The historical acts of God alone do not fully explain how the Trinity and the Gospel can both stand at the centre of our faith and really describe the same idea. For that, we need to turn to the inner life of God because the inner life of God bespeaks the Gospel. By nature, God is good. He is love. In him is life, life eternal. It overflows in him in the dynamic, un-bounded life of God. 

Gregory of Nyssa once wrote, “The chief point of Christian piety is to believe the only begotten God” (John 1:18). His contemporary and friend Gregory of Nazanzius similarily said, “The Trinity is the chief topic of Christianity.” 

I suppose if someone asked us what the chief topic of Christianity is, then we would reply, “Jesus” or “the Gospel.” But our answer and the earlier answers do not disagree with each other. In truth, they speak about the same reality but from different viewpoints. To confess the Trinity is to confess the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the only begotten of God.

What Is the Gospel?

The Gospel is good news about what God has done in Jesus the Messiah. Paul sums up the Gospel through affirming the death, burial, resurrection, and appearance of Christ according to the Scriptures (1 Cor 15:3–5). 

The repeated phrase “according to Scripture” forms a key to understanding the Gospel. That is, the work of Christ accords with the Old Testament revelation. Hence, we have a massive interpretive matrix through which to understand the revelation of Jesus. We know that God created, promised, and sent prophets to Israel. We know that the creator God who chose Israel promised to send a Saviour, to visit his people. 

Hence, God’s promise to visit and to heal his people came to fruition when Jesus, the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor 15:45), came to earth.

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