what is the Gospel?
Darryl Dash nails it with these thoughts on the Gospel:
The Gospel is about what God has accomplished through the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is big news. It involves rescue from judgment for sin and a restored relationship with God, and his restoration of creation.
The Gospel is good news about what God has done, never about what we must do or have done. It’s good news, not good advice.
The Gospel is:
- Good news for the poor and victims of injustice because God (not us) has acted
- About individual salvation and the restoration of the cosmos
- About individual salvation and the kingdom (reign) of God
The Gospel is not:
- What we do to promote justice
- About loving God or loving our neighbors, because this is both Law and a right response to the Gospel (what we do), but it is not the Gospel (what God has done)
Our efforts to promote justice, obey God, and love others are necessary implications of the Gospel, but they are not the Gospel itself. It is wrong to ignore the implications; it is also wrong to confuse our efforts with the Gospel.
God is uniting all that’s been torn apart in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). That is Gospel. We work to unite what’s broken around us. That’s not Gospel; that is our response to the Gospel.
The Gospel is all about what God has done, not what we are doing.
