The Gospel According to Paul

The Gospel According to Paul is T. Austin-Sparks’s eight-part study of the gospel as unfolded across the Pauline Epistles. Originally published in 1954, the book moves through Romans, the Corinthian letters, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, the Thessalonian letters, and the letters to Timothy. Its governing purpose is to recover the greatness of the gospel by showing that the gospel is not merely God’s message for the beginning of Christian life. For Sparks, it contains the divine provision for the believer’s life, progress, service, victory, hope, and ultimate conformity to God’s purpose in Jesus Christ.

Romans opens the study with the human condition and the gospel of hope. Sparks sets the hopelessness of fallen Adamic heredity and religious self-effort against God’s answer in Christ. Justification by faith belongs to this gospel, but Romans is not reduced to a formula for initial forgiveness. The Cross, faith, the new position provided in Christ, and the hope created by God’s action form the foundation for the larger Christian life.

First and Second Corinthians are treated together through the disorder and weakness of the Corinthian situation. Sparks brings the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit into the center of the gospel’s answer to a troubled church. Divine grace, love, and fellowship are not abstractions; they are spiritual realities capable of governing Christian relationships and corporate life where natural conditions have failed.

Galatians develops the gospel in conflict with legalism. The controversy surrounding law and the Judaizers becomes the setting for freedom through Christ and for the reality expressed in Paul’s testimony that Christ lives in the believer. Christian life is not sustained by returning to an external religious system. Its inward resource is Christ made real by the Spirit.

Ephesians presents the gospel in the unsearchable riches of Christ. Sparks follows the letter through the calling, conduct, and conflict of the Church and emphasizes the riches of grace and glory available for the extraordinary demands of God’s purpose. The Church is therefore not an incidental topic in the Pauline gospel; it belongs to the corporate scope of what God has accomplished in Christ.

Philippians presents the gospel through captivation with Christ, joy, fellowship, and pressing onward. Christ becomes the dominating concern of life, and the gospel produces a people whose interests and perseverance are centered in Him. Colossians then develops Christ’s preeminence and fullness in creation, redemption, reconciliation, and headship over the Church. Christian hope is concentrated in the sufficiency and supremacy of Christ.

First and Second Thessalonians present the gospel in power, the Holy Spirit, assurance, suffering, steadfast faith, and expectation of Christ’s coming. The believers become examples of a gospel that has entered life and conduct. The letters to Timothy conclude the study with the glory and power of God’s gospel, the defeat of death, and the bringing of life and incorruption to light through Christ.

The Gospel According to Paul addresses readers asking what Paul meant by the gospel, whether the gospel extends beyond conversion, how grace and faith relate to the Christian life, what legalism obscures, how Christ lives within believers, how the Church belongs to God’s gospel purpose, what Christ’s preeminence means, and how resurrection life, the Holy Spirit, hope, and Christ’s coming complete the gospel’s range.