This power entails forgiveness and eternal life (also called reconciliation or peace with God), sonship, and enablement (Acts 10:36; Romans 6-8; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21). Its power will extend into complete, unending redemption for us and the Creation (Romans 8:18-25).
John the Baptist, associating the gospel with the kingdom, said it arrives when the Christ baptizes with the Spirit and fire (Luke 3:15-18; cf. Acts 2:30-36). Jesus preached it as release and tied it to the kingdom, focusing it on the world and the poor (Luke 4:16-18; Mark 1:15; Matthew 11:5, 24:14). Paul defined it as the power of God, and not merely as salvation (Romans 1:16). This is because to save, God exercises his power through Christ to overtake the power of sin in humans and the Creation, giving us the Spirit (Romans 1-8; Ephesians 1:3-14). Two images in John's gospel express God's powerful enablement through the Spirit as part of the gospel: being born anew and receiving water that leaves one never thirsting again, what Jesus later called "the Paraclete" (John 3:3; 4:10; 7:37-39; chaps. 14-16). Luke calls the same Spirit-enablement "power from on high" (Luke 24:49).
So the gospel is about the Father's gift of his ongoing, powerful redeeming work mediated through the Son by the Spirit. It is about far more than heaven; it is about God's grace restoring us into a permanently healthy relationship with him and others (Titus 2:11-14).
Darrell Bock is research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
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