The churches’ problems can be traced to a single major cause: the loss of the Hebrew Bible as the basis for sound faith. The Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) was the Bible on which Jesus and the Apostles were reared. The basis of the Gospel is found in the promises made to Abraham. “The Gospel was preached in advance to Abraham” (Gal. 3:8) and Jesus came “to fulfill the promises made to the patriarchs” (Rom. 15:8). Paul typically argued the Gospel “from the Law and the Prophets from dawn to dusk” (Acts 28:23).
By contrast today we are offered a superficial three-point “key to salvation” constructed on a few isolated verses from Romans. Our method is the product of the quick-fix lifestyle. But the Bible and the great counsels of God will not yield to our over-simplified approach to the issue of conversion. Jesus did not preach a Gospel of the cross only, and neither did Paul. Paul was a disciple of Jesus and his object was to carry out the Great Commission which authorizes the continuation of the same Gospel as Jesus preached always, the Gospel of the Kingdom.
The Kingdom itself and the Gospel concerning it is rooted in the Hebrew Bible. The Kingdom is the Kingdom promised by the prophets. It has not yet arrived. The nations have not beaten their swords into plowshares. The nations are not flocking to Jerusalem to learn God’s ways (Isa. 2:1-5; see also Dan. 2:44; 7:18, 22, 27; Obad. 21; Micah 4:7, 8).
What if we had been taught from childhood to embrace the vision of the prophets, the basis of the Christian gospel? How different things would be. Jeremiah preached the Gospel as he looked forward to this kind of a world: “I will give you pastors and teachers who will share my mind and who will feed you with knowledge and understanding…At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord [the Kingdom of God] and there will be a multi-national gathering in Jerusalem on behalf of God’s agenda. The nations will no longer behave according to the imagination of their evil heart. In those days and at that time the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel will return from the Northern Land to the land which I promised to their ancestors as their inheritance…You will call me Father and no longer turn away from Me” (see Jer 3:15-19).
The New Testament is a brilliant commentary on this vision of the “good time coming” on earth, the restoration of Israel to the land in peace and the conversion of nation-states as they come to recognize the Messiah who will then have returned to take up his position as world-governor on the restored throne of David.
“Listen! The days are coming, the Lord says, when I will produce for David a righteous descendant [Branch] and a King will come to the throne and succeed as he executes justice and judgment in the land. In his days the Jews will be saved and Israel will live in security… They will live in their own land” (see Jer. 23:5-8). “In those days and at that time I [the Lord] will cause the Branch of righteousness [the Messiah] to appear, the Son of David, and he will execute judgment and sound government in the land” (Jer. 33:15-17).
These thrilling promises of world peace are the heart of the Good News as the New Testament presents it. Christians are invited to repent and believe in God’s world Plan being executed through Jesus, the Son of God. At his farewell supper Jesus addressed the inner circle of disciples with these words — a summary of his whole Gospel mission. (They reflect perfectly Jesus’ own mission statement recorded in Luke 4:43: “I must proclaim the Gospel about the Kingdom of God to the other cities also: That is why God commissioned me.”) “You are the ones who have continued faithfully with me during all my trials and so I now covenant with you to give you a Kingdom, as my Father has covenanted with me to give me a Kingdom. You are going to eat and drink with me at my table in my [coming] Kingdom and you are going to be promoted to take your places on thrones to administer the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28-30).
Jesus is inspired by the vision of the prophets of Israel just as Paul protested to his Jewish enemies that he was standing for the Hope of Israel, “believing everything written in the law and the prophets…the promise made by God to our patriarchs, the promise which our twelve tribes hope to attain” (Acts 24:14; 26:6, 7).
The Christian vision is no flimsy dream of “polishing rainbows” in heaven, no “pie in the sky.” Jesus did not believe in a realm of disembodied spirits enjoying a post-mortem residence in some super-celestial region. There is at present no burning hell or purgatory. And none of the faithful has yet gone to be consciously “with the Lord.” Coming face to face with Jesus can happen only via the future resurrection (I Thess. 4:13-17).
The Christian Gospel promises its adherents a place in the New World of peace and harmony to be established on the earth renewed by Jesus at his coming. This is the Gospel about the Kingdom, the Kingdom destined to come from heaven at the Parousia (Second Coming) of the Messiah.
How strange and — dare we add — sinister that gospel tracts have dropped the word Kingdom from the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven,” thus robbing the Gospel of its principal element, the key to the heart and mind of Jesus.
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