Miles McKee Ministries
PO Box 541, Kingston Springs, TN 37082
Jesus and Gospel Preaching!
By Miles McKee
By Miles McKee
“Christ executes the office of a prophet in our calling; of a priest in our justification; and of a king in our sanctification. Let us then hear Him as our prophet; rely on Him as our priest; and obey Him as our king.”
John Mason
"...If what I preach is not foolishness to the natural man, know assuredly that I preach not the gospel."
William Tiptaft
“The Kingdom of grace is nothing but.... the beginning of the Kingdom of glory; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the flower; the Kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak, and the Kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian; the Kingdom of grace is glory militant, and the Kingdom of glory is grace triumphant.... the Kingdom of grace leads to the Kingdom of glory.”
Thomas Watson
"In the darkest hour the universe has ever seen, Jesus of Nazareth was King! I cannot be content with the acknowledgment that He is going to be King by and by. It is true that in a larger and fuller sense His Kingship shall be manifested, but He is even now the King. Yes, He is King now. He is seated on the right hand of the Majesty on high; all authority is His in Heaven and on earth. He is the King."
T. T. Shields
I recently sat in a meeting, in total disbelief, listening to a preacher tell us the most important thing in ministry was to teach people about how to live in the Kingdom. We, according to him, must develop authentic kingdom lifestyles and help our people to do so. This was the Gospel, this was what the good news was all about. The Preacher was slick, articulate, dynamic and dead wrong.
According to Him, he’d got his message all messed up in the early days of his ministry. Back then, he’d erroneously believed that the Gospel was all about Christ’s dying and rising from the dead. But God, according to his story, had subsequently shown him that since Jesus preached the Gospel it therefore stood to good reason Christ could not have preached the gospel as we present it today. For indeed, he reasoned, how could He have preached what we preach as the gospel? Obviously, he insisted, Christ did not go around telling people about his own death and resurrection as ‘duh’ these things had not yet happened. He, therefore, concluded that the Gospel was not about Christ’s doing and dying. Christ preached the Kingdom and Christ’s gospel, according to him, was to teach us how to live a Kingdom lifestyle. By that he meant that we need to find a rhythm with God and get in step. How cool! “Yeah God kicks and is very cool (actual quote) .” We need to learn how to hang out with Him and that’s what the Gospel is all about blah, blah, blah!
Poor old Paul with his antiquated definitions of the Gospel found in 1Cor 15:1-4 and Romans 1:1-4. These passages must not have been in that preacher’s version of the Bible. Paul and his outdated definitions of the Gospel were perhaps not slick enough for this man as he voiced the needs of a ‘cutting edge generation.’ Yes indeed, poor old Paul, the last time I read him he still seemed stuck on the true Gospel being all about Christ, His doing, dying and rising again. Paul should have taken lessons from the man I heard preach that day. That ancient anachronistic apostle would soon have been put straight by this modern ‘super apostle’ whose stellar understandings pounded away at our old and now threadbare understanding of Gospel truth.
But enough of the sarcasm! The worst thing about the whole wretched affair was, never mind that the man denied the clear teaching of scripture concerning the true nature of the Gospel: the shocker was that the crowd loved this guy and seemed to buy into his error hook line and sinker! I shivered when I realized that, without saying the actual words, he was, in reality declaring the scripture to contradict itself and ‘the crowd called out for more’
But doesn’t the Bible say Jesus preached the gospel? And didn’t the preacher, therefore, have a good point about it being impossible for Jesus to preach his own death and resurrection? And wouldn’t it follow logically that, therefore, the Gospel, the one Jesus preached, could not be about the death burial and resurrection of Christ? And if the Gospel Jesus preached is different from the one we preach, we should change our understanding of the Gospel and get in step with what Jesus preached.
Christ indeed preached and declared the Gospel. It was often referred to as the ‘gospel of the Kingdom’. The scripture says,
“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel”(Mk 1:14).
The word ‘Kingdom’ is of particular interest; it is the Greek word ‘basileia’ {pronounced bas-
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings, that publishes peace; that brings good tidings of good, that publishes salvation; that says unto Zion, Thy God reigns!” (Isa 52:7.)
The rule, dominion and government of God, which had first been seen in Eden and had later been confirmed in the theocracy of Israel, had now come in demonstrable form in the person of Abraham’s seed, Christ Jesus the Messiah. In the Gospel there is, therefore, an announcement of the rulership and sovereignty of God.
Isaiah had prophesied the Government would be upon His shoulder (Isa 9:6) and now Christ came preaching and demonstration the Kingdom of God as He displayed God’s Royal rule over all things. Remember how He declared to the listeners in His hometown,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
Lk. 4:18-
In Christ Jesus, the Kingdom of God had arrived. To bring deliverance to captives and set at liberty those who are bruised is the work of a King. To give sight to the blind requires Sovereign authority.
So what is a Kingdom? It is a place or a people ruled by a King. It is where the King’s government and authority are exercised. This fact that God’s Kingdom government had arrived in the person of Jesus was vividly demonstrated everywhere Christ went. Listen to Matthew,
“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”
(Matt 4:23).
If Jesus had sent a monthly newsletter, here’s what it would have said, “The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” (see Matt 11:5). The Kingdom had arrived in the person of Christ and these miracles and signs were the confirmation that the powers of the age to come had broken into time and history.
Christ preached and announced the Gospel of the Kingdom. It was the good news of the arrival of God’s rule in human form. Later the Apostles would also preach the Gospel. Was it a different Gospel from the one the Master proclaimed? No, far from it, it was the same gospel as Christ had preached in that it was the good news of God’s rule and dominion as personified and demonstrated by the saving acts of God in Christ. This Gospel of Christ, His doing, dying and resurrection was the central thrust of their ministry. They saw that, in Christ’s person and life, the Kingdom had been visibly displayed. That is why we see Paul expounding and testifying of,
“the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening.” (Acts 28:23).
God’s Kingdom had come on earth in the person of Jesus Christ. Christ demonstrated the Kingdom as He exercised sovereign power over nature. Remember how he clamed to raging sea and storm with a word? That’s a demonstration of sovereign authority. He healed sickness, raised the dead and cast out demons. Again, these were visible demonstrations that the rule of God had arrived in tangible and personal form. Likewise, in His death and resurrection He once again demonstrated the Kingdom. At the cross, God’s Kingdom authority to ransom and redeem was clearly put on view. With Kingdom authority, Christ came into the devil’s territory and submitted Himself to death. Death was the greatest weapon in Satan’s lethal arsenal but Christ went to the cross, ‘that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; (Heb 2:14). The Kingdom rule and dominion of God is shouted to us with amplified volume in Christ’s defeat of Satan at the cross. There he,
“-
Christ stripped and exposed Satan at the cross and thus gave an explicit example of the powers of the Kingdom of God. Likewise at the resurrection, the Kingdom rule, dominion and power of God is once again graphically seen. Death and life met in a grueling conflict, life triumphed and death was defeated.
In His life, Christ demonstrated God’s rulership and exercised Kingdom authority to rescue fallen men in a fallen society. In His death he eloquently continued with the same proclamation by transforming the cross into a royal throne from which he ruled over the affairs of men. From His throne at Calvary, He granted eternal life to one thief and denied the same to another. These are kingly acts! Furthermore from the cross he has ruled and swayed the hearts of men in successive generations. Proud men are humbled by the cross, wicked men are brought to repentance at the cross and an innumerable host of captives are liberated and eternally saved at the foot of that same blood stained cross.
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