The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross E-Book

Patrick Schreiner

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Short Studies in Biblical Theology
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 221

Beschreibung

"The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches." —Matthew 13:31–32 When Jesus began his ministry, he announced that the kingdom of God was at hand. But many modern-day Christians don't really understand what the kingdom of God is or how it relates to the message of the gospel. Defining kingdom as the King's power over the King's people in the King's place, Patrick Schreiner investigates the key events, prophecies, and passages of Scripture that highlight the important theme of kingdom across the storyline of the Bible—helping readers see how the mission of Jesus and the coming of the kingdom fit together. Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series.

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“The kingdom of God is central to the biblical storyline and should become central in our theology. A clear, faithful, and solid portrayal of the kingdom, this volume helps us both understand the biblical teaching on the kingdom and view the Bible through the vantage point of the kingdom of God.”

Christopher W. Morgan, Dean and Professor of Theology, California Baptist University; editor, The Kingdom of God and The Glory of God; contributor, Systematic Theology Study Bible

“Patrick Schreiner’s biblical theology of the kingdom of God is exactly what the church needs to help her pursue God’s justice on earth: a lucid, precise, and concise book about the kingdom of God that’s grounded in accessible biblical exegesis and provides keen theological insights, while keeping the cross of Jesus at the center of the analysis. Highly recommended!”

Jarvis J. Williams, Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“Patrick Schreiner has given a wonderful gift to the church through this book on the kingdom of God. It’s a creatively written and accessible entryway into this essential biblical theme. Schreiner honors the unified narrative shape of the Old and New Testaments, and he shows how every part of the Bible (including the Wisdom Literature!) contributes to the developing portrait of God’s kingdom over creation and new creation. If you’ve ever struggled to understand this complex biblical theme or tried to communicate it to others, you’ve now found the place to start.”

Tim Mackie, Cofounder, The Bible Project; Adjunct Professor of Biblical Literature, Western Seminary

“To say that the story of the Bible is the story of the King and his kingdom is one thing; to see it clearly and concisely demonstrated from every part of the Bible is another. I look forward to recommending this book to those who love and appreciate biblical theology as well as those who love Christ and the Bible but haven’t yet understood how to see King Jesus throughout its entire story.”

Nancy Guthrie, author, Seeing Jesus in the Old Testament Bible study series

“Patrick Schreiner beautifully traces the theme of God’s kingdom through the entire Bible. The threads of his kingdom can be seen from Adam to Abraham, through Psalms and Isaiah, to Jesus and his church, and finally to the new heaven and the new earth, where Christ will reign with his people in his place. Schreiner skillfully shows us the inseparability of God’s kingdom, the cross of Jesus, and the gospel message. I highly recommend this interesting and encouraging book!”

Randy Alcorn, author, Heaven; If God Is Good; and Hand in Hand

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

Redemptive Reversals and the Ironic Overturning of Human Wisdom, G. K. Beale (2019)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross

Patrick Schreiner

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt, series editors

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross

Copyright © 2018 by Patrick Schreiner

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2018

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-5823-8ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5826-9PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5824-5Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5825-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schreiner, Patrick, author.

Title: The kingdom of God and the glory of the cross / Patrick Schreiner.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2018. | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017025763 (print) | LCCN 2018002643 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433558245 (pdf) | ISBN 9781433558252 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433558269 (epub) | ISBN 9781433558238 (tp)

Subjects: LCSH: Kingdom of God--Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BS680.K52 (ebook) | LCC BS680.K52 S37 2018 (print) | DDC 231.7/2--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025763

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2022-01-06 01:56:26 PM

To my parents,

who modeled the kingdom life

Contents

Series Preface

Introduction: The Importance of the Kingdom

Part 1: Kingdom in the Old Testament

 1  The Law: Reviving Hope in the Kingdom

 2  The Prophets: Foreshadowing the Kingdom

 3  The Writings: Life in the Kingdom

Part 2: Kingdom in the New Testament

 4  The Gospels: Embodying the Kingdom

 5  Acts and the Epistles: Kingdom Community

 6  Revelation: Achieving the Kingdom Goal

Conclusion: Kingdom through Cross

For Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We are launching this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Introduction

The Importance of the Kingdom

“What is the kingdom of God?”

The student leaned back and looked at me. I paused, fumbled around, then tossed out some words, but I ended my little incoherent bluster by saying that we would find out as we continued to study Matthew. This was back in college. My ministry director had asked me to lead a Bible study for students over the summer. I decided we would study Matthew. I had never studied Matthew before, and a tinge of trepidation ran down my spine, because the Epistles were my comfort zone. I knew the learning curve was going to be steep.

Although my life up to this moment had been filled with good Bible teaching, I felt misplaced in a foreign land when I came to the language of kingdom. I knew the basics of the gospel message, but I could not figure out how the kingdom of God related to it or why Jesus spoke so often of it. My view of the good news had been abstracted, and I had overlooked the narrative that stood beside and underneath the glorious doctrines of Christianity.

As I began to study the kingdom, I grasped that it was the thread that stitched the entire canon together. How could I have missed it? Why wasn’t the concept clear to me before? The Bible is most fundamentally a narrative, and the kingdom of God is the thematic framework for that narrative.

Similarly, when many modern-day Christians come to kingdom language in the Bible, they have a hard time knowing what it is. Jesus never directly explains it; he never gives a definition, and the Gospel writers never record the crowds or disciples asking what it is. There seems to be an implicit assumption that everyone knows what the kingdom is.

Furthermore, kingdom language is pervasive in the Gospels, and the concept is strewn through the rest of the Bible. Jesus begins his ministry by announcing that the kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:15), and the Gospel writers encapsulate Jesus’s ministry in the phrase “the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). Jesus’s relentless focus on the kingdom provoked Gordon Fee to say:

You cannot know anything about Jesus, anything, if you miss the kingdom of God. . . . You are zero on Jesus if you don’t understand this term. I’m sorry to say it that strongly, but this is the great failure of evangelical Christianity. We have had Jesus without the kingdom of God, and therefore have literally done Jesus in.1

So rather than being a “zero on Jesus,” many have attempted to get their arms around this idea of the kingdom. Unfortunately, the term has become the buzzword for everyone’s pet issue. Since the kingdom is nowhere defined, people pour in their own meaning.

Some have equated it with heaven and said that Jesus was saying, in so many words, “The kingdom is the place you go when you die.” Others have understood kingdom as referring to the church. From their perspective, Jesus announced the beginning of the age of the church.2 In this conception, the kingdom and the church are synonymous. Still others have seen the kingdom of God as simply ethics. Jesus’s announcement is a call to social action. Thekingdom thus becomes a term that denotes good deeds. Humankind builds the kingdom of God as it “works for the ideal social order and endeavors to solve the problems of poverty, sickness, labor relations, social inequalities, and race relations.”3

Evangelicals, in particular, have been prone to reduce the kingdom to God’s rule, power, or sovereignty.4George Eldon Ladd disseminated this view in his numerous works on the kingdom, arguing that the dynamic rule is the primary meaning.5 In more popular evangelical circles the kingdom becomes a euphemism for the rule of God in one’s heart. The kingdom thus coils into an inward, subjective mechanism, a secret power that enters the human soul and lays hold of it.

Regrettably, the defining characteristic of the kingdom in evangelicalism has been abstracted, and the time has come to restore the kingdom to its concrete nature. All the definitions above suffer from reductionism. They take a part of the whole and place it in the center. So how can we define the kingdom?

The Kingdom Tree

Since we never get a textbook definition of the kingdom in the Bible, some help in understanding the kingdom can be found in examining one of the images that the Scriptures regularly associate with the kingdom: a tree. The Bible begins and ends with the figure of a tree. Genesis speaks of the tree of life that springs from the ground at the voice of the Lord and the forbidden tree of good and evil (Gen. 2:9). Watering these trees are the rivers that flow out of the garden. At the end of Scripture, the tree of life rises again, positioned within the holy city that has twelve gates, high walls, and a river running through it. Revelation describes the tree as having leaves that heal the nations (Rev. 22:2).

But the tree imagery does not merely bracket the Scriptures; it tracks its way through the entire Bible. In the Old Testament, King Nebuchadnezzar dreams about a tree that grows strong, and its top reaches the heavens so that all nations can see it (Dan. 4:10–12). Daniel interprets the dream for Nebuchadnezzar, explaining to him that the tree is a symbol of his kingdom, which will be taken away from him.

The great prophet Isaiah also speaks of a tree, yet this tree has been reduced to a stump. From this stump of Jesse comes forth a branch (Isa. 11:1). King David pronounces that those who rely on the word of God are like a tree that grows and flourishes (Ps. 1:3). In the Gospels Jesus regularly compares the kingdom to a tree (Matt. 13:31; Mark 4:31–32).

One particular tree alters the skyline of the Gospels. Just as the tree was the undoing of Adam and Eve in the garden, so the cross ends Jesus’s life. He hangs upon this tree for the world to mock and sneer. This tree secures the nails that pierce his hands and feet. Rome, the Jewish leaders, and Satan assume that Jesus’s kingdom has been conquered by nailing Jesus to the cross, yet in a scandalous twist, this tree becomes the King’s greatest victory.

There drapes the sign that declares, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37). The defeat of Adam and Eve is the victory of God; the Serpent’s sting is Christ’s great victory. The tree shaped like a cross is the fulcrum of God summing up all things in heaven and on earth. It is positioned vertically, and Jesus’s hands stretch out horizontally, harmonizing north, south, east, and west through Jesus’s disfigured body.6 The tree is, as Revelation portrays it, healing for the nations.

The tree in the Scriptures thus becomes representative of the concept of which Jesus speaks so often: the kingdom. If the tree is a symbol for the kingdom throughout the Scriptures, then what does it teach us about the nature of the kingdom?

First, the image of the tree in Scripture communicates power, rule, or sovereignty. Large trees symbolize power and strength. The tree in the garden promises life. If Adam and Eve were to eat from it, they would be like God. Nebuchadnezzar’s tree, in a similar way, reaches up to the heavens and is visible to the whole world. In Revelation, there is a city with high walls, and the tree stands in the middle of this city as a symbol of power and strength.

Second, the tree usually has some relationship or connection with people. The tree of Nebuchadnezzar has creatures resting beneath its branches, with Nebuchadnezzar as the head representative of the people. In Isaiah, the branch shooting forth from the stump is quickly identified with a person (Isa. 11:2). The leaves of the tree in Revelation heal the nations. The tree in Psalm 1 is also a metaphor for a person.

Third, the image of the tree always implies the idea of place.7 The tree is placed in the garden. The tree in Daniel is placed where the whole world can see the top of it. In Revelation the tree is in the center of the city. Now, this tree imagery throughout Scripture may just be that—tree imagery. But this symbol can and should be instructive for us.

Defining the Kingdom

So, expanding beyond the abstract notion of the kingdom as mere sovereignty, I will use the following definition of the kingdom in this study: The kingdom is the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place.8 These three realities (power, people, place) interrelate, and although they can be distinguished, they never can be separated.9 They are like strands of a rope tightly twisted together.

Some might object, “Shouldn’t power be primary, because without rule or authority people and place cannot come into being?” But the same can be said for all three. Kings rule over places and people. Power is empty without people and place. Place also affects people, and people affect place. Power is in places, and places themselves wield power. This interrelationship between the three is not meant to bewilder but to show that these concepts are closely related; we can’t rip one of them out and use it as a primary definition or description of the kingdom.10

Usually, studies on the kingdom concentrate on two interrelated subjects. They emphasize the kingdom as God’s rule and stress the temporal question, Is the kingdom now or in the future? Little attention is given to the where or space or people of the kingdom. For too long, scholars have chided that Jesus’s kingdom does not concern geography or locale. So while we need to include the ideas of power, rule, and strength, in the Scriptures these are not merely abstract concepts; they are life-giving realities.

The tree in Psalm 1 grows and is nourished by the stream of the Word of God. The tree of life’s leaves give the nations healing and life in Revelation. The tree in Daniel allows the animals to lie beneath its shade. Power is not about coercion; it is about structures for flourishing. God created the tree of life out of his power so that Adam and Eve could flourish as human beings, but they turned to the forbidden tree. Power and sovereignty in the Scriptures are linked to creation, protection, and the flourishing of people.

In addition, the kingdom must include people—namely, a king and his subjects. The king is representative of the people, and the king also provides shelter and safety for the people through his kingdom. God’s kingdom will contain and be realized through God’s image bearers as servant kings. As Gerhard Lohfink said, “A king without a people is no king at all but a figure in a museum.”11 Therefore, it would be wise not to downplay the people aspect of a kingdom.

In the same way, a kingdom must be a realm. A king without a territory is an enigma. The place of the kingdom cannot be erased from the description and definition, just as a city must be situated. I. Howard Marshall said concerning the kingdom, “While it has been emphasized almost ad nauseam that the primary concept is that of the sovereignty of kingship or actual rule of God and not of a territory ruled by a king, it must also be emphasized that kingship cannot be exercised in the abstract.”12

So what is the kingdom? It is concrete; it is earthy; it is people; it is place; it is about Jesus; it concerns the cross; it is about the new heavens and the new earth; it is about community, politics, order, bodies, and human flourishing. It is about power, family, thrones, walls, gates, rivers, and streams. The kingdom is cosmic in scope, and to close the door on the vast picture that the Scriptures use to paint the kingdom is to misinterpret and misunderstand the goal of redemption. In the kingdom of Christ, the ransomed will be in the presence of God living under the law of the King. The kingdom is the basic edifice for entering the story of the Scriptures. The aim of this study is to investigate the rich concept of kingdom across the storyline of Scripture.

Consequences of a Partial Definition

Why is it imperative to define the kingdom as “power, people, and place”? Is this just a precision issue that scholars can argue about? At least three consequences arise if we neglect people and place and focus only on power.

First, without people and place, the kingdom becomes intangible. Christians sometimes disparage the material world. Although alterations to this view are making progress, at times physicality is still belittled. Yet the kingdom is never presented as an immaterial entity in the Scriptures. Recognizing the importance of people and place brings a groundedness to kingdom language. The incarnation and resurrection of Jesus are the key theological doctrines that affirm this rootedness. As N. D. Wilson said, “If [God] wanted a spiritual kingdom, He could have saved Himself a huge amount of trouble by just skipping Christmas.”13

The second consequence that befalls us if we neglect place and people is that we might truncate our understanding of the mission of the church. If the kingdom is merely God’s sovereignty, then what role do his people play? Do they exist only to tell others about the King’s power? The mission of the church is to bring people in union with a real King and into a real kingdom, not just to assent to some immaterial theocracy. Disciples are people who go out and give shape to every space. Jesus brings people into place, and he gives them a law that structures their interactions. If the mission of the church is reduced to an intellectual assent of a sovereign God but does not mold how we use our hands and feet, then the church and the kingdom become a monastery rather than a world-forming force. The kingdom of God is the mission of God, and we must not limit this mission.

Third, and related, if we define kingdom as mere power, we slash through most of the pages of the kingdom story and misrepresent it. If kingdom is a term used to summarize what is happening in the narrative of Scripture, then it would be unwise to reduce this narrative to the notion of sovereignty. The Scriptures are all about the people of Israel and the places in which they reside. The entire Old Testament can be summarized in this way. This story comes to a climax through the King who cleanses Israel’s land and puts the law within their hearts so that they can flourish on this earth under the rule of the King.

The end of the book of Revelation points to a kingdom with a King and his subjects who live in the garden city of the new heavens and the new earth. Revelation does not end with souls soaring in the sky but with a canvas of city construction. There are dozens of helpful books on the kingdom, but many stumble through or entirely ignore the Wisdom Literature, Paul’s letters, and other portions of Scripture. To remove these sections of Scripture from a biblical theology tears out the heart of the Bible. A holistic definition allows us to stitch the Bible back together.

The Aim and Method

If the kingdom is the thematic framework for all the Scriptures with all other themes orbiting around it, then how does one approach a biblical theology of the kingdom? A short study such as this on a biblical theology of the kingdom must pick and choose which peaks in the Scriptures are worth ascending, surveying the summits and climbing a few, while painfully passing by others. To navigate the terrain, we will do the following.

1.  Limit discussion to key events, prophecies, and seams of Scripture that carry the kingdom story forward but also attempt to survey the variety of presentations in the Bible.

2.  Explain various aspects of the definition of the kingdom, working to do justice to the biblical descriptions, images, and symbols of the kingdom.

3.  Attempt to give equal attention to each major section of Scripture. This means that the Wisdom Literature, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles receive more attention than you might expect. This is intentional. Most biblical theologies that speak of the kingdom have embarrassingly little to say about these sections.

4.  Follow the ordering of the Hebrew Scriptures, which divide the Old Testament into three sections: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Most of our English Bibles follow what is called the “Christian” ordering of the Old Testament. Yet most early Jews read what we would call the “Hebrew” ordering of the Old Testament. When in Luke 24:44 Jesus mentions “the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms,” he is referencing the Hebrew ordering of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. Although this is not the only way to order the Old Testament canon (the Christian ordering also has historical attestation), the Hebrew order does highlight some unique kingdom themes. The differences of order can be seen in the chart below.

English Bible Order

Hebrew Bible Order

Pentateuch

Law

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Historical Books

Prophets

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1–2 Samuel

1–2 Kings

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Joshua

Judges

Samuel

Kings

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Ezekiel

Book of the Twelve (Minor Prophets)

Poetry

Writings

Job

Psalms

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Psalms

Job

Proverbs

Ruth

Song of Solomon

Ecclesiastes

Lamentations

Esther

Daniel

Ezra

Nehemiah

Chronicles

Prophets

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Twelve Minor Prophets

In this volume, we will consider our theme based on the following chart:

Law

Reviving hope in the kingdom

Prophets

Foreshadowing the kingdom

Writings

Life in the kingdom

Gospels

Embodying the kingdom

Acts and Epistles

Kingdom community

Revelation

Achieving the kingdom goal

More specifically, we will focus on how people and place must be included with power in a definition of kingdom. I am arguing in essence that this definition goes all the way from the beginning to the end. It crosses through the books of Moses, the Prophets, and the Wisdom Literature and finds its climax in Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation. Although the term kingdom