The Greek word used in the New Testament is basileus (king) and basileia
(kingdom). Balileus is a broader term than the literal English ‘king’ in that
it is used to speak of Emperor (e.g. the Roman Emperor) and of Jesus the
Messiah, King of the Jews.
Basileia is primarily
an abstract noun speaking of dominion; regal power; sovereignty. Secondarily, it is used as a concrete noun
speaking of the territory or the people over whom the king has dominion and
authority. This is what Jesus was
talking about when he said (see earlier), “all dominion, rule and power has
been given unto me” in his commissioning of the first apostles. A person’s kingdom is essentially that which
the person has dominion, power and authority over.
By definition, God’s kingdom is that which God has dominion, power and
authority over. But don’t blindly jump
in and conclude that, by that definition, everything then is God’s kingdom. Note what Jesus said: ‘my kingdom is not of
this world’. The kingdom of God is an eternal kingdom, not a
temporal kingdom. So it is important at
this point to realise an important fact about eternity: eternity is not
unending time; time that goes on and on without end. There is no such thing as unending time. Whether we like it or not, time ends – that’s
why it’s time. It is a measurement that
we use to speak of the progression of life as we know it, past, present and
future.
For a moment, think back to the story of the temptation of Jesus as told
by Luke. Consider Luke 4:5-8
And he [Satan] led Him [Jesus] up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time. And the devil said to Him, “I
will give you all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
Therefore if you worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” Jesus answered him,
“It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’
The whole point of Jesus’ coming; the whole point of the proclamation of
the good news of the kingdom of God; the whole point of the existence of ecclesia; is for Jesus’ victory over
death and the power of the devil to be realised and then enforced. Jesus won the victory and set that process in
motion; his body on earth now (ecclesia)
continues and completes it under the dominion (the kingdom) of God the Father,
the headship of Jesus the first-born Son, and the power and encouragement of
the Holy Spirit.
Satan thought that in the death of Jesus, he had won, but the opposite
was true. Satan thought he had untouchable
control over the kingdoms of the world, but Jesus stole them from him. Until the resurrection, Jesus couldn’t say
“all dominion, power and authority has been given to me”, but the victory of
the resurrection is that the kingdoms of the world are now ripe for a transfer
of allegiance from Satan to Jesus, and thereby to the Father and His family and
household. Hence he declared at the
commissioning of the twelve and at Pentecost some days later that ‘all
authority in heaven and on earth has been give to me; so, as you go through
life now, herald and proclaim the good news of my Father’s kingdom. And remember – I will be with you at all
times, right up to the very end.’
Life as we know it tends to be limited by time, space and matter and the
natural laws of the created universe. Eternity,
on the other hand, has no beginning nor end and is not restricted by these
limitations. It is another dimension
altogether. You can see glimpses of it
all through the New Testament record. I
believe that, post Pentecost, the expression “in the Spirit” attributed to Paul
by Luke for instance is a metaphor – perhaps even a synonym – for eternity. Consequently, I also believe that the
comparison between “in the Spirit” and “in the flesh” is a comparison between eternity
and time; eternal and temporal.
Below is a simple illustration of what I am saying.
Where two or three are gathered together under His dominion, power and
authority, that is a gathering “in my name” as Jesus said, and He is
present. As such, it is an outpost of
the kingdom of God on earth – an exclave of eternity, existing in the human
time-space-matter continuum. I have
elsewhere spoken of this matter of exclave in more detail and you can find it
in my mosaicSWB blog.
In essence, the kingdom of God is the dominion of God and the space or environment where His
dominion is welcomed, embraced and submitted to; every place where that happens
becomes a place of His authority and power – His kingdom is near, present,
around and about. Now read some of the
accounts in the gospels where Jesus said that the kingdom is near or
present. His birth, life and ministry
were all spaces or environments where the dominion of God was welcomed,
embraced and submitted to – by Jesus himself in the first instance, and
secondly by the people Jesus was sharing his life with.
In this paradigm, eternity is what it is all about. The starting point for an explanation of
corporate human life – and our lives as individuals – is the mind and heart of
God in eternity. The starting point for
an explanation of the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus
is the mind and heart of God in eternity.
Jesus both personifies and bears in his person the DNA of eternity – and
in that he is unique, one of a kind; he is also the prototype of many to come
after him. He is the firstborn of a new
breed; all who welcome and submit to his DNA join the family whose father is
God Himself and whose natural ecosystem is eternity, not time-space-matter
earth. Remember Paul’s insistence that
the in-Christ ones – the ecclesia –
are ‘strangers’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘aliens’ to this world.
And it all emanates from the mind and heart of God. He set the whole thing in motion when he
planted His DNA – the DNA of eternity – into the womb of Mary the mother of
Jesus. Because of this, a second birth
is possible – even necessary. Jesus’
conversation with Nicodemus makes this point well. Jesus was the first-born of a breed who
possess the DNA of eternity in a human body.
Here let me explain another mis-translation in the New Testament. Older English versions of the bible refer to
Jesus as “the only begotten son”. Given
that ‘begotten’ means born, the text is saying that Jesus is the only born son
– which is patent nonsense. In Greek,
the word translated only can also be translated first and once. Why either or both of these options was not
chosen by the English bible translators I can only guess, but both these
alternatives work. Jesus is, as I just
explained, the first-born son of the new breed.
But Jesus is also – and I stress this is absolutely unique – the
once-born son of this breed. The
uniqueness of Jesus is that he only needed to be born once. But when he is talking to Nicodemus (John 3),
it becomes clear that all the sons to follow have to be born twice: a natural
birth and a spiritual, ‘second’ birth.
In other words, being born again (the second birth) is necessary. Nicodemus was like many of us today – he
scoffed at the thought, asking ‘how can this be?’ “Can a man enter into his mother’s womb a
second time and be born?” Of course
not. So Jesus told Nicodemus how it
happens. And today, we need to be told
how it happens – and that it is
necessary! For without it (note
Nicodemus again) one cannot see the kingdom of God.
And what did Jesus tell Nicodemus?
“Except one receive birth from above, he is not able to see and perceive
the kingdom of God.” [literal translation]
And the second time he said, “except one receive birth out of water and
spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God.” [literal translation]
Jesus continues, “that which experiences a flesh birth is flesh; that
which experiences a spirit birth is spirit; those who receive spirit birth
experience the life of eternity (the kingdom of God), the life of God
Himself. Link this back to John 1: “He
came to his own and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave
the right to become children of God – to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The second birth is the spiritual birth,
the birth from above, the birth from eternity – which secures entry into the
family of God, the household of God and the kingdom of God.
The second birth is also referred to as a birth ‘out of water’. This is likely a reference to the same thing
Peter wrote to the Jews about in 1 Peter 1:23, “You have been born again not of
seed which is perishable but imperishable – through the logos (word) of God
that lives and abides throughout this age.”
This living ‘word’ of God is often characterised as living water. And Peter could well have been harking back
to Luke 16:16 when he speaks of the word that lives and abides throughout this
age – it is the good news of the kingdom of God, not the Jewish old testament.
The reference to birth ‘out of water’ to some is a link to water
baptism, not as the means of the birth but as the symbol of the believer’s
identification with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection.
W.E. Vine in his Expository
Dictionary of New Testament Words (page 1225) comments: “So the new birth
is, in one sense, the setting aside of all that the believer was according to
the flesh, for it is evident that there must be an entirely new beginning.”
Most of this story – and much of the stuff Jesus talked about – makes
little sense apart from the paradigm I sketched earlier. Without that paradigm, the explanations we
come up with are fanciful and they remain in the realm of metaphor and
analogy. Within that paradigm, the
things we are talking about become practical reality. They are practical reality in my life and in
the lives of many others since the time of Jesus, starting with the first
disciples/apostles. Therefore, there is
no doubt at all in my mind that when they went out heralding the good news of
the kingdom of God, part of the message was, “you must be born again”.
And since the truth remains that, in order to perceive and experience
the reality of the kingdom of God now, one must be born a second time – from
above; from the spirit; from the living word of the good news of the kingdom of
God – that truth and that message must be an integral part of our practice of
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. We defraud God and we defraud people when we
skip that essential part of the message.Coming up next - what is heaven?
Cheers,
Kevin.
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