The Message of Jesus: The Message of Jesus: A Bible Study
The Christian message is called the gospel, which means “good news.” Preachers talk about believing the gospel, or sharing the gospel, or living out the gospel. Unfortunately, preachers don’t always agree on what the gospel is.
Entire books have been written trying to define the gospel. The Bible gives several descriptions of the gospel, but it doesn’t give a formal definition. Although different churches use the same label (“gospel”) for the message, they don’t always have the same message. Some people emphasize one biblical description; others focus on another description.
Here’s a summary of the biblical data: Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God; Peter and Paul preached about salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus. The question for us is: Are these different messages? Did the apostles go off in a different direction?
It will take some work to find the answer, but the gospel is important, so we’ll take a detailed look. We’ll need to look at what Jesus meant when he talked about the kingdom of God. He compared the kingdom to several things, but he never defined it.
Believe the good news
When Jesus began his ministry, he preached, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15, NRSVue used throughout). When he sent his disciples out to preach, he told them “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:2).
The time had come for God’s kingdom. But what is this kingdom? We might at first think of a king who rules over people in a certain area. Many Jews wanted that sort of kingdom – they wanted God to liberate their land from the Roman empire, so they could be a kingdom of their own.
But that didn’t happen. Jesus wasn’t talking about that sort of kingdom. Jesus had to teach people what the kingdom was like. In some of his parables, he said, “The kingdom of God is like…” and he gave comparisons that are nothing like the kingdoms of this world. We need to set aside our ideas about what a kingdom is and let Jesus give us the picture of what he is talking about.
Kingdom comparisons in Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew has many parables of the kingdom. Jesus began each one by saying, “The kingdom of heaven[1]… Here’s how he described it:
- “is like a person who sowed good seed in his field” (13:24; Mark 4:26).
- “is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field” (13:31; Mark 4:31; Luke 13:19).
- “is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with three measures of flour until all the dough had risen” (13:33; Luke 13:21).
- “is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid” (13:44).
- “is like a merchant searching for fine pearls” (13:45).
- “is like a net that was cast into the sea that caught all kinds of fish” (13:47).
- “is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his slaves” (18:23).
- “is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard” (20:1).
- “will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom” (25:1).
- “is like a man going on a journey, who summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them” (25:14; Mark 13:34).
It is difficult to form a picture of the kingdom from these parables, because we don’t always know the point of the comparison. The kingdom is like yeast, but in what respect? It starts small, but what does it look like when it’s small? The kingdom is like a story of farmworkers getting paid, but in what respect?
Jesus said that most people didn’t understand his parables (Matthew 13:11-13). Perhaps that is why some modern readers go with the definition they know (a kingdom is a place ruled by a king) rather than one that seems difficult to figure out. However, these parables show that the kingdom is not an ordinary kingdom; it is not what the Jewish people thought it would be.
The timing of the kingdom
When people are looking for the kingdom of God to be a territory ruled by a king, they get confused, because Jesus didn’t bring that sort of kingdom. Some people decide that Jesus was talking about something in the distant future – even though he said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15).
Some biblical passages talk about the kingdom in the future, and some talk about the kingdom at the time of Jesus. Since it is God’s kingdom, it lasts into the future, too, but we should not let verses about the future mislead us into thinking that it is only future.
Jesus told some of his critics, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons [and that’s what he did], then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The kingdom had already come upon the people.
On another day, Jesus said, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31). How were they going in? By accepting the message of John the Baptist (v. 32). Jesus was talking about a spiritual “move,” not going into a different territory. People were entering God’s kingdom by believing the message and changing their lives.
The kingdom has a king – Jesus, who has power and authority over all things (Matthew 28:18). But Jesus does not rule in the same way that earthly kings do, and his kingdom doesn’t look like one of the kingdoms of this world (John 18:36). He does not force everyone to do his will – he rules over people who willingly accept him as their King.
Here today, and tomorrow, too
Jesus also spoke about the kingdom in the future:
- “Many will come from east and west and will take their places at the banquet…in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11).
- “The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43).
- He warned the religious leaders: “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out” (Luke 13:28).
In the future, the kingdom will be visible, and will fill the earth. It will be a wonderful world, a beautiful future. But right now, the kingdom is hidden like yeast in dough, spreading invisibly. It is like a net that contains bad people as well as good (Matthew 13:33, 47). The kingdom is already here, but it is hidden.[2]
The “already but not yet” nature of God’s kingdom is similar to other spiritual realities:
- We are already saved, but the fullness of our salvation is yet future (Ephesians 2:5; 1 Peter 1:5).
- We have already been given eternal life, but its fullness will be given after we die (1 John 5:13; Mark 10:30).
- We will be like Christ, yet Christ is already being formed in us (Philippians 3:21; 2 Corinthians 3:18).
- We will live with God forever, but he already lives within us (1 Thessalonians 4:17; 1 John 4:13).
What does the kingdom look like? That is a misleading question, because in this age, the kingdom is hidden. It doesn’t “look” like anything. It is more helpful to ask, “How is the kingdom working behind the scenes, working inside us?”
Are we believing and responding to the message of Jesus? If so, we are entering the kingdom. Does our belief in a beautiful future give us joy right now? Does it give us a picture of what life should be? It should.
More teachings of Jesus
If we enter the kingdom by believing what Jesus said about the kingdom, what are we being asked to believe? Instead of focusing on the word kingdom, we also need to look at the other things Jesus taught. For example, we could study the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7),[3] but Jesus had many more teachings in addition to that sermon.
Jesus taught by what he did as well as what he said. For example, he miraculously fed more than 5,000 people (John 6:1-14). It was a good thing to do, but Jesus did not start a ministry focused on feeding the poor. The people liked free food and wanted to make him a king (v. 15), but Jesus turned down that opportunity. He was not that sort of king.
Jesus had a bigger purpose in mind. The physical food was a parable-in-action, done in the physical world to point to something much more important in the spiritual world. Jesus used the situation to explain that he was the bread they needed (v. 35). He is the nourishment we need for eternal life.
Jesus helped many people, but he also walked away from people who wanted him to stay (Luke 4:42). His message was bigger than doing miracles for people in first-century Galilee. When he healed blindness, it showed that he could heal spiritual blindness. When he cleansed lepers, it showed that he could cleanse us spiritually. When he healed someone who could not walk, it showed that he could forgive our sins (Mark 2:1-12). He helps us all walk, see, and live spiritually.[4]
When Jesus taught people how to live and what to do, this was part of his message of the kingdom. When we learn to do what he commanded, we are preparing to live with him and with others in love and harmony. Who we are and the way we choose to live carries over into our enjoyment of an eternity with God.
When Jesus announced that the kingdom was near, he meant the spiritual, invisible phase of the kingdom. For those who thought the kingdom would soon appear with power and glory, he told a parable to explain that they’d have to wait for that (Luke 19:11-27)—but the parable also indicates that some work must be done in the meantime. Now is the time we believe, repent, be saved, enter the kingdom, and be part of the mission Jesus has given us.
Jesus predicted, “This good news of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world, as a testimony to all the nations” (Matthew 24:14). In Luke, the prediction is worded differently: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47).
In one place, he describes the worldwide message as “the kingdom”; in another place he describes it as “repentance and forgiveness.” In order to participate in the kingdom, people must repent and be forgiven; that’s an important part of the good news. We need to be on good terms with the King, and he makes it happen.
——————
[1] Matthew uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” but Mark and Luke have some of the same parables using the term “kingdom of God.” Comparison of similar passages in Matthew, Mark and Luke shows that the terms refer to the same kingdom. For a more detailed study of the parables of the kingdom, see https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=5602&chapterid=309.
[2] Similarly, Paul says that we have already been brought into the kingdom, but that our lives are hidden in Christ (Colossians 1:13; 3:3). An article about the “present and future” kingdom is at https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/page/view.php?id=4240.
[3] For the Sermon on the Mount, see https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=5602, https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=5602&chapterid=306, and https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=5602&chapterid=307.
[4] For more about Jesus’ miracles, see “The purpose of healings,” at https://learn.gcs.edu/mod/book/view.php?id=5602&chapterid=308.
Author: Michael Morrison, revised in 2025
