What is the gospel of Paul?

What, then, is the gospel? In presenting it the Apostle Paul wrote, “I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ DIED for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). It is the meaning and the results of the death of Christ that constitute the gospel.

(Vv. 1, 2). As this denial of resurrection undermines the gospel, the Apostle first reminds these believers of the gospel which he had preached, which they had received, wherein they had their standing in blessing before God, and by which they were saved. But he adds the words, “unless ye have believed in vain”, for if there is no resurrection they had evidently believed in a myth. However, the Apostle shows in a parenthetical remark that the reality of their faith would be proved by holding fast the word that he had announced to them in the glad tidings.

(Vv. 3, 4). Immediately he sums up the glad tidings under three heads. First, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”. This brings before us the great propitiatory work of Christ for all the world, foretold in all the Scriptures, for the law sets it forth in figure, the Psalms present it experimentally, and the prophets announce it prophetically. Secondly, Christ was buried, the complete evidence of His death and the solemn fact that all His links with man after the flesh are severed. Thirdly, “He was raised the third day, according to the Scriptures”, the everlasting witness that the power of death is broken, the devil defeated, and God is glorified.

The Apostle carefully remarks that the gospel he preached, he had “received”, as we know from another epistle, “by the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:12). To reject his gospel is, therefore, to question the revelation of Jesus Christ and the authority of Scripture.

It was humbling therefore, but wholesome, to have the gospel made known afresh to saints, who ought rather to be in the fellowship of its activities — to have the apostle insisting on it, (1) as what he had declared to them originally, (2) as what they had received, (3) as that in which they had their standing, and (4) as the means of their salvation. The copulative conjunction, καί, defines each consideration recalled to them; the hypothetical particle, εἰ, supposes the fact of their holding fast the glad tidings, otherwise their faith was worthless. Salvation in this epistle, as in many others, is viewed as going on. (Vers. 1, 2.) It is σώζεσθε, the present, and neither the perfect, ἐστε σεσωσμενοι, as in Ephesians 2:5, 8, nor the aorist, as in 2 Timothy 1:9 and Titus 3:5.

If Paul was an apostle, and delivered to them especially the glad tidings, it was what he too received; he pretended to no more than a faithful discharge of the trust the Lord had reposed in him as a witness concerning Himself. He received it, as we are told elsewhere, immediately from Christ. There was no intermediate channel, but a direct revelation and a personal charge. And what is the foundation laid? "That Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures." (Ver 3.) Not for ourselves merely, not at all for our good ways, but for our bad, "for our sins." Who could have said or thought it but God? And He has said it, not only now in the gospel, but from of old in the scriptures. From Genesis to Malachi all was a preparing the way for Christ to die for our sins. The law witnessed to it in the sacrifices; the Psalms declared that the sacrifices were but temporary, and that the Messiah must, and would, do the will of God; and the prophets showed that He would do it by suffering and death when Jehovah should lay on Him the iniquities of His people. Without the death of Christ for our sins, not only has the gospel no foundation, but the Old Testament has no adequate meaning or worthy end.

These two verses are the key verses of the Epistle. The great words of the doctrinal part of the Epistle are found here. Righteousness and Faith are these words; Paul declared that he is not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It cannot mean, what it is often said to mean, that Paul was not ashamed to confess Christ. It means that he had the utmost confidence in the Gospel of Christ; he knew it would not make him ashamed; he was not ashamed of it because of its intrinsic character. The world sneered at the Gospel he preached "for the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:18). He knew that in the Gospel was embodied the highest wisdom, that God Himself was its author, that it came from God and leads to God; he knew that through the Gospel the Greek, the Jew, the Barbarian could be saved out of the horrible pit and the miry clay and become a child of God and an heir of God. He was not ashamed of it for "the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation." What weighty words these are! The power of God is needed to save man. And that power God has, to save the vilest sinner through the Gospel of Christ. God is omnipotent, but in one thing God is powerless, He cannot save sinners apart from the Gospel of Christ, for the Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation. The spurious Gospel of today, which denies the Cross of Christ and the blood, which substitutes character, good works or something else for faith in the Work of Christ as sin-bearer, has no power to save. God cannot save in any other way than the way made known in the Gospel of Christ, who died for our sins. And what is salvation? It includes the whole of Christ's redemption work. It includes Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification. Saved from the guilt of sins; saved from the power of sin; saved from the presence of sin. Salvation from wrath and eternal damnation; salvation from the power of darkness and sin's awful dominion; salvation unto eternal glory. The word includes all the sinner needs. The cross of Christ has supplied every need. If man had to do something with it and could help along in his salvation, it would be an imperfect and insecure salvation. But God being the author, it is His salvation and thus (Acts 28:28) it is a perfect salvation, a salvation which is both deliverance and safety forever. (Philippians 2:12 "Work out your own salvation" is often quoted as meaning that we must work to be saved and to stay saved. It means that we are to work out with results the salvation which is ours by faith in Jesus Christ.) And this salvation is to any one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Faith is the means of obtaining this salvation. Of this we shall hear more in the third and fourth chapters. Furthermore, in the Gospel "the righteousness of God" is revealed. This great word will receive our closest attention in the annotations of the third chapter. Here we briefly state that the Gospel of Christ makes known that the very righteousness of God, which condemns a sinner, is now on the side of the believing sinner. it is revealed from faith to faith, which means that it is not on the principle of works, but on the principle of faith.

What was the gospel of the grace of God which Paul preached? It was that which is peculiar to this dispensation; and is not to be confounded with the gospel of the kingdom referred to by the Lord in Matt. 24:14. Paul preached the kingdom of God, but not the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel he preached was that of the "grace of God." It may be asked, what is the difference? The gospel of the "grace of God" is what He is pleased to do, on the ground of what Christ has accomplished, for those who in themselves deserve nothing but wrath and endless misery. Righteousness of God is now declared to all, because all have sinned and come short of His glory. It is unto all, but only upon all them that believe. Both Jews and Gentiles are shown to be "under sin," - equally deserving judgment - every mouth is stopped, and all subject to the judgment of God. But instead of judgment, grace flows out to all "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." "Christ has suffered for sins the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God." Christ has ended the state in which man was, in death; He has been made sin, God has glorified Him, and now begins again from that. Therefore, all who believe see their old state ended in the cross, and every blessing the heart of God delights to bestow becomes theirs; because of the One who in His death was a sweet savour to God. Sin having been dealt with, God's grace is free to have full exercise, in accord with every attribute of His nature.

And just allow me to state another word or two in connection with the gospel of St. Paul. He is the only one who characterizes his gospel as the glorious gospel. And one may be interested to know that when the apostle uses that phrase, he does not say, "glorious" merely as we use it; he means the gospel of the glory. And the true force of that expression is this: it is the gospel of Christ glorified at the right hand of God. It is the glad tidings that we have a Saviour who is risen and glorified. We are called to all the effects of His glory as well as of His death upon the cross. Other apostles never wrote of the subject of the Church being made one with Christ; Paul alone did. Possibly, then, Paul was the only one that was in a position to say, "If one add anything to my gospel, let such an one be accursed." Although Paul added something to their gospel, they could add nothing to his. The apostles announced Christ as the Messiah and made known remission of sins through His name; but they did not bring out the heavenly glory of Christ as Paul did. He brought out all these truths, and more which they never touched on. That is the reason why he so constantly speaks of "my gospel." Because while, of course, as to the grand truths of the gospel there could be no difference between what Paul and the other apostles preached, there was a great advance in that which Paul preached beyond them. There was nothing contradictory; but Paul being called after the ascension of our Lord to heaven, he was the one to whom it was peculiarly appropriate to make any addition. Till Paul was called, there was something still needed to make up the sum of revealed truth. In Col. 1:25, he says that he was a minister of Christ to complete the word of God, to fill up a certain space that was not filled up. Paul was the person employed by the Holy Ghost to do this. John brought out prophetic truth — prophecy entirely outside what we have been speaking of, for it reveals the dealings of God with the world, and not with the Church. Therefore, the apostle can insist strongly upon the danger of attempting to swerve from what he had brought out, or of adding anything to it. This is very important. Others might not preach all the truth, but that is not what he so strongly denounces. No person ought to be condemned because he does not unfold the higher truth of God. What we ought to set our faces against is the bringing in of something contrary to the gospel, or mingling the law with the grace of Christ — putting new wine into old bottles. Some may refer to the Epistle of James; but James never presents the law so as to clash with the gospel, although what he says may put a guard upon souls making an improper use of the solemn warning of the Holy Ghost against mingling the law with the gospel in any shape or form. There will be many occasions for showing how the Apostle Paul refers to it in this epistle.

Such are the fundamental points in the history of Paul, the enemy of the Lord of glory, converted, pardoned, justified, necessary witness of sovereign grace. The gospel of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, of the glory of the Lord, is confided to him; then the truth of the union, of the unity of Christians with Christ, glorious Head in heaven. Peter preached that God had glorified Him whom the Jews had crucified, and invited the rebels to come to God by the sacrifice which he had perfected; and to those who repented Jesus would return. Saul preached that this salvation was for all men; and that God, as Saviour, could not limit Himself to the narrow bounds of Israel, but that He announced Himself to the whole creation under heaven; then, that the assembly of God was united to Jesus, His body.

We shall see that God did not permit disunion, but desired that there should be a single assembly. But it is not the less true that Paul was a witness that there was no difference, that all men were lost, all children of wrath, one just as another; and that Jesus, by the gift of the Holy Ghost, had united all in one body - a truth which the Jews (and also the Christian Jews) always resisted, tormenting the apostle in his work. Peter himself dissimulated, so that all the Christian Jews, led by his authority, which was only the fear of man, sided with him. Not one of the apostles speaks in his epistles of the assembly, the body of Christ on earth, save only Paul. The glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; sovereign grace, by which he was the example to all those who should afterwards believe in Christ Jesus; and the whole in virtue of the cross - such was the gospel confided to Paul.

Paul's doctrine unfolds to us in the fullest way the glad tidings concerning God's Son Jesus Christ to a world of sinners. But we do well to remember that the gospel revealed to Paul, and preached to the world, included a great deal more than is generally proclaimed in Evangelical circles. He not only proclaimed the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, but also the entire setting aside of the man that committed the sins. Paul's doctrine was not a reformation of the "old man" and a mere change of life; he preached the judgment, and setting aside, of the old man in death, and the introduction of an entirely new life — Christ. Moreover, Paul's doctrine delivers us from the world: he preached that Christ "gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us from this present evil world" (Gal.1:4).

Of the treasure committed to Paul, the blessedness of which God would have all who sail with him enjoy while upon their voyage, no truth is of more importance to the peace of the believer than that of justification. This is preeminently what Paul calls “my gospel,” and “my doctrine.” It will be observed by the thoughtful reader of the Word of God that while the question, “How can man be just (or, justified) with God?” was twice asked in the book of Job, and to Habakkuk it was revealed that “The just shall live by faith;” it remained for the apostle of the Gentiles to fully develop and widely proclaim the great doctrine of justification by faith. It is the cornerstone of “the mystery of the gospel” (Ephesians 6:19). No other apostle or apostolic writer so much as mentions it, save that Luke as the inspired historian tells us how Paul preached it. But Peter and John never get beyond forgiveness of sins—nor, in one sense, shall any of us; for our song in heaven shall be of divine forgiveness. Still there is an aspect of forgiveness far higher than that of mere pardon, and it is of this that Paul delighted to treat.

He calls the gospel to which he was set apart, the gospel or glad tidings "of God": the Holy Ghost presents it in its source. It is not that which man ought to be for God, nor yet the means merely by which man can approach Him on His throne. It is the thoughts of God, and His acts, we may add, towards man — His thoughts in goodness, the revelation of Him in Christ His Son. He approaches man according to that which He is and that which He wills in grace. God comes to him; it is the gospel of God. This is the true aspect: the gospel is never rightly understood until it is to us the gospel of God, the activity and revelation of His nature, and of His will in grace towards man.