DID JESUS AND PAUL PREACH DIFFERENT GOSPELS?

Common Objections Answered — Chapter 41

TEXT B4 TRADITION
READ FIRST. CONCLUDE LATER.

1. The Question We Need to Answer

Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom.

Paul preached the gospel of God's grace.

Were they preaching two different gospels?

Some Bible teachers distinguish between the message Jesus preached to Israel and the message Paul later preached to the church.

According to certain interpretations, Jesus announced an earthly kingdom to Israel. When Israel rejected its King, that kingdom was postponed. God then introduced the church and a different gospel for the present age.

Other teachers make a less sweeping distinction. They recognize that Jesus' message before the cross did not contain everything the apostles later preached about His death and resurrection, but they do not believe there were two different ways of salvation.

These positions should not be treated as identical.

There really are differences between what Jesus' disciples understood before the resurrection and what the apostles preached afterward.

The question is whether those differences amount to two separate saving gospels.

To answer that question, we must follow the message through the New Testament.

2. What Did Jesus Mean by the Gospel of the Kingdom?

Mark 1:14–15

Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Notice four things.

First, Jesus called His message good news.

Second, He announced that the promised time had arrived.

Third, He declared that God's kingdom had drawn near.

Fourth, He called people to repent and believe.

Jesus was announcing that God was acting to fulfill His promises through the Messiah.

Israel had long awaited God's promised King. The prophets had spoken of a descendant of David who would reign in righteousness (Isaiah 9:6–7; Jeremiah 23:5–6).

Jesus' announcement was therefore rooted in promises already found in the Old Testament.

But was His message simply that Israel would become an independent political nation?

Consider what Jesus actually taught about the kingdom.

In Matthew 5:3, the kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells His followers to seek God's kingdom and righteousness.

In Mark 10:14–15, He teaches that the kingdom must be received like a child.

In John 3:3–5, Jesus connects seeing and entering God's kingdom with being born from above, by water and Spirit.

These teachings do not describe merely a change in political government.

They concern a person's relationship with God.

The kingdom Jesus announced was God's promised reign, calling people to repentance, faith, and a new relationship with Him.

That does not settle every question about the kingdom's future. But it establishes that Jesus' message was much more than a promise of national independence.

3. But the Disciples Did Not Yet Understand the Cross

Here we encounter an important difficulty.

Mark 6:7–13; Luke 9:1–6

Jesus sent His disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God.

Yet later, when Jesus explained that He would be killed and rise again, they did not understand.

Mark 9:31–32

Jesus told them that He would be delivered into the hands of men, killed, and raised after three days.

Mark says they did not understand what He meant.

Luke 18:31–34

Jesus again explained His coming suffering, death, and resurrection.

Luke says:

“They understood none of these things.”

How, then, could the disciples preach the gospel before they understood the death and resurrection of Jesus?

This is a fair question.

The answer begins by recognizing that God's promises were revealed progressively.

The disciples could announce that God's promised kingdom was drawing near through Jesus without yet understanding everything He would accomplish.

Their knowledge was incomplete.

That does not mean their announcement was false.

Consider Abraham.

Galatians 3:8 says Scripture announced the gospel beforehand to Abraham through the promise that all nations would be blessed through him.

Abraham did not possess the complete New Testament explanation of Christ's death and resurrection.

Nevertheless, the promise he received was part of the same saving purpose God would fulfill through Christ.

Likewise, the disciples' early announcement was genuine good news, even though they did not yet understand its full meaning.

An incomplete understanding of God's unfolding plan is not necessarily a different plan of salvation.

We must not pretend the disciples understood everything from the beginning.

But neither should we conclude that God introduced an unrelated gospel after the resurrection.

The remaining passages will help us test that conclusion.

4. Jesus Explained the Gospel More Fully After His Resurrection

Luke 24:25–27, 44–47

After His resurrection, Jesus explained that the Scriptures had foretold His suffering and glory.

He then told His disciples that the Messiah's suffering and resurrection fulfilled what had been written.

Notice what follows.

Jesus said that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

The message would now include the meaning of events that had already occurred.

The disciples could proclaim the crucified and risen Messiah because they now understood what Jesus had accomplished.

But Jesus did not describe this as abandoning His earlier promises.

He explained that His suffering and resurrection were the fulfillment of Scripture.

This is an important distinction.

The resurrection brought fuller understanding of the gospel, not necessarily a replacement gospel.

5. Did Jesus Expect the Kingdom Gospel to Continue?

Matthew 4:23

Matthew describes Jesus as proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

Matthew 9:35

He again describes Jesus teaching and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

Now consider Matthew 24:14:

“This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations.”

Notice the words this gospel of the kingdom.

Jesus spoke of the kingdom message being proclaimed beyond His immediate ministry in Galilee and Judea.

Christians disagree about the timing and fulfillment of Matthew 24:14. Some connect it particularly with the events leading to Jerusalem's destruction in AD 70. Others see a wider proclamation extending toward Christ's return.

We need not settle that disagreement here.

The important point is that Matthew does not present the gospel of the kingdom as a message that must disappear when Jesus dies.

Jesus speaks of its continued proclamation.

If someone argues that the kingdom gospel was replaced by another gospel, we should ask:

Where does Jesus say that His gospel of the kingdom would be withdrawn and replaced?

That is a question the proposed distinction must answer from Scripture.

6. What Did Peter Preach After Pentecost?

Acts 2:22–36

On Pentecost, Peter proclaimed Jesus' death, resurrection, exaltation, and lordship.

He explained that God had raised Jesus and seated Him at His right hand.

Peter then concluded:

“God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” (Acts 2:36)

Peter's message included what the disciples had previously failed to understand.

But it also concerned the promised King.

Peter quoted Psalm 110:1, a passage about the Lord's exalted ruler.

He also referred to God's promise concerning David's descendant.

In Acts 2:30–31, Peter connected the promise to David with the resurrection of Christ.

The King had been raised and exalted.

When the people asked what they should do, Peter called them to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins (Acts 2:38).

Notice the continuity.

Jesus had called people to repent and believe the gospel.

Peter now proclaimed the risen Jesus and called people to respond to Him.

The message had become clearer because Christ's saving work had been accomplished.

But Peter did not announce that God's kingdom promises had failed and that an unrelated plan had taken their place.

7. Philip Preached the Kingdom and Jesus Together

Acts 8:12

This passage deserves special attention.

Luke says that Philip proclaimed:

“Good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ.”

The people who believed Philip's message were baptized.

Notice that this occurred after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension.

The church had already begun.

Yet Philip was still preaching the kingdom of God.

And he was preaching Jesus Christ.

Luke does not describe these as competing messages.

They belong together in Philip's proclamation.

If the kingdom gospel had been withdrawn and replaced, Acts 8:12 is a passage that requires explanation.

8. What Did Paul Call His Gospel?

Paul certainly preached Christ's death and resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:1–4

Paul reminded the Corinthians of the gospel he had preached to them.

Its central facts included:

  • Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.

  • He was buried.

  • He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

These events were essential to Paul's proclamation.

But notice something else.

Paul did not claim that he had invented this message or received a gospel contrary to what the other apostles preached.

In 1 Corinthians 15:5–8, he listed witnesses to the risen Christ, including Peter, the Twelve, James, and himself.

Then he said:

1 Corinthians 15:11

“Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”

This is a particularly important statement.

Paul identifies the essential resurrection message preached by himself and the other apostles.

He does not describe Peter as proclaiming one saving gospel and himself as proclaiming another.

On the contrary, he says they preached the same essential message.

This does not mean every apostle used identical words or addressed identical questions.

It means their proclamation of the risen Christ agreed.

Paul himself gives us evidence of continuity between his gospel and the preaching of the other apostles.

9. Did Paul Preach the Kingdom of God?

This may be the most direct test of the proposed distinction.

If Jesus preached the kingdom gospel but Paul preached an entirely different church gospel, what should we expect to find?

We might expect Paul to stop preaching the kingdom.

But that is not what Acts records.

Acts 19:8

In Ephesus, Paul entered the synagogue and spent three months reasoning and persuading people about the kingdom of God.

Acts 20:24–25

Paul described his ministry as testifying to the gospel of God's grace.

Immediately afterward, he referred to his ministry among those to whom he had gone proclaiming the kingdom.

The same apostle described his ministry using both expressions.

Acts 28:23

In Rome, Paul explained the kingdom of God and tried to persuade his listeners concerning Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets.

Acts 28:30–31

The book of Acts closes with Paul:

“Proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is especially significant.

At the end of Acts, long after the resurrection and after years of ministry among Gentiles, Paul was still preaching the kingdom.

Luke did not conclude his account by telling us that Paul had replaced the kingdom gospel.

Instead, he deliberately described Paul's continuing proclamation of the kingdom and Jesus Christ.

We should not force a distinction between messages that Luke repeatedly places together.

Paul preached the gospel of God's grace, the kingdom of God, and Jesus Christ.

The text presents these as related parts of his ministry, not as rival plans of salvation.

10. What About Galatians 1 and the Warning Against Another Gospel?

Galatians 1:6–9

Paul strongly warned the Galatians against accepting a gospel contrary to the one they had received.

He said that even an angel from heaven must not be accepted if he proclaimed a contrary gospel.

But what was happening in Galatia?

Certain teachers were troubling Gentile Christians and pressuring them to accept circumcision and obligations associated with the Mosaic Law.

Paul argued that believers are justified through faith in Christ, not by works of the Law (Galatians 2:15–21; 3:1–14).

His warning concerned a message that undermined the sufficiency of Christ and imposed requirements contrary to the gospel he preached.

We should be careful here.

Galatians 1 does not mean that every different emphasis or every additional explanation constitutes another gospel.

Peter and Paul could address different audiences without preaching competing ways of salvation.

Likewise, the message proclaimed before the cross could contain less information than the message proclaimed afterward.

But a message that changes the basis of salvation is another matter.

Paul would not accept a teaching that made something other than Christ's saving work the foundation of justification.

That principle is central to his argument.

11. Didn't Paul Say There Was a Gospel for the Circumcised and Another for the Uncircumcised?

Galatians 2:7–9

This is one of the strongest passages someone might raise in support of two gospels.

Paul refers to the gospel associated with the uncircumcised and the gospel associated with the circumcised.

Does that mean there were two different messages of salvation?

Read the surrounding verses.

Paul had gone to Jerusalem and explained the gospel he preached among the Gentiles (Galatians 2:1–2).

The recognized leaders did not require Titus, a Greek, to be circumcised (2:3).

They recognized that Paul had been entrusted with a ministry to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with a ministry to the circumcised.

Then they extended fellowship to Paul and Barnabas.

The distinction concerns the people to whom their ministries were especially directed.

Paul's principal mission was among Gentiles.

Peter's principal mission was among Jews.

That does not require two different ways of salvation.

In fact, the same chapter makes the point even clearer.

Galatians 2:15–16

Paul says that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Jesus Christ.

He includes Jewish believers in that statement.

And when Peter's conduct threatened the truth of the gospel, Paul confronted him (Galatians 2:11–14).

Why would Paul challenge Peter's conduct if Peter were operating under a different saving gospel?

The disagreement was not over whether Peter had permission to preach another way of salvation.

It concerned behavior that contradicted the truth they were supposed to share.

Different audiences do not require different gospels.

12. Did the Apostles Agree About Salvation?

Acts 15:1–11

The Jerusalem meeting gives us another important test.

Some teachers insisted that Gentile believers must be circumcised according to the custom of Moses to be saved.

The apostles and elders considered the question.

Peter reminded them that God had given the Holy Spirit to Gentile believers.

Then he said:

Acts 15:11

“We believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Notice the order.

Peter did not say Gentiles would be saved through grace while Jews would be saved by another arrangement.

He said Jewish believers would be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as Gentile believers would.

This is strong evidence that the apostles did not recognize two separate methods of salvation.

The same Lord saves both.

Paul later expressed the same principle in Romans 3:29–30.

God is the God of Jews and Gentiles, and He justifies both through faith.

13. Was the Kingdom Postponed?

The question of two gospels is often connected with another claim: that Israel's rejection of Jesus caused the kingdom to be postponed.

We have examined that question more fully elsewhere in this series.

For this study, consider several passages.

Acts 2:29–36

Peter connected Jesus' resurrection and exaltation with God's promise to David.

Colossians 1:13–14

Paul says that God has rescued believers from the domain of darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of His beloved Son.

He connects this with redemption and forgiveness of sins.

Hebrews 12:28

Believers are described as receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

1 Corinthians 15:24–26

Paul speaks of Christ reigning until His enemies are placed under His feet, with death being the last enemy destroyed.

These passages establish that Christ's kingship is not merely a distant possibility.

He has been exalted.

His people already belong to His kingdom.

His reign continues toward the final defeat of death.

Christians disagree about whether certain kingdom promises also require a future earthly phase of His reign.

That disagreement deserves careful study.

But the existence of a future dimension does not mean Christ is not King now.

And even if someone believes in a future earthly kingdom, that belief alone does not establish that Paul preached a different saving gospel.

The timing of particular kingdom promises and the question of one or two saving gospels are related, but they are not identical questions.

We must not assume that proving one automatically proves the other.

14. Did Jesus and Paul Teach the Same Way of Salvation?

Consider what Jesus taught.

John 3:16–18

Jesus spoke of eternal life through believing in God's Son.

John 5:24

He said that the one who hears His word and believes the One who sent Him has eternal life.

John 14:6

Jesus declared that no one comes to the Father except through Him.

Now consider Paul's teaching.

Romans 3:22–26

Paul taught that righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ and that God demonstrates His righteousness through Christ's saving death.

Ephesians 2:8–10

Paul taught that salvation is by grace through faith, not a human achievement, and that believers are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

1 Timothy 2:5–6

Paul proclaimed one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom.

Jesus and Paul spoke at different stages of God's unfolding work.

Jesus spoke before His death and resurrection.

Paul preached after those events had occurred.

But both directed people toward salvation through Jesus Christ.

Neither taught that Israel could be saved apart from Christ while Gentiles were saved through Him.

Neither presented human obedience to the Mosaic Law as an independent way to earn eternal life.

We should not erase the differences in historical setting.

But we should not turn those differences into contradictory ways of salvation.

15. What Does the New Testament Actually Establish?

We can now summarize what the passages demonstrate.

First: Jesus proclaimed the good news of God's promised kingdom and called people to repentance and faith.

Second: His disciples preached the kingdom before they fully understood His coming death and resurrection.

Third: After His resurrection, Jesus explained how His suffering and victory fulfilled the Scriptures.

Fourth: Peter proclaimed the crucified, risen, and exalted Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

Fifth: Philip preached the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ together.

Sixth: Paul preached Christ's death and resurrection and explicitly affirmed agreement with the other apostolic witnesses.

Seventh: Paul continued preaching the kingdom of God throughout his ministry.

Eighth: Peter and Paul recognized different principal audiences, but Acts 15 and Galatians 2 do not establish different ways of salvation.

These observations are drawn directly from the New Testament.

They do not require us to settle every disputed question about the millennium, Israel's future, or the exact timing of every kingdom promise.

They do give us substantial grounds for rejecting the claim that Jesus and Paul proclaimed competing plans of salvation.

16. What Should We Not Conclude?

There are several mistakes we should avoid.

We should not say that Jesus' disciples understood the full gospel from the beginning.

The Gospels explicitly tell us otherwise.

We should not say that the kingdom and the church are interchangeable words in every passage.

The kingdom refers to God's reign and its realm. The church refers to the people called together in Christ. The concepts are closely related, but the words are not identical in meaning.

We should not claim that every dispensationalist teaches two different ways of salvation.

Many explicitly reject that idea.

We should not claim that Galatians 1, by itself, proves there could be no difference in emphasis or information between Jesus' early preaching and Paul's later preaching.

We must read Paul's warning in its context.

We should not conclude that every question about Israel's future has been settled simply because the apostles preached one saving gospel.

Those questions must be examined through their own passages.

The strongest argument is not one that claims more than Scripture establishes.

It is one that follows the evidence as far as it leads—and stops there.

17. The Question That Remains

If Jesus preached one saving gospel and Paul preached an entirely different saving gospel, why does the New Testament repeatedly connect their messages?

Why did Philip preach both the kingdom and Jesus Christ?

Why did Paul describe his ministry as proclaiming both the gospel of grace and the kingdom?

Why did Paul say that he and the other apostles preached the same essential resurrection message?

Why did Peter declare that Jews and Gentiles are saved through the same grace of the Lord Jesus?

And why does the book of Acts end with Paul still proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about Jesus Christ?

These are questions that deserve answers from the biblical text.

Conclusion — One Savior, One Saving Gospel

The New Testament reveals God's saving purpose unfolding through history.

Before the cross, Jesus announced that God's promised kingdom had drawn near.

His disciples proclaimed that announcement, even though they did not yet understand the full meaning of His coming death and resurrection.

After the resurrection, the apostles proclaimed what Christ had accomplished.

They preached His death for sins, His resurrection, His exaltation, His lordship, and the forgiveness and salvation available through Him.

The message became fuller as God's promises were fulfilled.

But Scripture does not present Peter and Paul as proclaiming two competing ways of salvation.

Nor does it present Paul's ministry as the replacement of Jesus' kingdom message.

The book of Acts closes with Paul still proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about Jesus Christ.

The kingdom message and the saving work of the King belong together.

The question is not whether Jesus and Paul used exactly the same words at every stage.

They did not.

The question is whether the New Testament teaches two different saving gospels.

The passages we have examined do not support that conclusion.

God's promises find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ, and salvation rests upon His saving work.

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These studies examine related questions about the kingdom, Israel, the church, and Christ's present reign.

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