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).

Saturday study 2/7/26

 Part 7: On food laws

Theme series in the form of this question: 

Did Jesus actually change the Law of Moses?

• The point is to see whether Jesus was merely repeating Moses…or whether, as the New Covenant lawgiver, he changed and even overturned Torah at certain points: 
• Today we look at the Jewish food laws and whether or not Jesus changed them. 

What was said? Leviticus 11; Deut 14

Later, in Leviticus 20:

24b I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the peoples.

25a You are therefore to distinguish between clean and unclean animals and birds. 

26 You are to be holy to Me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be My own.

• The real purpose for the food laws was 3-fold:

1. To separate Israel from other nations; 
2. To remind Israel they were God's special, chosen nation;
3. To test the obedience of His people.

For Health Reasons?

• Throughout history there have been claims that food laws were given for health reasons.
• I was surpirised to learn that one of the earliest proponents was a Jew, the noted Medieval scholar Maimonides. 
• His Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190AD) influenced modern-day Jewish kosherlaws as well as Islam's food laws, known as halal. 
• Jewish food laws had nothing to do with health, noted by most scholars and historians today.
• The ESV Study Bible comment on Lev. 11.1-8:

“The diet of these animals is apparently not the basis of their cleanness or uncleanness. The passage itself says nothing about what the animals eat, and the camel, rock badger (hyrax), and hare are exclusively vegetarian but unclean.”

• Food laws for health reasons opens too many troubling questions.

Deut 14.21a NASB 1995

“You shall not eat anything which dies of itself. 

You may give it to the alien who is in your town, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner, for you are a holy people to the LORD your God." 

• Did God want the rest of the nations to be unhealthy let alone poison themselves?

In Deuteronomy 12:21 God instructs certain clean animals to be slaughtered "as I have instructed you."

• Why if they're inherently healthier than unclean animals?
• Why would God not also give them laws for a healthy plant diet? 
• What about other animals not listed as "unclean" that might be dangerous to your health?
• The point is God did not want the rest of the nations to be unhealthy, let alone poison themselves! 
• And just because modern-science sees health benefits to some of the foods listed doesn't mean that's what the biblical writers were thinking too. 
• After all, any food selected properly and prepared can lead to a healthy diet.

But I say? Mark 7

• The Context has to do with later Jewish traditions that prescribed ritual washing of hands, utensils, and even furniture!
• But Jesus takes the opportunity to teach on the food laws.  

14 Then Jesus called to the crowd to come and hear. “All of you listen,” he said, “and try to understand. 

15 It’s not what goes into your body that defiles you; you are defiled by what comes from your heart.”

• What goes into your body?
• As a result, Mark later says in v.19 that by saying these things Jesus had "declared all foods clean."

But what about? 

• Some recent scholars argue Jesus refers only to the digestive process (stomach "purifying" food by expelling waste into the latrine), based on the Greek and some ancient Jewish views of excrement as non-impure; 
• But this remains a fringe view with serious challenges mainly, the traditional-majority reading (Jesus declared "all foods clean") appears in the overwhelming majority of manuscripts and all major critical editions (Nestle-Aland 28, UBS5, SBLGNT, THGNT).
• And no significant textual variant omits or substantially alters the phrase;
• The noted Bruce Metzger in his Textual Commentary gives this reading an "A"rating (highest certainty).
• Jesus' core statement in Mark 7:15 (what you eat does not make you unclean), logically includes foods prohibited in Leviticus 11 & Deuteronomy 14—not just other added traditions.
• Regardless, if you follow the alternate interpretation, it would still mean that the digestive system “cleanses” all kinds of ritual impurity, including foods!

What did Jesus do?

• Jesus also practiced what he preached when he ate with sinners, i.e., non-Torah keeping Jews or Gentiles: Luke 5

30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 

31 Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 

32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Cp. Matt 9:10-17; Mark 2:15-22

• This also serves as a prelude to the coming KOG on earth: Luke 13:

28 “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. 

29 People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God."

• NOTE: the patriarchs did not keep food laws.

Apostolic church: Acts 15; cp. Romans 14; 

• Later apostolic preaching & practice confirm the words of Jesus. 
• Peter’s resistance to eating unclean animals in Acts 10, the divine vision explicitly connects food laws with the removal of Jew-Gentile boundaries. 
• The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 concludes that Gentiles are not required to get circumcised to keep the Law of Moses, note it's "a package deal";
• Paul recalls Jesus’ teachings with even greater clarity, read Rom. 14.
• Therefore, if you're a strong Christian you should put up with the weak Christian so as not to please yoursef but always with the goal that eventually all Christians must come to be like-minded in Jesus, read Rom 15:1-16.
• Note the clincher to Rom 14 in 15:

14 "But I myself am persuaded about you, my brothers and sisters, that you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another."

• For Paul to reintroduce food laws would mean a weak Church because the barrier between Jew and Gentile has not been removed in Messiah (Eph. 2:14; Col. 2:16-17; Gal. 4:10).
• He warns in 1 Timothy 4:3–5:

“These people forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods which God created to be eaten with thanksgiving… For everything created by God is good, and no food should be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving…” 

• Paul even goes beyond the council's verdict declaring that meat offered to idols is “nothing” (read 1 Cor. 8). 
• Paul says this type of new "knowledge" (gnosis) comes with a greater level of responsibility, as Paul repeatedly warns throughout his letters;  

Summary

• OT purpose: national separation, identity, and obedience-test for Israel.
• Jesus is not simply repeating Moses; he is the New Covenant lawgiver(Moses redivivus).
• Jesus explicitly teaches: what you eat does not defile you (Mark 7:15).
• Later, Mark interprets this as Jesus declaring all foods clean; took awhile for some Apostles to grasp full NC ministry of Jesus, cp. Peter;
• Jesus’ practice (eating with “sinners”) anticipates the Kingdom, Jew-Gentile table fellowship.
• The Apostolic church verdict, led by the Spirit, verified Jesus;
• Paul’s letters go betond council verdict, meats sacrificed to idols are allowed;
• Paul's call for the “strong” to limit their liberty for the sake of the weak does not mean he’s partly re-establishing food laws in the church;
• Paul's goal is that, over time, everyone becomes like-minded in Messiah and understands the freedom he taught and won for his church;
• So in answer to the theme question: Yes, Jesus changed and effectively overturned significant parts of the Law of Moses, while fulfilling their deeper purpose in a new way.