bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”
Discuss
1. Why is death the punishment for sin? Do people believe that is true today?
2. Explain what “salvation is a relationship” means to you.
3. In what way is humility a key to accepting Jesus as Savior?
Practice
This week select one of the Scripture passages in this session that looks at the need for the Messiah to suffer and die on our behalf, and spend some time in prayer and reflection on it. What does this passage teach you? How can you make it become more “real” in your life? What changes do you still need to make in your life to fully appreciate this great sacrifice?
Session 2
Salvation, Repentance, and Faith
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.”
— Mark 1:15
Jesus made the transition from his hidden thirty years of life, mostly in Nazareth, to his three years of public preaching, teaching, and healing by being baptized by John, followed by forty days of fasting and temptation in the desert. After successfully defeating the devil’s temptations, Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17). Note that after his resurrection from the dead, Jesus concluded his message to his disciples with a similar message: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mk 16:15-16).
Note that his words in Mark lay out the high stakes involved in the decision to believe in Jesus Christ or not — will a person be saved or condemned? Salvation offers hope of eternal life; condemnation casts a person outside of eternal fellowship with God.
Stop here and read Matthew 13:41, 43; 22:13-14; 25:30, 34 in your own Bible.
These are the highest stakes indeed.
Study
Let’s examine Jesus’ opening message at the beginning of this chapter in more detail, looking at its four components.
The First Component
First, Jesus announced that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.” This part of his announcement goes back to a prophecy in the Book of Daniel.
Stop here and read Daniel 9:24-27 in your own Bible.
Jesus was well aware that the time of his ministry and salvation fulfilled this prophecy, and therefore the time of his birth, death, and resurrection were no accident of history but the foretold window of opportunity for the redemption.
Stop here and read Luke 4:16-21 in your own Bible.
“Seventy Weeks of Years”
“The seventy weeks of years” that are decreed for the holy city (Jerusalem) refers to a period of 490 years. Most commentators connect this prophecy with the decree by Persian King Artaxerxes I (465/4 B.C.) that gave the people of Judah permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem in 457 B.C. (see Ezra 7:1-28). The 490 years ends in A.D. 33, thereby linking the prophecy with the “anointed one” (Christ in Greek) who would be “cut off” in death.
Furthermore, the final Jewish Jubilee (A.D. 27) before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem took place — and when Jesus began to preach in Nazareth, interpreting himself as the one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord had come in order to announce a year of favor (the Jubilee) — in fact referred to the entirety of his public mission of healing, freedom, and good news for the poor.
Investigate
“The Time is Fulfilled”
Jesus’ self-understanding of fulfilling these prophecies from Daniel and Isaiah are the key to teaching that “the time is fulfilled,” a component of his message that was picked up and spread by his disciples. Read the following passages and take notes.
| PASSAGE | NOTES |
| Romans 16:25-26 | |
| Galatians 4:4-5 | |
| Ephesians 1:9-10 | |
| 1 Timothy 2:5-6 | |
| Titus 1:1-2 |
The Second Component
The second component of Jesus’ first preaching is that “the kingdom of God is at hand” or “near.” The understanding of this phrase “kingdom of God” appears only once in the Old Testament, in one of the Aramaic chapters of Daniel, which predicts: “And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan 2:44).
The “God of heaven” will set up an indestructible kingdom that will destroy other kingdoms. These other kingdoms are described in Daniel’s interpretation of a dream by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar in which a statue of a man was made of various metals, symbolizing different earthly empires: Babylon was the head of gold, the Mede-Persian kingdom was the chest of silver, the Greek kingdom was the belly of bronze, and the Romans were the iron and clay legs and feet. The kingdom set up by God was a stone that turned into a mountain and destroyed the other kingdoms. This kingdom of God was in no way to be identified with any earthly kingdom or power; it was a completely different reign that would destroy all other kingdoms. Therefore, each person who accepted Daniel’s message was being summoned to a new type of citizenship and a new commonwealth of God, which is in heaven.
Jesus spoke often of the kingdom of God (though sometimes he identified it as the “kingdom of heaven,” both with appreciation of Jewish sensitivity to the sacredness of God’s Name and in line with Daniel 2:44 where “the God of heaven” sets up the kingdom). He instructed his disciples to preach about it, and he spoke many parables about the kingdom of God. From this teaching, Jesus’ followers are to learn a new identity as they live in the world as if they were no longer part of it or its kingdoms.
Stop here and read John 15:18; 17:16 in your own Bible.
The Third Component
The third component of Jesus’ first preaching was his command in the plural imperative to “repent.” His use of the plural indicates that it is directed to everyone rather than to one particular person. The verb in Greek
