Gospel: A word of Anglo-Saxon origin, and meaning "God's spell", i.e., word of
God, or rather, according to others, "good spell", i.e., good news.
It is the rendering of the Greek evangelion, i.e., "good message."
It denotes:
1. "the welcome intelligence of salvation to man as preached by our
Lord and his followers.
2. It was afterwards transitively applied to each of the four
histories of our Lord's life, published by those who are
therefore called 'Evangelists', writers of the history of the
gospel (the evangelion).
3. The term is often used to express collectively the gospel
doctrines; and 'preaching the gospel' is often used to include
not only the proclaiming of the good tidings, but the teaching
men how to avail themselves of the offer of salvation, the
declaring of all the truths, precepts, promises, and
threatenings of Christianity." It is termed
a. "the gospel of the grace of God"
(Acts 20:24)
b. "the gospel of the kingdom"
(Matthew 4:23)
c. "the gospel of Christ"
(Romans 1:16)
d. "the gospel of peace
(Ephesians 6:15)
e. "the glorious gospel,"
(2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 Timothy 1:11)
f. "the everlasting gospel,"
(Revelation 14:6)
g. "the gospel of salvation"
(Ephesians 1:13)
