May 2011
MAY OUR LIFE TODAY REFLECT THE COMING KINGDOM
Why do I live the way I live? It all started in 1972 when I had a true conversion. Two books changed my life: The Limits of Growth, published by the Club of Rome, made me realize that we live in a finite world, and Sterven.. and dan?,( What Happens After Death), written by a minister, convinced me that our future life is in The New Creation.
My conversion is still proceeding, reason why I am always expanding my insight. Lately I am into two books: THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM, by the late Dr. Herman Ridderbos -550 pages-, and a new one, CHRISTIANITY, the First Three Thousand Years, by Diarmaid MacCulloch-1184 pages. Ridderbos taught in Kampen, the Netherlands and MacCullough is a professor of church history at Oxford.
Ridderbos starts his book as follows: “The central theme of Jesus’ message… is the coming of the Kingdom of God.” Later on he states that “the Kingdom of God is a purely future and eschatological event, presupposing the end of this world; and, therefore, cannot possibly reveal itself in this world…. It is nothing but the commencement of the new world, expected in the apocalyptic literature, and which will reveal itself after the catastrophic upheaval of the present area.”
I believe that we now have entered this catastrophic upheaval. While writing this I am wondering whether Jesus, on Judgement Day, will ask me, “What have you, Egbert Drewes Hielema, done to reduce your carbon foot print?” Carbon foot print refers to the greenhouse gases my life style generates.
The other book deals with the role Christianity is playing in shaping human history and the challenges facing the church today. Early on in the book –page 89 – Dr. MacCullogh writes that in the Lord`s Prayer, in the line “Give us this day our daily bread,” the Greek word for ‘daily’ is epiousios, which, he claims, does not mean ‘daily’ at all. MacCullogh writes ”if we assign any meaning to epiousios it may point to the new time of the coming kingdom.” This perfectly fits with the preceding lines in the prayer that Jesus taught us: “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” and also confirms Ridderbos’ statement that Jesus’ mission is mainly kingdom oriented. After all Jesus is not suddenly switching to a totally different subject. No, he constantly remains Kingdom-focused. Based on both Ridderbos and of MacCullogh, the petition, commonly interpreted as ”Give us this day our daily bread” has nothing to do with providing us with nutrition for today, but it has everything to do with the Kingdom that is to come. In essence it says: “May our life today reflect the coming Kingdom.”
Actually the line “Give us this day our daily bread” also clashes with the rest of Matthew 6. A bit later, Jesus, rather than us asking to pray for our daily bread, in fact urges us not to be concerned with ‘what we shall eat and what we shall drink’, because that is something the godless pursue, because in our day-to-day living our life should be fully concerned with ‘the kingdom to come.’ And that means that our goal is not food, drink, clothing, housing, trips, entertainment, you name it, because that is the aim of the non- Christians. We, his people, should be concerned with “The Kingdom to Come,” preparing for eternal life in the New Creation. To repeat Ridderbos again: “the kingdom of God is a purely future and eschatological event, presupposing the end of this world; and, therefore, cannot possibly reveal itself in this world…. It is nothing but the commencement of the new world, expected in the apocalyptic literature, and which will reveal itself after the catastrophic upheaval of the present area.”
When we take stock of the World Today, we see extreme turmoil, also environmentally. People are groping for direction and not finding it anywhere. The church, by and large, is a passive onlooker in all this, having mostly lost the true Kingdom vision, uncertain about heaven, and yet not wanting to embrace the coming of the New Creation.
If my premise that we live in the Last Days, is correct, and if Ridderbos’ analysis is true, and if MacCullogh’s interpretation of ‘daily’ urges us to prepare for the kingdom to come, the church’s failure to promote this, may explain why there is a curious statement in Revelation 21:22: “I did not see a temple in the City”. In the New Creation there will be no church or synagogue.
Bert Hielema’s two latest books deal with these ‘last-day’ matters. He can be reached at bert@hielema.ca.