The COMING of JESUS and GOD’S RIGHTEOUS KINGDOM
I.) The Future Kingdom of God in the Torah and the Prophets
This hope first appeared in the Torah and the prophets, which both Christians and Muslims accept. It was usually voiced when Israel’s leaders were corrupt and unjust, and when wars and fears of war spread through the nations. This hope included six main features.
1.) The Righteous King. According to the prophet Isaiah, “the spirit of the Lord” would rest on him,
“the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord....
with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he will slay wicked.” (Isaiah 11: 2, 4; cf. 9:6-7, 32:1-2)
This king was often called the Messiah, which comes from the word for “anoint,” since kings were anointed when they began their reign
2.) The Kingdom of Justice and Peace. This King would reign over a world where all people would live together in harmony, and would treat each other justly. At that time “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” (Habakkuk 2:14; Isaiah 11:9) The earth would yield abundant fruits for everyone.[1]
3.) The Gathering of God’s People. The prophets often declared that Israel that would be conquered and taken captive into many foreign countries for their sins. Yet they added that God would eventually bring their descendants back. The hope for God’s Kingdom began to include their return, along with many natives of those foreign lands.
“In the days to come....
Many peoples shall come and say, `Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord....
that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ ....
God shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall the learn war any more.”[2]
4.) The Judgment of the Nations. As the previous passage indicates, the gathering of God’s people from all nations would be connected with God’s judgment on all nations. This was often portrayed as a great battle, where God would wage some kind of war against disobedient nations.[3]
But would the Messiah fight for God at that time? While some texts in the Hebrew Scriptures picture this, the majority do not.[4] For example, the prophet Isaiah, whom I recently quoted, prophesied that the Messiah would slay the wicked-- but “with the breath of his lips” (Isaiah 2:4). This passage seems to be figurative. However, since the Messiah would be a king, and since kings wage war, most people who embraced the Messianic hope before Jesus came assumed that the Messiah would be a warrior king.
5.) The Outpouring of God’s Spirit. God would not only gather the people and establish justice and peace, but would also become more present among them than ever before:
“I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female slaves, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.” (Joel 2:28-29)
Notice that God’s Spirit would come not simply to a few leaders, but to all people, including slaves, which implied that social inequality would be overcome.
Other prophets described this coming of God’s Spirit as a renewal of peoples’ hearts:
“I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them;
I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,
so that they may follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey them.”
(Ezekiel 11:19-20, cf. 37:14, Jeremiah 31:31-34)
6.) The Resurrection of the Dead. In earthly life, numerous righteous people suffer while many unrighteous people prosper. If God is just and rewards people according to their deeds, this will have to happen after death. At the End time, then, “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” (Daniel 12:2) At that time, God will “swallow up death forever!” (Isaiah 25:7) The “dead shall live, their corpses shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a radiant dew, and the earth will give birth to those long dead.” (Isaiah 26:19)
II.) The Future Kingdom of God and Jesus
When Jesus appeared, the land of Judah had been ruled by foreign empires for centuries. Hopes for a Messiah who would liberate the Jews from the current oppressor, the Roman Empire, ran high. Several Messianic pretenders had already declared war on the Romans, but had been terribly defeated.
Jesus’ main message was: Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand![5] His followers believed that he was the Messiah. But then something very unexpected occurred. Jesus never called his followers and legions of angels to fight the Romans. Instead, the Romans captured Jesus and, Christians believe, they crucified him. People at that time interpreted Jesus’ crucifixion as God’s judgment on him-- as evidence that his Messianic claims were false, and that those who crucified him were in the right.
But several days later, other unexpected events occurred: Jesus’ followers began seeing him and hearing him speak. What could these appearances mean?[6] The way that Jesus’ followers interpreted them, and several events that followed, is extremely important for understanding the Christian hope for God’s Kingdom. Jesus’ followers came to believe that through those later events, the Kingdom of God had already come to earth-- not yet in a complete, final way, but still in a very important sense. To explain this, let me indicate how those six features anticipated in the Torah and the prophets occurred in these events.
1.) The Resurrection of the Dead. Jesus’ followers understood his appearances to mean that the resurrection of the dead, which was expected at the End of history, had already occurred-- yet in a very unexpected fashion. They had expected that all humans would arise at the same time. Yet only one person, Jesus, had risen. The rest would not rise until he returned.
To express this, Jesus’ early followers called his resurrection “the firstfruits,”[7] and the future resurrection of everyone the full harvest. A harvest begins when the first grapes or ears of grain are ripe. Yet that harvest continues until everything ripens and is harvested. So if Jesus’ resurrection is “the firstfruits,” his resurrection and the final resurrection are not really two separate events. They are the beginning and end of one event: the resurrection which many generations hoped for when God’s Kingdom finally came.
2.) The Righteous King. When Jesus was crucified, it seemed that God was judging him for making false claims to be the Messiah. But when God raised Jesus from the dead, his early followers believed, this verdict was reversed. Jesus’ resurrection showed that God favored him, and that he was the long awaited righteous King. However, he was a very different kind of King than they expected. He was not a warrior, who killed his enemies, but a Messiah who taught people to love their enemies, and not to resist them violently, even if their enemies wanted to kill them.
3.) The Judgment of the Nations. When Jesus’ enemies killed him, it seemed they were in the right and had God’s favor. But when Jesus was raised, this verdict also was reversed. Now those who had crucified him were guilty of killing God’s Messiah. The Romans and Israel’s religious leaders played the main role in this crime, and the crowds who supported this were Jewish. Western Christianity has often blamed the Jews for Jesus’ death, and persecuted them horribly. But this is not the true Christian understanding of who killed Jesus.
Christians believe that all people, in all places and times, have sinned, and are under God’s judgment. Although some people seem to be better than others on the surface, they all, in the deepest sense, oppose God, and are God’s enemies. Christians believe that if they had been in Jerusalem in Jesus’ time, they would have participated in his crucifixion in some way. If you ask a Christian, “Who killed Jesus?” the honest answer would be “I did. Although I was not actually there, I have committed the same kinds of sins as those who killed Jesus.”[8] If all people participate in Jesus’ death in this way, then everyone, not only the people in Jerusalem at that time, is guilty of his death, and is judged guilty by his resurrection. This is how God’s judgment of all nations, expected at history’s End, was executed in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
This means that Jesus’ death cannot be blamed on any one race or people more than on others. It also means that Christians, who claim to be saved through Jesus’ death, cannot deserve salvation more than others. People receive this salvation not because they are better than others, but only when they repent and confess that, if anything, they are worse than others. Consequently, Jesus’ true Church, or those who receive the benefits of his death, cannot belong to any one, superior nation. If most Americans claim to be Christians, this does not make America closer to God than other peoples. It only makes Americans who call themselves Christians more responsible to live as Jesus taught, and more guilty if they do not.
4.) The Kingdom of Justice and Peace. Jesus was the righteous king, who promoted righteous laws and social behaviors. His teachings were designed to create a new kind of social group. In Jesus’ time, rich people were valued much more highly than poor people; similarly, men were valued over women, Jews over Gentiles (non-Jews), and strict religious people over unreligious people. But Jesus’ teachings “reversed” these ways of evaluating people..
Jesus sharply criticized wealth and showed special concern for the poor. Jesus valued and welcomed women, Gentiles and unreligious people in remarkable ways. He did not mean that rich and poor social classes should literally exchange places, as in some versions of Marxism. Jesus meant that wealthy people should give up their quest for and dependence on wealth, so that all people could share the riches of the earth. Similarly, he meant that women and men, Gentiles and Jews, and religious and non-religious people should not change places, but develop fruitful and just relationships with each other. In this way God’s Kingdom, expected at the End of history, would become present in some real sense.
To an oppressed people, Jesus’ taught an even more remarkable change of attitude. Rather than hating or fighting your enemies, he said, show them love.[9] If a Roman soldier forces you to carry his pack for one mile, voluntarily carry it another mile (Matthew 5:41). Jesus followed his own teaching when he refused to fight the Romans, and as he died, he prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:24)
5.) The Outpouring of God’s Spirit. Fifty days after Jesus ascended into heaven his followers were still gathering secretly, because they were afraid of his enemies. But suddenly “a sound like the rush of a violent wind... filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” (Acts 2:2-3) In this way the outpouring of God’s “spirit on all flesh... Even on the male and female slaves,” which was expected at history’s End, began. (Joel 2:28-29). In this way also, God’s Kingdom arrived in some real sense.
The Holy Spirit enabled Jesus’ followers to shake off their fears, and gave them the strength to follow his teachings. This was that renewal of people’s hearts which the prophets had also foretold.
6.) The Gathering of God’s People. When the Holy Spirit first filled Jesus’ followers, they were also enabled to tell the good news about Jesus in many languages. On that day, Jews who lived in almost every foreign country were in Jerusalem to celebrate a festival. With them were many “proselytes:” natives of those countries who wanted to join the people of Abraham. When this crowd heard the good news in their own languages, 3,000 of them were baptized and joined Jesus’ followers. This was the beginning of a distinct social group called the Church.
Although the good news was first addressed mostly to Jews and proselytes, before long it spread to many other countries where multitudes accepted it. In this way, another event anticipated at the End, the ingathering of God’s people from all nations, began to occur, and would continue until Jesus returned. In its first few centuries, the Church spread far to the east of Judea as well as far to the west. From the beginning, the Christian faith aimed to bring justice, peace and harmony to all nations.
These relationships between the Torah’s and the prophets’ hope for God’s future kingdom and the appearance of Jesus are extremely important for understanding the Christian expectation of Jesus’ coming. Christians believe that in Jesus’ history and the other events just mentioned, that earlier hope was already fulfilled in some significant sense, although it was not yet fulfilled in a complete sense. The final “harvest” had arrived because the “firstfruits” had already appeared. Yet it would continue until all fruits had ripened and been harvested. This tension between God’s Kingdom already being present and not yet being present may sound like a contradiction. Nevertheless, it is central to the biblical understanding of Jesus’ coming, for this is a two-fold coming.
