5: The Kingdom of God
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Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. (Luke 2:10–11)
The gospel, then, is the good news of redemption through Christ. But this redemption is specifically through Christ as King. It is the message “your God reigns” (Isa. 52:7) and the royal act of freeing captives and executing vengeance (61:1). The angels’ message presents Christ as the new David, David’s son and David’s Lord. Jesus’ coming is the coming of the Lord, the coming of the King. So the first preaching of the NT, by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:2) and by Jesus (4:23), is the “gospel of the kingdom,” that is, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (4:17).5 The first preaching by Jesus’ disciples is the same (10:7). Throughout the NT, the kingdom is the focus of the good news: see Matt. 9:35; 24:14; Luke 8:1; Acts 1:3; 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31. But the kingdom in the NT is already and not yet . When Jesus chose to read Isaiah 61:1–2 in the synagogue at Nazareth, his hometown, according to Luke 4:16–21, announcing that the passage was fulfilled in him, he ended his reading before “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Jesus, at his first coming, does not carry out God’s vengeance, but only “the year of the Lord’s favor.” The Lord’s favor is already, his vengeance not yet . “The Lord’s favor” is preeminently Jesus’ death on the cross, bearing our sins, and his resurrection, in which we rise to newness of life (Rom. 6:4). So when Paul formulates the contents of the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1–11, he focuses on Jesus’ atonement and resurrection: Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vai n. 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. 15:1–4)
Indeed, Paul can say that when he first preached the gospel at Corinth, he “decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Similarly, Paul in Acts 20:24 describes his preaching as “the gospel of the grace of God.” Theological writers have not always found it easy to reconcile the kingdom emphasis in the gospel with its grace emphasis. But it is not difficult to bring the two together. Kingdom is a broader concept than grace, for it includes both grace and vengeance. Even Paul, who stresses grace, speaks of that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom. 2:16) 5. “Kingdom of heaven” is the phrase preferred by Matthew, “kingdom of God” by the other NT writers. There is no reason to thi nk of these as anyt hing but synonymous. Perhaps Matthew’s Jewish readers were more comfortable avoiding d irect reference to “God.”
