The Kingdom Coming Part 4

“He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives; And recovering of sight to the blind; To set at liberty those who are oppressed, To proclaim the acceptable of Jahweh (The Lord).”  Isaih 61:1,2

Luke does not begin with a capsule statement of what Jesus began to preach, Matthew and Mark do. Then both report that Jesus’ inital message was in the same words as were used by John the Baptist (and latter by the discipels) “The Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the good news (gospel).”  The langauage , “kingdom,”  “evangel,” is chosen from the political realm. This would seem to be most out of place if Jesus’ whole point had been different than John’s and that He was not interested in this real. Accept it hardly needs to be argued that “kingdom” is a political term. The common Bible reader is less aware that “gospel” as well means not just any old welcome report but the kind of publicly important proclamation that is worth sending with a runner and holding a celebration when it is received.

The passage from Isaiah 61 which Jesus turns upon himself is not only a messianic one; it is one which states the messianic expectaion in the most expressly social terms. “The acceptable year of the Lord,”  in Isaiah 61 referred to some particular event either at the end of the age or in the immediate future of the Babylonian captives (or both). But for rabbinic Judaism and thus for the listeners of Jesus it most likely meant neither of these but rather the “Jubilee Year.”  The time when the inequities accumulated through the years are to be crossed off and all God’s people will begin again at the same point. The expectation is the coming of the “Sabbath Year” (Leviticus 25).  A time when at the end of fifty-year term a sweeping economic realignment and redistributing of property and forgiveness of debt was to happen all at once. The concept of Jesus’ coming kingdom is the prophetic understanding of the jubilee year. The place of Leviticus 25 in the Bible kept alive the vision of an age when economic life would start over from scratch. And the testimony of Isaiah 61 by Jesus demonstrates its fruitfulness as a vision of the “Kingdom of God is at hand.” 

Therefore, one must conclude that in the ordinary sense of his words Jesus, like Mary and like John, was announcing the imminent age of a new regime whose marks would be that the rich would give to the poor, the captives would be freed, and mankind would have a new mentality (revival) if they believed in the gospel, the good news!  To be continued…

THE KINGDOM COMING Part 3

“Thou art my beloved Son; With Thee I am well pleased” (Psalm 2:7)

 

 

Thou art my Son is the summons to a task. Jesus is commissioned to be, in history, in Palestine the messianic son and servant, the bearer of the Gospel and promise of God. This mission is then further defined by the testing into which Jesus moves immediately.

 

The tempter laid before Jesus all the options of being king. Now the temptation is to put His omnipotence to improper use. Luke reports the testing begins with the economic option. It has often been reported that this reading had to deal with the attraction of this temptation as purely personal and carnal. Jesus was hungry; would He by miracle abuse His omnipotence selfishly to feed Himself? The option here is the pangs of hungry or His providing a banquet for His followers latter in the story as demonstrated in the feeding of the Five Thousand. Feed the crowds and you shall be king (Luke 9).

 

The second temptation according to Like is the one widely recognized as socio-political in character. Now the tempter simply goes on to the political nature of the promised reward, “All the kingdoms of the world: all this authority and their glory”; I will give thee; for this has been delivered unto me; if thou therefore will worship me.”  The discerning of Jesus of such idolatrous political power is repugnant to Jesus and his mission for it is written: “Thou shall worship the LORD thy God and Him only will thou serve.”   Get behind Me, Satan!  Certainly the story means that secular power is not to be acquired at the price of worship of Satan. The offer is not rejected because secular power is altogether inept for the mission of Jesus. Rather the use of secular power is hostile to His mission. Jesus never debated whether Satan had the power to give the kingdoms or not. As the Apostle Paul said: Satan is the god of this world often forgotten by the Church and those who desire to change the political kingdoms of this world. Jesus has given all power and authority to the Church after Calvary but for proclaiming the good news of the Gospel. The Kingdom of God is coming to earth with Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

 

The third temptation takes Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple. “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down…” The pinnacle (pterygion) was the highest point of the Temple overlooking the Kidron valley, a sheer drop of 450 feet.  Being thrown down from the temple wall into the Kidron valley, followed by stoning if necessary, to bring about death for the prescribed penalty of blasphemy. The testing would then mean that Jesus was tempted to see himself as taking on himself the penalty for his claims to divine authority, yet being miraculously saved from the consequences. Would Jesus perform a mere acrobatic marvel as accreditation for His status as a worker of wonders? No, this would have been the kind of sign, which He consistently refused to give to the curious, and the dubious. From this vantage point a priest watched for the breaking of each new day and the appearance of the Messiah. Jesus answered his tempter; “Thou shall not tempt the LORD THY GOD.”      To be continued….

The Kingdom Coming Part 2

The Kingdom Coming Part 2

 

 

We saw in our last discussion that the message Jesus brought differed from the expectations of John. But the difference was not that John’s hopes were socio-political and the fulfillment Jesus brought was spiritual. If the difference had been of that character, Luke would have had to begin his story differently.

 

John the Baptist had a pronounced political character, and to some extend Jesus took up his succession. The instruction John gave his hearers called for an immediate sharing of consumption (Luke 3:11). The only categories of listeners indicated by Luke in addition to the multitudes (Matthew names Pharisees and Sadducees) are the socio-political slanted publicans (Luke 3:12 and soldiers Luke 3:14).  According to Josephus, John the Baptist was imprisoned because Herod Antipas fear that John might foment an insurrection. Luke’s account of John’s offense speaks not only of Herodias, his brother’s wife, but also of all the evil things Herod had done, which might well involve some substantial political critique. Herod’s putting away his first wife and taking in her place Herodias was itself a public political issue, as it brought on a war with the first wife’s father, Aretas IV of Nabatea (sounds reminiscent of the Tudors). Even if John’s judgment upon remarriage was motivated first by his rejection of divorce and adultery, his imprisonment had a political symbolic meaning as did Herod’s choice of Machaerus, the fortress on the Nabatean border, as the place of John’s imprisonment and execution. Jesus answered the emissaries of John is suggestive of His first Nazareth sermon.

 

When the men had come to Him, they said, “John the Baptist has sent us to You, saying, `Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another? And that very hour He cured many of infirmities, afflictions, and evil spirits; and to many blind He gave sight.  Jesus answered and said to them, Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard: that [the] blind see, [the] lame walk, [the] lepers are cleansed, [the] deaf hear, [the] dead are raised, [the] poor have the gospel preached to them.   “And blessed is [he] who is not offended because of Me.”  Luke 7:20-24

 

 “The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to [the] poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to [the] captives And recovery of sight to [the] blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18-19

 

 The reports of his ministry leads Herod too look upon Jesus as possible successor to John the Baptist.  To be continued…

<:))))><

The Kingdom Coming

Mat 1:21 “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

 

THE KINGDOM COMING

 

Luk 1:51 He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; Luk 1:52 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; Luk 1:53 he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.

 

In the present testimony of the gospel we are being told that the one whose birth is now being announced is to be an agent of radical social change. The preoccupations of those who await the Coming Kingdom are neither cultic nor doctrinal and in a narrow sense they are not religious preoccupations; Jesus is coming to break the bondage of His people.

 

Zechariah, as soon as his lips are loosened, proclaimed the meaning of the birth of John the Baptist:

 

And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. And has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us; to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear. Luke 1:67-74.

 

This eminent expectation is all the more clear when John the Baptist spells it out:

 

John answered them all, saying, I baptize you with water, but He who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His pitch fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the Wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. Luke 3:16-18

 

This is the language with which John preached good news to the people. Too hastily we have passed all this preaching of the gospel as it is all to be taken spiritually. Was John wrong in what he was expecting? No! Israel had not heard from a prophet of God in over 400 years.

 

We shall see that the message Jesus brought differed from the expectations of John. But the difference was not that Johns hopes were socio-political and the fulfillment Jesus brought was spiritual. If the difference had been of that character, Luke would have had to begin his story differently. To be continued.

<:))))><