God Is the Gospel

1. God, Not Just His Gifts, Is the Ultimate Gospel

But the Bible teaches that the best and final gift of God’s love is the enjoyment of God’s beauty.

Beyond blessings. The central argument is that the gospel's ultimate good isn't merely the blessings it provides, but God himself. Many perceive divine love as an endorsement of personal worth, focusing on the gifts rather than the Giver. This perspective diminishes God's worth and our potential for true satisfaction.

The acid test. The true measure of a gospel-centered life is whether we find more joy in God making much of us or in being enabled to make much of Him. The world often promotes a self-centered view of love, but the gospel calls us to a God-centered perspective.

Eternal satisfaction. The gospel's purpose is to enthrall us with God, the only source of deep and lasting satisfaction. If we could have heaven without Christ, it wouldn't be heaven at all. The world needs to see the worth of Christ in the lives of His people, who are consumed with God.

2. The Gospel: Proclamation, Explanation, and Revelation of God

And gospel means good news. Good news is for proclaiming—for heralding the way an old-fashioned town crier would do.

Good news. The gospel is not just a set of doctrines but a proclamation of good news, a message of victory over sin and death. It's a royal decree of amnesty, offering forgiveness and freedom to rebels who submit to the King. This news should evoke wonder and amazement.

Doctrine matters. The gospel also requires explanation, clarifying its meaning and guarding its treasures. Doctrine protects the gospel's truths from distortion and ensures its treasures are understood and appreciated. It serves the herald, ensuring the message is clear and compelling.

Ultimate good. The central question is: What is the ultimate good of the gospel that makes all aspects of good news good? What is the goal of the gospel that, if we miss it, takes all the good out of the gospel? What do we mean when we say God is the gospel?

3. The Gospel's Core: Christ Died to Bring Us to God

Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.

The way to God. The gospel events and blessings are means to an end: knowing and enjoying God fully. Justification, forgiveness, and eternal life are not ends in themselves but pathways to God. If we embrace these gifts without embracing God, we miss the point.

Justification defined. Justification, the heart of the gospel, addresses our fundamental need: reconciliation with God. It involves the removal of sin and the imputation of Christ's righteousness, making us acceptable to God. However, justification is not the highest good.

Relationship restored. The ultimate aim is to restore our relationship with God, enabling us to behold and embrace Him as our highest joy. All the saving events and blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully.

4. The Glory of Christ: The Gospel's Self-Authenticating Light

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Satan's blinding work. The gospel is "the gospel of the glory of Christ," and Satan seeks to blind people to this light. He prevents them from seeing the compelling spiritual beauty and treasure in Christ. This requires a change of heart, a turning from self-centeredness to God-centeredness.

God's creative power. God creates light in the hearts of believers, enabling them to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is not mere intellectual assent but a spiritual tasting, an immediate knowledge of God's sweetness. The glory of Christ is not synonymous with raw power but the divine beauty of His manifold perfections.

Exquisite array. The glory of Christ is not a simple thing but a complex coming together of diverse qualities. It is a conjunction of diverse excellencies, like a lion and a lamb in one person. The human heart was made to stand in awe of such ultimate excellence.

5. The Holy Spirit: Illuminating the Gospel's Glory

The Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

Not irrational. Believing the gospel through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit is not irrational. The Spirit doesn't provide new information but awakens us to the divine reality of Christ's glory in the gospel. This sight authenticates the gospel as God's own word.

The Spirit's role. The Spirit's testimony is greater than human reason. It is the gift of life, enabling us to see and savor God's glory. This is not a mere intellectual assent but a spiritual awakening, a recognition of God's majesty.

Self-authenticating. The gospel is self-authenticating through the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. This witness is not a special quality of experience or a new revelation but a work of enlightenment that opens our blind eyes to recognize and embrace divine realities.

6. The Gospel's Transforming Power: From Glory to Glory

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

Christ-likeness. The pathway to Christ-likeness is "beholding the glory of the Lord." We are transformed into His image by fixing our attention on His glory. The Holy Spirit enables us to see the glory of Christ, making it the immediate cause of our transformation.

What we admire. We are changed into what we admire and fix our attention on. From our heroes, we pick up mannerisms, phrases, and habits. The more admirable the hero, the more profound the transformation.

Incremental change. The transformation happens incrementally, from one degree of glory to another. This is not just a comment about how far the good news reaches. This is part of what makes the good news good. The gospel of the kingdom would not be good news if the King did not rule among all the peoples.

7. God's Happiness: A Key Component of His Glory

According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God.

God's happiness. A great part of God's glory is His happiness. To be infinitely glorious is to be infinitely happy. The gospel is "the gospel of the glory of the happy God."

The Father's pleasure. The happiness of God is primarily a happiness in His Son. When we share in God's happiness, we share in the very pleasure that the Father has in the Son. This is what makes the gospel good news.

Eternal enjoyment. Jesus made God known so that God's pleasure in His Son might be in us and become our pleasure in Christ. Imagine being able to enjoy what is infinitely enjoyable with unbounded energy and passion forever.

8. Gospel-Awakened Contrition: A Sweet Sorrow

Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Paradoxical sorrow. Those who have dealt deeply with their own sin in relation to the gospel know the paradox that the good news of forgiveness awakens the pain of remorse as well as the joy of release. Only an artificial joy does not pass through sorrow for sin on its way to the thrill of being forgiven.

Edwards's insight. To bring people to the sorrow of repentance and contrition, you must bring them first to see the glory of God as their treasure and their delight. The gospel reveals the glory of God in Christ. True sorrow over sin is shown by the gospel to be what it really is—the result of failing to savor “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.

Joy-based sorrow. True repentance and contrition based on the gospel is preceded by the awakening of a delight in God. To weep savingly over not possessing God as your treasure, he must have become precious to you. The gospel awakens sorrow for sin by awakening a savor for God.

9. All Gospel Gifts Lead Back to God

He predestined us . . . to the praise of the glory of his grace.

Predestination's purpose. God's aim in our predestination is that we admire and make much of the glory of His grace. The aim of predestining us is that grace would be put on display as glorious, and that we would see it and savor it and sing its praises. The glory of grace is the glory of God acting graciously.

Incarnation's aim. The ultimate aim of the incarnation was that through Christ people would see the Lordship of Christ and the glory of God. The whole story of Christ’s incarnate life and death and resurrection was the brightest beam of glory that has ever shone down from the brightness of God.

Rejoicing in God. The aim of reconciliation is not safe and sullen solidarity. The aim is that we “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” God is the focus of the reconciliation. The joy of reconciliation is joy in God.

10. The Ultimate Good: Delighting in and Displaying God

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

Not self-esteem. The ultimate benefit of the gospel is neither being like God nor seeing God, but delighting in and displaying "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The greatest good of the gospel is not self-admiration or self-exaltation, but being able to see the glory of God without disintegrating, and being able to delight in the glory of Christ with the very delight of God the Father for his own Son, and being able to do visible Christ-exalting deeds that flow from this delight.

Endless wave. A wave of revelation of divine glory in the saints and in creation is set in motion that goes on and on and grows for all eternity. As each of us sees Christ and delights in Christ with the delight of the Father, mediated by the Spirit, we will overflow with visible actions of love and creativity on the new earth.

God is the gospel. The great and final good of the gospel is God. The world needs nothing more than to see the worth of Christ in the work and words of his God-besotted people. This will come to pass when the church awakens to the truth that the saving love of God is the gift of himself, and that God himself is the gospel.

Last updated: April 4, 2025