The Gospel is the good news of the free offer of eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Advocate for sinners as their High Priest.

The apostle Paul summarised the essential elements in the Gospel at the beginning of his famous defence of the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ against its detractors 1Cor 15:1-4, a basic confession for saving sinners Rom 10:9.

The godly profess that the resurrected Jesus is their “apostle and high priest” Heb 3:1. The evidence of a living faith in Jesus Christ is love to God, love to all one’s Christian brethren and love to one’s neighbour. Jesus said: “If you love Me, keep My commandments” Jn 14:15,23.

Faith must lead to good works, and prayer without repentance and a plan of action is empty words. We need prayer and action; action that needs prayer to be effective; action that will teach us and encourage us to pray in order to have God’s blessing on our work.

The Gospel needs to be distinguished from the social Gospel, which is a counterfeit gospel. The social Gospel misinterprets the Gospel as salvation by good works, or salvation by merit. Merit and grace are opposites Rom 11:6. Salvation is by free grace, God’s unmerited favour, not by merit.

This misinterpretation arises because social justice is the natural outworking of the Gospel, and social justice is mistaken for the Gospel itself. Social justice arise from the Gospel; it is not the Gospel itself.

Social justice is another way of saying that “faith without works is dead” Jam 2:20,26. Social justice is so important that Jesus taught that worship which does not arise from, and does not create Christians who are interested in social justice is vain, empty worship, which does not please God because it is devoid of proper content.

Update:

29 Jun 2016: the Free Offer of the Gospel.

3 Sep 2017: Too good to be true.

28 Mar 2022: the three-in-one Gospel – the Gospel of the kingdom Mk 1:14-15, the Gospel of salvation Eph 1:13 and the Gospel of eternal life 1Jn 5:11. Eternal life is so much more than salvation.

‘This is life eternal that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent” John 17:3.

The Lord Jesus Christ.