Do You Believe the True Gospel?
Many today worship a false Jesus who supposedly did away with the Father’s commandments. He is often portrayed as an effeminate weakling with long hair and a haunting, far-off look in his eyes. People just praise his name and feel nice sentiments about him. Is that what it means to preach the name of Jesus? No! We read in The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: “NAME. In biblical thought a name is not a mere label of identification; it is an expression of the essential nature of its bearer. A man’s name reveals his character…. This was a concept shared by the peoples of the ancient world. Hence to know the name of God is to know God as he has revealed himself (Ps. 9:10). The full disclosure of his nature and character is given in Jesus Christ, who has manifested his name (Jn. 17:6, 26).” The name of Jesus includes not only who He was and everything He did, but also all that He taught and stood for. What did Jesus stand for? What is the way of life He came to reveal?
The Law of the Kingdom Remember that one of the requirements of any kingdom is a code of laws by which to govern. In the Kingdom of God, the supreme law of the land will be the Ten Commandments—the great spiritual law of Almighty God. Christ told the Pharisees, “The law and the prophets [the Old Testament] were until John [the Baptist]. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it” (Luke 16:16). But this does not mean that the message of the Kingdom of God has totally displaced the “law and the prophets”—it has, rather, given full expression to it! At the beginning of Christ’s ministry, Matthew recorded: “Now Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23). Jesus, we know, preached “the gospel of the kingdom.” 30