|
No one will deny that in
the Scriptures two realities of faith found in its text
are
(i) Covenant, and
(ii) Kingdom.
Even the most apt theologians
and scholars are not always easy with their understanding
of these two and of their relationship. Are they in juxtaposition,
that is, side by side? Does one cover the other? Are they
conterminal? What does each mean to the other, and each
mean in the light of the other? Here is a happy research
excursion for the student or master of the Scriptures.
How would we go about first defining and then relating
them-the Covenant and the Kingdom?
A working definition of
the Kingdom of God could be 'The reign and rule of God',
but that, though correct, has so many connotations that
it does not easily come into acceptance let alone understanding.
As to the Covenant of God, what description and what working
knowledge can apply? Call it an agreement between God and
Man and you fall into the pit of construing it as a contract
between two with all its legal connotations. Contract replaces
communion. Call it unilateral and you are only comparing
it with the grace-less bilateral arrangement. Unilateral
is not, then, a good enough term, but just a description
which acts as a marker, marking it off from bilateralism.
Not even God imposes: He creates relational communion and
gives it as a gift. Is it, then, that we have to talk about
union and communion in regard to Divine and human relationships?
Is there nothing to guard us against God, or keep our self-respect
from being damaged by such a Covenantal relationship?
Ask yourself, 'When was
God first-so to speak-the God of Covenant? When was He
first the King? Was He always the Covenant God? Was He
this before creation, Covenant God before He created, King
when He was Father, and Father when King? Did His action
of creation ensure creation is innately covenantal for
ever? If so, was He this by grace design, or was it just
the way He ever was? Is the Trinity constituted of God
in innate covenantal relationships-the Persons each One
with the Others-or is there a dynamic of love present which
makes the unity? Would this not make a Quaternity, Love
being the most powerful? Could there be-would there have
to be-a hierarchy of love, with the Father Himself being
love (I John 4:8,16), and the Son the Son of that (His)
love-Colossians 1:13-and the Spirit the Spirit of love,
the Son having love in eternal generation, and the Spirit
in the eternal process from the Father and the Son? Is,
then, the Trinity not the Divine Flatland, the joy of the
joyless levellers?'
When you have the answer
to these questions ask further: 'Is God the Covenant God,
covenantal prior to creation, so that creation is posterior
to Covenant? If this is so-creation follows Covenant-then
is not Covenant innate to creation, and even to Kingdom?
Indeed is creation not innately covenantal? Is creation
for the purpose of being itself, or being itself for the
matter of Covenant and even Kingdom?'
If we want to know more
of what Covenant is innately, then could we not conclude
that God's Covenant is that relational bond of God and
Man which God determined and executed-through creation-by
love? That it was not given by grace in the sense that
grace is concerned with recovery and restoration, and in
one sense is not operative until the clear need for it
arises, that is, the Fall? Grace is not required where
there is innocency. God as love creates, and though His
love certainly has grace in view for the exigency of a
fall, yet the gift nature of creation means that it comes
from total love. We may think of grace as innate to love,
but in doing so we must not think of it as a prop to the
pure gift of creation, as though creation has some fault
line on which it may shatter. Would it be reasonable to
conclude that God's Covenant is innate to His nature, and
that His love relationship which bonds Man to Himself is
that Covenant? With the advent of the Fall, then, that
does love not change? Does Man's attitude to God mean he
rejects being (mandatory) Covenant partner with God and
will use the resources of his being God's image-the moral
resources of that image-to fulfil his own plan for himself
and creation Is it right to conclude that Covenant is God's
action to bind Man to Himself, and that rebellion is Man's
rejection of the proper ontological relationship by which
God's eternal purposes are fulfilled?
Having gotten some view
of Covenant, do we then proceed to the idea of the Kingdom
of God? Does Covenant tell us that this King is not aloof
from His subjects, and that His reign is carried on in
dialogue with Man whom He rules and whom He loves? Is there
a relational dialectic? In this sense can a kingdom be
without a covenant? Would God's reigning then never have
been dictatorial or impersonally detached? Is it that the
King loves His subjects? Is the Kingdom, then, not territorial,
and the subjects not contained within certain perimeters?
Can the Kingdom of God be static, a culture to be observed
and defended? What do we mean by saying 'The Kingdom of
God' and 'the Kingdom of Heaven'? If the immoral cannot
enter this Kingdom, then who is moral and how does this
one become thus?'
Are these questions worthy
of consideration? Can we pursue them via further questioning?
Does Kingship arise primarily from 'Author Copyright' or
is God's Being Royal by nature of His case? What paradigm
do we have for 'Royal'? What is the heart of God's Kingdom
authority? Dare we begin with human analogies? Does God
break through by means of a special action-revelation-the
unfolding of a mystery which we insist on making a difficult
puzzle, worthy of our solving by our mighty minds? Might
Kingship be that of Divine Fatherhood for which there is
no human parallel, but a loving, creating, redeeming, sanctifying,
glorifying and perfecting Mind and Heart which determines
creation shall occur, Man shall be the image of the Divine,
and that the moral nature and suffering of God will pursue
it through every twist and turn of evil and good, and finally
capture it on a Cross set against a hill variously called
Golgotha and Calvary?
Is Covenant the Divine-human
bond initiated by the Father-King so that His people may
be with Him in every happening and exigency? Is the Kingdom
that moral power of the King which would repel an evil
thing from trying to enter it, yet welcome in the worst
of sinners by grace, which is Divine love acting itself
out in the horrendous suffering of the Son as he becomes
as the muck-heap of the earth? Is this Father's Son so
disfigured by human evil that he appears to be that very
distortion of true moral form and innocence, so that nothing
seems true any more and all the world's the field for cynicism?
Could it be that out of
Covenant love the Kingdom arises as it crushes universal
evil and sin for ever more, and destroys all the works
of the Devil so that only purity can anymore exist anywhere?
I would like to be close
to your mind and hear the throb of your heart as you take
up these questions of Covenant and Kingdom, for I discern
that they are the primary questions we must ask as men
and women of faith, as sons of the Covenant, and children
and members of the Kingdom of God.
G. Bingham, Kingswood, Adelaide,
12th May 1999
|
