Mark 1:14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15and saying,
Some observations:
- Jesus states that the time is fulfilled, not that it will be.
- Jesus preached the gospel itself; this runs contrary to the idea that we didn’t really get the gospel until Paul wrote Galatians or Romans. In other words, the gospel was being preached before the cross.
- The good news is that the kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus’ call was to believe this was true, and to join it.
- This lends credibility and a much more natural reading to the concept that the gospel is the proclamation that Jesus is Lord (hence the “kingdom” language), and that individual salvation is a part of, but not the whole picture, of the overarching story of redemption.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post. Totally agree. The prophets preached the gospel too!
Would you say then, that the cross was a “deepening” of the gospel? Or a deeper revelation of the gospel? I struggle with making sense of this. Nomenclature is tough here, so forgive if what I offer is clunky.
I was thinking through the same question as I wrote it. What do you think of this: The cross is the fulfillment, or perhaps the accomplishment of the gospel. It’s the decisive moment that vindicated Christ’s defeat over “the ruler of this world,” vindicated his Lordship over all, and opened the gates for all to come into the kingdom and submit to his Lordship in a way that the OT sacrificial system could not.
Yes. Very nice. I would just note that the OT system did not fail or fall short, as it’s purpose was still to point men to God and teach them about his character. The promise of the gospel in the OT was never that a life of submission to sacrificial law was tantamount to understanding the gospel Abraham’s faith counted as righteousness and all that). So , yeah, Christ (absorbing, subsuming the idea of “the cross”) is the fulfillment of the gospel promise, even redeeming the law, by making plain to us how the good news “works.”
Still tough to reconcile the “moment” with cosmic/spatial God-reality.
This may be slightly off topic, but atonement theories definitely fall into the discussion of the gospel.
In essence there are 3 theories of the atonement.
1. Penal Substitution
2. Christus Victor
3. Moral Example
I realize that there are actually several theories, but I think most could fall into one of those three general headings.
So, if I were asked “Do you believe in the penal substitution theory, or the Christus Victor theory, or the moral example theory?” My answer would be, “YES.” Although I could also answer “NO” because I tend to agree with C.S. Lewis that they are Pictures of the atonement and not Theories, but I will leave that discussion for another time. But, I would answer yes because I believe that the atonement includes all those ideas and probably a lot more that we have yet to understand.
Consider that the three offices of Jesus (like there are only 3) of prophet, priest and king could be used to describe these as well.
Prophet-Moral Example
Priest-Substitution
King-Christus Victor
Just some food for thought.
Thanks for the post.
lonelypilgrim, thanks for the thoughts! I like the Prophet, Priest, and King way of thinking.
I think the thoughts I’ve posted above push atonement-theory-thinking toward the kind of thinking you’re getting at – that elements of all the major theories are true. I also think that the ideas I posted above lead to this possible construction:
“Christus Victor” is the overarching theory, the one with the “cosmic” scope, the one that proclaims that Jesus’ lordship has been vindicated. And, as a part of that vindication and that victory, individual salvation has been procured (the death on the cross simultaneously broke the power of evil AND cancelled the sin debt; indeed, both were necessary for the atonement to have the proper effect), and the example of suffering love has been laid before us (though the third, suffering love, is necessarily the outgrowth of the other two, for we would not, of our own volition, choose to follow Christ’s example had he not already defeated evil on our behalf and forgiven all our sins).