The Kingdom: Now, but Not Yet

The Kingdom is now, but not yet. Jesus’ rule has been established through the Cross and resurrection. Through faith in Jesus people are able to becomes citizens of the Kingdom. At the same time, the Kingdom is not yet. Jesus has yet to pronounce final judgement. Not only this, but Jesus has also yet to establish his physical Kingdom on earth where his people no longer suffer the pains of sin and death and the ongoing, earthly rule of evil. Yes, Jesus has overthrown the powers of this world and he has overcome the principalities and authorities of the old evil age. And yet, Kingdom citizens get cancer. Kingdom citizens suffer, just as he did. The Messianic people are persecuted just as he was. All of this evidences that while Christ has gained victory through the Cross, the Evil One still reigns on earth. The final and complete destruction of the Evil One is not yet.

Two camps have emerged in attempts to reconcile these seemingly contradictory and paradoxical realities. The first camp we can call triumphalism and the second defeatism. Triumphalism has made the mistake of neglecting, and sometimes altogether ignoring, the not yet dimension of the Kingdom. Triumphalists teach that because of Christ’s victory, God’s people are never to suffer. They teach that the fullness of the Kingdom is now. Not only that, if God’s people do suffer it is because of sin or a lack of faith or sin. This goes hand in hand with economic status as well. God, according to triumphalists, wills his people to not only have health, but also wealth and prosperity. Kingdom citizens aren’t poor because God reigns through Jesus and God certainly God will his people to be poor. Poverty, then, must be the consequence of sin. This position, once again, altogether dismisses that New Testament writers taught that while the Kingdom is now, it is also not yet. The fulness of the Kingdom of God has yet to arrive.

On the other side of the same coin we have defeatism. Defeatism overemphasizes the not yet dimension of the Kingdom and neglects the now. Defeatism has a tendency to take a posture that says something like, “Well, until Christ’s return, I will live the best I can, as a sinner enslaved to sin in this body of sin until I die or until Christ’s return, whichever comes first.” Defeatism, like Luther, takes Romans 7 to be a description of the average Christian life by which we should set our expectations. On this matter E. P. Sanders writes,

Luther saw the Christian life as summed up in Romans 7:21, ‘I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand’, whereas Paul thought that this was the plight from which people were freed through Christ (Rom. 7:24; 8:1–8). ‘You’, he wrote, ‘are note in the Flesh, you are in the Spirit’; and those in the Spirit, he fought, did not do the sinful deeds ‘of the Flesh’ (Rom. 8:9–17; Gal. 5:16–24) (Sanders, Paul, 58).

Defeatism, like Luther, forgets to read Romans 8. This is a mistake. Yes, we are to suffer now because the fulness of the Kingdom has yet to arrive, however, the Kingdom has, in fact, been launched and deliverance begins today. Something else that defeatism tragically misses is that Christ has commissioned his church to be the agents by which the Kingdom is established on earth. Defeatism has neglected the mission.

Both defeatism and triumphalism have their problems. At the same time, they share one problem and that is that both focus on me. What do I mean by this? I mean that the starting point for salvation is what Christ has, or will do, for the believer as opposed to the focus being on what Christ does through the believer for himself. There is a tragic neglect of the critically important dimension of Christ through me. In terms of prepositions, we can talk about what Christ does for the Church, what Christ does to the Church, what Christ does in the Church, and what Christ does through the Church for himself. This is a theme that we see in the book of Jeremiah where God promises through the prophet Jeremiah that he will redeem rebellious Israel, not for their sake but for his own. The shared error of defeatism and triumphalism is that salvation is understood with the believer as the primary point of reference rather than with Jesus and the Holy Trinity as the primary point of reference. We will also see that this can also stand as a valid critique of the more traditional ways of talking about holiness. We have a habit of talking about holiness with ourselves being the primary point of reference.  This, once again, isn’t all bad, but it is out of balance and needs corrected. We will flesh this out a bit more below.

So how can we properly, from a strong biblical framework, bring these two realities of now but not yet together? Jesus reigns, yet evil still seems to greatly prevail. How is it that the triumph is now, but not yet? Can it be truly considered “triumph” while the war still seems to be raging on? “Victory?,” you may ask. When Christians are persecuted and the world’s conscience seems to be deteriorating? How can this be?

These questions are essentially trying to get at a biblical eschatology in which Paul’s understanding of holiness is only properly placed. In other words, all of this sets the framework for correctly placing Paul’s understanding of holiness. It is in this eschatological context that we are able to explore how Paul thought about things like sin in believers, the transformation of the heart, and the gradual manifestation of the Kingdom of God through the Church by means of the Holy Spirit. We will see that it is this entire picture, is in fact, the biblical doctrine of holiness, holiness in fresh perspective.

So what of the now? We often think, and not wrongly so, that in the now of Christ’s Kingdom believers have found a spiritual victory. This is all well and good, but for me, not entirely satisfactory. It remains a bit vague. So what is the exact nature of this spiritual victory? Are we talking only about the current (now) deliverance from the shame and guilt of sin and a sin nature (the “old self”, (Rom 6:6; Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9) beyond which we simply wait for death or Christ’s return hoping that our faith remains in tact in the meantime? Or, are we talking about a deliverance from actual sinning altogether? If the answer to this latter question is yes, then what kind of freedom from sinning can we expect to experience? Deliverance from all sin, both of commission and omissions? Can the sin nature be fully eradicated in this life? Did Paul teach that we can expect to be free from sinning altogether in this life? This is one of the central questions we will try to tackle in this chapter.

Another dynamic that we still need to wrestle with is the mission of God and holiness. This, I hope, is the where we will bring together all the various dimensions discussed so far in discovering holiness in fresh perspective. Is holiness first and foremost an ontological thing or a missional thing? Perhaps the ontological and vocational dynamics of holiness are two sides to the same coin. I sense, as the reader will see, that this is precisely the case. History has tended to focus much more on only one side of the coin. While this isn’t altogether unhelpful or wrong, it is out of balance and needs corrected. We have spoken much more in terms of overcoming temptation as the form of holiness and Kingdom living than we have about being Christ incarnate with a mission to redeem as the form of holiness. Holiness is both of these. We cannot have one without the other, as we will see. Holiness is something that Kingdom citizens both are and do. In fact, as we will see, the ontological feature of this dual dimensional nature of holiness is brought about through the faithfulness to our calling. Holiness as vocation is often times the precursor for holiness as being.

Finally, as all of the various pieces of the elaborate mosaic come together, we will explore the kind of kingdom we are talking about. We have thoroughly assessed and described the old age, the old era, but have not, at this point, said much about the Messiah’s Kingdom as relates to the covenant people of God. We have said, on the one hand, a bit about the quality of the kingdom. We said that this Kingdom was diametrically opposed to the kingdoms of fallen humanity. But what of the covenant people Kingdom? What kind of people are we? It is with this question that we will finish.

(This is an excerpt from a book manuscript titled Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom. All rights reserved)