A Gospel about a Kingdom and Its King

“What is the gospel?” asked Clay Gentry as he opened his lesson yesterday morning at the Florida College Lectures.

The question is seemingly simple, especially for mature Bible believers.

We might offer Paul’s explanation in 1 Corinthians and say that it refers to the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Or we may offer the ever-familiar definition “Good News.”

However, Clay shared a historical insight that offers deeper and more profound significance to the question.

On September 2, 31 BC, Octavian defeated the combined fleets of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium. The response from a messenger might have brought the news to villagers, saying, “Good News! Octavian Caesar has won a great victory! He’s now the master of the whole Roman world!”

The glad tidings of this victory, “Good News,” is the word we have translated in our English Bibles as “Gospel.”

“This historical understanding of ‘gospel’ provides a crucial backdrop for understanding the message Jesus, the apostles, and the early church proclaimed,” Clay wrote in the lecture book. “They did not invent a new religious word or concept from this air. Instead, they took a familiar, powerful term, a word laden with implications of sovereign authority and world-changing events, and sent it in a different direction.

The “good news” they proclaimed was about King Jesus and the arrival of His long-promised Kingdom.”

The word “gospel appears 100 times in the New Testament and is often associated with King Jesus and the Kingdom.

Matthew records that when Jesus began His ministry, He “went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people” (Matt. 4:23)

Later, we see Jesus in a similar circumstance when He “went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 9:35).
Following John’s imprisonment, Jesus “came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:14-15).

Toward the end of His ministry, Jesus assured the apostles that the “gospel of the Kingdom” would be preached until the end of time (Matt. 24:14).

This Kingdom message was often portrayed in Jesus’ parables, as evidenced in Matthew 13.

The evangelistic Philip “preached things concerning the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ” when he went into the sin-sick city of Samaria (Acts 8:12).

When Paul landed in Rome, he spent two years “preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:28). He often wrote about the Kingdom and our responsibilities as Kingdom citizens in his letters. To a world proud of its Roman citizenship, he frequently reminded them that their true citizenship was not in an earthly Kingdom, but a spiritual heavenly Kingdom (Phil. 3:20; 1 Cor. 4:20; Rom. 14:17)

In the New Testament, King Jesus, the Christ and promised Messiah, is connected to the Good News of the Kingdom.

Clay’s overriding point hit home, that as Paul expressed it, Jesus is “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15). He is King of His Kingdom. Christians are thus citizens of the Kingdom and owe their allegiance to King Jesus. Our “good confession” speaks to our faithfulness, fidelity, and kinship in the Kingdom and to “the blessed and only potentate,” King Jesus.

Clay expressed it this way:

“To declare that Jesus was the king was an act of allegiance that transcended every earthly loyalty. It was a message of such power that it could not be contained, and it did not require the sword, the ballot box, or unrelenting social crusades. It simply needed a life lived in submission to the King.”

In a culture that calls for us to take sides, left or right, red or blue, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, or even Socialist, Christians must ever be ready to announce their allegiance to King Jesus.

The gospel message is a hope that lies beyond this life, beyond a fleeting republic, beyond the perceived greatest that we envision through political activism. Our hope is contained in the Gospel of the Kingdom that transcends race, ethnicity, political affiliation, or social standing.

That, my friend, is indeed Good News!

–Ken Weliever, The Preacherman