In Christ, the Gospel is the very ground we walk on. To leave it behind is to leave the faith behind altogether. Christians are people who, by God’s grace and not by any merit of their own, have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness and welcomed into God’s family. If we don’t return to the Gospel again and again, we will fall into worldly thinking.

Many Christians who sit in a church on a Sunday morning can say that they have already found the answer to the question What Is the Gospel? They have understood the saving grace of God in the cross of Christ, have taken hold of Christ by faith, and now find themselves in Christ, clothed in His righteousness, adopted as children of the Father, and walking in the Spirit’s power. In other words, at a particular moment in time, they were born again.
Yet while the Gospel may be the beginning of the Christian life, it is not simply an initiation. No, it is a fundamental principle to which we return again and again, not because we must be saved again but because our standing with God and our hope of redemption, once established, remains forever founded on that work of Jesus for us.
So, even for those who have been saved and experience assurance of their place in God’s family, a ministry of reminder is necessary. We need to remember the essential truths of our faith. And we may do so by considering the Gospel’s source, its substance, its scope, and its ongoing significance.
The Source of the Gospel
Throughout Scripture, the Gospel is described specifically to be “the gospel of God” (e.g., Mark 1:14; Rom. 1:1; 1 Thess. 2:2; 1 Peter 4:17). In other words, the good news of Jesus is not a manmade contrivance, but it is a divine revelation. It begins with God Himself.
In Galatians 1:11, Paul writes, “I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel”—or, as J. B. Phillips paraphrases it, “no human invention.” The Gospel ministry of Paul and his fellow apostles was not a matter of calling people to listen to what they had to say. It emerged from their responsibility to proclaim the message God had entrusted to them.
When we proclaim the Gospel, we’re proclaiming God’s message on His behalf. We’re saying to humanity that the God who made them in His image has presented, in His Son, the only means whereby they may find salvation and meaning.
And this Gospel is not a contingency plan. It’s not as if God had one bad go with Adam, and then another with the law, and now He’s trying it another way with Jesus. God didn’t send His Son to fix His own mistake. No, the Gospel has been His eternal purpose since before the world’s creation (Eph. 3:11). Long before Jesus was born in the stable in Bethlehem, God was unfolding His eternal purpose. Peter tells us that the prophets and even the angels knew that something was coming, but they didn’t yet know it in its fullness; they longed to see it because they knew that it had its origin in God’s heart (1 Peter 1:10–12).
Temptations will confront us to leave the Gospel story behind for one reason or another, for this or that strategy, for an exciting new idea. But the Gospel is not a human story that we can take up or put down as we please. Indeed, we proclaim Jesus because “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). And so we must hold firmly to God’s message of salvation for us through faith in the Son.
The Substance of the Gospel
In Romans 1:17, Paul says that in the Gospel, “the righteousness of God is revealed.” John Stott explains this “righteousness of God” well when he writes, “It is a righteous status which God requires if we are ever to stand before him, which he achieves through the atoning sacrifice of the cross, which he reveals in the gospel, and which he bestows freely on all who trust in Jesus Christ.”1 The four verbs of this definition can help us to grasp what the substance of the Gospel is.
This “righteousness of God” is first of all the “righteous status which God requires.” To stand before a holy God, we must be in a state of moral and spiritual perfection. Yet we can never attain such a state by our own power. The law shows us our imperfections, making it clear that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6 KJV).
But nevertheless, it is also a righteousness that God “achieves” in the death of His Son. In the cross, God satisfies His perfect justice by meting out the punishment for sin upon the sinless God-man, Jesus Christ. And because Christ has taken the punishment for sin, God pardons those who believe in the Lord Jesus even though we have sinned and deserve condemnation.
Thirdly, God then “reveals” this righteousness in the proclamation of the good news of Jesus. That’s why Christians are Gospel men and women. That’s why we want to be about the Gospel. That’s why we want to declare the Gospel: because in this Gospel, in this great story, is God’s answer to our problem.
And fourthly, God “bestows” this righteousness on those who come to Christ in faith. Our sin is counted to His account, and His righteousness is counted to ours, so that we stand before God with the innocence of Christ.
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A well-grounded Christian hope perseveres through all the confusion going on in our culture. Live each day to the glory of God by displaying this hope to those around you. Love God, enjoy him each day, care for your family, care for your neighbor, and rest in Christ. It’s possible to be so caught up in changing the world that you don’t even influence those in your circle. Serve faithfully where God has you and never lose hope. 

It was the strangest of times, it was the most frustrating of times. How else could one revise Dickens’ famous opening line to describe our current cultural era?
Foundational ideas and understandings are changing at lightening pace. The majority opinion from twenty years ago regarding marriage is now viewed as oppressive and unwelcome in public discourse. Definitions established for much of human history that differentiates a man and a woman are now viewed as abhorrent. Basic biology and common sense are thrown out the window to create a new normal. Like a square cat or smelling seven, much of the language of today is illogical and unscientific, yet the culture demands full acceptance without discussion or debate.
Watching the culture go down such a dark path brings about a great deal of discouragement for believers. Some Christians have given over to despair, while others have embraced a blind optimism that doesn’t take seriously what’s at stake with the current issues.
Christian Hope
In his book Strange New World, Carl Trueman warns believers against both despair and blind optimism: “To fall into the former would be to fail to take seriously the promise that the church will win in the end because the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. To engage in the latter is simply to prepare the stage for deeper despair later. And both will feed inaction, one out of a sense of impotence, the other out of naïveté.”
Instead, as believers traverse these dark roads, we do so with hope. Not a false hope that pretends problems don’t exist, but a hope that sees the issues and yet perseveres; a hope rooted in the ultimate reality of who God is, the good news of the death and resurrection of Christ, and the imminent return of Christ. As Trueman explains, “Christian Hope is realistic. It understands that this world is a vale of tears, that things here are not as they should be, and that…all life death does end. This world is not the Christian’s home, and so we should not expect it to provide us with home comforts.”
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It is right to critique unbelief as an incoherent, unsustainable worldview. But we must also offer an alternative. Apologists don’t merely answer questions or defend against accusations. They proclaim and invite.

Apologetic conversations aren’t about hypothetical truths, but about life’s most important matters. We mustn’t simply stick to the scripts of critics; we must see ourselves as God’s prophets “anointed to confess his name” and reveal the mysterious “counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance.”[1] Apologists aim to disrupt the status quo of the critic. Why? Because “as an outsider I don’t need reasons to dismiss something. My ignorance of the subject is already doing a good job of that. I need reasons to take seriously something that I would otherwise dismiss.”[2]
How can we do that? Apologists answer that question differently. For example, “The Van Tillian methodology was negative, to reduce the opponent to absurdity. The Lewisian methodology was affirmative, to persuade the opponent that they actually needed and wanted the Foundation and Anchor of Truth.” [3] Folks might favor one approach over the other—but aren’t they both needed?
This was Paul’s plan. Apologists must “destroy arguments” (2 Cor. 10:5). They also must “entreat…by the meekness and gentleness of Christ” (1). And before doing either we can help our friends better understand their unbelief.
Clarify Unbelief
Because you believe God’s Word, you know more about the unbelief of your friends than they do. The woman at the well was amazed because of the personal things Jesus knew about her (John 4:29). His analysis of her life got her wondering about the claims of Christ’s lordship. We don’t have to be omniscient to understand important truths about unbelief.
Unbelief Is Always Moral, Not Merely Intellectual
Intellectually unbelievers know there is a God, but find it morally intolerable to honor him as God (Rom. 1:21). They stumble over Jesus’ claim of Lordship (1 Peter 2:8) despite his promise of gentleness (Matt. 11:29).
To truly receive Christ, we have to disown everything we thought was to our advantage (Phil. 3:7–8). The gospel offends us because it “deprives us of all credit for wisdom, virtue, and righteousness.”[4] Some people use intellectual arguments to excuse their refusal to trust Jesus. Others use less sophisticated methods. J. H. Bavinck puts it like this: “fear of the future, fear of the pitiless discovery of his own insignificance, fear of death, and fear of God—all that dark and somber fear which lives and hides in the inner man is covered with a pattern of banter and lightheartedness.”[5] Either way, refusal to trust in Jesus is always a matter of the heart; it is never simply about mental hurdles.
Unbelief Is Contrary to Our Deepest Desires
Unbelief is dissatisfying because we are wired to know God. The teenager who rebels against her parents violates deeper desires. She wants acceptance, security, and love. Rejecting her parents drives her further from what she truly wants and needs. So it is with unbelief. The peace and healing God promises, and which everyone desires, cannot be experienced by unbelievers. Here’s how Isaiah put it: “‘Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will heal him. But the wicked are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt. There is no peace’ says my God, ‘for the wicked’” (57:20–21). Truly, “Our restless spirits yearn for thee, where’er our changeful lot is cast.”[6] No matter how intelligent, competent, and lovely unbelievers are, because they reject God they are “wandering through life aimlessly, not knowing the right perspective on the simplest things of life.”[7] That is contrary to our deeper desires. Paul describes non-Christians in terms of homelessness. As aliens and strangers they have “no hope” and are “without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). I’ve never been homeless, but I’ve been away from home—where I belong—for too long. Unbelief keeps people from being where they belong.
Don’t fear telling unbelieving friends what the Bible says about their unbelief.
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