When I ask Christians to define the gospel, many times I get answers less than satisfactory. Yes, the gospel is good news, but what is the good news? Seeking to provide a biblical answer to this question, I spent some time in the New Testament, from which I concluded the following about the meaning of the "gospel."

The Greek word εὐαγγέλιον or another form of it is found 76 times in the New Testament. In the NAS, it is translated "gospel" 73 times, "gospel's" 2 times, and "good news" 1 time. Its literal meaning is "good tidings."
 
In the synoptic Gospels and John, the good news is that the divine-human Jewish Messiah had come to set up his eternal, spiritual kingdom, bringing salvation[1] to all who would repent of their sins and put their faith in him.[2] In the Christ, there was authority over sin, death, and the devil[3]. Christ brought freedom![4] The climax of the Gospels is the recounting of Jesus' death and resurrection, which is at the core of the message of the gospel, and was anticipated in the Gospels, at least by Jesus himself, who knew that redemption and freedom could only come through giving up his life.[5]  The good news doesn't stop with salvation from sin; Jesus will resurrect those he has redeemed, and they will live and reign with him forever, while the wicked will be judged and condemned.
 
I Corinthians 15:1-4 declares that the gospel is that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, after which he showed himself alive to many people. (I Cor. 15 is the only place I've seen where the gospel is actually defined in Scripture and not just described.) It is only through the death and bodily resurrection of Christ that we can have forgiveness and cleansing of sin,[6] become adopted into the family of God to be inhabited by the Spirit of God,[7] enabled to live a holy life,[8] doing that which is well-pleasing to God.[9] The gospel message also includes the hope of a new body resurrected to live eternally with Christ in a new heaven and a new earth.[10]
 
Consistent with the Gospels, the Epistles speak of the gospel as the truth -- something that should be defended and confirmed.[11] Paul spoke of his responsibility to preach the gospel. He said that he was an ambassador of the mystery of the gospel,[12] which he also calls the message of reconciliation, something all of us should proclaim as Christ's ambassadors:
 
"[God] through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God" (II Cor. 5:18-20).
 
The four aspects of the Gospel message are its benefits (salvation, which includes justification, regeneration, adoption, entire sanctification, and glorification), the Person bringing the benefits (the divine-human Jesus), the Work done by the Person to bring the benefits (the death and resurrection of Christ), and the way in which these benefits are appropriated (through faith). So the "good news" includes the Blessings,[13] the Person, the Work, and the grace-enabled Response. 
 
The blessing of salvation is more than just forgiveness. It also includes the privilege of being born again and sanctified into the likeness of Christ. Ultimately salvation includes the work of glorification.
 
The focus of the gospel message is on the Person, the one who brings the blessing by his Work. One could say that the Gospel is Christ himself. We must not forget that the only one who could bring salvation had to be both God and man as a single person to provide for us an adequate mediator who could represent both parties estranged from each other (God and man).  At the center, the gospel is the work that this perfect God-man did (in time and space) by dying and rising from the dead so that we could be forgiven. The gospel also entails the truth of how salvation is appropriated—it is only through faith in Christ that we can be saved.

In Galatians 2, Paul addressed the danger of "another gospel" than the one that he had presented. This different Gospel was that salvation could be attained by the keeping of the Mosaic Law. Paul rejected that idea as a false gospel. It is only through faith in Christ that we can be saved. It makes sense that how one appropriates salvation is part of the gospel message because if salvation is through Christ (because of the divine-human Messiah's death and resurrection), then the only way it could be appropriated is simply through identifying with Christ in his death and resurrection. Adding the works of the law as a means of salvation would be a completely different way of salvation and would mean that Christ's work is not sufficient, and even in vain.[14]

To summarize the gospel message, here's an attempt at a succinct definition: The gospel of the kingdom is the good news that we can be saved by faith in the crucified and risen divine-human Christ.
 
Or: The gospel is the good news that the divine-human Christ died and rose again to bring salvation to all who put their trust in him.

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Footnotes:

[1] Including justification, regeneration, adoption, entire sanctification, and future glorification.

[2] Mark 1:15 - “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.

[3] Mark 2, John 11, I John 3:8.

[4] John 8:36 – "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."

[5] But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain."

[6] Hebrews 9:22 – "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission."

[7] Galatians 4:4-6 – "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, 'Abba, Father!'"

[8] Hebrews 13:12 – "Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate."

[9] Hebrews 13:20-21 – "Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."

[10] Philippians 3:20-21 – "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

[11] Galatians 2:5; Ephesians 1:13; Philippians 1:7.

[12] Eph 6:19-20.

[13] Galatians uses the term 'blessing' to refer to what was appropriated by faith – "that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:14).

[14] Galatians 2:21 --  "I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."

I think one of the biggest problems we face in biblical scholarship today is the pressure to conform to the consensus opinion of the mainstream scientific community.  Many biblical scholars interpret Genesis 6-9 as teaching a local or regional flood because the scientific establishment has “proven” that the global flood did not take place and that the fossil record demonstrates millions of years of evolution instead of evidence of a worldwide flood. Many of these same scholars impose a theory of long ages on the days of Genesis 1 because the scientific establishment has convinced them that the earth is billions of years old.  Some, like Peter Enns, say that the Apostle Paul erroneously believed that Adam was an historical person. Enns thinks Paul was wrong because the scientific establishment persuaded him that man is the product of a long process of evolution. The mistake Enns makes is putting his faith in the majority of the scientific community rather than interpreting the Old Testament as Jesus and the Apostles interpreted it.

Jesus never challenged the history of the Bible.  Jesus accepted all the people and events of the OT as actually historical. He mentions them in his teaching and sometimes the point of his reference to them depended on the historical validity of the accounts. For example: Matthew 12:41 -- “Ninevah repented at Jonah’s preaching, but one greater than Jonah is here.”  or Matthew 24:37 – “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the time of the second coming.” or Matthew 11:23-24 – “If the miracles done here had been done in Sodom, it would have repented.  It will be more bearable for Sodom in the judgment.”

It is obvious from Romans 5 that Paul understood Adam as an historical person. Peter took the flood as literal, and global (II Peter 3). We are not permitted by Jesus and the apostles to understand the first few chapters of Genesis as non-literal literature.

If we resist the pressure from the scientific establishment (the new “ultimate authority” in our society) and interpret science in light of Scripture rather than the other way around, we will see less conflict between the Bible and science, and have fewer alleged discrepancies to try to explain.

Not long ago, an evangelical seminary’s dean, who claimed to believe in inerrancy, told me that trying to harmonize Scripture was inadvisable because Scripture was not always meant to be “historical on the level of precise detail.” According to his view, authors had taken the liberty to add details that didn’t actually happen (for example, when the gospel writers attempted to describe Peter’s denial of Jesus). So if we try to harmonize two passages with actually conflicting details, we may end up with a story that is less true than either of the original ones. So harmonizing is not recommended. This dean thought that we need to accept the main points as true, but that we can’t be sure about the details. The Bible is still considered to be inerrant though, because the biblical authors didn’t intend to be accurate in all the details.

One reason I disagree with this view is that if it were true, it would be impossible to distinguish between the details that the human author intended to communicate accurately (their actual truth claims), and those details with which the authors exercised artistic license. Thus we are not sure what to believe. Another reason I reject this view is that it creates a slippery slope past the line of truth (truth defined as those statements that correspond to reality). Once we cross that line by doubting this or that assertion in Scripture, I don’t see other stopping points that will keep us from sliding further away from the teachings of the Bible.

The greatest reason I reject this approach is that it makes God out to be dishonest. If the Bible really is the Word of God, then anytime we suggest that there are assertions in Scripture that don’t accurately represent reality (that are communicated as facts by the author), then the implication is that God is guilty of knowingly making statements that are factually untrue. But Titus 1:2 says that God cannot lie. So we believe that the Bible will always pass the test of truth.

This test of truth inquires whether or not a biblical author’s claims match reality.  The test first asks, “Does God (and the human author) intend through this statement to make a claim about reality?” Then it asks, “If so, does this intended communication match reality?” Those who believe that the Bible is God-breathed should always answer, “Yes” to that second question because if the Bible is God-breathed, every claim about reality in the original text of Scripture is true, and nothing will ever be shown to be false when properly interpreted.

For example, if the Gospel of John refers to two angels sitting in the tomb of Jesus after the resurrection (John 20:12), and the Gospel of Mark speaks of one angel sitting in the tomb (Mark 16:5), we should assume that John is right and that Mark is also right, even if we can’t understand how they can be reconciled. (In this case, it’s easy since Mark doesn’t say there was only one. We can assume that there were actually two but Mark was only concerned about pointing out one). How some alleged contradictions are both (or all) right we may never know, but it is safe to say that since all accounts are inspired by God and thus wholly true, attempting to harmonize the texts will normally get us closer to an accurate understanding of what happened than not attempting to harmonize the text. This is similar to the fact that a detective will likely come closer to figuring out what happened at a crime scene if he examines reports from a variety of reliable witnesses, and tries to piece the incident together.

We should not try to solve supposed contradictions by saying that the gospels were not meant to be historical on the level of precise detail. Even if the writing standards of that day allowed for the making up of details to fit the purposes of an author, both the internal and external evidence of the Gospels point to a concern for careful accuracy. The author Luke told Theophilus that he (Luke) had a “perfect understanding” of what he was writing about, and he wanted Theophilus to know “the certainty” of what happened (Luke 1:1-4). He mentioned eyewitnesses as his sources. Looking at the rest of the gospel, we can see that Luke dated events by known historical figures, such as Caesar Augustus and Cyrenius. The famous archaeologist Sir William Ramsay said, “Luke's history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness” Luke appears to have had a concern for “precise detail.”

External evidence for the historicity of the details of the gospels also includes Papias (contemporary of Apostle John), saying, “The Elder used to say this also: ‘Mark, having been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately all that he mentioned, whether sayings or doings of Christ; not, however, in order….Thus Mark committed no error in thus writing down some things as he remembered them. For he took heed to one thing: not to omit any of the things he had heard, or to set down anything falsely therein.” So here is evidence attesting to the full accuracy of Mark’s gospel, with an acknowledgement that it wasn’t necessarily presented in chronological order.  We know that presenting events in history out of order wouldn’t entail factual error unless the author made a point of saying that one event came before another when the opposite was true.

Beyond these examples of internal and external evidence, we must return to the fact that these gospels are God-breathed. How could the “God of truth,” whose “Word is pure,” contaminate his Word with claims about reality that are not in some sense true (corresponding to reality)?

If the Bible is verbally inspired (God-breathed down to the very words), then there will be nothing in Scripture that is not true, when properly understood, even when written by men with limited, and even erroneous views of the world. I am speaking of not just the "main points," but also "incidentals" or "minor details."  We all agree that God is powerful enough to keep the Bible writers from crossing over the line from the true to the false. If everything in Scripture really is the Word of God, then that is what He did-- He kept them from claiming anything contrary to the way things really are. As evangelicals who profess to believe that the Bible is without error, we should be careful to resist the temptation to qualify inerrancy in ways that in the end denies the very thing we are trying to defend.

Following is a brief argument for the inerrancy of Scripture.

Premise A: Every utterance of God is perfect, and thus free from error.

Premise B: All the truth claims of the Bible writers are the utterances of God.

Conclusion: All the truth claims of the Bible writers are free from error.

Premise A is supported by the teaching that God cannot lie (Titus 1:2) and that He knows everything (I John 3:2). God cannot say anything contrary to the way things really are. He is morally perfect and will not lead anyone astray, especially since He is omniscient. Bible writers declare that the words of God are pure (Psalm 12:6, Prov. 30:5). Paul calls Scripture the “word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). According to Romans 9:1, the truth excludes the possibility of lying. There is nothing spoken by God that is contrary to what is really real.

Premise B is supported by II Timothy 3:16 (“All Scripture is God-breathed”), and other scriptures that refer to the words of Moses and the prophets as actual words of God (Romans 3:2, Acts 28:25).

That is the deductive argument for inerrancy. If Premise A and B are true, then the conclusion (that all of the truth claims of the Bible writers are free from error) must be true. If the conclusion is true, then we must approach Scripture from the stance of faith, trusting that when properly interpreted there will be found no error in Scripture, no matter how small. Nothing will be stated as a fact (by the Bible writers themselves, not necessarily those they quote) that does not correspond to the way things really are. 

The concept of biblical inerrancy is based on the law of non-contradiction and the assumption of truth (aletheia) as correspondence to reality. But one of the arguments against inerrancy is that we are reading a modern view of truth back into Scripture when the Bible itself does not subscribe to such a strict standard for truth. I’d like to respond to this argument.

The simple version of the correspondence view of truth is that truth is that which corresponds with reality. In other words, a statement is true if and only if it matches the way things really are. Implied in the correspondence view are the fundamental laws of thought: 1) Something is what it is.  2) Either something is or it is not. And 3) Something cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect (the law of non-contradiction). The correspondence view of truth assumes this law of non-contradiction (and the other related laws) and insists that a statement is false if it does not correspond with the way things really are. If two statements absolutely contradict one another, they cannot both be true (they cannot both match the way things really are), and they both could be false -- if neither of them correspond to reality.

This correspondence view of truth is implicit throughout Scripture, beginning in Genesis. The very first lie in the Bible (the serpent telling Eve, “Ye shall not surely die”) was a lie because it contradicted reality.  Eve, and Adam, actually died from eating the forbidden fruit.

Deuteronomy 18:21-22 taught the Israelites that they could test prophets according to whether or not their prophecies came to pass. If a statement (the prophecy) matched the reality (the event predicted actually occurred in time and space), then the prophet passed that test. If the prediction did not match reality, then the prophet was considered false. The truth was determined by its correspondence to reality.

The truth of Christianity hinges on whether or not Jesus actually rose from the dead. If his body still lies in the grave, then we have been deceived into following a false religion. The apostles knew that their claim that Jesus rose from the dead had to match reality. Paul confessed that he would be a false witness (a liar) if his truth claim didn’t match reality (I Cor. 15:15). The correspondence view of truth is assumed here.

Jesus himself warned us of false prophets and false Christs, and said that they would deceive many (Matthew 24:11). He was concerned about what people believed. If one believes that a particular person is a Messiah when in reality the Messiah is another person, he will lose his soul for putting his faith in the wrong person. The correspondence view of truth is implicit in this teaching of Jesus.

I have shared just a few examples of a multitude of indicators that the Bible assumes the correspondence view of truth. This understanding of truth culminates in the claim of Jesus to be the Truth -- the disclosure of Ultimate Reality, the Source of anything else that is real.  Christ embodies that Reality as a Divine Person.

A few weeks ago I delivered a paper at the WTS meeting on the subject of the minimum that one must believe to be saved. The paper is on this website here.  This blog post will give you an opportunity to respond to that paper once you have read it (comment below). Below is an excerpt:

My understanding of prevenient grace significantly impacts my view of the unevangelized. I believe that prevenient grace is extended to everyone in the world. If one responds to prevenient grace, no matter how far removed he is from missionary influences, God will give him (or her) more light and grace. This grace can eventually enable the seeker to exercise faith in Jesus, even if the seeker doesn’t know the name of Jesus, or even if God has to send a missionary or angel to reveal important truths to him. God will save anyone who seeks the one true God of creation with his whole heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

No one will stand before God and truthfully say that it was impossible for him to find the true God and trust in Jesus. If someone is not a seeker of God throughout his life, he will realize when he stands at the judgment that he could have begun to seek God and would have been given sufficient special revelation (at least enough to exercise implicit faith in Christ) if he had been a genuine (and persistent) seeker of God.