I first believed in God around seven years of age. I first understood what Jesus did for me in salvation around twelve years old and privately prayed to receive him in my best understanding of repentance and faith. A couple of years later I affirmed my faith as a teenager by going forward at a crusade meeting. Family conflict kept me from getting baptized until I was around eighteen years of age, but I finally understood that I had to obey my Savior instead of men and made my public identification as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
However, it was quite a bit further down the road when I realized that salvation is not a one-on-one interaction with God. It is not about asking Jesus into my heart and then carrying on through life with him helping me in whatever I was doing. It was a much bigger and better picture.
I don’t know the order in which things really stood out to me, but here are the elements of what I had to change my mind about. I never lost the receive-Jesus-as-your-Lord-and-Savior puzzle piece, but so many other pieces were added that I wish had been made clear much earlier on.
I think the most foundational adjustment to my thinking was the discovery that Jesus didn’t just proclaim “the gospel”, which really means “good news”. Instead, he repeatedly declared “the gospel of the kingdom”. As soon as I recognized that, it was no longer possible to think of the gospel and salvation on an individual basis.
What I saw was that Jesus began his ministry with the message, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”[1]
“The time is fulfilled” referred to the message of the whole Old Testament, particularly the prophets, who told of the one who would come to redeem God’s people from their sins. This was fulfilled in Jesus as described in the gospels, and Paul explained it in these terms, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”[2] The “fullness of time” was “the time is fulfilled” that Jesus identified.
“The kingdom of God is at hand” meant that Jesus’ focus was on the kingdom. This was a huge declaration since the Jews thought that they were God’s kingdom, but Jesus said it was “at hand”, meaning, they were not in it! This would clearly apply to Jew and Gentile alike, that the kingdom of God is brought near to everyone in the proclamation of the gospel, and no one is in the kingdom until they receive this good news about Jesus.
“Repent” means that everyone must change their minds in some way when they hear the gospel. No matter how we were living prior to hearing the good news, we’re not in the kingdom. So, the first thing we need to change our minds about is that we are not where we should be, and the kingdom of God is where we ought to live. We change our minds about loving sin and having no place for God, to despising our sin and desperately wanting to return to God our Creator.
“Believe in the gospel” takes us from the negative focus of repent (turning from what is wrong) to the positive focus of faith (turning to who and what is right). And it isn’t just faith, but faith “in the gospel”, or faith in the “good news”.
From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he made the good news about the kingdom of God. By God’s grace, the kingdom was at hand. And by the gospel, people could repent and enter this kingdom by faith.
From there we have this summary statement of how Jesus did all the rest of his ministry for the new three-plus years, “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.”[3]
The point here is that we are told to view Jesus repeating this same “gospel of the kingdom” everywhere he went. It isn’t stated every time since that would take up far too much room in the gospel accounts. But it is superimposed on every visit to every city. Jesus’ message was “the gospel of the kingdom”. And everyone was called to repent and believe this good news so they could enter this kingdom.
At the end of Jesus’ time on earth, just before his return to heaven, he told his apostles, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”[4]
This ratifies that the gospel is the good news of the kingdom, and it shows clearly that the church would continue proclaiming this gospel of the kingdom throughout the whole world. It also shows what should be our primary interest regarding “the end”, which is whether the gospel of the kingdom has been proclaimed throughout the whole world!
The question is, if the only thing Jesus taught was “the gospel of the kingdom”, and this is what he instructed his church to proclaim, is that the gospel you have believed and received? When you heard about what Jesus did for you on the cross, did you know that your response was about what you would do with him and his kingdom?
This really confronts the false idea of telling people that we can invite Jesus into our hearts. That implies that Jesus is the one who moves towards us. It views Jesus as “at hand” to come into our lives when the gospel of the kingdom says that the kingdom of God is at hand for us to leave where we are and enter the kingdom.
On one of the occasions when Jesus was lovingly reproving the religious elite, he pointed out to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.”[5] The religious hypocrites wanted a Messiah who would come to them and save them from the Roman Empire. Jesus said that even the people they considered the worst sinners “go into the kingdom of God before you.” They “go into” the kingdom, not invite Jesus to come into them.[6]
The apostle Paul made this abundantly clear when he wrote, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”[7]
This is the good news. When we hear the gospel of the kingdom, and when we repent and believe this good news, we are delivered “from” the domain of darkness we were living in and transferred “to” the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. THAT is the gospel of the kingdom!
Home church ministry has taught me a lot about living in the kingdom of God rather than just going to church. We could say that every church that gathers (a church is an assembly of people) is a group of people who are in the one kingdom of God. The local assemblies of believers is the small part of the picture, but all true churches are part of the one kingdom of God and must act accordingly.
I share all this to help us think like Jesus has “made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”[8] We are to live like we are “a kingdom and priests to our God”.[9] We have our individual places, but that comes secondary to what unites us as the same, that we are in the one kingdom of Jesus Christ our Lord.
The application is to first examine ourselves to determine whether we received this “gospel of the kingdom” and are living in “the obedience of faith”[10] as a priest unto God Most High, or whether we were taught the North American gospel that says that we can stay where we are, receive Jesus into our hearts, and get by with just trusting Jesus to help us through life.
Since Jesus only proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and
clearly taught his church to do the same, let’s all present our hearts to God
in this so he can teach us not only to repent and believe this good news, but
also to live as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people
for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who
called you OUT OF darkness INTO his marvelous light.”[11]
© 2024
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1]
Mark 1:15
[2]
Galatians 4:4-5
[3]
Matthew 9:35
[4]
Matthew 24:14
[5]
Matthew 21:31
[6]
I’m not rejecting what Jesus did
say about being in us, just that the primary message of the gospel of the
kingdom is that we leave where we are to enter the kingdom, and it is in the
kingdom that we are in him, and he is in us.
[7]
Colossians 1:13-14
[8]
Revelation 1:6
[9]
Revelation 5:10
[10]
Romans 1:5; 16:26
[11] I Peter 2:9
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