We’re back today with the fifth thesis in the Case for Christendom. Last week’s thesis can be found here:
Thesis 5 - God’s kingdom is gradually preeminent
In Jesus’ kingdom parables he teaches us about the nature of the kingdom, which is slow to emerge—even obscure—yet nevertheless shall become preeminent.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
Matthew 13:31-33
Jesus could have taught otherwise. Perhaps the kingdom of heaven would be like a thunderstorm rolling in off the Mediterranean, sweeping across the Sea of Galilee and sinking ships in its wake. Or it could have been like a meteorite crashing into the earth and carving out a kingdom-sized crater. But he didn’t teach this.
So where did Jesus get this idea that the kingdom of God would emerge slowly and yet achieve the foremost place among the kingdoms of the earth?
He got it from the Bible.
Daniel 2 records King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, as retold by Daniel:
“You saw, O king, and behold, a great image. This image, mighty and of exceeding brightness, stood before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of this image was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its middle and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold, all together were broken in pieces, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; and the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.”
Daniel 2:31-35
Daniel then interprets the king’s dream, concluding:
And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.
Daniel 2:44-45
The reader will note that we end up with a mountain that fills the whole earth. What we started with, however, was a small stone. That stone then became a mountain, but it did not begin as a mountain. It began as something seemingly insignificant, small enough to (surprisingly) smash the iron/clay feet of the giant statue and (even more surprisingly) topple the whole thing over. But it is a supremely special stone, not cut by human hands… something otherworldly. And though it begins as a stone, it finishes as a mountain.
Micah and Isaiah prophesied about this stone which would become a great mountain.
It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and it shall be lifted up above the hills;
and peoples shall flow to it,
and many nations shall come, and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore;
but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree,
and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.Micah 4:1-4 (cf. Isaiah 2:1-4)
The prophets envisioned the mountain of the Lord as preeminent, the highest of the mountains. Jesus envisioned and taught his disciples the same. The kingdom wouldn’t arrive as a mountain, but it would certainly become one. And not just any mountain; the highest and preeminent mountain. Over time and almost imperceptibly, like yeast leavening a lump of dough, the kingdom of God will be established such that all the nations are ruled by Christ and walk according to the law of God, having been instructed to do so by the Church.
This is Christendom. It is the gradual fulfillment of Daniel’s later prophecy in which “the kingdom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; his kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” (Dan. 7:27).
Christ is inevitable. His kingdom is inevitable. Therefore, Christendom is inevitable.
To be continued…