The Nature of the Gospel

A Study Paper for the Curriculum Consultation Committee

Prepared by the Department of Religious Education
October, 1967

For Latter Day Saints the term “gospel” is used in various contexts and associated with numerous familiar phrases so that in the minds of many people, no clear concept exists. Members of the church admit to a certain ambiguity in understanding the gospel. To some the gospel story is an account of the coming forth of the Restoration movement. To others the gospel is a set of principles, a body of doctrine, a group of ordinances. To ”embrace the gospel” is interpreted by many to mean having membership in the church. It is the purpose of this paper to attempt to clarify the context within which the gospel is understood and strive for a more precise understanding of what constitutes the “good news.”

1. The Christ event and its “good news” to men

In the New Testament the gospel is the divine proclamation that the ultimate phrase of God’s plan of salvation has been realized in Jesus Christ. What God had promised and what people had hoped for was now real. The scriptures of the Old Testament prophets pointing toward the time when God would intervene in history and deliver his “chosen people” was fulfilled in the “divinely wrought event.” The divine activity was, however, wrought in behalf of all humanity, an idea that came slowly but is understood by New Testament writers and incorporated in their declaration of the gospel.

Reference is often made by Latter Day Saints to the “antiquity of the gospel,” although the meaning of this phrase is shrouded in ambiguity. For some it means that New Testament doctrine and order were possessed by select groups from the beginning of time. Historical studies lend no support to such an understanding. To the extent that “gospel” refers to the good news of the love of God, It does possess antiquity inasmuch as it has always been God’s character to love his creation and to seek its redemption and to involve himself in the human dilemma in every age. Thus the eternity of God’s love could in a sense permit us to speak of the antiquity of the gospel, but when gospel is defined as doctrine, ordinances, priesthood offices, and church polity (as is so often the case among RLDS), then historical support for such an assertion disappears.

Fundamentally, the gospel is understood not as a theological or philosophical treatise but as an event, the redemptive activity of God in the history of man. The announcement to the shepherds heralding the birth of Christ expresses the intent of the Christian gospels “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10). The gospel is the “good news,” the divine disclosure that Jesus is Christ. But Jesus is more than the bearer of good news. In his ministry, he is himself the good announced. In a real sense, Jesus is himself the gospel. The deliberate selection of this event by God in which he reveals himself in an occurrence rather than a verbal word, signifies the depth of his concern. In this disclosure we see the love of God spelled out in a revolutionary way.

John gets at the heart of the gospel essence by saying, “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” In other words, God acted for our salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The gospel is not a commandment that man be good. Rather it is a revelation that God is good, and that his goodness is expressed in involving himself in the human situation through his Son in such a way that men are reconciled to him. This good news is communicated to us, not in words, but in the person called Christ Jesus. His life, death, and resurrection has reconciled us to God. Thus the central focus of the gospel is this reconciling act. Obviously the good news of this event must be communicated and communication involves words. But the implicit danger is that the words used to describe the event will substitute for the event itself and thus finally result in the gospel being thought of as a set of propositions or principles, or the commentary upon the event rather than the event itself.

Jesus commissioned his followers to “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Thus the gospel includes a message to be declared. But a faithful declaration of the gospel goes beyond saying something. Since the original revelation is an event, a reconciling life, then its declaration must proceed on the basis of a reconciling life. The disciple declares in word and in deed. He must be something in addition to saying something. He has encountered Christ in his life and he provides opportunity for others to have this encounter. The gospel then is a divine word that manifests God’s ultimate purpose. The word of God refers to the action of God. In this sense the proclamation of the message is a call to action or response.

Inasmuch as the revelation of God in Christ occurred in the context of a community of persons and the revelation issued in a unique style of life within that community, a style of life characterized by redemptive love and fellowship, it follows that the gospel cannot be faithfully witnessed to outside the context of a fellowship of persons demonstrating the unique life style. The message is thus not simply a word or words, nor simply a solitary good life, but rather is the message held forth before man in the form of a community of love.

2. The nature of the salvation the gospel declares

Several problems present themselves in discussing salvation. One relates to the attitude that is sometimes held that if a person adheres to certain prescribed principles and regulations this will earn for him celestial salvation in the life to come. This attitude suggests that the gospel is a set of principles (e.g. faith, repentance, baptism, etc.) and that salvation is the reward for obeying them. Such an understanding of the gospel as principles is inadequate. It fosters the notion that faith is fundamentally assent to propositions, rather than trustful obedience to the call of discipleship. Moreover, the idea of earned salvation in the afterlife not only ignores the role of God’s grace in human redemption, but also tends to erode the significance of life in this world by pointing men to the preeminence of the next world and associating salvation with it alone.

Salvation is concerned with how life is lived, with man’s ability to appropriate the fullness of life. The salvation inherent in the gospel frees men to be truly human. A significant dimension of the gospel is the revelation in Christ of what it means to be truly human. “The purpose of divine communication is not to enrich man’s mind with new notions, but rather to announce to him salvation–i.e., a condition by which his life will be made by God what it has not been previously, a true life. The gospel is always spoken of as a divine activity performed for the benefit of men.” (The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1962).

Luke quotes Jesus as saying, “The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The gospel is understood as having the power to redeem men from lostness. Basically, this lostness issues from man’s insistence on being the center of his own life. When we place ourselves at the center of everything and think of ourselves as being the focal point of existence, we become alienated from God, our fellows, and our true selves. In this attempt to be God ourselves, we become guilty, anxious, and subject to fears. Hostility characterizes our life. Our salvation lies in being pointed away from ourselves to God who is the true center of life. The effect of this recentering of our life, this trusting faith in God, is salvation, the freeing of men to become what God intended when he said, “Let us make man in our own image.” Salvation is deliverance from the slothful, sterile, demonic life to a productive, fruitbearing, authentically human life. Thus the salvation to which the gospel addresses itself has to do with bringing men to the fullness of their being, a fullness manifest in the being of Christ himself.

The gospel is designed to save us from ourselves, and to save us for each other. It designs men to live together in mutual helpfulness. The full fruition of the gospels intent comes about when persons live in a social order in which God is the center. Thus salvation cannot be thought of in narrowly personal terms. It is social as well.

The gospel as the Christ event carries with it a-disclosure of the nature of God’s love toward men. The nature and effect of this love is pointed to in such terms as grace, justification, reconciliation, and sanctification. These vehicles help bear the meaning of the gospel as communicating forgiveness and redemption. Some comment on these terms may more fully illuminate the content embraced in the gospel.

a.  Grace Jesus did not talk about grace, but such a doctrine is implicit in his coming among men and in much of his teaching. The development of the doctrine of grace by Paul emerges out of the revelation in Christ. Grace relates to God’s loving-kindness manifest in our redemption. God takes the initiative in revealing his love. Such initiative does not wait on human worthiness or merit. Grace is the spontaneous affection in which God seeks us out for our good. It issues out of what he is, not what we are. That God relates to us out of his grace is “good news.”

b.  Justification Paul referred to the forgiveness of God as “justification,” a term drawn from the judicial language of his time, suggesting that in standing before the judgment bar of God we stand obviously guilty of offense, but God, as the judge, renders the verdict innocent–inferring that he refuses to cast us out because of our sins but rather relates to us on the basis of his mercy and love.
In the Roman and Galatian epistles “Paul taught that when a man gives wholehearted allegiance to Christ no sins stand as a barrier between him and God” (F.H. Edwards). No matter what path may have been taken or how far away a man may have walked he has not changed in any way the love God has for him. Justification means that God offers us his forgiveness before we offer him our repentance. He calls us to him as sons while we are yet rebels. He refuses to relate to us on the basis of our rebellion, but chooses rather to relate to us on the basis of his forgiveness. This is the “good news.” While we were against God, he was for us.

c.  Reconciliation The gospel of Jesus Christ is the good news that men are called to live together in a new condition that has its roots in justice and love. Just as God frees men to have companionship with himself, men are freed to have companionship with each other. The walls that separate God and man are demolished when man accepts the forgiveness God offers. The New Testament community understood that the reconciling work of Christ likewise demolished all barriers that existed between men so that no longer was a person Scythian, barbarian, or Greek. but all were brothers, members of the family of God. God’s love and forgiveness of men provides men a new base upon which to relate to each other. The gospel invites one to look at the whole area of his human relationships in new perspective with new motivation. He himself is the beneficiary of a great love. So are all other men. This is the new grounds upon which human relations are based. This is part of the “good news.”

d.  Sanctification In the life or the saint (the repentant sinner) sanctification is the process of growth in inner strength made possible by the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit. It is not a state in which man is guaranteed salvation without encroachment. This doctrine emphasizes the rightful confidence of the man of genuine faith that his victories under God can be without limit. The good news implicit here is the willingness of God to participate in the renewing of human life. The Holy Spirit is given to men to re-create them in true righteousness.
Salvation frees men to be human, to be whole. It is deliverance from sin and recovery of a spirit of love. Salvation is a new birth in which man is motivated by a new standard of values enabled by a new indwelling presence. He is saved from the demonic and empowered to become the creature God intended. This new possibility offered through Christ Jesus constitutes the “good news.”

3. The nature of our response to the gospel

While the gospel has a universal appeal (“good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people”), it is the word of God for only those who “listen” to it, for those who take it seriously as a divine message and who express their response to it by “doing the truth.” The gospel demands acceptance, obedience, and appropriation. Forgiveness from God’s side is sheer grace. We do not earn God’s love and he doesn’t ask us to. On man’s side, the state of being a forgiven sinner places one under great moral demands.

The good news is that the father-child relationship between God and man continues to persist even when man rebels and turns his back on God. Forgiveness is always readily available. Repentance comes when man senses his need for God, looks at his own life with moral earnestness, and is willing to accept God’s love and forgiveness. This acceptance of the love of God, which involves a commitment of discipleship, this coming-into-awareness, is usually a gradual thing. It requires that one open his life, bare himself, empty himself that God may indwell him. Ordinarily this is not accomplished in a moment, even though the moment may come when the person turns and walks in a new direction. After serious contemplation and self-examination the prodigal son “came to himself,” making it possible for him to enter deeply into the meaning of sonship. He responded to the love of his father in faith and repentance. Disciples respond similarly to the love of God.

Jesus emphasized the fact that men are responsible for one another. The gospel of Jesus Christ makes clear that God made men to live together in community. In the New Testament the Christian community was assumed to be the fellowship of disciples. Paul believed that these disciples should be so closely associated in purpose and function that their baptism would unite them into one body. He further indicated that the church was to be the body of Christ. This was to point out the possibility of unity in diversity, but more than that, Paul was saying that the church is to function as the body of Christ, to extend his life, to carry on his saving ministry. The church then, as the fellowship of disciples, becomes the agent of God’s reconciling love. It is a company of committed persons who respond wholly to the purposes of God by doing the truth that Jesus Christ lived. “The church exists for man’s sake. It is a community of those who respond to God’s love and who want to live together in this kind of divine love” (Roy A. Cheville).

The person who receives the good news, the gospel, becomes an “evangelist” as he shares it with others. This sharing is not a matter of debate or proving, but an association and caring for others that grows out of love for persons as children of God. The good news of God’s redemptive activity is shared in the confidence that it is essential to the good living of the friend with whom it is shared. The life of the “evangelist” carries over in a contagious way to the person with whom he associates. So the message and the messenger will not be separated. Those who proclaim the gospel are so filled with a sense of mission that they would feel unfulfilled if they did not engage in their ministry or if they withheld part of the message. This applies to members and to the whole body of Christ.

4. The fullness of the gospel and the victory of Christ

Part of our heritage includes the belief that the “fullness of the gospel” was restored. While it is rather ambiguous, it appears to have meant that the church considered itself to possess a fuller measure of true doctrine and church organization than any other existent organization. Some have seen the fullness of the gospel as being contained in a book. Such a viewpoint, while understandable, nevertheless tempts us to return to the assumption that the good news is a set of propositions, articles of faith, or patterns of organization to which we give assent. The risks in such a view are apparent.

The fullness of the gospel is in the person of Christ Jesus. It is the self-disclosure of God in Christ. Propositions or statements may explicate or interpret it, but they are not themselves the gospel. In responding to the fullness of the gospel, we are not assenting to a creed or affirming a set of beliefs, rather we are responding wholeheartedly to Jesus Christ, the consequence of which is the adoption of a victorious style of life which enshrines the redemptive love and service that Christ enjoins upon us.

The victory of Christ is clear. Followers live in the assurance of victory. “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The victory is won whenever men have enough confidence in the Lord Jesus Christ to make his way of life their way of life.