Tag: George Eldon Ladd

Posted on

The Kingdom of God Is . . .

 

The Now and Not Yet of the Kingdom

Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Luke 12:31-32 ESV

The Kingdom of God is the presence of the future–a foretaste of heaven. It is a foretaste–an advance sample–of what life will be like when dwelling in God’s exquisite presence in heaven.  The kingdom is the inbreaking of heaven: the dynamic rule and reign of God has come and presently is touching the earth.  All that heaven will be–freedom from sickness, deliverance from oppression, joy in forgiveness, etc.–experienced now in Christ Jesus. The Kingdom has come in Christ and is advancing throughout the world; however, the Kingdom will not be completely established until the Second Coming of Christ.

Presently, the kingdom of God spiritually reigns in the hearts of those who have made Christ Lord of their lives and is manifested in and through them by the Holy Spirit’s presence, preaching of the Gospel, healing of the sick, and release from demonic bondage, etc. (Luke 4:16-20, 43). The Kingdom of God advances by conquering men and women’s hearts through the power of the Cross: the Holy Spirit changes us from self-centered slobs to Christ-centered servants (John 3:3, 2 Cor. 5:14-15). In the future, the Kingdom of God will be firmly established on earth upon the visible return of Christ.

We celebrate our feasts with joy, because we have a foretaste of a future world in which we may discard all that is temporal and earthly, and in which the Lord himself is everything.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, Jesus Is Victor, Keep Your Feasts with Joy (Breakfast with Blumhardt, Daily Email Devotion), May 3, 2005; available from http://www.blumhardts.com/.

When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God he was not referring to the general sovereignty of God over nature and history, but to that specific rule over his own people which he himself had inaugurated, and which begins in anybody’s life when he humbles himself, repents, believes, submits and is born again.  God’s kingdom is Jesus Christ ruling over his people in total blessing and total demand.

To ‘seek first’ this kingdom is to desire as of first importance the spread of the reign of Jesus Christ.  Such a desire will start with ourselves, until every single department of our life — home, marriage and family, personal morality, professional life and business ethics, bank balance, tax returns, lifestyle, citizenship — is joyfully and freely submissive to Christ.  It will continue in our immediate environment, with the acceptance of evangelistic responsibility towards our relatives, colleagues, neighbors and friends.  And it will also reach out in global concern for the missionary witness of the church.

John Stott, The Message of the Sermon on the Mount, The Bible Speaks Today Series (Leicester and Downers Grove: IVP, 1978), 170.

Posted on

The Blessed Hope (Sermon Series)

The Second Coming of Jesus

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Thess 4:16-17 (ESV)

Sunday at Lamb of God, I began a series of sermons on the Second Coming of Christ. My burden is that our parish would come to experience the pure joy of anticipating Christ’s return. Too often, Second Coming teaching has generated fear and confusion in the church. My desire is to preach Christ and not a theological system. Our focus will not be on the mark of the beast, secret rapture, and/or secular events, but the final triumph of Christ. When Christ appears, he will completely defeat the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil. Paul describes the Second Coming as the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13) not a tormenting fear, or a tragic disaster, or a lost cause, but a blessed hope.

Biblical hope is not a wishful desire, but the confident expectation that the good things that God has promised he will bring to pass. We hope to see Jesus face-to-face. We hope to see loved ones again who have died in Christ. We hope that sickness and suffering will end and death will be no more. This Biblical hope does not disappoint (Rom. 5:5) for one day Christ will appear in the clouds and death will be defeated (1 Cor. 15:25-26) and we will reign with him forever.

Salvation is not a matter that concerns only the destiny of the individual soul. It includes the entire course of human history and mankind as a whole. The coming of Christ is a definitive event for all men; it means either salvation or judgment. Furthermore, salvation is not merely an individual matter; it concerns the whole people of God, and it includes the transformation of the entire physical order.

George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974), 557.

My message can found at the Lamb of God Charismatic Episcopal Church website for listening or downloading.