In a recent morning’s read, I came across a scripture that arrested my attention. It is in Luke’s gospel:
Now it happened on one of those days, as He taught the people in the temple and preached the gospel, that the chief priests and the scribes, together with the elders, confronted Him…. —Luke 20:1, NKJV
Luke wrote that Jesus preached the gospel. Now stop and think about that for a moment. What exactly did He preach?
We tend to think that the gospel is the message that Christ died for our sins and was raised for our justification. Was Jesus preaching that? Certainly not, for no one would have listened to that message. Even His own disciples struggled with its implications:
From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” —Matt. 16:21–23
If Jesus wasn’t declaring the necessity of and meaning of His own future death and resurrection, what was He preaching? The scripture tells us:
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. —Matt. 4:23
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” —Mark 1:14–15
Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. —Luke 8:1
Elsewhere, Jesus tells us explicitly the content of His preaching:
“The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.” —Luke 16:16
For Jesus, the good news was that the Kingdom of God had entered the world. But what does that mean? Dallas Willard defines God’s kingdom as “the range of his effective rule, where what he wants done is done” (Willard, Divine Conspiracy, 25). In other words, through Jesus, the power of God is present—in this earth—to meet all manner of human need! Now that is good news, isn’t it!
Jesus witnessed to the extent of God’s actions and power available to humanity when gave proof of his ministry to the imprisoned John the Baptist:
And [Jesus] answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” —Luke 7:22
God has come in Jesus to reinstall His rule in this earth. The power of God is available to all who are within the breadth of His rule. God is available—right now, in Jesus—to meet your every need. Is that real to you? It should be, for it was this teaching that made the gospel initially the good news.
We magnify the truth that Christ died on Calvary to pay the penalty of our sin, and was raised again so that we might live with Him and God forever more. It is right and good that we do so. But in doing that, let us not forget what it means for our life here and now in the earth. God has equipped us to live in His kingdom. As Paul wrote:
May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 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. —Col. 1:11–14
The fullness of our redemption still lies ahead, when Christ returns and the dead are raised. But even now we can partake of the first fruits of redemption. Our God is not dead or distant; He is alive, and He cares for His people. And His power is still present and available to you in Christ.
Accept and believe what Jesus preached. Live in the Kingdom of God!
—Ref: Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997).
