The apostolic gospel of the early church in Acts opens with Jesus “speaking about the Kingdom of God” for forty days (Acts 1:3), and closes with Paul in Rome “proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the lord Jesus Messiah” (Acts 28:23, 31).
This means the biblical gospel cannot be reduced to only “Jesus died for your sins,” nor to the popular idea of “going to heaven when you die.” Nor is the Church “building” or “spreading” the Kingdom now. The Kingdom is God’s future rule on earth, to be established at the parousia — the second coming — of Jesus. Anyone who removes the Kingdom from the gospel message is preaching “another gospel.”
Throughout Acts, we find apostles like Peter and Paul, along with disciples like Stephen and Philip, preaching the same core message: the one God of Israel has raised His Son from the dead and made him the lord Messiah. These titles mark Jesus out as the long-awaited Son of David, the king of God’s coming Kingdom, the appointed ruler and judge through whom God offers repentance, forgiveness, the holy spirit, resurrection life, and future entrance into the Kingdom.
Acts 8:12 gives us one of the clearest summary statements: Philip preached “the Gospel about the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.” Similarly, Paul preached Jesus as the promised Davidic Messiah, along with resurrection, repentance, judgment, and the coming Kingdom (Acts 13, 17, 20, 26, 28). And in Acts 28, Luke ends with the Kingdom and Jesus as the ongoing apostolic gospel.
Thus, anyone who ignores the Kingdom, is silent about the Kingdom as gospel, or reduces the gospel to the cross or to “Jesus only,” is not preaching the full gospel message. In fact, they are left with “another gospel.”
