After almost a month since I last posted, I’m ready to get back into the blogging scene–at least a little bit.
Dallas Willard’s first question (see below) is “What is reality? What is really real?“
Not too surprisingly, Dr. Willard’s answer is “God and the kingdom of heaven” Or, to use Dr. Willard’s translation of “kingdom of heaven,” the “kingdom of the heavens.” “The heavens,” in Scripture mean (a) the atmosphere, (b) the heavens above the sky, and (c) heaven, the dwelling place of God.
In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard discusses the implications of the phrase both theologically and spatially.
Theologically, the kingdom of the heavens is the range of God’s effectual will, i.e. where “what God wants done gets done.” Thus the kingdom of God is not something which Jesus initiated. It has always existed. The Jews of Jesus’ day (his compatriots) would certainly have understood this, steeped as they were in the Hebrew Scriptures. See, for example, Psalm 103:19, Psalm 145:12, Daniel 4:3.
Spatially, the phrase “kingdom of the heavens” (a literal translation of Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven”), implies that Jesus viewed the earth as bathed in God’s presence–all around us, closer than the air we breathe, filled with the presence, grace and power of the Almighty.
So far, nothing particularly new or insightful. Any orthodox Jew of the 1st century CE (and today) would “hear” this meaning when Jesus (in the pattern of his forerunner, John the Baptizer) proclaimed the reality of the kingdom of the heavens.
But…and this is the astonishing thing, Jesus didn’t simply preach that we ought to repent and prepare for the future arrival of the kingdom of God. Instread, he came preaching, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news of God” (Mark 1:15).
Thus, Jesus came to proclaim that the kingdom of God is available right now, right here, for all who will humbly receive it.
In the words of Eugene Peterson (from his introductory comments for Mark’s Gospel), “God is here, and he is on our side!”
That’s reality as defined by Jesus.
Everybody has a definition of reality that they live by. You can’t get out of bed in the morning (or trust the bed to hold you up off the floor) without some view of reality.
Who are you trusting to define what’s really real?
Next question: Who, according to Jesus, is really well off?
