Book Review: What is the Gospel?

What is the Gospel? By Greg Gilbert. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010.

Some evangelicals, when reading the title of this book, may question, “Is there a real need for this? Don’t we know the Gospel?” The answers to those questions would be “yes” and “maybe.”

There will always be a need in the church to restate the Gospel in its biblical presentation from within the current context. The pure message of God’s holiness, man’s sinfulness, Christ’s redemption, and man’s necessary response of faith and repentance gets sidelined, skewed, undercut, redefined, overloaded, simplified, and complicated with time. Fresh, clean statements of the true Gospel remind us, refresh us, and refocus us.

As to whether or not we [evangelicals] know the Gospel, that is determined by our responses to books just like this one!

Gilbert’s work is part of a series from 9 Marks, each devoting attention to one of the marks of a healthy church. He does an excellent job of clearly communicating what the Bible reveals as the Gospel, both the message and the response to the message. It’s succinct and accessible as a tool for young believers, a witness to unbelievers, or an encouragement for mature believers. I am convinced that the church should develop a healthy habit of preaching the gospel to ourselves often! What is the Gospel? is one way to do so.

To quote from D.A. Carson’s forward, “Read it, then buy a box of them for generous distribution” (p.14).