What Is the

Gos•pel?

Study Guide

Greg Gilbert

with Alex Duke

wheaton, illinois

What Is the Gospel? Study Guide

Copyright © 2020 by Gregory D. Gilbert

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Dual Identity Design

First printing 2020

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-6825-1

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

9Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for displaying God’s glory to the nations through healthy churches.

To that end, we want to see churches characterized by these nine marks of health:

1 Expositional Preaching

2 Biblical Theology

3 A Biblical Understanding of the Gospel

4 A Biblical Understanding of Conversion

5 A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism

6 Biblical Church Membership

7 Biblical Church Discipline

8 Biblical Discipleship

9 Biblical Church Leadership

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1 Finding the Gospel in the Bible

2 God the Righteous Creator

3 Man the Sinner

4 Jesus Christ the Savior

5 Response—Faith and Repentance

6 The Kingdom

7 Keeping the Cross at the Center

8 The Power of the Gospel

Preface

When I was in elementary school, one of my favorite playground digs was about spelling: “Don’t say words you can’t spell!” For unathletic kids like me, this was the best we could do.

Years later, I no longer hurl this command at belittling bullies, but I remain a fan of its ethos. We should know how to spell the words we say. But, for the purposes of this book, I want to update the saying a bit: “Don’t say words you can’t define.”

In our era of rejuvenated gospel-centrality, it might sound surprising to you that “gospel” is precisely one of those words. We say it a lot, but I wonder if we can define it. We hear it a lot, but if next Sunday you asked ten church members to tell you what it means, I wonder if you wouldn’t get ten different answers.

For nearly a decade now, Greg Gilbert’s What Is the Gospel? has helped Christians and non-Christians alike with this problem. He has helped us to look to God’s Word for our definition of this all-important word: gospel.

We’ve written this accompanying study guide for one simple reason: to guide you through that book. The structure is not complicated; the goals are not lofty. It simply walks chapter by chapter through the book, forcing you as the reader to slow down and ...