The Gospel

April 25, 2012

Drew Dixon

The gospel. Jesus came to proclaim it. His disciples went out to preach it. It is the power of
God for salvation to all who trust him. It is something to be received, stood on, and saved by. It is
hope for the hopeless. It is healing for the broken. It is life for the dead. It is the heartbeat and lifeblood
of the Church. And while it is all these beautiful things it is often misunderstood. It has often been
used as a bargaining chip with God or a destructive wedge within his Church.
While all believers would agree that the gospel is central, not everyone seems to agree on what
it is or what it means. The gospel leads some of us to devote our lives to big churches. Some become
ordained to preach and teach and minister. The gospel leads others to step away from large churches
and pour into small communities of people. It even leads other people to leave everything behind and
go to other nations.
I believe that each of these responses can be a genuine response to the gospel. So if the gospel
isn't big church or small community or international missions, then what is it and what does it mean for us
and for the world?

What is Gospel?
I like to begin with simple questions and simple answers. I think that if we only took the time
to think about the words that we're using and what they mean we'd all communicate a hundred times
better. And not only would we understand each other better, but we might even understand ourselves
better when we speak.
So what is gospel? You might wonder why I left out the definite article in the question. I do this
because before we talk about the Gospel, I want to know what gospel is. This word didn't just come
from nowhere. It has meaning. The word gospel comes from the Old English god-spel which literally
means good story or good news. So gospel is simply two things: It is good. And it is a story or
news.
When I think of news I imagine the busy cobblestone streets of Victorian England. I think
of people bustling about to and from work and the market place. All the while, in the street corner
there is a young boy shouting in a high-pitched cockney accent, Extra! Extra! Read all about it! It's

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the news boy. News boys stood at street corners every day waiving the newspaper in the air hoping
for the passersby to purchase a copy.
In this simple picture there is something profound to our understanding of the gospel. That
transaction on the streets of Victorian England included three basic ingredients: message, messenger,
and recipient. First, there was the news itself. The newspaper waving in the air contained the central
message of the news to be shared. Second was the newsboy. Shouting and waving to get everyone's
attention. He was the messenger who brought the news to and sought to make it known. Lastly, were
the people on the streets. I'm sure not all them them bought the newspaper or even heard the boy, but
some of them became the recipients of the news. These are the basic ingredients of anything that is
considered news. Each of these can be found in the gospel because the gospel is good news.

Message
The gospel is a message. It is something to be proclaimed. It is a story to be told. It is news to
be heard. The nature of news is that it is just that, something new. The gospel isn't an old story. It is
new and fresh.
I believe the gospel begins at the very beginning. When God spoke, Let there be light, it was
something that had never been done before. Light had not existed until he spoke. After creating he
saw that the light was good. Creation begins with something new and something good. It's good
news. The first proclamation of the gospel is God's word of light which penetrated darkness.
As the story continues, creation is made in its fullness. The earth is formed, the waters pour
over it, the land rises up, plants sprout and grow, creatures fly and roam, and man and woman are
given dominion. God created man and woman as little pictures of himself, like the signature an artist
adds at the completion of a painting.
At the end of his work, God rested. Not because he was tired, but to enjoy what he had made.
He saw that it was good and he enjoyed the work that he had done. But, God did not merely finish
his artwork and then set it aside. He breathed life into it and he entered into it. God gave creation its
own will. The breeze was able to blow, the birds were able to fly, man and woman were able to think.
God gave his work its own personality. And then he entered into it. He walked in the garden he had
made. He talked with the man and the woman he had made.
When creation went bad, in that moment we call the fall, God doesn't desert it. He continues
walking and talking. Instead of destroying man and woman, he provides them with garments. He
covers them. You see, the message of the gospel is not found only in creation, but also in covenant.

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This is a God who is faithful and will never leave or abandon what he started. He is a God who makes
covenant with his creation; with his people.
Just a little later in the story, God finds a man named Abram. God makes a promise to Abram
and changes his name. God promises to bless Abraham and to make him a blessing. He says that
Abraham will become a great nation. This is the continuing of God's faithfulness in the garments as
well as the beginning of a covenant which will set out to weave the earth into eternity and keep creation
in contact with its maker.
N. T. Wright speaks of the gospel in terms of creation and covenant. Continuing right along
with him, I add a third piece to the message of the gospel: kingdom. The Kingdom of God is the
place where creation and covenant meet. The coming of his kingdom is the fulfilling of covenant and
the renewing of creation. Ultimately, the Kingdom of Heaven, the rule and reign of God, is at the
core of the message of the gospel. This is what its messengers come to declare and to remind God's
people of.

Messenger
The creation, covenant, and kingdom of God have been proclaimed since their beginning.
Through the lineage of Abraham, the stubbornness of Moses, the exodus of Israel, the gift of the
law. The establishment of the sacrificial system seems to be the primary messenger of the gospel in
the early days of Israel. Priests went to and fro offering sacrifices and being mediators of God and
the people. The sacrifices reminded people of God's covenant with them. Every time an animal was
offered the people would remember God's faithfulness. These sacrifices were a covering much like the
garments in the garden.
However, as the sacrificial system became more and more rote, as it became more production
instead of praise, God sent new messengers the prophets. Amos comes to speak directly against the
hypocritical priesthood. But he closes with a word of good news, The days are coming when the
mountains shall drip sweet wine and I will restore the fortunes of my people. Isaiah speaks of the
coming of a king. He talks of the king's coming place of peace where sheep graze with wolves and
children play with cobras. He shares visions of a new heaven and a new earth. He speaks of a fulfilled
covenant and a renewed creation: the kingdom of God.
There were many prophets who came proclaiming the kingdom of God. They spoke of and
pointed powerfully toward this coming Kingdom of God. After some time, their voices grew quiet
and there were years of silence. After these years another voice sounded in the wilderness. A man in

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the desert who reminded many of the old prophets. He was odd and spoke with conviction. He said,
like the old prophets, that someone was coming. Unlike any prophet who came before him, he would
see the one who he spoke of. He prepared the way for the one who was coming. This man was John
the baptizer and the one who came after him was Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus came as a messenger proclaiming the gospel just like the priests and prophets did before
him. The kingdom of God is near! Repent and trust the gospel, he said. Yet, Jesus was completely
different than the priests and prophets before him. Isaiah prophesied about a day when the kingdom
would come, yet when Jesus read the same words that Isaiah prophesied he said, Today these words
have been fulfilled in your hearing. The priests offered sacrifices day after day to be messengers of
the gospel, yet Jesus has no need to offer sacrifices daily since he did this once for all when he offered
up himself.
Jesus was altogether different from any messenger that had gone before him. For Jesus did not
only proclaim a message he lived it. He did not offer up many sacrifices of animals, but only one
sacrifice of himself. He did not only speak of the coming kingdom, he brought it with him. Jesus is
not merely a messenger, but he is actually the message. Jesus is the word. The gospel was not only
proclaimed by Jesus but actually embodied in him. That is why Paul writes I came to preach Jesus
Christ and him crucified. Jesus went from being the preacher to being the preached. He went from
being messenger to being the actual message. Jesus is the gospel. His work on the cross fulfilled the
covenant of God from long ago and his resurrection began the in-breaking of God's kingdom to
renew the creation which God had made in the beginning.

Recipient
After message and messenger there is one final ingredient of news: the recipient. Who is this
gospel preached to? Who is to receive it? This is where we are unsure of ourselves. This is often where
we begin bickering over large church and small group and on and on.
The gospel is personal. It is experienced by individuals. This is what I call the convicted heart.
Upon hearing the gospel, some men in Acts were cut to the heart. The message of the gospel does
a personal work in us. God has been calling and working through individuals since the beginning. After
all, Abraham was an individual. But, he blessed Abraham so that he could be a blessing. Which means
the gospel doesn't stop there.
The gospel is also communal. It is experienced by communities. This is what I call the
confessional life. After our hearts are convicted, we need them to be healed. James writes confess

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your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. This is what the gospel
draws us into. A community of people seeking the Lord, being redeemed by him and joining him in
his work.
The gospel takes another step though. Its recipients are yet broader. For, the heavens and the
earth are recipients of the gospel. Paul wrote that creation waits with eager longing. Isaiah
prophesied of a new heavens and new earth and Revelation pictures how Jesus brings these to be.
All things join in with God as he weaves earth into eternity and creation into constant communion
with him!

Conclusion
After all of this talk, what is the gospel? It is the message of a kingdom proclaimed and made
possible by a king. It is an invitation to persons and peoples and to the very foundation of creation.
It is a God who is faithful to keep covenant and good to renew creation in the bringing of his rule
and reign. It is a story that God has been writing from the beginning of the world. In the same way
that he didn't leave his painting to sit, he doesn't leave his story untold. God invites us to join him in
the telling of his story. This is what it means to believe the gospel. It is simple to join in with the telling
of this story. Evangelism is just good storytelling. We can join in with the prophets and priests who
went before us. We can tell his story too. We can proclaim his good news. The world is being redeemed,
may there be no one who hasn't heard.

Conversation
Friend: What is the gospel?

Me: Gospel is good news.

Friend: Well, yeah. But, what is it?

Me: It is everything that is good and new.

Friend: That's cool, but what does that mean?

Me: Well, what in your life is broken and old?

Friend: (pauses to think)

Me: What things are you tired of being stuck in? What in your life is constantly holding you
down? What do you want to rid of and free from?

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Friend: My constant depression. I always feel lost and stuck in some kind of darkness. I don't
have any hope for tomorrow. I feel alone. Like no one wants me.

Me: Yeah... the gospel can set you free from that. Jesus came because he wants you. He loves
you. He came to bring light to the darkness. He is coming back some day to make everything
new, so we can set our hope in that. And in the meantime, he offers you his Spirit to be
with you wherever you go. The gospel is the opposite of all that old and broken stuff in
you.

Friend: Wow, I've never thought of it like that before. But what about my family? My dad is
an alcoholic. He always comes home drunk and angry. He hates it, but he keeps doing it
and it's tearing our family apart.

Me: Wow. I'm sorry for that. (pauses) You know, it says that Jesus came to drink the cup of
bitter suffering. That's what the scriptures call the cross. Jesus drank from it so your dad
wouldn't have to. I know it seems impossible, but the same freedom that Jesus offers you
from depression, he offers your dad from drunkenness. He offers healing for your mom
and restoration for your family.

Friend: (tears up a bit and closes his eyes)

Me: (I put my hand on his shoulder) Jesus is faithful. He doesn't do things half-heartedly. He's
working in you. He's working in your family. He's going to finish what he started. In the
meantime, ask him for strength. And do your best to be the light that he brought. God
loves you and he's not through with you.