The Nature of the Kingdom and How to Enter It

Daniel stressed ‘understanding’ a lot, in his prophecies.

The New Testament expanded on what it was to mean.

Jesus said the seed of the Word of the kingdom was snatched from someone’s heart when he “ 'understood' it not”.

When someone answered a matter wisely, Jesus said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God”.

Israel’s promised Messianic kingdom wasn’t to be a city originating on the earth, somewhere someone travels to, with walls and gates to enter, and an army to watch over it. Rather, it was to be a kingdom, heavenly in origin and character, which would be participated in by 'understanding' something.

God ‘has given us an understanding’, the Epistle says. 

Messiah is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption!

God's kingdom has come among us, in the Person of Jesus Christ; 

it is in us, who believe; 

we are in it; 

we are entering it through much hardship - 

and one Day He will come and the righteous will be together with Him forever!

It is entered by hearing and believing. The gospel.

This is what Moses and the Prophets and wisdom literature all foretold. 

Christ Jesus our Lord!

It's a 'carry-your-cross' way of doing kingdom, for now, while spiritually we are already raised and seated and reigning with him. But resurrection and reigning eternally is coming!

But also it won't be long 'til the 'last day' (followed by 1007 more years?);

when the last trumpet will sound (followed by seven more trumpets?);

and the Lord will come (well actually He'll come seven years later);

and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the air (although actually the order will be reversed so that we who are alive and remain will be caught up in the air first, and then seven years later the dead in Christ will rise);

and men will no longer be required to be born again in order to see the kingdom of God (because the whole world will see the kingdom of God for a thousand years);

God will decide He's got enough Gentiles saved, and then the End will come (although really the end will come seven years later - or actually 1007 years later);

He'll stop deliberately blinding Jews lets they got saved (and all Israelis will have ample opportunity then for getting saved after they see Jesus' return and He finally makes the New Covenant with them);

Then once God has got this unforeseen parenthesis called the 'gospel' out of the way, we'll all have to revert back to the real theme of Bible Prophecy, and start making annual pilgrimages to the temple-mount in Jerusalem to offer blood-sacrifices on an altar in a temple during the Feast of Tabernacles again, or be cursed.

Only to again end-up a besieged camp again, by the nations whom Satan will have somehow managed to totally deceive again.

The blessed hope!

His kingdom shall be forever and ever (but actually only for a thousand years) because then the world will finally end (well, that will occur 1007 years after the actual 'end').

And that's all a 'Fundamental Truth' - an 'Essential Doctrine'.

Apparently??

The New Perspective and Wesley and Evangelicalism

The New Perspective sort of sees Paul as stating that it's the 'Church' who God is deeming to be His in-the-right people. 

Does N. T. Wright see being sprinkled with water as a baby as an important mark that they belong to that People?

If Wright does, and if that's correct, and John Wesley preached that such people, once adults, yet needed to be born again - what then might Wright think about Wesley's perspective and career? Has Wright said much?

John Wesley's Aldersgate experience had roots in the German Moravian movement; and came to life during a reading of Luther - all of this was very 'Reformation' in its perspective compared with New Perspective. From that night onwards Wesley's passion was to announce that you must be born again, seemingly irrespective of infant-sprinkling.

Curiously though, Wesley himself persisted in believing that the Anglican Church even with its infant-sprinkling was the closest thing anywhere in the world at the time to the structure of the primitive Church: he just felt it needed to be infused with some real life. And he was barred from many Anglican pulpits because of it. 

So I wonder how even Wesley understood the relationship between baptism and being born again, let alone how Wright might understand it and what Wright might therefore think of Wesley. 

Wesley's evangelicalism seemed to be concerned with getting individuals born again, saved, first up. Is that a proper priority in evangelicalism? If that is a proper priority, how then can we avoid allowing the New Perspective, with all its good points, to inadvertently take us away from making the first thing the first thing? Or is that over-moralising one's anthropology. And if it is proper, what might that say about sprinkling infants. For example, would it mean that baptism should instead be part of/follow believing? 

Can the New Perspective keep me focused on seeing individuals get saved - or does the New Perspective regard that as just a bit too much of a Reformation-era concept. 

Anglicanism at its inception didn't come about so much because of a sense of a need for individual salvation like some of the German Reformation movements seemed to - it basically retained a high view of the ecclesia only transferred the head of the ecclesia from Rome to King Henry VIII. Is that true? 

Does the New Perspective have to take us back to a pre-Reformation type view of Church-membership, baptism, being born again, our role in the world and their inter-relationship? Or can we say that Paul was able to say what he said about the collective Church (as the New Perspective brings out) only because it is true in the inner experience of individuals in the church first (and that the Reformation, Evangelical revivals, believers-baptism, and Pentecostalism helped revive that)? 

What I'm getting at is this: should I treat church-membership, marked by infant-sprinkling, as a mark of salvation, and so assume that church-members who were sprinkled when they were babies are most-likely already saved, and focus instead on something else - like seeing them grow in knowledge perhaps; or seeing them get filled with the Spirit; or seeing them find their role in the world; or should the focus of evangelicalism for most people be things like the arts, education, health, justice, civil rights, foreign debt, the environment and other Left-leaning activism - or should I instead be concerned with getting individuals to have a personal, inner experience of salvation first, as a priority, even if some of them are already christened church-members?

Part of the Present-Day Ministry of Jesus Christ

*  He was PERFECTED for the Divine, Messianic salvation-bringing role, through the suffering of the cross; 

by offering Himself as a sacrifice once for all, he became the MEDIATOR OF THE NEW COVENANT in His blood - with both the houses of Israel, and 'for many';

He is the CAPTAIN OF OUR SALVATION. 

*  And having been raised from the dead, and having abolished death and having brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, He received from God the SURE MERCIES OF DAVID; through Him God RESTORED THE DYNASTY OF DAVID - and the residue of mankind (Gentiles) have begun seeking the LORD.  

* In having received the key of David, Jesus has been declared by God to be both LORD AND MESSIAH; 

* As such He ascended and ENTERED INTO HIS GLORY and is SEATED on the Throne and is REIGNING - in heaven. 

* There He APPEARS gloriously in the presence of God, before the Ancient of Days, FOR US. 

* Having completed the old requirement for sacrifices, He was made a PRIEST FOREVER after the Order of Melchizedek (the 'king of righteousness/peace' - the Order in which kingship and priesthood are combined into one - a 'forever' Order - meaning there won't ever come in future another Order in which sacrificing will again become obligatory - because unlike the previous Order which was to be superseded, Messiah's Order of priesthood is 'forever'. 

* He is more than a faithful administrator over the house of God: He is the Son and heir - in the true, heavenly HOUSE OF GOD - that heavenly Jerusalem which is the mother of us all, the heavenly country which the patriarchs sought, the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God, on heavenly mount Zion - He is God's 'Yes' and 'Amen' to 'all' the promises of God - He is giving us the TRUE REST - the experience and fulfilment of all that the fathers were still only hoping for. God is SAVING TO THE UTTERMOST all who come to God through Him. 

* Having been thus GLORIFIED, He is POURING OUT HIS SPIRIT ON ALL FLESH, until the great day of the Lord. 

* As we announce this good news ('thy God reigns' - it was announced to Jews FIRST and also to Greeks), He WORKS WITH US, CONFIRMING THE WORD WITH SIGNS FOLLOWING. He stands at the door and knocks, and all who hear His voice live. God is BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY through Him. He is the Seed who has inherited the world, in Whom all families of the earth are being BLESSED (justified). He used the fact that Gentiles were inheriting the promise, to provoke to faith Jews who hadn't yet believed - because having been custodians of the promise, God never subsequently shut the door to Jews - He continued reaching out, and He was grafting them back in again: Saul/Paul being an example, and this opportunity would continue until the End, the exact scenario which fulfilled prophecy. So wonderful was God's mercy and plan!

* As Lord of the kings of the earth, He is waiting for the time when the final enemy will be put under His feet, when He shall come, bringing the saints with Him, and the dead will rise, and we will be with the Lord forever. There shall be new heavens and earth. God dwelling with man. 

Abraham rejoiced in anticipation of all this, and by faith he saw it and was glad. 

But only the born-again shall see the kingdom of God! Jesus warned a ruler of the Jews. 

Etc.