Is the gospel larger than sola fide?

Many Evangelicals have cited Galatians and other parts of scripture against Roman Catholicism and other groups they think hold a false gospel. A common response has been to cite passages in the Bible that refer to the gospel without defining it the way those Evangelicals are defining it (Mark 1:1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, etc.).

The Breaking In Of The Future Age

"He who is wise and, therefore, walks carefully, redeems the time. But he redeems the time because 'the days are evil' [Ephesians 5:16]. Whenever we consume time in a good work we buy it and make our own what has been sold by the malice of humanity. But no one seeking the necessary things of this life and thinking about riches and cares, which the Gospel calls thorns (Matt. 13:22), can redeem the time for himself. Moreover, when we 'redeem the time' which is in evil days, we change it, to a certain degree, and turn the evil days into good and make them days not of the present age but of the future." (Origen and Jerome, in Ronald Heine, trans. and ed., The Commentaries Of Origen And Jerome On St. Paul's Epistle To The Ephesians [New York: Oxford University Press, 2002], 225)

Why does God interest you so little?

"Is not the public interest of Christ and his cause infinitely more important than any interest of your own, and should you not prefer his glory and the welfare of his kingdom before everything else? Should any temporary suffering, or any sacrifice which you can be called to make, be suffered to come into competition with the honour of his name?" (John Flavel, Keeping The Heart [Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 2019], 101)

How The Next Life Should Motivate This One

One of my posts earlier this month addressed the theme of how the afterlife, including our resurrection, should influence how we live this life. I've discussed some examples in other posts. I've written a lot about the primacy of God and how we should be anticipating a life in which "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9), in contrast to the secular, trivial nature of this culture. I've recommended Jonathan Edwards' work on heaven as a world of love. Given that we'll have a transformed body after the resurrection, that transformation raises issues of how a different body will interact differently with our souls. I've discussed a lot of relevant paranormal issues over the years, including many contexts in which we have evidence for certain capacities of our souls that are concealed or restrained, for example, by our bodies. When we have transformed bodies in the future, the nature of the relationship between the body and the soul will likely be substantially different, including in the abilities we'll have as a result of that changed relationship. I've also written about the resurrection of animals. The gospels alone provide a lot of examples of the sort of motivations from the afterlife I'm addressing here, like Jesus' comments about building up treasure in heaven.

What I want to focus on in this post, though, is something that's especially relevant to those who are involved in doing unpopular work. Because of the nature of the world and cultures like modern America, some of the most important work in life meets with a lot of apathy and contempt (missions, evangelism, apologetics, etc.). And the unpopularity of that work exists alongside the far greater popularity of work that's less important, trivial, or even sinful. But which work will hold up better over the long run? The long run includes the afterlife. Maybe something you've done that was underestimated or misjudged in some other way in this life will receive God's approval and be more widely disseminated and become more influential on the day of judgment or in some other afterlife context (e.g., your legacy on earth after you die). God could choose to use some work you've done in a theological or apologetic context, for example, as a means by which he'll influence other people. And the people who are influenced by your work could be many billions, far more than the view count of any popular YouTube video or the sales number of any popular book. Popularity in the next life is more important than popularity in this life. I've been referring to popularity to summarize the situation, but there's a lot more involved: the priority of God's approval over the approval of others, the fact that we'll continue to influence people in the afterlife, the potential for our productivity to increase in the future, etc. A common theme in scripture, such as in Jesus' comments in the gospels, is that the afterlife will involve changes so significant that the first will be last and the last will be first. The final evaluation of our work hasn't occurred yet, and it won't occur in this life. And the potential for the reception of our work and other circumstances to be much better in the next life is large. There's a lot of potential in the abstract for improvement in the afterlife, and Jesus and other Biblical figures tell us that there will be some major changes.

The Seed And The Kingdom

"John [the Baptist] was the last of the goodly succession of prophets and righteous men who had faithfully sown the seed of the word of God but had not lived to see the harvest. Then came Jesus, proclaiming the arrival of the divine kingdom which they had foretold. He came as that kingdom in person, the autobasileia, as Origen so finely put it, the very embodiment of the good news which he brought. He is the Sower par excellence; more than that, he is himself the grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying, so as to produce an abundance of fruit (John 12:24). It is the privilege of his disciples in all generations to reap the harvest that continues to spring from this good seed." (F.F. Bruce, The Gospel & Epistles Of John [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1983], 115)

"Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor….The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 4:34-38, 12:23-24)

Good night

26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. 29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come” (Mk 4:26-29).

One of the interesting things about this little parable is how it reverses the symbolism of darkness. In Scripture, darkness typically carries a sinister connotation. At a literal level, fear of the dark was natural because it was dangerous to be outside at night. And even today, despite electrical lighting, crime is higher after dark. At a metaphorical level, darkness becomes a symbol of evil. The figurative connotations trade on the natural connotations.

But in this parable, God's kingdom grows by night as well as day. The kingdom enlists the darkness to grow and spread unperceived by hostile eyes. They wake up to find it far advanced. In this situation, darkness becomes the ally of the good. In a paradoxical sense, the kingdom of darkness becomes the kingdom of God. God commandeers the darkness to further his kingdom.      

The King In Isaiah 9 Isn't Hezekiah

Among those who look for a naturalistic fulfillment of Isaiah 9 or a fulfillment that doesn't identify the king as God, Hezekiah is a candidate who's often suggested (H.G.M. Williamson, Isaiah 6-12 [New York, New York: Bloomsbury, 2018], n. 103 on 393). In my last post, I argued for the deity of the king in Isaiah 9. While that characteristic of the king eliminates Hezekiah from consideration, there are enough additional lines of evidence against a fulfillment by Hezekiah to warrant a separate post on the subject.

The first mention of Hezekiah in Isaiah comes in the opening verse, alongside other Jewish kings. The first chapter goes on to refer to how corrupt Israel is, "from the sole of the foot even to the head" (1:6). Isaiah condemns rulers in general (1:10, 1:23, 1:26). Keep in mind that these condemnations of chapter 1 come just after Hezekiah was named as one of the rulers in the opening verse. The same themes are repeated later in Isaiah (e.g., 3:2, 3:14, 9:14-16), with Isaiah including himself in the condemnation (6:5). Just before chapter 9, Isaiah is highly critical of Ahaz. Just after the passage in question in chapter 9, he's highly critical of other leaders (9:14-16). Given how negatively Isaiah views himself and his Jewish contemporaries in general, including their rulers, it's very unlikely that 9:1-7 represents Isaiah's view of a contemporary king, even one as relatively good as Hezekiah.

The King In Isaiah 9 Is God

Before we get to the names in verse 6 that usually are the focus of discussion, we should consider some other evidence. Since Isaiah 9 is about the culmination of the monarchy in Israel, a good place to start is with the origins of that monarchy.

In 1 Samuel 8:7, God tells Samuel that Israel's desire for a king is a rejection of having God as their king. One of the consequences of the monarchy, the first one mentioned, would be that the Jewish people would have to serve in the king's military and produce his weapons of war (1 Samuel 8:11-12). The response of the people is to affirm their willingness to subject themselves to what the monarchy will bring with it, with a focus on how the king will lead them in warfare (8:20).

Not only does it make sense in the abstract that somebody like Isaiah would be interested in the origins of the monarchy, as addressed in 1 Samuel 8, but we also have evidence of that interest being expressed by his contemporaries. Hosea 13:9-11 refers to the central theme we see in 1 Samuel 8, the rejection of God in favor of a king.

In Isaiah 9, we see a reversal of 1 Samuel 8. A king is raised up who brings about the destruction of the implements of war (9:5) and brings eternal peace (9:6-7). But since the contrast between having a human monarchy and having God as king is at the center of 1 Samuel 8, the reversal that occurs in Isaiah 9 makes more sense if the human king is being replaced by God. A divine king makes more sense of the 1 Samuel 8 backdrop.

Gardens grow at night

26 And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. 27 He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. 28 The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. 29 But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mk 4:26-29).

i) This is a deceptively simple illustration. What does it mean? It maybe that Jesus gave the listener a thumbnail sketch that can be developed in more than one direction. It's up to the listener to responsibly fill in details.

ii) Who is the sower? Or does that matter? Some people think the sower is God or Jesus. But it makes no sense to say God/Jesus doesn't know how the kingdom grows and does nothing beyond scattering seed to promote its growth. 

Probably, the sower stands for pastors, missionaries, and evangelists as well as Christians generally throughout the course of church history. They scatter seed, but the results are ultimately out of their hands. In many cases the results outlive them. Or may not become evident until after they die. 

iii) That the sower "rises night and day" is a Jewish idiom for rising at sunup and sleeping after sundown. In Jewish reckoning, a new day began at dusk rather than dawn. 

iv) Does automate mean "by itself" or "without visible cause"? In one respect it was mysterious to ancient farmers how a seed was programmed to develop on its own. 

Presumably, Jesus doesn't mean to teach that the kingdom grows with no human contribution. Evangelism is essential to the growth of the kingdom. Normally, it prospers from watering, weeding, pruning, fertilization–both literally and figuratively. 

Sometimes Jesus expresses himself in deliberately provocative, contrarian terms to shake up the complacency of the listener and galvanize attention. 

He may mean, in part, that it grows despite opposition. In addition, the kingdom grows in ways surprising. We scatter seed, but when and where it takes root and grows to fruition may unexpected. Take birds that pick up seeds, then drop them elsewhere. 

The growth of God's kingdom is mysterious in the way God's providence is mysterious. Sometimes we can discern the hidden hand of God from opportune, but highly improbable events. Naturally inexplicable outcomes that reflect God guiding events from behind the scenes. 

v) The seed grows at night as well as day. Ironically, the kingdom sometimes grows because hostile forces are oblivious to the kingdom in their midst. They don't know where to look. Their social circle excludes believers. Consider atheists who confidently say there's no evidence for miracles. They don't experience miracles or know anyone who does because they associate with like-minded atheists. They avoid the very circles where that's more likely to happen. Like plants growing at night, it could happen in their own backyard, but they wouldn't observe because they are in the dark (as it were). And by the time it becomes so conspicuous that even they take notice, they've been overtaken by events. 

Indeed, many atheists have a secularization thesis. They take for granted the inexorable progress of atheism. Christianity is bound to die out. Every generation, they say that's just around the corner. So they're often caught off-guard by unforeseen developments. 

Is politics the kingdom of darkness?

I wasn't planning to do another pre-election post, but here goes. Yesterday, JMac outlined his position:

https://vimeo.com/190474131

He has a very clear position. He has straightforward reasons for his position. I agree with some of what he says. I disagree with some of what he says. 

I've seen some highly polarized reactions to his position. I've read sycophants who hang on his every word. I've read detractors who say it's a "sad day of compromise…hardcore faithlessness." 

Both extremes are absurd. And it reflects the irrational polarization we've seen throughout the campaign cycle, where you must be totally for someone or totally against them. Now, there are people who merit that absolute dichotomy, but JMac is hardly one of them. 

i) At least to judge by this clip, JMac takes an Anabaptist view of politics. There's the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. Politics belongs to the kingdom of darkness. There's no connection between politics and the kingdom of God. Politics is earthly and temporal. What happens in America has no relationship to the kingdom of God. Our elections don't help or hurt the cause. 

I consider that highly artificial. Perhaps he's shadowboxing with the liberal postmillennialism and social gospel of Rauschenbusch. The notion that social activism will usher in the kingdom of God.

It's true that God doesn't set his watch by world history. Rather, world history is set by God's watch. 

However, there's an obvious sense in which politics or world history intersect with the kingdom of God. If, say, public school children are brainwashed in atheism, if Christianity is demonized in the classroom, then that's a setback for the kingdom of God inasmuch as you will have fewer Christians. 

Likewise, the Master's College and the Master's Seminary is threatened by the secular progressives in California. If a Christian curriculum becomes hate speech, that's a setback for the kingdom of God.  

By the same token, if authorities begin to revoke Christian custody of their children because they raise biological boys as boys and biological girls as girls, that will be a setback for the kingdom of God. The freedom to raise your kids in the Christian faith is hardly irrelevant to the progress or fortunes of God's kingdom on earth. 

It doesn't mean God's plan for the world has been derailed. In a sense, the kingdom of God is right on schedule. But we need to avoid confusing belief in God's sovereignty with que sera sera fatalism.

It's true that America will go the way of other superpowers. But during their heyday, superpowers exert tremendous international influence. And they can help or hinder the dissemination of the Gospel. 

JMac also talked about how Democrats systematically weaken police. But there are two related problems with that characterization:

i) To the contrary, Democrats are creating a police state. They need ever more expansive and intrusive enforcement agencies to impose their social policies on the nation.

ii) Apropos (i), law enforcement becomes the vanguard for secular progressive social policies. Indeed, JMac fails to notice the tension between his uncritical support for police and his criticism of social policies that punish those who do good while protecting those who do evil. 

Finally, he said America is under God's judgment. I hear that a lot. Maybe it's true. But the appeal is circular. You could argue it either way. Is secularization a result of divine judgment? Or is divine judgment a result of secularization? What would be the evidence that distinguishes one from the other? 

De-hellenizing the Old Testament

http://bayouhuguenot.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/de-hellenizing-the-old-testament/

“Indicative of the pattern of Old Testament piety is the fact that the dominant motives of prayer never included that of losing oneself, through contemplation, in the divine infinity. There was no room in Israel for mystical prayer; the nature of the Mosaic Yahweh with his mighty personal will effectively prevented the development of that type of prayer which seeks to dissolve the individual I in the unbounded One. Just as the God of the Old Testament is no Being reposing in his own beatitude, but reveals himself in the controlling will of the eternal King, so the pious Israelite is no intoxicated, world-denying mystic revelling in the Beyond, but a warrior, who wrestles even in prayer, and looks for the life of power in communion with his divine Lord. His goal is not the static concept of the summum bonum [the highest good], but the dynamic fact of the Basileia tou Theou [the Kingdom of God]”.

Eichrodt, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament, Volume One (Old Testament Library). Westminster John Knox Press, 1961. ISBN-10: 0664223087
ISBN-13: 978-0664223083

Truth will win

Image Source: NASA

Psalm 19:1 – The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.


Romans 1:19-20: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.


Genesis 1:26-28: 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.”

These are the things that went through my mind this morning as I got up early to watch the International Space Station fly across the sky. It appeared around 5:07, and it lasted just a few minutes, but it was, as advertised, the brightest object in the sky (apart from the sun and the moon).

You can sign up for email updates about when it appears (it actually appears quite regularly; however, the time and the weather are frequently unaccommodating).

http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/

Anyone in the world can see it, as it appears on a regular schedule. It appears as a bright star, yet it moves quickly (“like a fast-moving plane in the sky, but it is dozens of times higher than any airplane and traveling thousands of miles an hour faster”), and my impression is that this is but one small fruit of the God-given ability of man to “have dominion”.

* * *

At the moment [and I use the word “moment” in the sense that John Richard Neuhaus used it, in the sense of “this era in history”] we lament certain laws and judicial statements, and the harm brought by them to people and cultures. But I think we can all agree, that these things are artificial – they have been put into place as the result of coordinated efforts at misinformation that seek to circumvent the truths about God that are “self-evident”.

I don’t recall the precise citation, but I’ve cited the Roman Catholic historian Paul Johnson as saying, in the middle ages, the intention of the rulers was to guide the masses rather than to control their passions – hence events like the Crusades were mighty movements of rabble across seas and continents that frequently got out of control.

Today, we still have “masses” of uneducated peasants in the world. However, these “masses” are comprised of individuals created in the image of God, who have it in their hearts to look up, to seek after Him. As well, in our “moment”, more people than ever before have the availability, on their own initiative, to take advantage of the kind of world-class education that can be gotten for free on the Internet.

Through sources like iTunesU and others, courses in world history and literature and math and sciences and engineering are available, and courses from the finest Christian seminaries and universities are available (via “Massive Open Online Courses”, or “MOOCs”, for example).

In this case, it is the “professional educators” who are concerned:

"No technology has ever developed this quickly in academia; not electricity, not the telephone, not the Internet," Sreenivasan told The Morningside Post, one of the university's student newspapers. "My role is to help Columbia navigate this in a strategic way, without panicking."

It is the shapers of the present mutant forms of misinformation who are panicking.

Nearly 80% of people in China who are engaged technologically “surf the web” via their mobile devices, according to a story that appeared this morning in ZDNet:

China's Internet population hit a record high of 591 million by the end of June driven by a growth in mobile Internet usage, which now makes up nearly 80 percent of all users.

China's mobile Internet user base comprised 78.5 of all users at 464 million compared with 72.2 percent a year ago, according to the government-affiliated research group. Such users have been actively using services like instant messaging platforms such as Tencent's WeChat and payment modes like e-commerce giant Alibaba's Alipay on handsets.

Web applications with strong growth included online music, video, games and literature, according to CNNIC.

Those are massive numbers, and we know those kinds of numbers are being replicated globally on a massive scale. Yes, there is clutter, but the sum of the learning in human history is also contained among those “web applications”, and it is being spread throughout the world.

And one particular seed that is being scattered is the Gospel. “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom.”

One way or another, people will learn the truth.

God Rules

George Eldon Ladd, in his “A Theology of the New Testament”, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Revised Edition © 1993, pgs 109 ff.), supporting the “dynamic concept of the Kingdom” that France writes about, says “the Kingdom” is “never to be identified with the church”. “The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced. In biblical idiom, the Kingdom is not identified with its subjects. They are the people of God’s rule who enter it, live under it, and are governed by it. The church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to the Kingdom as the Kingdom belongs to them, but they are not the Kingdom. The Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of women and men.”

Ladd goes on to cite five different ways in which “the church is not the Kingdom”, and he does so exegetically:

1. “The New Testament does not equate believers with the Kingdom”. Directly contradicting the point of the Cross/Brown citation the Gospel of John above, Ladd notes “The first missionaries preached the Kingdom of God, not the church (Acts 8:12; 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31). It is impossible to substitute “church” for “kingdom” in such sayings. … There is never the slightest hint that the visible church can either be or produce the Kingdom of God. The church is the people of the Kingdom, but never that Kingdom itself. Therefore it is not helpful even to say that the church is a “part of the Kingdom,” or that in the eschatological consummation the church and Kingdom become synonymous.”

2. “The Kingdom Creates the Church”. “The dynamic rule of God, present in the mission of Jesus, challenged men and women to response, bringing them into a new fellowship. The presence of [the Rule of God] meant the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic hope promised to Israel; but when the nation as a whole rejected the offer, those who accepted it were constituted the new people of God, the children of the Kingdom, the true Israel, the incipient church.

The parable of the draw net (and see John 21 - contra the Cross/Brown interpretation given in my last post) is instructive as to the character of the church and its relation to the Kingdom. The Kingdom is an action that is likened to the drawing a net through the sea. It catches in its movement not only good fish but also bad; and when the net is brought to shore, the fish must be sorted out. Such is the action of God’s kingdom among humankind. It is not now creating a pure fellowship; in Jesus’ retinue could even be a traitor. While this parable must be interpreted in terms of Jesus’ ministry, the principles deduced apply to the church. The action of God’s Kingdom among human beings created a mixed fellowship, first in Jesus’ disciples and then in the church. The eschatological coming of the Kingdom will mean judgment both for human society in general (tares) and for the church in particular (draw net). Until then, the fellowship created by the present acting of God’s Kingdom will include those who are not true children of the Kingdom. Thus the empirical church has a twofold character. It is the people of the Kingdom, and yet it is not the ideal people, for it includes some who are actually not children of the Kingdom. Thus entrance into the Kingdom means participation in the church; but entrance into the church is not necessarily synonymous with entrance into the Kingdom.

3. “The Church Witnesses to the Kingdom”. It is the church’s mission to witness to the kingdom. The church cannot build the Kingdom or become the Kingdom, but the church witnesses to the Kingdom—to God’s redeeming acts in Christ both past and future. This is illustrated by the commission Jesus gave to the twelve (Matt 10) and to the seventy (Luke 10); and it is reinforced by the proclamation of the apostles in the book of Acts. … It is part of God’s eschatological purpose that before the end, all nations should have the opportunity to hear the gospel. Here we find an extension of the theology of discipleship, that it will be the mission of the church to witness to the gospel of the Kingdom in the world. Israel is no longer the witness to God’s kingdom; the church has taken her place. …

If Jesus’ disciples are those who have received the life and fellowship of the Kingdom, and if this life is in fact an anticipation of the eschatological Kingdom, then it follows that one of the main tasks of the church is to display in this present evil age the life and fellowship of the Age to Come. The church has a dual character, belonging to two ages. It is the people of the Age to Come, but it still lives in this age, being constituted of sinful mortal persons. This means that while the church in this age will never attain perfection, it must nevertheless display the life of the perfect order, the eschatological Kingdom of God.

Implicit exegetical support for this view is to be found in the great emphasis Jesus placed on forgiveness and humility among his disciples. Concern over greatness, while natural in this age [and a hallmark of the way Rome conducts itself] is a contradiction of the life of the Kingdom (Mark 10:35 ff.). Those who have experienced the Kingdom of God are to display its life by a humble willingness to serve rather than by self-seeking.

Another evidence of the life of the Kingdom is a fellowship undisturbed by ill-will and animosity. This is why Jesus had so much to say about forgiveness, for perfect forgiveness is an evidence of love. Jesus even taught that human forgiveness and divine forgiveness are inseparable (Matt 6:12, 14). The parable on forgiveness makes it clear that human forgiveness is conditioned by divine forgiveness (Matt 18:23-35). The point of this parable is that when people claimed to have received the unconditioned and unmerited forgiveness of God, which is one of the gifts of the Kingdom, and then are unwilling to forgive relatively trivial offenses against themselves, they deny the reality of their very profession of divine forgiveness and by their conduct contradict the life and character of the Kingdom. Such people have not really experienced the forgiveness of God. It is therefore the church’s duty to display in an evil age of self-seeking, pride, and animosity the life and fellowship of the kingdom of God and the Age to Come. This display of Kingdom life is an essential element in the witness of the church to the Kingdom of God.

Note what is not being said here. No one is suggesting that “to be a part of the Kingdom you have to be perfect”. However, acts of humility and forgiveness are true manifestations of the Rule of God in the world. These are “the pillar and support of the Truth” (1 Tim 3:15) – and this is yet another place where Rome completely misses what Christ was trying to say, what God is trying to do in the world – and instead, this profound truth (1 Tim 3:15) is used to make the nonsensical claim that “the Roman Catholic Church cannot err.”

If committed Roman apologists cannot see this, they are truly lost.

Continuing with Ladd:

4. “The Church is the Instrument of the Kingdom.” The disciples of Jesus not only proclaimed the good news about the presence of the Kingdom; they were also instruments of the Kingdom in that the works of the Kingdom were performed through them as through Jesus himself. As they were preaching the Kingdom, they too healed the sick and cast out demons (Matt 10:8; Luke 10:17). Although theirs was a delegated power, the same power of the Kingdom worked through them that worked through Jesus. Their awareness that these miracles were wrought by no power resident in themselves accounts for the fact that they never performed miracles in a competitive or boastful spirit. …

This truth is implicit in the statement that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the church. (Matt 16:18). This image of the gates of the realm of the dead is a familiar Semitic concept. … As instruments of the Kingdom, [Jesus’ disciples] had seen people delivered from bondage to sickness and death (Matt 10:8). This messianic struggle with the powers of death, which had been raging in Jesus’ ministry and had been shared by his disciples, will be continued in the future, and the church will be the instrument of God’s kingdom in this struggle.

5. The Church is the Custodian of the Kingdom”. The rabbinic concept of the Kingdom of God conceived of Israel as the custodian of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God was the rule of God that began on earth in Abraham, and was committed to Israel through the Law. Since the rule of God could be experienced only through the Law, and since Israel was the custodian of the Law, Israel was in effect the custodian of the Kingdom of God. When Gentiles became Jewish proselytes and adopted the Law, they thereby took upon themselves the sovereignty of heaven, the Kingdom of God. God’s rule was mediated to the Gentiles through Israel; they alone were the “sons of the kingdom.”

In Jesus, the reign of God manifested itself in a new redemptive event, displaying in an unexpected way within history the powers of the eschatological Kingdom. The nation as a whole rejected the proclamation of this divine event, but those who accepted it became the true children of the Kingdom and entered into the enjoyment of its blessings and powers. These disciples of Jesus, his ekklesia, now became the custodians of the Kingdom rather than the nation Israel. The Kingdom is taken from Israel and given to others – Jesus’ ekklesia (Mk 12:9). Jesus’ disciples not only witness to the Kingdom and are the instruments of the Kingdom as it manifests its powers in this age; they are also its custodians.

This fact is expressed in the saying about the keys [of the Kingdom, and Rome’s interpretation that] whatever they bind or loose on earth will be bound or loosed in heaven (Mt 16:19). Since the idiom of binding and loosing in rabbinical usage often refers to prohibiting or permitting certain actions, this saying has frequently been interpreted to refer to administrative control over the church. Background for this concept is found in Isaiah 22:22 where God entrusted to Eliakim the key to the house of David, an act that included administration of the entire house. According to this interpretation, Jesus gave Peter the authority to make decisions for conduct in the church over which he is to exercise supervision. When Peter set aside Jewish ritual practices that there might be free fellowship with the gentiles, he exercised administrative authority.

… another interpretation lies nearer at hand. Jesus condemned the scribes and the Pharisees because they had taken away the key of knowledge, refusing to enter the Kingdom of God themselves or to permit others t enter (Luke 11:52). The same though appears in the first Gospel. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in” (Matt 23:13). In biblical idiom, knowledge is more than intellectual perception. It is “a spiritual possession resting on revelation.” The authority entrusted to Peter is grounded upon revelation, that is, spiritual knowledge, which he shared with the twelve. The keys of the Kingdom are therefore “the spiritual insight which will enable Peter to lead others in through the door of revelation through which he has passed himself.”

The authority to bind and loose involves the admission or exclusion of people from the realm of the Kingdom of God. Christ will build his ekklesia upon Peter and upon those who share the divine revelation of Jesus’ messiahship. To them also is committed by virtue of this same revelation the means of permitting people to enter the realm of the blessings of the Kingdom or of excluding them from such participation (cf Acts 10).

This interpretation receives support from rabbinic usage, for binding or loosing can also refer to putting under ban or to acquitting. This meaning is patent in Matthew 18:18 where a member of the congregation who is unrepentant of sin against his brother is to be excluded from the fellowship; for “whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” The same truth is found in a Johannine saying where the resurrected jesus performs the acted parable of breathing on his disciples, thus promising them the Holy Spirit as equipment for their future mission. Then Jesus said, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23). This cannot be understood as the exercise of an arbitrary authority. It is the inevitable issue of witnessing to the Kingdom of God. It is furthermore an authority exercised not by Peter but by all the disciples – the church.

As a matter of fact, the disciples had already exercised this authority of binding and loosing when they visited the cities of Israel, proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Wherever they and their message were accepted, peace rested upon that house; but wherever they and their message were rejected, the judgment of God was sealed to that house (Matt 10:14, 15). They were indeed instruments of the Kingdom in effecting the forgiveness of sins; and by virtue of that very fact, they were also custodians of the Kingdom. Their ministry had the actual result either of opening the door of the Kingdom to men and women or of shutting it to those who spurned their message.

This truth is expressed in other sayings. “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Matt 10:40; see Mark 9:37).

I have much more to say about the notion that God put Peter in charge and that the “government” of the church would have the same government in place for all of history. In truth, God is the “government” and if Peter had the keys, they were for a specific task, a specific purpose. There is no concept that keys would be handed on. There is no sense that “thrones” would be handed on. Roman (and other bishops) made that assumption. But God is the Authority. God is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory.

God rules. That is the message implicit and explicit in ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεο, “the Kingdom of God”.

God’s Divine Government is not “the Church”

In a recent post, I discussed “the Kingdom of God” as a concept, as it is presented in the Gospel of Mark, in a study by R.T. France: “Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Mark” (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, ©1990). France noted that the Greek phrase ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεο, frequently translated “the Kingdom of God” and in shorthand, “the Kingdom”, misses the true sense of that phrase.

In reality, the sense that Mark (and the other New Testament writers) overwhelmingly intend is, “There is, as we have noted, no reference in Mark to ‘the kingdom’ as if it were a ‘thing’ in itself. It is ‘God’ that is the controlling noun. The message of Mark 1.15 is not that a change of government is imminent, but that God is taking over (which potentially puts a question mark against any human political programme, even a Jewish one)”.

For the sake of this and subsequent articles on the topic, and without going into too much detail at this point, I will note that the phrases “The Kingdom of God” and “The Kingdom of Heaven” are essentially equivalent – Matthew, writing to a largely Jewish audience, used the word “Heaven” “as a reverential substitute for “God”. (Schreiner, “New Testament Theology,” pg 46.) “It follows, on this view, that the expressions “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” refer to the same reality and should not be distinguished.” I’m not sure that anyone contests this.

With that said, I’d like to give yet another example of official Roman Catholic dogmatic arrogance in the face of God. I’d like to compare France’s portrayal of “Divine Government” with the concept that this Called to Communion article by Bryan Cross and Thomas Brown entitled “Christ Founded a Visible Church” portrays: that “The Roman Catholic Church is the Kingdom of God”.

Many Christians do not realize that the Catholic Church is and claims to be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, in the Kingdom’s nascent stage. They mistakenly think of the Kingdom as either entirely invisible, entirely spiritual, or entirely future. Lumen Gentium specifically affirms that the Church is Christ’s Kingdom:

The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world [Lumen Gentium 3].

By “present in mystery” the Council meant that the Catholic Church is the Kingdom of Heaven in its beginning or seminal stage, i.e. the stage prior to the return of Christ. We do not now see the fullness of the Kingdom. But the Catholic Church is the present rule of Christ on the earth. Jesus did not say to Peter, “I give you the keys of the Church, but I retain the keys of the Kingdom.” Rather, Jesus said to Peter, “I will give to you [singular] the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” The keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are the apostolic authority over the Church. That is why the Catechism says,

The Church is the seed and beginning of this kingdom. Her keys are entrusted to Peter [CCC 567].

To fulfill the Father’s will, Christ ushered in the Kingdom of heaven on earth. The Church is the Reign of Christ already present in mystery [CCC 763].

The [Roman Catholic] Church is ultimately one, holy, catholic, and apostolic in her deepest and ultimate identity, because it is in her that the Kingdom of heaven, the Reign of God, already exists and will be fulfilled at the end of time [CCC 865].

***End of “Called-to-Communion” quote***

First of all, note the condescension: “Many people do not realize…” My guess is that no one really knows what Lumen Gentium is saying here. (There is “plausible deniability” built into every official Roman Catholic doctrinal statement. Steve Hays has documented this phenomenon magnificently in his article The Magisterial cat-and-mouse game.) It is characteristic of Roman Catholic understanding of dogma today that its language is so convoluted that, no matter what “interpretation” is given, it can always be claimed (by writers like Bryan Cross and Thomas Brown) that “we [or they] didn’t truly and infallibly capture the meaning of the dogma”. Of course, the language is so convoluted, no one can. On the other hand, this convoluted method of expression lends itself perfectly to the lofty types of claims that are made in this article.

There is a lot to sort through in these selections. Here is how Lumen Gentium 3 actually says it, equating “the Roman Catholic Church” with “The Kingdom of God”:

To carry out the will of the Father, Christ inaugurated the Kingdom of heaven on earth and revealed to us the mystery of that kingdom. By His obedience He brought about redemption. The Church, or, in other words, the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery, grows visibly through the power of God in the world.

One of the difficulties in dealing with Roman Catholic Vatican II teachings is the denseness of the language that is used. And this is a prime example of it. By the phrase, “in other words”, it seems as if the writers of this document seem to be equating “The Church” and “the kingdom of Christ now present in mystery”.

But things are not always what they seem.

Look then at the phrase that Cross and Brown use, “We do not now see the fullness of the Kingdom. But the Catholic Church is the present rule of Christ on the earth.” And keep in mind that when Cross and Brown say the word “Church”, they mean “the Roman Catholic Church” and its visible hierarchy.

The Bible does not talk about a visible hierarchy, but in official Roman conciliar (Vatican II) dogma, “the mystery of the church” somehow becomes “manifest” – this one is not hard to find, a few paragraphs down, still quoting Lumen Gentium:

The mystery of the holy Church is manifest in its very foundation. The Lord Jesus set it on its course by preaching the Good News, that is, the coming of the Kingdom of God, which, for centuries, had been promised in the Scriptures: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand". In the word, in the works, and in the presence of Christ, this kingdom was clearly open to the view of men. The Word of the Lord is compared to a seed which is sown in a field; those who hear the Word with faith and become part of the little flock of Christ, have received the Kingdom itself. Then, by its own power the seed sprouts and grows until harvest time. The Miracles of Jesus also confirm that the Kingdom has already arrived on earth: "If I cast out devils by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you". Before all things, however, the Kingdom is clearly visible in the very Person of Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, who came "to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many:"

When Jesus, who had suffered the death of the cross for mankind, had risen, He appeared as the one constituted as Lord, Christ and eternal Priest, and He poured out on His disciples the Spirit promised by the Father. From this source the [Roman Catholic] Church, equipped with the gifts of its Founder and faithfully guarding His precepts of charity, humility and self-sacrifice, receives the mission to proclaim and to spread among all peoples the Kingdom of Christ and of God and to be, on earth, the initial budding forth of that kingdom. While it slowly grows, the [Roman Catholic] Church strains toward the completed Kingdom and, with all its strength, hopes and desires to be united in glory with its King.

This is a classical Roman Catholic bait-and-switch. At the beginning of this passage, it’s a “mystery”, but when the smoke clears, at the end, the “mystery”, presto-changeo, clearly reveals and assumes that the Roman Catholic Church is “the Kingdom of God”.

No amount of analysis can show just how this equation is made. It is “a mystery” and then, voila, it is “manifest”.

But what is “the Kingdom of God”? Cross and Brown doesn’t simply make this claim (that “the Roman Catholic Church” is “the Kingdom of God”). They give a specific time and identity to this “kingdom” and makes the claim that the Roman Catholic Church is no less than the Kingdom prophesied in the Old Testament. Let’s take a couple of representative looks:

The New Testament authors understand the Church as the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. The angel Gabriel tells Mary that the Lord God will give her Son the “throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

See how they equivocate – or rather, they allow Roman Catholic teaching to serve as the “touch point” to equate “The Kingdom of God” (the Kingdom of the Son of David) with “the Roman Catholic Church”. There is no exegetical justification given to show that “the Roman Catholic Church” is “The Kingdom of God”.

Look at the language Cross and Brown use, trying to make their own exegetical link: “the Catholic Church is and claims to be the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, in the Kingdom’s nascent stage”.

Christ’s teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a dragnet that gathers fish of every kind is paralleled in the account in John 21 where the disciples catch 153 fish and draw the net upon the land. That account clearly refers to the Apostles, as fishers of men, bringing all the nations into the Church, and in this way we again see that the Church is the Kingdom in its present stage.

Right at the heart, where, if Cross and Brown are trying to prove from the Scriptures that “the Roman Catholic Church is “The Kingdom of God”, they misuse it. They set up the Roman Catholic Church’s visible hierarchy, right here in John 21. But to do that, they need to have something other than Vatican II’s word for it. Exegetical justification for this reading is clearly lacking. To equate the Apostles with “rulership in the kingdom on earth” as they do is to clearly miss that God rules -- that is the exegetical meaning of “the kingdom”, and I’ll address this next time.

The Kingdom of God

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:14-15).

Μετὰ δὲ τὸ παραδοθῆναι τὸν Ἰωάννην ἦλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ λέγων ὅτι πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ.

I’ve recently picked up a small study by R.T. France: “Divine Government: God’s Kingship in the Gospel of Mark” (Vancouver, BC: Regent College Publishing, ©1990). France was Principal, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University (1989–95) and has authored a number of commentaries on both Matthew and Mark (among other things).

France says he titled his book “Divine Government” because English translations which render the Hebrew and Greek phrases as “the Kingdom of God” give too much of an impression that something with a definite size and shape is what’s being talked about. “There is, as we have noted, no reference in Mark to ‘the kingdom’ as if it were a ‘thing’ in itself. It is ‘God’ that is the controlling noun. The message of Mark 1.15 is not that a change of government is imminent, but that God is taking over (which potentially puts a question mark against any human political programme, even a Jewish one)” (pg 22). And I would say, it even puts a question mark against any program that involves the establishment of a “church authority” of any kind.

But surely it must be pedantic to insist that we use the exact biblical terminology. Where is the harm in a convenient abbreviation? I hope I am not usually a pedant, but in this case I do see a significant danger in the nearly universal modern use of ‘the kingdom’, a danger which is writ large when ‘kingdom’ comes to be used as an adjective. The danger arises from a twofold misunderstanding.

Firstly, the word ‘kingdom’ does not convey in modern English what the Hebrew/Aramaic malkut and the Greek basileia conveyed in their biblical context. It is a scholarly commonplace to point out that whereas ‘kingdom’ in English is today primarily a ‘concrete’ noun, with a clearly identifiable ‘thing’ to which it refers (whether a place or a community), the biblical nouns are abstract, and refer to the act of ruling, the situation of being king – as did the word ‘kingdom’ in the sixteenth-century English from which it has entered our biblical tradition (12).

Here France’s understanding of the original Biblical terms that are rendered “kingdom” undermines the concept that the “kingdom” is visible at all, much less that it is “a visible kingdom” or “a visible church”. “Kingdom” in the original languages connotes a verb, an activity, a movement. It is not “a visible thing”. But he goes further.

The second point follows naturally. If ‘the kingdom of God’ means ‘God being king’, then to abbreviate it to ‘the kingdom’ is to focus on the wrong one of the two nouns. To speak of ‘kingship’ without saying who is king is to speak only in a vague abstraction which can have no specific reference in itself. ‘The kingdom’ is about as meaningless as ‘the will’ or ‘the power’ used alone without a reference to whose will or power is in view. To make the point in terms of a familiar biblical text, ‘Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory” (Matt. 6.13) does not mean that there are antecedent self-existent ‘things’ called ‘the kingdom’, ‘the power’ and ‘the glory’, which have come into God’s possession. It means simply, ‘You are the king, you wield power, and you are glorious.’ It is a statement about God, not about ‘the kingdom’. The content of the phrase is no less than the great declaration of many Old Testament psalms, ‘The Lord is king’, or “God rules’.

There’s one more thing that I want to point out at the moment, and that is, happens invisibly, and automatically.

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:26-29).

The dynamic power of God’s kingship is the obvious point also of the parable of the growing seed (4.26-29). The emphasis falls on the ability of the seed to grow by itself. The farmer can go away and live his own life while the seed gets on with its growth; he doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to know, how it does it. The earth looks after the process by itself (automate), and all the farmer will need to do is to reap the crop which has been produced for him without his own effort. Any real-life farmer will tell you, of course, that it is not as simple as that today, that life between sowing and reaping is not simply extended holiday. But a parable is not necessarily a photographic reproduction of real life, and the story is clearly told in such a way as to emphasize the lack of human involvement. God’s kingship has its own dynamic, and is not dependent on human effort. It is, in other words, God’s saving power which is the subject of Jesus; message, not a human reform programme…. There is a secret here to be discovered. God is powerfully at work, but many will be unable to see it. But those who despise and even oppose Jesus’ mission are in for a surprise. And those who want to believe him but are tempted like John the Baptist to ask, ‘Are you really the one we were waiting for, or should we look for someone else?’ (Matt 11.3) may take heart: God’s work will be completed, in God’s way (32-33).

France’s exegetical analysis of the “Divine Government” in Mark, as we see it in the phrase “Kingdom of God”, has a direct bearing on those who say “God founded a visible church” and that “God gave the church a visible structure and government”. Of course he didn’t, and those who say he did are grossly misrepresenting what God’s program is all about.

And further, this is also a direct response to those who want to suggest that, because Sola Scriptura and “justification by faith alone”, as doctrines, were not articulated until the 16th century, that somehow they are not a part of God’s program. Both of these fundamental doctrines of the Reformation were simply a harvest on our part – the direct result of the work of God in our midst. “Our God Reigns”, and he does it in ways that surprise and delight us, with no effort at all on our part.