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At His resurrection, Jesus purchased our personal salvation, but He did much more. He won a Kingdom.

The wonderful Hillsong worship song This Kingdom reminds us that:

“This Kingdom shall know no end, and its glory shall know no bounds
For the majesty and power of this Kingdom’s King has come.
And this Kingdom’s reign and this Kingdom’s rule
And this Kingdom’s power and authority,
Jesus, God’s righteousness revealed.”

Salvation means wholeness. Personal salvation is wholeness of spirit, soul, and body. Jesus accomplished that in the same three stages that brought wholeness to the Kingdom:

1. Colossians 1:15-17 tells us that “all things were created in Him (God the Son)”.
2. When He came to earth as the man Jesus, He was still God the Son, so all things were still “in Him”. In fact, Col 1:17 says, “all things hold together in Him”. The life of every human being, whether they know it or not, is inextricably interwoven within Jesus and utterly dependent upon Him, which is how His salvation reaches the whole world.
3. When He died, all things “in Him” were de-created, and when He was resurrected, all things “in Him” were re-created. “In Him”, mankind is brought into union with God, which we access by accepting God’s twin gifts of repentance (Acts 11:18) and faith (Ephesians 2:8-10) that “comes by hearing the preaching of Christ” (Romans 10:17).  As partakers of the new Creation in Christ, we have the privilege of sharing Jesus’ intimate relationship with the Father in the Spirit and He makes us whole in spirit, soul, and body.

The Bible has hundreds of statements about this new creation “in Christ”. For example:

• “… we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard Him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is (or there is) a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-17)
• “knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin.” (Romans 6:6)
• “Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:11)

Clearly, God planned our personal salvation with passionate loving care. Clearly also, salvation is central to our personal well-being in this life and the next. That’s why we pay so much attention to it. So, can there really be much more than personal salvation?

Yes indeed – because Jesus’ resurrection affected more than individuals. Col 1:15-17 says:

“He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities — all things were created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

While this verse says: “all things” were created in God the Son, it draws particular attention to “thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities”. So, the death and resurrection of the King of Kings de-created and re-created “thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities” that were “in Him” and brought wholeness to them as well as to individuals.

The apostle Peter tells us that the Old Testament prophets predicted the glories of this new creation in Christ when he said:

“The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.” (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Those Old Testament prophets were shown much about the re-created “thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities (or rulers) listed in Colossians 1:15-17.  For example, Isaiah prophesied:

“It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 2:2-3)

These verses from Isaiah depict the re-created Zion in Christ’s re-created Jerusalem. According to Heb 12:18-24, Jerusalem has been re-created in Christ as the church. Zion used to be the hill in Jerusalem where the palace and the temple were co-located so that God could rule Israel through kings who sought the Word of the Lord through prophets, priests, and the Scriptures.

The New Jerusalem

In the new creation, every Christian who yields whatever authority they have to Christ, whether over self, family, business, church, or nation, dwells with Him in the new Zion, learning to “reign as kings in life through the one Man Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17 AmpC)

Zion has been re-created in Christ as the headquarters of Christ’s Kingdom. It is that part of the church where believers reign with Christ. We can’t do it on our own, and He won’t do it for us. The re-created Zion is where we outwork the true meaning of the name Israel, “ruler with God”.

Warwick Marsh posted recently about the extraordinary influence that Baal, Molech, and Ashtoreth have gained in our culture.  In my view, these demons gained influence because we tend to apply the Gospel of the kingdom only to individuals. As a result, many “make a decision for Christ”, but never yield authority over all their decisions, responsibilities, and relationships to Him.

That’s why some politicians are Christians on Sunday, but on weekdays support “secular” decisions that corrupt families. It’s why the jurisprudence of some Christian judges is pagan determinism, and why Christian public servants offer advice that comes from Mammon, the “god” of everyone who loves power, money, or riches more than God.

We need greater emphasis on the King and our role in His Kingdom. Imagine what great nations we would be if Christians at every level of society yielded authority over self, family, business, church, nation, etc, to Christ, and reigned with Him to produce the fruits of His Kingdom in every realm of responsibility. Fruits like justice, freedom, and prosperity would bless everyone in our realm and make the non-Christians in our realm hungry for those fruits in their own realms.

That Kingdom belongs to us, not the godless woke brigade. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). After we receive personal salvation, we are all called to “reign as kings in life through … Christ” (Romans 5:17 AmpV), advancing His Kingdom that brings wholeness to individuals, families, businesses, churches, and nations, and increases true knowledge and science.  And we can expect even more than that good fruit because Jesus likened His Kingdom to a great stone when He said:

“whoever falls on this stone will be broken;
but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” (Matthew 21:43-44)

Jesus was not saying anything new. The prophet Daniel was also shown Christ’s Kingdom as a great stone that would fall on the financial, religious, political, and military Colossus known as Babylon. In our age, Babylon is controlled by prince demons that ruled ancient Babylon’s fraudulent monetary system, Medo-Persia’s mystery religions, Greece’s plutocratic mobocracy, and Rome’s crushing use of armed force. Despite the vast influence of Babylon in our age, it is being crushed into tiny pieces by Christ’s stone Kingdom, and the bits are being blown away by the wind of the Holy Spirit. (see Daniel 2:31-45)

“And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold.  A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter.  The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.” (Daniel 2:44-45)

Christ’s Kingdom not only produces delicious fruit; it crushes Babylon. Those two Kingdom processes produced the priceless heritage enjoyed by common law countries. Since the time of King Alfred the Great in the 9^th century, no royal heir in England has been able to take the throne until, at a Christian coronation, they yield their authority to Christ and promise to reign in accordance with the Bible.

When our judges, politicians, public servants, and military officers promise allegiance to this monarch, they obligate themselves to perform their public duties in ways that help the monarch fulfil those coronation promises. The promise of allegiance is meant to assure the community that public office holders will not use their positions to impose their personal beliefs on us or change the Christian foundations of our system.

Of course, both good and evil people have held these positions, but Christ seems to take them at their word. He produces the fruit of His kingdom among us, while two-thirds of the world’s precious people suffer under Babylon’s dictators, disease, and poverty.  Millions of migrants every year leave family and homeland and even risk their lives trying to live in common law countries like Australia, Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States of America. When they live among us, they may encounter Christ, but sadly, will seldom hear how to work with Him to produce the fruit of His Kingdom in their homeland.

Fake news tells them that democracy produced our good fruit, but that cannot be true because our institutions did not become truly representative for many years after justice, freedom, and prosperity were established. Nor does our fruit come from “Christian values”, as godless “secular” politicians tell Christians to keep them happy. No one has ever lived by Christian values well enough to deserve God’s blessings.  Christian values are a symptom, not the cause. Justice, freedom, and prosperity are fruits of Christ’s Kingdom.

By yielding authority to Christ, our Christian forebears dwelt with Him in His re-created Zion. They learned to reign as kings in life through Him, and He worked with them to produce justice, freedom, prosperity and many other fruits of His Kingdom. The highlights of that history are recounted in my article, “Australia’s Priceless Heritage of Freedom Under Threat”.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.