THE HOLY REIGN OF GOD

THE HOLY REIGN OF GOD

by
HOWARD A. SNYDER

Psalm 96 says: "Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth. Say among the nations, 'The Lord reigns'" (96:9-10).

This whole psalm is a call for all the earth to praise God as Savior and Ruler over all. "Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples" (v.3). God reigns; He has created all things; and "he will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth" (v.13). A number of the psalms sound the same theme:

The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake.

Great is the Lord in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations.

Let them praise your great and awesome name-he is holy. The King is mighty, he loves justice-you have established equity; in Jacob you have done what is just and right. Exalt the Lord our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy (Ps. 99:1- 5).

Psalm 47:8 says, "God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne." Psalm 29 also speaks of the holiness and the kingship of God (Ps. 29:2, 10). And we read in the Song of Moses and Miriam in Exodus 15 that God, who is "majestic in holiness," will "reign for ever and ever" (Ex. 15:11,18).

Though other examples might be given, these are enough to lift up what I believe is a significant Biblical theme: the holy reign of God. These passages in fact tie together two themes I would like to address this evening: the holiness of God and the kingdom or reign of God.

Both these themes are important for us in the Wesleyan tradition. Most of us are, first of all, in some way part of or heirs to the Holiness Movement. Also, we stand in a tradition which has stressed the sovereignty of God-though a tradition which, with a few exceptions, has not given much attention specifically to the theme of the Kingdom of God.

In last year's meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society we focused on the theme, "The Kingdom of God and the World Parish." We had some excellent papers exploring several dimensions of the theme. I see my presentation tonight as bringing some closure to that discussion and indicating some of its practical dimensions, both theologically and in terms of our every-day discipleship as believers.

My purpose in this paper is fairly simple: to explore the relationship between two Biblical themes which I believe are of concern and interest to all of us: the holiness of God and the Kingdom of God. My central thesis is this: Taking these two themes together leads us to a fuller apprehension of our faith and what it means to be faithful Christian disciples in the present age.

The principal problematic of this study can be posed as a series of questions: What is the relationship between the Biblical themes of the holiness and the kingdom or reign of God? In what ways does each truth help us to understand, and respond appropriately to, the other? And particularly, how might posing these questions illuminate our own Wesleyan tradition?

I. THE HOLY REIGN OF GOD IN SCRIPTURE

As we have seen from the references just cited, the holiness and the reign of God are intimately linked in Scripture. The Old Testament reveals a holy God who is the sovereign Ruler over all He has made. Much more could be said about this theme in the Old Testament; suffice it to say that this perspective is assumed by the New Testament writers.

Jesus and the Kingdom. It has become increasingly recognized that the kingdom of God is a key theme in the New Testament, and especially in Jesus' own life and teachings. Jesus' initial announcement was, " Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Mt. 4:17; cf. Mk. 1:15), the same message John the Baptist had proclaimed (Mt. 3:2). We read that as Jesus began His public ministry He "went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sick-ness among the people" (Mt. 4:23; cf. Mt. 9:35; Lk. 8:1).

The Sermon on the Mount is full of kingdom themes and kingdom imagery. The Beatitudes begin and end with references to the kingdom. The sermon includes the key injunction not to be preoccupied with food and clothing but to "seek first [God's] kingdom and his righteousness," or justice (Mt.6:33).

Jesus sent out His disciples to proclaim, "The kingdom of heaven is near" and to heal and drive out demons (Mt. 10:7; cf. Lk. 9:1-2, 10:9-11). He spoke of the kingdom of God "forcefully advancing" (Mt. 11:12), and said the exorcisms He performed were evidence that "The kingdom of God has come upon you (Mt. 12:28, Lk. 11:20). Jesus' parables of the kingdom speak of its small, seemingly insignificant beginnings, its supreme value, and its growth (Mt. 13; Mk. 4; Lk. 13). Jesus said, "Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it" (Mk. 10:15); in fact, it is next to impossible ""for the rich to enter the kingdom of God"! (Mk. 10:23). To those who followed Him Jesus said, ""Fear not, little flock, for your Father delights to give you the kingdom" (Lk. 12:32). Jesus said the kingdom of God is "within you" or "among you" (Lk. 17:21). He told Nicodemus, "No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit" (Jn. 3:5).

Even during the forty days following His resurrection, Jesus' theme with His disciples was the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Yet He linked the kingdom, not with times and dates but with the powerful filling with the Holy Spirit which would make them effective witnesses of the Gospel throughout the earth.

Simply looking at the Biblical references, one would have to say that Jesus spoke much more about the kingdom of God than He did about the holiness of God. He didn't come proclaiming God's holiness but God's reign.

This assertion must be qualified, however, in two or three ways. First, Jesus explicitly links the holiness and the reign of God in the Lord's prayer: "Hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt. 6:9-10). Christians are to pray that God's name be held holy, that His holiness be recognized and honored, and that God's reign be manifested fully on earth. Here, certainly, is a glimpse of the holy reign of God and it comes in the setting of prayer.

We may note also Matthew 6:33, where seeking the kingdom of God is linked to God's righteousness and justice, thus pointing to the ethical character of God's reign and at least indirectly to God's holiness.

The Lord's Prayer seems clearly to be modeled on King David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:10-13. Here David, near the end of his reign, praises God for his greatness and his provision for the temple to be built under Solomon. David prays,

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you, you are the ruler of all things (1 Chron. 29:11-12).

David goes on to speak of the temple to be built for God's "Holy Name" (v.16). Clearly this passage, so symbolic of the Messianic reign of Christ, is a picture of the holy reign of God-and thus adds significance to the Lord's Prayer, and the Sermon on the Mount generally, as grounded in the holy reign of God.

We might also note that the Lord's Prayer (especially the phrase, "Forgive us our debts") and the Beatitudes can be linked with the Jubilee passages of Isaiah 61:1-2 and Leviticus 25:8-55 (Cf. Psalm 146:740). This relates to our theme at several levels. The Jubilee is a recognition and manifestation of God's sovereign reign and, as a sabbath of sabbaths, recalls the commandment to keep the sabbath day holy (Ex. 20:8-11, Dt. 5:12-15). Here the holiness and reign of God have specific ethical content: justice for the poor; release for the oppressed.

Jesus does, then, in the Sermon on the Mount, connect holiness with the kingdom of God.

A second qualification to my earlier statement that Jesus speaks little about the holiness of God is this: In a real sense, Jesus' whole life and teaching were an explication of God's holiness. As H. Newton Flew says, "For the early Christian the Kingdom was indissolubly bound up with the person of Jesus Himself.... The Kingdom was perfection because He was at the center of it. Ubi Christus, ibi Regnum Dei." He adds, .... . the proclamation by Jesus of the Reign of God carried with it a doctrine of the ideal life which might be lived out in the present world.1

Jesus demonstrates what it means to say that God is holy. He himself is the Holy One (Lk. 1:35). When Jesus said, '"Be perfect, ... as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:48), or "Be merciful just as your Father is merciful" (Lk. 6:36) He was showing what holiness means. And His life was a demonstration of that meaning. Perhaps most importantly, Jesus says the greatest commandment is, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself',' (Mt. 22:37-40). This certainly is a preaching of what it means for "the children of the kingdom" to reflect God's holiness in their lives.

Jesus, then, came proclaiming the kingdom of God and embodying God's holiness. He demonstrated both the power and the ethical meaning of the kingdom in His own life, death, and resurrection. He empowers us with the Holy Spirit that we may live the life of the kingdom now, serving as kingdom witnesses throughout the earth.

Other New Testament References. The Apostle Paul, in his several references to the kingdom of God, links God's reign with righteousness and holiness. In our tradition, perhaps the most familiar of these texts is Romans 14:17, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit;' Wesleyans no doubt have gravitated to this text when they speak of the kingdom especially because of its reference to the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? ... But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (I Cor. 6:9,11). In I Thessalonians Paul refers to the "holy, righteous and blameless" life he lived among the people, and says he urged the believers "to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory" (I Thess. 2:10, 12). While these may be considered somewhat incidental references, they show that in Paul's mind the kingdom of God was certainly linked with holiness in these passages, not so much with God's holiness as with holiness as the Christian's quality of life, but a life which is a reflection, of course, of God's holiness.

Two other New Testament references may be noted in passing. Hebrews 12:28 tells us: "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire' " (Heb. 12:28; cf. Dt. 4:24). Here the holy character of God our King is pictured.

The final reference is from the book of Revelation. In a real sense, the holy reign of God is the fundamental theme of the whole of the Apocalypse. God's holiness and sovereignty are graphically pictured here as the key to understanding history and the present meaning of Christian discipleship. In many ways the key verse is Revelation 1 1:15-'"The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever." The passage goes on to picture a scene of reverent worship of the holy God. The victory of the kingdom of God is proclaimed in a setting of worship.

Summary. From the perspective of the holy reign of God, the Biblical revelation may be summarized as follows: God is holy and is sovereign over all He has made. The alienation of sin constitutes a fall from God's holiness and a rebellion against His reign. Yet God continues to exercise His sovereignty over His people and among the nations. He reveals His holy character through the law, the sacrificial system, and the prophets; He exercises His sovereignty both through and in spite of Israel's kings. Jesus comes as the messianic king, embodying in himself the holy character of God. As holy God and yet finite human, Jesus offers himself as an atonement and rises in triumph over all principalities and powers. He reigns now both as head of all creation and head of the church, His body, called to live now the holy character of God. Christians are called to serve Jesus Christ as their sovereign Lord and their example for life, empowered by Jesus' Spirit among them. They are called to continue the liberating works of the kingdom which Jesus began, living in the certain hope of the final manifestation of God's reign over all things, a reign in which the holiness of God will be reflected in a new heaven and new earth of universal shalom.

II. THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE WESLEYAN TRADITION

We turn now to examine the ways the kingdom of God theme has been handled in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, beginning with Wesley and running on through to the present.

John Wesley. For John Wesley, the key Biblical text on the kingdom of God was Romans 14:17-"For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." The reason for Wesley's preference for this text is clear: He interpreted the kingdom of God, at least in its present dimensions, primarily in terms of the experience of sanctification in believers and especially in the community of believers. One can see this by noting the comments in his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament regarding the kingdom of God. Almost always the meaning of the kingdom is associated with holiness or sanctification (in contrast to Bentel's comments in the Gnomon).

For example, regarding Jesus' initial proclamation of the kingdom (Mt. 4:17), Wesley says, "It is the peculiar business of Christ to establish the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men."2 Commenting on Matthew 13:24, Wesley says that the kingdom of heaven "sometimes signifies eternal glory; sometimes the way to it, inward religion; sometimes, as here, the gospel dispensation."3 To say the kingdom of God is within or among you means the kingdom "is present in the soul of every true believer: it is a spiritual kingdom, an internal principle."4 The kingdom of God mentioned in Romans 14:17 is "true religion"; its righteousness is "the image of God stamped on the heart; the love of God and man, accompanied with the peace that passeth all understanding, and joy in the Holy Ghost."5

The Sermon on the Mount is the way to the kingdom.6 This is so primarily because it teaches the meaning of true Christianity, what it means to be holy and happy; to live a life of all inward and outward holiness. The kingdom of God referred to in the first Beatitude is "the present, inward kingdom; righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost; as well as the eternal kingdom, if they endure to the end"7 To seek first God's kingdom means: "Simply aim at this, that God, reigning in your heart, may fill it with the righteousness above described."8 Wesley gives perhaps his fullest explication in his comment on the Lord's Prayer. "Thy kingdom come" means, "May Thy kingdom of grace come quickly, and swallow up all the kingdoms of earth! May all mankind, receiving Thee, O Christ, for their King, truly believing in Thy name, be filled with righteousness and peace and joy, with holiness and happiness, till they are removed hence into Thy kingdom of glory, to reign with Thee for ever and ever."9

Wesley saw the kingdom of God in terms of the present operation of God's grace in believers' lives, especially, but also in society. A progressive, dynamic understanding of salvation underlies all of Wesley's thought. Nevertheless, one detects a tension between the static and dynamic elements in Wesley. Even though he saw sanctification as dynamic and progressive, he was not entirely free of the classical Greek notion of perfection as changelessness, and salvation as the attainment of an eternal blessedness which is essentially static. This is seen also in his view of the kingdom. The kingdom is fundamentally the direct experience of God through Jesus Christ (the "kingdom of grace").

Wesley was quick to stress the present implications of the gospel and the requirement of the obedience of good works. But underlying this seems to be the suspicion that the only ultimate significance of good works and of the present life is their function in preparing us for eternity, conceived in somewhat static terms. Yet one must remember here Wesley's imaginative descriptions of what the new heaven and new earth might be like, for instance in his sermons ""The General Deliverance;' "The General Spread of the Gospel;' and "The New Creation."

I think Donald Dayton is right in this regard when he says Wesley's "perfectionist soteriology tended . . . to an optimistic social vision. The result [eschatologically] was an ambiguous position that could easily move in the direction of postmillennialism. . .

"Wesley was so oriented to soteriology;. Dayton continues, "that his followers could combine a basically Wesleyan scheme of salvation with a variety of eschatologies without an obvious sense of betrayal. But the basic thrust of Wesley's thought was probably better captured by the less apocalyptic and more postmillennial schemes of thought. Thus, while Wesley himself did not self-consciously adopt a millennial scheme, he helped to unleash forces that could and would move in that direction"10

Wesley did, of course, pass on much of Bengel's postmillennial scheme .'n the Revelation portion of his Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament.

In terms of our two themes here--the holiness and the reign of God-Wesley clearly interpreted the latter in terms of the former. That is, holiness and sanctification were Wesley's chief concern, and became his paradigm for understanding the kingdom of God. One must remember, however, that for Wesley holiness named both the character of God as perfect love and the whole way of salvation (via salutis), embracing, in effect, a whole theology of history, or history of salvation. In this sense there is perhaps a more fundamental, historical kingdom theology in Wesley than is generally recognized.

From Wesley to the Holiness Movement. A number of people, including several WTS members, have investigated the question of the transition between John Wesley and the theology of the nineteenth century Holiness Movement in North America. In general, a certain narrowing of focus specifically to the doctrine of entire sanctification, and an increasingly individualizing tendency, have been noted, with at times an almost exclusive focus on the second crisis experience, in contrast to the wider sweep of Wesley's soteriological framework.

And of course the question of the appropriateness or inappropriateness of Spirit-baptism language has received considerable attention.

Without retracing those discussions, I would like simply to state in summary form what I see as the meaning of this transition for the themes of the holiness and the reign of God, and then cite a few examples.

1. The kingdom of God played a smaller role in nineteenth-century Methodist and Holiness theology than it did in Wesley's thought. This was part of both a theological systematization (in the case of Methodism generally) and a theological narrowing (in the case of the Holiness Movement) evident in this period of transition.

2. Where the kingdom of God was treated, it was interpreted almost always in terms of holiness and the experience of entire sanctification, as was true with Wesley.

3. The question of the kingdom of God inevitably arose to some degree in Holiness circles toward the end of the century with the upsurge of interest in premillennialism. Discussion of the kingdom here is almost totally limited to the millennial question.

By and large, the kingdom of God was simply not a theme of nineteenth century Methodist and Holiness theology. It is intriguing, for instance, to find virtually no discussion of the kingdom of God in such books as Richard Watson's theological Institutes (1823-29), Thomas Ralston's Elements of Divinity (1847), Benjamin Field's Student's Handbook of Christian Theology (1869) and Amos Binney's Theological Compend (1858). Daniel Steele's "Improved" edition of his father-in-law's Compend (1875) devotes merely two pages to "Messiah's Kingdom-Its Progress and Ultimate Triumph" in the general section ""Last Things"; clearly the kingdom of God played no formative theological role.11

Watson's Theological Institutes, which had great impact in North American Methodism and was described in 1877 as "'the standard of Methodist theology for a full half century"12 seems to have largely set the pattern here. Watson has no chapter or section on eschatology, or on the kingdom of God. The only reference to the kingdom I could find was an incidental one in the discussion of infant baptism, where Watson says Jesus more frequently used the phrase '"kingdom of God" ""to denote the Church in this present world, than in its state of glory"13

It appears, then, that whatever stress on the kingdom of God was present in Wesley's theology largely dropped out in nineteenth-century North American Methodism. An exception would be those Wesleyans around the time of Finney's revivalism who, like Finney, saw social reform as in some sense part of the first fruits of the coming kingdom. Significant discussions of the kingdom emerged toward the end of the century as the theological climate was shifting. On the more conservative Holiness Movement side, the precipitating issue was millennialism. On the more "liberal" side within Methodism, the precipitating cause was the influence of German theology and the rise of the Social Gospel around the turn of the century Robert Chiles in Theological Transition in American Methodism: 1790-1935 notes,

Study abroad brought back not only German Biblical research but also the philosophies of Schleiermacher, Lotze, and Ritschl. Ritschlianism in particular penetrated the English-speaking world. Commenting on the time, a Methodist wrote, ""theological seminaries in America are filled with professors who have either sat in the Ritschlian lecture rooms in Berlin, Marburg, Gottingen, etc., and have come back devotees of the faith, or have imbibed at Ritschlian springs nearer home:' [This influence] encouraged the further moralization of theological categories and also gave support to the emphasis on the Kingdom of God in the Social Gospel movement which helped polarize growing liberal conviction, inherited from revival and perfectionist traditions, that the whole of life must be brought under God's rule.14

Millennialism and the Kingdom. It is instructive in this connection to look at two figures in the Holiness Movement just one hundred or so years ago as they dealt with the upsurge of premillennialism but came out at opposite points. Here we see kingdom theologies being articulated within the Wesleyan Holiness milieu-emerging, however, not from the internal dynamic of the Wesleyan message but rather due to external pressures of prophetic and millennial discussions and, more broadly, pressures from the social-cultural climate of the times.

The first of these is Daniel Steele, who had written the holiness classic, Love Enthroned, in 1877. In 1887 he published his Antinomianism Revived, or the Theology of the So-called Plymouth Brethren Examined and Refuted.15 The book is in large measure an attack on dispensational premillennialism as promoted at the Prophecy Conference in New York City in 1878.

Steele criticizes premillennialism for its extreme literalism and particularly for its pessimism, "the hopelessness of the world under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit"16 He believes such pessimism dishonors and undercuts the role of the Holy Spirit and is incompatible with Scripture. Premillennialism, he says, "gives a Jewish and highly materialistic turn to the kingdom of Christ, and leads to a depreciation of the spiritual manifestation of Christ by the Comforter in this life."17 He adds, "I believe that the general prevalence of pre-millennialism would be disastrous to the best interests of the Kingdom of Christ, now being spread over the earth by the joint agency of the Holy Spirit and consecrated believers."18

In this connection Steele has some sharp criticism of the evangelist D. L. Moody:

Several years ago, D. L. Moody learned his method of Bible-study and Bible-readings from the English Plymouth Brethren.... He adopts their millennarianism, and preaches the personal reign of Christ on the earth as a substitute for the present agency of the Spirit and of preaching, which are regarded as inadequate for the successful evangelization of the whole world, and the reconstruction of society on a Christian basis. His declaration that the world is like a ship so hopelessly wrecked that it cannot be gotten off the rocks, but must be left to perish, while Christians rescue as many of the passengers as possible, is a pessimistic Plymouth idea.19

In this book and in some passages in Milestone Papers, published the next year (1888), Steele goes beyond mere critique to sketch a positive Holiness kingdom theology which is moderately dispensational and is postmillennial, maintaining Wesley's optimism of grace. As Donald Dayton and others have shown, Steele here is consciously reaching back to John Fletcher's terminology and doctrine of three dispensations. Dayton notes, "Steele showed signs of the shift that would take place in Holiness thought late in the nineteenth century. Fletcher's doctrine of dispensation was regularly analyzed in Steele's works, and these expositions were widely reprinted in various Holiness periodicals. We have already noted Steele's call for an adoption of the vocabulary of Pentecost."20

Steele wrote, "We object to the pre-millenarian theory because its definition of the kingdom of Christ makes it an institution altogether different from the Church, and entirely in the future.... The Chiliast represents the kingdom as coming only at the descent of the King in person, and as then set up suddenly by almightiness without the aid of human agency. But when we look into the New Testament, we find no such difference in the use of the terms 'Church' and 'kingdom.' They seem to be used interchangeably. The kingdom is to be established by preaching, and it is to develop gradually till its ultimate triumph."21 Thus, "The Church is the kingdom begun."22

Steele thus affirms the growth and gradual progress of God's kingdom. He criticizes a negative interpretation of the meaning of "heaven" in Jesus' parable, noting, "Christ himself spoke of the kingdom of God as within, or among, His hearers. The disciples were taught to pray for its complete triumph on the earth. Parables illustrative of its slow progress, but ultimate universality, were spoken.... The astonishing development of Christ's kingdom from small beginnings through long ages is here plainly taught."23 Steele adds, "In Christ's comparison of the kingdom to leaven deposited in the meal, He intended to teach the gradual diffusion, the pervasive and assimilative power, and the universal prevalence of the kingdom of heaven."24

It is evident that, in reaction to premillennialism, Steele closely associates the kingdom of God with the church and sees it in highly spiritual terms. He speaks of Christ's "present spiritual reign in the Church."25 There is, he says, "but one kingdom of Christ on earth, and that is spiritual, ii. the Church is the spiritual kingdom of Christ and the only kingdom which He will establish on earth."26 We are now in the Dispensation of the Spirit, the time in which the Holy Spirit by Pentecostal lower builds the church:

That was not a mere dash or rhetoric which fell from the pen of John Fletcher, when he spoke of the Pentecost as the opening of "the kingdom of the Holy Ghost." He has the signet ring of our glorified King Jesus, and reigns over the family on earth as the Son of man reigns over the family above. He has not shut himself up as an impersonal force in the tomb of uniform law, but he walks through the earth, a glorious personality, with the keys of divine power attached to his girdle, and with the rod of empire in his right hand. He works miracles in the realm of spirit, as did Immanuel in the realm of matter.27

Steele foresaw a sort of new Pentecost, perhaps the dawning of the authentic, Biblical millennium, through the heightened interest in the sanctifying and empowering work of the Holy Spirit. He saw 'indications of the dawn of that returning day of Pentecost, when the Spirit shall be poured out in his fullness upon all who know the exceeding greatness of Christ's power to us-ward who believe.' The eastern sky has streaks of light betokening the sunrise of a day of power. Christians of every name, lone watchers on the mountain-tops, now see the edge of the ascending disk, and are shouting to the inhabitants of the dark valleys below to awake and arise, and behold the splendors of the King of Day."28

It is clear that Steele's view of the kingdom does maintain Wesley's optimism of grace and his 'evangelical synergism." But it seems to me that, Biblically, it is open to three criticisms: 1) it is overly spiritualized; 2) it too closely identifies the kingdom with the Church; and 3) it distinguishes too sharply between the agency of Jesus Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. Here Steele is tripped up by the very kind of dispensationalism he criticizes. At all these points, it seems to me, Wesley is more balanced and more Biblical. Steele is also much closer to Pentecostalism at these points than was Wesley

Other people in the Holiness Movement went the opposite direction of Steele, adopting premillennialism, and not all of these became Pentecostals after 1900 or 1906.I have chosen a somewhat obscure but intriguing example, Thomas H. Nelson, who until 1894 was a Free Methodist. In 1896 he published a book entitled The Midnight Cry or The Consummation of All Things as Shown by Fulfilled Prophecies and the "Signs of the Times" in which he fully adopted the premillennial viewpoint.

Nelson had been an associate of Vivian A. Dake in the work of the Pentecost Bands, an aggressively evangelistic youth movement within Free Methodism which in the late 1880s and early 1890s started dozens of new churches and turned them over to the denomination (eleven in one year alone, according to Dake).29 The Pentecost Bands were teams of young men or young women committed to a radical holiness discipleship, and the movement became controversial within the Free Methodist Church. Nelson succeeded Dake as leader of the Pentecost Bands when Dake died in Africa in 1892.

Following the Free Methodist General Conference of 1894 the Pentecost Bands left the Free Methodist Church, becoming an independent organization. Nelson served as their superintendent and apparently immediately founded the Pentecost Training School in St. Louis that same year.30 The Bands eventually united with the Wesleyan Methodist Church.

In his book The Midnight Cry, Nelson called postmillennialism a "heresy" and said, 'we fail to find any scripture for the dogma that is becoming so popular these days that the 'world is rapidly growing better,' and that the prevailing principles and influences will be successful in converting it and bringing about the millennium."31 In Nelson's view, Christ's millennial reign will be literal and physical on a 'renewed and glorified earth":

We see no reason why this earth, when purged from sin, should not be the seat of Him who thus redeemed it? [sic] There is nothing essentially vile in physical substance. With sin and all its effects destroyed, this earth would be an Eden, and in a very literal sense the meek could inherit the earth. . . - thank God that sin is to be expunged and all its train of concomitant evils to be destroyed and righteousness, peace and plenty to be enjoyed, a universal Eden, presided over by [Jesus Christ].32

With only four years remaining until the year 1900, Nelson calculated that the world was then over 5,990 years old. "The seventh thousand year day, the Lord's millennial sabbath, ... is at hand. We are living in the Saturday evening of this world's history."33 "All orthodox Christians, especially believers in the premillennial doctrine, expect that the kingdom of Christ is to come upon the earth and exist under His personal reign for 1,000 years," he said.34

Such views were not eccentric or unusual in the context of the times. The Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times, published in New York, with a circulation of 250,000, regularly carried articles supporting premillennial views during this period. A dozen years or so before the publication of Nelson's book the Reverend Michael Baxter in an article in the Christian Herald (which he edited) proved through a series of calculations that 1893 was the latest possible date for Christ's return and the beginning of the millennium.35 It now appears he made some error in his calculations.

Significantly, Nelson's millennarianism fit well with a movement which named itself after Pentecost and was engaged in front-line battle with the forces of darkness. The missionary spirit of Nelson and the Pentecost Bands is well captured in the most popular of Vivian Dake's many hymns, which articulates a kind of radical holiness view of the reign of God:

We'll girdle the globe with salvation, With holiness unto the Lord;

And light shall illumine each nation The light from the lamp of His Word.

The last verse:

The watch fires kindle far and near, In every land let them appear, Till burning lines of gospel fire, Shall gird the world and mount up higher.36

In some ways Nelson's view of the kingdom of God is the reverse image of Steele's, and yet both considered their views Wesleyan and Biblical. One might argue that Nelson's views are more christocentric and less pneumatocentric, though more apocalyptic, than are Steele's in that his focus was more on the return and reign of Jesus Christ than on the present work of the Holy Spirit in believers. In fact, Dake's hymns are highly christological, with few references to the Holy Spirit. The emphasis is on radical Christ likeness for the sake of evangelism and missions.

Yet over all, it seems to me that the premillennial eschatology of Nelson and people like him moves even further away from the breadth and depth of Wesley. There is a kind of apocalypticism in this mentality that is foreign to the sense of growth and process one finds in Wesley. To a large degree, Wesley takes his cue from the life of Christ; Steele, from Christ's gift of the Spirit at Pentecost; and Nelson, from the Second Coming of Christ.

From 1900 to Today. I would argue that in general the Holiness Movement put major stress on the holiness of God to the neglect of the kingdom of God as a central organizing theme of theology and ethics. "Holiness or Christian perfection is the central idea of Christianity" argued Jesse T. Peck in his 1856 book, The Central Idea of Christianity The key fact about 'the kingdom of grace" is holiness: "God... reigns in holiness, immaculate and infinite."37 Very little else need be said about the kingdom of God.

Yet as Holiness churches and associations moved into the twentieth century, they found themselves affected in various ways by the Modernist-fundamentalist controversy, in which two radically divergent views of God's kingdom were advocated. Almost to the same degree that the Social Gospel argued that the kingdom of God was a present, this-worldly, social reality to be achieved largely by human effort, the Fundamentalists insisted that the kingdom was a future reality totally dependent upon God's sovereignty. Though it would be literal and earthly in the future, its only present relevance was spiritual, other-worldly, and largely individual.

The various Holiness bodies were affected by these currents in differing degrees, some of the newer Holiness denominations officially adopting premillennial positions. Virtually no one in the Holiness Movement, however, made the kingdom of God a central theological theme or attempted to articulate a theology of the holy reign of God.

A major exception to this, as we learned at the WTS Meeting last year, was E. Stanley Jones, the noted Methodist missionary to India whose book on Mahatma Gandhi influenced the young Martin Luther King. In many ways Jones was a man much like Wesley: an evangelist at heart; a folk theologian; a man with a world parish; a popularizer and yet profound; interested in all of life, including health and psychology; a radical who stayed in the mainstream.

The unique thing about Jones (at least from the perspective of this paper) is that his central theological paradigm shifted from holiness to the kingdom of God, and yet he remained fundamentally within the Holiness ethos. He is perhaps the only twentieth-century figure to articulate what might properly be called a theology of the holy reign of God. I would argue that some of the most appealing and dynamic aspects of Jones' kingdom theology are grounded precisely in his Wesleyanism. Conversely, Jones' teaching regarding discipleship and the Christian life escape much of the narrowness, parochialism, and compromising enculturation of most North American Holiness teaching precisely because of its grounding in a Biblical theology of the kingdom.

It is clear that the kingdom of God became the central organizing principle of Jones' theology especially after his experiences in the Soviet Union and in India in the 1930s. That story was detailed for us last year in David Bundy's excellent paper on E. Stanley Jones.

Jones wrote, "The Kingdom of God is the master-conception, the master-plan, the master-purpose, the master-will that gathers everything up into itself and gives it redemption, coherence, purpose, goal."38 For him it is God's kingdom, not holiness, that is the central idea-or, rather, the central fact of Christianity. Jesus is the meaning and embodiment of the kingdom: "As He is the Incarnation of God, so He is the Incarnation of the Reign of God. . . to have relationship with Christ is to have relationship with the new Order embodied in Christ."39

Jones insisted that the kingdom of God "is redemption for the individual and for the whole of society."40 Jesus, said Jones, "was so interested in the individual that those who are impressed with this fact have often forgotten the framework of a world-kingdom in which this interest was manifest. To be able to hold a world-vision with detailed interest in the individual-this is a realism that extends from the macrocosm to the microcosm-the whole range of life."41 Jones especially insisted that the kingdom "is not an idea-it is fact, a present, pressing, all-demanding Fact"; it is "the ultimate environment."42 People and nations may or may not acknowledge God's kingdom, but the kingdom is. It is built into the fabric of the universe.

The church has lost sight of the kingdom of God, Jones said, but is ripe for a rediscovery. "If the Christian Church should become a disciple of the Kingdom of God there would be a new burst of creative activity that would set herself and the world ablaze."43

Jones applied his understanding of the kingdom to all areas of life-economics, psychology, medicine, international relations, the environment, and the life of the church. "The kingdom of God is Christ likeness universalized," he said.44 Jones carefully distinguished between the kingdom and the church; yet he said the church must exist for the kingdom. He sounds like Wesley when he applies the meaning of the kingdom to church life: "The Kingdom was to be given to a little flock and not merely to individuals. The Kingdom would come through group action. If these Kingdom-of-God groups are to be effective, they must be unreservedly committed to Christ and unbreakably committed to each other. They must enter a conspiracy of love to keep each other up to the highest."45

While one might point to certain limitations in Jones' theology, I find it at once the most creative, relevant, and Biblically based kingdom theology to emerge so far in this century. I would like to suggest it as a key paradigm-though not the only one-for understanding in our age the meaning of the holy reign of God.

III. INTERPRETING THE HOLY REIGN OF GOD

This brings us to my final section. What do we learn from the interplay of these two themes, the holiness and the reign of God? What are some of the practical implications for life and theology today? I would like to make several concluding comments.

Models of the Holy Reign of God. First of all, it seems to me there are four possible models for understanding the relationship between the holiness of God and the reign of God:

1. The experience of holiness IS the kingdom of God. Here the kingdom is viewed as essentially spiritual and historical; the primary meaning of the kingdom is the personal experience of God's sanctifying presence in ones life. It is very easy for this view to make little or no distinction between the church and the kingdom.

This is, fundamentally, the model of John Wesley and of the Holiness Movement generally. It is perhaps best represented in the views of Daniel Steele, as presented above. While I would identify this as Wesley's primary model, his conception of the kingdom was broader than this, as we have seen.

2. The kingdom of God IS holiness, understood as justice, wholeness, shalom. This is, in effect the opposite of the first model: the kingdom is the key to understanding holiness, rather than the other way around. This might be seen as the Social Gospel understanding, where the primary focus is on society and social meaning of holiness and the kingdom. Clearly there are elements of this view in Wesley and in E. Stanley Jones.

3. Holiness is now; the kingdom is future Here there is a sharp dichotomy between the present and the future The kingdom has to do with "last things;' and so is of little concern in the present. Our present focus should be on holy living, and on the life of the church. We might see this as the Holiness variant of premillennial dispensationalism; one certainly sees this in people like Thomas H. Nelson, or in Seth Cook Rees' book, The Ideal Pentecostal Church. 46

4. Holiness is the ethic of the kingdom. The kingdom is God's reign, both present and future, and we are called to live a life that reflects the character of the King. Jesus Christ is the key to understanding the meaning of both holiness and the kingdom. Thus holiness is Christ-likeness, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and the kingdom of God is the ""grand design" for personal life and for society which shows us what God is doing in the world through Jesus Christ. I think E. Staniey Jones best represents this model, though elements of it are found also in Wesley. It perhaps is the model closest to the revival-and-reform vision of mid-nineteenth-century figures like Charles Finney.

These four models are not necessarily mutually exclusive; yet they do represent distinctly different ways of understanding the reign of God. Implications for Christian Discipleship. Finally, I believe this whole discussion of the holy reign of God suggests several implications for the meaning of Christian discipleship today. Here I am attempting to be both Biblically faithful and relevant to the world in which we must live out our daily Christian commitment.

1. Christian discipleship must be understood in terms of BOTH the holiness and the reign of God. Both themes point to fundamental and mutually supportive Biblical truths which are needed in our world today. As Christians, and as the Christian community, we need to experience both Christ in us and Christ over and ahead of us.

I think it is important in this connection to maintain a trinitarian understanding of holiness and the reign of God-particularly as a safeguard against subtle dispensational tendencies which may over-emphasize one person of the Trinity at the expense of the others or of the unity of the Three.

2. The holiness theme accents the elements of ethics, personal experience, and Christian character in one's conception of the kingdom of God. Holiness stresses the character of the God who is King, not just His power or sovereignty. Holy, personal love becomes the controlling center, not mere power, authority, or order. This is one point where the Wesleyan Holiness tradition ought to be making a key contribution to contemporary discussions of the kingdom of God.

The Wesleyan and Pietist traditions have stressed the moral change brought about by regeneration and sanctification-Christ in us as well as Christ for us; the renewed image of God as well as the Word of God. This is important if the contemporary church is really to embody the character of Jesus Christ and build kingdom communities which witness authentically to both the love and the power of Jesus Christ.

3. The kingdom of God theme accents the broader his torica4 cultural and social dimensions of holiness. The theme of the kingdom of God brings in the global, cosmic perspective in ways that the theme of holiness too often does not. Wesley's understanding of "'social holiness" makes more sense and can be more solidly grounded when interwoven with Biblical kingdom themes. Here is the basis for an ethic of liberation and social transformation.

4. Both holiness and the kingdom of God embody the already mot yet character of God's redemptive action. Christians already are "saints," are being sanctified, and yet have not fully attained perfection or maturity. The kingdom of God is here, is coming, and will come. God has acted decisively in Jesus Christ and yet continues to act through Christ the Spirit and will act finally in the Second Coming of Christ. The all read not yet tension is similarly present in both themes precisely because both reflect the truth about God's saving, liberating action. Practically, this is both a caution against pride and triumphalism and also our source of hope and confidence as we face the future.

5. Finally, when Biblically grounded, both themes reflect a powerful optimism of grace which can be a vital motive force for evangelism, social reform, and the building of authentic church life The dynamism which Timothy Smith points to in his Revivalism and Social Reform 47 can become a key mechanism when the holiness and kingdom themes are combined with Biblical integrity. Part of the challenge before us today is to build communities of faith where the hope of the Gospel is soundly grounded in God's holiness and God's reign.

Much more could be said about these themes and about their interaction, but I think this overview identifies the major issues involved and the fruitfulness of accenting and combining these two strands of truth May God help the church today truly to seek first His reign and righteousness, and to pray in faith, "May Your kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven:" This is the meaning of the holy reign of God.

NOTES

1R. Newton Flew, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology: An Historical Study of the Christian Ideal for the Present Life (New York: Humanities Press, 1968), 5, 3.

2John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament (London: Epworth Press, 1958), 27.

3Ibid., 70. Note the general sense of "gospel dispensation" here, in contrast to Fletcher's concept of the dispensation of the Spirit. See John Fletcher, "The Portrait of St. Paul or, The True Model for Christians and Pastors;' The Works of the Reverend John Fletcher, 4 vols. (New York: Lane and Scott, 1851), 3:7-241, esp. pp.116-97; Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Francis Asbury Press-Zondervan, 1987), 51-54.

4Ibid., 269.

5Ibid., 57.

6John Wesley, "Upon our Lord's Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the First;' The Works of John Wesley, ed. Frank Baker. Vol 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 470.

7Wesley, Explanatory Notes, 25.

8Ibid., 41.

9Ibid., 37. Cf. Wesley's sixth sermon on the Sermon on the Mount, which contains virtually the same wording.

10Dayton, 152-53.

11Amos Binney and Daniel Steele, Binney '5 Theological Compend Improved. . -- (New York: Methodist Book Concern, 1875,1902), 139-41.

12Robert E. Chiles, Theological Transition in American Methodism: 1790-1935 (New York: Abingdon, 1965), 47.

13Richard Watson, Theological Institutes: Or a View of the Evidences, Doctrines, Morals, and Institutions of Christianity, new ed., 2 vols. (New York: Lane and Scott, 1851), 2:637.

14Chiles, 63.

15Daniel Steele, Antinomianism Revived, or the Theology of the So-called Plymouth Brethren Examined and Refuted (Boston: McDonald, Gill & Co., 1887).

16Ibid., 169.

17Ibid., 168.

18Ibid., 265.

19Ibid., 55-56.

20Dayton, 164.

21Stee1e, 246.

22Ibid., 250.

23Ibid., 247.

24Ibid., 248.

25Ibid., 251.

26Ibid., 252.

27Daniel Steele, Milestone Papers, Doctrinal Ethical and Experimental on Christian Progress (New York: Eaton & Mains, 1878), 146.

28Ibid, 148-49. 29Thomas H. Nelson, Life and Labors of Rev. Vivian A. Dake, Organizer and Leader of Pentecost Bands (Chicago: T. B. Arnold, 1894), 470. Dake wrote in 1891, ""During the past year we have given the Illinois conference one new society, the Central Illinois, five new societies, with one church dedicated and three under process of erection; the Wabash conference, five new societies with three churches dedicated and one under way, in addition to lots for two more churches. These are all dedicated to the church and the societies handed over to the respective conferences" (Ibid., 470).

30Byron S. Lamson, Venture! The Frontiers of Free Methodism (Winona Lake, Indiana: Light and Life Press, 1960), 129438.

31Thomas H. Nelson, The Midnight Cry or The Consummation of All Things as Shown by Fulfilled Prophecies and the "Signs of the Times" (Indianapolis: Pentecost Band Publishing Company, 1896), 16, 18.

32Ibid., 24.

33Ibid., 163.

34Ibid., 164.

35M. Baxter, "The Focus Year of Prophetic Chronology," The Christian Herald and Signs of Our Times, 17:18, New Series (May 3, 1883), 278.

36Free Methodist Hymnal, 1910, No.650. 37Jesse T. Peck, The Central Idea of Christianity, abridged (Kansas City, Missouri: Beacon Hill Press, 1951), 7, 12.

38E. Stanley Jones, Is the Kingdom of God Realism? (New York:Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1940), 53.

39Ibid., 54. 40Ibid., 56. 41Ibid., 24.

42Ibid., 72, 77.

43bid., 262-63.

44E. Stanley Jones, The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972), 34.

45Ibid., 272. 46Seth Cock Roes, The Ideal Pentecostal Church (Cincinnati: M. W Knapp, The Revivalist Office, 1897).

47Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform: American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (New York: Abingdon Press, 1957).

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