“Imitate me as I Imitate Christ“

Same God: One God, the Father

Jesus

• Mark 12:28–34 – Jesus affirms the Shema as the greatest commandment:
  “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord…”
• John 17:3 – “This is the life of the age to come, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus the Messiah whom you sent.”

Paul

• 1 Corinthians 8:4–6 – “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one lord, Jesus Messiah, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.”
• 1 Timothy 2:5 – “There is one God, and one mediator between God and human beings, the man Messiah Jesus.”  
• Ephesians 4:4–6 – “One body… one Lord… one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

• 1 Thessalonians 2:12 – God “calls you into His own Kingdom and glory.”
• Colossians 4:11 – Co-workers are “fellow workers for the Kingdom of God.”
• Galatians 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:9–10; 15:50 – Paul warns that those who live in sin “will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

So both Jesus and Paul:

• Preach the same Kingdom.
• Use “Kingdom of God” as the core of the Gospel.
• Make inheritance of that future Kingdom the goal of salvation.

Same Terms of Salvation: Repentance, Faith, and Obedient Discipleship

Jesus

• Mark 1:15 – “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
• Luke 24:47 – “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins” is to be preached in his name to all nations.
• John 3:16 – Whoever believes in the Son has the life of the age to come.
• John 5:24 – Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has the life of the age to come.
• Matthew 7:21 – “Not everyone who says to me, ‘lord, lord,’ will enter the Kingdom, but the one who does the will of my Father…”
• Luke 6:46 – “Why do you call me ‘lord, lord’ and do not do what I say?”

Paul

• Acts 20:21 – Paul testifies “of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Messiah.”
• Romans 1:5; 16:26 – The goal of his apostolic mission is the “obedience of faith” among all nations.
• Romans 2:6–13 – God will render to each according to his works; “the doers of the Law will be justified.”
• Romans 6:16–18 – You were slaves of sin but have become “obedient from the heart” to the teaching delivered to you.
• 2 Thessalonians 1:8 – Judgment will come on those who “do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

Paul’s own warning:

• 1 Timothy 6:3–4 – If anyone teaches differently and “does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Messiah, and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing.”

Paul literally makes agreement with Jesus’ own words the test of true teaching.

Same View of the Law: The New Covenant Law of Messiah

Jesus – new lawgiver

• Matthew 5–7 (Sermon on the Mount) – “You have heard that it was said… but I say to you…” – Jesus deepens and re-applies God’s will, pointing toward the New Covenant.
• Matthew 28:19–20 – Make disciples of all nations, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.”
• John 13:34 – “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Paul – under the Law of Messiah, not Torah

• 1 Corinthians 9:20–21 – Paul is not “under the Law” (of Moses), but is “under the Law of Messiah.”
• Galatians 6:2 – “Fulfill the Law of Messiah” by bearing one another’s burdens.
• Romans 10:4 – “Messiah is the goal/culmination of the Law,” resulting in righteousness to all who believe.
• Romans 7:4, 6 – We died to the Law through Messiah to belong to another; now we serve “in newness of the spirit, not in oldness of the letter.”
• Colossians 2:16–17 – Food laws, festivals, new moons, Sabbaths are a shadow; the substance belongs to Messiah.

Same Christology: Jesus the Human Messiah, God’s Exalted Agent

Jesus about himself

• Matthew 16:16–17 – Peter confesses, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus blesses him and calls this the rock.
• Luke 4:18–19; 4:43 – Jesus describes himself with Isaiah’s Spirit-anointed-servant language and as the one sent to preach the Kingdom.
• John 5:19, 30 – “The Son can do nothing from himself, but only what he sees the Father doing… I can do nothing from myself…”
• John 14:28 – “The Father is greater than I.”
• John 20:17 – “I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God.”

Paul’s matching view

• Romans 1:1–4 – The Gospel concerns God’s Son, “born from the seed of David according to the flesh,” appointed Son of God in power by resurrection.
• 1 Corinthians 8:6 – One God, the Father… and one lord, Jesus Messiah.
• 1 Corinthians 11:3 – “The head of Messiah is God,” showing the Father’s superiority.
• 1 Corinthians 15:21–28 – Through “a man” comes resurrection; the Son himself will be subjected to God who subjected all things to him.
• 1 Timothy 2:5 – One God and one mediator, “the man Messiah Jesus.”
• Acts 17:31 – God “has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed, having given assurance by raising him from the dead.”

Same Hope: Resurrection and the Coming Kingdom on Earth

Jesus

• Matthew 5:5 – “The meek shall inherit the earth.”
• Matthew 6:10 – “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
• Matthew 19:28–29 – In the “rebirth” of the world, the Son of Man sits on his throne, and the apostles sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
• Matthew 25:31–34 – When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he invites the blessed to “inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
• John 5:28–29 – A future resurrection of the dead to life or judgment.

Paul

• 1 Corinthians 15 (whole chapter) – Resurrection of the dead, transformation, death swallowed up in victory.
• 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 – The Lord descends, the dead in Messiah rise, and the living are caught up to meet him as he comes.
• 2 Thessalonians 1:5–10 – God will repay affliction and grant relief “when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven.”
• Romans 8:17–23 – Creation waits for the revealing of the sons of God; believers wait for the redemption of their bodies.
• 2 Timothy 4:1, 8 – Jesus will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom; Paul anticipates the “crown of righteousness” in that Day.

Paul Explicitly Ties His Gospel to Jesus’ Gospel

A few keys where Paul directly insists his message is the same:

• Galatians 1:6–9 – There is only one Gospel; if anyone (even an angel) preaches a different gospel from the one Paul preached, “let him be accursed.” Buzzard notes that if Paul had preached anything different from Jesus’ Kingdom Gospel, he would have cursed himself.  
• Hebrews 2:3 – (Whether Paul or another writer) – Salvation “was first spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard.” The apostolic message is based directly on Jesus’ preaching.
• 1 Corinthians 7:10, 12 – Paul carefully distinguishes “not I, but the Lord” (where he repeats Jesus’ teaching on divorce) and “I, not the Lord” (where he gives apostolic application), showing his conscious dependence on Jesus’ prior teaching.
• 1 Timothy 6:3 (again) – True teaching must agree with “the sound words of our Lord Jesus.”

Summary

1. Start with monotheism: Mark 12:29 / 1 Cor 8:6; John 17:3 / 1 Tim 2:5.
2. Move to the Gospel: Mark 1:14–15; Luke 4:43 / Acts 19:8; 20:24–25; 28:23,31.
3. Then salvation & obedience: Mark 1:15; Matt 7:21; Luke 6:46 / Acts 20:21; Rom 1:5; 2 Thess 1:8; 1 Tim 6:3.
4. Then who Jesus is: Matt 16:16; John 20:17 / Rom 1:3–4; 1 Cor 8:6; 11:3; 15:21–28; 1 Tim 2:5.
5. Finally the hope: Matt 5:5; 6:10; 25:31–34 / 1 Cor 15; 1 Thess 4:13–18; Rom 8:18–23.

Did Paul Split the Shema? James Dunn Says No

In one of his final works, the preeminent British New Testament scholar on Christology, Dr. James D. G. Dunn, directly challenged the now-popular claim that Paul “split the Shema” in 1 Corinthians 8:6 — a proposal Dunn himself had significantly helped to popularize in earlier works such as Christology in the Making. In Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?, Dunn reconsidered that position and raised serious doubts about whether Paul ever intended to divide Israel’s foundational confession of strict unitary monotheism. Specifically, he questioned the idea that Paul distributed the divine name YHWH (LORD) to the Father and Elohim (God) to the Son, pushing back against fellow Trinitarian scholar Richard Bauckham:

“There is controversy at this point. Bauckham [in God Crucified, p. 38] insists: ‘the only possible way to understand Paul as maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the unique identity of the one God affirmed in the Shema’ … He is identifying Jesus as the “Lord” whom the Shema affirms to be one … the unique identity of the one God consists of the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, his Messiah.’

However, the point is not quite as clear-cut as Bauckham suggests. For the question arises as to whether Paul did indeed intend to “split the Shema.” It is quite possible to argue, alternatively, that Paul took up the Shema, already quoted in 8:4 (‘there is no God but one’), only in the first clause of 8:6 (reworded as ‘for us there is one God, the Father’); and to that added the further confession, ‘and one Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Bauckham argues that ‘the addition of a unique Lord to the unique God of the Shema would flatly contradict the uniqueness of the latter.’ But, if anything, the fuller confession of 8:6 could be said to be a more natural outworking of the primary conviction that ‘the Lord (God) had said to the Lord (Christ), “Sit at my right hand …”’ (Ps. 110:1), a confession set precisely in contrast to the many gods and many lords of Graeco-Roman worship.” (pp 107-110)

Dunn’s final analysis marks a notable shift from his earlier formulation. Rather than portraying Paul as “splitting the Shema,” Dunn ultimately recognized that Paul was reaffirming it. The apostle identifies “one God” explicitly as “the Father” alone (1 Cor. 8:6), in harmony with Jesus’ own confession that the Father is “the only true God” (John 17:3). At the same time, Jesus is honored as the exalted “one Lord Messiah,” in accordance with Psalm 110:1 — the most frequently quoted or alluded-to Psalm in the New Testament:

YHWH says to my lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

Crucially, the second “lord” in this verse translates the Hebrew adoni, not Adonai. The term adoni occurs 195 times in the Hebrew Scriptures and is never used to refer to Deity. Thus, far from redefining the Shema or incorporating Jesus into the identity of YHWH (whatever that may be taken to mean), Paul’s confession reflects Jesus’ own strict unitary creed: YHWH, our one God and Father, is one YHWH.

Proclaiming the Messiah

 When Christians talk about or preach the Gospel, they often mean, “Jesus died for my sins so I can go to heaven when I die.” But the New Testament gives a very different definition of the saving Gospel. We see the early church’s preaching in Acts 8, where Luke describes the one saving Gospel-word in three closely related ways.

First, he tells us that those who were scattered “went about preaching the word as gospel” (Acts 8:4). 

Second, he focuses on Philip and says that he “went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them” (Acts 8:5). 

And third, a few verses later he summarizes: 

“When they believed Philip as he proclaimed the gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Messiah, they were being baptized, both men and women” (Acts 8:12). 

These are not three different messages. To “preach the word as gospel,” to “proclaim the Messiah,” and to “proclaim the gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Messiah” are three ways of describing the same saving Gospel about the kingdom.

So in Acts 8 the saving Gospel is the good news about the coming Kingdom of God and about Jesus, whom God has made “both lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:36). And by “the word,” Philip did not mean “your Bible”; he meant the concrete announcement that the one God, the Father, announced His coming Kingdom, and that He has chosen a unique human person—His own Son by procreation and Son of David by Mary—to rule that coming Kingdom.

Philip is not changing or inventing a new message; he is continuing the very same Gospel preached by Jesus himself. 

Mark 1:14-15 shows us that “Jesus came into Galilee, preaching God's Gospel and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the gospel’."

Luke records Jesus saying:

“I must preach the Kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I was sent” (Luke 4:43). Later Luke shows Jesus going through cities and villages, “proclaiming and bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God” (Luke 8:1). By extension, Jesus sends out his apostles to do the same. 

In Luke 9:1–2, 6 we read: 

“He called the twelve together… and sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal… And they went out and went through the villages, proclaiming the gospel and healing everywhere.” 

The same commission appears in Matthew 10:1, 5–7, where Jesus summoned his twelve and sent them out, instructing them: 

“As you go, proclaim, saying, ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near.’” 

The task is explicitly to announce that the Kingdom is near—not that it is already here.

So the Gospel as Jesus and the apostles preached it is clearly about that coming Kingdom of God. This Kingdom message is tied to Jesus’ own identity. When Peter answers Jesus saying: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), Jesus immediately goes on to speak of the future glory of the Son of Man in his coming Kingdom. 

“You are really blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because human flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven!  I also tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I intend to build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you ban on earth will have been banned in heaven, and whatever you allow on earth will have been allowed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17-19)

The pattern is consistent: the Gospel centers on the Kingdom of God and on Jesus as the Messiah, the human king of that coming Kingdom.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, no one changed this Gospel into a different, more abstract message—a “spiritual,” non-literal feeling of “the kingdom in your heart” or “the kingdom as your church.” 

In Ephesus, Paul enters the synagogue and for three months “reasoned and persuaded them about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). Later, speaking to the elders from Ephesus, he describes his ministry as testifying to “the gospel of the grace of God” and then reminds them that they will no longer see his face, “among whom I went about proclaiming the Kingdom” (Acts 20:24–25). For Paul, “the gospel of the grace of God” and the proclamation of the Kingdom are one and the same overall message: grace is how God forgives and calls people into that coming Kingdom, and the Kingdom is the goal and framework of that grace.

At the end of Acts, Luke underlines this again. 

In Rome, Paul is “testifying about the Kingdom of God and trying to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets” (Acts 28:23). The book closes with Paul “proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Messiah with all boldness and without hindrance” (Acts 28:31). This is the bookend to the beginning of Acts, where the risen Jesus is speaking to the apostles “about the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Acts begins with Jesus teaching about the Kingdom and ends with Paul preaching the Kingdom of God and the lord Jesus, the Messiah. From beginning to end, the apostolic Gospel is proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, king of the coming kingdom. 

Paul’s letters agree with this. In Romans he says that he has been “set apart for the gospel of God… concerning His Son,” and he describes Jesus as coming from “the seed of David according to the flesh” (i.e., Mary, Luke 1:30-35) and being “appointed Son of God in power by resurrection” (Romans 1:1–4). The gospel of God is “concerning His Son,” the promised descendant of David, now exalted as lord Messiah. Again we see the same core Gospel message: God’s coming Kingdom and His Son, the King.

This biblical definition saves us from a truncated or abstract gospel. If you say, “Jesus died for my sins so I can go to heaven,” you are not yet preaching the apostolic Gospel. In Scripture, the cross and resurrection are essential because they are God’s way of dealing with sin so that people can inherit the Kingdom. But forgiveness by repentance and acknowledging Jesus as both lord and Messiah is not your final destination. His death is not only proof that “God loved the world in this way, that He gave His unique procreated Son” (John 3:16a), but also God’s declaration “that every person who believes in him should not perish but have the life” of that Kingdom age to come. This also reshapes our hope. 

Jesus did not promise that Christians would escape to heaven when they die. Jesus clearly blessed the meek, “for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). He spoke of “the renewal of all things,” when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne and the apostles will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28–29). These things cannot be in heaven but on a restored earth, which we will possess in new spiritual bodies. As Paul says:

“If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So as it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living person’; the last Adam became a life-imparting spirit. Yet the spiritual did not come first, but the natural. Then the spiritual came after that” (1 Corinthians 15:44–46).

Paul also summarizes the faith of Christians like this: 

"For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Messiah, through whom are all things and we through him” (1 Corinthians 8:6). 

The one God is the Father; the one lord is the human Messiah through whom God will rule the world.

If this is the one saving Gospel, then it demands your complete attention and, very likely, a change of mind and perspective. Jesus came preaching, “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). In Samaria, when they believed Philip “as he proclaimed the gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Messiah, they were being baptized” (Acts 8:12). To believe the Gospel is to accept as true that God’s Kingdom is coming, that Jesus has been made both lord and Messiah (Acts 2:36), that God has raised him from the dead, and that he will return to establish that promised Kingdom. To be baptized, then, is to publicly pledge allegiance to the king of the coming Kingdom. 

In sum, the saving Gospel is the good news about the Gospel of God and that He has appointed a unique human—His own Son as the Messiah, whom He raised from the dead—to rule the Kingdom of his earthly father David. 

The pressing question for each of us is whether we have believed this Gospel of the Kingdom and the name of Jesus Messiah, and whether we are living now in loyal obedience to the Law of Messiah (Gal 6:2; 1Cor 9:21), so that when the Kingdom finally comes we may indeed inherit the earth and rule survivors from the nations with our king Jesus (Zechariah 14:16–19; Ezekiel 36:23–24, 36; cp. 1Cor 6:2; Rev 2.26-27; 5:10).