GOSPEL BASICS - 1

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL?

In the Greek New Testament, the word "gospel" is the translation of the Greek noun "euangelion" (occurring 76 times throughout) meaning “good news,” and the verb euangelizo, (occurring 54 times), meaning “to bring or announce good news.” Both words are derived from the noun “angelos” meaning “messenger.” In classical Greek, an euangelos was one who brought a message of victory or other political or personal news that caused joy. In addition, euangelizomai (the middle voice form of the verb) meant “to speak as a messenger of gladness, to proclaim good news.”

Hence in a nutshell, the gospel simply means "good news".

It is now left for us to proceed into discovering what exactly the news is, and what makes it good. This is because, there is much news that is being communicated within the confines of biblical doctrine and as a matter of fact, many of these, if not all of these are NOT good. It is therefore very important that we specifically single out the "good news" that is actually "the gospel".

This is very important because there have been many confusion about this "gospel" to the extent that, people doubt if it is that crucial. Paul said this gospel is "the power of God unto salvation", and if this is so, we will agree that what many people have been preaching has not been saving people. If the gospel is the power of God that should save people, then there should be a very low percentage of unbelievers in the world today, considering the various outreaches we have here and there, but we see otherwise.

The Muslims are not doing evangelism, why are they increasing in number? For your information, the Islamic religion is the fastest growing religion in the world today. This is one of the reasons why we know that something is clearly wrong somewhere. It is either we are preaching the wrong gospel or that it is no longer the power of God unto salvation. And since the word of God is ever true, we know that the problem is in the knowledge and understanding of the "gospel that saves" and not the gospel itself.

Now let's get straight to the point. What exactly is the gospel?

As we have discussed earlier, the gospel is a good news about something or someone. This good news has power to save man. So if we attach "salvation" to the hearing of the gospel, we are directly saying that the gospel is the news about God’s provision for man’s salvation. Sin is the only problem that is general to humanity. Therefore we can conclude that the gospel is the good news about the solution to humanity's greatest and general problem, and that is "sin".

Now, when we consider what is being preached as the gospel today, after we have known the aim of the gospel, we can now single handedly pick out the particular gospel that saves.

One can preach a gospel of prosperity, it is still a gospel, and the preacher might still be able to defend it with the word of God.

One can even preach a gospel of divine health, it is still a gospel founded upon the word of God.

However, not everyone is poor, so the gospel of prosperity cannot be "good news" to those who are rich. Similarly, not everyone is sick so when the gospel of divine health is being preached, it will never sound "good" to those who are healthy.

Hence, the "gospel of salvation" must then be some good news that everyone in this world have been waiting to hear. That is why we must learn and understand the basics of this gospel. Many preachers have invested monies on crusades and outreaches and were profitless at the end of it all, due to the fact that the preached the wrong gospel. Yes! The only gospel that can save sinners is the gospel of salvation.

Paul said in Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth..."

Now, all what we want to discuss in this first lesson is the uniqueness of the “one gospel” among many gospels. And that this gospel, is the good news about God’s provision for sin - which is a common problem to mankind.

In the next lesson, we shall look specifically into the details of this gospel and how we can react to it.

(c) Philip Oklu