Gospel
THEODORE G. STYLIANOPOULOS
“Gospel” (from the Anglo-Saxon “god-spell”) or “evangel” (from the Greek euangelion) defines the central message of Christianity: the “good news” of God’s gift of salvation (John 3.16). The essence of the gospel is God’s gracious liberation of humanity from the powers of sin and death, and its restoration and communion with God in Christ and the Spirit. The centrality of Christ and his saving work, prophesied in the Old Testament and revealed in the New, means that the gospel message is proclaimed not only in the scriptures, but also, properly speaking, in all aspects of the church’s life which are intrinsically evangelical – her identity, worship, sacraments, mission, creed, theology, and practice. Although the term “gospel” (euangelion) occurs most frequently in Paul, the primary sources of the gospel are the four canonical gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – each of which as a book is also called “gospel.” The same term also designates in the Orthodox Church the separately printed gospel lectionary (the annual cycle of selected readings from the four gospels, distinct from the parallel lectionary called Apostle – apostolos). The term “gospel” is also customarily applied to the specific lesson from the gospel lectionary recited in worship and often to the sermon itself.
The first allusion to the gospel, traditionally called “first gospel” (proto-euangelion), is found in Genesis 3.15 announcing God’s promise that Eve’s offspring, the Messiah, will crush the serpent’s head while the serpent will strike the Messiah’s heel. A focal and explicit reference to the good news is Isaiah 7.15 concerning Emmanuel, “God-with-us,” born of a virgin (parthenos, LXX), fulfilled in the virginal conception and birth of Jesus by Mary (Matt. 1.23). The Old Testament generally looks forward to a great future era when God’s good news will be proclaimed (euangelizesthai, Isa. 61.1 and Ps. 95.1–3, LXX), a day when God would decisively defeat evil and establish his rule over all the nations, ushering in an age of universal justice and peace. However, it is the New Testament that provides the theological angle from which innumerable references to Old Testament texts are freely and variously cited as messianic, that is, texts that prefigure the good news of God’s promised salvation, fulfilled in the ministry of Jesus and the life of the early church, including the preaching of the gospel itself (Rom. 10.8/ Deut. 30.14, LXX).
Mark announces that the whole narrative of Jesus’ ministry is gospel (euangelion, Mark 1.1). Luke chooses the verb euangelizesthai for the good news of the Savior’s birth (Luke 1.10–11). In Matthew and Mark, and also Luke but without the same terminology, Jesus begins his public ministry with the announcement that the dawn of the awaited age of salvation is fulfilled in him (Matt. 4.17; Mark 1.14–15; Luke 4.16–21). John presents Christ as the incarnation of the eternal Logos or Word of God who mediates the very presence and power of God as grace, glory, truth, light, bread, life, and love (John 1.1–18; 3.16; 8.12; 17.24–26). The witness of the four gospels confirms that the entire ministry of Jesus is good news for humanity, which is the very reason why these documents themselves were eventually named gospels. Their titles “Gospel according to Matthew,” “Gospel according to Mark,” and so forth, derive from the 2nd century, and signify both the essential unity of the gospel message and the freedom of the evangelists to narrate Jesus’ ministry from their own perspective.
The heart of the gospel, distinguishable by content, blessings, and demands, is Christ and his saving work. The content is the person of Christ himself in whom God’s rule or kingdom is inaugurated. Jesus not only announced but also enacted the good news of the dawn of God’s rule, bestowing blessings in forgiving sinners, healing the sick, eating with the outcast, instructing the ways of God’s righteousness, anticipating his death and resurrection as the cosmic defeat of evil, and gathering around him followers who formed the nucleus of the church. Jesus’ gospel, proclaimed as the “word of God,” included radical demands most notably recorded in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). Jesus challenged
his followers to take up their cross, pray for persecutors, freely forgive others, tend to the needy, and love enemies, to be worthy of him and not risk being cast out of the kingdom (Matt. 7.21–23; 16.24–26; 25.11–12, 46).
St. Paul is the foremost preacher of the gospel that he calls the gospel of God or gospel of Christ. For Paul, the content of the gospel is Jesus Christ as Son of God and universal Lord in whom the awaited future age has been decisively established through his death and resurrection (Rom. 1.1–4; 8.31–34; 1Cor. 15.1–4). Received by faith, the gospel is actualized in baptism and lived out as spiritual worship of God (Rom. 1.16–17; 6.1–11; 12.12). The results or benefits of the gospel are expressed through a rich terminology: salvation, justification, redemption, expiation, reconciliation, adoption, sanctification, transformation, new creation, and the fruit of the Spirit such as love, peace, and joy. (Rom. 3.21–26; 5.1–11; 1Cor. 1.30; 2Cor. 3.18; 5.17; Gal. 5.22–23). But the gospel, both as announcement and summons, also called “word of God” and “heralding” (kerygma), entails serious demands: to put to death sinful deeds or risk losing Christ and the kingdom (Rom. 6.12–23; 8.12–13; 1Cor. 6.9–10; Gal. 5.19–21, 24).
Finally, the gospel includes the good news of the birth of the church which is the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit (1Cor. 3.16; 12.27). Church and gospel belong together. The gospel is the gospel of God, bearing God’s power, and grounded in God’s saving acts in Christ and the Spirit. But the church also is the “Church of God” (1Cor. 1.2), an intrinsic part of God’s saving work and thus constitutive of God’s revelation. Without the church there is no gospel to be preached. But without the gospel, there is no church worthy of God’s loving will and grand plan to save the world.
SEE ALSO: Bible; Christ; Church (Orthodox Ecclesiology); Cross; Evangelism; Resurrection; Soteriology
REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS
Breck, J. (1986) The Power of the Word in the Worshiping Church. Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press.
Dunn, J. D. G. (1998) The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Hengel, M. (2000) The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press.
Kesich, V. (1992) The Gospel Image of Christ.
Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press. Stylianopoulos, T. G. (2002) The Way of Christ: Gospel, Spiritual Life and Renewal in Orthodoxy. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press. Trakatellis, D. (1987) Authority and Passion: Christological Aspects of the Gospel According to Mark. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press.
Wright, N. T. (2005) Paul in Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.