Garbage Removal (3)
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matthew 3:2 NASB
At hand – We conclude our investigation of John the Baptist’s message by noticing the connection between repentance and the Kingdom. For John, repentance does not mean heavenly salvation. Furthermore, it might not even mean personal escape from deserved consequences. The Kingdom is a socio-political entity, an expectation of Israel in the Messianic age that will reinstate God’s chosen people to the place of world prominence. In the First Century, this is preeminently about the removal of Roman occupation.
When the audience considered John a prophet, they acknowledged that he brought about the social consciousness of God’s eternal purposes. Prophets in Israel could live as they did because they lived in anticipation of what was to come. In this regard, a prophet was a living time machine, with the dial permanently set on the future. He was an eschatological reminder set in the present. That means that everything about John’s message needs to be filtered through the Messianic eyes of First Century Israel. John does not stand outside his culture, preaching an evangelical salvation message to an audience sitting respectfully in pews. He is a fiery and caustic declaration that the contemporary culture has been judged wanting. He is a spiritual magnet drawing to himself those who are weighed down by an oppressive internal and external occupation. He is the polar opposite of respectfully religious. No part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy remains unscathed. John calls into question all prior beliefs of spiritual safety.
In contemporary Western Christianity we have been seduced by the lie that if you are in God’s will you are successful here and now. We bought the culture of riches. While we eschew the opulence of the wealthy, we endorse the goal. We might object to the world’s methodology, but we do not raise a warning about the world’s objective. We want sanctified riches and spiritual success in the same box.
We do not want “Thy Kingdom come.” We want “My Kingdom come.”
The cause of Christ has been hindered more by the Church than by any enemy of God. When John speaks about the result of repentance, he outlines the basic ethics of the Kingdom. From God’s point of view, if you are rich, you exist for the poor. The Torah commands, “do for those who cannot repay.” This is the mark of a biblical view of wealth, the one honored by God. In fact, God obligates Himself as the debtor. John shows his intuitive understanding of the reversal of the world’s ethics in his answers to the crowds, the tax collectors and the soldiers. Consequently, we might say that the ekklesia of the Kingdom is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members. Of course, this means that the Kingdom eschews:
- power
- control
- funding
- self-sustainability
The Kingdom cannot accomplish its purposes where power is the goal. It cannot function where control is the operating principle. It cannot thrive where funding is a pre-occupation. And it cannot last if it seeks self-sustainability. The ekklesia of the Kingdom is the manifestation of the spirit of God in the lives and hearts of men, and the spirit of God follows only God’s design and will.
When John suggests that repentance is in the process toward the Kingdom, he is not advocating organization. He is endorsing commitment to a dynamic divine will, untamable by men, mysterious in its path, and joyful in its completion.
Topical Index: Kingdom, John the Baptist, at hand, Matthew 3:2
I liked this. I would add that a big part of the “Church’s” disfunction is the emphasis has become ‘conversions’ – head counts for the people who want to justify their place in the church instead of what Matthew records that we were commanded to “Go and make ‘talmudim’…”
This was inspired!
It makes you wonder if the ecclesiastical hierarchy – the temple elite – had recognized their Messiah and HAD repented of what had brought on the occupation of Rome what would have happened instead? What if the bride had recognized the bridegroom and the “virgin” (pure doctrine) “married” the “sons”? Would Isaiah’s prophecies (Is. 61) have come to pass if they had chosen to have “eaten the riches of the Gentiles” (spiritual riches) that came pouring through the door following Messiah, instead of throwing them out of the synagogues wholescale (and worse, aka Saul)? The kingdom of Israel was only occupied by political Gentiles, after all, because the spiritual kingdom of Israel was preoccupied – obsessed – with chasing what the Gentiles had: power, influence, money. The throne, as well as the spiritual offices of Israel, were currently being hijacked by murder and intrigue and bribery and legal force. The prophecy of Gen. 49:10 had ripened on the tree: the time for Shiloh, the “son of David” had fully come when the land had “been forsaken of both her kings” (Is. 7:16). The Edomites sat on those thrones and the current high priests had been ‘chosen’ by the ways and means of the world. If the Jews had ever felt “Forsaken” (Is. 62:4), it was now. Now the “time is fulfilled” (Mark 1:14) for the kingdom of “Messiah the Prince” (Dan. 9:25). Of course it was now!
“The cause of Christ has been hindered more by the Church than by any enemy of God.” This is such a sad statement. The Christians eventually subsumed Rome – and became it, too – but how different it might have been if Israel “had known the time of her visitation” and embraced her Redeemer. Perhaps if she had truly repented for the spiritual bankruptcy that had ushered in the appearance of Messiah she could have fulfilled so many more of those prophecies that still lie languishing on the shelves of her prophets, and the world may not have seen such a bloodbath!
When children have been abused, so many times they can forgive their abusers better than they can their parents: those who were supposed to protect them and keep them safe. (I have struggled with this one, too.) The Jews were the spiritual parents of the Christians: they were tasked with the responsibility for the Gentiles. When they refused, the Gentiles were left to flounder like orphans. Today, I think it is still the same. Those of us who have great light are responsible for those still in darkness. Are we not going to be judged by our refusal to reach out to the world with the good news and with our active involvement with all the devastation that surrounds us? Are we, too, fiddling while Rome burns?
When the judgment commences, does it not “begin at the house of God” (1Peter 4:17). When the “Lord has a controversy with the nations”(Jer. 25:31) does He not say that His own “shall not be unpunished” (Jer. 25:29), and does He not declare that He will “begin at my sanctuary” (Ez. 9:6)? Shouldn’t we be “sigh(ing) and cry(ing) for all the abominations” instead of acting like the three monkeys that don’t see or hear or talk about it? Aren’t the problems of the world preeminently the problems of the church of God first? If we don’t make a move to fix them (by fixing ourselves first, of course, as per the Baptist’s instructions) will the Kingdom come (and go again) without us, too?
If they had…and if we should.
“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
God’s truth is about the reality of the spiritual realm.
His kingdom is in that realm and as Skip says, repentance
is our willingness to turn from our worldly will to His divine
will where joy will absolutely ensue.
So will peace and prosperity, but not the peace and prosperity
of the world. As Psalm 25:13 states “They will spend their days
in prosperity”, it implies the believer’s life of relationship with
God will be sweet and at ease in this world.
God is our refuge. And our life, as Paul said, “is hidden with
Christ in God.” That’s a prosperity the world’s citizens have
no clue about . . . and one we desperately need to show them!