The word "gospel" can hide the good news

"Gospel" is a churchy word. Occasionally I've heard a pastor or a Bible teacher ask people to explain the gospel, or how they would explain the gospel; the result is usually a theory about forgiveness and faith. Or when a theologian tries to explain the gospel, what follows is often a complicated explanation of a theory of how atonement works. Sometimes people will go to the word's roots and translate it: "gospel" means "good news." And from there, the conversation often heads back to an explanation of a theory of atonement. 

The good news is not a theory of atonement; the good news is the atonement itself, reconciliation with God. The good news is not a theory about forgiveness, it is the forgiveness itself. In some places the Bible describes "the good news of the kingdom of God": that where God is king, diseases are healed, the disabled are made whole, the dead are raised, and sins are forgiven. Tears are wiped away. All things are made new. A brother will forgive his brother even 70x7 times, just as God does with us. That is the good news. 

I'm a firm believer in understanding things correctly. I do not speak out against our desire to make theories to help us understand, but against our tendency to mistake our theories for the thing itself, and to set up the human understanding of our theories as if that were saving faith, turning our thoughts into a checkpoint at which people can fail. 

What is the good news? 

• The good news is of God (2 Corinthians 11:7, 1 Thessalonians 2:8-9)
• The good news is the kingdom of God. (Matthew 4:23, Matthew 9:35, Matthew 24:14, Mark 1:14, Mark 1:15)
• The good news is God's grace (Acts 20:24)
• The good news is peace (Romans 10:15, Ephesians 6:15)
• The good news is the blessing to all humankind, even as promised from ancient times (Galatians 3:8)
• The good news is our salvation (see prior post on who or what we're saved from) (Ephesians 1:13)
• The good news is Jesus Christ. (Mark 1:1, Romans 1:9, Romans 1:16, Romans 15:19, Romans 15:29, Romans 16:25, 1 Corinthians 9:12, 1 Corinthians 9:18, 2 Corinthians 2:12, 2 Corinthians 4:4, 2 Corinthians 9:13, 2 Corinthians 10:14, Galatians 1:7, Philippians 1:27, 1 Thessalonians 3:2, 2 Thessalonians 1:8)

There is a reason that the four beginning books of the New Testament are called gospels. When the  earliest church asked the disciples to explain: what is the good news? Those were their answers: the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Paul likewise resolved to know nothing but Christ (I Corinthians 2:2). If we tell the good news and the hearers believe what they hear, that is faith.