W have recently read an article which seeks to prove that the gospel of the Kingdom

as given in Matthew, and the gospel of the grace of God as revealed in Paul's epistles, are

one and the same.

One argument put forward is so manifestly a piece of bad logic that we feel it has only

to be stated to be disproved. The argument is this. The word gospel means God's good

news; therefore, seeing that both the gospel of the Kingdom and the gospel of the grace

of God are God's good news, they must be the same, and the difference in their titles

must not be taken to indicate that they differ in reality.

For the sake of clearness let us use an illustration from the Vegetable Kingdom. The

potato, the tomato, and the nightshade are all of the same genus Solanum. If the writer

mentioned above should put his method of reasoning into practice, he would probably do

so at the cost of his life. He would find that it is perilous logic to say that because a

potato, tomato and nightshade are of the genus Solanum, they are all one and the same.

The word gospel is the name of a genus. It is God's good news; but, just as in the

example given, there are vital differences within that genus. The potato is a Solanum,

and we eat the tuber that is formed in the earth. The tomato is a Solanum, but we eat the

ripe fruit that grows in the sunlight. The nightshade is a Solanum, and unless its product

be administered with care and knowledge, it is deadly poison.

The gospel of the Kingdom is like the gospel of the grace of God in this particular,

that it is God's good news. It differs however from the latter, inasmuch as it announces a

Kingdom, and that a Kingdom which shall be set up "under the whole heaven". They

who enter or inherit that Kingdom shall at the same moment "inherit the earth". The

gospel preached by Paul on the other hand had other phases of God's revealed purposes

of grace as its theme. One presentation of it is entirely heavenly. Now while the earthly

and the heavenly purposes may both be announced under the covering word "gospel", it

is no more true that the gospel of the Kingdom is the gospel of the grace of God than that

the tuber of the earth (the potato) is one and the same with the fruit of the air and

sunshine (the tomato).

With regard to the strong statement made by Paul as to the preaching of "another"

gospel in Gal. 1: 9, we would remind those who use that passage as an argument against

us, that they themselves must be careful to preach no other message than that preached by

Paul himself if they would avoid the Apostle's anathema.