Jesus came with a Message. He came to save
with his Message as well as by his sacrificial death
for the sins of all mankind.
...
The
public in general has been lulled into thinking that
salvation in the New Testament consists in believing
that Jesus died and rose again — believing, in other
words, facts about what happened to Jesus, to the
practical exclusion of what Jesus preached and
taught.
A very popular evangelist, in a tract circulated in
thousands of copies in various languages, tells us
that “Jesus came to do three days work — to die, be
buried and rise from death.” This we believe to be a
stunningly misleading statement.
Jesus made his own intentions crystal
clear in a kind of “John 3:16”
encapsulation of the reason for his whole
mission. The neglect of Jesus’ words
when he unpacks his own mind and
purpose is nothing less than a theological
disaster, requiring urgent attention and
repair. Jesus announced in Luke 4:43 (a
verse, surely, deserving prominence in any
discussion of Christianity) that he “must proclaim
the Gospel about the Kingdom of God: That is the
reason why God sent me.”
“As God sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21)
were the words of the Great Commission as John
recorded it. Quite simply and obviously, then,
Christians are those who, like Jesus, will be found
proclaiming the Gospel about the Kingdom of God:
That is the reason why they are sent. While
confusion reigns about what the Kingdom of God is,
a paralysis has afflicted the Great Commission. We
want to do our part to rectify this very unfortunate
situation.
While uncertainty reigns as to what the Gospel is,
how can Jesus’ gospel summons to repentance and
belief in the Gospel succeed (Mark 1;14, 15)?
For too long Christians have uncritically accepted
the status quo. And that cherished status quo
dictates, in the form of an all-pervading dogma, that
the death and resurrection of Jesus comprise the
whole Gospel.
If that is so, we argue, what do we make of those
scores of chapters in Matthew, Mark and Luke
which tell us with brilliant clarity that Jesus was
preaching the Gospel, but which contain not a word
(at that stage) about his death and resurrection? That
is the question Christians of all levels of
understanding are invited to face — and face
squarely and honestly.
Let us make the point clear: Matthew, Mark and
Luke, three independent and corroborating accounts
of Jesus and his ministry, persist in telling us that
Jesus came announcing the saving Gospel.
But that Gospel for a large part of Jesus’ ministry
contained no information whatsoever about the upcoming death and resurrection of Jesus. You see
the point: Jesus preached the Gospel and, what’s
more, sent his chosen disciples out to preach the
Gospel. Yet that Gospel contained no word about
death and resurrection.
This must prove to the honest investigator, the
noble Berean so highly commended in Acts 17:11,
that the Gospel is not confined to facts about death
and resurrection. Now do not misunderstand us. We
are not suggesting that the death and resurrection of
Jesus are minor components in the Gospel. Not at
all. Without the death and resurrection of Jesus there
is no Gospel. But what of that part of the Gospel
which did not concern the death and resurrection of
Jesus?
For over forty chapters in Matthew, Mark and
Luke Jesus and his circle preached and proclaimed
the Gospel. Late in the ministry of Jesus, not long
before his crucifixion, Jesus made a repeated
declaration that his death and resurrection was
impending. We find this dramatic statement in Luke
18:31ff (NASV): “Then Jesus took the twelve aside
and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going to
Jerusalem, and all things which are written through
the prophets about the Son of Man will be
accomplished. For he will be handed over to the
Gentiles, and will be mocked and mistreated and spit
upon. And after they have scourged him, they will
kill him, and the third day he will rise again.’”
Now observe the reaction of the inner circle of
friends as co-workers for the Gospel: “The disciples
understood none of these things, and the meaning of
this statement was hidden from them, and they did
not comprehend the things that were said.”
There it is. Those Gospel preachers, who had
worked side by side with Jesus in the preaching of
the Gospel, did not yet understand even the basics of
the death and resurrection of the Savior.
The Gospel they had preached with Jesus had
been the Gospel about the Kingdom of God.
The
Kingdom of God is the bedrock foundation of the
Gospel, to which were added later, as they
happened, the crucial facts about Jesus’ death for
sins and his resurrection to immortality.
Logically, then, the Gospel has as its major,
foundational component the Kingdom of God, and
secondly its companion facts about the death and
resurrection of Jesus. These latter facts make
possible our entrance into the Kingdom of God. But
without the Kingdom of God basis in the Gospel, the
death and resurrection float in the air. Jesus did not
come “to do three days work.” (Was he on vacation
for those 3 ½ years of arduous preaching of the
Gospel?)
He came to preach the saving Gospel of the
Kingdom of God, the heart of the New Covenant,
and then he graciously died, shedding his blood to
ratify that Kingdom covenant (Luke 22:28-30),
which entails the gift to you of life forever in the
coming Kingdom of God.
With renewed enthusiasm we call on the
Christian community to beseech the God of Heaven
to “Let your Kingdom come,” and to follow Jesus’
terminology by speaking always of the “Gospel
about the Kingdom.”
At the same time laborers for the Kingdom of
God (Col. 4:11) are needed everywhere. We will all
do well if we adopt the slogan of Jesus himself: “I
must preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of
God…That is the whole reason for my mission”
(Luke 4:43).
So it should be the mission of everyone who
loves Jesus and his Gospel.
The above post was taken from here.
