I wrote last week about the practical unity I found in Englewood that had been lacking in other places I’d called home. One of the roots of that unity was simple obedience: God wanted us to be one, so the Englewood pastors set out to see how hard they could obey. They didn’t use doctrinal differences as excuses to disobey; they knew they weren’t going to iron out every difference, and they wanted to see how much they could obey anyway. That will carry you a long way. But there were also some doctrinal components that helped the obedience along. One of the big ones was their theology of the Kingdom of God.
These guys constantly talked about the Kingdom of God. I remember at first thinking that they were being really sloppy with their Christianese terminology. I didn’t think there was (or could be) any real theology behind it. See, within my tradition at the seminary, the Kingdom was entirely future. The only time I remember anyone talking about it as a present reality, it was presented as a “mystery Kingdom,” present in some nebulous form that had no real practical outworking. In terms of ethics and everyday conduct, the only impact of the doctrine of the Kingdom was to live now in such a way as to receive rewards in the future Kingdom. (In theory, that’s a pretty good motivator, but it didn’t work very well in actual practice; sometimes people are more motivated by present animus than by any distant future reward.)
In Englewood, on the other hand, the Kingdom is a present reality. We don’t over-theologize it: a kingdom is where a king rules, so the kingdom of God is where God rules. Everywhere we obey God’s rule is a little outbreak of God’s Kingdom on earth.
The fullness of the Kingdom, the consummation of all things, is of course still future. The lion will lie down with the lamb, and we’re not there yet. “We do not yet see all things put under Him,” the author of Hebrews says, “but we see Jesus.” This Jesus once told His enemies, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Has come. Even back in Jesus’ day, the Kingdom came — and there was the formerly demonized man in his right mind to prove it! The Kingdom will not come fully until God’s good time, but He is pleased for it to come truly in the present.
If you stop and think about it a moment, this is not such a strange thought for us. The resurrection is yet future, but Scripture teaches us to expect regular intrusions of resurrection life into the present: “If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” That is the very essence of the Christian life. Likewise, Jesus taught us to pray for intrusions of the Kingdom: “Thy name be hallowed, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
All this was a constant theme in Englewood. The shared prayer, worship, and unity of the Englewood churches was a conscious, deliberate reflection of the assembled throng on the last day: every tribe, tongue, and (denomi)nation. If you ask these folks why they are united, they’re going to tell you about the Kingdom of God, and how it’s coming–truly, if not yet fully–to Englewood.
Remember the instructions of Hebrews 13: “Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct.” I found myself compelled by Hebrews 13 to reconsider my theology of the Kingdom. The Englewood pastors were living out a faith worth following. And as it turns out, they were right.
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