The Gospel of the Kingdom

The desire of my heart is to demonstrate the genuine gospel of Jesus. This is a goal of mine that I refuse to give up on. However, when we say the word “gospel”, it could be interpreted countless different ways. In some circles, the gospel has been watered down to mean that God wants us to be nice people and get along. In this post, I will give a brief rundown of what I believe  the Biblical standard of gospel preaching looks like.

The word gospel means “good news”, so to preach the “gospel of” means that there is an object that the good news refers to. According to Scripture, this object is none other than the King and His kingdom. Anything else, like the gospel of going to church and even going to heaven when we die for instance, falls short of the standard that Jesus raised. When Jesus began His ministry, He said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15) Matthew records it like this:  From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matt. 4:17)

Jesus then equipped His followers and gave them these instructions: “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” (Matt 10:7-8) He also makes it clear that this message is to be preached for the duration of this present age. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matt 24:14)

So what exactly is this preaching the gospel of the Kingdom all about? The picture that comes to many minds is that of the man hollering on a street corner about repentance from sin. We think of altar calls and praying a sinner’s prayer. We have raised up “talkers” who are to make “decision makers” of all nations instead of true Kingdom ambassadors.  These are things that Jesus never did nor told us to do.

Paul had some good insight into what the kingdom of God, and preaching it, should look like. He basically breaks it down like this: …for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)  This is the power of the kingdom at work in us! We are made right through the finished work of Christ on the cross. There is nothing that can be added or subtracted from His perfect sacrifice that perfects us in God’s sight. The result of this is peace, the presence of  His victory that makes even storms cease, and the joy of our relationship with God as sons. This is all brought to realization in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit.

When his spiritual children, the Corinthian church, were being persuaded to follow some wanna be apostles, Paul simply said: “But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I shall find out, not the words of those who are arrogant but their power.  For the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” (1 Cor 4:19-20) The evidence of the kingdom of God in our midst is the power that it effects on us and the world around us. To simply tell the truths of the Bible is not what God has in mind for His representatives. For some reason, we extract the morals and principles of Jesus’ life and think that is what following Jesus consists of, but we dismiss the demonstrations of power that followed Him  as things He did because of His divinity. However, could it be that He was simply preaching the Kingdom and modeling for us what that should look like? Paul tells us that this is indeed what preaching the gospel should consist of.

For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed,  in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit; so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. (Romans 15:18-19, italics mine)

To me, it is clear that we haven’t fully preached the gospel until the power of the kingdom is displayed in signs and wonders. This debunks the whole “model the character of Jesus, but not His miracles” mentality. Yes our message might be true, but we are in a spiritual war that involves displacing the real power of darkness through the authority of the King and the power of His love. This far exceeds the debating and persuading that commonly passes as preaching. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. (Mark 16:20) …for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. (1 Thess. 1:5)

Now there has been some confusion about this. We often say that signs, wonders, and miracles are things that show that the gospel message is true, but in the sense that they are only meant to persuade people. But what gospel do we preach? The gospel of the Kingdom, right? We are proclaiming the supremacy of our good God and it manifests in signs, wonders, and miracles. So these things are actually manifestations of the King’s dominion that we are preaching, not add-ons meant to be a marketing tactic.

When this message was preached in the Biblical records, common signs that would occur were healings and deliverance from demons. This is because the kingdom, the life and rule of God, was being manifested in the people who were listening. A healing is simply the evidence of God’s rule in the body. This is why it is  foolish to wonder if it is God’s will that we be healed. God isn’t sick, neither is sickness in heaven. So when His kingdom is manifest, why would we expect sickness to remain? Healing and life  are simply His nature so whether or not hearers end up receiving Jesus at the end of the day, healings will be present simply because we are demonstrating the nature of the King. Man would use healings to coerce people to join their little groups, but God isn’t like that. His nature to give freely remains the same regardless of the decisions of people. Remember, He causes His rain to fall on the just and unjust alike. (see Matt 5:45-46) The question is: is it raining grace through our lives on the world around us or are we playing into the enemy’s destructive storm of judgement and hatred?

There is much more I could say about this and I plan to in the upcoming posts. My goal here was to spark your thinking and re-evaluate what it might mean to preach the gospel. I hope you are both challenged and encouraged to walk out the standard that Jesus alone set for us and not be swayed by the deception and weakness that resides in the church today. My life was forever changed when God spoke these words to me: “The church has preached going  to heaven. Jesus preached heaven coming down to earth.” Selah