I recently listened to an interview with a former Seventh-day Adventist in which he criticized the denomination in no uncertain terms. Though he covered a lot of ground, what struck me the most was his claim that Adventists don’t understand or proclaim the true gospel—and that as a result, there will be many people who will burn in hell forever because they believed the false gospel we promote.
Admittedly, we could do a much better job of articulating and embodying the gospel—and sounding this alarm has been a longtime part of my ministry.
Yet his claim got me to thinking: What even is the gospel?
Christians throw the word around a lot. And we all just assume everyone knows what we’re talking about when we use the term.
It seems that for this young man, as for many Christians, the “gospel” has a very narrow meaning, focusing almost exclusively on how a person gets “saved.” It’s essentially the news that sinful humans deserve God’s wrath, and yet Jesus took that wrath upon Himself—and we can therefore be saved if we accept His work on our behalf.
I have no doubt that some version of this explanation is a part of the gospel. But after refamiliarizing myself with every use of the word “gospel” in the New Testament, I’ve been convicted afresh that the gospel encompasses so much more.
Of course, we no doubt recognize that the term “gospel” literally means “good news.” But that good news covers a lot of ground. According to Paul, that good news starts—and flows out of—what Christ did via His death, burial, and resurrection (see 1 Cor. 15:1-5). Truly, this work on our behalf is the foundation to all else.
Included in that work, however, are many more insights that fall under the “good news” umbrella. It definitely includes Christ, because of His work, delivering us “from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10), but it also includes a “day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:16), which John also refers to as the “everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6).
Similarly, the handful of times Jesus uses the word “gospel,” it’s always a part of the phrase “the gospel of the kingdom” (see Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14; Mark 1:14). Thus, it seems that whenever Jesus spoke about the “kingdom of God,” which was His favorite subject, He was expounding upon the gospel, announcing the good news of how His kingdom—and the King at the head—operates in opposition to the kingdoms of the world.
There’s so much more that could be said about this topic. But in short I’d summarize the New Testament’s definition of the gospel this way: flowing out of and predicated upon Christ’s work on our behalf, the gospel is the good news about what God has done, is doing, and will do to accomplish the full restoration of His kingdom of love in the universe.
And the degree to which we place emphasis on what we’ve done, are doing, and will do—rather than God’s work—is the degree to which we’re not proclaiming the gospel.
Let’s keep glorying in and proclaiming that good news!
