The Coming of the Kingdom, Part VI

When a Great King Visits, Everything Changes

We have argued that there are essentially two constructs that endeavour to expound what the coming of the Kingdom of God really means. These are the Augustinian construct and the Reformational construct. The debate between the two is an inter mural one since both constructs are distinctly and exclusively grounded in the Christian faith. But both alike cannot be right.

The question is not unimportant, insofar as asking for the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth is the first petition of the Lord's prayer. It is at this point that the major divergence between the two constructs emerges. In the Augustianian construct, the Kingdom does not come upon earth until after the Final Advent of our Lord. In the Reformational construct, the Kingdom comes by the power and Spirit of God substantially in this life, prior to the Final Advent—which is the capstone of the matter.

From the perspective of the Reformational construct it longs for the Augustinian construct—which has been significant and very influential in redemptive history—to be improved and corrected. The reason is that in the Reformational construct the Kingdom comes via and through redeemed and converted humanity—in other words, the Kingdom comes on earth through the life and labours of the people of God. God has decreed that it be so. Just as the Great Commission is fulfilled through people preaching the Gospel and teaching the converted, so the Kingdom comes, and God's will is done more and more upon earth as it is in heaven, through the agency of people.

The more God's people are caught up in the Augustinian construct, the more likely they are to regard being in this world as a burden and sentence to be endured, whilst they await “going to be with Jesus.” In other words, whilst they may pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth, they are not going to work and labour for it. This, in the view of the Reformational construct, becomes a self-fulfilling limitation of faith: God does not work mightily amongst us because of unbelief.

In this post, we want to address some contextual issues which indirectly influence the discussion a great deal, yet often without people realizing it. The first contextual issue is the influence of platonic ideas into the understanding of the Christian faith. Platonism and platonic ideas have been insinuated into the Church and have done a great deal of damage. Oftentimes, the damage is subtle. Believers are unaware of how their understanding of the faith is being influenced by pagan ideas. They come constantly to the Scriptures with a set of platonic glasses firmly on their nose: they read platonic motifs into the text of Scripture.

Platonic paganism believed that life and existence, earth and the heavens were all part of a “chain of being”. The gods and man were related; just as man and animals were related. This “chain of existence” had higher and lower creatures. The lower creatures or beings were those that were material beings only, without a soul (for example, a tree). The highest beings were those which had no material aspect at all, but were pure spirits, or concepts, or ideas. Man was part-way between. He had both a material aspect, and an immaterial. He was body and spirit. He consisted of flesh and reason. But man could move up the chain and become like the gods. He did this when he died and “shuffled off this mortal coil” and was released into being a pure rational spirit.

It is understandable that in the post-apostolic world, which was dominated by platonic ideas, the Church came to be influenced by such concepts. Many of the converts came out of platonic paganism; many carried the ideas across to a greater or lesser degree. Augustine was one of them.

In the Christian faith, the dichotomy is not between body and soul, matter and spirit, but between sin and righteousness. God created a material universe, and man a material being. He created it holy, just, and good. His salvation and redemption restores creation—in all its material aspects—it does not remove one or transport one from it. The incarnation (the creation of our Saviour as a material human being in the womb of Mary), the resurrection in His body, and the enthronement of the material Man, Christ Jesus to the right hand of God all underscore heavily how God's salvation is of the entirety (not part) of man: body, mind, soul, spirit. The full and final establishment of heaven upon the earth after the Final Advent also underscores the issue—and in fact settles it for all time. In other words, grace restores nature, it does not remove man from it. It is always grace versus sin, not grace versus the created world. The latter is implicitly platonic, not Christian.

The great hope of the Christian is not that he dies and goes to be with Jesus without his body at death. Paul confirms for us that being absent from the body means that we are present with the Lord. This indeed is a great blessing—but it is not our full, great nor final hope. For all who die and go to the with the Lord do so incomplete. Salvation has not yet fully come to them. They have not yet inherited all the blessings that Christ has won for them. For Christ, their Redeemer and Saviour stands before them in heaven a complete and perfectly restored Man—in body, soul, and spirit. The hope of the saints in heaven is that one day they, too, will be fully restored to be like Him. In other words, the hope of the saints in heaven is that they will once again become flesh and blood.

Thus, the great hope of the Christian is not that when he dies he will go to be with the Lord, but that one day in the future he will stand (literally) upon this earth with our Lord, Who will be like us in all aspects, and we will be like Him.

This hope is an anathema to all platonic doctrines. That is why at the Areopagus, the “magpies” listened tolerantly until Paul declared Christ had been appointed their judge, because He had been raised from the dead. When they heard that—that their Judge was to be a material being, they began to sneer (Acts 17:31,32).

Athanasius, in his seminal essay on the Incarnation, argued that matter and material reality was forever ennobled and redeemed in principle and essence by the incarnate Lord living upon earth. He used an analogy of how for centuries and generations a city or town would carry honour and dignity from the visit of a king or emperor, even to the point of preserving the bed in which he slept and the table at which he ate as a perpetual memorial. The incarnation of our Lord has done this for the entire world on a grander scale. The King of all kings, the incarnate Son of God has been here as a flesh and blood Man!

But, wait—there is more! Not only has He been here, He is coming back—forever. We, who are His servants, have to be busy cleaning the place up, getting it ready, and administering it in the way He wants, ready for His coming. If we take off our platonic glasses, and replace them with the constructs of His Word, we will be active and busy in doing our utmost to ensure that in our spheres of responsibility and within the duties and tasks He allots to us, His will would be done through us, as it is in heaven.

If we identify platonic constructs, and expunge them from our hearts, replacing them with Scripture's constructs, we will end up concluding that the Augustinian construct is fundamentally inadequate and sub-Scriptural.

In our next post, we will illustrate by looking at some pivotal texts which have oft been interpreted and understood by Believers with platonic glasses—while stripping them out of the biblical context. When these texts are put back into their biblical context, they become much more thrilling, exciting, and empowering.