3
JESUS PROCLAIMS THE GOSPEL
In the previous chapter we examined the earliest and the most forthright descriptions of the gospel in the New Testament—those found in Paul’s Letters. Now I want to paint on a different canvas, using broad brushstrokes to examine the four ancient narratives accepted by the church that tell the story of Jesus. These are the four canonical Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. My point is simple: there is only one gospel, and just as in Paul’s Letters, it is the transformative story of how Jesus, who preexisted as Son of God, came to be enthroned as the universal king. Jesus preached this gospel about himself by speaking about and enacting the kingdom of God. The four Gospels all tell this same story, leading our eyes upward to the enthronement of Jesus as the universal king.
The Gospels and Jesus’s Kingship
Jesus preached the one gospel of God, and it aligns with the gospel as we find it in Paul’s Letters. Yet if the gospel as correctly understood is about Jesus’s entire career, and his career was only partially underway when he first began to preach the gospel, but not yet finished, then how can this be so?
Jesus as a Gospel Preacher
Jesus proclaimed the one gospel by announcing the inauguration of the kingdom of God as well as its anticipated culmination.1 In fact, when Mark summarizes Jesus’s message, he makes it explicit that Jesus’s fundamental task was to preach the kingdom of God as the gospel:
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is near; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14–15; cf. Matt. 4:23)
Note that the gospel is placed in parallel and thus equated with the arrival of the kingdom of God. In comparison with Mark, Luke’s summary of Jesus’s ministry is even more emphatic in centering Jesus’s ministry on the gospel. In Luke, after the crowds around Capernaum have had a brief taste of Jesus’s healing power—a taste that leaves them craving more—they do not want him to leave. But in response Jesus says: “It is necessary for me to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, because for this reason I was sent” (4:43). That is, Luke attests that the very reason Jesus was sent in the first place was to preach the gospel. (The phrase “I was sent” is intriguing, speaking at the very least of Jesus’s sense of his divine commissioning, but perhaps also hinting at Jesus’s awareness of his own preexistence.)2 And what is this gospel? Since it is called “the gospel of the kingdom of God,” once again we are compelled to conclude that the gospel Jesus preached is intimately bound up with the kingdom of God.
That some of Jesus’s contemporaries were eagerly awaiting the kingdom is witnessed both in the New Testament and in ancient literature outside the Bible. For instance, some Pharisees are reported to have asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come (Luke 17:20). Also, Joseph of Arimathea is described as “a well-regarded councilman, who also himself was awaiting the kingdom of God” (Mark 15:43). Another group, which Josephus calls the Zealots, were known for believing that it is only right to serve God, and that this was incompatible with serving the Romans, their overlords, for “God alone is the true and righteous sole-ruler [despotēs] of humans.”3 In other words, the Zealots felt it was justifiable and necessary to use violence against the Romans to reinstitute God’s reign—that is, they wanted to act to usher in the kingdom of God.
This did not mean that these various groups and individuals who were awaiting the kingdom thought that when it arrived, God alone would rule apart from any human government. Rather, God would act decisively by judging the wicked and ushering in a new era of fruitfulness, righteousness, and prosperity. All of this would almost certainly mean the ouster of the corrupt old regimes and the installation of appropriate priestly and kingly human leadership. In fact, a whole nexus of changes that were very much this-worldly were anticipated. As N. T. Wright puts it:
“The kingdom of god,” historically and theologically considered, is a slogan whose basic meaning is the hope that Israel’s god is going to rule Israel (and the whole world), and that Caesar, or Herod, or anyone else of their ilk is not. It means that Torah [the law of Moses] will be fulfilled at last, that the Temple will be rebuilt and the Land cleansed. It does not necessarily mean a holy anarchy. . . . Rather, it means that Israel’s god will rule her in the way he intends, through properly appointed persons and means. This will certainly mean (from the point of view of the Pharisees, Essenes, and anyone loosely described as Zealots) a change in the high priesthood. In some writings it also means a Messiah.4
Thus we see that for Jesus and his contemporaries the kingdom of God—or as it is characteristically called in Matthew, the kingdom of the heavens (here “heavens” is an oblique way of referring to the location of God’s throne and hence refers also to God’s sovereign reign [see Matt. 5:34 and 23:22])—was in the first instance concerned not with salvation of human souls in “heaven” after death but with real-world changes, the exercise of God’s wise justice and benevolent rule through God-ordained human leadership.
The pinnacle of this human leadership was sometimes (but not always) expressly envisioned as a king, an anointed one, a royal Messiah from the family of David. Messiah is a Hebrew term that was translated into Greek as Christos, from which we get Jesus the Christ. Indeed, the ancient Israelite prophets had repeatedly fueled precisely these hopes of a national, even a cosmic, restoration through a Davidic offspring.5 For example, we see the melding of this kingdom-of-God expectation and the royal-Davidic hope in Mark’s Gospel. When Jesus rides down the Mount of Olives and enters the temple, the crowds, wild with enthusiasm over Jesus’s messianic prospects, shout out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9–10). Here, for the crowds, the kingdom of God is the anticipation of the full display of God’s rule as enacted through the Davidic Messiah.
So, given that Jesus’s most characteristic teaching was the gospel of the nearness/arrival of the kingdom of God, and granted that this was typically understood to entail a turning of the ages such that God’s reign was actualized through a Davidic king, then whenever Jesus put himself forward through word or action as the Davidic Messiah, he was preaching and effecting the gospel. Jesus was anointed (christened, “messiah-ed”) by the Spirit and empowered as the Messiah when John baptized him at the beginning of his public ministry. So in one sense he was the Messiah even at the beginning of his public ministry.
But in another sense he was not the Messiah, the royal Davidic king, only the Messiah-designate, the Messiah-in-waiting, because he did not yet fully wield his sovereign authority.6 He was akin to a crown prince, chosen as heir to the throne. A crown prince might wield considerable influence already by virtue of his relationship to his father but does not yet hold the complete sovereign authority that he will come to possess after the coronation. Jesus had been chosen as Messiah, but as of yet he did not have a throne from which to rule; he had not yet been installed as the reigning monarch. We can compare the mighty King David to Jesus in this regard. David was anointed by Samuel as the new king, so he was the designated Messiah, but he did not begin to rule as the enthroned Messiah until after his predecessor Saul committed suicide on the battlefield many years later (cf. 1 Sam. 16 with 2 Sam. 2).
Making a distinction between Jesus as designated Messiah and ruling Messiah helps us to see that Jesus was a herald of the one gospel. Note that Mark pointedly tells us that Jesus began preaching the gospel of the kingdom’s nearness only after his baptism or “christening” (1:14; cf. Matt. 4:17; Luke 4:43)—that is, after hearing the heavenly voice that affirmed his preexistent messianic Sonship and after he had been anointed as king (see subsequent discussion of preexistence). Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John also all tell variations of the singular good news—the same basic gospel narrative that we have already found in Paul. It is the story of how Jesus the Son, who was chosen far in advance by God as the appointed Messiah, was anointed by God at his baptism as the designated Messiah, and then came to be the enthroned Messiah after his resurrection from the dead—the story of how the kingdom of God was made a concrete this-world reality when Jesus was installed as king and given authority to rule, uniting heaven and earth.
The Titles of the Four Gospels
The idea that there is only one gospel, but that the one gospel receives various articulations, is supported by ancient manuscript evidence regarding the four canonical Gospels. The earliest physical manuscripts we possess today indicate that originally the titles of these books, at least as soon as they came to be collected, were not “The Gospel of Matthew,” “The Gospel of Mark,” but rather “The gospel according to Matthew,” “The gospel according to Mark,” and so on.7 How should we assess this subtle difference?
For us today the former implies a fixed literary genre authored by a certain person—that is, for us The Gospel of Mark equates to The Gospel-type-of-literature written by Mark. We know what a “Gospel” is, just like we know what a mystery novel or a modern biography is. It is a certain stereotyped kind of ancient biography or history writing, usually about Jesus. But there is no clear pre-Christian use of the term euangelion (“gospel”) in antiquity to designate a literary genre. Rather, the Greek preposition kata (“according to”) was primarily meant not as a claim to authorship (although it may have entailed that as well) but as a way to differentiate one gospel account from another. What’s the point?
The earliest Christians spoke about the story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as one thing, one story, one message of “good news,” while acknowledging that this one message was attested by different tellers of that single story—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. So the title most frequently evidenced in ancient copies of the earliest Gospel is The Gospel according to Mark. And this title equates not to the Gospel-type of literature written by Mark but rather to the version of the singular good news attested by Mark. The same can be said with regard to the ancient titles of Matthew, Luke, and John. This reinforces the basic point: the gospel proper is not in the first instance a story about human need for salvation but a story about Jesus’s career, a career that culminates in his attainment of heavenly authority. The gospel story integrally involves Jesus’s death for sins, but that is only part of the story, and the gospel narrative draws our eyes above all to Jesus’s kingship.
Jesus Proclaims the Gospel in the Gospels
In continuing to spell out how Jesus and the Gospel writers preached the one gospel, it will be helpful to trace out the story of Jesus’s career. I want to show that each of the following eight movements that form the full gospel are present in Jesus’s preaching about himself as depicted in the four Gospels. Where does my list of eight come from? These eight stages expand on the content of the gospel as we reconstructed it in the previous chapter with respect to Paul. But the stages can also be extracted from the sermons that the apostles are reported as having preached in the book of Acts.
It is worth pondering: if there is a common pattern of early gospel preaching about Jesus, and if these elements are what the first apostles felt were the most essential pieces of information to communicate to the audiences they were seeking to persuade, then perhaps they should be regarded as totally nonnegotiable, as the most basic and central facts that must be upheld by any who would receive salvation through Jesus the Christ. In other words, the apostolic proclamation is the complete content of the gospel, albeit in outline form. Nor is it a coincidence that the elements within the apostolic proclamation are very close to the Apostles’ Creed, which originated in the second century but has even earlier roots (for more on this creed, see chap. 9).
In a famous study, C. H. Dodd identified seven elements in the apostolic preaching, which can be slightly modified to the following eight:8
The Gospel: An Outline
Jesus the king
1. preexisted with the Father,
2. took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,
3. died for sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
4. was buried,
5. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
6. appeared to many,
7. is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and
8. will come again as judge.
It would be easy to demonstrate from Peter’s and Paul’s sermons in Acts that these eight events are often presupposed or mentioned. But notice in particular how frequently the proclamations of the gospel in Acts reach their apex with the assertion of Jesus’s sovereign rule: “Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36); “Therefore repent and turn back, . . . that he may send the one appointed for you, the Christ, Jesus, whom it is necessary for heaven to receive until the time of the restoration of all things” (Acts 3:19–21). In other places the entire gospel proclamation is framed for the audience by an assertion that Jesus has become Lord of all (Acts 9:36) or that the resurrection of Jesus is the fulfillment of the kingly promises made to David (Acts 13:22–24, 32–39). Because Jesus’s enthronement at the right hand of God as king is the climax of the gospel, but is frequently not felt to be part of the gospel proper, this element is italicized in the gospel outline above.
Anyone who desires further evidence that Acts presupposes these eight stages in its gospel proclamation is welcome to work through the texts personally or to read Dodd’s Apostolic Preaching. Meanwhile, with the exception of the final element, which is very well attested elsewhere in Paul’s Letters (e.g., Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thess. 4:15; 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:1, 8), it has already been shown in chapter 2 that the other seven are present when Paul describes the content of the gospel in his letters. Let’s go further.
I want to demonstrate in sufficient detail that both Jesus and the four Evangelists, collectively considered, also proclaim this single gospel message. This will have the added benefit of helping us to readjust the images that perhaps float into our minds when we hear the phrase “the gospel”—images such as all-have-sinned altar calls, emotion-laden persuasive appeals, faith-versus-works polemics, phrases such as “trusting in Jesus’s righteousness alone,” hellfire warnings, depictions of heavenly bliss—so that we can replace them with images truer to the gospel. Notice that the content of the gospel proper says nothing about either “faith” or “our righteousness,” but rather these concepts interface with the gospel (as, respectively, the means by which the gospel power is tapped and the results). It is, however, a very common misstep to include them in the gospel—a misstep made even by otherwise outstanding scholars.
For example, R. C. Sproul is typical inasmuch as he includes faith alone (or trust in Jesus’s imputed righteousness alone) over against meritorious works as part of the essential content of the gospel that must be believed for salvation.9 John Piper does the same.10 Meanwhile, Thomas Schreiner is more nuanced since he acknowledges that “faith alone” is not the gospel, but then he muddies things by saying it is “one element or entailment of the gospel” and then proceeds to speak occasionally as if the gospel really is faith alone.11 While I agree with much that Piper and Schreiner have to say about righteousness in salvation (see chap. 8), I submit that some of these statements are imprecise, promoting confusion.
Properly speaking, pistis is not part of the gospel but the fitting response to the gospel. Moreover, our justification is not part of the content of the gospel proper either; only Jesus’s justification is, inasmuch as the resurrection is the effect of his being declared righteous. Our justification is a result of the gospel when we are united by pistis to Jesus the atonement-making king. Full clarity can only be achieved if precision about these matters is maintained. So let’s walk through the eight elements of the true gospel one by one as presented in the four Gospels and by their descriptions of Jesus’s teachings.
1. Jesus Preexisted with the Father
Is Jesus presented as attesting to his own preexistence in the Gospels? Yes. Many obvious examples are found in the Gospel of John, but we find hints in this direction in Matthew, Mark, and Luke as well.
PREEXISTENCE IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN
In John 8, Jesus is disputing with his opponents, who have accused him of being a Samaritan and demon-possessed. The long-dead patriarch Abraham becomes the center of extended discussion. When Jesus asserts that Abraham “rejoiced that he would see my day, saw it, and was glad” (John 8:56), his opponents are both incredulous and offended. But Jesus replies to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Jesus’s enemies are not slow in discerning the implications, for not only has Jesus asserted his preexistence, but he has also made a divine claim—as Yahweh, the one true God, had famously revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, saying, “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14) or “I am the one who is” (Exod. 3:14 LXX). Accordingly, Jesus’s opponents pick up stones to execute him for blasphemy, but Jesus manages to hide himself, escaping to the temple.12
Elsewhere in John, Jesus self-attests his heavenly preexistence alongside the Father. He asserts that he is the bread of life, saying, “For the bread of God is he who descends from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). At the Last Supper, Jesus no longer speaks obliquely but makes it as crystalline as possible, saying to his closest followers, “I went forth from the Father and have come into the world; now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (16:28).
Meanwhile, many other passages in John speak of Jesus’s prior existence as well. The Gospel opens with the assertion not only that Jesus was present “with God” in the beginning (prior to creation) as the Word (Logos) but also that Jesus as the Word was in fact God (John 1:1; cf. 1:18). Then, as Jesus’s public ministry is just about to begin, John the Baptist declares, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me” (1:30). Finally, as the end of Jesus’s ministry is approaching and Jesus has made himself clearly known, the disciples are able to exclaim, “We believe that you came from God!” (16:30).
PREEXISTENCE IN MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
When we come to consider preexistence in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (collectively called the Synoptic Gospels), the evidence is more subtle. So subtle, in fact, that some scholars altogether deny that these three Gospels ever affirm Jesus’s preexistence.13 Other scholars, such as Simon Gathercole, Aquila H. I. Lee, and Douglas McCready disagree.14 I have sought to contribute to this discussion by assessing moments when New Testament authors such as Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to have felt that an ancient prophet had spoken in the guise of the future Messiah hundreds of years before his actual birth. The technical term for this is prosopological exegesis—more simply, person-centered interpretation.
I think the cumulative evidence shows that these Gospel writers probably believed not only that Jesus was a preexistent divine being but also that the historical Jesus had come to believe in his own preexistence.15 This is made probable not just by the “I was sent” formulas (e.g., Luke 4:43; Matt. 15:24; Mark 12:6; and parr.) and the suggestive nature of the virgin birth that hints at preexistence, but also by other texts.16 A full scholarly case for this view cannot be made here (the interested reader is encouraged to pursue the matter further by examining the scholarship just mentioned), but a couple examples might prove helpful.
Jesus’s baptism. At his baptism Jesus is reported to have heard the following words spoken from heaven: “You are my Son, the beloved one, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; cf. Matt. 3:17).17 These words allude to Psalm 2, in which the person identified as the Messiah (Ps. 2:2) and as Son (Ps. 2:12) reports a prior conversation, at which time God said to this Son, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7). We have good reason to suspect (on the basis of other readings of this psalm in early Christian documents) that Jesus would have reflected on the meaning of these psalm-steeped words spoken to him at the baptism.18 For if David, many hundreds of years prior to Jesus, was able to speak in the person of the Son in this psalm, and to report a previous conversation that God and the Son enjoyed, then could it be that this Son mentioned in the psalm preexisted alongside God (the Father)? Accordingly, Jesus may have taken the “You are my Son” words spoken at the baptism as indicative of his preexistent status alongside God (the Father).19
The transfiguration amplifies the preexistence tradition associated with the baptism. The disciples are addressed (with Jesus present) with very similar heavenly words: “This is my beloved Son! Listen to him!” (Mark 9:7; cf. Matt. 17:5; Luke 9:35). Furthermore, these words are connected with the unveiling of Jesus’s glory on the mountain, all of which suggests his heavenly origin. The suggestion that Jesus would have reflected on the meaning of Old Testament passages such as Psalm 2:7 in considering his self-identity is strengthened by an episode of controversy that occurred much later in Jesus’s life, as reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
“The Lord said to my Lord.” During the final week of Jesus’s life, as the hostility increases, Jesus is interrogated by his opponents. Having successfully avoided their attempts to trap him, Jesus spins on them, asking the following question:
How is it that the scribes are saying that the Christ is the son of David? David himself said while speaking by means of the Holy Spirit, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies as a footstool for your feet.’” David himself calls him “Lord,” and so how is he his son? (Mark 12:35–37; cf. Matt. 22:41–46; Luke 20:41–44)
The passage of Scripture from which Jesus has quoted is Psalm 110:1. The best explanation is that Jesus is pointing out a puzzle in the text, encouraging his opponents and the crowds to correctly identify the speaker and the person being addressed.20 We might paraphrase the interpretation of Psalm 110:1 that Jesus seems to have arrived at as follows:
DAVID himself (reporting the setting, a conversation between GOD and a person whom David can call “MY LORD”): “The Lord God said to my Lord . . .”
David in the person of GOD (spoken to MY LORD, THE CHRIST): . . . “Sit at my right hand, O Christ, Lord of David, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.”21
So Jesus has invited his audience to identify God as the speaker and the Christ (that is, his very self) as the person addressed—with this conversation spoken initially long ago by the prophet David. Since we have no reason to doubt the historicity of this episode of scribal debate,22 this already suggests that the historical Jesus believed that he in some fashion preexisted alongside God the Father.23 But as the psalm continues, the evidence becomes even clearer that Jesus’s own preexistence and divine begottenness are in view. Since Jesus has invited his audience to solve a riddle about the speaker and addressee in the first verse of the psalm, it is fair to suppose that Jesus would have expected his audience to think not just about Psalm 110:1 but also about the verses that follow in the psalm. That is how scribal debate—and the context in the Gospels is precisely a scribal debate—went forward in Jesus’s day: reference to part of a passage could evoke the whole (as well as other associative frameworks).24 Again paraphrasing, I suggest that Jesus was reading the next couple verses in the psalm (110:2–3) in approximately the following way when he set forth his riddle:
DAVID himself (reporting the setting to “MY LORD”): “The Lord God will send forth your rod of power, O my Lord, from Zion . . .”
David in the person of GOD (spoken to MY LORD, THE CHRIST): . . . “Rule in the midst of your enemies! With you is the sovereign authority on the day of your power in the midst of the bright splendors of the holy ones; from the womb, before the dawn-bearing morning star appeared, I begot you.”
And what is it that we learn from these verses? We find that “before the dawn-bearing morning star appeared,” the Christ was begotten by God (“I begot you”).25 Thus, God begot the Christ before creation itself. Furthermore, this begetting is described as “from the womb.” The language is quite picturesque while still remaining precise. This Lord is begotten, not created or made. So the phrase “from the womb, before the dawn-bearing morning star appeared” suggested to many early Christian readers that the hoped-for Davidic Christ preexisted as a person capable of conversing with God, and that God had prophetically announced that the Christ’s birth “from the womb” would be unusual. And all of this would find fulfillment when Jesus the Messiah would come forth “from the womb” of a virgin as the Son of God.
Thus we see that the seemingly innocuous riddle advanced by Jesus with respect to Psalm 110, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet,’” is pregnant with meaning. Jesus’s use of it shows that he had deduced that he was the one addressed by God in the psalm. But this person addressed in the psalm is not just anyone; he is a preexistent being. For if not, then David as a prophet could not have spoken in the person of God to him. Moreover, within that Old Testament conversation in the psalm, it was further revealed that this preexistent Christ was begotten by God before creation and “from the womb.” Although more texts pertaining to preexistence could be discussed, this from-the-womb reference brings us conveniently to the next stage, the incarnation, as we seek to explore together the gospel in the four Gospels.
2. Jesus Took on Human Flesh, Fulfilling God’s Promises to David
All four of the canonical Gospels affirm that Jesus was born into the family of David. John, however, merely alludes to Jesus’s Davidic origin (7:42), preferring to focus on the incarnation instead. Yet, John goes on to attest both Jesus’s preexistence and the incarnation when he affirms the transition of the Word (Logos) from a heavenly abode in the presence of God (“and the Word was with God” [1:1]) to earthly embodiment. John famously speaks of the moment of incarnation: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:14).
The testimony from Mark is somewhat like that of John, with the crowds affirming that the Christ will come from David’s line (Mark 11:10). Mark is not quite so spare, however, because he reports Bartimaeus’s acknowledgment of Jesus as a son of David (10:47–48). Finally, Mark 12:35–37 (the passage examined in the last section) indicates that Jesus himself had determined that the Christ would be both David’s son and Lord. Mark ultimately shows that Jesus accepts the messianic vocation as an offspring of David.
Matthew and Luke are more explicit than Mark about Jesus’s Davidic origins and the miraculous circumstances surrounding his enfleshment. In fact, both Matthew and Luke offer firm evidence of Jesus’s Davidic credentials by presenting genealogies that trace Jesus’s lineage through David (Matt. 1:1, 6, 17; Luke 3:31). Although the matter is not really clear, some scholars believe that Matthew gives Jesus’s legal lineage through his adoptive father Joseph, but Luke presents it through Mary, his natural mother, as is signaled by Luke’s “as was supposed” when he writes, “Jesus . . . who was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph” (3:23). Be that as it may, individually considered, Joseph and Mary were both certainly remembered as direct descendants of David by the earliest Christians.26 That Jesus was born in the line of David, fulfilling God’s promise to David, is integral to the good news in all four Gospels.
Regarding the virgin birth, Matthew and Luke narrate the story of the circumstances surrounding Jesus’s conception and birth. Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but they had not had any physical union. Jesus was conceived “from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:18, 20), for Mary was still a virgin when the Holy Spirit came upon her and “overshadowed” her (Luke 1:35). Matthew links this event to the famous yet complex ancient prophecy made by Isaiah, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they shall name him ‘Immanuel’” (Matt. 1:23, citing Isa. 7:14). In short, the virgin birth complements both of the first two elements of the gospel, Jesus’s preexistence with God the Father and his taking on human flesh in the line of David.
3. Jesus Died for Sins in Accordance with the Scriptures
Thus far in our exploration of the way in which Jesus and the Gospel writers take up the same gospel as is found in Paul’s Letters and in the sermons in Acts, we have looked at Jesus’s preexistence and incarnation into the line of David. The next element involves Jesus’s death for sins, a topic that was treated already with respect to 1 Corinthians 15:3 in the previous chapter. It was concluded that Paul’s most likely meaning shades toward substitution—“Jesus died in our place.” In two especially important episodes in the Gospels, Jesus is described as explaining the significance of his own death in a similar fashion.
The ransom saying. The most vital statement made by Jesus in this regard is his so-called ransom saying as reported in Mark and Matthew. Two of Jesus’s disciples, James and John (with the assistance of their mother as reported by Matthew), are jockeying for prime seating in Jesus’s kingdom—that is, once it has fully arrived. Jesus asks them if they are able to drink the cup (of suffering) that he is about to drain to the dregs. They reply in the affirmative, and Jesus indicates that they will indeed drink the cup but it is not his prerogative to grant special kingdom seating arrangements. The other ten are indignant when they hear about all of this, for they all are coveting such trappings of power and privilege. Jesus takes the opportunity to tell his disciples that they must not behave like the rulers among the nations, but rather that whoever wants to be the greatest must be a servant of all.
It is in this context that we find the famous ransom saying, as Jesus adds, “For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45; cf. Matt. 20:28). The “ransom for many” (lytron anti pollōn) carries a substitutionary meaning. Jesus says that the reason he came (notice the similarity to the “I was sent” sayings and the possible implications again for preexistence) was so that he could give his life as a ransom. Our own common usage today reflects well the underlying idea in Greek. Today a ransom is money that is paid, perhaps to a kidnapper, in order to secure the release of a child or an adult that has been unlawfully seized. The money is offered as a substitute for the person. Similarly the Greek word lytron (“ransom”) was used during Jesus’s era to describe the money paid to set slaves free (e.g., Lev. 19:20; Josephus, Ant. 12.46). It was also used to redeem sacrificial victims, so that the victims might not be offered but rather be released (e.g., Num. 18:15).
Meanwhile, unlike the similar Greek preposition hyper that has a broad range of meaning but can entail substitution (as discussed in chap. 2), anti has a narrower range of meaning, virtually always intending a substitutionary idea. For example, in the New Testament, the ruler Archelaus is said to reign “anti his father Herod”—that is, “in place of his father Herod” (Matt. 2:22). Likewise Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye anti eye’” (Matt. 5:38), which is usually translated “an eye for an eye” but means “an eye in place of an eye”—that is, an eye removed as a penalty from one person to compensate for the eye wrongly removed from another person.
Intriguingly, we can even find the exact same words that are present in the ransom saying, lytron (“ransom”) and anti (“in place of”), used together to describe the idea of substitution in ancient literature contemporaneous with the New Testament. For example, Josephus describes the action taken by a certain priest named Eleazar to secure the golden temple vessels that a certain Crassus was in the process of plundering. Eleazar gave him a bar of gold as a ransom for all of them (i.e., all of the temple vessels). That is, the gold bar was offered as a substitute so that Crassus would relinquish his claimed rights over the vessels and would take the gold bar in their stead (Ant. 14.107; the expression in Greek is lytron anti pantōn).
So when Jesus says that he has come in order to give his life as “a ransom anti many,” the substitutionary idea is foregrounded—“a ransom in place of many.” Notice here that the payment Jesus is going to offer is not money but his own life. These captives’ lives are forfeit since they owe a debt that they cannot pay to secure their own release. But Jesus’s own life is not forfeit. His life is of such tremendous value that by substitution it can secure the purchase of the many who are bound.
How can this notion of Jesus offering his life as a ransom for many be said to be “in accordance with the Scriptures”—that is, in alignment with the Old Testament? The idea of giving a life in place of a life is so foundational to the Old Testament sacrificial system that it is not strictly necessary to identify specific texts (but on life-for-life atonement see in particular Lev. 17:11). Indeed, we even see the principle narrated in texts such as Genesis 22 (the ram in place of Isaac) and Exodus 12 (the lamb in place of the firstborn). So, for instance, when John the Baptist says with reference to Jesus, “Look! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), we are in touch with a theological tradition like unto the ransom saying in Mark and Matthew. The most obvious historical bridge between the ransom saying and the lamb-of-God tradition is the Last Supper that Jesus celebrated with his disciples in association with the Passover just prior to his death.27
The Last Supper. Luke gives the fullest explanation of the meaning of the Last Supper when he reports that Jesus said, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I shall not eat it [the Passover meal] until it [probably the meal] is fulfilled in the kingdom of God” (22:15–16). Jesus states that the Paschal meal itself is about to find fulfillment in the kingdom of God. Jesus hereby indicates that the Passover meal as given in the Old Testament had an end toward which it was aimed within God’s purposes, but that this end had not yet been reached prior to Jesus. But this end, Jesus was saying, was soon to be reached.
Meanwhile, all the Evangelists, as well as the apostle Paul, report that Jesus took bread and a cup and provided interpretative words in association with the bread and the wine. Jesus calls the bread “my body,” and Luke and Paul add that Jesus told his disciples that it is given “for you.” In Mark the cup of wine is described by Jesus as “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out in behalf of many” (14:24). Matthew is nearly identical to Mark but also reports that Jesus said something more: “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28). Paul is probably even earlier than Mark, and he, in agreement with Luke, gives a slight variation, indicating that Jesus described the cup not just as “my blood of the covenant” but as “the new covenant in my blood” (1 Cor. 11:25; Luke 22:20). Luke also makes the substitutionary function of the cup explicit, saying that the cup is poured out “in your behalf” (22:20). How is all of this according to Scripture? Obviously, the Passover is an Old Testament institution (see esp. Exod. 12), but also this “covenant” language evokes the numerous Old Testament covenants (e.g., with Noah, Abraham, all the people at Mount Sinai, and David). Moreover, the “new covenant” terminology directly corresponds to the promised future “new covenant” described in Jeremiah 31:31–34, to which we might also compare the anticipated time of the “new heart” and “new spirit” described in Ezekiel 36:22–32 (esp. v. 26) and other texts.
We can see other links between Jesus’s death for our sins and the Old Testament, especially the atoning work of the suffering servant described in Isaiah:
He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. . . . He poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. (Isa. 53:5–6, 12)
Not only is the atoning function of the servant explicit in this passage, Gospel texts such as Luke 22:37 (citing Isa. 53:12; cf. Matt. 8:17; John 12:38) make it all but certain that Jesus was remembered as interpreting his mission in terms of the suffering servant of Isaiah. In short, through the ransom saying, the Last Supper, and other texts, Jesus and the Evangelists both stress that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures.
4. Jesus Was Buried
Jesus’s burial as a genuine historical event is an integral part of the gospel. Jesus’s burial is detailed in all four Gospels. All state that Joseph of Arimathea was the principle actor in facilitating the burial, while John also mentions Nicodemus. All indicate that Jesus was wrapped in linen and placed in a new tomb (see Matt. 27:57–61; Mark 15:42–47; Luke 23:50–56; John 19:38–42). Meanwhile, when outlining the gospel, Paul emphasizes that Jesus died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he was raised in accordance with the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3–5). Seen in this light, for Paul, Jesus’s burial itself, unlike his death and resurrection, is not something that is strictly speaking “in accordance with the Scriptures.” But the burial does serve to confirm the reality of the previous stage in the gospel narrative, Jesus’s death. It also paves the way for the next stage, Jesus’s resurrection. And both of these other stages are said to be “in accordance with the Scriptures.”
Not only is the reality of the burial emphasized in the Gospels; Jesus is also reported to have predicted not only his death but, more specifically, the three-day duration of his burial. For instance, after Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus explains that the path of discipleship is the path of the cross, and also “that the Son of Man must suffer many things, be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed—and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31; cf. 9:31). Perhaps the most memorable of these predictions is made in response to the scribes and Pharisees when they approach Jesus, seeking that Jesus offer a miraculous sign to validate himself. Jesus replies:
An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign—and a sign will not be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the sea creature for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. (Matt. 12:39–40; cf. 16:4)
Jesus compares himself to the prophet Jonah, who had preached an ambiguously terse message to the wicked Ninevites, demanding repentance. And lo and behold, when Jonah went, these gentiles were surprisingly stimulated to repentance by his halfhearted preaching. Now, then, since Jesus has arrived as “one greater than Jonah” and has preached an unambiguous message of repentance, how much more readily should Jesus’s Jewish compatriots repent! Yet they are instead delaying repentance and demanding miraculous signs. Here Jesus indicates that they will indeed get the miraculous sign that they crave—the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and nights. But the contrary nature of the sign (the burial of the Son of Man with all the defeat and weakness that such an event entails) means that its significance will be missed by the majority.
At the time of Jesus’s puzzling actions in the temple, when he overturned the tables of the money changers, Jesus is remembered in John’s Gospel as predicting a three-day burial in a very cryptic fashion: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it” (2:19). Jesus’s opponents are puzzled, since it has taken forty-six years to build the current temple, but John, breaking into the scene as the author, clarifies Jesus’s intent: “But he was speaking about the temple of his body” (2:21), a point which would only become clear to the disciples after Jesus was raised from the dead (2:22). It may be that we find vestiges of this tradition not only in John but also in Matthew and Mark. During Jesus’s trial, when false accusations are brought by the witnesses against Jesus, they say, “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days I will build a different one, not made by man’” (Mark 14:58; cf. 15:29–30; Matt. 26:12; 27:40; 27:63). So Jesus’s burial is certainly part of the good news—indeed, there are numerous reports that Jesus himself had prophesied a three-day burial. This “on the third day” tradition is even something that Paul indicates was anticipated as part of the gospel in the Old Testament in connection with the resurrection.
5. Jesus Was Raised on the Third Day in Accordance with the Scriptures
Jesus’s resurrection, his movement from death to physically embodied new life, is central to the good news. Obviously both Jesus and the Gospels affirm the resurrection. Jesus makes numerous predictions concerning the resurrection—indeed, we have just had occasion to explore the “on the third day” tradition in some detail in connection with his burial. Some have sought to figure out precisely what passage (or passages) Paul might have had in mind in the Old Testament that anticipates the resurrection specifically on the third day—with Hosea 6:2, Jonah 1:17, and 2 Kings 20:5 being suggested. But inasmuch as Paul here (1 Cor. 15:4) uses the plural Scriptures rather than the singular Scripture, as is his custom when generalizing rather than discussing the meaning of a specific text, it is unlikely that Paul has a specific text in view. Rather, in speaking of the resurrection as “in accordance with the Scriptures,” he is probably referring to the general pattern of the vindication of the righteous after suffering and death rather than to a specific text or two.
In describing the resurrection in the Gospels, I do not want to belabor the obvious, so just the basics will be sketched. The Gospels all agree with regard to the main story line: after his death Jesus is buried on Friday, women (including Mary Magdalene) appear at the tomb on Sunday morning, but the stone has already been rolled away and the tomb is empty. Most of the accounts add the appearance of an angel or angels announcing the resurrection. Then in all the Gospels, except in the complex case of Mark’s Gospel (which has multiple endings attested in ancient manuscripts),28 the disciples are informed, but some or all of them do not believe at first. Subsequently, Jesus appears to various disciples at numerous times, including the eleven apostles.
Yet the stories in the four Gospels differ with regard to some of the details. And at least to my mind the small differences in detail and emphasis show we are dealing with authentic remembrances rather than a doctored-up, tightly coordinated “official story” created by the later church. For instance, Matthew adds that the tomb was guarded and sealed prior to the resurrection (27:62–66) and that after the resurrection a bribe was given to some of the guards to report that the disciples stole the body (28:11–15). Luke tells us that Peter ran to the tomb after receiving the report from the women, inspected the state of the grave clothes, and departed puzzled (24:12). John adds that not only Peter but also the disciple whom Jesus loved (probably John himself) ran to the tomb, giving more details about the unusual positioning of the grave linens (20:3–9). John also adds that after that time, Peter and the beloved disciple returned home, but while they were returning Mary Magdalene remained at the tomb weeping (20:10–18). Mary Magdalene is honored as the first named disciple to see the resurrected Jesus.
Just as there is considerable variety in detail in the recounting of the resurrection in the four Gospels, so also are there diverse but largely complementary traditions pertaining to the subsequent appearances. Given the diversity of witnesses and the complex sequencing, it is easy to miss how much evidence for the postresurrection appearances is given in the Bible. In fact, at least thirteen distinct postresurrection appearances are reported, while there is also evidence that Jesus, after being raised, spent considerable time instructing his disciples, appearing many more times over a forty-day period (Acts 1:3). The centrality of the resurrection to the gospel, indeed to all of Christianity, makes it worth noting these thirteen distinct appearances:
1. To the women (including Mary Magdalene) (Matt. 28:9–10)
2. To Mary Magdalene specifically (John 20:14–17; cf. Mark 16:9)
3. To two travelers (Luke 24:13–32; cf. Mark 16:12–13)
4. To Peter (Luke 24:33–34; 1 Cor. 15:5)
5. To the eleven and others minus Thomas (John 20:19–25; cf. Luke 24:36–49)
6. To the eleven including Thomas (John 20:26–28)
7. At the Sea of Tiberius (John 21)
8. On a mountain in Galilee (Matt. 28:16–20; cf. Mark 16:7)
9. To the five hundred brothers (1 Cor. 15:6)
10. To James, the Lord’s brother (1 Cor. 15:7)
11. To the other apostles (1 Cor. 15:7)
12. On the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:6–12)
13. To the apostle Paul (Acts 9:3–9; 22:6–11; 26:12–18)
In short, Scripture attests that Jesus appeared to a great variety of witnesses in diverse geographical locales over the course of some forty days. These appearances are a core constituent of the good news. Last of all Jesus appeared to Paul, as he so memorably puts it, “as if unto a miscarried fetus” (1 Cor. 15:8). Paul means that he saw Jesus when he was in a state of utter spiritual death. And as the last in the chain of witnesses, his viewing was fundamentally different than the rest of the apostles, all of whom had seen Jesus prior to his ascension. It is this ascension, however, together with the events surrounding it, that is the most critical yet most neglected component of the gospel today.
7. Jesus Is Seated at the Right Hand of God as Lord
In our exploration of the degree to which Jesus and the four Gospel writers proclaimed the same message of good news as Paul, we have already examined Jesus’s preexistence, birth into the line of David, death for sins, burial, resurrection on the third day, and appearances—as well as the way many of these stages connect to the Old Testament. Now we come to the most important part of the gospel for us today, Jesus’s reign at the right hand of God. This is the most important stage not because it is inherently more vital than the other stages—they are all equally crucial and irreducibly part of the one true gospel—but instead the most important for two reasons.
Jesus’s reign is a nonnegotiable portion of the good news. First, when the gospel is presented today by a preacher or teacher, most of the time this “Jesus reigns” portion of the gospel is either entirely absent or mentioned as an aside. The cross and resurrection get central billing, but Jesus’s kingship is tucked away offstage.29 We need to recover Jesus’s kingship as a central, nonnegotiable constituent of the gospel. Jesus’s reign as Lord of heaven and earth fundamentally determines the meaning of “faith” (pistis) as “allegiance” in relation to salvation. Jesus as king is the primary object toward which our saving “faith”—that is, our saving allegiance—is directed.
Jesus reigns right now. Second, Jesus’s reign corresponds to the present epoch of world history that we find ourselves in now. The first six stages of the gospel refer to events in the past with respect to Jesus’s life story—for example, he has already taken on human flesh, died for our sins, and been raised from the dead. But if Jesus has been raised from the dead, then where is he now? And what is he doing? It shouldn’t surprise us if the answer proves to be fundamental to all aspects of Christian life today. Jesus is currently the enthroned king, Lord of heaven and earth, and he is actively ruling until, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians, “he has put all his enemies under his feet” (15:25). He is also serving in heaven as the great high priest who has offered his own blood as a redemption for our sins, so he is busy interceding on our behalf (Heb. 8:1–2; 9:11–12). Satan may be called “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), but his power is limited because it has been decisively broken through the cross and resurrection; the new age of Jesus’s kingly rule is currently overwhelming the old age (Col. 1:13–14).
Although all the elements of the gospel remain irreducibly vital, Jesus’s reign is the most important stage for us today. The church age—the age we find ourselves in now—is defined by the Christ’s dynamic rule as he serves as king of heaven and earth at the right hand of God the Father while his enemies are being subdued. Moreover, the reign of Jesus as king or Lord is consistently presupposed when Scripture promises that pistis unto Jesus the Christ will result in salvation or eternal life. This theme will be developed later, but at the moment it needs to be shown that Jesus, as a preacher of the good news, is portrayed by the four Gospel writers as announcing his forthcoming enthronement and rule.
Jesus heralds his forthcoming reign. Does Jesus as portrayed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John announce that he will in fact be installed as the ruler of heaven and earth? In short, yes. Indeed, to such a degree that one might even argue that the story of how Jesus, through the paradoxical victory of the cross, came to be enthroned at the right hand of God encapsulates the basic plot of the fourfold Gospels. In fact, this is precisely the argument advanced by N. T. Wright in his recent book How God Became King. That the four Gospels are intended to draw our eyes to the reign of God as accomplished through Jesus’s enthronement is not an ordinary way of thinking about the Gospels today. They are usually read by the pious primarily through the imitatio Christi lens—that is, as fuel to foster the imitation of Jesus in daily life. But Wright makes a cogent and compelling case that all four Gospels, despite their various differences, in their own unique way contribute to this “how God became king” chorus.
Jesus’s resurrection from the dead in the Gospels is the moment when God decisively proves Jesus’s innocence—and predicated within it is the promise of a jubilant return to heavenly glory alongside God the Father. That the ascension is already latent in the resurrection is made clear by Jesus’s own explanation of his resurrected state in his words to Mary Magdalene when she encounters him near the empty tomb. The freshly raised Jesus tells Mary, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). In other words, for Jesus the resurrection inevitably entailed the ascension. As Wright puts it, “The resurrection, in short, is presented by the evangelists not as a ‘happy ending’ after an increasingly sad and gloomy tale, but as the event that demonstrated that Jesus’s execution really had dealt the deathblow to the dark forces that had stood in the way of God’s new world, God’s ‘kingdom’ of powerfully creative and restorative love, arriving ‘on earth as in heaven.’”30 That is, the resurrection necessitates the ascension and thus the ultimate defeat of the evil forces that oppose God, as Jesus, fully human and fully divine, the union of heaven and earth, is now exercising God’s royal rule at the helm of the universe. The kingdom of God, the reign of God on earth as in heaven, has been effected through God’s chosen agent, Jesus the Messiah, the Christ, the king—God’s very own Son.
Even prior to the resurrection, during the earthly ministry of Jesus, we find many statements affirming that Jesus as the Son of Man (Jesus’s favorite title for himself) anticipated personally bringing to fulfillment the reign of God in the future. Just a few examples among the (at least) twenty-six unique sayings in the Synoptic Gospels that entail such ideas are offered here.31
And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we might ask.” And he said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” And they said to him, “Grant us that we might be seated, one at your right and one at your left, in your glory.” Then Jesus said to them, “. . . to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” (Mark 10:35–38, 40)
Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you, in the renewed world, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt. 19:28; cf. Luke 22:28–30)
[Jesus said,] “Whenever the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (Matt. 25:31–32)
[Jesus said,] “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be thrown out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” Now, he said this to indicate the kind of death he was about to die. (John 12:31–33)
Collectively considered, these sayings feature a definite expectation that Jesus as the Son of Man, a title that suggests Jesus’s essential and paradigmatic humanity (but is further invested with meaning through Daniel 7:13–14 as is discussed in the next subsection), will reign in a glorified state. Several of the texts emphasize the receipt of a kingly throne.
Jesus announces his enthronement while on trial. But do our Gospel writers show that Jesus connected this receipt of a throne with divine vindication after death? Jesus’s trial before the Jewish high priest contains a clear affirmation. In short, although Jesus knew that a human verdict was about to be rendered against him, nonetheless he expressed confident assurance that God would judge in his favor, granting him a share of the divine throne itself:
But he was silent and did not answer anything. Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.” (Mark 14:61–62)
Jesus had explosively combined imagery drawn from two powerful Old Testament texts—Psalm 110 and Daniel 7—making them mutually interpretative.32 And in so doing he was claiming that his death would result in exaltation and the gift of a heavenly throne.
The first text, Psalm 110, has already captured our attention earlier in this chapter. Jesus had already riddled his audience by referencing Psalm 110:1, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” (Mark 12:36). He asked them how, if the Messiah was expected to be David’s son, that David could call him “my Lord”? The solution to the riddle, of course, is that the Messiah is David’s son but is much greater than David—so great in fact that God had spoken to this Messiah, this “my Lord,” inviting him to sit at God’s own right hand, that is, to participate in God’s royal heavenly rule. In both Mark 12:35–37 and this passage, Mark 14:61–62, in which Jesus speaks during his trial before the high priest, Jesus has asserted that he is ultimately the person to whom God is speaking in Psalm 110, and therefore that God has invited him to sit (be enthroned) at his right hand.
The second text, Daniel 7, provides an image of “one like a son of man” sharing in God’s sovereign reign, but introduces elements of judgment and vindication that are subversive yet appropriate to Jesus’s trial scene. In Daniel’s vision four monstrous beasts emerge out of the sea. Later we are explicitly told that the four beasts represent four kings and their respective kingdoms (see Dan. 7:17, 23). We are further told in the interpretation that the fourth beast, in particular one of its odious horns, “made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom” (7:21–22 ESV). It is in response to the fourth beast that God acts decisively to judge the beasts and render judgment in favor of a decidedly non-beastly character, “one like a son of man.” A courtroom scene unfolds, and the Ancient of Days, clearly God himself, sits in judgment, attended by myriads and myriads of servants (7:9–10). Books are opened. The fourth beast is killed, and the authority of the other beasts is removed, albeit only for a time.
Then comes the most crucial and astonishing part—the gift of an eternal kingdom to the one like a son of man. Daniel describes what happens next in this courtroom scene:
I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13–14 ESV)
Two things are particularly noteworthy here. First, not only is this “one like a son of man” given glory and an eternal kingdom; the scope of his rule is also universal, “that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.” Second, Jesus has deliberately alluded to this particular vision from Daniel 7 with his provocative words “and you will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.” The images evoked—a trial scene, the coming of the Son of Man, the clouds of heaven, and receipt of heavenly authority to rule—are far too specific to suggest anything otherwise.
So Jesus, before a human tribunal, makes the outrageous statement that he indeed is “the Christ, the Son of the Blessed,” implying that even if he is falsely judged by a human court, he will be vindicated by God, seated at God’s right hand, and given an everlasting kingdom over which he will rule. And in so doing, Jesus once again has subversively turned the tables on his accusers, bringing out the deep irony of the entire trial scene. For if those who are trying Jesus—the Jewish high priest, ruling council, and their lackeys—find him guilty, then Jesus has insinuated that they will in fact be acting not as the Ancient of Days would desire, but rather in collusion with the fourth beast and its arrogant horn by attacking Jesus. And these are the very ones who fancy themselves to be standing in the legitimate place of the God of Israel in giving a verdict, especially the high priest! Jesus’s words have turned the entire trial scene upside down, for Jesus has asserted that this earthly trial is an inversion of the heavenly reality. It is in fact, as Jesus has painted the picture, the high priest and his minions who are really on trial in association with the fourth beast’s hostile activities, and they will be condemned and ultimately destroyed by God! Meanwhile, Jesus is about to be declared innocent and installed as king, sharing in God’s very throne.
Is it any wonder, then, that upon hearing Jesus’s shocking allusion to Psalm 110 and Daniel 7, the high priest tore his garments, exclaiming, “Why do we need any more witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy. What is your decision?” And then we find it summarily reported, “They all condemned him as deserving of death” (Mark 14:63–64). Knowing full well that he was going to die, Jesus had claimed that he was nonetheless about to be installed as the king at God’s own right hand, as the ruler over a universal and everlasting kingdom, and that his accusers would soon be condemned by God. Jesus anticipated that his death and resurrection were in the final analysis purposed toward his enthronement as the king of heaven and earth. In other words, in the Gospels Jesus is described as proclaiming the good news that he would be seated at the right hand of God as the cosmic king or universal lord.
8. Jesus Will Come Again as Judge
As we continue to explore how Jesus and the four Gospel writers proclaim the one true gospel of God, we have a final stage left to examine—Jesus’s anticipated second coming. Our most magnificent descriptions of this long-awaited public return are given outside the Gospels, in Revelation 19:11–21 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17. But again, there are an overwhelming number of texts in the Gospels in which Jesus announces that he will come, especially as judge. However, the complicating question in these Gospel texts is, what does this “coming” involve? We have already seen in the last subsection that Jesus, in his trial before the high priest and Sanhedrin, said that his enemies would soon see him “coming on the clouds of heaven,” and that this referred not to his coming from heaven down to earth but rather the other way around—it evoked the imagery of the Son of Man leaving earth and arriving on the clouds to appear before the Ancient of Days in heaven.33 In other words, this particular “coming” involves Jesus’s arrival in heaven to be enthroned, much as Jesus is described in Acts as ascending in the presence of the apostles until “a cloud took him out of their sight” (1:9), not his return for his people.
Meanwhile, other passages suggest that the “coming” of Jesus will specifically be directed at executing judgment on his recalcitrant compatriots, those who were his contemporaries during his earthly life but who rejected his claims and manner of life. For example, Jesus, after giving instructions to his apostles when sending them out on an early mission, states, “Whenever they persecute you in one town, flee to another; for truly I say to you, you will not have finished [visiting] the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes” (Matt. 10:23). Also, near the end of his ministry as described in the Gospel of Matthew, after pronouncing seven dreadful woes on the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, Jesus brings his discourse to a terrifying climax, saying:
Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. Serpents! Brood of vipers! How are you to escape being sentenced to hell? For this reason, look, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some you will kill and crucify, some you will whip in your synagogues and persecute from town to town. In this manner all the righteous blood shed on earth might come upon you, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation. (Matt. 23:32–36)
Jesus states that the woes will be brought to bear on this generation, and the immediate context makes it clear that a near-range judgment is coming, as Jesus immediately moves to a lament over Jerusalem:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I have wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings—and you did not want it! Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” (Matt. 23:37–39)
Could at least some of these passages envision a short-range “coming” in order to execute immediate judgment rather than a long-range return for the church (cf. Rev. 2:5)? It is beyond dispute that here Jesus is at the very least proclaiming that Jerusalem, and especially the temple system, is about to be radically judged by God. For in the very next passage Jesus tells his inquiring disciples, who are impressed by the temple complex, “Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down” (Matt. 24:2 ESV). And historically we know that this in fact happened. The Romans leveled the temple in the Jewish uprising of AD 66–70.
Even if it is not always straightforward to separate out precisely which “coming” is intended by Jesus, nevertheless in a number of passages Jesus clearly announces that ultimately his return will have not merely a local but a universal scope:
Whenever the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit upon his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them from one another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. (Matt. 25:31–32)
And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with much power and glory. And then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven. (Mark 13:26–27; cf. 1 Thess. 4:13–18)
And of course, the universal scope of Jesus’s sovereignty quite naturally entails his universal function as the judge who will return to effect fully his sovereign will—as he renders judgment not just for his people but for the nations, the gentiles, as well.
Having at first presented a bare-bones outline of the one gospel—that is, the saving message that the apostles proclaimed and that Paul also sketches—we have now laid flesh on it. Not only do the titles of the four canonical Gospels indicate that there is only one gospel, albeit witnessed from a variety of perspectives (the Gospel according to Matthew, etc.), but the four Evangelists also present Jesus as a herald of this singular gospel. An eight-part story of Jesus has been offered as a concise summation of this gospel:
The Gospel: An Outline
Jesus the king
1. preexisted with the Father,
2. took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,
3. died for sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
4. was buried,
5. was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
6. appeared to many,
7. is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and
8. will come again as judge.
This chapter has sought to demonstrate that Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom of God was a heralding of this one gospel. Jesus’s most central message as reported by the Gospel writers was that the kingdom of God had drawn near, meaning the concrete, active rule of God as instituted through God’s appropriate human agents. Jesus came to identify himself as the anointed one, the Messiah, the king. In the Gospels Jesus is anointed as king at his baptism, becoming the king in waiting. Meanwhile, his resurrection entails his ascension to kingship at the right hand of God, at which time he begins his formal rule. With his ascension, the kingdom of God has been fully launched. But if this eight-stage narrative about Jesus is the gospel, what does this suggest about the meaning of “faith” with respect to Jesus and the gospel? We will explore this question in the next chapter.
FOR FURTHER THOUGHT
1. Why is it important to establish whether or not Jesus preached the gospel?
2. Can you explain in your own words why the “according to” part of the original titles of the four Gospels is significant?
3. Do you think an individual could legitimately claim to be a Christian but fail to believe in the preexistence of Jesus alongside God the Father? Why or why not?
4. Why did Jesus have to take on human flesh?
5. To fully understand the Lord’s Supper (or the Eucharist or the Mass), why is it vital to recognize that the original setting was during the Passover festival?
6. Do you think God places signs around us that point to God’s reality and truths? Why are these signs, assuming they exist, capable of multiple interpretations?
7. It is easy for many to recognize that Jesus needed to die for our sins. But why do you think it was necessary for us that he be brought back to life after his death?
8. Why is it significant to our understanding of the whole Christian story that Jesus appeared bodily, that he was not merely a spirit or ghost?
9. What, in comparison with the other gospel elements about Jesus, is unique about the one saying that he “is seated at the right hand of God as Lord”?
10. How are Jesus’s words “And you will see the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven” absolutely central to the gospel? Why did the religious leaders find these words blasphemous?
11. How do you think the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 relates to the future return of Jesus the Christ?
12. What makes some elements that appear in all four Gospels, such as Jesus’s death and burial, essential to the gospel, but other elements, such as the feeding of the five thousand, more peripheral?