Mark 1:15 Commentary and Bible Study

Paul puts it this way: ‘But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, ⁵ To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Galatians 4:4-5). It was time for the dispensation of the law to end. It was time for the dispensation of the Jews and God's special dealings with them to be brought to an end. It was time for the coming of Messiah, the work of Christ, his atoning death, the greatest event in all history alongside the incarnation of Christ. It was time for his death and resurrection, and then the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the New Testament church, when saved Jews and Gentiles would be one in Christ Jesus. The time is fulfilled; the long season of waiting, the long season of prophecies and promises, the long season of preparation of the Old Testament Scriptures: it is fulfilled. ‘The kingdom of God is at hand.’ Kingdom! What does kingdom mean? First and foremost, it means, rule. The rule of God. The kingdom in which God rules. There is going to be a new church with, as far as possible, a regenerate membership, people who have come to Christ. No longer will saved and unsaved be mixed together as in the Jewish dispensation, but ‘the kingdom’, the rule of God, ‘is at hand’, the kingdom of Christ. ‘Repent ye’, change you, or as some would have it translated, be converted; be changed.