Theological Term of the Week: The Gospel

gospel (the)

The good news of what God has accomplished through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the story of what God has done to save his people from their sins.

• From scripture: 

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. 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…. (I Corinthians 15:1-4 ESV) 

• From The Canons of Dordt, The Second Main Point of Doctrine: 

Article 1: The Punishment Which God’s Justice Requires

God is not only supremely merciful, but also supremely just. His justice requires (as he has revealed himself in the Word) that the sins we have committed against his infinite majesty be punished with both temporal and eternal punishments, of soul as well as body. We cannot escape these punishments unless satisfaction is given to God’s justice.

Article 2: The Satisfaction Made by Christ

Since, however, we ourselves cannot give this satisfaction or deliver ourselves from God’s anger, God in his boundless mercy has given us as a guarantee his only begotten Son, who was made to be sin and a curse for us, in our place, on the cross, in order that he might give satisfaction for us.

Article 3: The Infinite Value of Christ’s Death

This death of God’s Son is the only and entirely complete sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; it is of infinite value and worth, more than sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.

Article 4: Reasons for This Infinite Value

This death is of such great value and worth for the reason that the person who suffered it is—as was necessary to be our Savior—not only a true and perfectly holy man, but also the only begotten Son of God, of the same eternal and infinite essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Another reason is that this death was accompanied by the experience of God’s anger and curse, which we by our sins had fully deserved.

Article 5: The Mandate to Proclaim the Gospel to All

Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel. 

• From Systematic Theology by Robert Letham: 

[T]he heart of the gospel relates to Christ; all roads must eventually lead there. This is clear from the sermons to Jewish and Gentile audiences in Acts. Paul’s comment in 1 Timothy 1:15 is crucial: “Christ Jesus cam into the world to save sinners.” God has revealed good news; this central point is the gospel strictly speaking, and all other elements relate to it the way the rim and spokes of a bicycle whell are connected to the hub.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is the gospel? and What are the essentials of the gospel message?
2. Ligonier Ministries: The Gospel
3. Monergism.com: What Is the Gospel?
4. Jeffrey C. Nesbitt: A Gospel Summary
5. Southern Seminary: What Is the Gospel? (video)
6. R. C. Sproul and Sinclair Ferguson: What Is the Gospel? (video)
7. Burk Parsons: What Is the Gospel?
8. Ray Ortlund: What Is the Gospel?
9. Steve Lawson: What Is the Gospel?
10. Robert Godfrey: What Is the Gospel?
11. Don Carson: What Is the Gospel?
12. The Gospel Coalition: What Is the Gospel?

Related terms:

• active obedience of Christ
• Christ alone
• incarnation
• justification
• passive obedience of Christ
• propitiation
• reconciliation
• redemption
• resurrecton of Jesus
• substitutionary atonement

Filed under Salvation

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Sunday Hymn: Christ Our Hope in Life and Death

What is our hope in life and death?
Christ alone, Christ alone.
What is our only confidence?
That our souls to Him belong.

Who holds our days within His hand?
What comes, apart from His command?
And what will keep us to the end?
The love of Christ, in which we stand.

O sing hallelujah!
Our hope springs eternal;
O sing hallelujah!
Now and ever we confess
Christ our hope in life and death.

What truth can calm the troubled soul?
God is good, God is good.
Where is His grace and goodness known?
In our great Redeemer’s blood.

Who holds our faith when fears arise?
Who stands above the stormy trial?
Who sends the waves that bring us nigh
Unto the shore, the rock of Christ? 

Unto the grave, what shall we sing?
“Christ, He lives; Christ, He lives!”
And what reward will heaven bring?
Everlasting life with Him.

There we will rise to meet the Lord,
Then sin and death will be destroyed,
And we will feast in endless joy,
When Christ is ours forevermore.

Words and Music by Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker, Matt Papa

©2020 Getty Music Publishing (BMI) / Messenger Hymns (BMI) / Jordan Kauflin Music (BMI) / Matthew Merker Music (BMI) / Getty Music Hymns and Songs (ASCAP) / Love Your Enemies Publishing (ASCAP)  

Another hymn for this Sunday:

• The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended at The Happy Wonderer 

Theological Term of the Week: Glorification

glorification

The completion of the application of redemption to believers in which all of God’s people will be instantly and perfectly conformed, both body and spirit, to the image of the risen and glorified Christ when he returns.

• From scripture: 

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,  in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53 ESV).

… Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,  so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV) 

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith: 

CHAPTER 32
Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead




2. At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls forever.

• From Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray: 

Without resurrection of the body from the grave and the restoration of human nature to its completeness after the pattern of Christ’s resurrection on the third day and according to the likeness of the glorified human nature in which he will appear in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory there is no glorification. It is not the vague sentimentality and idealism so characteristic of those whose interest is merely the immortality of the soul. Here we have the concreteness and realism of the Christian hope epitomized in the resurrection to live everlasting and signalized by the descent of Christ from heaven with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God.

Learn more:

1. Gerald Bray: Glorification
2. Ligonier Ministries: Glorification
3. Martin Blocki: The Ordo Salutis: Glorification
4. R. C. Sproul: The Difference Between Our Sanctification and Our Glorification (video)
5. Michael Horton: Glorification (video)

Related terms:

• justification
• sanctification
• spiritual body

Filed under Salvation

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.