Zach’s Theological Musings

  Don’t you love the book of Acts? I sure do. My interest in writing theological essays started 11 years ago with “What Revival Means to Me.” Here’s the summarized version:

What Revival Means to Me: See the Book of Acts

Since then I wrote Remember, The Pursuit of Maximum Pleasure, and Our Need Runs Deep. Here’s the upshot:

Acts, wow!

  I’m a bit embarrassed to go back and read those writings because of my amateurish writing style in the way that I express certain things (from that time until now). But I still keep them posted on the internet for the world to see. Why? Because I’m not ashamed of the basic content and core message. I’m not ashamed of the perspective that some people will call “youthful idealism.” The last eleven years of life, world travel, getting married, having two children, facing profound disappointments in myself, and facing profound disappointments in the church haven’t kicked out of me the so-called “idealism” that God (I believe) infuses deep into my soul every time I read that book or even short passages from it.

  I’m putting the word “idealism” in quotes because I don’t believe that my perspective towards Acts as expressed in the above papers really is idealistic (as opposed to realistic). I know with certainty that the church of Christ will remain oh so far from perfect this side of heaven. I know with certainty that the first century church was full of heresy and gross immorality. I know with certainty that periods of revival have not only excited people’s holy affections, but have been times of horrendous evil as well. I reject over-realized eschatologies. I recognize that many of the New Testament epistles were written precisely because of the fact that the churches had so many problems. But even still, oh friend please hear this, even still I insist: there is a massive difference between them (the church of Acts) and us.

  Of course I am not the only one who feels “fired up” when I read the book of Acts. You probably do too, dear reader, assuming that you also have the fiery Holy Spirit of God living in you. I know a lot of people, especially young Christians who haven’t yet been taught how to water down the Scriptures, feel the Holy Spirit stirring in them when they read about the awe (Gr. fear) and the passionate zeal that filled the church after Christ’s ascension.

  But then along come the passion quenchers with their fire hoses. One of their main tools is the following logical fallacy: the church today is imperfect but the New Testament church was imperfect too, so in fact we are not so different from them. In mathematical terms, their argument goes something like this (with: X = The church of Acts, Y = The church today, and Z = Perfection):

X does not equal Z

Y does not equal Z

Therefore X = Y

Wrong! If you were to write something like that in one of my math classes you would be headed for an F. The hypotheses in this case are absolutely correct. But the conclusion does not logically follow and in this case is not at all true.

  You can find the church today in the Bible, but not so much in Acts. Look instead to Revelation:

I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance… But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place — unless you repent. Rev 2:4-5

I believe that Acts is in the inspired canon, not so that we might point to it and say, “Oh that looks so much like us!” But rather so that God would have something to point to when He says, “Remember the height from which you have fallen.”

  The genre of Acts is history. It really happened. IN THIS WORLD. THIS SIDE OF HEAVEN. The church at large was far from perfect both in terms of orthodoxy and orthopraxy. But it was also a time of great love for God, celebratory wonder in the coming of Messiah, and unspeakable fullness of joy in the Holy Spirit which overflowed in sacrificial love for fellow man. And Jesus commands us, to the extent that we have left our first love, to look back, remember, repent, and do the deeds that the church His bride did at first.

Mark 12:28-34:

  One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?”

  Jesus answered, “The foremost is, “HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’  The second is this, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

  The scribe said to Him, “Right, Teacher; You have truly stated that HE IS ONE, AND THERE IS NO ONE ELSE BESIDES HIM; AND TO LOVE HIM WITH ALL THE HEART AND WITH ALL THE UNDERSTANDING AND WITH ALL THE STRENGTH, AND TO LOVE ONE’S NEIGHBOR AS HIMSELF, is much more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

  When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, He said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one would venture to ask Him any more questions.

  This is one example of what I’m talking about when I say that I feel evangelical Christianity is sometimes uncomfortable with the gospel in the gospels. How could Jesus say to this scribe, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” following a discussion about the greatest commandments in the Law? Wouldn’t it have been better evangelical theology for Jesus to have said, “Repent of your sins, trust in my substitutionary sacrifice which is coming soon, and you will certainly be a son of the kingdom”? But that’s not what He said. And whatever God does say is certainly more fitting for the moment than what any person thinks God should have said.

  I do not believe that Jesus here was teaching that salvation comes through a man’s own efforts to fulfill the Law. On the other hand I don’t think that Jesus was teaching salvation by grace through faith either! One interpretive error that evangelical Christians can make is when we try to force everything in the Bible into the “faith vs. works” dichotomy. Don’t get me wrong, I fully believe that when a man put faith in Christ’s righteous life, Christ’s death in our place, and Christ’s victorious resurrection, such a man is declared righteous in God’s sight without regard to his record of sinful living (for that record is washed away at that moment). Hallelujah! But what God wants us to know and love about Him and what He has done for us consists of more than just the fact that His gift is received by faith rather than works, as important as that fact is.

  Take the above passage. The Pharisees, like all Jews, were (supposedly) anxiously awaiting Messiah and His kingdom. But when He came they missed Him. They didn’t merely ‘miss’ Him; they rejected, humiliated, tortured, and killed Him. Why? In large part because the kind of kingdom they were looking for wasn’t what Christ’s kingdom is like. That’s why Jesus spent so much time talking about, and demonstrating, what His kingdom IS like.

  The kingdom of God is where God’s rule is joyfully recognized. God always rules, everywhere. But His rule is generally spurned by man. Where there is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that’s the kingdom of God! (Don’t you want to be a part of the kingdom?)

  I think the Pharisees would have agreed with this, in the sense that they were looking for a kingdom in which God’s rule, God’s Law, would be fulfilled. Their problem was that they totally misunderstood and misrepresented God’s Law. (I’ll have to expand on that statement in a subsequent post.) Jesus wasn’t fulfilling the “law”, i.e. traditions, they had made up, and therefore they assumed He couldn’t be the one to usher in God’s kingdom.

  But if you, like the scribe in Mark 12:28, can see that God’s Law is summarized in the command to love God and love your neighbor then when you look at Jesus you will see the perfect, joyful fulfillment of God’s Law. In other words, you will see the kingdom. At least one major reason this scribe was close to the kingdom was because he knew what to look for. He knew what the kingdom should be like.

  If someone is looking for the wrong kingdom, then telling them that “faith not works” is the way to enter the kingdom does them no good. There are many people today who are exercising “faith not works” to receive a “gospel message”, but it is a false gospel. If you have “received Jesus by faith”, and what that means to you is that you have trusted Jesus to give you a comfortable, prosperous, suffering-free life, then you are still dead in your sins and you are barreling down a path toward eternal suffering in hell.

  Biblical Christians needs to declare to the world not only how to enter the kingdom of God, but what that kingdom is like, lest people think we are inviting them into the kingdom of their own imaginations. And, as I’ve said before, when it comes to showing what the kingdom of God is truly like, the four gospels really shine. And Romans does too! And Exodus, Genesis, Daniel… Hallelujah! Praise God for His kingdom in which His glory lighting up the skies is our greatest delight, and in which all mankind loves one another as their own flesh.

  The phrase “kingdom of heaven” appears 32 in times in the Bible, all of them in Matthew! The phrase “kingdom of God” appears 52 times in gospels and after that an additional 14 times in the New Testament. “Kingdom” itself appears a whopping 126 times in the gospels, 17 times in Acts and Revelation combined, and an additional 18 times scattered through the rest of the New Testament. [All of the above are my own counts from an NASB concordance.]

  My first reason for pointing these numbers out is to demonstrate that the Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven is an important topic in the New Testament, and in fact the Bible as a whole. Indeed, some Christian teachers have proposed it as the unifying theme for all of Scripture. Certainly the kingdom of God makes a very rich topic for Biblical study, which I highly recommend.

  More specifically I want to point out that, although the Kingdom of God theme is central to all of the NT and all of the Bible, the phrase itself is especially highlighted in the gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke in particular). There is good reason for that. The “Kingdom of God” is the same as the “Kingdom of Christ” (Col 1:13, II Tim 4:1, II Pet 1:11, Rev 11:15, Rev 12:10). And although this kingdom’s King is the focus of all of the Bible, it is in the gospels that the eternal Word becomes flesh, typology begins giving way to the typifier, and fulfillment of prophecy breaks forth as a flood.

  So I would propose that it is not surprising that the more that Jesus is directly in view the more His kingdom would be directly in view. You see, the “kingdom of God” refers not so much to a realm as to a reign, not so much to a place as a the presence of God in providential, saving, benevolent kingship. (John Piper gives some clarifications in his sermon on Rom 14:16-19.) So even though God as Spirit is omnipresent and always reigning, still the physical presence of Jesus on earth, actively at work destroying the works of the evil one, and displaying His authority, means that the kingdom of Christ is “at hand” and “on the move” in a very special way.

  Thus when we read the gospels we should come to them with eyes and ears prepared to see and hear what the kingdom of God is like in the life, love, ministry, teachings, and sacrifice of Christ. For example, most of Jesus’ parables are about what the kingdom of heaven is like. Eleven times (all of them in Matthew) Jesus explicity started out His parables saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like…”, but even many of the parables that don’t start that way are clearly displaying what the kingdom is like. The gospels are also an essential place to learn about who will or won’t enter into Jesus’ kingdom (Matt 5:20, Matt 7:21, Matt 18:3, John 3:5), and dangers to beware of for those who do long to to enter (Matt 19:23-24, Mark 9:47). Best of all, the gospels are an ideal place to “Behold your king” Himself!

   P.S. The “gospel of the kingdom” is another great Biblical topic which, although related, is different from what I’m talking about here.