The question, ‘Why did Jesus come to Earth?’ can elicit many different answers. Perhaps a common answer would be, ‘So I can be forgiven of my sins and go to heaven’. But is this the main reason?
Jesus’ Mission
To find out why God sent His Son to planet Earth, let’s first take a look at the reasons Jesus gave. Jesus said He came:
- to do the will of the Father (John 6:38)
- to preach the good news to the poor, heal the broken-hearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to announce the year of Jubilee (Luke 4:18-19)
- to bring light into the world and save it (John 12:46-47)
- to serve and give his life as a ransom (Mark 10:45; John 12:27)
- to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:9-10)
- to call sinners to repentance (Matthew 9:13; Mark 2:17)
- to give us abundant life (John 10:10)
- to bear witness to the truth (John 18:37)
We can see that Jesus’ mission can be expressed in many different ways. The apostle John later wrote that “for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
Primary Message
If we want to summarise the purpose and mission for Jesus coming to Earth, we should consider what His primary message was. It was to preach the kingdom of God!
“…[Jesus] said to them, ‘I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent’.” (Luke 4:43)
In the gospel accounts Jesus emphasised the kingdom of God.1 It was His inaugural message2, a recurring theme in His teachings3, and His focus during the forty days between the resurrection and His ascension back to His Father.4
The Reason Why
Why was Jesus’ key teaching the kingdom of God? To answer this we need to go back to the beginning in Genesis.
When God created the Earth He shared His governing authority and commissioned mankind to rule and steward what He had made (Genesis 1:26-28). Humans are how God rules the world. As His image-bearers they were to fill the Earth with the kingdom of Heaven, to colonize it with the laws and culture of Heaven. God wanted to bring Heaven to Earth. God’s plan was for Earth to look like Heaven.
The Garden of Eden was the first settlement of the colony of Heaven, but the Fall changed all that. Through man’s sinful rebellion (abdication of his kingdom responsibility), his relationship with his King and His Kingdom was cut-off and mankind instead began to set up its own rules and way of doing things. The ruling and reigning got corrupted.
The Earth-colony was never intended to function without its heavenly governor (the Holy Spirit) giving direction. However, when mankind declared independence, the divine representative from Heaven had to step aside in deference to our will. As a result, things went from bad to worse.
When mankind sinned they abdicated their position in God’s kingdom. They not only damaged the relationship with their Creator King, but they also gave the Earth-colony to another, Satan, and his kingdom of darkness. Only God could restore the kingdom that mankind lost.
Restoring the Kingdom
The gospel (good news) is much more than the forgiveness of sins. It is also about the restoration of authority and rulership. Jesus came to restore the King’s sons and daughters to their rightful position as heirs of the kingdom. Jesus said that it was His Father’s good pleasure to give us back the kingdom (Luke 12:32).
Jesus’ coming is partly a rescue mission, but not a salvation that rescues people from the world. It is a rescue mission that saves for the sake of the world.
The gospel is therefore an announcement of a new King and kingdom. This kingdom message was that something new has broken into the world. The new world has been launched. New creation has started and God invites us to be a part of bringing it about.
After Jesus had completed His mission of restoring the kingdom of Heaven through His death and resurrection, He declared that He had been given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Mathew 28:18). This kingdom authority is necessary to govern. Jesus had got it back and then commissioned His followers to disciple all nations (Matthew 28:19).
A Necessary Pre-requisite
To once again be God’s image-bearers and kingdom-agents, mankind needed to be reborn and filled with God’s Spirit. Personal salvation is therefore a necessary pre-requisite to restored kingship.
Jesus as the true image-bearer, the express image of God’s nature and character (Hebrews 1:3), demonstrated how we are to rule on God’s behalf. His arrival as the anointed Servant-King was not what the Jews had expected (they imagined a Warrior-King to overthrow the Roman oppressors), but His coming to establish the long-awaited kingdom was the good news (the gospel)! Whereas the kingdoms of this world run on power and violence, this new kingdom from above was to operate by sacrificial love.5
A restored relationship with our Creator and Jesus as Lord and Saviour can never be played down. It’s an absolutely amazing and wonderful thing for which we will be forever grateful! At the same time, we need to recognise that having pledged our allegiance to King Jesus and having been made ‘new humans’, we now have a responsibility to share and demonstrate this good news of the kingdom too.
We have been legally authorised by Jesus and in the power of the re-sent Governor (the Holy Spirit), we are to teach and educate people, society, and nations the kingdom’s constitution (laws, morals, values, beliefs, way of doing things). This is to impact every people, place, and sector of society.
The Only Solution
The only solution to mankind’s problems, personally and at all levels of society, is the kingdom of God. God’s kingdom is His society where His will is done. The kingdom of God is the only thing Jesus called the gospel – the good news. His purpose was to proclaim the kingdom and re-establish it on Earth.
New World
Jesus started a new society, a new world order. His agenda is the reconciliation of all things (Colossians 1:20). He focused on speaking about the kingdom now coming to Earth. He did not speak about going to Heaven after you die or that God’s kingdom was just out in the distant future.
The good news is that the Kingdom, spoken of throughout the Old Testament, has finally arrived! This is the overriding reason why Jesus came to Earth. How are you participating with God in His kingdom mission project in the world?
1 Jesus makes over one hundred references to ‘the kingdom’.
2 Matthew 4:23, 9:35, 24:14; Mark 1:14-15; Luke 4:43.
3 Jesus taught His disciples to seek first the kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33) and to pray that His Father’s kingdom – God’s rule and way of doing things – come and for His will to be done on Earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10). Most of His parables were teachings about the kingdom of God.
4 Acts 1:3
5 Matthew 20:25-26
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