August Twelve 2023
THE RIGHTEOUS RULE
I was curious how secular sources would explain the Christian concept of “The Kingdom”. Here is how one dictionary defines it:
The spiritual reign or authority of God. • the rule of God or Christ in a future age. • heaven as the abode of God and of the faithful after death.
By and large, as a life-long church member, and judging by the songs of the church, the secular version shines completely through in the ecclesiastical sector as well. I have yet to hear a sermon outlining this subject in concrete details, even though the Kingdom of God resounds like a majestic chorale through the entire bible. Take Psalm 95: A mighty God is our Lord, a Great King above all gods. In his hands are the depth of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his. To him belong the sea, for he made it, and the dry land shaped by his hand.
Yet, the church sees the kingdom as ‘spiritual’, having no relevance for the reality of our day-to-day existence. That spirituality makes us ‘pious’ while keeping the earth far away, giving us Christian secularism, the actual and factual renunciation of God as the Lord of Life. This is confirmed by the reference to ‘heaven as the abode of God and of the faithful after death’. In other words, the secular definition aligns perfectly with the ecclesiastical notion. This pious secularism makes it perfect for preaching and saying nice things, gives us easy Christianity and ‘cheap’ grace.
Take the Lord’s Prayer.
In the church I attend, in each service the Lord’s prayer is cited. In that prayer, after “Hallowed be thy name”, comes “Thy Kingdom come”. I believe the two opening lines indicate their prime importance, and, yet, are totally misunderstood, are, ‘spiritualized’. These first two statements fit together: hallowing God’s name has nothing to do with God’s name as the Bible has at least 50 names of God, proclaiming the impossibility of pinpointing his personality. It has everything to do with the universe God created in his name, indicating its holiness. Unless we see this aspect of the prayer Jesus taught us, recognize the intrinsic sanctity of all creation as it comes to us in air, soil, seas, mountains, animals, trees, we cannot fathom the second line: “Thy Kingdom Come”, because that kingdom, God’s realm, his righteous rule, is God’s expression of himself through Creation. Every single aspect of what we experience as reality carries God’s name: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof”, Psalm 24 tells us. I suspect – but don’t quote me on this – that the ‘unforgiveable sin against the Holy Spirit’, has a creation-connection.
But… The eternal ‘but’.
We see ourselves as otherworldly, as better than the earth, even though we read in the Bible that when God saw what he had made, God was very pleased and called it ‘very good’ (Genesis 1: 31). Yet much of what the world regards as ‘religious’, in essence expresses disdain for the earth, because we cannot bear having the earth so near, the earth that bears us, supports us, feeds and clothes us.
Our callous attitude, our disdain for matters creational, having torn up nature’s cohesion, has led to the present planetary plight. It now is perfectly plain that God has surrendered his own creation to Satan and his followers. The kingdom, the smile of God’s good pleasure, has become akin to the pall of death.
All this brings home a terrible truth, something no church dares to admit: the central point of the gospel is not us poor humans and our pain and suffering; rather the gospel’s entire focus is aimed at the unique and powerful reality that God wants to reinstate his kingdom, his righteous rule, where the righteous rule.
The task of the church.
The function of the church is to witness to the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and to the power of God in the new creation. Here is a statement you will rarely hear: “There is no such thing as individual salvation. All salvation is of necessity universal.
Bluntly stated it means that personal salvation and the salvation of the cosmos go hand in hand: you can’t have one without the other. The goal of our life can only be that we again become part of the wider context of the Kingdom of God, where all things are again united under the one and only all-wise will of Christ who lives and rules forever.
Today the rich rule, and they have only one aim, to enrich themselves even more. But their lives end in the grave: they have had their reward.
In the New Creation, the righteous rule forever, in total humility, in utter amazement of God’s glory.