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In this episode, Jimmy delves into the mystery of how the New Testament understands the concept of “the gospel” and the surprising reason why the first Christians referred to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—which are obviously biographies of Jesus—as “Gospels” rather than “Lives of Christ.”
TRANSCRIPT:
Coming Up
In previous episodes, I’ve looked at how the New Testament understands the idea of the gospel.
We’ve seen that it understands it very differently than many Christians today do.
I’ve also talked about how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John came to be called gospels rather than biographies or lives of Christ.
But there is a deeper reason why the first Christians understood the term gospel to be an appropriate name for what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote.
And that’s what I’m going to talk about today.
Let’s get into it!
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Howdy, folks!
You can help me keep making this podcast—and you can get early access to new episodes—by going to Patreon.com/JimmyAkinPodcast
Introduction
A while back, I did a couple of episodes on how the New Testament understands the concept of the gospel.
In Episode 27, we saw that a lot of what you commonly hear about the gospel is actually not how the New Testament authors understood it.
For example, the gospel is not the sum total of Christian doctrine.
Neither is it just anything that has to do with God’s promises.
And—especially—the gospel is not the message of how to get saved.
Different groups of Christians may use the term gospel in those ways, and that’s okay, because language changes over time, and different communities can have their own ways of using terms.
But we also need to keep how the biblical authors use a term in view so that we don’t unintentionally read our own community’s meanings for terms back onto the biblical text.
We also saw—in Episode 28—that the reason the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—are called Gospels is, in part, because Mark labeled itself a Gospel.
The very first verse in Mark says:
Mark 1:1, ESV
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
After Mark—the first of the canonical Gospels—began his work this way, Christians began referring to other, similar works—like Matthew, Luke, and John—by the same title.
Why a “Gospel”?
But why was Mark’s biography of Jesus called a gospel?
Normally in the ancient world, this kind of work would have been called a Bios, which is the Greek word for a Life or what we’d call a biography. So why did they call biographies gospels rather than lives of Jesus?
This is a more interesting question than you might suppose.
If the most common explanation of what the gospel is in Evangelical circles were correct—the idea that the gospel is the message of how to get saved and go to heaven—then this wouldn’t make any sense.
In Mark—like in Matthew, Luke, and John—there are very few passages that discuss how an individual person can go to heaven.
So it doesn’t make sense to call Mark or the others a “gospel” if the gospel is the message of how to be saved.
It would make more sense to call Paul’s letters like Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians “gospels”—since in them Paul devotes much more attention to the question of how to be justified before God.
But that’s not how the early Christians viewed things. So why are the biographies of Jesus called “gospels”?
What the Gospel Is
The key to answering this question is discussed in Episode 27 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast.
There, we saw that the New Testament understands the gospel in a different way than many modern people do.
Basically, the gospel is not about us. You and I and how we can be saved is not part of the good news or gospel.
Instead, the gospel is fundamentally about God and his kingdom. Thus, at the beginning of Mark we read:
Mark 1:14-16, ESV
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
So we see Jesus preaching the gospel of God, which is the message that the time is fulfilled. What time is that? The arrival of God’s kingdom.
Thus Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is at hand.”
That’s the first and most basic presentation of the gospel: The time has come for God’s kingdom to arrive.
Jesus thus summons people to repent and believe that this time has come.
The fact that the primary subject of the gospel is the kingdom of God is confirmed in Matthew 4, where we read:
Matthew 4:23, ESV
And [Jesus] went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
The same thing is confirmed in Luke 4, which says:
Luke 4:43, ESV
But [Jesus] said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”
Now, I should note—as many people know—that the term Good News is just an alternate translation of = Gospel.
So—whether you’re reading about “the gospel” or about “good news”—the New Testament is referring to the same thing.
And—as the passage in Luke makes clear the principal subject of the good news or the gospel is the kingdom of God—just like in Matthew.
We thus know the basic subject of the gospel: It’s the arrival of God’s kingdom, not how your or I can get saved—or anything else, for that matter.
A Puzzle About the Gospel
But you’ll notice that something is missing from this proclamation.
The gospel as Jesus announced it does not mention anything about Jesus himself, his role as the Messiah, or his death on the Cross.
All he’s announcing is the arrival of God’s kingdom.
And yet, the ideas I just mentioned later became associated with the gospel. For example, St. Paul begins his letter to the Romans by writing:
Romans 1:1-4, ESV
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord
So here Paul says that the gospel of God concerns his Son, the Son’s descent from David, and his role as Son of God being announced by his resurrection from the dead.
Similarly, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes:
1 Corinthians 15:1-4, ESV
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
So here Paul identifies the gospel with the preaching that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day.
Here—like in the Romans passage—the kingdom of God isn’t mentioned. Instead, the gospel sounds like it’s all about what Jesus did.
Putting the Pieces Together
So we have two presentations of the gospel. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the gospel is identified with the coming of God’s kingdom, but in Paul, the gospel is identified with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
How can we square these two understandings?
Well, the starting point is found in the Old Testament. It says that God has a kingdom that covers the whole earth. For example, the psalmist says:
Psalms 103:19, ESV
The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
And yet, it was clear that not everybody on Earth was acknowledging the Lord and his kingship. Even many in Israel weren’t living in accordance with God’s will the way that they should.
So it was understood that there would be a future, greater fulfillment of God’s kingdom than presently existed. Thus the prophet Obadiah said:
Obadiah 21, ESV
Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau,
and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.
So far, so good. But how is this connected to the Messiah as the son of David?
Well, God’s kingdom had long been associated with the house of David. For example, when King David planned to build God a temple in Jerusalem, God told him that David himself would not build the temple, and he said:
1 Chronicles 17:11-14, ESV
I will raise up your offspring after you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever.
I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from him who was before you, but I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.
So there was a link between God’s kingdom and the house of David.
Now, the line of Davidic kings had ended at the time of the Babylonian exile, but the Old Testament contained prophecies about a future monarch who would usher in a golden age—the Messiah, who would be a son of David.
So if there’s a future fulfillment of God’s kingdom, and a future Messiah who’s coming, might the two be linked? Might the future golden age of God’s kingdom be connected with the future golden age that the Messiah will introduce?
That would not be an unreasonable expectation, and in Daniel we read:
Daniel 7:13-14, ESV
I [Daniel] saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
This Son of Man figure is heavenly in origin. Daniel sees him coming on the clouds of heaven, and that’s a divine attribute. The Old Testament refers to the idea of God riding on the clouds. For example, Psalm 104 says:
Psalm 104:3, ESV
[God] makes the clouds his chariot;
he rides on the wings of the wind.
And Isaiah declares:
Isaiah 19:1, ESV
Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud.
So when Daniel sees the one like a son of man riding up to God on a cloud, that indicates that the Son of Man is himself a divine figure—a Son of God in a more than human sense.
And Daniel sees that the Son of Man is given HIQ a kingdom so that all peoples should serve him. It’s thus a universal kingdom in which all the peoples of the Earth will recognize God’s rule. And it will be an eternal kingdom because his kingdom shall not be destroyed.
There are also other writings from this period that are not part of the Bible that also reflect this complex of ideas.
And so these were the ideas that were in circulation when Jesus arrived: There was a future, coming fulfillment of God’s kingdom, and it would be connected with the coming of the Messiah, who was a son of David but yet also a divine figure.
The First Proclamation of the Gospel
And so we arrive at the ministry of John the Baptist, who preached the gospel in these terms. As Matthew says:
Matthew 3:1-2, ESV
In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
So this is the initial or first proclamation of the gospel—that the time for God’s kingdom to appear in its new form has arrived.
And John the Baptist was aware of the role of the Messiah in this kingdom. For example, Luke tells us:
Luke 3:15-18, ESV
As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.
So John preached good news—or the gospel—to the people, emphasizing that he was not the Messiah but that the Messiah would be coming after him.
The “Messianic Secret”
And yet, when Jesus arrived, he didn’t simply announce himself as the coming Messiah.
Instead, he kept people guessing about his identity.
The fact that Jesus kept his status as the Messiah secret during his ministry is referred to by scholars as “The Messianic Secret,” and it’s particularly noteworthy in the Gospel of Mark. For example, we read:
Mark 8:27-30, ESV
And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”
And they told him, “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.”
And he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter answered him, “You are the Christ.”
And he strictly charged them to tell no one about him.
So Jesus left outsiders guessing about who he was. He acknowledged to the Twelve that he was the Messiah, but he told them not to disclose this to others.
And it’s easy to understand why he did this. Most people thought that the coming Messiah would be a political deliverer.
In other words, they believed that the Messiah would defeat the Romans, kick them out of Israel, and establish a worldwide dominion.
That’s why he refrained from openly declaring himself. That’s why he kept the Messianic secret. He had no interest in becoming a political leader and an earthly king. That’s why—after feeding the 5,000—John tells us:
John 6:15, ESV
Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.
Even John the Baptist didn’t initially recognize the kind of Messiah Jesus was going to be. Thus, in Matthew, we read:
Matthew 11:2-3, ESV
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
John had assumed—like many other people—that Jesus was a political Messiah who would establish a political kingdom. But Jesus replied:
Matthew 11:4-6, ESV
Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.
So Jesus indicated that the signs of the new golden age of God’s kingdom were—indeed—at work in his ministry—including the proclamation of the good news or gospel—and he assured John that he would be blessed if he continued to accept Jesus as the Messiah despite the fact he was not leading a political movement.
Because Jesus was not planning on being that kind of Messiah. Thus, he told Pontius Pilate:
John 18:36, ESV
My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.
The Suffering Servant
Instead of being a political deliverer, Jesus was planning on being a different kind of Messiah—a suffering one. This was another theme in the Old Testament prophecies, such as in the famous Suffering Servant passage in Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:5, 8-11, ESV
He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
Who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?
And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
So Jesus was planning to redeem his people through his sufferings. He would even die, but there was still a glorious hope on the other side of this death, because he would somehow prolong his days—that is, lead a really long life—even though he had died.
We thus see a cryptic prophecy of the death and resurrection by which the Messiah would save people from their transgressions.
Jesus recognized this—which is why he repeatedly predicted his death and resurrection to the disciples—but they, like others who were expecting a political Messiah, did not understand what he was saying. Thus in Mark we read that:
Mark 9:31-32, ESV
He was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him.
The Second Proclamation of the Gospel
We thus have all the clues we need to put the pieces together about the two ways that the gospel was preached.
- 1st Proclamation of the Gospel: God’s kingdom is arriving.
That was true, and many—including John the Baptist—recognized that God’s Messiah would play a key role in the arrival of the kingdom.
But they did not understand that the Messiah would suffer, die on a cross, and rise again, because these things were prophesied in a way such that most people did not understand them.
Thus the focus of the initial proclamation of the gospel was simply the arrival of God’s kingdom.
But then—after Jesus’ death and resurrection—these facts became explicit, and so there was a second proclamation of the gospel:
- 2nd Proclamation of the Gospel: The death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah.
So we can infer that the way God’s kingdom arrives is through the death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah.
John doesn’t use the term gospel, but this explains why—in Matthew, Mark, and Luke—we read about the gospel just in terms of the kingdom, because that is how it was publicly preached during Jesus’ earthly ministry due to the Messianic secret.
And this explains why—in Paul—Jesus’ death and resurrection are understood as central to the gospel. It’s because Paul was writing after these events, and so they were no longer secret.
The two proclamations of the gospel thus harmonize: The first proclamation announces the arrival of God’s kingdom, and the second proclamation explores how God’s kingdom arrived.
Why Do We Call Them Gospels?
Back in Episode 28 of The Jimmy Akin Podcast, I pointed out that the reason we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John “Gospels” is that Mark—who wrote first—began by describing his work as:
Mark 1:1, ESV
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
People thus began referring to Mark as a gospel, and when Matthew, Luke, and John later wrote similar works, people called them gospels also.
But there is a deeper reason why the term gospel—or good news—was appropriate for them.
It’s because the term was used to announce things of major importance for kingdoms—like news of victory in a battle or the installation of a new king. As Pope Benedict XVI pointed out in the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth series
Both Evangelists [Matthew and Mark] designate Jesus’ preaching with the Greek term evangelion—but what does that actually mean?
The term has recently been translated as “good news.” That sounds attractive, but it falls far short of the order of magnitude of what is actually meant by the word evangelion. This term figures in the vocabulary of the Roman emperors, who understood themselves as lords, saviors, and redeemers of the world. The messages issued by the emperor were called in Latin evangelium, regardless of whether or not their content was particularly cheerful and pleasant. The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better.
That was part of the context for the word gospel in the first century, but even earlier, it had been used in similar ways in ancient Israel.
Thus, at one point, a Cushite—which is to say, an Ethiopian—brought news to King David that his enemies had been defeated in battle, and we read:
2 Samuel 18:31, ESV
And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, “Good news for my lord the king! For the Lord has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you.”
And in the book of Isaiah, we read of good news connected with the coming of God as a ruler. It says:
Isaiah 40:9-10, ESV
Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news;
lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him.
It’s in passages like the last one that we see the beginnings of the first proclamation of the gospel as the coming arrival of God’s kingdom.
This was part of the background when John the Baptist and Jesus began preaching that the time was at hand for the kingdom to arrive.
Then—after Jesus died and rose again—it was clear how God’s kingdom had arrived, and so that became part of the gospel proclamation also.
And that’s why we refer to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as gospels. It’s because they tell the story of the good news, of how Jesus introduced God’s kingdom, and specifically how he introduced it through his death and resurrection.
Scholars have noted that the four Gospels focus a great deal on the last week of Jesus’ life, on the events leading up to his passion, death, and resurrection. The gospels have been described as basically passion narratives with extended prologues.
And that’s borne out when you look at the numbers. If we mark the last week of Jesus’ life as beginning with the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, we find that:
- About 30% of Matthew’s gospel is devoted to the Passion
- About 37% of Mark is devoted to the Passion
- About 25% of Luke is devoted to the Passion
- And a whopping 48% of John is devoted to the Passion
We thus see the elements that Paul connects with the gospel playing a major role in the four gospels themselves.
So the deeper reason that these works—including Mark—came to be called gospels rather than biographies is that they convey the essential content of the gospel that Christianity announces.
One Gospel, Four Gospels
This also explains another riddle, which is why the gospels were given the individual names they were.
In English we tend to call them:
- The Gospel of Matthew
- The Gospel of Mark
- The Gospel of Luke, and
- The Gospel of John
But in Greek, the preposition Kata is more specific than the English “of.” It would be more literal to translate them:
- The Gospel according to Matthew
- The Gospel according to Mark
- The Gospel according to Luke, and
- The Gospel according to John
This highlights the fact that there really is only one good news that Christianity is announcing.
It may be related by different people—so Matthew can present the one gospel his way, Mark can present it his way, and so on. But there really is only one gospel, and that gospel has to do with how the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus ushered God’s kingdom into the world.
The Gospel: Jesus vs. Paul?
All of this reveals how mistaken people are who conceive of the gospel in other terms, especially those who identify it with the message of how to get saved.
Many—particularly in the Protestant community—identify the gospel with the idea that we are all sinners but we can be saved if we only have faith in Jesus for our salvation.
JOHN MACARTHUR: The gospel is we’re all headed to eternal punishment in hell, conscious punishment out of the presence of God forever. But God has provided a rescue through the death and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. You’re not talking about the gospel unless you talk about sin, repentance, Jesus Christ dying, rising again and faith in him. That’s the gospel. But it has to do with the best news that anyone will ever hear, and that is you can escape eternal punishment, spend eternity in heaven.
That may be how the word gospel is used in John MacArthur’s church, but it’s not how the New Testament uses it.
And failure to recognize this fact creates a real puzzle for people who use the word gospel in this way.
Because there are very few passages in the four gospels that discuss how to go to heaven. There are many more in the writings of St. Paul, and so—if the gospel means how to get saved—and that’s what St. Paul discusses, why don’t we call St. Paul’s writings the gospels? Why do we call the biographies of Jesus’ gospels?
And why—when St. Paul does discuss the gospel—doesn’t he talk about the message of how to get saved?
Remember, earlier we saw St. Paul identifying the gospel in Romans as being about the death and resurrection of Jesus as God’s Son, and we saw him in 1 Corinthians identifying it with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
So if you’re community uses the term gospel in a different way than the New Testament does and you don’t recognize that fact, you’re going to be perplexed by what we actually find in the New Testament.
You’ll be even more perplexed if you look in the four gospels about what Jesus has to say about how to be saved. He doesn’t say things like, “Just have faith in me, and you’ll be saved.” Instead, he answered that question this way:
Matthew 19:16-19, ESV
Behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”
And he said to him . . . “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”
He said to him, “Which ones?”
And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
That’s not the same as the “Just have faith in Jesus and you’ll be saved” model.
And that’s not the only passage like this. That one involved the rich young ruler, and that story is in all three Synoptic gospels.
But another story—which is also found in all three Synoptic gospels—involves a different person who approaches Jesus, and Jesus makes the same point:
Luke 10:25-28, ESV
And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”
And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
So yeah. This is not the message you hear about salvation in most Protestant churches.
Back when I was Protestant, I was once talking with a pastor who tried to explain this by saying, “Well, it’s from St. Paul that we get our theology. The Gospels are our history lesson.”
I found that a very unsatisfying response. Really? We’re supposed to give St. Paul priority over the words of Jesus when it comes to doctrine?
Would St. Paul support that notion? Or would he say it’s the other way around and that we need to read what he has to say in light of what Jesus—his Lord—said first?
I think St. Paul would say it’s the latter.
I don’t think that we should be making a choice between what Jesus says and what Paul says. I think we need to read them both in harmony with each other.
In future episodes, we’ll go into how we should do that, but for now I just want to say what a mistake it is to pit St. Paul’s words against Jesus.
It’s Not About Us
A good bit of the tension vanishes when you realize that the gospel is not the message of how we—as individuals—can be saved.
Frankly, the gospel is not about us. It’s about God, his kingdom, and the role his Son plays in that kingdom.
Yes, that does have implications for us and our salvation, but that’s not what the gospel is.
As we saw, the New Testament has a two-fold proclamation of the gospel:
- 1st Proclamation of the Gospel: God’s kingdom is arriving.
- 2nd Proclamation of the Gospel: The death, burial, and resurrection of the Messiah.
In other words, God’s kingdom arrives through the death, burial, and resurrection of God’s Son.
Now, how we respond to that good news about the kingdom and its ruler—the Messiah—is important, but the gospel itself is not about us and our salvation.
That’s why St. Paul links the gospel to God’s kingdom and his Messiah.
And it’s why the first Christians named Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John gospels rather than biographies or lives of Christ—because they state the core facts about the gospel and thus how the Messiah ushered in the kingdom.
So, the sooner we recognize how the New Testament conceives of the gospel—regardless of how the term is used in our own community—the less confused we will be.
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VIDEO SOURCE:
John MacArthur video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHx5Bctu9X0