To Lay Siege the World

Like wall crucifixes that make Jesus look like He's only having a bad day, the word "Gospel" has been sanitized and turned into a "religious ornament."  Let's make it offensive again.

St Mark's gospel begins like this:

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mk 1:1).

Now that is offensive, at least it would've been to the Emperor Nero.

In the first place, many scholars  think that Mark was written in Rome on account of its emphasis on St Peter's preaching (who ended his days at Rome), the many Latinisms in the text, and the witness of the earliest Fathers.  My friend, Prof Dr Daniel B. Wallace, gives a good summary, if you'd like more information.

The clause, "the Son of God" title given to Jesus Christ was a slap on the face to the emperors of Rome who imagined themselves to be divi filius, "son of a god."  Writing under the nose of Nero Caesar, St Mark is effectively denying the divine status of the Imperator.

Adding insult to injury, St Mark also assigns "Gospel" to Jesus Christ--not merely "good news" to send us on our merry way, but precisely to let the air out of Nero's balloon, because the Latin word evangelium (and its Greek equivalent, εὐαγγέλιον) originally referred to that specific "good news" about the accession of a new Roman emperor or about Roman victory at war.  The incipit of Mark's gospel (lowercase gospel refers to the text of one of the four Evangelists; uppercase Gospel refers to...well, hang on) was calculated to theologically unseat Nero and to declare (as he does at the very end of his gospel) that Jesus Christ is enthroned and, therefore, is in control.

That is the "good news," the Gospel:  That Jesus Christ has conquered, that He is seated victoriously at the Father's right hand, and that He reigns.  Similarly, at the end of St Matthew's gospel, the Risen Lord said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" (Mt 28:18).  Hence in the Septuagint version of Psalm 110 (109):1 foretold, "The Lord said unto my Lord:  Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet."  About this, the Old Testament prophet St Daniel saw

in the night visions, / and behold, with the clouds of heaven / there came one like a Son of Man, / and He came to the Ancient of Days / and was presented before him. / And to Him was given dominion and glory and kingdom / that all peoples should serve Him; / His dominion is an everlasting dominion, / which shall not pass away (Daniel 7:13-14).

I remember, back when I began to study New Testament Greek at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, our professor gave us a classic 'Christmas story' out of one of the gospels (without telling us) to translate; I was roundly surprised at how "imperial" the language was in describing the authority of Jesus.  (Which gospel text was it, you ask?  It's too good to leave in a blog online, so when I speak in person about the Gospel, I'll tell that story in full!)

In the previous post, I spoke at length about the Lordship of Jesus.  It is in this context that the Gospel must be understood:  The Good News is that Jesus is Lord--not only has He conquered sin, death, hell, and the Enemy, but He has also conquered the world.

Remember what I also said in the previous post about the meaning of "preaching"--that it was a heralding of the Lordship of Jesus?

The preaching (κηρύσσων) of the Gospel, therefore, is to lay siege to the world with the love of God and to win people from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Apoc 7:9) for Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The extent of Jesus' Lordship is absolute--which is why we speak of "the Kingdom" and, more precisely, the "Gospel of the Kingdom" (cf Mt 4:23, 9:35; Mk 1:14).  The task of preaching is simply to invite people to join themselves to Him.

But, what has this got to do with salvation?

Again, this is another slap across Nero's face.  The Roman emperors imagined themselves to be salvator mundi--"saviour of the world."  John 4:42 was also calculated to show that Jesus is the "saviour of the world," not Augustus.  Whereas the Roman emperor sought to be the "saviour" of the Roman peoples by crediting himself with the success of Rome's infrastructure and the security of its citizens, Jesus offers a salvation that is far more wholistic, one that heals (salvator is related to salve, "health") us right at the heart--sin; the Lord Jesus repairs the world's ills by first repairing human brokenness resulting from our separation from God.  With hearts healed, we can set out to put wrongs to right.

This is exactly why the ambition of social activism under the banner of "Christianity" is inimical to the Gospel--because it bypasses the source of all societal ills, My sins and your sins, and it aims to create a just society based on man's wants instead of Jesus' rights as Lord.

When we speak of the "New Evangelisation," we must first understand evangelisation in the original sense of the term:  To lay siege to the world with Jesus' lordly love by winning souls for Him.  It is "new" because, as Christians, we have permitted Christendom to collapse by aligning ourselves with worldly values; we thus seek to recover for Jesus Christ what we have cost Him.

As I watch to many Christians wring their hands at the Church's state of affairs in a secular society and listen to them talk about the need to cope and compromise in the name of laïcité, I think of St Paul, who rigged the Roman legal system (Acts 25:11-12) in order to pursue the Lord Jesus' summons for him to preach the Gospel in Rome (Acts 23:11) until, finally he arrived at the Capital of the Empire,

preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus quite openly and unhindered (Acts 28:31).

But, then again, as he said in 2 Corinthians 4:13,

Since we have the same Spirit of faith as he had who wrote, "I believed, and so I spoke," we too believe, and so we speak...

If we remain silent about Jesus' reign, if we keep the Gospel to ourselves, if we aim to make Christianity more "relevant" to a world desperate for mercy and grace, we must honestly ask whether we really believe.  Actions speaks louder than words, and to evangelise is to act on the reality that JESUS IS LORD.