ChnMind 2.1 Constitutional 101 for God's Kingdom

The Constitution of God's Kingdom

The subject of the constitution of God's Kingdom is of vital concern. It is currently not an area of widespread study, although in the past sought to address it under the rubric of “Christian Economy”. Many, many Christians are either ignorant of how God's Kingdom is constituted, or they are terribly mistaken. This has to be addressed—and addressed head on.

Our Lord taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come”, yet unless we have a clear biblical understanding of how God's Kingdom is constituted, or what it looks like, we will be of little use in living consistently with our prayer. Thus, in present days, Jerusalem remains fundamentally unclear and confused as to what the Kingdom “looks like” and what its citizens should be doing in order to bring the Kingdom to pass. A corollary is that, more often than not, Christians get caught up with Athenian concerns, running Athens's agenda, using Athenian stratagems. The recent involvement of Christians in politics, even in the formation of political parties, has aptly demonstrated this to be the case.

Athens, for its part, is also a kingdom--the kingdom of this world. It too has a constitution. Within its constitution are nestled many constitutional variants of rule, power, and authority—including secular democracy, liberalism, conservatism, monarchism, socialism, capitalism, greenism, libertarianism, racism, feminism, fascism, communism, republicanism, and fascism. Many times the variants are often blended together in a confused mess.

All of these variants are kissing cousins in the sense that they share a common fundamental constitutional belief—that is, that man is the highest reference point and ultimate authority in the universe. The kingdom of Athens's constitutional options are mere variations on that one Great Article of Faith. The debates are essentially inter-mural and have to do with whether rule and authority ought to reside in man as collective (the State) or as individual.

The focus of this series of essays is to trace out from Holy Scripture the constitution of God's Kingdom as opposed to the Kingdom of Athens. It is only when we have a very clear understanding of these things that we will be able to work powerfully and effectively upon building Jerusalem upon earth into the city which will indeed become the joy of the whole earth.

Let us then start with some of the most fundamental and basic Scriptural concepts.

1.The Kingdom of God is the domain in which Christ rules as absolute Lord. This means that since the Ascension of our Lord to the right hand of God, the Kingdom of God embraces the entire realm of creation, or the universe. Jesus made this clear when He pronounced: “all authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18) His apostles expounded this with such language as:

“ . . . when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him as His right hand in the heavenly places; far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet” (Ephesians 1:20—22)

“He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation. For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the first-born of the dead; so that he Himself might come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself.” (Colossians 1:15—20)

2.The Kingdom of God is so universal that it embraces everything, both extensively and intensively. Unlike any human wordly Athenian kingdom its realm and domain extends to all nations and people, kingdoms and dominions, cultures, races, every single individual soul (whether passed from the sight of mortal men, or still living, or yet to live), every part of every individual right down to the numbered hairs on their head, every atom and sub-atomic particle, and even to every thought and intention of the human heart. This is what is implied when we pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

3.The Kingdom of God is therefore much broader than the Church. One of the most stupid and consequently debilitating struggles of Christendom up until the Modern period (that is, the post-Enlightenment period) was whether church or state held higher authority. To one extent or another, more often than not, both institutions claimed the higher divine right and both sought to lord it over the other.

In fact, neither has authority over the other. However, Christ is Lord of both church and state--and all other reality. Both church and state are component parts of the Kingdom of God, but both alike are under the authority of the King, Himself. The Kingdom is greater and more extensive than any of its constituent parts. No one institution can encapsulate the breadth and depth of Christ's reign.

4.The Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. This is to say that the Kingdom is controlled, imbued by, and animated by the Spirit of the Lord. While the Kingdom has both material and immaterial elements and components, all alike are spiritual. The Kingdom is not other-worldly: it includes all worlds and realms, the material and the immaterial.

5.The Kingdom of God is both a present and an emerging reality. It has an aspect of growth and maturation. While the Lord rules over all men now, for example, He rules over many in sovereign power whilst they remain in heart disobedient rebels. Their rebellion will not be successful, nor will it continue indefinitely. But as His Kingdom comes and intensifies, more and more are converted to serve Him from the heart. More and more people take every thought captive to Christ. More and more run willingly and faith and hope and love in His service.

This “yet, but not yet” aspect of the Kingdom is part of the perpetual pattern of creation. Creation is not static, but changes, develops, matures, flowers. Hebrews expresses this so plainly when we read:

“Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet. For in subjecting all things to Him, He left nothing that is not subject to Him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to Him. But we do see Him . . .crowned with glory and honour” (Hebrews 2: 8,9)

However, the decisive battles of the Kingdom have already been fought and won. The former ruler of this world, the Devil, has been cast out. All else that follows is denouement, extension, application, mop-up. It is the difference between the battle that destroyed The One Ring, and the battle to cleanse the Shire.

6.The Kingdom of God is going to last in its present form for a long, long time as the realities of the reign of Christ are brought to pass and worked out in all creation. The Covenant is to last at least a thousand generations (therefore, approximately thirty thousand years Exodus 20: 5,6 and Deuteronomy 7:9) and so it has only just begun. The revelation of the full glory of God's lovingkindness and covenant faithfulness requires such a long time to be manifested because it is so great and awe inspiring. A mere hundred or so generations from the time of Abraham to the present is not sufficient to demonstrate the greatness of our God.

As it says in Deuteronomy: “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)

Our object, then, is to describe what that Kingdom will look like upon the earth as it grows, develops, and matures both now and in the thousands of years to come. As we get our understanding of what Jerusalem will look like we will have a much better idea of how we are to work and build in the present. It is when we see the plans for the overall building that we are able effectively to dig the foundations or raise the next piece of framing. It is when we understand the plans that we are also able to order the progression of the building work. Just as the foundations need to be laid before the framing goes up, so there are things that must be accomplished first in the Kingdom, before other things can be achieved and realised.

In two short millennia, the Gospel has spread to every part of the world. It has influenced some regions, nations and cultures intensively and extensively. But it is just the beginning. In the next thousand years much more progress will be made. The Kingdom will become more evident, more influential, more in manifest control. The next thousand years after that—still further. Then further yet again, and so forth.

One of the reasons why Jerusalem is so culturally powerful is due to this “short haul-long haul” perspective. Some cultures think in terms of years, others decades. Occasionally one finds cultures which think in terms of generations. Only in Jerusalem, in the Kingdom of Christ the Lord, do we find a people who are to be so short-term focused they seek to redeem every moment for the Lord, making the most of the time because the days are evil.

But equally, only in the Kingdom of Christ, do we find citizens whose eyes are to be on tens of millenia, and who live knowing that the fruits and influence of their lives will echo and magnify for a thousand generations to come.