants of the spiritual realm (1 Cor 2:6–10; Eph 3:10–11; cf. 1 Pet 1:12), baffles theologians (1 Pet 1:10–12; cf. Dan 12:8–9; Zech 4:4–6), can’t be exhausted in all the world’s books (cf. John 21:25), and will be an endless source of delight for all eternity (cf. Rev 4:9–10; 5:13; 7:12).
In this post, I’d like to consider some common conceptions of the gospel and then invite you to broaden your horizons beyond these essential elementary truths into depths and glories of the gospel that you might not often enough consider.
Table of Contents
Gospel Dimensions
A post like this could go in multiple directions. We could explore the gospel through a systematic theological lens as a many-sided diamond with its resplendent glories as seen through the many aspects of God’s planning (covenant of redemption, foreknowledge, predestination, election), accomplishing (substitutionary atonement, propitiation, expiation, redemption, ransom), and applying (union with Christ, regeneration, conversion, justification, adoption, indwelling, sanctification, resurrection, glorification) the good news.
But rather than look at the gospel through a systematic theological lens, I’d like to consider the gospel as part of the unfolding story of the Bible through the lens of what theologians refer to as biblical theology. Biblical theology isn’t a great name for the discipline. It doesn’t mean theology that is biblical or that is sourced from the Bible. All kinds of theological disciplines (systematic, historical, biblical, and practical) strive to be biblical and conform to the teaching of Scripture. The distinctive of biblical theology is that it views the Bible as a unified and progressively unfolding story that has a beginning, middle, and end, and it traces how that story develops throughout its various stages over time with its characters, themes, and subthemes—growing organically from seed to seedling to sapling to fully mature tree.
How does understanding the unfolding plan of God in the history of redemption (in German, heilsgeschichte) help us to understand and appreciate the richness and beauty of the gospel at a macro level? That’s what I aim to introduce in this post.
Common Conceptions of the Gospel
If you were to ask a variety of evangelical churchgoing people what the gospel is, you’d probably mostly get answers that fall into one of these four buckets.
1. John 3:16: The Sunday School Answer
The majority would likely go to John 3:16:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
For most people, this is the gospel in a nutshell. While the word gospel isn’t present here or in the context, it’s certainly not wrong to see the essence of the gospel message present in this well-known text. To the contrary, I believe there is even greater theological richness in this text than meets the eye, which I’ll come back to later.
2. Romans Road: The Evangelist Answer
Others would turn to the “Romans Road,” which often includes at least the following key verses from Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome:
. . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .
Romans 3:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Romans 10:9
Many a gospel tract—and evangelistic gospel presentation to unbelievers—follows some form of this bad-news-to-good-news storyline.
3. 1 Corinthians 15: The Historical Answer
Another popular explanation of the gospel is found in Paul’s defense of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, where he opens the chapter this way:
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
1 Corinthians 15:1–11
The historical events of Jesus’ death & burial and resurrection & appearances are central to the gospel message. These pairs manifest a parallelism that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking carefully.
| Saving Act | Evidence | |
| Negative/ | death | burial |
| Positive/ | resurrection | appearances |
These historical events of death and burial, resurrection and appearances further unpack what John 3:16 captures more broadly as the Father’s giving of his unique Son and add further specificity to the details of the Romans Road by adding in the proofs of burial to his death (Rom 5:8) and post-resurrection appearances to his resurrection (Rom 10:9).
4. Faith Alone / Five Solas: The Theological Answer
Theologically minded believers would probably answer with some version of salvation by faith alone. The more advanced might unpack all five solas of the Reformation and talk about justification by grace alone (sola gratia) through faith alone (sola fide) in Christ alone (solus Christus) based on the Word of God alone (sola scriptura) for the glory of God alone (soli Deo gloria) and articulate the nuances of the great exchange, the dual imputation rooted in Christ’s passive (from the Latin passio, meaning suffering) and active obedience, union with Christ, and more.
None of these is a bad answer to the question “What is the gospel?” They’re all good and right. But none is by itself entirely adequate. Each benefits from the others to give a fuller understanding of what the gospel is. However, the burden of this post is to help you see that, even combined, these four perspectives don’t go far enough. They make up only one chapter—to be clear, the most important one—of a much larger story. Significant—even essential—aspects of the gospel are absent or only implicit without getting a 35,000-foot view of the good news spanning all of human history.
The Whole-Bible, Whole-World Gospel
A passage to which few would turn to define or explain the gospel is Genesis 12:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Genesis 12:1–3
At first glance, you might not recognize the gospel message here. However, Paul makes it clear that this promise to Abram was in fact the gospel:
Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”
Galatians 3:8
The Gospel as the Salvation of All Nations
In this text, Paul connects and equates three things:
- The gospel: “. . . announced the gospel . . .”
- Justification of the Gentiles by faith: “. . . that God would justify the Gentiles by faith . . .”
- All nations being blessed through Abraham (and his Seed): “All nations will be blessed through you.”
The quoted Greek clause in Galatians 3:8 Ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν σοὶ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (“they will be blessed in you, all the nations”) has no exact representation in the Old Testament Greek Septuagint (LXX), but its closest match comes from Genesis 12:3, which is repeated and expanded in Genesis 28:14, when the same gospel promise is given to Jacob with the addition of the phrase καὶ ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου (“and in your seed”), a reference to the future Messiah’s role as the agent of fulfillment of the promise (cf. Gal 3:16). Paul, however, replaces πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ (“all the tribes”) used in Genesis 12:3 (and 28:14) with πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (“all the nations”) used in Genesis 18:18; 22:18; and 26:4 and drops τῆς γῆς (“of the earth”)—effectively blending both groups of texts together in his paraphrase of this gospel message to Abraham.
Here are the five occurrences of this promise to Abraham and Jacob from the Greek Septuagint:
- Gen 12:3: ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν σοὶ πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς (“they will be blessed in you, all the tribes of the earth”)
- Gen 28:14: ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν σοὶ πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου (“they will be blessed in you, all the tribes of the earth—and in your seed”)
- Gen 18:18: ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν αὐτῷ πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς (“they will be blessed in him, all the nations of the earth”)
- Gen 22:18: ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς (“they will be blessed in your seed, all the nations of the earth”)
- Gen 26:4: ἐνευλογηθήσονται ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου πάντα τὰ ἔθνη τῆς γῆς (“they will be blessed in your seed, all the nations of the earth”)
See also Acts 3:25, which changes the word order of Genesis 22:18 and 26:4 and substitutes πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (“all the nations”) with πᾶσαι αἱ πατριαὶ (“all the families”), a phrase that doesn’t occur anywhere in the LXX: ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου ἐνευλογηθήσονται πᾶσαι αἱ πατριαὶ τῆς γῆς (“in your seed they will be blessed, all the families of the earth”).
What’s the significance of Paul’s referring to this promise as “the gospel”?
For Paul, understanding the gospel isn’t about understanding merely the historical events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. Those events were, of course, central to the accomplishment of the gospel. But they won’t be adequately appreciated or seen in all their glory if they’re not sufficiently situated in the unified, unfolding, universal good news story of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. The gospel rightly understood requires going all the way back to at least this gospel promise to Abram and God’s plan to bring his saving blessings to the Gentiles, to all the peoples of the earth—and not merely by inviting the Gentiles to participate in Israel as sojourners by their Torah observance as many Gentiles did under the Old Covenant (Deut 14:21; 23:3; Ezra 10:1–44; cf. Eph 2:12, 19) but by creating a brand new way (Rom 7:6; Heb 10:19–25) into God’s family, by faith (Rom 3:30) and by the Spirit (Eph 2:18), where Jews and Gentiles would be equal members of the one new people of God (1 Cor 12:13; Eph 2:15–18; cf. Rom 3:9, 22, 29; 9:24; 10:12; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11).
This worldwide salvation was his plan from the very beginning, and Israel’s failure to be a light to the Gentile nations (cf. Isa 42:6; 49:6) didn’t throw God a curveball and require him to come up with a plan B but rather perfectly prepared the way for the Messianic seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16), the new Jacob/Israel (Mat 2:15; cf. 3:13–17; 4:1–11), at just the right time (Mark 1:15; Rom 5:6; Gal 4:4; Eph 1:10), to establish his multi-ethnic people through his own twelve sons, the Apostles, producing through their preaching and writing a myriad of spiritual children of Abraham (Rom 9:8; Gal 3:7, 29; cf. Luke 3:8) from every tribe, language, people, and nation (Rev 5:9; 7:9; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6), reversing Babel (Gen 11:1–8; Deut 32:7–9) and reclaiming all the nations as his own inheritance (John 12:32; Acts 2:1–47; cf. Ps 2:8; 82:8), and winning a decisive and unexpected (by them) victory over the evil forces of darkness (Gen 3:15; John 12:31; 16:11; Rom 16:20; 1 Cor 2:6–10; Eph 3:10–11; Col 2:15; Heb 2:14; 1 Pet 1:12; 1 John 3:18; Rev 12:9).
The Backdrop to the Gospel Promise to Abraham
We could, of course, go back even further to the tower of Babel (Gen 11:1–8) and the dividing up of the nations according to the number of the divine sons of God (Deut 32:7–9; בני אלוהים [sons of God] in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which is interpreted as ἀγγέλων θεοῦ [angels of God] in the LXX), which God begins to reclaim en masse at Pentecost through the preaching of the gospel (Acts 2:1–47; cf. John 12:32); back further to the diabolical spiritual attack on God’s human image bearers (Gen 6:1–4; cf. 1 Pet 3:19–20; 2 Pet 2:4–5; Jude 6), leading to the destruction of humanity in the flood (Gen 6:5ff); back still further to the promise of the seed of Eve who would crush the head of the serpent (Gen 3:15; cf. John 12:31; 16:11; Rom 16:20; Col 2:15; Heb 2:14; 1 John 3:18; Rev 12:9), the leader of this spiritual rebellion against Yahweh who tempted Eve in a failed attempt to thwart God’s plan for his human family. But these further dimensions of the whole-Bible gospel are beyond the scope of this post.
Broadening Our View of the Gospel
We, especially North American evangelicals, tend to frame the gospel in very individualistic terms. I’m a sinner. I deserve God’s just wrath. God loves me. God sent his Son to die the death I deserved. If I repent and believe in him, I’ll be saved and have eternal life. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with that personal application of the gospel, the good news is much bigger than me and pertains to much more than my brief time on this earth.
The gospel is the good news about God’s infinitely wise plan to reclaim all the nations as his inheritance—to expand from the nation of Israel, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Law given at Sinai to a multi-ethnic people comprised of every tribe, language, people, and nation in fulfillment of the New Covenant promise, where God writes the law of Christ, the law of love, on our hearts, by dwelling in us as his house and temple by means of the promised Holy Spirit.
Rightly Connecting the Testaments and Covenants
To understand this aeon-spanning, global gospel requires that we grasp how the Old Testament and the New Testament relate in terms of type and antetype, shadow and reality, promise and fulfillment—that we understand the thematic contrasts of Old Testament and New Testament, Old Covenant and New Covenant, temporal and eternal, earthly and heavenly, Sinai and Zion, Levitical priesthood and Melchizedeken priesthood, Old Jerusalem and New Jerusalem, old ethnic Israel and new spiritual Israel, Jacob and his twelve and Jesus and his twelve, physical circumcision and spiritual circumcision, creation and new creation, old man and new man, old age and new age, Hagar and Sarah, Moses and Jesus, external and internal, physical and spiritual, flesh and Spirit, slavery and freedom, law and grace, law and gospel, works and faith.
The gospel is deeply connected to a proper understanding of the Abrahamic covenant, the Old (Mosaic, Sinaitic) Covenant, and the New Covenant and how they relate, where the Abrahamic covenant was a precursor to the New Covenant—with the latter continuing, fulfilling, and expanding the former—while the Old Covenant, the Sinaitic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant was temporary and preparatory (2 Cor 3:7–8, 11, 13; 5:17; Gal 3:15–4:11; Heb 7:12, 18–19; 9:10; 10:9), what some theologians have referred to as a parenthesis between the Abrahamic promises and their New Covenant fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.
Conclusion
So next time someone asks you what the gospel is, instead of answering with merely John 3:16, the Romans Road, 1 Corinthians 15:3–8, or the Five Solas, consider answering with Genesis 12:3 and Galatians 3:8 and helping others gain a whole-Bible, whole-world perspective on the good news of Jesus Christ.
The gospel is the good news of God’s plan and promise to bring his saving blessings to all the nations through Abraham’s Seed, Jesus, the Messiah.
In my next post, God willing I’ll explore some of the predominant theological errors that arise when this relationship between the testaments and covenants is misunderstood, and in the following post I’ll explore what I believe is the most important theological key for unlocking their proper connection.
Michael Fischer says
Your comment on the LXX rendering of ‘Nations’ as ‘families’ is compelling and worth meditating on! For many, ‘Nations’ doesn’t resonate in the same way, while the brokenness of our families intimately cries out for the Gospel. I’m unsure of your theological tradition, but as a Presbyterian, I deeply appreciate this perspective for many reasons. Thank you for sharing!
Phil Gons says
Thanks, Michael, for reading, sharing, and engaging. That’s a really helpful observation. I grew up a dispensational, fundamentalist Baptist and spent about 5 years at a Presbyterian church during my college and seminary days at Bob Jones University. During that time I embraced Calvinism and covenant theology but have since shifted to progressive covenantalism, which I find to be the most faithful representation of the Bible’s unfolding redemptive storyline—striking the right balance between continuity and discontinuity.