THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Where is the Gospel?

(07/09/05 notes)
I had brought along some 'literature' - leaflets and so on - from a Diocesan mission initiative. When I asked Fr Gresham his views on this he responded that it was "to rope a few more in". 

I persisted in my questioning, so he continued, "Where is the Gospel? What is the meaning of the Gospel?"

I replied, "Good news."

"Then what is the Gospel?" he asked.

"That we are not going to die but live on after death?" I volunteered tentatively.

"What does Jesus say at the beginning of St Mark's Gospel?" he asked.

I didn't know.

"'Turn yourselves inside out because the Kingdom of God has come among you.' Metanoia, repent, meaning in Greek turn yourself back to front. If you are standing on your head then get yourself the right way up."

This is how the discussion began. Fr Gresham went on to recommend R T France's book about the Kingdom of God. "He is saying, and quoting other scholars, what Gregory Dix said in the 1940's, and Lowther-Clarke said in the 1930's. They acknowledged a new and difficult idea, and waited for others to support them before firmly declaring these things as truths."

A visitor regarding 'The Second Coming' 

(from 15-05-2003 notes)
Fr Gresham said:- "I was writing, at about 10pm, a sentence about the phrase “second coming”  appearing nowhere in the old or new testaments.  I was midway through the sentence.  I think it may have been for the article in “essays radical and catholic”.  I was midway through that sentence when there was a knock at the door.  I got up to answer it.  A man was there with his bible. The visitor announced that he had come to talk to me about the second coming of Christ." 

Fr Gresham continued, "His was the King James Bible.  I didn't give him the RSV because he wouldn't have regarded that as legitimate.  I asked him to find the phrase “second coming”.  He went to Rev 19:11-18, which some take to describe the second coming, but the phrase appears nowhere there."  

"So he next went to John (maybe the letter, 2 John?), but again I said to him the phrase doesn't appear.  It doesn't say Christ will return again." 

"It is amazing that he came just at that moment.  Sometimes co-incidences can be amazing that happen like that," Fr Gresham added.

He concluded, referring to an account I had given of a recent mass, "It is like you said about that sermon, when the preacher simply repeated 'Christ will come again' without setting forth any reasoning.  Sometimes they suppress their doubts until they become too much for them." 

In the instance referred to, the priest really had failed to sketch out any explanation. He had repeated the statement a number of times that 'Christ will come again', without any development of an argument, so that I remember wondering how this was supposed to help, and what would happen then?

PS (where I have put (?) , it is indicates details I could not properly recall.)

Albert Schweitzer

2003

Fr Gresham said:-"The Catholic Church is life-affirming, for the whole.  It isn’t protestant, or protesting against something.  If only the Catholic Church would turn its attention to Christ’s coming again, consider that and what it means.  But failing that it has to dwell upon, get hung up about, women priests, which is just a by-way of belief."  

"Albert Schweitzer latched on to some Gospel sayings, that those around wouldn’t die before they saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.  Schweitzer decided logically that they didn’t see it, so Jesus was mistaken.  But he acted in his life in the Spirit of Jesus without believing the creeds. No-one refuted Schweitzer.  Schweitzer's belief has gone deep into church, into clergy and bishops." 

"Christ will come again.  We repeat it.  But what do we mean by it?  Schweitzer saw a problem in Jesus saying that this heaven and earth would see the Son of man come again.  We can repeat the creeds as often as we like, but so many of the clergy are happy to be hazy about the creeds.  If there is a problem we should admit there is a problem.  You don’t get an answer to a problem unless you face up to it and consider it."

"If the church more rigorously held the creeds, it would stand for something, have credibility." 

"The Gospels never say Christ will come again on this earth.  ‘Christ will come again’ – The coming of Christ again is a process that began at the resurrection and the ascension.  Jesus’ hearers did live to see this."   

Jesus' greatest saying

30/06/06

Fr Gresham said, "Jesus' greatest saying was his answer to Caiphas's question, 'Are you the Christ?' Jesus answered, 'I am;' and 'you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power', and 'coming with the clouds of heaven'." (Mk 14:62) "In the first part of this answer he is quoting the psalm of David 110:1, 'The Lord says to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' Jesus is here claiming to be the Lord of David's psalm." "In the second part of his answer he is quoting Daniel 7:13, 'As I watched the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven, and he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him.' And so he is claiming to be that human figure." "Note the figure comes with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient One. It does not say he comes down to earth. And nowhere in the New Testament (NT) does it say that Christ will bodily return to this earth. Rather the movement is towards the Ancient of Days, coming on the clouds. You cannot pin down the language and take it literally because it is Jewish apocalyptic writing. It is like abstract art. In a Picasso painting you cannot say what each bit means. You can see what Picasso is getting at, but you cannot say what each bit is. Just so with Jewish apocalyptic writing." "The Christ, the anointed one, is first raised as an idea in Isaiah.  Isaiah looks forward to a future king of David's line who will reign in justice.'A shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch will grow out of his roots.' (Isa 11.1) Jeremiah develops this idea." "Only about 200 years before Christ does the idea of the Son of Man come." "Christ realised the Davidic King, the anointed one, would have to suffer. He tried to teach the disciples this at various places in the Gospels, but they couldn't accept it. The Jews were horrified at the idea of the Christ suffering. It was Jesus who saw that he must fulfil the suffering servant figure of Isaiah. He combined the three, the Davidic King, the Son of Man (as in Daniel 7:13), and the suffering servant of Isaiah. He was the first to see this." "When Jesus answers Caiaphas, in the Matthew and Luke accounts, he says 'from now on' or 'hereafter'. What do we mean by 'hereafter'. Well, it can be considered in the way 'hereafter' is used in a legal document.  For instance, you could put ' the premises at 7 Bishops Road, N1 8PH, which hereafter will be called "the house". After that in the document it is just called the house. So Jesus means 'from this moment on you will see the Son of Man at the right hand of God'." When parousia will be 04/02/2004 "Karl Rahner, the leading 20th century Roman Catholic theologian, believed parousia would occur when time gives way to eternity. But this doesn't do justice to Jesus' words to Caiaphas when he asked him, "Are you the Son of God?" Jesus answered, "I am".  Then Jesus went on to say, "You will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power", and "coming with the clouds of heaven." Mark, Matthew and Luke all have this, though Luke, not being Jewish, so not understanding the significance of the phrase "coming on clouds of heaven", omits it. The point is, something starts with Jesus' words. Parousia comes in some sense for the saints in heaven because when they die they come into the presence of God, but it is not full parousia until it also comes on earth; as in Isaiah, earth becomes as heaven." Parousia (02-04-2003) Fr Gresham said:- "Christ said, after his crucifixion and before his ascension, all power on earth and in heaven is given to me. Upon ascension he rose from the ground – may have only been inches or a foot or so, lost in cloud – actually maybe lost in the mist you get on mountains.  The Jews of the time saw signs in natural phenomena. They saw the morning mist as a sign of the glory of God.  They saw storm clouds as a sign of God's judgement." "Christ's coming again begins at the Ascension and is then an ongoing process.  Christ didn't use the words return and he didn't say he would appear again on this earth.  Parousia – his word means coming, and can be understood as approaching presence.  So we get closer and closer to Christ's presence.  Christ did say his coming again was imminent."   "At the Ascension Christ was taken into God's glory, so Christ is here with us now in the glory of God.  Christ cannot be kept out of anywhere because he is a powerfully present in God's glory.  He is present but we cannot see him."  "The process goes on towards the 'new heaven and earth' of Isaiah, when those living at that time will be with those who have already lived, who will be raised from the dead."     "That is what we have to look forward to, meeting everyone who has ever lived."  "There was a belief in the 19th century in a gradual process of the transformation of the earth, everything getting better gradually.  But that isn’t the way of the Bible.  The Bible is revolutionary, it shows us things are transformed in step-changes." (04/02/2004 note) "The New Testament tells us things change when everything gets really bad, when everything collapses, then something new arises. That is why I am hopeful at the present time." (2021  note:-  Tom Wright's (formerly Bishop of Durham) 2012 book, "How God became King", chapter 10, "Kingdom and Cross", says what Fr Gresham says above. I would have liked to hear Fr Gresham give his view on Professor Wright's book, which, of course, has come after his time.) The Kingdom of God began then and is here now (07/09/05) Fr Gresham said, "The single great fact of this world is the reality of the Kingdom of God that underlies everything. It is the most real thing there is."   "Mark uses the term 'Kingdom of God'. Matthew is even more Jewish and so uses the more polite term 'Kingdom of Heaven' to avoid using the name of God. Both refer to the same thing." "In Luke, Jesus' reply to Caiaphas omits the part referring to coming on the clouds of heaven. This may be because Luke is Gentile and didn't understand all this Jewish language about clouds of heaven. More likely it is because he was writing for Theophilus, a Gentile, who just couldn't have understood all the Jewish language." "Mark's report of the reply to Caiaphas is likely to be the most authentic." "The idea of the messiah only became blended with the heavenly figure about 180BC, with the writings of Daniel 7:13.  The idea of the Christ develops. It is also in Jeremiah, 200 years later than Isaiah." "Jesus fused the three:- the Davidic King, which Jesus never made much of, though he didn't deny it if someone called him that. He chose rather to call himself the Son of Man, the Representative Man. He alone saw it was necessary to blend these two figures with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53." "To say that Christ will come to earth again at some future date makes him absent now. Whereas Christ before his  ascension says, ' I will be with you always'.  And he said 'all power in heaven and on earth is given to me'." (from  27/05/05 notes)   "Christ's answer to Caiaphas's question, 'Are you the Son of God?' is 'I am, and from now on you will see me at the right hand of God coming in clouds of glory'. Christ's answer refers to something starting now." "The Roman Catholic Catechism says the Kingdom of God comes at the end of time when Christ returns. It is wrong. How can they explain the already 2000 years delay? They can't. The coming of the Kingdom of God is a process already begun, completed at the end of time." "Keith Ward's book is falsely spiritual. Jurgan Moltmann said the Kingdom of God would include the earth. The earth might be transformed somehow, but the end would include the earth. The destruction of the earth, as part of God's creation, would be blasphemy."

There must be a completion

(07/09/05)
Fr Gresham said, "Nowhere in the Gospels does it say Christ will come again 
on this earth. Revelations 20 says the Son of Man will come when there is a new heaven and a new earth."

"Because it is a difficult subject preachers will not give a sermon on the coming of the Son of Man. They avoid it. What do we mean when we say, 'Christ will come again'? The coming of the Son of Man cannot be only an ongoing process. Otherwise it would be going towards nowhere. There must be a completion, a fulfilment." 

"Theologians now generally agree this completion will occur beyond time. Our earth will physically end some time; either it will burn or freeze up. All this is important because it is what we believe about the future of our world."

"St Irenaeus in the 2nd century believed Christ would come again physically to earth and rule in person for a 1000years. This was a millennial belief accepted for a couple of centuries after St Irenaeus, then suppressed."

"The Gospels tell us the Holy Ghost will be sent to lead us into all truth. It may take more centuries or millennia until the church is led into a knowledge of the whole truth. We may presently only have a partial knowledge of the truth."

14/03/02

"The coming of the Son of Man is associated in some way with the resurrection and ascension of Christ. It started then and is a continuing process. The Gospel stories borrow a lot from Daniel. In chapter 7 the Son of Man comes to the Ancient of Days.

The Kingdom of God

"In the Lord's Prayer we say, 'Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven'. The Kingdom of God is already existing in heaven, we pray for it to come also in this world."

"Isaiah speaks of a 'new heaven and a new earth', so there is work to do in heaven as well as on earth." 

"Through time and human history Christ works to bring about heaven here in this world, so this world and heaven are both transformed to be as one. This work is done by Christ through us. We are Christ's agents here on earth. But it is Christ's work and his initiative. We respond to it." 

30/09/2004
"In the Lord's Prayer 'On earth as in heaven' qualifies the preceding three clauses - 'our Father who art in heaven, thy kingdom come, thy will be done'.  We are praying that God's kingdom comes here on earth."

09/03/2006
Fr Gresham said, "In Matthew it is called the 'Kingdom of Heaven' because the Jews had a prohibition on using the name of God. But in Mark it is called the 'Kingdom of God', which is the same thing as the 'Kingdom of Heaven'."

"The Kingdom of God is the reality behind the world we see and feel. We become the inheritors of the reality, the truth of things. This world we see around us is passing away. It is being (or to be?) transformed by the reality of the Kingdom of God." I asked Fr Gresham if we were to be the agents of this transformation. He said yes, he agreed. "St Paul puts it in a different way. The heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of us all. The earthly Jerusalem is passing away, but the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of us all, & is renewing /transforming us."  F.D. Maurice, The Kingdom of God 30/06/06 "F.D.Maurice (1805 - 1872), the theologian, taught the idea that the Kingdom of God was the underlying reality of the world around us, all be it that it might be a hidden reality. F D Maurice got his idea of the Kingdom of God from the whole of the Old Testament (OT). Archbishop Ramsey was the last great exponent of FD Maurice's theology. Fr Eric Mascall was keen on him as well, but his teaching seems to have died with him." "F D Maurice was rather overshadowed by Schweitzer's book 'The Quest for the Historical Jesus', and it is that book which needs to be answered now." On another occasion Fr G said that perhaps Teilhard de Chardin, "in his own peculiar way", was getting at what F D Maurice, in 1850, was getting at. On what reality is 23/12/2004 "In the Victorian era the belief was strong that nothing existed except ideas, that they were the 'real-est' things - this is a Platonic idea. Aristotle said that a table, for instance, exists as itself, a real object."  F D Maurice said reality was the invisible spiritual world you couldn't see, and that this would transform our world. Archbishop Ramsey was keen on the work of F D Maurice."   Fr Gresham believed the transformation of our world happens in revolutions, or crises that break after a lot of little changes. "Millenarians believed Christ would return as a man and rule for 1000 years, and then would come judgement and a new world." But what about the Kingdom of God? 20/04/2004 "The Evangelicals stress Jesus my Saviour. It is a lot of 'me', 'my', 'mine', 'I'. The stress is on 'my' saviour. There is no thought for the Kingdom of God. There is the Scottish chap, Kendrick. He writes no end of hymns. They are all muck. If there is an idea it will simply be repeated. There is no evidence of a chain of thought, of a linking of ideas. There is no beginning, middle and end in these modern hymns." "In churches there is no mention of the Kingdom of God. 'We have a Gospel to proclaim'. We don't! That is the trouble. We get people to sing unrealities. 'Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine'. I got to the end of that at one service and burst into laughter." Fr Gresham then gave examples of lines in the hymn that were false. " 'Sweet sacrament divine'. It is sung in such a soupy way. 'Here for a season, then above'. It is wrong. 'Here for a season, then above',  is wrong. The whole text of the Bible teaches us that eternity is based here on earth."

The disciples thought.... 30/09/2004 Fr Gresham said, "Even at the Ascension the disciples were still asking Jesus, are you going to set up your Kingdom now, meaning he would drive out the Romans and establish a kingdom. It must have been a very hard lesson for them to learn, that the Kingdom of God would be of a different order/nature." "In the 2nd century Irenaeus, Justin the Martyr, and ?Josephus were the leading thinkers. St Justin was the clearest about Christ's return. There was a loss of Jewish understanding after this." "Up to the 4th century there was an expectation of the imminent return of Jesus. In the 4th century St Augustine had to come to terms with the fact that Jesus had not yet returned." Shock of the New 21/07/2005 Fr Gresham said, "Lowther Clarke makes the interesting point that what happened to the disciples when they followed Jesus Christ was unexpected. They were looking for a leader to overthrow the Romans. They didn't expect the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension and Pentecost. All these were surprises to them. They must have been shocks to them, momentous experiences. Of course they couldn't take them in straight away. They would have taken time to come to terms with them and understand them. And in such such circumstances you must expect tentative thinking as people try to sort it all out." "For instance, it took them some time to see that Christ's message and salvation was for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. There are only a few verses in the later Isaiah, in the suffering servant passages, where Christ's universal salvation is spelled out fully. Earlier in Isaiah it says many Gentiles will hold on to each Jew because they learn that salvation is from the Jews." "Of course, Peter might have linked the experience of Pentecost to Joel, where the Spirit is poured out on them. But Peter, being the character he was, probably forgot all about it the next day." What does God want? 21/07/05 Fr Gresham said, "What does God want? What is his plan? It isn't to send some people to heaven and most to hell. It is something to do with the world. And it is eternal. Who knows how long the world will go on, but when the world and time come to an end the eternal will go on." Millenarian beliefs 31/03/05 "Iraeneus was the greatest of the Church Fathers. He wrote a book, 'Against Heresies'. He and Justin Martyr and Hippolytus were all around the same time, 100AD. They all had very strong millenarian beliefs - that Christ's return to this earth was imminent, he would then reign for a 1000 years, and then there would be judgement, and the release of the dead into heaven." "This was strictly(?) wrong. Nowhere in the Bible is there any time delay between Christ's coming again and judgement. Christ's second coming always involves judgement as part of it."  "This 1000 year reign is mentioned in the Book of Revelations, written around 120AD. St John's Gospel was written around 124AD; St John's Gospel's view was that the Crucifixion was the judgement of this world." "Pontius Pilate must take the blame for Christ's crucifixion. The Romans were harsh but they had a rough sense of justice. Pilate wanted to let Christ go, but he didn't. The Jews threatened him. If he let Christ go he was no friend of Caesar. They would inform Caesar. Tradition says he was moved on soon afterwards, and came to a bad end by committing suicide by throwing himself over sea-cliffs around Yugoslavia." "Luther and others believed the millenium started around 300AD, and lasted until 1300AD, when things began to fall apart. "St Paul writes somewhere about the deep things of evil. He said the Devil was bound and restrained now, but he would be let loose to roam the world. Luther and others believed this happened after 1300AD." 30/09/2004 "Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) said the Church denies or dismisses the Millenium. He gives all the references but stays silent about Revelations, chapter 20. He leaves it out. He can't explain it away, so he leaves it out. I think that is dishonest." Whereas Fr Gresham said he saw a good talk given by Bishop Butler, an Anglican who went over to Rome and became a bishop. "Butler had the honesty to admit what he did not know or understand, but at least he brought it into the talk." Judgement happening all the time, now 30/09/2004 "Judgement. Revelations chapter 21. God on a white throne, heaven and earth fleeing from him. This is also in Christina Rosetti's hymn."  (in the bleak midwinter, second verse  'Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.') "That is picture language of the scene of judgement. The striking thing about the scene is that it is timeless. So judgement is always present and began on the cross when the world was judged, and has been going on in time ever since, and judgement is present with us now. Kingdom come -present world is transformed into the Kingdom of God. This happens not at the end of the age, but all the time, now."  Timetable Aquinas has a firm belief that the ordered movements of the stars and planets will become disordered, and we will all be burnt up. And just before that happens we will be taken into heaven and judged. Whereas Revelations has the Second Coming and Judgement occurring after a new heaven and a new earth have come about. The influential Catholic theologian of the last century (? name) has it that the Second Coming will be when time has come to an end and has been replaced by eternity, ie outside time, after time has been completed.