Examining the Gospel that Jesus Preached

Introduction

The Gospel simply means, “the good news”. In ancient times, the gospel is what was proclaimed to announce that the enemy has been defeated, the work is finished, and a new king is being inaugurated. This type of gospel was not exclusively a biblical idea, but one common to the ancient middle east.

Throughout the Bible, the prophets on many occasions proclaimed the gospel of their king sometimes long before the battles were won and the work was finished. This is distinctive to the biblical prophets. In essence, they heard the promise of God and spoke it as fact long before it actually happened. For this reason, the testimony of Christ became synonymous to the Jewish people as “the Gospel of the Kingdom”.

To answer the question in my article’s title, the plainest answer I can give to you is this: “The Gospel of Christ Jesus is the Gospel of the Kingdom.”

For the modern Christian, the “Gospel of the Kingdom” may mean different things to you based on your church or denomination’s interpretations. Some believe that this kingdom is a literal civic and spiritual kingdom that will be established on earth when Jesus returns. Some believe that this kingdom is realized now in a spiritual sense, through the church, but will be fully established on earth when Jesus returns. Others believe that the ultimate realization is through the church only and that Jesus is fully ruling now, but from heaven. And these are not the only views on the matter.

So what is the truth?

We’ll start with one answer that we all can hopefully agree on: The Gospel of the Kingdom is the Gospel that Jesus preached. (Mark 1:14-15; Matthew 4:23, Matthew 9:35, and Luke 4:43)

But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

-Luke 4:43 NIV

Here’s another answer that I hope we can unify around: Jesus told His followers to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

– Matthew 24:14 NIV

The truth is, we need to preach the gospel of the kingdom throughout the whole world. Yet, no one person can share the gospel of the kingdom to the whole world unless your name is the Holy Spirit. This is why it takes all of us to be led by the Holy Spirit, to declare this gospel of the kingdom to the ones, twos, or dozens that the Lord puts in front of us.

Simply stated, “All you have to do is your little part in this grand plan. Then, trust God to do the rest.” God doesn’t put it on one person. In fact, He distributes only a small amount of the Holy Spirit’s gifts to each of us specifically so that we can’t do it on our own.

“Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed… There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

-Selected phrases from 1 Corinthians 12:1-7 NIV

In other words, the burden of the work of God is meant to be light for each individual. You can only accomplish what the Holy Spirit allows you to accomplish. In other words, do only the work which God sets before you, and encourage your brothers and sisters in Christ to do the same.

This leads to the next question.

How do we each do our part?

To start, we need to actually know the Gospel of the Kingdom. While it is probably fair to say that many of us can agree on what I’ve shared so far, what I’m going to share in the remainder of this discourse will spark debate.

Pertaining to the Kingdom of God, the prophets often declared the things still yet to come as though they have already happened. This prophetic language is often misunderstood, leading us to sometimes believe that these declarative statements have been fulfilled either partially or fully. We have come up with all kinds of theology to reason how, and to what extent, the kingdom of God has already come.

The reality is that the kingdom has not yet come. We are still in the announcement phase of redemptive history. According to the prophecy of the New Covenant– that is, the covenant Jesus cut with His own blood at the cross– is the kingdom which will come at Jesus’ future return. This is when Christ rules on earth, from Jerusalem on the throne of David, to unite Israel and Judah as a single, unified kingdom.

“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.”

-Jeremiah 31:31 NIV

If we refuse to preach the restoration of the Kingdom of Christ to Israel, it means we are refusing to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom. In doing so, we are refusing to preach the very Gospel that Jesus Himself preached.

To do your part, you first need to know what the kingdom is, and what it is not.

I’m growing tired of the “now, not yet” kingdom interpretations and the over-spiritualized interpretations that assume the church is the kingdom of God. We have received the gift of the Holy Spirit so that we would be empowered to proclaim the kingdom that is to come, not to build our own mini-kingdoms here on earth now.

The church is not the kingdom.

We are citizens of His kingdom, serving today as ambassadors and witnesses of Christ in the present evil age. If anything, the “church” is at best a foreign embassy, here to represent our Christ’s kingdom to the nations. In other words, we are called to embody the kingdom’s values as we proclaim the kingdom that is yet to come.

Signs and wonders are not the kingdom.

Signs, wonders, healings, etc. followed the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom throughout the New Testament. But signs come with a caution: When we see signs present wherever the restoration of Israel and Judah are not preached, we need to carefully consider that these may be “lying signs” and “deceiving wonders”.

The kingdom of God will be inaugurated when Jesus returns to Israel. Our hope, the resurrection of the dead unto eternal life, happens at Jesus’ return. When Jesus establishes this kingdom we will finally see the end of this age and the beginning of the restoration of all things.

Why do we need to proclaim Israel as the Kingdom of God?

When Jesus returns, He will establish a literal kingdom on earth. Its capital will be Jerusalem. It will once again have territorial boundaries assigned to each tribe. This kingdom will rule over all of the kingdoms of the earth. Even at the end of our bibles, one of the angels declares this yet-future reality to the apostle John.

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.”

-Revelation 11:15 NIV

The logic of the Kingdom being Israel comes down to the title, “Christ”. Christ is not a personal name. It is a title. Christ is specifically the King of Israel, from the lineage of David. David’s covenant with God is everlasting. It promises that one of David’s descendants will sit on the throne of David forever.

You can’t have a Davidic throne without a Davidic kingdom, one that unifies Israel and Judah under one king. Furthermore, the Davidic kingdom requires an actual earthly address. David purchased actual real estate in Jerusalem to be the center of His kingdom. This land is connected to tangible earthly promises and forever tied to what it means to be Christ.

We need to proclaim Israel as the Kingdom of God simply because it is the truth. When we change the details of the substance of the kingdom, we begin to re-define the meaning of Christ. When we do this, we walk dangerously close to the line of “preaching a different Jesus”.

Where does the Gospel of the Kingdom come from?

The Gospel of Christ’s Kingdom was announced all throughout the prophets. Consistently, Christ’s work is connected to delivering Israel from sin, from foreign invaders, and the promise to re-unite Israel and Judah to their covenantal lands.

But where did these ideas about Christ come from? How did Christ become associated with the title of “King of Israel”?

Before the life of the prophet Samuel, the word Christ (or, Messiah), was attributed to many things. It comes from a word that means anointed. In the time of Moses, objects could be anointed, prophets could be anointed, priests could be anointed, and so on. Anointing means that you have been consecrated, or made holy/set apart, for a special purpose.

During the time of Samuel, a king was anointed in Israel. This honor would first be given to Saul, but once the Kingdom was transferred to David, God promised that the kingly anointing would never leave David’s family. As the generations passed on, Christ took on the meaning, “King of Israel”.

Later prophets would further develop everything that Samuel already declared about the King of Israel, but their prophecies pointed forward to the perfect King, who we now know to be Jesus of Nazareth.

What does Samuel say about this King, this Christ?

Technically speaking, it was the prophets Samuel and Nathan, but these promises have been contained in the books of 1 & 2 Samuel, originally one book in the Hebrew Bible. A survey of these promises paint a sometimes different picture of Christ than what we learn in a typical Sunday school lesson.

• 1 Samuel 10:1 – Christ is the commander over the God of Israel’s inheritance.
• 1 Samuel 10:2-13 – Christ is a prophet of Israel
• 1 Samuel 10:17-25 – Christ must be welcomed by the tribes of Israel
• 1 Samuel 10:17-27 – Christ must be welcomed as King by individuals, even though some will rebel against him.
• 1 Samuel 12:25 – Christ will suffer the consequences of the people’s wickedness.
• 1 Samuel 13:13-14 – Christ will keep the full commandment of the God of Israel. He will be a man after God’s own heart.
• 1 Samuel 13:13-14 – Christ will inherit an everlasting kingship over Israel
• 1 Samuel 16:11-23 – Christ is the noble lineage which passed from the house of Saul, to the house of David.
• 2 Samuel 7:1-13 – Christ will build a house for the Lord. The Lord will make Christ the shepherd king of Israel, and through Christ, Israel will have rest from her enemies.
• 2 Samuel 7:14-17 – Christ is the Father’s Son. This is a key passage. All of Jesus’ predecessors committed sin and were chastised. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin on our behalf and suffered chastisement for our iniquity. Jesus bore the kingly punishment for sin, a callback to 1 Samuel 12. This is the pinnacle of Nathan’s prophecy concerning Christ. Here, we also see that the Davidic throne is established as the eternal throne. Here, all of the territorial, ethnic, and priestly promises of Israel are forever connected to the revelation of Christ’s atonement for sins. Later, Paul testifies to this reality by saying, “All Israel will be saved”. Peter testifies that this salvation is accessible to Jew and Gentile alike, by merit of Jesus’ work on the cross– substantiated by His resurrection (see: Romans 11; 1 Peter 1:10-25).
• 2 Samuel 7:18-29 – David affirms and realizes that these words are ultimately for the distant future. He declares that this is a revelation to humanity (Heb. torat ha’adam, ‘the charter of man’). This is the charter or law of humanity: Christ will sanctify (or, hallow) God’s name by redeeming Israel yet again, just as He once redeemed them from Egypt. He will establish Israel’s safety forever. 
• 2 Samuel 24:11-25 – David purchases the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite so that the King of Israel would owe nothing to the Gentile nations. This is where the first temple was built. This is also Mount Moriah, where Abraham went to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. Forever this hill, Zion, remains as the signal-post to the world– declaring Christ’s destiny of covenantal rule over Israel, through which He will reign over the whole earth.

Conclusion

Samuel establishes the identity of Christ as the covenant King whose fate is inseparable from Israel’s destiny. If we are to preach Christ, we must preach Him as He is revealed in the Scriptures — not as a detached spiritual figure, but as the promised Son of David and heir to an everlasting Davidic kingdom in Israel. This is not a sideline issue. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom — the very Gospel that Jesus Himself preached.

J. S. Marek