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

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 – “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, He was buried and rose again the third day according to the scriptures” 1Cor 15:1-4. The bodily resurrection of Christ is an essential element in the confession of saved sinners: “If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved” Rom 10:9.

Jesus – the only High Priest

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.

Saving faith and good works

‘Saving faith’ and ‘repentance unto life’ are heavenly twins – born together in the soul by the Holy Spirit. The faith of the godly leads to good works. 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, and to join in God’s work on Earth.

The Gospel and the social Gospel

The Gospel needs to be distinguished from the social Gospel, which is a counterfeit gospel. The social Gospel misinterprets the Gospel – teaching salvation by good works, or salvation by merit. It is one form of counterfeit religion, teaching salvation by keeping rules or law-keeping. Merit and grace are opposites Rom 11:6. Salvation is by free grace, by God’s unmerited favour, not by human merit.

Social justice and its importance

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 Jul 2018: multitudes do not know the Christian Gospel.

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 eternal life, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”

The Lord Jesus Christ: John 17:3

6 Apr 2023: The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World, Andrew Doyle shows that others are beginning to recognise secular religion and its persecuting nature. It is not helpful to identify it with social justice, as it is anything but social justice, and it is more accurate to call it secular religion or ‘the religion of secularism’.