Ripe for Harvest - Printable

254 • R IPE FOR H ARVEST

7. Two manifestations of the Kingdom of God: The Already/Not Yet Kingdom (Oscar Cullman, Christ and Time , George Ladd, The Presence of the Future ) a. The first advent: the rebellious prince bound and his house looted and God’s reign come in the presence of Jesus Christ. b. The second advent: the rebellious prince destroyed and his rule confounded with the full manifestation of God’s kingly power in a recreated heaven and earth.

D. The Christo-centric order: Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth as centerpiece in both God’s revelation and rule

Jesus’ message was the Kingdom of God. It was the center and circumference of all He taught and did. . . . The Kingdom of God is the master-conception, the master-plan, the master-purpose, the master-will that gathers everything up into itself and gives it redemption, coherence, purpose, goal.

~ E. Stanley Jones. Is the Kingdom of God Realism?

Christianity takes time seriously. History is where God is made known. Christians have no knowledge of God without time, for it is through actual events happening in historical time that God is revealed. God chooses to make the divine nature and will known through events that take place within the same calendar that measures the daily lives of men and women. God’s self-disclosures take place within the same course of time as political events: “In the days of Herod king of Judea” (Luke 1.5 NEB), or “it took place when Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2.2 NEB). God’s time is our time, too, marked by a temporal order called a calendar. . . . For Christianity, the ultimate meanings of life are revealed not by universal timeless statements but by concrete acts of God. In the fullness of time, God invades our history, assumes our flesh, heals, teaches, and eats with sinners.

~ Hoyt L. Hickman, et. al. The New Handbook of the Christian Year. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992, p. 16.

Context Values/Vision

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