Why the Gospel?

Why does God proclaim the gospel to mankind? What is the goal of the gospel?

In God's kindness, He reveals His plans and works to us in 66 books that we call the Bible. This compilation has a central, unified story: God rescuing a people for Himself forever. How God rescues His people (and from what) is the climax or good news of the story. In a word, God's rescue plan is the gospel.

In Greg Gilbert's very helpful book, "What is the Gospel?", the gospel is summarized helpfully with four words: God, Man, Christ, Response. Here's a brief glance at the gospel's overall content.

• God - In the beginning, God created everything for His glory. God owns all things, including all people. He determines not only what exists but why it exists. He determined that humanity should exist to worship Him and to glorify Him forever. As humans worship God, God is glorified and humans are happy. In the beginning, this was so and it was very good.
  
  
• Man - God made mankind (male and female) in His image. This means He made us to image His good character to the world, to fill the world with other image bearers and to have dominion as managers over His creation. As mankind worships God, fills the world, and exercises godly reign, everyone and everything is blessed. However, no one followed God's plan perfectly. We all turned away, rebelled, sinned, and worshiped something less than God. As the supreme King, God would punish such rebellion soundly and justly forever.
  
  
• Christ - God is not only the just King, but the gracious God. He will punish evil fully, and He loves mankind that rebelled against Him. So, God decided to send His Son, Jesus (who is fully God and fully man), to live the perfect life every human before and after Him failed to live. Jesus never sinned in any way, and perfectly worshiped God in all ways. Then, Jesus took the punishment for our sins on Himself. Such punishment was portrayed by a brutal death on a Roman cross, a horrible method of execution. On a Friday many years ago, Jesus died. Then, on the following Sunday morning, Jesus rose from the dead, fully alive again. After appearing to hundreds of people to confirm His resurrection, Jesus ascended to heaven where He now rules next to His Father until one day He comes back to fully establish God's rule on earth. 
  
  
• Response - That's good news, but now it must become my good news and your good news. For the gospel to be good news to an individual, one must respond. The Bible tells us to receive this good news by admitting that we have indeed sinned and rebelled against God. Next, we believe or trust in Jesus alone to forgive us of our sins as our Savior. Finally, we commit to follow Jesus alone as the Lord of our lives.

The gospel is the good news that God rescues rebellious humans, like you and me, by sending Jesus to die for us. By faith in Jesus I can be forgiven and live with God forever. Praise God for such good news.

Now, all of that is necessary back-story for the question of this post: Why the Gospel?

Paul wrote the letter to the church(es) in Rome to share the gospel he had received, as he states clearly:

• Paul claimed to have been set apart for "the gospel of God - the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord," (Romans 1:1-4).
• Paul concludes this letter in much the same way, referring to the gospel he received, "Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ," (Romans 16:25).

Romans might be one of the clearest and most thorough explanations of the gospel in the Bible, because Paul had not yet been to Rome in person to explain the good news. He therefore wrote this letter to explain God's rescue plan to Rome. Suppose we were to ask Paul, "What's the goal of the gospel as you understand it?" How would Paul reply? Let's look at the beginning and end of Romans for a phrase that explains why the Gospel.

• "Through him [Jesus] we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name's sake," (Romans 1:5, emphasis added).
• The message about Jesus "now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith - to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ!" (Romans 16:26-27, emphasis added).

You may have thought, "the purpose of the Gospel is the same as God's purpose in creation - to get glory for His Name from everyone, everywhere, forever." And, A+ for you, that's correct. However, suppose I pressed with the question, "What change does Paul expect the gospel to produce so that God is forever glorified by His people?" how would you respond? That is the purpose I think many of us miss.

You see, the gospel is good news to sinners because it is NOT a list of things we must do to get back into God's good graces. Instead, it is a story of what God has done to rescue us from our impossible situation. That is good news. Because the gospel is a story of grace and not of works (as many could rightly point out in Romans 1-4), I have heard many pitting any kind of human effort against the gospel.

But, Paul's purpose statements show us that the gospel is good news to forgive AND to transform sinners. Paul said the purpose was to bring about "the obedience that comes from faith" (Romans 1:5, 16:26). This means "the obedience which springs from faith" (see Leon Morris, Pillar Commentary on Romans). The purpose of this good news is that all people (even Gentiles like me who are not born part of the Jewish people), might come to trust God and from that faith be transformed to obey God by God's power for God's glory. Kevin DeYoung has called this transformation faith-fueled obedience.

Here's a very broad sketch of Romans in reverse to help us see how Paul fleshes out this purpose of the gospel:

• The goal of the Gospel is that we be transformed by renewed minds and hearts to actually worship God from the heart and obey Him in all areas of life (Romans 12-16).
• God has not forgotten His promise to the Jews, but has chosen people from among all nations to hear and to receive the good news and live out a life submitted to Christ's lordship (Romans 9-11).
• God sent His Holy Spirit to indwell His people to empower us to actually follow God's ways, living a life of worship and obedience (Romans 8).
• God's Holy Spirit is necessary in us because apart from Him, we all live as if we are still slaves to sin, doing the wrong things we don't even really want to do because we are so accustomed to disobeying God (Romans 6-7).
• God sent Jesus to achieve a perfect righteousness for us by His death and resurrection so that we can be declared right and so that God's Spirit can come to live in us (Romans 3-5).
• We all needed God to send Jesus because none of us were righteous, having chosen to worship creation rather than Creator, and falling short of the laws God gave (Romans 1-3).

Christian, you were saved to depend on God (Father, Son, and Spirit), to follow Jesus as Lord, obeying Him from faith. Think of it the way Max Lucado has often said, "God loves you just the way you are. And God loves you too much to leave you that way." When you become a Christian you are being forgiven by God's grace AND you are signing up for a life of being transformed by God's grace. That transforming grace is most directly expressed by God sending His Holy Spirit to indwell His people so that they may obey God. The gospel is NOT against effort; the gospel is against effort independent of God for one's own glory. Paul preached the gospel so that Gentiles came to believe Jesus, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and to begin the journey of obeying God by trusting God.

Truly the old song is helpful, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey."