The Kingdom of God (3)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’”(1:15)

In the sentence “the kingdom of God is near”, we easily misunderstand between God and the kingdom of God. It is not correct to divide between God’s existence and His kingdom, which means his reigning. God and the kingdom of God are in accord. That means that God exists as His kingdom. The kingdom of God is a way of His existence. Beforehand the kingdom was mentioned as reigning, and then it means that God exists as reigning itself. With explanation a little more detailed, God is reigning, doing, and power. He exists as the kingdom having personality with peace, justice, joy and freedom. He exists as love, which is the core for all of them. God is love.

Sometimes some people say they listen to God directly or meet Him. There is no such God. How could we directly experience “the kingdom”? How could we directly meet “love”? How could we directly meet “the wind”? Of course we could face a refreshing breeze, but it is not a whole part of wind. Just like we could only experience wind partially, we could experience only a part of the kingdom of God, not all of them. If we can’t experience the whole, it means we do not experience God directly. Of course in the Bible there are not a few texts that describe like having direct confront with God. We should not misunderstand those reports. The Biblical reports are just like poems. Poets write poems just like they talk with the objects directly. ”The wind sings” if a person regards this sentence as real description, he must not know poetry. The reports of the Biblical authors are just like that. They understood the kingdom of God or God’s reigning in a higher spiritual level. Those recognitions they described as Yaweh was talking to them directly. Maybe some of you might be dissatisfied with this kind explanation. They might like to say that Basically I agree with that opinion. the Bible, being revelation of God, could not be degraded by human epistemology. Not putting the Bible in a limited category of human epistemology, I am now explaining about an epistemological passage between God’s actions and human being who should understand those. Even though God’s ontological power in the mystery of His being and revelations has more superior control over our faith and actions, human epistemology could not be destroyed. Today the destruction of reasonable epistemology is the problem emerging from the heresy or the leaders of cult who insist that they got God’s visions directly from Him.

Today in Korean churches, how could the image of God be understood? It could be like a king, a father, and a man. If it could not be one of them, he could be regarded at least as a spirit in the mountains. Even for a person who has a little more open heart, it is not possible to think that God, the kingdom of God, and his actions could be one. It is necessary to change the image of God from the inactive to the active from now on. This is not defined by our necessity but it is a true image of God in the Bible. We limit such an active God inside the boundary of a small world we understand. Now look with open eyes how the events of life begin in this world. The power of life is God Himself. To live with total trust on Him is a Biblical faith.

Lord, help us to understand deeply that your “kingdom” means yourself. Amen!