Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” - Acts 1:6-8
After Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”. How was Jesus to answer such a question? What the disciples meant by kingdom was not what Jesus had been teaching. The disciples were still thinking in terms of a nationalistic kingdom rather than a slowly growing family of all ethnic groups. It would take them many years to realize that Gentiles were welcome in the new kingdom. Christ’s kingdom was still not of this world, but it was to be active in this age. So Christ did not say yes or no—he simply told them there was work to do and power to do it.
Simply put, the power of the kingdom is in Christ!. From start to finish, Jesus’ entire life and ministry was the expression of God’s mighty rule that had broken into history to deliver the creation and its human inhabitants from the curse of sin and death. The rule of God was in Jesus. He was, as ancient church theologians believed, the Autobasileia, Himself the Kingdom!
Jesus displayed this kingdom power on the Cross. There on the cross, God in Christ conquered sin, defeated death, and triumphed over Satan. Sounds like a Kingdom victory to me! Yet it could not have appeared more unkingly. Jesus hung there in apparent defeat. There He suffered and died. Satan appears to have won the battle. Yet by this means, Jesus triumphed over God’s enemies and ours by is resurrection, and shares that victory with those who believe. Jesus is Christus Victor! By means of this victory, we are restored to God and our true purposes as human beings. It is the mystery of the Kingdom that makes us new creatures in Christ.
God has always been a King, and there has always been a kingdom, and there always will be a kingdom. But this one kingdom appears in different ways at different times – it looks one way with Adam and Eve, another way with Abraham. It is transformed again with the nation of Israel, and transformed again with Jesus and the church. We are now in the kingdom, but there are weeds growing in among the grain. At the end of the age, the Messiah will return in power and glory, the weeds will be removed, and the kingdom of God will again be transformed in appearance.
Jeff Frazier
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