Dear Mr. Rushmore, The gospel is not repentance, confession, baptism and faith. The gospel is 1 Cor. 15:1-8. This is what Paul taught as the gospel and he learned the gospel from Christ Himself, Gal. 1:11-12. I do not think Christ gave Paul your gospel. In fact Paul said the if anyone teaches a different gospel that the one he declairs that person is cursed. Darrel Clark
The English word “gospel” appears 101 times in the New Testament, beginning with Matthew 4:23, which reads in part, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom…” (NKJV). “Gospel” is translated from related words, a noun and a verb, which mean “a good message” and “to announce good news” (Biblesoft’s).
First Corinthians 15:1-4 provides an overview definition of the Gospel thusly.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you — unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
Those are the facts of the Gospel. However, those facts must be obeyed for the Gospel to be the power of salvation for anyone. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16); salvation attributed to the Gospel includes faith or belief. “In flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Romans 10:16; 1 Peter 4:17); the Gospel must be obeyed in order for one to attain salvation.
Since the summary description of the apostle Paul of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) pertains to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, how can one obey the Gospel? The same apostle provided the answer to that question in Romans 6:3-5.
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.
One enacts for himself or herself the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in Christian baptism – immersion in water – a going into and coming up out of (Acts 8:38-39).
Fittingly, the one baptism (Ephesians 4:5) is the point at which a person receives the “remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), sins are washed away (Acts 22:16) and one is saved (1 Peter 3:21; Mark 16:16). Our Lord also associated with salvation repentance (Luke 13:3) and confessing Him to be the Christ (Matthew 10:32-33; John 8:24).
Biblical faith is based on the evidence of God’s Word (Romans 10:17); examination of Scripture is followed on the road to salvation by faith. Following faith, then, a person can repent of sins and confess that Jesus is the Christ. Prior to examining God’s divine truth in the New Testament, no one could possibly know what to believe, know of what to repent or know that he or she ought to confess that Jesus is the Christ. The natural sequence is the Word of God, faith, repentance, confession of Christ and baptism. Anyone who believes or promotes a so-called gospel different from the biblical description of the Gospel certainly will fall under condemnation (Galatians 1:6-9).
Works Cited
Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. CD-ROM. Seattle: Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, 2006.
