If we want to define the gospel, we have to look at the WHOLE Bible.
I have heard people, including progressive Adam Narloch, from the Deconstructionist Podcast, say “If the gospel is Jesus died on the cross for our sins, then what gospel did Jesus and His disciples preach?”
As if to say, the gospel isn’t “Jesus died on the cross for my sins” because what gospel did Jesus tell the disciples to preach before He died on the cross?
To discern darkness from light in tricky teachings from Progressive Christians, you have to know the light to know when something is dark.
Jesus prepared His disciples that He would die and resurrect. Luke 9:21
Before John baptizes Jesus, he says “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29
John knew that there needed to be a sacrifice to take away sin and he knew, that sacrifice was Jesus.
Right after Jesus gets baptized, He fasted 40 days in the wilderness, then begins His public ministry.
His first command was to “repent.”
Matthew 4:17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
When Jesus sent out the disciples to preach the good news, He had yet to die. So He sent them to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons. They proclaimed the kingdom of God was at hand.
Matthew 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
Some would argue that is the gospel….bringing the Kingdom.
Yes, it is the gospel like the middle of a movie is a part of the movie. It is a part of it. But you wouldn’t watch a movie or read a novel and stop mid way and say that is the message. You would watch the whole thing, or read your whole Bible and then declare what the message is.
After Jesus died and rose again, Paul said this was of utmost importance. It is found in our earliest creed in 1 Corinthians 15.
15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
This is what Jesus said after He resurrected:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28: 19-20
Jesus didn’t just command us to teach them to obey a part of the story. He said the WHOLE STORY of God….everything.
Yes, the Kingdom of God is at hand and coming, Jesus is Lord AND the good news is that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin, that we may be forgiven and join Him in that Kingdom.
It’s both.
That’s the whole gospel that we can preach now that we know the whole story of the Scriptures.
“Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage–with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep you head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:2-5).
