Sayings Of Jesus: The Kingdom
Ask someone what was the main subject of Jesus’ teachings and the answer you will likely get would be “love”—as in “love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34) and “love your neighbour as yourself” (Matthew 22:39 and parallels; see also Leviticus 19:18). And it’s by no means a bad answer; for Christians, it should be one of our top priorities. It should characterise us, just as it did Jesus. As Jesus went on to say in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Note that it’s not by our right beliefs—after all, the devil believes all the right things, does he not? What matters is the fruit of our beliefs, primarily reflected in love for others (and especially love for people who are not like us). But I digress.
You may have heard it said from the pulpit that the main subject of Jesus’ teachings was money and possessions (this is a somewhat understandable conclusion for pastors to reach when they’re concerned about promoting financial giving). And in fairness, it’s certainly right up there and it’s important.
I’ve also seen a well-known conservative evangelical website (actually, let’s be honest—it’s Calvinist) suggesting that Jesus’ main teaching subject was hell (meaning, the standard evangelical version of hell), which is an astonishing claim on many levels, but it’s clearly something they see as very important to affirm.
The main subject of Jesus’ teachings was actually none of those things: it was, the kingdom of God, or, in Matthew, the kingdom of heaven—same thing, just a different vocabulary for a different audience.
When Jesus begins his ministry in Matthew’s Gospel (after his baptism and temptation in the wilderness), we read: “Jesus was going about in all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom . . .” (Matthew 4:23). And towards the end of his ministry, he said “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14). This gospel of the kingdom bookends his earthly ministry and features in the legacy instructions he leaves to his disciples, to continue to “do the stuff” he did (in John Wimber’s memorable phrase)—see, for example, John 14:12 and Matthew 10:8).
It’s hardly unreasonable to suppose that when Jesus speaks his final words to the disciples in the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel—“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15)—the gospel that he has in mind is not the truncated, individualised version we see in the “Four Spiritual Laws,” the “Romans Road,” or the “Sinner’s Prayer” (none of which appear in Scripture in that form) but the far more holistic “gospel of the kingdom.” At risk of upsetting any Reformed conservatives reading this, I would have to say it's highly unlikely that the Apostle Paul would recognise their so-called “Romans Road”—a selection of single verse proof texts plucked from their contexts in various chapters in Romans, and strung together in a particular order—as “Paul’s gospel.” Let alone a gospel that Jesus would recognise as his.
As you perhaps know, “gospel” simply means “good news.” The “gospel of the kingdom” is the good news story that the rule and reign of God has broken into this world through the person of Jesus; a message that is good news for everyone. The technical term is that the kingdom was “inaugurated” in Jesus’ coming; we might say it was “launched” or it “began.”
In that very first mention in Matthew (quoted above), I cut the verse short. It goes on to say, “. . . and healing every disease and every sickness among the people” (see also the exact same language in Matthew 9:35). In Mark 16, accompanying the disciples’ preaching of the gospel, we also see there that “they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” In other words, this “good news” of “the gospel” that Jesus shared and that we are to share had a clear supernatural element to it; the moving of the Holy Spirit in power accompanied the message. It was no mere invitation to mentally assent to a truth. Why might that be? Because the coming of the kingdom is about healing, repairing, and restoring that which is wrong in this world: the damage that the enemies of human life and human well-being have done—sin, Satan, sickness and death. The coming of the kingdom in Jesus can be likened to when Aslan arrives in Narnia and the power of the White Witch begins to go into reverse: the curse is broken, the snow and the ice begin to melt, in a land where until now it’s been permanently winter, but Christmas never came.
The reality, of course, is that though Jesus healed many, he did not heal all. Those whom he did heal still ultimately died (and quite likely suffered other maladies later in life, as well). The healing miracles were signs pointing towards God’s ultimate plan—the healing, repairing, and restoring of all creation: what people call “heaven” but should more correctly call “the new heavens and earth”—a restored and renewed cosmos. This is the future fullness of the kingdom, the completion of the kingdom; when, as Revelation 21 puts it so beautifully, God says, “I am making everything new!” “God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” The miracles in Jesus’ ministry—and indeed, in the church since then—are signposts pointing to this future. They’re signs and first-fruits of the future breaking-in to the present.
Speaking of the present, there is nothing in the New Testament that suggests spiritual gifts including the healing miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit that we see in the early church in the book of Acts should not continue to be part of the church’s experience. The reasons why we may not see it (at least, not on the same scale, or frequency, and certainly in the West) is a question for another day; suffice to say there is no biblical reason why we should not.
Over the years there has been a lot of theological speculation about how we are to understand the kingdom, centred on three things: the extent to which its coming is present or future; the role we play alongside the Holy Spirit in bringing it about; and whether it is to be understood in the present age in physical, material terms or just “spiritual” terms. Given that Jesus and the early church were not gnostic dualists (as good Jewish believers, they didn’t think that everything about the physical realm was bad and only the spiritual realm was good—some charismatics today should take note) the answer would surely have to be that in every case it’s both–and, not either–or. The whole point of Jesus’ healing miracles was to bring the kingdom into people’s lives (especially, the poor, the suffering, and the marginalised) in physical, material ways. His was by no means just a “spiritual” kind of good news, so neither should ours be. The fundamentalist evangelical aversion to what they think of as a flawed “social” gospel, in contrast to the true “spiritual” gospel is a false dichotomy that is, once again, based in gnostic dualism. We could point to so much scriptural material here, such as James 2:15-17: “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
According to Matthew’s version of the Parable of the Sower, the “seed” is something called “the word of the kingdom” (or in the NIV, “the message about the kingdom”). Once again, this is bigger than just a “Would you like to pray a prayer so you can go to heaven when you die?” kind of gospel. It includes that, but it’s so much more than that. Responding to the gospel is not just praying a prayer so that we receive a “Get Out of Hell Free” card to put in our wallet or purse in case we need it one day (in case this Christian stuff turns out to be true). Responding to the gospel means becoming a person who reorientates their life around the kingship of Jesus and joins in his mission to extend the kingdom in every place and in every way. Responding to the gospel means orientating our lives around the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Starting now.