What is the “good news”?
As evangelical Christians (as I am), we are committed to the “good news”. Indeed, the word, “evangelical” comes from the Greek word, euangellion, which means “gospel” or “good news”. However, if you ask most Christians, what is the gospel or good news, they will probably tell you that it is that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh who died on the cross for our sins.
But, they’d be wrong—technically. And that technicality makes all the difference when we consider what it takes to make our churches glimpses of heaven here and now.
You see, according to the Bible, the gospel, the good news, is NOT Jesus loves you so much that he died on the cross for your sins.
It is NOT God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son.
It is NOT trust in Jesus and you will be saved. (In fact, that is not news at all, but good advice.)
And while these are all absolutely true and (and the first two) incredibly great news, it is not the good news that Jesus was preaching throughout Galilee. Just think about it: He couldn’t have been preaching that he died on the cross for the sins of the world, because he was still alive preaching!
In Matthew 4:23, we read: "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom." Just six verses earlier Matthew told us that the “good news of the Kingdom” that Jesus proclaimed was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (NRSV)
In Mark 1:14-15, we read, “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
In other words, the “good news” is Jesus' announcement of the arrival and availability of the Kingdom of heaven.
Now, let’s be clear here. Jesus was not announcing a political, material kingdom that is bounded by geography. Indeed, when asked by Pontius Pilate, he said, “my kingdom is not of this world.” Jesus was not announcing an overthrow of Rome by force, nor the taking of the fallen world into his kingdom by might, but instead he was declaring that God’s reign, rule and way of living is available to anyone who would “enter in” and receive it by faith.
As Christian teacher and USC professor, Dallas Willard has written in his book The Divine Conspiracy, (p. 49): “The gospel is the good news of the presence and availability of life in the kingdom, now and forever, through reliance on Jesus…”
God’s reign is available. Life in the Kingdom: God’s world the way he intended it, his rule and order, his grace and mercy, his love and very presence has busted into this fallen world in Jesus Christ and you can, if you so choose, live in that world with him.
So then, let me ask you this question. WHERE is the reign of God, now and forever, made available through reliance on Jesus? Where do people FIND the reign and rule of God?
The answer is supposed to be: The Church.
The Church is the where the reign of God is made operative in the world. Every local church is supposed to be a mission outpost dedicated to one corporate commitment: Being the fulfillment to Jesus’ prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
You see, once we understand that The Good News is not about you and I GETTING to heaven, but instead about God bringing heaven to us through Jesus, then we’ll understand that the very purpose of the church (the body of Jesus on earth today) is to continue, through the Holy Spirit, the very same Kingdom ministry of Jesus.
Maybe some of our struggle in our churches is that we really don’t even grasp the most basic reason for why church exists in the first place.
Since we think that the Good News is about getting people to heaven, the church becomes nothing more than a repository of spiritual resources. It becomes a spiritual shopping mall where I go to get some “spiritual stuff” for my solo journey to Jesus. If I don’t like my church, well then I’ll shop somewhere else.
Or it becomes a nothing more than a spiritual movie house, a place to hear spiritual stories and have spiritual experiences that inspire me to continue on my solo journey to Jesus.
But what if the church is neither mall nor movie house, and what if the gospel is not really all about me at all? What if the church is utterly and completely about being part of Jesus, living in the reign of Jesus that he proclaims and participating in Jesus’ Kingdom invitation and expansion?
Wouldn’t that be truly good news for our churches? Hmm…for some of us who want Jesus but not his Kingdom, maybe not.
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