What is the Gospel?

We as Christians spend a lot of time talking about the gospel, but how many people really understand what that means. We talk about gospel music, gospel centered preaching, sharing the gospel. We talk about the book of the gospels and use the term to talk about the stories of Jesus life. We use the term gospel in modern English as a term that represents the truth. Thing is if you talk to most Christians, they really don’t understand what the term means. I mean, they get the general idea but in getting the general idea all they end up doing is shifting it to fit their own closed view of the world.

Lets start with where the word comes from. The English word gospel is rooting in the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion), which means "good news". This term encompasses the message of salvation and the teachings of Jesus Christ. This word is also strangely enough the same word where we get the term angel which just means messenger, or preacher even though you don’t see that as commonly.

Now, that the origin is out of the way, what does it mean to us. For us to understand the meaning we have to go all the way back to the beginning. When Adam and Eve fell their descendants fell also, with original sin infecting all of humanity afterwards, making us enemies of God. In short, we aren’t sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. All people are born spiritually dead, at war with God and refusing to enter into a relationship with our Creator.

God looked upon us with love, and even in His conversation with Eve He said He would send someone from her line who would crush the serpent’s head. All through the Old Testament we see these prophecies popping up from the suffering servant passages in Isaiah, to the tales of Bethlehem and the return of Elijah.

All of these prophecies come to a head in the birth of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God made flesh. He is fully human and fully divine. He did real miracles, suffered for our sins paying the price on the cross and was resurrected on the third day that we might have new life. He ascended into heaven where He intercedes for us with the Father and will one day return to judge both the living and the dead.

In Jesus our sins are paid for, our relationship with God is restored. In Jesus, 100% God and 100% man, the second Person of the Holy Trinity we become God’s children.

The gospel is that we as sinners are separated from God and doomed to eternal hell because of our sin. God’s love for us was so great He sent His Son to pay the price of our sin and restores us to His love and grace. This is the Gospel.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that who so ever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.