The word, gospel, has its roots in ancient Greek religion.
Originally, gospel was a term used for a sacrifice offered for good tidings or good news.
When good news was delivered, a gospel offering to show appreciation to a deity was put forth, and it was generally in the form of a blood sacrifice.
Eventually, the meaning of gospel morphed into the actual good news.
In Hebrew text, the word, besorah, has the same dual meaning. It means good news, and it also means the sacrifice offered up to God for the delivery of good news.
The first four books of the New Testament are labeled Gospels, because they contain the stories of Christ who announced good news to the citizens of Judea.
After the death of Christ, the Christian religion reverted back to the original Greek definition of gospel.
They spread their message that God offered up Christ as a blood sacrifice for the sins of humanity, and they call it the gospel of Jesus.
Was that the good news that Christ was sharing as he traveled the cities of Judea?
No, that was not his gospel message at all.
His message was not, “good news, I’m about to be used as a human sacrifice to remediate your sins and connect you to God!”
Can we just take a moment and reflect on how ridiculous that sounds?
Instead, the good news of Christ was, “repent, the kingdom of God is at hand.”
First of all, in order to understand his message, one needs to understand the audience of Christ.
He was addressing a culture of people who were bound up in a religion that was sacrificing animals to try and connect with God, because they had been taught to do so by Moses.
Centuries earlier, several prophets had come along and blatantly announced that God does not want blood sacrifice, but the religion of sacrifice was deep rooted, some of those prophets were killed, and the practice continued.
So, let’s take a look at Christ’s good news message.
The word, repent, in Greek, means to change the way you think.
Religion always defines repent as asking forgiveness for sins, but this was not the meaning.
Christ was asking the people to change the way that they think about approaching God.
At the time, the people were approaching God through temple worship, priests, and blood sacrifice.
Christ was saying, change the way you think, because the kingdom of God is at hand.
At hand means readily available.
Christ was saying that God was available right there and right then. One did not need to go to the temple to connect with God, and he demonstrated the kingdom of God by doing the works that God had shown him to do as he communed with God.
His good news was of a spiritual kingdom that was accessible to humans in contrast to the physical religious kingdom that the people were being held prisoner by.
That’s what he came to redeem us from, religion.
It was particularly good news for the poor, because they could not afford the animals necessary to sacrifice for their “sins” as outlined by Moses.
That’s what Christ was referring to in Luke 7:20-22. It is recorded that,
When the men were come unto him, they said, “John Baptist has sent us unto you, saying, are you the one that should come? Or should we look for another?”
And, in the same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight.
Then, Jesus answered and said to them, “go your way and tell John what things you have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor, the gospel is preached.”
Unfortunately, after his murder by the religious leaders, Christ’s good news message was replaced.
Because of Paul’s writings, a blood sacrificial religion was formed with a gospel message that is nothing like the good news that Christ taught.
Ironically, Paul’s religion is the very same trap from which Christ came to free all humanity.