The Gospel of the Kingdom [2] - Preaching the good news of the kingdom
Previous articles in this series have looked mainly at how Jesus
taught. Using that as a foundation we will now look at what Jesus
taught.
This article will look at Jesus’ overall message and later articles will deal with His teaching about specific matters.
Here is how one Gospel writer summarises what Jesus taught:
“From that time on Jesus began to preach, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." … Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:17, 23)
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. (Matthew 9:35)
The Kingdom of God was not only central to Jesus’ message, it was His whole message!
The promise of the Kingdom When the angel appeared to Mary to announce that a son would be born to her, he said: " Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." (Luke 1:30-33). From the outset it was clear that Jesus was born to be a King, and Luke’s words are so similar to the promise God made to King David hundreds of years before that we can be certain that the angel was referring to this promise.
" 'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.' " (2 Samuel 7:11-16).
Jesus was born to be King on David’s throne over the kingdom of Israel. Yet the prophets never referred to Israel as the kingdom of God. It’s true that God once said to the prophet Samuel, when Israel wanted a king like the other nations, “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.” (1 Samuel 8:7)[1]. Yet the first time the phrase “kingdom of God” is used in the Bible is in Matthew 12:28 when Jesus said “the kingdom of God has come upon you”.
Expecting the Kingdom
The Old Testament prophets looked forward to a “coming Age” when God would put a new heart and new Spirit in His people; when righteousness, justice, prosperity and peace would be the order of the day; and when all the nations would come to know God and walk in His ways. Perhaps Daniel is the clearest in describing how “the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed” and “it will crush all those [previous] kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever.” (Daniel 2:44). In another vision Daniel sees that “the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” (7:27).
To the prophets time was divided into two major periods: the time before the coming of the Messiah, and the Age to Come. The coming of the Messiah would bring about changes on a major scale and restore creation to the way God intended it to be.
The prophets did see, however, that Israel had a special role to play in the establishment of God’s kingdom and that the Messiah would sit on the throne of David.
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
… Of the increase of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David's throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.” (Isa 9:6-7).
Daniel’s prophecy includes a prediction of the time frame “to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy” which would climax in the coming of “the Anointed One, the ruler” (Daniel 9:20-28). The period of time would be measured as “seventy sevens” and begin “from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem”. By the time of Jesus, approximately 490 years later, there may very well have been an expectation that Daniel’s “seventy sevens” were about to end and the Anointed One would come.
Entering the Kingdom
The promise of the prophets was now on the threshold of becoming a reality. Israel was being occupied by a foreign power – the Romans – and people were becoming excited, perhaps even impatient. On one occasion, after Jesus had miraculously fed 5,000 people, they said " Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, dismissed the crowd, made His disciples leave and then He withdrew again to a mountain by himself (John 6:14-15; cp. Mark 6:45).
Jesus was not the kind of King they wanted – and this was not the kind of Kingdom He came to rule over. The Jews expected a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and restore Israel to its former position of greatness. Surely anyone who could feed 5,000 from a few loaves of bread must be the Messiah and would have the power to do all this! Even after Jesus’ death and resurrection His disciples were still expecting Him to do something like this. " Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" they asked Him (Acts 1:6).
However, every thing Jesus taught about the Kingdom was radically different from these expectations. The sermon on the mount begins with the words “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). To Pontius Pilate Jesus said " My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place" (John 18:36).
Nicodemus, who is described as “Israel’s teacher” and a member of the Jewish ruling council (John 3:1,10), came to Jesus one night to question Him because it was obvious from His miraculous signs that God was with Jesus. Jesus took the opportunity to teach Nicodemus about how to enter the Kingdom of God. He said “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (v. 3) and “no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit” (v. 5).
The Jews believed they were God’s special people and that the Messiah would restore them as a great nation. But Jesus taught something radically different: He taught that they needed to change in order to receive the Kingdom – “" Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” – and that the Kingdom would not be established by force, but by people who were “poor in spirit”. Jews would not inherit the Kingdom of the Messiah simply because they were Jews, descendants of Abraham. They needed to be “born again” – their Jewish citizenship meant nothing – and become a different kind of person.
In retrospect we now know that there are to be two comings of the Messiah and that Jesus did not fulfill everything that the Old Testament prophets foresaw about the Kingdom at His first coming. We can see now that there are three major periods of time, not two.
I believe that Jesus taught that there would be two major stages in the establishment of His kingdom:
1. During His ministry He taught that the Kingdom was “near” (Matthew 4:17), had “come upon you” (Matthew 12:28), and was “among you” (Luke 17:21). In the parable of the wheat and weeds He taught that the “sons of the Kingdom” will grow side by side with “the sons of the evil one” until “the end of the age” when the angels will “weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil” (Matthew 13:36-43). This is speaking about the period of time between His first and second comings when these two groups of people, described as wheat and weeds, grow together in “his kingdom”.
2. Yet there would be a time yet future when the Kingdom would be fully established. Hence, He taught His disciples to pray “Your Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). His parable of the sheep and goats points to a future time when the King will say “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). Similarly, at the Last Supper Jesus said to His disciples “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom” (Matthew 26:29).
We can see from this that there is actually an overlap between these two major time periods.
The Kingdom of God has begun even before the age called the “kingdoms of men” has ended, but the greatest glories of the Kingdom of God will not be revealed until the kingdoms of men come to their full end. We are living in this “overlap period”. Ethics of the Kingdom – how Kingdom-people should behave
Jesus told more than 100 parables or sayings about the Kingdom. Most of these relate to our behaviour, our character, and how we are to live in the world where we find ourselves. Jesus’ main emphasis is on the inner character that underlies the outward conduct. For example, the Law condemned murder – Jesus condemned anger (Matthew 5:21-26). Conduct is an outward sign of character. “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). “Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit” (Matthew 7:17).
Jesus also told several stories about how our lives now are preparing us for something to come. In the parable of the talents the master said to his good servants “'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'” (Matthew 25:23). In the parable of the sheep and goats the King says to those on his right: “'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'” (Matthew 25:34-36).
The emphasis of these stories, and others like them, is that we are being prepared for a greater work in the future and our Master is giving us tasks to do today that will build the character and equip us for the work to be done in the future. The stories which end with some sort of picture of judgment (like these two) are not so much about being rewarded for work well done, as much as they are about entering in to the work for which we are now fully prepared.
This is why Jesus’ teaching was primarily about ethics or behaviour because in them He is teaching us how to develop the character which is needed in Kingdom-people.
The Kingdom of God is a gift!
Jesus taught that the Kingdom would be a gift from God: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).
“Grace” is one of the apostle Paul’s favourite words. It literally means “a gift” [Gk. charis] and describes God’s abundant generosity in giving us salvation. John says that “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17) and “from the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another” (1:16). Luke said “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words [or words of grace] that came from his lips” (Luke 4:22). We might be surprised then to discover that the Gospels record Jesus only ever using the word “grace” twice in His teachings! (and in both these places the translators have translated the Greek charis another way).
“If you love those who love you, what credit [Gk. charis] is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.” (Luke 6:32-34).
“" Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank [Gk. charis] the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.' " (Luke 17:7-10).
When we look at the first of these teachings we see it is “sandwiched” between the well-known sayings “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (verse 31) and “love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back” (verse 35). Jesus is teaching us something profoundly important here about grace. These teachings are about doing good to others when there is no possibility that they can repay us – doing good to others without expecting to be rewarded for it. This describes perfectly how we are to imitate God’s grace. We cannot earn salvation by good works. We cannot do anything for God which would ever repay what He has done for us. Salvation is God’s gift. So we are to be imitators of God by being gracious (or grace-givers)to others – behaving towards them in a way which imitates (on a small scale) the grace of God to us.
Much of Jesus’ teaching is about God’s abundant generosity to us – even though we are sinners and undeserving of His favour. The future Kingdom of God will bring peace, prosperity, and righteousness to an undeserving world. It will be grace on a grand scale! In preparing for this Kingdom God is now calling people to respond to His grace and to themselves become gracious or grace-givers – to become Kingdom-people.
No wonder then that so many of Jesus stories are about celebrating: wedding feasts, banquets, and celebrations are a common theme in His stories. God’s free gifts of salvation and of a renewed earth are worth such celebration that even when one sinner repents and sets out on the Kingdom-path as a Kingdom-person that the whole of heaven celebrates! (Luke 15:10).
[1] God is, however, presented as king in a number of Old Testament passages, including: including Deut. 9:26 LXX; 1 Sam 12:12; Psalm 24:10; 29:10; Isaiah 6:5; 33:22; 43:15; Zeph. 3:15; and Zech 14:16-17. The OT also refers to His throne and Psalm 22:28 says “dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations”. Psalm 103:19 says “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” God’s rule was rightly viewed as being “over all” and while the nation of Israel played an important part in His purpose, and God is called the King of Israel, Israel is never referred to as the Kingdom of God.
