“What Is the Gospel?

”
(Galatians 1:6-10)

Introduction: Over the past few Lord’s Day evenings, we have seen that God is a God who
reveals Himself to men. He has shown who He is, what He is, what He requires and that He is
angry with men for violating what He requires, in nature. But the one thing that He did not
show us in nature, is how we can be reconciled to Him. That is what made the Holy Scriptures
to be so necessary for our lives. For there is nowhere else we can go to find out how we can be
saved from our sins. But, as we saw last week, the Gospel is not enough by itself apart from the
working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit must quicken the heart and incline it towards this God
whom the Scripture reveals, or salvation cannot take place. But certainly, if there is no true
Gospel, ordinarily there can be no true conversion, at least in the case of an adult. The Bible
does indicate that infants, who cannot understand anything of the saving message, may be saved,
if God so pleases. And so what we are going to examine this evening is exactly what this
Gospel is. As Paul warns us in our text this evening, we must get it right.
Paul is writing to the Galatians to dispel the false notions of the Judiazers. If you will recall,
the Judiazers were those who believed that if anyone was to be saved, they must be circumcised
and observe the Law of Moses. In essence, they were adding works to salvation and intending
to add the ceremonial law back into the message of God, even though it was fulfilled in Christ.
Paul is amazed that they are so quickly deserting the Lord Jesus Christ and His Gospel for
another Gospel. But he is quick to remind them that this other Gospel is not really another
Gospel at all, but a distortion of the truth, because it adds works to salvation. Therefore, with
the apostolic authority granted to him by Christ, he declares a very serious warning. He writes,
“But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that
which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” If it be Paul himself, or even if be an
angel from heaven, let him be accursed! And as if this wasn’t enough to confirm what it is that
he wanted to set straight, he repeats the curse again, “As we have said before, so I say again now,
if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be
accursed.” Paul declares, as John did at the end of the book of Revelation, that anyone who
would try to add or take away from the revelation of God, must face His wrath. Paul makes it
clear that, unlike the Judiazers who were men-pleasers and who desired that the Galatians would
be circumcised that they might boast in their flesh (6:13), he is not trying to please men, but
Christ, who has once and for all delivered this sacred Gospel to the apostles that they might
publish it as far and as broad as they possibly can.
It is this unchangeable Gospel that I want for us to examine this evening. Just what is the
Gospel? How can I know whether or not I am giving a complete enough Gospel to those whom
I seek to evangelize? What are the things which men can do to distort it? What I want us to
see is that

The Gospel is the simple and unchanging truth about how a person may be right with God
through faith in Jesus Christ.

I. First, you need to realize that the word “Gospel” is used in both a broad and a narrow
sense.
 2

A. The word itself means simply “good news.”

1. It is news which makes one happy, or information that causes one joy, or words which
make one smile, or a message that causes the heart to be sweet (Louw-Nida).
2. In this case, it is the good news of what God has done to redeem fallen man, which
once apprehended, is enough to bring joy to even the most depraved heart.

B But it is a word which is used as I have said, both broadly and narrowly.
1 It refers to the message itself, which is able to give one the knowledge of how they
might be reconciled to God.
2 It was later applied to the four histories which were written of our Lord’s life, the
Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
3 But it is also used collectively to express all of the doctrines contained in the Gospel:
this includes not only the proclamation of good tidings, but the teaching of how men are
to come to Christ; the truths which they are to believe concerning God and His Christ;
the precepts by which redeemed man is to live, having come to Christ; the promises
which are extended to the faithful; and the threatenings which are also promised to
those who violate those precepts.
4 This is useful to understand when you are asking the question, Is this man preaching the
Gospel? Well, that all depends on what the context is. The pastor who preaches the
Gospel from week to week in the church, not only proclaims the good tidings of
salvation in Christ, but also these other doctrines which are contained in the Gospel. In
this sense, even the Law of God, placed in its right context, is a part of the Gospel. It is
the way in which the redeemed show their love and affection for Christ.
5. But when evangelizing, the Gospel may be preached in another way, a way which
focuses mainly on the way of reconciliation with God. The threatenings of the Law are
preached, in order that the Spirit of God might open the eyes of those who are blind to
their sin. And then the Gospel is presented as the only door of escape which God
offers to men.
6. It is this aspect of the Gospel, the message we are to proclaim to men, that I would like
for us to focus on now. But before I do, I want to say just a word about how this
Gospel is to be communicated.
a. One thing that you and I must understand when we hear the Word of God preached,
is that this is not the word of man, nor the instruction of man, but God’s Word!
b. Preaching is not the same as teaching. It differs in that preaching is an authoritative
proclamation of the will of the King of kings. Teaching is simply the
communication of information. A sermon is not a Bible Study, or a calm and sedate
lecture on a theological or practical topic. It is the heralding of God’s Word to the
people of God that they might submit to it and do what He says.
c. And when the Word is preached outside of the church to those who are apart from
Christ, it remains an authoritative proclamation from God, that men should do what
He commands of them, namely to repent of their sins and to believe on His Son.
d. Now this authority is in the Word, since it is God’s Word. But God has also
appointed office in His church to which He has entrusted additional authority,
especially the authority to preach.
e. God clearly shows us in His word that the work of preaching is not given to all of
His people, but to those whom the Lord has authorized to preach.
 3

f. If you will examine the 60 contexts in which this word is used, when it refers to the
preaching of the Gospel, it is used only of those who have been specifically set apart,
or ordained, for that purpose. It is used of John the Baptist, of Jesus, of His
disciples, and of those who were set apart in the church for this purpose, even as
Mark writes of Jesus, that “He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him, and
that He might send them out to preach” (3:14).
g Now this doesn’t mean that those who are not set apart as officers in Christ’s church
cannot evangelize. But it does mean that that evangelism takes on a different
character. For some of you, this may come as a relief that God does not require you
to stand and preach to the people. For others of you, you may feel somewhat let
down because this privilege does not apply to you.
h. But realize that God still wants you to evangelize, one on one, or to a crowd of
people. The Gospel still has its same authority, and those who respond to it, in faith
and repentance, by the grace of God, will still be saved. The only difference is that
when you do so, you do not officially represent the King, as His ambassador. You
have not been set aside by Him for this purpose.

II. Having said that, let us now look at what this message is that is to be proclaimed.
A. The fundamental thing I want you to see here is that when evangelizing there is a
minimum amount of information which must make up the Gospel message. You do not
necessarily need to tell them everything which the Bible says in order for God to be able to
use your message.
1. The best way to come at this is by way of the examples of Scripture.
a. The earliest example we have is that of John the Baptist. Matthew writes, “Now in
those days John the Baptist *came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying,
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (3:1-2).
b. Now it doesn’t get much simpler than this. It is the simple message of repentance.
We must certainly take into account here that John’s message was one of preparation
for Christ, so we cannot expect this to tell us all that is necessary. But you will see
this theme of repentance repeated over and over again.
c. It is interesting that the first example we have recorded of Christ’s preaching is
exactly the same message, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt.
4:17). This may be a full description of what He said, or it may be an abbreviation,
but the important thing to realize here is that this is what the Spirit of God wanted to
preserve for us to know for our example.
d. After Jesus called His disciples, He set them apart for His work, and He sent them
out and told them, “And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at
hand’” (Matt. 10:7). Again, a very simple message. Mark says concerning this
event, “And they went out and preached that men should repent” (Mark 6:12).
e. After Jesus rose from the dead, He came to His disciples and opened their minds
that they might understand the Scriptures. Then He commissioned them, saying,
“Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third
day; and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to
all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47). It is interesting to note
here that this one recurring element in the message they preached, that of repentance,
is the one thing which many evangelicals today say must not be preached, or you are
 4

adding works to salvation.

f. We have many other examples as well. Peter, when he stood up on the day of
Pentecost, preached to the people concerning Jesus. And when they were pierced to
the heart, they said, “‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them,
‘Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the
forgiveness of your sins; and you shall be saved’” (Acts 2:37-38).
g. In Acts 3, Peter is again preaching to the Jews, and he exhorts them, “Repent
therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of
refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (v. 19).
h. After the apostles were threatened by the Sanhedrin and then released, Luke
records, “And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on
teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ” (5:42).
i. One last example is that of the Philippian jailer. You will remember that after a
great earthquake shook the jail, the doors flung open and the chains fell off of all the
prisoners. When the jailer awoke, he thought for sure that the prisoners had all
escaped, and realizing that his life was forfeited, he raised his knife to end his life.
But Paul called out to him from cell, “‘Do yourself no harm, for we are all here!’
And he called for lights and rushed in and, trembling with fear, he fell down before
Paul and Silas, and after he brought them out, he said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be
saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and
your household.’ And they spoke the word of the Lord to him together with all who
were in his house” (Acts 16:28-32).
j. The message is really quite simple. Paul writes in Romans 10:9, “That if you
confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised
Him from the dead, you shall be saved.”
k. The fact that repentance is often emphasized and faith not even mentioned should
not really surprise us, for faith and repentance are flip-sides of one another. We
must turn away from sin, in order to turn to Christ. And when we embrace Christ
with all of our heart, He saves us.
l. In the case of the thief on the cross, we don’t even have a record of any message
given to him. But yet he understood who Christ claimed to be, and he put his faith
in Him by asking Him to remember him when He came into His kingdom. Christ
said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Luke
23:43). This man was even given an assurance which I imagine we would all like to
have.

2. But seeing how simple the message actually is, we must also realize that today it is not
quite so simple.
a. Certainly, the simplicity of the message itself to the Jews must have been due to the
great deal of knowledge which they already possessed.
b. They had been schooled their whole lives in those words which were able to make
them wise unto salvation. They had also seen and heard many of the things which
Jesus had done, and knew what it was that He claimed to be. All they needed was
for the scales to drop off of their eyes which kept them from seeing the glory of
Christ. They needed to repent of their wickedness. This could not be conferred by
additional information, but only through the work of the Spirit which accompanies
 5

the preaching of the Gospel, for this is the method which God has appointed to this
end.
c. But the people of this world do not know so much today, and what they do know is
distorted. For that reason, we must be armed with the truth, with at least what are
called the fundamentals, those elementary truths of the Christian faith. What are
they? They are those elements which God deems enough for a person to have
accurately identified God, His Son, and the way of salvation.
d. I would suggest that at the very least, this would include the Triunity of God, the
divine and human natures of Christ, the virgin birth, the perfect life and atoning
death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, His ascension to God’s right hand, and His
coming again to judge the living and the dead.
e. Along with this, a person must also know about his own condition of condemnation
under the Law, and the way of salvation in Christ through faith in His name and
repentance from sin.
f. This is quite a bit more than what John the Baptist or the early apostles had to
preach, but we live in a world which is full of heresy and error on every side and a
plethora of both false gods and false Christs. They did not.

B. Beyond this, certainly anything you can tell them which will add to their knowledge of
the truth would be helpful.
1. I have told you what is essential to the being of the Gospel. If you remove any of
these elements, then you have lost a complete Gospel.
2. When you preach a complete Gospel, I believe that God is able through this to call out
those whom He has chosen, through the application of this message to their heart by the
Holy Spirit.
3. But this doesn’t mean that the Gospel cannot be made more complete, or more perfect,
through more knowledge. Or, likewise, made more imperfect through false doctrine,
even to its destruction.
a. For instance, telling others about God’s sovereignty in salvation does not appear,
from the many examples of Scripture, to be of the essence of the Gospel, at least in
the sense of that without which no one can be saved. That is, you can tell someone
the Gospel and what God requires of them, and God can save that person through
that message.
b. But this, of course, does not mean that you should not tell them about God’s
sovereignty. Jesus Himself told those disciples who were already following Him,
“No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise
him up on the last day . . . It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing”
(John 6:44, 63). We are told that “as a result of this many of His disciples
withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (v. 66).
c. You should not be afraid of telling them the truth. Jesus was not, even if it turned
people away. Jonathan Edwards believed that this doctrine of God’s absolute
sovereignty and man’s utter dependence upon Him for his salvation was one of the
most useful doctrines evangelistically, for it forced the person who heard the Gospel
to seek God for his salvation, rather than on relying upon himself for it.
d. But if a person doesn’t come to Christ already knowing and believing all that is true
concerning God, His Christ and salvation, don’t worry. When they come to church,
 6

they will learn. And when they learn that the Bible teaches these things, they will
accept them, because they have the anointing which confirms the truth in their hearts.
If they see it and do not believe it, then you can be sure that they are not converted.
e. Lastly, just a word of caution. As I said, the Gospel is really quite simple, and it is
the simple preaching and witnessing of this Gospel which God uses to bring men and
women to faith in Christ and repentance from sin. And so whoever sticks to the
straight biblical message is able to put men and women onto the path of salvation,
even, as Paul tells us in Philippians 1:18, those who preach Christ from impure
motives.
f. But what if someone adds something which is not true to the Gospel. What
happens then? Well then he may very well destroy it. It depends on how serious
the error is. If a man preaches a Unitarian God, he has destroyed the Gospel. If he
preaches a Christ who is merely a creature and not God, he has destroyed the Gospel.
If he preaches a salvation by works, he has destroyed the Gospel. If he does not
preach repentance, he certainly has destroyed the Gospel. There are many today
who believe themselves to be on their way to heaven, who still live like the
unregenerate of the world. And the reason they do is that they are unregenerate
themselves. Those who are born again from above love righteousness, and seek
after it, not after the things of the world.
g. Now what if a person preaches that God is not absolutely sovereign in salvation and
that man has the ability to come to God apart from His working? Could a person be
saved by a Gospel like this? I would have to say that if anyone is saved by this, it is
in spite of the message and not because of it. God is not in the business of
confirming lies. This is a distortion of the Gospel, serious enough to destroy it.
When an unregenerate man hears that he can come to Christ whenever he wants to,
that all he must do is pray the prayer and be saved, do you think that he will? Of
course not! He will hold out in sin until the last moment, and then think that he will
escape through a simple prayer. But he will find out at the last moment that he
cannot change his own heart, which has been hardened by years of sin, to love that
which he hates. He will most likely die in his sins, because he believed the lie that
his salvation was in his hands, when it was really entirely in God’s.
h. People of God, this is only a brief overview of what God gives us in the several
pages of His Word. But it does show us that the message of the Gospel is really
quite simple, and it is powerful to save when God pleases. If it were not so, then
how could God ever reach those whom He has not given the ability to understand the
deep things of the Lord. God tells us that He does not save many great intellects,
but really very few. Paul wrote, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there
were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but
God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has
chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the
base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not,
that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But
by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and
righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, "LET
HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD." (1 Cor. 1:26-31).
i. What God calls us to do is to forsake ourselves and embrace His Son as He is
 7

offered in the Gospel. Then He wants us to carry that same message of salvation to
others that they might be saved as well. It is not hard to do. It is in the capacity of
each one here this evening.
j. But remember, the more we learn of it, the more effectively we can apply it to
others. But let us also beware, as Paul tells us here, not to distort its truth through
the addition of any error.
k. May God bless the preaching of His Word to our hearing this evening. Amen.