In short, the gospel, or "good news," is about how God grants undeserving beings a second opportunity for eternal life with the only two-sided condition being one of sincere repentance for sin and commitment to Christ--yes, there is still something a person must do to be saved (repent and commit). The alternative for the masses, according to the Bible, is the literal nonexistence of consciousness (see here [1]), and then there is the fact that evidence-based commitment makes one a Christian, not emotionalistic belief. The gospel is slandered whenever Christians pretend like the gospel is anything that contradicts this. There is more to be said about the gospel, including the details of what has already been mentioned in this very paragraph and how salvation relates to things like free will and divine foreknowledge, but this is the gospel of Christianity as put forth by the actual Bible.
This is good news indeed if it is true: the being whose very nature dictates morality has not abandoned humans to a deserved fate of nonexistence, but cares about them enough despite their sin to accept the death of Jesus as a substitute, as someone whose cessation of life foreshadows what awaits the unsaved. Again, if true, this is incredibly good news! It still cannot possibly be an accurate summary of Christianity. There is far more to Christianity than God loving people and offering them salvation--and there are far more important things. Redemption and eternal life are made important in the context of Christianity by underlying, preceding issues, not the other way around. If the gospel was not a part of Christianity, to be sure, many self-professed Christians would suddenly lose interest in theology and philosophy, as their commitment to Christianity, which is typically based on epistemological faith instead instead of evidence-driven commitment and rationalistic awareness, would not have a desire for the personal benefit of heaven behind it.
In light of this, examine what must be true in order for the gospel to even be true. Without logical possibility or necessity, it is impossible for anything to be true; without truth, moral obligations could not exist (though logical truths do not absolutely necessitate moral obligations); without moral obligations, there cannot be sin, as sin is a deviation from moral obligations, and without a deity who has a moral nature, there can be no moral obligations; without sin, there is not a need for justice in the punitive sense; without justice, there cannot be mercy, for mercy is not treating someone as they deserve (in the sense of withholding a deserved penalty). Without divine mercy, in turn, there cannot be the gracious offer of salvation to all who are willing to repent. The gospel is from start to finish never the core of reality or even the most foundational or important part of Christian theology.
The gospel is an undeserved gift to fallen humankind, not the sole or most utterly vital component of all reality. It cannot be anything but this even in the context of Christianity as a hypothetically true religion, much less in the face of things that underpin the very possibility, probability, of truth of Christianity (logical axioms and metaphysics). The importance of the gospel has been exaggerated greatly by those who want simplistic falsehoods or comforting ideologies rather than a serious, assumption-free understanding of Biblical theology or broader philosophical truths. It is as if people in general think the gospel must either be the most important thing of all or something that is of no significance, and neither of these is true. Inside the context of actual Christianity, the gospel is neither trivial nor the most important Biblical doctrine, and outside the context of just Christianity, it is either a vital truth or a grand lie.
Mercy, a part of the gospel, is incapable of having significance of its own, as it by necessity hinges on their being real moral obligations and real deserved penalties for those who violate them (if moral obligations do not exist, there can be no such thing as mercy, only the misperception that some things are merciful). It is only a tool to inspire or reward a turning away from irrationality and evil. Justice, if moral obligations exist, is a necessary and fundamentally crucial aspect of reality, but mercy is an optional add-on. That some Christians partially grasp this while thinking that the gospel is some moral necessity on the Christian worldview means they care about mercy out of personal appreciation or gain, not because of any philosophical or theological truth. After all, mercy being necessary or deserved is conceptually impossible! The gospel can never be fully understood by someone who, due to assumptions or preferences, believes otherwise.
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