Grace Earned and Purchased

All of the apostles taught one message. So we must be careful when we talk about four evangelists and four Gospels. Everything the apostles wrote is one gospel. The word gospel means nothing other than an announcement about God’s grace earned and purchased through Christ by his death.

Actually, the gospel is not what we read in books and what is written with letters. Instead, it’s a living word, a voice that rings throughout the whole world. It is publicly proclaimed and heard everywhere. The gospel also is not a law book that contains many good teachings, as has been thought in the past. It doesn’t tell us to do good works to become virtuous but announces God’s grace to us, given freely and without our merit.

It tells us how Christ stood as our representative. He paid for our sins and wiped them out so that we can become faithful and blessed through his work. Whoever preaches or writes about this teaches the true gospel as all apostles have, most notably as Paul and Peter did in their letters. Although preachers teach in different ways and choose different words, they preach only one gospel. It may be a shorter or longer account. It may be presented briefly or more extensively. But if the preachers teach us that Christ is our Savior, that we are justified by faith in him without works, then it’s the same word. There is only one gospel, just as there is only one faith and one baptism.

Source: Quoted in Faith Alone: A Daily Devotional, p. 80.  James C. Galvin. Zondervan (2009).