Heaven and Earth re-united when He Returns

Thy Kingdom Come (2)

March 20, 2016

The Bible Project Video, Narration

In the Bible the ideas of heaven and earth are ways of talking about God's space and our space. So I understand our space really well, we live here; there are trees, rivers, mountains. But my understanding of God's space gets a little fuzzy.  And what we do get in the Bible are images trying to help us grasp God's space, which is basically inconceivable to us. So these are two very different types of spaces. Yes, they are different in their nature, but here is what is interesting. In the Bible these are not always separate spaces. So think of heaven and earth as like different dimensions that can overlap in the same exact space. So we talk a lot about going to heaven after we die, but this idea of heaven and earth overlapping we don't talk a lot about that. Which is kind of crazy because the union of heaven and earth is what the story of the Bible is all about. How, they were once fully united then driven apart, and about, how God is bringing them back together once again.

So let us go back to the beginning, where heaven and earth, they are completely overlapping.  Yeah, this is what the Bible's description of what the Garden of Eden is all about. It is a place where God and humanity dwelt together perfectly. No separation and human’s then partner with God in building a flourishing, beautiful world and so on. But as humans, we wanted to do things a different way. We wanted God out and we wanted to create a world apart from Him. Yeah, so we have these two spaces now and the Bible actually uses many different kinds of words and phrases to refer to these two spaces to make a clear distinction. So you said that these spaces can overlap, so explain how that works. Yeah, this is where we have to start talking about temples.

Because in the Biblical world, you experience God's presence by going to a temple, that is where heaven and earth overlap. Now there are two types of temples described in the Bible, one is a tabernacle, basically, a tent that was built by Moses.  And the other was this massive building made by Solomon. And these temples were decorated with fruit trees and flowers and images of angels, and all kinds of gold and jewels and so on. And these are designed to make you feel like you're going back to the Garden.

And at the center of the temple was a place called the Holy of Holies, which was like the hot spot of God's presence. Now we can go and be with God again. But not so fast. Because the temple also creates a problem, so God's space is full of His presence and goodness and justice and beauty, but humans' space is full of sin, injustice, and ugliness that results. So how do these spaces overlap if they are so different and they are in conflict with each other? This was resolved through animal sacrifices. Yeah, that is somewhat weird. What do animal sacrifices have to do with it? Yeah, the idea is this.

Animal sacrifices, somehow they absorb the sin when the animal dies in your place and it creates a clean space, so to speak, where you are now free to enter into the temple and be in God's presence. Oh, so if I am an Israelite, and I live in Jerusalem, I might be able to be in God's presence. But you said the story of the Bible is all of heaven and earth re-united. Right, so we have to keep going in the story where we come to Jesus and the New Testament. In the Gospel of John, we hear this claim that God became human in Jesus and made His dwelling among us. Now this word dwelling is really curious, it literally means "He set up a tabernacle among us." And so what John is claiming right here is that Jesus is a temple.

He is now the place where heaven and earth overlap. What's interesting about Jesus is that He isn't staying in this safe, clean space. He's running around, hanging out with sinners, healing people of their sicknesses, and forgiving people of their sins. He is basically creating little pockets of heaven where people can be in God's presence, but He's doing it out there in the middle of the world of sin and death. And he keeps telling everyone that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. And he even told his followers to pray, regularly, that God's kingdom come, and that His will be done, here on earth, just as it is in heaven. But a lot of people are threatened by Jesus, and they kill him. Which seems to spoil this whole plan to re-unite heaven and earth.

We have to go back to a scene earlier on in Jesus' story where John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, "Behold, this is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."  So Jesus is not just talked about as being a temple, he's also talked about as being the temple sacrifice. Yeah, so the cross is now the place where Jesus absorbs sin to create a clean space that is not limited like animal sacrifices.  Jesus' sacrifice has the power to keep spreading and spreading and re-uniting more and more of heaven and earth.

And this is all really great, but it leaves one big question in my mind, which is, what happens when I die?  Don't I just fly over to God's space to be with Jesus?  Yes, so a few times in the New Testament, we learn that Christians will be with Jesus in heaven after they die, but that is not the focus of the Bible story. The focus is on how heaven and earth are being re-united through Jesus and will be completely brought together one day when he returns. So in the Book of Revelation we get this beautiful image of the Garden of Eden, now in the form of a city coming to end the age of sin and death by redeeming all of human history in a renewed creation.  And God's space and humans' space completely overlap once again.

Hyung Jin Nim

All right, okay. Isn't that beautiful?  These young men out in Seattle, they are tremendous, they are really tremendous, and although they, of course, did not define the Gospel as the Kingdom, they had a strong emphasis on that in this video. So I'm very grateful for them in the production they produced.  But you can see very clearly, it's God space, His presence, His goodness, His justice, His beauty, right?  Man's space, sin, ugliness, injustice, all these kind of things.  Now normal Christendom has said that the Kingdom that Jesus is building is the church.

So it is in our church that we are experiencing the kingdom and as we build more churches then the kingdom will spread.  Am I wrong? That is normally how it is taught.  However, Jesus, obviously, we know, did not just go about building extra and extra churches.  He was building a Kingdom, a Kingdom, which has, at that point, it didn't have real territory, but had culture, amen?  We know that even if it is true that if the churches are the kingdom, and they're building more and more churches, and that is supposed to spread the kingdom, we know that, for sure, that in the kingdom there is still fighting.  They are still disagreeing. There is still freedom and responsibility.  Does that make sense?

So even if you live in Disneyland Christianity, and you believe that when the kingdom comes, everybody's going to be perfect, and there's going to be no more fighting, you can see, even in your own churches, that there is freedom and responsibility. There is still free will, you still have to decide to love your neighbor, you still have to decide to get along with a person you do not like, etc.  Right?  In the Kingdom, there will be freedom and responsibility.  It is so important for us not to have a Disneyland version of Christianity, but stand with Jesus in building the actual Kingdom on earth.

A Kingdom of freedom and responsibility. A Kingdom of goodness and justice, and honor. A Kingdom of responsibility, hard work. A Kingdom that shuns decadence looks down on entitlement.  A Kingdom that stands in free association, free will, but also upholding your promises and your contracts, serving and loving your neighbor. Protecting your neighbor, being your brother's keeper, keeping the fruits of your labor. All these things are Biblical principles, which are part of the Kingdom, amen?  It is a Kingdom in which everyone wants to dwell.

America was the closest thing that people have seen to the Kingdom in the past.  It was the land of opportunity.  The Cheon Il Guk Constitution shows very clearly that Cheon Il Guk is a united states of Cheon Il Guk. There are different nations and states that are gathering for freedom and responsibility. Not control and taxation. Freedom and responsibility. A world that is free but responsible. A world, which understands, even through its own constitution that its rights and its freedom come from the Creator. Amen?  It is not about living in fantasyland Christianity.  It is about standing with Jesus to build the Kingdom, amen?

Let us go to the last Scripture.

Matt 25, let us read together.

"When the Son of man shall come in His glory and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory; And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth His sheep from the goats; And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.   Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."  Amen.

I am going to ask you one question before we go to our praise and worship songs.  When Jesus divides the sheep and the goats, there are really two real ideologies in the world. Right?   Totalitarian, communism, oligarchy, same thing, fascism, same system. Then there are people who pursue freedom and responsibility. Like our American founding fathers. It was not a kingdom, but they were pursuing freedom and responsibility. Now let me ask you again. When Jesus as the King returns in his kingdom, do you think he will be a communist? Will he be a communist?  I am sorry to say, many Christian churches teach Jesus as a communist.

If that is true, then he is no different from every totalitarian king of the past. Every evil, sinister king. He will destroy that country, and his people. So Jesus, when he is separating the sheep and the goats, there are two ideologies in the world, that of collectivism and that of individual rights and freedom and responsibility. Which side do you think Jesus would be on?  Which one?  Jesus never made a government to give free food to everybody. He taught each Christian to be charitable and be loving. To help the needy and the poor. Each Christian, as an individual, we have that responsibility. He did not teach communism, he taught individual responsibility to serve, protect, to be your brother's keeper, to love your neighbor.

Does that make sense, folks?  Which side will we be on? It is the side of the sheep that stand with the king. And remember, Jesus and God, one.  What did God give Adam and Eve?  Did He give them communism in the Garden?  Did He give them freedom and responsibility?  Free will and responsibility. Yes, He did.  The sheep and goats. The sheep will inherit the kingdom.  We may be weak, we may seem weak, we may seem like we can be stepped upon, but when true people who are free and responsible stand together against evil and tyranny, we always win!  Because God is on our side.