Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means. (Luke 8:1-3)
The difference between “the gospel” and “the good news of the kingdom of God” is huge.
To clarify, what we call “the gospel” means “the good news”. For me, it is sad that someone invented the word “the gospel” to replace “the good news” because “the good news” gives a distinctive statement about the reality of the kingdom of God that people don’t know is there when they only hear “the gospel”. I much prefer the way God said it, that what Jesus came to give is the “good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Can you see how we downplay what God said in his own words by replacing “good news” with “gospel”?!
However, the main focus of what I want to clarify is simply that whether we think of it in the familiar English term “the gospel”, or more accurately in the biblical terminology of “good news”, the point is that it is about “the kingdom of God”. This is synonymous with “the kingdom of heaven” (used 32 times in Matthew’s account), and with the later clarification that it is “the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13-14), meaning, Jesus kingdom!
My point is that too many church people do not know that receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not a one-on-one relationship. It is a “kingdom of God” relationship. We cannot receive Jesus Christ without entering his kingdom. He came into the world, not to live with us in the world, but to invite us and call us and save us into his kingdom. There is no other version of Christianity. To view receiving Christ as a personal decision that only involves us and Jesus is not what the Bible means by receiving Christ.
I believe that the incomplete gospel of North America has led to so many of the problems in people living out their places in the body of Christ. By leaving “of the kingdom” out of the gospel, people have received a customized relationship with God that can’t be found in Scripture. But the result is people thinking that doing anything in the church, or in the body of Christ, or in the kingdom of God (if they even hear of the term), is like an optional kind of Christian living for those who want something more for themselves.
The truth is that the gospel is the good news of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The good news is that we are no longer stuck living at the mercy of corrupt earthly governments. In every nation of the world, what is true of everyone who receives the good news of great joy is that God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).
Do you see that connection between being delivered out of the domain of darkness that is in every nation of the world and transferred into Jesus’ kingdom where we experience him giving us redemption, the forgiveness of our sins? God has done this replacement work by taking us out of one place and bringing us into another, and that connection to Jesus as our redeemer, the one who secures the forgiveness of our sins, only happens in Jesus’ kingdom.
The necessity of declaring our faith in Jesus Christ through baptism is supposed to be like our initiation into the kingdom of God. It is not secondary. It is not optional. It is the way people professed faith in Jesus Christ from the very first day of the church being filled with the Spirit. If they believed (and they weren’t in the process of dying before they could be baptized), they repented and were baptized. No living person in the New Testament was ever considered a Christian if they were not baptized.
There is so much more to say about this, but I think the real issue is the personal side of it, whether people who have received just the North American gospel (that receiving Jesus is a just-Jesus-and-me experience) are willing to take another look at Jesus and the apostles proclaiming “the good news of the kingdom”. It is what Jesus heralded from the beginning, and if we have not yet seen the good news as it relates to Jesus’ kingdom, it is imperative that we examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith since the faith is only found in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.
© 2025 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.)
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