Just What Do You Mean ... Gospel?

Euangelizo. It's Greek. Sound strangely familiar? It is a verb, a conjugation of euangelion. Euangelion is a message or an announcement of something positive. Good news. From the Greek eu, meaning good, and angellein, meaning message. The Hebrew equivalent is the word bawsar. Euangelion in Greek becomes evangelion in Latin. It takes a turn when translated into English. In Old English, it is god, meaning good, and spel, meaning story. The -d was dropped in the 13th century. You know where I am going with this. Euangelion is Greek for gospel.

An evangelist is a person who spreads the gospel. Why we have evangelist instead of gospelist is a mystery to me.
On a related note, angellein is the act of delivering an announcement (just like euangelizo is the act of delivering good news), but angelos is a messenger that does the delivering. That's angelos, as in angel. Angels deliver messages.

Enough with the interesting trivia. But I've done that for a reason.

Today's post is about gospel. I want to explore what an euangelion is. What does the word mean? I think knowing what a gospel is will help us better know what the Gospel is.

THE GOOD NEWS ACCORDING TO HERBERT

There are lots of messages of good news in the world, but only one we call "the Gospel", with a capital G. People think all sorts of things about what the Gospel is. The Gospel usually contains these three elements:

1. A message about who Jesus is. He is the promised Messiah; the Son of God made flesh.
2. The message Jesus preached. He preached the Kingdom of God and forgiveness of sins.
3. A message about what Jesus accomplished. On the cross He atoned for our sins, saved us all from death, ushered in the New Covenant. By His resurrection He was shown to be who He claimed to be.

That isn't a comprehensive list, but it seems reasonable enough.

In Armstrongism, however, the Gospel is not about Jesus, and has little if anything to do with what He accomplished at His first coming, but is ultimately about prophecy and law (especially the Sabbath) via the "soon-coming Kingdom of God". Being an Adventist off-shoot, it is no great surprise Armstrongism spends quite a bit of time on Sabbath and prophecy. That is the Adventist way. The Gospel, they say, is a message Jesus preached, not a message about Jesus.

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ is NOT man's gospel ABOUT THE PERSON of Christ. It is CHRIST'S Gospel - the Gospel Jesus PREACHED - the Gospel God SENT by Him, and therefore it is also called, in Scripture, the Gospel of God. The Gospel of God is God's GOSPEL - His Message - His Good News which He sent by Jesus."
-Herbert Armstrong, "What Is The True Gospel?", p. 6, 1972

Jesus is not the good news (euangelion), only the bringer of good news (angelos). The good news (euangelion) is the future Kingdom of God. In other words, prophecy and law. 

To spell this out so unfamiliar people can understand - the good news is that Jesus will return at some unknown point in the far future, bringing to the whole world the Old Covenant law that the Jews already had for thousands of years, and those conditions will usher in an eternity of peace.

An eternity of peace is good news! I wouldn't argue against that.
It's the rest of it that I have trouble with. 

There are at least two instances of sleight of hand going on with Armstrong's version of the Gospel. 

In the first, what Armstrong did was he claimed the Gospel is only what Jesus said, not what anyone or anything else said. What anyone else said is "man's gospel".
In this, Armstrong split the Gospel from having all three parts that I mentioned at the start of this article into a message of one of those parts only. There is only one Gospel, the Kingdom is the part Jesus gave, and the rest are man's false gospel, so just ignore those other parts. I disagree.

When the Apostles preached the Gospel, they did not preach solely on what was going to happen in their far future, they primarily focused on what Jesus did and how it affected the people alive in their own time. Were the Apostles and Prophets "mere men"? Is Jesus the only one who preached the Gospel? Did the Apostles and Prophets preach a different Gospel? Were those things they wrote not inspired by God? Right on page 5 of the booklet it admits the Gospel came from God the Father through men. Is their message really just "man's gospel" then?  When Paul described the Gospel he preached, he didn't use the phrase "Kingdom of God" at all, so was Paul's message from "mere men"? When Jesus preached, He said the Kingdom of God was at hand (MAR. 1: 14), effectively making it one of His own accomplishments, so was He preaching a false Gospel because even He didn't limit the Kingdom to His second coming?

We will get to man's gospel later, but I cannot accept that unless it came from Jesus' mouth, and it was about the future and the law, then it's man's gospel. It genuinely sounds contrived to me, like this claim was specifically crafted to get a predetermined conclusion out of the text. Prophecy and law were Armstrong's message. Therefore, we see it's God's word when Armstrong thinks he can benefit from it, but it's man's word when he doesn't. He wants to have it both ways.

The second sleight of hand is that all those different messages are really just the Kingdom of God anyway. So, it's not that you ignore them, you just blend them into the one and only true message.

Jesus preached grace and peace and healing and salvation to the people of His day and to us. Notice closely, on page 3, Armstrong says people who bring those messages are false preachers. Yet, on page 8 of his book, Armstrong quotes the phrase "Gospel of GRACE" as if it is legitimate, and even refers to the New Covenant as a time of grace. He even has grace in all caps. On page 5, he quotes Peter as saying Jesus preached peace. On page 11, he quotes Jesus commanding His disciples to heal the sick. On page 8, he calls it the "Gospel of SALVATION". Again in all caps. So, which is it, really? Here it's false; there it's true. Are they false gospels, man's gospels, or part of the one true Gospel of the Kingdom?
It's all of the above! ...depending on what he wants to get from it.

In Armstrong's booklet on the true Gospel, there is no mention of the cross. At all. The words cross and crucifixion do not appear once. No mention of how Jesus fulfilled the law and the prophets at that time. And the only resurrection mentioned is man's. So, not a word about Jesus' death and resurrection. The single most important event in the history of creation, central to the Gospel, the central thing Paul preached, merits no mention whatsoever.
It does mention Covenant, and how Jesus was Malachi's messenger of the Covenant, but nothing about how Jesus accomplished that at His first coming. We know the New Covenant is now. Jesus initiated that at His death. So, if Malachi says Jesus was the messenger of the Covenant, then Jesus was not exclusively a messenger of the far future Kingdom. Is the message of the Covenant a true Gospel, then? Oh, that would be an accomplishment and we can't have that, plus it's now rather than at His second coming, so it's doubly verboten. Instead, he immediately takes that ball and runs it in the direction of ... prophecy and law. Indeed, the underlying theme of the entire booklet is prophecy and law. Because of course it is. Prophecy and law were Armstrong's message, so he made the Gospel to be prophecy and law, even when it wasn't.

In your mind's eye, imagine yourself a faithful Jew in the first century. You are a child of Abraham, inheritor of the Covenant, keeper of the Commandments, oppressed by Rome, waiting for the re-gathering of the diaspora. You can almost imagine yourself transported back to that ancient place and time, listening intently to the fantastic message:

"Good news, everyone! I will be back in a few thousand years. In the meantime, practice your Sabbath-ing just like you have been since Sinai."

Somewhat less inspiring "news" than advertised.
I don't see a message like that inspiring many Jews to convert. Although, a message like that would explain why Armstrongists believe their ideological ancestors spent the past 2,000 years as tiny groups holed up in the Alps (which didn't really happen).

Fore more on how there is another Gospel in Armstrongism, I recommend Martha's article "A Different Gospel".

Speaking of imagining yourself as an ancient citizen of Jesus' day, what would the people in that place and time understand the word "euangelion" to mean? I want to inspect what the word euangelion (gospel) would have meant to the original audience of the message. It wasn't some made up nonsense word that the Apostles invented to describe this new thing they preached. The word already existed. But what did euangelion mean? Maybe if we investigate what a gospel even is, we will see if the Armstrongist view holds up.

GOOD OLD NEWS

A common misconception is that the first time you are going to find euangelion in the Bible is in Matthew. But did you know that euangelion is found in the Old Testament, too? If you read the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, you will see euangelion in some telling places. Or bawsar, if you read the Masoretic in Hebrew.

For example, you remember in Luke 4: 16-19, when Jesus read Isaiah 61: 1-2a in the synagogue. "Good tidings" in Isaiah is translated from euangelion/bawsar. Some translations even render it "gospel" in Luke 4. It is a very interesting list of things Jesus came to preach. Gospel, healing, liberty (mentioned twice).

Here is another one:

(ISA. 40: 9) O Zion, you who bring good tidings [euangelizo], get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, you who bring good tidings [euangelizo], lift up your voice with strength, lift it up, be not afraid; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

"Behold your God," it says. That is the good news this verse had for Israel. That is the gospel.
Reminds me so much of another verse:

(LUK. 2: 10-11) 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings [euangelizo] of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Behold your God. Jesus' birth is the good news of great joy for all people. This gospel is about Jesus.

Are we really sure the Gospel isn't about Jesus? Not even a little?

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ is NOT man's gospel ABOUT THE PERSON of Christ", Armstrong said. When we look at euangelion in the Old Testament, we see Armstrong may have missed the mark.

Earlier, I said I would get to man's gospel. I think it's important we do, or else we might miss the meaning in the word. Let's look at some history and see an important detail or two.

MAN'S GOOD NEWS

Another common misconception is that the only place you are going to find euangelion is in the Bible. As if the Bible invented good news, or that the Gospel is the only gospel there is. Oh, the Bible is the place to go to find the Gospel, sure enough. But other good news existed. We should look for how euangelion was used outside of the Bible. I believe it is critical to do this particularly so we can understand how the first century readers of the Bible would have understood that concept of an euangelion. "Gospel" wasn't a thing the Apostles invented. It was already a thing. But what kind of thing was it? How would the people the Apostles preached to understand the concept of gospel?

Why should we ignore the definition and use of a word? Why should we ignore what the audience would have understood a gospel to be? We shouldn't.

So, what did the audience understand?

Want to know what I find interesting? Euangelion was a political thing.

I don't mean political modernly. This isn't a right vs left post. I mean political anciently. I try to never do politics here, but this is the kind of political message that needs to be told.

From ancient Israel to ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, the evangelion message was about:

1. Military victories.
2. The birth of kings.
3. The great accomplishments of kings.

Sounds like the same list I started this post with. I believe that's no coincidence. Why wouldn't the Gospel match the components in the accepted definition of the word gospel?

Let's start with those victories. Here we see an example in the Bible:

(II SAM. 18: 19) Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, “Let me run now and take the news [euangelizo] to the king, how the Lord has avenged him of his enemies.”

You won the war and lots of people are dead or severely injured. That's great news!
I joke, but it's relevant to understanding euangelion. It has a victory component.
Now, let's see one from outside of the Bible.

Perhaps you've heard of a sporting competition called the marathon? When Greece defeated Persia at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC, they sent a man named Pheidippides to run the news from the battle site at Marathon to Athens 25 miles away. Pheidippides made the run and successfully delivered the euangelion, "Nike!" (That means victory.) Which was fantastic news for the Athenians, because they were severely outnumbered.   ...And then he died.
Running marathons began in honor of this event.
You should know, the rest of the story is that Pheidippides had run about 300 miles already that week. He made a trip from Marathon to Sparta and back, on foot, in less than five days. The combined runs were just too much for him. He should have stopped for some gyro or something. Poor guy.
Mental note - the limit is 324 miles.

Note that Pheidippides did not run to Athens to proclaim, "In about 150 years, after you're all long dead, a great king of Greece will rise up and rule a great kingdom! Isn't that fantastic news?" Notice how these examples of gospel are quite immediate, quite applicable in the day of the audience.

Another famous example of man's evangelion is the birth and accomplishments of Caesar Augustus. The following is taken from a Calendar Inscription which was found in the ruins of Priene in western Turkey:

"It seemed good to the Greeks of Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: “Since Providence, which has ordered all things and is deeply interested in our life, has set in most perfect order by giving us Augustus, whom she filled with virtue that he might benefit humankind, sending him as a savior, both for us and for our descendants, that he might end war and arrange all things, and since he, Caesar, by his appearance (excelled even our anticipations), surpassing all previous benefactors, and not even leaving to posterity any hope of surpassing what he has done, and since the birthday of the god Augustus was the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] for the world that came by reason of him,” which Asia resolved in Smyrna."
-"Priene Calendar Inscription", Wikipedia, accessed 9-15-2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priene_calendar_inscription

Notice all the uncanny similarities between this citation and what you are familiar with in the New Testament. We have an appearance, a savior, ending war, peace, order (law and government), and good tidings for the world. Striking similarities! I mean, just look:

     "....the beginning of the gospel [of the god Augustus]..." (Priene calendar inscription)
     "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." (MAR. 1: 1)

Euangelion about great kings starts with a gospel message about their birth. Same with Jesus. Birth and accomplishments, that is what people in that day and area expected from an euangelion. It was political. When the Apostles wrote a Gospel, this is what the concept meant to them.

It's as if Mark wrote his Gospel specifically to behave like a polemical response to other gospels his culture already had. It is reasonable to believe he did. He took some wording from an existing gospel about Caesar and used it to promote Jesus. 

As an aside, that kind of thing happens throughout the Bible. It's not cheating or copying, it's polemics. People say the Bible copies other ancient material. It does! But it does so in polemical response to those other materials. Baal isn't God, Yahweh is. Augustus isn't the savior, Jesus is. If the Apostles were doing that here, they would only be directly in line with longstanding Hebrew tradition. Paul used the Athenian inscription of the unknown god to preach Jesus. It's a perfectly valid move. I do the same thing here all the time. I am contemplating whether or not to title this post "Just What Do You Mean ... Gospel?" Why would I do that? Because "what do you mean" was in the title of several old Worldwide Church of God booklets. That's the entire point of it. But, I admit, it is a particularly fitting title for this topic. It is about the meaning of gospel after all.

The message in the inscription reminds me of the Triumphal Entry, and the cries of "Hosanna!" (MAT. 21: 9) The people were crying for salvation, and here was the bringer of that help, now, in their presence immediately, not at some point in the far future. This was a fully and purposefully provocative, political move on Jesus' part. It was intended to be a challenge to the Sanhedrin. You don't need me to tell you whether or not the Sanhedrin appreciated it.

(MAT. 21: 15-16) 15 But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant 16 and said to Him, “Do You hear what these are saying?”

It was a direct challenge, and it brought His swift death. As it was meant to.

Euangelion is inherently political. It's important to put yourself into that time and place, to understand events as the people of that time would have understood them, or you might miss something important.

War and politics and the Gospel, Jesus and Augustus and the Sanhedrin, strange bedfellows indeed. That's because the Gospel is a highly political message. Euangelion is about births and victories and kings. The Gospel is about a birth and victories and a King. It was an immediate message for the people of that day and for all time, not just the future only.

Are we really sure the Gospel isn't about Jesus? Not even a little?

CONCLUSION

Today, we explored the meaning of euangelion to get a better idea on what the concept even is.

Euangelion. It's good news. It's political. It's powerful. It's the Gospel.
It's about kings and what they accomplished. And it's a polemic response to them.
It's about Jesus, and about what He accomplished, and about the Kingdom message He preached.

Herbert Armstrong taught a small fraction of what the Gospel really is. He ignored what euangelion meant in the first century. He ignored what gospel meant to the people who were receiving it. He took the Biblical words inspired by God, called it "man's gospel" (lower case g), and then, just like the law, threw most of it out. But it wasn't man's gospel, as if it were written recently and is the fault of those tricky Catholics. The good news about who Jesus was and what He accomplished was the very Gospel the Apostles preached. Look in their writings. Why do you suppose your Minister always goes to Revelation or a few scattered verses in Paul's epistles to find a message about the second coming? Because a message about the second coming was not what the Apostles mainly preached. If the Kingdom of God is defined as what happens after the second coming, most of the New Testament would be about it. That just isn't what we see. We see the Apostles preaching Christ being who He said He was and doing what He said He would do - which precisely matches euangelion. The Apostles did not ignore what euangelion means.

We have quite a bit more on what we think the Gospel is over in our FAQ page. I also recommend Bill's article "The Gospel In Detail".

If you really think about it - the one singular Gospel isn't one monolithic thing, it's a multifaceted thing. There are several parts. Sort of like the law, it isn't just the moral parts, or the Bible, it isn't just Deuteronomy. The message Jesus preached, the Kingdom of God, yes, that's undeniably a part of it, but that's not all of it. "Good News, everyone! I will be back in a few thousand years with more of the same," just isn't euangalizo, within the Bible or without.

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It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

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