COMING THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY — PROCESS
COMING THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY — PROCESS
According to the language Jesus used in Matthew, the coming of the Kingdom of God is a process. Mt 6:10 “Thy Kingdom come.” The word “come” in that verse means: to come forth, to find place or influence; to be established (Thayer). This is not a magical popping into existence. The Kingdom comes forth, finds place and influence and is established in and through human agency today just as it came through human agency in Lk 4:21, Mt 12:28, Lk 9:10, and Lk 11:20. It came through Jesus and through His disciples. (cf. Jn 14:12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater {works} than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. NAS)
(This is the seventh excerpt from Marty’s article “The Kingdom, The Process, The Benefit”)
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Jesus, The Message And The Kingdom
Though Jesus used the term “kingdom” often, He nowhere defined what He meant by the phrase. George Eldon Ladd notes that we must therefore assume that (1) the content of the phrase was so commonly understood by the people as to need no definition or that (2) the meaning of Jesus’ proclamation is to be interpreted in terms of His total mission and conduct.
In Lk 4:21 Jesus proclaimed, “This day is this scripture fulfilled.” The words and actions of Jesus are, therefore, the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is realized in the very ministry of Jesus. The key to the meaning of the Kingdom is Christology. Jesus not only utters the message of the Kingdom of God, He is Himself the message (J. Jeremias).
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