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By Matt Guerino|Published Date: March 28, 2011
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
--Matthew 4:23
What is the Gospel?
It’s a deceptively simple question, yet one that merits more thoughtful reflection than might seem necessary at first. The word “gospel” simply means “good news.” So the gospel, meaning the Gospel of Jesus, is good news about Jesus. For years I was taught, as many are, that this means Jesus died on the cross for my sins so that I can be forgiven. I understood “the gospel of Jesus” to mean the good news that because He died I can avoid hell and be in heaven. It’s a Gospel of Final Destination. And this is true, as far as it goes.
But it doesn’t go far enough.
The Gospel of the Kingdom
Notice the way that the Bible itself describes the Gospel. Take Matthew 4:23 for instance, where Matthew says that Jesus went all around Galilee announcing the Gospel of the kingdom. Not the “gospel of going to heaven”, but the Gospel of the kingdom.
This leads to a natural question: what’s a kingdom? Well, to have a kingdom there certainly have to be subjects. Also, kingdoms are places – they occupy space, and have borders. But as essential as these things are, one indispensible thing is needed above all else if you’re going to have a kingdom: a king. Fundamentally, a kingdom is about a rule; a particular authority. The essence of a kingdom is that the reign of a specific ruler is acknowledged and submitted to. That his authority holds sway.
So when Jesus announced the Gospel of the kingdom, He was announcing good news about someone being in charge. And of course the someone was God almighty. The Gospel that Jesus Himself proclaimed was that God’s rule and authority had broken into human affairs, and that through Jesus’ sacrifice on man’s behalf people could once again become God’s subjects.
Notice how different that is from the Gospel of Final Destination, which guarantees my eternal outcome but has little obvious bearing on my current life here on earth. The Gospel of the Kingdom is both about here and now as well as there and then. It means that God is in charge, and that I am now one of His subjects (Colossians 1:13). It means that God’s authority touches every area of my life.
I gotta be me
But wait just a second. Is this actually “good news”? After all, the Bible itself tells us that mankind threw off God’s authority back in Eden. We’ve been autonomous from the Almighty ever since, and free to make our own way in the world. In a world that prizes choice and individual recognition above all things, the news that God has decided to re-assert his authority over human affairs rubs many people the wrong way.
Yet the Bible calls this news “good news,” because our rebellion against God didn’t turn out the way we thought it would. Rather than providing us with freedom and happiness, it resulted in thorns, pain, broken relationships, isolation, loneliness, suffering, and death. In cutting ourselves off from God we cut ourselves off from the only source of true life, the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13). The re-establishment of God’s rule over human affairs means the re-establishment of shalom: life, peace, and the way things were meant to be.
Incidentally, that’s why Matthew 4:23 couples Jesus’ proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom with Him healing sick people. The two go hand-in-hand. The announcement of God’s rule is also the announcement that everything good and right is returning, and that we can experience life the way it was meant to be because Jesus’ death on our behalf makes us subjects, once again, of the greatest King in the universe.
Submitting to the King
The Gospel of Jesus is the announcement that God rules, and that you can submit to His kingship. It is the promise that by the power of His indwelling Spirit you can experience the reign of God over every facet of your life: your money, body, morals, goals, job, time; indeed, over your whole reason for being.
And yet even as Christians we fight His reign. We hold areas of our life back from God’s full control, quenching His Spirit’s transforming work and pursuing the passions of our former rebellious life. What are you holding back from your King? Since His reign means re-establishing real life, the Gospel of Jesus means that every aspect of your life can be redeemed, put to better use than ever before, and become a source of deep and abiding joy.
And that is indeed Good News.
Which gospel do you proclaim to a lost and hurting world: the Gospel of Final Destination? Or the Gospel of the Kingdom?
For more insight to this topic, get the book, The Kingdom of God, by D. Martyn-Lloyd Jones, from our online store. Or read the article, “Near Christianity: Any Other Gospel is Not the Gospel at All,” by T. M. Moore.
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