Gospel

In the accounts of Jesus’ ministry, the gospel is described as “the gospel of the Kingdom” (Matt. 4:23), “of Jesus Christ ” (Mark 1:1), and “of God” (Mark 1:14). Elsewhere, it is “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), “of Christ” (Rom. 15:19), “of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4), “of your salvation” (Eph. 1:13), and “of peace” (Eph. 6:5).

These eight ways in which the good news is said to be “of” something, show the gospel to be the announcement of the glory of what God does as He reigns, bestowing grace, through Jesus Christ, to grant humanity salvation and peace. The action is completely one-sided. While this proclamation of God’s work deserves a response from us, the gospel itself is all about God’s benevolent gifts.

Long ago, I would speak sparingly about the gospel but would go on at great length about the church. From listening to my emphasis back then, a person could have easily thought the gospel was about the church. Getting things “right” in the church overshadowed God’s gracious reign in the world and the transformation He is bringing. I was caught up in “being the church” in ways that obscured the proclamation which actually calls the church into existence.

The church is like a shadow cast by the light of the gospel; like leaves moving in the wind of the Spirit. The church is the ripples from where God stirs the waters of the world. The church exists as a Spirit-birthed response to the incredible news of what God does.

Though exceedingly significant because the gospel initiates it, the church, and matters pertaining to it, are never to take center stage. Without a focus on the gospel, an organization in religious garb may exist, but the church ceases to be.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. Mark 8:35

Spiritual progress occurs as we lose ourselves, that is, our self-determined ideas of how to live and who we are, for what is given by Christ and proclaimed in the gospel. Just as we must die to ourselves, so the church must die to itself or it will lose its life. This is continual and not a one-time death! The church, all of us together who believe, dies to itself when it stays fixated not on its own existence, but the gospel.

I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. 1 Corinthians 9:23.

Paul is clearly a man transfixed by the gospel, finding his own true self within the world-altering announcement of God’s reign. He sees himself as living out the meaning of God’s gracious work, as described in the gospel, in everything he does. Likewise, when we are people of the gospel, then we are, in a proper way, the church.