The One Gospel in all its forms

By Timothy Keller, Christianity Today (Dec. 2007)

IS THERE ONLY ONE GOSPEL?

The gospel has been described as a pool in which a

toddler can wade and yet an elephant can swim. It is both simple

enough to tell to a child and yet profound enough for the greatest

minds to explore. Indeed, even angels never get tired of looking

into it (1 Peter 1:12.) We are by no means angels, however, and

so rather than contemplating it we argue about it endlessly.

A generation ago evangelicals agreed on what was called

‘the simple gospel:’ 1) God made you and you must have a

relationship with him, 2) but your sin separates you from God. 3)

Jesus took the punishment your sins deserved, 4) so if you repent

for sins and trust in him for your salvation, you will be forgiven,

justified and accepted freely by grace, and indwelt with his Spirit

until you die and go to heaven.

There are today at least two major criticisms of this

traditional formulation. Many say that it is too individualistic, that

Christ’s salvation is not so much to bring individual happiness so

much as peace, justice, and a new creation. A second is that

thereis no one ‘simple gospel’because ‘everything is contextual’

and the Bible itself contains many gospel presentations that exist

in tension with each other.

Let’s take the second criticism first. The belief that there is

no single basic gospel outline in the Bible goes back at least to

the Tubingen school of Biblical scholarship which insisted Paul’s

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gospel of justification was sharply different than Jesus’ gospel of

the kingdom. In the 20th century the British professor C.H. Dodd

countered that there was one consensus gospel message in the

Bible. Then, in turn, James Dunn argued in Unity and Diversity in

the New Testament (1977) that the gospel formulations in the

Bible are so different that we can’t come up with a single outline.

There are hundreds of websites of young Christian

leaders complaining that the older evangelical church spent too

much time reading Romans rather than on Jesus’ declaration that

‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’, but I believe we must side with

Dodd over Dunn if we are to be true to 1st century Christians’ own

understanding of the gospel. In 1 Corinthians 15:10-11 Paul is

very emphatic that the gospel he presents is the same as the one

preached by the Jerusalem apostles. “Whether it was I or they, “

Paul says, referring to Peter and the others, “so we preached and

so you believed.” This statement assumes a single body of

gospel-content.

FORMS OF THE ONE GOSPEL

So yes, there must be one simple gospel, yet there are

clearly different forms in which that one gospel can be expressed.

Someone might complain: “Isn’t that the same as saying that

there are different gospels?” The answer is—to say there is one

gospel in different forms is the Bible’s own way of speaking of it,

and we should stick with it. Paul is an example. After insisting

there is only one gospel (Gal 1:8) in Galatians 2:7 he speaks of

being entrusted with ‘the gospel of the uncircumcised’ as

opposed to the ‘gospel of the circumcised.’ In 1 Cor 1:22-25 Paul

says that when he spoke to Greeks, he confronted their culture’s

idol of speculation and philosophy with the ‘foolishness’ of the

cross, and then presented Christ’s salvation as true wisdom.

However, when he spoke to Jews he confronted their culture’s

idol of power and accomplishment with the ‘weakness’ of the

cross, and then presented the gospel as true power. One of

Paul’s gospel forms was tailored to Bible-believing people whothought

they would be justified by works on judgment day, and

the other to pagans. These two approaches of Paul can be

discerned in his speeches in the book of Acts, some to Jews and

some to pagans.

There are other forms of the gospel. Readers have

always noticed that the kingdom language of the Synoptic

gospels is virtually missing in the gospel of John, which usually

talks instead about receiving eternal life. However, when we

compare Mark 10:17,23-34 , Matthew 25:34,46, and John (3:5,6

and 17) we see that ‘entering the kingdom of God’ and ‘receiving

eternal life’ are virtually the same thing. Reading Matthew 18:3,

Mark 10:15 and John 3:3,5 together reveal that conversion, the

new birth, and receiving the kingdom of God ‘as a child’ are the

same move.

Why, then, the difference in vocabulary between the

Synoptics and John? As many scholars have pointed out, John

seems to emphasize the individual and inward spiritual aspects of

being in the kingdom of God. He is at pains to show that it is not

basically an earthly social-political order (John 18:36.) On the

other hand, when the Synoptics talk of the kingdom, they lay out

the real social and behavioral changes that the gospel brings. We

see in John and the Synoptics two more forms of the gospel—

one that stresses the individual and the other the corporate

aspect to our salvation.

WHAT IS THE ONE GOSPEL?

What, then, is the one, simple gospel? Simon Gathercole

distills a three-point gospel outline that both Paul and the

Synoptic writers held in common. (See “The Gospel of Paul and

the Gospel of the Kingdom” in God’s Power to Save ed. Chris

Green Apollos/Inter-Varsity Press, UK, 2006.) He writes that

Paul’s good news was first, that Jesus was the promised

Messianic King and Son of God come to earth as a servant, in

human form. (Romans 1:3-4; Phil 2:4ff.) Second, by his death and

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resurrection Jesus atoned for our sin and secured our justification

by grace, not our works (1 Corinthians 15:3ff.) Third, on the cross

Jesus broke the dominion of sin and evil over us (Col 2:13-15)

and at his return he will complete what he began by the renewal

of the entire material creation and the resurrection of our bodies

(Rom 8:18ff.) Gathercole then traces out these same three

aspects in the Synoptics’ teaching that Jesus, the Messiah, is the

divine Son of God (Mark 1:1) who died as a substitutionary

ransom for the many (Mark 10:45), who has conquered the

demonic present age with its sin and evil (Mark 1:14-2:10) and

will return to regenerate the material world (Matthew 19:28.)

If I had to put this outline in a single statement, I might do

it like this: Through the person and work of Jesus Christ God fully

accomplishes salvation for us, rescuing us from judgment for sin

into fellowship with him, and then restores the creation in which

we can enjoy our new life together with him forever.

The second of these elements was at the heart of the

older gospel messages, namely, salvation is by grace not works.

It was the last of the three elements that was usually missing,

namely that grace restores nature, as the Dutch theologian

Herman Bavinck put it. When the third, ‘eschatological’ element is

left out, Christians get the impression that nothing much about

this world matters. Theoretically, a grasp of this 3-point outline

should make Christians interested in both evangelism and

conversions as well as service to our neighbor and working for

peace and justice in the world.

FEELING THE TENSION

However, it’s my experience that these individual and

corporate aspects of the gospel do not live in easy harmony with

one another in our preaching and church bodies. In fact, many

communicators today deliberately pit them against each other.

Those pushing the kingdom-corporate versions of the

gospel define sin in almost exclusively corporate terms, such as

racism, materialism, and militarism, as violations of God’s shalom

or peace. This often obscures how offensive sin is to God himself,

and it usually mutes any emphasis on God’s wrath. Also, the

impression can be given that the gospel is ‘God is working for

justice and peace in the world, and you can too.’ While it is true

that the coming new social order is ‘good news’ to all sufferers, to

speak about the gospel in terms of doing justice blurs the fact of

salvation being all of grace, not works. And that is not the way the

word ‘gospel’ is used in the New Testament. Recently I did a word

study of all the places in the Greek Bible where forms of the word

‘gospel’ were used, and I was overwhelmed at how often it is

used to denote not a way of life--not what to do--but a verbal

proclamation of what Jesus has done and how an individual gets

right with God. Often people who talk about the good news as

mainly doing peace and justice refer to it as ‘the gospel of the

kingdom.’ But to receive the kingdom as a little child (Matt 18:3)

and to believe in Christ’s name and be born of God (Jn 1:12-13)

is the same thing—it’s the way one becomes a Christian (Jn

3:3,5.)

Having said this, I must admit that so many of us who

revel in the classic gospel of grace alone through faith alone in

Christ alone largely ignore the eschatological implications of the

gospel. Texts like Luke 4:18 and Luke 6:20-35 show the

implication of the gospel is that the broken-hearted,

unrecognized, and oppressed now have a central place in the

economy of the Christian community, while the powerful and

successful are humbled. In Galatians 2:14 Paul tells Peter that

attitudes of racial and cultural superiority are ‘not in line’ with the

gospel of grace (Gal 2:14.) Generosity to the poor will flow from

those who are holding fast to the gospel as their profession (2

Cor 9:13.) In Romans 2:16 Paul says that Christ’s return to judge

the earth was part of his gospel, and if you read Psalm 96:10ff

you’ll know why. The earth will be renewed and even the trees will

be singing for joy. And if the trees will be able to dance and sing

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under the cosmos-renewing power of his Kingship—what will we

be able to do? If this final renewal of the material world was part

of Paul’s good news, we should not be surprised to see that

Jesus healed and fed while preaching the gospel as signs and

foretastes of this coming kingdom (Matt 9:35).

When we realize that Jesus is going to some day destroy

hunger, disease, poverty, injustice, and death itself, it makes

Christianity what C.S. Lewis called a ‘fighting religion’ when we

are confronted with a city-slum or a cancer ward. This full version

of the gospel reminds us that God created both the material and

the spiritual, and is going to redeem both the material and the

spiritual. The things that are now wrong with the material world he

wants put right. Some avoid the importance of working for justice

and peace by pointing to 2 Peter 3:10-12 which seems to say that

this material world is going to be completely burned up at the final

resurrection. But that is not what happened to Jesus’ body, which

retained its nail prints, and Doug Moo makes a case for the

world’s transformation, not replacement, in his essay on “Nature

and the New Creation: NT Eschatology and the Environment”

available on line at http://

www.wheaton.edu/CACE/resources/onlinearticles/MooNature.pdf.

PREACHING THE FORMS

You would expect the author of this article at this point

now to explain how he has perfectly integrated the various

aspects of the simple gospel in his preaching. I can’t because I

haven’t. But here’s how I try.

1. I don’t put all the gospel points into any one gospel

presentation. I find it instructive that the New Testament writers

themselves seldom if ever pack all of the aspects of the gospel

equally in any one gospel address. When studying Paul’s gospel

speeches in the book of Acts it is striking how much is always left

out. He always leads with some points rather than others in an

effort to connect with the baseline cultural narratives of hislisteners.

It is almost impossible to cover all the bases of the

gospel with a non-believing listener without that person’s eyes

glazing over. Some parts simply engage her more than others,

and, to begin with, a communicator should go with those.

Eventually, of course, you have to get to all the aspects of the full

gospel in any process of evangelism and discipleship. But you

don’t have to say everything every time.

2. I use both a gospel for the ‘circumcised’ and for the

‘uncircumcised.’ Just as Paul spoke about a gospel for the more

religious (the ‘circumcised’) and for the pagan, so I’ve found that

my audience in Manhattan contains both people with moralist,

religious backgrounds as well as those with ‘post-modern,’

pluralistic world-views. There are people from other religions

(Judaism, Islam,) and people with strong Catholic backgrounds

as well as those raised in conservative Protestant churches.

People with a more traditional upbringing can grasp the idea of

sin as the violation of God’s moral law. That law can then be

expounded in such a way that they realize they fall short of it. In

that context, the idea of the wrath of a holy God against sin

makes sense. Then Christ and his salvation can be presented as

the only hope of pardon for guilt. This, the traditional evangelical

gospel of the last generation, is a ‘gospel for the circumcised.’

However, Manhattan is also filled with ‘post-modern’

listeners who consider all moral statements to be culturally

relative and socially constructed. If you try to convict them of guilt

for sexual lust, they will simply say, “you have your standards and

I have mine.” If you respond with a diatribe on the dangers of

relativism, your listeners will simply feel scolded. Of course,

postmodern people must at some point be challenged about their

mushy views of truth, but there is a way to make a credible and

convicting gospel presentation to them even before you get into

such apologetic issues.

I take a page from Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto

Death and define sin as building your identity—your self-worth

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and happiness—on anything other than God. That is, I use the

Biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as

much on ‘doing bad things’ but on ‘making good things into

ultimate things.’ Instead of telling them they are sinning because

they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them

that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances

to justify and save them, to give them everything that they should

be looking for from God. This idolatry leads to anxiety,

obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when

you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do

not give much resistance. Then Christ and his salvation can be

presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for

forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my ‘gospel

for the uncircumcised.’

3. I use both a ‘kingdom’ and an ‘eternal life’ gospel. I

find that many of my younger listeners are struggling to make

choices in a world of endless consumer options, and are

confused about their own identities in a culture of self-creation

and self-promotion. These are the people who are engaged well

by the more individually-focused presentation on the gospel as

free grace not works. This is a lot like the ‘eternal life gospel’ of

John. However, I have found many highly secular people over the

age of 40 are not reached very well with any emphasis on

personal problems. Many of them think they are doing very well,

thank you. They are much more concerned about the problems of

the world—war, racism, poverty, and injustice. And they respond

well to a synoptic-like ‘kingdom gospel.’

Instead of going into, say, one of the epistles and

speaking of the gospel in terms of God, sin, Christ, and faith, I

have point out the story-arc of the Bible and so speak of the

gospel in terms of creation, fall, redemption,, and restoration. We

once had the world we all wanted—a world of peace and justice,

without death, disease, or conflict. But by turning from God we

lost that world. Our sin unleashed forces of evil and destruction

so that now ‘things fall apart’ and everything is characterized by

physical, social, and personal disintegration. Jesus Christ,

however, came into the world, died as a victim of injustice and as

our substitute, bearing the penalty of our evil and sin on himself.

This will enable him to some day judge the world and destroy all

death and evil without destroying us.

4. I use them all and let each group overhear me

preaching to the others. No one form of the gospel gives all the

various aspects of the full gospel the same emphasis. If , then,

you only ever preach one form, you are in great danger of giving

your people an unbalanced diet of gospel-truth. What is the

alternative? Don’t use just one gospel form in your preaching.

That’s not true to the various texts of the Bible anyway. If you are

preaching expositionally, different passages will convey different

forms of the one gospel. Follow the lead of the texts and vary the

form, and then your people will hear all the points.

Won’t this confuse people? No, it will stretch them. When

one group—say the ‘post-modern’ hears a penetrating

presentation of sin as idolatry, it opens them up to the concept of

sin as grieving and offending God. Sin as a personal affront to a

perfect, holy God begins to make more sense, and when they

hear this presented in another gospel form, it has credibility.

When more traditional people with a developed understanding of

moral guilt learn about the substitutionary atonement and forensic

justification, they are comforted. But these classic doctrines have

profound implications for race relations and love for the poor,

since they destroy all pride and self-justification. When more

liberal people hear about the kingdom of God for the restoration

of the world, it opens them up to Christ’s kingship demanding

obedience from them in their personal lives. In short, every

gospel form, once it hits home in the hearts of its ‘target’

audience, opens them to the other points of the gospel made

more vividly in other forms.

When you preach several different gospel forms with

some regularity, you are more true to the Bible, you make your

own listeners more balanced and mature in their understanding,

and you make your own church more diverse. Instead of having a

homogeneous group taken from just one slice of our pluralistic

society, you have a mixed body of people from across our cultural

spectrum.

Today there are many who doubt that there is just one

gospel. That gives them the warrant to ignore Paul’s gospel of

atonement and justification. There are others who don’t like to

admit that there are different forms to that one gospel. That

smacks too much of ‘contextualization,’ a term they dislike. They

cling to a single presentation that is often too one-dimensional.

Neither of these approaches are as true to the Biblical material,

nor as effective in actual ministry, as that which understands that

there is one gospel in several forms in the Bible.

Make Room for Growth

Confidence doesn’t always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.

The key to making things happen isn’t waiting for the perfect moment; it’s starting with what you have, where you are. Big goals can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once, but momentum builds through small, consistent action. Whether you’re working toward a personal milestone or a professional dream, progress comes from showing up — not perfectly, but persistently. Action creates clarity, and over time, those steps forward add up to something real.

You don’t need to be fearless to reach your goals, you just need to be willing. Willing to try, willing to learn, and willing to believe that you’re capable of more than you know. The road may not always be smooth, but growth rarely is. What matters most is that you keep going, keep learning, and keep believing in the version of yourself you’re becoming.