What Is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel? by R.C. Sproul

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What is the gospel? I couldn't tell from this book since no definition was provided. It seems that we are just supposed to know what the gospel is because we are told that the “Gospel is the saving power of God.” But it isn't clear what the gospel is.

At times, it seems that the Gospel is the content of a message. At times it seems that the gospel may be the story of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. However, this may not be correct because we are told that the deity of Christ is essential to the gospel (“The deity of Christ is an essential point of the gospel”), but is not the same as the gospel. At other times, it seems that the “gospel” is a set of Reformed Protestant doctrines, including sola fide,sola scriptura, and the doctrine of imputation, but not infusion, of grace, which most certainly are not the life of Christ. These latter points go beyond the life of Christ and seem to be theological proposition deduced from presuppositions inherent in Reformed Protestantism rather than the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

So, I was left befuddled on this point.

The gist of the book is an explanation of the 1998 Reformed publication of “The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration.” This publication consists of 16 positive and negative propositions about the Reformed Protestant understanding of the Gospel.

As is typical of these kinds of publication, quite a bit is said about faith alone as being the key to justification. What is interesting is that while something like 15 of the question do not give any indication of something other than faith being involved, Sproul does acknowledge that “faith alone” is not sufficient for salvation. As he says:

“Now we get to a tricky part. Our document makes a distinction between what we call justification and sanctification. Affirmation 14 reads:”

Sproul, R.C.. What Is the Gospel? (Crucial Questions) (p. 72). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The “tricky part” is that although most Protestants think that “justification” means “salvation,” it doesn't. Sproul is to be commended for the clarity of his admission:

“The New Testament calls us to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). Sometimes we get confused when we read that language because the words justification and salvation tend to be used interchangeably. It's true that in a certain sense we enter into salvation the moment we put our faith in Christ. But our final and full salvation doesn't take place until we enter into our glorification in heaven. So, part of the process of salvation is sanctification. But justification comes first. We are not working to achieve our justification. We are working to bring the fruits of that justification to bear in our sanctification.

Sproul, R.C.. What Is the Gospel? (Crucial Questions) (pp. 75-76). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

This raises the issue of sanctification:

“The moment we embrace Christ with true faith, God declares us just by virtue of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. But even though we have been justified, we continue to sin. The lifelong process by which we are made holy and brought into conformity to the image of Christ, which begins at the moment of our justification, is called sanctification. Article 15 addresses the relationship between justification and sanctification. Affirmation 15 reads: We affirm that saving faith results in sanctification, the transformation of life in growing conformity to Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification means ongoing repentance, a life of turning from sin to serve Jesus Christ in grateful reliance on him as one's Lord and Master (Gal. 5:22–25; Rom. 8:4, 13–14).

Sproul, R.C.. What Is the Gospel? (Crucial Questions) (pp. 77-78). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

What's interesting is that after explaining that “the gospel” means that grace is imputed, not infused, and anyone who denies that claim denies “the gospel,” Sproul turns around and demands that we accept that a person is transformed by actual grace before becoming capable of faith. So, why the insistence on damning those who believe in infused grace - like Catholics do ?

“Certainly, someone who has been justified has experienced a significant change, a change from someone who is under God's curse to someone who is righteous in His sight. A person cannot be justified without possessing true faith. But Christians disagree about when that faith happens in relation to rebirth or regeneration. Regeneration refers to the work of the Holy Spirit by which a person is quickened from a state of spiritual death and transformed into a state of spiritual life. Some believe that a person has faith first, and then, as an immediate consequence of that faith, he is not only justified but also regenerated. That would mean two significant changes that are related to justification. As soon as a person has faith, he is a believer rather than an unbeliever, and he's now regenerate rather than unregenerate.

Sproul, R.C.. What Is the Gospel? (Crucial Questions) (pp. 79-80). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The Reformed faith reverses the order of these two elements of faith and regeneration. We say that regeneration precedes faith. When we say precedes, we don't mean chronologically; we don't mean that a person is regenerated and then fifteen years later has faith, or someone is regenerated and five minutes later has faith. We're talking about simultaneous actions. But when we look at it in terms of a logical order, we say that regeneration comes before or precedes faith in the sense that regeneration is a necessary condition, a prerequisite, for the presence of faith. Reformed theology teaches that the only way true faith can be manifested in the life of a person is if God first works a work of grace in his soul through the operation of the Holy Spirit, by which he is quickened from spiritual death to spiritual life and is therefore reborn. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). A person who has true faith is also a regenerate person, a person who has been reborn. And that's why we see that sanctification must follow from justification: if faith is present and a person has been reborn, that means that person has been changed in his inner being through the operation of the Holy Spirit, and the process of sanctification, or growing in conformity to the image of Christ, has most surely begun.

Sproul, R.C.. What Is the Gospel? (Crucial Questions) (pp. 80-81). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

One gets the feeling that these sections on regeneration and sanctification are not where Sproul lived. He seems to find it “tricky,” which makes sense since it runs counter to the “faith alone” doctrine that seems to be a far more straightforward proposition. Sproul doesn't do much to explain the inconsistencies; his goal seems to be to present the doctrines of his faith in a way that leaves followers as little disturbed as possible.

This is a short book that does a good job of setting forth Reformed doctrines. I was disappointed that Sproul wasn't more forthcoming in his definition of the “gospel” or in his failure to explain the anomaly between regeneration and infusion.