The Gospel - your invitation to the Kingdom of God
Everyone has an idea of right and wrong, and everyone has done wrong even by their own imagination. "To err is human," says a well-known proverb. Everyone has disappointed a friend, broken a promise, hurt someone's feelings at some point. Everyone knows feelings of guilt.
So people don't want to have anything to do with God. They don't want a judgment day because they know they can't stand before God with a clear conscience. They know they should obey him, but they also know they didn't. They are ashamed and feel guilty. How can their debt be redeemed? How to purify consciousness? "Forgiveness is divine," concludes the keyword. It is God Himself who forgives.
Many people know this saying, but they do not believe that God is divine enough to forgive their sins. You still feel guilty. They still fear the appearance of God and the day of judgment.
But God has appeared before - in the person of Jesus Christ. He came not to condemn, but to save. He brought a message of forgiveness and he died on a cross to guarantee that we can be forgiven.
The message of Jesus, the message of the Cross, is good news for those who feel guilty. Jesus, God and man in one, has taken our punishment. All people who are humble enough to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ will be forgiven. We need this good news. Christ's gospel brings peace of mind, happiness and a personal victory.
The true gospel, the good news, is the gospel that Christ preached. This is the very gospel that the apostles also preached: Jesus Christ, the crucified one. (1. Kor 2,2), Jesus Christ in Christians, the hope of glory (Kol 1,27)The resurrection from the dead, the message of hope and salvation for humanity. That is the gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached.
The good news for all people
“After John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, ‘The time has come, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the gospel!’”Mk 1,1415) This gospel that Jesus brought is the “good news”—a powerful message that changes and transforms lives. The gospel not only convicts and converts, but will ultimately dismay all who oppose it. The gospel is “the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” (Röm 1,16)The gospel is God's invitation to us to live life on a completely different level. It is the good news that an inheritance awaits us, one that will become entirely ours when Christ returns. It is also an invitation to a life-giving spiritual reality that can be ours even now. Paul calls the gospel "evangelium of Christ." (1. Kor 9,12).
“Gospel of God” (Röm 15,16). and “Gospel of Peace” (Eph 6,15)Starting with Jesus, he begins to redefine the Jewish understanding of the Kingdom of God, placing the universal significance of Christ's first coming at the forefront. The Jesus who wandered the dusty roads of Judea and Galilee, Paul teaches, is now the "risen Christ," who sits at the right hand of God and is "the head of all rulers and authorities." (Kol 2,10)According to Paul, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ come “first” in the gospel; they are the key events in God’s plan. (1. Kor 15,1-11)The Gospel is good news for the poor and oppressed. History has a goal. In the end, justice will triumph, not power.
The pierced hand has triumphed over the armored fist. The kingdom of evil gives way to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, an order of things that Christians are already experiencing in part.
Paul emphasized this aspect of the gospel to the Colossians: “Give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Kol 1,12 and 14).
For all Christians, the Gospel is and always has been present reality and future hope. The risen Christ, Lord over time, space, and everything that happens here below, is the champion for Christians. He who was taken up into heaven is the omnipresent source of power. (Eph3,20-21).
The good news is that Jesus Christ overcame every obstacle in his earthly life. The way of the cross is a difficult but victorious path to the Kingdom of God. That is why Paul can summarize the Gospel in the concise formula, "For I thought it right to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1. Kor 2,2).
The big reversal
When Jesus appeared in Galilee and preached the gospel with earnestness, he expected an answer. He also expects an answer from us today. But Jesus' invitation to enter the kingdom was not held in a vacuum. Jesus' call for the kingdom of God was accompanied by impressive signs and wonders that made a country suffering under Roman rule sit up and take notice. That's one reason why Jesus needed to clarify what he meant by the kingdom of God. The Jews of Jesus' day were waiting for a leader who would bring their nation back to the glory of the days of David and Solomon. But Jesus' message was "doubly revolutionary," writes Oxford scholar NT Wright. First, he took the common expectation that a Jewish superstate would throw off the Roman yoke and turned it into something entirely different. He turned the popular hope for political liberation into a message of spiritual salvation: the gospel!
“The kingdom of God has come near,” he seemed to say, “but it is not as you imagined it.” Jesus shocked people with the consequences of his good news. “But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” (Mt 19,30).
“There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” he said to his Jewish countrymen, “when you see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the Prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrown out.” (Lk 13,28).
The great supper was for everyone. (Lk 14,16-24)Even the pagans were invited into the Kingdom of God. And a second [instruction] was no less revolutionary.
This prophet from Nazareth seemed to have plenty of time for the disenfranchised—from lepers and the crippled to greedy tax collectors—and sometimes even for the hated Roman oppressors. The good news Jesus brought defied all expectations, even those of his faithful disciples. (Lk 9,51-56)Jesus repeatedly said that the kingdom they awaited in the future was already dynamically present in his work. After a particularly dramatic episode, he said: “But if I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” (Lk 11,20)In other words, the people who witnessed Jesus' ministry experienced the presence of the future. Jesus turned conventional expectations upside down in at least three ways:
- Jesus taught the good news that the Kingdom of God is a pure gift—the reign of God, which already brought healing. Thus, Jesus instituted the "Year of the Lord's Grace." (Lk 4,19; Jes 61,1-2)But those "admitted" to the kingdom were the weary and burdened, the poor and beggars, delinquent children and repentant tax collectors, repentant prostitutes and social outcasts. He declared himself the shepherd of the black sheep and the spiritually lost.
- Jesus' good news was also for those who were willing to turn to God through sincere repentance. These genuinely repentant sinners would find in God a generous Father who scans the horizon for his wandering sons and daughters and sees them even when they are "far off." (Lk 15,20)The good news of the gospel meant that everyone who says from the heart, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Lk 18,13)...and if it is sincere, it would find a compassionate ear with God. Always. "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you." (Lk 11,9)For those who believed and turned away from the ways of the world, this was the best news they could hear.
- The gospel of Jesus also meant that nothing could stop the victory of the kingdom that Jesus had brought, even if it looked the opposite. This empire would face bitter, merciless resistance, but ultimately it would triumph in supernatural power and glory.
Christ said to his disciples: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne, and all the nations will be gathered before him. And he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Mt 25,31-32).
Thus, the good news of Jesus possessed a dynamic tension between the "already now" and the "not yet." The gospel of the kingdom referred to the rule of God, which already existed – "The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor." (Mt 11,5).
But the kingdom was "not yet" in the sense that its full fulfillment was yet to come. To understand the Gospel means to grasp this twofold aspect: on the one hand the promised presence of the King who already lives among his people and on the other hand his dramatic second coming.
The good news of your salvation
The missionary Paul helped to initiate the second great movement of the gospel—its spread from tiny Judea to the highly cultured Greco-Roman world of the mid-first century. Paul, the converted persecutor of Christians, directs the dazzling light of the gospel through the prism of everyday life. While praising the glorified Christ, he is also concerned with the practical implications of the gospel. Despite fanatical opposition, Paul conveys to other Christians the breathtaking significance of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection: “And you, who once were alienated from him and hostile to him because of his evil deeds, he has now reconciled by Christ’s physical body through death, to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if only you continue in the faith, established and steadfast, and not depart from the hope of the gospel that you have heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, have become his servant.” (Kol 1,21and 23). Reconciled. Flawless. Grace. Salvation. Forgiveness. And not just in the future, but here and now. That is the gospel of Paul.
The resurrection, the climax towards which the Synoptic Gospels and John led their readers. (Joh 20,31)It releases the inner power of the Gospel for the daily life of the Christian. The resurrection of Christ confirms the Gospel.
Therefore, Paul teaches, those events in distant Judea give hope to all people: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.” (Röm 1,16-17).
A call to live the future here and now
The Apostle John enriches the Gospel with another dimension. He portrays Jesus as the “disciple whom he loved” (Joh 19,26), reminded of him, a man with the heart of a shepherd, a church leader with a deep love for people with their worries and fears.
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (Joh 20,30-31).
The essence of John's presentation of the gospel is the remarkable statement: "that by faith you may have life". John beautifully conveys another aspect of the gospel: Jesus Christ in moments of greatest personal closeness. John gives a vivid account of the personal, ministering presence of the Messiah.
In the Gospel of John we encounter a Christ who was a powerful public preacher. (Joh 7,37-46)We see Jesus as warm and welcoming. From his inviting invitation, “Come and see!” (Joh 1,39)...until the challenge to the doubting Thomas to place his finger in the wounds on his hands (Joh 20,27), here, in an unforgettable way, is portrayed the one who became flesh and dwelt among us. (Joh 1,14).
People felt so welcome and comfortable with Jesus that they had a lively exchange with him. (Joh 6,58)They lay next to him while eating and ate from the same plate. (Joh 13,23-26)They loved him so much that they swam to the shore as soon as they saw him, to eat together fish that he himself had fried. (Joh 21,7-14).
The Gospel of John reminds us how much the Gospel revolves around Jesus Christ, his example, and the eternal life we receive through him. (Joh 10,10).
It reminds us that it is not enough to preach the gospel. We must also live it. The Apostle John encourages us: others could be won over by our example to share the good news of the Kingdom of God with us. This is what happened to the Samaritan woman who met Jesus Christ at the well. (Joh 4,27-30), and Mary Magdalene (Joh 20,10-18).
The one who wept at the tomb of Lazarus, the humble servant who washed his disciples' feet, lives today. He gives us his presence through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit:
“Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him… Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid” (Joh 14,23 and 27).
Jesus actively leads his people today through the Holy Spirit. His invitation is as personal and encouraging as ever: “Come and see!” (Joh 1,39).
by Neil Earle
