Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What is the Gospel?

You’ll recall a few months back Ben gave an excellent message about the Gospel, taking us to the Tanakh to explore what the phrase “Good News” actually means.

The conclusion was that the Gospel is the proclamation of a kingdom - God’s kingdom to be precise.

This is such an important theme for us that I wanted to build upon Ben’s message and explore it further.

As I’ve said before, if you ask someon on the street or in the pews, ‘what is the Gospel?’ their first reaction would likely be to respond something along the lines of, “Jesus died for your sins”.

While this is certainly an important truth, it is an inadedquate and incomplete description because this statement is in fact a subcomponent of the broader description of the Gospel.

It would be like someone asking, “what is the universe?”

and in response someone says, “our solar system and all its planets”, where in reality the univese is a description of all space and time and our solar system is but one part of the universe.

It may not be a perfect analogy, but the point is clear.

In a similar vein, the Gospel refers primarily to a victorious king, and the fact that we have been forgiven of our sins is only one part of the overall kingdom message.

Another way to put it might be like saying the Exodus story is the Passover.

No, the Exodus story includes the Passover, Mt.

Sinai, the Wilderness, and the Promised Land.

Applying the blood of the lamb to the door is an important moment, but not the entire story.

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Verb: εὐαγγελίζω euangelizō proclaim good news; bring good news; proclaim the gospel

Noun: εὐαγγέλιον euangelion gospel; good news; good tidings

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What I’d like to do today is dig further into the Good News and see that:

The Good News is a political message

The Good News is Yeshua’s victory

The Good News is declared through the community

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The Good News is a Political Message

To better understand the political context of the term ‘good news’ we will look at the greco-roman context of the Apostolic Sciptures.

Rome was of course the political power under which Yeshua and the disciples lived in the 1st century and the term good news was very familiar to the culture.

Pausanius was a Greek writer who flourished in the 2nd century A.D. and he wrote about an earlier war which occurred ca.

660–650 BC between the Ancient Greek states of Messenia and Sparta and we can see that he describes those bringing back news of this miliarty victory as those brining ‘good news’;

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So two of them went to Sparta, bringing the glad news that Aristomenes had been captured.

(Paus., Gr.

Descr.

4.19.5)

Vespasian was a Roman emperor who reigned from AD 69 to 79.

This is the Vespasian that Josephus had predicted would become emperor.

Here is the description about Vespasian accending to the throne and the event being described as good news;

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Accordingly Vespasian, looking upon himself as already intrusted with the government, got all things ready for his journey [to Rome].

Now fame carried this news abroad more suddenly than one could have thought, that he was emperor over the east, upon which every city kept festivals, and celebrated sacrifices and oblations for such good news; (Wars of the Jews IV, x 6)

Appian, who was a roman historian around 95-165AD, wrote about the ealier republic period where Octavian would ultimately become emperor.

He describes a rumour that circulated claiming Octavian’s legions had deserted him, and this rumour emboldened the Senate in their efforts to stop him.

The senate is described as sending someone to proclaim ‘good news’ in order to drum up victorious excitement;

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The same night they sent Manius Aquilius Crassus to Picenum to raise troops, and ordered one of the tribunes, named Apuleius, to run through the city and proclaim the good news to the people.

(Appian, Bell.

Civ.

3.93)

The point to make here is that the ‘good news’ or ‘euganelion’ is not a term restricted to the Bible.

The biblical authors found themselves within a political context that already used this word, a word having very ancient ties to bringing news of political victory.

In 44BC Julius Ceaser died which soon after resulted in a dictatorship by three men led by his adopted great-nephew Octavian.

Over the years, Octavian ultimately became the unchallenged ruler of the Roman Empire and in 27BC the ruling body (senate) declared him Augustus, which was a term loaded with singifcant religious overtones meaning illustrious or venerable one.

With his position cemented across the empire, Octavian would be lord not simply of the Roman Empire but also, in some respects, of the whole realm of nature over which Rome governed.

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Holy Scriptures: Tree of Life Version (Chapter 2)

Now it happened in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus to register all the world’s inhabitants.

Lk 2.1

Ocatvian’s rule commenced the Pax Romana which is Latin for ‘Roman Peace’ and represents a 200 year period of relative global peace.

During this time the empire expanded to its largest size and contained an estimated 70 million people under its rule.

The point to emphasize here is that the population viewed the roman empire as supreme and Octavian was the emperor who brought world peace.

For the roman people peace in the world is a result of the roman empire; to further the empire is to further world peace, to further the emperor is to further world peace.

Octavian’s success lead to the inaguaration of what is called the imperial cult.

The imperial cult essentially means the worship system directed toward the emperor.

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The Imperial Cult was the direct worship of the emperor by sacrifice and prayer in the context of priesthoods, temples, rites and festivals.

And this direct worship of the emperor was embedded in complex religious, social, economic, and political systems.

So Octavian became viewed as the one duly appointed on behalf of mortals to interpret the will of the gods.

And where the chronic instability of earlier years was a sign of the wrath of the gods, it now fell to Octavian to achieve Rome’s destiny by securing the pax deorum (“peace of the gods”) on earth.

To demonstrate how people thought of the emperor, we have writings from Nicolaus of Damascus, who was a Greek philosopher and biographer of Augustus and friend to Herod the Great, speaking to the significance of Octavian’s acquisition of the title “Augustus.”

He writes,

“Because humankind address[es] him thus (as Augustus) for this esteem of his honour, they revere him with temples and sacrifices over islands and continents, being organised both by cities and peoples, repaying the greatness of his virtue and his benefaction to them” (trans.

and cited in Hardin, Galatians, 27).

Further evidence of Augustus’s exalted status comes by way of decree issued from Mytilene (located just off the northwest coast of modern-day Turkey).

The decree dates to a time between 27 and 11 BC and is found on an inscription set on two sides of a stele (an upright stone slab).

The city of Mytilene apparently sent a delegation with this decree to Augustus in order to request permission to establish a cult for him.

The civic leaders also requested that they be allowed to hold regular athletic contests in Augustus’s honor and to celebrate his birthday every month along with sacrifices of animals.

Here’s one part of that decree:

For there is to be an oath … with the ancestral gods, and Sebastos … the image [eikona] of God.…

That on the altar … every month on his birthday and … as the same sacrifices, as are offered to Zeus.…

That is consistent with the typical greatness of his mind and takes note that there are those things which by fate and by nature are humbler and can never attain equality with those who secure a heavenly reputation and possess the station and power of gods.

But if anything is discovered in later times more glorious than these decrees, then let not the zeal and the piety of the city come up short in those things that can deify [theopoiein] him all the more.

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So in various decrees we can see the people deified the emperor and worshipped him, presumably as the image of God, alongsdie the gods of Rome.

But for our purposes related to the Good News, we get a real sense of the meaning in a decree from Prienne, 9 BC, we read as follows:

Since Providence, which has divinely disposed our lives, having employed zeal and ardor, has arranged the most perfect culmination for life by producing Augustus, whom for the benefit of mankind she has filled with excellence, as if she had granted him a savior for us and our descendants, a savior who brought war to an end and set all things in peaceful order; and since with his appearance Caesar exceeded the hopes of all those who had received glad tidings [euangelia] before us, not only surpassing those who had been benefactors before him, but not even leaving any hope of surpassing him for those who are to come in the future; and since the beginning of glad tidings [euangeliôn] on his account for the world was the birthday of the god.

(trans.

and cited in Harrison, “Paul,” 85)

The Good News involves Augustus as “savior” and the author of universal peace.

His birthday is reckoned as the source of “glad tidings,” or “gospel.”

Similar ascriptions and titles, including “son of God” and “God Sebastos,” (exlated) are not uncommon in other inscriptions and coinage.

One inscription even states that Augustus has “outstripped even the Olympian gods” (trans.

and cited in Hardin, Galatians, 29).

Statues and temples dedicated to the emperor are found all over the roman empire.

An augstan calendar was created with a start date of his birthday.

Saviour implies salvation and being saved is a political event with individual benefits.

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There are four major points to be mentioned here:

the term good news or glad tidings or gospel is not strictly a religious or biblical term

politics and religion are not easily separated.

the earthly leaders and the heavenly gods are intertwined.

glad tidings often means announcing political victory.

Messiah and the apostles were born into a world firmly under the political control of Rome and it is clear that the early beleivers on some level would have had to accommodate themselves to the often grim realities of Roman rule.