What does the world look like when God is reigning in the earth? What does it look like when God is in charge? It looks like this: physical healing; deliverance from evil spirits; feasting with outcasts, prostitutes, tax collectors, and thieves; the embracing of Samaritans; hardened hearts softened; forgiveness granted to those who have sinned; freedom from bondages; and mourners finding joy in God. All of these elements featured prominently in Jesus’ ministry. They all testify to the inclusiveness of the kingdom of God. They all bear witness to what it looks like when God is reigning on the earth.
During His ministry, Jesus spoke on four issues more than He did anything else:
1. The kingdom of God—the manifestation of God’s ruling presence, here now and yet coming.
2. Life—the eternal life that is embodied in Himself. A life that would be imparted to His followers after His resurrection. A life that they would live by.
3. His Father—the offer to have a relationship with God as Father, the same relationship He had with the Father.
4. Himself—He (Jesus) was the fulfillment of the entire First Testament story and promises.
All the other things Jesus spoke about were supplemental to these four things.
Eternal life is the life of God’s new age that has broken into the present one. It is Christ Himself in the Spirit. Modern Western Christian movements have taught us that Jesus has a kingdom, but it’s not part of this world. It’s the equivalent of heaven after you die. This interpretation is based on various misreadings of certain things Jesus said (some of which we’ve dealt with in this book). Jesus taught, however, that the kingdom of God comes from somewhere else. It comes from another realm. But it is ultimately for this world, and it will ultimately fill the physical universe. What is more, it can be experienced now.
Jesus said, “If I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”27 Remember His prayer: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”28 This kingdom petition does not stand alone. It goes hand in hand with Jesus’ parting words before His ascension: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”29 Jesus of Nazareth is in charge of this earth. He announced it at the beginning of His ministry. And He executed it by His death and resurrection.
As we argued in our book Jesus Manifesto, Jesus and His message do not fit neatly into either liberal or conservative boxes. Jesus announced the kingdom of God—which was a royal inauguration that challenged the existing kingdoms of the world. But His kingdom message didn’t fit into today’s left-versus-right spectrums. We simply cannot put Jesus into our political grids.
Jesus is the true King of the earth, whose kingdom comes in a totally unexpected and radically counterintuitive fashion. It was foolishness to the Roman officials. And it was a scandal to the Jewish elite.
The kingdom of God is the sovereign rule of Israel’s God on earth as in heaven, exercised through David’s true son and heir. This is what the ancient Scriptures foretold. And God chose to bring that kingdom by an event that most Jews and Gentiles found incomprehensible: a brutal death on a Roman cross.
The prophets foretold that God would return to Jerusalem one day (after He had abandoned it during the Babylonian captivity), that He would deliver His people from their oppressors, and that He would be King over the whole world, bringing forth peace and justice, and removing sin and corruption.30
But the Scriptures also predicted that God would rule through the Lord’s “anointed” Son, and He would rule from Zion.31 They prophesied that God would reign through the Davidic King from the land of Israel and would rebuild the temple.32 But they missed how God would do it. They missed that God would return in human form.33 Even though it was written in the prophets, they didn’t expect that the King would have to die34 and that His death was the means by which He would bring forth the new covenant35 and the new creation.36 Nor did they expect that God would extend an arm to accomplish this.
He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.37
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.38
An arm is a part of someone. It is an extension of himself. Jesus, the arm of God—Jesus, the kingdom-bringer and the cross-bearer—announced that a new government was taking over. He announced that God’s reign was now breaking into the earth. He announced that He was walking in the footsteps of David. That God was ending the exile and proclaiming the “acceptable year of the LORD,” the year of Jubilee—the year of freedom and deliverance to God’s people.39
After Jesus’ death, God the Father raised Him from the dead, vindicating Him before men and angels. Resurrection is the life of heaven, the life of the new age, now come to earth. And today, Jesus is enthroned as Israel’s Messiah and the world’s true King. As a result, we are now living in the new creation wherein a new world has dawned in Christ. As followers of Jesus, we have a task before us. That task is to work for the kingdom. To continue the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit . . . to bear witness to the sovereign lordship of Christ . . . to embody the message that Jesus is both Lord and Savior, not just of our personal lives but of the entire world. And to find creative ways to manifest that kingdom where we live and travel.
A legitimate question to ask is, “If Jesus is now Lord of the world, why is it still filled with evil, wickedness, pain, and chaos?”
The answer: Jesus, the ruler of the world, has chosen to rule in and through His people. For this reason, the Scriptures call us “kings and priests” on the earth.40 Or as Peter put it, “a royal priesthood,”41 bringing us back to God’s original intention for human beings.42 When Jesus was on the earth, God was establishing His rule on earth as it is in heaven through Him. Today, Jesus is seeking to further establish His rule on earth as it is in heaven. But He has chosen the church to be the instrument for its accomplishment.
The church, therefore, is the means by which Jesus Christ continues to work, to teach, and to establish His sovereign rule in the world.43 And He will continue to do so until the kingdom of God comes in its fullness, and heaven and earth can be seen by one another again.
CHAPTER 10
..............................................
Jesus: Healer and Miracle-Worker
We beheld His glory.
—THE APOSTLE JOHN 1
PROVENANCE IS A FAMILIAR WORD TO ANYONE WHO HAS EVER WATCHED the television show Antiques Roadshow. An antique gold ring is literally worth its weight in gold. But an antique gold ring given to your great-grandmother by Pablo Picasso along with a thank-you note for doing such a good job cleaning his studio? That’s called “provenance,” and such a provenance makes that gold ring worth much, much more than its weight in gold. A story is what adds value and luster to a plain piece of jewelry.
God established Jesus’ provenance at the transfiguration, a pivotal moment marking the beginning of a new phase in Jesus’ mission and ministry—His movement toward Jerusalem and the cross. Taking with Him His inner circle—Peter, James, and John—Jesus headed for Mount Tabor, where a miracle happened.
THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS
The transfiguration gave Jesus a perfect, unimpeachable provenance. Every word and image celebrated the past, evoking the history of Israel—and captured the future, revealing the power of God’s covenant promise. This mountaintop experience took place “six days” after Jesus had foretold His death and resurrection.2 The reference to six days, coupled with a mountaintop excursion, surely reminded Jewish readers of the six days that Mount Sinai was shrouded by the cloudlike glory of God.3
..............................................
[When the Messiah appears]. .. the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by nig
ht; over all the glory will be a canopy.
—I SAIAH 4
..............................................
Like the greatest prophets of the past, Jesus journeyed upward first. Mountaintop experiences involve high altitude to increase divine amplitude. As the disciples watched in amazement, Jesus’ face and clothing took on all the classic features associated with heavenly beings. His face radiated and shined with light. His clothes glowed with dazzling whiteness.5 All of this leads one scholar to call the transfiguration “The Restored Face.”6
Suddenly Jesus and the disciples were no longer alone. Two of the most important figures in Israel’s history were with Jesus, engaging Him in casual conversation. Moses, the one who led Israel out of Egypt, who climbed Mount Sinai and brought the Torah to the people, now stood on the land he was prohibited from entering at his death. Also standing before them was Elijah—Israel’s most powerful prophet, the one who was mysteriously transported to heaven without suffering death and who must return before the final days of judgment will occur. Both Moses and Elijah were linked to messianic and eschatological (last-days) expectations.7
Peter’s construction proposal for “shelters” or “tabernacles”8 recreates the Feast of Tabernacles, where temporary shelters are erected as a commemorative sign of Israel’s long wilderness wandering. Peter wanted to provide human shelter for these heavenly visitors, shelters that would remain long after this epiphany had faded away.
But any human participation in this event was squelched by yet another sudden appearance—a cloud rolled in and a voice echoed out. The “bright cloud” that “overshadowed” the mountaintop9 is a familiar image for God’s divine presence throughout Israel’s history, both in the wilderness and in the sanctuary.10 Later Jewish writing described this cloudlike phenomenon of the divine presence as the shekinah, the glory of God made visible to human eyes.
Even as Peter, James, and John found themselves being overshadowed by that shekinah glory, they heard nothing less than the voice of God: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!”11 The voice that accompanied the divine presence on this mountaintop exactly echoed the baptismal declaration.12 But here it added a directive to the earlier decree: “Hear Him!” This “listen up” order once again recalls the promise of a prophet “like Moses,” whom the people are instructed to heed.13
The disciples’ response to the vision and voice was distinctly different from Peter’s cheerful offer to pitch a few tents for the heavenly crew. As is normal for any miraculous encounter between God and humans, they were terrified and respectfully fell prostrate on the ground.14
It was Jesus Himself who comforted His cowering cohorts: “Do not be afraid.”15 The vision had vanished when the disciples looked up. Jesus’s final word on what had just happened was a command for silence about this “vision” (horama) until “the Son of Man is risen from the dead.”16 This sneak peek of Jesus’ future glory was not yet ready for prime time. Now it was time for Jesus to return to His mission of teaching, preaching, and healing.
Perhaps Peter was more theologically savvy than we give him credit for. What had just happened was steeped in symbols and studded with the most important figures in Israel’s past. Keeping memories alive was one of Israel’s strengths. If this was to be a new milestone along the path of faith, it needed to be marked in some way.
When the ark of the covenant finally crossed over the Jordan River and into the promised land, Joshua commanded the priests carrying the ark to pause in the middle of the river. A representative of each of the twelve tribes was instructed to stop midstream and collect a plain stone from the miraculously dried-up riverbed.17 The reason for this rock hounding was so “these stones [would] be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”18 The stones would remind the people of the miracle that brought them and the ark into the promised land. Once the people reached the other side of the river, Joshua oversaw the erection of all twelve stones at Gilgal, making a permanent marker to commemorate the miracle and to serve as a reminder to the people.
The cairn tradition of rock stacking has been with humans ever since we first began to mark moments with memory tools. Gilgal commemorated a pivotal moment in Israel’s history, the moment the people and the ark of the covenant finally entered the promised land. Peter’s offer to build “shelters” or “tabernacles” for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah is most often associated with the Feast of Tabernacles, the annual Jewish festival during which small, temporary shelters were built to celebrate and remember the years of wilderness wanderings. If building “tabernacles” was Peter’s impetus, they would be powerful symbols to “remember this place.”
But the transfigured Christ was too unique, too unprecedented, to be commemorated in cairn or canvas, both of which celebrated the journey and arrival of God’s people at a particular place. The moment Peter wanted to domesticate the divine presence, the glory of God came down to disclose a greater revelation. At precisely the moment Peter suggested tying Jesus to a location, God bared the divine will.
God’s command was not to commemorate a place. It was to connect to a person: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
God’s next command was to respond to that person: “Hear Him!”
Jesus is the new ark of the covenant.
“Hear Him!”
He leads the way.
“Hear Him!”
He tells the truth.
“Hear Him!”
He brings life to living.
“Hear Him!”
The world may be in the process of being transfigured, and we may become changed “from glory to glory,”19 but mission in the real world awaits. The three disciples who climbed the mountain with Jesus and wanted to stay, Jesus led back down the mountain, back into the valley, where they were immediately met by human suffering and hurt. A father pleaded for his child: “’Lord, have mercy on my son,”20 whereupon the boy was healed.
..............................................
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demonpossessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them.
—MATTHEW 21
..............................................
There is a famous painting called The Transfiguration (1516) by the great Italian artist Raphael. Raphael died at the age of thirty-seven. As he lay in state, the painting commissioned as a high-end altarpiece was placed at the head of his coffin. The striking thing about the painting is that the top half depicts Christ and the three apostles in their mountaintop bubble of glorious intimacy with God. But the bottom half of the painting depicts the lunatic boy and his father in the agony of their pain and need. The disciples are trying to heal him and failing. Only Jesus can heal the boy. When Goethe looked at the painting, he said this: “The two are one: below the suffering part, in need of help, above, the effective helpful part, both of them linked together . . . Can the connection between the conceptual and the real be severed?”22
JESUS REBUKED SICKNESS
According to the Bible, sickness came into the world through Adam’s sin. Sickness is incipient death. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . .”
Since sickness initially came into the world as the result of sin, it’s not something God originally intended. As such, sickness will not be part of the new creation when it arrives in its fullness.
For this reason, Jesus rebuked sickness23 and attributed many diseases to satan or evil spirits.24 Consider the following passages:
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was wi
th Him.25
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.26
In Galatians 3:13–14, Paul wrote that Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law so that the blessing of Abraham may be given to the Gentiles.27 What is the curse of the law? According to Deuteronomy 28:15–61, sickness and disease are part of the curse. What are the blessings given to Abraham’s seed? One repeated promise is health:
The LORD will take away from you all sickness.28
“I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”29
Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases.30
Fear the LORD and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.31
Give attention to my words. . . . For they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.32
So sickness appears to be part of the curse of the law, and healing appears to be one of Abraham’s blessings. Galatians 3:16 says that Christ is Abraham’s Seed and that the promises were made to Him. Furthermore, Galatians 3:29 says, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
SICKNESS IN THE JEWISH MIND
The Jews in Jesus’ day believed that if someone was ill, it meant that he had sinned in some way to cause the illness. Sickness, then, was regarded as judgment from God.33 They also attributed sickness to demonic power.34 Consequently, sickness represented sin, and healing represented forgiveness.35 In addition, if someone was the instrument of healing, it signified that he was sent from God, for only God heals.
While there was no normative set of expectations of the Messiah that all Jews shared in the first century, most of them believed that the Messiah would fulfill a kingly role as well as a priestly role.36 Thus many ancient Jews believe that the coming Messiah would perform unusual healings. John the Baptist appeared to have such an expectation:
Jesus Page 19