The Heart of the Gospel
In the opening words of his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Corinthians 1:17, emphasis added). Just a few verses later, he wrote, “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23, emphasis added). Then a paragraph or two after that, he wrote again, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2, emphasis added).
Thus Paul neatly summarized the gist of the gospel: It is a declaration about the atoning work of Christ.
In the preaching of Christ and the apostles, the gospel was always punctuated by a clarion call to repentant faith. But it is not merely a summons to good behavior. It’s not a liturgy of religious ceremonies and sacraments. It’s not a plea for self-esteem and human dignity. It’s not a manifesto for culture warriors or a rallying cry for political zealots. It’s not a mandate for earthly dominion. It’s not a sophisticated moral philosophy seeking to win admiration and approval from the world’s intellectual elite, or a lecture about the evils of cultural and racial division. It’s not an appeal for “social justice.” It’s not a dissertation on gender issues or a prescription for “redeeming culture.” It’s not the kind of naive, indiscriminate congeniality that is content to sing “Kumbaya” to the rest of the world.
Within the past half-decade I have seen every one of those ideas touted as “the gospel” in various books, blogs, and sermons. They are all deviations or distractions from the true gospel as proclaimed by Paul.
The cross of Jesus Christ is the sum and the focus of the gospel according to Paul: “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Corinthians 1:23). “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14). And in Pauline theology, the cross is a symbol of atonement. “Christ crucified” is a message about redemption for sinners.
How vital is that truth, and how crucial for the messenger to stay on point? To make the gospel about anything else is to depart from biblical Christianity. Paul’s teaching is not the least bit ambiguous about this. It’s the very definition of what he meant when he spoke of “my gospel” (Romans 2:16; 16:25). Quite simply, the gospel is good news for fallen humanity regarding how sins are atoned for, how sinners are forgiven, and how believers are made right with God.
Faithfulness to the Christian gospel demands that we never stray from the centrality of Christ’s atoning work on behalf of His people—fulfilling the law that we have broken and suffering the punishment that we deserve. And we’ll explore the central biblical truths of that great exchange in the days ahead.
