There seems to be a lot of confusion about the Kingdom of God out there today. Is it here now, is it not here, do we make it show up? Is it the social aspects of loving the poor and leading into justice or is it preaching the Gospel and seeing people come to a faith in Jesus that is transforming them from the inside out?
In his terrific commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Frederick Dale Brunner outlines the four main ways that the Kingdom has been understood by the church and he summarizes the thoughts of K.L. Schmidts work. The Kingdom comes from heaven, it comes through preaching the Gospel, it comes into the heart of believers, and it comes into history through peace and justice.
1. The Kingdom comes from Heaven
This is the Kingdom coming in all of it fullness when it will be on earth as it is in heaven. This is the hope that the church has in a world where little kingdoms seem to be having their day and war and evil and sin seem to rule the moment. The Kingdom will come in the fullness of time and Christ will be rightly throned as King of Kings and every knee will bow. This is the hope that the church holds onto and the moment that we long for, pray for and work toward.
2. The Kingdom comes through Preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ
The Gospel is a royal announcement that the worlds’ King has come to us in Jesus and he is going to reconcile all things to himself on earth and in heaven. Preaching of this announcement is a dynamic activity. What we often right off as a dull sermon could very well have the powerful activity of the Spirit of God bringing the Kingdom to bear in the world. The preaching of the centrality of Christ in the Gospel is central to the work of the Kingdom because through this preaching activity the Kingdom breaks into the lives of God’s people who repent of sin and receive the grace and new life which is given to us in Jesus.
3. The Kingdom comes into our hearts
Wherever Christ is made Lord of our lives there the Kingdom is. In his people that are surrendered to Jesus his Kingdom is showing up in our hearts and forming us into the image of Jesus for the sake of the world. This is why the church is the one place on earth where Jesus’ lordship as King of the world should be unattested. His is our God King and his brings the fullness of his peace and presence into our lives through the union he has made with us through his Spirit. In our hearts we set apart Christ as Lord and make room for his reign to spread throughout the whole of our life and being. The end result is a people who live into the hope that another world is coming and has come to us in Jesus and we are his peculiar people who love sacrificially and live lives of worship that glorify our King Jesus.
4. The Kingdom comes into History now through the church
The people of God anticipating the fullness of the Kingdom coming in the future, announcing the dynamic power of the Gospel of Jesus and enthroning Christ in their hearts, are a people who work for peace and justice on earth as it is in heaven. The Kingdom of God breaks into our world wherever injustice is being torn down for the love of the King and peace is replacing violence and hostility. This is the on going work of the church as we live into the reality that the Kingdom has come among us and show the world what it is like to live in a Kingdom of light in the midst of darkness. We work hard for peace and justice because this displays the Kingdom of Jesus to the world.
It seems to me that churches and people tend to pick one aspect of the Kingdom of God and focuses there insisting that the other aspects are not really crucial pieces of the Kingdom. This is unfortunate because we essentially make our own little kingdom out of one aspect and discount the others. In doing this we essentially reduce the Kingdom into something that it is not. The Kingdom is not less than all of these aspects combined.
It is tough to pull off, and I don’t think we can do it without the Kingdom breaking into our own hearts and lives. I do pray that we would be a people striving for the fullness of the Kingdom to break in on earth. A people with a great hope for the Kingdom to come in all its fullness, a people who boldly proclaim the Gospel of Jesus and watch the Kingdom break in through the Gospel, a people who have enthroned no other King but Jesus in their hearts and experience the transforming power that comes from worshipping Jesus as Lord and we would be a people who would give our lives away to the world so that the Kingdom would be displayed in places of violence and injustice bringing with it the Kingdom reign of peace and justice through Jesus Christ.
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June 16th, 2010at 6:44 pm(#)
One of the clearest pieces I’ve read on the kingdom! Thanx bro. May we all be a people who experience & express this kingdo!m
June 22nd, 2010at 5:52 pm(#)
The first line of point 2 is really the heart of the matter. The rest is interesting, but we need to focus on, and live out that belief.
“The Gospel is a royal announcement that the worlds’ King has come to us in Jesus and he is going to reconcile all things to himself on earth and in heaven”.
All things. All people. Not just a select few who were lucky enough to hear the right message at the right time, and made all the right choices. Or worse yet, the lucky few who were randomly picked eons ago.
No, the Gospel is good news for Everyone.
The Gospel is inclusive, not exclusive.
Keep preaching this message Rick.
June 29th, 2010at 11:01 pm(#)
If I am reading Jen correctly, then Caiphas, Annas, Judas, Nero, all the way down to Hitler are all reconciled to Christ, whether they made “right choices” or not. If you are going to preach universalism, then you must include blatant unrepentant souls such as these.
Certainly, Christ’s spilt blood is sufficient to forgive such as these, and church history is replete with examples of the “Sauls” whose lives have been redeemed and radically changed into kingdom builders, thru FAITH IN CHRIST. What Jen seems to suggest is that Saul would still have been reconciled, even if he had rejected Christ’s confronting of him on the Damascan Road, and continued to kill Christians. But that is certainly not Paul’s message after his conversion. Salvation thru Grace was his message, thru faith, in the Gospel that he preached and no other, lest they be anathama, ie, damned, therefore pleading for sinners to be reconciled to God thru faith (right choice flowing out belief) in His Son and His finished work of atonement. By mere implication, the rejection of Christ results in “exclusion”. But you do not have to go by implication, when Jesus’ own teaching emphatically states that “in that day. . .I will say depart from Me for I never knew you” (Matthew 25)
The Gospel is good news, to all who sense there need for a Savior, confess Jesus as such, and trust Him to have taken their sin upon Himself on the cross, as they repent (turn) from it. Let your preaching be biblical Rick.
June 30th, 2010at 1:13 am(#)
Thanks for your comments both Jen and Craig. I think however, that we are back to the problem that I noted in my blog. We tend to not give equal weight to the four aspects and reduce it to just one aspect. When we do this we reduce the Kingdom. It is all four aspects held in tension that gives us the full picture and biblical clarity of the Kingdom. It is biblical to hold these aspects together not over and against each other. It appears that the discussion is doing just that. Faith in Christ is central to the Kingdom showing up in our hearts and brining salvation and it is the royal announcement that the worlds King has come to us in Jesus and is putting his world to rights. Not either/or but both and. I strive to preach the fullness of the biblical truth about the Gospel of Jesus and His Kingdom. I hope that all of us can begin to hear the other aspects and let them shape our understanding of the majesty of God’s redemption in His Son.
July 17th, 2010at 5:37 am(#)
I like the ideas about the Kingdom of God captured here. Can you tell me at what point (not a timeline question) the Kingdom will be fully here on Earth? I’ve heard an interpretation that the Kingdom of God will be be both a spiritual and physical kingdom on Earth free of suffering and death…
July 24th, 2010at 12:26 am(#)
Craig, Faith is a great and wonderful thing, but still nebulous at best. (and of course Paul tells us Love is greater than faith) Faith is not a black and white quality.
And the bigger question is this: why do you feel you are any more deserving of “salvation” than Nero? You are not, you say? My point exactly.
Keep in mind, like Brian McLaren often reminds us, the word “salvation” has many different meanings, but in most cases refers to something temporal, not salvation from eternal torment.
And certainly the theology of atonement, as several Imago elders believe, (being a CB church) teaches that we have absolutely zero to do with our redemption. Even our own faith is meaningless. The “chosen” were picked eons ago, and they respresent a tiny fraction of all of humanity. The rest will burn in hell forever, nothing they can do about it.
Thankfully, I don’t think Rick believes this. I have seen hints in his preaching and blogging he may believe Christ’s work on the cross covered all, just as Paul talks about in Romans 5, and just like you read in 1 Timothy 4:10.
One Timothy 4:10. That truly is the Good News of the Gospel. If the Gospel is good news, as we believe, then the belief that a fortunate few have been choosen, and the other 99% will experience eternal torment is certainly not the gospel. However that is what most of us have been taught, effectivly.
March 16th, 2012at 12:25 am(#)
My introduction to Rick was a video on universalism in which he seemed to be uninformed as to what Christian universalists believe. I certainly didn’t see any indication that he believes that the Good News is for everyone. I could however be wrong.