“The gospel strictly taken signifies ‘good news, glad tidings, or a joyful message.’ It is the joyful tidings of a free salvation through Jesus Christ to sinners of mankind (Matt. 11:5; Luke 2:10–11; Rom. 10:15), or it is a revelation and exhibition of the covenant of grace to men.
The gospel reveals to us what the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have done for us; what inestimable blessings they have provided for us and are willing to impart to us; how fully and freely these are offered to us; and how they are to be received and enjoyed as gifts of infinitely free and sovereign grace.
Now the gospel, in this point of view, comprises the following particulars: It contains the doctrines of grace, or the doctrinal declarations of God concerning the redemption of lost sinners; concerning His counsel of peace and also His covenant of grace in the source, the parties, the making, the conditions, the promises, and the administration of it; concerning the Lord Jesus, the only Mediator of it, in His person, offices, relations, and estates; concerning the Holy Spirit as the quickener, enlightener, sanctifier, and comforter of elect sinners according to it; and concerning the inestimable blessings promised in it.
This is the sum of all the doctrinal declarations of the glorious gospel. It is a declaration or publication of the free grace of God to sinners of mankind, manifested in His redemption of them by Jesus Christ; and it is the best tidings that ever have reached their ears. It is by His gospel that the great Redeemer “mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves” (Isa. 49:9).
By enabling convinced and disquieted sinners to believe with application to themselves the doctrines of the gospel, He gives “them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isa. 61:3). That joyful message Christ was anointed to preach, angels brought to the shepherds; and the apostles, evangelists, and ministers of Christ published to the world.
The gospel, then, is glad tidings of good things. No tidings were ever as joyful as those that are announced in the gospel, and no benefits were ever as good as those that are exhibited in it. At the same time, no man will ever love or so much as understand rightly a single doctrine of the gospel unless he sees and feels that as a sinner he is utterly undone.
It is to men as sinners that the word of this salvation is sent. No doctrine deserves to be called gospel but that which makes the adorable Redeemer “all in all” (Eph. 1:23), the “Alpha and Omega” (Rev. 22:13) in the redemption of a sinner.”
-John Colquhoun, The Law and the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage, 1816/2023), 94-95.
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