Excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf and Stock, expected 2015).
The Gospels make it clear that even though the Old Testament prepared for the fulfillment of God’s World Renewal Plan something had to of gone wrong if the Messiah ended up on a Roman cross, right? What people didn’t expect, however, was for the Kingdom to be launched through the suffering, death, and resurrection of the King. This dimension of the kingdom and the king only made sense after Pentecost. It was once believers had the illumination of the Holy Spirit that they understood what the Kingdom was all about and how it was through the Cross alone that the kingdom could come in its fullness. They also understood that it was through Jesus’ weakness and submission that his power and authority over the earth as the rightful King was established. Finally, through the witness of the resurrected body of Christ, they understood that the Kingdom would be more than a kingdom; it would be a new creation. In Jesus, God became king, launched his Kingdom on earth, as well as the New Creation. The end of God’s World Renewal Plan had begun.