Cornerstone Curriculum, Official Certification Edition

396 / CORNERSTONE CURRICULUM STUDENT WORKBOOK

outside, then, Christianity does not appear to be a new people of God built on inclusion, equality, diversity, and unity – multi-national and multi-cultural, enjoying one bond in the Spirit. Rather, the body and bride of Christ appears to be Gentile in orientation, and western in domination. These perceptions are undermining our ability to enter into certain societies, which see Christianity as essentially a western, cultural religion; many nations are no longer open to receive Christian missionaries, seeing them as agents of western values and norms, not the representatives of the citizenry of heaven. With the ever increasing animosity towards Christianity and the West, how ought we as mission leaders think about the next generation of communicating Christ across cultures, especially those which are highly suspicious and skeptical of anything western and white? The motif of Mission as the War of the Spheres is perhaps the most dynamic image of mission in Scripture, and begins with the sovereign rule of Yahweh God as creator and sustainer of all. God’s reign was resisted in the rebellion of the mystery of iniquity (i.e., the satanic rebellion in the heavenlies), which resulted in the temptation and fall of humankind, and the curse of creation. God placed hostility between the Seed of the woman and the serpent, and sovereignly and graciously promised to end the rebellion through the Seed of the woman. As a result of the Fall, the universe is at war and God has declared himself at war with the serpent and those who side with him. God displayed himself as divine warrior in his conflict with evil symbolized as a river and the sea, and in his defeat of Pharaoh and his armies and the nations of Canaan. Unfortunately, God also had to fight against his own people because of their disobedience and rebellion. In addition, Israel’s prophets pictured God as a divine warrior who through his Messiah would finally destroy all evil once and for all time. This Messianic rule has been inaugurated in the person of Jesus, who in his birth, teaching, miracles, exorcisms, deeds, death, and resurrection has brought the Kingdom of God into being. The Kingdom is both “already” and “not yet;” its has already come in Jesus’ fulfillment of the Messianic promise but will be only be consummated at his Second Coming. Today in this world and age, the Church of Jesus Christ is both the sign and foretaste of the Kingdom present, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the pledge of the full inheritance. The Church is now authorized to proclaim and demonstrate the victory of Christ over Satan and the curse as his agent and deputy. Mission proclaims that God is presently reasserting his rule over his universe in Jesus Christ, and through his agent, the Church.

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Restatement of the Lesson’s Thesis

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