Dr. Bock,

Thanks for taking the time to consider the definition of the gospel and to respond to these comments on your blog.

I question whether the image you use to illustrate your position (that death for sin does not get at the core of what the gospel is about) actually represents the biblical evidence. It's impossible, of course, to address the NT evidence for the gospel and death for sin in a blog comment, but here is a sample of what I mean:

In the image of a meal, you call death for sin the table-setting and fellowship with God the actual meal itself (by which you seem to mean the actual gospel itself, or at least the core part of the gospel). But I think the biblical authors see death for sin as a core part of the good news itself. For example, John says that the new song we will sing is "worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain..." (Rev 5:9). After a great meal, you don't rave about the setting, you rave about the meal. But here we see that we see people singing (raving) about Christ's death for our sin. Yes, Christ's death leads to fellowship with God ("God himself will be with them as their God," Rev 21:3), which is also an important part of the gospel. But we will still sing about his death for eternity, and thus it seems rather more important than simply a means to get to the heart of the gospel.

I think you rightly say that the gospel includes more than death for sin (at the very least, of course, it includes the resurrection, 1 Cor 15). But wonder if your approach does not over-correct certain tendencies in evangelicalism and end up de-emphasizing the importance of death for sin held up by the NT authors. Paul, after all, can still summarize his message as the "word of the cross."

Again, thanks for taking the time for this,

Kevin McFadden