The Kingdom of God... What is it?
I read recently that the Kingdom of God 'begins with us'. But if it begins with us then it becomes a kind of abstract spiritual concept, one of the many that are floating around our shores in the form of ‘mind body and spirit’ categories of bookshop chains; another form of ’spirituality’ that we can try alongside kabbalah, horoscopes and reading tea-leaves.
The general way of seeing God’s Kingdom as something that begins ‘within us’ is like someone attempting to sketch a landscape picture with a wax crayon instead of the proper artist’s equipment - the outline of the picture might be comprehensible, but the the full glory of the landscape will most likely be missed.
God’s Kingdom in other words is the Sovereign Kingship of God. The reign of God over the heavens and the earth, the true King of Kings and Lord of Lord’s covering this place ‘as the waters cover the sea’. Israel’s KIng was God himself, until ‘they wanted to be like the other nations’ and have a King for themselves. Eventually their fate which was bound up tightly with the many failed kings that they had led them into a physical exile and what seemed like a spiritual abandonment from God. But…
There was always the promise that God would one day become King again over not just Israel but over the entire cosmos. All the nations would be blessed by his reign, he would bring comfort, healing, transformation to his land. He would judge evil, show it up for what it was and defeat its’ power once and for all. Some believed (not least many prophets) that he would do this through an earthly king, the anointed king (messiah) would be do what no other earthly king could ever do. His servant would usher in the new age.
So when Jesus in Mark 1 says that ‘The Kingdom of God is upon you!’ he is announcing that through him, God is finally becoming King! The Good news of the Kingdom is a summons to everyone on the planet to give their allegiance to King Jesus, who of course is not just an earthly King, but as the early Christians would soon discover after his resurrection, he was the embodiment of the One True God’s return to Israel, God incarnate.
You and I and everyone who gives our allegiance to the King are called to die to ourselves everyday, and to enact upon that summons. God builds his Kingdom, as Tom Wright says, we ‘build FOR the Kingdom’. We each take our place in working for God’s grand project of new creation which was start with the death and resurrection of King Jesus and will be fulfilled when ‘God is finally All in All’ (1 Cor 15.) When he draws all things in heaven and earth under him.
Being Kingdom-bearers means to work for all that is good, holy and just. To go out from our Corps energized to work and serve and love and heal and strengthen and on and on…
I’m only just beginning to realize what a gift this is, but I will continue to do this for the rest of my life.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
God's Invitation
Christopher Wright articulates Mission as:
'... our committed participation as God's people, at God's invitation and command, in God's own mission within the history of God's world for the redemption of God's creation' (2006).
I love this idea of 'Mission' as God's purpose, his goal for rescuing, not just humans, but his entire creation. It's not simply about 'being sent', though it does include that, but a fully rounded idea of mission surely means that we have to be totally sold out on God's great purposes for the cosmos. To be a missional community surely means to be a community with this driving force over and above us, challenging us to re-centre our priorities and allegiances, to knock down our selfish pride and to re-orientate our lives around God's invitation to be 'salvation' people.
'... our committed participation as God's people, at God's invitation and command, in God's own mission within the history of God's world for the redemption of God's creation' (2006).
I love this idea of 'Mission' as God's purpose, his goal for rescuing, not just humans, but his entire creation. It's not simply about 'being sent', though it does include that, but a fully rounded idea of mission surely means that we have to be totally sold out on God's great purposes for the cosmos. To be a missional community surely means to be a community with this driving force over and above us, challenging us to re-centre our priorities and allegiances, to knock down our selfish pride and to re-orientate our lives around God's invitation to be 'salvation' people.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Mission and all that...
It's been a while...
So I'm in Birmingham now studying for my Masters in Theol and doing the Associate D.Y.O. thing part time. It's been a great 2 months but the novelty is finally wearing off. I'm seriously considering what my purpose is here at the moment. Here's what I started off with...
Study Old Testament, learn lots of stuff, teach young people Old Testament, its significance as part of God's great story which reaches its climax in Jesus and to equip young people with the "so what now?" part.
I must admit that I have learnt a couple of new things but I think God spoke last night, and I think that I'm being pulled into the arena of seeing the study of Theology as part of the Church's Mission. Specifically I believe I may be needing to orient myself, my essays, my future preaching and teaching to help young people understand that Mission is not an additional extra to Church life or discipleship but as Michael Frost suggests, it is the foundational template upon which the Church needs to focus its life upon, including worship, discipleship and its call to rescue the world in and through the name of Jesus.
So maybe for now, I will concentrate on 'salvation' and 'mission' within the Old Testament (I can never learn enough I guess), but I get the feeling that my work will eventually be a more holistically biblically theological approach.
So I'm in Birmingham now studying for my Masters in Theol and doing the Associate D.Y.O. thing part time. It's been a great 2 months but the novelty is finally wearing off. I'm seriously considering what my purpose is here at the moment. Here's what I started off with...
Study Old Testament, learn lots of stuff, teach young people Old Testament, its significance as part of God's great story which reaches its climax in Jesus and to equip young people with the "so what now?" part.
I must admit that I have learnt a couple of new things but I think God spoke last night, and I think that I'm being pulled into the arena of seeing the study of Theology as part of the Church's Mission. Specifically I believe I may be needing to orient myself, my essays, my future preaching and teaching to help young people understand that Mission is not an additional extra to Church life or discipleship but as Michael Frost suggests, it is the foundational template upon which the Church needs to focus its life upon, including worship, discipleship and its call to rescue the world in and through the name of Jesus.
So maybe for now, I will concentrate on 'salvation' and 'mission' within the Old Testament (I can never learn enough I guess), but I get the feeling that my work will eventually be a more holistically biblically theological approach.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ring-a-ding
I am looking forward to marriage!
I look forward to sharing my life with Gemma, to have our narratives entwine, to grow in love, companionship and trust.
I look back on the past 15 months and rub my eyes at how far we have come together. I think of the envelopment of trust, the laughter, the cross words, the quiet times, the revelations and the prayers. If life can be this packed in so short amount of time, I simply wonder what future years will hold.
What I do know is that this is a good thing, a beautiful thing.
I look forward to sharing my life with Gemma, to have our narratives entwine, to grow in love, companionship and trust.
I look back on the past 15 months and rub my eyes at how far we have come together. I think of the envelopment of trust, the laughter, the cross words, the quiet times, the revelations and the prayers. If life can be this packed in so short amount of time, I simply wonder what future years will hold.
What I do know is that this is a good thing, a beautiful thing.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
A Word About Adoption...
We, who are NOT Jewish Christians (I’m betting 99.9% of Salvationists included within this statement) are ‘gentile’ Christians, grafted/adopted in to the family of Abraham. We have no ‘right’ to be part of the family, either by merit or inheritance, yet God desires to embrace all (even me, the sinner that I am!).
The scandalous thing to many 1st Century Jews would have been that as well as being presented with the news that their Messiah, their King had arrived, he had come to RESCUE/SAVE the gentiles too, not destroy them!
I confess that I for one need to get on my knees to thank God for his grace far more than I actually do regarding my ‘adoption’ into his family
And I stress ‘adoption’ because it isn’t that God has now done away with Israel to start a new family, but that he redefined what it meant to ‘be’ Israel, to be the family of Abraham (which is what Romans 9-11 is all about).
As uncomfortable as it may be for some, WE Christians are part of ‘Israel’, the newly defined Israel that is now, not based on certain ethnic/physical boundaries (circumcision, blood-relation, and the countless other law-based markers) but by faith in the Messiah, Jesus and the verdict of being justified by God that stems from this faith.
Instead of our potential arrogance that states ‘we are now God’s chosen, instead of those nasty Jews!’ we should celebrate our kinship with our Jewish Christian brothers and sisters as well as praying (as Paul does) that our distance relatives, the ethnic Jews, will receive the good news that Jesus is Lord! (It should go without saying that this hope should be universal but I highlight the Jews particularly for this argument).
The scandalous thing to many 1st Century Jews would have been that as well as being presented with the news that their Messiah, their King had arrived, he had come to RESCUE/SAVE the gentiles too, not destroy them!
I confess that I for one need to get on my knees to thank God for his grace far more than I actually do regarding my ‘adoption’ into his family
And I stress ‘adoption’ because it isn’t that God has now done away with Israel to start a new family, but that he redefined what it meant to ‘be’ Israel, to be the family of Abraham (which is what Romans 9-11 is all about).
As uncomfortable as it may be for some, WE Christians are part of ‘Israel’, the newly defined Israel that is now, not based on certain ethnic/physical boundaries (circumcision, blood-relation, and the countless other law-based markers) but by faith in the Messiah, Jesus and the verdict of being justified by God that stems from this faith.
Instead of our potential arrogance that states ‘we are now God’s chosen, instead of those nasty Jews!’ we should celebrate our kinship with our Jewish Christian brothers and sisters as well as praying (as Paul does) that our distance relatives, the ethnic Jews, will receive the good news that Jesus is Lord! (It should go without saying that this hope should be universal but I highlight the Jews particularly for this argument).
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Thinking of the Cross
Something about penal substitution, i.e. a theology that you may traditionally understand as Jesus 'paying a penalty in our place'.
Whether or not you have thought about this much, its probably there in ancient crevices of your mind from sunday school, sermons, books, discussions, films, scripture readings etc.
But still.
Have you ever thought through what it's all about? What exactly did Jesus accomplish on the cross? What does it mean that he took away our sins? What on earth does Romans 8.3 state when it says that
... God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do: by sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin
in the flesh (NRSV)
?
I'm taking it for-granted that you don't possibly believe that God the Father punishes Jesus the 'innocent victim' in order that our sins might be forgiven. That, as far as I'm concerned, is a given. Its not biblical and it actually doesn't make sense to those of us who believe in the triune nature of God.
So if we are not to reject the idea of penal substitution, how do we go about articulating a biblical view of it?
Whether or not you have thought about this much, its probably there in ancient crevices of your mind from sunday school, sermons, books, discussions, films, scripture readings etc.
But still.
Have you ever thought through what it's all about? What exactly did Jesus accomplish on the cross? What does it mean that he took away our sins? What on earth does Romans 8.3 state when it says that
... God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do: by sending
his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin
in the flesh (NRSV)
?
I'm taking it for-granted that you don't possibly believe that God the Father punishes Jesus the 'innocent victim' in order that our sins might be forgiven. That, as far as I'm concerned, is a given. Its not biblical and it actually doesn't make sense to those of us who believe in the triune nature of God.
So if we are not to reject the idea of penal substitution, how do we go about articulating a biblical view of it?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
saved? (iii)
Wright’s popular level book ‘Surprised by Hope’ was written to give a practical way of understanding what the Christian hope is. He dismisses the idea that salvation is simply about a concern for post-mortem destiny and expresses that Jesus’ primary mission was not about ‘saving souls for a disembodied eternity’ but rather to rescue people from evil in the present time so that they could ‘enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God’s ultimate purpose… (Wright, 2007:204). Wright shares his dismay that much of Western Christianity sees salvation as primarily a personal thing between them and God.
The problem arises if ‘we see “salvation” in terms of “going to heaven when we die”, because the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving soul for that future’ This is a problem if it takes the emphasis off the Church’s much needed work within the present (Ibid. 209) Wright defines salvation as ‘being raised to life in God’s new heaven and earth’ (Ibid. 210). Wright’s understanding of the future bodily resurrection for all believers in Jesus is what he is alluding to in this section. Rather than righteous souls going up to heaven, the new Jerusalem will come down and be completely enjoined with earth to form a recreated and restored heavens and earth (see Revelation 21) and the physical bodily resurrection of all those who followed Jesus will occur as part of this recreation. Alongside this Wright believes that God’s future recreation act has already ‘broken in with the resurrection of Jesus’ meaning that ‘the future rescue which God had planned and promised was staring to come true in the present.’ This means the Church has the responsibility of rescuing people in a holistic way. ‘We are saved not as souls but as wholes.’ (Ibid. 211)
Wright believes that we are very often asking the wrong questions when discussing salvation. He sees how these questions will affect our understanding of the atonement itself. If we are concerned with how we escape hell despite all the wicked things we have done, then the answer will be ‘because Jesus has been punished in your place.’ If on the other hand we are concerned with how God’s ‘future purposes’ to recreate and restore the world will be carried out despite ‘human rebellion’ then the answer will be ‘because on the cross Jesus defeated the powers of evil which have enslaved rebel humans and so ensured continuing corruption’ (Ibid. 211-212).
The problem arises if ‘we see “salvation” in terms of “going to heaven when we die”, because the main work of the church is bound to be seen in terms of saving soul for that future’ This is a problem if it takes the emphasis off the Church’s much needed work within the present (Ibid. 209) Wright defines salvation as ‘being raised to life in God’s new heaven and earth’ (Ibid. 210). Wright’s understanding of the future bodily resurrection for all believers in Jesus is what he is alluding to in this section. Rather than righteous souls going up to heaven, the new Jerusalem will come down and be completely enjoined with earth to form a recreated and restored heavens and earth (see Revelation 21) and the physical bodily resurrection of all those who followed Jesus will occur as part of this recreation. Alongside this Wright believes that God’s future recreation act has already ‘broken in with the resurrection of Jesus’ meaning that ‘the future rescue which God had planned and promised was staring to come true in the present.’ This means the Church has the responsibility of rescuing people in a holistic way. ‘We are saved not as souls but as wholes.’ (Ibid. 211)
Wright believes that we are very often asking the wrong questions when discussing salvation. He sees how these questions will affect our understanding of the atonement itself. If we are concerned with how we escape hell despite all the wicked things we have done, then the answer will be ‘because Jesus has been punished in your place.’ If on the other hand we are concerned with how God’s ‘future purposes’ to recreate and restore the world will be carried out despite ‘human rebellion’ then the answer will be ‘because on the cross Jesus defeated the powers of evil which have enslaved rebel humans and so ensured continuing corruption’ (Ibid. 211-212).
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