Talking the Gospel with Mormons

Continuing from here, to try and write something to my Mormon visitors.

The phrase “the Gospel of Jesus Christ” is something we have used a lot, but I think we mean different things about it. And that could be seen if we ask what the word “of” means in the phrase. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you mean primarily that it is the Gospel that Jesus taught, about which Jesus Christ himself is a part. Christians would say that the Gospel is by Jesus and 100% about Jesus. He is both the author and the content of the Gospel.

The shortest summary of the Gospel I have heard is one word: “Jesus”. Not in the first instance Jesus’ teachings, but who he is, and if you were to summarise what the Gospel of Mark is about “Jesus” is what you’d say before you said “the teachings of Jesus”. Paul seemed to see “Jesus is Lord” as a summary of the Gospel (Rom 10:19) and John seems to think the same of “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tells us the Gospel is found in the central event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The reason that the Gospel can be both the person of Jesus, but also his work of salvation in dying for our sins, and rising for our justification, is because the latter is how we know the former. We ask someone to “show us what you’re made of”, and by that we mean that we see who someone is by how they act.

We know who Jesus Christ is, and so through him who the Father is, because he showed himself as almighty and pure love in conquering the power of death by dying for those who hated him. This is “good news” (the translation of “gospel”) because it is an event that has an effect on our life. It is not advice for us to follow, or a mixture of advice and news, but news of what has been “finished” as Jesus drew his last breath for us.

The Gospel is also what Christ taught, but he talked more than anything about himself. Similarly the Bible taken as a whole is all about him from Genesis to Revelation (John 5:39; Luke 24:27). The Bible and Jesus’ own teaching does contain laws but they are fulfilled and brought to an end in Christ. They have a purpose but their purpose is preparatory to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world and our lives (Rom 5:18-21; Gal 2:21-29). Like arrows they point to Christ, but Christ is what we should look at, not the laws.