The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 5)

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 5)–OR–The glorious redemption of humanity 

At the core of the gospel is not only the restoration of God’s rule & reign but also the redemption of humanity.  It is this two-fold understanding of the gospel pulls the entire biblical narrative together. Without the fall of humanity there would be no loss of God’s rule and reign over creation, and without God’s rule and reign there would be no means of redeeming humanity. 

Yet, some have suggested that the Apostle Paul’s focus on redemption is a different gospel from that of Jesus’ kingdom of God narrative in the gospels, but such a view looks at the pauline passages regarding redemption in isolation. 

In contrast, a more holistic view of redemption in the Bible begins with creation in Genesis 1. In the creation account of Genesis 1.11-25 each kind reproduces seed after its own kind, until we get to man (v. 26) made in the image of God. While never stated implicitly, the implication is that we are of his kind, and thus man is set over the garden to rule and reign over God’s creation (v. 28). Likewise, the fall is not simply one of sin and death but a change of humanity’s status. Adam and Eve are no longer are masters but those who are being mastered. So the fall of man was not just about a loss of relationship with God, but in change in status. This is further illustrated by the new striving between man and woman, that she would desire to rule over him but he would dominate her (Genesis 3.16). 

The fall is not unidimensional. Despite reductionist efforts to limit the fall to a need for forgiveness, the idea of restoration in the Bible includes the redemption of man’s relationship with God, but also with other human beings (male and female, slave and free) in Galatians 3.28 and with the earth and the beasts in it (Romans 8.19-24), which will be explored more in the next article. 

The central point for this post is that our redemption includes our ruling and reigning with God (2 Timothy 2.12; Revelation 2.26-27, 5.10, 21) and one cannot be separated from the other.  The scarlet thread of redemption that runs from Genesis through Revelation is also the thread of the kingdom. 

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 2)

The title, The Case for Kingdom Theology, fits this series of posts but the actual article  ought to be: Refining the definition of the gospel in kingdom perspective. Last week’s post focused on the need for a kingdom centered theology and view of the Bible. In that post one of the implications for a kingdom centric view was the need to redefine what we mean by the term ‘gospel.’ When you state something like that it immediately becomes worrisome to many that you might use this as an excuse to water down the gospel or as a platform from which to preach “another gospel.” So for that reason let me be clear that I have no issue with the gospel as it is presently defined in every evangelical church. The gospel is the power of God to save. Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection is what paid for my sins. Any gospel that teaches me to depend on less than that is not THE gospel. So then what do I mean?

As I look across the scope of the Bible’s narrative, the Scarlet Thread of Redemption as some have put it, or the Scheme of Redemption, as others have put it, I see a bigger picture than “just” my personal salvation. I also see the triumphant restoration of the rule and reign of God, the glorious redemption of humanity, the miraculous redemption of creation, and the complete and final restoration of all that God has made. This is reflected in the teachings and life of Jesus Christ and subsequently the early church as it sought to make disciples of Jesus (teach and form in them the cruciform life.)

As mentioned in the the previous post, most of our creeds and our statements of faith were written in times of duress and sought to address the problems related to that duress. They are grand and well written. I can subscribe to everyone of them on some level, and to most of them in their entirety. The focus of these creeds spoke to Jesus’ divine and human natures, his equality with God, the equality and personhood of the Holy Spirit, and the virgin birth, and the bodily death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Nonetheless we tend to boil the gospel down to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Meaning that there is a large amount of Jesus life in the gospels that are not included in our over simplification of the gospel. These reductionist statements do not intentionally cut-out over three-fourths of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry as being non-essential to the gospel but in fact, it is what we do in practice, and in our theology when we say things like, ‘nothing else matters.’ How can any of the gospel matter less than any other part of the gospel? How can we conclude that Jesus’ life and ministry is anything less than the gospel? Do we believe that the apostolic biographies (the Gospels) have extemporaneous information? Or are our well written, but utterly human creeds and confessions, and our succinct definitions of the gospel lacking and in need of being broadened? The salvation of the individual is essential to the gospel, but the gospel is not only the saving of a human souls from hell. 

If we concede that the gospel includes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus,  and we include the birth and life of Jesus we should begin a move toward saved with a purpose, birthed into the mission and adventure of Christlike living, and transferred not just from the clutches of hell but into the kingdom of God. We begin down a path that is bigger than our tendency toward a man-centered gospel. Still we need to go further! After all, If all we do is include the life of Jesus and add a kingdom component to our definition we still have fallen short of the bigger picutre. We must put Jesus at the center of the gospel. The gospel is the reinstatement of God’s rule and reign over all creation through the completed work of Jesus Christ, which includes the restoration of all things, including those who receive Jesus Christ as King (Lord) and Savior.  

However, even as I read my kingdom centric definition of the gospel, I bristle with nearly five-hundred years of Reformation/Evangelical history that screams the gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Can anyone relate? But this discussion still matters, because just like the Reformers, it is not enough for us to settle on the hindquarters of our tradition. On-one-hand, I am comfortable with what the Reformers said, on-the-other-hand, I am well aware of the results of this kind of reductionism, and the tendency of pop-Christianity to make it all about us, even as we claim it is all about Jesus. 

The definition that I put forth doesn’t solve all of those problems. I don’t presume to be the one to solve all the problems. Yet as a pastor I feel the need to address the problems with those entrusted to me. I feel compelled to engage not only in instruction but to be a student. I feel that I need to engage with the larger church and not simply work out my answers in a vacuum.  

The Case for Kingdom Theology (Part 1)

As a new Christian I heard a great deal about the kingdom of God, but I soon realized that when people used the phrase the kingdom of God that they all meant something quite different by it. Some people meant the kingdom of God in the sense of God’s rule and reign in the world, others meant the church of Christ on earth, some their denomination, and still others meant the physical manifestation of their eschatological understanding. Yet as I read the Bible, and the words of Jesus more specifically, I believed that these definitions fell short, in part because they approached the kingdom as one topic among many topics in the Bible rather than as the central theme of the Bible. That conviction has led my study of God’s word for the past fifteen years.

As I understand the subject, Jesus’ primary message while he was on earth was about the Kingdom of God. Even in his resurrection, in both Luke 24 and Acts 1, Luke has the risen Christ speaking to his disciples and “opening up their minds” to understand the Scriptures through the lens of the Kingdom. However, that changes our our praxis, and this inherently changes our entire understanding of the whole biblical witness, our entire theology, our view of church history, and should impact our understanding of ecclesiology too. Consider the following four fundamental assumptions laid out by N.T. Wright from his book, How God became King: 

First, that the climax of Israel’s story is the story of Jesus, and that he is the fulfillment and purpose of Israel’s story. The implications of this mean that the Old Testament apart from the New Testament, and New Testament apart from the Old Testament are little more than moralisms and mythology not unlike the Iliad and the Odyssey.  

Second, that the account of Jesus in Israel is not a new solution, but the story of Israel’s God returning to his people just as he promised.

Third, that Jesus’ earthly ministry inaugurated the restored kingdom of God and launched his renewed people (i.e. The church) into action. 

Fourth, the current status of things is one of war, a clash between kingdoms, that will conclude with the triumph of Christ’s Kingdom over the Kingdom of darkness. This victory will not be a secret victory, it will not be a theoretical victory, but it will conclude with the utter decimation of the kingdom of darkness and every power, person or thing allied to it.  

If you consider each of Wright’s four propositions, each is packed with implications that we do not have time to fully unpack in short post, but here are some implications:  

1. We need to refine what we mean by the gospel. Not because the gospel needs redefining, but that the current reigning definition is too small. Most of the church creeds, and other historical documents, that we use to define the gospel were written to address problems in the church, but are woefully inadequate to define the gospel entirely. If our gospel is only the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and our response to that, then our gospel has left out the bulk of the text contained in the Gospels (biographies of Jesus), as well as the entire witness of Israel, the history of Acts, the apocalypse of Revelation, and much more. 
2. We need to flesh out what we mean by the rule and reign of God. What does that mean? For instance, Dr. John White, the famous Christian Psychiatrist gave four lectures on the kingdom of God after spending a year with John Wimber at the Anaheim Vineyard. His theme was the Authority of Christ, including Christ’s authority 1) over temptation, 2) over sin, 3) over disease, and 4) over demons. We could easily expand that to include Christ authority over 5) the earth & nature, 6) over time & space,  and possibly you can think of a few more. This includes the tension of the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God. The problem for us is to expand our understanding of the now and the not yet of the kingdom of God and not just use that theological tension as an excuse (i.e. cover) when Jesus’ authority does not trump a person’s sin, disease, demons, addiction, injustice or whatever we/they are battling against. We need to ask, what can we articulate about the now and not yet besides unanswered prayer?
3. We must consider what are the implications of the kingdom for eschatology. For instance popular church culture has embraced the eschatological concepts favored by Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye because of their popularity of their books on the end times. However, with those popular eschatologies comes a whole host of hermeneutical and doctrinal considerations.  As I understand it, the conflict between Kingdom eschatology and dispensational eschatology is that dispensationalism begins with a premise that Jesus did not accomplish his mission when he came to earth, and that the church is a stop-loss measure designed to give the Jews another chance. This has given rise to a culture of fear in the church, and taught us to acquiesce to the triumph of evil in society as a necessary progression toward the return of Christ, and does not agree with the assertions of the kingdom triumphant (Daniel 2.35, Luke 13.18-19, et al).
4. This also has implications for our soteriology. How big (or small) our understanding of salvation and restoration are will depend on how we view the continuance of the story. If we do not embrace points one and two listed above with regard to the kingdom, then salvation and restoration would be limited to only personal implications (personal salvation, escaping hell, etc.) However, if we do embrace the whole of Kingdom theology then we must include the restoration of all creation. Before you react to that, think about Romans 8.19-24, the whole of creation groaning in anticipation for the redemption of the sons. There are big implications from that vantage-point about creation-care, not just as theological pondering but as the logical out-growth of our entire theology. Not to mention what role does this play in our understanding of divine healing, or of other redemptive expressions of the kingdom. 
5. As well, the issue of Justice become more than a side-interest that leads to some neo-political social justice concern for the poor.  Authentic discussion of Justice moves to center stage, along with a renewed interest in the minor prophets, and our need to do more than hand out a few sandwiches.

There are other implications that arise from shifting to a kingdom centered theology and would invite any comments to that end. Meanwhile, I plan to unpack each of these a little more over the next few posts. So stick around, and engage. 

* 
Eschatology- a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind; specifically : any of various Christian doctrines concerning the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, or the Last Judgment.

Soteriology- theology dealing with salvation especially as effected by Jesus Christ

Ecclesiology-the branch of theology that is concerned with the nature, constitution, and functions of a church.