The gospel of the kingdom proclaimed by Jesus is partly distinguished from the gospel preached by the apostles in that they significantly expanded on the meaning of his death.

Yet both were clear on two inseparable points. That Jesus’ death was God’s chosen means of averting humanity’s eternal death. And that the King of God’s kingdom established his eternal reign precisely and only by way of the cross.

‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45).

‘The Lord offered for our sakes the one death that was supremely good.’

Dominion by No Other Route

The Messiah’s dominion was accomplished no other way than through his self-giving, suffering and dying as a sin-bearing sacrifice and substitute — saving sinful people from their own spiritual death and everlasting judgment.

This exaltation through abasement — Christ being ‘lifted up’ (John 3:14; 12:32) in substitutionary suffering, bearing sin and the divine judgment upon it — drove and defined Jesus’ earthly mission, and characterises God’s kingdom itself.

In that saving realm over which Jesus Christ presides, greatness, power and sovereignty are attained and exercised only through self-sacrifice, costly service and humble self-giving. ‘I am among you as the one who serves’ (Luke 22:27).

What Leadership Looks Like Here

Christ-like leadership — indeed, Christ’s own — takes shape in sacrificial service and sheer arduous labour: ‘working hard’ for the good of others, particularly those in direst need, to ‘help the weak.’ For according to Jesus himself, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35).

An Abnormal Kingdom

The character of the kingdom of God over which Jesus rules is, then, abnormal and unexpected.

For Christ’s kingship — through which all of God’s infinite sovereignty is mediated and upon which it is modelled — is based and built upon his suffering for us in our place.

Its nature is distinguished from all other kingdoms by his dying: a death determined by God’s love, demonstrating that love toward ‘sinners’ — ‘weak,’ ‘ungodly,’ ‘enemies’ — who require saving ‘from the wrath of God,’ through reconciliation ‘to God by the death of his Son’ (Rom 5:6-10).

‘He came himself,’ wrote Athanasius, ‘to bear the curse laid upon us,’ by receiving ‘the death set for a curse … that is the cross.’¹Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:1-2; CSMV ed., 54-55.

Reigning From the Cross

Here the idea cherished by the early church fathers — that Jesus the King ‘reigns from the cross’ — has its root.

‘The Lord offered for our sakes the one death that was supremely good,’²Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:1; CSMV ed., 54. calling to us as he died with arms outstretched and drawing all people to himself (John 12:32).

Our need required it — ‘we whom he himself upbore³‘Upbore’: to bear up, support, raise. in his own body — that body which he first offered to death on behalf of all, and then made through it a path to heaven.’⁴Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:6; CSMV ed., 56.

Jesus’ kingdom — the kingdom of God — was established through his atoning death.⁵See Cynthia L. Rigby, ‘Kingdom of God,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 601-4.

Preaching the Cross Is Preaching the Gospel

To proclaim the cross in such terms is, therefore, to preach the gospel.

‘True, the resurrection must be added (Gal 1:1; 2:19-20). So must Jesus’ birth of a woman, and under the law (Gal 4:4). But the gospel is in essence the good news of Christ crucified.’⁶Stott, The Cross of Christ, 343.

This doesn’t mean it’s necessary, in gospelling Christ, to expound the cross on every occasion (e.g. Acts 17:16-34).

It does mean gospel-preaching has as its subject-matter ‘Jesus Christ on the cross’ — not merely as past, but as a completed event which penetrates the ongoing reality of the present.

Galatians 3:1 uses the perfect tense for Christ being ‘crucified’ (estaurōmenos), indicating continuing impact as ‘a historical event of the past … [of] validity, power and benefits [that] are permanent. The cross will never cease to be God’s power for salvation to believers.’⁷Stott, The Cross of Christ, 344.

‘… what the gospel announces, according to the New Testament, is not just what Christ offers people today, but what he once did to make this offer possible. The apostolic gospel brings together the past and the present, the once and the now, historical event and contemporary experience. It declares not only that Jesus saves, but that he died for our sins, and was raised from death, in order to be able to do so. The gospel is not preached if the saving power is proclaimed and the saving events omitted, especially the cross.’⁸Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 57.

The Power Is Persuasion

Much of the saving power in the message of Jesus’ reconciling death is its power of persuasion — its capacity to generate trust in Christ. The aim of the message of the cross is to convince men and women to place personal faith in the crucified Saviour as their very own.

The purpose is to prompt each of us to ‘live in the flesh … by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20).

That the love of God moved God the Son to submit himself to betrayal, arrest, condemnation, and to be ‘mocked and flogged and crucified’ (Matt 20:19) is testimony to the prospect of enjoying God’s pure, unstinting generosity forever.

‘He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?’ (Rom 8:32).

Ryle, With the Brakes Off

Here, hyperbolically yet nonetheless powerfully, is Bishop Ryle:

‘Let others, if they will, preach the law and morality; let others hold forth the terrors of hell, and the joys of heaven; let others drench their congregations with teachings about the sacraments and the church; give me the cross of Christ! This is the only lever which has ever turned the world upside down hitherto, and made men forsake their sins. And if this will not, nothing will. … Never was there a minister who did much for the conversion of souls who did not much dwell on Christ crucified. … This is the preaching which the Holy Spirit delights to bless. He loves to honour those who honour the cross. … Whenever a church keeps back Christ crucified or puts anything whatever in that foremost place which Christ crucified should always have, from that moment the church ceases to be useful. Without Christ crucified in her pulpits, a church is little better than an obstruction of the ground, a dead carcase, a well without water, a barren fig tree, a sleeping watchman, a silent trumpet, a dumb witness, an ambassador without terms of peace, a messenger without tidings, a lighthouse without fire, a stumbling-block to weak believers, a comfort to infidels, a hot-bed of formalism, a joy to the devil, and an offence to God.’⁹J. C. Ryle, ‘The Cross of Christ,’ in Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity, from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman, Second Edition (William Hunt and Company, 1878), 257-59, slightly amended.

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• 1
  Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:1-2; CSMV ed., 54-55. ↩︎
• 2
  Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:1; CSMV ed., 54. ↩︎
• 3
  ‘Upbore’: to bear up, support, raise. ↩︎
• 4
  Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 25:6; CSMV ed., 56. ↩︎
• 5
  See Cynthia L. Rigby, ‘Kingdom of God,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 601-4. ↩︎
• 6
  Stott, The Cross of Christ, 343. ↩︎
• 7
  Stott, The Cross of Christ, 344. ↩︎
• 8
  Stott, The Contemporary Christian, 57. ↩︎
• 9
  J. C. Ryle, ‘The Cross of Christ,’ in Old Paths: Being Plain Statements on Some of the Weightier Matters of Christianity, from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman, Second Edition (William Hunt and Company, 1878), 257-59, slightly amended. ↩︎