A Theology shaped by the Kingdom

 

The concept of the kingdom of God, along with its derivative forms, “the kingdom of heaven,” “the kingdom of Christ,” “the kingdom of the Lord,” “the kingdom,” and “ruler, king or kingship” etc., is an important teaching found in all of Scripture. Since the Bible is one book, many commentators have attempted to find one unifying biblical theme that holds the two testaments together. There are obviously many central biblical ideas that are vitally essential, but one scholar has stated that “the bond that binds [the testaments] together is the dynamic concept of the rule of God.”[i]

It is curious to notice in the landscape of biblical interpretation that there have been numerous explanations for the biblical term. Some have reduced the Kingdom of God to the present subjective realm and inward power of the Spirit at work in the human heart, while others have either defined the idea to a new future heavenly spiritual order or equated the Kingdom with the visible Church. Still others have taken a reductionistic approach in understanding the Kingdom as an ideal social program for human civilization without referring to individual redemption. Therefore, according to this approach, “building” the kingdom means restoring all social problems such as poverty, social injustice, and various forms of inequalities. The reason why there has been a diversity of interpretation throughout history is because the biblical teaching has isolated verses which describes the Kingdom as both a present reality (Mt. 12:28; 21:31; Mk 10:15), and a future blessing (I Cor. 15:50; Mt. 8:11; Lk 12:32);  both a spiritual salvific blessing of new life (Rom. 14:17; Jn. 3:3), as well as an expanded future rule of society (Rev. 11:15).

 

However, the basic key to solving the apparent differences of the biblical data is figuring out what the Bible means by the word “kingdom”.  What is the kingdom of God? Most modern dictionaries will define the word primarily as a sphere, realm, or place, and secondarily as a group of inhabitants residing in the area. This explanation has misguided interpreters away from the biblical understanding which emphasizes the rank, rule, reign, dominion, and royal authority of God.[ii] Jesus’ parable in Luke 19 makes clear the fundamental meaning of the kingdom of God. The story describes a nobleman who “went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then to return.”[iii] This man did not visit another country in order to secure for himself a sphere or realm over which to exercise his rule. He had left his own place to obtain a kingdom, and he returned back to his territorial realm after having received the kingdom, namely an authority, kingship, and the right to rule.[iv] The Kingdom of God is fundamentally God's sovereign rule expressed and realized through the different stages in redemptive history. This biblical doctrine derives from the truth that God, as the one true, living, and eternal Ruler, always existed and therefore reigns over his creation.  So God is the cosmic head (Eph 1:10, 22) over all of creation and its people in its present inaugurated spiritual and physical reality as well as in its future consummated sovereign administration.[v] 

 

God’s Rule in Creation

When discussing the theology of kingship, many have not adequately emphasized God’s cosmic rule as the creator of the world (Ps. 24.1; 93.1; 95.3ff, 47:1-9; 83:18; Dan. 4:25-26; 5:21, Ps. 103:19; 113:5; Mt. 5:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 1:16; Heb. 12:2; Rev. 7:15).[vi] There is a clear connection between Yahweh’s kingly reign with the history of the Israelite monarchy (1 Sam 8), but God’s royal rule began with his divine covenantal administration over the order, preservation, and protection of his created cosmos. Piper states that “God's own sovereign rule was epitomized in the probationary world which set the bounds of human freedom within the kingdom (Gen. 2:15-17). The blessedness of kingdom existence consisted in both the relationship of man to God and the relationship of man to creation. Nature was submissive to man's dominion and fruitful in provid­ing his needs”[vii] God’s kingly administration was mediated through the covenantal order of the Maker-Lord’s “assignment of dominion to man over the world under conditions of Edenic beatitude (Gen 1.28) [which] can be seen as signalizing a covenantal relationship between God and man.”[viii]

The theme of the kingdom of God is well attested throughout Scripture where the picture of the establishment of God’s reign is accomplished through a rather lengthy historical process. The concept of God as king was basic to a nomadic people who viewed their God as the sovereign ruling king. He accompanied their travels, provided protection and shelter while developing a line of descendants who would be chosen to be his special people. The kingdom of God was primarily limited to the people and land of Israel.[ix] Genesis 4 to 11 describes the line of Abraham to whom the significant covenantal promises were given concerning a great nation, a great land, and a covenantal rule and relationship (Gen 12:1-3). Some have interpreted the three-fold promise as highlighting the biblical description of the kingdom of God, namely God’s people, God’s realm, and God’s rule.[x]

 

God’s Rule in the Exodus

Concerning the events of the Exodus from Egypt, God established his reign over Israel’s history through a series of divine intervention and mighty acts of salvation (e.g., see Ex. 15; Deut. 6:20-24; 26:5­-10; Josh. 24:5-13; Ps. 78; 105; 106; 114; 135; 136; Neh. 9:9-15), the deliverance of the people who were in bondage, the distribution of the miracles of the plagues and the parting of the sea, the preservation of the Israelites in the wilderness, along with theophanic experiences. The people recognized that Yahweh’s suzerainty was constituted  by his successive acts of salvation, “forming a God-controlled continuity, a history, and that this history was moving forward to a future according to God’s will.”[xi] God asserted his ruling activity when he delivered his people from the hands of Pharaoh and brought them into the Promised Land (Ex. 15), therefore, making them the inhabitants in the domain who lived under God’s rule (Ex. 19:5-6). 

 

God’s Rule in the Monarchy and Prophetical period

The History of salvation during the period of the monarchy is full of tragedies. Israel was called and set apart to be a blessing to the world and to be God’s vice-regents to oversee the land (1Chron. 29:23; 2 Chron. 6), but sadly its history was marked more by infidelity rather than faithfulness, idolatry rather than worship, and rebellion rather than obedience. The heavenly host  has always worshiped and continue to praise God’s holiness with “unqualified voluntary service,”[xii] but God’s humanity has refused to honor God as king, which explains the rising of earthly kingdoms filled with evil opposition to God. Therefore, the prophetical books introduce a message of hope which will be ushered in by the Messiah who “will judge the wicked and bring redeemed humanity into a new creation (Ezek. 36; 47; Isa. 35; 55; 65; Zech. 14).”[xiii] This will be the stage in redemptive history, a great and glorious day in the future when all things will be restored, where there will be an in-breaking of the universality of the rule of God (Isa. 26:1-15; 28:5ff; 33:5ff., 17-22; 44:5; Ezek. 11:17ff.; 20:33ff.; Hos. 2:16-17; Zech. 8:1-8), the righteousness of the kingdom (Isa. 11:3-5; Jer. 23:5-6), and everlasting peace and harmony (Isa. 2:2-3; 9:5-6; 11:6-7; 35:9; Mic. 5:4; Zech. 9:9-10).[xiv]

 

God’s Messianic Rule in the New Testament

In the New Testament, both Jesus and John the Baptist announced that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Mt. 3:2; 4:17; Mk. 1:15), the final stage of the kingdom on earth being realized by the incarnation and on-going ministry of Christ (Mt 2:2; 4:23; 9:35; 27:11; Mk 15:2; Lk 16:16; 23:3; Jn 18:37). Although this earthly ministry was already present, the consummate and complete fulfillment would not yet be realized until the return of Christ in glory (1 Cor 15:50-58; Rev 11:5). This central mission of ushering in the final stage of the kingdom was presented to allow a broken and fallen humanity to enter into the kingdom of God (Mt 5:20; 7:21; Jn 3:3). The already realized kingdom in the person of Christ was different from the old coventantal administration not in the sense that the ever present reality of God’s saving rule over individuals was absent but in that the ever powerful rule of God’s entering “historical life in a new way,” was present, “for here was the King himself coming ‘to announce the decisive redeeming act of God, and to perform it’”.[xv] Even his parables were used as a teaching vehicle to illustrate to his followers about the truths of his kingdom (Mt 13:11). Although earthly benefits, powers (1 Cor 4:20), and privileges of the Gospel were present in part (Eph 1:3), the future blessedness of glory was promised to those for whom it was prepared (Mt 25:31, 34).[xvi] 

There are numerous inter-canonical themes throughout the Old Testament where the plots of stories thicken with dramatic tension and seemingly unreconcilable resolutions.[xvii] Only in the person of Christ, can the expectations of a perfectly righteous, peaceful, salvation supplying rule of a gospel kingdom be completely resolved and fulfilled. Ever since the garden, humanity through its fall lost the freedom to enjoy the glories of God’s creational rule; therefore, the drama of human history would be forever engaged in an insatiable pursuit of finding the perfect true king. The tragedy of biblical history, especially during the period of the monarchy, is a picture of the people’s failed attempt to learn how to submit to the rule of God. Instead of surrendering their self-creation, self-promotion, and self-salvation to monolatry, Israelite history shows the enslavement of the human heart to idolatry. All of the corporate representatives of God’s people, from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, to all of the other great redemptive figures, failed to resolve the tension in the salvation story-line in providing healing and liberation from slavery and bondage. Even with the re-establishing of the flow of redemptive history through the one-story plotline of the pre-fall and fall accounts, post-fall, patriarchal, and Exodus narratives, and the Davidic and prophetic periods, there was still a great anticipation of a restoring hope that would forever liberate completely an enslaved people from sin and decay.   The answer or the resolution provided by God was somewhat unexpected since God himself through the incarnation visited a fallen humanity, and the renewal of all things broken happened through the work of a suffering Messiah. Ironically, God self-identified himself with the godforsaken. 

 

This paradoxical picture of God’s willingness to identity in his death with godforsaken people is linked to the Suffering Servant in Isa. 52.13-53.12 who bore the sins of many and suffered in a substitutionary way. Isa. 52.13 begins a section on the suffering and glory of the Servant figure which ends with 53.12-“See my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted (or glorified)”. The early Christian reading of Isaiah 40-55 was very christologically monotheistic. “It was in this context of the necessary link between the uniqueness of God and his [final] acts for the salvation of Israel and the world that the early Christians read of the enigmatic figure of the Servant of the Lord, who witnesses to God’s unique deity and who, in chapters 52-53, both suffers humiliation and death and also is exalted and lifted up.”[xviii] The Hebrew of Isa. 52.13 reads, “behold, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high.” The Greek translation of Isa. 52.13 reads, “behold, my servant shall understand, and shall be exalted and shall be glorified greatly.” The Hebrew verbal combination of “to be high, to be exalted” and “to lift up” is used in Isa. 6.1 and in 57.15 where Yahweh “dwells in the high and holy place, and also with those who are crushed and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the crushed”, but then the same verbal combination is used to make reference to the Suffering Servant in 52.13. This observation might not be necessarily remarkable, but John’s reading and interpretation of these portions of Isaiah provides a fresh examination on the much debated topic of the Johannine understanding of the cross. John has applied this interpretative tradition of the Isaianic texts to elevate the exaltation and glorification of the Suffering messianic servant figure precisely through his humiliation and suffering rather than through his exaltedness or majesty. John then applies the verbs “to be lifted up” (Jn 3.14-15; 8.28; 12.32-34) and “to be glorified” (Jn 12.23; 13.31-32) to develop Jesus’ identification with Yahweh and the Suffering servant ironically in reference to the event of the cross and death of Jesus. The great disclosure of God’s unique identity is manifested through Jesus’ participation with the divine through his death as the Christological figure of God crucified.  This is a picture of the atonement motif which unmasks and disarms evil powers by a complete reversal through self-sacrifice and service. 

The unfolding hope of redemption for human rebellion and renewal for a broken creation finds its expression and fulfillment in the Person of Jesus Christ come in the flesh. The kingdom now has its objective reality realized in the historical arrival and activity of the messianic king. The biblical description of the kingdom highlighting God’s people, his place, and his power has its complete final resolution in Jesus who is God’s true people, presence, and authority. 

 

a. Fulfillment of God’s People

First, Luke (3:38) in his geneology describes Adam as the son of God while Exodus 4:22 refers to Israel, the people of God, as God’s firstborn son. It is interesting to notice that the Greek translators translated the Hebrew phrase “the one and only son” in Gen. 22:2 as “beloved son”. The sonship motif was fulfilled in Jesus, who as the perfect second Adam and “beloved Son” (Lk. 3:22), and true Israel was able to accomplish that which the first Adam and Israel failed to do, namely submitting to the cosmic King. “Thus the temptation narratives show the reversal of Satan's conquest of Adam in the garden and of Israel in the wilderness,” and therefore, “all the prophecies concerning the restoration of Israel [as] the people of God must [find] their fulfillment in Him.”[xix]

b. Fulfillment of God’s Presence

Secondly, the ‘tabernacle imagery is able to...portray the person of Jesus as the locus of God’s Word and glory among humankind’.[xx] What was impossible for Moses, seeing the radiant glory of God (Exod. 33:20), has become possible for those who believe (Jn 1:14, ‘we have seen his glory’) since the Word incarnate has seen God (Jn 1:18; 3:11). Therefore, the description of Jesus’ symbolizing the ultimate manifestation of the dwelling place of God appropriately introduces the Temple motif in the gospel of John. He is the ‘eternal cosmic-human Temple of God’[xxi] who tabernacled among his people ‘by its totally different form of proximity’,[xxii] a fact which symbolized the ushering in of the final presence of God’s Temple in the messianic age.  In this ‘temple’, the body of Christ (Jn. 2:19-22), the ultimate sacrifice would be made; yet, Jesus said, after three days, the true, spiritual Temple would be raised from the dead to replace the Jerusalem Temple.[xxiii] The kingdom of God cannot be separated from the presence of Jesus (Heb. 12:22-23)[xxiv] because God’s self-disclosure of who he is and how he acts in history is made identifiable by the manifestation of his living presence in the true Temple. True worship has a new Temple; the temporal geographic location has now been replaced by the person of Jesus. The people of God are now able to experience the fullness of eternal life and the abundant blessings of the new creation not available through land rights and a temporary inheritance. Finally, the church is able to be utterly known by a holy God but not rejected. The True Temple is the antitype of the tabernacle whose two square dimensions (75’ by 75’) made up the rectangular shape showcasing the perfect completion of his glory which extended to the ends of the earth. The tabernacle was the geographic location where heaven and earth met with the glory of God sitting on the invisible throne on the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant behind ‘the shielding curtain’ in the holy of holies. Greater access was provided when the True Temple ‘tabernacled’ among us whereby displaying the reality of the type proleptically foreshadowed (Col. 2.17). When the God-man, the True Temple, was crucified, his body was torn and blood shed in order to pay for our sin, and it was ‘at that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom’ (Mt. 27.50-51a). The ultimate insider who had enjoyed fellowship within the Godhead came into a distant country in order to seek lost, marginalized outsiders by becoming an outsider (Cf. Heb 13.11-12) himself who was rejected, abandoned, consumed, crushed, and despised for the iniquities of the church. The shielding curtain was torn, the flaming sword of the angel consumed the perfect Adamic high-priest so that we, the church, might have unending access to the presence of our holy God. Exodus 40.33 states, ‘and so Moses finished the work’ (cf. Gen 2.2, ‘God finished his work that he had done’) which foreshadows the final words of Jesus and of his perfect fulfillment of redemption, ‘it is finished’ (Jn 19.30).   The church is utterly included and have been emancipated from bondage freely to enjoy our God, who is Spirit, in order to worship Him in Spirit and in the reality of the True Temple.  

 

c. Fulfillment of God’s Rule

Lastly, Jesus is not only the true people and final presence of God but also the final authority of God’s kingly power. It is interesting to observe that the act of “giving” life-giving water (or life itself), which was a divine activity performed by a sovereign creator who had the authority to dispense life (cf. Isa 44:3a), is attributed to Jesus (“I [will] give him,” Jn 4:13-14; cf. 4:10). Both creation and salvation accounts in the Old Testament unambiguously describe God as the sole, authoritative giver of both creative and new creative life (Gen 1:11-12, 20-31; 2:7; Job 33:4; Isa 42:5; Ezek 36:26). The divine activity of granting life is a description of God’s own identity which distinguishes his uniqueness from all other reality. He is the creator of life and the sovereign ruler of all reality, and John’s Christology was understood and developed within this Jewish theological context. We see that the so-called divine functions, like “giving” life-giving water which Jesus exercises, are intrinsic to who God is. In other words, Jesus was participating in God’s unique activity of creation and the new creation.[xxv] Jesus answered the woman in John 4 by saying that “whoever drinks the water I [will] give him will never thirst” (4:14a), and “the water I [will] give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (4:14b). The giving of life was a sovereign act reserved exclusively to the unique identity of God, and John in developing his Christology includes Jesus as the one who administers God’s sovereignty over the final salvation event (cf. John 1:12, “yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” 5:21, “for just as the Fatherraises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it,”).   This kingly rule is manifested in the life of a Christian through the benefits and privileges of the gospel, and now we turn to the discussion concerning the identity of an individual who is shaped by this kingdom. 

 

Revisit us soon for the next article, Part 3: Identity Shaped by the Kingdom.

© 2010 The Center for Gospel Culture