1. God's Sovereignty Focuses on Christ's Lordship—"We preach Jesus Christ as Lord" (2 Corinthians 4:5). This is the heart of the good news of the kingdom (Romans 10:9,10). Through the cross Christ conquered all His foes and obtained salvation for His people. His present rule over the redeemed adumbrates his coming rule when "every knee" bows to Hun and "every tongue" confesses His lordship (Philippians 2:6-11). The worship of other gods is utterly abhorrent to Him.

2. Christ's Lordship Demands Personal Commitment—The New Testament stresses the necessity of faith, the new birth, the inner witness of the Holy Spirit, and its outward expression in love and kingdom service. Only "new creatures in Christ" shall enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5). Those who profess His lordship but whose lives do not reflect His values and perspectives are challenged to examine themselves whether they are truly His (2 Corinthians 13:5).

3. The Community of the King is the Body of Christ—Kingdom people, whether Jews or Gentiles, are custodians of the Kingdom and share oneness in the church. Their common life is expressed through corporate worship, mutual sharing, united confession, and outgoing service. They live by prayer and the confession of sin. Although the church as Christ's body is of divine creation, its visible, structured presence is a flawed mixture of God's grace, human fallenness, and demonic penetration. Its only glory is the presence of Christ in its midst, realized by faith.

4. The Church is Called to Mission—Only after Christ had completed His redemptive work did He issue the call to world mission: to proclaim and demonstrate "by word and deed" the "good news of the Kingdom of God." Its details strikingly endorse but significantly supplement the O.T. injunction to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God" (Micah 6:8). After He sent the Spirit upon His disciples, they consciously begin to sense that they possessed a universal faith for all nations and began to go beyond the bounds of Israel to Gentile peoples to proclaim this gospel. Mission's central and irreplaceable task is persuading people to become Christ's disciples and gathering them into local congregations.

5. Obedience to Mission Involves Suffering—The New Testament is replete with the record of conflict and suffering precipitated by the advent and proclamation of the gospel of the Kingdom. Jesus Himself experienced the world's rejection and the devil's fury and learned obedience through what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). In much the same way the church, claiming the victory of Christ over the powers (Colossians 2:15), will experience the sifting of Satan (Luke 22:31) and fiery trials (1 Peter 1:6-8) that it too might be perfected, the better to perform its mission. This process will continue and even intensify as the age draws to an end.

6. The Future Remains Bright with Hope—God's redemptive purpose will be fulfilled (Acts 1:8). What He initiated will be consummated. Through the missionary obedience of His disciples He will call out a completed people from the nations. Then He will "judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Hun from the dead" (Acts 17:30,31 with Matthew 25:31,32). The climax of Christ's redemptive purpose will take place at His Second Coming "when all things are subjected to God. Then the Son himself will also be subjected to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be everything to everyone" (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Israel Confronts Her Messiah

In Old Testament times, God frequently sent prophets to Israel to remind the people of their covenantal relationship to Him and the service He expected of them (Jeremiah 7:25). And yet, His sending of Jesus was unique. The fallen condition of humanity was so acute and the need for redemption so great that only the incarnation of God the Son and the atonement of the cross could avail to provide for the redemption of His people. Previous "sendings" set the stage for this final "sending" of the Messiah to Israel. This event marks the great hinge of salvation history: the end of "the old" and the beginning of "the new."

When Jesus came to Israel, He almost immediately began to question the traditional piety of the Pharisees. He also turned to the outcasts of society and set before them a quality of life dominated by the love of God. In this connection David Bosch states: "It is remarkable to note how these people to whom Jesus turned are referred to in the Gospels. They are called the poor, the blind, the lame, the lepers, the hungry, sinners, those who weep, the sick, the little ones, the widows, the captives, the persecuted, the downtrodden, the least, the last, those who are weary and heavily burdened, the lost sheep" (1978).

In other words, Christ embodied the Kingdom of God as a counter-cultural presence in society and offended the Pharisees who could only sneer and scornfully comment: "This mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them" (John 7:49). They did not sense the significance of His redemptive purpose despite their study of the Scriptures (John 5:39). The Sadducees also opposed Him because they knew neither the Scriptures nor the power of God (Mark 12:24).

This redemptive purpose began with John the Baptist, the Messiah's herald ("Elijah has come!" Malachi 4:5 and Matthew 17:12) and Jesus' incarnation, baptism, and divine attestation by God as to His true identity (Matthew 1:23 and 3:17). Then followed His confrontation and triumph over satanic temptation. With the execution of John, their joint ministry of renewal came to an end.

From that point onward Jesus began to confront the Jewish people as their Messiah (Luke 4:16-30), gathered a community of disciples around Himself (9:23), and inaugurated the Kingdom of God in its initial hiddenness. He explained: "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the Kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it" (16:16).

Jesus' miracles should not be regarded simply as humanitarian acts of compassion. Actually, they were messianic "signs" which Isaiah had predicted (chapters 35 and 61) would precede the decisive act of God in redeeming His people. They pointed to the reality of the Kingdom of God as "already" in the midst of Israel by virtue of who He was and what He did. On one occasion He said: "If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the Kingdom of God has come to you" (Luke 11:20).

At first the crowds were drawn by the expectations He kindled and by these messianic signs which were His. When He fed the multitudes, they wanted to make Him their king (John 6:15). But when it became apparent that His kingdom demanded moral transformation, the crowds melted and opposition grew.

After a brief ministry of three years devoted to preaching the Kingdom by using parables loaded with mission insights, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and liberating the demonized, Jesus was seized by the religious establishment, subjected to an unjust trial, condemned to death for blasphemy, and then turned over to the Roman authorities to be crucified. He died as a Redeemer "taking away the sin of the world" (John 1:29) and rose from the dead the third day as Victor over sin and death, as the Old Testament had predicted (Luke 24:44-49).