I was getting my hair cut the other day by someone other than my wife, for a change. As a result I got exposed to Christian culture outside my own personal sociological safe room. I am ashamed to say how seldom this happens. Of course, by not “getting out more” I help other Christians form their own little bubbles of idiosyncratic belief and theological naivete.

But not this time. The barber learned, as he cut my hair, that I was a seminary graduate and had pastored in a number of places around the country. So, as he finished up shaving the back of my neck, he let loose with his camaraderie question: “Before I let you go, I have to ask you: Do you think the Lord is coming back soon!”

The sound of his voice alerted me this was, in his mind, a rhetorical question. We were supposed to share in the joy of the soon return of Jesus to earth.

I couldn’t come up with a way to evade his question, at least not in the half-second before hesitation on my part would get awkward. So I said it.

“No, I think we have at least another 100,000 years left.”

He expected not that.

But he should have. The only thing shocking about my claim is that I was giving such a low-ball number. The absolute minimum estimate should be 120,000 years from the time the Ten Commandments were given on Mount Sinai. There God wrote with his own finger.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20).

Many English translations mute this because they leave out the second “generations.” It is true the word does not appear in the text after “thousands.” But it does not appear after “the third and the fourth” either. The reader has to read the implication. Third and fourth generation makes sense. But it makes no sense to then change the comparison to something else. God is promising to cut off wicked generations relatively quickly and bless the righteous for thousands of generation. The suffix is plural, not dual, so three generations is the absolute minimum here. A generation is forty years so:

40 x 3 x 1000 = 120,000

This idea is repeated elsewhere:

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his face (Deuternomy 7.9, 10).

Here we see the passage includes the word, “generations.” It only mentions one thousand of them, but it too contrasts this time span with the relatively quick destruction of the wicked.

So why do we expect the wicked to flourish and the number of generations of the righteous to remain small?

In fact, it is really strained to read the promise of faithfulness to “thousands” of generations as the minimal conceivable number of three. Why not eight thousands? Or twenty-four? Or more? It is possible that, just as God owns the cattle on more than a thousand hills (Psalm 50.10), so he will actually be faithful to many more generations of believers than merely thousands.

According to Paul, now that Jesus has come, there is to be an explosion of grace and salvation relative to the past.  As he writes in Romans 5:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So when we read in Esther 8 about a world-wide vindication of God’s people resulting in massive proselytization “from India to Ethiopia,” we should realize that that was rather minimal compared to what is to happen now that Jesus has come and died and risen again. God says he is faithful to thousands of generations, which leaves us with 115 thousand years left.

So God says to expect thousands of generations, and we’ve spent a few generations claiming that we are the last one.  Paul writes that life through Jesus is more powerful than sin and death through Adam, and we preach that sin is universal and redemption only for a minority in history.

How does that honor what God says?

With this time frame in mind, I will leave you some of Jesus’ last words on earth:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

See also:

• Does God Care About Numbers?
• What Kuyper May Have Gotten Wrong: The Certain Future Victory of the Gospel

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Yes, he does.

Here is the prophecy he gave to Isaiah (chapter 49):

Listen to me, O coastlands,
and give attention, you peoples from afar.
The LORD called me from the womb,
from the body of my mother he named my name.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword;
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me a polished arrow;
in his quiver he hid me away.
And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the Lord,
and my recompense with my God.”

And now the LORD says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,
and my God has become my strength—
he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

It is “too light a thing,” too small a thing” (NASB) for God to save a tiny remnant. After all, he didn’t call Abram/Abraham for the sake of a tiny remnant:

Now the Lord said to Abram,

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3, ESV)

Thus, from the first time God spoke to Abram, he identified himself as the god who justifies the ungodly–who saves the entire world.

How do Christians avoid acknowledging this plan for the spread of the Gospel and the conversion of the human race? They find quotations like:

And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ (Luke 13:23-25, ESV)

But this is not a reasonable application of what Jesus says. Jesus does not say that only few will be saved in all world history. He says that salvation is going to spread to the nations but that his own generation of fellow Israelites are in danger of being, uh, left behind.

He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” (Luke 13:22-30, ESV)

People will be gathered at the Table of the Lord from all points of the compass, but many who witnessed Jesus during his ministry are rejecting his message.

I submit that all remnant passages are of this nature. The majority rejects but the ones who repent and believe are the seed of a great multitude. Worldwide salvation follows from the crisis and judgment. Jesus’ own parables about seed and mustard seed and leaven teach this expectation.

Many people think it is shallow and superficial to “worry about numbers.” But obviously God is not shallow and superficial. Yet he would not tell us of “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7.9) if he had no concern for quantity.

Of course, they probably get the idea because some Christians who worry about numbers seem shallow and superficial. I agree–for many contexts in the Christian life but not all. Furthermore, identifying oneself with the “few who are chosen” can be just as shallow and superficial. People who act as it if is a matter of piety to be satisfied with a world going to hell because their small group is elect of God are not people who are obedient to the Great Commission. The Great Commission, I submit, cannot be obeyed by people who don’t believe it is possible:

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and disciple of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The real reason I think some Christians are shallow in their numbers-fixation is because they have self-glorification goals corrupting their desire for the kingdom and/or they don’t really believe the Great Commission is about discipling all nations and training them to obey Jesus. Instead they believe the Great Commission is about getting professions of faith and then training them to get other professions of faith. That, while better than nothing, will tend to produce shallow Christians.

But the fact that God wants a countless number of trained disciples rather than a countless number of ignorant professing believers doesn’t give us any reason to think God doesn’t care about numbers. Concern for quality does not eliminate concern about quantity.

Accepting this basic Biblical mission probably won’t change as much as I would like it to change. God’s providence and timing are still a mystery. Once you believe in what God wants for history, you may, in fact, find you are now frustrated by the lack of results you see in your own place and time.

But it is good to be frustrated. That is the Spirit praying for you to God to end the discrepancy between how things are and how they should be (8.26). Anyone who reads the promises of God and is not frustrated when he looks around at his life and world is not reading carefully. Better to be frustrated than satisfied with a situation so far from what God has revealed he intends to bring about.

Sometimes we are sent to plant and sometimes to harvest (John 4.35-38). If you are sent to a time of planting, you might not see the fruit you long for. But that doesn’t mean it is not coming.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12, ESV)

One implication of this is you never have a right to consider your work for the Great Commission a failure. God does not promise a great rescue–Jesus has already done that part of the story. God promises to use your labors. He promises to accept your works just as he accepts you in Christ. He promises to say, “Well done.” So nothing was ever wasted. The seed vanishes and is forgotten and then later the tree grows. Most people will not notice the cause for the effect. Their eyes will be on the cause and effect relationships that are in close enough proximity to notice. But God never forgets. And he promises that nothing is without effect.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:53-58, ESV)

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“Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be.” James 3:10

My question: “Are we blessing, cursing, or neither? Is the “neither” category even possible?”

Most Christians take special care to abstain from vulgarities and blasphemies. Vulgarities often put private matters on public display, such as bathroom or bedroom activities, which ought to remain private rather than becoming coffee-break humor or hammer-meets-thumb expletives.  Everyone knows what happens in the bathroom, but you’re supposed to leave it there, not bring it out with you. Everyone knows what happens in the bedroom, besides sleeping, but that is also meant to be a private matter. It is supposed to happen “off-stage.” Blasphemies, of course, take God’s name and use it in a less than hallowed manner. Number 3 on the Top 10, declares, “He will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.” (Ex. 20:7) If you had to choose one, then bring your filth out of the bathroom with you before you use God’s name carelessly or worse yet, pejoratively. However, when you do choose, choose to keep what’s private private and what’s holy holy. Vulgarities and blasphemies can hardly be considered blessings.

Another verbal matter to be considered is the direct curse. The word “damn” has a specific purpose. This is not a word that cannot be appropriately used, but it is one that commonly gets misused, and overly misused, in our culture, often preceded by a blasphemy as to Who is being called upon to do the damning. We teach our children that it is not our place to condemn someone else to eternal perdition, nor should it be our desire to do so. “Damn” and “hell” are neither vulgar nor blasphemous; rather they are words that ought not be tossed around.

So we abstain from careless speech, coarse jokes, and flippant curses. Now what? Are we to assume that refraining from a short list of words and phrases means that we are controlling our tongue? That we are blessing our brother?

While there are no neutral words, no words that don’t convey what’s going on in our hearts, there is a difference between words spoken with an implied blessing and those spoken with an overt blessing.  An implied blessing could be contained in the simple, “Good morning,” depending on one’s inflection. This can also be an overt blessing depending on you inflection, like “Good morning!”  This can also be a curse if said too loudly, too early. (Prov. 27:14) There can also be implied blessing in casual conversations. The mere fact that you take the time to speak to someone can mean more to them than you’ll ever know. That sounds sappy and cliché, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Even if you have nothing in common with the person except the current weather, there can be a blessing in making small talk.

Every sentence we say can be used as an implied blessing, but are we willing to go further than this? Are we willing to take the effort that it takes to use our words for overt blessings; blessings that would be hard to be mistaken as anything else? Are we willing to take our eyes off of ourselves and our personal problems in order to be an overt blessing to those around us today?

However, before we have something profitable to say, we must be aware of what’s going on around us. Wisdom is contextual, so wise words are typically only wise if spoken in due season. This requires listening before we speak. Listening takes effort and time. Listening means getting down off our soap boxes and actually considering what the other person is saying. We can view every conversation today as an opportunity to take our eyes off of ourselves, shut our mouths for a minute or two, and listen to our neighbor. Then, and only then, can we overtly bless them.

We can’t heal diseases with our spoken word, but we can speak words seasoned with salt. We can’t feed the multitudes with one order of fish and chips, but we can buy someone lunch and then let them do the talking. If we actually listen, maybe we’ll actually have something to say that matters.

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One of the weird problems with correcting Arminianism and, to be crude about it, convincing Christians that Calvinism is true, is that they are easily vulnerable to other errors. I can’t prevent all such problems in one post, but I want to try to point the way forward.

For Further Reading

Before I write anything else, let me suggest for those who want a more philosophical/theological argument that they read R. L. Dabney’s “On God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy,” hosted by Phil Johnson’s website (for which I am grateful). Yes, I know Dabney believed some pretty ugly things on some issues. But when you read him arguing that God loves all mankind, you are getting as far away from those problems as possible. Indeed, you can appreciate the irony as you read.

Fallacy: Future Interprets Present

One major Calvinist fallacy is to decide that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment. If God will condemn them then, he condemns them now If God will welcome them then, he welcomes them now.

But does the Bible teach that God’s relationship and/or attitude toward an unrepentant sinner is the same as after that sinner repents and believes? Yes God intends from eternity to regenerate and pardon that person, and intends to pass over some others. But what is intended, by definition, cannot already be true—or else it would not be intended.

So the Apostle Paul writes:

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:2-5, ESV)

So, when someone is presently experiencing blessing even though he is continuing in unbelief and sin, is God:

1. Increasing his guilt and condemnation at the Last Day when he will be judged for his ongoing sins?
2. Offering him love and patience to give him the opportunity to repent?

Paul has no problem affirming both together. And, indeed, they are not possible apart from another. On the Last Day, God is not going to say to the reprobate, “I always knew you were bad and would turn out worse, so I’ve always hated you and everything I’ve done for you I’ve done so I could punish you for it.”

That’s not Calvinism; that’s Satanism.

No, God is going to say, “I gave you immense blessing, purchased by nothing less than the blood of my own son, and you spit on my efforts.”

God Loves; Man Hates

Or consider Isaiah 5.1-7. Reformed and Calvinist theologian, Rich Lusk writes:

At the heart of passage, God asks an amazing, deeply mysterious question: “What more could I have done to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (5:4). In other words, God has done everything on his side, but the vineyard – Israel – still has not borne good fruit. Thus, judgment must fall.

A non-covenantal Calvinist can think of a way to answer God’s question. God asks, “What more could I have done?” And the theologian has an answer: “Well, Lord, you could have exercised irresistible grace — you know, the ‘I’ in the TULIP – and that would have changed things. You have regenerated Israel – performed a secret and sovereign work of grace in their hearts, infallibly producing faith, obedience, and perseverance.”

To be sure, at some level that theological answer is correct. God could have done more. God is sovereign in salvation; his grace can and does operate irresistibly; and God can and does work in people in such a way that they inevitably believe, obey, and endure to the end. God could have prevented Israel’s apostasy; he could have granted them perseverance.

But it is noteworthy that this is not the “logic” of Isaiah 5. Isaiah indicates that God has given grace to the Israelites. Indeed, as the vineyard owner, he’s done everything needed to produce a good crop. The vineyard is well-loved (5:1). It is fruitful, so the soil must be rich in nutrients (5:1). All the rocks and stones have been removed from the soil, so the ground is broken in (5:2). The vine itself was choice; there was nothing wrong with what God planted (5:2). God was so sure of the vine’s eventual fruitfulness that he already put a tower and a winepress right there by the vineyard so the grapes could be pressed out into wine in due season (5:2).

It might help here if we remember that eternal damnation is not only described as God’s wrath, but as God’s jealousy. God’s love is not contrary to eternal punishment, but the Bible indicates that it is a reason for it:

Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; [or Hell]

It’s flashes are flashes of fire,

The very flame of the LORD (Song of Solomon 8.6).

Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood,

But who can stand before jealousy? (Proverbs 27.4)

These aren’t just extraneous passages. The reflect the central warning of the Second Commandment:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands [of generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6, ESV).

And it is reiterated by Moses to the next generation of Israelites:

Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24, ESV)

Because jealousy is experience by human beings who cannot make a spouse be faithful, it seems counter-intuitive to ascribe such feelings to God. But we are not in a better position to guess about the psychology of being God; He has to reveal his feelings to us.

We Don’t Know God Better Than What He Tells Us

Perhaps this is a second common Calvinist fallacy, deducing God’s feelings on the basis of what we imagine we would feel if we had omni- properties like God does. God tells us those are illegitimate guesses and that we, in our finititude, are actually more like what He really is, though infinite, than what we would guess about omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence.

To return to the original fallacy I named, to infer that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment, it actually proves too much. Basically, since Calvinists know that all human beings are sinners, they figure that no one has a right to complain about how God treats them. But the logic of the position is not limited to sinful creatures. It applies to all creation, including unfallen angels and human beings. Are we really going to say that Adam and Eve were not loved by God when they were created? Or that, if they were loved, it was only because God planned to redeem them after they sinned?

A Creation Conversation

Imagine Adam and Eve, before they fell, having a theological conversation:

Eve: Adam, your face….

Adam: Huh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.

Eve: Lost in thought?

Adam: That’s a good metaphor.

Eve: Thank you. I wish I had one to describe your face.

Adam: Can’t you make a comparison?

Eve: Do you remember that pond we found and how still it was until you threw that rock into it?

Adam: Yes. It rippled out.

Eve: Right. At one moment it was still, but then it was disturbed.

Adam: “Disturbed.” That is an excellent word to use. Not only for my face but for my thoughts.

Eve: So what are your thoughts?

Adam: I am thinking of everything we have received from God. Each other. The trees. The animals. Everything.

Eve: But isn’t that wonderful?

Adam: Well, yes, but I’m thinking of it all in the light of the warning about that tree I told you about.

Eve: Well, the terms of that warning aren’t so wonderful, but we have everything else.

Adam: Yes, I know. But the warning presupposes the possibility that we might eat the forbidden fruit.

Eve: True.

Adam: And God, for a certainty, knows whether we will eat it or not.

Eve: OK, I’m with you so far.

Adam: So how can we take all these “good” things at face vaule as signs of God’s love and generosity?

Eve: Adam, I’m not following now.

Adam: Well, if we were to disobey, wouldn’t the seriousness of our offense be all the greater because of how good God has been to us?

Eve: Yes, which is why we should heed the warning.

Adam: Right, but if we do disobey, as God would have to know we are going to do, then all these things will have been given to us as means to make our crime more severe.

Eve: Oh.

Adam: So how can we say these things we’ve been given are signs of God’s love and generosity? It all depends on what he plans to do with them, doesn’t it? He may simply be making sure our crime is more serious than it would be otherwise. Even though I have no intention of disobeying, I can’t say I know the future the way God does.

Eve: Adam, I see your point.

Adam: Do you have any answer?

Eve: Only this: you say you don’t know the future like God does.

Adam: Right.

Eve: Wouldn’t it also be true that you don’t know God’s own mind in the way the He knows it?

Adam: But don’t we know God?

Eve: Absolutely. We know Him truly. But we don’t know everything there is to know about Him.

Adam: All right, but how does this help us?

Eve: Because if God tells us that he gives to us out of love and generosity, I think we should take Him at face value without worrying about what the future holds. Despite knowing and planning the future, God must be capable of also, in some real way, being in the moment here with us, giving us good things out of sheer grace without reference to the future.

Adam: Perhaps it is so.

Eve: I think it must be so. After all, if we were to seize the forbidden fruit, God might use it to some great advantage that he has planned all along. But that would make the trespass no less evil and rebellious. Likewise, this garden, and the Tree of Life, and we ourselves are good gifts no matter what is planned. We can take God at his word without worrying about His ultimate decrees. As His creatures, that is exactly what we are supposed to do.

So even though God has plans, it doesn’t mean that, in the here and now, there is any reason to doubt or explain away passages that declare God’s love for the world or God’s love for creation or God’s love for all people.<>как выложить рекламу в интернете

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I found this article by Dr. D.A. Carson really difficult to understand or profit from. I simply don’t think the Kingdom of God should be such a difficult problem. The fact that it spawns such verbiage is itself evidence that there is something wrong with Evangelicals.

Can I, off the top of my head, convince you, the reader, that you cannot possibly have a general grasp of the Bible if the Kingdom of God is a riddle that remains to be solved?

Like most things, it begins in Genesis One. God creates the world by his sovereign word, but he does so with the intention of ruling through delegated sovereignty.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

So Genesis 1 is a story about, yes, a God who has power. But it is the story of the beginning of the Kingdom of Humanity–a kingdom that is at the same time the Kingdom of God. The whole point of the story of the Bible is that God prefers for us to exercise authority on his behalf rather than doing it himself.

Mankind sins and is exiled from their palatial garden. Angels are put in their place to guard that garden. But, after Christ, Paul assures us that we will judge angels. God would not allow sin to foil his plan for humanity to be the mediator between heaven and earth. Angels were just a temporary stopgap.

In Christ, humanity is restored to his role as king under God. Christ’s exaltation is the exaltation of all believers–though they may experience their personal role in this reign differently. Thus, consider what Jesus writes of Psalm 2–a Psalm we would all tend to consider Messianic and never apply to ourselves. But Jesus applies it to us:

The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ (Revelation 2:26-29, ESV)

Likewise, when Daniel sees a vision of “one like a son of man” receiving a kingdom, he is told not that this is a prophecy of one man’s exaltation, but rather of the Kingdom being given to a group of people the saints. Daniel explains what he observed first:

I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14, ESV)

Then an angel explains to Daniel what his vision really means:

But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’ (Daniel 7:18, ESV)

And then Daniel 7 concludes with a song that reiterates the interpretation:

And the kingdom and the dominion
and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven
shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;
his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,
and all dominions shall serve and obey him.’ (Daniel 7:27, ESV)

Except that may not be the translation. The ESV offers another possibility in a footnote:

their kingdom shall be an everlasting
kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them

Jesus took upon himself the title of the figure Daniel saw. And he invoked this handing over of authority when confronted with the charge that he had blasphemed by telling a paralytic that his sins were forgiven. The crowd knows the story of Daniel’s vision and they conclude that humanity now has been delegated new powers.

But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. (Matthew 9:6-8, ESV)

My point in these few passages is that the kingdom is exactly what the Bible is about, what it says it is about, what it begins and ends with, and what it repeatedly comes back to.

Genesis doesn’t just happen to end with the story of a man who becomes king of the world at the right hand of the emperor.

Or consider the book of Proverbs–a book I sometimes think intellectual Evangelicals are embarrassed by.

If you are a believer in a religion that is best expressed as four spiritual laws or a flow-chart or a chart about the dispensations of history, or a scheme of double predestination, or many other things (some of which may or may not be true–the issue is not veracity but primacy), then it will be a mystery to you why God wrote the book of Proverbs and put it in our Bibles.

But…

If you are a practitioner of a religion centered on a story that begins with how God made men and women to relate to Him and one another as they take dominion over the world, and move downstream from their garden home, and find gold, and start trading and have to raise children and eventually build cities that are supposed to further reflect the glory of God, then you will completely understand why the book of Proverbs had to be included as Scripture.

The kingdom of God (and of Humanity by creation and then redemption) is, in fact, what makes wisdom so important. This isn’t an association invented by Solomon; it again starts in Genesis. The first time wisdom is mentioned in the Bible, it is used to describe what tempted Eve about the tree–that it was desirable to make her wise.

This seems to be the equivalent of gaining the knowledge of good and evil, having one’s eyes opened… and being like God.

At the end of Genesis 3 God seems to agree with these equivalences:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil…”

Adam and Eve are naked in the beginning of Genesis. Genesis ends with a man who, after repeatedly losing his robe of authority through injustice, gains authority over the whole world… precisely because he is wise.

This proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is the Spirit of God?” Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house, and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne will I be greater than you.” And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “See, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.” Then Pharaoh took his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand, and clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold chain about his neck.

So nakedness means one has not yet been clothed in authority. God had prepared humanity to learn such wisdom and rule. In Christ that plan is restored and elevated. This is a basic image in the book of Revelation where priest-kings are given robes to wear.

The point of all this is simple: No one can possibly claim to understand the Bible and have it basically right, and yet treat the Kingdom as some kind of puzzle to be sorted out after all the really important stuff is settled. If Evangelicals are really puzzling over the Kingdom then they haven’t understood the Bible.<>продвижение веб ов

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