Restoring Apostolic Faith

Why Romans 1:15 Breaks Our Modern Definition of “The Gospel”

Ask the average Christian today to define the gospel, and the answer will probably sound something like this:

Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day.

None of that is wrong. Paul himself summarizes those events as matters of “first importance” in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4. The death and resurrection of Jesus stand at the very heart of the Christian proclamation.

The problem begins when we turn the heart of the message into the entirety of the message.

In much of modern Christianity, the gospel has become a technical term for the information an unbeliever must believe in order to become saved. We speak of “sharing the gospel” almost exclusively as evangelizing unbelievers, and passages such as 1 Corinthians 15 are sometimes treated as though Paul were giving us a dictionary definition:

Gospel = death + burial + resurrection.

But that definition creates an immediate problem when we open Romans.

Paul wanted to preach the gospel to Christians.

“So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
—Romans 1:15, NASB95

That should make us stop and ask a very simple question:

Why would Paul need to preach the gospel to people who had already believed it?

Perhaps the problem is not Paul.

Perhaps our definition of gospel has become much narrower than his.

Before “The Gospel” Became a Christian Technical Term

The Greek noun translated gospel is εὐαγγέλιον (euangelion), meaning good news, glad tidings, or a favorable announcement. Its related verb, εὐαγγελίζω (euangelizō), means to announce or proclaim good news.

Neither word was invented by Christianity.

A Greek-speaking person did not hear euangelion and automatically think, “the doctrine that Jesus died for my sins and rose again so that I can go to heaven.”

The word told you that good news was being announced.

It did not, by itself, tell you what the good news was.

There is a useful analogy in modern Greek. Today, καλά νέα (kalá néa) simply means “good news.” If someone tells you, Έχω καλά νέα—“I have good news”—you still need to ask the obvious question:

What is the good news?

Maybe a child was born. Maybe someone received a promotion. Maybe the biopsy came back clear. Maybe your mother-in-law finally announced she is moving three states away.

The phrase good news identifies the character of the announcement, not necessarily its content.

We should be careful not to force modern Greek directly backward onto Koine Greek; languages change, and kalá néa is not a one-for-one lexical replacement for every ancient use of euangelion. Nevertheless, the comparison helps expose something English-speaking Christians easily miss.

We hear “the Gospel” with two thousand years of Christian capitalization attached to it.

John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, and their first-century audiences did not.

Israel Already Knew What It Meant to Announce Good News

For a Second Temple Jewish audience, the language of proclaiming good news already had deep roots in Israel’s Scriptures.

Isaiah announces:

“Get yourself up on a high mountain,
O Zion, bearer of good news,
Lift up your voice mightily,
O Jerusalem, bearer of good news;
Lift it up, do not fear.
Say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’”
—Isaiah 40:9, NASB95

Again:

“How lovely on the mountains
Are the feet of him who brings good news,
Who announces peace
And brings good news of happiness,
Who announces salvation,
And says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”
—Isaiah 52:7

And again:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted…”
—Isaiah 61:1

The Septuagint—the Greek Scriptures familiar throughout the first-century Mediterranean world—uses the same euangel- word family in these passages.

That matters.

Long before Paul wrote Romans, Israel already possessed a biblical vocabulary of good news concerning God’s deliverance, salvation, restoration, and reign.

So when Jesus appears in Galilee proclaiming euangelion, He is not introducing a strange new religious word.

He is announcing that something Israel had been waiting for was happening.

Jesus Preached the Gospel Before the Cross

Mark opens Jesus’ ministry this way:

“Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
—Mark 1:14–15

There is an obvious chronological problem with defining the gospel exclusively as “Jesus died, was buried, and rose again.”

Jesus is preaching the gospel before any of those things have happened.

More importantly, Mark actually tells us what Jesus was announcing:

The time is fulfilled.
The kingdom of God has drawn near.
Repent.
Believe the good news.

Matthew likewise summarizes Jesus’ ministry as:

“Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom…”
—Matthew 4:23

The gospel Jesus proclaimed concerned God’s kingdom breaking into history.

This does not diminish the cross or resurrection. Quite the opposite. Those events eventually become indispensable parts of the announcement because they reveal how God has accomplished His purposes through His Messiah.

But Jesus did not walk through Galilee preaching:

“I am going to die, be buried for three days, and rise again; believe those three facts and you will go to heaven.”

That is simply not how the Synoptic Gospels describe His message.

Jesus announced the reign of God, called Israel to repentance, gathered disciples, confronted the powers of the age, and called people into faithful allegiance to Him.

The cross and resurrection would become the climactic vindication of that proclamation.

They were not the entirety of it.

Paul Did Not Reduce the Gospel to Three Events Either

This brings us to 1 Corinthians 15.

Paul writes:

“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”
—1 Corinthians 15:3–4

Notice Paul’s wording carefully.

He does not say:

“Here is the complete definition of the word gospel.”

He says these matters are ἐν πρώτοις (en prōtois)—“of first importance.”

That is a statement about priority, not necessarily exhaustiveness.

And Paul does not stop at verse 4.

He immediately continues with Christ’s resurrection appearances: Cephas, the Twelve, more than five hundred believers, James, all the apostles, and finally Paul himself.

Then the chapter moves into the resurrection of the dead, Christ’s reign, the defeat of His enemies, the destruction of death, the resurrection body, and the final victory of God.

If verses 3–4 constitute an exhaustive definition of the gospel, Paul apparently forgot to stop talking when he finished defining it.

More importantly, elsewhere Paul describes his gospel in considerably broader terms.

It concerns Jesus Christ as the promised Davidic Messiah (Rom. 1:1–4).

It announces God’s righteousness and saving power (Rom. 1:16–17).

It concerns the lordship of Christ (Rom. 10:9).

It incorporates Gentiles into God’s people (Rom. 15:16; Gal. 3).

It looks toward resurrection and judgment (Rom. 2:16; 2 Tim. 2:8).

And it produces what Paul calls the “obedience of faith” among the nations (Rom. 1:5; 16:26).

Paul’s gospel certainly contains the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

But it cannot reasonably be reduced to them.

Then We Reach Romans 1:15

This is where our modern definition begins to creak under its own weight.

Paul is writing to the church in Rome.

These are not pagans whom Paul hopes to convert.

He calls them:

“beloved of God, called as saints”
—Romans 1:7

Then he tells them:

“your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”
—Romans 1:8

Paul wants to visit them so that he might impart something to strengthen them (1:11). He expects that they will mutually encourage one another through their faith (1:12).

Then comes the surprising statement:

“So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
—Romans 1:15

The Greek verb is εὐαγγελίσασθαι (euangelisasthai)—to proclaim good news, to evangelize.

Paul wants to gospelize Christians.

And the next sentence begins:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…”
—Romans 1:16

Read the flow without stopping at the chapter-and-verse numbers:

Your faith is already famous.

I want to strengthen you.

We will encourage one another in faith.

I am eager to proclaim the gospel to you.

Because the gospel is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes.

Whatever Paul means by gospel, it cannot merely mean the introductory information given to an unbeliever so that he can become a Christian.

His audience already consists of Christians.

In a very real sense, the book of Romans itself is Paul doing exactly what Romans 1:15 says he wants to do:

preaching the gospel to believers.

But Didn’t Rome Still Need “Paul’s Gospel”?

At this point, an objection sometimes appears—particularly within dispensational systems that sharply distinguish Paul’s gospel from the proclamation of Jesus or the Twelve.

Perhaps, it is argued, the Romans were already believers in some sense, but Paul still needed to preach his gospel to them so that they could receive the particular message of salvation entrusted to him.

Romans itself makes that reading extremely difficult.

Before Paul ever says that he wants to preach the gospel to them, he identifies these people as:

“the called of Jesus Christ”
—Romans 1:6

and:

“beloved of God, called as saints”
—Romans 1:7

Then he thanks God because:

“your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.”
—Romans 1:8

Paul does not describe a congregation standing outside salvation awaiting his arrival with the missing gospel. He describes people who already belong to Jesus Christ.

Nor does Paul suggest that whatever message originally produced their faith was defective. Quite the opposite. He tells them that he desires to visit them so that they may be strengthened, and immediately clarifies that he expects mutual encouragement through each other’s faith (Rom. 1:11–12).

Paul even tells them later:

“I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.”
—Romans 15:14

Certainly Paul possessed a distinctive apostolic commission, particularly as the apostle to the Gentiles. He could therefore speak naturally of “my gospel” (Rom. 2:16; 16:25). But possession does not require invention, nor does a distinctive commission require a different means of salvation.

Paul himself eliminates that possibility in 1 Corinthians:

“Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
—1 Corinthians 15:11

And notice where Paul says this: in the very chapter most often appealed to as the definitive statement of “Paul’s gospel.” Paul himself says that whether the proclamation came from him or from the other apostles, “so we preach and so you believed.

Paul can distinguish himself from the other apostles while simultaneously affirming that their fundamental proclamation was the same.

His “my gospel” is therefore best understood as the good news entrusted to Paul and proclaimed through his particular apostolic mission, not as a second gospel that Christians converted through someone else must subsequently hear in order to become truly saved.

Otherwise Romans 1 becomes rather peculiar: Paul thanks God for believers who belong to Christ, celebrates their world-renowned faith, anticipates being encouraged by that faith—and then informs them that they still lack the message necessary to be saved.

The text never says that.

What it does say is much more interesting:

Christians still needed the gospel because the gospel was always larger than the moment of conversion.

The Gospel Was Never Merely “How to Get Saved”

This is where modern Christian vocabulary has subtly reshaped the biblical concept.

We commonly treat the gospel as the doorway:

Hear the gospel → believe the gospel → become saved → move on to discipleship.

But the New Testament presents something considerably larger.

The gospel announces what God has done, is doing, and will accomplish through His Messiah.

Jesus is Lord.

God’s kingdom has drawn near.

The Messiah has died.

God raised Him from the dead.

He has been exalted.

Forgiveness and reconciliation are offered through Him.

The Spirit has been poured out.

Gentiles are being incorporated into God’s covenant people.

Christ reigns.

His followers are called to faithful allegiance.

The dead will be raised.

Death itself will finally be defeated.

Creation will ultimately be restored beneath the reign of God and His Messiah.

That is good news.

The death, burial, and resurrection stand at its center because without them the Christian proclamation collapses.

But the center of something is not necessarily the whole of it.

“The Gospel” Is Not a Magic Technical Phrase

This also helps explain why the New Testament can speak about the gospel in different ways without teaching contradictory “gospels.”

We encounter:

the gospel of God,
the gospel of Christ,
the gospel of the kingdom,
the gospel of the grace of God,
the gospel of peace,
Paul’s “my gospel.”

These need not represent separate plans of salvation.

They are different descriptions and emphases within the announcement of God’s saving action.

The word euangelion does not carry an entire systematic theology inside itself.

Context tells us what good news is being proclaimed.

John the Baptist could announce good news.

Jesus could announce good news.

The apostles could announce the crucified and risen Messiah.

Paul could announce good news among Gentiles who had never heard of Christ.

And Paul could announce good news to Christians whose faith was already being proclaimed throughout the Roman world.

There is no contradiction unless we first impose upon euangelion a definition narrower than the New Testament gives it.

Recovering the Apostolic Gospel

None of this requires minimizing the cross.

It requires doing precisely the opposite.

The cross belongs inside a much larger story.

Jesus did not merely die so isolated individuals could receive a favorable afterlife destination. The crucified Messiah was raised, vindicated, enthroned, and declared Lord. Through Him God was fulfilling His promises, gathering a covenant people from Israel and the nations, defeating sin and death, and moving history toward resurrection and restoration.

That is why Paul could preach the gospel to people who were already Christians.

They had already heard that Jesus died and rose again.

They had already believed.

They already possessed faith worthy of being talked about throughout the Roman world.

And Paul still had good news to proclaim to them.

Perhaps we should recover that vocabulary.

When the New Testament says euangelion, our first instinct should not always be to mentally substitute:

“the death, burial, and resurrection.”

Sometimes the better first question is the same question we would ask someone who approached us today saying, Έχω καλά νέα:

“You have good news. Tell me—what is it?”

Then we should allow Jesus, Paul, and the biblical writers to answer.

Because the apostolic gospel certainly includes the astonishing news that Christ died and rose again.

But it does not end there.

The risen Christ is Lord, His kingdom has come near, God is gathering a faithful people under His reign, and death itself will not have the final word.

Now that is good news.