redleghunter

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I'm not so convinced that what's written about is referring to a physical reality
You do believe Jesus Christ was truly God and truly a human. Meaning He had a body like us. And then when raised it was bodily but imperishable? These are basic Biblical and historic Christian beliefs.
 
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redleghunter

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And not of a corporeal return.
He ascended into Heaven in His resurrected Body.

When Christ returned in judgment, people died by the sword.
Ah, the 70 AD return where every nation was subdued and He set up His Kingdom on Earth? Where He delivered Israel from her enemies.

But Israel was judged and Rome won in 70AD. If Rome was the anti-Christ then the anti-Christ won or was working for Jesus.
 
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redleghunter

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The period of time - that I understand - is from 30 AD until 70 AD (when the "inheritance" of the Kingdom was realized).
Yes even after 70AD it was quite hard on Christians. They were persecuted severely. How is that the fullness of the Kingdom?
 
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redleghunter

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Christ will return on a cloud, in the flesh. Like some sort of comic book superhero. Groovy. Or is it a white horse?

As for me, I say he returned in power and glory.
What happened to Jesus' body if He no longer has one?
 
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mkgal1

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Please explain as I'm still in this body which is perishing each day as my inner man is renewed day by day.

Did I miss the Resurrection of the dead and the life to come Amen! ?
I think you're presuming a lot and imposing it on to the biblical text.

I did mention that I'm not claiming to disbelieve in a future bodily resurrection - but I don't believe the text that's been referred to is about that.
You do believe Jesus Christ was truly God and truly a human. Meaning He had a body like us. And then when raised it was bodily but imperishable? These are basic Biblical and historic Christian beliefs.
Absolutely I believe Jesus was fully man/fully God. I didn't deny that.

Yes even after 70AD it was quite hard on Christians. They were persecuted severely. How is that the fullness of the Kingdom?
Did I post "fullness of the Kingdom"? You may be tying that together with something else and making an assumption there.
 
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mkgal1

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This is from N.T. Wright (retired U.K. Anglican bishop). American Christianity - IMO - has, in general, become so distant from traditional Christianity that most in the U.S. think we're quoting heresy when we quote traditional views:

"The prophets, particularly Isaiah and Ezekiel, see the glory of God and the shame of Israel in severe counterpoint, with the consequence that the shame is complete and the glory departs. But Ezekiel then describes the creation of the new Temple, with Ezekiel 43 corresponding to Exodus 40 as the divine glory returns at last. And Isaiah, in his gospel of comfort, describes the scene of majesty in which the sovereign God comes back: the mountains are flattened, and the valleys filled in, for his glory to be revealed for all flesh to witness it. The majesty is joined with tender intimacy, exactly as in John 13: he will feed his flock like a shepherd, gather the lambs in his arms, and gently lead the mother sheep.

This is, then, a new Exodus. This prophetic theme stretches like a long question-mark over the four hundred years after exile in Babel, until a voice in the wilderness declares that the time has come. King, temple, new exodus, new creation; John sees the themes rushing together. Jesus chose Passover as the moment for action, the moment to awaken the biblical resonances which would frame his final kingdom-bringing action and passion, his royal revolution. The gospel writers, following this foundational insight, tell the story of Jesus as the story of the strange new Exodus in which the glory returns at last, in a form nobody had seen coming. No wonder Caiaphas and his cronies were alarmed. Their priestly role, standing between heaven and earth, was about to be upstaged once and for all and for ever by the true Image, the Word made flesh, who would sum up in himself both the long-delayed obedience of Israel and the long-awaited return of Israel’s God. When Paul, quoting the early formula, says that the Messiah died for our sins ‘in accordance with the scriptures’, it is this complex narrative, full of doom and glory, which he has in mind
." ~ The Royal Revolution: Fresh Perspectives on the Cross
 
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Tree of Life

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To be clear, @mkgal1, no one here is denying that the Kingdom has come in Christ and that God's Kingdom is already present on the earth. And a significant part of the gospel message is that God's eschatological kingdom has come and the doors to heaven are open now.

What the OP seems to be saying is that the Kingdom is present now in its fullness. Apparently there are no more kingdom developments to come. This is what myself and @redleghunter are pushing back against. Of course Jesus brought in the Kingdom and had victory over Satan, sin, and death on the cross. But the age of the church is an age in which this victory and kingdom of Jesus breaks into the present age and permeates the nations until Jesus finally returns in the flesh to completely consummate his Kingdom in its fullness.
 
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mkgal1

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Quoting another relevant article by N.T. Wright:


Despite generations now of redaction criticism and narrative criticism, I am not convinced that the main message of the gospels has been grasped, let alone reflected in the methods employed for further study. And since I shall contend in this lecture that the four gospels stand at the centre of the missionary and hence theological life of the early church, a failure to understand their central thrust is most likely an index of a failure to grasp several other things as well about the life and work of the first Christians.

I am not being alarmist. Fine work in many directions has been done on the gospels, a generation ago by another predecessor, Matthew Black of blessed memory. And of course Robin Wilson, of more recent memory, contributed much to our understanding of the early Christian hinterland within which the gospels and their early reception must be understood. But there comes a time in every discipline to take a deep breath, stand back, and say, ‘Well and good; but perhaps we’re still missing something.’ That’s when we need, not simply more attention to detail, vital and central though that remains, but precisely imagination: a willingness to think beyond the fence, to ask questions hitherto screened out. And, to complete the list of recent predecessors, Markus Bockmuehl in his short stay here published a remarkable book, Seeing the Word, offering an eloquent and wide-ranging plea for just such an imaginative leap, a reassessment of the tasks and methods of the whole discipline. That is the kind of exercise which I want to share with you this afternoon, with due gratitude both for the invitation to occupy this chair and for the warm welcome I have received in St Mary’s College and in the wider University community. (It occurs to me that within this succession it has been over fifty years since someone was appointed whose name didn’t begin with either a B or a W. Make of that what you will.)

My remarks will fall into three sections. First, I shall propose a fresh thesis about the gospels, stressing the way in which they summoned their first readers to imagine a new state of affairs being launched into the world, a state of affairs for which the obvious shorthand was ‘the kingdom of God’. ~ Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity
 
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So, what is the kingdom? Have we determined that?

Something to ponder:

Christ came to preach the Gospel. That is, he came to preach the kingdom. The kingdom was his ministry, his message. That is the teaching he devoted his time and energy to.

Might he have died for it, then?
 
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redleghunter

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This is from N.T. Wright (retired U.K. Anglican bishop). American Christianity - IMO - has, in general, become so distant from traditional Christianity that most in the U.S. think we're quoting heresy when we quote traditional views:

"The prophets, particularly Isaiah and Ezekiel, see the glory of God and the shame of Israel in severe counterpoint, with the consequence that the shame is complete and the glory departs. But Ezekiel then describes the creation of the new Temple, with Ezekiel 43 corresponding to Exodus 40 as the divine glory returns at last. And Isaiah, in his gospel of comfort, describes the scene of majesty in which the sovereign God comes back: the mountains are flattened, and the valleys filled in, for his glory to be revealed for all flesh to witness it. The majesty is joined with tender intimacy, exactly as in John 13: he will feed his flock like a shepherd, gather the lambs in his arms, and gently lead the mother sheep.

This is, then, a new Exodus. This prophetic theme stretches like a long question-mark over the four hundred years after exile in Babel, until a voice in the wilderness declares that the time has come. King, temple, new exodus, new creation; John sees the themes rushing together. Jesus chose Passover as the moment for action, the moment to awaken the biblical resonances which would frame his final kingdom-bringing action and passion, his royal revolution. The gospel writers, following this foundational insight, tell the story of Jesus as the story of the strange new Exodus in which the glory returns at last, in a form nobody had seen coming. No wonder Caiaphas and his cronies were alarmed. Their priestly role, standing between heaven and earth, was about to be upstaged once and for all and for ever by the true Image, the Word made flesh, who would sum up in himself both the long-delayed obedience of Israel and the long-awaited return of Israel’s God. When Paul, quoting the early formula, says that the Messiah died for our sins ‘in accordance with the scriptures’, it is this complex narrative, full of doom and glory, which he has in mind
." ~ The Royal Revolution: Fresh Perspectives on the Cross
Actually NT Wright has departed orthodox beliefs.
 
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redleghunter

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So, what is the kingdom? Have we determined that?

Something to ponder:

Christ came to preach the Gospel. That is, he came to preach the kingdom. The kingdom was his ministry, his message. That is the teaching he devoted his time and energy to.

Might he have died for it, then?
He died and rose from the dead so there could be citizens in His Kingdom.
 
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mkgal1

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What the OP seems to be saying is that the Kingdom is present now in its fullness. Apparently there are no more kingdom developments to come. This is what myself and @redleghunter are pushing back against. Of course Jesus brought in the Kingdom and had victory over Satan, sin, and death on the cross. But the age of the church is an age in which this victory and kingdom of Jesus breaks into the present age and permeates the nations until Jesus finally returns in the flesh to completely consummate his Kingdom in its fullness.
That's not what I'm getting from the OP.

These are some bullet points made in the OP :


So the parables are about the kingdom. That doesn’t mean his entire ministry was about the kingdom, does it?

On the contrary, the kingdom was, indeed, his ministry.

The Gospel is the kingdom, and the kingdom is integral to New Testament theology, and even hinted at in the Old Testament. And what effected the kingdom? Sure, we can say that Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection did that. Sadly, though, that’s all we ever call the Gospel. Ask a random believer what the Gospel is. Will he call it the kingdom? Highly unlikely.



Actually NT Wright has departed orthodox beliefs.
Well.....that does well to support my claim that American Christianity has distanced itself from traditional/Orthodox beliefs so much that truly Orthodox beliefs (not in the sense of "popular" or "widely held" but....."Orthodox" as in ECF) are perceived as heretical.​
 
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Residential Bob

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Quoting another relevant article by N.T. Wright:


Despite generations now of redaction criticism and narrative criticism, I am not convinced that the main message of the gospels has been grasped, let alone reflected in the methods employed for further study. And since I shall contend in this lecture that the four gospels stand at the centre of the missionary and hence theological life of the early church, a failure to understand their central thrust is most likely an index of a failure to grasp several other things as well about the life and work of the first Christians.

I am not being alarmist. Fine work in many directions has been done on the gospels, a generation ago by another predecessor, Matthew Black of blessed memory. And of course Robin Wilson, of more recent memory, contributed much to our understanding of the early Christian hinterland within which the gospels and their early reception must be understood. But there comes a time in every discipline to take a deep breath, stand back, and say, ‘Well and good; but perhaps we’re still missing something.’ That’s when we need, not simply more attention to detail, vital and central though that remains, but precisely imagination: a willingness to think beyond the fence, to ask questions hitherto screened out. And, to complete the list of recent predecessors, Markus Bockmuehl in his short stay here published a remarkable book, Seeing the Word, offering an eloquent and wide-ranging plea for just such an imaginative leap, a reassessment of the tasks and methods of the whole discipline. That is the kind of exercise which I want to share with you this afternoon, with due gratitude both for the invitation to occupy this chair and for the warm welcome I have received in St Mary’s College and in the wider University community. (It occurs to me that within this succession it has been over fifty years since someone was appointed whose name didn’t begin with either a B or a W. Make of that what you will.)

My remarks will fall into three sections. First, I shall propose a fresh thesis about the gospels, stressing the way in which they summoned their first readers to imagine a new state of affairs being launched into the world, a state of affairs for which the obvious shorthand was ‘the kingdom of God’. ~ Imagining the Kingdom: Mission and Theology in Early Christianity
NT Wright makes salient points. I read The Day the Revolution Began. Very enlightening. He's right. Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection inaugurated a new state of affairs in the world. A new world, we might say. Even the Evangelical-turned-atheist Bart Ehrman acknowledges that Christianity raised the level of morality and virtue in the world.

But more than just tangible changes, what is the new state of affairs? It's the new covenant. Everything changed in the first century.

Everything.
 
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Tree of Life

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The kingdom is the Gospel. The Gospel is God's rule and reign.

It isn't Christ's death, burial, and resurrection?

I would not identify the kingdom of God with the gospel in the way that you do.

The gospel is that God saves sinners* and makes them citizens in his kingdom. So the kingdom is certainly part of the gospel, but the gospel cannot be reduced to the kingdom.

*He saves them by the life, death, resurrection, and present reign of Jesus Christ through the outpouring of his Holy Spirit.
 
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redleghunter

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That's not what I'm getting from the OP.

These are some bullet points made in the OP :










Well.....that does well to support my claim that American Christianity has distanced itself from traditional/Orthodox beliefs so much that truly Orthodox beliefs (not in the sense of "popular" or "widely held" but....."Orthodox" as in ECF) are perceived as heretical.​
No he has departed historic Protestant theology embracing the New Perspective on Paul.
 
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