esus began his ministry with the proclamation; “The time has come, the Kingdom of God is near.
Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15) Jesus’ ‘Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven’
sayings have two basic elements to them. Jesus
claimed that the kingdom was present as He was
present; however, the kingdom was also a future
event. Theologians call this the ‘now and not yet’
message of Jesus. The kingdom of God is both an
experience and a place, a power for the present, and
a promise for the future. It is all of these things,
and perhaps this is why many misunderstand Jesus’
essential message.
The ‘now’ aspect has two basic meanings. Firstly,
that Jesus’ arrival meant that God’s kingdom had
come in the sense that the power of God’s kingdom,
which would be demonstrated in the life and ministry
of Jesus, was here on earth with Him. Jesus brought the power to heal the sick, possessed, lame, blind, deaf, etc., a demonstration which showed His power over death, disease and demonic entities. Secondly, the kingdom of God would enter into the very souls of those who believed Jesus’ message and committed their lives into His hands. They would live in this life with the kingdom within them. This would happen after He returned to Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit
to establish the New Covenant.
The ‘not yet’ part is simple. Those disciples of
Christ who have the kingdom within them in the
form of the Holy Spirit are still not physically with
Christ while they are alive on this planet. They have
a guarantee or seal upon them, however, they have
‘not yet’ entered into the Kingdom of God which is
their inheritance with Him for eternity.
To prepare people to receive the Kingdom, Jesus
commanded His listeners to “repent and believe the
good news.” Repent is a term which simply means
to turn around and change your direction. In this
context it is to turn away from sin and go towards
God, to leave our own desires, which lead to sin, and
move towards His will which leads to holy living. The good news statement is very important. To
claim that there is ‘good news’ presupposes that
there was ‘bad news’, and that is precisely the case.
Over the previous chapters we have seen how the
Jewish people were commanded to keep all of God’s
commandments, decrees, and laws, over six hundred
of them. This was the Old Covenant in the law, and
the sign of this covenant was circumcision. It was
impossible for people to keep these laws perfectly, therefore sacrifices had to be made, and for those who refused to repent, various curses came upon them. The Old Covenant was ‘bad news’ for those who tried so desperately to keep it. Furthermore, there were never great numbers of Gentiles breaking their necks to commit themselves to this covenant, especially among males, as the prospect of adult circumcision
was hardly an incentive to convert to Judaism. The bad news was that individuals had to earn
and keep their salvation by trying to live exemplary
lives. The good news is that Christ has lived His life
for every person, and those who give their lives to
Him have His perfection transferred to them. One
Covenant is about what every person must do, the
other covenant is about what one person has done. In
both cases the person must have a desire to change
and live for God (repent), but, only in the New
Covenant, the ‘good news’ is this truly possible. And there is one other major difference between
these two covenants. Under the Old Covenant people
had to rely upon their own strength of will in order
to try to be holy. The Holy Spirit could not enter into
the souls of people who were still imperfect through
sin. The blood sacrifices of animals could not change
the actual sin status of the person. The blood of
Jesus’sacrifice is wholly different because He is holy
different. When Jesus’sacrifice covers the sinner, the
sinner is made perfect in a spiritual sense, and at that
point the Holy Spirit of God enters into their soul.
This is not a mere theoretical idea, but an existential encounter, a very real and powerful experience.
From that point on in their life, the new Christian has the power to live for God, the power to leave their
life of sin behind them. That is ‘good news’ indeed. What most people do not realize is that there are
two main conditions for entering God’s Heavenly
Kingdom. No-one, who is not perfect, can ever
dwell in the absolute presence of God. We saw how
Lucifer and those angels who rebelled were put out
of heaven after they sinned, and we saw how Adam
and Eve had to leave Eden for the same reason. In
the same way, those who are not absolutely perfect
in regard to sin, can ever enter heaven, indeed God’s
holiness would simply destroy them. That is the ‘bad
news’. A person may be ‘good’ in human terms. We
may compare ourselves with notorious criminals,
murderers, rapists, pedophiles and the like, and we
may look good compared to such people, but the bad
news is that ‘goodness’ is not good enough. God’s standard is no less than perfection and
that perfection can only be gifted to a person, never
earned. We may earn praise from God for doing
good deeds, for being a good neighbour, and for
living unselfishly; however, perfection can never be
earned because the imperfect cannot achieve perfection. Once perfection is lost, it is forever lost, it can
never be undone by the individual. I am speaking in
spiritual terms here. God demands a blood sacrifice
to destroy sin because sin brings death. Sin must
be punished! What sane person does not get angry
when those who have done disgusting crimes go free
and unpunished? Justice demands punishment for
sin, and rightly so. Sin leads to spiritual death. Jesus
offered His own life to be killed as a punishment for every sin ever committed. God the Father accepts this sacrifice as a punishment. Under the Old Covenant a person had to offer a lamb. The death of the lamb, its life-blood, gave the person forgiveness, but could not
impart perfection.
If a person offers Jesus as a sacrifice for their sin
- the ‘Lamb of God’ - then His death, His life-blood,
gives them forgiveness, and also imparts a status of
spiritual perfection to them as a guarantee of their
acceptance into heaven. That is the ‘good news’. The second condition is love. The Bible clearly
states that God is preparing a place for those who
love Him. I often meet people who would not claim
to be practising Christians, and yet say that they want
to live in heaven. It is remarkable how many people
judge themselves to be good enough to go to heaven,
and yet fully confess that they do not know God at
all. For such people, heaven is better than the alternative destination, hell. Such people are seeking only
for a fire escape, although just as many don’t believe
that there is such a place as hell.
I cannot imagine that any sane person would go
up to a total stranger and ask the stranger to marry
them. Common sense says that one should court and
get to know a person you intend to live your entire
life with. One might also suppose that being in love
would be a good way to start a marriage. If one
requires courtship and love for perhaps a fifty-year
commitment, then why would people consider living
with a total stranger for eternity?
A relationship is always two-sided and God also
has His point of view. The Scriptures clearly teach that God is not interested in some shallow relationship with people. He wants relationships which are deep, passionate, intimate, and powerfully lifechanging. God’s love for us is unconditional and beyond measure; indeed, love sums up the whole reason for the existence of all that exists. Human beings pro-create and bring children into the world in order to love and be loved. We are not satisfied with shallow, pretentious relationships with our children, so how can people expect that God would desire any less in our relationship with Him. It is in understanding, acknowledging, and accepting Jesus’ incredible sacrifice for us that begins that relation- ship. It is in our recognition of the immeasurable depth of God’s love for us that we can begin to fall in
love with Him and return His love.
Such is the message of Jesus; such is the ‘good
news’.