We’re discussing Scot McKnight’s latest book Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church
I’m skipping quite a bit of material — to make sure you buy the book. And it’s a good book, an easy read, and filled with powerful insights. It’s well worth the price.
When we consider the kingdom language of the Gospels, we routinely ignore the Old Testament background. And yet Matthew declares —
(Mat 4:23 ESV) 23 And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people.
— long before Jesus was announced as the Messiah or crucified. And yet, when Jesus preached the kingdom, he expected to be understood because the kingdom had been taught by the Old Testament prophets. For example,
(Dan 2:39-45 ESV) 39 “Another kingdom inferior to you shall arise after you, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. 40 And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things. And like iron that crushes, it shall break and crush all these. 41 And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom, but some of the firmness of iron shall be in it, just as you saw iron mixed with the soft clay. 42 And as the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. 43 As you saw the iron mixed with soft clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay. 44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
Moreover, Israel itself is repeatedly referred to as a “kingdom” long before it had a human king. God was king. And as king, he ruled over a particular group of people — not all good people in the world, but Israel.
This establishes a most important point when it comes to Jesus’ kingdom story and to kingdom mission: the kingdom of which Jesus speaks is a people governed by a king. An array of shifts will occur when Jesus becomes King over a people, but the word “kingdom” cannot be reduced either to justice or salvation without doing serious damage to the story that animates the word “kingdom.” When Jesus said the kingdom has drawn near, he meant we are about to see a new king governing a new people— that people will be marked by salvation and justice, but it is a people first and foremost.
(p. 74) (emphasis in original).
The connection between church and kingdom is manifest in —
(Mat 16:15-19 ESV) 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
It’s hard to deny that Jesus seems to think that “my church” and “the kingdom of heaven” are parallel terms — not antitheses. Indeed, Scot argues,
The church is the kingdom called Israel now expanded to include gentile believers.
(p. 90). After all, if the Gentiles have been grafted by God into the root of Israel, and unfaithful Jews have been pruned by God, then the church is a continuation of Israel, reconfigured by the hand of God. And if Israel was a kingdom before, then it’s a kingdom now.
But it’s not exactly the same kingdom. It’s a kingdom transformed by the presence of Jesus as King and the Spirit’s indwelling. Therefore, Daniel and Jesus may sensibly refer to the Kingdom as new or coming or at hand — because while the Kingdom is a continuation of Israel, it is no longer quite the same thing.
Therefore,
This is where I have to lay down what is perhaps the strongest conclusion of this book: kingdom mission is church mission, church mission is kingdom mission, and there is no kingdom mission that is not church mission. This conclusion might die at the hand of a dozen nuances — I don’t mean “institutional church,” I don’t mean Roman Catholic Church or Eastern Orthodox Church or the Anglican Communion or the Southern Baptist Convention or the particular church in your neighborhood or a church that suppresses women or excludes others on the basis of race or gender or status, and yet I do!
(p. 96) (emphasis in original).
The “church” is not a single denomination or the leadership of a denomination or the Catholic magisterium. Nonetheless, it is the church-universal and so is much larger than my home congregation or my denomination. It’s not just the Churches of Christ.
And so that means we’re stuck with the church. And if it’s ugly and messy and political and impure and sometimes even misguided, well, that’s the church Jesus died for and married — and Jesus wants us to be busy making things better, not fleeing the mess as though it’s not our problem.
It is more glamorous to do social activism because building a local church is hard. It involves people who struggle with one another, it involves persuading others of the desires of your heart to help the homeless, it means caring for people where they are and not where you want them to be, it involves daily routines, and it only rarely leads to the highs of “short-term mission” experiences. But local church is what Jesus came to build, so the local church’s mission shapes kingdom mission.
(p. 97).
Amen. Local church work is hard. But so is marriage. So is youth ministry. So is mission work. So is dying for people who don’t deserve it.
George Eldon Ladd writes on page 112 of The Gospel of the Kingdom, “Kingdom of God means first of all the redemptive activity and rule of God working among men; and it is secondly the realm in which men experience the blessings of His rule.” God is reigning in his church but the church is only secondarily God’s Kingdom. To ignore or minimize the primary meaning of kingdom/basilea as reign and then equate the church with God’s Kingdom is not good theology and opens the door to a lot of misguided application. Wherever God is reigning there we see the Kingdom of God. Of course we should be able to see God’s reign most obviously in this world in God’s church but God’s reign and God’s church are not always one and the same. Most of us reading this probably grew up in Churches of Christ being taught that church and kingdom are synonymous. I can’t think of any good that came out of that teaching. It was at least part of the basis of Church of Christ exclusivism and arrogance that so many of us struggled for so long to overcome. Why go back and embrace now a theology that we finally left behind with good reason?
If God adds to His church or congregation, then the people are in God’s realm and under His control of who is in and who is out of it and we have no control over this. These same people that are added to the congregation are part of the Kingdom as they are under God’s rule. But this doesn’t mean that what we see is what God sees in that we can see our assembly and assume that we are all right, but God sees something different, ex. the congregations in Revelations that were condemned even though they thought they were doing fine. We often do not make great judges of ourselves, so how can we be even greater judges of others.
But those of the coC, esp. conservative coC, primarily in the past and some in the present identified themselves as “the church” even though they were as a group just an assembly, while the members might have been or not in the congregation of God. Many now will admit that it isn’t the church of Christ that is only saved, but they have a hard time embracing the thought that others aren’t lost, unless they look exactly like the coC. Even those who assemble today exactly how the people assembled then in homes and around a table for the Lord’s Supper are seen as radical and moving away from the approved of assembly set up that the coC has. One of the main issues is we see ourselves as groups of God or not and not people of God or not and thus association in those groups places you into contact with God and not your personal experience with God. We are God’s first in His kingdom and added to His congregation, then we assemble.
Gary,
God also reigned over the Israelites even while they were rebellious. When Christian are not fully obedient to God, they are still under his reign. If not then the world must not be under his reign, because there must be a place for those rebellious to exist apart from God. If he is not reigning over the world how could the world be subject to his laws/rules? He would have no power to save or condemn those in the world.
I think we sometimes get confused about what the King reigns over and the subjects. The King can have a broad rule over the land and the people. The King can force his rule over people as is His right, but God doesn’t do this as He wants His people to willingly bow down. Our God is not a God who doesn’t care how we think in our decisions as wrong as they maybe and His grace gives us an allowance of mercy that saves us from our own path. God has stated His will and He gives us the chance to do it or not. When we become a saint we form a contract covenant between us and God that allows us the benefit of one day gaining the Kingdom if we do His will. But all one day will be judged as that is the right of the King.
Dwight,
I know there is much misunderstanding in the world of Christianity about events in the future. Therefore, I will suggest that on judgement day The body of Christ, The Bride of Christ, those in the sheepfold of the Great Shepherd, Christians will not be judged. Only those who arrive that day who have not had their sins washed away by Christ’s Blood will be judged. For those who Christ has washed away sins and kept them cleansed by His Blood to be judged would be an accusation against Christ and his cleansing rather than the individual who had no power to cleanse themselves. If an individual disciple, follower, Christian was to be held accountable for any sin on that day then Christ failed. No human except Christ has or will ever have the assets to pay the debts for sins committed.
We do understand that Christ will separate the sheep from the goats, but notice there are no goats among Christ’s body, the church which God added the saved to. Yes, you may see a goat setting next to you in the assembly of the church, but if he is a goat he has never become one of Christ’s disciples. This is discussed in the parable of the tares.
Some churches lack the knowledge of it’s role of ushering in the kingdom of God that is coming.
A good father doesn’t desert his child. The Prodigal Son for instance (Luke 15:11-32), however prodigal that son was, the father did not desert him. And when the son returned, and said I will go to my Father, it says, his father ran and fell on his neck, kissed him and said this is my son. The same thing was said of Jacob, when he said, this is my son Joseph, so I know now that he is alive.
Some churches teach saying that when the Israelites obeyed God, God loved them, but when they turned away from Him, He hated them. Which is not true, God loved them anyway.
God did not cast them off. Paul makes it quite clear when he says, “Has God cast off His people Israel, Certainly not!” He said that he also is an Israelite (Romans 11:1). Paul makes it clear that God did not cast away the people of Israel.
Some churches teach that since Israel rejected Christ’s title, they no longer have the promises given to them and so the promises and blessings given to Israel were transferred to the church.
God has not forsaken His people, Israel, His promises and covenant intent for them will yet be fulfilled.
Gentiles are not Israel. The remnant of Israel is made up of Israelites who accept Christ and God’s salvation through Him by faith, Romans 11:5 “there is a remnant according to the election of grace.”
Paul distinguishes between the Gentiles that are grafted in being saved vs. Israel who rejected Christ. Paul says that Israel, concerning the gospel, are enemies, but concerning the fathers they are beloved (Romans 11:28).
When Jesus came His mission here was to be focused on Israel (Matthew 15:24). Jesus came as a Jewish Man to the Jewish people. The first Christians were Jews saved by God’s grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
Unbelieving Jews failed to accept Jesus as their Messiah. The unbelief of the Jews on a national level is beneficial for the elect of every nation. Israel’s rejection of Christ provided the avenue for the gospel of Christ to be widely proclaimed to the Gentiles. When Christ established His Church (Matthew 16:16-20), the message of justification by grace through faith moved beyond Israel to the all the world (Matthew 28:18-20). Both Jews and Gentiles are in the church. God is provoking unbelieving Jews to jealousy (Romans 11: 11-14) by using the church that became predominantly Gentile.
God uses Israel’s national situation to draw unbelieving Jews to their Messiah. The Lord is ultimately preserving the nation of Israel for His purpose and glory. (Deuteronomy 30:1-6). He will completely fulfill His national covenants with the Jewish people.
When Christ returns to the earth, Israel will be willing to receive Him, all the Jews in Israel will cry out, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:39).
Many predominantly Gentile churches today feel as though Israel’s rejection of Christ and since Gentiles are offered salvation through Christ, that all of the promises made to Israel no longer belong to Israel but are transferred to the church. This is absolutely not true. When Jesus returns He will keep all the promises God made to the Jewish nation, Israel. All God has said will take place because of His character and consistency.
As the stumbling of Israel brought blessing to the world at Christ’s first coming, the reception of Israel to Christ at His Second Coming will be like “life from the dead” (Romans 11:15). The Lord will establish His kingdom on the earth and rule from the capital city, Jerusalem. (Revelation 20)
All the promises to Israel remain intact, His covenant with them is irrevocable (Romans 11:29). Israel, the Jewish nation, is still Israel. Israel has been side-lined during these past 1,900 years. Nevertheless, God has carefully preserved the Jewish people, even in unbelief, through every kind of distress and persecution. Sometimes, the professing Church itself (I speak to our shame) has been a cause of these persecutions to the Jews.
The vast Gentile majority in the Church began to view Israel as a vestigial organ that had outlived its usefulness. In fact, the predominant Christian view was that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD signaled the so called divinely-ordained end of the Jewish nation, never more to be re-instituted as a national entity. The fact that Jerusalem lay in ruins and the Jewish people were scattered over the world was seen as conclusive evidence that God was forever finished with national Israel.
Theologians had to propose that Israel in the Scriptures did not really mean Israel, especially when it came to the promises made to Israel. They decided wherever blessing is promised to Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures, it was interpreted to mean the Church. Some suggest that if Israel has not ceased to exist in its covenant relationship to God, and if Israel still has a future in the divine plan, this somehow diminishes the position of the Church. It is almost as though some churches are jealous of Israel, which is opposite from God’s intended purpose (Romans 11:18). Which son in the parable of the prodigal son are these churches behaving like?
Little wonder there is a pride in some churches that are reluctant to give to the Jews their place in the last days.
Cleansing starts in the church first. This enables His love to pour out of us and move us into the direction of His plan in the last days and fulfill the role He has given to the church. And this is all in order that Israel fulfill its own role in the earth to glorify the true living God.
The conflation of the church as the kingdom eclipses the sense of anticipation or expectation of God’s kingdom on earth where death, suffering, and sorrow are brought to an end.
That some Christians are not looking forward to His rule that is to come on this earth is an embarrassment to the church. Our human governments, and programs, however much people may hope in them, always will invariably show their inadequacy.
When we say, “Come, Lord Jesus!,” we are praying for righteousness to come to the earth and the rule of God from Jerusalem which He has designated. We pray for the coming kingdom that will bring the restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets (Acts 3:21).
We must always view Israel through the lens of Scripture. God’s covenant with Israel expressed His plan to establish His kingdom on earth and to redeem the Jewish nation. Israel’s national restoration, her resurrection from the dead, and the glory of God forever!
It is not because they are somehow more deserving, God chose them from the start not because they are deserving. No, God chose them for His purpose and His glory as it is with everything He does. He will always do that which guarantees His glory, and He owes us no further explanation.
Jay, in response to your first question I know of course that you are not a CoC exclusivist and I don’t think that I implied that you are. If I did so it was not my intention and I apologize. My concern that I was trying to express is that the identification of the Kingdom of God with God’s church is a theology that can lend itself to a level of triumphalism and arrogance that would hurt the church. If church and Kingdom are the same then we in the church are basically saying that we’ve arrived. How would we account for sin and shortcomings and attitudes and actions that don’t reflect God’s Kingdom or the Holy Spirit? If we persist in identifying the church with God’s Kingdom then we have a strong motivation to deny or explain away whatever does not exhibit God’s reign in the church. I think it is far more accurate to say that God’s Kingdom is our direction as God’s church and that wherever we happen to be at any given time is only a flawed approximation of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom will not come in its fullness until Christ returns. To equate the church this side of Christ’s return with the Kingdom of God is tantamount to saying that we now have the Kingdom in all its fullness.
Larry, in truth I admit that do understand what will happen on the last day and I don’t worry about it too much. While I understand that Christians are saved, I am also under the belief that it is a promise that is yet to be realized, meaning that we are saved as long as we meet the criteria of the covenant we had made and cross over to gain the crown. I do believe that a saint can fall away and not be saved and I also believe a saint can be fall away and be restored such as there is scripture that accounts for forgiveness. To me judging means taking into account the positions, meaning that you will be judged righteous because you are righteous and you are judged a sinner because you have bowed down to sin instead of Christ. People today are living in Christ and there are those living in sin and if Christ came today he would see both groups and as you point out in the tares parable, separate the two in judgment. The saved would receive the crown that they had not had before and gain heaven which was promised. This is only my understanding.
Jay, in response to your second question, God’s reign (basileia) is his dominion, sovereignty or authority to rule. Wherever we see God’s will being done there we see the reign or the Kingdom of God. Different people might describe the manifestation of God’s Kingdom-Reign in different ways. What comes to my mind is justice, mercy, compassion and love. Matthew 25 seems to be a description by Jesus of what the practical results of God’s reign are.
The Kingdom of God came in a powerful way on Pentecost 2,000 years ago but the Kingdom of God has come throughout human history as God’s people have accepted God’s reign in our lives. I believe it is accurate to say that God’s Kingdom has come; God’s Kingdom is even now coming; and God’s Kingdom will come in all of its fullness when Christ returns (Matthew 25:1).
Gary, the church and kingdom are the same, if you are talking the church as God has added to in heaven (Acts 2), which is the congregation of the Lord. But while many people do try to equate the coC with being the same as the Kingdom, this would be wrong, but it would not be wrong to argue that many in the coC are in the kingdom as many in other groups are also in the Kingdom, because it is these individuals that make up the congregation of the Lord.
We must therefore define what we mean by church in regards to the Kingdom. Those in the congregation (church) of God bow down to God and are under his reign in His kingdom, while those in local church groups may or may not be in the kingdom and the groups themselves do not define the kingdom, the saved do.
Now having said that the realization of the Kingdom is a promise, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t ours. The Jews were given the promised land, even before they actually had it. I can be a member of Gold’s gym without ever having stepped in an actual gym, if the manager gives me membership after paying my dues, but I can also forfit my membership before I actually get to the gym too by missing a payment.
Gary wrote,
So you seem to argue two inconsistent positions:
1. That the kingdom doesn’t come until Jesus returns.
2. That the kingdom exists today wherever God is honored.
It really can’t be both. I would seriously question any suggestion that the kingdom exists where Jesus is not honored as king. Therefore, because all with faith in Jesus are in the church, at the least, the kingdom is a subset of the church. There can be no kingdom where Jesus is not served as king, and God is not honored when his chosen King is not served.
Nor is it fair to argue “To equate the church this side of Christ’s return with the Kingdom of God is tantamount to saying that we now have the Kingdom in all its fullness.” That assumes what you wish to prove. Where does the Bible say that the “kingdom” only exists in the absence of sin?
Jesus seems to say quite the opposite.
(Mat 13:24-30 ESV) 24 ¶ He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, 25 but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. 26 So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. 27 And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So the servants said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.'”
(Mat 13:47-50 ESV) 47 ¶ “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Jay, my response to your second question may be in the filter. It disappeared when I posted it. In sum, basileia/kingdom is the reign, dominion or sovereignty of a king. A secondary and derivative meaning of basileia is where the king is ruling and who the subjects are over whom he is ruling. Church is kingdom only in this secondary and derivative sense. The large majority of New Testament passages containing basileia use it in its primary sense of reign. Anyone with access to a concordance can confirm this. Take the verse containing basileia/kingdom and try substituting church in its place. Most of the time church will not fit the meaning of basileia at all. Even in the few passages where basileia does refer to the realm of where God is reigning, the primary meaning of basileia as reign is still present as well. For example, Revelation does refer to the church as Kingdom because we who are Christians share in God’s reign.
For the majority of passages, however, basileia is used in its primary sense of God’s reign, dominion, sovereignty and right to rule. The church then is where God is reigning in this world. The best analogy I can think of is light and light bulbs. Light bulbs are where light shines through but they are not light itself. In much the same way the Kingdom Reign of God manifests itself in this world through the church. But the church is not the Kingdom except in a secondary and derivative sense of being where God is reigning.
Jay, in response to your third question about who is in the Kingdom, how that is answered depends on how one defines kingdom/basileia. Since I stick with the accepted primary meaning of basileia as God’s reign my answer is that the Kingdom is wherever or in whomever God is reigning.
McKnight’s definition of basileia as God’s Kingdom equals the church would of course change the answer. From McKnight’s perspective the question is the same as asking who is in the church and who is saved. I leave that to God. I don’t know exactly where the outer limits of God’s salvation lie. I have some strong opinions on it as you know but I really don’t know for sure.
Jay, you ask about my understanding of the status of Cornelius regarding salvation and the Kingdom before he heard the Gospel. That is something that we cannot know with certainty. But my opinion is that Cornelius was saved all along. If he had died before Peter arrived would he have been lost due to the random timing of his death? That would be similar to our old CoC belief that anyone who died before reaching the baptistry was lost. The answer to both situations seems the same to me. When we are told that Cornelius’s prayers and alms had ascended to God as a memorial for him how could he be lost? If God is sovereign why would God allow him to be lost? I don’t believe God is bound by human time. I also can no longer relate to the importance conservative Christians place on being able to identify who is lost. My focus now is on the wideness of God’s grace and his expressed will in Scripture that no one will perish.
Jay, you ask how I can maintain the seemingly inconsistent beliefs that the Kingdom will not come until Christ’s return and that the Kingdom exists in the world today wherever God is reigning. I cut my teeth on the Kingdom of God from the writings of George Eldon Ladd. His little140 page book, The Gospel of the Kingdom, is a valuable primer on the doctrine of the Kingdom of God in Scripture. In fact, in my opinion, that book is the most valuable book any Christian can read next to the Bible itself. So you can understand how McKnight lost me right off the bat. All that is to say that my answer is based squarely on Ladd and his understanding of basileia/Kingdom in Scripture. The Kingdom has come; the Kingdom is even now coming; and the Kingdom will finally come in its fullness when Christ returns (Matthew 25:31). So the Kingdom of God is behind us, with us, and before us. So you can see why I see no inconsistency in believing both that we are awaiting the coming of the Kingdom and that we live in a world where we see the Kingdom of God wherever God is reigning.
Grace writes, “The conflation of the church as the kingdom eclipses the sense of anticipation or expectation of God’s kingdom on earth where death, suffering and sorrow are brought to an end.” Exactly. This is why the equation of basileia/kingdom as church is “dreadful” Jay to use your term. The early church was focused on the coming of the fullness of God’s Kingdom-Reign at Christ’s return (Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!). If we have the fullness of the Kingdom now in the church why look forward to the Second Coming? Wherever we see God reigning even now in this world we look forward all the more to the final coming of God’s Kingdom-Reign when Christ will reign not only over his church but over this entire world in the restoration of all things.
Larry, I believe that it will be a physical world except that, unlike this world, it will not be affected by the Fall. Paul writes in Romans 8 of Creation now groaning as it awaits its own redemption at Christ’s return.