Many imagine the gospel as a strictly New Testament phenomenon, as if God’s plan of salvation began only with the birth of Christ. This is a grave misunderstanding. The gospel—the good news of justification by faith in God’s redemptive promise—was proclaimed from the very beginning and received by those who believed, long before Sinai or the Law. Abel and Abraham stand as unambiguous witnesses: salvation has always been by faith in the promise, not by human effort or religious performance.
The First Gospel: The Promise of the Seed
The gospel’s foundation is laid in Genesis, not Matthew. Immediately after the fall, God declared to the serpent and to Adam and Eve a promise: the “Seed of the Woman” would come and crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). This was not a vague hope, but the first proclamation of victory over evil and the basis for all true faith. The promise of the Seed is the original gospel, and it is the only ground for hope from the very start.
Abel, the son of Adam, responded to this promise. He became a shepherd—not by accident, but because he understood that a blood sacrifice was required, pointing to the coming Redeemer. Abel offered the firstling of his flock, with its blood and fat, not the fruit of his own toil from the cursed ground. His offering was accepted by God, not because of ritual, but because it was an act of faith in the promise. Jesus Himself calls Abel “righteous” (Hebrews 11:4), and this righteousness was not earned, but credited on the basis of faith in the Seed.
If you deny that Abel’s acceptance was by faith in the promise, you sever the root of justification itself. You collapse the entire logic of redemption and turn the gospel into a system of works, even before the Law was given.
Abraham: The Gospel Preached in Advance
Centuries later, God called Abraham and again made the promise of the Seed explicit: “In your Seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:7, 15:5). Paul is uncompromising: this was the gospel preached beforehand to Abraham (Galatians 3:8). Abraham had nothing to offer but faith. He simply believed God’s word, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).
This is not a secondary point. The entire argument of Romans and Galatians stands or falls here. If Abraham was justified by anything other than faith in the promise, then the gospel is not continuous, and the New Testament is built on sand. But the Scripture is clear: Abraham believed, and God credited him with righteousness. The inheritance, the blessing, and sonship all flow from this principle—faith in the promise of the Seed.
The Fulfillment: Christ, the True Seed
The promise was not left hanging. God fulfilled His word in Jesus Christ, the true Seed of the Woman, who crushed the serpent’s head at the cross. Every sacrifice, every shadow, every covenant pointed to Him. Abel’s offering, Abraham’s faith, the entire testimony of Scripture converge on this one point: God justifies the ungodly by faith in Christ alone.
To suggest that the gospel was absent from the Old Testament, or that justification was ever by works, is to gut the very heart of God’s redemptive plan. You lose the continuity of salvation history, you lose the foundation of assurance, and you forfeit the reality of sonship and inheritance. The gospel is not a new idea; it is the eternal purpose of God, revealed from the beginning and consummated in Christ.
What Is at Stake If We Miss This?
If you accept the error that the gospel was unknown to Abel, Abraham, or the patriarchs, you lose the entire logic of justification by faith. You turn the Old Testament into a record of failed human striving, rather than a testimony to God’s faithfulness. Worse, you make Christ’s coming a mere afterthought, rather than the fulfillment of what God had always promised. The result is a gospel with no roots and a salvation with no assurance.
The gospel is not a New Testament invention. It is the unbroken thread of God’s promise, received by faith from the first days of humanity. Abel and Abraham were justified by faith in the Seed—Christ—and so are we. This is the only gospel that saves, the only righteousness that counts, and the only foundation for true sonship and inheritance.
“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’” (Galatians 3:8)
Let no one move you from this foundation. The gospel is older than Moses, older than Abraham, older than the Law. It is the promise of God, fulfilled in Christ, and received by faith—then, now, and forever.
