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Posted on Feb 01, 2023 by Mike LeDuke Next article:The Gospel in the Old Testament

If someone were to ask you what Jesus taught, what would you say?

Would you tell them about the miracles he performed? Would you tell them about his death and his resurrection? Would you tell them about his parables?

All of these are crucial aspects of the Lord’s ministry — and without his death and resurrection, we would have no hope (1 Corinthians 15:17-19,). But, while Christ often spoke in parables, and while his sacrifice and triumph over the grave are central tenets of Christianity, none of these things were his main message.

In the last post, when we sought to grasp the gospel, we noted two verses in which Christ preached that gospel. Did you notice what the gospel was called? Both of those times, Matthew described the gospel as “the gospel of the kingdom.” How often do we associate the Lord’s words with a kingdom? That was the good news?

Indeed. This kingdom appears to play the central role in all of Jesus’s preaching. In one instance, he preached in a village in Galilee and its residents asked him to stay with them for a little longer. He refused on the basis of having to keep preaching — but he went further than that. Consider how he himself described his ministry: “And when it was day, he departed and went into a desolate place. And the people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, ‘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 4:42-43). 

The words “preach the good news” is the verb form of our word gospel. In other words, here is the gospel again described as the new of the kingdom of God. Even more, Christ explained that preaching about that kingdom was the reason that he was sent! Not only was this kingdom the key message of the gospel, but it was central to the very existence of the Lord Jesus.

So then, if we now understand that the gospel is the good news of the kingdom, our next questions must be about that kingdom — what is it? Where is it? Who is its king? Why does it matter so much? And, why is it such good news? Why is this kingdom the gospel?

— Jason Hensley, PhD