"And Jesus came and spoke to them saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."
Matthew 28:18
We rightly proclaim that our God reigns. Yet If He is Sovereign then why is the world in the mess that it is in? Why is evil that we see and experience allowed to seemingly go on unpunished?
In the next few posts, we are going to consider:
- How the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 relates to God's Kingdom plan.
- The announcement of God's Kingdom plan in Genesis 3:15
- The distinctions between the Universal kingdom and the Theocratic Kingdom
"And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Genesis 3:14-15 KJV
Dr. Dwight Pentecost of Moody Bible Institute always asked his students, "What is the most important verse of the Bible?" While many students would say John 3:16, Dr. Pentecost would always point to Genesis 3:15
The evil in our world is due to an agonizing period of estrangement from God that began in the garden of Eden with the defection of Adam and Eve. God's announcement of a Restoring Seed in Genesis 3:15 is the Father’s sovereign plan for restoring the kingdom back to what was originally intended in Eden.
This estrangement from God was illustrated by the Lord Jesus to His followers in the story of the prodigal son in the 15th chapter of Luke's gospel.
This interaction between parents and children is not unfamiliar to us. My mother never could forgive me for becoming a teenager. There is something that happens to us somewhere around the transition between 5th and 6th grade levels. This is perhaps more obvious in boys as they begin to assert their independence. With this comes a change in the display of their affections. I remember it as a period when my friends approval begin to take the place of affection that my parents once had.
On the parenting side, it seems to happen very abruptly and it is a point of sadness and even grief. It can develop into a point of bitterness and resentment between the parent and child. Perhaps, it is the reality of this experience that causes us to respond readily to the story of the prodigal son that the Lord shared in Luke15.
This story communicates a shocking loss of affection of a son towards his father. What captures the attention of the listener to this story is that the son’s disregard for his father is so abrupt and treacherous. We are left to marvel at the cheeky ingratitude of the son for demanding his inheritance. With this demand was the implication that the son considered his father as dead to him.
We tend to focus most on the bitter experience of the son in a far country and consider his loss of privilege to be well deserved. However, this story is as much about the affections of the Father as it is about the defection of the son. The father's very painful experience in this story does not cause him to become bitter or declare that his son should die.
"And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death."
Exodus 21:17
In the story of the prodigal, societal norms of Jewish law would dictate that the father would not allow such an evil act to go unpunished. For such a blatant insult as demanding his inheritance and leaving the household, the father would be expected to act according to the law and have his son stoned to death.
Yet, equal to the shock of the sons demands was the gracious reaction of the father towards his wayward child. The attitude of the father was one of seemingly ‘giving in’ to his demands, all the while anticipating a restored relationship with his son.
The story of the prodigal is at least in part intended to show that God the Father’s heart is longing for restoration of the son’s affections. The father’s first priority is not to look for our perfections, as much as He is looking for our affections. When we desire to know His heart, we are directed, or led, by His Spirit.
Let’s remind ourselves of Eden’s events:
- God as Sovereign and Universal King creates the universe and is King over all creation (Gen 1–2).
- God creates man in His own image as a son and king so man can represent God on the earth and rule over God’s creation on His behalf for His glory (Gen 1:26–28; Ps 8).
- Man fails his task of ruling the creation for God’s glory by sinning against his Creator (Gen 3); the vice-regent rebels against the King.
- The fall results in a cursed creation in which man is subject to death, the creation is subject to futility, and Satan usurps authority (Gen 3).
- God promises a Savior, a Satan (serpent)-crusher and curse-remover from the seed of the woman who will save man and restore the creation (Gen 3:15).
Genesis 3:15 is God’s introduction to His plan for restoring that place of affection and fellowship between God and man that was lost in Eden. The crushing of the heel represents the terrible cost of the cross, but there is also the anticipated crushing of the head of the serpent that will remove Satan from power over the earth.
One thing that we are intended to learn from the story of the prodigal is that it is not so much about the prodigal as it is about the immense patience of the Father toward his erring creatures.
God is not capricious and He does not arbitrarily cause events: Everything that He does is to make the world of men ready for the Kingdom. God allows us to experience the evil of our decisions in order to make us ready to respond to Him.
After Adam’s defection from trusting in the goodness of God, the poignant question that God asks Adam and Eve in the garden is a plaintive, ‘where are you?’
This was not a question asked in ignorance of Adam’s physical location. Rather, it strikes me as being asked in a state of grief. When I held my fathers hand as he took his last breaths at the age of 62, I cried out to God, why have his affections been taken from us? God used my fathers agonizing death from cancer to cause me to ask, "if it was me laying there, where would my soul be going?"
God's question was likewise a cry of grief that His beloved creatures were now subject to death. In a similar manner, God’s question to Adam as, “O Adam, Why have your affections been taken from me?”
Of course, this was not a surprise to an omniscient God. We read that as believers, we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. God knew that only by creating mankind as agents of free will, could His love be fully experienced.
God’s unfolding kingdom plan
God's fullest expression of love unfolds in His plan for winning back the affection of his lost humanity. God has allowed His children, like the prodigals that we are, to freely choose to leave and experience the evil results of our abandonment. He needs for prodigal mankind to likewise long for the restoration of full fellowship with HIm. That requires both God and mankind to go through some very painful times.
This timeline charts His plan to restore the Kingdom and reveal His chosen King.
This plan of God is intended to bring mankind back to that desire to enthrone Him as King on the throne of our affections and thus restore His earthly Kingdom.
Michael Vlatch summarizes the path to the eternal state in his book: He shall reign forever…
“Ever since the fall, God's plan has been to restore His creation through His son who must reign successfully as a man, as it was God's original intention that a man would rule His earthly Kingdom.
The first Adam failed, and the Kingdom was corrupted. Jesus, the Last Adam will restore the Kingdom back to its "very good" state.
This is why Jesus had to be fully man. He also had to be fully God without a sin nature to have the power to reverse the evil consequence of the Fall.
In the restored, earthly Kingdom, Israel will now enjoy all the promises God made to her in the covenants. All of the nations will be there and will look to Israel for leadership in learning the ways of the Lord. The kings of the nations will worship only Him and bring contributions for His glory.
In Genesis 3:15, God declares His anticipation of both the cost and the outcome of His plan. This is the unfolding of the drama that we are exploring as we consider His affection for the kingdom that was lost in Eden and that He will restore in the future.
Review Questions:
- Why did God create Adam and Eve?
- God created man in His own image as a and
- Why does God allow evil to exist in His creation?
- God's fullest expression of unfolds in His plan for winning back the of his lost humanity.
- What does the story of the Prodigal son in Luke 15 teach us about our heavenly Father's heart?
- The father’s first priority is not our perfections as much as He is looking for our affections .
This brings us to consider a scriptural distinction between two kingdoms. More on this in the next post...
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