As a Catholic, it’s not hard to find Protestants who say my religion teaches a false gospel, and so it isn’t even Christian. But these Protestants shoot themselves in the foot, because they can’t even answer the question “What is the gospel?” in a way that doesn’t undermine their own argument.
The word “gospel” comes from the Greek word euaggelion, literally “good news.” But in almost every case, the word is used in Scripture without any explanation of what the good news is about.
Matthew refers to the good news of the kingdom or the good news being preached (4:23, 9:35). Mark describes Jesus speaking of the good news or the good news of God (1:14-15). Luke shows Jesus preaching good news for the poor (4:18). And these passages also point back to verses in Isaiah proclaiming the good news of God’s victory over his enemies (52:7, 61:1).
We know that the gospel was preached during Christ’s ministry, but what was initially preached was not a message about Christ’s death, his resurrection, or how he would redeem humanity from sin. At this time, the gospel was just the good news that God’s kingdom was entering the world and that things would finally be set right.
After Christ’s resurrection, we find some passages in Paul’s letters that are closer to a definition of the gospel as we know it today. Romans 1:16 says the gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul says, “I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel [or the good news], which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast—unless you believed in vain.
Paul then describes this good news through what many scholars identify as an early creed that was formulated just a few years after Christ’s crucifixion. It says Christ died for our sins, was buried, rose three days later, and appeared to numerous people, including Paul.
Notice there is no description of the gospel being about our individual salvation from damnable sin, even though that is how the gospel is often summarized. Instead, the gospel is the good news of God’s kingdom entering the world that saves God’s people through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But these verses about the gospel never say that it is about salvation through faith alone, or grace alone, or any other doctrinal formula. The gospel is just the salvation that comes through God’s power being implemented in his kingdom through his son.
Since Catholicism affirms this truth, that means the Catholic Church is not preaching a false gospel. The glossary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the gospel as “the ‘good news’ of God’s mercy and love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is this gospel or good news that the apostles, and the Church following them, are to proclaim to the entire world.”
People who say Catholicism teaches a false gospel usually arrive at this conclusion through two mistaken lines of thought.
First, they assume that “the gospel” is identical to all essential doctrines of the Faith, but as we’ve seen, the Bible never defines “the gospel” in this way. The Trinity and Jesus’ messianic status are essential doctrines of Christianity, but Scripture never says these truths are part of “the gospel.”
Second, these critics assume that essential doctrines for their denomination must also be essential doctrines of the Christian faith, and so those doctrines must be part of the gospel.
For example, when many people are asked to summarize the gospel in one Bible verse, they will point to John 3:16, where John says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Even though many Protestants say the Gospel of John is sufficient to proclaim the gospel, the word “gospel” is not in John’s Gospel. At best, this verse serves as a loose summary of the plan of salvation that flows from what the gospel is. But this verse is at least the start of a much better answer to the question “What is the Gospel?” than what the late John MacArthur said when he was asked to summarize the gospel in a single verse:
The greatest gospel verse in the bible [is] second Corinthians. “He made him who knew no sin sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of god in him.” . . . God punished Jesus for my sin, turns right around and treats me as if I lived [Christ’s] life. That’s the great doctrine of substitution, and on that doctrine turned the whole reformation of the church. That is the heart of the gospel.
MacArthur said the “heart of the gospel” is his particular, Reformed interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:21. This involves our sins being imputed to Christ so that God sees us on the cross, and so he consequently punishes “us” while punishing Christ. And now God sees only “Christ” when he looks at us, and so he rewards us with eternal life. But once again, the Bible doesn’t say this is “the gospel.” even though the Greek word for gospel, euaggellion, is used nine times in 2 Corinthians.
Even if the passage were teaching the doctrine MacArthur thinks it’s teaching, that wouldn’t make it part of “the gospel.” Protestants know that the gospel is not identical to “everything the New Testament teaches,” because all of the major Protestant denominations differ on what the New Testament teaches, but they don’t anathematize every other Protestant as preaching a “false gospel” just because he has mistaken theology.
If the “heart of the gospel” were a particular Reformed understanding of 2 Corinthians 5:21, then followers of John Wesley (i.e., many Methodists), who believe in an “imparted” righteousness rather than an imputed righteousness, would have a false gospel. The same is true for any Christian who denies the doctrine of “double imputation” and believes that 2 Corinthians 5:21 teaches something else.
This includes believing that the verse is a reference to the Incarnation, or Christ coming in the form of sinful flesh, as Romans 8:3 says. The verse could also mean Christ “became sin” in. the sense that Christ became a sacrificial “sin offering” on our behalf, since the Hebrew word for sin is the same word for “sin offering.”
The Christian faith, even just the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, involve much more than the message of the gospel. Even Protestants who believe that Catholicism preaches the gospel still must wrestle with a difficult question: which doctrines are essential to the Christian faith, and how do we know they are essential?
Many Protestants believe that Scripture is perspicuous, or that it clearly reveals the essential doctrines Christians must believe. The Westminster Confession says that those things that are
necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.
But isn’t it necessary for salvation to know if the largest Christian denomination in the world, Catholicism, preaches a true gospel or a false gospel? Even learned Protestants using ordinary means do not have agreement on this question, as can be seen in debates between Protestants on the question of whether Catholics are Christian or if they have a false gospel.
Ironically, this provides evidence that God’s authority structure for the Church is grounded not in something like sola scriptura, but in a living teaching office, or a magisterium capable of settling disputes definitively through authoritative, universal, and infallible teachings.
I hope that when Catholics are asked to explain “what the gospel is,” they will know both what the Bible teaches on this matter and how Christ’s Catholic Church brings us salvation and fulfills the “good news” of our salvation in Jesus Christ.