IIIM Magazine Online, Volume 5, Number 11, March 18-25, 2003
KINGDOM OF GOD: THE MARKS OF CITIZENSHIP
by W. Tullian Tchividjian
INTRODUCTION
If one were given the opportunity to spend an afternoon with my parents,
my siblings, and I (there are 9 of us all together), he would notice a number of
things. First, most of us look alike: we have a darker complexion and we are, for
the most part, the same size. He would also notice that we all like activity, and
tend to move very quickly from one thing to the next. We all love to laugh. Most
of us are prone to having very strong opinions. We tend to be a bit cynical. We
are all relational. We love people. And, with the exception of one sister, we are all
extroverts. And while I can only speak for my family, all of us share unique family
characteristics that distinguish our families from other families.
The same is true with the family of God. In Matthew 5:1-12, the section of
the Bible known as the beatitudes, Jesus describes the characteristics that are
unique to those who are members of God’s family, otherwise known as citizens
in the Kingdom of God. Further, he shows how these citizens are distinguishable
from everyone else in the world.
Understanding who we are is the first step in trying to understand what we
are to be and who we are becoming. We will never be who God has called us to
be if we do not first understand who we are and where we belong. Faithful
Christian discipleship demands that we know these things. Since, though, there
seems to be much confusion with regard to what the Kingdom of God is, an
explanation is the first order of business.
KINGDOM OF GOD: WHAT IS IT?
The Bible has much to say about the Kingdom of God, and it is impossible
for us to understand the OT or the NT without an understanding of what the Bible
means when it speaks of it. The Kingdom of God is not like any kingdom this
world has ever known; it is an otherworldly Kingdom. Responding to the question
of Pontius Pilate in John 18:36, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
Sinclair Ferguson defines the Kingdom of God this way: “The Kingdom is the rule
and reign of God, the expression of His gracious sovereign will. To belong to the
Kingdom of God is to belong to the people among whom the reign of God has
already begun.”1 Simply put, the Kingdom of God is God’s reign and rule coming
to expression in and through the lives and circumstances of its citizens. It is a
Kingdom where God, who is Spirit, reigns spiritually through his appointed King
1
Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Sermon on the Mount: Kingdom Life in a Fallen World (Carlisle, Pennsylvania:
Banner of Truth, 1987) pg.3
2
Jesus in the hearts of his people. The development of this Kingdom happens in
three stages: the stage of inauguration, the stage of continuation, and the stage
of consummation.
The Inauguration of the Kingdom
The Kingdom was inaugurated with the arrival of King Jesus. When Jesus
came, the Kingdom of God came with him. To be sure, God has always been
Lord of all creation. He created all things and he holds all things together. There
has never been a moment since the dawn of time when the Lord did not reign
over all that has been made. However, God’s reign and rule was demonstrated in
new and dramatic ways when Jesus arrived. Jesus brought the reign and rule of
God from heaven to earth. Previously, “The Lord looked down from his sanctuary
on high, from heaven he viewed the earth”(Psalm 102:19). God’s providential
activity never ceases but the Scriptures make plain that, prior to the incarnation,
he ruled from afar. When Jesus preached, “The time has come…the Kingdom of
God is near” (Mark 1:15), he was not saying the Kingdom of God was near with
regard to time. He was saying the Kingdom of God was near with regard to
space. “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us. We have seen
his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of
grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus came as man to reveal who he was as God.
The incarnation was God’s Kingdom “earthed.”
All of Jesus’ ministry, the words he spoke and the miracles he performed,
were said and done to show that there was a new order in town: God’s order.
When Jesus would cast out demons, he did so to show God’s power over evil.
When Jesus would heal the sick and raise the dead, he did so to show that with
the arrival of God’s Kingdom came redemption and cleansing, healing and
forgiveness. New life was given, health was restored; God was reversing the
curse of death, disease, and discomfort. The inauguration of God’s Kingdom
through Jesus began the great reversal. God was on the move in new and
exciting ways and, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “winter began moving backwards.”
The arrival of King Jesus ensured that God was beginning the process of
reversing the curse of sin and recreating all things.
The Continuation of the Kingdom
The continuation stage of the Kingdom is the stage we are in now. It is the
stage in which God continues this process of reversing the curse of sin and
recreating all things through his citizens. God is presently expanding his Kingdom
spiritually by building his Church. He is calling men and women to himself, setting
them apart, and sending them out into the world to make his invisible Kingdom
visible. We do this by living, what N.T. Wright calls, “the cruciform life.” That is,
holding on to God and reaching out to people so that our lives form the posture of
the cross. The evidence of God’s Kingdom in the continuation stage is not the
removal of death and disease; it is the transformation of human lives.
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The Consummation of the Kingdom
The consummation stage of the Kingdom is when Jesus comes back and
the process of reversing the curse of sin and recreating all things will be
complete. There will be no more sickness, no more death, no more tears, no
more division, and no more tension. There will be complete harmony. We will
work and play without the interference of sin. All that causes us pain and
discomfort will be destroyed and we will live forever. We will enjoy sinless hearts
and minds along with disease free bodies. We will finally be able, as John Piper
says, “to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded energy and passion
forever.”2 J.I. Packer describes well what our experience will one day be: “The life
of heavenly glory is a compound of seeing God in and through Christ and being
loved by the Father and Son, of rest and work, of praise and worship, and of
fellowship with the Lamb and the saints. The hearts of those in heaven say, ‘I
want this to go on forever.’ And it will.”3 One day, every knee will bow and every
tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is King over all. The New Heavens and the
New Earth will be set up and his Kingdom will be visible without imperfection. So
in a very real way, the Kingdom has already come in seed form, but it has not yet
come in full form.
Even though God’s Kingdom manifests itself outwardly here and now
through the transformed lives of individuals and the building of his Church, Jesus
did say, “The Kingdom of God does not come visibly…because the Kingdom of
God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21). The Kingdom in the continuation stage is
largely invisible and internal; the Kingdom in its consummation stage will be a
worldwide visible reality. The Kingdom in its continuation stage transforms people
inwardly, giving us new hearts and making us alive with Christ; the Kingdom in its
consummation stage transforms people outwardly, giving us new bodies by
resurrecting us like Christ. So while we are a genuinely new creation, we are not
yet a totally new creation. Those who are citizens in God’s Kingdom have much
to look forward to.
The entire NT unfolds the implications of this process, but in Matt.5-7, the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus expounds on what life in this Kingdom looks like
here and now. It is in this section of the Sermon, the beatitudes, in which Jesus
describes the characteristics that are unique about those who are members of
this Kingdom. It is here also where he describes how the members of God’s
Kingdom are distinguishable from everyone else in the world. He first describes
the unique characteristics that mark the citizens in the Kingdom of God.
John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in being God (Portland, Oregon:
Multnomah Press, 1991) pg.24
3
J.I. Packer, Concise Theology (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1993) pg. 266-267
2
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THE CHARACTERISTICS THAT MARK THE CITIZENS OF GOD’S KINGDOM
On many occasions I have heard the beatitudes used to beat people up and
show them what it is they’re not doing and what it is they need to be doing. Many
have used the beatitudes in a prescriptive manner: If you become a peacemaker
life will go better for you, you must become more merciful, you need to be more
gentle, you’re not humble enough, and so on. But to read the beatitudes this way
is to miss Jesus’ point completely. The beatitudes are not a prescription for a
better life; they are a description of what life in the Kingdom of God is like. It is
not the intention of Jesus to show here how we can lead better lives. Rather, he
paints a picture of what human life and community begins to look like when
people come under the rule and reign of God in his Kingdom. He shows that
those who belong to the Kingdom of God will be poor, in that they know they
have no power in and of themselves to be what God wants them to be. They will
be meek, recognizing their total dependence on God. They will be merciful
because they realize how much mercy God has shown them. They will hunger
and thirst for God, they will strive for purity, they will be people who long for
peace and will themselves be an instrument of peace, and so on. These are
descriptions, not prescriptions.
It is important to note as well that these are not eight separate
characteristics, as if Jesus were saying, “Some will be meek, others will be
merciful, and still others will be peacemakers.” Rather, these are eight
characteristics of life that, to a greater or lesser extent, will be present in the lives
of those who call him King. The reason citizens in God’s Kingdom will become
more and more like this is because these are the characteristics of their King. As
they “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” (i.e., the
righteousness of their King), they will become more righteous. The beatitudes are
not so much about what we should do as much as it is a picture of who Jesus is.
He is humble, he is gentle, he is merciful, he is pure in heart, and he is the
ultimate peacemaker. If we have bowed the knee to King Jesus and have come
under the reign and rule of his Kingdom, we will increasingly “reflect the Lord’s
glory” as we “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory
which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Because
Jesus is like this we are becoming more and more like this. Jesus is not telling us
what to do, he is painting a picture of what we are becoming. We are becoming
poor in spirit, we are becoming peacemakers, we are becoming people who
hunger and thirst for righteousness, we are becoming meek. We are, in short,
becoming more and more like Jesus. The Kingdom of God is made up of citizens
who are in process. God’s Kingdom is at work in us, recreating our hearts and
minds, reversing the power of sin in our lives, and reordering our priorities. So
while we are not yet what we will be we are no longer what we used to be. We
find ourselves in a parallel situation to Israel during her wilderness wanderings in
that, while we have left Egypt, we have not yet entered the Promised Land.
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Jesus lists the characteristics that are unique about those who are now
under the reign and rule of his Kingdom. But he also shows us how these
characteristics set us apart from everyone else in the world
HOW THESE CHARACTERISTICS SET US APART FROM THE WORLD
Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:10-12 that being a member of God’s Kingdom
will put us first and foremost at odds with the world. Jesus emphasizes
throughout the Sermon on the Mount that the citizens of God’s Kingdom, his
followers, will be entirely different from others. Our thoughts will be different, our
words will be different, our priorities will be different, and our value system will be
different. Our perspective on money, life-style, and relationships with other
people will be different. God has called us to be in the world but not of the world.
We will not look like those around us. We will look entirely different.
We often get frustrated with the Israelites when, in 1 Samuel 8, they ask for
a king. They seem to have rejected God as their King (theocracy) in favor of a
human king (monarchy) for the purpose of looking like “all the other nations.” Our
frustration stems from the fact that they were not supposed to be like all the other
nations. They were to live in distinction from the other nations, serving as God’s
representatives on earth. They were to be God’s light in a dark world, God’s hope
in a world of brokenness. We too, however, suffer from the disease of wanting to
“look like everyone else.” We tend to believe that in order to reach the world we
must become like the world. We strive to look like the world, talk like the world,
sound like the world, and act like the world. By doing this, though, we
inadvertently communicate to the world that their kingdom is more exciting and
more dynamic than God’s Kingdom, what they do is more satisfying than what
God does, and their ways are more suitable and significant than God’s ways.
Many churches across this country have ordered their worship services
according to the tastes of this world, asking the world what they like and then
giving the world what they want so that maybe, just maybe, the world will think
the church is relevant. After all, we reason, the world is not going to like us if we
seem weird, and the last thing we want to do is make them feel uncomfortable.
So we go out of our way to develop similarities to the world. We seem very
concerned to tell the world that our ways are not very different from their ways at
all. But Jesus tells us here that we are completely different. We have been given
a different heart and a different mind, a different way and a different destiny.
And because we have been given a different heart and a different mind, we
operate with a different standard. We have different goals, different desires,
different motivations, and a different perspective on life and humanity altogether.
We are not citizens of the kingdom of this world; we are citizens in the Kingdom
of God. We are therefore strangers in a strange land; we are resident aliens. If
the world does not think we are “weird”, than we are not being faithful, for, as
William Willimon has said, “Our oddness is essential to our faithfulness.” Our
King has not called us to be popular; he has called us to be faithful. And Jesus
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here lets us know that the world around us will not take kindly to these
characteristics that mark citizens in God’s Kingdom. He tells us this world will
insult us, they will persecute us, and they will tell lies about us (v.11). As we who
are members of God’s Kingdom increasingly take on the characteristics of our
King, then, Jesus says, we will become very unpopular.
We live in a world that is hostile toward the Kingdom of God and its citizens.
The world looks down on those who are not self-sufficient and rich in spirit; our
pleasure- hungry culture has no patience for those who mourn. It exalts those
who are strong and mighty, those who can take care of things on their own.
Purity is seen as old fashioned and judgmental. Peacemaking is thought to be
weak, while revenge is seen to be honorable and strong. But instead of fighting
this hostility and seeking revenge, we show our difference from the world by
rejoicing and being glad because, as Jesus tells us in v.12, our reward in heaven
will be great. The Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are moving in
opposite directions. And we who are citizens of God’s Kingdom can expect that
the unique characteristics we bear will make us different from the world around
us and this difference will bring about discomfort. But it’s a discomfort we can
glory in because it is the same discomfort our King experienced.
CONCLUSION
One of the hard things about relocating as much as my wife and I have is
that wherever we have moved has been far from home, making us transplants
every place we go. Anyone who has moved away from home can testify to the
fact that being a transplant can be difficult and uncomfortable. One never really
feels at home as a transplant. I often come in contact with someone whose
family, for generations, has lived in the same place, and I think to myself, it must
be nice to be a citizen in a place where you have such deep roots. Then I begin
to reflect on the Kingdom of God and how different it is from any kingdom on
earth. I then begin to realize that in God’s Kingdom all of us who are citizens
have at least one thing in common: we’re all transplants. None of us was born a
citizen in the Kingdom of God. We were born into the enemy kingdom, and each
was personally sought after and bought by the blood of our King Jesus, who
graciously recruited us to become citizens in his Kingdom. None of us deserves
to be a member in God’s glorious family; none of us deserves the royal benefits
that go along with being a citizen in God’s Kingdom. There are those, all over the
world, who are being sought after by the King right now. And we as the Church
have the privilege of bearing the marks of God’s Kingdom, and pointing the way
out of the darkness. The world desperately needs the Church to be the Church,
and to reflect the Kingdom of God so that they will know where to turn when their
kingdom begins to collapse. One of the reasons he has not come back to
consummate his Kingdom yet is because he is very busy seeking new citizens. In
the mind of God, the more the merrier! He is willing to wait for a larger family.
The only requirement to becoming a citizen in God’s Kingdom is to bow the knee
to King Jesus and declare him Lord. And when you do this, you take up
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residence in the Kingdom of God and the Spirit of that Kingdom takes up
residence in you, uniting you to the King. When this happens, your life begins to
change. You begin to bear the characteristics of the King and to realize this world
is not your home. And while the world around you may start becoming hostile
because of your new allegiance to a new King, they will not be able to help
saying about you what was said about Richard Sibbes after he died: Of this
blessed man let this just praise be given: that heaven was in him before he was
in heaven. That’s the Kingdom of God!