Digging Deeper: Priests of the Inaugurated Kingdom

God is creating us, his people, to be a “Kingdom of Priests,” a holy people. We are to be God’s intermediaries to the world, just as Moses was God’s intermediary to the people of Israel. But God isn’t in some far off place, unable to be seen by the world. No. He is present and active in his creation, especially in the lives of believers, who present the reality of God and his goodness to the world. Through us, the Church, the body of Christ, God is bringing about the fulfillment of his purposes – the restoration and reconciliation of the entire created order in the culmination of history – the Eschaton.

The significance of the I AM sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel is that Jesus was showing himself to be the culmination of history. He was showing that all of history was summed up in him and that he was the revelation of God himself. 

This can be seen when he says “before Abraham was born, I AM.” In this he claims to have existed before the law and the prophets came to be. He is saying that he has authority from the beginning of creation over all of creation. In this particular saying, he is claiming to be the Alpha, or the beginning of all things.

Later in John’s Gospel, when Lazarus dies, Jesus says to Martha “I AM the resurrection and the life.” This is in response to Martha’s statement that Lazarus would rise from the dead on the Last Day. Jesus does not say that she is wrong in her belief, but he does say that he himself is the Resurrection. In this he is claiming to have power over the end of history and not just the beginning. He claims to be the Omega. Again, all of history is summed up in him. Jesus uses the I AM sayings to show that not only is he God’s Messiah, he is God himself.

The term “realized eschatology” is sometimes a term that gets thrown around in the Church, and it should be understood as meaning that you do not simply believe that the “eschaton” is off out in the future somewhere. The person with a “realized eschatology” realizes that the eschaton has already begun. Christ is the beginning of the eschaton. While you may believe that the eschaton is still out in the future somewhere, you also believe that it is also in the here and now. Christ is the eschaton and Christ lives in us as believers, so the eschaton is being fulfilled in us through Christ.

Some people might say that a proper understanding of the eschaton would be in focusing solely on the here and now – that this current life is all that matters. However, I find this to be isolating and only a portion of a larger picture. The idea that the eschaton exists now is seen in the idea that we are to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth now in these present days and that this is what Jesus commanded us to do. He did not want us to sit around and wait for him to come back and do all of our work himself. I believe that the term “inaugurated eschatology” might be a better term to use over “realized eschatology.” “Inaugurated” gives the sense that the final work as already begun, but that there still remains more to come in the future. I think it reflects the idea that “the Kingdom is and is yet to come.”

The great eschatological event of the Old Testament is seen in the message of the “expectation of the Kingdom of God.” This expectation is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament. There are different passages in the Old Testament that appear to send a message that points to the coming Kingdom of God which would be fulfilled in Jesus. You can start with Genesis chapter 3 where God says a descendant of Eve will crush the serpent’s head and the serpent will strike his heel. You can interpret this as a prophesy of Jesus crushing the head of Satan in his crucifixion. You can interpret other passages in this same way, such as the “seed of Abraham” in Genesis 15, the redeemer “from the tribe of Judah” in Genesis 49, the future “descendant of David” in 2 Samuel 7, the future Moses-like prophet in Deuteronomy 18, the “priest forever in the order of Melchizedek” of Psalm 110, the king on the donkey in Zechariah 9, the eternal throne of 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah 9, the Immanuel of Isaiah 7, the idea of the redeemer being God himself in Isaiah 9, the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 42, 49, and 52, and especially the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. You can also see this in the “Son of Man” passages of Daniel, because the New Testament associates the Son of Man with the Messiah and Jesus himself.

So… are we in the “last days” or is the “last day” still to come?

The answer to this question would be “yes.”

We are in the “last days” in the sense that the Kingdom of Heaven is already being ushered into this world. This has been the case for some time now. We are living in the last days, but I would hesitate to say that the “last day” has already taken place. I believe the New Testament writers would have arguments against that idea and any other idea that would say that the resurrection has already taken place.

However, since we consider Jesus himself to be the resurrection and the life, and since Jesus has already come into the world, we might very well say that the last day has occurred in the incarnation, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ.

Actually, what I would say is that in Christ’s first advent, the resurrection has begun, and in that, “the last day” has begun since the resurrection supposedly occurs at the last day. However, the last day is not over yet. It exists in the past, the present, and the future, with more emphasis on the present and the future.

Hoekema says, “The first coming of Christ was like D-Day, in that it was the decisive battle of the war, guaranteeing the enemy’s final defeat. The second coming of Christ will be like V-Day, in which the enemy finally lays down its arms and surrenders.” He goes on to say, “We live in a continuing tension between the already and the not yet.”

Ladd says, “The Kingdom of God involves two great moments: fulfillment within history and consummation at the end of history.”

So what is the pledge and guarantee of the age of the future?

It is seen in the Christian message of hope and is written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit inside of us is the evidence we have of what is to come. We have become united with God through his Spirit which is in Christ, and in the future, at the final consummation, we will be fully united with God. We have hope that this Kingdom that is breaking into the here and now will someday reach its fulfillment on earth as it is in heaven in completeness. In this hope is seen a number of different eschatological ideas.

Hoekema writes, “The new Testament believer…is aware that history is moving toward the goal of…final consummation. This consummation of history…includes such events as the Second Coming of Christ, the general resurrection, the Day of Judgment, and the new heavens and earth.”

Paul writes about this hope of the future age in many of his letters. In Romans he writes that the entire creation will be “liberated from its bondage to decay.” Paul indicates that we taste the coming age in the present through the Holy Spirit living inside of us. He writes in Ephesians, “For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”