FollowAs the elders of God’s church here at Elim, we sense God calling us to cultivate and equip a community of everyday missionaries, who follow Jesus as Savior and Lord, as we grow in our love for God, God’s Word, God’s people of every culture and ethnicity, and God’s purposes in the world.
As we kick off a new year, we want to get practical in how we resource you to live this life to which God calls you. We begin by asking the simple question: What is “the gospel”?
“Gospel” is our English translation of the Greek word euangelion. It is a compound of the prefix eu-, which means “good,” and the root angelion, which means “announcement” or “news.” The gospel is the “good announcement,” but what content do we broadcast?
For those who have spent any time around Christianity, it is fairly easy to come up with a word cloud of gospel-associated ideas and concepts—”forgiveness,” “salvation,” “Jesus,” “the cross,” “eternal life”—but it is harder for us to communicate our news with clarity and conciseness. Allow me offer some language (adapted from Jonathan Dodson’s Gospel-Centered Discipleship):
The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, and the salvation made possible for all who believe.
The gospel is the glad announcement that Jesus has defeated evil, sin, and death, through His own life, death, and resurrection, and is making all things new, even us.
The first announcement of this good news comes in the opening chapters of the Hebrew Bible. Shortly after Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, the LORD God speaks to the serpent: “I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He [the offspring of Eve, the Son of Man] will strike your head, and you will strike His heel.” (Genesis 3:15; CSB)
From the Garden of Eden, we hear the promise of a coming newness. Our enemy, that satanic deceiver who desires our destruction and the defacement of God’s good world, will be crushed beneath the foot of a deliverer. Evil, sin, and death will be defeated, but it will come at great cost. This Son of Eve will endure a grievous wound. The venomous snake will get his fangs into our Savior, but it will not thwart His victory.
The earliest announcement of this good news in the New Testament is found on the lips of Jesus himself in the Gospel of Mark: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15; CSB)
Now is the time! God is at hand in Christ to establish His good, just, and beautiful rule on the earth, to rescue us from our domination by every power that rivals God’s authority and the devastation of our own wrongdoing and rebellion.
Will you receive it? Will you reorient your life to respond to new reality?
Embrace it. Trust it. Believe it.
Let it make you new.