Two Gospels or One?

Tullian Tchividjian has a great post up quoting from a book entitled This Beautiful Mess by Rick Mckinley, pastor of Imago Dei Community in Portland (Pastor to Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz). Read the whole thing at Two Gospels? He quotes Mckinley as saying the following:

Sometimes it seems as though we find two gospels in the New Testament–the gospel of Jesus and the gospel about Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is usually taken to mean His announcement of the kingdom and the life He embodied in His loving actions toward the world. The gospel about Jesus refers to his atoning work on the cross and His resurrection, through which we can receive the forgiveness of sin through our faith and repentance.

I believe, however, that the two are actually one gospel and that when we lose the tension that comes from holding both together, we experience an unhealthy and unbiblical pendulum swing in our faith.

If all we value is the salvation gospel, we tend to miss the rest of Christ’s message. Taken out of context of the kingdom, the call to faith in Christ gets reduced to something less than what the New Testament teaches. The reverse is also true: if we value a kingdom gospel at the expense of the liberating message of the Cross and the empty tomb and a call to repentance, we miss a central tenet of kingdom life. Without faith in Jesus, there is no transferring of our lives into the new world of the kingdom.

I agree with every word of this. There is only one Gospel - the Gospel of Jesus and the Kingdom. Paul ended his ministry "proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance" (Acts 28:30). The Gospel is both from Jesus and about Jesus - with no conflict.
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(For more on this topic see my previous posts Tripod of the Gospel and Response to the Good News.)