Christian Action Project (CAP) – Study 3 – Kingdom of God – Growth
This Study 3 - will cover:
·
Two more parables - of
the mustard seed and leavening
·
Explanation of leavening
– is it a symbol of sin?
·
Why was unleavened bread
used on Passover, but leavened bread for the peace offering as the first fruits
of the Lord? How does that relate to the Christian communion (Lord’s Supper)?
·
Are wars and rumors of
wars the sign of the end?
·
What is the Christian
dominion assignment and how have we misunderstood it?
·
What does Satan own?
(The following is from Gary North’s
book - “Unconditional Surrender”.)
"Another parable put he forth unto
them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a
man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but
when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that
the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” (Matthew
13:31-32). From something tiny to something substantial, from something almost
invisible to something that gives support and shelter: here is the way that the
kingdom operates in time and on earth. It is a growth process - continuous, not cataclysmic, which leads to
its visibility among men, and its support for men.
"Another
parable spake he unto them; the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a
woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was
leavened" (Matthew 13:33). First of all, before anyone jumps to
conclusions, leaven is
not a symbol of sin. The Hebrews were not permitted to eat leavened
bread at the Passover, but leavened bread was used in the sacrifice of the
peace offering (Leviticus 7:13). The leavened bread was offered as the
first-fruits of the Lord, meaning the best of a family's productivity: "Ye shall bring out of your
habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour;
they shall be baken with leaven; they are the first-fruits unto the LORD"
(Leviticus 23:17). Leaven
is the best man has to offer, the bread he eats with pleasure. It is
man's offering to God. The Passover avoided leaven. In the Passover, people also
ate bitter herbs with their unleavened bread (Exodus 12:8). This bread and
bitter herbs symbolized the hard times in Egypt, the world out of which God had
delivered them. Unleavened bread avoided the additional time necessary
for yeast to rise as a symbol of a major historical discontinuity, for God
delivered them from Egypt overnight. Unleavened bread symbolized God's
overnight deliverance, since it was not the best of what man had to offer God.
God broke in to the daily affairs of His people and delivered them from bitter
herbs and unleavened bread. He delivered them into a land flowing with milk and
honey, a land in which men have the wealth and time to bake and eat leavened
bread. They were to offer this bread to God in thankfulness. Leaven is a symbol of time, of continuity, and of
dominion.
But what was the
meaning of unleavened bread? Why were the Hebrews required to eat it at the
Passover? Why were they required to get rid of all leavened bread in the land
for a week before the feast? (Exodus 12:15). Because the original Passover was celebrated in Egypt, it
was Egypt's leaven which had to be purged out of their midst, before
they left the land. It was a symbol of Egypt's culture, and therefore of
Egypt's religion. Leavened bread was representative of the good life in Egypt,
all of those benefits in Egypt which might tempt them to return. So God required them to
celebrate a discontinuous event,
their overnight deliverance from bondage. They were to take no
leaven with them - none of Egypt's gods, or religious practices, or culture to
serve as "starter."
Once
they entered the land of Canaan as conquerors, they were required to eat
leavened bread and offer it as a peace offering to God. This was the leavened
bread of the first-fruits offering. This is why Christians are supposed
to eat leavened bread when they celebrate Communion (the Lord's Supper). It is
a symbol of conquest. We are now on
the offensive, carrying the leaven of holiness back into Egypt, back into Babylon. We are the
leaven of the world, not corrupting the unleavened dough, but
"incorrupting" it - bringing the message of salvation to Satan's
troops, tearing down the idols in men's hearts. God's holy leaven is to replace Satan's unholy leaven in
the dough of the creation. Leaven is therefore not a symbol of sin and
corruption, but a symbol of growth and dominion. It's not a question of an "unleavened"
kingdom vs. a leavened" kingdom; it's a question of which (whose)
leaven. It's not a question of "dominion vs. no dominion"; it's a
question of whose dominion. The dough (creation) is here. Whose
leaven will complete it, God's or Satan's?
The
kingdom is like leaven. Christianity is the yeast, and it has a leavening
effect on the pagan, satanic culture around it. It permeates the whole of this
culture, causing it to rise. The
bread that is produced by this leaven
is the preferred bread. In ancient
times – indeed, right up until the nineteenth century – bread was considered
the staff of life, the symbol of life.
It was the source of men’s nutrition.
“Give us this day our
daily bread,” we are to ask God (Matthew 6:11). The kingdom of God is the force that produces
the fine quality bread men seek. The symbolism should be
obvious: Christianity makes life a joy
for man. It provides man with the
very best. It is what all men really
prefer, when they have the time and money to obtain it. Leaven takes time to produce its
product. Leaven is a symbol of historical
continuity. Men can wait for their leavened bread, for
God gives them time sufficient for the working of His spiritual leaven. They may not understand how it works, how the
spiritual effects spread through their culture and make it a delight, any more
than they understand how yeast works to produce leavened bread, but they can
see the bread rising, and they can see the progressive effects of the leaven of
the kingdom. They can look into the
warming oven and see the risen bread. If
we really push the analogy, we can point to the fact that the dough is pounded
down several times before the final baking, almost as the world pounds the
kingdom; but the yeast does its work just
so long as the fires of the oven are
not lit prematurely. If the full
heat of the oven is applied to the dough before the yeast has done its work,
both the yeast and the dough are burnt, and the burnt mass must be thrown
out. But given sufficient time, the
yeast does its work, and the result is the bread men prefer.
What a marvelous description of God’s kingdom! Christians work with the cultural material available, seeking to refine
it, to permeate it, to make it into something fine. They know that they will be successful, just
as yeast is successful in the dough, if it is given enough time to do its
work. That’s what God implicitly
promises us in the analogy of the leaven: enough
time to accomplish our individual and our
collective tasks. He tells us that
His kingdom will produce the desirable bread.
It will take time. It may take
several poundings, as God, through the hostility of the world, kneads the yeast
filled dough of man’s cultures. But the end result is guaranteed.
Then what about the
terrible things that the whole world suffers? What about bloodshed, chaos, fear? Christ’s words are familiar to many Christians:
“And ye shall hear of wars and
rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet.” (Matthew 24:6). The words may be familiar, but are they really
understood? Jesus announced a remarkable prophecy: there shall be wars and rumors of wars. We should expect this. We should not be troubled. Why not?
For the end is not yet. But how are we to know for certain that the
end is not at hand? Precisely because there are wars and rumors of wars! Why can’t modern Christians understand
this? Because we hear of wars, and
because they keep breaking out, we know that the end is not yet. We need not be troubled, for this, too, shall
pass.
What shall pass? Wars and rumors of wars! What Christ told His disciples in no uncertain terms is this: there
must come an era in which Christians will not be besieged with wars and rumors
of wars. This period is not on the
far side of the day of judgment, for the end is not yet. When will the end come? After a
period in which men do not make war, and the rumors of wars finally cease. What else could Christ’s words mean? This sign to His people that the end is not
imminent is the very existence of wars and
rumors of wars. For as long as they exist, the
end is not yet. After they cease,
we can start thinking seriously about the possibility of the end of this fallen
world. When the world is subdued to the
glory of God, then we face the
increasing possibility of the end. When the
yeast has done its cultural work, and men are at last eating the fine leavened
bread that the Christian yeast has produced, then they can contemplate the final
judgment. When all men have before their eyes the testimony of God
to the success of His law and the success of His ambassadors in bringing peace
and justice to the world, then the rebels will have something to rebel against in that last desperate
act of Satan and his host (Revelation 20:7-9a).
That rebellion will be immediately crushed (Revelation 20:9b-10).
It is one of Satan’s most
successful lies that Christians look at their defeats on the battlefield of
faith, that they listen to rumors of wars, and see wars on their television screens
(“Live and direct by satellite: nuclear
holocaust! Full details at eleven.”),
and they conclude that Jesus is coming soon.
But Jesus is not coming
soon. We must accept His words at face
value.
We are still besieged by wars and rumors of wars. God’s kneading process is still going
on. The yeast has not done its work
yet. The dough is not ready for the
oven. The time has not come for cooking
the cultural dough. There are still wars and rumors
of wars; therefore, the end is not yet.
Now it might be possible to argue that Christ meant that wars
and rumors of wars will continue, and that Christians will be pounded down
until the hypothetical first return of Christ; when only His people will be
raptured into the sky, after which He shall return with them (now fully
transformed, possessing their perfect bodies) in power to set up His earthy
kingdom. This could be interpreted as
the era of the oven, when God’s leavened bread will be baked, and men will love
one another and eat the bead of righteousness in peace. Wars and rumors of wars could then be seen as
pointing to the first return of Christ, and therefore our end – our preliminary
end – does draw nigh in the midst of wars and rumors of wars. But this interpretation is in flagrant opposition to Christ’s parables
of the kingdom, which rely on the idea of continuity
in history, the unwillingness of God to separate the wheat from the tares
until the final judgment, when the tares will be burned. According to this misinterpretation, the
tares are not burned at the hypothetical first return of Christ in power, which
is to be followed by a thousand-year direct reign, in time and on earth. The tares remain in the field, along with a
mixture of fully redeemed Christians in their new, perfect humanity (I
Corinthians 15:52), side by side new converts to Christ, in their normal bodies
– the kind Christians presently battle with – and side by side the tares. What kind of agriculture is this? What kind of agricultural parable can be
conformed to this sort of discontinuous agriculture? An agriculture of premature uprooting?
Modern Christians
have abandoned the concept of slow but steady growth. Christians sometimes want victory for the church, in time and on earth,
prior to the final judgment. They
believe in it. But they are so
discouraged by the signs of the church’s present impotence and the visible
power of Satan’s troops that they conclude that they need a divine miracle, a
radically discontinuous intervention in history, in order to bring them the
cultural and political victory they long for. This was the error of the Hebrews in Jesus’
day: they expected the Messiah to set up an instantly successful Jewish kingdom
in tiny Palestine. That’s why the crowds
rushed to welcome Jesus to Jerusalem at the beginning of the Passover week, and
that’s why they crucified Him at the end, when He failed to give them what they
wanted: a miracle elevating them to
total power, despite their own failure to exercise authority on earth in terms
of God’s law. They had rejected the
primary tool used in God’s dominion assignment.
They had broken the terms of His peace treaty. They had violated His Bible-revealed law continually,
having substituted the words of men. Yet
they expected the Messiah to place the keys of dominion right in their
laps. Christ rejected their offer of an
earthly kingship on their lawless, treaty-breaking terms. They called for His crucifixion.
(At this point, the author begins
what might be described as a cynical parody. It might be difficult for some of
us to accept this criticism, but let’s ask: Is it true?
Have we possibly sold God short in
that we have not accepted the mantle of responsibility and leadership He has
delegated to us as a church? Remember that He promises us victory if we step
forth in faith. Maybe we just didn’t quite understand what that responsibility
was, since it hasn’t been regularly taught from the pulpits. All of those facts
might be true from the past, but now we are confronted with an option – is this
information Biblically true, and if so, what do we do about it?
The purpose here is not to lay blame
– it is to make our choice the best way we know how and proceed on our charted
course. Please take it in that spirit.)
Isn’t this basically
what the modern church wants? Don’t
Christians expect God to promote them overnight from buck private to at least
captain? Some of them are corporals, and
they expect to become field grade officers, preferably bird colonels, in one
move. Christians want to become field
marshals, just like the native corporals in Africa became field marshals once
the British and French pulled out. But
what kind of field marshals should we expect on this basis? We have seen the “field marshals” in the
African ‘democracies’. A hundred years
ago we would have called them tribal tyrants.
Men who have no idea what a kingdom is elevate themselves from
“President for Life” to “Emperor for Life” in Africa. And a few years later, or less, they are
assassinated. A short reign indeed! But
Christians expect Christ to bail them out of their present troubles, and to
stand behind them, like a cosmic big brother, in the coming kingdom where He
will rule directly on earth. He will
tell them exactly what to do, and He will back them up, day by day, moment by
moment. He will give them a totally
centralized political system, and they will be obedient bureaucrats, initiating
nothing, rescinding nothing, making no mistakes, and making no responsible
progress. They will serve in a real
kingdom as play-pretend rulers. They
will carry out their orders. They will
not mature personally. God will subdue
the earth using them as crude tools, since Christians have failed to subdue it
as maturing stewards. Until then,
Christians will remain perpetual failures.
Such a
view is a counsel of defeat. It means
that God’s plan in Eden has been successfully overthrown by Satan. God's hope to have man, specifically created
to exercise dominion, actually exercise dominion as a faithful, fully
responsible subordinate, has been destroyed. God finally calls the experiment
to a halt. "Get down there, Son," He says to Jesus, "and clean
up this mess. They can't rule, they can't build anything permanent, they're a
bunch of foul-ups, and you're going to have to get in there and fix it up.
Don't give one of them an ounce of personal responsibility. Don't let one of
them make an in dependent decision. No mistakes, from now on. I'm tired of their
mistakes. They're a wash-out. Give them their officers' epaulets, make every
one of them at least a second lieutenant, but You give every command. They
couldn't tie their own shoelaces without making a mess of it."
And Satan's response? "It's just what I told you. I
told you so about Job, and I told you so about them. They ignored Your law.
They wouldn't bear any serious responsibility. They were culturally impotent.
Your kingdom plans are a shambles. Sure, You're a Big Shot. You can always get
in there and straighten things out. Everyone knows that. But Your plan was a
failure, Your hopes for man an illusion, for You didn't plan on me. I stopped
You. I messed them up. I may not be the Almighty, but I sure am pretty mighty.
I was mighty enough to thwart the very definition You gave to man, the very
being You made him: dominion man. He's no dominion man. He's nothing but
a rotting robot. That's it, God, Your great work of art, the capstone of
creation, the being who possesses Your very image, is nothing but a breathing
robot. Personality? Nonsense. He's a robot. You're right, man can't tie his own
shoes; not even Your adopting can change that. I may be going into the lake of
fire, but I proved my point. Your second lieutenant, redeemed man, is no more a
second lieutenant than some brand-new recruit. And I'm the one who did it to
You!"
Christians
believe this all too often. Maybe they haven't thought through the implications
of their hope in a premature rapture into the clouds, and their hypothetical return
in glorified bodies to rule the earth as robot bureaucrats, but they ought to
think about it. They have denied the reality of the parables of growth. They
have denied the reality of God's dominion assignment. Millions of them explicitly
deny their obligation to use God's revealed law as a tool of dominion, or in
any other way. Yet they hold out hopes for a promotion. They all want to
become officers, but few of them want to attend officers' candidate school.
Boot camp, they believe, is just about all they can handle. That's what the
generation of the exodus thought, too, and they died in the wilderness. They
all died in boot camp, except Joshua and Caleb.
The parables of growth point to
a fulfillment of God's plan, in time and on earth. They point to a steady
expansion of the leaven of the gospel. They point to an expansion of God's
kingdom, in time and on earth, as the leaven makes something edible of the fallen
dough of creation. The fallen dough will rise. It takes leaven. It
takes kneading. It takes time. But the fallen dough of the cursed creation will
rise. God promises this.
Christians still
refuse to believe it. When Christ announces the kingdom of God is like unto . .
. ;" they reply, "Oh, come on, it couldn't be like that. No, it's really
like this . . ." Some Christians substitute a parable of uprooted wheat,
which is then replanted, though fully mature, alongside of the still-maturing
tares, and alongside of newly planted wheat. Others, who do believe in
historical continuity, have rejected this vision of a premature uprooting. But
they have no confidence in Christ's earthly leaven, either. They wind up
arguing for the triumph of Satan's earthly leaven. Satan's leaven will steadily
push out the few remaining traces of Christ's cultural leaven. Only at the
final judgment will Christ return in power, instantaneously remove Satan's
leaven, and instantly fire up the oven, leaving His earthly leaven, the church,
to do its work instantly, raising the dough in the midst of the oven. In other
words, their view of the leaven of the church violates the whole analogy, that
is, the steady rising of the dough before the oven's final baking.
Both approaches are
popular. Whichever of these two substitutions a man accepts, he has
abandoned the analogy of the leaven. He has abandoned the principle of godly
growth over time. He has abandoned Christ's explicit teaching concerning the
true nature of His kingdom. He may deny the continuity of growth (uprooted
wheat). He may deny the continuity of victory (Satan's leaven wins). Christ's
dominion man must fail, in time and on earth. In the second view, Satan's
leaven triumphs, and God doesn't even bother to go through the "breathing
robot" stage, with the direct rule of Christ, in Person, through His
robots. God just scraps history, wiping out Satan. God redeems the earth in an
instant, makes His people into fully redeemed, perfect dominion men, who now
can exercise dominion over a fully redeemed creation. The Garden of Eden was a
failure as a training camp for dominion; the land of Canaan was equally a
failure as a training ground for dominion; and finally, the church of Jesus
Christ, the New Jerusalem, winds up an historical failure as a training ground
for dominion. Nothing worked, so God will scrap the whole program in an instant
and intervene graciously to give us the victory on a platter. Here is a revised
version of the parable of the mustard seed: just add instant judgment (since
time, God's law, and the ethical subordination of Christ's church to the Master
obviously failed, and since the preaching of the gospel failed, and since
Christian institutions failed), and presto: an instant mustard tree. So
much for continuity!
(After a pretty hard hitting
narrative, the author now summarizes the topic.)
What does God expect
to accomplish, total victory? Yes. Does
He expect to achieve total victory, in time and on earth? No. He
doesn't offer total victory to cursed mankind. Paul's first letter to the Corinthian
church spells this out in considerable detail. We must be changed, in the
twinkling of an eye (I Corinthians 15:52). The final discontinuous event, the
ascension of the saints (sometimes called the "rapture") and their
instant transformation, brings the final judgment and the creation of a new
world, that final oven in which the leaven-filled, risen kingdom is baked. Peter
wrote: "But the day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the
earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that
all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to
be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to
his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth
righteousness" (II Peter 3:10-13). The whole earth is going to be
burned up, producing a new loaf. The whole earth is subject to that final
transformation. This implies that the whole earth shall have been filled with
the leaven of the gospel not perfect, but ready for the oven. Then our bodies
will be transformed, glorified, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom
of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption" (I Corinthians
15:50). The continuity of history is finally interrupted. This is the end of
the world.
But that's the point:
it's the end of the whole world. What area of life will avoid this final
conflagration? Which part of the leavened dough will be untouched by the
blinding heat of the oven? Which part of the loaf will be left unbaked? None of
it. The boundaries of God's kingdom are the boundaries of the whole earth. It
is the task of every Christian to serve as yeast for a fallen world. It is a
task that cannot legitimately be avoided. Can we point to whole portions of the
unleavened dough and say: "Well, that's not the responsibility of
Christians. The law of God doesn't apply there. The dominion assignment doesn't
cover that zone. Satan owns that section, lock, stock, and barrel"?
What does Satan own?
Why, the very gates of
hell cannot prevail against the church (Matthew 16:18). Satan doesn't hold
title to anything. He lost title at the cross. Or better put, his lease was
cancelled. Jesus announced in the vision given to John: “I am he that liveth, and was dead;
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of
death" (Rev elation 1:18). Satan is a lawless squatter. The world belongs to God, and He
has designated it as our inheritance. But we are told to subdue it, to
lease it back from God by demonstrating our commitment to the terms of His
peace treaty with us. We conquer by the preaching of the gospel. Our sword is
the sword of the gospel. It is still our assignment to subdue the earth,
and by the sword of the gospel we will conquer.