The good news begins with God.
Its main message concerns ‘God with us’ in the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘to save his people from their sins’ (Matt 1:21, 23). The fundamental focus of the Christian good news regards ‘God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, who did for us what we could not do for ourselves, in order to bring us, a lost people, back to God.’1Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), 5; italics supplied.
So the first great reality of the gospel is God himself.
‘God does not merely give us “something,” but gives himself.’
The Gift Is the Giver
In the gospel we learn that God is for us because he loves us — and because he is for us, no one and nothing can possibly be against us (John 3:16; Rom 8:31).
In the gospel, God gives us Jesus Christ, who is God and man. The greatest gift of the gospel, the greatest good of the good news, is God’s Son himself (John 3:16). Through it God calls us ‘into the fellowship of his Son’ (1 Cor 1:9).
‘God does not merely give us “something,” but gives himself; and giving us himself, giving us his only Son, he gives us everything.’2Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1 (T&T Clark, 1957), 276; slightly amended.
‘He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things’ (Rom 8:32). ‘The love of God’ from which nothing can separate us ‘is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:38).
Why That Matters for Its Authority
Because of that, the authenticity, integrity and inner nature of the gospel rests on its structure and content being entirely God-given.
The good news is momentous because it is given to us through the Son of God. It is achieved by God, delivered by God, simply to be received by us from God.
And the importance, appeal, challenge, surprise, power — and above all the truth — of the Christian gospel flows from two things: that it comes to us from God, and that it was accomplished and announced first and foremost by Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God.
‘The proper substance or subject of the gospel is Christ “in the flesh,” or the incarnate Christ. For the gospel is entirely occupied with telling about his redeeming work, his satisfaction for our sins, and his other benefits. In this sense is it called “the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God,” i.e., the gospel about Jesus Christ, God’s Son (Mark 1:1; Rom 1:3, 16; 15:19; 1 Cor 9:12; 2 Cor 9:13; Gal 1:7, 11, 12).’3Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 2 Volumes [hereafter abbreviated, Leiden Synopsis], 22:19, ed. William den Boer and Riemer A. Faber, trans. Riemer A. Faber (Davenant Press, 2023), 240.
So the gospel of Jesus Christ and the gospel of God are one and the same thing. The good news of Jesus Christ is the good news of ‘God in Christ’ (Eph 4:32), of ‘God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom 6:11; Phil 3:14), and of ‘God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom 8:39).
Not Our Idea
The biblical good news is not man’s good news (Gal 1:11). Its origin and content are not human but Divine.
The Christian gospel does not originally come from Christians. Its source is the revelation of God (Gal 1:12), and its substance is the saving action of God in Christ. It has authority and power from God because it was accomplished by God’s eternal Son. It is true and trustworthy because it was first preached by God’s incarnate Word.
‘For in his gospel God declares that he takes no delight in the destruction of any sinner, but he delights in transferring everyone to salvation through repentance and faith from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved Son, Jesus Christ.’4Leiden Synopsis, 22:25, 241; emphasis supplied.
What It’s Actually For
Knowing God — ‘the knowledge of God’ (2 Cor 10:5) — is the gospel’s great business, its overarching objective, its basic purpose, its foremost aim and ultimate end.
The gospel’s great goal is making God known. It is the Word of God, the Revelation of God, bringing knowledge of God and allowing us to see everything in relation to God. In that way it is God’s means of creating fellowship with him — a fellowship embracing all of life.
So far, then: God is the gospel’s governing figure and theme, and knowledge of God (identical with knowing Christ) is its task and intent.
Put less formally: ‘although Jesus is the centre of the message, he’s not where the story begins. In fact, to understand who Jesus is and what he achieved (especially what his death and resurrection mean) we have to paint in a bit of background. We have to start a little further back. At the very beginning, in fact.’5Tony Payne, The Christian Gospel (Matthias Media, 2022), 10.
And the beginning the Christian gospel starts with is God. He is its initial cause and underlying reality. Formally stated: ‘The principal efficient cause of the gospel is God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with respect to both the Divine decision to declare it to mankind and the declaration itself.’6Leiden Synopsis, 22:7, 238-39; slightly amended. The Synopsis continues: ‘[8] Regarding the decree God is the efficient cause, because this mystery of the gospel was hidden with God before all ages according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, as the Apostle teaches in Eph 3:9, 10, and 11. Whence also the gospel is called “eternal” (Rev 14:6). [9] Regarding the declaration of the gospel God is the efficient cause, because this action of God, since it occurs toward the outside, is an action that is not divided among the Trinity. And so the gospel is sometimes called “the word and power of God” in an absolute sense, as in Romans 1:16 and 1 Pet 1:23. Sometimes it is used in a relative sense for the First Person of the Godhead, “the gospel of God,” namely of the Father (Rom 1:1), or of the Second Person, “the gospel of Christ” (as in 2 Cor 9:13), or of the Third Person, the “administration of the Spirit” (as in 2 Cor 3:6). [10] But with regard to the order in which the Divine Persons come together for that action in the different ways that they cooperate, the declaration of the gospel is ascribed in different respects to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [11] For it is ascribed to the Father as the foremost author of the gospel, since it is from his bosom [breast, side, heart] that it is said to have proceeded (John 1:18). It is ascribed to the Son as the most trustworthy ambassador of the Father, who earnestly declares that the words he brings forward are not his own but those of his Father (John 14:10, 24). And it is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as the most closely related interpreter of the Son’s words, since Christ says that the Spirit would declare nothing new to the Apostles, but that he would announce the same things that they had heard from himself (John 16:13, 14)’ [slightly amended].
Look Who’s Doing the Verbs
Run through the New Testament and notice the subject of the sentences.
It is God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son ‘that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3:16-17). It is the Kingdom of God that Jesus called ‘the gospel of God’ (Mark 1:14-15). It is God who required his only-begotten Son’s obedience to the point of death on a cross (Phil 2:8). It is God who ‘anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power … for God was with him’ (Acts 10:38). It is God who raised his Son from death and ‘made him to appear’ (Acts 10:40). It is God who ‘has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every other name’ (Phil 2:9-10). It is God who commanded the Apostles to testify that Jesus ‘is the one appointed by God to be the judge of the living and the dead’ (Acts 10:42). It is God whose moral perfection and saving power are revealed in the gospel (Rom 1:16-17).
The matter could be much extended.
God is the reason for the gospel. God is its foundation. God is its object.7That is, ‘God in his absolute being … [accompanied] by those acts in which of his charity God sets himself in relation to other beings as their first cause and final end’ (John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology (T&T Clark, 2016), 1:214). And reconciliation with God — issuing in relationship — is its goal.
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- 1Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), 5; italics supplied. ↩︎
- 2Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2.1 (T&T Clark, 1957), 276; slightly amended. ↩︎
- 3Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 2 Volumes [hereafter abbreviated, Leiden Synopsis], 22:19, ed. William den Boer and Riemer A. Faber, trans. Riemer A. Faber (Davenant Press, 2023), 240. ↩︎
- 4Leiden Synopsis, 22:25, 241; emphasis supplied. ↩︎
- 5Tony Payne, The Christian Gospel (Matthias Media, 2022), 10. ↩︎
- 6Leiden Synopsis, 22:7, 238-39; slightly amended. The Synopsis continues: ‘[8] Regarding the decree God is the efficient cause, because this mystery of the gospel was hidden with God before all ages according to the eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, as the Apostle teaches in Eph 3:9, 10, and 11. Whence also the gospel is called “eternal” (Rev 14:6). [9] Regarding the declaration of the gospel God is the efficient cause, because this action of God, since it occurs toward the outside, is an action that is not divided among the Trinity. And so the gospel is sometimes called “the word and power of God” in an absolute sense, as in Romans 1:16 and 1 Pet 1:23. Sometimes it is used in a relative sense for the First Person of the Godhead, “the gospel of God,” namely of the Father (Rom 1:1), or of the Second Person, “the gospel of Christ” (as in 2 Cor 9:13), or of the Third Person, the “administration of the Spirit” (as in 2 Cor 3:6). [10] But with regard to the order in which the Divine Persons come together for that action in the different ways that they cooperate, the declaration of the gospel is ascribed in different respects to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [11] For it is ascribed to the Father as the foremost author of the gospel, since it is from his bosom [breast, side, heart] that it is said to have proceeded (John 1:18). It is ascribed to the Son as the most trustworthy ambassador of the Father, who earnestly declares that the words he brings forward are not his own but those of his Father (John 14:10, 24). And it is ascribed to the Holy Spirit as the most closely related interpreter of the Son’s words, since Christ says that the Spirit would declare nothing new to the Apostles, but that he would announce the same things that they had heard from himself (John 16:13, 14)’ [slightly amended]. ↩︎
- 7That is, ‘God in his absolute being … [accompanied] by those acts in which of his charity God sets himself in relation to other beings as their first cause and final end’ (John Webster, God Without Measure: Working Papers in Christian Theology (T&T Clark, 2016), 1:214). ↩︎