What Gospel Did Jesus Preach?
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When most people think of the gospel, their minds go to John 3:16 and Christ’s death on the cross to save sinners from God’s wrath. Yet, while the Lord Jesus walked the earth before He went to the cross, He preached the gospel. John 3:16 is an integral part of the gospel, but we need to consider God’s entire redemptive plan to fully understand Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. We need to understand the gospel Jesus preached.
What Does John 3:16 Mean?
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Let’s analyze the passage:
What is “for” connecting us to? John 3:15 says Jesus, as the Son of God, would be lifted up. This phrase has a twofold meaning, in that it refers both to Christ’s death, and His resurrection/exaltation.
God so loved the world. The word “so” can be read “in this way.” In this way God loved the world. In what way?
The answer is in the way God gave His only begotten Son. What does it mean that God gave us Jesus? God sent His Son, the second Person of the Trinity, to earth as a man to suffer and die to pay the penalty for the sins of man. He did not spare His only Son.
“Whoever believes in Him” denotes a special group of people, for not all did or will believe in Him. It’s an exclusive group because those who do not choose to believe in Him are excluded.
“Shall not perish” means the one who believes will not suffer God’s wrath (Romans 5:6-11; Galatians 3:26-29; 1 Thessalonians 5:9).
The believer in Christ will instead have eternal life (1 John 5:10-13).
John 3:16 embodies the gospel in its fulfillment form. Jesus, when He walked the earth, gave us the means to believe, and He gave us the whole exposition of Himself as the Gospel. The cross is the fixed point of Jesus’ proclamation of the gospel (Luke 9:51). His resurrection and exaltation are the exclamation point. Jesus’ return, God’s glory, and believers’ redemption are the grand finale of the gospel.
What Is the Gospel?
The Bible defines the gospel as “good news.” Therefore, any time we see the word, “gospel” in the Bible, we can read it as good news. Each of the four accounts of Jesus’ life on earth are called gospels; the gospels give us the account of the good news according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
Mark 1:1 says, “The beginning of the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” As with the other three gospel accounts, Mark reveals many of the events of Jesus’ life on earth, including Jesus’ actions and what He spoke (John 20:30-31). Everything about Jesus sums up the gospel because all of Scripture is centered on Jesus, Who is Himself the Gospel. He is the good news God planned to bring to humanity from before time began (John 17; 1 Peter 1:10-21).
To further answer the question, “What is the gospel?” we need to go back to the beginning of humanity — back to Adam — and learn the “why” of the gospel. God created Adam as a perfect man in perfect communion with God. Nothing hindered their relationship, until Satan influenced Adam’s wife, Eve, to disobey the Lord God. Their disobedience brought sin and death to all of humanity. We would be lost and without hope, but God…
In Genesis 3:15, God reveals His redemptive plan in what’s called the protoevangelium (the first form of the gospel). From that moment on God unveils and advances His redemptive activity through Jesus Christ to bring us back into a right and worshipful relationship with Him (Genesis 1:1-Revelation 22:21).
Adam fell and lost his perfect communion with God. Pastor Don Stewart helps us understand, “Adam had one nature – that of a human. He had the possibility of disobedience and did disobey God. After the sin of Adam and Eve, animal sacrifices were brought to God. Yet the blood of animals could not take away the sin of Adam and his race. God had to have perfect human nature sacrificed in place of sinful human nature.”
Jesus, as the good news, is the sinless and perfect Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-48). Only Jesus can save sinners, and the Bible shows us how God preserved the good Seed (the ancestry of Christ) throughout history which culminated in the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus provided the perfect sacrifice to take away Adam’s legacy of sin and death (Romans 5:12). Only our sinless Lord Jesus Christ can take away the sins of the world (John 1: 17, 29; Hebrews 7:25-26).
As Jesus preached the good news, He shared His redemptive purpose — the best news ever.
From Genesis 1:1-Revelation 22:21, the gospel is proclaimed because it has everything to do with Jesus, the Creator of everything that’s been made (Colossians 1:16). From the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15) to the angel proclaiming the everlasting gospel in Revelation 14:6-7, the Bible is full of the gospel — the good news.
What Did Jesus Say about the Gospel?
When God gave us His Son, He gave us everything Christ embodies (the Way, and the Truth, and the Life). When Jesus preached the gospel, He preached everything about Himself as the Gospel of God and the Gospel of the kingdom of God. When Jesus came to earth in His incarnation, He brought the good news with Him and he brought the kingdom. For wherever Christ is, there is the kingdom.
A revealing event is described in Luke 24:13-35. On the same day Mary Magdalene and the other Mary discovered the empty tomb, two despondent disciples were walking to Emmaus, a hike of over seven miles. The Bible tells us they were talking and debating about all that had transpired in Jerusalem. Jesus joined them as an as-yet unrecognized traveler and asked them about their conversation. “And one of them, named Cleopas, answered and said to Him, ‘Are You the only one visiting Jerusalem and unaware of the things which have happened here in these days?’”
Let’s stop here and consider something of extreme importance. Cleopas and his friend were talking to the only one who understood the eternal ramifications of what just happened. Can you imagine being along on that road with Jesus when, “…beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). Jesus didn’t say some of the Scriptures; He said all. The Scripture about which they spoke was the Old Testament. From this interaction, we learn the gospel permeated the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18:15-18). God “put on flesh” and walked among men (John 1:14), and the gospel is manifest in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus Preached the Gospel of God and the Gospel of the Kingdom
Because Jesus is God, the gospel as referred to by Jesus and as proclaimed by Him is the gospel of God. Mark 1:14-15 states, “Now after John had been delivered up into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
Mark 1:14 tells us Jesus preached the gospel, and verse 15 tells us Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” We can paraphrase this sentence, “God set the exact time for Me to come, and here I am bringing the kingdom of God to you, because it’s in Me. You can enter the kingdom by repenting of your sins and believing in Me.”
When Jesus preached about the kingdom of God coming near (being at hand) in Mark 1:14, it’s earth-shattering. He means that He brought God’s rule and reign with Him when He came to earth. Nothing like that had ever before happened in all of history.
Jesus, upon His incarnation, was the beginning of the fulfillment of the establishment of the kingdom. Because Jesus inaugurated the kingdom through His resurrection, one day everything will be made new (Revelation 21:5). The kingdom yet to come will be perfect in peace, righteousness, and holiness. The old will be gone and no more earthly tears will be shed (Revelation 21:1-5).
9Marks shares, “Yet while this gospel of the kingdom has striking global implications, it is fundamentally a message about what Jesus has done to save sinners. Jesus said that unless a man is born again — a new birth that can only come through hearing the gospel (1 Pet. 1:23) — he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Paul makes it clear that the only way anyone participates in this kingdom is by believing in Jesus Christ and living a life that demonstrates the reality of that faith” (1 Cor. 6:9-11, 15:50).
Luke 4:18 shows us Jesus speaking to the disciples whom John the Baptist sent to see if He was the Messiah. Part of Jesus’ answer was, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because he anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.” The “poor” Jesus referred to here are the same as the poor He mentioned in Luke 6:20 — the poor in Spirit. They knew they needed Jesus; they were needy for Him and for His kingdom. That’s what He preached to them, all about Himself and all about the kingdom He brought. The kingdom now resides within each person who believes.
Why Do We Need to Understand the Gospel?
We’ve scratched enough of the surface to realize Jesus is what He proclaimed (the gospel). But it so permeates the gospels, we could transcribe each of them here to illustrate how Jesus brought the good news to the world.
As Christians, we are Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20), and we are to follow Christ’s command to make disciples and teach them all about Christ and His commandments (Matthew 28:19-20).
We must, however, be careful with how we handle the gospel.
The Apostle Paul wrote the book of Galatians as a letter to a church who was deserting God’s grace to follow another gospel. It’s imperative we hold to the true gospel and don’t sway to our own or the world’s sinful speculations. There is only one gospel. Galatians 1:6-9 says there are those who distort the gospel of Christ. It happened then and it continues today.
In the American Gospel series, (Christ Crucified), Deconstructionist podcast host Adam Narloch exclaimed disbelief when he questioned Mark 1:14, “Now after John had been delivered up into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God,” Narloch said, “In Mark, chapter one, Jesus starts preaching the gospel. What was He preaching? He hadn’t died yet. Nobody had unpacked any of it … so if he went out and started preaching the gospel, I know that no matter what — whatever He was preaching is different than what I’ve been told the gospel is.”
In the same video, author and emergent church leader, Tony Jones gives his answer to the question, “What is the gospel?” He said, “It’s a bad question that is not answerable. You cannot answer, ‘What is the gospel?’ Jesus was preaching the gospel before He dies on the cross for sin. So, it must be more than His death on the cross or we wouldn’t even have had the gospels. We would just have, “Jesus died, here’s some Paul.’”
These men aren’t considering the whole counsel of God. The gospel before Jesus’ death is the same gospel after His death. The gospel for everyone means believing in faith the Person and work of Jesus, the Messiah sent by God to accomplish His redemptive purposes (Matthew 16:16, 26:63-64; John 5:36, 17:4; Isaiah 53; 1 Corinthians 15:1-8).
Galatians 3:8 tells us God proclaimed the gospel beforehand to Abraham. In the fullness of time, God sent His Son (Galatians 4:4). Everything before Christ looks forward to Him, and everything after Christ explains Him (Romans 5:12-21). The entire Bible has always been about Jesus; therefore, it’s always been about the gospel.
When we understand the fullness of the gospel, we can better emulate Christ when we share the good news of God’s redemptive plan for humanity.
Photo credit: ©Getty Images/manusapon kasosod
