THE KINGDOM OF GOD
AND THE GLORY OF THE CROSS
Short Studies in Biblical Theology
By Patrick Schreiner
Crossway 159 pages £11.52
ISBN 978 1 433 558 238
God is king. Living in a 21st-century Western democracy makes that difficult for us to fully grasp. But God’s kingdom is the unifying idea of Scripture, par excellence.
And yet evangelicals have tended to distort it. This is the author’s contention. Patrick Schreiner (son of Tom) is Professor at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon and he carefully defines the kingdom as ‘the King’s power over the King’s people in the King’s place.’ It is not possible to disentangle those three.
Illuminating
Using the Hebrew arrangement of the OT, he takes us on a splendid drive-through from Genesis to Revelation showing how the kingdom theme illuminates everything. After the corruption of the kingdom in Genesis 3, the Law revives the hope of the kingdom, the prophets foreshadow it, the writings reveal wisdom for life in it, the Gospels introduce the king, the Acts and Epistles show the spread of the kingdom community while Revelation uncovers the kingdom goal. Those who expound Scripture will get new inspiration from reading this book. Certainly Schreiner’s take on the Gospels is eye-opening. Matthew focuses on the place, with his continual use of the phrase ‘the kingdom of heaven’. This is not unworldly – heaven meets earth as Jesus is in the church. Mark relates to the power of the kingdom (Jesus’ authority), Luke to the people of the kingdom (the poor and rejected) while John’s highlighting of ‘life’ is of course, life lived with Jesus, the king.
Schreiner uses the biblical picture of a tree to portray the kingdom throughout: the major note struck in the book is that it is through a tree dripping with blood (the cross of Christ the King) that the kingdom must come. His handling of this theme is masterful, challenging and much needed. In our day, as churches have become slicker and shinier, the cause of Christ dwindles. The kingdom can only come through sacrifice. Will we obey the king’s command to take up the cross to plant the kingdom tree?
