by E. Stanley Jones
We saw yesterday that the total life was to be totally redeemed by the coming of the Kingdom. What happened with this breathtaking program and conception? Jesus stayed with the disciples for forty days after the Resurrection and talked about what? "Appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3). His last emphasis was on the Kingdom. "Get this straight," he was saying," for if you get this straight, all the ages will go straight with you." Did they? Alas, this conception was too big for their small hearts, for they said to him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). They reduced this universal Kingdom to a nationalism—Do we get back our self-government? They didn't reject it—they reduced it. That is what we have been doing ever since.
The church reduced the Kingdom or even eliminated it in the forming of the creeds. In the third century in the making of the creeds, the Apostles' Creed and the Athanasian creeds do not mention the Kingdom. The Nicene Creed mentions it once marginally beyond the borders of this life in heaven: "his [Jesus'] kingdom will have no end." But this was after the Resurrection—a heavenly Kingdom. So the three great historic creeds mention once, beyond the borders of this life, in heaven, what Jesus mentioned a hundred times. A note, a very important note, had dropped out of the Christian faith. A crippled Christianity went across Europe with a crippled result. The kingdom of God was pushed into the inner recesses of the heart as mystical experience now and pushed beyond the borders of this life in heaven, as a collective experience. Between this inner mystical experience now and the collective heavenly experience, vast areas were left out unredeemed—the economic, the social, the political. A vacuum was created in the soul of Christendom. Into that vacuum moved human totalitarianisms and took over.
O God, forgive us, forgive us, that we have lost the central emphasis of your gospel, the Kingdom. We deserve the face that has come upon us. Help us to recover by your grace your kingdom again. It is our only hope. Save us. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: When I criticize the creeds for leaving out the Kingdom, I criticize my deeds for doing the same.