The Coming of the Kingdom, Part II

It's Only Just Begun

The Kingdom of God was inaugurated by God; its first and only King is the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no succession plan, and He is King forever. As the glorified incarnate Son of Man, He was raised to the right hand of God, and all authority in heaven and upon earth was given to Him. The entire universe is now ruled by one Man. This occurred in the created realm, at a particular time in history. With respect to this Kingdom, there is a beginning.

The Scriptures are full of references to this signal event in redemptive history. Psalm 2:7—12 is the prophetic pre-announcement—the divine prequel, if you will. The ascension of Christ is the actual event (of which Psalm 2 was speaking). Hebrews 3:3—5 confirms this, stipulating that the session of Christ to the right hand of God is the fulfilment of Psalm 2.

There are some additional attributes of the Kingdom of God which has now been established that are oft-repeated in the Scriptures. The first is that the Kingdom sees the subjugation of all Christ's enemies under His feet (Psalm 110:1—3; Philippians 2:5—11). Victory over the enemies of Christ—all who disbelieve in Him and who are opposed to Him—is an intrinsic attribute of the now inaugurated Kingdom of God. It is not a question of whether will Christ succeed in this great task, but how and when does it occur.

A second is that the Kingdom of God is not “of this world” in the sense that it is a spiritual Kingdom. Now, it is essential to grasp that when we describe the Kingdom as spiritual we do not thereby mean that it is an immaterial kingdom. That is impossible, since the King has been raised from the dead as the first born. He is a material being and His Kingdom is after His image: the Kingdom of God therefore involves and includes material reality. When the Bible declares that the Kingdom of God is not of this world it means that Christ's Kingdom does not originate from the world of fallen men. It does not operate according to the sinful constructs of the old man, or of the flesh.

The Kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom in the sense that it is brought to life and is sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit Who applies the merit, work, and redeeming power of Christ to the Creation, at His direction and command. Therefore, when the Scriptures says that the Kingdom is not by might, nor by power but by the Spirit of the Lord (Zechariah 4:6) it means that unbelieving human activity can neither bring the Kingdom to pass, nor sustain it. But deeds and work done in true faith in Christ can and do extend the Kingdom, because they are truly spiritual, being wrought by the Holy Spirit and empowered by Him.

Thirdly, the Kingdom as it comes to pass upon earth involves the preaching of the Gospel to all nations, and discipling all nations to observe all the commands of Christ. (Matthew 28:18—20).

The Augustinian construct of the Kingdom accepted all of these doctrines of the Kingdom. But as we have said previously Augustine did not believe that the Kingdom would make any real or substantial impact upon this fallen world until the Final Advent of our Lord, at which time the impact and the change would be total and dramatic. Until that time the progress of the Kingdom would be limited to individual believers and the church and very little else. The reasoning was pretty straightforward.

The Kingdom of God would come into full manifestation at the Final Advent of our Lord—at the end of history as we know it. At that time, the institution of marriage would no longer exist; families would dissolve, and childbearing would cease. There would be no crime, no sin. Therefore, the institution of civil government would no longer exist. Nations would no longer exist as such. Commerce would have passed away. Private property would not exist. All of these institutions and things, therefore, belonged to the City of Man, not the City of God.

That is why Augustine could take vows of celibacy and live in a monastery. The more the City of God grew in this dispensation, the more it would separate itself from the City of Man and conform to the Kingdom as it was going to be in the future. So, Augustine believed that by not marrying and by living in a monastic order he was anticipating and witnessing to the coming City of God.

So far the Augustinian construct. The second construct has emerged over time. It cannot be identified with any one seminal theologian (as Augustine can with the City of God construct). It has not yet found its way into creedal formulation. At the Reformation, one thousand years after Augustine's seminal work, these matters once again were thought through—at least indirectly. Luther essentially continued to hold to the Augustinian construct. He overtly spoke of two Kingdoms, and did not hesitate to put institutions like the family in the Kingdom of Man, not the Kingdom of God.

Others were less definitive, less wedded to Augustine's construct. The more emphasis that was placed upon the Christ and His redeeming work, the more the focus came to be not upon the Kingdom after the Final Advent, but the Kingdom here and now. The ascension of Christ to the right hand of God, and the invitation by the Father that the Son sit at His right hand until God had placed all enemies under His feet gradually impinged more and more as people looked at the actual teaching of Scripture.

The Reformers, of course, along with Roman Catholic and Orthodox believers had come to believe in the notion of Christendom—a kingdom upon earth where Christ ruled tangibly and institutionally. They divided the world up into the realm of Christian nations (however imperfect, flawed and unfaithful they might be); the Islamic realm; and the pagan realm. They could look back upon an actual fifteen hundred years of redemptive history under the Cross and see an enormous impact upon human life and culture that had been made by the Gospel and the teachings of Scripture.

The whole genius of the Reformation was, after all, to reform Europe back to what had existed before: in the areas of individual piety, church, the family, cultural life, economic life, political life, and so on. This implied that the Augustinian construct was passe, and that something more biblical had to take its place. In general the formulation came to be as follows: Christ commanded that the Gospel be preached to all nations. This implied that His Spirit would endow the work with eventual success. Not only would all nations be brought into contact with the good news of God's saving mercy in Jesus Christ, but that the overwhelming majority of people in all nations would respond and be converted by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. All men (or the vast majority of them) would be taught and trained to obey Christ in every area of their lives.

As this great work of redemption proceeded and more and more people came under the power of the Gospel, the Word of God and the Spirit of God would have a leavening influence throughout all of creation. The Church would serve and worship as God had revealed and commanded it should; families would live according to the commands of God; businesses, schools, and hospitals would be run in submission to God's Word; the courts of justice (both civil and criminal) would judge by God's standards, not by man's, and so forth. This would happen “naturally” as more and more people became Christian believers; as the Church grew in influence and strength; and as the leaven of the Gospel penetrated into every field of human endeavour.

So, in this construct, when the Lord commanded us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” He was instructing us to pray, expect, and work to see more and more of the world come under the power of the Spirit of God, as He is being poured out upon all men and nations, to form Christ in and amongst them.

In this construct, the Final Advent is seen as the completion, the capstone to the royal household, not the construction of the edifice itself. To contrast the two constructs starkly and somewhat simplistically, the Augustinian construct teaches that the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, and the session of Christ lays the foundation of the City of God. The present age is sorting out future membership in the City. The Final Advent will construct the actual city itself. The Reformational construct (for want of a better term) teaches that the resurrection, ascension, the pouring forth of God's Spirit upon the earth, and the present reign of Christ not only lays the foundation, but actually builds the City itself in heaven and upon earth. The Final Advent puts the last building block in place, when heaven actually comes down to earth (Revelation 21:1—3). But the City itself has been substantially built by Christ and His Spirit, prior to His return.

In the next post, we will consider some critical passages which address the question of the progress, growth, and influence of the Kingdom of God upon the earth. All of these passages testify to the Reformational construct being more correct than the Augustianian construct.