The Scandal of the Kingdom

Unlike the kingdom of God, human government functions on principles of force, deception, brutality, and the power of death. All human governments have the power of death, but what they lack is the power of life. This is what the kingdom of God has: the power of life. Human governments can kill. God’s government gives life. This life is based upon the new birth that is an entry into the kingdom of God.

If we don’t understand how he taught, legalism will run rampant because we will interpret what he was saying as laws. This is a very common mistake, especially with the Sermon on the Mount and the Sermon on the Plain.

Jesus constantly used careful and creative employment of the power of logical insight throughout his teaching to enable people to come to the truth about themselves and about God from the inside of their own hearts and minds.

So it is wise to examine Jesus’ teachings and ask if he is giving a general command or offering an illustration of a kingdom principle and what it might look like. If it’s an illustration, ask yourself, What prevailing cultural presumption is he trying to correct?

Parables became one of the primary ways Jesus disrupted the default way of thinking in his culture. The word parable (parabole) comes from two Greek words that mean “to place or throw beside.” Para means “beside,” as in parallel lines; bole means “to throw or to place.” Teaching by parables means placing two things next to each other in order to learn more about them through contrast and comparison.

You see, the parables are an act of mercy to us because sometimes our hearts are hard. You and I both know that if we directly challenge someone with a hard heart, their heart will get even harder. So in his love, mercy, and compassion, Jesus told a story.

Not everyone has ears to hear or eyes to see. Many people use them primarily as filtering and sorting devices. Teachers see this in classrooms. If a student thinks they already know the subject or have “heard it all before,” they simply stop listening. The teacher is faced with the dilemma of how to get through to them when their minds are turned off. Any time the teacher tries to address the material again, it signals the student to switch their mind off again.

When a human being says, “I want to have my way!” God says, “Alright, you can have your way.” Sadly, the worst thing that can ever happen to a human being is to have their way when that way does not include God.

The primary function of the will is to trust God. The set of a person’s will is key for how the Word of God affects the mind because the will and mind are deeply integrated. On the one hand, what the mind dwells on determines what the will chooses to act on; on the other hand, the orientation of the will may determine what stays in the mind. It’s important to ask ourselves, What is my mind dwelling on and why is it dwelling there?

When Jesus said, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (6:25), he was not saying, “Don’t iron your clothes” or, “Don’t think about cooking dinner.” He was saying, “If thoughts of food, clothing, and material goods are uppermost in your mind, those thoughts will run your life.” The desire for pleasures and belongings can create a bondage to material goods that entangles us in a complexity that wears us down and wears us out.

There is a kingdom of God we’re all being invited to live in, and we can know it by experiencing its reality. We can come to know the presence of the King in our lives with such constancy and power that even when we are suffering great pain or lying down to die, we can feel and know the presence of the kingdom and be blessed.

The seed is a power to organize reality. Please think about that for a moment. When you put that little seed down in the earth, it’s already packed with potent substances. The power contained within it cracks the shell of the seed and puts out a little root. That little root starts eating dirt, eventually putting out a little leaf, then more leaves, and then fruit. The seed has organized reality in a specific and defined way to make a watermelon out of dirt, water, and sunlight.

The expression “division of soul and spirit” is one of those delicious phrases that invites further study. The soul is fundamentally the life principle that is in the individual person, given to them by God, which makes their body and mind function. The spirit is the element that is especially given by God to hold the soul and body together. When Jesus died, he said, “Unto you I surrender my spirit” (Luke 23:46, paraphrased), not “my soul” or “my body,” but “my spirit.” “God is spirit” (John 4:24 NIV)—not soul, not body; in defining God, he is spirit.

God’s Word is a substance that offers sustenance, just as food does. We live in two landscapes—the physical and the invisible—and when we fast, we are taking in substance from the invisible landscape. We are learning how to live on the nourishment of the Word of God.

We don’t fast to prove our goodness to God, to others, or even to ourselves.

Fasting helps us to learn inwardly what it is like to live on the nourishing, substantial, living, powerful Word of God.

The gospel of the kingdom of God is also not a gospel only of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is part of the gospel of the kingdom of God, but it is not the whole gospel.† I remind you that Jesus Christ himself did not preach that historical reality as the whole gospel. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is the present availability of the kingdom of God.

This helps us understand what salvation is in the New Testament sense. This salvation includes three things that are available to us: Forgiveness of sins. Through the work of Christ and his substitutionary stand before God on our behalf, our sins are forgiven through the mercy of God. Transformation of character into the image of Jesus Christ. We are meant to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29). This is a work of grace just as much as the forgiveness of sins. And there is nowhere any indication that this is something that is supposed to happen after we die. A significant degree of power over evil, both in our own lives and in the life of the church of which we are essentially a part.

Grace doesn’t mean we do nothing. The farmer went out and sowed the seed. Grace is not opposed to effort (that’s an action), but rather to earning (that’s an attitude).

We very badly need to hear this message of our responsibility for individuals who are in need. Even if we are giving money to charitable organizations, we should never avoid skin-to-skin contact with people who are in need.