The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God?s reign. Jesus said that we must ?receive the kingdom of God? as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God?s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God?s rule here and now.



-- George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom

I?ve commented before on the semantics of practical soteriology, and I mentioned then that I am currently favoring a phrase apropos of ?getting saved? that I first encountered in N.T. Wright?s Following Jesus -- salvation means embracing the yoke of God?s sovereignty. Replace ?embracing? with ?accepting? or ?submitting to,? if you like, for either would work just as well, but I prefer the term ?embrace? because it more accurately connotes a regenerated will and desire to accept and submit.



The main problem I see with fuzzy soteriological semantics is that they don?t do the reality of discipleship justice. You can see from my previous post that I don?t think ?asking Jesus into one?s heart? makes one any less saved than some other, more precise words of acceptance. But I do admit that the focus of such phrasing isn't precise enough.



When a person ?gets saved,? he does not, theologically speaking, bring Jesus into his life. Rather, he gets into the life of Jesus. He does not get Jesus into his heart so much as he enters the heart of Jesus.

Such imprecision is partly the result of a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God (or perhaps no understanding of it all, an ignorance or avoidance of the concept). As long as Christians continue to believe that God?s kingdom is still ?out there? or is yet to dawn or has no present reality in this age, they will always be attempting to ?make Jesus king? rather than living like He already is.



This is a call for a theocratic discipleship. Following Jesus is not about adapting His ways to our lives; it is about living our lives with the quality of His ways. It?s about living incarnationally, with the reality of Christ?s Lordship ever-present and bursting in our thoughts, words, and deeds. Theocratic discipleship is about living the kingdom life now, not making do until the kingdom comes.



We do still await the consummation of the kingdom, that glorious day still to come. But we live now in the day of the kingdom?s inauguration. Believers are members of God?s kingdom now.



Embracing the yoke of God?s sovereignty means abandoning all that hinders or hurts our relationship with God. It means having no other gods but God. It means that God is in control and we are not and we like that just fine ? no, not that we are just fine with that, but that we really, really want it that way, would not have it any other way. Christianity is not effective tools for spiritual growth; Christianity is new life.



Embracing the yoke of God?s sovereignty means praying ?Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven? not just with hope that it will be true, but with faith that it is somehow true already and the love of it being so. It means not just praying that God will do that, but living like God is doing it in you.



In the Old Testament days of Israel, obedience to the Law was the mark that one was a part of God?s kingdom. Obedience to the Law was not committed grudgingly or mournfully; those that loved the LORD, loved His Law and delighted themselves in it. But in the light of the New Testament we know that obeying the Law was not what made those believers citizens of the kingdom. Instead, obeying the Law was the sign of their status within the kingdom.

In the same way, we must discard the notion that following God?s commandments or ?doing? Jesus? commands in the Sermon on the Mount will somehow get us into the kingdom. (Even if we don?t believe that propositionally, many of us live like that is true.) The Sermon on the Mount is actually a great picture of the quality of life inside the kingdom. It?s not the way in -- it?s what being in looks like.



Not that no effort is exerted on our part. But I am frequently sobered by just how dang impossible living the Sermon on the Mount is. Still, Jesus tells us that we are to be perfect as He is perfect. And if all things are possible with God, I trust that God?s sovereignty will make a way for fruit in my life where my own efforts will not.

Embracing the yoke of God?s sovereignty means trusting God to bring about the right kind of life in my humble following of Him rather than trusting my own attempts at ?applying God?s Word? to my life.



The good news is that God?s kingdom is at hand. Repent (change directions) and submit to the King, and you will see the kingdom brought to light in your life.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.



-- Matthew 11:29-30

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More Mysterium Tremendum discipleship:

A Dangerous Discipleship to an Unsafe God

A Worshipful Discipleship

An Eschatological Discipleship

A Psalm 23 Discipleship

A Lord's Prayer Discipleship



And an oldie but a goodie from Thinklings:

The Call to Discipleship: An Invitation to the Story

An excerpt:

[W]e should be calling the lost into something, not just away from something. Obviously, conversion entails wrestling with our sinful nature and repentance from our life of sin. Obviously the fear of hell and separation from God are worthy motivators to choose the alternative. But calling people away from sin and death into Six Steps For Successful Living won?t keep people for long . . .



Basically, my hope is that we are inviting the lost into an alternate reality, into a kingdom life that buzzes and hums with God?s active presence and abundant grace and love. As a writer, I like the analogy of Story as it relates to the life of discipleship . . . Imagine if we could invite people to take part in a great Story that is going on. We invite people not to merely incorporate church into their lives as something helpful and beneficial, but to incorporate their lives into the Church ? the community of persons following Jesus together ? as something radical and revolutionary in their lives and in the life of the world.



The way conversion is sometimes expressed these days is that the Christian life gives us tools with which to write our own pretty good story. But really it is more like the Christian life finds us smack-dab in the middle of a Story that is already being written ? indeed, we are nearing the fantastic and climactic finale. (Best to play our part as soon as possible!)

We cannot write this Story into existence; we must recognize that it is already being composed by a far greater Artist than we, and we must jump in, immerse ourselves, and see where our character arc takes us.