IS A NEW GOSPEL PROCLAIMED

IN EPHESIANS 3:8-9?

According to several Bible translations, including the King James Bible, the answer is “yes”. For example, the New Revised Standard Bible says:

                … to bring to the Gentiles the good news of the boundless riches of Christ.

And more than a dozen other Bible translations, including the Amplified Bible, also say it was a gospel (of the “unsearchable riches of Christ”) that Paul was commissioned to proclaim to the Gentiles.

The issue is important because so many Christians today think there is only one gospel when in fact there are several in history, each tailored by God to the particular needs of a specific generation or people. Here in Eph. 3:9-9 a gospel for all men is announced. It offers a full, free and totally completed salvation in Christ for the first time.

In fact Eph. 3:8-11 breaks new ground in several ways:

1. It is the first preaching (gospel proclamation) of “unsearchable riches of Christ”.
2. It introduces for the first time “the fellowship (administration or dispensation) of the “mystery”, a secret which “from the beginning of the world (onwards) had been hid in God who created all things by Jesus Christ”.
3. Its intent is that the church called into being by this truth might make known to “the principalities and powers in heavenly places the “manifold wisdom of God”.
4. It is uniquely said to be “according to the eternal purpose He (God) purposed in “Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:10-11).

But, you say, if this is so, why doesn’t the King James Bible use the word “gospel” in its translation?

Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace give, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:8-9 KJV).

The answer is that actually it does. The word translated “preach” in Greek is evangelisasthai, which simply means to proclaim good news, in other words to preach the gospel. Thus the problem lies not in the translation but in the wrong perception that there is only gospel in the New Testament, if not the whole Bible. Actually, there are several as set out more fully in the Bible study “When will thy kingdom come” available on this website.

I wrote that:

“First, there was the ‘gospel of the kingdom’, then the gospel ‘that Christ died for our sins’, then the good news that Christ would be revealed in glory, and ‘we with Him‘ (Col. 3:1-4). In the gospels’ narrative John the Baptist, then Jesus Himself, followed by his disciples, preached ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matt. 3:2), that is, the ‘gospel of the kingdom’. Later the ‘gospel of the grace of God’ (Acts 20:24 was proclaimed and, later still, the ‘glorious gospel of the blessed God’, announcing the glory of the risen ascended Christ, was promulgated (1 Tim. 1:11)”.

The following translations rightly emphasise the preaching of a new gospel, that of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” being now proclaimed and made available to all men:

Amplified Bible:

To me, [though I am] the very least of all the saints (God’s people), this grace [which is undeserved] was graciously given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the incomprehensible riches of Christ [that spiritual wealth which no one can fully understand].

Legacy Standard Bible:

To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ.

Summing up, the gospel by definition is “good news” and God in his goodness and grace has down the ages brought new truth to light to provide salvation to succeeding generations of believers. The gospel of the unsearchable riches of Christ is one of them.

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: Day of Christ Ministries