This is being discussed at the 7/22/21 Christian Monotarian Bible Study
Contrary to a particular popular opinion there are not two separate Gospels. There was not one gospel for the first century Jews—“the gospel of the Kingdom” and a separate gospel after that for the Gentiles—“the gospel of grace.”
Those who teach that “proclaiming the Kingdom” of God was for the Jews only in the first century and that, after they rejected Jesus as Messiah, a separate “gospel of the grace of God” began to be preached from then on, fail to appreciate that the two phrases are synonymous as Paul showed near the end of his ministry:
“But I [Paul] do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again” (Acts 20:24, 25).
Here the gospel of the grace of God is shown to be exactly the same as the gospel of the Kingdom; and in his Commentary on Acts, (Tyndale, 1952). F.F. Bruce stated that: “It is evident from a comparison of Acts 20:24 with the next verse that the preaching of the Gospel of grace is identical with the proclamation of the Kingdom”
If the gospel of the kingdom was no longer relevant because of Jewish rejection of Jesus and his message, then one wonders why Paul continued to preach it for many decades afterward as is described at the end of Acts where Luke states that:
“From morning till evening he [Paul] expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (Acts 28:23).
Paul was: “…proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31).
So, for early Christians there was no move away from preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. It is the same message that Jesus foretold i.e.: “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).
The Kingdom Is
the Central Subject of Christianity
W.C. Allen, MA, Prof. of OT at Oxford University said concerning the Kingdom of God:
The Kingdom—the central subject of Christ’s doctrine … The Kingdom he taught was coming, but not in his lifetime. After His ascension he would come as Son of Man on the clouds of heaven ((Matt.) 16:27, 19:28, 24:30; 25:31) and would sit on the throne of His glory… Then the twelve Apostles would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (19:28). In the meantime, he himself must suffer and die and be raised from the dead. How else could he come on the clouds of heaven?
So, the gospel to be proclaimed is as described in the book of Acts: “The good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...” (Acts 8:12). To proclaim one aspect without the other is an incomplete gospel. To proclaim a Kingdom with a different description to the one described in the Scriptures is the proclaiming of a false gospel and a false Christ. (Gal. 1:6; 2 Cor. 11:4). To preach Jesus in a way different to what he taught and with an incorrect meaning applied to him and his actions is to preach a false Christ.
There is a remarkable difference between that biblical view of the Kingdom and what was substituted for it in post-biblical times when the original understanding of the Kingdom was massively altered. Greeks, rather than Jews, became leaders of Christianity and they began to use pagan Greek philosophy to form their teachings. From that point there have developed several false explanations as to what the Gospel and Kingdom is. So, we will start by examining the false teaching that the Gospel is only about the death and resurrection of Jesus.
It is often assumed by evangelicals and others that the Bible teaches a gospel only ‘about’ Jesus. This is because such verses as Mark 1:1 are translated in some versions as “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ.” However, the grammar and the context show that it is in the possessive i.e., Jesus Christ’s gospel which concerns the Kingdom: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... 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 1:1, 14, 15—most versions). In other words, God’s gospel which is also Jesus Christ’s gospel is one that shows “the kingdom of God is at hand.” It is not only a gospel about God or Jesus, but God is its originator and Jesus is its prime promoter.
Jesus had left the disciples with the great commission to make disciples and to be “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them” (Acts 8:5 NKJV). So, when the disciples “preached Christ” they were preaching all that he taught and most significantly what he taught about the Kingdom of God. This is similar to what is meant when James spoke of “preaching Moses” in the synagogues when he said: “For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21 NKJV). So just as “to preach Moses” means to preach what Moses taught i.e., the Mosaic Law, so too, the phrase “preached Christ” means to preach what Christ taught, which primarily concerned “the Kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43). So, the phrase “preached Christ” is simply shorthand for the full statement in Acts 8:12: “he [Philip] preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...”
Yet some preachers may point to a phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 in the standard modern translations, and then say that Christ’s death for our sins was the only important thing. These standard versions express Paul’s words as: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). However, this phrase “as of first importance” is not what is actually said in the Greek. The following Greek-English interlinears and translations show that it should be rendered as “among the first things.”
UBS Interlinear: “For I handed on to you among the first things (Gk. en protois), that which I also received, that Christ died for the sins of us...”
Marshall’s Interlinear: “For I delivered to you among [the] first things, what also I also I received, that Christ died on behalf of the sins of us...”
Rotherham and The Unvarnished New Testament both give: “among the first things.” Barclay renders it: “As a first essential...” The older translations simply have “at the first.”
Furthermore, the Greek preposition en is frequently translated as “among” in all versions. Therefore, there is no genuine reason to render this verse as, “as of first importance” and so to diminish the fact that the gospel concerns “the kingdom of God” as well as everything about Jesus. So, when accurately translated 1 Corinthians 15:3 doesn’t change the priority of the future kingdom. It is the same gospel that Jesus proclaimed.
The fact is that Jesus preached about the coming Kingdom throughout his ministry and it was not until he was very well along in his ministry that he began to let his disciples know that he would have to die, be buried and on the third day be resurrected. So, apart from one early hint about his coming death (Matt. 9:15), almost sixteen chapters of the Gospel of Matthew go by before Jesus informs the disciples of this part of God’s plan. Then, “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” (Matt. 16:21 also, Mark 8:31, Luke 9:22).
However, some Christian preachers tell people that this gospel of the kingdom was something preached only in Jesus’ time and only to the Jews who then rejected it when they rejected Jesus. Supposedly, there was then a change to a different gospel—one which concerns only the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is not true, because Jesus said that: “…this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). So, if the gospel of the kingdom is to be proclaimed to all nations and right up to the end, then it cannot have been just limited to the Jews of the first century.
Throughout Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, he trained his disciples to be proclaimers of the “good news of the Kingdom”—although not knowing the time “to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). The account in Acts tells us that Jesus kept: “…appearing to them [the disciples] during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). This training would have been pointless if the kingdom was no longer the gospel because the Jews had rejected Jesus and the Kingdom. Also, when Paul later calls it “my gospel” (Rom. 2:16) he does not mean that it is a gospel about himself, but that it is Jesus Christ’s gospel which Paul has taken to heart to preach. However, the book of Acts makes it very clear that there are two parts to the one Gospel.
§
The Gospel’s major component is the future establishment on earth of the literal “kingdom of God,”/“kingdom of heaven.” This will involve the returning Jesus who laid the foundation for the Kingdom by his death and resurrection. It is now clear that the further major part of the Gospel concerns everything about Jesus the Messiah including his death and resurrection. So, to teach, as many famous evangelicals do, that the gospel is only about the death and resurrection of Jesus would be only part of the Gospel i.e., an incomplete gospel. As we have seen already there is just one gospel. However, it has two major components which are:
This full gospel is summed up for us in Acts 8:12: “But when they [the Samaritans] believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...” This phrase, “The name of Jesus Christ” means everything about Jesus. It concerns everything he did (including his death and resurrection) and said in his teachings, so that we can understand his character and what his prime focus was, namely, the kingdom of God. So, the Good News is about the spectacular visible reappearance on earth of the Lord Messiah Jesus to begin the first ever truly righteous administration of our planet—the Kingdom of God. It will totally change our political landscape, so that truly virtuous and delightful conditions will begin to prevail for mankind. The kingdom will be world-wide.
Mention of the Kingdom of God is all over the New Testament. In the Gospel accounts it occurs in Matthew 52 times, Mark 19 times, Luke 44 times, and John 4 times although John also uses the phrase “life of the age to come” as a synonym for the kingdom many dozens of times. So, it was the preaching or proclaiming of the Kingdom of God that was paramount for Jesus, as he said:
“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).
Appendix B at the end of this book demonstrates twenty of these statements about the Kingdom of God.
If the proclaiming of “the Kingdom of God” is excluded, then Christians would be in violation of the Great Commission that Jesus set as the prime work for Christians. This was a command from Jesus when he said: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28: 19, 20). So, irrespective of the size of their missions around the world, those who proclaim only the death and resurrection of Jesus, but not the future establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, are failing to preach the full gospel.
The further false views of the Gospel concern misinterpretation of what God’s kingdom actually is. There are three particular incorrect views. These are:
The Kingdom is paradise in heaven.
The Kingdom is an ethical rule in one’s heart.
The kingdom is the Church.
In earlier chapters we saw that the Kingdom is not paradise in heaven. However, there are many who teach that the Kingdom is an ethical rule in one’s heart and that the more Christians there are the better the world will become. Does the Bible really show this to be the case?
There Were Not Two Gospels
Contrary to a particular popular opinion there are not two separate Gospels. There was not one gospel for the first century Jews—“the gospel of the Kingdom” and a separate gospel after that for the Gentiles—“the gospel of grace.”
The Gospel of Grace = the Gospel of the Kingdom
Those who teach that “proclaiming the Kingdom” of God was for the Jews only in the first century and that, after they rejected Jesus as Messiah, a separate “gospel of the grace of God” began to be preached from then on, fail to appreciate that the two phrases are synonymous as Paul showed near the end of his ministry:
“But I [Paul] do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again” (Acts 20:24, 25).
Here the gospel of the grace of God is shown to be exactly the same as the gospel of the Kingdom; and in his Commentary on Acts, (Tyndale, 1952). F.F. Bruce stated that: “It is evident from a comparison of Acts 20:24 with the next verse that the preaching of the Gospel of grace is identical with the proclamation of the Kingdom”
The Gospel of the Kingdom Was Preached
beyond Jesus’ Death
beyond Jesus’ Death
If the gospel of the kingdom was no longer relevant because of Jewish rejection of Jesus and his message, then one wonders why Paul continued to preach it for many decades afterward as is described at the end of Acts where Luke states that:
“From morning till evening he [Paul] expounded to them, testifying to the kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus both from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (Acts 28:23).
Paul was: “…proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 28:31).
So, for early Christians there was no move away from preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. It is the same message that Jesus foretold i.e.: “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14).
The Kingdom Is
the Central Subject of Christianity
W.C. Allen, MA, Prof. of OT at Oxford University said concerning the Kingdom of God:
The Kingdom—the central subject of Christ’s doctrine … The Kingdom he taught was coming, but not in his lifetime. After His ascension he would come as Son of Man on the clouds of heaven ((Matt.) 16:27, 19:28, 24:30; 25:31) and would sit on the throne of His glory… Then the twelve Apostles would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (19:28). In the meantime, he himself must suffer and die and be raised from the dead. How else could he come on the clouds of heaven?
The Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels Vol. II, p. 145
So, the gospel to be proclaimed is as described in the book of Acts: “The good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...” (Acts 8:12). To proclaim one aspect without the other is an incomplete gospel. To proclaim a Kingdom with a different description to the one described in the Scriptures is the proclaiming of a false gospel and a false Christ. (Gal. 1:6; 2 Cor. 11:4). To preach Jesus in a way different to what he taught and with an incorrect meaning applied to him and his actions is to preach a false Christ.
There is a remarkable difference between that biblical view of the Kingdom and what was substituted for it in post-biblical times when the original understanding of the Kingdom was massively altered. Greeks, rather than Jews, became leaders of Christianity and they began to use pagan Greek philosophy to form their teachings. From that point there have developed several false explanations as to what the Gospel and Kingdom is. So, we will start by examining the false teaching that the Gospel is only about the death and resurrection of Jesus.
§
The Gospel Is Not Limited to
The Death and Resurrection of Jesus
It Is Not Only a Gospel about Jesus
The Death and Resurrection of Jesus
It Is Not Only a Gospel about Jesus
It is often assumed by evangelicals and others that the Bible teaches a gospel only ‘about’ Jesus. This is because such verses as Mark 1:1 are translated in some versions as “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ.” However, the grammar and the context show that it is in the possessive i.e., Jesus Christ’s gospel which concerns the Kingdom: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ... 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 1:1, 14, 15—most versions). In other words, God’s gospel which is also Jesus Christ’s gospel is one that shows “the kingdom of God is at hand.” It is not only a gospel about God or Jesus, but God is its originator and Jesus is its prime promoter.
“Preaching Christ” Means Preaching the Kingdom
Jesus had left the disciples with the great commission to make disciples and to be “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them” (Acts 8:5 NKJV). So, when the disciples “preached Christ” they were preaching all that he taught and most significantly what he taught about the Kingdom of God. This is similar to what is meant when James spoke of “preaching Moses” in the synagogues when he said: “For Moses has had throughout many generations those who preach him in every city, being read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21 NKJV). So just as “to preach Moses” means to preach what Moses taught i.e., the Mosaic Law, so too, the phrase “preached Christ” means to preach what Christ taught, which primarily concerned “the Kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43). So, the phrase “preached Christ” is simply shorthand for the full statement in Acts 8:12: “he [Philip] preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...”
Jesus’ Death Was “Among the First Things”
Yet some preachers may point to a phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 in the standard modern translations, and then say that Christ’s death for our sins was the only important thing. These standard versions express Paul’s words as: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). However, this phrase “as of first importance” is not what is actually said in the Greek. The following Greek-English interlinears and translations show that it should be rendered as “among the first things.”
UBS Interlinear: “For I handed on to you among the first things (Gk. en protois), that which I also received, that Christ died for the sins of us...”
Marshall’s Interlinear: “For I delivered to you among [the] first things, what also I also I received, that Christ died on behalf of the sins of us...”
Rotherham and The Unvarnished New Testament both give: “among the first things.” Barclay renders it: “As a first essential...” The older translations simply have “at the first.”
Furthermore, the Greek preposition en is frequently translated as “among” in all versions. Therefore, there is no genuine reason to render this verse as, “as of first importance” and so to diminish the fact that the gospel concerns “the kingdom of God” as well as everything about Jesus. So, when accurately translated 1 Corinthians 15:3 doesn’t change the priority of the future kingdom. It is the same gospel that Jesus proclaimed.
Sixteen Chapters Occur before
Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Are Mentioned
Jesus’ Death and Resurrection Are Mentioned
The fact is that Jesus preached about the coming Kingdom throughout his ministry and it was not until he was very well along in his ministry that he began to let his disciples know that he would have to die, be buried and on the third day be resurrected. So, apart from one early hint about his coming death (Matt. 9:15), almost sixteen chapters of the Gospel of Matthew go by before Jesus informs the disciples of this part of God’s plan. Then, “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” (Matt. 16:21 also, Mark 8:31, Luke 9:22).
The Gospel Is to Be Preached Up to the End
However, some Christian preachers tell people that this gospel of the kingdom was something preached only in Jesus’ time and only to the Jews who then rejected it when they rejected Jesus. Supposedly, there was then a change to a different gospel—one which concerns only the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is not true, because Jesus said that: “…this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). So, if the gospel of the kingdom is to be proclaimed to all nations and right up to the end, then it cannot have been just limited to the Jews of the first century.
The Kingdom Was to Be Preached After Jesus’ Resurrection
Throughout Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, he trained his disciples to be proclaimers of the “good news of the Kingdom”—although not knowing the time “to restore the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6). The account in Acts tells us that Jesus kept: “…appearing to them [the disciples] during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). This training would have been pointless if the kingdom was no longer the gospel because the Jews had rejected Jesus and the Kingdom. Also, when Paul later calls it “my gospel” (Rom. 2:16) he does not mean that it is a gospel about himself, but that it is Jesus Christ’s gospel which Paul has taken to heart to preach. However, the book of Acts makes it very clear that there are two parts to the one Gospel.
§
There Are Two Component Parts
of the Gospel
of the Gospel
The Gospel’s major component is the future establishment on earth of the literal “kingdom of God,”/“kingdom of heaven.” This will involve the returning Jesus who laid the foundation for the Kingdom by his death and resurrection. It is now clear that the further major part of the Gospel concerns everything about Jesus the Messiah including his death and resurrection. So, to teach, as many famous evangelicals do, that the gospel is only about the death and resurrection of Jesus would be only part of the Gospel i.e., an incomplete gospel. As we have seen already there is just one gospel. However, it has two major components which are:
- The Kingdom of God, yet to be established on earth.
- Everything about the king of the Kingdom, Jesus Christ and so including his death and resurrection.
This full gospel is summed up for us in Acts 8:12: “But when they [the Samaritans] believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ...” This phrase, “The name of Jesus Christ” means everything about Jesus. It concerns everything he did (including his death and resurrection) and said in his teachings, so that we can understand his character and what his prime focus was, namely, the kingdom of God. So, the Good News is about the spectacular visible reappearance on earth of the Lord Messiah Jesus to begin the first ever truly righteous administration of our planet—the Kingdom of God. It will totally change our political landscape, so that truly virtuous and delightful conditions will begin to prevail for mankind. The kingdom will be world-wide.
Jesus’ Prime Purpose Was to Preach
the Good News of the Kingdom of God
the Good News of the Kingdom of God
Mention of the Kingdom of God is all over the New Testament. In the Gospel accounts it occurs in Matthew 52 times, Mark 19 times, Luke 44 times, and John 4 times although John also uses the phrase “life of the age to come” as a synonym for the kingdom many dozens of times. So, it was the preaching or proclaiming of the Kingdom of God that was paramount for Jesus, as he said:
“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).
Appendix B at the end of this book demonstrates twenty of these statements about the Kingdom of God.
The Great Commission Has Failed if
the Kingdom Is Not Preached
the Kingdom Is Not Preached
If the proclaiming of “the Kingdom of God” is excluded, then Christians would be in violation of the Great Commission that Jesus set as the prime work for Christians. This was a command from Jesus when he said: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations ... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28: 19, 20). So, irrespective of the size of their missions around the world, those who proclaim only the death and resurrection of Jesus, but not the future establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, are failing to preach the full gospel.
The further false views of the Gospel concern misinterpretation of what God’s kingdom actually is. There are three particular incorrect views. These are:
The Kingdom is paradise in heaven.
The Kingdom is an ethical rule in one’s heart.
The kingdom is the Church.
In earlier chapters we saw that the Kingdom is not paradise in heaven. However, there are many who teach that the Kingdom is an ethical rule in one’s heart and that the more Christians there are the better the world will become. Does the Bible really show this to be the case?
§