THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

by
Mortimer Arias

My attendance at this meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society is not a thing of my own doing. Rather, it is sheerly an act of God's grace, mediated through the persistence of dear friends and colleagues such as Howard Snyder and Donald W. Dayton.

I was attracted and intrigued by Dr. Snyder's original suggestion of a paper on "The World Parish from the Perspective of the Kingdom of God" and by the unique opportunity to be present at an annual meeting of the WTS. But I knew that I would have no opportunity to do the research and the writing required by such an assignment while carrying a full semester of teaching at the School of Theology at Fuller and keeping up with my responsibilities as President of the Latin American Biblical Seminary in Costa Rica. So, I resisted the invitation. But they came back, saying that all that they wanted was the thrust of my book, Announcing the Reign of God, and that I would not be required to present an original paper. I could not resist this second assault. I was caught between God's "irresistible grace" and "the perseverance of the saints"!

I hope that you will agree with what they are attempting to accomplish. Since the time of my conversion, I have been haunted by the subject of the kingdom of God, for about that time I read E. Stanley Jones for the first time and I continued to read his works in my seminary days and in the beginning years of my ministry in my native Uruguay. By the turn of the present decade, as a member of the World Council of Churches' Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, I was engaged in the preparation of the World Conference, scheduled for Melbourne in 1980, the theme of which was "Your Kingdom Come."

Here, I thought, was a great challenge to the world church to look at mission and evangelization from the perspective of the kingdom. And, by then, I had a hunch that the kingdom perspective was what we needed in order to recover the vision, the motivation, the creativity, and the thrust for mission and evangelization in the contemporary world. Those circumstances and that hunch, working in both personal and corporate ways, led to the writing of my book, to which I had given the tentative title, Announcing the Reign of God: From the Subversive Memory of Jesus.(1)

I still believe that Jesus' paradigm for His mission is essential for our mission today, and is a challenging perspective for the renewal of theology. I would venture to say that this would include our Wesleyan point of view, and that it would dare us to understand the World Parish in a Biblical way.

I. THE GOOD NEWS OF THE KINGDOM

Nobody would dispute the assertion that Jesus had only one theme: the kingdom of God. And Jesus gave a name to His Gospel; "the Gospel of the Kingdom." "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose" (Luke 4:43).

"Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity" (Matthew 9:35).

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as testimony to all nations; and then the end will come" (Matthew 24:14).

A well-known writer of the Church Growth school confessed that he had been reading the Bible daily for thirty years without noticing the fundamental importance of the kingdom of God motif to the Biblical message. He said that he had read the Bible with "Church Growth eyes" and had filtered out the kingdom of God!(2) Could it be true of many Christians that they have been reading the Bible in a frame of mind dictated by certain doctrinal commitments or in a frame of mind dictated by ecclesiastical tradition, or by a particular brand of spirituality, and have filtered out the perspective of the kingdom?

Ponder the importance of the idea of the kingdom to the Biblical message. In the first three gospels we have 122 direct references to the very phrases "the kingdom of God" and "the kingdom of Heaven." And ninety of these times the words are on Jesus' own lips. Then, what is the subject of Jesus' parables? Is it not "the kingdom of God"? What is the subject of the Sermon on the Mount, or of the Beatitudes, or of the Lord's Prayer? It is, of course, "the kingdom of God."

Everyone in the gospel story was aware of what Jesus was about. His disciples may have misunderstood the nature and the timing of the kingdom and they may have misunderstood the nature of their role in it, but they certainly knew that Jesus was about the Reign of God. That is why some were asking for special status at its coming and some were hanging around and asking the same question even as the resurrected Lord prepared to leave His disciples: "Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Mark 10:35-45; Acts 1:6).

The Devil itself knew what was in Jesus' mind immediately after His baptism, so the Devilself tempted Jesus with "the kingdoms of this world" as the appropriate strategy for bringing about the kingdom of God on earth. (Matthew 4:8-9).

The crowds were confused and misled, and they were after Jesus, wanting to kidnap Him and make Him a king by force. (John 6:15). At other times, they were manipulated into accusing Jesus of pretending to be a king or into making fun of Him for not acting as a king during His passion and crucifixion (Matthew 27:42). The religious leaders and the political authorities were accusing Jesus of subverting the nation and claiming to be a king (Luke 23:2). But all of them converged at one point: Jesus was about a kingdom!

Jesus' companions at the execution were also aware of that. One on the cross joined the multitude in scoffing: "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us" (Luke 23:39). The other guerrilla, who was condemned together with Jesus, was having second thoughts about his own strategy for the kingdom and beginning to see the point of Jesus' strategy: "It is fair enough for us," he said in his agony, "but this man never did anything wrong in his life." He was moved to join Jesus on His way to the kingdom: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (Luke 23:40-42). At the end of this man's historical failure in quest of the kingdom, there was plenty of room for him, and Jesus opened wide the gates just before they died together: "I tell you truly, this very day you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). With His last breath, Jesus accepted this unexpected first-fruit of His proclamation of the kingdom. When the historical dimension of the Kingdom was clouded by suffering, apparent failure, and death, the good news of the eternal kingdom was shining through.

Even Pilate played the game of the kingdom, theatrically holding Jesus up to the crowds and saying, "Here is your king!" He stubbornly insisted on publicizing in the inscription on the cross the charge that had brought on the death penalty: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (John 19:22). There it was, up there to be seen by everyone, written in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, the three languages of the oikoumene. The kingdom title is still there to be read and seen by all generations, in the sacred text and in paintings by the world's great artists.

Jesus had only one theme, only one gospel, to the very end of His life and on into His existence as resurrected Lord: the kingdom of God. This is the overwhelming evidence of the three synoptic gospels. Luke, in his book of the Acts of the Apostles, projects Jesus' kingdom ministry beyond the resurrection: "To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:1-3). Jesus' message was monothematic, He had only one gospel-the good news of the kingdom.

New Testament scholars, whether Protestant, Catholic, or Conservative Evangelical, after one century of scrutiny of the gospels and the teachings of Jesus, are of one accord about the dominant paradigm of the kingdom in Jesus' original message. As it is said by the American scholar, Norman Perrin,

"The central aspect of the teaching of Jesus was that concerning the kingdom of God. Of this there can be no doubt and today no scholar does, in fact, doubt it. Jesus appeared as one who proclaimed the kingdom; all else in his message and ministry serves a function in relation to that proclamation and derives its meaning from it. The challenge to discipleship, the ethical teaching, the disputes about oral tradition or ceremonial law, even the pronouncement of forgiveness of sins and the welcoming of the outcast in the name of God-all of these are to be so understood or they are not understood at all. Of all of the descriptive titles that have been applied to Jesus through the centuries, the one that sums up his historical appearance best is the one whose currency owes so much to Bultmann: Jesus is the Proclaimer of the Kingdom of God.(3)

So, one would expect the kingdom of God to be the center of the evangelistic kerygma throughout the ages, and the original paradigm for preachers and evangelists. How surprising it is to discover that this is not the case! If the kingdom of God was the climax of God's revelation as Jesus saw it, one might expect it to be the key to understanding God's mission, Jesus' mission, and the mission of the church, and, consequently, the decisive category for Christian theology. How strange it is to discover that the kingdom of God as such is not a subject in the theological curricula nor a topic with its own chapter in what is called systematic theology. We have Christology, Pneumatology, Hamartiology, and Anthropology, but no one would dare suggest a Basilealogy! Of course, one may come across a reference to the kingdom of God paradigm in a course on the Teachings of Jesus or as part of the last chapter in a theology, namely, Eschatology.(4)

Have we been through an eclipse of the kingdom in theology and mission?(5) Let's approach this question with a quick look at the evidence concerning Jesus' original paradigm in the synoptic gospels.

II. JESUS' PARADIGM OF THE KINGDOM

The problem begins when we take seriously Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom. What does it entail? It is the most powerful and inclusive paradigm in the whole Bible: it is multidimensional and all-embracing; it is a sweeping vision and a dynamic reality which includes history and eternity God's creation and its consummation, the personal and social, the material and the spiritual, the private and the public, the interpersonal and the cosmic, the human and the divine.

So, it is the most elusive subject if we try to reduce it to rational and verbal categories. To begin with, Jesus never defined the kingdom of God the way we would do it in a theological course. It is not a territory, a realm with boundaries, nor a program, nor a set of rules, nor an ideal. Jesus points to this reality through metaphors, parables, images and actions. The kingdom is flashed through striking paradoxes. It is gift and work. It is the manifestation of God's mercy and God's judgment. It is free but demands everything. It is not a human program but it can be resisted or promoted by human action and prayer. The kingdom of God is the apparently seamy side of our world as it is: the first will be the last, the last will be the first; those who are in will be out, and those who are out will be in. Like the pearl of great price, once you find it, nothing else matters-and everything matters!

No wonder theologians and interpreters through the generations have tried to label it, to get a handle on the kingdom concept, to reduce it to manageable proportions! Scholars who have agreed that it is the original message of Jesus have tried to encompass its meaning in terms of "futurist eschatology," realized eschatology," or "progressive eschatology."(6) As a didactic device, I suggest that we look at the kingdom message in the gospels in its three dimensions-past, present, and future.

A. The past dimension: the kingdom has come

In the first place, Jesus announced the kingdom as an event that was taking place in history, in His own presence, words, and actions. "The time has come at last! The kingdom has arrived! Repent and believe the good news!" With this striking proclamation He began His ministry in Galilee.(7) This was an historical event, occurring at a given place and time-just when John the Baptist was put in jail. A threshold has been crossed: "The law and the prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached and everyone enters it violently . . . (Matthew 11:12; Luke 16:16). Jesus' message in His own town of Nazareth strikes the same note of fulfillment: "This very day this scripture has been fulfilled while you have been listening to it!" (Luke 4:21).

Jesus pointed to His exorcisms and healings as signs of the presence of the kingdom: "If it is by the finger of God that I am expelling evil spirits, then the Kingdom of God has arrived!" (Luke 11:20)(8) And to those who were asking for apocalyptic signs of the kingdom in the sky, Jesus responded, "The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Lo, here it is!' or 'There!' for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" (Luke 17:20). Read in its context, this means that Jesus was pointing to His own presence and ministry as the presence of the kingdom.(9)

So, the kingdom is experience, not only hope and promise. The Old Testament proclaims God's eternal kingdom (Psalm 145:13), but Jesus is now proclaiming the coming of the kingdom in history.

How is the kingdom to be experienced? The overwhelming answer of Jesus is, "By grace, as a gift": "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32). This is why the kingdom i9 good news to the poor, to those who are nothing and who have nothing (Luke 6:20; Matthew 11:5). This is why it has to be received as a child would receive it (Matthew 18:1-3).

Jesus announces the kingdom-that-has-come through his unique parables: the kingdom is like a seed already sown and growing secretly; it is like yeast already fermenting in the dough; it is a joyful discovery like the pearl of great price or the treasure in the field (Mark 4; Matthew 13). The parables of grace become experience in the forgiveness of sins, in the healing of the sick, in the openness to public sinners-prostitutes and tax-collectors, in the acceptance of and preferential option for the marginal, the outcasts, the poor, the sick, women, children, and the ethnically mixed Samaritans. Most powerful as an act proclaiming the presence of the kingdom of grace is Jesus' open table at meals, and it is the most irritating stumbling block for the religious establishment (Mark 2:10-11; Luke 19:1-10; 7:36-50; 11:37; 14:1; 15:2; Mark 2:16-17; Matthew 9:11-13; Luke 5:30-32).

The kingdom of God is gift-the kingdom of grace. It has come. It is to be received by grace, as grace. To put it in terms of a perception dear to Wesleyans: in Jesus, the kingdom is prevenient grace!

B. The future dimension: the kingdom will come

Second, Jesus announced the kingdom of God as a future reality. The kingdom has come, but not in its fullness. The time is fulfilled but we still await the consummation. The kingdom is both experience and hope. It is "already" and "not yet." We live in a world resistant to the kingdom's presence, a world of sin, suffering, and death. This is why the disciples of the kingdom are the people who wait-the people of hope.

Jesus proclaimed the kingdom-that-will-come in many ways. Even those parables pointing to the realized dimension of the kingdom have a future reference. The seed is already sown but the harvest is not yet Mark 4:3-8; cf. Isaiah 9:3; Psalm 126:6; Joel 3:13). The mustard seed is growing already but is not yet the full tree for all nations, and the leaven is already in contact with the dough but is not yet fully effective (Mark 4:30-32).

More specifically the so-called parables of "crisis" or "parousia parables" point to a future consummation of the kingdom: the Nocturnal Burglar, the Doorkeeper, the Supervisor Servant, the Talents, the Ten Maidens,the Wedding Feast (Matthew 24-25; Mark 13:33-37; Luke 21). God has in store for the future a great harvest, a wedding feast. The world is not going to wrack and to ruin, as the consistent apocalypticists believe, but to a great consummation, namely, the fullness of creation, the final wedding of God with humanity and all creation.

The kingdom is present reality and indestructible hope.

There are also futurist proclamations of Jesus. These portray the universal dimension of the consummated kingdom (Matthew 8:11-12; Luke 13:29; Matthew 5:20; 7:20; Luke 14:11).

Particularly significant in terms of the future consummation of the Kingdom are the references of Jesus to the Son of Man, who is coming with the kingdom "in power and glory," in contrast to its present form as Suffering Servant (Mark 8:38; 13:26; 14:62; Matthew 10:23; 24:27,37; Luke 17:22,24, 26). In the parable of the Judgment of the Nations, the Son of Man and the King are one and the same (Matthew 25:31-46).

The Lord's Prayer is also oriented towards the future kingdom: "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:9-10). The same is true with the Beatitudes, with their promise of fulfillment of consolation, justice, peace, and the vision of God (Matthew 5:1-12).

The future kingdom is proclaimed, enacted, and celebrated not only through works but through symbolic actions. Jesus' meals are a proclamation of the coming kingdom and the original setting of the unforgettable parables of the wedding feast.(10) Those meals at Jesus' open table, including the Last Supper, are not only social events, they are signs of the presence of the kingdom and future-oriented celebrations: "Believe me, I shall not eat the Passover again until all that it means is fulfilled in the kingdom of God" (Luke 22:18 [Phillips]; cf. I Corinthians 11:26).

There is no question that Jesus' message is eschatological. Whether it is also an apocalyptic message is another question. That He used apocalyptic images is the natural assumption of the gospel documents as we have them. But it cannot be sustained that Jesus shared the dualistic and speculative characteristics of the apocalypticist writers or their deterministic view of the world and history. The amazing thing is that, inside the so-called "apocalyptic discourse" o~ Jesus, He strongly warns against the "false prophets" who point to signs in nature or history as the coming of the kingdom. Jesus sobers His hearers: "Don't believe them! Watch out and pray." As to the date, "Nobody knows the day or the hour, neither the angels nor the Son, only God knows." But this is a warning not taken seriously by the preachers of doomsday who apparently know more than the angels or the Son Himself. In the midst of the apocalyptic chapter, Jesus is disavowing apocalyptic speculation and terrorism.

In sum, in Jesus "the kingdom is our ultimate challenge and our ultimate hope."(11)

C. The present dimension: the inbreaking kingdom

The reign of God has come: it is experience, centered in Jesus Christ and His ministry. The reign of God will come: it is hope and mobilizing promise in history. At the same time, the reign is coming, in-breaking into our minds, our lives, our institutions, and our world. The in-breaking kingdom is the moving edge of a tremendous struggle and confrontation with the world as it is. The in-breaking kingdom suffers violence and makes violence.

This is the meaning of that strange saying of Jesus in Matthew 11:22 and Luke 16:16, which has come to us in two forms, using the passive and middle voices in the Greek texts:

"From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and men of violence take it by force."

"The law and the prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is forcing its way and demanding a powerful reaction."

The use of the passive voice emphasizes the fact that the kingdom is suffering violence. The use of the middle voice suggests that the kingdom itself is creating violence, forcing its way, and provoking a reaction. The exegetes have not been able to agree on the original form of the saying nor on the appropriate translation of it. But when one looks at it in the context of Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom, it is obvious that it was both suffering violence and creating violence.

Jesus faced mounting opposition from the very beginning of His ministry, as is dramatically illustrated in the first chapters of the Gospel of Mark: the anti-human forces that kept captive those "possessed by evil spirits" (1:21-27); the clash with the teachers of the law over the declaration of the forgiveness of sins with the accusation of blasphemy (2:1-12); the angry reaction to Jesus' eating and drinking with "sinners and tax-collectors" (2:16-17); the questions of fasting regulations for Jesus and His disciples (2:18-22); the tense confrontations over the plucking of wheat grains or healing on the Sabbath (3:4-6). Here was an escalation of hostility that eventuated in the conspiracy to destroy Jesus and His movement.

The arrival of the kingdom produces a crisis. God's new order confronts the old order with its values and structures and attitudes-the kingdom is judgment. As such it is not welcomed, neither by the world nor by the church nor by the religious establishment. The world is not ready for the kingdom and it breaks in as confrontation and crisis.

This crisis is reflected in the metaphors of the new wine bursting the old wineskins, the new cloth tearing off the old dress, the fire set upon the earth, the sword of division cutting across the most sacred relationships of friends, families, or religious communities (Mark 2:22; Matthew 10:34; Luke 12:49). The memory of the message of the kingdom is a subversive memory, a power for transformation, confrontation, and subversion.

This confrontation comes to the disciples in the kingdom as a call to conversion and repentance (metanoia, epistrephein), a call to put themselves in line with the in-breaking kingdom.(l2) "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is coming near: repent and believe the good news" (Mark 1:14-15). Conversion in the kingdom is turning around and joining the movement of the kingdom.(13) This conversion implies the total commitment of discipleship (Matthew 19:23; Luke 19:1-10; 14:15-26; Mark 8:31-35; Luke 9:57-62).

Finally, the call to participate in the kingdom movement means an invitation to participate in Jesus' passion: "If anyone wants to follow me, s/he has to forget him/herself, take the cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34f).

III. AN ECLIPSE OF THE KINGDOM?

In the overall paradigm of the kingdom, we can distinguish these three dimensions but we cannot separate them. Today we are familiar with the concept of a paradigm as a worldview, as an integrated frame of reference, a model, through which we see and interpret reality and to which we relate our experiences and our data from reality. This concept was first used in relation to science. Once in a while, with new experiences, new data, and new perceptions, a shift of paradigms is necessary, like the shift from the pre-Copernican to the Copernican view of the universe. This has also happened in theology and mission throughout the history of the church. The sixteenthcentury Reformation or the Evangelical Revival or the Enlightenment are good examples of periods of major shifts of paradigms.

A. The apostolic shift of paradigms

What happened to Jesus' paradigm? Apparently there was an eclipse of the kingdom already in the New Testament writings. Watch what happens when we move from the Gospel of Luke to the Acts of the Apostles, books by the same author. The proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus becomes the proclamation of Christ (the Messiah) in the apostolic kerygma.(15) What we have is a christological concentration. The shift was from the kingdom to the king! The kingdom for the apostolic generation has now a name and a face: Jesus Christ!(16)

This shift is in both continuity and discontinuity with the original message and mission of Jesus. The apostolic proclamation was a continuation of Jesus' proclamation, with attention now given to some new events in the story of God's action in the world as part of the Christian message of the kingdom: the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus and the experience of the Holy Spirit. According to Luke, these changes were taking place inside the paradigm of the kingdom (Acts 1:3 provides the link). Jesus is acclaimed and proclaimed as the Messiah, the King, who had come and was expected to come in the future with power and glory. Philip the evangelist was evangelizing Samaria, "preaching Jesus and the kingdom of God" (Acts 8:12). Paul was preaching Christ and the kingdom of God, persuading with the Scriptures throughout the synagogues in Asia and Macedonia (Acts 14:22; 19:8; 28:23). Luke ends his second volume with Paul in the capital of the Roman Empire, "preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered" (Acts 28:30-31).

B. Translation and Contextualization

When we go to the letters of Paul, however, the kingdom of God is no longer the dominant paradigm. When the Apostle mentions the kingdom, it is more in terms of the inheritance of the eternal kingdom or its present reality in terms of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). In Paul's eschatological vision, the kingdom of God is presently the kingdom of Christ, until "God will be all in all" (I Corinthians 15:24-26,28).The lordship of Christ over the believer, the church, and the world has become, actually, the equivalent of the kingdom of God!

In its effort to contextualize the Christian message to the non-Jew in the Graeco-Roman world, a new paradigm is taking shape in terms of salvation and its cognate words: reconciliation, justification, sanctification, glorification. (These are precisely the terms that have become so familiar in the Wesleyan tradition). This emerging and complex paradigm in the making might be called the soteriological paradigm.

With the Gospel of John we have a different form of translation and contextualization. The kingdom is mentioned on just one occasion, namely, in the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus in chapter 3. After that, the message is coined in a totally new set of images and vocabulary, most particularly in forms of the polemic connotations of "light" and "life."

In this process of translation and contextualization, the shift of paradigms was opening up new meanings and closing off some others from the original message of Jesus. It is to the credit of the early church that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, this shift was taking place side by side with the process of preserving and passing on the original tradition of Jesus on the kingdom of God, the process which turned into the substance of the synoptic gospels. Without this dialectic between tradition and translation (contextualization) the world would have lost the substance of the Christian gospel and its meaning for future generations.(17)

C. Reductionist versions of the kingdom

So, the kingdom of God paradigm has not been under total eclipse at any time in the history of the church, but it has been partially appropriated. And the problem has been that a partial dimension of the kingdom has been taken as absolute, as the total meaning of the Christian gospel. This reductionism of the kingdom to one dimension has happened now and again in the "World Parish."(18)

1. For instance, we had the patristic reduction of the kingdom, transferring it to a transcendent realm, something like Plato's realm of eternal ideas. The kingdom was reduced to its eternal dimensions, without any historical significance. We might call this type a metaphysical paradigm. It is quite evident in some of the ecumenical creeds of the patristic centuries. John Wesley inherited this metaphysical paradigm through the Church of England and its Articles of Religion but part of his creative contribution was to go beyond the metaphysical limits of traditional interpretations through a fresh experience of the Spirit in his own life and times. Unfortunately, his theologizing was done before the maturation of historico-critical exegesis of the gospels, which brought to the fore the kingdom of God paradigm in Jesus' teaching.

2. Then we had the ecclesiastical reduction of the kingdom of God under the decisive influence of St. Augustine. He began his converted life as a millenarist who expected the millennium on earth. But he later affirmed that the church was itself the millennium. The church is the kingdom of God on earth; to enter the church is to enter the kingdom. This ecclesiastical paradigm is still dominant. For instance, the Church Growth school holds to a practical identification of mission and church growth, of the church and the kingdom on earth.

3. The monastic reduction came as a protest of the worldliness of the church. The monastic and ascetic movements tried to incarnate the kingdom in saintly lives and the beloved community, taking seriously the challenge to discipleship in the kingdom, but forsaking God's working in the world in all of life. Its vision of mission was to raise islands of the kingdom in the ocean of a world contaminated by sin.

4. A step forward was the evangelical reduction of the kingdom, which located the working of the kingdom in the inner life of the believer-the kingdom of God in the human heart. The presence of the kingdom is manifested in the forgiveness of sins, conversion, justification or sanctification. The realm of God's sovereignty is the individual heart and only indirectly, through individuals, does God rule the rest of creation. Lutherans stressed justification as the sign; the Reformed insisted on sanctification; John Wesley tried to recognize both ways of God's working in human hearts and proclaimed God's working for us and in us.

John Wesley was a direct inheritor and the most influential propagator of the evangelical paradigm in the eighteenth century. He received it through the pietistic religious societies of his times and it became a decisive experience in Aldersgate. Wesley made the best possible use of this personal dimension of the kingdom in his sermons on the Sermon on the Mount and in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, where he speaks of "the present inward kingdom," manifested in happiness and holiness, and described with Paul's words as "righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Explanatory Notes . . . on Matthew 5:3; 6:33; etc.)

5. As a reaction to the ecclesiastical and evangelical reductions of the eschatological message, now and again in the history of the church, particularly during the Reformation and in the last century, we have had an eruption of all sorts of apocalyptic reductions of the kingdom. In these cases, the kingdom is pushed away from history and is seen as a cataclysmic event at the end. There is nothing we can do about it, history has no meaning, there is no room for improvement or transformation. The kingdom is not here in this life.

6. Finally, we had, by the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth, the social reduction of the kingdom. The kingdom of God on earth is a program of social reform and transformation through the application of the teachings of Jesus. This was the interpretation of the so-called Social Gospel. Blended with the ideology of scientific progress and democratic social ideas, and in some cases mixed with the ideology of Manifest Destiny, it became a partial recovery of the original message of Jesus on the kingdom of God in its social and historical dimension.

IV. THE KINGDOM AND THE WORLD PARISH

So, when we select one dimension of the kingdom of God paradigm, we miss fundamental dimensions of the Christian gospel and we run the risk of distortion and even infidelity.

This is why I believe that we need to expose ourselves to the total paradigm of the kingdom in Jesus' original proclamation and to put in context our own inherited paradigms, be they metaphysical, ecclesiastical, evangelical, or social.

C. Peter Wagner confessed that he had read the kingdom with Church Growth eyes. What he is supposed to do is to read Church Growth with kingdom eyes! In like manner, we may be reading the kingdom message with Holiness or Liberation eyes. What we are supposed to do is to read holiness or liberation with kingdom eyes! It is not a matter of selecting texts in the line of our concern with sanctification of believers or the liberation of people, but to see the place of sanctification and liberation in a kingdom perspective.

We currently may be attempting to domesticate the kingdom to our "World Parish," or to our Wesleyan tradition, instead of putting the church under the judgment and at the service of the kingdom.

V. JOHN WESLEY AND THE KINGDOM PARADIGM

This would be the time to ask where our Wesleyan tradition, and John Wesley in particular, fit into this. I have wished for a long time to explore Wesley's stance concerning the kingdom, but so far I have not been able to do it. The opportunity to learn from Leon D. Hynson excites me, for he has worked with the subject and is going to share with us in this meeting of the WTS.

But let me wrap up our proposed subject by noting which dimensions of the kingdom paradigm, as we have summarized it, were prominent in the preaching and teaching of John Wesley.

A. It is clear that Wesley was very strong in proclaiming the gospel as a gift of grace. His emphasis on prevenient grace and the universality of grace, over against predestinationism, are right there. Wesley joins the sixteenth-century evangelical reformers in holding to the doctrine of justification by faith, and, like them, he believes Christian spirituality to be a gift of grace. This actually means affirming the presence of the kingdom-that-has-come in Jesus Christ.

B. On the other hand, his rejection of antinomianism, his emphasis on "holiness of heart and life," and his life-long insistence on Christian perfection in love, put Wesley in the present dimension of the in-breaking kingdom as challenge, confrontation, and total commitment. The Wesleyan movement is a movement of discipleship in the kingdom-costly discipleship. This movement, for Wesley, is not apart from the world but in the midst of the world.(19) The greatness of Wesley as pastor and theologian lies precisely in his dialectic between justification and sanctification. The one with-out the other cancels the tension of the in-breaking kingdom.

C. It is not clear to me just how important the future dimension of the kingdom is for Wesley. On the one hand, his hope and affirmation of the eternal kingdom are evident and strong.(20) But on the other hand, it does not appear that this hope in the future kingdom bears on our human hopes and needs for the transformation of society-the meaning of the kingdom hope for our present historical tasks. Pragmatically, Wesley related his hope to human endeavor; theologically, I do not know that he was able to articulate it.

After all, Wesley used the resources of Biblical scholarship that were accessible in his time, but he lived before the great explosion in historical and exegetical studies of the last one hundred years. He lived in an era just prior to the advent of scientific social analysis with its criticism of social structures as well. I am sure that were he alive today, Wesley would make good use of those tools, exegetical and sociological, in order better to understand the word of God and to proclaim with integrity and power the gospel of the kingdom.

Wesley's search for a Biblical foundation and for a holistic gospel would be richly rewarded by the contemporary recovery of the kingdom of God paradigm.

Charles R. Wilson, in his chapter, "Christology: the Incarnate Word of God," recognizes that the kingdom of God was the dominant theme of Jesus and after mentioning some famous historical founders and their dominant themes, he says, "For Wesley, the theme was Christian Perfection . . . for Jesus Christ the Kingdom of God.'(2l)

I am sure that John Wesley would agree that his life-long concern had to be judged and seen in the perspective of the kingdom, and not the other way around.

The World Parish, the church in the world, is not the kingdom, but she is at the service of the kingdom as witness and sign.

NOTES

1 Mortimer Arias, Announcing the Reign of God: Evangelization and the Subversive Memory of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

2 C. Peter Wagner, Church Growth and the Word of God: A Biblical Mandate (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), pp. 2-4.

3 Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teachings of Jesus (New York:Harper and Row, 1967), p. 54.

4 Arias, op. cit., pp. xv-xviiinn. 7-9.

5 Ibid., p. 12.

6 Ibid., pp. 132-133nn. 1-4.

7 0n the words "at hand" and "has come near" (engiken) see W. G. Kummel, Promise and Fulfillment: The Message of Jesus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 105-109.

8 Perrin, pp.63-67; C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom of God (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1961), p. 28nl, on the verb "has arrived"(ephthasen).

9 0n the phrase "in the midst of you" (entos humon), see W. G. Kummel, pp.32-35; J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamatzon of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), p. 101.

10 Etienne Trocme, Jesus de Nazareth (Neuchatel: Delachaux et Nestl~, 1971), pp. 101-110.

11 Georgia Harkness, Understanding the Kingdom of God (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974), p. 55.

12 Arias, op. cit., pp. 46-51.

l3 Paul Loffler, "Conversion in the Bible" in Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, eds., Evangelization. Mission Trends No. 2 (New York: Paulist Press; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1975).

14 Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), pp. 79-83.

15 C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1964).

16 Leslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (London: SPCK, 1978), p. 44.

17 Arias, op. cit., chapter 5, "The Eclipse of the Kingdom."

18 Mortimer Arias, Venga TuReino (Mexico, D. F.: CUPSA,1980), chapter II, "El Eclipse del Reino de Dios."

19 Cf. David Lowes Watson, The Early Methodist Class-Meeting: Its Origin and Significance (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1985), pp. 42, 91,129-133, 137-140, 145.

20 Cf. John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament, key passages on the future kingdom.

21 Charles R. Wilson, "Christology: The Incarnate Word of God" in Charles W. Carter, gen. ed., A Contemporary Wesleyan Theology (2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press of Zondervan Publishing House, 1983),I, 336.

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