In Matthew Bates’s influential Salvation by Allegiance Alone (2017) and Gospel Allegiance (2019), Bates seeks to define the gospel based on the NT’s own summary texts. He concludes that the content of the gospel consists of a series of 8 or 10 “Christ events” and is centered on Jesus’ kingship. Bates assumes and builds upon this definition in The Gospel Precisely (2021), Why the Gospel? (2023) and his new Beyond the Salvation Wars (2025). For Bates, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox all agree on the gospel’s content; defining the gospel correctly thus has implications for the unity of the global church.
This paper points out a significant methodological flaw in Bates’s attempt to define the gospel, using Galatians 1:6–9 as a test case: According to Bates’s definition, both Paul and the Galatian opponents would agree on the gospel’s content. This result would seem to contradict Paul’s claim that his opponents’ message is a different gospel that is “no gospel at all.” (The paper demonstrates that Bates’s attempt to explain this passage falls short: contra Bates, Paul is referring to his opponents’ gospel content, not just its reception or application.)
Adapting terms from theology, the paper suggests that theological terms must be defined both cataphatically and apophatically. That is, to accurately define “the gospel” based on NT texts, one must account for both positive summaries of what the term means and negative statements concerning what it cannot mean. Bates’s definition of the gospel yields necessary but insufficient conditions for marking out agreement on the gospel, as it would include messages that are explicitly excluded by the NT. The paper concludes by suggesting that at least one additional necessary element may be embedded in the meaning of the “Christ event” of the Messiah’s death “for our sins.”
As Bates’s and other narrative-based approaches to the gospel are increasingly popular (and have much to commend them), this paper offers a necessary methodological clarification for how scholars should seek to define “the gospel.” The recent release of Bates’s Beyond the Salvation Wars (2025) has rekindled discussion of Bates’s work (both appreciative and critical), making this contribution timely.