The Kingdom of Heaven by CM Rippey

But the world will never satisfy that longing. Has it before? That is the kingdom in which we need to hear, trust, and hope.

I’ve been wanting to answer the question, “What is the gospel? What was it to the biblical characters?” And I don’t just mean our testimonies that show the gospel, nor the fact that it translates as “good news.” What did Jesus think of it as? So I have been making notes in the past two years of Bible devotions of every time I read the word or the theme of the gospel. While I’m still working on a theological definition, and while there are a few other elements in the gospel, there is one thing you would pick up clearly if you did this in your reading time:

It’s all about a kingdom.

Here is the shortest-ever history of this kingdom:

The cry for justice, and thank God there is one, means nothing without God’s purposes. While I applaud the cry for justice and figuring out how the worldly governments are to best usher it, my hope is not in the idea that they’ll pull it off. We will always want Genesis 2 but won’t get it until God’s final hour. Our hands should be busy here and our eyes toward the eternal kingdom. My trust is in the King that brings actual peace and justice (which can’t be dichotomized from righteousness, by the way). I am living for the Kingdom where the eternal King again walks beside me. I long for Genesis 2 again. Even the secularists long for this, but don’t know how to recognize it. Please don’t think we can get there without looking to the one who was lifted up on the cross. That is the gospel. No one denies that we long for a better world. We’re all crying for a good Kingdom, with a loving King, in which to live. But the world will never satisfy that longing. Has it before? That is the kingdom in which we need to hear, trust, and hope. The gospel can be described through the lens of a kingdom.