εὐαγγέλιον

Sometimes I hear critiques and I know they're wrong but I can't quite tell myself why. I'm a bit ashamed to say it, but this has happened with the Gospel. I've heard people accuse 'my type' of being in love with words and ideas - and say that's why we place so much emphasis on reading and understanding the Bible. An educated, middle class, Western preoccupation. I've heard others talk about how important it is to live the Gospel, and have come away with the impression that there's a legitimate choice that can be made between living it or preaching it.

So it was with gladness that I came across a recent article by my old favourite Don Carson, entitled "What is the Gospel? - Revisited".1 The article begins with a boring looking section on the biblical use of the Greek words for "gospel/good news/preaching the gospel". It is kind of boring, but taking the time to work through it is really very instructive.

The second half of the article sees Carson drawing some conclusions. His principle conclusion is that the "gospel" is "the good news about God's redeeming work in Christ".2 Carson notes that there are different foci to this gospel message:

The narrower focus draws you to Jesus - his incarnation, his death and resurrection, his session and reign - as that from which all the elements of what God is doing are drawn. The broader focus sketches in the mighty dimensions of what Christ has secured. But this means that if one preaches the gospel in the broader sense without also emphasizing the gospel in the more focused sense of what God has done to bring about such sweeping transformation, one actually sacrifices the gospel.3

Because this is what gospel means, "it is to be announced: that's what one does with news".4 And this isn't because Christians love ideas or because "ideas themselves reconcile us to God, but because the ideas are about Christ, and he reconciles us to God".5 "So when one hears the frequently repeated slogan, 'Preach the gospel - use words if necessary,' one has to say, as gently but as firmly as one can, that this is smug nonsense."6 ;) Now Carson is, of course, well aware of the importance that the Bible places on right living, but notes that this is the outcome of the gospel, the "stipulation that God requires", not the good news itself.7


1 DA Carson, "What is the Gospel? - Revisited" in S Storms & J Taylor (eds), For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 147-70.
2 Ibid, 157. (italics his)
3 Ibid, 162.
4 Ibid, 158.
5 Ibid, 169.
6 Ibid, 158. Carson also notes in passing that 1 Peter 3:1 is "not an exception. That passage says that husbands who do not believe the word may be won over by the Christian conduct of their wives. That presupposes that the words have been uttered". (footnote 12)
7 Ibid, 159, 161.