What is the gospel?

On a recent long car journey, I listened to two thought-provoking audio interviews with Kevin de Young and Greg Gilbert, hosted by Mark Dever. They touched on a number of issues, including the question of 'what is the gospel?'.

Currently this questions is being robustly debated within evangelical Christianity. Given the movement is defined by its allegiance to the gospel, getting a right grasp of the gospel is a vital undertaking. Here is a basic summary of the two differing definitions of 'the gospel' on which the debate tends to centre:

(1) In order to define the gospel we need to look to the ministry of the disciples and the work and language of 'kingdom' used by Jesus in the gospels. Therefore the good news is essentially that Jesus is Lord and his kingdom is here for all who want to get on board.

(2) In order to define the gospel we need to look at the apostolic writings in the New Testament which focus in on the death of Jesus, describing it as a substitutionary death on our behalf. Therefore, the good news is that there is a way for us to be forgiven by God for our wrongdoing, if we repent of sin and trust in what Jesus has done for us.

The interviewees contend that the first position is not a description of the gospel while the second position is, while acknowledging that more could be said. Their rational for this position is that the apostles have a right to authoritatively interpret the work of Jesus in a way that we don't, citing John 15:26. On this point I agree. They also assert that position 1 is in fact not good news, as it makes no provision for reversing our rebellion against God, and therefore Jesus' Lordship is very bad news for us. On this point again, I agree.

However, on the broader assertion that position 2 is an adequate statement of the gospel, I disagree. Whereas position 1 speaks of Jesus' Lordship without speaking of his redemptive work, position 2 speaks of Jesus' redemptive work without speaking of his Lordship (interestingly echoed in the difference in emphases in Catholic and Reformed theology). This isolates God's work of redemption from his universal and eternal work, which makes no sense to unchristianised ears. So while I would not label position 2 as 'not the gospel', it appears to be an incomplete and perhaps even incomprehensible gospel.

So, what is the right way to define the gospel while remaining faithful both to the teaching of the gospels and the apostolic writings, and indeed to the whole sweep of scripture? I would argue that two preliminary things need to be established in answering this question; firstly, the attempt to divide the teaching of the gospels and the epistles is to create a false dichotomy - Jesus said much about his redemptive work (e.g. John 3: 14-18) and the apostles don't 'underplay' the Lordship of Jesus (e.g. Ephesians 1: 18-23).

Secondly, the best way to outline the good news of Christianity is in fact to outline the whole historical narrative from God's pre-creation existence through to his establishing of the eternal perfect kingdom(via creation, fall, the promise of restoration, the incarnation of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, the sending of the Holy Spirit and the work of God's people while awaiting his return). Therefore, any attempt to summarise the gospel will inevitably not be able to say everything, but must do justice to the heart of this wonderful narrative. Such a summary is a good and useful thing to have a grasp of, as we might not always have the opportunity or clarity of thought to outline the complete narrative in a conversational setting. And as aforementioned, a clear gospel outline is essential for confessional unity amongst Christians.

Here then is my attempt to define the gospel in a way that summarises the heart of the Christian message, uniting Jesus' lordship with his redemptive work, as succinctly as possible:

The good news of Christianity is that God is real, he is good, he is loving, he is just and he wants a relationship with humankind. One day he will banish all evil from Earth and establish an eternal kingdom of joy where all people who trust in him will forever live. But the shock is that rather than trust in him, all of us have rejected God's rule over our lives through preferring to do life our way, through worshiping and treasuring things above God, and through not living as we know we ought to have done as moral beings. This rejection of God has led to all the evil and imperfection that has plagued the Earth throughout history and that plagues life today. It resulted in bringing the greatest enemy of all upon us - namely death. Having rejected God, all humans rightly face God's judgement for this rebellion. But God, out of his love, didn't want to leave humankind in this state, and sent his son Jesus to the Earth to call us to turn from our sins and live with God as our Lord. Yet Jesus came not only to call us back to God but also to make that possible, for God being a just God couldn't overlook our wrongful rejection of him without punishing it. And Jesus made that possible by dying on a cross in the place of every human, taking the wrath of God that we deserve to face. Having died, God raised Jesus from the dead, guaranteeing the achievement of the cross, the overthrow of death and the reversal of the sad decay of the Earth. But this work of Christ isn't a get out of jail free card for everyone; rather we have a choice to make - do we receive the good news of life in Christ though trusting God's promises of forgiveness and setting our hearts against wrongdoing? Or do we continue living with ourselves as lord and reject or ignore the work of Jesus? The first leads to a true knowledge of God and everlasting fulness of life, while the second leads to judgement, death and a parting from all goodness.

Thoughts?