That sounds like a rebuke. It’s actually a relief — and it’s where most misunderstandings of the Christian message get sorted out.

‘The gift of God is prior to and the basis of any task we are given.’

Two Directions at Once

God reveals the gospel, and the gospel reveals God.

At the same time, it declares the union of God and man in the person of Jesus Christ, and tells us God wants and makes relationship with us. In Jesus we may receive forgiveness of sins and adoption as dearly loved children of God through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, with the goal of enjoying eternal life in fellowship with him.

But note the order carefully:

‘We need to begin by observing, then, that the gospel is not first and foremost about ourselves. It is not a device for getting what we want or need. It is not a technique for self-improvement or self-accomplishment. It is not a means of tapping our own inner resources. It does not offer itself as a tool for thinking positively about ourselves. It is not about ourselves at all, although we are invited to believe its message. It is about Christ.’¹David F. Wells, Turning to God: Reclaiming Christian Conversion as Unique, Necessary, and Supernatural (Baker Books, 1989/2012), 168.

It’s no exaggeration to say that ‘the whole of Scripture is filled with the sense of God’s initiative in salvation.’²Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5; slightly amended. ‘This primacy of grace, which is at work all the way through the Old Testament, points us to the centrality and primacy of the gospel of grace in the New Testament.’ As far as the gospel is concerned, it isn’t us but God who is the source and centre — although of course the gospel is from God for us.³D. Broughton Knox, Selected Works, 3 Volumes (Matthias Media, 2000-2006), 3:9-11. At greater length, see John Piper, God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself (Crossway, 2005).

Calvin: ‘God specially calls by the name “gospel” the message which he commands to be proclaimed about Christ. For in this way he tells us that nowhere else can true and substantial happiness be obtained and that in him we have in perfection all the parts of a blessed life.’⁴John Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John. 1-10, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Saint Andrew Press, 1959), 5.

What God Tells Us

So the gospel’s first focus is God, and all things in relation to him.⁵‘We start with God. … There is a sense in which this [and every] doctrine is first and foremost a doctrine about God and how he acts in a perfect expression of his being and character. … Christian soteriology [teaching about salvation] is enclosed and undergirded by the Christian doctrine of God while not being simply another element of that doctrine’ (Mark Thompson, ‘The Theology of Justification By Faith,’ in Barrett, The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands of Falls, page number to be supplied). It introduces us to him; through its message we come to know him, for the gospel ‘is a means of God’s self-giving.’⁶Peter F. Jensen, The Life of Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Matthias Media, 2022), 93.

For each person, ‘the gospel is our means of contact with the truth about God … the means by which we are born again and know the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit.’⁷Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5.

Which means it’s God’s identity, nature and activity that is definitive — not our understanding, our response, or even our obvious needs. The gospel is absolutely not about what we must do for God, nor even, in the first place, what we say about God. Throughout the Bible, ‘the gift of God is prior to and the basis of [any] task we are given.’⁸Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 6.

The gospel is primarily what God tells us: who he is, what he has done, what he is doing, and what he will do.

From one angle it tells us what God has decided will happen to all of us one day, and that there’s nothing we can do to alter it — it is God’s way of telling us how the story ends.

Yet it has an essentially saving nature, which is why it’s good. It’s what God in Christ tells us about how he has delivered us, is delivering us, and will deliver us from sin and its consequences: alienation, ruin, wrath, death, everlasting damnation.

In Jesus’ death and resurrection — and in the whole drama of his conception, birth, life, obedience, teaching, mighty acts, exaltation and ongoing activity at God’s right hand — the Son and Word of God fulfils the purpose and promises of God in person. ‘The God who acts in the Old Testament is the God who becomes flesh in the New Testament in order to achieve the definitive saving work in the world.’⁹Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 6.

Focused and Flexible

All biblical teaching is connected, so explaining one aspect tends to involve other aspects. But what we’re after here is narrower: what does the gospel tell us about God? Who is he? What is he like? What does he want?

The gospel is the central unifying theme of the Christian Scriptures — ‘good news’ being the ‘comprehensive single term … [that] capture[s] the message of the Bible.’¹⁰Dane C. Ortland, ‘Gospel,’ in Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [hereafter abbreviated, DNTUOT], eds. G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson et al (Baker Academic, 2023), 272. Cf. Jensen, The Life of Faith, 57ff, 66, 75-76. Yet to understand what ‘God’ and ‘gospel’ mean we need the whole Bible: the Old Testament,¹¹A good treatment of how the Old Testament’s gospel of global deliverance and restoration (Isaiah 40-66) informs the New Testament’s understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ is Ortland, ‘Gospel,’ DNTUOT, 272-276. and the full Apostolic teaching of the Epistles and Gospels.¹²We use capital G ‘Gospel/Gospels’ referring to the first four books of the New Testament (i.e., the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), with the small g ‘gospel’ referring to the Bible’s main teaching and overall message. On ‘Why Four Gospels?’ see B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings 2 (P&R, 1973), 639-642.

Notice how those point at each other. The Bible directs us to the gospel; the gospel directs us to the Bible. And the good news confirms that the written Word is God’s typical way of speaking to human beings — publicly, clearly, powerfully, at length.

What It’s Always About

‘Gospel’ is specialised language, yet also embracing language, with both a particular subject and a comprehensive scope. Its consistent focus is this: the Lordship of Jesus Christ, by death and resurrection, in all its multiple dimensions.¹³Thanks to Robert Doyle for articulation here.

That concentration follows from the person and activity of Christ himself. The gospel’s core content is exactly him — the Divine-human person that he is, his saving deeds in the past, his work today, his activity in the future.

Jesus Christ is the message. ‘The proper subject of the gospel is the incarnate Christ, his redeeming work, his satisfaction for our sins, and his other benefits.’¹⁴Leiden Synopsis, 22:19, 237, 240. ‘Through the gospel we are brought to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ, our need, and his grace.’¹⁵Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5. Chiefly it gives us personal knowledge of Christ, for ‘Christ offers himself to us through the gospel.’¹⁶John Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John. 1-10, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Saint Andrew Press, 1959), 18.

The heaviest stress falls on his death for our sins — his greatest and most costly work — his resurrection, and his continuing Lordship at God’s right hand as Saviour, Prophet, Priest and King.

‘[A] full-orbed gospel … includes the incarnation, atonement, bodily resurrection, present reign, and forthcoming return of Jesus Christ’¹⁷J. I. Packer, The Heritage of Anglican Theology (Crossway, 2022). — ‘both what Christ has done for us in his state of humiliation and what he continues to do in his state of exaltation.’¹⁸Brandon Crowe, Lord Jesus Christ: The Biblical Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ (Lexham, 2023), 313.

Why That Makes It Endlessly Applicable

Here’s the thing people find counter-intuitive: the gospel’s flexibility flows directly from its focus.

Because the Lordship of Jesus Christ — based on his sin-bearing death and death-defeating resurrection — is multi-dimensional, all-embracing, and of literally infinite significance. Its implications are immeasurable; its impact open-ended.

So the flexibility follows from the focus. Its essential features about the Lord Jesus are bound up with all elements of biblical teaching, and all aspects of human being.

If the gospel is the Bible’s ‘embracing category,’¹⁹D. A. Carson, ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1–19).’ A sermon preached at The Gospel Coalition conference in Deerfield, Illinois, on May 23, 2007, with text, audio, and video, available at https://www.christianity.com/newsletters/features/eight-summarizing-words-on-the-gospel-11597936.html [accessed 220212]. its basic themes — God, sin, Christ, forgiveness, faith — interact with everything in the Bible and in human life.

To repeat: ‘The proper subject of the gospel is the incarnate Christ, his redeeming work, his satisfaction for our sins, and his other benefits.’²⁰Carson, ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1-19).’ Those benefits are infinite and everlasting. Hence the flexibility: the scope is boundless.

—

• 1
  David F. Wells, Turning to God: Reclaiming Christian Conversion as Unique, Necessary, and Supernatural (Baker Books, 1989/2012), 168. ↩︎
• 2
  Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5; slightly amended. ‘This primacy of grace, which is at work all the way through the Old Testament, points us to the centrality and primacy of the gospel of grace in the New Testament.’ ↩︎
• 3
  D. Broughton Knox, Selected Works, 3 Volumes (Matthias Media, 2000-2006), 3:9-11. At greater length, see John Piper, God is the Gospel: Meditations on God’s Love as the Gift of Himself (Crossway, 2005). ↩︎
• 4
  John Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John. 1-10, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Saint Andrew Press, 1959), 5. ↩︎
• 5
  ‘We start with God. … There is a sense in which this [and every] doctrine is first and foremost a doctrine about God and how he acts in a perfect expression of his being and character. … Christian soteriology [teaching about salvation] is enclosed and undergirded by the Christian doctrine of God while not being simply another element of that doctrine’ (Mark Thompson, ‘The Theology of Justification By Faith,’ in Barrett, The Doctrine on Which the Church Stands of Falls, page number to be supplied). ↩︎
• 6
  Peter F. Jensen, The Life of Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Matthias Media, 2022), 93. ↩︎
• 7
  Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5. ↩︎
• 8
  Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 6. ↩︎
• 9
  Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 6. ↩︎
• 10
  Dane C. Ortland, ‘Gospel,’ in Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [hereafter abbreviated, DNTUOT], eds. G. K. Beale, D. A. Carson et al (Baker Academic, 2023), 272. Cf. Jensen, The Life of Faith, 57ff, 66, 75-76. ↩︎
• 11
  A good treatment of how the Old Testament’s gospel of global deliverance and restoration (Isaiah 40-66) informs the New Testament’s understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ is Ortland, ‘Gospel,’ DNTUOT, 272-276. ↩︎
• 12
  We use capital G ‘Gospel/Gospels’ referring to the first four books of the New Testament (i.e., the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), with the small g ‘gospel’ referring to the Bible’s main teaching and overall message. On ‘Why Four Gospels?’ see B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings 2 (P&R, 1973), 639-642. ↩︎
• 13
  Thanks to Robert Doyle for articulation here. ↩︎
• 14
  Leiden Synopsis, 22:19, 237, 240. ↩︎
• 15
  Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, 5. ↩︎
• 16
  John Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John. 1-10, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Saint Andrew Press, 1959), 18. ↩︎
• 17
  J. I. Packer, The Heritage of Anglican Theology (Crossway, 2022). ↩︎
• 18
  Brandon Crowe, Lord Jesus Christ: The Biblical Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ (Lexham, 2023), 313. ↩︎
• 19
  D. A. Carson, ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1–19).’ A sermon preached at The Gospel Coalition conference in Deerfield, Illinois, on May 23, 2007, with text, audio, and video, available at https://www.christianity.com/newsletters/features/eight-summarizing-words-on-the-gospel-11597936.html [accessed 220212]. ↩︎
• 20
  Carson, ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1-19).’ ↩︎