“Part of the tragedy of the modern church, I have been arguing, is that the orthodox have preferred creed to kingdom, and the unorthodox have tried to get a kingdom without a creed. It’s time to put back together what should never have been separated.” – N.T. Wright, How God Became King*
The Gospel of the Kingdom. It’s what Jesus preached. It was the hope of Israel. The prophets foretold it and the patriarchs were promised it. But what exactly is it? There are many answers offered by those outside and inside the Church. Many think it’s God’s promise of a fulfilling life. Others think it has to do with dismantling unjust social structures in order to make society more equitable for all. Still others believe it’s an unconditional acceptance of everyone and a refusal to make any judgments. Others believe it is only “how to go to Heaven when you die.”
These and other misperceptions exist in part because many, Christian and otherwise, mistake the message of Jesus as being either merely ethical—do this, don’t do that—or merely propositional—believe this and you’ll go to the good place.
But we can’t be faithful to our Lord and His Word and come away with a perspective of the Gospel that is only one or the other. There are certainly ethical aspects to the Gospel. As Christians, we are called to holiness and Christ-likeness. And clearly the Gospel is propositional—there are certain theological truths one must believe and embrace in order to be saved! Jesus’ message included both. It is the Gospel of the Kingdom, which the apostle Paul later called our ministry of reconciliation (1 Corinthians 5:18). Through Jesus we are first reconciled to God and then reconciled to one another—that is the fulness of the Gospel message. The problem is that we often emphasize one aspect to the exclusion of the other. This should not be.
Historically, there are different reasons for this. Those who have reduced the Gospel message to mere ethics have been led astray by the theological liberalism which invaded the Church in the 19th century. Since then, many theologians have come and gone who denied the metaphysical/propositional side of the Gospel and focused only on the ethical. Rudolph Bultmann, a 19th-century German theologian and New Testament scholar championed the idea of the “fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all humanity.” Effectively, this caused him and others to view the primary aim of the Christian faith as being world peace. Jesus, His death and resurrection, and reconciliation with God were thrown out in favor of terrestrial utopia. Whether or not the claims of Christianity were true did not matter. Only that one’s conduct of life changed.
Additionally, such theologians embraced an existentialist view of Christianity. The objective, historical truths of the Christian faith were downplayed (if not downright rejected) in favor of subjective, experience-based feelings. These theologians would say it did not matter if Jesus actually rose from the dead or not (and that one can’t know for certain)—what matters is that He is “risen in our hearts” and this enables us to live lives of goodness. They gutted the historic Christian faith of its historical foundations and ended up with a moralistic religion which was certainly not Christianity.
On the other side, the frontier-revivalist movement (also of the 19th century) contributed to the loss of the Church’s emphasis on mission and social justice. As itinerant evangelists traveled the country and preached the message of salvation, they focused almost exclusively on Heaven, Hell, and the next life and downplayed the importance (and historicity) of Christians working for positive social change.
There were theological reasons for this. John Nelson Darby, William Miller, and others began predicting the end of the world. Darby popularized the pre-tribulation rapture and dispensational way of reading Scripture. D.L. Moody caught onto that and fully bought into it. This led to a shift in mindset amongst itinerant evangelists which said Jesus is coming back at any moment, and therefore the thing we need to focus on is getting people saved.[1] If Christ’s return is immanent, why focus on making things in this world better?
This thought has fully matured in our day into a line of thinking which says, “Well, it’s all going to burn anyway, so who cares?” This negatively impacts the way that we as God’s people think about the planet/environment and leads us to think social justice issues are not important; that evangelism is the ONLY thing which matters. And given the heated debates as of late regarding the role of the Church concerning issues of social justice, these historical trends are more relevant now than ever!
Now, the dangers on both sides are very real. When we focus merely on evangelism, we forget that God is King and that part of our calling as His Kingdom ambassadors is to extend His rule into every sphere of life—including the defense of the defenseless, the vindication of the oppressed, and the help of the poor. Just read your Bible—these themes are EXTREMELY important to God! We cannot say that we have embraced the fullness of the Gospel if we are only theologians in creed but not in practice. As the saying goes, orthodoxy (right belief) leads to orthopraxy (right behavior).
“If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.” – James 2:16-17
And on the other side, it goes without saying that a denial or rejection of the historic truth-claims of Christianity is a rejection of Christ, Scripture, and the unbroken testimony of the Christian Church.
So, as we continue thinking about God’s Kingdom, may we as His people, the Church, be diligent to believe what He has revealed and to allow Him to mold us into humble, holy, Christlike people. May we embrace the Gospel of the Kingdom.
“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.”
– 1 John 2:9
*N.T. Wright gets certain aspects of justification wrong and I have some serious questions regarding his soteriology. However, this quote is spot-on.
[1] Dispensational theology has since developed into a holistic way of understanding Scripture and much balance has been brought to these issues.