The gospel is good news for all people. But what does that mean in the concrete situation in which people live? To find an answer to this question, we look successively at some important data that show that God has given and is giving content to what is called the gospel in the Bible in a very clear way.
It's about God's mission
The very first thing to be said in addressing the question of this article is that we are talking here about things that are not man-made, but that we are dealing with God's own work. That there is talk of good news (gospel) is because God has not turned His back on the world that turned its back on Him in paradise (Genesis 3). It is the triune God who has 'figured out' the plan of salvation for the world that has fallen into lostness, the plan of salvation.
I deliberately put that word "conceived" in inverted commas because a whole world of theological thoughts and concepts comes up here, which I cannot go into in the context of this article. What is clear, however, is that the Bible shows that what has not occurred to any human heart has become a reality with God. He announced His plan of salvation (in the promises in the Old Testament) and in the coming of Christ He began its implementation. And with that we immediately say a very fundamental thing: because what God has thought out, He also carries out Himself. Theologically, we use the designation 'missio Dei' for this. This designation shows that God Himself is the very first and most important Actor in what He has in mind in His grace and goodness: the salvation of the world that has fallen into ruin. He brings it about.
In Jesus' coming, the Kingdom dawned
The gospel belongs to God. It is about the implementation of His plan of salvation, aimed at the salvation of the lost world. Or, to put it another way: it is about God restoring His kingdom.
That's how the Bible says it. Or, even more directly, that is how Jesus Himself says it. We read this in Mark 1:15, where Mark echoes what Jesus says as He begins His public appearance. Jesus then says: "The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the gospel. So the gospel is about the coming of the Kingdom. You could even say: the gospel is the coming of the Kingdom of God. In Jesus, it has come near. Here, it is important to note that the word used here in Greek for 'having come near' has two meanings: it is about being near in time, in other words, it is coming now. But it is also about being near in a local sense, in other words: it is close to us, it is among us.
The Kingdom is tangibly present
Both these meanings resonate in what Jesus says. This becomes apparent as you browse further in the gospel. You see it happening before your eyes, and then I point out just a few things. Mark tells (1:21-28) how Jesus drives out an evil spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum. Immediately afterwards, He comes to Peter's mother-in-law, who is sick. He heals her (1:29-31). Then, after the Sabbath is over, the people bring to Him all who were in a bad state and possessed by demons. 'And He healed many of them,' Mark records (1:34). A few days later, a paralytic is brought to Him by four friends. That man receives from Jesus both the forgiveness of his sins and also healing of his paralysis (2:1-12). And there is more. Mark tells how Jesus stills the storm (4:35-41), and how He calls Jairus' little daughter back from the dead (5:21-43).
Browsing through Mark's gospel, we come across all these things and there is much more to mention. But what becomes clear is: Wherever Jesus came, people discovered something of the reality of the Kingdom. With Jesus, they experienced how their sins were forgiven, but also how sickness, suffering and death could not last when He revealed His power. With Jesus, people not only got to see the Kingdom but were allowed to taste it. They were allowed to enter it, and they already got a taste of what it will be like later, at the Second Coming. For the Kingdom has really come near in Jesus. It dawns and becomes tangible with and through Him. Jesus preached the gospel of the Kingdom, and He showed in the signs He performed what God is about, what it will come to. For that He came.
What Mark shows in his gospel we also encounter in Luke. He tells how Jesus, in the synagogue in Nazareth, reads words from the scroll of Isaiah. And then He says: 'Today this scripture word has been fulfilled before your ears' (Luke4:21). He relates Isaiah's words directly to Himself, indicating that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him, that He is anointed, and that He has been sent to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal those who are broken-hearted, to preach release to prisoners and sight to the blind, to send the defeated away into freedom, to - for in it all comes together - announce, to preach the year of the Lord's good pleasure.
The all-encompassing of the gospel
These words no doubt constitute something like a governmental declaration of Jesus that He makes at the beginning of His work. The King of the Kingdom, anointed by the Spirit to do so, is coming to bring peace: the pleasing year of the Lord, or jubilee.
Undoubtedly, then, it is about the coming of salvation in its all-encompassing fullness: salvation that consists in the forgiveness of guilt, but also in the restoration of fellowship and in the opening up of new possibilities for life. This is what God had in mind when He sent His Son, and when He anointed Him with the Spirit. Jesus came to make this a reality, and to provide it with an eternal foundation. And the Bible tells us that Jesus actually did just that. In His death and resurrection, He brought it about, and laid that eternal foundation. Therefore, it can be said that salvation is not a utopia or a dream. It is fully real. In and through Christ. Look at the gospel. You see the blind seeing again, the lame walking and even hopping again, the deaf hearing again, and you see Lazarus, the youth of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus, called back to life by the Living One. You see the harlots and tax collectors, the sinners coming to Jesus, and with him they receive forgiveness and renewal. Not just in nice words, but real, tangible. They may live on, freed from guilt.
The Bible shows this, and it is wonderful: all those people who, in their concrete life situation, in their sins and in the brokenness of their existence, find help and salvation in Jesus. This is where what Jesus promises in John 10:10 becomes visible: 'I have come to give them life in all its fullness.'
The gospel today
What does this mean when we realise that God, in Christ, and through His Spirit is still after the same thing today? After all, He has not changed. He is and remains the same for all eternity (cf. Heb 13:8). For that reason alone, we can say that the triune God is still about bringing, and continuing to bring, salvation. That is also what happens. We see that happening in the book of Acts. There, it is not about what the apostles do or how the believers act. Sure, a lot is told about them, and you see them on all the pages. But if you read carefully, you will notice that Luke shows again and again that in all this action of the apostles and of the believers, it is God Himself, that it is Jesus Himself, who by His Spirit does things. The triune God engages all those people, the apostles and the believers. He uses them as instruments in His hand to carry forward, distribute, and make real the things He has brought about.
That's what God did in the days Luke writes about in the book of Acts. And that is what God is still doing today. He uses the church, He uses the people in the church to advance the salvation that is a reality in Christ. In words and - just as well - in deeds. When Jesus travelled around in the promised land, He really offered help in the concrete emergencies people were in, in their sins and brokenness. So would He no longer want to do that today? He wants to do that, through people, whom He enlists in His work.
Concrete salvation
This is still about salvation in its all-encompassing sense. It is still about forgiveness of guilt, and restoration of fellowship and opening up new possibilities of life. And that very concretely.
Theological thinking through this today refers to the so-called Five Marks of Mission. In this item Petra de Jong-Heins discusses this in detail. Suffice it here to point out that those Five Marks of Mission have everything to do with the all-encompassing of God's plan of salvation. That includes all those five elements. That includes announcing salvation, telling about it. It includes not only getting to know Jesus but also being built up in faith, becoming part of the community (koinonia) around Jesus. This includes giving shape to the love of Christ in service to those in need (diakonia). That includes pointing out and combating injustice that is contrary to what God intends. And that includes taking good care of the creation that, after all, belongs to God. For when Jesus returns, God does not throw His creation into the dustbin, but He renews all things (cf. Rev 21:5). So also creation.
A St Paul's walk around the church
And all these things take place in concrete situations. We run into that every day in our local church. We are church, not in nowhere, but in our concrete village, in our concrete city. And what kind of people live there, in the different neighbourhoods of our village, of our city?
Every year, a group of students from Apeldoorn Theological University produce what is known as a St Paul walk. Then they walk through a number of neighbourhoods around a church building and are challenged to ask what the gospel means for the people living in those different neighbourhoods. And also: how to give hands and feet to the gospel in those different neighbourhoods. Especially when it comes to all those different aspects of the gospel. The answers that these students come back with show that they are set thinking. For what do you arrive at, if you want people to share in the salvation that Christ has brought about, in a neighbourhood where poverty shines down on you. Or also, what do you arrive with when the houses and streets you walk through radiate that the people who live there have pretty much gathered and collected everything life has to offer?
Finally, a personal note
I skimmed this article under the title "Good news for all people? During the years I worked in Mozambique, I was invited almost every Sunday to preach somewhere. This often made me feel uncomfortable. Why? Because while I had already had breakfast at home before getting in the car, when I arrived at the place where preaching was to take place, I had to have an elaborate breakfast first. Then a full meal was prepared. And this happened again after the church service: even then I had to have another meal before I was allowed to leave. That was part of it. But that meal was offered to me by people who - usually - had not had breakfast themselves, and who themselves could only serve very meagre meals to their children. But I had to be generously welcomed. And then I was given something to take home as thanks: often several chickens still alive, a bag of maize, a comb of bananas and so on. I felt uncomfortable with that. And often thought: and what am I bringing them? Yes, the message of God's love in Jesus Christ. But Jesus fed the hungry and helped those in need. He distributed salvation, in His Words and in His deeds. In His wake, the church goes and stands in the world. As an instrument in His hand. Handing out salvation in words and deeds. To concrete people in their concrete lives.
Jan van 't Spijker
Jan van 't Spijker is a senior lecturer in missiology at the Theological University in Apeldoorn. He directs MIRTE, TUA's Missiological Research Team. He is also advisor to deputies for foreign missions and to deputies for evangelisation.
This article is reproduced with permission from Ambtelijk contact 2024, number 4.
