Church Growth & Renewal 2014, Steven L.

Childers
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What is the Gospel? Church Leaders Answer

J.I. Packer
In a word, the evangelistic message is the gospel of Christ, and Him crucified;
the message of mans sin and Gods grace, of human guilt and divine
forgiveness, of new birth and new life through the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a
message made up of four essential ingredients.

1) The Gospel is a message about God.
It tells us who He is, what His character is, what His standards are, and what He
requires of us, His creatures. It tells us that we owe our very existence to Him,
that for good or ill we are always in His hands and under His eye, and the He
made us to worship and serve Him, to show forth His praise and to live for His
glory. Ref: Evangelism and Sovereignty, p. 58.

2) The Gospel is a message about sin.
It tells us how we have fallen short of God's standard; how we have become
guilty, filthy, and helpless in sin, and now stand under the wrath of God. It tells
us that the reason why we sin continually is that we are sinners by nature, and
that nothing we do, or try to do, for ourselves can put us right, or bring us back
into God's favor. It shows us ourselves as God sees us, and teaches us to think
of ourselves as God thinks of us. Thus it leads us to self-despair. And this also is
a necessary step. Not till we have learned our need to get right with God, and our
inability to do so by any effort of our own, can we come to know the Christ who
saves from sin. Ref: Evangelism and Sovereignty, p. 59.

3) The Gospel is a message about Christ.
...Christ the Son of God incarnate; Christ the lamb of God dying for sin; Christ the
risen Lord; Christ the perfect Saviour. Ref: Evangelism and Sovereignty, p. 63-
64.

4) The Gospel is a summons to Faith and Repentance.
All who hear the gospel are summoned by God to repent and believe. God
commands all men every where to repent Paul told the Athenians. Repentance
and faith are rendered matters of duty by God's direct command, and hence
impenitence and unbelief are singled out in the New Testament as most grievous
sins. With these universal commands, go universal promises of salvation to all
who obey them. Ref: Evangelism and the Sovereignty, p. 70.








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R.C. Sproul
There is no greater message to be heard than that which we call the Gospel. But
as important as that is, it is often given to massive distortions or over
simplifications. People think they're preaching the Gospel to you when they tell
you, 'you can have a purpose to your life', or that 'you can have meaning to your
life', or that 'you can have a personal relationship with Jesus.' All of those things
are true, and they're all important, but they don't get to the heart of the Gospel.

The Gospel is called the 'good news' because it addresses the most serious
problem that you and I have as human beings, and that problem is simply this:
God is holy and He is just, and I'm not. And at the end of my life, I'm going to
stand before a just and holy God, and I'll be judged. And I'll be judged either on
the basis of my own righteousness - or lack of it - or the righteousness of another.

The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus lived a life of perfect righteousness, of
perfect obedience to God, not for His own well being but for His people. He has
done for me what I couldn't possibly do for myself. But not only has He lived that
life of perfect obedience, He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice to satisfy the
justice and the righteousness of God.

The great misconception in our day is this: that God isn't concerned to protect His
own integrity. He's a kind of wishy-washy deity, who just waves a wand of
forgiveness over everybody. No. For God to forgive you is a very costly matter. It
cost the sacrifice of His own Son. So valuable was that sacrifice that God
pronounced it valuable by raising Him from the dead - so that Christ died for us,
He was raised for our justification. So the Gospel is something objective. It is the
message of who Jesus is and what He did.

And it also has a subjective dimension. How are the benefits of Jesus
subjectively appropriated to us? How do I get it? The Bible makes it clear that we
are justified not by our works, not by our efforts, not by our deeds, but by faith -
and by faith alone. The only way you can receive the benefit of Christ's life and
death is by putting your trust in Him - and in Him alone. You do that, you're
declared just by God, you're adopted into His family, you're forgiven of all of your
sins, and you have begun your pilgrimage for eternity.











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Tim Keller
The Greek term gospel (ev-angelion) distinguished the Christian message from
that of other religions. An ev-angel was news of a great historical event, such as
a victory in war or the ascension of a new king, that changed the listeners
condition and required a response from the listener. So the gospel is news of
what God has done to reach us. It is not advice about what we must do to reach
God.

What is this news? God has entered the world in Jesus Christ to achieve a
salvation that we could not achieve for ourselves which now 1) converts and
transforms individuals, forming them into a new humanity, and eventually 2) will
renew the whole world and all creation. This is the good newsthe gospel.
And it is good news in three important ways.

1. The gospel is the good news of gracious acceptance.
Jesus lived the life we should live. He also paid the penalty we owe for the
rebellious life we do live. He did this in our place (Isaiah 53:4-10; 2 Cor 5:21;
Mark 10:45). We are not reconciled to God through our efforts and record, as in
all other religions, but through his efforts and record. Christians who trust in
Christ for their acceptance with God, rather than in their own moral character,
commitment, or performance, are simul iustus et peccator- simultaneously sinful
yet accepted. We are more flawed and sinful than we ever dared believe, yet we
are more loved and accepted than we ever dared hope at the same time.

2. The gospel is the good news of changed lives.
Paul says to Christians, your life is hid with Christ in God (Col 3:3), and in
numerous places he says that we are now in on the one hand, that the Father
accepts us in Christ and treats us as if we had done all that Jesus has done (cf.
Col 3:2a). But this also means Christs life comes into us by the Spirit and shapes
us into a new kind of person. The gospel is not just a truth about us that we affirm
with our minds, it is also a reality we must experience in our hearts and souls.

3. The gospel is the good news of the new world coming.
The plot-line of the Bible is:1) God created the world, 2) The world and humanity
fell into sin and decay, 3) But God sends his Son to redeem the world and
create a new humanity, and 4) Eventually the whole world will be renewed.
Death, decay, injustice, and suffering will be all removed. The gospel then is not
just about individual happiness and fulfillment. It is not just a wonderful plan for
my life but a wonderful plan for the world. It is about the coming of Gods
kingdom to renew everything. Gospel-centered churches do not only urge
individuals to be converted, but also to seek peace and justice in our cities and in
our world




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Don Carson
[The Gospel is] the coming of Jesuswho he is, his mission, above all his
death and resurrection, the inauguration of the final eschatological kingdom...and
all that means for how we live as individuals and as the church.

Mark Dever
[The Gospel is...] God is our holy Creator and righteous Judge; that we have all
sinned against Him, offending His holy character, alienating ourselves from him,
and exposing ourselves to His righteous anger that He has sent Christ to die the
death that we deserve for our sins that Christs death and resurrection is the only
way to be reconciled to the one true God; and that we must respond to this Good
News by repenting of our sins and believing in the Gospel if we would be forgiven
by God, reconciled to Him, and saved from the wrath to come.

Scot McKnight
The gospel is the work of the Trinitarian God (a community of persons) to create
the community of faith in order to restore humans (made in Gods image) through
the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as well as through the empowering gift
of the Holy Spirit to union with God and communion with others for the good of
the self and the world. And all of this to the glory of God.

Ed Stetzer
The gospel is the good news that God, who is more holy than we can imagine,
looked upon with compassion, people, who are more sinful than we would
possibly admit, and sent Jesus into history to establish His Kingdom and
reconcile people and the world to himself. Jesus, whose love is more extravagant
than we can measure, came to sacrificially die for us so that, by His death and
resurrection, we might gain through His grace what the Bible defines as new and
eternal life.

Pope Benedict XVI
When the Evangelists adopt this word, and it thereby becomes the generic
name for their writings, what they mean to tell us is this: What the emperors, who
pretend to be gods, illegitimately claim, really occurs here - a message endowed
with plenary authority, a message that is not just talk but reality. the Gospel is
not just informative speech, but performative speech - not just the imparting of
information, but action, efficacious power that enters into the world to save and
transform it is here that Gods word, which is at once word and deed, appears;
it is here that what the emperors merely assert, but cannot actually perform, truly
takes place. For here it is the real Lord of the world - the Living God - who goes
into action. The core of the Gospel is this: The Kingdom of God is at hand.



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Greg Gilbert (Author of What is the Gospel?)
In Romans, Gilbert explains the purpose of Paul's writing and the main points he
makes regarding the gospel in those opening chapters. Gilbert writes that Paul
asks and answers four key question that make up the four key concepts in the
gospel:
1)Who made us, and to whom are we accountable?
2) What is our problem? In other words, are we in trouble and why?
3) What is God's solution to that problem? How has he acted to save us from it?
4) How do I - myself, right here, right now - how do I come to be included in that
salvation? What makes this good news for me and not just for someone else?

9 Marks Website
The gospel is the good news about what Jesus Christ has done to reconcile
sinners to God. Heres the whole story:
1. The one and only God, who is holy, made us in his image to know him
(Gen. 1:26-28).
2. But we sinned and cut ourselves off from him (Gen. 3; Rom. 3:23).
3. In his great love, God sent his Son Jesus to come as king and rescue his
people from their enemiesmost significantly their own sin (Ps. 2; Luke
1:67-79).
4. Jesus established his kingdom by acting as both a mediating priest and a
priestly sacrificehe live a perfect life and died on the cross, thus fulfilling
the law himself and taking on himself the punishment for the sins of many
(Mark 10:45; John 1:14; Heb. 7:26; Rom. 3:21-26, 5:12-21); then he rose
again from the dead, showing that God accepted his sacrifice and that
Gods wrath against us had been exhausted (Acts 2:24, Rom. 4:25).
5. He now calls us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone for our
forgiveness (Acts 17:30, John 1:12). If we repent of our sins and trust in
Christ, we are born again into a new life, an eternal life with God (John
3:16).
Now thats good news!

Monergism.com
In short, the Gospel is the life-altering news that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of
God, became man, lived a sinless life under the Law, died for sinners and rose
again to reconcile them to himself, eternally victorious over every enemy that
stood between God and man. Now, because of this redemptive work, there is
nothing that separates those who believe from their Creator and all the benefits
that He promises in him. D.A. Carson says the gospel centers "upon Jesus Christ
and what God has done through him. The essential points of the gospel are
Jesus Christ's status as the Son of God, his genuine humanity, his death for our
sins, his burial, resurrection, subsequent appearances, and future coming in
judgment. That no one is justified but in the gracious work of Jesus Christ in his
death and resurrection. It is not merely a recital of theological truths and historical
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events; rather, it relates these truths and events to situations of every individual
believer."

Bible.Org (First Google Response to Question)
In summary, what is the gospel? It is the message of the good news of salvation,
the word of truth offered to mankind by grace through faith in the finished work of
Christ on the cross. It is a message not only of eternal life, but one that
encompasses the total plan of God to redeem people from the ravages of sin,
death, Satan, and the curse that now covers the earth.