the kingdom of god is not new

I know I'm slow but I'm finally getting to Dallas Willard's, The Divine Conspiracy. I like his spin on the timing of the coming of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom did not come into existence at the time of Christ. Rather Jesus announced a "new accessibility of the kingdom to humanity through himself."

 

Willard points out that the Gospel of the Old Testament is that "Our God Reigns!" (Isa 52.7, Psa 96-97, 99; Isa 63.12, Exo 15.18). Instead, Willard explains that when Jesus directs us to pray, "Thy Kingdom come," it is not a come into existence thing, it is come "take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded 'on earth as it is in heaven.'"

 

Even better...

 

Within his overarching dominion God has created us and has given each of us, like him, a range of will - beginning from our minds and bodies and extending outward, ultimately to a point not wholly predetermined but open to the measure of our faith. His intent is for us to learn to mesh our kingdom with the kingdoms of others. Love of neighbor, rightly understood, will make this happen. But we can only love adequately by taking as our primary aim the integration of our rule with God's. That is why love of neighbor is the second, not the first, commandment and why we are told to seek first the kingdom, or rule of God.

 

Only as we find that kingdom and settle into it can we human beings all reign, or rule, together with God. We will then enjoy individualized "reigns" with neither isolation nor conflict. This is the ideal of human existence for which secular idealism vainly strives. Small wonder that, as Paul says, "Creation eagerly awaits the revealing of God's children" (Rom. 8:19).

 

Lord - let your Kingdom come!

 

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