Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Volume: JOTGES 36:71 (Autumn 2023)
Article: What Is The New Testament Gospel?
Author: Robert N. Wilkin

JOTGES 36:71 (Autumn 2023) p. 33

What Is The New Testament Gospel?

Robert N. Wilkin

Associate Editor
Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society

I. Introduction

The word gospel is part of modern Christianese. “I shared the gospel with my parents this past weekend,” means, “This past weekend I told my parents how they could be born again.” The same truth is conveyed by, “I gave the gospel to…”

I quickly adopted that way of speaking after I believed in Jesus for everlasting life. Every Jesus person I knew (we called ourselves Jesus people in the early seventies) used the term gospel to refer to the message of life, the saving message.

Looking back at my early writings, I see that I often used the word gospel to refer to the saving message.

But is that accurate? Is the expression the gospel equivalent to the saving message in the NT?

It wasn’t until long after I received my doctorate that I changed my thinking about the gospel. But once I did, I found the change to be very helpful.

The NT rarely uses the expression the gospel to refer to the message of life—the saving message. The primary place where gospel means “the saving message” is the Book of Galatians.

Paul told the Galatians, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (Gal 1:6–7).

What is the gospel that Paul preached to the Galatians and that was being perverted by men we now call Judaizers? We will consider that soon.

What if I’m correct, and the term gospel rarely refers to what we might call “the saving message” (which in itself is potentially misleading) or to what the Scriptures call the “word of life” or the “promise

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of life”?1 Paul spoke of himself “as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life” (1 Tim 1:16, emphasis added).

My thesis about the word gospel is simple: It means good news.

The NT’s primary use of the word gospel is in reference to Paul’s total ministry, which included evangelism and discipleship. Other major uses concern Jesus’ death and resurrection, justification by faith alone, and the good news...