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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Shi'i beliefs in the Bible Lecture 7: The Gospel: The Secret the Church Never Told The Christian Church has been claiming to represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ (as) for centuries. The amazing fact is that Christians never actually tell anybody what the Gospel is according to their own sacred book, the New Testament. Any Christian can tell you what the Gospel is, if you ask him.

But the answer is invariably different from the answer given by the New Testament itself. What is the big secret the Church is keeping under cover, and why do they not want you to know about it? You are about to find out what the big secret is, but the reason the Church has been hiding the facts is something only Christian leaders can explain. Most Christians one meets contend that the most important thing to know is the Gospel. Yet when one asks them what the Gospel is, the answer vary.

The more liturgical types tend to say that the Gospel is the written portion of the Bible which describes the life and death of Jesus (as) on earth. This is a good answer as far as it goes, for each of the four canonical Biblical books referred to as the Gospel contain the word in their title, to evangelion, in Greek. But these titles have all been added by a late hand.

The more evangelical types answer something on the following order: “The Gospel is the good news that Jesus died to atone for our sins on the cross so that we might be saved through faith in Him.” I followed the advice of my evangelical friends and took a look at the Greek Scriptures, the central Christian source of faith and practice, to see what the Bible says the Gospel is. All of the passages quoted in this study are from the book called the New Testament.

If the Gospel is a particular message, the New Testament ought to be very clear about exactly what that message is. I was not surprised to find that the word Gospel appears nearly a hundred times in the King James Version of the New Testament to translate the Greek word to evangelion, a word often translated into common speech as the “good news.” I was surprised to find that the word is almost always used in a sentence which presupposes that the reader already knows what the good news is.

The context may say something about the Gospel, about its power or glory or even affliction. It may say something, and most generally does, about the preaching of the gospel, by whom and where and under what circumstances.