"Remind Me of What's True"
About more than chores and errands, I need to be reminded of what’s truly true. I’m guessing you do, too.
My “Reminders” app on my phone has saved my bacon more than a few times. I forget details at times. I’d probably leave my head on the table if it didn’t stay connected to my body. So, when I tell my wife that I will clean the bathrooms on Monday, I immediately tell my phone, “Remind me to clean the bathrooms at 11am on Monday.” I often need reminders.
About more than chores and errands, too. I need to be reminded of what’s truly true. I’m guessing you do, too.
“Hey Siri, remind me on Monday at 11am of the gospel and the kingdom and my position in Christ.”
Here you go.
The Eternal-and-Incarnate Son
These next few paragraphs are going to get a little thick, but push through. It’s worth it.
Jesus is God’s eternal, forever Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds” (says the ancient Nicene Creed). If you’re a normal person who doesn’t throw “begotten” around regularly in your group texts, let me explain: “Begotten” refers to the unique, eternal relationship the eternal Father and the eternal Son enjoy with each other, eternally. It’s a statement of relation, not being. That’s why the Nicene Creed further defines Jesus as “begotten, not made”. He is uncreated, eternally relating to his Father as the Son, the Only-and-Forever-Begotten-One.
We’re different. We’re not eternally children of the Father. We’re created, then adopted through union with the Eternal Son. In other words, the Son is the Father’s Son eternally because of who he is. We’re adopted in union with the Son, because of who he is and what he has done in cahoots with the Father, and the Spirit. Such is the Triune conspiracy to save us.
This is the true story of the world, in short form: God made humanity, Adam and Eve, the first created human children. They walked with God in the earliest creation, and knew him deeply. Then, they were tempted to violate the one constraint God had given them (“Don’t eat the fruit of the tree”). They jumped headfirst into the enticement, and when Adam’s teeth punctured the skin of the fruit they realized something. They hadn’t just violated a law, they had violated a Person. They hadn’t just broken a rule; they had ruptured a relationship. They had ripped themselves from the heart of their Father, and he gave them their chosen place. Punishment through banishment.
The heart of God the Father, though, flows over with loving commitment to his rebellious, created children. He longs for them, so he sent his Eternal Son, to become like them, in humanness. The Eternal Son took human nature into his person to become the Eternal-and-Incarnate-Son, so that he could pay the penalty of rebellion and reconcile the relationship between the fallen and the Father. In being crucified, the Eternal-and-Incarnate Son jumped deeper into the curse than Adam did, yielding himself to punishment through banishment. In his human nature, the Eternal-and-Incarnate Son experienced the Father’s wrath, the horror of being disowned and alone. Dead and buried.
Unlike Adam, whose body has stayed dead to this day, dissolving back into dust, Jesus the Eternal-and-Incarnate-Son’s story doesn’t end in death. The Father resurrected his Son through the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing him back from death and back into the Father’s forever fellowship. A lot of times we call this Story “the Gospel.” And through this Story, God through the Holy Spirit, by the same divine power of resurrection, unites us with the Eternal Son and his experience of the Death of Adam in crucifixion, and his experience of the Life of God in resurrection.
Members of the Family
The angles on this thing sling more beautiful light against the walls of the universe than the iciest of blinging of diamonds. But one angle blinds me with its beauty: adoption. We’re not only acquitted, and not guilty (justification). Even more, with the Father as our Father and the Son as our elder brother, “we are family” (try getting that song out your head now…hashtag sorry-not-sorry). We’re made children, legal heirs who enjoy the immeasurable riches of Jesus the Son. In this Story, we stop writing our own stories, and we give Jesus the pen. “Here, you write the rest of this thing.” And he says, “I’ve been the one with the Script the whole time.”
We have a Savior, our Elder Brother, and a Father who loves us and has already given everything and done everything for us. We understand that he’s a Father, but the English word “father” conveys a formality that doesn’t totally fit the relationship. The Hebrew word is Abba, which means something more intimate that the very formal, “Father.” While it’s been shown by scholars that Abba does not mean the equivalent of “Daddy,” I think if we could somehow push the words “Father” and “Daddy” together, we’d get at both the intimacy and reverence of calling God “Our Father,” Abba.
Citizens of the Kingdom
In the Gospel, the Son becomes our blood-brother in incarnation and crucifixion, and the Father, the King, our adoptive Abba. Our Father then naturalizes us as citizens of his Kingdom. The visible and physical location of this Kingdom on earth meets every Sunday at your gospel-preaching local church. The Kingdom, embodied in the Church, becomes our primary communal identity. Children of God are Citizens of Heaven, because Our Father is the King. This means that we exist within the kingdoms of the earth as expatriates — citizens of another Country. We don’t renounce our earthly citizenship, but we recognize its fadingness. Our passport for our earthly citizenship soon will expire, and we will never need to renew it. Scripture says that God “rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son of his love.” We were totally dominated by darkness. It ruled us. But God rescued us, and transferred our citizenship. He did all the paperwork, and cut all the red tape with a big pair of heavenly scissors. He did it unilaterally, sovereignly, all-powerfully.
God’s Kingdom is the realm where God gets done what he wants, when he wants, how he wants. It’s the sphere of God’s uncontested sovereignty. It’s the domain where Yahweh puts his foot down and bellows, “Enough!” to the rebellion of all creation. In the mystery of his will, God has allowed creation to rebel against him for a time; a time when demons and despots, Satan and homo-sapiens, contest the rule and reign of the Creator over his creation. But it won’t always be that way. That part of the story is already coming untrue. Theologians call this coming-untrue, the breaking in of God’s Kingdom “inaugurated eschatology.” This makes them sound smart, but it really just means that the end (eschatology) has already started (inaugurated). God’s Kingdom is already slivering through the clouds of darkness’ domain. Soon God will fully end the rebellion like a chain smoker stomping on a smoldering cigarette.
In the life and death of the Eternal-and-Incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, the Kingdom entered the world. The Kingdom has already broken into earthly existence, but the Kingdom has not yet descended in fullness. This “already/not yet” tension bubbles up in every nook and cranny of our lives in the world. Thus Jesus command us to beg God Our Father, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” We live in the transitionary time between darkness and daylight, when we can see the sun on the horizon, but many shadows still cover our stories. This storyline makes so much sense out of our world. For me, this is one of the strong arguments for Christian faith. The Christian story of the world explains the story we all experience. It explains the profound beauty and the shocking brokenness of the human experience on earth.
Let this narrative frame your mindset. Let horrific brokenness, human rebellion, and the subjection of creation to futility remind you of the passing-ness of this world’s kingdoms and the hope of the coming Kingdom of Heaven into earth in fullness. Let the beautiful, near-perfect moments move your heart toward the coming Kingdom because the beautiful moments in this world’s kingdoms only slightly shadow the glory that’s on the way.
Stay reminded, friends, of what is truly real and true.