We Christians would do well to remember an important aspect of the gospel. In the New Testament, the kingdom of heaven was at the core of the “good news.”
As we have seen, John the Baptist preached this message.1 He proclaimed, “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 3:2).
This post shows the same was true of Jesus’s preaching. His first message was “repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt 4:17). Jesus preached this message throughout his ministry. “The kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ preaching, according to the Synoptic Gospels.”2 His central theme should be ours, too.
Inmillennialism—our model of prophecy3—provides the context for this kingdom preaching. The “last days” of the Mosaic Age had arrived. God had anointed Jesus as the Messiah (Matt 3:16–17). The transition to the Messianic (or kingdom) Age was underway. God would complete this process when the Temple fell within their generation.
In our present passage—Matt 4:12–25—we see three reasons the gospel of the kingdom of God is important. These reasons reinforce one another.
This Gospel Brings Light
The gospel of the kingdom is important because it brings light to a dark world (Matt 4:12–17). Jesus preached in Capernaum, a town on the Sea of Galilee.4 Two tribes of Israel—Zebulun and Naphtali—had settled in this region after the Exodus. Matthew says Jesus’s ministry fulfilled a five-centuries-old prophecy. Isaiah had said, “The people which sat in darkness saw great light” (Matt 4:16; cp. Isa 9:1–2).
We learn an important fact from this fulfillment. God considered Israel to be “in darkness” before Jesus preached the kingdom to them.
Israel’s darkness was not absolute during the Mosaic Age. David said, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” (Psa 27:1). He also said “the LORD God is a sun and shield” to the upright in Israel (Psa 84:11). We conclude, therefore, that Israel’s was a relative darkness.
Christ was a greater light than Israel had ever known. Isaiah had foretold his coming this way. “The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound” (Isa 30:26). The coming of Christ and his preaching of the kingdom brought great light. All that preceded him was comparative darkness.
This darkness-to-light transition was a major Old Testament prophetic theme. God would send the Messiah to bring “them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isa 42:7; emphasis added). He said, “I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them” (Isa 42:16; emphasis added).
Israel’s greater Messianic light would bless the entire world. Isaiah says to that nation,
Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. (Isa 60:1–4; emphasis added)
Israel’s light would attract God’s sons and daughters from among the nations.
God has ordained that the nations learn about the Light of the World (John 8:12). This happens through the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. The apostles were the first to preach this message. So, the darkness-to-light theme appears in their teaching.
Let us take Paul as an example. He encourages the Christians in Rome to live godly lives. The apostle uses the darkness-to-light theme of Matthew 4. The Romans should obey,
knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. (Rom 13:11–12)
The darkness of the Mosaic Age was almost over. The day of the Messianic Age was at hand. God was now blessing them and the other nations with Israel’s Light. It was time for the Romans to obey the gospel of the kingdom. They must learn “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom 14:17).
God brings Israel and the nations to Christ as the Light through the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.
This Gospel Gathers the Elect
Matthew uses another image to show this truth. Christ says to his disciples, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19). The gospel of the kingdom is important because it is the net the fishers use. We see this in the prophecies to which Jesus alludes as he calls his apostles (Matt 4:18–22).
The prophets had used fishing imagery to describe the Messianic Age. Ezekiel saw the Messianic-Age Temple (Ezek 40–47), the New Testament church (cp. 2 Cor 6:16; 1 Pet 2:5). A river flowed from the Temple (Ezek 47:1). Its waters healed other waters and brought life (Ezek 47:8–9). It was like the “pure river of water of life” John later saw in the new heaven and earth (Rev 21:1).
This was a vision of the Messianic Age. It cannot refer to the eternal state. After the resurrection, there will be no need for the healing this vision’s river provides.
Our main interest here is with the men who fish in this river. Ezekiel says, “And it shall come to pass, that the fishers shall stand upon it (i.e., the river) from Engedi even unto Eneglaim; they shall be a place to spread forth nets; their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the great sea, exceeding many” (Ezek 47:10).
John Gill says,
these fishers are the apostles of Christ, who, of fishermen, were made fishers of men by him; to whom he gave a call, and a commission, and gifts qualifying them to preach the Gospel; whereby they caught men, and brought them to Christ; and so were the instruments of saving them, even of great numbers, both in Judea, and in the Gentile world.5
Jeremiah also spoke of these Messianic-Age fishers (Jer 16:16). They would gather God’s elect from among the Gentiles (Jer 16:19).
The gospel of the kingdom is important because God’s messengers use it to gather the elect. It is the net men-fishers cast into the Messianic-Age river.
This Gospel Imitates Our Lord
The gospel of the kingdom is also important because it is how our Lord preached (Matt 4:23–25). He “went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 4:23). Wonderful results followed his preaching and healing. “And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan” (Matt 4:25). Jesus gathered his people by preaching this gospel of the kingdom.
Jesus and the apostles performed miracles of healing. These would cease to be a normal part of church life after the Mosaic Age ended. We showed this in our Miraculous Gifts post. Yet, the preaching of the kingdom would continue to gather the elect in the Messianic Age.
In the Olivet Discourse, Jesus spoke of this Messianic-Age gathering. As the Son of Man, he would “send his messengers with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the heavens unto the ends thereof” (Matt 24:31, YLT). This would happen when the Temple fell in that generation (Matt 24:1–3, 34).
Paul informs us how this “gathering together unto him” occurs (2 Thess 2:1). He said God had called the Thessalonians “by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thess 2:14). The kingdom of God was at the heart of the gospel he preached (Acts 20:25; 28:31).
We cannot imitate our Lord in his healing ministry. But, with his blessing, we can preach the same gospel he preached. If we would do so, we must preach the kingdom.
Conclusion
The gospel of the kingdom of heaven is indispensable. For us to preach the kingdom we must say the right things about it. What is the kingdom? How and when did it come? What will God do through it? How will it end?
Inmillennialism offers answers to these questions. To preach the kingdom is to make “known to all men everywhere the existence of the Kingdom of God in the world at this present time.”6
The kingdom of heaven is the reign of Christ over his church. “The kingdom of Christ is no other than the gospel Church.”7 “Particular churches . . . constitute our Lord’s visible kingdom.”8 “The Empire of Christ, or the gospel church, is called ‘the kingdom of heaven.’”9
This Messianic kingdom differs from arrangements during the Mosaic Age. God then reigned over his people in a single congregation. “The Israelitish church was a kingdom of this world.”10
During the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic Age, God took the kingdom from “Israel after the flesh” (1 Cor 10:18) and gave it to “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16; Matt 21:43). He set up the Messianic-Age kingdom during the reign of the first ten Roman emperors (cp. Dan 2:44; 7:24, 27).
Through this kingdom, God will defeat all other kingdoms (Dan 2:34–35; 7:27; Psa 110:1; 1 Cor 15:25; et al.). Christ will then defeat the last enemy—physical death—in the bodily resurrection (1 Cor 15:26).
If inmillennialism’s answers—and its other distinguishing marks—are correct, we should embrace this view of prophecy. If not, we should reject it.
The gospel’s importance will not allow these questions to remain unanswered. It is good news about the kingdom of heaven. We desire to preach this gospel.
Footnotes
- See Meditations In Matthew Three: John’s Kingdom Announcement.
- H. N. Ridderbos, “Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven,” in The New Bible Dictionary, eds. D. R. W. Wood et al. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 647.
- A summary of inmillennialism’s development is here and a “table of contents” for these posts is here.
- The image in this post is The Sermon on the Sea of Galilee by Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625). This file (here) is in the public domain (PD-US).
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, in The Baptist Commentary Series, (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 6:259. Emphasis added.
- Philip Mauro, The Church, the Churches and the Kingdom (Sterling, VA: Grace Abounding Ministries, 1988), 106. Mauro held a view of prophecy similar to inmillennialism.
- Abraham Booth, An Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, vol. 2 of The Baptist Tract Series, (Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1987), 4. Our use of Booth’s words does not imply we claim him for inmillennialism.
- Booth, An Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, 5. Booth expresses the same view on pages 23 and 24.
- Booth, An Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, 63.
- Booth, An Essay on the Kingdom of Christ, 28.
2 comments
Brother Mike,
This may not make much sense, but for some reason while reading this segment, particularly the darkness receiving light, made me think of Matthew 5 and Christ’s opening statement, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for their’s is the kingdom of heaven”. While the use of the word “heaven” may or may not be intended as the visible kingdom of the church, or perhaps not the primary usage but still perhaps could be secondary, regardless, it causes me to ponder how that the spiritually poor are so because they are made to know their need to beg and be in want of so much that is in continual need for their soul’s sake while in this world and in this body of sin and death. I found the word “poor” refers in part to public or open begging. Which I thought even more apropos when a child of God is blessed with the light of Christ and consequently of his own poverty of nature as well. What better street corner to beg for mercy and riches than in the kingdom of our dear Savior!
Brother David,
I apologize for the long delay in responding. Your comments were made about a post on Matthew 4. As you know, we are now in Matthew 5, the passage from which you quote here. So, I hope the posts for the past two weeks have been a sort of response to your observations.
As you may have noticed, I defined the kingdom of heaven as Christ’s reign over his people in his churches. So, yes, I believe the Lord refers to the “visible kingdom of the church.”
My meditations for the upcoming post have been along the lines you suggest. We possess the qualifications for the blessings of the Beatitudes because we are made so by our God. In the final analysis, we only possess a righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees through Christ. Only through his imputed righteousness do we qualify to enter the kingdom (Matt 5:20). One of our pastors used to say that even our repenting needs to be repented of. Certainly, this is true of our poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, etc., too.
Amen regarding the street corner. I rejoice that “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Psa 85:10). Where they embrace is where I beg.
Your fellow beggar in Christ,
Mike