I’ve been thinking a lot about the Kingdom of God lately and reshaping some of my misunderstandings about it. The Kingdom of God is often explained as God’s rule and reign, but I’m more interested here in talking about how that rule and reign is obtained or actualized. How is it that God’s Kingdom grows in power so that we truly reach the point where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven?
First off, Jews of Jesus’ day expected the Messiah to come as a conquering King. They expected him to rise in political power and wipe out the Roman oppressors. They thought he would be a king like David who beat back the enemies of Israel and established a peaceful kingdom. However, when Jesus came on the scene, he ruined their expectations. Several times in scripture, it’s obvious the disciples were expecting that of him too. I can just picture the disciples, who were probably in their late teens, thinking about how they were going to rule with Jesus and finally take revenge on what the Romans had done to their friends and neighbors. I always crack up when they ask Jesus if they can reign down fire on their enemies and I can just imagine their disappointment when getting turned down. Its no wonder the Jews of Jesus day were so offended by the message to love their enemies instead of kill them. The old ‘eye for an eye’ thing (which we think of as revenge, but was a law to state that the punishment shouldn’t out-weight the crime) wasn’t working out and they had to take the next step toward being more radical in forgiveness and grace. Jesus tried to explain that his Kingdom wasn’t of this world (some wrongly change that to “from this world”) and didn’t take power the way other kingdoms take power. Kingdoms of the world establish power by sword, but Jesus says those who live by the sword will die by it. We “do not wage war as the world does” and Christians don’t have the luxury of human enemies. The armor we put on doesn’t look like the armor of the world since our feet are to be the gospel of peace and our sword is the word of God (not meaning the Bible, but the John 1:1 meaning- Jesus is the word, logos, message of God).
God’s kingdom will always be established through the methods used by Jesus. God’s rule isn’t obtained by violence or the power of force, but is established by the power of love. Here is a phrase I remember from school: “Jesus is the exegesis of God.“ That just means, when you want to know what God is like or how he works, you look at Jesus and interpret God through the lens of Jesus.
Many Christians think that when Jesus returns he will abandon his early method of establishing the kingdom and revert to a Caesar type, power-by-force approach to his kingdom. We actually sound just like the Jews of Jesus day expecting Jesus to come the second time the way they thought he would come the first. I’ve heard this phrase a lot: “Jesus came the first time as a suffering servant, but will return as conquering king.” It’s as if they think Jesus is going to change his mind and get rid of the values of suffering for humanity and decide to make humanity suffer. As if His second coming will have an entirely different value system of establishing rule than the first. I am sure from Scripture that He comes in glory and power, but I don’t believe he comes with a different kind of power than he came the first time. I don’t think he will abandon his original approach to establishing the kingdom for a more violent approach at then end. This is so ingrained in western (especially American) thinking that’s it is hard to get over this concept, and for many, this idea is offensive and my over simplistic and short explanation won’t convince you. I hope it plants a seed and gets the ball rolling so you can start asking tough questions of the way you believe (like I’ve had to start doing the last couple years).
Footnote*
In anticipation of a couple objections I know come to mind for some (and a couple scriptures we have been taught to view a certain way) I’ll quickly address two of them.
The first is Revelation 19, which has Jesus riding in on a white horse in power and authority. Many Christians have been taught that that verse is about the second coming of Christ and that is a picture of how he will return. Just as Revelation 12 is a picture of Jesus being born and protected when Herod commands the baby boys to be killed, I believe Revelation 19 is a parallel to Mathew 21 where Jesus rides in on a donkey. I believe Revelation 19 is heaven’s perspective on that event and not a future event. For those of us that were taught that Revelation is all about the future, (futurist perspective of end times) this is a hard adjustment, but one I have had to make in order to feel I am being faithful to Scripture.
Another passage that people often assume is about the future, due to not understanding how Jews talk about things, is Matthew 24 where Jesus is talking about the end of the age. I do believe he means “age” and not the end of the world. I also think he means it when he says in verse 34, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” I believe that whole passage is in reference to what happened in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem and to “that generation.”
There are many passages that people interpret as being about the future that are actually about the present (or now even the past) and it takes a lot of “repenting” (change your thinking) to start seeing scripture as it was meant to be seen, and not through the lens of western modernity. But if I can start learning to do this, we all can. Not only that, but there seems to be a major shift with the younger generation of believers toward this way of thinking. I guess we’ll see.
Hey, Jim, I really like this post. I grew up with dispensational premillenialism, but made the made the transition to more optimistic eschatology several years ago. The Olivet Discourse and Revelation make so much more sense when you stop trying to compare scripture with the daily news and realize those passages were largely directed to the people living at that time.
And Acts 2 makes it pretty clear that Jesus is ruling and reigning now and further establishing His kingdom throughout history. And the cool thing is we get to be a part of that! To me, that’s motivating and exciting. And you’re right, it’s not through force, but through love, service and sacrifice.
It’s nice to know there are others at VCC with this perspective. I tend to steer discussions away from end times because I know it can be a contentious issue. But I like the way you’ve put it out there to get people thinking.