What was Jesus' mission?

The first verse of our chapter describes the mission of our Lord to this world, about that there can be no question. The first time that He preached in the Synagogue of Nazareth, where He had been brought up, He opened the Book at these very words and read them. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the meek [the poor]; He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And He told His hearers that that very day these words were fulfilled in their ears. It is equally certain that the great blessings of His mission were to run in no narrow channel, for while His words were addressed to a crowd of Jews, He showed them how the grace that was in Him would work, it would flow out and on to sinners of the Gentiles, like the Zidonian widow and the Syrian leper. His mission was to the world; He came for the blessing of men, to seek and save the lost, to preach the gospel to the poor.

When Christ was here, God was in Him with reconciliation in view for the whole world. He came to bring men to God, not to arraign them before God, bringing them to book as regards their sins. This we see strikingly exemplified in John 8:11. But God's overtures to men in Christ, with reconciliation in view, were rejected and He was put to death. It is one of the chief wonders of the Gospel that notwithstanding this His death became the basis of the reconciliation that is being announced today.

To Paul was committed the ministry of reconciliation; a ministry that told of God’s overtures in grace to man in the Person of Christ. When Christ was upon earth, God was not imputing to men their trespasses; He was offering blessing in grace in Jesus. But men refused the grace of God in Jesus, proving that it was impossible to reconcile man in the flesh. This being so, God brought to light His hidden resources, giving His own Son to die on the cross, that through His death men might be reconciled. So that the basis of reconciliation has been laid in the death of the cross, where Christ who knew no sin, was made sin for us. Now that Christ has died, glorifying God in regard to the whole question of sin, God has sent out His ambassadors with the wondrous message, “Get right with God.” Men can now be reconciled by receiving the message of the Gospel, by accepting Christ who died on the cross to make us “God’s righteousness in Him.”

His message is described as "the Gospel of the kingdom of God," and a very brief summary of its terms is found in verse 15. The kingdom of God had been spoken of in the Old Testament, notably in Daniel. In Daniel 9 a certain time had been set for the coming of Messiah and the fulfilment of the prophecy. The time was fulfilled, and in Himself the kingdom was near to them. He called upon men to repent and to believe this. With this proclamation He came into Galilee. For the moment He was alone in this service.

In the three verses which close chapter 4, Matthew sums up the early days of His ministry. His message was "the gospel of the kingdom." It must be distinguished from "the gospel of the grace of God," which is being preached today. This has the death and resurrection of Christ as its great theme, and announces forgiveness as the fruit of the expiation He made. That was the glad tidings that the kingdom predicted by the prophets was now brought to them in Him. If they would submit to the divine authority that was vested in Him, the power of the kingdom would be active on their behalf. As proof of this He showed the power of the kingdom in the healing of men's bodies. All manner of bodily sickness and disease was removed, the pledge that He could heal every spiritual ill. This display of the power of the kingdom, coupled with the preaching of the kingdom, proved very attractive, and great crowds followed Him.

The preaching of Jesus announced the kingdom, shewed that the time was fulfilled, that the kingdom of God was at hand, that the people must repent and believe the gospel. We should distinguish between the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of our salvation. Christ is the centre of both; but there is a great difference between the preaching of a kingdom which is drawing near, and that of an eternal redemption accomplished upon the cross. It is quite possible that the two truths should be announced together. And indeed we find that the apostle Paul preached the kingdom, but he certainly also proclaimed an eternal redemption accomplished for us upon the cross. Christ prophesied of His death, and announced that the Son of man should give His life for the ransom of many; but He could not announce an accomplished redemption during His life. Men ought to have received Him and not to have put Him to death: hence His testimony was about the kingdom which was drawing nigh.

In verse 45, the Lord not only brings His death before His disciples for the fifth time, but He explains its significance. Previously He had emphasized the fact of His death, so that the minds of the disciples might no longer be obsessed by expectations of a coming visible kingdom. Now the meaning of the fact appears. He would die to pay the ransom price for many. Here then we have a plain statement as to the substitutionary and atoning character of His death from His own lips. It is "many" here, for the actual, realized effect of His ransoming death is the point. In 1 Timothy 2:6, where the bearing and scope of it is in question, the word is "all."

Turn once more to Isaiah 49. In verse 6 the Lord is pointed out as Jehovah’s Servant, to restore the preserved of Israel; but again God says, “I will also give Thee for a Light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My Salvation unto the end of the earth.” Here we see Him as The Servant; the Light, and the Salvation of God. What a wonderful Saviour! When Mary took Him to the temple, one of the remnant of Israel; “a servant” of the Lord’s, Simeon by name, rejoiced to see in Him God’s “Salvation,” and “the glory of His people Israel;” also “a Light for revelation of the Gentiles” (N.Tr.), that they, brought out of their darkness and ignorance, might be revealed in God’s marvellous light. Nor is this truth limited to the bodily presence of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth, for in preaching the gospel the Apostle Paul, when “the Jews seeing the crowds, were filled with envy, and contradicted,” said, “Lo we turn to the Gentiles; for thus the Lord enjoined us: I have set thee as a light of the nations” (Acts 13:47). This striking reference to Isaiah decisively conforms the truth of which we have spoken. The Light, like the gospel, and the salvation of God, is sent out for all men everywhere.

Jesus as God's Servant had come to save His people Israel, but they would not have Him and so rejected their own mercies. God's answer to the rejection of His Son by Israel is, "It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth" (verse 6). Not only would Messiah, rejected by Israel, be "glorious in the eyes of the Lord," but He would secure blessing to a far greater company than Israel, and His God would be His strength in achieving this great end.

What God's Servant came to accomplish for Israel would be achieved in God's good time, Israel would be regathered for the millennial day, the tribes of Jacob would be raised up, and the preserved of Israel be restored, but there would be something done among the Gentiles, both in the day in which we live, and also in the millennium, Christ being God's light for the Gentiles, and His salvation to the end of the earth. The mystery of Christ and the church is not revealed here, that awaited Christ taking His place on high and the coming of the Holy Spirit, but the preaching of Christ as God's light and salvation now is within the scope of this prophecy.

Having dealt with matters of practical life and behaviour, from verse 8 the Apostle gives us a little summary of his earlier teaching as to the relations of the Lord Jesus with both Jews and Gentiles. He did come as the Servant of all God's purposes in regard to His ancient people; so that the promises made aforetime to the fathers have been confirmed, though as yet they have not been all fulfilled. Then as regards the Gentiles, He came as God's Messenger of mercy to them, so that ultimately they too might glorify God. This showing of mercy to Gentiles, though perhaps quite unexpected by the Jews, was no new thought on God's part, for it had been indicated in Old Testament Scripture. Moses, David and Isaiah had all borne testimony to it, as verses 9-12 show us.