The word “gospel” bombards the American churchgoing
public from every quarter. Yet there appears to be very little analysis of what
the Bible means by the Gospel. There is no more important and urgent matter
demanding our attention than this: to discover what Jesus and the
Apostles taught as the Gospel. Believing the Gospel
is everywhere in the New Testament directly connected to salvation. Salvation means gaining immortality in the future
resurrection and helping to supervise a new world order, with the returned
Messiah as its governor.
There are cosmic forces at work attempting to
prevent us from understanding the vital message of salvation. In Luke 8:12
Jesus brilliantly describes what happens when some hear the biblical Gospel.
The Messiah's intelligence report lifts the lid on Satan's counter-Gospel
activity: “Then the Devil comes and snatches away the message [the Gospel of
the Kingdom, Matthew 13:19] which was sown in their hearts, so that
they may not believe it [the Gospel] and be saved .”
Another devastatingly destructive system, known as
ultra-dispensationalism, boldly proclaims that the Gospel of the Kingdom is not
for us today at all! It claims, contrary to the plainest biblical evidence,
that Paul introduced another and different Gospel for us now: the Gospel of
grace. Paul however makes the Gospel of the Kingdom identical with
the Gospel of grace. For this fact, simply read Acts 20:24, 25:
"I consider my life worth nothing to myself if only I can finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to the good news of the grace of God. And now, listen, I know that you all among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom you will see my face no more...
Paul here summarizes with
crystal clarity his whole Gospel-preaching career. It was to proclaim the
Gospel of the grace of God which in the next breath he says is the preaching of
the Kingdom!
Salvation, we learn, is gained by believing and
obeying the Gospel message. The linkage of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew
13:19) and salvation is clearly obvious. Satan's goal is to obstruct belief in
that Gospel. One strategy open to him is to remove the Gospel from the heart of
the potential believer. Another clever way of achieving his goal is by distorting the
message.
Paul warned his Corinthian converts that it is all
too easy to believe in a pseudo-Jesus, a counterfeit Jesus, and a fake Gospel:
“If he who comes preaches another Jesus, whom we have not
preached, or if you receive another spirit, which you have
not received, or a different gospel, which you did not receive, you
bear this beautifully!” (2 Corinthians 11:4).
Christians are to be alert and instructed. If they
are not, they will fall for “other gospels” and “other Jesus.” There are lots
around and they can be very appealing.
“Another Jesus. Another spirit.
A different gospel.” Paul
here “blows the whistle” on the Satanic methods. He unmasks the Devil's subtle
tactics. Satan's seductive plan is to “preach Jesus, Spirit and Gospel,” using
these New Testament terms as a camouflage for his own twisted message. Satan's
Gospel will sound biblical enough. The name “Jesus” will be prominent in the
message. Yet in a subtle way, this pseudo-gospel will divert its well-meaning
recipients from the real message of the real Jesus.
According to another translation of 2 Corinthians
11:4, Satan offers “another way to be saved.” Observe that Satan's business is
“salvation.” But it is “salvation” on his terms. The reason
why the yet inexperienced Corinthians were, as Paul said, “putting up with the
pseudo-gospel beautifully” was that they could not see the difference between
the true and the false versions of the Gospel.
In these immensely instructive verses, Paul exposed
Satan's deceptive techniques. Paul was giving his own commentary on the warning
words of Jesus in Luke 8:12. Satan's business is to get rid of the saving
Gospel as Jesus preached it. Satan wants to destroy humanity by turning humanity
away from God and His son Jesus.
Paul went on to say that Satan “dresses himself up”
as an angel of light (implying that he is actually an angel of darkness) and
that he works through his ministers [false teachers], who also appear to be
ministers of light, to mislead the unwary: “And no wonder, for even Satan
disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his
servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (2 Corinthians
11:14, 15).
Nothing alarmed or angered Paul more than the
preaching of a distorted Gospel; and with good reason. For a message of
salvation that is untrue to the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles inevitably
lulls its recipients into a false sense of security. They will think they have
“received Jesus,” but the Jesus presented to them will be a cunningly
devised misrepresentation of the real Jesus who alone can save. When Paul
found Satan at work among young believers whom he had reached with the true
message, he rushed to their rescue:
“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him
who called you by the grace of the Messiah, for a different gospel; which is
really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to
distort the Gospel of the Messiah. But even though we or an angel from heaven
[suggestive of the ‘angel of light' of 2 Corinthians 11:14] should preach to
you a gospel other than the one which we preached to you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:6-8).
Beware of a Distorted Gospel
The reason for Paul's strong words is clear.
Acceptance of “another gospel” and “another Jesus” (the pseudo-Jesus would of
course be offered as Savior and Lord) could not possibly lead to the desired
salvation. But the victims of such preaching would be convinced that they had
come to believe God's message. They would think that they were being saved,
when in fact the genuine message of salvation had been hidden from them. They
would have fallen prey to Satan's policy of opposition by imitation.
A shrewd observer of the history of religion has
observed that the fact “that what any
religion works does not mean that it is right. It
is in the nature of all religions that they should work for those who are
persuaded that they represent the determined vehicle of communication between
the Seen and the Unseen.” A faith that seems to work, and a Jesus who
seems to produce results, do not necessarily correspond with the Jesus
proclaimed by Paul and his colleague Apostles. It is essential to understand
the subtlety of Satan's strategy of deception and to realize that he conceals
himself under religious, biblical terminology.
By a subtle shift in the meaning of words, we
suggest, that the biblical Gospel message has been, in many quarters, deprived of
its principal and fundamental ingredient: the Kingdom of God. This
has come about in two ways. Firstly, the content of the popular Gospel has been
derived almost exclusively from isolated verses in Paul's epistles (usually
Romans, cp. “The Roman Road”) and the gospel of John. In these writings,
because the writer and audience already understood the meaning of
“Gospel,” the precise terminology of the Gospel appears less often or appears
under different terms, and there is thus more room for us to misunderstand.
Paul was not writing (in Romans) to people who had never heard the Gospel. He
was not writing to make converts out of non-Christians. Paul could assume that
his audience knew what the Gospel was. This allowed him to concentrate on
certain elements of the Gospel and treat other parts of it with less detail and
clarity.
The loss of a clear perception of the Gospel
message has come about because Jesus' original words describing and defining
the Gospel, recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, have been ignored or rejected.
Jesus has been presented to the
public as one who died and rose, but not as the original and definitive preacher
and teacher of the saving Gospel; the Gospel about the Kingdom of God.
Almost all “Gospel talk” has
centered around the person of Jesus, to the exclusion
of the saving message he taught. Churches speak of the
messenger, Jesus, but usually fail to tell us about the Gospel message that he
proclaimed. The preaching of that Gospel was his priority. Churches ignoring the
Gospel message of Jesus is devastating to their listeners. The abundance of
talk about “Jesus” gives the impression that the Jesus of the New Testament is
being presented. What many do not notice is that there is a deafening silence
about Jesus' saving message about the Kingdom, is quietly
omitted!
“Test the spirits,” John urged as the New Testament
period was ending (1 John 4:1). Listen to the words being announced as
“gospel.” Do you hear the Kingdom of God as central in the Gospel
presentation? If not, beware: the voice of Jesus and his Kingdom Gospel are
absent. Jesus had remarked, “My sheep know my voice” (John 10:27).
Matthew, Mark, and Luke unanimously record that
Jesus and the disciples always proclaimed the Gospel of the
Kingdom (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; Luke 4:43; Mark 1:14, 15; Luke 16:16).
Mark calls this Gospel the “Gospel of God” (Mark 1:14). It is a message sent by
God Himself through His spokesman Jesus, the promised Messiah. Once this
critically important definition of the Gospel; the Gospel of the Kingdom; has
been established, Matthew, Mark, and Luke refer to it by a kind of “shorthand”
as “the Word” or “the Message.” Luke makes this crucial equation in his first
volume: “He said to them, ‘I must preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to the other
cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.' And he kept on
preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Now it came about that while the
multitude were pressing around and listening to the Word of God ...”
(Luke 4:43, 44; 5:1).
Matthew and Mark also use the terms “Word (message)
of the Kingdom” and “the Word” respectively when they record the parable of the
Sower. This parable, of course, is the prototype of all good evangelism, though
it is seldom referred to by contemporary evangelists. The Gospel of the Kingdom
in the three versions of the same parable appears as follows: “Whenever anyone hears the word of the
Kingdom ...” (Matthew 13:19). “And they hear the word”
(Mark 4:16). “The seed is the word of God” (Luke 8:11).
The Gospel Fully Defined
The “word” in question is fully defined in Luke
4:43 and Matthew 4:23 and 9:35 as the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
(Note that the KJV expression “preaching the Kingdom” means in the original
“preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom,” as modern translations
and commentators make clear.)
After the resurrection of Jesus, the Apostles, in
obedience to Jesus, went out to proclaim exactly the same message of
the Kingdom. They added to the message, under the guidance of the spirit of
the Messiah, the new facts about Jesus' death and resurrection, of which Jesus
had said very little (and when he did he was not understood; Luke 18:31-34)
when he preached the Gospel. In Acts 8:12, therefore, we have a perfect formula
that covers the whole ground of the Gospel message. There are two components in the Gospel; the Kingdom
of God and “the name of Jesus”: “When they believed Philip as
he proclaimed the good news [Gospel] about the Kingdom of God and the name of
Jesus, they were being baptized” (Acts 8:12).
This comprehensive definition of the Gospel is the
one that should be constantly instilled in the minds of those who go out to
preach. The fact is, however, that this model text in Acts (repeated in Acts
19:8; 20:24, 25; 28:23, 31) is seldom, if ever, quoted. What is often quoted is
another verse from Acts: “Philip... preached the Messiah to them” (Acts 8:5).
This is another of Luke's “shorthand” summaries of
the Gospel. He intends to remind us of Jesus' own preaching of the Kingdom of
God and the Apostles' preaching about the Kingdom and the name of Jesus (Acts
8:12). By itself, however, the expression “preaching the Messiah” is unclear.
Explained by Acts 8:12: “the Gospel about
the Kingdom and the name of Jesus”; it is easily understood.
By forgetting Acts 8:12 evangelists almost always omit the principal subject
matter of Jesus' own preaching, the Kingdom of God! Thus, they subtract from
the message one of its two major components.
An illustration will make the matter clearer. In
Acts 15:21 James stated that “Moses has in every city those who preach him.” We
have no difficulty in seeing that “preaching Moses” means that the law of Moses
and his teaching were being proclaimed. In the same way “preaching the Messiah”
involves not only telling the facts about the person of Jesus but also giving
an accurate account of his message; what he taught.
Now it would be very strange to say that
“Moses is the law,” unless we explained that we were using language
in a special way. Yet this sort of “Jesus is the Gospel” or “Jesus is the
Kingdom” language has been introduced and with disastrous consequences. It may
sound good to say that “Jesus is the Gospel,” but the objective
reality of the Kingdom as the future reign of the Messiah on
earth (with strong implications for the present period of preparation
for the Kingdom) has been lost from the Gospel message. Jesus' version of the
Gospel is thus eclipsed.
It is commonly said that Paul did not preach the
Kingdom of God, though Jesus did. Imagine the chaos into which New Testament
Christianity would be thrown if this assertion were true. If Paul did not relay
the same Gospel of the Kingdom as Jesus had preached it, he would be in
violation of the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19, 20), which is obviously
binding on all who preach. Jesus' final words were these: “Go and make
disciples and baptize them and teach them everything I taught
you.” It could not be clearer. Apostolic Christianity is based on the preaching
of the historical Jesus. If Jesus preached the Kingdom as the foundation of the
Gospel (and no one could argue with this fact) then the Apostles also taught
that same Kingdom Gospel, with the addition of the new facts about the death
and resurrection of Jesus. To suggest that Paul did not concentrate on the
Gospel of the Kingdom is to say that he was in direct disobedience to the Great
Commission. Paul was intent on the Messiah Jesus living in him, and the Messiah
who lived in him was the risen historical Jesus who continued to preach the
same Gospel of the Kingdom everywhere. Paul says this quite expressly: “I went
about preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom” (Acts 20:25). He makes no difference
at all between the Gospel of grace and the Gospel of the Kingdom (Acts 20:24,
25). It would be completely false to assert therefore that the Gospel of Jesus
did not continue in Acts. Luke intended that we never forget this. Acts 28:23,
31 describes the evangelistic ministry of Paul as the preaching of the Kingdom
of God, both to Jews and to Gentiles. There is no preaching of the Messiah
without the preaching of the Message of the Messiah, the Kingdom of God.
The Blurring of the Message
It was Origen, a philosophically minded “church
father” of the third century, who began to say that “the good things the
apostles announce in the Gospel are simply Jesus. Jesus Himself
preaches good tidings of good things which are none other than Himself.”
With this kind of poetic,
allegorizing language the Kingdom was turned into “good things” and the message
about the Kingdom of God was swallowed up in the term “Jesus.” The Kingdom
disappeared behind the word “Jesus.” This trend has continued to the present
day.
Origen set a fashion of speaking
of the “Gospel” yet saying nothing about the Messianic Kingdom of the future
which was the heart of Jesus' saving message. Jesus' use of the term
“Kingdom” in its Hebrew, Old Testament sense as a “concrete” reality of the
future was frittered away, dissolved into thin air. The spell that was thus
cast over the churches resulted in what one contemporary writer has brought
about “the hopeless confusion of evangelicals over eschatology.” Another
theologian warned of the catastrophe that occurred when the Greek
incomprehension of the Messianic Kingdom caused it to be dropped from the
Gospel message. The loss was not a legitimate transformation of the message, as
some would have us believe; it was a suppression of the apostolic Gospel
of the Kingdom: “When the Greek mind and the Roman mind, instead of the
Hebrew mind, came to dominate the Church, there occurred a disaster from which
the Church has never recovered, either in doctrine or practice.”
Propositions about Jesus being the
Kingdom or the Gospel sound plausible or “spiritual,” but they are misleading.
Jesus did not come into Galilee saying, “Repent and believe the Gospel
about me .” He commanded belief first and foremost in the
Gospel of the Kingdom, God's
Gospel (Mark 1:14, 15). Jesus did not say that the Sower
went forth to sow himself! He went out to sow “the Message of the Kingdom”
(Matthew 13:19).
Jesus spoke also of giving up everything for
him and the Gospel (Mark 8:35; 10:29). Origen: and the evangelical
world have often followed him; confused the biblical message by practically
equating Jesus with the Gospel Message, the messenger with the message. The
result was the loss of the Message about the Kingdom, of which Jesus will
become the ruler as Messiah, and into which Jesus invites his followers as
co-rulers (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:28-30; Revelation 2:26; 3:21; 5:10; 20:4-6).
Our point is well made by a commentator who
challenges the traditional idea that Jesus proclaimed himself rather than the
Kingdom of God:
“Attempting to read the gospels unshackled by the
conventional wisdom or dogma of the past leads to some startling conclusions.
Nowhere is this more obvious than when we ask the central question, what was
Jesus' message? The various churches still operate on the axiom that his
message concerned Himself. Here, they say, is God-in-the-flesh, the second
Person of the Holy Trinity, walking about the Holy Land with a group of former
fishermen, proclaiming Himself as the only way of salvation. He is the content
of the message; or rather, he is the message itself…
“As I realized, however, the
moment I could read the New Testament with any seriousness... this is not what
the Gospels say at all. If you begin with the Gospel of St. Mark...you will
find that Jesus came preaching the ‘good news of God' and saying: ‘The time is fulfilled,
and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent [have a change of heart] and put your
trust in this good news (1:14-15)... If you take the combined witness of Mark,
Matthew, and Luke, it is obvious that Jesus came to proclaim what is translated
as the Kingdom of God or Heaven — the two are synonymous.”
Misleading Terminology
“Preaching the Messiah,” “proclaiming Jesus,”
“receiving the Lord” and “giving your heart to the Lord” may have a religious
ring about them. But they may also be a “front” for a message that tells you
nothing about Jesus' Gospel about the Kingdom of God. Remember that throughout
the book of Acts where the indispensable information about the apostolic
presentation of the Gospel is given, the Kingdom of God was still the
first item on the agenda (Acts 8:12; 28:23, 31). This is true of
preaching from the beginning of Acts to the end. It is true also of the message
which was given to Jews and Gentiles alike:
“So, they [the Jews] fixed a day and came to him
[Paul] at his quarters in large numbers. From morning to evening he
expounded and testified the Kingdom of God and persuaded them concerning Jesus
from the law of Moses and the prophets... He stayed two whole years in his
own rented home and welcomed all who came to see him [Jews and Gentiles] preaching
the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord
Jesus the Messiah, with all boldness, none forbidding him” (Acts 28:23, 30,
31).
A Word from the Scholars
A New Testament professor from Harvard has
subjected the writings of Luke in Acts to minute analysis. He reports that
what Luke says about the future Kingdom is “natural and spontaneous” and
therefore most revealing as a guide to the apostolic Gospel. Professor Cadbury
notes that Acts includes “many of the familiar elements” in New Testament
preaching. “The preachers preach the Kingdom of God or the things about it”
(Acts 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31; these texts should be examined
carefully). The term “Kingdom of God appears from almost the first verse to the
last verse in the book.” “Kingdom of God” “constitutes a formula apparently
parallel to the writer's more characteristic single verb ‘evangelize.'” “Nothing
obviously distinguishes the term Kingdom of God in Acts from such apocalyptic
use as it has in the synoptic gospels. For example, one enters into it [in the
future] through much tribulation (Acts 14:22).” We find this
scholar in complete agreement that the Kingdom of God is everywhere in Acts the
heart and center of the Gospel. And by
Kingdom of God, the Apostles do not mean a present reign of the Messiah “in the
heart” but the worldwide Kingdom of God to be inaugurated by the Second Coming
of Jesus at the end of the age and introducing a new society on earth; “the
inhabited earth of the future about which we speak” (Hebrews 2:5). This
point is most essential for anyone who sets out to make converts through the
Gospel message. The Kingdom of God, as the future Kingdom, is the core of the
message. It was when potential converts expressed an understanding of and a
belief in the Kingdom of God and the things concerning the name of Jesus that
they were ready to be baptized (Acts 8:12). Clearly any preaching which does
not have the Kingdom of God as a major component of its content has little
relation to the New Testament Gospel.
No Kingdom, No Gospel
When in the book of Acts Luke
refers to “preaching Jesus” or “evangelizing,” both phrases must be amplified
and illuminated by the fuller description of what the Apostles were saying.
They were proclaiming the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus (Acts
8:12; 28:23, 31). The loss of the facts about the Kingdom of God would amount
to a loss of a major part of the Gospel itself. A gospel without the Kingdom of
God would appear to be even “another gospel.” Even though the name “Jesus”
might still be heard, his message about the Kingdom would have disappeared. A
gospel deprived of essential information will not have the powerful converting
energy necessary to make healthy, well-instructed Christians.
When Paul preached in Ephesus, he “reasoned and
persuaded them about the Kingdom of God” for three months (Acts 19:8). He later
described his whole ministry at Ephesus as a “solemn testimony about repentance
towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). What then is Paul's
definition (not ours!) of “faith in the Lord Jesus”? Paul immediately gives us
two further clarifying descriptions of the Gospel. He equates “faith in Jesus”
with “the Gospel of the grace of God” (v. 24) or a “declaration of the whole
purpose of God” (v. 27). But none of these phrases must be divorced from verse
25. There Paul sums up his ministry as the “preaching of the Kingdom .”
Could contemporary evangelists so describe their own ministries when they speak
of “heaven”? Where did any New Testament preacher promise his audience that
they would “go to heaven”?
Paul's preaching in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, and
Antioch followed the same pattern. After preaching the Gospel, he exhorted the
converts to endure trial patiently before they “enter the Kingdom of God” (Acts
14:22), i.e., at the Second Coming of Jesus. Our final glimpse of Paul is in
Rome where once again we find him “solemnly testifying about the
Kingdom of God and trying to persuade them about Jesus” from dawn till
dusk (Acts 28:23). Luke ends where he began in Acts with Jesus discussing the
affairs of the Kingdom of God for six weeks with the disciples (Acts 1:3). Indeed,
Luke concludes his second volume where he began his first, the gospel of Luke:
Jesus is destined to receive the Kingdom of his father David (Luke 1:32, 33)
and rule in it forever. Luke's last word is that Paul was “preaching
the Kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus the Messiah” (Acts
28:31).
The message is clear beyond any doubt. It is the
Good News about the Kingdom and about Jesus the Messiah that must be
proclaimed (Acts 8:12). These are distinct but closely related topics. The
great mistake is to merge them so that the Kingdom is lost!
When Paul wrote to his converts, he most often
simply referred to the “Gospel” without further definition. Both the writer and
reader knew what was meant. We must be careful to go back to Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and Acts to find out exactly what that Gospel is. It is interesting to
note that Paul avoids in his epistles the full phrase “Gospel of the Kingdom.”
Talk of the “Kingdom” in opposition to Caesar could very well create
unnecessary trouble in the Roman empire. In Thessalonica, Paul was mobbed for
having dared to say that “there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:5-7). When
Paul wrote from prison, he used terms to describe the Kingdom which were less
provocative: “glory,” “age to come,” “light,” “life,” “inheritance.” But he
still mentions the Kingdom in contexts where he has just mentioned the Gospel:
“We proclaimed to you the Gospel of God ... God calls you into
His own Kingdom and glory” (1 Thessalonians 2:9, 12. Cp. Mark
1:14, 15: Gospel of God = Gospel of the Kingdom). “...you may be considered
worthy of the Kingdom of God … Those who do not obey the Gospel of
our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:5, 8). “I became your father through
the Gospel ... The Kingdom of God does not
consist in words, but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:15, 20). “The word of truth,
the Gospel ... He transferred us into the Kingdom”
(Colossians 1:5, 13). Note: (Colossians 3:24; 1 Corinthians 15:50).
A Bible Dictionary Documents the
Loss of the Kingdom from the Message
Despite the very clear evidence that the New
Testament Christians always proclaimed the Kingdom of God, both before and
after the resurrection of Jesus, Unger's Bible Dictionary attempts
to divide the Gospel into two different messages. It speaks of
“forms of the Gospel to be differentiated.” Contrary to the plain teaching
of Scripture, the article maintains that the Gospel of the Kingdom ceased to be
preached when the Jews rejected their Messiah and that a different form of the
Gospel; the Gospel of Grace; then came into force. The proclamation of the
Gospel of the Kingdom, we are told, will be resumed during the tribulation just
prior to the return of Jesus.
However, this is to create a distinction that is
not in the New Testament. The Gospel of the Kingdom definitely did not
cease to be preached when Jesus was rejected. The Kingdom of God
remained the central theme of apostolic teaching after the
resurrection (Acts 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31). What's more,
the Gospel of Grace is exactly the same Gospel as the Gospel of the Kingdom
(Acts 20:24, 25).
That many do try to create a distinction between
two forms of the Gospel is not disputed. The distinction, however, is based on
a man-made “dispensationalist” theory, which denies that the Gospel of the
Kingdom has always been and always will be the Christian message.
The Indispensable Word of the
Kingdom
Throughout the New Testament, the “shorthand”
expression “word” (message) stands for the “Gospel of the Kingdom and the name
of Jesus the Messiah” (Acts 8:12). Sometimes the message is simply “the truth”
(Colossians 1:6). All these abbreviated descriptions of the Gospel must be
referred back to Jesus' proclamation of the Kingdom (Luke 4:43; Matthew 4:23).
If these simple principles are kept in mind,
Christians will not run the risk of losing or distorting the Gospel, which is
the greatest tragedy that could befall them (Galatians 1:7, 8). They must
insist that Jesus' own message about the Kingdom is always at the heart of
evangelism. This can be done best by maintaining a “sound pattern of words” (2
Timothy 1:13). This does not mean that preaching should be wooden or
unimaginative, controlled by a mere formula. It will mean, however, that we
will not be misled into thinking that the Messiah has been preached when
nothing has been said about his Good News of the Kingdom, Jesus' own
Gospel, the Gospel of salvation.
The Good News of the Kingdom has to do with God's
purpose to bring peace and international harmony to our war-torn earth by
sending Jesus to rule the world at his Second Coming. The earth is going to be
filled with the knowledge of God and the nations are going to beat their awful
weapons of mass destruction into farm implements (Isaiah 2:1-4). In preparation
for that great day, believers are to repent and believe the message (Mark 1:14,
15), be baptized, and receive the Spirit of God (Acts 2:38). Some will say:
“What good is that knowledge of the future for me now?” The
answer is that God is intensely interested in the future of the world and the
great reversal in world politics that is going to come when Jesus returns to
institute his Kingdom. If the spirit of God and the Messiah is in us, that
spirit will convey the same intense interest in the Kingdom as motivated by the
entire ministries of Jesus and the Apostles. God speaks to the present from the
future. Hope is a powerful energy. But hope is no hope unless it is given
content. That content is the Kingdom of God coming on earth and our inheritance
of the new land/earth (Matthew 5:5).
We conclude by reflecting on the strange phenomenon
that a leading writer of Bible notes quotes Matthew 24:14 and twice on the same
page (his only references) omits the words “of the Kingdom” from Matthew's (and
Jesus') prediction that the Gospel of the Kingdom is going to
be preached worldwide. Readers are permitted to see only that “this gospel... will
be preached.” The Kingdom, which describes the content of the Gospel, has
been dropped from the text!
Another evangelical writer refers to “preaching the
Messiah” and “preaching the word,” but omits altogether Luke's illuminating
explanation of these phrases as “the Gospel of the Kingdom and the name of
Jesus” (Acts 8:12). Recently a leading spokesman for evangelicalism delivered a
lecture on the topic “What is the Gospel?” During the course of an hour, he did
not manage to mention the word “kingdom” once! Discussing Acts 20:24-27 he
referred to the “gospel of the grace of God” (v. 24) and equated it correctly
with “declaring the whole purpose of God” (v. 27). Can anyone explain why he
skipped verse 25 which tells us that it was the Gospel of the Kingdom which
Paul called the Gospel of Grace and the whole purpose of God? Clearly, no one is
going to understand the Gospel fully until he is instructed in the meaning of
the term Kingdom of God and invited to believe the Good News connected with
that Kingdom (Mark 1:14, 15).
To cap it all, at an international meeting of
evangelists in Lausanne in 1974 a spokesman asked: “How much have you heard
here about the Kingdom of God? Not much. It is not our language. But
it was Jesus' prime concern.” The next time
you hear an evangelist, in spoken word or tract, summon the public to believe
in the Kingdom of God and the things concerning the name of Jesus (Acts
8:12), take careful note. You will be hearing the language of Jesus and the
Apostles. If offers of salvation contain no word about the Kingdom of God,
remain suspicious; and reread 2 Corinthians 11:4 and Luke 8:12! And Mark 4:11,
12, where the intelligent reception of the Kingdom Gospel is a condition for
repentance and being forgiven.
Written by Anthony Buzzard and edited by Bruce Lyon
