The gospel is God’s Word. Or more precisely: the written and preached gospel is God’s Word about his Word.
‘For us human beings, “God is but his word,” in the sense that our whole relationship with God … is shaped by [his] words. All true worship is response to the word.’1Peter Jensen, ‘Editorial,’ The Global Anglican, 135/1 (2021): 3-9, 3; citing William Tyndale.
Everything Happens Because God Speaks
According to Scripture, everything that happens in creation and salvation occurs because God speaks, in person.
The written and preached gospel — of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ — is itself a word from God, himself, in person. In the good news about his Son, it is God our Father speaking directly and personally to us.
And that Son is God’s Word. The eternal Son who came to us clothed in our humanity in the land of Judah some 2,000 years ago is God’s personal Word in two distinct ways.
First, he is the Word of the Father. In the Triune Being of God, the Father is what he is, and knows himself as he is, in and through his Son. Put in slightly impersonal terms: the Son, who is the Word of God, is the rationality of God himself — God’s own self-knowledge, which constitutes his Divine Being as Father.
Second, he is the fully Divine Word through whom God directly created the universe and gave meaning to all things in creation. And through the incarnation of that Word — his coming, life, death, resurrection, and present heavenly rule — God has overturned the original creation we fatally marred by our sin.
It is the Word of God who is bringing in the new creation. And at the heart of that new creation, at its summit, God himself in Christ is our light and life — the Father dealing with us directly, in person, and we as redeemed persons, now properly in the image of God, calling on him as Father.
The Texts
John 1:9-18 — ‘… The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. … No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.’
Revelation 21:1-4 — ‘Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”’
Revelation 21:22-23 — ‘And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.’
Revelation 22:17 — ‘The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.’
One Word, Summed Up in a Person
The message and content of the written and preached Gospel is therefore the word of God. As ‘the gospel of God,’ the good news is God’s speech — what God has to say — ‘concerning his Son’ (Rom 1:1-2).
The whole broad biblical revelation of God is focused on and summed up by what God does and says in Christ. ‘God … has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he created the world’ (Heb 1:1-2).
Which makes it entirely understandable that Jesus himself is called the actual Word of God (John 1:1).2‘Prophets speak God’s Word; Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-3). In this extraordinary identification John assures us that in Jesus Christ we encounter God himself. As his gospel then makes clear, Jesus is the Son of the Father, sent to manifest the Father in word and deed and to draw sinners into the fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (John 10:30; 14:8-11, 15-24). Jesus is the Word of God, he appeals to existing words of God, and he himself speaks God’s Word; to separate him from his own words is to divide and reject his revelation. Furthermore, in the appointment of his Apostles he provides for the ongoing revelation of God’s Word inspired by the Spirit of God (John 14:26; 17:17-19). It is notable that there is no physical description of Jesus in the Gospels: he comes to us clothed in the words of Scripture. We have no other access to him’ (Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ EDT, 748).
A Detail in the Vocabulary
Here’s something easy to miss. The exact phrase ‘the word of God’ doesn’t appear in the Old Testament — there the characteristic expression is ‘the word of the LORD’ (Gen 15:1 onward).
Yet in the New Testament, both expressions are identified with the gospel.
The precise phrase ‘the word of God’ seems to have come from Jesus himself (Matt 15:6; Mark 7:13; Luke 8:11, 21; 11:28). And in various places the New Testament deliberately presents ‘the gospel’ as equivalent to ‘the word of the Lord’ (Acts 8:25; 1 Thess 1:5, 8). ‘The gospel of God’ is treated as synonymous with ‘the word of God’ (1 Thess 2:2, 8-9, 13).
One statement brings them together outright. ‘You have been born again,’ Peter wrote, ‘through the living and abiding word of God … [Now] the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you’ (1 Pet 1:23, 25).
More Than Words — But Not Less
Now, the gospel is ‘more than words, but not less.’3Sanders, The Triune God, 68. According to Simon Gathercole, ‘The gospel is not the events themselves, but the report of the events’ (‘The gospel of Paul and the gospel of the Kingdom,’ 144). More extensively, see Simon Gathercole, The Gospel and the Gospels: Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books (Eerdmans, 2022).
It comprises Divine Persons, purposes, actions, experiences and events, plus important information about them and their enduring impact. Through it we’re given ‘access to Jesus Christ and his great acts on our behalf; it is a fact that it promises union with Christ and salvation through him.’4Jensen, Revelation of God, 46. More broadly on the relationship between human language and Divine revelation, see Jensen, The Revelation of God, 46-49.
But the verbal character matters. ‘The gospel is preached in words, as the Word of God (Rom 10:14-17).’5Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ EDT, 747. It is God’s definitive word — ‘a verbal communication … a verbal occurrence … a properly verbal entity.’6No reference. And that Word gives life (John 1:1-4).
It tells of ‘the one great Divine action … the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus,’7Sanders, The Triune God, 66. and unfolds its limitless implications.
So the gospel comes to us as a message from God, in Person — Jesus Christ, clothed with his promises — through the pages of Scripture, the only totally reliable, true and trustworthy written source of our information about the God of Jesus, as proclaimed by the church.
It assumes God’s prior revelation, and extends and concludes that revelation of ‘one who makes himself known by words.’8Jensen, Revelation of God, 46.
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- 1Peter Jensen, ‘Editorial,’ The Global Anglican, 135/1 (2021): 3-9, 3; citing William Tyndale. ↩︎
- 2‘Prophets speak God’s Word; Jesus is the Word of God (John 1:1-3). In this extraordinary identification John assures us that in Jesus Christ we encounter God himself. As his gospel then makes clear, Jesus is the Son of the Father, sent to manifest the Father in word and deed and to draw sinners into the fellowship of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (John 10:30; 14:8-11, 15-24). Jesus is the Word of God, he appeals to existing words of God, and he himself speaks God’s Word; to separate him from his own words is to divide and reject his revelation. Furthermore, in the appointment of his Apostles he provides for the ongoing revelation of God’s Word inspired by the Spirit of God (John 14:26; 17:17-19). It is notable that there is no physical description of Jesus in the Gospels: he comes to us clothed in the words of Scripture. We have no other access to him’ (Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ EDT, 748). ↩︎
- 3Sanders, The Triune God, 68. According to Simon Gathercole, ‘The gospel is not the events themselves, but the report of the events’ (‘The gospel of Paul and the gospel of the Kingdom,’ 144). More extensively, see Simon Gathercole, The Gospel and the Gospels: Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books (Eerdmans, 2022). ↩︎
- 4Jensen, Revelation of God, 46. More broadly on the relationship between human language and Divine revelation, see Jensen, The Revelation of God, 46-49. ↩︎
- 5Jensen, ‘Revelation,’ EDT, 747. ↩︎
- 6No reference. ↩︎
- 7Sanders, The Triune God, 66. ↩︎
- 8Jensen, Revelation of God, 46. ↩︎