An Eye Opener, and No Mistake
We who belong to Jesus Christ have been granted to live in a time of great privilege. We have seen Messiah come forth. We have witnessed His atoning death for our sins upon the Cross. We have beheld His vindication in the resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God the Father. We have witnessed the inauguration of His Kingdom upon earth. All the hopes and promises of Scripture are "yes" and "amen" in Him. We are privileged to live, not in the time of anticipation and waiting, but in the days of fulfilment and realisation.
Yet many Believers remain confused or uncertain about the nature of His Kingdom and how it has come, is present now, and growing and extending to fill up the entire world and creation. This uncertainty and confusion is due in large part to the undeniable fact that today, in the West, we sail as a very small minority in a vast sea of Unbelief. How can the Kingdom have come, and come in power, when there is so much doubt and fear on every hand?
We need to be clear on some fundamentals. The Kingdom has come. Messiah came into the world preaching, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Gospel." (Mark 1: 15) So much of His public ministry was focused upon the realisation that His coming signified and inaugurated. The ministry of His apostles after His ascension also testified to this reality.
Secondly, the nature of His Kingdom is transformational of the world of sin, from the inside out. The Kingdom does not come externally by force. The sword is forbidden, except for the punishment of criminals (Romans 13: 4). Thus, one of the great evidences that Islam is a pagan, rebellious and Unbelieving apostasy is that it represents a false kingdom of suppression, tyranny, and forced surrender. The Kingdom of Christ, of which Islam is a later, reactive satanic perversion, is otherwise: it is a Kingdom born of the Spirit in the willing hearts and minds of men, and from there to all creation. It cannot be commanded, engineered, or constructed by human device: unless we all abide in Christ, and Christ abides in us, we can do nothing.
Thirdly, the glory and power of the Kingdom is displayed in its gradual transformation of mankind from the inside out. A new humanity--a new human race--is being constructed around the headship of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glory and power of the Kingdom is in its gradualism--gradually that which is thoroughly revolutionary comes to pass. Now, as Scripture says, God could have raised up sons from stones; He could have proclaimed the Gospel from the skies; He could have not only converted the entire world instantaneously, but also perfectly sanctified each believer instantaneously. But He chose not to. In faith, we accept that His power and His wisdom, His mercy and His grace would be glorified more by the gradual transformation of a new human race, moving through history from darkness to light. This is why the Old Testament prophecies of the Kingdom speak of its glories being manifested throughout the entire world whilst historical realities continue: birth and death, children and old men, lions and lambs, nations and kings. These realities exist in what the Scriptures call the new heavens and the new earth. (Isaiah 65: 17--25) These are the glorious days in which we live now.
If we are not clear on these fundamentals, we end up very confused indeed. One confusion is seeing the Kingdom as living in a perpetual ground-hog day existence. This sees no progress whatsoever in the Kingdom upon the earth--but each generation needing to start off afresh from "Ground Zero". The Great Commission is never fulfilled, because each generation is born in Unbelief. Each generation mankind supposedly returns to just a handful of believers, starting out all over again to disciple the nations.
Another confusion is seeing the Kingdom as not of this world, not in and of human history, not part of humanity. The Kingdom is thoroughly and radically "other-worldly". In this distortion, the world is seen as one gigantic fishing pond. The goal is to catch some fish for Jesus, and throw them into heaven, where the real action is. The fishing pond remains polluted, dank, weed infested and noisome. Whilst much may be said about this unbiblical idea, one thing is clear: it sees no development from Old Covenant to New. Essentially it is the same redemptive condition in the New Covenant as the Old. This would make the Kingdom no more near at hand when Jesus came than when Abraham was a lad. Second verse, same as the first.
So, how then should we view the Kingdom in light of the current straightened circumstances of the Church in the West? With a firm, calm, joyful faith. Clearly the Christian faith is not a Western phenomenon (although the West tragically perverted the faith by making it synonymous with the West, its "values", "ideals" and idolatries). But now, we see rapid expansion of the Kingdom in non-Western nations. Our role, in our generation, as faithful Kingdom warriors and servants is to continue rebuilding from the inside out in the West, but also in particular, to call the West out of its rebellion and unfaithfulness and apostasy. That call will come amidst divine judgments which shall fall successively upon us. The Kingdom will eventually rise again in the West, from the inside out, but it is likely that this time, the recovery of the Kingdom in the West will be preceded by the establishment of a comprehensive Christendom in the Southern Hemisphere and in central Asia.
Now that will be an eye opener, and no mistake.
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