Kingdom Consciousness

and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”  Mark 1:15 NASB

Kingdom of God – What is the gospel?  It’s the “good news,” right?  I mean, that’s what euangélion means—“good news.”  And what is the “good news”?  In the Christian West the answer is usually something like, “Jesus died for our sins.  We are forgiven.”  That’s good news, but unfortunately, it isn’t the biblical euangélion.  You can see the real “good news” in Mark’s introduction of Yeshua’s ministry in this verse.  The good news is this:  God’s Kingdom is close.

The writers of the apostolic material understood this.  Just look at Paul’s opening statement in his letter to the Romans: “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, . .”  Not, the “good news of forgiveness” but rather “the good news of God.”  The kingdom is close to arriving.

“But it remains a fact worth pondering that Jesus had preached the kingdom, while the church preached Jesus.  And thus we are faced with a danger: we may so preach Jesus that we lose the vision of the kingdom, the mended creation.”[1]

So Yeshua instructs his audience about the “kingdom of God,” but the phrase “kingdom of God” appears nowhere in the Torah.  It is a rabbinic idea.  It has parallels in the Torah, but it comes into popular usage in the rabbinic period.  Yeshua is speaking about something familiar to his audience because they knew what the rabbis taught.  What is the Kingdom?  We find the definition in Matthew 6:33.  Joseph Frankovic provides the investigation.[2]  The kingdom of heaven (the kingdom of God) is tikkun ha’olam, God’s redeeming work in this world.  It is not waiting for heaven to come to earth.  It is not escape from our terrestrial existence.  It is not blissful reward in the afterlife.  It is doing with God what God is doing now.  It is, as Yeshua tells us in Luke 4, mending the world, healing the sick, visiting the prisoners, granting pardon, uplifting those in despair, bringing light to the blind, caring for the impoverished.  It is hope in darkness, food in poverty, health in illness and deliverance in captivity.  The reason the Kingdom of God is close at hand is because all of these godly actions are only as far away as the willingness to do them.  The gospel, the good news, arrives now, for everyone who has ever known the desperation of living in a broken world.  The Kingdom is manifested anytime you experience the redemptive power of YHVH.  The day will come when the Kingdom will be obvious and everywhere, but for now, it arrives when we display God’s character in the world.

That leaves us with “repent.”

Later.

Topical Index: kingdom, gospel, Mark 1:15

[1] Krister Stendahl, Meanings: The Bible as Document and as Guide (Fortress Press, 1984), p. 236.

[2] Cf. Joseph Frankovic, “The Kingdom of Heaven,” Jerusalem Bible Class Series, 1998.