Narrow

The Gospel is Narrow

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received… – 1 Corinthians 15:3a (ESV)

Last week we began taking a deeper look at the word “Gospel”, trying to get a sense of what the Biblical authors had in mind when they used it. We said a few things about it that are worth reviewing:

1. That the Gospel is the wellspring of the historic Church, from which flows the entire movement that we call “Christianity.”

2. That the word “euangelion,” while translated “good news,” had a far deeper contextual meaning than merely “news that is not bad.”

3. That the Hebrew Scriptures used the term to refer to the proclamation of a military victory. The prophet Isaiah frames this victory as something God has won.

3. That the 1st Century use of the word carried a more specific meaning, centered around the ascension and action of Caesar Augustus, and all the subsequent Caesars to come.  

I then said that whatever meaning we assign to the word “Gospel”, we have to take these contexts into account.

Today I want to take a quick look at the nature of the Gospel that was being proclaimed in the First Century, using the short verse I’ve included at the beginning.

Before the Apostle Paul gives the specific content of the Gospel, he goes out of his way to twice mention the “passed-on” nature of it. First he says that he “preached” (verb form of euangelion; literally, “Gospeled”) this message to the people in Corinth, and that they “received.” Then, in verse 3, he starts by saying that he “received” it from someone else, and is passing it on. Furthermore, this Gospel he received is “of first importance,” to him, and consequently is treated with the utmost importance as he shares it with the Church.

Why is this important?

Concrete or Fluid?

Much ink has been spilled about the Gospel in recent years. Many movements have sprung up in attempts to clarify, rescue, preserve, or transform it (usually in the belief that they are restoring it back to its original condition). Some of these movements are reacting to truncated or over-simplified ideas about the Gospel, while others are responding in turn to a broadening and universalizing of the message.

The key question on which many Gospel debates hinge is simple: “Was there an original, untainted, historic Apostolic Gospel, and if so, do we have any hope of recovering it today?”

Paul seems to answer this question with a resounding “Yes!”

His language throughout his letters paints the picture of a concrete message that had definite content. This content could be twisted or falsified (as Paul warns at the beginning of his Letter to the Galatians), leading to serious consequences. He goes out of his way to remind his readers that he’s not making this content up, that there’s a “virality” to it that lives forward from a source.

Whatever this content was, the proper response to it is certainly not universalizing or broadening. Any Gospel movement that seeks to blur the boundaries of this message is barking up the wrong tree. Neither should any of us seek to shave off parts of it to make it more palatable or streamlined (IE reducing the Gospel to merely “here’s how you get saved,” as valuable as that particular message may be).

Some of you may be saying “Well, of COURSE the Gospel was concrete and defined. How else could the movement start?” I appreciate the “common sense” nature of this response, because it gets to the heart of what I find most unsatisfying in much theological debate today: the simplest explanations are often jettisoned in favor of complex historical reconstructions that prop up modern sensibilities.

Simply put: if the Gospel was concrete and defined at its very conception, there is an exclusivity built into the Christian movement that will necessarily rub a lot of people the wrong way. Even if there were at least two primary messages being shared and considered in the Early Church, that would be fine. But just one?

Yet, a pretty basic historical inquiry leads us to just this proposition.

The Gospel is One Thing

The wide consensus amongst serious Biblical historians is that 1 Corinthians 15:3-7, in which Paul lays out the content of the Gospel after the setup I’ve been describing, is the repetition of a creedal tradition that dates back to approximately AD 30-35. Even the least-conservative estimates (and they are a minority view) still date it to AD 41.

A few examples:

“[It] goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.” – Michael Goulder, (an atheist and former Anglican Priest) Bible Professor at the University of Birmingham.[1]

“When he says, ‘I handed on (paredoka) to you as of first importance (en protois) what I also received (parelabon)’ (15.3), he assuredly does not imply that the tradition became important to him only at some subsequent date. More likely he indicates the importance of the tradition to himself from the start; that was why he made sure to pass it on to the Corinthians when they first believed (15.1-2). This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.” [2] – James D.G. Dunn, Professor of Divinity at Durham College.

“The conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead had already taken root by the time Paul was converted about 33 C.E. On the assumption that Jesus died about 30 C.E., the time for development was thus two or three years at most.”[3] – Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar

 “…the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years… the formation of the appearance traditions mentioned in I Cor.15.3-8 falls into the time between 30 and 33 CE.”[4] – Gerd Ludemann, (atheist) Professor of Theology at Gottingen.

Of course there are plenty of Christian scholars who make these kinds of statements as well, but it should give anybody pause to hear such a wide variety of experts agreeing upon something so important.

Why is it important?

Simply put: If we know that within a few months to a few years of Jesus’ death the earliest Apostles were proclaiming a defined message about him that was intended to be passed on and multiplied[5], then anybody who claims to belong to the same movement must have an interest in understanding and multiplying this message as well.

The Gospel is the wellspring of the Church. It is not simply “anything that moves us”. It is not generic. It is not vague. It doesn’t have a multiplicity of variations and variables animating it.

It is concise.

It is concrete.

It is static and unchanging.

Simultaneously, it carries within it truths and beauties that even “angels long to examine” (1 Peter 1:12). The message may not be as wide as some would like it to be, but its eternal depth more than makes up for its lack of fluidity.

And it’s to this message and this “Good news” that has been passed down through the rivers of time for 2000 years that we will turn next.


[1] “The Baseless Fabric of a Vision,” in Gavin D’Costa, editor, Resurrection Reconsidered (Oneworld, 1996), 48.

[2] Jesus Remembered (Eerdmans, 2003) 854-55.

[3] Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Acts of Jesus, 466.

[4] The Resurrection of Jesus, trans. by Bowden (Fortress, 1994), 171-72.

[5] Galatians 1:18-19 — Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother.” This is the best guess at how Paul received the message that he’s passing on in 1 Corinthians 15. Fifteen days of teaching/training/discipling that resulted in Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.

Part 1 of this series – Have You Ever Heard of Lake Itasca? – Finish the Race Ministries (ftrministries.com)

Luke Allison
Luke Allison
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