Could
you give a more Definitive Explanation of what the Gospel is?
By
Caspar Olevianus
The
gospel, or the good news that delights the heart of the poor condemned sinner,
is a revelation of the fatherly and immutable will of God, in which He promised
us, who are unworthy, that all our sins have been washed away and pardoned not
just for the rest of our lives but, indeed, forever. He carries out this promise
by giving His Son to die for us and by raising Him. Since Christ died not in His
own sin but in ours (as if He Himself had committed it) and arose out of this
same sin as a mighty victor (1 Cor. 15:17), it follows that there is not a
single sin of ours for which He has not paid. If even one of all those sins that
Christ took upon Himself had not been paid for, He would have had to remain in
the tomb and could not have risen. For where there is even one sin, there is
also eternal death, as God Himself says in Deuteronomy 27. Also, “The wages of
sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). Since, therefore, Christ arises out of all our sin as
a victor in our flesh (which He assumed and forever retains), this is public
testimony to us that we are considered as pure and righteous in the eyes of God
as Christ Jesus was when He arose from the grave (Rom. 4; 1 Cor. 15:17). Along
with that, God through Christ both promises us in the gospel and then actually
gives us the Holy Spirit. The Spirit turns our hearts from sin and from the
kingdom of the Devil to Himself, bears witness that we are children of God,
initiates in us both joy in God and eternal life here below, and brings it to
completion in us up in heaven. All of this God freely offers and gives to us in
the gospel, without any regard to our past, present, or future merit or piety.
He applies it to us by grace through faith, so that whoever boasts, boasts in
the Lord (Jer. 9:24; 1 Cor. 1:31).
It
can also be described more briefly: the gospel is a revelation of the fatherly
and immutable will of God, in which He promises all believers (1) that their
sins have been pardoned from eternity and shall be forever forgotten, and (2)
that He will freely give them the Holy Spirit and eternal life, without any
past, present, or future merit of ours, because of the voluntary sacrifice of
this most exalted person, Christ—truly God and truly human. This sacrifice was
there before the face of God from eternity, then was promised, and now has been
carried out and completed, retaining forever its efficacy for our full
redemption (Eph. 1).
CASPAR OLEVIANUS, A Firm Foundation: An Aid to Interpreting the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. Lyle D. Bierma, Texts and Studies in Reformation and Post-Reformation Thought (Carlisle, United Kingdom; Grand Rapids, MI: Paternoster Press; Baker Books, 1995), 8–9.