The Gospel is good news, the announcement of a deliverance that has been accomplished and which we need to hear about and respond to. What are we rescued from? The “coming wrath” at the end of history (1 Thess 1:10), which is God’s wrath.
By nature and from birth we are out of fellowship with God; our relationship is broken – because of our sin and displayed in our sin. This has consequences as seen by the fact that we live in a world filled with suffering, disease, poverty, racism, natural disasters, war, aging, and death – it all stems from the wrath and curse of God on sin. These are all ultimately symptoms highlighting and expressing our separation from God, and declare to us our need to be reconciled to God.
The Gospel is not simply a divine rehabilitation program for the world, rather it is an accomplished substitutionary work. We must not depict the gospel as primarily joining something (Christ’s kingdom program) but rather as a receiving something (Christ’s finished work). [Keller]
The Gospel is the good news announcing that we have been rescued or saved by Jesus Christ and through His work for us. It is not what we do, but what He has done. It is not about us being good enough, but about He is good enough and that I am in Him.
The most basic and yet comprehensive statement of the Gospel is “God saves sinners” – listen to Rom 3:23-26; 5:8; 6:23; 2 Cor 5:17-19 – and note the emphasis on the activity of God, God at work for us.
That’s what is declared in Baptism and the Lord’s Supper: we can only be reconciled as God comes to us in Jesus Christ and unites us to Him by faith.
Like the gospel they declare God’s saving action and serve to guarantee its genuineness, and the validity of the offer of reconciliation through faith in Jesus, and its effective and enduring reality for all who do receive it through faith in Jesus Christ.