The Gospel as News

There are good reasons why we tend to remember where we were when we heard “the news.”

In times past, “the news” might have been regarding the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy. These days, “the news” might have more to do with the Challenger disaster or 9/11.

“The news” might involve more personal matters. People often remember when they received the news they were accepted into their dream school, got the job, received word they were expecting a child, or some notable achievement of their child. Or, in a darker vein, people sometimes remember where they were when they found out they, or a loved one, were diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness, or heard of the passing of someone they loved.

Some people remember quite vividly when they first heard the good news regarding the life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Many others cannot, for they have heard this good news often and for a very long time.

Not for nothing was the message regarding all God accomplished in Jesus called the evangelion, or “good news.” Jesus began speaking of the message as the good news, and the Evangelists and Apostles all followed in turn (Matthew 4:23, 26:13, Mark 1:1, Luke 20:1, Romans 1:9, 1 Peter 1:12, 1 John 1:5).

“The news” as we understand it, in terms of the published media, is only a few centuries old, but the desire, drive, and imperative of distributing information has existed as long as humanity. What “the news” would have looked like in the ancient world can be perceived well in Nahum 1:15, in which a messenger known as a herald would have gone from town to town proclaiming the major events regarding which the authorities would have wanted people to know. More local, communal “news” has always been distributed by means of gossip and busybodies, condemnation of the practice notwithstanding (e.g. Proverbs 16:28, 18:8, 2 Corinthians 12:20). And so we can understand why Jesus would have characterized the message of all God was accomplishing in Him through the Spirit as news, and why He wanted the message to be widely distributed and proclaimed throughout the world.

In the modern world, we have made much regarding the quest for “objectivity” in the accumulation and distribution of the news. We would like to think the news can come to us as relatively unfiltered true information regarding what is going on in the world, and from those reports we can make our own judgments. And yet no one can prove entirely objective: even if one attempts to be open-minded and open to multiple forms of understanding about events, the selection of which events are considered newsworthy, the ways in which they are reported, and even the framework in which they are reported will all reflect some level of bias. Such bias exists even with the best of intentions; and many have understood how profit and power can be found in very deliberately distorting and mischaracterizing events and packaging it as “news.” In this way “news” often proves to be “propaganda,” and has all too often succeeded in its designs. Therefore, not all “news” is “good news,” or, for that matter, even really “news.” There have been people out there proclaiming distorted forms of the message of what God accomplished in Christ for about as long as the message has been proclaimed in its apostolic simplicity and sincerity, and generally with a view to increase the standing and/or wealth of the proclaimer or to accommodate the message of Jesus to a given culture or heritage (cf. 1 Timothy 4:1-4, 6:3-10, 2 Peter 2:1-20, Jude 1:3-16).

Speaking of the message of what God accomplished in Christ as “good news” proved subversive from the beginning. The life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, was not the only message proclaimed in the first century Roman world as the evangelion, or “good news.” Roman Emperors made sure to send out plenty of heralds proclaiming the evangelion of Rome, what they deemed as the “good news” of the gods’ favor upon the Senate and People of Rome and their designs, manifest in the “Peace of Rome” and all its attendant munificence in terms of public infrastructure and security provided by the Romans to all of their subjects. The oppressive taxation and ruthless suppression of most dissent was, of course, not proclaimed so loudly by those same heralds.

Therefore, when the Apostles and later believers of Jesus went about proclaiming the “good news” of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return, they were casting aspersions upon the claims and pretensions of the Roman Emperors. If Jesus is the Son of God, Caesar is not; if Jesus is Lord, then Caesar’s rule is far more circumscribed than he would appreciate. To this end, the “good news” about what God has accomplished in Jesus can never cease to be political, and those who truly proclaim it and adhere to it will often be seen with suspicion by the earthly authorities, no matter how outwardly they seem to conform to the laws of the land (cf. 1 Peter 2:10-18).

Ultimately, the power of news has very little to do with the words of the message itself, and even less with the messenger. The power of news has always come from how the information encoded in the news reflects and manifests the reality behind it, and particularly how the reality of what is proclaimed will transform the life of the one who has heard it.

News, therefore, is only as good as it accurately and honestly reflects reality. Our understanding of this crucial principle can be found in its betrayal: we do not appreciate pranks featuring the proclamation of “news” which is not really the case. When the truth of the matter is made known, we feel betrayed and deceived, and our trust in the integrity of the messenger has been compromised. And so, if Jesus never really lived, died, was raised, and/or ascended, then He would not be Lord, and will not return again, and those of us who have put our trust in Jesus have lived a lie and have deceived others (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:12-19). The Gospel of Jesus can only be good news if it accurately reflects reality, and Jesus well and truly lived, died, was raised, ascended, is Lord, and will return again soon.

We do well to think again regarding the power of the news as we considered at the beginning. The news about the bombing of Pearl Harbor was transformative, for instance, because Americans knew it meant going to war with Japan and Germany. In our personal lives, to receive the news one is expecting a child means a significant transformation into becoming a parent or becoming the parent of an additional child; to find out one has a chronic or terminal illness leads to significant changes in how one will live his or her life. When we are informed of the passing of someone we love, we begin the grief process: we will hopefully reach a point at which our loved ones live on in our memory and we can honor them well and appropriately, but life on this earth without them will not be exactly like it was while they were still here with us.

Above all things, such is why Jesus characterized the message of what God accomplished in Him as the “good news”: Jesus was actually Emmanuel, God in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary around 5 or 4 BCE in the days of Herod “the Great”, king of the Jews, and Augustus Caesar; He actually lived, doing good for all; He suffered and was crucified, even though an innocent man, under Pontius Pilate in the days of Tiberius Caesar; on the third day God raised Him from the dead so death no longer had power over Him, and the Apostles bore witness to Jesus as alive after having died; forty days later He ascended to the Father, who made Him both Lord and Christ, and Jesus actually reigns from heaven to this day (cf. Matthew 1:1-Acts 2:41). Jesus also promised He would return one day, and on that day, all would be judged and raised from the dead (cf. John 5:28-29, 1 Corinthians 15:1-58).

The Gospel has the “power of salvation”, as Paul testified in Romans 1:16, not because of the words written on a page, nor because of how eloquently an evangelist might proclaim them. The Gospel has the power of salvation because God has actually done, is doing, and will do all the things proclaimed in the Gospel in Christ through the Spirit. The Gospel is the power of salvation because those who obey the Gospel by believing Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, confessing His name, repenting of their poor behavior and sins, submit to baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and seek to endure to the end are baptized into the body of Christ in the Spirit, given the Spirit of God, are actually reconciled to God through Christ, and are welcomed, received, and loved as part of the people of God in Christ (cf. Romans 8:1-17, 1 Corinthians 12:23, Ephesians 2:1-4:3). If any of these things were not actually true in reality, the Gospel would not really be the good news it is purported to be, and would not have the power Paul claimed for it.

Furthermore, the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation because those who hear it should prove utterly transformed by their exposure to the message and, by extension, to the statement of reality reflected within the Gospel. When a person is informed Jesus is Lord, they will, by necessity, have to concede to it or reject it. If they reject it, their lives may seem otherwise the same, but they will be held accountable by Jesus for having rejected Him (cf. Romans 2:5-11). But if they come to recognize Jesus is Lord, and God has made Him Lord and Christ because He lived, suffered, and died, and He will return soon to judge everyone, by necessity they will have to recognize those whom they had formerly believed to have been their lords really are not. They will now have to submit to Jesus and His ways. They will have to entrust themselves to Him and live according to His standards.

And so, we can understand why many people can remember when they first heard the good news of the life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ. Their lives would never be the same again. But the transformation was not merely because they heard someone speak words; the desired transformation does not involve becoming obsessed over the words themselves, or, perhaps even worse, with the messenger of the words. Their lives were transformed because they accepted the truth of the reality behind those words. Jesus actually did all those things the Gospels said He did. God really did raise Jesus from the dead. Jesus actually has all power and authority right now. Jesus will certainly return one day. The Gospel is good news because it directs us to a right understanding of who God is and what He has accomplished in Jesus, and its power unto salvation lay in our willingness to accept its truth and therefore actually, really obey the Gospel, put our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord, obtain the Spirit of God from Him and live and walk in His ways, so that we might share in the actual, substantive resurrection of life and enjoy eternal life in Him always. May we heed the Gospel as the good news of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, ascension, lordship, and imminent return, put our trust in Jesus Himself, and obtain the resurrection of life in Him!

Ethan R. Longhenry