What do we mean by "gospel"?

Joseph Ratzinger on the meaning of the word.

Jan 01, 2025

Prefatory Note: In a previous post, I announced that I was beginning a year-long effort to articulate the gospel according to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. This is the second installment in that series.

Growing up, my religious education refrained from talking about sin. Mine was a kind of vapid formation centered on God loving me. It was rinsed and repeated year after year. Cheesy workbooks and cheesy songs. Felt banners and the like. Feel-good faith formation.

Now, there is truth in the fact that “God loves me,” but the deeper implications of this were not explored, or I somehow missed them. Instead, things remained at the shallow level of “experience” and affection, with an added layer of obligation, duty, and morality detached from meaning (i.e., I never really understanding the “why” behind the Church’s moral teaching). Consequently, the whole concept of the Gospel as “good news” had achieved an unparalleled level of banality. I could easily dismiss it as meaningless amid the turbulence of my teenage years. And I did. I did not, and could not see how it had any real bearing on life. Catholicism was an outlier subject in Catholic school, the sacraments were hoops to jump through, and the Gospel an irrelevant message that must have been relevant a long time ago.

Unfortunately, my experience was not isolated. Following Vatican II, certain renewal movements within catechetics lost sight of Christ and neutralized the problem of sin (and, consequently, the real force of the Gospel) by overemphasizing human experience. Such currents relativized revelation by turning any and every human experience into a revelatory experience, thus losing sight of Christian revelation altogether. Explicit faith was no longer necessary. One could be a Christian implicitly and anonymously, just by “being a good person.” In its humanistic streak, a certain anthropocentrism reigned supreme and became susceptible to various secular influences (e.g., Marxism). This capitulation to the secular stripped the Gospel of its power to transform, and rendered it a mere tool for affirming subjective opinions and values of its adherents.

Within this context, it’s worth the time and effort to reconsider how Joseph Ratzinger conceives of and recovers the word “gospel,” before unpacking how he articulates the contents of the Gospel message for our times.

On the Word “Gospel”

Etymologically, the word “gospel” comes from the Old English word godspel. It’s literally good spell, with spel meaning a story or message. So, it’s a good story or a good message. The deeper origins of the word are found in the Greek euangelion (Latin: evangelium), which gets at a reward for bringing good news. In other words, it has to do with what happens as a result of the good news for both the evangel, the evangelist who makes the announcement, and for the announcement’s recipient. So, “gospel” has to do with the story or “good news,” itself, and that which results from the “good news.” In other words, euangelion “is not just informative speech, but performative speech—not just the imparting of information, but action, efficacious power that enters into the world to save and transform.”1 Gospel is not merely informative, but transformative. It is meant to change us. It is meant to make us joyful.

The Pre-Christian History of “Gospel”

The word “gospel” predates Christianity and its pre-Christian history provides insight into how the word would have been perceived in the earliest stages of Christianity.

Benedict XVI explains that Homer utilizes the word as an announcement of victory, “and therefore the announcement of good, joy and happiness.”2 The prophet Isaiah uses the word in reference to a voice that “announces joy from God, a voice that makes it clear that God has not forgotten his people, that God, who apparently had almost withdrawn from history, it is here, he is present” (see Isa 40:9).3 For Isaiah, “gospel” is one of “glad tidings” for the poor, for those who suffer for God’s sake.4

In the Roman Empire, Augustus took up the word and employed it as a message that comes from the Emperor. As such, it is a message that brings good, renewal to the world, salvation, imperial strength, and power.5 Here, the pre-Christian history of Gospel/evangelization reveals that this word bears significant weight, that it comes from an authority, that it announces that which is to be good for all, and, therefore, that which brings joy to all. It has a universal bearing and a gravitas that is more substantial than today’s consumerist marketing tactic of creating brand evangelists who about a good burger joint or a new Netflix original. The message from the Roman emperor was a saving message, “not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better.”6 It ushered in a kind of universal peace — the Pax Romana.

The pre-Christian history of “gospel” reveals that both the source of the message and its content matter—both the source and the content are significant. And not only that, it is a massage that transforms. At this point one can begin to feel the weight of the Christian “glad tidings.”

The Glad Tidings

Without this pre-Christian backdrop, we miss out on just how countercultural the Christian Gospel was at the time and why it was perceived as a threat. Christianity didn’t arrive on the scene as some sort of feel-good belief system that fit right into the religion of the day. No. It challenged all of it, and even today continues to oppose worldly wisdom. The advent of the Christian Gospel even affronted the emperor. Augustus had named himself “savior” and “god.” The Gospels claim the real Savior (Lk 2:11) and peace-bearer (Lk 2:14) appears, not in the Roman emperor with all his earthly power, but in the apparently powerless Christ child. Therefore, Benedict XVI says, “St. Luke explicitly compares the Emperor Augustus with the Child born in Bethlehem: ‘Evangelium’ — he says — yes, it is the Emperor’s word, the true Emperor of the world. The true Emperor of the world has made himself heard, he speaks to us” (cf. Lk 2:1).7 The true Emperor was not seated on a throne in Rome, but lying in a manger in Bethlehem.

Fittingly, the glad tidings of Christianity first ring out with the word “rejoice” (Lk 1:28). This is how the angel Gabriel greets the virgin Mary in Nazareth: “Rejoice, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Such begins Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, that she is to bear in her womb and give birth to the Son of God. Note that angel does not employ the typical Hebrew salutation shalom, but the Greek chaĩre. We usually translate chaĩre as “hail,” though the truer meaning is “rejoice!” The word appears once again when the angel announces to the shepherds: “I proclaim to you good news of great joy” (Lk 2:10). Ratzinger comments, “the whole text is saturated, as it were, with a feeling of joy, of a fresh beginning that will make all things new.”8 “Rejoice!” This is the word that resounds throughout history of Christianity. This is the word that highlights what the Gospel does — it causes proclaimers and hearers to rejoice.

As a final point, Benedict XVI notes the importance of the angel’s announcement being made in Greek, as it “opens the door to the peoples of the world: the universality of the Christian message becomes evident.”9 The Gospel brings joy, not to an exclusive group, but to one and to all.

But, what exactly do we mean by joy? What is joy after all?

Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, trans. Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, SND (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), 76. Other points in this paragraph are also drawn from Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, trans. Philip J. Whitmore (New York: Image, 2012), 26–27.

Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, 27.

Benedict XVI, Oct. 8, 2012 Meditation, accessed at vatican.va. See also Joseph Ratzinger, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997), 38–39.

Benedict XVI, Oct. 8, 2012 Meditation.

Ratzinger, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism, 38–39.

Benedict XVI, Oct. 8, 2012 Meditation. See also Ratzinger, Gospel, Catechesis, Catechism, 39; Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, trans. Adrian J. Walker (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 46–47.