The Message of Jesus: The Gospel According to Paul: A Bible Study
Paul’s letters are written to people who are already Christians. He is not preaching to them, but he sometimes describes what he preached, and he says that the gospel has something to say about what we do after we come to faith. We will survey his letters to see what he says is the center of the Christian message.
Paul’s letter to the churches in Rome
Romans is not Paul’s first letter, but it comes first in most Bibles because it is his longest letter, and the best presentation of his thinking on most issues. It was written to a church that Paul did not start, so he wants to make sure that the members in Rome know what the gospel is. He begins by noting that he was “set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1, NRSVue used throughout).
What is this gospel about? He calls it “the gospel concerning his Son” – it’s about Jesus. He further describes God’s Son: “who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead” (1:3-4).
How does Paul want people to respond to this message? He describes the purpose of his ministry: “to bring about the obedience of faith among all the gentiles” (1:5). The gospel should lead to obedience – the kind of obedience that comes from faith, from trusting in Christ.
He gives another description of the gospel in the next two verses: “the gospel…is God’s saving power for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith.”[1] The gospel reveals something about God’s righteousness.[2]
He says more about how God’s righteousness is revealed in chapter 3:
Now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed…the righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe…. They are now justified [declared right with God] by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness. (Romans 3:21-25).
The gospel reveals the righteousness of God by telling people about Jesus’ death for them. That shows how good and righteous God is.
The gospel announces a day of judgment: “Their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all” (2:15-16). This is also part of the message: Jesus will be the judge, and he loves us. In this judgment, we are declared righteous not because we have earned it, but as a gift to all who believe in Christ.
In chapter 10, Paul calls his message “the word of faith” (10:8). What is this faith? “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (verse 9). But he asks, “how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him?” (verse 14).
Someone needs to proclaim Christ – to proclaim him as the source of salvation. Jesus Christ is the message. Paul makes it clear that he is talking about the gospel when he writes, “But not all have obeyed the good news” (verse 16). The gospel is to be believed and obeyed – it requires a response of faith.
The Corinthian letters
Paul told the believers in Corinth that Christ had sent him “to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power” (1 Corinthians 1:17). Here, he seems to equate the gospel with the cross of Christ; it is a message about Jesus’ crucifixion.
This is the message he preaches: “we proclaim Christ crucified…Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (vv. 23-24). In his wisdom, God chose to save us through the death of his Son. Jesus is the power by which God does this. Paul’s gospel centers on Jesus. Paul is focusing here on his death; in other places Paul looks more at his resurrection, or the response that Christ wants from his people.
Paul describes his preaching when he first came to Corinth: “I did not come proclaiming the testimony of God [that’s another name for the gospel] to you with superior speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2).
He describes the gospel in much more detail in chapter 15:
I want you to understand…the good news that I proclaimed to you…through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you….
I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…. (1 Cor. 15:1-5)
This is “of first importance,” he says. This is the most important part of the message: Jesus died for our sins and he was raised back to life. The message is good news because it announces salvation: those who believe are saved.
In 2 Corinthians 1:19, he summarizes the message in this way: “the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you.” In 2:14 he summarizes his mission: “to proclaim the good news of Christ.” In 4:4, he calls it “the gospel of the glory of Christ.” “We do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’s sake” (verse 5).
He praises their obedience to the gospel: “You glorify God by your obedience to the confession of the gospel of Christ” (2 Cor. 9:13). If they “obey” the gospel, there must be some command implied within it.
Galatians to 2 Thessalonians
The believers in Galatia were turning to “a different gospel.” But Paul says that there is no other gospel – there is only “the gospel of Christ” (Galatians 1:6-7). He received this gospel directly from Jesus (verse 12). His mission was to proclaim Christ among the gentiles (verse 16).
This gospel has something to say about our behavior: “they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:13). In Galatia, some false teachers were saying that gentiles needed to keep the laws of Moses, but Paul is saying that this requirement contradicts the gospel. We are saved by believing in Christ, not by keeping laws.
One thing the gospel requires is that we not teach that people should obey the laws of Moses. No amount of obedience can save us.
In Ephesians 1:13, Paul calls his message “the gospel of your salvation.” In Ephesians 6:15, Paul calls it “the gospel of peace.” He says that one result of the gospel is that “the gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus” (3:6). It brings them salvation.
In Philippians, Paul refers to the “progress of the gospel.” (1:12). He writes,
Some proclaim Christ from envy and rivalry but others from goodwill. These proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that I have been put here for the defense of the gospel; the others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but intending to increase my suffering in my imprisonment. What does it matter? Just this, that Christ is proclaimed in every way, whether out of false motives or true, and in that I rejoice. (Philippians 1:15-18)
Paul’s label for the message is simple: It’s Christ. He wants people to preach Christ. But there’s more to it than simply saying one word. The word “Christ” is a summary of all that Jesus did for us, what he offers to us, and how we are to respond.
Just as he wrote in Galatians, he teaches that the gospel has something to say about the way we live: “Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so…I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). If Christ has been so generous to us, what manner of life should we have toward one another?
Paul tells the Colossians that the gospel brought them a message of hope:
…the hope laid up for you in heaven. You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you…. It has been bearing fruit among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God. (Colossians 1:5-6)
The gospel is a message about grace. He says it again in verse 23: “the hope promised by the gospel that you heard.” It is the “hope of glory” (verse 27) – the belief that Jesus will reward all who accept him as Lord and Savior. “It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone” (verse 28).
Paul says that his message is a warning as well as a word of hope – hope for those who believe, warning for those who do not. Jesus will judge us based on how we respond to the gospel. This warning is strongly worded in 2 Thessalonians 1:8: God will take “vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”
But the purpose of the good news is salvation, not punishment. “This purpose he called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 3:13-14).
The Pastoral Epistles
When Paul writes to Timothy, he notes that sin “is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel” (1 Timothy 1:8-11). Some ways of life, some actions are disobedience to the message of Christ. The gospel is a message of grace, but grace comes with the expectation that we want to live in the way that God wants.
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul urges Timothy to be true to the gospel:
Join with me in suffering for the gospel, in the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, and this grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. For this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. (2 Timothy 1:8-11)
In these verses, Paul describes the gospel as a message of salvation through grace. It had been God’s purpose all along, but it is now made visible through Jesus Christ, who conquered death and reveals eternal life. This is what Paul was told to preach.
Paul gives a short summary of the gospel in 2 Timothy 2:8: “Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my gospel.” It’s about Jesus raised from the dead.
Other verses fill in the picture of why this is good news: Jesus brings us forgiveness; God accepts us into eternal life. It’s a message of hope, of salvation, of God’s generosity to us, and it has implications for the way we live.[3]
[1] “Through faith for faith” seems to refer to one kind of faith leading to another. For a discussion of that, see https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=4493&chapterid=124.
[2] The word “righteousness” means that God is right, he brings about justice and he keeps his promises. For more, see https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=4493&chapterid=127.
[3] Paul’s letters say a lot about grace, and he also writes many commands, which he believes are implications of the gospel.
Author: Michael Morrison, updated 2025
