What is the gospel?
According to the Scripture, the gospel is that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He was raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:3–4). The heart of the gospel is Jesus Christ Himself—the person and work of Christ, the sin-bearing work of Christ, as well as the perfection of His life that is imputed to those who believe. Out of the Reformation came the great 'solas' and the three in the middle, 'sola fide', 'sola gratia', and 'solus Christus' are the heart of the gospel. In other words, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. That is the synopsis, in its most succinct form, of what the gospel is. The word gospel, 'euangelion', means “good news,” which presupposes that there is also bad news. There is no good news unless you first know the bad news. The book of Romans begins with bad news (Rom. 1:18). The gospel does include a message about sin, which is any want of conformity to the law of God. Sin is a tran...