The Legitimacy of the Kingdom Offer in the Gospels and Acts
Question: A different David, David Reed of Columbus Bible Church, had a teaching session saying there wasn't a legitimate offer of the kingdom in early Acts. I disagree. I'd like to know your take on this.
Without having that specific teaching in front of me, I can only respond to the claim in general terms: the assertion that there was not a legitimate (or bona fide) offer of the kingdom in early Acts.
At one time I myself doubted that there was a real offer of the kingdom in the Gospels. My reasoning then was that certain prophetic prerequisites—such as the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ—had to be fulfilled before a kingdom offer could be genuine. On that view, pre-cross preaching about the kingdom would be preparatory rhetoric rather than an actual, present offer.
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However, as I have given more attention to prophetic contingency, I have come to see both in the Gospels and in early Acts what appears to be a real, good-faith offer of the kingdom to Israel, conditioned on their response.
The preaching of John the Baptist and Jesus in the Gospels centers on the message that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. This is presented as a serious call to repentance in light of the near availability of the promised kingdom. Prophecies and conditions are interwoven: if Israel will respond in repentance and faith, the kingdom can come; if not, the offer will be withdrawn and judgment will follow.
In early Acts, particularly in Peter’s sermons, the language is explicit about the possibility of the kingdom’s arrival upon Israel’s repentance. For example, Peter speaks of the “times of refreshing” and the “restitution of all things” in connection with Israel’s turning. The structure is conditional: if the nation will repent, the long-promised restoration centered in Christ can come. That logic reflects an authentic offer, extended within a prophetic and covenantal framework, contingent on national response.
From this vantage point, the presence of unfulfilled prophetic events (such as the tribulation or certain aspects of the day of the Lord) at that moment does not nullify the reality of the offer. Those events themselves are part of a contingent prophetic sequence. The offer is legitimate in that God is genuinely willing to proceed along the prophesied path if Israel responds in the stipulated way. Their refusal does not reveal the offer to have been insincere; it reveals their unbelief and triggers the postponement and reconfiguration of the prophetic program.
Thus I affirm that there was a genuine offer of the kingdom in the Gospels and that this offer, in a further and urgent form, continues into early Acts, and in a sense, through to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 as the final appeals are made to Israel. The legitimacy of that offer rests not on its eventual acceptance, but on the integrity of God’s stated willingness to bring in the kingdom upon the nation’s repentance, within the prophetic order as he himself has established it.