Author’s Note: A more detailed and “professional” version of this message was published as a journal article here.

Have you heard the good news? All of us have had times in our life when we received good news about someone or something. A sick family member recovers. Some money is provided just when you needed to pay a bill. You get a letter in the mail from a loved one. All of these things would be good news. Did you ever realize that you could call these things “gospel”? The word “gospel” after all, means “good news.” The word “gospel” is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word godspel, which means “good story” or “good news.” So from a technically literal sense, anything that is good news to you is gospel truth, whether it is about your finances, your family, your physical fitness, or your wife having a baby. It’s all good news. It’s all gospel truth. Now, having said that, the Bible uses the word gospel in a special sense. While it is technically true that any good news is gospel news, the Bible, especially the New Testament, reserves the term “gospel” for a very specific kind of good news. And in Christianity today, there is a lot of dissension on what exactly the gospel is. Even in our own circles, there are ongoing debates about what all should or should not be included in the gospel. Let us say you are witnessing to you neighbor, and you tell them, as some of us sometimes to, that in order to be saved, they have to believe the gospel. Now, they haven’t been in church, and they don’t know the lingo, and so they don’t know what the “gospel” is. So they ask you, “What is the gospel?” What would you say? What would you tell them? How would you define the gospel? What would you include in your presentation? Some of us, and for many years, myself, would say, “The Gospel is that Jesus gives eternal life to anyone who believes in Him for it.” Or to put it another way, “The Gospel is faith alone in Christ alone for everlasting life.” Is that what the gospel is? Is that all that the gospel is?

What is the Gospel?

Some might be content with my definition of the gospel above, and might want to include things like our own sinfulness, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and maybe a few other things. I don’t know how you would define the gospel, but what should concern us is how the Bible defines it. Our questions should not be “What should I include in my gospel presentation?” but rather, “What do the Biblical authors include when they present the gospel?” To find out, we need to look at the words the Bible uses for the word “gospel” and then look at the context of each one of those uses to see what the Bible includes or does not include. When you read the word “gospel” in your English text, there are one of two Greek words behind it, which are actually of the same word family; one is a noun and one is a verb. The Greek words often translated as “gospel” are euangelion and euangelizo. We want do discover how Scripture uses these words, and what elements, facts, teachings and ideas Scripture includes in the gospel.

The Gospel in Luke 1:19

Let us look at one example just to get the ball rolling. In Luke 1:19, the angel Gabriel declares the gospel to Zachariah. Most translations say that the angel is declaring glad tidings, or declaring good news, but the Greek word is euangelizo, to declare the gospel. What is the content of Gabriel’s gospel that he preached to Zechariah? In the previous verses, Gabriel announced that Zachariah’s wife, Elizabeth, would be the mother of John, who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Have you ever included the birth of John the Baptist in your gospel presentation? I doubt any of us have. I know I haven’t. So does that mean that I have never shared the gospel? Well, in one sense, yes. If part of the gospel is the announced birth of John the Baptist as the forerunner for the Messiah, then if we haven’t shared that in our gospel presentations, then technically, we haven’t shared the entire gospel. So does this mean we should start including this fact in our gospel, or are there certain elements of the gospel we can leave out? And if there are elements we can leave out, which ones are they, why can we leave them out, and how can we decide? It is not as easy as saying we need to include everything the Bible includes. As we have already seen, the Bible included the birth of John the Baptist. But that’s not all it includes. I did a comprehensive word study on the words euangelion and euangelizo, and came up with a list of fifty items that various New Testament writers include in their definition of the gospel (see the chart at the bottom of this page). And some of them are so vague and general, that essentially, the gospel includes everything in the New Testament, if not everything in the entire Bible. So if we say a person has to know and believe the entire gospel, we are saying a person has to know and believe most, if not all of the Bible, which means that few, if any, actually have eternal life, and nobody has ever shared the entire gospel with anybody else, unless you have read or taught through the entire NT with them. So let’s go through some of this, and hopefully, in the process, we will broaden our understanding of what the gospel is, and more importantly, recognize the essential elements of the gospel that a person must believe to receive eternal life. Let us begin by looking at what various New Testament authors include in the gospel.

Matthew’s Gospel of the Kingdom

The first time the word “gospel” is used in the New Testament is, of course, in Matthew 4:23, where we read that Jesus “went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom.” What was this gospel message? That the kingdom of God was at hand. What was the kingdom of God? The Jews would have understood Jesus to be saying that the Old Testament promises to Israel were about to come true. The Messiah would come, and lead the nation of Israel to throw off Gentile domination, and become the leading nation of the world. If you are a Jew living under Roman occupation, this is good news! What better news could there be? So Jesus preached a gospel to the Jews of Israel that the earthly kingdom was being offered. Have you ever included that message in your gospel presentation? Probably not. Why not? Because that gospel doesn’t apply any more. There was bad news in the good news for the Jews. Jesus said that to receive the kingdom, the Jewish people had to repent of the way they had perverted and destroyed the law of God, and return to a right relationship with Him in true obedience to the law. As an indication of their repentance, they had to be baptized, symbolizing their death to the ways of Judaism. Most Jewish people didn’t like this bad news element of the good news that Jesus preached, and so they rejected Christ as the Messiah, and instead of receiving the kingdom, killed Christ on the cross. But this rejection of Jesus is not doesn’t mean God has rejected Israel.  Instead, Jesus teaches in Matthew 24:14 that during the Tribulation, this gospel will be preached again. And we know that during that time, the Jewish people will accept it, so that at the end of the Tribulation, they receive the promised kingdom. So that is the “gospel” message in Matthew. In one sense, if we’re looking for elements of the broad gospel that could be left out, the gospel truth of an earthly Messiah ruling from Jerusalem could be temporarily left out, because it was primarily promised to Jews, and they rejected it.

Paul’s Gospel in Galatians

Another key place to look would be in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, where he defends the gospel he preached. In Galatians, Paul is very concerned about a false gospel that is being preached and spread among the church. He begins his letter by warning the Christians about another gospel that is being presented among them (Galatians 1:8-9). He says that he preached the true gospel to them, and anything else is a false gospel. What gospel did Paul preach in Galatia when he was there? If you want to find out the content of the gospel message Paul preached when he was in Galatia, where would you go? Would you go to Matthew, and say that Paul preached the gospel of the kingdom? That wouldn’t make any sense. Would you go to the book of Romans or 1 Corinthians to see what Paul says about the gospel message in those two books, and then import that back into Galatians? That’s a possibility, since Paul is the author of those books as well, but neither Rome nor Corinth is Galatia, and so we can’t be certain that what he says about the gospel in Romans or 1 Corinthians is the same message he preached in Galatia. Where would you go to find what that message is? There are only two places you can go. You could go to the book of Acts, to hopefully find what Paul preached when he was in Galatia. But of course, Acts was not written by Paul, but by Luke, and so even then we would have doubts that what Luke recorded in Acts is the same thing Paul is referring to here in Galatians. Even then, when we go to Acts, we discover that Luke doesn’t record anything about what Paul preached when in Galatia, and so that also is a dead end. We can look at what he preached in various other cities, but that wouldn’t help us very much. So there is logically only one place we can go to find out the content of Paul’s gospel when he preached in Galatia. And where do we go for that? How about the book of Galatians? If, in this very letter, Paul defines the content of the gospel he preached in Galatia, then there is no other reason to look anywhere else. This seems basic and elemental to proper Bible study, but I have heard pastors and teachers say that if we want to find out what gospel Paul preached in Galatia, we need to go to 1 Corinthians, or Romans, or even John to define the gospel. But that doesn’t make any sense if Paul defines his gospel for us in the book of Galatians. And thankfully, Paul does that very thing. In Galatians 2:14, Paul talks about the gospel again, and then in 2:16, defines the gospel he preached. The gospel Paul preached to the unbelievers in Galatia is that “a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.” Now initially, this sounds like what I had been saying for years — that the gospel was nothing more than “faith alone in Christ alone.” But Paul does not stop defining his gospel in Galatians 2:16. It appears from Galatians 2:17-21 that after an unbeliever believes in Jesus for eternal life, Paul continues to preach the gospel to them, only then, it is not a message of how to be justified, but how to live a life of freedom from sin. He talks about how we still do sin, but this doesn’t prove we are not saved, nor does it mean that Christ is a minister of sin. Rather, all it means is that we are not living the crucified life. So what was the gospel message Paul preached in Galatia? He told unbelievers to believe in Jesus for justification. To those who were justified by faith in Christ apart from works, he told them to live the crucified life, to live by faith that they are dead to sin. That is the gospel Paul preached in Galatia — how unbelievers can receive eternal life, and how believers can live free from sin.

Paul’s Gospel in Romans

What about Romans? If Romans is Paul’s mangum opus on the gospel, wouldn’t we expect a clear definition there about what the content of the gospel is? We certainly would. If Galatians is Paul’s defense of the gospel, Romans is where he defines it. In fact, he begins his letter right away by talking about the gospel. He wants to tell his readers right away what his letter is about. Incidentally, Romans 1:1 is a hint that all sixteen chapters concern the gospel, not just the first five or eight chapters as most people think. But that’s another subject for a future study. In Romans 1:1, we read, “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God.” What is this gospel he was separated to? Look in the following verses. First he says that this gospel he has been separated to was “promised before though His prophecies in the Holy Scriptures.” So this gospel was a topic of prophecy. But in Romans 1:3, we really get into the content of the gospel. This gospel concerns “His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” So here we have several elements in Paul’s gospel. It concerns Jesus Christ, who is Lord. Next, Jesus was born of the seed of David, according to the flesh. When was the last time you mentioned Christ’s human lineage from David in your gospel? Third, we read that He was declared to be the Son of God. While this is a reference to His deity, it primarily is a reference to the power and authority Jesus received after the resurrection. And nobody denies that the resurrection is central to the gospel. But now in Romans 1:5 we get to why Paul was separated to the gospel, and why he preached the gospel. He says that he preached this gospel “for obedience to the faith among all nations for his name.” Rene Lopez points out in his commentary on Romans that there are four ways this phrase “obedience to the faith” can be understood, and he makes the case, rightly I believe, that Paul is not primarily referring to initially believing in Jesus for eternal life, but the continual life of faith in Christ which results in obedience. He says, “Obedience to believe consists of faith, and [the] obedience to follow is produced by faith” (Lopez, Romans Unlocked, 34). In other words, Paul’s gospel in Romans is not simply to tell unbelievers how to receive justification and eternal life. Paul’s gospel in Romans includes that, but much more. Paul wants to emphasize how justified believers can live the life of faithful obedience to God, thereby escaping the temporal wrath of God in this life which comes upon us as a result of sin. This is further seen by looking at Romans 1:16-17, the key verses of Romans. The main point of these verses is that the gospel Paul preached is the power of God for salvation, or deliverance, to everyone who believes, that is, to believers. Paul is not teaching a gospel for unbelievers, but for believers. He wants to tell those who have already believed how to be delivered. Delivered from what? In Romans 1:18, we read about the “wrath of God” coming against those who practice unrighteousness. Paul’s gospel, or good news, in Romans is a message about how all people, whether Jew or Greek, can escape the temporal discipline and judgment of God in this life. Unbelievers must believe in Jesus for eternal life. Believers must live a life of faith under the cross of Christ. And of course, Romans 9, 10 and 11 talk about how the Jewish people, who are under the wrath of God, can escape temporal wrath as well, and Romans 12-16 make application for believers. That is the gospel in Romans. It is about how both unbelievers and believers can be delivered from the temporal wrath of God. And that is good news, right? Who wants to be under divine wrath? Nobody does. So Paul explains the good news about how both believers and unbelievers can be delivered from it.

Paul’s Gospel in 1 Corinthians

Paul’s explanation of the gospel in 1 Corinthians is probably more controversial than any we have looked at up to this point. But that is because he seems to so explicitly define what the gospel is. There are frequent uses of the term gospel in 1 Corinthians, but the one that concerns us most is what Paul says about the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15. This passage bothered me for a long time, until I began to understand how Paul uses the term gospel in 1 Corinthians, and in his other writings. Look at what Paul say in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2: “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain.” In 1 Corinthians 15:3 and following, Paul goes on to define the gospel he preached, but before we get to that, we need to notice what he says about the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-2. He says that this is the gospel he preached to them, and which they received, and in which they stand, and in which they are saved. We don’t have any problem with that, but the rest of 1 Corinthians 15:2 brings the dilemma. Paul says, “by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached.” What does that mean? Does that mean that if a person stops believing the gospel, they lose their salvation? Does it mean they never actually believed it in the first place? We’ve all heard those arguments before, and none of us like them, but if Paul is defining what a person must believe in order to be justified, then apparently, they have to continue to believe it to stay justified, or prove themselves justified. Well, let us leave that issue for now, and move on to how Paul defines the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, he writes, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” And that is where most people stop with their definition of the gospel. Some people say, based on this passage, that the gospel which Paul preached, and which a person must believe and continue to believe if they are going to receive eternal life, contains three things:

1. Christ died for our sins
2. He was buried
3. He rose again from the dead.

Some add a fourth element in here that we must also believe we are sinners. Since Christ died for our sins, that implies we must first believe we are sinners. When I was in Bible college, one of my professors gave us a pop quiz. He told us to imagine that we were walking down the street and we witnessed a hit and run. A car speeding down the street ran into an old man, and then sped off. We were to imagine that we ran up to help the old man as he lay injured and bleeding in the middle of the road, and as we got near, it became obvious that he was only thirty seconds away from dying. He looks up at you and says, “How can I get into heaven?” What would you say? The pop quiz was to take out a piece of paper and write down what we would tell the man. It had to be sixty words or less and be able to read at a normal talking pace in thirty seconds or less. We all wrote out what we would say and handed them in. The next class period, he informed us that out of the thirty students in the classroom, only two had shared the whole gospel. The other twenty-eight had left out vital facts that a person must believe in order to be saved. I was one of those twenty-eight, by the way. Most of us had included the fact that we were sinners, and that the wages of sin was death, but that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sin, and if we just believed in Jesus, we could receive eternal life. He told us that unless we mentioned the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we had not shared the saving gospel. He took us to 1 Corinthians 15:14-17 where Paul says that if Christ is not raised, then our preaching is empty and our faith is also empty, and we are found to be false witnesses. So he taught us that unless we include the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have not shared enough, and unless a person believes in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they are not justified. I was taught that all four truths of 1 Corinthians 15 must be included in every gospel presentation, or I have not shared enough. But let me raise a few objections. First of all, who in Christendom, except for the liberal theologians, doesn’t believe this? I challenge you to find one person in any conservative, evangelical church in America who doesn’t believe that Christ died on the cross, and was buried, and rose again. Almost everybody in most conservative schools and churches believes that. So people begin to go outside of 1 Corinthians 15 to add things to the definition of the gospel so we can narrow the field a bit more. But before we do that, we need to make sure we have included everything from 1 Corinthians 15. Most people who use 1 Corinthians 15 as a formal definition of the gospel arbitrarily stop at 1 Corinthians 15:4. Why do they do this when Paul’s definition of the gospel doesn’t stop in 1 Corinthians 15:4? He continues to define the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:5-9. He says,

…and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

So if we’re going to define what a person must believe to receive eternal life by the truths of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15, not only must we add the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we must also add that Christ appeared to Cephas, then the twelve, then by over 500 at once, then by James, then by the apostles, then last of all to Paul. Have any of you ever shared all of that in your evangelism? I haven’t, and I don’t know of anybody that does. But let’s say that somebody does start including all of this in their witnessing, because they think they have to share the entire gospel with somebody. So they share all of this, that we are sinners, that Christ died on the cross for those sins, that He was buried, that He rose again the third day, and that he appeared to Cephas, the twelve, then 500 more, then James, then the apostles and then Paul. What vital element have they still left out of their evangelism? How about faith alone in Christ alone? It’s not mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15! Sure, he mentions that we have to believe the gospel to be saved in verse 2, but if the gospel doesn’t include the fact that we have eternal life through faith in Christ alone, then we either we don’t have to share that after all, or we have to get it somewhere else. Most people opt to get it from somewhere else, and most people turn to Galatians 2 or Romans 4-5 to get this element into their gospel message. Why do they add it? Well, because as we’ve already seen, Paul says in those passages that that is part of the gospel. So is that all a person must believe? That:

1. Christ died
2. For our sins
3. He was buried
4. He rose
5. He appeared to Peter, the twelve, 500, James, the apostles, and Paul
6. And anyone who believes in Jesus for eternal life receives it.

Even if we bunch all the appearances together, we’ve got six things a person must believe. But what else was not mentioned? How about the deity of Christ? We better throw that in, because it’s important, and as long as we’re at it, we better throw in the full humanity of Christ, because if He wasn’t fully human, He couldn’t have been our substitute. Of course, He can’t be a sinful human, because then He couldn’t be our sacrifice either, so we better include that He was sinless. And of course, since all humans born on this planet are born sinners, we better make sure the person believes and understands that He was born of a virgin. Do you see where this is going? As soon as someone starts adding things to the list of what a person must believe in order to truly have eternal life, there is no rational stopping place. It’s all subjective to how much doctrine you want to throw into the mix. One person will have three truths, another will have five, while someone will have eight. Finally, someone will have a two hour presentation, fifteen pages of notes, powerpoint slides, complete with diagrams, bullet points and outlines. I’m only slightly exaggerating. Scott Paige wrote an article where this very thing happened to him. Incidentally, those things I mentioned above, the deity of Christ, the humanity of Christ, the sinlessness of Christ, and the virgin birth are all defined in various places in the NT as elements of the gospel. If you are trying to include in your gospel presentation everything the NT includes, you almost have to include the entire NT.

What is the Gospel?

So what is the “gospel”? It can easily be proved from Scripture that the gospel is more than faith alone in Christ alone. Much more. The gospel includes truths for unbelievers and truths for believers. It includes truths for Jews and Gentiles. It includes elements of the kingdom of God on earth. It includes facts about justification, sanctification, glorification, security in heaven, satisfaction and contentment on earth, and eternal reward. The gospel includes all of this. So the real the real question then is, “If that’s the gospel, do you have to believe the entire gospel to receive eternal life?” The answer is “No!” The gospel is more than faith alone in Christ alone, but at the same time, a person does not have to believe the entire gospel to receive eternal life! Only one element of the gospel must be believed to receive eternal life. The message of eternal life, the justifying message, as found in John, and Romans and Galatians, is that anyone who believes in Jesus for eternal life, has it. That truth is part of the bigger gospel package, but is only a part. We could maybe even call it the central tenant, or main truth of the gospel. But one does not have to know, understand or believe the entire gospel to receive eternal life. To receive eternal life, one must simply and only believe in Jesus Christ for it. Having said that, to get a person to believe in Jesus, you will probably have to share a lot more of the gospel. This is probably why some people say that they share different gospels to different people. What is the gospel? It is good news for everybody, whether Jew or Gentile, believer or unbeliever, regarding the benefits and blessings which come to us from the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Summary

There is only one thing a person must believe in order to receive eternal life. They must believe in Jesus for eternal life. That is the central tenant of the gospel, but it is not the entire gospel. As soon as someone starts adding elements of the gospel that must be believed before one can be regenerate, there is no logical place to stop. But when teaching, preaching or evangelizing, there is one element of the gospel that must be included. And this one element has three parts. A person must

1. Believe
2. In Jesus
3. For everlasting life

How much of the rest of the gospel you want to share depends on the person you are sharing with, the questions and issues they have, and how much time you have to share. The gospel message may truly be different every time to you share it. And that’s okay, because you are being flexible to the person before you, and to the leading of the Holy Spirit. But whatever you flex on, never leave out the central tenant of the gospel. To receive everlasting life, a person must believe in Jesus Christ alone.

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Gospel Word Study Chart

Things to note about this Gospel Word Study Chart 1.      There are about 50 things the NT includes in its definition of Gospel. Even if some of these contain overlapping concepts, or some things have been included due to a misunderstanding of context, we still have quite a large number of items that the Bible includes as part of the Gospel. 2.      The Gospel of John, which many Free Grace people think contains the clearest presentation of what a person must do to receive eternal life, never uses the word “Gospel” in any form. 3.      Romans, Paul’s magnum opus, defines the Gospel as more than just “faith alone in Christ alone.” In fact, Paul seems to view the Gospel as more for believers, and how they can live a holy life to escape the temporal wrath of God, than for unbelievers. 4.      Galatians, Paul’s defense of the “Gospel” is one of the few places where Scripture defines it as “faith alone in Christ alone” but adds the elements of “apart from works” and “In Abraham, all people on earth will be blessed.” 5.      1 Corinthians 15, which many people use as their formal definition of the “Gospel” doesn’t say anything about “faith alone in Christ alone,” and in fact, includes much more than the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. By my count, there are eleven elements of the Gospel just in 1 Corinthians 15 alone. The bottom line is this: The Gospel in Scripture includes almost everything from Genesis to Revelation, and especially those things relating to Jesus Christ. The “Gospel” is much more than faith alone in Christ alone, though that concept is definitely part of the Gospel. So when trying to figure out how much information a person needs to be justified, we should not be asking “What is the Gospel?” but “What is the justifying message?” or “What is the message of eternal life?” When that becomes the question, the answer is clear: Justification and eternal life comes through faith alone in Christ alone. That is the central tenant of the entire Gospel. On the following handout, I have included the fifty items which seem to be included in the Gospel. This list is by no means definitive, and others may count or group them differently.

Want to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!