Return of the Kingdom

The Beginning and End of the Bible

Although the Bible is a vast collection of books, it is one coherent Story, beginning and ending with the same themes (Gen 1-3, Rev 21-22).  The beginning sets the stage and introduces not only the main actors and ideas, but the essential plot structure:  the kingdom of God, its loss and recovery.  The end provides closure for the story and the final resolution of the plot. So in a sense in this book the world and the story are intimately woven together; some scholars even say that the Bible contains the true story of the whole world.²

In the first chapters, a transcendent God creates the world, a world of life and beauty in which he creates humanity as his climactic creation and places it as the divine image par excellence within this vast cathedral (Gen 1:26-28). Male and female are the divine image bearers on the earth.   They have the task of not only ruling the creation but serving it as mediatorial priests, representing God to creation and the creation to God.  

At the end of the Bible, Jesus, the Ruler of the Kings of the Earth, by his salvation has constituted Christians to be a kingdom, to be priests for God, and to reign upon the earth (Rev 1:6, 5:10). When the new heavens and new earth finally arrive, Christians reign with Christ, and like the high priest in the ancient temple, they each bear the divine name on their foreheads (Rev 22:3-5). The last chapters of the Christian Bible emphasize the beginning of Scripture’s storyline to show not only the repetition of the beginning but the superiority of the ending. The end is not just a return to the beginning but a greater and more wonderful new start. Yet, a dire situation occupies the middle and throws into relief the fundamental difference between the beginning and the end. The end not only forcefully echoes the beginning but resolves the peril in between.

There is thus a description of the old creation, the heavens and the earth at the beginning and a new creation of the heavens and earth at the end.  But it is clear that in the major part of the book—the great “in between”—something drastic has happened—a horrific disaster (Gen 3-Rev 20). This world collapsed downwards into a place of darkness and death. Some parts of the Bible refer to this period as an epoch of death and sin (Eccles 1-12; Rom 5:12-17). No longer the place where everything is very good (Gen 1:31), this world has become filled with violence (Gen 6:5-7, 11-12; 8:21). Human beings, once alive with the Spirit of God, are now dead in trespasses and sins, inspired by a dark Lord, who holds them captive to evil lusts and desires (Eph 2:1-3).   

Many scholars use a U shape representing creation, fall, and restoration³ to diagram the message of the Bible.  The restoration, however, is superior to the first creation as the second has no sea, no darkness, and has many trees of life as opposed to only one. It is a grander creation—better than the original. So rather than a U shape, the message of the Bible should be drawn as a checkmark, with the second line higher than the first.  One of the crucial points in these depictions of the beginning and the end is that in the first world before the collapse, humans were made to rule the world on God’s behalf. Thus, this was a place of divine kingship. It was the place where the kingdom of God was to be prominent. And at the end humans are ruling the creation with God forever and ever.

The Great “In-Between”—The Old Testament

Moreover, the “in between” exhibits clear adumbrations of the beginning and the end. After the collapse –the Fall, God promises to the woman a descendant who will crush the head of the Serpent and reestablish the rule of God in the world (Gen 3:15).  Thus genealogies become conspicuously significant in the Bible and in particular, Genesis.  Different descendants embody this role of the coming King as God makes covenants with each of them—little pockets of the kingdom.  There are Noah with whom a covenant is made to ensure the continuity of creation, Abraham who will father a nation and from whom a descendant will come to bless the world, Moses who leads a people out of oppression and slavery, providing them with a law which displays divine values, and among whom God takes up residence in holiness, justice and mercy, and David with whom God makes an everlasting covenant to bring his rule to the earth through a descendant.  The coming of a Davidic descendant who will bring about the return of the Kingdom to the world becomes the focus of the Old Testament, and the vision is sharpened in the books of Isaiah and Daniel.  

It becomes very clear that the solution to the salvation of the human race means not only a descendant who will conquer an alien power, but one who will bring about their forgiveness for rebellion, atonement for sin, and change the hearts of human beings toward love instead of self.  The nation of Israel is a clear example of this because of their endemic failure to keep the law of God that leads them into exile and judgment.  Nevertheless, the prophets at the end of the Old Testament hold out hope for the nation and the world, predicting a time when the Davidic king will not only be a conquering Ruler but a suffering Servant (Isa 53), who will pay the penalty for human sin, and bring about the reestablishment of God’s kingdom in the world (Dan 7).     

The Great “In Between” –The New Testament

At the beginning of the New Testament the air is electric with the prospect of the coming kingdom of God.  John the Baptist is the herald of the coming King, and Jesus is that King whose message is laser focused on the Kingdom.  But his salvation will be much more comprehensive than a purely political salvation.  After all, he is named Jesus because he will save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21).  His words are kingdom words, and he alerts everyone who can hear with the kingdom proclamation: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Mark 1:15)!  Nothing can wait.  He calls fishermen and tax collectors to help him get out the message.  They leave their boats, and their tax booths to follow him (Mark 1:16-20, 2:13-17).  He speaks in parables which disclose the meaning of the kingdom:  the message of the kingdom is being sown in human hearts (Matt 13:1-9), the kingdom begins like the smallest seed but it grows slowly into a huge tree (Matt 13:31-32), its worth is more than anyone can imagine (Matt 13:44-46), and it is absolutely imperative to enter the kingdom—to miss it is to miss life entirely.  Jesus’ healings dramatically repair the broken creation.  Lame people can walk again, the deaf can hear, the blind can see, even the dead are raised to new life (Matt 11:4-6).  Prisoners are liberated, the poor and the oppressed hear the good news (Luke 4:18-19).  The kingdom is not just coming—it is here!   And the disciples of Christ—the new community he gathers around himself—are called to make as a major petition in their prayers the consummation of the kingdom—“May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

But his teaching shows clearly the importance of a new heart, and the absolute importance of forgiveness.  It is not enough not to murder or not to commit adultery; one must not have a murderous and adulterous heart.  In other words, love must fill the heart (Matt 5:21-30).   

Two Phases of the Coming Kingdom

But how can sinful human beings live with the white-hot holiness of God?  This is one of the main reasons for the mission of Jesus as he seeks to bring the two together.  The answer comes as Jesus’ ministry expands.  The general expectation of the Israelite nation emphasized the coming of a conquering King who would lead the people politically to power and deliver them from the oppressive rule of Rome, rather than a King who would deliver them from the slavery of Satanic and sinful oppression.  There was also not much concern for the universal dimension of the Old Testament blessings for the nations.  But the New Testament corrects this vision by showing that the Kingdom would come in two phases.  One in which the King would come as a suffering Servant and atone for the sins of the people by being humiliated on a Roman cross, be buried in a tomb, be resurrected from death, and rule until all his enemies are defeated; one in which the King would come in shock and awe as a conquering King to bring about a new world in which the full glory of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, with the elimination of all the powers of death and sin.  

 Christ’s work allows for blessing to come to the nations, as the message of forgiveness and reconciliation can be preached to the nations, so that people can enter the kingdom with changed hearts and changed lives, founding new communities where love rules.  If the cross did not come before the crown, then most would be utterly doomed, and there could be no universal blessing.

After the resurrection of Jesus, he sends the gift of his Holy Spirit to his gathered disciples to empower them to preach this kingdom message in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:1-11).  The book of Acts shows the spread of this gospel from its center in Jerusalem outwards to the outskirts of the Roman empire and the then known world.  Samaritans respond (Acts 8:4-25), an Ethiopian returns to Africa with the gospel in hand (Acts 8:26-40), and many, many gentiles hear the words of good news and respond with joy as little communities of Christ followers spring up throughout the Empire (Acts 13-20).  The major apostle who proclaims the message is Paul, a puritanical Pharisee who is converted by a heavenly vision of the King on a Damascus Road, to be a special emissary to announce the kingdom to the gentiles (Acts 9:1-9).  In his preaching throughout the Empire he sees himself as a proclaimer of the kingdom, whether in an intellectual center like Athens (Acts 17:16-32), or in a center known for its commerce and notorious for its immorality like Corinth (Acts 18:1-11), or in a political capital like Rome, where the last vision we have of him is preaching the kingdom of God from a building in which he is under house arrest (Acts 28:30).  To the new communities of Christians that he has founded, he writes letters encouraging them to realize that their King is in control, and he will come again to bring them into eternal fellowship with Himself (Phil 2:12-16).  Other leaders write letters strengthening and correcting churches in the ways of the kingdom.  They are taught to wait in patience for the coming of the Lord, by living lives of faith and good works (James 5:7-18).

The Presence and Absence of the Kingdom

The New Testament writers clarify that the kingdom is both present and absent.  From the perspective of the Old Testament, it represents one decisive advent, but from the vantage point of the New Testament the one coming is split into two stages.  The kingdom has come, but it is not fully here.  It has begun but not been consummated.  The powers of the great age to come have been tasted and experienced, but they have not been fully realized (Heb 6:4-5).  A variety of images from the New Testament expresses this truth.  Jesus speaks about sowing the seed of the kingdom.  There is a considerable gap between the planting of the seed and its harvest (Matt 13:1-9).  Paul uses the image of the breaking of the dawn but not the arrival of noonday (Rom 13:11-14). Likewise, there is a difference between the down payment of the Holy Spirit given now to believers and the principal in full measure coming later (Eph 1:13-14). This explains the fervent expectation for the second coming in the early church.  Believers are not mistaken with their expectation.  The end of history has begun in the middle of history.  

The grand vision of the Apocalypse closes the biblical story which has indeed become the true story of the whole world.   It is a kingdom book.  Its grand opening vision is that of the resurrected and now enthroned Christ, the ruler of the kings of the earth, who has made his disciples a kingdom of priests, and enabled them to conquer the evil empire of Rome and the Beast (Rev 1:4-8).  John has a grand vision of the throne room in heaven, in which twenty-four elders representing the twelve tribes of Israel, and the twelve apostles of Christ, along with angelic like creatures symbolizing all of creation continually bowing down before God and a lion-like lamb with a mortal wound (Rev 4-5).  The latter is the one who holds the secret and meaning of history, in the form of a sealed book. He alone breaks the seals, and starts the end of history, which culminates in the salvation of his people, the triumph of the seed of the woman, the conquest of all evil, and the complete unity of heaven and earth.  In the final vision of the new Jerusalem, there flows from God’s throne a river of pure water, with a tree of life on each bank, whose fruit provides healing for the nations.  There is no more death, and no more sin, and no more tears.  And the disciples of Christ will have total and complete access to God, as the new Jerusalem is one gigantic holy of holies.  Human beings will now reign and image God in this new heavens and new earth as they were intended at the beginning, as the Kingdom begun and lost, has now been returned to its rightful place in a grander and more glorious form (Rev 21-22).