“In order to define ‘gospel’ we must look at how it is portrayed in its narrow, focused application and how it also extends to include everything that God has done in Christ to redeem the cosmos and make way for the inauguration of the new heaven and new earth.
So, in one sense, the gospel is the gloriously great good news of what our triune God has graciously done in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to satisfy his own wrath against us and to secure the forgiveness of sins and perfect righteousness for all who trust in him by faith alone.
Christ fulfilled, on our behalf, the perfectly obedient life under God’s law that we should have lived but never could. He died, in our place, the death that we deserved to suffer but now never will.
And by his rising from the dead, he secures, for those who believe, the promise of a resurrected and glorified life in a new heaven and a new earth in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit forever.
The gospel is fundamentally about something that has happened. It is an accomplished event, an unalterable fact of history. But as a settled achievement it also exerts a radical and far-reaching influence on both our present experience and our future hopes.
This gospel is not only the means by which people have been saved but also the truth and power by which people are being sanctified (1 Cor. 15:1–2); it is the truth of the gospel that enables us to genuinely and joyfully do what is pleasing to God and to grow in progressive conformity to the image of Christ.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the gospel is the gravitational center of both our individual experience and the shape of local church life. We see this in numerous biblical texts.
For example, the gospel is Christocentric: it is about Jesus, God’s son (Mark 1:1; Rom. 1:9). Both Mark (Mark 1:14) and Paul (Rom. 1:1; 1 Thess. 2:8) describe it as the gospel “of God”—he is its source and the cause of all that it entails.
Humans do not create or craft the gospel; they respond to it by repenting of their sins and believing its message (Mark 1:15) concerning what God has done in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
The gospel, then, is “the word of truth” that proclaims our “salvation” (Eph. 1:13 ESV). It is marked by grace (Acts 20:24), which is to say that it is the message of God’s gracious provision, apart from human works, of all that is necessary to reconcile us to himself both now and for eternity.
The gospel is rooted in the call of Israel and is consummated in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, who is the fulfillment of the types and shadows of the old covenant (Rom. 1:1–6; 16:25–27).
As such, the gospel must never be thought of as an abstract, ahistorical idea, as if it were disconnected from or unrelated to the concrete realities of life on earth. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are thus to be seen as the pivotal chapter in the unfolding story of God’s redemptive purpose for humanity.
There are also multiple consequences of the gospel that extend beyond its impact on the individual and their relationship to God. The gospel invariably issues a call for human action.
Among the implications or results of the gospel are the cultivation of humility (Phil. 2:1–5), the pursuit of racial reconciliation (Eph. 2:11–22) and social justice (Philem. 8–20), a commitment to harmony and peace among people (Rom. 15:5–7; Heb. 12:14), and the demonstration of love for one another (1 John 3:16, 23).
But we must never confuse the content of the gospel with its consequences, or its essence with its entailments.
Finally, whereas the gospel is God’s redeeming act in Jesus on behalf of sinful men and women, we must not overlook the fact that it is only because of the gospel that we have a sure and certain hope for cosmic transformation.
The good news of God’s saving act in Christ is thus the foundation for our confidence in the ultimate triumph of God’s kingdom (1 Cor. 15:20–24), the end of physical death (1 Cor. 15:25–26; Rev. 21:4), the defeat of Satan (John 16:11; Col. 2:13–15; Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:8), the eradication of all evil (Rev. 21:4, 8), and the removal of the curse that rests on our physical environment, followed by the consummation of God’s purpose for all creation in the new heaven and new earth (Rom. 8:18–25).”
–Sam Storms, Romans, ed. Craig S. Keener and Holly Beers, Word and Spirit Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2024), 6–8.
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