Our strong impression is that the theological enterprise has run into a serious confusion. One can search almost in vain for literature offering the Christian Gospel in the terms by which Jesus offered it. This strikes us as an amazing situation. It is simply not true to suggest, as multiple tracts offering “salvation” tell us, that Jesus came preaching: “This is the Gospel: I died for you and rose. Believe that and be saved.” Jesus, at that stage, said no such thing. Rather, he launched his ministry with these words: “Repent.” “Believe.” But believe what? “The time is at hand: The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and Believe that Gospel!”
Mark 1:14, 15 provides us with the summary statement par excellence of the Christian faith. Mark 1:14, 15 is the perfect encapsulation of what Jesus was about. Everything that Jesus subsequently taught is an expansion of his basic thesis enunciated in Mark 1:14, 15. Christian obedience begins here. Repent, i.e. have a complete change of heart, of understanding, and orient yourself to the new horizon of the Kingdom
of God. “Repent and believe in the Good News about the Kingdom of God coming.” This is Jesus’ opening command: “Repent by believing the Gospel of the Kingdom.” This is Christianity’s mainspring and its rallying point — a wonderful place for establishing Christian unity.
Repentance according to Jesus is not just giving up sin, as we may choose to define sin. Repentance is the equivalent of believing the Gospel of the Kingdom. Repentance is evidenced by a commitment to the Gospel of Jesus, the Gospel of the Kingdom. The Messiah’s opening salvo comprises two imperatives:
“Change your mind and begin believing the Gospel about the Kingdom.”
Jesus’ subsequent Gospel preaching expands on this opening summons. “When anyone is exposed to the Gospel of the Kingdom, the Devil comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart, so that he may not believe it and be saved” (Matthew 13:19 and Luke 8:12). “To you [Christians] has been given the secret about the Kingdom of God, but others look but do not see; they hear but do not understand. If they did see and understand they would repent and be forgiven” (see Mark 4:11, 12).
These plain words amplify Jesus’ initial command that we believe the Gospel of the Kingdom and thus repent. Salvation, in the Master’s teaching, involves an intelligent understanding and grasp of the divine Plan concerning the Kingdom of God. Without that, there can be no repentance in the terms laid down by Jesus. The words of Mark 4:11, 12 should be pondered, and read in various translations, to allow their full impact to be heard. The contingency on which repentance and forgiveness hinge is the intelligent grasp of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
Later, of course, Jesus added to this substratum of the Gospel the facts about his death and resurrection which make entrance into the Kingdom possible. What has happened in popular preaching is this: the means to the Kingdom has replaced the Kingdom itself. The means has suppressed the end. The end, the objective and the first agenda on the salvation program, is always the Kingdom of God. Forgiveness and repentance center on our response to the basic command of Jesus in Mark 1:14, 15. Forgiveness is provided in the blood of the Lamb and our life in Christ proceeds from the risen Jesus. But Jesus may not be detached from his own ministry.
We have a saying in the classroom here at Atlanta Bible College. “The Devil only has one trick: to separate Jesus from his (Jesus’) own teachings.” A Jesus divorced from his Gospel of the Kingdom becomes a vague symbol into which, with our enormous ingenuity, we pack all sorts of ideas and ideals.
The Great Commission bids us spread the very same Gospel of the Kingdom (“all the things I taught you”) to the whole wide world, “to all the nations.” The Gospel of the Kingdom remains unchanged (“all the things I taught you”). The audience is now expanded to take in all the Gentiles. From this grand commission, Paul proceeds with the Gospel.
Let it not be imagined for a moment that Paul altered the Message. He positively did not. Had Paul, as the accredited agent of Jesus, preached a Gospel other than that of Jesus, he (Paul) would have put himself under his own curse (Gal. 1:6-9). Luke expended much energy to assure us of Paul’s perfect obedience as a preacher of the very same Gospel of the Kingdom that Jesus had preached. We see Paul imitating the master:
Jesus before the resurrection: “Jesus welcomed the people and began speaking about the Kingdom of God” (Luke 9:11).
Jesus after the resurrection: “For 40 days he spoke to them concerning the affairs of the Kingdom” (Acts 1:3).
Paul: “Paul welcomed all who came to him and solemnly testified about the Kingdom of God and taught about Jesus for two whole years, without hindrance” (Acts 28:30, 31).
Lest we might possibly be tempted to fall into the trap of separating Jesus from Paul, Paul provides in his own words a report of his life work: “I preached the Gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). And what was that? “I went about heralding the Gospel [kerussein means “preaching the Gospel”] about the Kingdom” (Acts 20:25).
Despite this startlingly clear testimony, modern gospel preaching has achieved the near impossible: It has actually denied that Jesus was a preacher of the Gospel and then substituted a gospel confined to the death and resurrection of Jesus, leaving the substratum Gospel of the Kingdom as some sort of “Jewish relic.” This situation calls for redress. It cannot be right to make Paul the inventor of a new, reduced Gospel, and Jesus a Savior who died but does not also preach the Gospel to us. Too many are watching Jesus die and rise, and failing to hear him first as the preacher and teacher of the saving Gospel.
Paul would have been horrified at what has happened. In Romans 10, with inexorable logic, he spells out the chain of events by which salvation comes. “How can they believe in him [Jesus] whom they have not heard [i.e. preaching]?” (10:14). (Note the mistranslation “of whom” in the NIV, corrected by the NASV — it is insufficient just to “hear about” Jesus; you must hear him preach the Gospel.) Paul’s point is that first one must hear the preacher Jesus, the bearer of the Gospel of the Kingdom. “How can they hear until someone is sent to preach?” Answer: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the Gospel of good things — the future coming of the Kingdom as Paul’s reference to Isaiah 52:7 in Romans 10:15 shows. So then, Paul concludes in Romans 10:17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Gospel of Christ — the Gospel preached by Christ.
So we are back to where we started. Paul is in perfect harmony with Jesus. Jesus came with the command to repent and believe the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14, 15). Paul preaches that same Kingdom (Acts 19:8; 28:23, 31; 20:24, 25; cp. Acts 8:12) and requires that Kingdom Gospel to be heard for salvation. Just as Jesus lamented the terrible work of the Devil as the one who snatches away the word of the Kingdom from the heart, “so that they cannot believe it and be saved” (Luke 8:12), so Paul detects the malign work of the Devil as the confuser of the Gospel: “In whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so that they may not see the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4). All depends, then, on our response to Jesus’ opening command to repent and believe the Gospel (Mark 1:14, 15). This is only to say that God wants us to embrace His plan of world salvation (not just “a plan for your life” but the grand scheme of salvation for the world).
The Gospel bids us get on board in regard to the divine strategy for reintroducing peace to our tortured planet.