I'm trying to show you the Gospel, the message, that Jesus preached. It was a message which was supposed to change everything. In part one we saw that Jesus preached the Gospel. In part two we saw that when Paul and the disciples and Jesus preached the Gospel miracles, healings, supernatural manifestations happened. In part three we looked at what it was that Paul preached. In part four we saw what Jesus preached and what he taught his disciples to preach. In part five we looked at the actual words that Jesus and his disciples used when they preached the Gospel. Now I want to show you a longer version of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God as Jesus preached it.
Let me show you a longer version of the Gospel that Jesus preached.
This longer version of Jesus’ sermon is found in Luke 4 but I want to rearrange the order a little to make the context clearer. Luke 4 starts off with the story of Jesus being tested by the devil in the wilderness.
Luke 4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
After the devil departs from him, for a season as the Bible says…
Luke 4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about. 15 And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.
(Now here is where I want to rearrange the material a little. Before going on to verse 16, I want to insert the material about Jesus ministering in Capernaum, which starts at verse 31 and goes to the end of chapter 4. This order is similar to the order of events as recorded in Matthew's and Mark’s Gospels and fits the context of Luke’s story of the visit to Nazareth better since that story refers to Jesus having already worked miracles in Capernaum. I want to do this so you'll see that in Nazareth Jesus was preaching the same gospel he preached everywhere else.)
Luke 4:31 And came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee, and taught them on the sabbath days. 32 And they were astonished at his doctrine: for his word was with power. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice, 34 Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God. 35 And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the devil had thrown him in the midst, he came out of him, and hurt him not. 36 And they were all amazed, and spake among themselves, saying, What a word is this! for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out. 37 And the fame of him went out into every place of the country round about.
Next follows the story of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law and of the people bringing their sick to the house so Jesus could heal them…
Luke 4:40 Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. 41 And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.
And finally the story of Jesus departing from Capernaum to minister in other cities…
Luke 4:42 And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came unto him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. 43 And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. 44 And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee.
Luke 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: …
Jesus had been preaching the Kingdom of God message in Capernaum. The people wanted him to stay but he tells them that he must preach the Kingdom of God to other cities also. Skipping back to verse 16 we see a longer version of the Kingdom of God message. We know it’s the Kingdom of God message, because Jesus tells us that proclaiming the Kingdom of God is his mission and that, that’s what he was going to preach in the other cities. What follows is the essence of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, i.e. the lost Gospel of Jesus.
Luke 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. 17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Let’s look at it in a little more detail.
Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;
He has anointed me to preach the gospel…, without saying it directly, he’s telling the people of his home town know that he is the messiah, i.e. the anointed one, the gospel preacher. By quoting this scripture and applying it to himself he is claiming to be the messiah.
What had he come to preach? Not “The Gospel” as Christians so often use that term but actual “good news,” news of victory, news of rescue, to the poor. As one preacher asked, “What’s good news to the poor? ” Well…, almost by definition the poor have one thing prominently on their minds…poverty. So what's good news to the poor? Help has arrived, help is here, you don’t have to be poor anymore, you can be free from the oppression of poverty. Bob Lindsey put it this way:
“ Christian ministers and sermon-makers often misunderstand …what Jesus meant by saying the Lord had sent him to “preach good tidings to the poor,” or, as good tidings is often translated, “the Gospel.” Very often the calling of the minister is said to be largely that of “preaching the Gospel” and the supposition is that this means that the Christian minister’s main task is to stand behind a pulpit and preach two or three sermons weekly. But, of course, this is not what Jesus means by saying he had come to preach the Gospel (good tidings) to the poor. He is really saying that he has good news for the oppressed. Through him they can find healing and deliverance from the Enemy.” Jesus Rabbi and Lord, 51-52 pdf version.
Luke 4:18 …he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted…,
Most of the modern translations omit this part of the verse which suggests a discrepancy in the ancient Greek manuscripts; some have it most don’t. But it is in the portion of Isaiah that Jesus is reading. As Lindsey makes clear in his explanation of this passage, it would not have been unusual for a Rabbi teaching in a synagogue at that time to change the passage to reflect the point he was trying to make. While Jesus apparently omitted this clause he adds another, we’ll look at in a bit, to take it’s place.
Luke 4:18 …to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
The reflex of powerless Christian Theology has been to spiritualize this passage:
‘spiritual deliverance from spiritual captivity, recovering from spiritual blindness, liberating the spiritually bruised.’
But Jesus had just come from Capernaum where he had been doing the real, not the spiritual, of those things and, as is made clear in the rest of the story, it was his plan to do the same here in his hometown. Jesus is in Nazareth to deliver people from demonic captivity, to rescue them from satanic oppression as he had done in Capernaum; as Luke later describes him doing in Acts 10:38, as he gave his disciples authority to do in Luke 10:19, and as he later instructed the Apostle Paul, telling him to ‘Go to the gentiles and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.’ That is the gospel of the Kingdom of God.
“…recovering of sight to the blind…”
He has come to, as Lindsey translates it to, “give eyes to the blind” a phrase which isn’t found in Isaiah 61 as it is usually translated, though Lindsey says:
“He found the place in the Prophets from which he would read, Isaiah chapter 61, first two verses. Like Christians later, Jews popularly believed that the coming Son of David would one day say these words:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me
To preach good tidings to the poor.At this point Jesus made a change in the ancient reading. Where the original said, “He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.” Jesus dropped the expression “to heal the brokenhearted” and went on to read,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prisonBut even here he seems to have read in such a way that the people understood this last phrase as, “And the opening of the eyes of the blind,” which is a possible reading of the Hebrew. So instead of reading “And the opening of the prison to those who are bound” he reads, apparently, “And the opening of the eyes of the blind” and adds “To set the oppressed free,” which is a phrase he lifts out of an earlier portion of Isaiah (58:6) and inserts here.
Finally, Jesus returns to Isaiah 61:2 and ends the quotation, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” dropping, as he does so, a further sentence from Isaiah 61:2: “And the day of vengeance of our God.”
Although it may seem strange to us today, this special way of reading a passage from the Prophets — dropping one phrase to insert another biblical phrase — was a common practice among Jewish rabbis and teachers. In the sectarian documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which comment on many biblical texts and constantly refer them to people and events happening at Qumran or Jerusalem, the writers make small changes in the biblical material as interpretations flow from their pens. The reason is that in making a deliberate change or insertion the writer is bringing out some special point he desires to make and some interpretation which may not have been exactly that of the prophet himself but suggests some contemporary matter or event.” Lindsey, Rabbi and Lord, pdf version pg 50-51
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
This last statement is the heart of the Gospel message. The day has arrived. Today is the day. The kingdom of God is at hand. It’s finally here. The time is fulfilled. Good news for the poor is here, liberty for the captives is here, eyes for the blind are here, liberty for the sick and broken is here, the time of God's favor is here.
When I first learned that Jesus preached the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, when I first started studying this subject, I thought, and said, that the essence of Jesus’ message was the Kingdom of God. I think, I assumed that because the meaning of the phrase is so hidden to us explaining the phrase must have been the focus of Jesus' ministry. I just kind of assumed, without really thinking about it, that becasue I had to spend so much time demonstrating that Jesus and his disciples preached the Kingdom of God and clarifying the meaning of the phrase for my listeners that this was also the focus of Jesus ministry. But after studying it for quite a while I realized that the people Jesus was talking to probably already understood what he meant by the phrase Kingdom of God. It was then that I realized that the point of his message isn’t the kingdom of God, but rather the here-ness of the Kingdom of God. The point of Jesus’ message is that the Kingdom of God is here now, it is present, the long awaited has finally appeared.
The Jewish people had been waiting, looking, longing… I believe that all of humanity is longing, yearning, pining for that day… On that day in Nazareth, as he had already done in Capernaum and other parts of Galilee, Jesus arrived and proclaimed the day had arrived. No more waiting. It’s here. The time is fulfilled. The world’s hope is, at last, satisfied. Help is not on the way, it has arrived. Jesus wasn’t merely reporting a fact he had discerned or discovered, or repeating a message he had been given, I believe that his announcement of the arrival of the Kingdom of God caused the Kingdom to come into existence, to show up, to be manifested, to be at hand.
This proclamation that 'the time has arrived' is the identifying feature of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. When we find these, “the day has arrived” statements, we can be certain that we are dealing with the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Here are some examples:
Galatians 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
2 Corinthians 6:1 We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. 2 (For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Revelation 12:10 And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
We tend to think of the book of Revelation as referring only to future events, but if you read the context here, I think you’ll see that this passage is talking about Jesus and his mission on the earth. Notice the parallels to Kingdom of God, listed in Revelation 12:10. These aren’t four separate things which have arrived, but four different ways of referring to the same thing: salvation, strength (Power in the modern translations.), the power (i.e. authority) of his Christ. What had come? Salvation, and power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ (The authority of his anointed one.) The coming of the Kingdom of God is the coming of salvation. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the coming of power. The coming of the Kingdom of God is the coming of the authority of his Christ, his anointed.
That’s what Jesus was announcing when he announced the Kingdom of God in Nazareth, that’s what the people heard. When Jesus proclaimed the presence of the Kingdom of God in Nazareth the people heard:
Salvation, rescue, deliverance, healing is here.
Power is here. Power to deliver the poor, the bound, the shattered is here.
The authority of the messiah is here. The authority to set you free, and rescue you and help you, is here.
Can you imagine how exciting those words would be? Imagine you heard Jesus say, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” Imagine that the day of your deliverance, your healing, your rescue had finally arrived. Imagine the preacher gets up and says, “Today is the day you’ve been waiting for, today is the day God shows up.” That’s what the people in Nazareth heard.
Here’s another of those, “the day has arrived,” statements, which we looked at briefly before:
Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
As mentioned above the phrase “good tidings” translates the Hebrew word, “basar” which is the equivalent of our word “Gospel” and is how Paul translates “basar” in Romans 10, so this scripture is talking about the gospel. But what are these good tidings, what is the Gospel that he preaches? What does it mean for the people that their God reigneth?
When the preacher of Isaiah 52:7 “publisheth peace,” and “publisheth salvation” and “saith…thy God reigneth.” he’s not preaching on three different subjects, it’s all the same subject described in different ways. That their God reigneth means “peace.” That their God reigneth means “salvation.”
But “peace” and “salvation” in Hebrew don’t mean exactly what they mean in English and certainly not what they mean in the overly spiritualized language of Christian theology.
“…that publisheth peace…”
The Hebrew word translated “peace” is “shalom” and it means something quite different from what we mean by the English word peace:
“ The Hebrew shalom has a wider meaning than the English ‘peace.’ For the individual it is welfare of every kind, sound health, prosperity, security, contentment, and the like.” Judaism, George Foot Moore,Vol. 2, pg. 195, Chap. 8; Justice, Truth, Peace; Hendrickson Publishers
1. completeness, soundness, welfare, peace
1a) completeness (in number), 1b) safety, soundness (in body),
1c) welfare, health, prosperity, 1d) peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment, 1e) peace, friendship, 1e1) of human relationships 1e2) with God especially in covenant relationship 1f) peace (from war) 1g) peace (as adjective) Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius – Hebrew Aramaic English Lexicon:“The general meaning behind the root sh-l-m is of completion and fulfillment… shalom. Peace, prosperity, well, health, completeness, safety… ‘ Peace’ in this case, means much more than mere absence of war. Rather, the root meaning of the verb shalem better expresses the true concept of shalom. Completeness, wholeness, harmony, fulfillment, are closer to the meaning. Implicit in shalom is the idea of unimpaired relationships with others and fulfillment in one’s undertakings. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, 2401
“In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness and delight a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, … Shalom, in other words is the way things ought to be.” Not the Way It's Supposed to Be : A Breviary of Sin, Cornelius "Neal" Plantinga, Jr. President of Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
“The Hebrew word salom translated in Eng Bibles by ‘peace’ is a word so widely used and with such rich content that no single Eng word can render it… the word may be said to signify in general completeness, perfection– perhaps most precisely, a condition in which nothing is lacking.” Dictionary of the Bible, John L. McKenzie, S.J, Touchstone, pg. 651
“The primary meaning of the word is ‘prosperity,’ ‘health’…” Jewish Encyclopedia 1906 online
So when Isaiah 52’s gospel preacher, publishes “peace” he’s not proclaiming an absence of war or a state of tranquility, rather, he proclaiming that sound health, prosperity, wholeness, well being, are here. That’s what it means for the people that their God reigns.
“…that publisheth salvation…”
The Hebrew word translated “salvation” is the Hebrew word, "yeshua."
“The Hebrew Bible uses different terms to express nuances in the idea of deliverance, yeshuah and geulah. Two overlapping types, however can be discerned––one concerned with the individual and one focused on the nation. The former looks to the well-being, security, prosperity and vindication of the individual. Many of the Psalms, a greater part of the Book of Proverbs, and scattered indications in the historical and prophetic books emphasize God’s power to provide individual success. A theme in the Pentateuch is that obedience to divine teachings and commandments (halakha) will lead to personal vindication and prosperity. This set of concepts can be said to refer to salvation.” Dictionary of the Jewish Christian Dialogue, Ed. Leon Klenicki and Geoffrey Wigoder, Paulist Press 1984, pg. 179. Article on Salvation by S. Daniel Breslauer Professor Emeritus at the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas
Isaías 52:7 RV ¡Cuán hermosos son sobre los montes los pies del que trae alegres nuevas, del que publica la paz, del que trae nuevas del bien, del que publica salud, del que dice á Sión: Tu Dios reina!
Strongs Exhaustive Concordance: 3444 yeshuah Feminine passive participle of yasha'; something saved, i.e. (abstractly) deliverance; hence, aid, victory, prosperity — deliverance, health, help(-ing), salvation, save, saving (health), welfare.
“…(1) Verbal adj. f. that which is delivered, safe, Isa. 26:1.18.
(2) Subst.–(a) deliverance, help; … “aid vousached by God,” Ex. 14:13–(b) welfare, Job 30:15–(c) victory, 1 Sa. 14:45; 2 Ch. 20:17; Hab. 3:8” Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon by Friedrich Wilhelm Gesenius (1846) pg. 373, Baker Book House (June 1990) paperback.1) salvation, deliverance 1a) welfare, prosperity 1b) deliverance 1c) salvation (by God) 1d) victory Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon
“…help, prosperity, salvation…” A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Based upon the Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, pg. 146
When the Gospel preacher pictured in Isaiah 52:7 proclaims salvation he means: victory, deliverance, prosperity, health and well being.
So the Gospel message set out in Isaiah 52:7 is:
Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings the gospel, that publisheth peace (welfare of every kind, sound health, prosperity, security, contentment, and the like.); that bringeth good tidings the gospel of good, that publisheth salvation (well-being, security, prosperity and vindication of the individual); that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
That’s what happens when God reigns. That’s what happens when the Kingdom of God shows up on the scene. That’s what the people of Nazareth heard when Jesus proclaimed the gospel in his hometown. That’s what was fulfilled that day in Nazareth.
Unfortunately the people in Nazareth weren’t as happy at hearing this good news as you might imagine. The time was fulfilled, the scripture was fulfilled, the kingdom of God was at hand, the authority of the anointed was come, the kingdom of God had shown up but the people didn’t believe. The kingdom of God has been here and people have been not believing it ever since.
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