Brief Notes on the Gospel

Is “believe that Jesus died for your sins” the whole Gospel? What if the Bible says otherwise—and what if we’ve missed the most ancient part?

1. The Gospel—the good news—was the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, and especially the arrival of the King. Many self-identified Christians will nod sagely at this but not actually understand what it means.
2. When Mark quoted Jesus as saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15), all Jews who heard this knew precisely what was being claimed. By “the kingdom of God” he meant the restored kingdom of Israel. “The time” referred to “the day of the Lord,” when the prophecies about this kingdom and the advent of its king—the Messiah—would come true.
3. These things are obvious to those who have read the Old Testament all the way through, for good understanding. They become more obvious with repeated readings.
4. The word “gospel” simply means “good news,” and in that context, it is very obvious indeed that the good news mentioned in Mark 1:15 concerns the long-awaited restored kingdom.
5. Note that, at this point in the story, Jesus had been neither crucified nor resurrected. Yet this is indeed the Gospel of John the Baptist and of Jesus himself; they call it that. We will return to this point.
6. Question: What would Jews quite naturally be expected to do if a genuine king of the Jews arrived?
   Answer: Declare their allegiance to him, of course.
7. Question: And what if this king were demonstrated through the most stunning signs and wonders to be the Messiah, ushering in the Messianic Kingdom of such frequent Old Testament prophecy?
   Answer: Then the Jews ought to declare their eternal gratitude, extol the glory of the only true God-King, and pledge their allegiance in the most earnest terms, even being willing to die for their Sovereign.
8. Keep these questions and answers in mind as you consider the following familiar words: Jesus often told his disciples, “follow me” (e.g., Mt 4:19). “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor… and come and follow me.” (Mt 19:21) “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother [value them below Jesus]… yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26)
9. Jesus said all of these things after (and in the context of) the announcement of the Kingdom of God, and before his crucifixion.
10. Hence, the faith that Jesus, as King, demands from us, as subjects, is personal loyalty to and love of the Sovereign of the Kingdom of God.
11. But to understand what loyalty to this Sovereign entails, we must consider what his will is, and what he values most, which he sums up in his two great commandments: love God, and love your fellow man.
12. Thus, first, we consider: Jesus is God in the flesh. After all, “I and my Father are one.” Thus, to love him in all loyalty is no different than to “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” (Mk 12:30)
13. Second, as to our fellow man, as Jesus loves us, he demands that we love each other. “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). And to do this is to practice our genuine and vital love of God and his Son. (Jn 10:30) “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” (John 14:21).
14. This is the core of the Gospel that Jesus preached. This Gospel never changed. We must never forget it. We must teach it more. It was made fuller—yes, to be sure, there is more to it, as our King revealed more of himself in his walk on earth—but this is what “Gospel” meant in the first instance.
15. The essential act of saving faith always was to embrace the King as Lord and Sovereign. Many statements about salvation through faith are made before the salvation. For example, while those hostile to him would be burned up as so much chaff, those who believe in him, as their sovereign Lord, would have eternal life: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jn 3:16) “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” (Jn 11:26)
16. In declaring their allegiance as well, even Gentiles could be added to the Kingdom, yes, this very same Kingdom: “Many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 8:11)
17. Note that, so far, we have “shared the Gospel” in a robust, deeply biblical way. Yet we have said nothing whatsoever about the cross, atonement, or beliefs about these—as deeply important as those are. Which raises the question: What do those things have to do with salvation and with “the Gospel”?
18. Paul used the word “gospel” to refer to something in addition to the advent of the Kingdom: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you … that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…” (1 Cor 1-4). This, too, was the greatest news. The story became fuller still.
19. The Gospel that Paul meant was not in conflict with the Gospel of the advent of the Kingdom and the reign on earth of its King. For this extended the most profound news of that same King. Namely, the Messiah was—as prophesied—”despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows” who was “wounded for our transgressions” (Isa 53:3, 5). Yet he rose again, resurrected as he said we would be as well. What news! If the news is of the King and of his Kingdom, then, at the darkest hour when Jesus was in his tomb and the promise of the Kingdom seemed hollow, would it not be even more glorious news, about the King and his Kingdom, that he has defeated death? This is not a new Gospel, but an extension of the Gospel. The full Gospel is not only that the King has arrived, but that in dying and rising back to life for us, he has shown that he is victor over death.
20. So, we have not changed the subject; the subject is still the Gospel. You might ask, though: How precisely is this business of the suffering servant and of the resurrection connected to the loyalty we owe him? Jesus shows the connection, again before the resurrection: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me… and he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10:37-38) Following him means being loyal to him above all others, even unto death; Jesus puts it in a hyperbolic way, even going so far as to say that if you are not willing thus to die for your loyalty to your King, then you are not “worthy of me.” As he would demonstrate, we should be willing to die on a cross for the kingdom of God, if need be: “Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it…” (Mk 8:34-35).
21. Such willing self-sacrifice shows where our true loyalties lie. Dying a humiliating death on a cross proves something: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) Jesus proved his love for us by dying for us. If we are called to martyrdom, that will prove our love of God and loyalty to the King.
22. He did the most spectacular signs and wonders of the Bible; then he suffered such a death as a result of his claim to be the Messiah and the very son of God; and then he rose again, as he had prophesied of himself. By doing all this, he demonstrated to the world that he was who he said he was: the anointed one of prophecy, with all that that entails. By enduring this humiliating death, he died for us, so that we would be inspired—by his own Spirit—to follow him more meaningfully.
23. His Apostles followed him more meaningfully indeed, and the martyrs after them. All died for our sake even as Jesus did, showing by their stunning self-sacrifice just how strongly they did believe in him and were unwilling to deny him.
24. This whole story, not any one part of it, is good news indeed.
25. Yet if we focus, when we “share the Gospel,” only on the blood and the cross of Christ, without explaining the background—of the arrival of the prophesied Kingdom and its King—the blood and torture can seem like positively repellent totems to unbelievers that we would like to inspire. (That is how they struck me for many years.)
26. Though true, it can still be profoundly misleading to say that we are saved by believing that Jesus died for our sins, especially when this is said to those unprepared for the message. For example, some children can hear that in church and think, “Well, I guess that means the Old Testament prophets were not saved.” Skeptical adults not infrequently opine that this is just holy nonsense. (These are both mistakes I made at different times in my life.) Even for those who do understand more, to repeat the familiar formula constantly without dwelling on the essential love and loyalty we owe the very Sovereign of our lives is to preach a sadly weakened Gospel.
27. And to the children, I say: Of course the Old Testament prophets were saved. They were saved in precisely the same way we are, namely, loyalty to the King, who is God himself. He “shall reign for ever and ever.” (Ex 15:18) The Lord reiterated this to the greatest of the Old Testament kings, David, when he promised: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers [i.e., after you are dead], I will set up thy seed [descendant: hence Jesus’ title, son of David] after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.” (2 Sam 7:12-13, 16) We may also say, with the psalmist, “God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth” (Ps 74:12), and with Isaiah, “the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us.” (Isa 33:22) Zephaniah is looking to the Messianic age when he prophesies, “The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.” (Zep 3:15)
28. The beginning and end of the Gospel should always be the love of and loyalty to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We are saved by keeping the greatest commandment—which is the commandment to true faith. By loving him more deeply than our own lives, we practice our loyalty toward the King, we keep the faith to our Lord, and we are inspired to obey our Master.
29. If the Gospel is the good news of the Kingdom of God, if we are joined to this same Kingdom, then in the end we will reign with him. This is said in the Old Testament, by Daniel: “But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” (Dan 7:18) But it is also in many places in the New Testament, as when Paul says: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? … Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor 6:2-3)
30. But if we are to have such responsible positions in service to the King, we in our lives must demonstrate our loyalty to him. Again: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:15) This is not a side-issue. Our trusting loyalty to our King requires that we do his will. If we lose sight of this, if we find it easy to sin carelessly and without repentance, is he really our Sovereign? Do we really believe in him? If he is our King and indeed Lord of the universe, is it not right to fear him? Jesus thought so: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Mt 10:28) So, as Paul said, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” (Php 2:12)