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WWJD: Jesus and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God

Jesus the Rabbi

Even a cursory reading of the Gospels reveals that Jesus understood that His mission required Him to engage in the war of ideas. Thus, while He was much more than this, at His core Jesus was a teacher and a prophet. To be sure, Jesus was deeply involved in action — healing, delivering, performing other sorts of miracles, confronting various forms of evil and injustice — but even here, His actions were done to reveal, reinforce, reflect and validate His teachings. So when Jesus saw thousands of needy people, His compassion moved Him (among other things) to teach (Mark 6:34, NASB). Matthew's statement is typical of the Gospel writers' summaries of Jesus' activities and intentions: He departed from there to teach and preach in their cities (Matthew 11:1).

What, exactly, was Jesus' central message? Clearly, it was the announcement of the good news, the gospel. But what was the essence of that gospel? The answer may be different than what you think.

Since the Protestant Reformation, the gospel has been identified with justification by faith, the announcement that through the death and resurrection of the God-man, Jesus, God's wrath has been propitiated. In Jesus' accomplished work, we have been ransomed, and we are declared righteous through our belief. Justification is surely an absolutely central message in the New Testament and it is intimately related to the gospel. The Reformers are to be forever thanked for recovering this biblical teaching. And Jesus clearly taught this notion. On one occasion He announced that He had come to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

Most of us are familiar with Jesus' penetrating interaction with Nicodemus in John 3. In it, He summarized in language that is clearly talking about justification by faith: He, the Son of man, must be crucified¹ to remove judgment and provide a way of forgiveness and salvation.

Is it appropriate to call the doctrine of justification by faith "the gospel"? The answer is "yes" and "no" in different senses. In one of the classic texts on the gospel in the New Testament — 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 — Paul explicitly uses "the gospel" to describe the truth that Jesus died for our sins and was raised. For the first 20 years of my Christian life, this was the gospel I shared with unbelievers, and share it I did. Converted in 1968, I served with Campus Crusade for 10 years and shared this gospel with literally thousands of people. However, there was a problem. If fact, I had three problems with this understanding of the gospel.

Oversimplified?

First, I found it difficult to connect sanctification and spiritual maturity/growth to this gospel. About all I could say was "if Jesus is now your Lord, you should obey Him. And you should seek to grow out of gratitude for what He did for you on the cross." This was true as far as it went, but it did not go far enough in my mind. There was no deep, inner connection with justification and sanctification that followed from the very nature of the gospel, at least not one that was natural enough for me.

Second, some people tried to fill in this gap by insisting that Jesus has to be Lord to be Savior. Others responded by insisting that, while one must take Jesus to be the Lord in order to recognize Him as qualified to sacrifice for our justification, the requirement that Jesus be the Lord of one's life comes perilously close to a works gospel. The argument goes that your efforts to constantly submit new areas to Jesus in acts of obedience, constitutes acts of works. Obedience is a work you do. Besides, they argued, being justified happens at a point in time, regardless of whether or not one can identify that moment, but lordship is a life-long process. In my view, this entire debate was based on a mistake, but I could not say what it was.

Third, justification by faith required people to trust in something Jesus did, but it was unclear that it called people to trust in Jesus Himself (besides trusting that He was qualified to make the sacrifice for our justification). The role of Jesus as our daily teacher in the school of life and of us as His apprentices was not clearly attached to the gospel, at least not in a way I found intellectually satisfying.²

But since the 1980s, especially in the writing of Dallas Willard, the evangelical church has recovered a broader gospel that, in my opinion, retains justification by faith and resolves the three problems mentioned above. This is the gospel of the kingdom of God. This gospel is the one Jesus announced at the very beginning of His public ministry (Matthew 4:23; cf. Matthew 4:17) and it is the one Jesus said would be taken to the entire world (Matthew 24:14). And it is the gospel identified as the apostolic message throughout and up to the very end of Acts (cf. 19:8, 20:25, 28:23, 28:31). What exactly is this gospel and how does it relate to justification by faith?

What Is the Kingdom?

To answer the first question, we need to get clear on the nature of the kingdom of God. Primarily, the kingdom of God is the range of God's effective will; that is, the range over and within which His perfect will has say. It is the realm in which the rule of God is effective. This includes the laws governing the natural world and the hearts/activities of those who are willingly submitted to His rule. Of course, there is a sense in which everything is within God's rule, but Scripture limits the kingdom to the two arenas just mentioned and reserves "kingdom of darkness" for the collective hearts/activities of those resisting God's reign. Secondarily, the kingdom of God is the realm of reality in which God's rule is effective, the two-fold realm just mentioned.

Remember that Jesus said to "Repent for the kingdom of heaven [i.e. God] is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). In a sense, Jesus is telling us to change the way we think about and approach life in light of this new fact. If I may, I will take the liberty of expanding on Jesus' words to fill out in summary form what He meant in announcing the gospel of the kingdom of God:

The direct rule of God is now available to everyone immediately (e.g. one no longer needs to go through the Old Testament ceremonial system), beginning with forgiveness and justification through faith in Jesus' death and resurrection. By repentance and trust in Jesus as my daily teacher and guide, I can choose, moment by moment, to live within the power and protection of God's kingdom, to live according to its nature, rules and structure (e.g. to have God as my King and to be His servant, ready to do his bidding, to relate to other members as part of my family). I will seek to be the kingdom's ambassador, to get my core identity from it and its Triune King, and to experience intimacy with the Triune God and my brothers and sisters within its provision and boundaries.

I recognize that this is a mouthful. And it is so pregnant with meaning, that I encourage you to do two things. First, find biblical texts that undergird the different components of the gospel of the kingdom as I have stated it. Second, take it phrase by phrase and talk over its implications and applications with other believers.

Faith and Obedience

Let me apply this broader gospel to the queries and quandaries I mentioned above. First, the gospel of the kingdom of God is to justification by faith as the whole is to a part of the whole, or as the beginning of a journey is to the rest of the journey. The gospel of the kingdom includes justification as an essential ingredient. And it specifies the purpose of justification: to be the start of a journey. The point of becoming justified is that it is the way one begins a life of sanctification. The gospel is an invitation to an entirely new, rich life lived from the resources of and according to the nature of another realm. I became justified so I could learn this new life, a life that will be mine forever.

Second, the debate about Lordship salvation makes as much sense as the debate about whether one can begin a journey without taking the journey. While starting a journey is different from the day-by-day carrying out of that journey, the reason one starts is to take the journey. Similarly, one accepts the free grace of God in justification in order to enter a life of progressively having Jesus as one's Lord in this life and the next.

Finally, the gospel of the kingdom bids me to start by trusting something Jesus did for me (died and rose), and to continue by enlisting daily as Jesus' pupil so He can teach and guide me regarding living my life as He would (i.e., living out the kingdom in my own setting).

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What do you think of the idea that the gospel includes the message that we need to grow as disciples of Christ?

Join the discussion!

My evangelism has been transformed by recovering this broader gospel. When I speak evangelistically, I now spend most of my time painting a picture of what life in God's kingdom is like. I contrast it to life outside the kingdom, and I offer an invitation for listeners to re-think their life in light of the invitation to live from within the kingdom of God. I also proclaim the need for justification by faith as the essential first step into kingdom life.

By connecting justification by faith with this broader gospel, I have good news to offer people, indeed. As far as I can see, there is no other game in town close to this one. I hope you agree.³