Introduction

The word we refer to as ‘gospel’ comes from the Greek word euangelion and means “good news”, “glad tidings.” This word is probably one of the most important single words in the New Testament because the meaning of “gospel” is essential for a proper understanding of the central message of the Bible and the essence of Christian faith. It is also essential for the mission God’s people in today’s world. And there is a particular place in the New Testament where we go first to find an explanation and elaboration of the “gospel,” namely to the writings of the great Apostle Paul. We go to him because he was the very first to reflect profoundly and write extensively about the meaning and crucial significance of the gospel for Christian faith and for Christian living and witness in the world. Not less than 60 times (out of a total of 76 in NT) the word “gospel” appears in the pauline corpus! Thus, everyone would agree if we say that “the gospel” marked Paul’s life, teaching, ministry, indeed his entire existence as he saw his entire life being “set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom 1:1). In this short article we will offer a few clarifications of the content and meaning of the “gospel”, mostly from Romans, and will show why this represents the greatest good news for the world and how this contains in itself the power for a radically new life in Christ.

The current state of the world and the need of the gospel

We experience nowadays a most painful reality of a world gone wrong, a world which has rejected and rebelled against God and which gets in its own reality the consequences of this rebellion. Having rejected God, part of humanity, following their own desires and inclinations, have come to experience the full power of sin which displays in low and base behaviour and degradation, in any possible form of idolatry, sexual immorality and hedonism (Rom.1:18-32). No wonder the end result is a world of fear, hopelessness and despair. We know it very well, in Central and Eastern Europe, and have been witnessing for over half a century the destructive power of sin manifested through a harsh and cruel ideology that enslaved and destroyed millions of lives. And this in the name of a humanity come of age, which excluded God and pretended that it did not need God. The result is too painful not to make us cry: a desperate, violent, immoral, cruel and hopeless world. This is the final destination of a world without God, of a people living under the power of sin.

Now, when someone lives in a state of fear and oppression, of dominance and injustice, of hopelessness and despair, the announcement of a good news draws immediate and undeterred attention. Indeed, the very possibility that there might be another way of life, that there might be justice, and peace, and hope, and a newness of life from which no one is excluded, leaves everyone with eager expectation to hear more! And this is exactly the offer which apostle Paul announces in his epistle to the Romans: the good news of redemption, the gospel of God, the amazing news that in Jesus Christ, God has acted decisively to redeem the world; that the gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone, the power of God for a new and meaningful life in which there is peace and hope and justice and welcome! For those of us in Central and Eastern Europe who have been leaving in a totalitarian regime for almost half a century, and who after such a long period of transition towards a better world have almost lost hope, the message of this letter sounds loud and clear. And hopeful at the same time. Because the message of the gospel is about reconciliation and peace, about justice and truth, about love and hope, indeed the good news of a new life now possible “in Christ.” Our world needs to hear such good news!

Gospel as good news in the letter to the Romans

Apostle Paul wrote the letters to the Romans to respond to a very complex situation in the church in Rome and to explain clearly the content of the gospel and its implications for everyday living. The fact the Paul had not visited the church in Rome and so the believers there did not hear the gospel from him, may give us a clear indication of why he has taken more space to elaborate in more details the meaning of the gospel for the life of the believers. For the same reasons, in addition to the gospel, he develops some other central themes of the new Christian faith, such as: salvation, justification by faith, peace, justice, righteousness of God, freedom from the law, suffering, hope, life in the Spirit, reconciliation and new life.  

Paul begins his presentation of the gospel in Romans with a crucially important truth, namely that this is the gospel of God (1:1). And this is significant in several ways. First, because Paul sets himself and his mission in the continuation of the same mission of Jesus which the evangelist Mark presents it: “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel’” (Mk. 1:14-15). So Paul follows the same mission like that of Jesus, namely to proclaim the gospel of God, the good news of God redeeming the world.

Second, this is clearly set in Graeco-Roman context where the gospel meant good news about Caesar! Paul’s announcement of the gospel of the crucified and raised Messiah would, inevitably, come in some sort of conflict with the imperial ideology –where good news was about Caesar, the Roman Emperor, about victory or accession, about the birth of his son, it was the imperial good news of peace and justice, the famous and much celebrated pax romana, forwhich the empire was very proud. And since Caesar provided the peace and justice for the world it was supposed to be considered as the kyrios (lord), and saviour of the world. It is in this context, and in stark contrast to the imperial gospel, that we should understand Paul’s bold statement that the good news he proclaims is the gospel of God, coming from no one else but God alone. The true good news is the gospel of God, in Jesus Christ – which is God’s action to put the world right, to bring his peace and justice to this beautiful yet fallen and corrupted world. He has accomplished this not through violence and war but through the self-giving life of Jesus Christ. This is the astonishing story we find in Paul’s letter to the Romans – the significant and wonderful yet costly journey of God’s redeeming the world and bringing his peace and justice for the entire creation. Jesus not Caesar brings true peace and justice! Given the royal lineage to David, the King of Israel, and the true lordship of the world that Christ represents (Rom 1:1-5), Paul’s gospel would, no doubt, challenge any other such pretences, especially of the empire.

Thirdly, and probably most significantly in the context of the letter to the Romans, is that the condition of humanity is so utterly desperate, and the powers that control and enslave humanity, Sin and Death, are so powerfully overwhelming that is it only God that can announce and deliver the good news of redemption. And this is exactly what Paul says about the gospel, that it is the power of God for salvation (1:16). The good news of redemption, of reconciliation and new life is the gospel of God in Jesus Christ, through the life-giving power of the Spirit. This is very actual and relevant for our context where we feel many times in a never-ending transition, that there is no future, that the situation is so desperate and there is no hope for us. Paul reassures us that God has the good news of redemption, of new life in Christ, for everyone.

There is yet one more significant point Paul makes about the gospel, before he goes to its content. This gospel of God, he says, was promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures (1:2) and it is here that Paul makes a crucial connection with God’s redemptive plan recorded in the OT, the Jewish Scripture. Thus, the gospel Paul proclaims is not an invention of his own, nor a brand new thing under the sun, but the longstanding plan and promise of God to put things to right, to solve the problem of sin, to intervene once again in the world and offer full redemption in Christ. So, Paul anchors his gospel in the plan of God, in the mission of God to rescue the world and redeem it, the mission which reached its climax in Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And this is exactly the next move that Paul makes in his presentation of the gospel.

It is this real good news of life transforming power that people in our world today are desperate to hear. Not ideologies and creeds and doctrines and forms! But the news of an alternative life, about the real possibility and power to live a new life of faith, of love, of hope in a desperate and hopeless world.

The good news  of Jesus Christ

The content of this gospel of God is none other than his Son (1:3), the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord (1:4). This is how Paul encapsulates, in just a few words, the quintessence of the gospel – in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The real good news of salvation can only come from God, in Christ, through the agency of the Spirit – and all this is announced here and then spelled out in detail in the rest of the letter. But Paul wants to make sure he spells out, from the very beginning and as clearly as possible, that the content, the subject matter, of the gospel is Jesus, the Messiah, a descendant of David, who died and was resurrected through the power of the Spirit, and thus fulfilling God’s promises of redemption. And this is how then he becomes our Lord, the absolute sovereign and only Lord over entire creation. The first audience in Rome could not have missed Paul’s allusions to the dominant narrative and ideology of the Empire, that it was the son of Caesar who will offer the continuation of empire and his “blessings” as the good news to people. Similarly, the use of the word “Lord” with reference to Jesus Christ would made Roman believers raise eyebrows as the title, which was only reserved for Caesar, is now attributed to someone else, to the rightful Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ.

And it is through Christ, the true Lord that Paul has received grace and apostleship (1:5a). It is grace because everything is God’s doing, it is God’s initiative, God’s love towards humanity in a moment when human beings were helpless, weak, sinners and even enemies of God (5:1-11). And it is also God who calls and who sends his apostles to spread the good news about this amazing grace of God to the entire world, to all the nations. And there is a clear goal and purpose in doing this, there is an ultimate goal of the gospel, of the grace and apostleship, namely, to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations (1:5b). This is again significant: Paul does not say simply to bring people to faith, as we are so accustomed to hear in the preaching in our Evangelical churches. It is rather the obedience of faith! The faith that Paul speaks about here is one that impinges on life, that transforms life, that makes possible an obedience to a new life. It is here that Paul keeps together so intimately the two crucial aspects of the gospel and of Cristian life: faith and obedience, theology and ethics, indicative (of what God has done) and imperative (what believers do). The two realities of the gospel of God are intrinsically connected, they cannot be separated, you cannot have one without the other. True faith leads to obedience; obedience is the mark of true faith. This is the privilege and the responsibility of those who profess to belong to Christ. It is this real good news of life transforming power that people in our world today are desperate to hear. Not ideologies and creeds and doctrines and forms! But the news of an alternative life, about the real possibility and power to live a new life of faith, of love, of hope in a desperate and hopeless world. And this is exactly the gospel we have to share and the reason we should be humbly bold to proclaim and live out.

The gospel is both, the fulfilment of God’s promise of peace and justice to the world, and a challenge to the pretentions of any ideology.

Not ashamed of the gospel – it is the power of God

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith” (1:16-17). This is the thesis statement for the entire letter to the Romans. Even though very brief and condensed, it contains all the key theological themes that Paul is dealing with in this letter: gospel, power of God, salvation, righteousness of God, new life of faith. In fact, the entire letter is an elaboration of this thesis, of the gospel as the power of God for the new life.

Why would Paul be prompted to say that he is not ashamed of the gospel? Whatever else might be in it, Paul gives us a hint in another place where Jews demand for signs and Greeks desire for wisdom but all Paul has to offer is Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Cor. 1:23). Even though he does not spell out here, the essence of the gospel contains the death on a cross and the resurrection of Christ! How can the most horrible and barbaric death for anybody represent  good new and be the sole message of a gospel? Well, because in a totally different logic of God compared with the logic of this world, in the weakness of the cross there is the full display of God’s power of salvation and this is exactly why Paul is not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation (1:16). As Paul will describe shortly in the following verses, it is only the power of God that is able to redeem humanity from the desperate condition of sin, from the enslaving power of sin and death! But God’s power is made manifest through love, by giving himself for humanity. And that is why the message of the gospel is good new to the world: because it presents a God who is not against but for humanity, a God who forgives and accepts, who gives himself for the enemy, a God who is determined to redeem the world.

Pauls’ cry and boldness in not being ashamed of the gospel is extremely welcome in our world today, particularly in an increasingly secular Europe where Christianity is more and more pushed to the margins and even despised. Like Paul we should be bold that the message of the gospel is good news for the world, that the gospel has the power to change human lives and contributes substantially to the common good and human flourishing. The gospel makes us truly authentic human beings and enables us to live in perfect harmony with God, with the others, with ourselves, with the creation of God. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, on the contrary. The gospel makes one able to live truly to his renewed nature, to live in self-giving love and concern for others and the common life. The gospel is truly concerned with the common good and human flourishing.

For Paul, the gospel is both, the announcement of God’s justice and the embodiment of that justice in the world through those who have responded to the gospel in faithful obedience.

The good news of the justice of God

But there is yet another crucial element that the gospel reveals: the righteousness or the justice of God (1:17a). There has been an intense discussion about the translation of this key terms used by Paul in Romans and elsewhere, dikaiosunei. How would it be most appropriate to translate dikaiosunei – righteousness, justice, fairness, loyalty uprightness, rectitude, rectification, justness? The difficulty comes, partially, from the fact that the Greek language keeps together the two dimensions of personal “righteousness” and relational-social “justice” while in English, also because of long Protestant tradition, tends to understand them as separate categories. Thus, some English translations favour “righteousness” while others translate it as “justice”. This is not a simple matter: one the one hand we want to get as close a meaning as possible to what Paul meant when he uses the word; on the other hand, while the word contains a crucial aspect of justice, we want so make sure we do not miss it, but also that we avoid a too close association with the contemporary preoccupation for strict retribution that is commonly implied in the term “justice.” This is one reason why some people translate dikaiosunei with a more complex “justice-righteousness”.

Now, whether one understands Paul’s use of dikaiosunei over against a more direct or even indirect anti-imperial ideology, it is clear that the way Paul brings this together – gospel, justice-righteousness – at the beginning of the letter, shows that he announces, through the gospel, a different kind of justice, one that God is bringing, a justice that is revealed in Christ: the Gospel is … the justice of God … through Christ (1:16-17). This new kind of justice-righteousness of God represents a divine initiative, a gift of grace and is appropriated by faith/faithful trust by the receiver. Thus, through Christ an entire new system of justice come into play, one that goes beyond simply the idea of retribution to restoration, because God becomes known especially as the one who “justifies the ungodly”(4:5; 5:6-8). Indeed, the results of God’s justification is peace and reconciliation and no more threat of retribution (5:1-11). In the larger argument of Romans, God’s righteousness/justice, dikaiosynei theou, means God’s own faithfulness to the covenant he made with Israel, to the promises he made to Abraham that he will redeem the entire world. For Paul, the gospel is both, the announcement of God’s justice and the embodiment of that justice in the world through those who have responded to the gospel in faithful obedience. But since salvation this is not a human endeavour, this can only come through faith in Christ, in the one who offered salvation through his life, death and resurrection.

There is yet a final point worth mentioning here. Those responding to the gospel through faith in Christ are enabledto live a new life of faith: “the one who is righteous will live by faith” (1:17b). It will only be spelled out in great detail later in the letter what exactly is this new life, how we get it (Rom 5-8) and how it manifest itself in everyday life of the believer (Rom 12-16). But Paul wanted to make clear from the beginning that the gospel leads to life, to a new living, the person who becomes right with God will live by faith a righteous life. Paul knew this from his own experience, because with his radical experience on the road to Damascus, a new vision of reality has begun to emerge for Paul, brought about by the death and resurrection of Christ. A world of new possibilities and radical innovations is opened up now “in Christ”, with serious implications for all those living within this new reality. God’s promise of the new creation and the eschatological age to come were being fulfilled in his days and they are being experienced in our own days.

Conclusion: the good news of new life

The clear and unambiguous message of the gospel that Paul presents in Romans and comes to us today cannot be missed: it is the  good news of radically new life for everyone, now made possible through Jesus Christ. Because through his death and resurrection a new eschatological world order has begun! The gospel is both, the fulfilment of God’s promise of peace and justice to the world, and a challenge to the pretentions of any ideology. It is God, through Christ, who alone is able to redeem the world and bring salvation, justice and peace.

And there is more: those who are “in Christ” are now able to live out and embody a new life of love, of reconciliation and justice. Because a new world order has already begun in Christ, and it works on a fundamentally new logic: not from the many and powerful but from the few and weak, not through violence and domination, but through self-giving and love. According to Paul, then, being a Christian is to respond to this gospel and live a new life according to the logic of the gospel of Christ. It is about being faithful to the one who was crucified and rose again and brought into being the new creation, thus fulfilling God’s story to redeem the world. And this gospel is the good news of God’s power to restore the world, to put the world to right. The followers of Christ live in this gospel story and take an active part in God’s redeeming the world, in proclaiming and embodying in the world the true peace and justice and love. To live according to the gospel is to be concerned with justice and human flourishing in anticipation of God’s final restoration. In Christ a new world is made possible, a new creation is taking place. It is a new world where forgiveness, and love, and peace, and justice are possible. This is the GOSPEL! This is the GOOD NEWS to the world!