Daily Meditation

Facing a Crisis of History

Ligonier Ministries

In Luke 12:49–57, Jesus told His disciples that He had not come to bring peace, but division. He told them that He was bringing a baptism of fire to the earth, warning the crowd to flee the wrath to come.

This was the great moment of crisis in history. It was a time of urgency that swept the earth with the appearance of Jesus. Jesus’ coming to this planet in the fullness of time was a time of division, judgment, and separation.

It was a time of personal choosing, when eternal destinies were at stake. Everyone who encountered Jesus had to make a choice, to stand with Him or against Him. Thus, since the time of Jesus’ first appearance, the world has been gripped in a kind of crisis that will continue until the last great crisis, the last judgment.

How do men encounter Jesus today, thus facing their own crisis of history? Jesus is in heaven, but men and women encounter Him through His people, the church. The church is His body and His herald. The fiery baptism Jesus came to bring fell in one sense at Pentecost to ignite the tongues of His people so that they might bring the crisis of decision to all men.

Knowing these things should make us urgent in our proclamation of His name and make us insistent that the generation of our day be exposed to the Lord of lords.

Coram Deo

What are you doing to proclaim His name to this generation? Pray about the role God would have you fill.

Passages for Further Study

Luke 12:49-53

Daily Meditation

Eternal Punishment

“There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality” (vv. 9–11).

- Romans 2:6–11

Ligonier Ministries

If we ever go before a judge, one of the things we want most is for the justice he administers to be impartial. We are looking for judges to make their ruling based solely on the evidence at hand and not to show favoritism to our accuser. Sadly, we know that this desire is not always realized. There are corrupt judges even in the best systems of justice devised by human beings.

We can be sure, however, that one Judge is always impartial and deals only with the facts, namely, our God and Creator. As Paul says at the conclusion of today’s passage on the coming day of judgment, “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11).

That might appear to be good news, but if we read further in Romans, we see that God’s impartiality should instill fear in human beings. Paul says that God will give “glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good” (2:10), but then in 3:9–20 he makes it clear that no one (except Christ) fulfills that condition. “None is righteous, no, not one” (3:10). When we go before God on the day of judgment, we know He will be impartial, and our only hope will be if we are covered in the righteousness of Christ (vv. 21–26; 2 Cor. 5:21). The Lord will take works into account when issuing His verdict of eternal life or eternal punishment. If we rest on our own works, eternal punishment will be our end. But if we rest on the works of Christ by faith alone, we will enjoy eternal life.

That some will receive eternal punishment does not mean everyone in hell endures the same punishment. God is just, and He will judge people based on the revelation they know. The person who dies never having heard of Christ will be punished for sinning against God’s revelation in nature, not because he never heard of Jesus. Those who had heard of Christ but rejected Him will be judged also for that sin. Throughout Romans 1–2, Paul drives home the point that we are judged by the revelation we have.

People will also be judged according to the degree of their sin. Although the slightest sin is enough to merit eternal punishment, the degree of suffering is not the same for all who receive eternal punishment. Scripture assumes degrees of sin and punishment. For example, in the Mosaic law, some sins merit the death penalty and some do not. In the New Testament, there is a love that covers a multitude of sins—a multitude of transgressions. Other sins, however, can merit excommunication (Matt. 18:15–20; 1 Peter 4:8).

Coram Deo

Eternal punishment is a sobering reality. All who stand before God on judgment day on the basis of their own works will find themselves under eternal condemnation. The people around us who do not know Christ are on their way to hell. Thus, we must pray for the salvation of non-Christians whom we know, and we must be prepared to share the gospel with them.

Passages for Further Study

Isaiah 66:15–24
Revelation 20:11–15

What Now?

Rapture, Anyone?  No Thanks.

The "Rapture" has been back in the news again.  It is now an old, tired, hoary chestnut--but every so often "Rapture dogma" gets to do another promenade around the public square.  And so it has come to pass once again.

The folk we feel saddest about are those genuine, well-meaning believers who have been hoodwinked and misled by stupid speculations masquerading as the truth.  These folk are generally committed to Christ and dedicated to obeying Him, come what may.  They are prone to being captured by false teachers insofar as extreme demands, total loyalty, outlandish sacrifices are to be expected when one follows Jesus (or so they are taught).  To such, the more extreme the demand, the more genuinely true it will appear.

To hear from Scripture that "no man knows the day or the hour" when Christ will return is less satisfying than a certain definitive claim that "He will return in the Final Advent at 3.02pm next Wednesday, so better give up everything to do with this life and live as a fanatic for the next five days."  The latter claim has the the "authenticity" of being both extreme and dramatic, and therefore authentic--at least to gullible, poorly taught, relatively ignorant Christians.  They are like sheep without a shepherd.  And when there is no shepherd, rapine wolves can have a field day.

Rapture dogma came into vogue during the nineteenth century, first in the United Kingdom, then in the US.

For the Long Haul

Digging In

". . . the compilers of The Book of Common Prayer provided 'Tables for Finding Holy Days' all the way to AD 8400! Clearly they were digging in for the 'long haul,' and did not expect an imminent "rapture" of the Church."

David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 497

One of the most debilitating and enervating beliefs in Christendom has been the idea of an imminent end to human history and the soon coming of our Lord in His final advent. We know of folk who all their adult lives have lived with a (false) expectation that the Final Advent was imminent--just around the corner. Usually this is tied up with periods of unrest in the Middle East and perceived military threats to Israel. Since the Middle East is currently in some turmoil, the syndrome of Armageddon has burst forth once again amongst the gullible and poorly taught.

In our library we have a volume entitled Armageddon Now. It traces all the identifications of the Anti-Christ that have been made through the twentieth century--from Kaiser Wilhelm II to Henry Kissinger. How many times do folk have to be wrong before self-critical reflection sets in?

The hypothesis of an imminent return of our Lord has also been ascribed to Jesus Himself and the Apostles. Now this creates an implicit, severe theological problem. If an imminent return is taught in Scripture by the Apostles and our Lord Himself--as many modern scholars allege--then clearly both our Lord and the Apostles were mistaken. Subsequent history proves them so. Last time we checked, we are now in the 2011th Year of our Lord. If the writers of the New Testament expected an imminent Final Advent in the generation of the apostles, and now a period of two millennia has elapsed, then clearly they were wrong, mistaken, and error prone.

This very same argument was frequently used by liberal, unbelieving scholars in the twentieth century to cast doubt upon the historicity and reliability and authority of the Scriptures. It is an argument that many professing Christians who do believe the Bible teaches an imminent, soon-to-be Final Advent find hard to address.

Yet the idea of an imminent return of our Lord has not been part of the Church's teaching historically. It has broken out from time to time--for example, the Anabaptist radicals at the time of the Reformation espoused the notion of End Times soon to be. But as Chilton's reference to the Book of Common Prayer makes clear, such an idea is an aberration and contrary to a long tradition of historical theology.

The simple fact that so many prophesiers, who have proclaimed that the Final Advent of our Lord is just around the corner, have been proved wrong by subsequent events should cause all but the most wilfully blind to experience a deep angst of scepticism coupled with an openness to return to a more solid exegesis of the relevant Biblical texts.

For the record, we believe that our Lord's words on His return are impeccable and infallible and without error. Secondly, we believe that His Apostles, inspired by His Spirit, were equally infallible, when speaking of the times and seasons of His coming. Thirdly, both our Lord and His Apostles believed and taught that He would soon come to judge Israel and destroy the temple and its apostate religious service--which occurred indeed within a generation of the resurrection of our Lord, as He foretold. This was indeed an Advent of our Lord, although not the Final Advent, which is yet to come. As our Lord informed the High Priest, ". . . hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven . . ." (Matthew 26:64)

Fourthly, whilst this historical judgement may well foreshadow the great cataclysms of the Final Advent, the Scriptures themselves say nothing of the length of time that will elapse until its occurrence. In fact, not only do the Scriptures makes clear that no man knows that time, and that it has been kept from men by the express purpose of God (thus, one of the "secret things" referred to in Deuteronomy 29:29), but that our Lord gave many indications that it was a long, long time away.

In the meantime, we have His commission to go forth and disciple the nations, teaching all to observe everything that the Lord has commanded. Last time we checked, we have only made the barest beginning in this great, global, universal task. One of the great problems with false doctrines of an imminent return is that it introduces a short-cutting urgency into the Church, which necessarily involves neglecting some, if not a great deal, of the responsibilities and duties commanded by God.

In the Kingdom, doing things fast does not mean they are done well. In fact, the reverse is more likely the case. Try forging the character of a child in thirty seconds. More like thirty years are required.

Digging in for the long haul is the ticket.

How Vast is Our Saviour's Work?

Removing Scales From Jaded Eyes

One of the more interesting biblical questions facing Christians is the course and progress of the Gospel in the world. Because Christians are now numbered in the West as a small minority tossing in a vast ocean of rebellion and unbelief, many (Christians and Unbelievers) are tempted to make the mistake of projecting the present into the future, to conclude that in any generation only a small number will be saved.

This is no idle or abstract subject, akin to the discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.  For one's expectations of the future determine in great measure how we live our lives now.  Teleology matters.  If we understand that God has indeed declared the progressive and comprehensive christianization of the earth our present lives in this vale of tears will have a decidedly different timbre. 

This issue is something which we very definitely must not subject to "newspaper exegesis"--that unhappy procedure of determining the teaching of Scripture through the filter of what we read in the news every day. Old Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield cites Bishop William Temple (1913) on the matter:

The earth will in all probability be habitable for myriads of years yet. If Christianity is the final religion, the church is still in its infancy. Two thousand years are as two days. The appeal to the "primitive church" is misleading: we are the "primitive church".

But why should we hold to the position that the Church is still young? Because Christianity is yet in the minority. Warfield again:

. . . it is the constant teaching of Scripture that Christ must reign until He shall have put all His enemies under His feet--by which assuredly spiritual, not physical conquest is intimated; that it is inherent in the very idea of the salvation of Christ, who came as Saviour of the world, in order to save the world, that nothing less than the world shall be saved by Him; and that redemption as a remedy for sin cannot be supposed to reach its final issue until the injury inflicted by sin on the creation of God is repaired, and mankind as such is brought to the destiny originally designed for it by its creator.

But what of those passages where our Lord intimates that few will be saved, such as when He said, "Many are called, but few are chosen." This damning statement cannot be stripped out of its redemptive context and made into a universal principle of redemptive history. Our Lord was speaking of the last days of the Jewish apostasy, where, due to the prevalent Unbelief and almost universal rejection of the Messiah, judgement fell upon that people in AD 66-70. Warfield cites W. G. T. Shedd:

Some . . . have represented the number of the reprobated as greater than that of the elect, or equal to it. They found this upon the world of Christ, "Many are called, but few are chosen." But this describes the situation at the time when our Lord spake, and not the final result of His redemptive work. But when Christ shall have "seen of the travail of His soul" and been "satisfied" with what He has seen; when the whole course of the Gospel shall be complete, and shall be surveyed from beginning to end, it will be found that God's elect, or church, is "a great multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples ,and tongues" and that their voice is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saving, "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Revelation 7:9; 19:6

B. B. Warfield, "Are They Few That Be Saved?", Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1968), p.349f.

The Coming of the Kingdom, Part VIII

The Calling of Time on the Kingdom

Many Christians have a tendency to view the Kingdom of God in too narrow or superficial terms. One the one hand some platonise the Kingdom by seeing it as being essentially invisible and inward, of the thoughts, motives and intentions of the human heart only. In this view, the Kingdom is essentially between God and the individual believer. The Kingdom is largely restricted to the conversion of souls. The coming of the Kingdom refers to the growing number of the converted in heaven.

This theory of the Kingdom is too narrow, and arises from the mistake of dividing the created world into non-Christian platonic categories. Now, of course, no-one can be a completely consistent platonist. The created world is not platonic; the cosmos is not as Plato and his followers described it. Consequently, platonic Christians have to live in the real world, which means that their platonic gloss on the Christian faith and the Kingdom is necessarily inconsistent. But press hard enough, and they will tell you that working to see souls saved is the essence and realistic extent of the Kingdom upon the earth, prior to our Lord's return.

On the other hand, others fall into the mistake of viewing the Kingdom's coming to be identified with some great cause or other. For example, fighting the evil of abortion. If only we could see abortion being outlawed, the Kingdom's presence and reality in the world would have taken a huge step forward. Well, possibly. But if people are still murdering in the hearts the evil represented in abortion will only end up manifesting itself elsewhere—and, the institution of abortion will be inevitably back like the Terminator himself.

The coming of the Kingdom upon earth is far more comprehensive, far more complex, thorough, rich, thick and all-encompassing than either of these reductionisms. It involves, as our Lord instructs, the doing of God's will upon earth in the same way in which it is done in heaven. In heaven the Kingdom is truly totalitarian. Upon earth, the will of God is to be equally totalitarian (although power and authority does not reside exhaustively with any one human institution, so that the Kingdom as it truly comes never makes any human institution—whether church, state, family, the individual, or the academy, or any other created thing--absolute).

In this sense redemptive history to date has only seen glimpses and adumbrations of the full coming of the Kingdom upon all the earth. There is so much more ground to take, so much more Christianizing to occur.

The coming of the Kingdom is like the sanctification of the individual Christian. When one first believes upon the Lord Jesus Christ one is justified by faith. The Believer is declared sinless and holy by God for the sake of Christ's atoning sacrifice for all our sins. But the matter does not end there, for the Believer is called to live a life of increased conformity to the commands and teaching of Christ by faith. The Spirit of God, uniting the Believer to the death of Christ, also unites him to the resurrection of Christ. He progressively becomes dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. He grows in the obedience of faith.

The coming of the Kingdom upon a culture is precisely the same: as more and more Believers live more and more faithfully to Christ, so the Kingdom of God comes progressively into existence upon the earth. It brings a thoroughgoing, root and branch, transformation of everything it touches--and finally it will touch everything.

One of the most debilitating mistakes made by Christians in this regard is to hold to a belief in the soon or imminent Final Advent of our Lord. Now it is true that the Apostles and the early Christians believed that something really big was about to happen in their lifetimes. But a careful exegesis of the relevant passages shows that they refer to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ at the head of the Roman armies to judge Israel and to end forever the types and shadows and symbols of the Old Covenant.

But of the time of the Final Advent no-one knows. It will take as long as it takes, as long as God has ordained. It will take as long as the Kingdom takes to come upon earth. And that may well be thousands upon thousands of years. God knows. That we have not been given to know. But what is clear is our ordained duty to work and pray in our generation to see the Kingdom extended as far as we are enabled: in our own hearts, lives, families, schools, businesses, and communities—as far as the Lord blesses us and enables us. And there is to be a certain urgency about this because our own lives are short. We fade like the new grass in the noonday sun. Our live spans are like a vapour. Every day counts. So biblical urgency comes not from a false belief in the Final Advent being imminent, but from the knowledge that for each of us our days upon the earth are very short, our work immense, and no time can be wasted. Every day counts.

But, at the same time the nature of our work is to be gradual, slow, patient and therefore comprehensive and deep. For example the raising of children to live faithfully in the covenant as adults in their turn takes years and years of daily patient consistent labour. The work is all encompassing, but it cannot be rushed. God has forbidden it. There is no one “quick-fix” solution. The same is true with our personal sanctification: all encompassing, never ending, but gradual and progressive. The same with growing churches and schools and Christian institutes such as hospitals. The Kingdom of God is not a turn-key operation. It is too deep, thick, complex, profound and all encompassing for such superficialities and “get rich quick” schemes.

In regard of the coming of the Kingdom we are to be like the Lord. We are to see the big picture, as painted for us in Holy Scripture. Seeing the big picture we can see a thousand years of redemptive history as one day. But we are also to see the detail and the rich, glorious complexity and manifold splendour of the Kingdom so that we are driven to pay careful attention to daily duties and details. Thus, for us also one day is to seem like a thousand years—not in the sense of one day being a burden, but a single day being weighty and important, holy, noble and great, even though it may involve dirty diapers, dishwashing, and what the world might otherwise call the ordinary and the mundane.

This is what it means to work consistently with our prayer that His Kingdom would come and that His will would be done upon earth as it is in heaven.

The Coming of the Kingdom, Part VII

Pining or Serving?

“In the sweet bye and bye” is a sentimental Victorian “pining” hymn. Yet in many ways it captures the mistaken idea that the real point of life is to die and be with Jesus. Now, we need to state clearly at the outset that from a personal point of view, the passing from this life to be with the Lord will be a wonderful experience. Paul affirmed that to depart and be with the Lord is “very much better” (Philippians 1:21). Our Lord promised that He was going to prepare a place for us in heaven where there are many mansions, and where He will be (John 14:1,2). Part of us, like Paul, can't wait.

But, at the same time, and in the same breath, when we contemplate our death the cry of our heart must almost ways be, “Not yet, Lord. Not yet.” Why? Well, since a predominant focus of prayers is that God's Kingdom would come upon earth, it follows that we should not be in a hurry to leave. Our entire life's career is to be lived in service to our Lord whilst upon the earth. This means that we are to be taken up with the coming of His Kingdom upon the earth, not with our leaving the earth to go to heaven. If work remains that we can do, we are duty bound to remain here as long as possible, as long as there is Kingdom work and service which we can perform. This is why the living of a long life upon the earth is always regarded in Scripture as a great blessing. Living here a long time is the first promise found in the Law.

This is the kind of spiritual calculus Paul uses while he is a prisoner in Rome, nearing the end of his life. He reasons that he still has a contribution to make, and that while this remained true, he was convinced that he would remain. “For me to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake,” he tells the Philippians, and so, convinced of this, he knows that God would have him remain and “continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:25,26).

So the purpose and focus of our lives is not to long to go and be with Jesus (although as we age, our faculties weaken, and dependency rises this may come more and more to the fore) but to remain here as long as we can to partake and share in the great work of seeing His Kingdom come upon earth.

Yet, the platonic distortion continues to influence too many, far too much. One staple text which is cited to “prove” that the focus and longing of our lives should be to depart and be with the Lord is found in Hebrews 11. Herewith the text:

By faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow-heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. . . .

All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles upon the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.
Hebrews 11: 8—16)

Those Believers with platonic glasses firmly in place always read this passage in a certain way. They see that earth is not our home; it is a place of exile, where we live as strangers. Our real home is in heaven. Abraham inherited the wonderful land God had prepared when he finally died and departed this earth, going to be with God in heaven. But that is platonism talking, not the text itself. The text says something very different.

God has promised Abraham a land, a much, much better country than the one whence he had come. But he did not receive it in this life. It remained a bare promise of God. He lived all his life as a stranger and exile upon the earth. Consequently, Abraham saw the promise of God “at a distance”, afar off. Neither did he see it (in the sense of experiencing it in realised form) when he died. He died, as he had lived—in faith, without seeing God's promises come to pass.

What then of the “better country”, the “heavenly one” the “city whose architect and builder is God”? It is the city and kingdom which God is establishing upon the earth. It is heavenly in the sense that it comes from heaven; it is the actual coming of the Kingdom of Heaven upon the earth. In this sense, we are in exactly the same place Abraham was—we still look forward to seeing that city come to pass. We, like Abraham, will die without receiving this promise. We, like Abraham, will die in faith, having seen the promises from afar off.

To be sure, we see and experience a whole lot more than Abraham did. We have seen the coming forth of Messiah—His death, resurrection, and ascension to the heavens. We live in the days of Messiah's reign. We have witnessed the pouring forth of the Spirit upon all the nations of the earth. We have recorded the spread of the Gospel of God's grace to all nations and men. We see Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and Congolese bowing to the Son of God, and in Christ we call them our brethren, more dear to us than our own Unbelieving countrymen. We in our day see much, much more than our father, Abraham of God's city coming out of heaven to earth. But there is much, much more to come. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard” what yet awaits to be unfolded upon the earth. (I Corinthians 2:9). So, we labour, and long, and work, knowing that we have, even now, seen just the beginning of the glory that is to be revealed.

Hebrews 11, and the example of the patriarchs, teaches the exact opposite of a longing to be freed from our physical and material world. Rather, it is a longing to see the transformation of this world under the redeeming power of Christ, as the realm of heaven is established upon the earth. Now, just as with Abraham God could have commanded and the entire earth to be instantly transformed. But this would not have been a sufficient display of His glory, and power, and grace. Rather, He has decreed that the heavenly kingdom would come upon earth by way of Messiah dying upon a Cross for the atonement of the sins of His people, by way of the preaching of the Gospel to all creatures, by way of his disciples growing and expanding to fill the earth, and, finally, by way of His triumphant return to earth to dwell forever amongst men.

This was Abraham's great hope. For, as Paul tells us, all along he knew that in the end, the promise meant that he would inherit the very world itself (Romans 4:13). He died without seeing it. But he will. For God has prepared it for him, and us, his children, through Christ, the Lord.

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.

The Coming of the Kingdom, Part IV

Eye Hath Not Seen, Nor Ear Heard

When we pray, as commanded, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” many have little idea of the grandeur and glory of that for which they pray. This is not a problem in and of itself, for the Spirit also prays in and with us, in groanings too deep to be heard (Romans 8:26).

When Christians think about God's will being done upon earth as it is in heaven often times our frame of reference is superficial. We think of a new law being promulgated defining abortion as a capital crime, for example. Or, we think of the dismantling of the edifice of the government education system. Or, we think of some other moral issue like the repealing of the legalisation of prostitution. These things may indeed be part of the coming of the Kingdom upon earth—but only relatively minor matters. They are minor, not in the sense of their importance in and of themselves, but in a programmatic sense. We would argue that as the Kingdom indeed comes, and as God's will is indeed done on earth as it is in heaven, such things will come to pass—as naturally, inevitably, effortlessly, and as condign to life as breathing or eating.

To borrow a construct from anthropologist, Clifford Geertz the Kingdom of God is thick. As the Kingdom comes and increases in the world it embraces and changes everything—all of life. In heaven, God's will and obedience to His will is all encompassing and all embracing. There is nothing excluded. There is no neutral zone. There is no middle ground. The will of God is totalitarian; obedience to Him is complete, artless, and natural. This is the state we are commanded to pray (and work for) upon earth. Our Lord commands us to pray and work for the increasingly approximate replication of this heavenly state upon earth.

This inevitable thickness of the Kingdom means that there are no short-cuts, no silver bullets, no quick fixes. Since through man sin entered into the world, the new mankind, led by the triumphant and glorious second Adam are to roll back the curse wherever it is found (and it is found everywhere upon earth.) The Kingdom of God embraces and transforms the life of the individual in body, soul, heart and mind. It is to embrace and transform the family so that it approximates increasingly back to the pre-Fall Edenic pattern. Children are to be raised in God-fearing, faithful homes. They are to come to faith in the context of a household of faith. A thousand Christian habits and disciplines are to be transmitted to them and built into their lives so that thinking and living Christianly, in accordance with the commands of Scripture, becomes artless and natural.

Many Christians who have been raised in non-Christian homes and who have been conformed to the present world and who have been subsequently converted in later life, when the habits of Unbelief have become deeply ingrained, will tell you that even basic Christian disciplines and constructs can be a great struggle. For example, if they come from broken and abusive homes they may struggle to understand and believe and live in terms of the fatherhood of God, whereas one raised with a godly human father will intuitively and naturally grasp this wonderful and necessary transforming truth. Similarly, they may struggle, at least initially, with a faithful adherence to the Church community, whereas those who all their lives have known the love and attendance of a faithful Christian mother will embrace Church life and community as the most natural thing in the redeemed world. (As Cyprian said, no-one can claim God as his father who does not also embrace the Church as his mother.)

We could make similar observations about the thickness of the Kingdom as it touches public worship, the sanctification of the Sabbath, schooling and education, the giving of alms, the concept and practice of an all-embracing stewardship of all that God gives, and the habitual doing of good to neighbours. The thickness of the Kingdom means that all of these are included, influenced, and transformed as the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Now, when Christians start to think these things through an objection inevitably arises. A dichotomy is introduced between doing something habitually, as an automaton, and doing something truthfully from the heart. The Scriptures, of course, have plenty to say about the evil of such a dichotomy. Our Lord's denunciations of the Pharisees both expose the magnitude of such evil, and bring fear to every believer's heart. But because something is institutionalised in a cultural sense does not therefore cause or require inward apostasy. As the Kingdom of God comes in truth, it always is and remains a spiritual kingdom—that is, it is generated and sustained by the Spirit of God in truth. In other words, the Spirit is the one One who can generate and sustain an enduring, intergenerational consistency between outward habits and inward faith and truth.

Now, let us for a moment, conceive of a society where the Spirit of God was brooding in power and over ninety percent of the people were truly regenerated believers and that this had been the case for three or four generations. There had consequently been an explosion in the study and understanding of God's will as revealed in the Scriptures. No part of the culture of the society remained untouched or uninfluenced. The busiest day on the roads was the Lord's day as the vast majority of the population streamed to worship. What would schools, law courts, parliament, business, and family life in such a society actually look like? They would reflect the Kingdom of God coming upon the earth, and would approximate the will of God being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Even Unbelievers would be constrained in their unbelief and would be conformed to the prevailing culture of Belief—-in other words, it would be the exact opposite of what we experience in the West now.

As we contemplate these things and reflect upon the coming of the Kingdom in truth we realize that few, if any, societies have ever reached such a penetration and capture of the Gospel. We have seen glimpses only, in redemptive history. But God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask and think (Ephesians 3:20). We are called above all to believe and live in faith, hope, and love. God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save.

But also, contemplation of these things leads us to focus upon the basics and the fundamentals. The preaching of the Gospel and working for the conversion of men, the careful instruction, teaching, and training in faithful Christian living in homes, schools, and churches—these are the building blocks of the Kingdom. There are no short cuts. There are no quick-fixes. There is only faithful service in our day, looking to the Lord to bless us and overcome our many weaknesses and lacunae.

As we labour in the “small” things, the things which are essential to creating a thick Kingdom culture, and pray in faith, “Thy Kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” nothing on earth will be able to withstand, for He sits at the right hand of God.

The Coming of the Kingdom, Part III

Of Great Trees, Birds and Huge Mountains

A central concern for every Christian must be the Kingdom of God and its coming. The reason we know this to be the case is our Lord's instruction that it be the first (therefore, highest priority) thing we pray for. After the expression of praise to the Name of God we are commanded in the Lord's prayer to ask God that His Kingdom would come. We are also told what this means: we are to pray that the will of God be done on earth as it is done in heaven.

“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” is a synonymous parallelism: the second request is a synonymous rephrasing of the first. Thus, we are to pray first and foremost for the christianisation of the earth, by which we are to understand the whole earth becoming obedient to the will of God, even as heaven is obedient to His will and His Christ.

If we are to pray for this as our highest and first concern—more important than our daily bread and forgiveness of sin (or, more accurately, we should see daily provision and forgiveness of sin as constituent parts of the coming of the Kingdom)—then it follows that we ought to have a clear and biblical understanding of what we are praying for. Historically, the Church has never formally defined confessionally what the coming of the Kingdom upon earth actually means, but it works with two general constructs.

The first is the Augustinian construct which sees the coming of the Kingdom of God upon earth to be delimited and very restricted prior to the Final Advent of our Lord. It is primarily limited to the salvation of individual souls. In the Augustinian construct, the petition “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” is essentially a prayer for the Final Advent to occur.

The second is what we have called the Reformational construct (which is not a precise term, because there are many descendants of the Reformation in our day that are very comfortable with the Augustinian construct). The Reformational construct teaches that the first petition of the Lord's Prayer is requiring us to believe, and therefore pray in faith, that the Great Commission will be successful prior to the Final Advent. Not only will the Gospel be preached to all nations, but it will be done so fruitfully and successfully, such that the vast majority of the human race will not only become Christians, but will be christianised, in the sense of not only taught, but actually walking in the commandments of our Lord. All world's kingdoms will become Christendom.

So far the two constructs. Our issue now is which is correct. To answer that question we need to consider other passages of Scripture.

Firstly, there are a group of passages which address the relative size and growth of the Kingdom of God. Now the issue of growth is importance. In the Augustinian construct the Kingdom of God does not grow upon earth, but in heaven only (as departed souls go to join the saints in glory). Daniel's revelation to King Nebuchadnezzar is significant. Four kingdoms (of which Nebuchadnezzar's was the first) would come; then in the days of the fourth kingdom, the God of heaven would set up a kingdom in opposition to the kingdom of man (symbolised in the king's dream by the kingdoms being in the form of a giant man). This Kingdom of God would not be made by men. (Daniel 2:45). It would be a stone cut (by God) out of the mountains: it would crush the kingdom of man.

In the king's dream the stone (or God's Kingdom) increased in size as it crushed the kingdom of man, until it filled the whole earth (Daniel 2:35). It is the concept of the kingdom increasing and growing in influence and power to dominate all else that is relevant to our discussion. In the Augustinian construct the Kingdom does not grow upon earth; it is imposed completely and finally upon earth from heaven.

In Matthew 13:31—33 our Lord presents two parables of the Kingdom. Both indicate that the Kingdom has a very small, insignificant start, but that it is growing to become not only large and significant, but it changes everything. The first is the parable of the mustard seed. He emphasizes its smallness and insignificance: “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed—the smallest seed of all—but it grows to be larger than all other plants, becoming a strong tree. The tree becomes so strong and significant that the birds of the air come and nest in it.

The reference to birds is a clear allusion to Ezekiel 17:23 where Ezekiel prophesies the establishment of a “new tree” in Israel. Birds resting in branches is an image which conveys not only size and strength, but power, influence, sustenance, and care. For example, when Ezekiel describes the grandeur and power of Assyria, he compares it to a cedar, loftier than all the trees of the field. “All the birds of the heavens nested in its boughs; and under its branches all the beasts of the field gave birth, and all great nations lived under its shade . . .” (Ezekiel 31:6)

Or, again, the image of the tree is used with respect to the greatness of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. The king is described by means of the image of a tree: “. . . there was a tree in the midst of the earth . . . (it) grew large and became strong, and its height reached to the sky; it was visible to the end of the whole earth. . . . The beasts of the field found shade under it, the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches, and all living creatures fed themselves from it . . .” (Daniel 4:10—12)

The imagery is vivid. Jesus uses the same images. But its use in this parable is pregnant with fulfillment. Nebuchadnezzar was prodigiously great and influenced all other nations in the ancient near-eastern world of his day. He was succeeded by three kingdoms of similar ilk. But our Lord is setting up a kingdom upon earth in His day which will not only break these kingdoms (which is really one), but take over from them. Their global influence would be supplanted by the power and influence of the Kingdom of God. But note: the Kingdom does not spring into the world full and complete. It begins small, then grows until it becomes the greatest and the most pre-eminent in power and influence, as Daniel declared.

Thus, Jesus' parable of the Kingdom being like a mustard seed which grows to a great tree in which the birds come to nest has to be understood as the growing influence and increasing power of the Kingdom of God upon earth to where it becomes far greater than the power and influence of Nebuchadnezzar and his empire.

Then there is the parable of the leaven—another parable to explain what the Kingdom of God is like (Matthew 13: 33). The woman puts the yeast into three pecks of flour—but the end result is that all the flour is leavened. Nothing remains untouched, uninfluenced, unchanged. But leavening is a process: the Kingdom of God insinuates itself into the world, influencing and touching and transforming everything.

Now, if we put these parables alongside the command to pray, “Thy Kingdom come . . .on earth” we can have only one possible conclusion: the Kingdom will start very small and insignificantly, but it will progress and grow in the earth until it dominates everything, prior to the Final Advent. Otherwise the growth and increase of the smallest of seeds into a great tree, and the small amount of leaven that is hid changing and transforming the whole over time has no meaning or referent in these parables.

Finally, there are many promises of God that the Kingdom of God will be vast and globally significant and influential in this age. We are told that the descendants of Abraham—that is, the true heirs of Abraham—will be so numerous that they will be beyond number, as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5) and the sand on the seashore (Genesis 22:17). The Church will be built by Christ to become so powerful and influential that it will possess the gates of Hell itself (Matthew 16:18). The Kingdom of God, once established, will call and attract all the nations of the earth (Isaiah 2:1-4).

The Kingdom will become so powerful and influential that blessing upon blessing will fall upon mankind that it will be a de-facto new heavens and a new earth. (Isaiah 65:17—25). Now when people hear references to a new heavens and a new earth they usually think that the text is referring to the Final Advent. But in this case, it is clearly not. In Isaiah's vision we are clearly still operating within human history as we know it. Life will be lengthened amazingly, so that one who dies at one hundred years old will be considered a youth and struck down in an untimely fashion. But, people will still be dying eventually. Mothers will still be labouring in childbirth; houses will be being built; farms are still being worked; crops are still being harvested—and so forth. None of these physical, social, and cultural aspects will exist after the Final Advent. The text is clearly making promises which refer to human history and the prosperity of the Kingdom before the Final Advent, when these things will be no more. But the contrast to life as we know it now will be so great that it will be as a new earth.

So, we believe that the Reformational construct of the coming of the Kingdom is biblical. We believe that the reason the Augustinian construct is so prevalent and has been so influential and powerful has less to do with the Scriptures, and far more to do with the newspapers. In other words, historical reality is so nonconforming to the glory and power of the Kingdom of God upon earth, that there must be another explanation. But we forget that the essence of faith is to believe what is not now seen. Abraham was justified through believing God when the Lord told him that his descendants would be more numerous than the sand on the seashore—yet at the time he was told, he was as good as dead and had no child. Faith believes God. It does not allow the newspaper or present experience to be more authoritative than God's Word.

In our next post we will consider how the Kingdom actually comes upon the earth—its means, processes, and methods—and whether it comes by faith and faithfulness or by human artifice.

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.

Meditation on the Text of the Week

Cleaning the Place Up

But his master answered and said to him, “You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow,and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received the money back with interest.
Matthew 25: 26,27

Where is the Kingdom of God going in history? This question has three possible answers: all three have been propounded in the course of the history of the Kingdom. None has yet gained permanent hold in the collective heart and mind of God's people. The three possible outcomes are:

1. That the Kingdom will progressively diminish in the world, until, like Frodo and Sam clinging to the last rock at the breaking of the world, the eagles will come and rescue the last few remaining Christians before all is swept away. In this view of the course of the Kingdom, the idea is to get as many life rafts and life-belts into the sea as possible so that the maximum number of drowning people can be saved as the ship goes down.

2. That things will stay pretty much as they are—with ebbs and flows. The Kingdom will neither increase nor decrease; from a Christian perspective things will neither get worse nor better. It will be “same old, same old” until the final advent of our Lord—which could occur at any time, since there are no developments in the Kingdom which must take place prior to His final return.

3. That the Kingdom will be so filled and empowered by God's Spirit that the world will be progressively Christianised—genuinely so—to where the overwhelming majority of the world's population will be truly converted and living holy and godly lives. In this possibility the world will be a grand and glorious place prior to the Final Advent. Since the Kingdom is way short of that glory at present, there remains much work to be done. Therefore, the coming of our Lord is a long way off.

As we mentioned above all three possibilities have been propounded at different times and locations in the history of the Church. Generally, in the West the first possibility has held dominance throughout most of the previous century. Two world wars, totalitarian communism, the Great Depression, the nuclear threat—all helped convince Christian folk that the future of the Kingdom was bleak indeed, and that glory and triumph would only be known and experienced after the end of redemptive history, when the stricken ship had gone down.

Our view is that the Scriptures teach the third outcome for the Kingdom—the world-wide Christianization of mankind through the preaching of the Gospel. One of the reasons is the sequence of parables our Lord delivered just prior to His death in answer to the disciples' question upon hearing that the temple would be torn down, “When shall these things be?”

Of course, the destruction of the Temple was imminent, within a generation. For the disciples, steeped in the prevailing rabbinic eschatology, the coming of the Messiah meant the Final Advent. It took them several years to be weaned off this mono-dimensional view and grasp that the destruction and judgment of Jerusalem in AD 68—70 was not the end of redemptive history, but the beginning of a work of redemption greater than the human race had ever seen. The Gospel was going to the Gentiles, and all the world was to be made a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In answer to the question as to when the temple stones would be torn down, our Lord definitively stated that it would occur within that generation (Matthew 24: 34)—as indeed it came to pass. But redemptive history would go on. Jesus then told a series of parables, all of which imply a long passage of time. He uses the image of a landowner who goes away for a long time, leaving his servants in charge of His affairs. When He comes back, it is clear that He expects that things will have changed a lot since His departure. His servants will have been hard at work; His household will be greatly enlarged, running smoothly, well governed, and in much better shape than when He departed. He returns as one who is very demanding, a “hard man”, who expects to reap where He did not sow, and harvest where He had not scattered seed.

Our great hope is that we will be present at the Final Advent of our Lord when He comes to the earth. We long to be here when He comes. And we shall be. Paul insists upon it (I Thessalonians 4:16,17). Our hope does not focus and terminate upon death and our souls going to heaven. Our hope looks beyond that—it looks for our being able to participate in the greatest glorification of the Son of God ever seen in all creation—and that will be when He returns to the earth to make it His dwelling place forever. Our greatest hope is to be there bodily—whole and complete. And we shall be, for we will all form part of His glory train. The dancing, the feasting, the singing, and the celebration will be unlike anything ever seen since the beginning of time. “I'll be back,” is the great, triumphant cry of the dying saint.

When our Lord comes, He expects to see everything in order, well managed, running smoothly. He expects to find the Gospel preached to every creature as He commanded, and all the nations discipled, being instructed daily in all His commandments. He expects to reap where He did not sow—and what the Lord expects, He will get. He is the Lord of the heavens and the earth, after all.

So, knowing that the Lord is returning, we work hard to clean the place up before He gets here. It is what faithful servants do. “Occupy until I come!”

Meditation on the Text of the Week

When Loved Ones Depart, How Then Shall We Live?

In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
John 14: 2,3

Our great and undoubted Christian hope is that upon death, we will depart this life and go to be with the Lord Jesus. When our Lord spoke of the many dwelling places in His Father's house, we understand that He was speaking of the extent of the accommodation of heaven—it will host a multitude which no man can number. But we will not always dwell in heaven.

His going to prepare a place for us in the Father's house refers to the completion of His great work of redemption upon the Cross, and of His rising and ascending to, and enthronement at, the right hand of God the Father. The acceptance of His sacrifice for His people, the atonement for their sins, the propitiation or turning away of God's wrath from us, the entrance into heaven as the first born man from the dead—all of these great works are part of His preparing a place for us.

But the heart of our hope is not to be in heaven per se, but that wherever He will be, there we will be also. For the Scriptures tell us that He will not always remain in heaven, in His Father's house, as He is now. This means that we will not always remain there either, for we will be with Him, wherever He is. In this sense, the dwelling places in heaven are temporary “accommodation” until the consummation of all things. It is what the older theologians and doctors called the Intermediate State.

Our great hope is not that we will be in heaven; our great hope is that we will be with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ wherever He may be. The day will come, at the consummation of all things upon the earth, when the last enemy, death, will be abolished—at that day, He will return to the earth. All that is evil and wrong upon the earth will have been shaken and removed. Then He will come once again to earth—and we will come with Him, that we might be with Him. So we read in the Book of the Revelation:

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall be His peoples and God Himself shall be among them, and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there shall no longer be any death; there shall no longer be any mourning, nor crying, or pain: the first things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:1—4

When loved ones are taken from us in death, there is a very important sense in which our hope is not that we will one day go to be with them; it is rather that one day they will be returned to us. For we yet remain upon the earth which is being redeemed from sin. We yet remain here working in the Lord's vineyard, re-establishing the Garden of Eden. All who have been taken from us, will one day return to this reemergent Paradise.

When the Lord returns, and the tabernacle of God is established upon the earth; when Jerusalem has come down out of heaven and been consummated here; when all the vestiges and influences of sin have been removed, we will above all be and abide with Him here. We will regather with our loved ones here. And He will be with us.

Thus, each day given to us upon the earth is both precious and holy. For every day we remain is a day to prepare the earth just that little bit more, in the power of His Spirit, for His return. In fact, the Scriptures say, we hasten the day of His coming.

When loved ones are taken from us, how can we continue to express our love for them? By our longing to go and be with them again? Yes, but more than that. We continue to express our love by working for Christ here all the more, all the harder, for in so doing we are preparing the world for His return to us, and therefore, their return to us. This is our undoubted Christian faith. This is our great and abiding hope. This is our call to arms and holy service.