A Biblical Vision, Part II: Mastering the New Testament Witness to Christ

Ses s i on 3: The Gospe l s : The Man i fes tat i on of Chr i s t , Par t I I 73

III. The Messiahship of Jesus Is Revealed through His Prophetic Teaching

The Kingdom of God is not a product of human effort or of natural evolution, neither can it be identified with the church, though the rule of God implies . . . a people of God living under his rule, a church. It is the eschaton – God’s final purpose – invading history. It is God breaking dynamically into human affairs, God in conflict with the powers of evil, through Jesus and his ministry, for men’s deliverance, and the new order of things thus established. It is a divine crisis – nay, the divine crisis, the crisis which gives meaning to all history before and after it. And, for Jesus, this new order has been decisively initiated in his ministry. . . . Jesus opened his ministry with the pro clamation that the reign of God had ‘come upon’ men. Near its ending he said, ‘The Son of man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many’ (Mark 10.45). Since Jesus is both the messenger of the Kingdom and the Son of man who must die, he poses in his own person the problem of the Kingdom and the cross. Now, if the Kingdom has been initiated in the ministry of Jesus, we may not say that he died to bring in the Kingdom. The cross must fall within the Kingdom – must be its burning focus and center – the climactic act in the warfare of God’s Kingdom against the kingdom of the devil. ~ Archibald Hunter. The Works and Words of Jesus . pp. 98-99.

A. On his fulfillment of the salvation promises

1. Jesus taught that the subject of the Old Testament was his very own person.

a. John 5.39-40

b. Luke 24.27

c. Luke 24.44

d. Heb. 10.7