What Is the Gospel?

Father, O God, the preaching of Thy Word with the blessing of Thy Spirit, granted in so far as it is true it shall be undergirded by Thy power, that in so far as it is false it shall be quickly forgotten and do no harm. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Jesus came preaching, and ever since his followers in every time and place have preached. Many have despired of preaching, but the practice possessed, indicating that it has more value than its practitioners have sometimes imagined. It is a significant fact that for well-nigh 2000 years, preachers have mounted portraits every Sunday somewhere in the Western world and proclaim the message to millions of people. This is a fact, as Herbert Butterfield, a historian of Cambridge University, has observed, that is mightily directed to shape history, a fact that no historian can ignore.

Today we deploy deteriorating church statistics, but still a great percentage of people in every American community leave their homes at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning to go to the church building to hear a sermon. This is a phenomenon without parallel in our society, and it is an opportunity in the battle for the hearts and minds of men that cannot be duplicated. The Communists, any group that is concerned to win the allegiance of men and women would give anything they possess for the opportunity that belongs to the Christian community. But what is the preacher's message? The simple answer is the gospel of God. Jesus came preaching the gospel of God, and it has been the intention of every faithful disciple since to preach the gospel of God.

What Is the Gospel?

But this simply pushes the question a further step. What, after all, is the gospel of God? What is the unique message that the church proclaims? A message that is proclaimed nowhere else in all the world. So our task this morning is to answer the question, what is the gospel? How would you have answered that question? Suppose someone had asked you, as you entered the church this morning, what is the Christian gospel? What would you have said in reply in three or four simple sentences? What is the gospel of God? No answer can be final, but the inadequacy of any answer does not relieve us of the responsibility of attempting an answer. So this morning, let us take five texts from the New Testament as a preliminary initial answer to the question, what is the gospel?

These texts are somewhat arbitrarily chosen. Other texts might have been chosen, but taken together they are, I think, a fair answer to the question, what is the message of the Christian church? The gospel is, first of all, John 1.14. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. Over against the words of Genesis, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The writer of the fourth gospel declares, in the beginning was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The mystery of created existence, a mystery that eludes our shrewdest research, has been translated into our language. Here is the explanation of creation that tells not how it works, not how we can manipulate it to our youth, but why there is a world anyway and what its final destiny is.

So someone may protest that modern man is unaware of any mystery, that he finds the meaning of life simply in the living of it. Men no longer ask why they exist or what they exist for. So the death of God theologians told us a few years ago, It was William Hamilton who said, the Beatles do not ask what is life's meaning, they simply enjoy life. But shortly after he made that statement, one of the Beatles went to India to consult a yogi about the meaning of life. The ancient question of Parmenides is still our question. Why is there something and not nothing? Why do I exist when I can imagine that I might not have existed? When we subject human experience to scrutiny, it is clear enough that we are encompassed by mystery. On the one hand, we do know the throbbing, pulsating joy of simply being alive, the sheer wonder, mystery of being alive, a joy that points beyond itself to some purpose.

And on the other hand, we know the anxiety that perhaps we were simply thrown into existence by some unreasoning faith and that life can be snatched from us by some chance happening horrifyingly casual. At the limits of our existence, we know not some benign neutrality, but either the terror of the void or the comfort of the ground in thought of our being. It is the Christian gospel that the mystery that That encompasses our beginning and our end has been transmuted into meaning and translated into a language that we can understand in Jesus Christ. The Word, the mind of God, the purpose behind this universe was made flesh and dwelt amongst Now, someone may deny this, but no one can say that it is trivial if it is true. It is the greatest good news that has ever come to mind.

Your Sins Are Forgiven

The Gospel is, secondly, Mark 2.5. My son, your sins are forgiven. Forgiveness does not have much currency among us. No one, or at least not many people I know, really worry about standing before the judgment of God. We do not like to be forgiven even in human relationships. We prefer to pay our debts. We get some spiritual satisfaction in carrying insurance that can cover any reparation. Nevertheless, there is abundant evidence of salvation by our works finally eludes us. Even the most successful can, in the end, imagine a more successful life. Those who, by our relative standards, not infrequently achieved the most and loved the most are most aware of what they did not achieve or what they did very poorly. The simple fact is that no act of love ever exhausts the possibilities of love.

No human achievement ever exhausts the possibilities of human existence. Indeed, every act of love, every human achieved, always opens up new possibilities of love, new possibilities of achievement. For this reason, those who love the most and those who achieve the most are most aware that they need to be forgiven, their failure to love, and their failure to achieve. Now, it must be said that forgiveness is no simple declaration that what we did does not matter. It is, on the contrary, it seems to me, a profound and deep awareness that life is a gift that we did not earn, and that the security of life is not in our achievements, but in the love, and the trustworthiness of the giver. Salvation is the profound consciousness that life is a gift and that the giver can be trusted.

Or to put it another way, salvation is a deep awareness that though we are fully known, we are fully loved. This is the faith that overcomes the world, distilling serenity and powers out of the frustrations and the failures of life. My son, your sins are forgiven. This is the gospel that is preached to those of us who, no matter how good, how loving, How successful, you can still know in our imaginations the unfulfilled possibilities of our lives. The Gospel is thirdly, Luke 24, the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection is mystery for us. For one thing, we have no firsthand knowledge of resurrections from the dead, and there were no witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. The word resurrection was chosen by the writers of the New Testament to stand for that complex experience of men who on Good Friday had seen their master crucified and put to death, and who are at Easter were overwhelmed by his living presence.

The Resurrection of Jesus

And they said, God did it. For them and for us, the resurrection has two consequences. It is first of all an answer to the problem of historical evil. It declared that Pilate, Caiaphas, the crucifiers, the howling, senseless mob did not have the last word. On Friday, it seemed as though Pilate, the chief priest, the howling mob, knew what was ultimately real. They were the realest. Light belonged to them. But the resurrection undid what wicked men had done on good Friday and answered the problem of historical evil. And in the second place, the resurrection meant that death, physical evil, is likewise not the final word. If death is the final word, then we are confronted with the chilling consequence not only our own mortality but of the time that is coming when the human race shall vanish from this universe leaving no living memory that it ever was.

The resurrection declares that there is a power in the world, their resources of divine mercy and goodness that are greater than the power of death. For the past decade the Christian Church has been torn asunder by those who on the one hand seem to believe that the Christian gospel is exhausted in giving comfort to people, and on the other hand by those who seem to believe that the Christian gospel is exhausted in changing the structures and the forms of society. They're children. Only those who are very comfortable can ever believe that the Christian gospel is exhausted in giving comfort to people, but surely on the other hand, only those who are very young could ever believe that the Christian gospel is exhausted in changing society. But by the time you are 50, you know there are some things that are not going to be be changed.

For some, this comes in the form of historical evil, as it did with monumental clarity to the Jews and the German Holocaust. For all of us, it comes in the form of physical evil in the fact of death. For in the end, we all die. The gospel brings a message of hope in the presence of historical evil that is not changed, and the message of hope in the presence of physical evil that seems so absolute and so final. God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, undoing what wicked men had done, and overcoming the power of death. The Gospel is formerly Romans 8.28. works with those who love him for the good and all things. No predicament is ever without hope. There are no dead end roads in life. The last word is always the grace of God. That is everywhere and always available to bring good out of evil.

Good Brought Out of Evil

Now where does the New Testament ever suggest that evil is good, but everywhere it suggests that evil, even the most sinister evil, can be the occasion of good, can be utilized in the building of strength and of beauty. Evil always leaves its scars, the evil of our own wrongdoing, and the evil that is done to us. But the struggle through evil brings its own peculiar beauty and strength. of the strong authentic beautiful human lives that you have known and estimate how much suffering has gone into the building of that strength and of that beauty. Simple fact is in one way or another we all suffer and whatever may be the theoretical possibilities of achieving beauty and strength apart from suffering, the fact is that suffering must always be part of the material that goes into the building of strength and beauty.

In one way or the other, all of us in the end look into the abyss. And thus this word from Paul's letter to the Romans is good news for every man. God works with those who love him to bring good out of evil. And the gospel is And finally, Matthew 25, the parable of the Last Judgment. Inasmuch as you did it and one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me. At first glance, this appears not to be gospel, but command. And men have sought to obey it with a fanaticism and with a frenzy that have belied the nature of love. But let us note first that in the parable, those who gave the cup of cold water to the thirsty did not know that they had given it. Those who did not give it did not know that they had not given it. There is a strange anonymity about goodness.

The Least of These

And let us note, secondly, that the gospel is the mystery of a human being as the dwelling place of the living God, the mystery of a human being as the dwelling place of the living God. Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me. The gospel is a precious quality that belongs to every human personality. We celebrate this truth whenever we baptize a little child. We call the child's name because it is our faith that God gives this child his name. He is not by the accidents of history and biology, but by the will and the intention of Almighty God. God gives to him his individuality, his identity, his name. The gospel is a mystery of a human being, no matter how degraded, as a temple of the living God.

To claim this gospel for ourselves is to claim it for every man. Well, in some we shall not be far wrong if we say the gospel is these five texts. John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Mark 2.5, my son, your sins are forgiven. Romans 8.28. God works with those who love Him for the good in all things, Luke 24, the resurrection of Jesus. In Matthew 25, it is much as you did it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it unto me. Professor Albert Outler has said, if he can only have, Luke 24, the resurrection of Jesus. In Romans 8.28, God works with those who love Him for the good in our thing. And Martin Luther's great hymn, A Mighty Fortress is our God. He will not be able to solve all the problems of life, but he will be able to see life through to the end.

This is the gospel the church proclaims. This is the gospel that is preached in the Christian community and nowhere else in all the world. This is the gospel to which we commit our lives for time and for eternity. The Lord our God is good, His mercy is forever sure, His truth at all times firmly stood and shall from age to age endure. Amen.