Whitcomb, John C: The Kingdom-Inaugerated Or Awaiting

The references to the kingdom in the epistles, which affirm a present experience, are expressions of the spiritual kingdom. He, Ryrie believes the kingdom of the Son in Colossians one thirteen has always existed, and believers in every age are part of this spiritual kingdom. Ryrie confidently then concluded, back already as early as sixty five, therefore, when a dispensationalist says the kingdom is postponed, he is speaking of the Davidic kingdom. But he, and go back to remembering what we talked about then, the Davidic covenant on the first day of this session. But he also affirms the continuing presence, watch this, of the universal kingdom and the spiritual rule of God in individual hearts today. So there was a, an invisible spiritual realm where Jesus was ruling invisibly in the hearts of believers. Okay. John Walvoord wrote, there is not a present form of the kingdom today. He has affirmed recently, while premillennialists, premillennial- premills continue to insist that Old Testament prophecies concerning a kingdom on earth will be fulfilled literally, most premills recognize that there is a present form of the kingdom. Ah, so he says there is no form, and yet in some of the writings there is a present invisible form, is his idea. In a sense, God is reigning, but that is not fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies that he would one day visibly rule. All right, progressive dispensationalists. Now, I have to say this, there was a lot of... I am a Dallas graduate. My doctorate's out of Dallas Seminary. It's interesting to have gone to Dallas Seminary. How many of us in the room are Dallas grads? Okay, just a few of us. Dallas does consider itself the flagship school of dispensationalism. Okay, you have to understand that. They really did. Progressive dispensationalism and some of the work that those men did there and really started publishing their writings in the late eighties, and nineties. Much of that g- research work, especially Old Testament studies, and then some of the great work on the New Testament covenant, was already being done by Dr. Homer Kent. And they'd been teaching it at Grace years before this. You understand what I'm saying? There was scholarship going on at Grace. There was scholarship going on in some of the other schools, you can say Associate, Talbot, and some of the others. But until, and I know this because we discussed it at Dallas, and there's no denying it, they believed it. Until they put their stamp or imprimatur on it, it wasn't really official dispensationalism. Do you understand what I mean? Okay. And so that, do you understand what I'm saying? So there was great work, but it, they weren't using some of those textbooks, referencing them, but not using them. And so when it all happened, it was like, well, Dallas invented this stuff. Well, some of the men picked up on some of it, and then I believe in some areas ran too far. Page 4. It rejects the claim, progressive dispensationalism, that riary sine qua non, meaning literal normal interpretation of scripture, distinction between Israel and the church, and then a doxological purpose for what God is doing, doxological, eschatological, and history. I, as a traditional dispensationalist, teach those, that's what the distinctions are of a dispensationalist yet. Okay. Progressives believe there actually should be five, but three of those actually come back under literal. When it's all said and done, it's not, they really are going back. Why, why not just stick to what was easier? I, I... Three is easier to remember for me than five. okay? And as I get older, I'd really like to get down to one or something. But what's important is the last sentence of that paragraph. It sees the dispensation, it sees the kingdom as an integrating biblical theme, and it focuses on the role in dispensational change. If you were to pick up the books, Blazing and Bach, and Craig is one of my, Craig Blazing, one of my teachers and friends, um, uh, and, and, and, and but, uh, but I took a course in dispensationalism. I took a course in kingdom, my course in dispensationalism, my course in kingdom, eschatalo- eschatology. There were two students in Craig Blazing. I had his undivided attention, but I wrote against some of the things they were, they were publishing at the time. But as they lay out their charts, everything then is in the Old Testament, the kingdom, and then the kingdom reveal. Everything is all tied to kingdom. There's, there's something there, but I think, I, I, I think at some points it's not, it's not necessarily wrong. I think it's incomplete. There's some better ways to say some of that. However, they brought some wonderful things to the table that we need to think about. Okay, and so as we go to the bottom of page four, some dispensationalists, and I, and I actually do agree with a lot of the things within progressive dispensationalism, and but a major disagreement, and I'll bring that up in a moment. Some dispensationalists, Sosi wrote, have come to see a greater unity in the historical program of God centered in the Messianic Kingdom. Last sentence, page four: This form of dispensationalism agrees with non-dispensational premillennialism that it is preferable to interpret this age, the church age, and that's where the rub is, as the first phase of the fulfillment of one promised Messianic Kingdom. And with that, you ought to all have gone, hmm, okay, so we can do it together. Hmm, okay. The present age involves the spiritual aspects of that messianic kingdom, that is the blessing of the New Covenant. And we can go on. What gets a little bit more is you have to understand this next paragraph. Sausi says this form of dispensationalism sees a present power. So he's not really going, it's not, he's just seeing a power. And as you really study Solsi, it isn't that different from what McLean and others said. You understand what I'm saying? It's still an invisible, Christ is, there's a power, but he ties it more to the Holy Spirit. It continues to affirm a future salvation for the nation of Israel in relation to other nations in the millennial kingdom. That one sentence you need to underline, that, well, progressives and what, no, no, no, no, they believe there's going to be a literal thousand year. By the way, when it's all said and done, having studied progressives and work, you will find out, and here's where a lot of folks have been really tracking with progressives over the last decade, that a lot of the writings we did about progressive dispensationalism, we did at the beginning saying, mm, they're going the way of covenant premillennialism. When it was all said and done, they didn't. And so, uh, when people want to get into progressive dispensationalism today anymore, I almost do a yawn, and then, and then so in a lot of the sessions when you want to take on progressive dispensationalism, most of us could do a collective yawn because they really aren't that different. Some of them used progressives and launched off, and all they, they were dispensationalists leaving dispensationalism anyway. They were looking for a title, and they thought this would take them into covenant premillennialism, and they found out that many committed dispensationalism never got there. And you need to understand that. So, Darryl Bock, another dispensationalist, Darryl has argued for an initial and an inaugural rule of Jesus in the present age. He says this in the middle of that next quote, in the current period, Jesus is not visibly reigning from the right hand of God. He, he says he is actually reigning, and a fulfillment in Acts chapter two of Psalm one ten, that Jesus now is fulfilling the Davidic covenant. We know Jesus is the Davidite, but being ascended to heaven, he is actually ruling and reigning and fulfilling the Davidic covenant now. And then one day, he's doing it invisibly, and one day he's going to come back and rule and reign here. The gist of where I am, and Al will develop this more, is I say, he, uh, no, no. Jesus is in heaven. If you can read out the rest of my paper, he is in heaven right now. All you have to do is study the book of Revelation, chapter one, and it is not without accident that the Holy Spirit talks to you about his garments. And if you go back to the book of Exodus, he is wearing priestly garments in heaven today. He is standing at the right hand of God as our intercessor, as our high priest. And he is coming back one day, he changes his clothes, Revelation nineteen, and he comes back as a regal conqueror and king. That's important. Most people don't develop that. Robert Saucy's son is the one who actually developed that greatly and writes about it, a little bit distinct from his dad. But I agree with that, with Mark Saucy. I, I teach that. He's coming back one day. The kingdom's not here. Sorry, it's not here. It's coming. Amen? And he'll rule and reign. We're not in the kingdom. But there is something about basileia that unfortunately always gets translated. It would be good if we could all just speak Greek. We can't. So Doctor, the rest of my paper, as you read on, I do a summary on page six and seven, and there is some very important things on pages six, seven, eight, nine, ten that you have to read because it's the, it's the development of what I just said, okay? And it's very important, and that actually is where I would have liked to spend all kinds of time, but that's not my privilege. Dr. Whitcomb, you come and talk to us, please. Glad to have Dr. Whitcomb here. He's going to speak now. You're glad to have him here, say amen. Amen. Friends, it is a privilege and a blessing to be with you, somewhat unexpected, but God overrules our times and our seasons. I'd like to explain just for a moment that many of the papers you see here are by my former student, outstanding theologian, in my opinion, George Zeller of the Middletown Bible Church in Middletown, Connecticut. Hope some of those will be of help to you, and also some of my own papers on eschatology in a little packet over there, and some charts that, uh, work out some of these matters, and we trust that you will take advantage of those materials for follow-up. Can't explain how frustrating it is to have twenty minutes, but I thank you for inviting me for twenty minutes. Praise God. One of the great frustrations, of course, of kingdom studies, as we have been so eloquently reminded already, is the fact that, uh, God uses the same terms in slightly different ways in different contexts. And, uh, the Lord Jesus, when he announced the kingdom, and as Dr. McClain, my professor of theology, uh, emphasized over and over again, it was a genuine, bona fide offer to Israel, and they were totally responsible before God to believe the offer and to accept it. Uh, the Lord Jesus made clear this antinomy, didn't he, that God knows ahead of time who will and who won't accept the offer, but the offer is nevertheless totally genuine, and we are totally responsible for believing and receiving the offer. That's, to me, an ultimate antinomy. God said, my thoughts are higher than yours, and my ways are higher than yours, and you say, how much higher, Lord? And the answer comes back, as high as the heavens are above the earth. And that's, as far as we're concerned, uh, practically infinite, okay? So God knows what he's doing. He absolutely knew that Israel would reject the offer of John the Baptist. They will receive the offer of Elijah, though. That's how the Old Testament ends. I will send, I will send Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, the children to the fathers. In other words, there'll be massive, in-depth, genuine conversion of Israel, which did not happen under John the Baptist, who would have been Elijah, Jesus said, if, if he had been received, but he was rejected, basically, with some exceptions. And so that bona fide offer of the kingdom to Israel had to be understood, uh, to be not a game, a gimmick. It was genuine. And uh, and yet God of, of course, knows what's going to happen. And Jesus put it this way in John six. These are amazing antinomies, aren't they? No one comes to the Father ex- uh, to me except God the Father draws him. Nevertheless, whoever comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. Now look at the two sides of this. You've seen this illustration many times. There's a great entrance way. Whosoever will may come, and we take that bona fide offer, and we believe it and accept it and walk through. And then we look back on the other side, and it says what? Chosen before the foundations of the world. And you say, well, that's unfair, that's dishonest. And that's why McClain struggled with this thing, like we all do. Was that offer to Israel bona fide, genuine? How could he legitimately send out the twelve and then the seventy and say, as he himself did, repent for the kingdom of heavens at hand, when he knew it would be rejected. The same reason he sends us out, dear friends, to offer a genuine, genuine gospel, good news to people, and we don't know whether they're part of God's eternal purpose or not, but God says you, you do it genuinely, honestly, truthfully, because they are totally responsible to believe what you tell them and accept your offer on my terms. Well, friends, we do know, of course, then, that the kingdom that was offered was the Old Testament mediatorial kingdom, as McClain and others have made so clear so frequently. Uh, everybody's in the universal kingdom, even Satan is a hundred percent bona fide card-carrying member of the universal kingdom. God rules over all. All angels, all demons, all animals, all people, believers, unbelievers are in the universal kingdom. How could such a thing be offered? We're all in it. A mediatorial kingdom, however, is exclusively available for those who make a choice, who make a decision to accept a genuine offer. And so when that offer was made and was rejected, in anticipation, of course, of the rejection, he said to his disciples amazing things, didn't he, in the Sermon on the Mount, publicly, and more or less privately, the parables of Matthew thirteen. Those become somewhat difficult for us. What kind, what kind of a kingdom, what kind of a program is the Lord Jesus describing? It's interesting to me that that's in Matthew's gospel, which I think we'll agree has more of a focus on Israel than the other three gospels, and he is talking in Israelite, theocratic, uh, Jewish terms throughout here. And it can't be the millennium because, uh, the Lord Jesus said in Matthew five ten, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now think of the, uh, challenge to that statement. In the millennium, if I understand correctly, the outworking of the thousand-year kingdom program under the rule of Christ with a rod of iron, there won't be any persecuting of the saints allowed, okay? Think of that. And blessed are you when men shall cast insults at you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely. This can't be the millennial kingdom program described here. In fact, the whole program is, uh, immersed in darkness in the Sermon on the Mount. Listen to verse fourteen. You are the light of the world, you believers. The world is in darkness, and you're the light. Well, my understanding of the millennium is that, uh, there's no g- not going to be any soul winning. Jeremiah said, nobody's going to say to his neighbor, know the Lord, why not? They'll all know me from the least to the greatest. That's the end of evangelism, at least at the dawn of the millennium. I have other perspectives as the millennial kingdom works out throughout the thousand years, where at the end of the millennium you have the vast majority of the human race as unbelievers. But friends, there's no persecuting of the increasingly small remnant, relatively speaking, of believers, because there's no help available for unbelievers to persecute anybody or to implement an antichrist movement. Why not? Satan is gone. All the demons are unavailable. And my understanding of Satan and demons is, correct me here, please, uh, they cannot make a human being blaspheme God or commit a crime against another human. They only help a person do that if he wants that kind of help. Uh, humble yourselves beneath the mighty hand of God and rebuke the devil, and he will flee. I mean, he is helpless if you are in tune with God. He can't, he cannot force you to sin, to do evil. That's why not until the end of the thousand years, when Satan is released for a brief season, do we have the enablement of the unbelieving majority by then of the human race? I mean, there could be a trillion people on the earth. I mean, think of it, friends. There's nobody dying, nobody's sick, there aren't any abortions. The population explosion in the thousand-year kingdom must be astro- astronomical. When he's released, and he must be for a brief season, why? To give people the choice that they really haven't quite had in an open way, like Adam and Eve had, for example. It was necessary for Adam and Eve to be given a choice that was somewhat spectacular and somewhat credible in order to demonstrate whom they really loved. That will have to happen at the end of the kingdom. So the Sermon on the Mount, and you do, you go on and on here, friends, does not really fit the thousand-year kingdom at all. Uh, in fact, I just mentioned in chapter six here, the prayer that the Lord Jesus laid out as a model says this, Thy kingdom come. That sounds to me like it isn't here yet. So what is this? And, uh, the parables in Ch- in Matthew thirteen that talk about horrible things going on that can't possibly be in the millennium, namely, let the, uh, wheat and the tares grow together, and Satan, you know, sowed the tares while you were, while the, the farmer was sleeping. Is that, is that a millennial picture? No. Well, what are these passages? These, in my opinion, are statements of the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, uh, to, uh, Israelite believers to, uh, function properly in a God-honoring way in a Satan-dominated world, which has a majority of evil people, uh, without any mention whatever of the church program. Now you see, this is, if you'll turn in your mind, if not with your Bible, to Acts one uh, and following, this is exactly the problem the apostles had. McLean often pointed this out, and you know this, I'm sure, in Acts one six. After three and a half years with Jesus and having been taught the offer of the millennial kingdom of Old Testament, by the way, you can't understand the millennial kingdom, we all agree on this, without having the Old Testament prophetic picture mastered, which includes not only the political distinctives of the millennium, the rod of iron, absolute dictatorship of Jesus, the Messiah, who is also the legislative branch and the judiciary, as well as the executive, all in one person, as Isaiah says. But you have, and this is very complicated, you have a reestablishment of a type of Levitical functions in the temple with Zadokian priests. Not that animal blood will ever take away sin, because it never did. It was this totally different purpose. Because you can't have Israel without those functions and those, uh, distinctives. I mean, think of what the animal kingdom will be like. Not only will lions eat straw like oxen, Isaiah eleven, and bears and cows feed peacefully together, all snakes will be harmless, little children can play with them, but even domesticated animals, Psalm one hundred and forty four, will never have miscarriages or physical problems at all, and all the animals in the whole world will be absolutely what they were before the fall. Now, people who talk about a partial inaugurated kingdom or something like this had better look twice at the animal kingdom. Come down to Florida and look at the million dinosaurs down there called what? Alligators, who are all smiling, waiting for snowbirds to come down. And, and to give you a very graphic message, the kingdom is not here. Not yet. Okay? Now, friends, in Acts one, the apostles were very, very confused about what's coming next. I mean, Jesus has been crucified, yes, but he's risen from the dead, and uh, forty days have passed, and they're saying, well, where's the kingdom? They're not saying, where's the church, where's the kingdom? Are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time? They must have been thoroughly indoctrinated by the Lord Jesus on the characteristics of the, what, millennial kingdom. By the way, the millennial part, Paul wasn't a premillennialist, you know, because nobody knew how long the kingdom would last, namely a mille anem, a thousand years until what? Till John on Patmos wrote Revelation twenty, and he said it six times in several different ways to make it sure that we're talking, uh, not an abstract symbolic language, folks, but in literal chronology. Paul was a pre-kingdomist. So were the other, so were the twelve, except for John. John was the only one who knew that it would be a millennium kingdom, which is, of course, only a phase one of the eternal state, really, as Daniel said in chapter two and in seven, when the stone cut out from heaven without hands descends to the earth and smashes the image, starting with the feet and rolling up the whole system of inherited paganism and perversion and blasphemy from ages past, he will establish a kingdom that will never pass away. So you can't say, oh, it only lasts a thousand years, and then it'll pass away. No, no. There'll be a gigantic shift, of course, at the end of the thousand year phase into the eternal state, with the Son, you know, turning over his mediatorial function back to the Father, having all enemies defeated, the last of which is what? Death. When all of that has been accomplished, and mediator means you're defeating enemies, then the kingdom enters into a new phase, but Jesus never loses, God never loses to Satan again after the second coming, after Armageddon. So, uh, you, you, you just have to feel, uh, with these apostles, Lord, where's this kingdom? And it makes me weep, really, to think of John the Baptist too. He had announced the kingdom, the kingdom's coming, repent, the king is at hand, and he knew that he was the voice crying in the wilderness, Isaiah forty, et cetera, and Malachi, messenger. Lord Jesus, are you that he's, are, are you the ones to come, or shall we look for another? How sad. Now, he wasn't really doubting the messianic identity of Jesus. He's just sort of saying, do you know I'm in the dungeon here? Get me out of here. And Jesus said, in effect, to his messengers, you go back and tell John that, uh, all of the signs of messianic identity and credibility are happening, and blessed is he who is not offended in me. Do you get what he said to John? Trust me as to the timing of the arrival of the kingdom that you and I, John, have been proclaiming. Footnote, drop dead. See you later. That's it. Your work's done. Thank you. John never knew. John never knew of the true characteristics of the church, which, as our friend has pointed out this morning already, uh, uh, I think you mentioned this, brother, is a, is a, a mystery, Ephesians three, hidden from ages past that the Old Testament, including John the Baptist, had no clue as to what the church would be like. So feel for these apostles, feel for John the Baptist. They didn't know what was coming in the interim period, in the postponement phase, in the, in the, uh, parenthetical phase, which everybody outside of our group hates these words, as if God didn't know, of course, what was going to happen. Of course he knew. So you have the divine mastery of the program, but you have the human responsibility and relative ignorance of the outworking of it, blended together in harmony in the mind of God. So when they ask, well, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel? I think even the progressives would have to say the disciples knew what kingdom they were talking about here. He didn't say, no, there isn't going to be any kingdom, or you haven't heard, have you, that the church is going to replace the kingdom, replacement theology. No, no. No. It's not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but in the meantime, you're going to do this, this, and this. Now, the Apostle Peter, this is the amazing thing of the early chapters of Acts, hadn't the faintest clue that he was now in the church age. He had problems with this. He was still doing, what, Jewish things and dietary, you know, kosher things, and, and they, and God had to dump a sheet on top of his head full of all kinds of Florida alligators and everything else in chapter ten and said, rise up, kill, and eat. And Peter said impossible things twice. No, Lord. And of course, that was his preparation, wasn't it, to reach Cornelius and to realize there's a vast, deep change taking place now. There's some kind of a different program going on here. And even when Paul confronted him at Antioch, Peter still couldn't understand we're in a different program now. Jew and Gentile barriers, restrictions, separation is no longer valid. And, and, and friends, even Paul had to struggle with this whole thing, didn't he, with the Jewish leaders under James, the brother of Jesus, in the church in Jerusalem. What program are we in, anyhow, here? Is it okay to go along with Jewish things for a while, even if we're Christians? And not till God smashed the temple in AD seventy through the Roman army did it become visible that something drastically different was going on now. And no Jew from that moment to this has been able to offer a single animal sacrifice. See, because you have no temple, no altar. Nobody knows who the Zadokian priests are anyhow. All the genealogies were destroyed by the Romans. And friends, it was step by step. Is this progressive dispensationalism? Step by step in the book of Acts, the apostles began to realize for the first time we we're in a drastically different program now. That wasn't even described in Matthew's, in the Sermon on the Mount or in these parables of Matthew thirteen. A very different kind of program. And we say, Lord, help us now to work through this patiently, prayerfully, and make, uh, distinctions where they're actually existing, and to realize the use of terms here, and and understand the vast importance of knowing the difference then between Israel and the church. Father, I just thank you for these words that you've entrusted to us. Help us to to serve you faithfully by mastering your message. I pray in Jesus' name, amen. I read the, um, very... Oh, do we have to have this? Paul never spoke. These are afflictions the Apostle Paul never faced. Yeah. Any of you ever had the experience of, uh, as a bat boy, getting up, uh, uh, and asked to go up to bat after Mickey Mantle? Well, gentlemen, that's kind of my heart this morning, but I trust God will use this time, and, uh, I, uh, I sincerely appreciate both the men that have uh, spoken before. Um, when uh, Dr. Burgdorf asked me to uh, participate in this, this panel, he asked me specifically to address the New Testament use of the word basileia. Um, so I'm going to, to go there for uh, for much of my time this morning. Uh, before I do, I, I, if we were upstairs in the uh, sanctuary, or if Brother Dean Kurtz was leading music, uh, and he asked you to turn to hymn number two seventy five, uh, I wonder how many of us could, from our hearts, sing, I belong to the? King. King. Uh, or, uh, Two seventy five, uh, standing on the promises of Christ my? King. Well, our theology is certainly not built on our hymnals. Um, if there is not some sense, as was already discussed, if there's not some sense in which Christ, we can currently call him king, and we have to start doing it through our hymnals, then if I, uh, after the service Sunday evening, I just took a rough count, I would have to remove about fifty songs from our hymnal. Now, it doesn't bother me in the least to remove songs from my hymnal. I don't do, I don't derive my theology from my hymnal. It does trouble me when I come to text of the New Testament, uh, if I'm finding my thinking in conflict with, or my system, uh, of theology in conflict with. So I like to just probe your thinking this morning as, as I introduce this topic of basileia and kingdom in the New Testament. Um, you turn with, um, Brother Wickham had us, Dr. Wickham had us in Acts chapter one. I'm going to just read Acts chapter one and verse three, um, referring to Jesus's ministry, post-resurrection ministry to his disciples. To, uh, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them as of his disciples forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Acts chapter twenty, you turn there with me, please. Paul, with the elders at Ephesus, relating to them his ministry, his heart for them and to them. Acts twenty twenty four and twenty five. Luke writes of that event, but none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry that I have received with the Lord Jesus to testify of the gr- gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that you all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. So something about Paul's preaching was kingdom. John chapter three, You know the account well. If Nicodemus was born again, he was to enter the? Kingdom of God. There's some tension there, at least on the surface. Luke eighteen, we don't, won't take the time to turn there, if you just jot down Luke eighteen, eighteen to twenty six, Jesus equates entering the kingdom with eternal life. Now, again, I have no problem with my hymnal, but I have to, I have to be honest with those texts. In Colossians chapter one and verse thirteen, in addition to receiving a heart transplant, when you receive salvation, you received a kingdom transplant. Uh, and I could cite ma- many, many o- other texts. Um, scholars, uh, there the, all that to to to introduce is to say that this there there is some tension which has resulted in many, many, many books, articles written on this topic of the kingdom. Um, scholars have invariably devised system structures to explain this complex concept, and it is indeed complex, including the universal kingdom, which was, which was spoken of by both previous speakers, mediatorial kingdom, transitional kingdom, eschatological kingdom, eternal kingdom, all valid terms. Obviously, there is much confusion today regarding what the New Testament teaches about kingdom. Um, I cite the following from, uh, a scholar who's not a dispensationalist, but who, and who I disagree with on many issues, but I think this following, and that is George L. Ladd, who's a historic premillennialist, but on the following point, I can say a hearty amen. The very complexity of the biblical teaching about the kingdom of God is one of the reasons why such diverse interpretations have arisen in the history of theology. Isolated verses can be quoted from most of the interpretations which can be found in our theological literature. The kingdom is a present reality, Matthew twelve twenty eight, and yet it is a future blessing, First Corinthians fifteen fifty. It is an inner spiritual redemptive blessing, Romans fourteen seventeen. which can be experienced only by way of the new birth, John three three. And yet it will have to do with the government of the nations, Revelation eleven fifteen. The kingdom is a realm into which men now enter, Matthew twenty one. Yet it is a realm which is yet future. Matthew eight eleven. It is at the same time a gift of God which will be bestowed by God in the future, and yet there that which must be received in the present. I hope all this, I'm not, I'm, I'm not doing all this to confuse you. I'm laying, I'm laying a foundation. Um, okay, um, let's, it takes us to the term which is at the heart of much of the discussion, and that's basileia, or kingdom. Any discussion of kingdom must begin with this word and how it is used in the Old and New Testaments, the Old, the Old Testament equivalent. I'm going to be dealing with the New Testament. In this respect, I want to say, first of all, that language does not demand the univocal use of a term. That is, the same term is not used the same way everywhere, the same sense. Um, let me just, let me establish that quickly. Let me ask you to turn to James one, which you'll think at the, at the outset is a totally unrelated text, and it is in one sense. But I want to make my point about the use of a term in the, in, in language in the New Testament. James chapter one. James writes in verse two, my brethren, count it all joy when you fall into diverse... Is it temptations? Trials. I know I, with all due respect to ver- the different translations, from from verse two through verse twelve, James is talking about the trials that come upon our life, that God allows to mature us up. The word perismas that is translated in some versions, temptation, is the same word that has two related but distinct meanings. Trials, temptations. I would suggest to you that from James one two through twelve, James is talking about trials. Then he gets down to verse thirteen and he says, let no man say when he is tried, when he is being tested, let no man say, I am tempted. It's the same word. What leads me to, in this context, understand that one word being used two different ways? It's context. Because from verse thirteen on, he says, let man so what, let no man say when he is tested, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts he any man. Same word. Used two different ways in the same context even. Now, we come to Basile. Um, while in discussions of eschatology, we are prone to jump into text and either be guided by our favorite commentary or our own presuppositions, which we, both of which we have to guard against. Um, we need to look at the sense in which this word is used. Now, a careful study of the kingdom language in the New Testament, I want to suggest, demonstrates that the word basileia, which is translated kingdom, has several distinct senses. Several distinct senses. It prim- its primary sense is that of rule or reign or authority or the sovereignty. Here the emphasis is upon the authority to rule, and that is God's sovereignty as king, or in the case of the Lord Jesus Christ's sovereignty as king, there may or may not be a realm, a dominion, or a territory. The second sense I want to suggest to you is that it is used, uh, in the sense of a realm or a domain or a territory. Now the two are not necessarily ex- mutually exclusive, because when Christ rules in the millennial kingdom, he will be, he he he will rule by right of his authority, and it will be over a territory with a people. But that's not the way the term is always used. Failure to recognize, this is my understanding, a failure to recognize this twofold sense and let context determine which is in view will inevitably lead to misunderstandings of passages with regard to kingdom. Uh, we must put aside our modern idiom regarding kingdom if you're gonna understand the Bible use of the term. It's interesting, I looked last evening, I went to the World Book Dictionary, nineteen eighty nine edition by Thorndike and Barnhart, and they list five meanings of the word kingdom. The first is a country that is governed by a king or queen, land or territory ruled by one king. England, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are kingdoms. Synonym, monarchy. All the way down the last definition, they cite kingly function, power, position, sovereignty, or kingship, and then they say, this definition obsolete. Unfortunately, it is likewise treated as obsolete in many readings of the New Testament. Um, consider with me Luke chapter nineteen. By the way, as as I I I I want to make one thing very, very clear, lest I be misunderstood. I am a dispensationalist. I consider myself a traditional dispensationalist who has benefited greatly by the writings of some of my progressive brethren. I believe there are, there's much that can, uh, be learned from their contribution, uh, I, uh, such as certain aspects of an already not yet, and we'll touch on that in briefly in just a moment, uh, or two that I have remaining. Um, Luke chapter nineteen, verses eleven and twelve. And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was not in Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should appear immed- uh, immediately. He said, therefore, a certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself... a kingdom and to return. And he called ten servants, and so on, so on and so forth. You know the, the passage. Um, I want to read what one scholar has noted with regard to this particular text, relate, emphasizing the point I'm making that basileia can often be emphasizing Christ's authority and not necessarily a territory. One reference in our Gospels makes the meaning very clear. We read in Luke nineteen eleven to twelve, and, and the passage is read. He said, therefore, a nobleman went into a far country. He went into a far country to receive a basileia and then return. The nobleman did not go away to get a realm, an area over which to rule. The realm over which he wanted to, uh, reign was already at hand. The territory over which he was to rule, uh, to rule, uh, was this place he left. The problem was that he was no king. He needed the authority to rule. He went to get a kingdom, that is basileia, the authority. The very thing happened, in fact, some years before the days of our Lord, in forty BC, this writer notes, political conditions in Palestine had become chaotic. The Romans had subdued the country in sixty BC, but stability had been slow in coming. Herod the Great finally went to Rome, obtained from the Roman Senate the kingdom, which he in fact already, the kingdom was in a sense already there. What he needed was the authority, the basileia. Now there again, that's not the the only way the term is used, because it is clearly used to re- re- refer to that future millennial kingdom where, where Christ will rule and reign. So is Christ reigning in any capacity today? Can you sing I Belong to the King? I'm not ready to take that for my hymnal. Um, let me close with, uh, the following, and, and, and, uh, much more, uh, I wish we'd had about two hours, uh, to, to, to, uh, develop a lot more of this. Do I believe there is in some, some facet, some sense, not the millennial sense, but some sense, a cap- a, a, a form of the kingdom today? Not the Davidic, but a form of the kingdom today, a spiritual sense, yes. In what sense? Let me illustrate this way. Actually, I have two illustrations, I'm probably gonna have time for one. Any of you around on June fifth, nineteen forty four? Uh-huh. You know that th- what that date signifies? Anyone? D-Day. D-Day. The Allied forces invaded Normandy. For all intent and purposes, World War II, at least in Europe, was over. Now, World War II historians tell us that as a result of that invasion, uh, the, the, the, the, the final result of the war was not in question. No experts on both sides. At that point, the war was over. However, from June fifth, forty four to May eighth, forty five, which was VE Day, there was a whole lot of fighting yet going on. A lot of lives lost, battles to be fought. I want to suggest to you that from the Christian perspective, D-Day was Calvary. The victory, gentlemen, the victory has been won. There's a whole lot more battle yet to fight until the E-Day. Second illustration, I'll close with this. I- I- I- in some ways, I try to come to grips with texts of scripture that speak of a sense or form of the kingdom today. On November second, the year two thousand, George W. Bush was elected president. Did he immediately take office? No. Not until January twentieth, two thousand and one. During those intervening months, President Clinton was a what? What we call it? Well, well, don't tell me what you think. Okay, okay. He was a lame duck. His days were numbered. If I can draw another parallel, and and he- illustrations are always dangerous because I don't want to push them too far. But Satan is a lame duck. Amen. He's now, I'm not, I'm not drawing an analogy between that lame duck president and... But Satan is a lame duck. And inauguration day is coming. The kingdom. The, the earthly Davidic millennial form of it. That so much of the scriptures speak of, as Dr. Wickham developed. I trust that's between the three uh, we have, uh, I think there's, there's good harmony, uh, and, um, trust that has been a blessing to you all. Um, let's bow and close our time in the word of prayer. Father, we do thank you. That the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ, is our sovereign. Thank you for saving us. We thank you for giving us the incredible privilege of serving. Lord, bless each of the remaining sessions today. Bless these men and women that have come to this conference this year. May they go away encouraged, strengthened, and more determined than ever, more in love with you than ever, to serve you until you come. We'll thank you for it, in Christ's name, amen. He dropped off his servant. He was, he was all alone. Isolation, isolation, okay? Let me just show you what God does, and you can take this home and develop it later. How do you, how do you deal with that type of discouragement, okay? Um, I would say a lot of God's people are overmedicized because they're overmedicated and undermeditated. In other words, it's easier to take a pill than it is to do this. Um, God helps his servant three ways. Number one, chapter nineteen, verse five through eight. The first thing God does is help his servant with dealing, dealing with, um, uh, a- attacking the discouragement physically. You'll find in that passage healthy eating, healthy sleeping. He allows the servant to get sleep. He allows him to eat. He, he allows him, um, uh, to get the rest he needs. Okay, that's, by the way, that's not sin. That's part of God's design. And sometimes people are having physical problems because they abuse their bodies. Number two, physically, uh, the second part is spiritually. You- you'll go from like verse nine to verse, uh, something like twenty two or so in the chapter. You'll see that finally Elijah begins to listen to God, and he begins to pray to God. And lastly, in relationships. In the last four or five verses, you'll notice that Elijah is min- to- administered to by Elisha. In a lot of counseling issues, you're going to have people that are very much alone, and they have isolated themselves from other, or they feel that they've been isolated. And a lot of times, discouragement is a result of this. I always show this to you to demonstrate you don't need to go to Doctor Spock, you don't need to go to Freud, you can very much go to scripture and find out what's happening in the life of believers as they struggle with pain and whatever else. Okay, any questions that are burning in your bosom you need to, yeah. Can you talk about church discipline and how the local church should help in counseling? Yeah. What happens if a person doesn't respond to church discipline but still comes to church? Okay. That's a great question. The question is, what happens in church discipline and counseling if somebody doesn't respond to that? What happens is, in Matthew eighteen, there's a prescribed step that we follow, and we just lovingly... but by the way, that should never be done with an iron fist and kind of a chuckle. That should always, separation should always happen with a grieving heart. But Matthew eighteen has a prescribed area. What happens is we take them, you know, first of all, it's one-on-one. By the way, I would say this, that's a great question. A lot of times we think that steps one through four in Matthew eighteen should happen like this. I, I see no evidence in that passage. Matthew eighteen, matter of fact, if the Spirit of God is doing it, if the Spirit of God is doing it, a lot of times you'll have three or four or five different people going to the same individual with the same thing, and those people aren't even talking to each other. They see it, they're grieved by it, and so you have three or four different godly people going to them. So I would say, the first thing I would say is, let's not rush Matthew eighteen. Let's take our time. Yeah, follow up. Matthew 18 7. Okay, Matt. Right. Let me tell you what we do at Southeast Valley Baptist Church. At Southeast Valley Baptist Church, we would confront that individual and say, we love you, and I would just very publicly say, our brother or sister under, under discipline, uh, let's, let's make sure that we are not disobeying God's word with, with normal fellowship. I, personally, I would let them come to church so they could be under the teaching of God's word. But scripture, I think, says at that point in time, you almost have to assume that they're a non-believer if they're not responding, and that's not a fun thing to do, but that's, yeah. Uh, top of page three, your modified nuthetic. Yes. Uh, characteristics. Yes. Um, um, I just alluded to it, uh, modified nuthetic. Actually, if you go down below, uh, let me just give you this. Um, I would say, number one, I would say psychiatry, psychology, um, that information in the secular world, it may not be helpful for prescriptive information, but it can help us with descriptive information, okay? In other words, uh, some of the guys in NANC, some of the guys in noothetic approach, want to take everything that science and psychology has said and throw it out the window and says it's all anti-God. Well, the part that is anti-God, yeah, that's anti-God, but the part that demonstrates biblical truth, I think it's okay. I mean, by the way, let me say this, when you have physiological problems that stem from, you know, the fall, and the brain is an organ, and it sometimes has problems, and it's not the result of their sin, it's the result of Adamic sin, the curse. Jesus said, those who are well don't need a physician, but those who are sick. I have no problem with medicine when it's really needed. I have a lot of problem with medicine when it's not needed, okay? So, uh, yeah, question. I think you're coming a little hard on Danny. Every time I've been there, I've heard them say that there are legitimate cases. Yes. You know what, let me, let me be very careful. Now, I'm not saying that everybody in Nank, you're right. I don't, okay, if I come across saying everybody in Nank, I'm not saying everybody in Nank. I, I agree. I know of three or four of the major leaders. Matter of fact, Jay Adams has a very clear section in his first book where he says that. He says that, uh, very clearly there is a case, and, and I appreciate that. I, I appreciate that correction. I- I'm not trying to say that everybody in ninth, but I can, if you want them, I can give you three or four names of some prominent leaders in that approach to counseling that do suggest that when you have, um, we have some in the West that do suggest that there's issues at center. Any other? Yeah. I would also say that the New Statics, one of their major tenets is sufficiency of scripture. Amen. Amen. And, uh, also concerning a follow-up statement or or question here, uh, many with the influence Dr. Adams had, many have adopted dichotomy as opposed to trichotomy. Sure. That they don't see the place for the psychological problems of man. Right. That might be what's mixed up a little bit. That's good. Physiological. Let me, let me cut it off. If you have more questions afterward, we can talk afterwards. You're dismissed. Thank you.