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The Kingdom of God in the Church Age · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed thinking, it is great to have you with us.
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It's good to be here and we have a massive topic to get through
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today. I don't use that word lightly.
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We certainly do. Today.
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We're looking at a tension that I think every believer feels,
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even if they can't quite put words to it.
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It's that tension between the world we live in right now, you
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know, with all its mess. It's pain and corruption and the
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world we're waiting for. Right.
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It's the classic tension of the now and the not yet.
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That is it. And specifically, we're digging
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into a question that really dictates everything about how we
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think about Christian mission. It affects how we view our jobs,
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our politics, our churches. Yeah, it really does.
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The question is this, is the church supposed to be fixing
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society to prepare the way for Jesus, or are we supposed to be
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calling people out of society to wait for Jesus?
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That is the fundamental question.
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And you know, depending on how you answer that, your entire
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strategy for ministry just completely changes.
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Well, if you believe you're building the Kingdom now, you're
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going to act one way. You'll focus on policy, on
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social structures, on societal reform.
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Really a better world. But if you believe you're just a
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witness to a coming king who's going to build it himself, well,
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you act very, very differently. And to help us sort through
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this, we're doing a deep dive into a really dense theological
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chapter by Mark Tatlock and Chris Burnett.
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It's titled The Kingdom of God in the Church Age, and it comes
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from the book Biblical Missions, Principles, Priorities, and
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Practices. A great resource.
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So our mission today is to clarify the biblical definition
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of the Kingdom, to look at where we actually fit in history, the
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specific period between Pentecost and the Rapture, and
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then define what a missionary should actually be doing.
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And we're going to do this by, you know, sticking really
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closely to the text and trying to separate the popular trends
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from what Scripture explicitly commands.
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Fidelity to the word. That's the goal, not just what
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sounds good in a fundraising newsletter or on a social media
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post. OK, so let's untack this.
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The authors start with a definition, and I feel like the
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phrase Kingdom of God gets thrown around constantly in
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evangelical circles. All the time.
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It becomes this buzzword we hear about Kingdom work, Kingdom
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businesses, Kingdom living. But what do Tatlock and Burnett
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actually say it is? They go right to the root.
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They define the Kingdom of God simply as the rule of God over
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his creation period. Simple enough.
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And they argue it's the central and unifying theme of all of
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Scripture. It's the climax of the whole
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story of redemption. But here's the nuance.
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And if you miss this, you'll miss their whole argument.
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They argue that while the Kingdom is spiritually present
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in believers today, it awaits a physical manifestation in the
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future. That distinction, spiritual
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present versus physical future, that seems to be the hinge for
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everything else we're going to talk about because I think a lot
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of people just stop at the spiritual part.
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They think, well, God rules in my heart, so the Kingdom is
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here. And that's true.
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But it's incomplete. It's only half the story.
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If you stop there, you miss the physical, geographical aspect of
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Trump's promises. So to understand why that
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physical part matters so much, the text takes us all the way
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back. All the way back to the
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beginning. Genesis 1.2628.
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The creation mandate. This is often called the
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Dominion Mandate or the Kingdom Mandate.
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Yeah, different names for the same idea.
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And you simply cannot understand the end of the Bible revelation
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if you don't get the beginning Genesis.
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So what was the plan in Genesis? God reveals his original
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blueprint. He creates man in his own image,
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the imago day, and then he gives a command have dominion.
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Right. Be fruitful and multiply.
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Fill the earth and subdue it. That word subdue is so crucial.
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Humans were placed on Earth as God's vice Regents.
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Vice Regents break that down. For us, Vice region is someone
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who rules in the place of the king, the sovereign.
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They're an ambassador, but with real authority.
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So God is the ultimate king. Of course.
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But he placed Adam and Eve on the earth to expand his rule,
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his reign across the entire world.
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The earth was supposed to be the theater of God's glory, and Adam
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was the guy in charge of making that happen.
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He was supposed to take the order and goodness of Eden and
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just push it out. Push it out to the ends of the
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earth. So Adam wasn't just, you know, a
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gardener. He was a king priest.
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The king priest he. Was ruling over the physical
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earth, the actual dirt, the animals, the geography.
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But we all know how that story went.
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He failed. He committed high treason
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against the King. He did, and the text points out
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that this failure plunged the whole world into sin.
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It corrupted the image of God in man.
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It even cursed the ground itself.
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A total disaster, but. And this is the key theological
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point the authors make. The mandate was not abrogated.
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Abrogated. It means cancelled.
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Repealed. God didn't look down and say,
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well, plan A failed. Let's just scrap the whole idea
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of humans rolling the earth. I'll just do everything directly
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from now on. Man still stands, but our
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ability to actually fulfill it is just broken.
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Precisely. The mandate is still in effect.
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Humanity is still supposed to rule the earth for God's glory,
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but man failed to execute that rule in righteousness.
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And this creates a huge theological problem, doesn't?
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It a massive 1 because Satan effectively challenged God's
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whole design. He hijacked the dominion of the
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earth. So if the story ended there, or
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if God just, you know, destroyed the earth and started over
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somewhere else. Titan would have won.
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Satan would have permanently ruined the good nature of God's
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physical creation. He would win the argument.
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That is a fascinating way to put it.
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If God just abandons the physical earth, then Satan gets
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to keep the physical earth, right?
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Which brings us to the last Adam.
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And this is where the Christology, the study of
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Christ, gets really interesting in this text, OK, the authors
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argue that Jesus isn't just saving souls for some
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disembodied spiritual heaven. He's doing something very
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specific about that original mandate from Genesis.
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He has to fix what the first Adam broke.
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He has to. This is why the physical return
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of Christ is a theological necessity.
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It isn't just a dramatic ending to the story, it's a legal
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necessity. Legal.
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Yes, Jesus, the perfect God man, has to succeed where Adam the
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man failed, the authors argued. Jesus must exercise a perfect
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rain in every single way that Adam failed.
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And logically, where does that rain have to happen?
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It has to happen on Earth. It has to happen on the very
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same earth that was corrupted by sin.
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If Jesus only rules in heaven, or you know, only in our hearts,
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then the physical creation, the actual dirt and rocks and
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nations that Adam was supposed to rule is left unredeemed in a
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governance sense. I see.
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So unless King Jesus returns to Earth to reverse the curse
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physically, he isn't truly the last Adam.
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He has to win on the same playing field where Adam lost.
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That's the only way God's glory is fully vindicated.
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He has to reclaim the physical territory that sets the stage
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perfectly. We have this clear expectation
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of a future physical reign, but now we have to deal with the
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now. We are in what the text calls
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the Church age. Right.
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And they define this as the dispensation, or, you know, the
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time period between Pentecost and the Rapture.
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And this is where all the confusion really sets in.
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I think this is the messy part because we know the King is
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coming and we have the Holy Spirit now, so a lot of
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Christians get confused about what our job is right now.
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Are we supposed to start the rain for Him?
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Are we like the advance team clearing the land?
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The text identifies two major theological errors here.
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Two ways people get this wrong. Two ways they confuse the
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Kingdom with the Church. Let's tackle the first one post
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millennialism. Now, for any of you listening
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who might not be familiar with these big theological terms,
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let's just break it down. Post means after, Millennium
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means 1000 years. So this is the view that Jesus
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returns after the Millennium. But there's a catch, right?
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There is. Post millennialism generally
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teaches that the 1000 years in Revelation 20 is not a literal
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time period. So what is it?
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They see it as a symbolic representation of a long era
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where the Gospel gradually, slowly conquers the world.
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They believe the world will literally be Christianized
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before Jesus comes back. So under this view, things just
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get better and better. The world becomes more Christian
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over time. Theoretically, yes.
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They expect that through the Church's influence, things like
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faith, righteousness, peace and prosperity will eventually just
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prevail in the affairs of nations.
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It sounds like the frog in the pot, but in a good way.
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The water just slowly warms up until the whole world is
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comfortable with Christian ethics.
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That's a decent analogy. And then, after this long era of
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Christian dominance, what they call the Millennium, Jesus
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returns to a world that's effectively been polished up and
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prepared for him. And the text calls this a form
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of dominion theology. That sounds pretty intense.
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It is, and it's a very specific way of reading the Great
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Commission. They basically treat the Great
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Commission as a new creation mandate.
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So they connect it back to Genesis.
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Right. Just like Adam was supposed to
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go out from Eden and subdue the Earth post, Millennialists argue
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that the disciples are supposed to go out from Jerusalem and
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take dominion over politics, culture, law and society.
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It sounds very optimistic. I can see why people would be
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drawn to that view. It makes you feel like you're on
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the winning team right now. It does.
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It absolutely validates things like political activism and, you
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know, cultural warfare. But what's the rebuttal from
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Tatlock and Burnett? Why do they say this is
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incorrect? Well, looking at the text, their
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rebuttal seems to be grounded in the actual words of the Great
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Commission itself, Matthew 28. Look closely at what Jesus
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commanded. Did he command the church to
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subdue nations structurally? Did he say go and take over the
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Roman Senate? No, he said.
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Go and make disciples of all nations.
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Exactly. He commanded the church to
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preach and teach the gospel to individuals among the nations.
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The focus is on making disciples.
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So the change Jesus is talking about is for the soul, not for
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the political system itself. That is the critical
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distinction, the authors are saying.
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We are fishing for men, not trying to clean up the pond.
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I like that fishing for men, not cleaning the pond.
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And they note that, you know, a nation certainly benefits if its
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citizens submit to God. If you have more Christians,
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you'll probably have less crime, for example.
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Well, that's a byproduct. It's a byproduct.
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It's not the objective. The missionaries goal is not to
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build a Christian version of the United Nations.
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It's to see individual men and women repent and believe the
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gospel. OK, so that's the first error
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trying to build the Kingdom politically post millennialism.
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But there's another error the text discusses, which is maybe
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even more common in modern mission agencies.
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The Missio day paradigm. This one feels more subtle.
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It's trickier because it sounds so pious.
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Missio day is Latin for. Mission of God.
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And who's going to argue with the mission of God?
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That's the point. The basic idea is that the
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Triune God is a missionary God, and since all of Scripture
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reveals God, then all of Scripture reveals his mission.
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Therefore, the argument goes, the church is just participating
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in God's general movement in the world.
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Whatever God is doing, we should join in.
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On the surface, that sounds fine.
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We want to join God in what he's doing.
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But the text argues this leads to what they call a limitless
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direction problem. Yeah, think about it.
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If everything God does is mission, then what isn't
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mission? God cares for creation.
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God cares for justice. He cares for beauty and
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agriculture. Right.
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So under that missio de framework, painting a park
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bench, digging a well, teaching someone to farm, or lobbying for
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a new law, all of that becomes missions just as much as
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preaching the gospel is. It just dilutes the specific
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command. If everything is mission, then
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nothing is really mission. The authors argue it opens the
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door for missionary activities to move in literally any
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direction the missionary wants. And what usually gets lost in
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that shuffle? The specific offensive,
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difficult work of proclaiming the gospel.
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And calling for repentance. It's a lot easier and more
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popular to dig a well than it is to tell a village of people that
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they are sinners in desperate need of a Savior.
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That is a hard truth. The text also brings up an
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interesting point about the Old Testament here.
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Yeah, this is a key part of their critique.
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The Missio de folks often look at Israel and say, look, Israel
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engaged with nations, they had a society, so we should engage
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culturally, too. But the authors say that's just
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a bad reading of the Old Testament.
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They call it a missional hermeneutic that distorts the
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text. A hermeneutic is just a method
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of interpretation, and they argue that Israel did not have
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an implicit Great Commission. What do they mean by that?
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Well, think about it. Was Israel ever commanded to
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pack up, leave the land and go to the end of the earth to
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preach Judaism? No, they were told to stay in
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the land and be a holy nation, right?
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Israel was a theocratic Kingdom that was meant to be a
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stationary witness. It was centripetal.
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It was all about moving inward. The nations were supposed to
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come to them and see the wisdom of Solomon.
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They were supposed to see the Temple and be awed.
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It was a come and see model. Exactly.
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But the Church's mandate is the opposite.
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It's centrifugal, moving outward.
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It's go and tell. So trying to find a missionary
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mandate in Israel's history just leads to subjective
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interpretations. It does, and the greatest vision
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of Israel's witness is actually still in the future, when
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they're restored in the land and the nations flock to Jerusalem.
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That hasn't happened yet. OK, so if we reject the idea
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that we're building the Kingdom now post millennialism, and we
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reject the idea that basically everything we do is missions
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Missio day, what's the correct framework?
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The source argues for what they call premillennial missiology.
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And this brings us right back to the timeline.
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Premillennialism simply means we expect Jesus to return before
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pre the Millennium. So the order of events is Church
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age, which is right now, then the return of Christ, and then
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the establishment of the Kingdom on earth Millennium.
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And this changes the objective completely, doesn't it?
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Completely global evangelism is done with the expectation that
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we are not establishing the rule of God, we are gathering
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citizens for the King who will come and establish it himself.
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The text is very specific about this Millennium being literal,
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they don't see it as a symbol. Not at all.
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They list the biblical evidence Jesus sitting on David's throne
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in a physical Jerusalem for 1000 literal years.
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And they say Revelation 22 Samuel 7.
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Zechariah. They emphasize that this is the
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fulfillment of the Davidic covenant.
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God promised David a descendant who would sit on his throne
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forever. That hasn't been fulfilled
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literally yet. I mean, Jesus is at the right
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hand of the Father now. Right, but he isn't sitting on
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David's throne in Jerusalem. Not yet.
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And this whole future reality involves the restoration of
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national Israel. Correct.
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The prophecy that all Israel will be saved and the borders of
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the land will be restored to the Jewish people is a literal
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geographic promise that has to be fulfilled.
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I think for a lot of listeners that Israel peace is where they
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might get tripped up or ask, So what?
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Why does the future restoration of Israel matter for a
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missionary? Who's going to, say, Brazil or
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Thailand? That's a great question.
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It matters because it sets the clock and the context for what
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we're doing right now. The authors explain that right
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now we are living in a Gentile interlude A.
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Gentile interlude explain that. Well, look at Romans 11.
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Israel as a nation rejected their king, the Messiah.
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Because of that rejection, the door for salvation swung wide
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open for the Gentiles. Paul says a blindness has
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happened to Israel in part until the fullness of the Gentiles has
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come in. We are currently in that period
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where God is calling out a people for His name from among
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the nations, but this period has an end date.
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And that end date is connected to Israel eventually repenting
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as a nation, yes. The text says the Kingdom itself
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will not have an earthly reign until the leaders of Israel
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finally bow their knee to their Messiah and say blessed is he
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who comes in the name of the Lord.
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So our work among the Gentiles is in a way filling up a quota
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before the main story with Israel resumes.
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That's one way to look at it. So while we proclaim repentance
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to the nations, we know that the full physical realization of the
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Kingdom waits for that specific prophetic event to happen.
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Wow. This has huge implications for
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the missionary ethic, as the authors call call it.
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It creates a very strong not yet reality.
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That is the core of their ethical argument.
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Since the Church cannot establish the Kingdom because
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only Jesus can do that when he returns, missionaries must stop
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trying to build a utopia right now.
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You stop trying to force the future reality into the present.
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You have to, so the goal shifts. It's not about social
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transformation, it's about calling sinners into the
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Kingdom. Repentance becomes the key.
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It's everything. The focus shifts entirely from
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structural change to individual regeneration.
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People must be born again to even see, let alone enter the
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future Kingdom. You can't legislate the Kingdom
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into existence. You have to populate it with
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regenerated citizens first. That's it.
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It sounds like a rescue operation, doesn't it?
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It really does. The text frames it almost like a
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lifeboat scenario. We aren't trying to fix the
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sinking ship, we're trying to get as many people as possible
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into the lifeboats before the captain returns to raise the
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whole ship from the depths. This leads us directly into the
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strategic priorities the text lays out for missionaries.
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If this theology is true, if we're premillennialists, then
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our To Do List changes dramatically.
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It does priority number one, individual evangelism and
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discipleship. And notice the urgency they
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attach to this. They say there's no room for
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fatalism. Sometimes people hear this and
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think, well, if God is sovereign and Jesus is coming back anyway,
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why bother? Right, just sit back and wait.
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But the text says no. We labor, we strive, we work to
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save even a few. They also make an interesting
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point about cultural change here.
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Even though they argue against Dominion theology, they don't
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say culture won't change. Right, but the order of
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operations is absolutely crucial.
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They argue that biblical disciples naturally alters A
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believer's cultural orientation. How so?
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If you save the man, the man changes his family.
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A change family impacts a community, but you do it by
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aiming at the soul, not by aiming at the culture itself.
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So it's a bottom up transformation, not top down.
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Precisely. If a community is full of people
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who don't steal because they love Jesus, guess what?
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The crime rate goes down, but you didn't set out with a
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program to lower the crime rate. You set out to make disciples of
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Jesus Christ. OK.
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So that's priority one. Priority number 2 they list is
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pastoral training. This seems very practical,
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almost administrative. Why is this so high on the list?
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It's the Pauline model, plain and simple.
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The authors cite First Timothy and Titus.
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Paul didn't just make a bunch of converts and then leave them
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alone to fend for themselves. He established local churches.
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And he appointed elders, godly shepherds.
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The text uses beautiful image here.
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Raising up elders is like preparing the bride, the church,
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for the coming of her husband, Christ.
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That puts a lot of weight on theological education and
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leadership development. It's not just about getting
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people to say a prayer. It's about building mature,
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stable churches. Because true, lasting growth
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only happens through godly leadership.
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If you have 1000, 1000 converts but no shepherds, you don't have
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a sustainable church that can faithfully wait for the king.
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You just have a crowd, and crowds disperse.
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Churches endure. No, we have to talk about the
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warnings. This is the part of the text
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that I think will probably challenge some of our listeners
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the most. Yeah, this is where it might
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step on some toes in the modern mission world.
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The text is very explicit about what we should not prioritize.
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They explicitly warn against prioritizing environmental care
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or social justice. Let's unpack the why behind
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that, because that sounds harsh to modern years.
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It's not that they hate the environment, right?
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They aren't saying go ahead and pollute.
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No, absolutely not. It has nothing to do with
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disdain for creation. Remember, their whole argument
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rests on the goodness of the physical creation and the fact
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that it will be redeemed. So what's the issue?
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The issue is eschatology, the study of the end times and
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stewardship of time. The text points to Romans 8.
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The Earth groans for renewal, yes, but when is that renewal
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scheduled to happen? It's scheduled for the revealing
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of the sons of God, the Millennium, when Christ returns.
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Right. So trying to fix the environment
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now is, in their view, like trying to do a complete
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renovation on a house that is scheduled for demolition and
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total reconstruction by the owner next week.
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That's a helpful analogy. You can sweep the floor, sure,
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but don't spend your life savings or placing the the roof.
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The owner's going to tear it down and build something brand
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new anyway. So the text argues that the real
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renewal of creation comes only in the Millennium.
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Therefore, if a missionary focuses their main efforts on
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environmental causes, they're fighting a battle that isn't
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meant to be won yet. It's a matter of timing and
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priorities. And the same logic applies to
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social justice, because social justice is a massive focus in
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missions today. Yes, the same logic.
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The author state that seeking political and social restoration
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now is a theological error because the nations are
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currently, according to scripture, under the deception
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of Satan. 2nd Corinthians 4.4 The God.
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Of this world, exactly. True biblical justice, perfect
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justice, will flow like a river from Jerusalem when Christ the
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King is raining from there. Trying to achieve that level of
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justice now, without the King physically present, is
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ultimately futile. And it risks shifting the
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missionary to what the text calls pragmatic
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Christianization. And that's the danger of
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distraction. The authors remind us that we
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are stewards. We are stewards of our time, our
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energy, and our donors resources.
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If we spend those limited resources on social causes that
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cannot ultimately succeed before Christ returns, we are by
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definition neglecting the one thing that can succeed, saving
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souls from the coming judgement. That is a very sobering thought.
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It really frames the current world as enemy territory.
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The text constantly contrasts the current world ruled by the
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Deceiver with the future world ruled by Christ.
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We are operating behind enemy lines.
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Our job is a rescue mission, not a terraforming project.
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If you're behind enemy lines, you don't stop to landscape the
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enemy's garden. You get your people out.
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I want to circle back to something the text mentioned
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about the motivation for the missionary.
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Because this view premillennialism, it can
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sometimes sound pessimistic. I can see that you know the
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world is going to hell in a handbasket, so just save a few
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souls. It can sound kind of defeated,
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but the authors argue it actually gives more hope.
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It gives a different kind of hope.
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It's the hope of certainty, the text says.
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The absolute certainty of the coming millennial Kingdom is
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what enables radical sacrifice. How does that work?
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Well think about it. If you believe it's up to you to
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fix the world. If you're a post millennialist
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who thinks you have to Christianize the entire culture,
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you will eventually burn out. You'll despair.
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You will. You'll see the corruption, the
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wars, the intractable poverty, and you'll despair because your
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best efforts are just a drop in the ocean.
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You aren't winning. But if you're premillennial?
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If you're premillennial, you know that Jesus is coming to
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bring a literal 1000 year reign of perfect peace and justice and
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plenty you know the end of the story is guaranteed.
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You don't have to produce the final result, you just have to
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be faithful to your specific task.
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It frees you from the burden of having to be the Messiah.
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Spot on. You are not the King, you are
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just the Herald announcing his arrival.
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You can die in a prison cell. You can live in poverty.
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You can face persecution, all the while knowing that you will
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reign with him in the future. The text does mention that
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believers will reign with Christ.
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Yes, that future authority makes present suffering bearable, even
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logical. It's the ultimate deferred
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gratification. And it completely changes how we
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define success in ministry. Success isn't did I change the
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laws in this country. Success is did I faithfully
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proclaim the King and prepare his citizens for his arrival.
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As we start to wrap this up, I'm thinking about the implications
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of this for you, the listener, whether you're a full time
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missionary, a pastor, or just a believer in your workplace.
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The main implication is clarity of purpose.
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I mean, we are just bombarded with causes every single day.
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There's a new crusade for social change, a new political battle
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we're told we have to fight. It's exhausting.
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It is. This text invites us to filter
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all of those demands through the lens of the Kingdom.
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Is this activity bringing people into the coming Kingdom, or is
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it just rearranging the furniture on the Titanic?
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That is the hard question, and I think the summary of the
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argument really drives it home. The Kingdom mandate will be
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fulfilled in the future by Christ, not now by the church.
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The Church's job is proclamation, not political
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establishment. It's a call to humility.
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We have to be humble enough to accept that we cannot fix the
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world, only Jesus can. And we have to be obedient
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enough to do the one thing he explicitly told us to do.
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Go and make disciples. That's the mission.
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It's a liberating truth, really. It takes the weight of the world
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off of our shoulders and places it squarely on his, which is
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where it belongs. I'm into that.
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I want to leave you with a thought to chew on.
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We've talked a lot about the danger of trying to do the
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King's job for him. But consider this.
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If we believe we can fix the world's broken systems before
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the king returns, if we really think we can bring about justice
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and peace on our own terms through our own politics and
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programs, are we inadvertently trying to take the crown that
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belongs only to Jesus? Are we trying to usher in the
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Kingdom but without the king? That's the question that should
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keep us on our knees. Thank you for joining us for
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this deep dive into reformed thinking.
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We'll see you next time.