What is the Gospel?

The gospel is both the greatest gift that God has given to mankind and also the least understood. The word gospel literally means, “Good News” and unless we understand what that good news is how can we benefit from it?

In Roman 1:16 we read,

“For am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also the Greek”.

We must realize that it is only through the gospel that we receive salvation – that is why it is so important for us to understand just what it is. Men may come up with their own ideas about how people are saved, but God tells us that it is through the gospel.

We all need to be saved because we all sin. Romans 3:23 states, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Further on in Romans, in chapter 6:23 we are told, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” We need the gospel because we need freedom from sin and eternal death that sin brings.

How is it that we are saved through the gospel? The answer to that can only come through a deep understanding of what the gospel actually is. To really know what the gospel is, the only place to go is the scriptures. Through His, word God will answer our questions. In 1 Cor 15:1-4 we get the most concise definition of just what the gospel is.

“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which you are also saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures.”

The gospel, the good news, is that Jesus Christ died for our sins, he was buried and that He rose again on the third day – death was not able to hold him. Freedom for the sting of death is ours if we obey the gospel, if we go through the death burial and resurrection. Notice Romans 6:3-4,

“Or do you not know that all of you who have been baptised into Christ have been baptised into his death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised form the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

We obey the gospel by being baptised into Christ for the forgiveness of sins.