Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Spring Edition 2003
Kingdom Fullness
The new covenant is the messianic kingdom,
and the messianic kingdom is true holiness in heart and life. To postpone the
kingdom, as classic Darbyism does, is to dissolve the message and life of true
Bible holiness, and to open the floodgates for a low-level conception of
Christianity that is little more than antinomianism.
Antinomians love to postpone the kingdom, because it absolves
them of any responsibility to manifest the righteousness of the kingdom in this
present world. If Christ's messianic kingdom has already broken into the world
through the preaching of the gospel, as the New Testament teaches, however, then
the believer suddenly becomes responsible to exhibit that degree of full
redemption from sin that the kingdom hope entails.
The believer can well afford to live in sin, who is not yet
in the kingdom, but if the kingdom that Jesus really taught us once does come,
then all our sin and waywardness must fast be put away, for sin is incompatible
with the kingdom.
What does the return of Christ to set up some kind of a
resuscitated Old Testament Jewish monarchy have to do with righteousness and
peace and joy on earth, dear friends? Why, righteousness and joy and peace are
the very results that God has already designed, before the foundation of the
world, the Christian gospel should provide! I thought the gospel was to make
people righteous, and fill them with joy and peace! What has a Jewish millennium
got to do with it?
Why do we so often go to our most solemn convocations to hear
our most gifted speakers tell us how empty we all are, when all we seem to find
in the New Testament is the promise and the provision for dynamic fullness? I
read in the New Testament that Jesus promised an abundant life--a well of living
water springing up within--his own dear Presence to cheer and to guide--the
Comforter forever--the mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost!
Why are we so empty when the New Testament is so replete with
the message of dynamic fullness? I don't understand. Do we really have what
Jesus promised or do we not? If we do, then how is it that half of us can be
running on half empty half the time? Emptiness is incompatible with the kingdom
and doesn't make sense, Don't we realize that we are now living in the day of
our Messiah's power, in the day of overwhelming kingdom fullness? How is it
possible, then, for us to be so empty?
Now it is a good thing to discover that we are spiritually
empty, friends, if empty, indeed, we really are, but once that discovery has
been made, then what are we going to do about it? Are we going to come forward
to the altar only for a prayer of blessing to be said over us in order that we
might obtain an emotional refilling and then go on our merry way, only to be
found empty again next month, or next year? What are we holiness preachers doing
different than the Catholic priests, or preachers of all other liberal churches,
if all we can do is to pray for an emotional re-filling to assuage a deep-seated
sense of spiritual emptiness?
Are we going to be content with emotional re-fillings only,
dear friends, or are we going to steadfastly set our hearts and minds to seek
the fullness of the kingdom that Messiah promised? It is to be feared, friends,
that too many of us are getting only an emotional re-filling to assuage our
spiritual emptiness, when we should be seeking and finding the mighty baptism of
the Holy Ghost in sanctifying fire!
But then again, if we are content to live in a Christianity
without the mighty kingdom, then mere emotional re-fillings are perhaps the best
that can be hoped for, and will have to do. Yes, it's sad to say, but oh so
true-we will just go right on playing church, until we find the kingdom!
Jesus offered people the messianic kingdom. We offer them,
via our infatuation with dispensational falsehoods, only the chaff of
ideological antinomianism. No wonder the world has largely passed us by! We have
nothing to offer except escapism and postponement! Why don't we offer the world
some dominion, some joyous victory over sin, carnality, and all the foes of evil
that beset? Why don't we offer the fulfillment and fullness of the messianic
kingdom, instead of the paucity of some parenthetical church age, which is all
to often an excuse for antinomianism.
The first disciples were filled with joy and with the
Holy Ghost. The difference between us and them? They believed in the kingdom.
They experienced the kingdom. We too often, sadly, are left holding the bag
exonerating and putting unbelieving racial Jews up on a pedestal, while we wait
for Jesus to come and set the kingdom up. I pray God we will all get over Jewish
fables and get a life, an abundant life, a life of dynamic fullness--in the
kingdom! Now!
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