If I said, “Have you heard the good news?”, you would ask, “What good news?” Until I specify the good news you would not know what good news I was talking about. The word gospel in the Bible means “good news.” The word “gospel” occurs 17 times in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The first time in Matthew 4:23, referring to Jesus preaching “the gospel of the kingdom.” He had said in verse 17, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It will surprise many that this gospel did not include the fact that He will die on the cross to pay for sin.
After almost three full years of ministry together, Matthew 16:21 says Jesus began to show unto his disciples that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Then Peter, in verse 22, protests, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee.” Yet they had been preaching “the gospel!” This is stunning! The fact is the gospel of the kingdom, preached at that time, centered in the fact of his identity as their Messiah, and he was the very Son of God! The time had come for God to deliver Israel from Gentile bondage. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” The gospel of the kingdom is the good news the promised time and the promised king had come, and “the kingdom was [now] at hand!” This is the gospel in the four gospels.
Many have concluded that because a literal kingdom did not come, Jesus was talking about a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of men and not a literal one on earth. This does great violence to the literal reading of the Bible and leads to great frustration and misunderstanding. Jesus on earth was not speaking about “Christianity” but the Jewish program and fulfillment of the promises of God blessing the world through his people receiving their Messiah and establishing their promised kingdom on the earth. Of course, Jesus had to die to pay for sin, but this had not yet been clearly made known or understood. Peter and the other apostles did not even understand this. It was hid from them (Luke 9:22, 44-45). Don’t read into those books things that are not there!
Jesus Christ is the only Saviour, but he is presented in two distinct ways in the New Testament. Jesus on earth, preached the gospel of the kingdom and he was Israel’s Messiah. He was rejected, and the literal earthly kingdom was postponed until a future day. God later saved Saul of Tarsus and sent him to the Gentile world preaching “the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), and that he “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Timothy 2:4-7). Paul’s gospel message centered in Christ, and him crucified (I Corinthians 15:1-4) and a home for us in heaven as good news! The gospel for us today as Gentiles, is in the books of Romans through Philemon.
SUPPLY OF GRACE 
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