Preach the Kingdom or Preach the Gospel? Same thing?
In my limited reading of the debates back and forth concerning the Gospel of the Kingdom and the Gospel that Paul preached, I have been both frustrated and amazed. I have been frustrated at scholars or preachers who want to make a distinction between the kingdom and the gospel as if they are opposed to each other and amazed at the level of difficulty that the kingdom/gospel seems to bring. So what I want to do is look at what is at the core of both the kingdom and the Gospel is and see if they are not in fact one and the same.
Matthew 6:10 “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. This verse is smack dab in the middle of the Lord’s prayer. Jesus asks of the Father that His kingdom would come and that the will of the Father would be made manifest on the earth. So what was it that Jesus had in mind when He prayed this prayer? Since heaven is filled with people who have a great quality of life with no health problems, does Jesus simply want that replicated on earth? Does Jesus have in mind an earthly utopia that mirrors heaven or is it something else that He is desiring to happen on earth as it is happening in heaven? If we can answer those questions then we can most-assuredly better understand what Jesus was doing when preaching the kingdom, and better know how we ourselves can preach the kingdom.
I can not accept the idea that Jesus primary desire in asking the Father for the spread of the Kingdom was simply a spread of food to the hungry and health to the sick. To be fair I do believe that those things accompany the spread of the kingdom but only to serve the true center of the kingdom. Look for instance at Matt 10: 35 “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.” Note in the verse that a distinction is made between preaching the kingdom and the healing of the sick. It is my belief that the healing of the sick was not at the heart of the kingdom proclamation, rather the Glorifying of God was at the heart of the kingdom message. It seems the healing of the sick was for the purpose of glorify God.
The bible a central theme to what eternity will be like and it is not about my wellness and quality of life, rather its about the Glorifying of God. I see in Rev 22:3 “No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him” an eternal purpose and “center” that is doxological. In fact I can not find anywhere in the bible a picture into the “kingdom” that does not have as its focus the worship of God. No passage of scripture in the bible has at the center of its message the health and well-being of God’s people. It is from this reality that I understand Jesus request of the “Kingdom” coming, being a request for the spread of the Glory of God and not a request for social justices and health.
What is the Gospel for? Why does Jesus tell us in Matthew 28:19-20 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”? This is our mission because ii produces the praise and worship of God. “Missions exist because worship doesnt” Piper. Spreading the Gospel has transforming power built within it that producse praise in the one who receives it. 1 Pet 2:9 says that Jesus did His saving work to save His people for the purpose of declaring His excellencies.
When Jesus or the apostles preached the kingdom it was for for the purpose of the spread of the glory of God. That same purpose (The Glory of God) is at the heart of the Preaching of the gospel of Jesus. When faith is given to a sinner that sinner believes that Jesus life, death, and resurrection was in the place of sinners for the Glory of God, That sinner will be changed to a worshiper of God.
Preaching of the Gospel produces what Jesus prayed in Matthew 6. The preaching of the Gospel is at the heart of what it means to preach the “Kingdom”. Why? Because the kingdom is about the Glory of God and the preaching of the Gospel spreads the Glory of God eventually to all nations tongues and tribes!
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