One part of our church’s membership process is the completion of a membership application form, which requires the applicant to provide contact information and asks a few basic questions. One of those questions is, what is the gospel?
Since the church is a community of converted sinners, and since conversion takes place by believing the gospel message, it is important to establish that member applicants properly understand the gospel. After all, it is on the basis of one’s belief in the gospel that one will be admitted to church membership. The church must be certain that the applicant believes the same gospel the church believes if the church will confidently affirm the applicant as a member.
Strangely, this question frequently gives membership applicants great pause. Often, they feel as if they can’t articulate the gospel, even if they believe it. Perhaps one reason for this is that the New Testament seems to use the term “gospel” in two different, though related, ways.
On the one hand, the gospel, in its fullest sense, is about the enthronement of Jesus Christ as king of the universe, by means of his humiliating death and victorious resurrection. N. T. Wright defines it this way: “The gospel is the royal announcement that the crucified and risen Jesus, who died for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures, has been enthroned as the true Lord of the world.” Wright is passionate about correcting the oversimplification that the gospel is about nothing more than the individual getting to heaven. It is, he says, a “royal announcement” because it is the announcement that Jesus is king.
On the other hand, the gospel, in its simplest form, is a set of propositions that must be believed, as the sinner places his or her faith in Jesus Christ, to have his or her sins forgiven and to inherit eternal life. This is why Paul defined the gospel simply as the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). In our membership application form, this is what we are after: ascertaining whether or not the member applicant understands the gospel message that must be believed for the forgiveness of sins.
The first recorded proclamation of the gospel in the new covenant era was Peter’s Pentecost sermon (Acts 2). In it, we find both the fullest and the simplest sense of the gospel. He made the royal announcement that Jesus Christ was “both Lord and Christ” (v. 36). He wanted his readers to know that Jesus was both Christ (God’s appointed and long-promised Messiah, come to crush the head of the serpent) and Lord (king of all creation). But this proclamation called for a response, which we also find in Peter’s sermon.
Peter’s audience recognised the need for a response. At the end of his preaching, “they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” Peter’s response was straightforward: “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (vv. 37–38). As we closely examine this sermon, we find at least three gospel truths that we must affirm to properly understand the gospel.
The need for salvation
First, the text stresses the necessity of salvation. Peter boldly accused his hearers of crucifying and killing Jesus by their “lawless” hands. The term “lawless” highlights their wickedness and guilt before God. Salvation is necessary precisely because we are lawless. John would later stress the equivalence of sin and lawlessness: “Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). By speaking of their “lawless hands,” Peter was pointing out their sin.
Workers of lawlessness will be driven from God’s presence on the day of judgement (Matthew 7:23). Lawlessness renders us guilty before God, worthy of eternal death. God’s law was given to show us our lawlessness (1 Timothy 1:9), which then drives us to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing. God is utterly holy and demands from all people utter holiness. Our sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2) and cuts us off from the blessing of eternal life (Romans 3:23; 5:12). We are destined for eternal destruction because of our sin and are utterly incapable of doing anything to reverse this. We need a Saviour outside of ourselves who can provide the salvation be so desperately seek.
The means of salvation
Happily, God does not leave is in our sin. Instead, he took on the form of sinful flesh and “gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify to himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). Though “the hands of lawless men” had “crucified and killed” God’s Messiah, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24). Christ’s death and resurrection secured eternal salvation for all who would come to God by him. That is why Paul said that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). God now holds out the offer of forgiveness and eternal life to all who will trust in Christ, crucified for sin and risen from the dead. “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38).
The benefit of salvation
All who trust in Christ, repenting of their sin, receive “the forgiveness of [their] sins” and “the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). And what benefit does the Holy Spirit bring to us? Nothing less than “rivers of living water” (John 7:39). This water “will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). The benefit of salvation—the benefit of the forgiveness of our sins—is nothing less than eternal life. Our lawlessness destines us for eternal destruction under God’s full and final wrath, but Jesus Christ took that wrath upon himself at Calvary so that we could receive forgiveness. He died on the cross so that we could receive eternal life. And that eternal life comes by repentance and faith alone.
What, then, is the gospel? It is the good news of Jesus Christ, once humiliated in his crucifixion and vindicated in his resurrection, extending the offer of eternal life through the forgiveness of sins to all who will repent and trust in him. It is the good news that this Saviour has been enthroned as both Lord and Christ and will one day be recognised by all people as king of all creation. That is a proclamation that is, indeed, good news, and the only news by which we might receive the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.