When you hear the word 'Gospel', what do you think?
I'm betting that you've heard something like this: Jesus died for your sins so you could go to heaven after you die.
It's the classic Romans 1 Gospel: warn 'em of God's wrath then tell them how to dodge it.
Set 'em on fire then offer a bucket of water.
The staple diet of nineteenth and twentieth-century evangelism.
It's not that that statement is untrue, it's just not the whole truth, or even the main part of the truth.
In the words of John Mark Comer, "It's not less than that, but it's so much more!"
Or maybe you're more used to hearing the Matthew 25 least-of-these A.K.A the social justice gospel. Just clothe and feed the poor, visit the prisoners, that kind of thing. Just don't mention God, or Jesus, or salvation.
Chances are you've heard mixes of all the above. I doubt any church would teach all one or the other. But it does beg the question - what is the Gospel?
The word 'gospel' means 'good news', and the good news that Jesus himself shared was both much more simple and much more profound than what you hear from many church pulpits today.
When Jesus walked the shores of Galilee preaching the Gospel, he wasn't saving souls for heaven, he was bringing heaven to souls.
Here are some of the records we have of Jesus preaching the Gospel:
- Mark 1:15 "The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand."
- Luke 17:21 "The kingdom of God is within you."
- Matthew 4:17 "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven has come near."
As Dallas Willard put it, Jesus' gospel was about the present availability of the kingdom of God.
Jesus' Gospel proclamation was accompanied by power. When he announced the present availability of the kingdom of the heavens, it came bursting into the present reality, bringing healing, wholeness, restoration and peace.
The kingdom of God, or, the kingdom of heaven as it's sometimes referred to, is simply the place where God is. As Graeme Goldsworthy puts it: God's people, in God's place, living under God's rule.
It's not just a future reality, but a present one also.
You see it's not so much that Jesus is the way to God, but that through Jesus, God comes to us.
When Jesus sent out the seventy-two disciples, he told them to preach this same Gospel. Specifically he said: "Heal the sick who are there and tell them that 'the kingdom of God has come near to you'" (Luke 10:9).
The kingdom of God manifests when heaven intersects earth. The disciples excitedly brought back reports of lives transformed.
By contrast, many street-preachers today stick to selling death insurance.
The sure-tried fire-and-water method: convict them of their sin and God's wrath, then douse them in a cold bucket of the sinner's prayer and let 'em off the hook. Probably never see them again.
I wonder if a better starting point for preaching the Gospel today would be talking about the availability of God's presence and power like Jesus did?
I wonder if people would be more drawn to the God whose heart is for the renewal and redemption of the entire cosmos, rather than only that of individual sinners?
I wonder if they'd be more interested in hearing about God's coming new creation project and how we can enjoy everlasting life there for all eternity, rather than simply a disembodied life in heaven? (read my last BLOG "What Happens After We Die? New Creation as 'Life After' Life After Death").
I wonder if we simply brought people to a place where they could "taste and see that the Lord is good," as the Psalmist writes, and let God do more of the convincing and convicting and judging (Psalm 34:8)?
God is in the business of changing hearts and transforming people for the good, and his kingdom is presently available to those who whole-heartedly seek after it.
As always though, it's just my two-bob worth.
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