The Confident Witness (12)
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God… Romans 1.16
Good News!
Being a confident witness begins in knowing and loving our Lord Jesus Christ—Him Who has appointed us to be His witnesses.
But it also entails understanding the Kingdom of God, because the Gospel Jesus and Paul preached is the Gospel of the Kingdom. The better we understand the Kingdom and the more we experience the reality of being citizens and ambassadors of that Kingdom, the more confident we will be in talking with others about it.
With the coming of the Kingdom of God a new era has broken into human history. A new King is on the throne, and He is advancing a new economy—a spiritual economy in which grace fuses with Law, issuing, by the power of God’s Spirit, in widespread, ever-increasing love and truth among men. A new agenda governs the affairs of men: King Jesus is building His Church and calling together a people for Himself. His people pursue an altogether new priority—seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness for all of life. And they are infused with a new hope, the hope of knowing God’s glory and showing His glory to the world.
All this has come about because of the glorious saving work of our Lord Jesus Christ. His incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension—and the promise of His imminent return—have ushered out the old era, overcome the old tyrant that ruled men’s souls, canceled the old economy of sin and death, replaced the old agenda and priority of mere self-seeking, and set aside the old, unreliable hope in fleeting things and circum-stances.
The Kingdom of God is thus good news—Gospel! If we could summarize in one word just what that good news consists of, surely it would be the word, power.
The Kingdom of God is power! And the active presence and ready availability of that power—the power of God’s Word and Spirit—is Good News for the world because it makes possible a life that is new and transforming in all its aspects.
I want briefly to examine five aspects of the Kingdom of God and its power to transform and to make all things new. We’ll begin here with the first two.
The power of God for salvation
In the first place, as Paul explains, the Kingdom of God is the power of God for salvation (Rom. 1.16). But salvation from what? Much, indeed.
Those who have been translated into the Kingdom of God’s own Son have been saved from a coming condemnation in which unrepentant sinners will be lost forever (Rom. 8.1-4). No condemnation awaits those who are now, by faith, in Jesus Christ and His Kingdom. They are free in the truth of Christ and know unshakeable peace and joy in God.
The power of the Kingdom also liberates those who possess it from the power of indwelling sin, so that they may flourish in the virtues of grace and truth (Rom. 7.21-25; Tit. 2.14). Kingdom-dwellers are saved from lives of inveterate disobedience to God (Eph. 2.1-10); from the fear of death (Heb. 2.15); and from slavery to unrighteousness (Rom. 6.2-23). All these old things have passed away once a person enters the Kingdom of God’s dear Son, for in Him, all things have become new (2 Cor. 5.17-21).
Human beings have no power on their own to rescue themselves from any of these conditions. Apart from the Kingdom of God, and submission to its King, there is no salvation for any man, from anything which holds him in captivity and hurls him toward oblivion (Acts 4.11, 12). Apart from the saving mercy of Christ and liberation into His Kingdom, men can look forward only to lives of uncertainty, doubt, disappointment, false hopes, fear, and death.
But the Kingdom of God is the power of God for salvation from all of this and more.
The power of God for transformation
Second, the Kingdom is Good News because it brings power to transform. This is clearly visible in a passage like Acts 17.1-7. The demeanor, conversation, and public boldness of Paul and his companions were so markedly different from anything the people of Thessalonica had ever seen before that they declared them to have turned the world upside-down.
The Gospel of the Kingdom is the power of God for transformation, a transformation so complete and thorough that it finally makes all things new. Those who know this power are changed by the glory of God so that, increasingly, their lives begin to refract the living reality of the risen Christ, their King (1 Cor. 3.12-18; Eph. 4.17-24). The fruits and virtues that flow from their lives, like rivers of living water (Jn. 7.39; Gal. 5.22, 23), are precisely those most to be desired and least in supply in a fallen world. Together those who have entered the Kingdom of God form communities of grace and truth whose ability to transform relationships, cultures, and whole societies has been demonstrated over and over throughout the course of Church history (Acts 6.1-7; 19.18-20).
This transforming power of the Gospel of the Kingdom is the experience and testimony of every person who, coming to salvation in Jesus Christ, has taken up the calling to seek this Kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit as his guiding orientation in life. And it breeds confidence in the Gospel and in our ability to proclaim it.
For reflection
1. Why do we say that the Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom? How does understanding the Good News this way widen the scope of what is offered in the Gospel?
2. How do you experience the power of God’s Kingdom fitting you for His service each day?
3. What are some ways God has been working to transform you?
Next steps—Transformation: Does your understanding of the Gospel need some adjusting? Pray these through with the Lord, and ask Him to give you further and better understanding of the Gospel as the Gospel of the Kingdom.
T. M. Moore
Give thanks
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment and give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
Knowing Jesus
Being confident witnesses begins in our relationship with Jesus, in knowing Him. Two books can help you grow in Jesus. To Know Him is a brief and lively exposition of Philippians 3.7-11 and explains what Paul means by this. You can order your copy by clicking here. Be Thou My Vision offers 28 daily meditations on Jesus, drawing on Scripture and writings from the period of the Celtic Revival. Order your copy by clicking here.
Thank you.
Many of you are faithful and generous in praying for and supporting Crosfigell and The Fellowship of Ailbe. Thank you. I encourage all our readers to seek the Lord about becoming a supporter of The Fellowship of Ailbe. It’s easy to give to The Fellowship of Ailbe, and all gifts are, of course, tax-deductible. You can click here to donate online through credit card or PayPal or Anedot, or send your gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
