Sunday, April 29, 2012

Did Tom White Go To Heaven Or Hell?

On the morning of April 18 the body of Tom White, executive director of The Voice of the Martyrs, was found at his ministry's headquarters in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He had committed suicide while under investigation for having molested a 10-year-old girl.

A couple weeks ago Tom White was known as a fine Christian man in charge of an international Christian ministry that was doing great good in the world. Now he is known as a pedophile, the scum of the earth, the kind of man who, if he said aloud, "I want to kill myself," would quickly be handed a gun by some eager volunteer who would tell him, "Do it, you bastard."

Tom White has slipped the court of human justice and has now stood before the God to whom we will all render account. Did God take him home to heaven or send him away to hell?

I'm not going to answer that question. It is not for me to answer. But I would like to mention some relevant Scripture texts. In bold print below are Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to hell. In italics are other Bible verses that might indicate to some Christian believers that Tom and people like him go to heaven. I post these verses without further comment, and leave the question hanging in the air.

Mark 9:42:
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea."


Romans 10:13:
For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”


Matthew 7:21-23:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’


Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.


Romans 2:13:
For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.


Titus 3:5:
he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,


1 Corinthians 6:9-10:
Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.


Luke 23:41-43:
41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”


Galatians 5:19-21:
19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15:
13 His work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.


Ephesians 5:5-6:
5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

Luke 18:13-14:
13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”


Revelation 21:8:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.


Romans 10:9-10:
9 That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved


John 5:28-29:
28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.


John 5:24:
“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.


1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

John 6:37:
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

Matthew 13:49-50:
49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.


Romans 4:5:
However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Can We Thank God For Cake When Others Have No Bread?

Years ago when I was at the University of Illinois I took my friend Nordin out for a cup of coffee and dessert. Nordin, a fellow linguistics student and devout Muslim, grew up in Malaysia in circumstances you might consider poverty-stricken. He told me for example that when he came to America he had to teach his children how to flush a toilet.

When the waitress brought us our desserts - huge mounds of chocolate cake topped with ice cream and dripping with hot fudge - Nordin smiled and said, eyes shining, "Oh Paul. Who can look at this and not be thankful?"

I have quoted Nordin many times since. Though he meant his question to be rhetorical, I can think of some answers to it. Here are three kinds of people who can receive chocolate cake and not be thankful:

(1) Small-minded ingrates who think they deserve such luxuries. They complain when they don't get them but are not grateful when they receive them.

(2) Atheists who sincerely believe there is No One to thank. (They might thank the person who bought the cake, but not the Creator of Reality in which cake is enjoyed.)

(3) People who may or may not believe in God, but who deem it unseemly in any event to thank such a Being for trifles and luxuries while others are denied basic necessities.

I am not interested in the people in category 1. They are bad and should repent and learn to give thanks so that they will be less bad. As for the people in category 2, while I disagree with their premise I respect their intellectual consistency. For a response to the curious phenomenon of atheists who like to give thanks anyways (just whom are they thanking?), please see the February 3, 2009 essay, "I Need Somebody To Thank."

It is the people in category (3) who interest me the most and with whom I actually have some sympathy, despite the fact that (as my experience suggests) they tend to find gratitude like mine offensive, and sometimes they even respond to it with expressions of outrage that border on ill will. Their anger is understandable, since in their view my thankfulness is unseemly, and all unseemly behavior is wrong.

I recently saw an example of category 3 opposition to gratitude on the Facebook page of an old college friend who is now a professor of philosophy. He uploaded a poster with three panels. The first panel showed Britanny Spears receiving an award, and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me win this award." The second panel showed Green Bay Packers wide receiver Greg Jennings kneeling on a football field and the caption read, "Thank you God for helping me score this touchdown." The third panel showed starving children in Africa. There was no caption.

I cannot say I know for certain what was the precise message that the creator of the poster wanted to convey. It may have been

(1) "God doesn't care about your Grammy awards and touchdowns. Look at these starving children! They are the ones God cares about. Rather than invoking the name of God in your victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers or Christina Aguilera you should devote yourself to God's true priorities: ministry to those who are desperately poor and needy."

Or,

(2) "How silly of you to think that there is a God who enables you to make millions catching a football or singing a song. Isn't it obvious that God does not exist? All that is necessary to demolish your Grammy-and-touchdown God is to take one good look at these starving children. If there were a loving Sky Fairy, certainly he would give these hungry children a sandwich before he would give you success in music or sports."

It was just such a photograph of African starvation that proved pivotal in Charles Templeton's departure from Christian faith. Templeton was an evangelist and pastor, and a colleague and friend of Billy Graham. He converted to atheism in the mid 1950s, citing among other things a picture in Life Magazine of a mother in Africa with her starving child. Long story short, Templeton concluded, "There is no God."

I have written lengthy responses to such standard challenges to theism (See "The Tsunmai and Faith," parts 1 and 2, January 4 and 9, 2005; "The Goodness of God and the Horror of Haiti," January 19, 2010; and "Why I Believe in the Goodness of God," January 26, 2010). I will not repeat those points here. My focus is more narrow. If there is a God, and all the wretched suffering in the world has not caused us to disbelieve his existence, should it at least give us pause with regard to thanking him? Is it right to thank God for cake while others die for lack of bread?

Yes, I think you should still thank God for cake. And for touchdowns, Grammys, and whatever else brings you joy that is neither ill-gotten nor perverse. Free yourself from the inhibition that would stifle your instinct to say "Oh, thank you GOD!" whenever you get something nice. That restraint and its puritanical enforcers among the category 3 non-thankers exude an air of righteousness dignity, but it's all just smoke and fog. Indulge. Give thanks. Rejoice in the Lord.

If you are tempted to pull back from giving thanks because of the indignation and intimidation of category 3 non-thankers, I should warn you that their objections to your thanksgiving will probably not stop at trifles. I have seen it extend all the way to life itself. For example, in a January 4, 2005 Chicago Tribune column Eric Zorn confessed his impatience with a friend who thanked God for answered prayer that his loved ones in Sri Lanka survived the great tsunami. This gratitude, Zorn explained, implied a judgment on those who suffered: clearly they did not praise and beg God sufficiently. Zorn took a similar shot at "civic and religious leaders [who] thank God for steering tornadoes around their little towns." Do you see? In order to satisfy a category 3 non-thanker you would have to stifle your gratitude not only for touchdowns and Grammys but for the simple fact that you're still alive. That pretty well covers the range from trivial to vital, doesn't it. If you asked a category 3 non-thanker, "Is there anything I could thank God for where it wouldn't bother you?" I believe the honest answer would be "No. Anything you thank God for is something that somebody somewhere in the world didn't get. That makes your thanksgiving immoral. So stop offending me with it."

Category 3 restraint on gratitude conceals at its a core a massive black hole which, unchecked, consumes all gratitude, and with it, the joy and goodwill that appreciation creates within us. The danger is real. But spontaneous thankers know something that the enemies of gratitude do not: Today, I have a joy where you have a lament, and tomorrow, you will have a joy that I have lost or can never achieve. In the meantime let us all give thanks for whatever we can whenever we can. When I cry out in pain or mourn a great loss you can cry with me; when you give thanks for some delight that I can never experience maybe I can be a little happy for you. There's no point in all of us crying all the time.

The ad campaign for St. Jude Children's Hospital gets it right. I used to see their commercials in movie theaters: "Give thanks for the healthy children in your life, and give to those who are not." Give thanks...and give. Gratitude spurs charity in ways that self-righteous ingratitude never seems to match. For anecdotal proof, look up Greg Jennings, the football player whose devotion to God is lampooned in the poster that shows his kneeling form next to starving children. I just googled him. Yes, Jennings has the gall to say "Glory to God" after his team wins the Super Bowl despite the fact that children are simultaneously dropping dead of starvation in Africa. He is also, the news reports say, a classy guy with a great attitude who is devoted to his family and very actively involved in charity. Among other things he donates $1,000 to a shelter for women and single mothers every time he catches a touchdown pass. Score one for an uninhibited thanker of God.

Friday, April 20, 2012

What Is Jesus Doing Now?

I received the following question:

The Bible is very clear about Jesus' role in NT times: He came to earth to sacrifice Himself to pay the penalty for sin that we all owed. It is also clear about his role in the end times: He will come again and gather all the faithful to heaven.

I have a hard time relating to Jesus' role today. When he went to heaven He sent the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us. So, what is Jesus doing before the end times?


What a wonderful question! I have never been asked it before. It has caused me to think very hard about how the Bible describes the functioning of the various Persons of the Trinity.

One simple answer is to say that Jesus (now, in the present tense) intercedes for us. At least three texts indicate this:

Romans 8:34:
Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Hebrews 7:24-25:
Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

1 John 2:1:
My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

A second simple answer is to say that he is with us:

Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."


Matthew 28:20b:
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."


There is a wrinkle, however, that opens up a whole Pandora's box of issues. The Holy Spirit is also said to intercede for us, and he is also said to be present with us:

Intercession of the Spirit: Romans 8:26-27:
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

Presence of the Spirit: John 14:16-17,26:
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you...But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

It seems that the work of the risen Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit dovetail and overlap. They are both with us and they both intercede for us. Consider the following sequence of verses, and see if by them you can answer the question, "Who lives in the Christian, the Holy Spirit or Jesus?"

Romans 8:9-11:
9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

Verses 9 and 11 say that the Spirit lives in you, but sandwiched between those statements verse 10 says "Christ is in you"! It makes one wonder, is "Christ" just another word for "Spirit"? Is everything we say about Christ equally true of the Holy Spirit?

Sabellius thought so. He was a third century priest who simply denied that God was triune. Jesus is God who is the Holy Spirit, and the only distinction between "them" is modal: God reveals himself in various modes of fatherhood, sonship and spirit nature depending on time, circumstances, and the purpose at hand.

But Sabellianism doesn't work. Among its many weird entailments is the conclusion that when Jesus prayed he was really carrying on a soliloquy; that the Father died on the cross ("Patripassionism"); that, when God died briefly at the crucifixion, somehow the universe kept going on its own. Also, Sabellianism cannot make convincing sense of texts that speak, for example, of God raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 2:24) or sending the Holy Spirit (John 14:16). The Church fathers condemned Sabellianism as heresy, and it is rarely seen today except in Oneness (or "Jesus Only") Pentecostalism.(Well-known preacher T.D. Jakes, who came from the Oneness tradition, has had his orthodoxy called into question and in response has publicly affirmed his belief in the Trinity.)

A different way of handling Trinitarian complexity is to deny that the Holy Spirit exists at all. That is, whenever Scripture speaks of the "Holy Spirit," (or "the Spirit of God" or "the Spirit of Christ," or whatever) we should understand that in exactly the same way as when we speak of our own spirits. For example, when the Virgin Mary says in Luke 1:47, "My spirit rejoices in God my Savior," or when St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:18, "For they refreshed my spirit and yours also," they were certainly not thinking that their spirits were distinct from themselves. A text that might lend support to this view is 1 Corinthians 2:11: "For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God." A parallel is drawn in this verse between God's Spirit knowing God and our own spirits knowing us.

Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the exactness of this parallel, and so their New World Translation of the Bible never capitalizes the word "spirit." God's spirit, in this view, is like God's breath or power or force or will or thought or mindset. Trinitarians err, they teach, in personifying this power and treating it like something separate from God the Father, calling it "He" and regarding it as a Person. (Orthodox Christians raise a similar objection to the gnostic personification of Sophia, "Wisdom," wherein the wisdom of God is spelled with a capital W and regarded as a goddess of some sort. We think that that "Wisdom" should have a small "w.")

If the Jehovah's Witnesses are right, then the question posed at the top of this essay dissolves completely. Whatever the Bible says the spirit is doing now is what Jesus is doing now, and our confusion about their contrasting or overlapping roles is due to a total misunderstanding of Jesus' Personhood.

But I'm afraid Jehovah's Witness Arianism doesn't work any better than Sabellianism. The biblical case for the Holy Spirit's personhood is simply too strong. In Acts 5:3 St. Peter condemns Ananias for lying to the Holy Spirit. How can you lie to a personified abstraction? In Ephesians 4:30 St. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, and I would argue that only a person can be grieved. In John 16:7 Jesus insists on such an exclusivity between himself and the Spirit that the Spirit cannot come to the disciples unless he (Jesus) goes away first!

So that leaves us with the difficulty suggested in my friend's question: What is Jesus, as distinct from the Holy Spirit, doing in the present age?

I would suggest two things.

First, we simply have to grant some overlap (duplication? redundancy?) in the roles of the three Persons of the Trinity. This is biblical. Texts cited above demonstrate that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit intercede for us and are present with us. In addition, Jesus says in John 5:19, "Whatever the Father does the Son also does." The picture Jesus develops in John 5:17-20 is that of a son in his father's workshop imitating and duplicating his father's craft. So at least part of the answer to the question "What is Jesus doing now?" is "whatever God the Father is doing." If this was true in his earthly incarnation, how much more true is it in his glorified state!

Second, if I had to describe the current role of Jesus as distinct from that of the Father and the Spirit, I think it would have much to do with his position, more a matter of where he is rather than what acts he is performing.

The Bible says repeatedly that Jesus is "at the right hand" of God the Father. Jesus himself, and Peter, and Paul, and the writer of Hebrews all mention this. Some examples:

Luke 22:69:
"But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God."

Colossians 3:1:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

1 Peter 3:22:
[Jesus] has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand — with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

Hebrews 12:2:
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The Holy Spirit is never said to be at the Father's right hand, and it goes without saying that the Father cannot be at his own right hand. The position appears unique to Jesus. Does it have anything to say about his role?

I believe it does. In some mystical, metaphorical fashion, we can "see" Jesus in a way that we cannot see God the Father or the Holy Spirit. Of course you can't see the Spirit - he's a spirit! And the Bible affirms that no one has ever seen God the Father. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." But then the same verse continues, "but God the One and Only [Jesus], who is at the Father’s side, [the right side!] has made him known."

I think we can say, reverently, that Jesus gives us someone to focus on. That is (part of) his role now. We have a hard time fixing our eyes on God the Father or God the Holy Spirit, but we are commanded to "fix our eyes on Jesus" in Hebrews 12:2. Of all the members of the Trinity, only Jesus became (and remains) a man, and for that reason our minds can get a better grasp on "seeing him" up above and ahead of us. I look forward to seeing Jesus face to face, and bowing before him, but I don't know if I'll ever see the Holy Spirit. It has long intrigued me that the Objects of worship in the book of Revelation are always the first and second Persons of the Trinity, never the third. (See for example Revelation 5:13: Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"). Where is the Holy Spirit in this verse? Don't we worship a Triune God? Why is the Holy Spirit not receiving song and praise in these verses along with the Father and the Son? I think the best answer is that He is the one inspiring it. He is behind us, beside us and inside us, urging us to glorify Christ. I think it is the Spirit's role, now and forever, to move us to worship Jesus, and it is Jesus' role, now and forever, to receive that worship.

I must stress though that these are at best some preliminary thoughts on a difficult question, and I would gladly submit to instruction from minds that are theologically more astute and biblically better informed than mine.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

What Is The Kingdom Of God?

A couple friends recently asked me what the kingdom of God is. The phrase "kingdom of God" (or "kingdom of heaven") appears dozens of times in the gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke (usually on the lips of Jesus), twice in John, and a handful of times in the rest of the New Testament. What (and where and when) is the kingdom of God?

Two preliminary comments:

1) The phrases "kingdom of God" and "kingdom of heaven" mean exactly the same thing. Only Matthew uses the phrase "kingdom of heaven;" elsewhere it is always "kingdom of God." If you look up the two phrases in a concordance you will see many parallels where only the one word is different. The reason for the difference is that Matthew often followed the Jewish tradition of substituting "heaven" for "God" so as to avoid the possibility of blaspheming God's Name. (Like the time the prodigal son said to his father in Luke 15:21: "I have sinned against heaven and against you." Against heaven? He meant he had sinned against God.)

Classic Dispensationalism regrettably distinguishes between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of heaven. (At the dispensationalist church my family attended when I was a child, one of the awards I received for memorizing Bible verses was the book "The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven," which explained the differences in excruciating, imaginative, and utterly futile detail.) The Scofield Reference Bible famously outlined five differences between the two kingdoms, indoctrinating (and confusing) generations of dispensationalists. This distinction between "two kingdoms" must be judged a failure and discarded.

2) The kingdom of God has so many features that it can be difficult, when focusing on one aspect, to connect it to all the rest. It is the proverbial elephant described by six blind men: one man says an elephant is like a tree (he has grasped a leg), another: a wall (the side), a rope (the tail), a branch (the trunk), a leaf (the ear), and a spear (the tusk). All the blind men are correct, but their individual descriptions baffle each other. When Jesus asked, "To what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use to describe it?" (Mark 4:30), he gave, in the course of his ministry, various answers according to the kingdom's varied aspects. I will start with a general description of the kingdom at a distance (the whole elephant, so to speak), which hopefully will help make sense of some of the particulars.

I define the kingdom of God as that realm where God reigns and his kingship is recognized, or - since the kingdom belongs to Jesus - the place where Jesus is Lord and is obeyed as Lord. (Certainly there are other definitions, and probably better ones. I haven't looked up any. Maybe the definition above is one I've borrowed from someone else but can't remember having done so.)

It is not enough merely to say that the kingdom is wherever God reigns, because God reigns everywhere already. All reality, visible and invisible, is his domain and his subject. But the Bible teaches that while God's sovereignty is universal, his kingdom is exclusive: some people are in it and some people are outside of it. You cannot be outside of God's creation, but you can be outside of his kingdom. In fact, one of the more constantly emphasized features of the kingdom is its exclusivity. For example, in Matthew 13:47-50 Jesus says that the kingdom is like a group of fishermen separating good fish from bad: the good fish get collected in baskets while the bad get tossed away. He explains that this segregation is like that of the righteous and the wicked - the righteous get in the kingdom while the wicked are thrown into a fiery furnace. Many other parables make the same point. For a list of sins whose indulgence without repentance will exclude you from the kingdom of God, read 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and Galatians 5:19-21.

In addition to exclusivity, a second regularly emphasized feature of the kingdom is its nearness. It is "at hand," "about to happen," "just around the corner." See for example Mark 1:14-15: "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" John the Baptist had said the same thing (Matthew 3:1-2), and Jesus taught his disciples to preach the same message: "And proclaim as you go, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" (Matthew 10:7).

But what does "near" or "at hand" mean?

It turns out that trying to pin down a precise space-time reference for "near" in these texts is like trying to pin down the speed and the location of an electron, which is something that physicists tell us we can never do. (Or maybe it is like trying to determine whether a photon is exclusively a wave or a particle!). These are not easy questions.

On the one hand, "near" might naturally be construed as "arriving within the next few weeks or months at most." On the other hand, in Luke 19:11-27 Jesus tells the parable of silver units given to servants to invest for the sake of those who "supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (verse 11). Essentially he tells them they are wrong, and that they must go about their business faithfully until the kingdom comes at some future time. On the other hand (you'll need at least three hands!), Jesus says in Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20 that the kingdom has already come: "But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." Amazingly, the Greek tense of the verb "to come" in these two verses is aorist, which is usually translated into English as a simple past.

So which is it? In Jesus' teaching, is the kingdom about to arrive in a few weeks? Is it a long way off? Or has it already started? The answers are yes. In seems that the "nearness" of the kingdom of God must not to be measured merely along the axis of time as we experience it. There are other kinds of "near."

This seeming ambiguity about the kingdom's nearness finds at least some resolution in a third feature: the spiritual nature of God's kingdom. In Mark 12:34 Jesus tells a wise scribe, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." How can one man (as opposed to his colleagues) be "not far" from the kingdom? If the kingdom is strictly a physical entity that appears on a given date in history, then all of Jesus' listeners would be equidistant from it. While it is true that some would get in and some would be barred (the principle of exclusivity), everyone alike would be 5 days or 5 months or 5,000 years away from it. But by affirming that the scribe was "not far" from the kingdom, Jesus was implying a spiritual dimension to kingdom proximity that is taught explicitly in Luke 17:20-21. There, when Pharisees ask him when the kingdom of God would come, he said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

The realm where Jesus is king and is submitted to as Lord was right there in front of the Pharisees, loud and close, but they could not see it. As Jesus said to another Pharisee, Nicodemus, "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again" (John 3:3). In this sense, the kingdom is like that battalion of warrior angels in 2 Kings 6 that was visible to Elisha but not to his servant. To see the angels all around him, the spiritual eyes of Elisha's servant had to be opened: to see the kingdom of God in their midst, the Pharisees would have to be born again.

But then Jesus seems to contradict himself. (The word "seems" in that sentence is important.) While in Luke 17:20 he says that the kingdom is not coming in ways that can be observed, in Luke 21:31, after giving a series of signs that will be observed, he says, "So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near." Does Jesus teach two kingdoms - one that is present without observable signs and another that will only arrive after certain signs are fulfilled?

I do not think so. One simple way to reconcile the invisible, signless, present kingdom with the visible, signful, future kingdom is to meditate a little on the word "power."

In Mark 9:1 Jesus makes a fascinating promise to his disciples: "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." "With power" is the key qualification. In one sense, they had already seen the kingdom of God - the one that was in their midst, the one that was invisible to the Pharisees. By recognizing Jesus' true nature and submitting to his rule they were inside that kingdom, and could see things others could not see.

But beyond that, a few of the disciples would get to observe, before their deaths, a sight that the rest would only experience after their deaths: the kingdom with power. That is, they would see Jesus not in the guise of a homely weak Jewish carpenter but - as he is in truth - the Glorified Divine King. This prediction was fulfilled six days later when Peter, James and John saw Jesus transfigured before them on a mountain. Even his clothes became dazzling white - see Mark 9:2-8. In the aura of that shining, dead men live, and so Moses and Elijah put in a unique pre-resurrection appearance. Then God spoke, honoring his Son. The powerful realities of the future kingdom made a momentary intrusion in the lives of three disciples, giving them a foretaste, a preview, of glories that some day all the righteous will experience.

Jesus' spiritual kingdom is always near, and has been for 2,000 years. One word from the Father, and the spiritual will be rendered physical, and the divine glory and power will shine from the face of Jesus as it did ever so briefly to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. But this time the glory will remain, and every eye will see him.

Till that day, a fourth feature characterizes the kingdom of God: its growth. In Matthew 13:31-33 Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which, though tiny, grows into a bush so large that birds can perch in its branches. Or it is like a tiny bit of yeast that is worked into a whole lump of dough. A little yeast expands a big mound of bread.

More than 500 years before Jesus, the prophet Daniel made the same point about the kingdom of God: it would start very small but then get so big as to be practically global. This prophecy is in Daniel 2 where Daniel interprets a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar about a statue whose levels represent a succession of earthly kingdoms. In the dream, "a rock was cut out, but not by human hands" (verse 34), and it knocked down the statue, and afterward it "became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth." (verse 35). Later Daniel explains that "in the time of those kings [the Roman emperors], the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed," and that "this is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands" (verses 44-45).

The kingdom of God is like a rock that becomes a mountain, a seed that becomes a bush, a dash of yeast that expands a loaf. I believe that that is the growth we have seen over the last 2,000 years and that continues to this day. On every continent as the gospel is preached, the kingdom of God grows as people acknowledge Jesus as king and bow the knee in subjection to him. In Jesus' day, the kingdom was quite small, a mere mustard seed, just a handful of people who knew who Jesus was and who followed him as their Lord. Now there are many, and the kingdom, though weak and invisible, fills the earth. There is coming a day, however, when Jesus will return and reign in power, and then, as Revelation 11:15 prophesies, the angels will say, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever."