The Gospel

Intro­duc­tion

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the most impor­tant mes­sage any­one could ever hear, believe, or be united to oth­ers by. It is a mes­sage upon which the very souls of man hang, and by it I am priv­i­leged to be con­nected to so many oth­ers through­out the world who believe it as well.

But what is the gospel mes­sage? What does it include, exclude, and entail? These things are impor­tant to under­stand so that we can deter­mine unity. The Bible says that there is one Lord over one body; for those who believe the gospel, divi­sion is sin. False christs and false gospels might abound, but where the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached, let us as believ­ers embrace one another in broth­erly love.

The fol­low­ing is one of best dec­la­ra­tions of the gospel I have ever read, express­ing with clar­ity what is and is not included as part of it. I am uncer­tain who owns the copy­right of this dec­la­ra­tion and I will remove it in an instant if asked to do so by the owner, but I hope there is no prob­lem with me shar­ing this. After all, it is a truth the whole world needs.

The mes­sage itself was drafted by sev­eral men, includ­ing such as John Anker­berg, J. I. Packer, and R. C. Sproul, and it has been offi­cially endorsed by scores of other Chris­t­ian lead­ers. The copy of it I have here is included as an appen­dix in R. C. Sproul’s awe­some work, Get­ting the Gospel Right: The Tie that Binds Evan­gel­i­cals Together.

So, with­out fur­ther ado:

The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evan­gel­i­cal Celebration

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that who­ever believ­ers in him shall not per­ish but have ever­last­ing life” John 3:16

Sing to the Lord, for he has done glo­ri­ous things; let this be known to all the world” Isa­iah 12:5

Pre­am­ble

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is news, good news: the best and most impor­tant news that any human being ever hears.

This Gospel declares the only way to know God in peace, love, and joy is through the rec­on­cil­ing death of Jesus Christ the risen Lord.

This Gospel is the cen­tral mes­sage of the Holy Scrip­tures, and is the true key to under­stand­ing them.

This Gospel iden­ti­fies Jesus Christ, the Mes­siah of Israel, as the Son of God and God the Son, the sec­ond Per­son of the Holy Trin­ity, whose incar­na­tion, min­istry, death, res­ur­rec­tion, and ascen­sion ful­filled the Father’s sav­ing will. His death for sins and his res­ur­rec­tion from the dead were promised before­hand by the prophets and attested by eye­wit­nesses. In God’s own time and in God’s own way, Jesus Christ shall return as glo­ri­ous Lord and Judge of all (1 Thess. 4:13–18; Matt. 25:31–32). He is now giv­ing the Holy Spirit from the Father to all those who are truly his. The three Per­sons of the Trin­ity thus com­bine in the work of sav­ing sinners.

This Gospel sets forth Jesus Christ as the liv­ing Sav­ior, Mas­ter, Life, and Hope of all who put their trust in him. It tells us that the eter­nal des­tiny of all peo­ple depends on whether they are sav­ingly related to Jesus Christ.

This Gospel is the only Gospel: there is no other; and to change its sub­stance is to per­vert and indeed destroy it. This Gospel is so sim­ple that small chil­dren can under­stand it, and it is so pro­found that stud­ies by the wis­est the­olo­gians will never exhaust its riches.

All Chris­tians are called to unity in love and unity in truth. As evan­gel­i­cals who derive our very name from the Gospel, we cel­e­brate this great good news of God’s sav­ing work in Jesus Christ as the true bond of Chris­t­ian unity, whether among orga­nized churches and denom­i­na­tions or in the many trans­de­nom­i­na­tional coop­er­a­tive enter­prises of Chris­tians together.

The Bible declares that all who truly trust in Christ and his Gospel are sons and daugh­ters of God through grace, and hence are our broth­ers and sis­ters in Christ.

All who are jus­ti­fied expe­ri­ence rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with the Father, full remis­sion of sins, tran­si­tion from the king­dom of dark­ness to the king­dom of light, the real­ity of being a new crea­ture in Christ, and the fel­low­ship of the Holy Spirit. They enjoy access to the Father with all the peace and joy that this brings.

The Gospel requires of all believ­ers wor­ship, which means con­stant praise and giv­ing of thanks to God, sub­mis­sion to all that he has revealed in his writ­ten word, prayer­ful depen­dence on him, and vig­i­lance lest his truth be even inad­ver­tently com­pro­mised or obscured.

To share the joy and hope of this Gospel is a supreme priv­i­lege. It is also an abid­ing oblig­a­tion, for the Great Com­mis­sion of Jesus Christ still stands: pro­claim the Gospel every­where, he said, teach­ing, bap­tiz­ing, and mak­ing disciples.

By embrac­ing the fol­low­ing dec­la­ra­tion we affirm our com­mit­ment to this task, and with it our alle­giance to Christ him­self, to the Gospel itself, and to each other as fel­low evan­gel­i­cal believers.

The Gospel

This Gospel of Jesus Christ which God sets forth in the infal­li­ble Scrip­tures com­bines Jesus’ own dec­la­ra­tions of the present real­ity of the king­dom of God with the apos­tles’ accounts of the per­son, place, and work of Christ, and how sin­ful humans ben­e­fit from it. The Patris­tic Rule of Faith, the his­toric creeds, the Ref­or­ma­tion con­fes­sions, and the doc­tri­nal bases of later evan­gel­i­cal bod­ies all wit­ness to the sub­stance of this bib­li­cal message.

The heart of the Gospel is that our holy, lov­ing Cre­ator, con­fronted with human hos­til­ity and rebel­lion, has cho­sen in his own free­dom and faith­ful­ness to become our holy, lov­ing Redeemer and Restorer. The Father has sent the Son to be the Sav­ior of the world (1 John 4:14): it is through his one and only Son that God’s one and only plan of sal­va­tion is imple­mented. So Peter announced: “Sal­va­tion is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And Christ him­self taught: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Through the Gospel we learn that we human beings, who were made for fel­low­ship with God, are by nature–that is, “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22)–dead in sin, unre­spon­sive to and sep­a­rated from our Maker. We are con­stantly twist­ing his truth, break­ing his law, belit­tling his goals and stan­dards, and offend­ing his holi­ness by our unho­li­ness, so that we truly are “with­out hope and with­out God in the world” (Rom. 1:18–32, 3:9–20; Eph. 2:1–3, 12). Yet God in grace took the ini­tia­tive to rec­on­cile us to him­self through the sin­less life and vic­ar­i­ous death of his beloved Son (Eph. 2:4–10; Rom. 3:21–24).

The Father sent the Son to free us from the domin­ion of sin and Satan, and to make us god’s chil­dren and friends. Jesus paid our penalty in our place on his cross, sat­is­fy­ing the ret­ribu­tive demands of divine jus­tice by shed­ding his blood in sac­ri­fice and so mak­ing pos­si­ble jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for all who trust in him (Rom. 3:25–26). The Bible describes this mighty sub­sti­tu­tion­ary trans­ac­tion as the achiev­ing of ran­som, rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, redemp­tion, pro­pi­ti­a­tion, and con­quest of evil pow­ers (Matt. 20:28; 2 Cor. 5:18–21; Rom. 3:23–25; John 12:31; Col. 2:15). It secures for us a restored rela­tion­ship with God that brings par­don and peace, accep­tance and access, and adop­tion into God’s fam­ily (Col. 1:20, 2:13–14; Rom. 5:1–2; Gal. 4:4–7; 1 Peter 3:18). The faith in God and in Christ to which the Gospel calls us is a trust­ful out­go­ing of our hearts to lay hold of these promised and prof­fered benefits.

This Gospel fur­ther pro­claims the bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion, ascen­sion, and enthrone­ment of Jesus as evi­dence of the effi­cacy of his once-for-all sac­ri­fice for us, of the real­ity of his present per­sonal min­istry to us, and of the cer­tainty of his future return to glo­rify us (1 Cor. 15; Heb. 1:1–4, 2:1–18, 4:14–16, 7:1–10:25). In the life of faith as the Gospel presents it, believ­ers are united with their risen Lord, com­muning with him, and look­ing to him in repen­tance and hope for empow­er­ing through the Holy Spirit, so that hence­forth they may not sin but serve him truly.

God’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of those who trust him, accord­ing to the Gospel, is a deci­sive tran­si­tion, here and now, from a state of con­dem­na­tion and wrath because of their sins to one of accep­tance and favor by virtue of Jesus’ flaw­less obe­di­ence cul­mi­nat­ing in his vol­un­tary sin-bearing death. God “jus­ti­fied the wicked” (ungodly: Rom. 4:5) by imput­ing (reck­on­ing, cred­it­ing, count­ing, account­ing) right­eous­ness to them and ceas­ing to count their sins against them (Rom. 4:1–8). Sin­ners receive through faith in Christ alone “the gift of right­eous­ness” (Rom. 1:17, 5:17; Phil. 3:9) and thus become “the right­eous­ness of God” in him who was “made sin” for them (2 Cor. 5:21).

As our sins were reck­oned to Christ, so Christ’s right­eous­ness is reck­oned to us. This is jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by the impu­ta­tion of Christ’s right­eous­ness. All we bring to the trans­ac­tion is our need of it. Our faith in the God who bestows it, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is itself the fruit of God’s grace. Faith links us sav­ingly to Jesus, but inas­much as it involves an acknowl­edg­ment that we have no merit of our own, it is con­fess­edly not a mer­i­to­ri­ous work.

The Gospel assures us that all who have entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ are born-again chil­dren of God (John 1:12), indwelt, empow­ered, and assured of their sta­tus and hope by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 7:6, 8:9–17). The moment we truly believe in Christ, the Father declares us right­eous in him and begins con­form­ing us to his like­ness. Gen­uine faith acknowl­edges and depends upon Jesus as Lord and shows itself in grow­ing obe­di­ence to the divine com­mands, though this con­tributes noth­ing to the ground of our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion (James 2:14–26; Heb. 6:1–12).

By his sanc­ti­fy­ing grace, Christ works within us through faith, renew­ing our fallen nature and lead­ing us to real matu­rity, that mea­sure of devel­op­ment which is meant by “the full­ness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). The Gospel calls us to live as obe­di­ent ser­vants of Christ and as his emis­saries in the world, doing jus­tice, lov­ing mercy, and help­ing all in need, thus seek­ing to bear wit­ness to the king­dom of Christ. At death, Christ takes the believer to him­self (Phil. 1:21) for unimag­in­able joy in the cease­less wor­ship of God (Rev. 22:1–5).

Sal­va­tion in its full sense is from the guilt of sin in the past, the power of sin in the present, and the pres­ence of sin in the future. Thus, while in fore­taste believ­ers enjoy sal­va­tion now, they still await its full­ness (Mark 14:61–62; Heb. 9:28). Sal­va­tion is a Trini­tar­ian real­ity, ini­ti­ated by the Father, imple­mented by the Son, and applied by the Holy Spirit. It has a global dimen­sion, for God’s plan is to save believ­ers out of every tribe and tongue (Rev. 5:9) to be his church, a new human­ity, the peo­ple of God, the body and bride of Christ, and the com­mu­nity of the Holy Spirit. All the heirs of final sal­va­tion are called here and now to serve their Lord and each other in love, to share in the fel­low­ship of Jesus’ suf­fer­ings, and to work together to make Christ known to the whole world. We learn from the Gospel that, as all have sinned, so all who do not receive Christ will be judged accord­ing to their just deserts as mea­sured by God’s holy law, and face eter­nal ret­ribu­tive punishment.

Unity in the Gospel

Chris­tians are com­manded to love each other despite dif­fer­ences of race, gen­der, priv­i­lege, and social, polit­i­cal, and eco­nomic back­ground (John 13:34–35; Gal. 3:28–29), and to be of one mind wher­ever pos­si­ble (John 17:20–21; Phil. 2:2; Rom. 14:1–15:13). We know that divi­sions among Chris­tians hin­der our wit­ness in the world, and we desire greater mutual under­stand­ing and truth-speaking in love. We know too that as trustees of God’s revealed truth we can­not embrace any form of doc­tri­nal indif­fer­en­tism, or rel­a­tivism, or plu­ral­ism by which God’s truth is sac­ri­ficed for a false peace.

Doc­tri­nal dis­agree­ments call for debate. Dia­logue for mutual under­stand­ing and, if pos­si­ble, nar­row­ing of the dif­fer­ences is valu­able, dou­bly so when the avowed goal is unity in pri­mary things, with lib­erty in sec­ondary things, and char­ity in all things.

In the fore­go­ing para­graphs, an attempt has been made to state what is pri­mary and essen­tial to the Gospel as evan­gel­i­cals under­stand it. Use­ful dia­logue, how­ever, requires not only char­ity in our atti­tudes, but also clar­ity in our utter­ances. Our extended analy­sis of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone through Christ alone reflects our belief that Gospel truth is of cru­cial impor­tance and is not always well under­stood and cor­rectly affirmed. For added clar­ity, out of love for God’s truth and Christ’s church, we now cast the key points of what has been said into spe­cific affir­ma­tions and denials regard­ing the Gospel and our unity in it and in Christ.

Affir­ma­tions and Denials

1. We affirm that the Gospel entrusted to the church is, in the first instance, God’s Gospel (Mark 1:14; Rom. 1:1). God is its author, and he reveals it to us in and by his Word. Its author­ity and truth rest on him alone. ¶ We deny that the truth or author­ity of the Gospel derives from any human insight or inven­tion (Gal. 1:1–11). We also deny that the truth or author­ity of the Gospel rests on the author­ity of any par­tic­u­lar church or human institution.
2. We affirm that the Gospel is the sav­ing power of God in that the Gospel effects sal­va­tion to every­one who believes, with­out dis­tinc­tion (Rom. 1:16). This effi­cacy of the Gospel is by the power of God him­self (1 Cor. 1:18). ¶ We deny that the power of the Gospel rests in the elo­quence of the preacher, the tech­nique of the evan­ge­list, or the per­sua­sion of ratio­nal argu­ment (1 Cor. 1:21; 2:1–5).
3. We affirm that the Gospel diag­noses the uni­ver­sal human con­di­tion as one of sin­ful rebel­lion against God, which, if unchanged, will lead each per­son to eter­nal loss under God’s con­dem­na­tion. ¶ We deny any rejec­tion of the fal­l­en­ness of human nature or any asser­tion of the nat­ural good­ness, or divin­ity, of the human race.
4. We affirm that Jesus Christ is the only way to sal­va­tion, the only medi­a­tor between God and human­ity (John 14:6; 1 Tim. 2:5). ¶ We deny that any­one is saved in any other way than by Jesus Christ and his Gospel. The Bible offers no hope that sin­cere wor­shipers of other reli­gions will be saved with­out per­sonal faith in Jesus Christ.
5. We affirm that the church is com­manded by God and is there­fore under divine oblig­a­tion to preach the Gospel to every liv­ing per­son (Luke 24:47; Matt. 28:18–19). ¶ We deny that any par­tic­u­lar class or group of per­sons, what­ever their eth­nic or cul­tural iden­tity, may be ignored or passed over in the preach­ing of the Gospel (1 Cor. 9:19–22). God pur­poses a global church made up from peo­ple of every tribe, lan­guage, and nation (Rev. 7:9).
6. We affirm that faith in Jesus Christ as the divine Word (or Logos, John 1:1), the sec­ond Per­son of the Trin­ity, co-eternal and co-essential with the Father and the Holy Spirit (Heb. 1:3), is foun­da­tional to faith in the Gospel. ¶ We deny that any view of Jesus Christ which reduces or rejects his full deity is Gospel faith or will avail to salvation.
7. We affirm that Jesus Christ is God incar­nate (John 1:14). The virgin-born descen­dant of David (Rom. 1:3), he had a true human nature, was sub­ject to the Law of God (Gal. 4:5), and was like us at all points, except with­out sin (Heb. 2:17, 7:26–28). We affirm that faith in the true human­ity of Christ is essen­tial to faith in the Gospel. ¶ We deny that any­one who rejects the human­ity of Christ, his incar­na­tion, or his sin­less­ness, or who main­tains that these truths are not essen­tial to the Gospel, will be saved (1 John 4:2–3).
8. We affirm that the atone­ment of Christ by which, in his obe­di­ence, he offered a per­fect sac­ri­fice, pro­pi­ti­at­ing the Father by pay­ing for our sins and sat­is­fy­ing divine jus­tice on our behalf accord­ing to God’s eter­nal plan, is an essen­tial ele­ment of the Gospel. ¶ We deny that any view of the Atone­ment that rejects the sub­sti­tu­tion­ary sat­is­fac­tion of divine jus­tice, accom­plished vic­ar­i­ously for believ­ers, is com­pat­i­ble with the teach­ing of the Gospel.
9. We affirm that Christ’s sav­ing work included both his life and his death on our behalf (Gal. 3:13). We declare that faith in the per­fect obe­di­ence of Christ by which he ful­filled all the demands of the Law on our behalf is essen­tial to the Gospel. ¶ We deny that our sal­va­tion was achieved merely or exclu­sively by the death of Christ with­out ref­er­ence to his life or per­fect righteousness.
10. We affirm that the bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion of Christ from the dead is essen­tial to the bib­li­cal Gospel (1 Cor. 15:14). ¶ We deny the valid­ity of any so-called gospel that denies the his­tor­i­cal real­ity of the bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion of Christ.
11. We affirm that the bib­li­cal doc­trine of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone in Christ alone is essen­tial to the Gospel (Rom. 3:28; 4:5; Gal. 2:16). ¶ We deny that any per­son can believe the bib­li­cal Gospel and at the same time reject the apos­tolic teach­ing of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone in Christ alone. We also deny that there is more than one true Gospel (Gal. 1:6–9).
12. We affirm that the doc­trine of the impu­ta­tion (reck­on­ing or count­ing) both of our sins to Christ and of his right­eous­ness to us, whereby our sins are fully for­given and we are fully accepted, is essen­tial to the bib­li­cal Gospel (2 Cor. 5:19–21). ¶ We deny that we are jus­ti­fied by the right­eous­ness of Christ infused into us or by any right­eous­ness that is thought to inhere within us.
13. We affirm that the right­eous­ness of Christ by which we are jus­ti­fied is prop­erly his own, which he achieved apart from us, in and by his per­fect obe­di­ence. This right­eous­ness is counted, reck­oned, or imputed to us by the foren­sic (that is, legal) dec­la­ra­tion of God, as the sole ground of our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. ¶ We deny that any works we per­form at any stage of our exis­tence add to the merit of Christ or earn for us any merit that con­tributes in any way to the ground of our jus­ti­fi­ca­tion (Gal. 2:16; <abbr title=“Eph. 2:8–9; Titus 3:5).
14. We affirm that, while all believ­ers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are in the process of being made holy and con­formed to the image of Christ, those con­se­quences of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion are not its ground. God declares us just, remits our sins, and adopts us as his chil­dren, by his grace alone, and through faith alone, because of Christ alone, while we are still sin­ners (Rom. 4:5). ¶ We deny that believ­ers must be inher­ently right­eous by virtue of their coop­er­a­tion with God’s life-transforming grace before God will declare them jus­ti­fied in Christ. We are jus­ti­fied while we are still sinners.
15. We affirm that sav­ing faith results in sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, the trans­for­ma­tion of life in grow­ing con­for­mity to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion means ongo­ing repen­tance, a life of turn­ing from sin to serve Jesus Christ in grate­ful reliance on him as one’s Lord and Mas­ter (Gal. 5:22–25; Rom. 8:4, 13–14). ¶ We reject any view of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion which divorces it from our sanc­ti­fy­ing union with Christ and our increas­ing con­for­mity to his image through prayer, repen­tance, cross-bearing, and life in the Spirit.
16. We affirm that sav­ing faith includes men­tal assent to the con­tent of the Gospel, acknowl­edg­ment of our own sin and need, and per­sonal trust and reliance upon Christ and his work. ¶ We deny that sav­ing faith includes only men­tal accep­tance of the Gospel, and that jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is secured by a mere out­ward pro­fes­sion of faith. We fur­ther deny that any ele­ment of sav­ing faith is a mer­i­to­ri­ous work or earns sal­va­tion for us.
17. We affirm that, although true doc­trine is vital for spir­i­tual health and well-being, we are not saved by doc­trine. Doc­trine is nec­es­sary to inform us how we may be saved by Christ, but it is Christ who saves. ¶ We deny that the doc­trines of the Gospel can be rejected with­out harm. Denial of the Gospel brings spir­i­tual ruin and exposes us to God’s judgment.
18. We affirm that Jesus Christ com­mands his fol­low­ers to pro­claim the Gospel to all liv­ing per­sons, evan­ge­liz­ing every­one every­where, and dis­ci­pling believ­ers within the fel­low­ship of the church. A full and faith­ful wit­ness to Christ includes the wit­ness of per­sonal tes­ti­mony, godly liv­ing, and acts of mercy and char­ity to our neigh­bor, with­out which the preach­ing of the Gospel appears bar­ren. ¶ We deny that the wit­ness of per­sonal tes­ti­mony, godly liv­ing, and acts of mercy and char­ity to our neigh­bors con­sti­tute evan­ge­lism apart from the procla­ma­tion of the Gospel.

Our Com­mit­ment

As evan­gel­i­cals united in the Gospel, we promise to watch over and care for one another, to pray for and for­give one another, and to reach out in love and truth to God’s peo­ple every­where, for we are one fam­ily, one in the Holy Spirit, and one in Christ.

Cen­turies ago it was truly said that in things nec­es­sary there must be unity, in things less than nec­es­sary there must be lib­erty, and in all things there must be char­ity. We see all these Gospel truths as necessary.

Now to God, the Author of the truth and grace of this Gospel, through Jesus Christ, its sub­ject and our Lord, be praise and glory for ever and ever. Amen.