2/6/25 Bible Thought
The Coming Kingdom
Mark’s Gospel from the outset shows us that he will be recounting, “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1) and then he goes on to begin a bare-bones introduction that gets right to it. He quickly blazes through John the Baptist’s ministry, Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, and then dives right into the ministry of the Lord Jesus.
With this, we see the content of the Messiah’s message in verses 14 and 15. He proclaims, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mk. 1:14-15). This is the message of Jesus summed up in simple terms and it presents a statement of fact and a necessary response. First, there is the statement that the time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand or has drawn near. With the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, a new age had dawned. Now, the Kingdom is here. It’s coming and will continue to come.
For thousands of years this time was awaited and at the “fullness of time” Christ came (see Gal. 4:4). From the outset of the fall there was a future hope that one day the offspring of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). There was a chosen family that God selected out of all the peoples on the earth and a promise to Abraham, “and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen. 22:18). The patriarch Jacob, as he’s departing from this life declares, “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:10). These and countless other promises existed for centuries upon centuries upon centuries and finally the time of fulfillment had dawned. The Christ had come. The One who would fulfill all the old covenant promises of a future Ruler was here. The new age was dawning.
With his first advent the Kingdom was inaugurated and at His second advent the Kingdom will be consummated. Thus, we live in a time that many scholars describe as the, “Already, but not yet.” We live in this age of fulfillment, we live under the heavenly reign of Christ, but a final day is coming when all will be brought to its final fulfillment. The coming of the Lord Jesus is the gospel, or good news, of God (Mk. 1:14). It’s God’s good message that He has given to us in His Son who has come down to save us from our sins and to bring about eternal life.
A message of this caliber demands a response. You can’t hear a message of a long-awaited fulfillment, of the Savior’s coming, of the dawning of a new age, and just simply ignore it. It must either be accepted or rejected. The proper response given by the Lord Jesus is one of repentance and belief or trust. I have heard it said many times that these things are essentially two sides of the same coin. The Greek word for repent has the sense of, “to change one’s way of life as the result of a complete change of thought and attitude with regard to sin and righteousness.”[1] It begins with a change of mind, that is proven through a change of actions. The change entails an acknowledgement of sin and need of salvation that is followed by belief or trust in God’s appointed One for salvation. Hence, turning to Christ in faith for salvation is a turning away from sin. Knowing the need for salvation from sin and going to the savior for forgiveness requires an acknowledgement that my sin is sin and that as a sinner I need forgiveness. If we’re convinced that our sin isn’t sinful, then why would we need saving? It requires coming to agreement with what God says concerning our sin, recognizing our sin for what it is, and casting ourselves at the Messiah’s feet in need of mercy, trusting in Him as Savior. This is the nature of repentance and faith, which again are two sides of the same coin.
The new age has dawned, and the Kingdom of God is expanding day by day until the final day when it is said, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever (Rev. 11:15). The question is will we turn to Christ in repentance and faith to receive forgiveness of our sins by a free gift of grace and be incorporated into the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son (see Col. 1:13) or will we reject Him until it’s too late? There is a way to find forgiveness for all of our sins in Jesus Christ, and that is good news.
[1] Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996) 509.