The most important and foundational shift in my theology came when I understood the kingdom of God, and as a result changed how I saw the gospel. But to know how to get there, we have to set the stage.
If you ask most evangelicals today what the gospel is, they will most likely tell you something along the lines of “Jesus died for my sins so I could be saved. This means I will live forever in heaven, not hell.” There are a lot of half-truths in that statement, but enough that in its totality it is woefully incomplete and wrong. It centers the gospel on the individual. It makes Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection about me and where I go when I die. In that way it can successfully ignore Jesus’ teachings or at least relegate them to the prelude before the big show. It makes our religion about the afterlife, not this life.
Now let us step back and examine the whole of the story. In the beginning the story tells us that the ideal is the unity of heaven and earth. Heaven being God’s space (where he reigns) and earth being our space (where we reign as his image bearers). But the humans choose to seize power for themselves and a separation occurs. Now the two spaces are no longer one, but separate. When we see YHWH enter the narrative with Abraham he manifests himself in various “hot-spots”. Bush, cloud, pillar of fire, messenger, tabernacle, temple. These are all intersections of heaven and earth. Additionally, the promises of God and the hope of the prophets, is not eternal afterlife, but bodily resurrection and redemption of THIS earth.
Jesus appears on the scene and now he says he is the temple. He is the intersection of heaven and earth. He goes about healing, giving, loving, and spreading the kingdom of God, which is the place where God reigns, and is the uniting of heaven and earth. When Jesus ascends into heaven (don’t think going up there somewhere, but more along the lines of another dimension) he leaves us with his Spirit and now says we are temples! We are the intersection of heaven and earth. We are the kingdom of God. Where we go and proclaim that he is king, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and clothe the naked, we are expanding his kingdom. This is why when he begins his ministry he proclaims, “God’s good news, saying, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” (Mark 1:14-15)
The gospel is that the story of Israel has been fulfilled in the story of Jesus. His kingdom has been inaugurated. He is king. If this is true then no other can be king. No other can gain our allegiance. Our allegiance is to him and his kingdom alone.
Because he is king, and because he showed us the way to be truly human, he did take on the sin of the world. The sin of the systems that oppress. He took them on himself when he absorbed the violence of the empire, the mob, and the Jewish religious leaders. He absorbed it all and destroyed it from the inside out when he rose from the dead having burst the bonds of sin and death.
We are now participating in his work of expanding his kingdom, like yeast in dough. This will continue until he returns, bringing heaven to earth, fully united. We will once again walk this earth when it is redeemed, not destroyed, and we will do it in our redeemed bodies.
This is the gospel and our hope.
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