Tags

, , ,

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is jesus-good-news.jpg

I love it that God sent His Son Jesus to bring us good news. God is in a good mood and so it stands that His Son is all about good news. I love it! It gives me great joy. Let’s shout it out!

We get confused though because we hear about the Gospel all the time. We say it ourselves over and over. I think we need to stop using that word. Seriously.

People understand what good news means. They don’t have a clue what the Gospel means and it makes us sound like religious elites to use it. Okay, rant over. 🙂

The word gospel literally means “good news” and occurs 93 times in the Bible, exclusively in the New Testament. In Greek, it is the word euaggelion, from which we get our English words evangelist, evangel, and evangelical.

The gospel is, broadly speaking, the whole of Scripture; more narrowly, the gospel is the good news concerning the Messiah and the way of deliverance (salvation).

Good News (Gospel) — As good and joyful news: The good news (aka gospel) involves Jesus’ death on the cross as the sin offering to fulfill the Law’s righteous requirement. Under the Law, animal sacrifices were offered year after year as a reminder of sin and a symbol of the coming sacrifice of the Messiah. When the Messiah offered Himself at Calvary, that symbol became a reality for all who would believe. The work of atonement is finished now, and that’s good news.

  • Matthew 4:23 (NASB)  — Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
  • Mark 1:14  — Now after John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the good news of God.
  • Mark 16:15  — And He said to the disciples, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.“
  • Luke 2:10–11  — But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is the Messiah the Master.”
  • The gospel also involves Jesus’ resurrection on the third day.
    • “He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification” (Romans 4:25).
    • The fact that Jesus conquered sin and death (sin’s penalty) is good news, indeed.
    • The fact that He offers to share that victory with us is the greatest news of all (John 14:19).