This is a paper that I submitted for my Gospels class at Covenant Seminary. It was one of the most helpful papers that has been assigned to me in my first two years of seminary. The assignment was straight forward: 2 pages, 10 point font, 1.5 line spacing: "What did Jesus intend to accomplish in his first-century earthly ministry?":
When Christ came to earth in the
first century He intended to inaugurate the eschatological kingdom of God in
his life, death, and resurrection. His
goal was to further God’s mission of reversing the effects of the fall and
restoring creation. He accomplished this
in a variety of ways. He sought to
fulfill the will of the Father. He
revealed God’s kingdom in his ministry.
He created disciples to carry on His mission after His ascension into
heaven. Ultimately, He fulfilled his
intentions by accomplishing the salvation of His people.
Jesus’
earthly mission was the mission of His Father.
He came to earth to fulfill the plan of redemption and restoration first
hinted at in Genesis 3:15. That Jesus
came to earth to do the Father’s will is undeniable in the pages of John’s
Gospel (cf. e.g. 7.17; 8.16; 8.29; 9.4; 14.10, etc.). This is not evident in John’s Gospel
alone. Indeed, the boy Jesus says as
much in Luke 2.49. As God revealed
Himself and His mission to His people in the Old Testament, so Jesus did in His
day. Repeatedly in the Pentateuch we
read “the Lord said to Moses” (Exodus 7.1; Numbers 1:1, etc.). In the Gospels, this declaration is replaced
by Jesus authoritative declaration “I say to you” (Matthew 5.26, Mark 8.12,
etc.). Jesus takes up the mission of God
in the very language that He uses.
Jesus’ will mirrors the will of the Father for they are one God united
in purpose: to bring redemption via the kingdom of God.
This unity
of purpose is seen in how Jesus understood His ministry. Jesus sought not only to fulfill the will of
the Father and accomplish God’s mission on earth, He was Himself the revelation
of this mission (see e.g John 1.1-18).
Indeed, he announces His ministry in Mark 1.15 by saying, “The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the
gospel.” Similarly in Matthew, as Jesus
begins His ministry, Matthew 4.17 tells us that “From that time Jesus began to
preach, saying ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” He announces that in Him a new epoch has
arrived and that it requires a response.
He further understands His ministry as the fulfillment of the Scriptures
of the Old Testament. Most famously, in
Matthew 5.17 he declares “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or
the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” In Luke 24.26-27 He shows that His teaching,
including His teaching about His death and subsequent resurrection, are
proclaimed in the pages of the Old Testament (see also John 18.9, 32; 19.24,
28).
The
inauguration of the kingdom marks the primary aspect of Jesus’ ministry in the
Gospels. It was His intention to
establish this Kingdom in the first century, and Jesus powerfully demonstrates
that the kingdom of God has truly come.
This can be seen clearly in His miracles. In Matthew 12.28, when he casts out a demon,
he says “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom
of God has come upon you.” In Luke 7,
when John the Baptist sends messengers to see if Jesus is “the one who is to
come” (v.19), Jesus tells them “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:
the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf
hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by
me” (v. 22-23). Here he quotes Isaiah
29 and 35 to show that He is indeed the one for whom John prepared the
way. The miracles he performs show that
the kingdom has come in His person.
Just like
His miracles, Jesus’ teaching underscores the present nature of the
Kingdom. Earlier, in Luke 4, Jesus
declares that the Jubilee year of Isaiah 61 has come in His person (v.21). He explains what this means for His followers
in His teaching of the “kingdom ethic” in the Sermon on the Mount/Plain. It is a kingdom that displays the goodness,
graciousness, love, kindness, holiness, and righteousness that God intended His
creation to have. Jesus could teach
about this kingdom as “one who had authority” (Mark 1.22) for it is His
kingdom.
This
manifestation of the kingdom of God in His person led Jesus to make
disciples. In His great teaching in the
Sermon on the Mount in Matthew He highlights the need for disciples in
5.13-16. He makes disciples to preserve
the earth and show forth the goodness of God’s Kingdom. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel he commands
the apostles to “make disciples” (Matthew 28.19). Yet, His intention was not just to commission
messengers to send into the world, but to sustain them as well. Much of His prayer in John 17 is focused on
these ends (see especially vv. 9-24). He
promises His disciples that he will give them another “Helper” in John 14:16,
and he makes good on that promise in John 20.22 (cf. Acts 2.2-4). From the fearful (Mark 16.8) to the doubting
(John 20.24-25), Jesus makes disciples who will carry on His message of the
kingdom.
Jesus further inaugurated this Kingdom by ushering in the
New Covenant. In Matthew 10.1 Jesus
calls twelve disciples to usher in this New Covenant, just as the twelve sons
of Jacob were preeminent in the Old Covenant.
He thus constitutes a New Israel (cf. John 15.1-17). This is made explicit in the words of
institution in the Last Supper. As Jesus
takes the cup he says in Luke 22.20 “This cup that is poured out for you is the
new covenant in my blood.”
This act of
inaugurating God’s Kingdom in His blood leads to the culmination of His first
century ministry: His death and
resurrection. As Matthew highlighted the
beginning phase of Jesus ministry (“Jesus began to preach…”), so he highlights
the end in Matthew 16.21 “From that time Jesus began to show his disciples that
he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief
priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” Indeed, each Gospel climaxes in the events of
His passion and resurrection. In Mark,
after Peter’s confession (8.30), Jesus “began to teach them that the Son of Man
must suffer…and be killed, and after three days rise again” (8.31). Mark records two more passion predictions in
the coming chapters (9.30-32; 10.32-34).
At the beginning of John’s Gospel, Jesus repeatedly says that his hour
has not come (2.4; 7.30; 8.20), but later, in 12.23-26 he says that his hour
has come, and that His death will result in “the Son of Man being glorified”
(cf. John 13.1; 17.1). In Luke, Jesus
foretells his death in Luke 9.21-22, 43-45.
The destination of the cross is highlighted by Luke beginning the
journey narrative in Luke 9.51 by saying, “When the days drew near for him to
be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” His intention was to go to the cross and
drink the cup of divine judgment (Mark 10.38), and to overcome that death in
his resurrection.
All of this
results in the salvation of God’s people.
Jesus’ intention to inaugurate the kingdom of God by fulfilling the
Father’s will, His teaching, forming disciples, and through his death and
resurrection was to provide salvation to a fallen world in need of a
Savior. The Gospels each build to a climax
in which Jesus atones for sin in his death and is vindicated as the righteous
One of God in His resurrection. Jesus
came to provide salvation, and thus our response to His work, what we believe
about His intentions, determines our destiny.
As is made clear in John’s Gospel, “the Son of Man [must] be lifted up,
that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his
only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”
(3.15b-16). What was the intention of
Jesus? Luke boils it down concisely, “to
seek and to save the lost” (19.10).