What Kingdom Are We Expecting?

The combination of challenges at this time are prompting reflection and speculation about the trajectory for the future. Pandemic, fires, hurricanes, racial tensions and civil unrest, election year, economic uncertainty, climate change. In some Christian circles these are being interpreted as signs that the return of Christ is imminent. With some level of irony, some in those circles are reacting to measures being taken to address the concerns as malevolent indicators of impending evil totalitarianism. Some other Christians use some of the same eschatalogical imagery to articulate their distressed but less ominous responses to the particular characteristics of this time. Though I am not going to attempt to sift all of that out, this awareness did remind me of a piece I wrote for my Pilgrim Path blog in July 2017. http://nstolpepilgrim.blogspot.com/2017/07/reverse-rapture.html  That prompted me to write a bit of my personal understanding of the history of Christian eschatalogical thought in September of this year (2020). http://nstolpewriting.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-few-landmarks-on-dispensational.html 

During this time of awareness and reflection, the hymn Lead On, O King Eternal came up in my regular rotation of singing a hymn as I start each day, in keeping with the rhythms of Benedictine spirituality. The last half of verse three arrested my attention. “Not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums; with deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes.” The words were written in 1887 by Ernest W. Shurtleff (1862-1917) as the graduation hymn for his Andover Theological Seminary class of 1888. He became a congregational pastor, and the words express the understanding of the mission of the Church to be the agent of bringing the Kingdom of God to reality in the world that was common at the time. He died in 1917 doing relief work in France during the Great War (we call it World War I), which certainly fit with his vision and sense of calling.

To be sure, theological trends and styles emerge and fade, developing over time in response to both events and fresh exploration. I don’t believe that undermines at all the credibility of Scripture or the durability of the Gospel. But I think recognizing that this hymn was written before the heyday of dispensationalism is significant, however it is handled and interpreted. I do not want to imply this line from a hymn (or even the whole hymn and its history) are somehow an authoritative key for interpreting biblical eschatology. However, for me it poses a question I have pondered for many years without organizing or setting down my thoughts. That question might be phrased, “What Kingdom are we expecting?”

I have often heard that when Jesus came proclaiming “the Kingdom of God is near,” many of his time mistakenly thought in terms of a political/military kingdom that would overthrow the Roman Empire and establish Israel as not only independent but dominant over the entire world (at least what they knew of the world). This was based on the hope and understanding of restoration they read in the prophets. But when Jesus offered a Kingdom of peace and mercy, compassion and love, it was neither understood nor accepted. Jesus’ contemporaries did not, could not, understand a first and second coming of the Messiah. They missed what Jesus brought in the first coming that still awaits his second coming.

Various eschatalogical schemes seem to me to posit the very things Jesus’ contemporaries were mistakenly looking for. It is often assumed to be in the affirmations of his coming in “power and great glory” as the Wheaton College statement of faith expressed it in 1993 when it removed the specific reference to premillennialism. Though “power and great glory” don’t specify political or military power and glory, they seem to be associated with the dramatic battle imagery of Revelation, as though those were literalistic and not metaphorical or symbolic. Even when they are seen as symbols, they are applied to pretty typically militaristic expressions. I don’t want to get into exegetical controversies but move in a different direction with a broad view.

First, is that it seems to me that to assume that we know better than Jesus’ contemporaries and have a correct understanding of the two commings is arrogant at best. Yes, we have the advantage of the witness of the New Testament and the indwelling Holy Spirit, but I think that ought to inculcate in us humility and a willingness to trust God to be at work in ways that are hidden or not understood by us. I believe authentic faith is to live with the reality that I don’t, can’t, and won’t know most things.

Second, and to me much more important, is the nature of the Kingdom of God that Jesus announced. Though each Gospel brings its own distinctive perspective, I see the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6 are the most complete portraits of the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed. Because of our human presuppositions, those principles are often regarded as signs of weakness rather than power and great glory. In some eschatalogical schemes they are relegated to a future that we should not even seek to experience here and now. I would suggest that such thinking misses the point that peace and mercy, compassion and love are far more powerful and glorious than the most celebrated political or military imaginable. The cross is mightier than the sword.