2.3 The Kingdom-Unfolding

An essential part of defining completion is to define the ACTION of the Kingdom. Not just – What is the Kingdom? But even more – What is the action of the Kingdom?

The actions of the Kingdom are to overcome, to subdue, and to increase. These are three different things, but three things that must be understood together. Chapter 6, “A Complete Victory,” will be an in-depth and practical understanding of these things inside the present short age of “the fulness of times.” In this lesson, we want to paint a picture of the larger unfolding of the Kingdom now and forever.

The Way. Here is a short bit taken from the second page for John 14:20 in The Jesus Secret II.

The Way. Living inside of Jesus is my Way to connect with the Father sharing my life with me. Jesus living inside of me is the Father’s way to connect with me sharing His life with Him, that God might enter creation through me. Life itself is my Way, moment by moment and step by step, not ‘to’ something, but rather life-unfolding, the living and dynamic expression of God with me unveiled new every morning forever.

The very moment I wrote those words, in April of 2022, I knew that something brand-new had entered into my walk with God. In that moment, the Kingdom of God became personal to me, that is, to Father and me together.

Out from Covenant. Kingdom always comes out from Covenant. Covenant is Jesus always connecting me with God and God with me. This connection is by Living Spirit Word. The result of Covenant is an ever-increasing shared life with the Father.

It is that shared life, then, out from which Kingdom proceeds in every next step we take. This dynamic relationship, a relationship that reaches out to include all other believers in Jesus with whom a believer has any form of direct interaction, that is the source of the Kingdom of God forever. Kingdom is out from each one and out from all at the same time.

An Ecosystem. In its larger sense, the Kingdom of God is an ecosystem inside of which all living things of heaven and earth belong in safety and in abundance. The Kingdom, then, describes all the interactions together of living things, earthly and heavenly, that are in proximity to each other. All of these interactions are continually beneficial for each, yet the whole in each local place is a wonder.

There are two qualities, then, that make this ecosystem to be the Kingdom of God. The first is God at Home, acknowledged by all, and the second is those sons of God who make it all happen for everyone. These two happen simultaneously, in conjunction with each other.

Age-Unfolding. Just as God is dependent on Christ inside of us in order to share the unfolding of our lives with us, so in the same way, God is dependent on Christ in His body, His firstfruits, in order to share the unfolding of the Kingdom with all.

Now, I believe that the Spirit gave me the term “age-unfolding” as the meaning of the Greek idiom, “aeonian.” Technically, the word means “a quality of the age to come.” I suggest that “aeonian” is an idiom because it was used by the Greeks inside their pagan “knowledge.” The extraordinary thing is that God found many words and concepts in Greek pagan understanding that were useful to conveying His Spirit realities inside the New Testament. The point is this, it is the Spirit that must impart to us God’s meanings, especially of idioms and metaphors.

Out from Us. Here is the rule of God’s meaning. – Through Jesus, God forms or fashions the ages (Hebrews 1).

The ages are not fixed. They are not something already established now bearing down on us. Yet what about my metaphor of the film strip? The problem is the Calvinist choice to translate God’s desire into God’s “WILL.” “The will of God” as a fixed absolute is not a Biblical concept, yet it is forced into Christian thinking as a tare planted by the Calvinist translators. Here is how I understand this seeming contradiction. God’s purposes are fixed, and those purposes are set as the completion of a season or an age. Then, the life of God, shared with us inside the unfolding of each moment, flows forward towards that time of visible completion. The “film strip” comes out from us every moment.

A Living Flow. God as He is can be known by us only through Christ, that is as Personal Living Spirit Word. God is a flow, living and dynamic, energeoing and sustaining. Yes, God’s intentions will prevail, but only through love, only through a dynamic interaction through faith with every living thing.

Some have translated the word aeonian as “age-abiding.” But this remains a Calvinist concept. And thus, age-abiding life becomes a life that “survives” the ages, as Bilbo Baggins said, “Like butter spread over too much bread.” The LIFE is the thing. Life is God inside of me, God together with me.

Sharing Desire Together. You see, here is the verse that must be at home inside our definitions of the desire of the ages and the unfolding of the Kingdom. Accomplish your salvation to full completion in fear and trembling, for God is the present and active energeoing inside of you, both to desire and to energeo for the sake of good pleasure and satisfaction (Philippians 2:12-13).

Jesus alone causes my desire and God’s desire to energeo together. This is His greatest ability. Therefore we assert that this LIFE is the greater thing, and the unfolding of days is the lesser thing, and the lesser COMES OUT FROM the greater – age-unfolding LIFE.

Our Job. The concept of the film strip, then, is not something coming AT us, but rather, of God’s Pro-Thesis coming out from us, out from our life – energeia and desire – shared with God.

Humans are the mechanism. And what is our job? Our job is to call all things GOOD. No moment or circumstance can be good unless we call it to be good. Life in the in-part Church age continues to be horrifying because Christians are not doing their job. They are too busy “getting out of here,” that is, calling their present moment “evil.” But the Kingdom is not me calling my next moment and circumstance to be good, for that is my life, and not yet life for many. The job of the Kingdom is to include others.

Our Focus. The ninth ruling verse of the Bible, our ministry of setting creation free through a travail of the Spirit shared with God implies something profoundly important. This goal implies that, as we are seated here upon the Mercy Seat inside of God, the focus of the passion of our hearts reaches out to include all of creation, each in their season. This passion is Jesus inside His body.

Our desire to be at Home with the Father, to know the Father at Home in our hearts, then becomes our desire to see every member of creation to be at home as well. And so we could say that the unfolding of the Kingdom is the building of and provision for a home for every living thing.

An Entire Ecosystem. The task of building a home for every living thing, the place of their belonging, sings inside my heart as my deep purpose. I suspect that, upon receiving a body swallowed up by LIFE, I will work inside of a mighty energeia and drive towards accomplishing all the specific details of such a wondrous task.

Yet the unfolding of the Kingdom is not just a house, but an entire ecosystem in perfect harmony together. And my task would not just be to design and build, but also to teach others, that they might work as well.

The Kingdom unfolds in our immediate vicinity and inside our present interactions before it ever could reach beyond. And the Kingdom unfolds from Source to Completion.

Seeing the Whole Picture. The Kingdom is the ordering of all things, created and uncreated, into a living harmony. Humans are the only created forms that are fully of heaven and fully of earth always. Animals will likely not see angels, though they can sense them, but humans see both. The building of a community gives place for all heavenly things and all earthly things together. Then, there is also the inclusion of God through Spirit and Word and through humans. Humans are God’s entrance.

We know the Kingdom only as that with which each of us personally interacts, the local expression, yet we always transfer our understanding from the local to the universal.

A Pattern Approach. There are many patterns we could use to discuss the unfolding of the Kingdom. We could use the seven principles of completion, or we could use the ten patterns of home. We could also use the pattern of story or even the pattern of mystery and the layout of the ten ruling verses inside of mystery. We could use the pattern of the Tabernacle, not the way into the Tabernacle, but rather the path from the heart of God in the Holy of Holies out to creation set free. Another pattern would be the bringing forth of life and the nurturing of family – or we could set out the meaning of an ecosystem, the principles by which it works together.

Patterns are what makes things real, and give each a place. In fact, we will bring in a pattern language for the unfolding of the Kingdom later in this text.

A First Simple Pattern. For our purposes here, I want to use a very simple pattern, based on the Ark going forth, this is a pattern of movement. Out from each – through the Church – into all creation. We could say it this way. – The Church is the only passageway through which God, coming out from each one, can enter into and be known by all created things.

Let’s place this pattern of movement against our three action verbs of the unfolding Kingdom – to overcome, to subdue, and to increase. Let’s also use Paul’s verse of three, Romans 14:17. For the kingdom of God is not [outward things], but just innocence, peace, and joy inside of the Spirit of Devotion.

To Overcome. Although I have been free of the Calvinist definition of “to overcome” for some time now, it is only in the last few months that I have entered into the true Kingdom definition. To overcome is another word for “to be turned around.”

The overcomer is one who sees all things through God’s eyes alone, being seated upon the Mercy Seat through faith alone. The overcomers are those who believe that God is telling us the truth in utter certainty. This cannot be achieved, for God already put us here the moment we were conceived of Him. Those who “seek to achieve” are refusing to believe.

This confident certainty inside of God is monumental, the deepest value for which God seeks, the only thing that pleases Him, Jesus proven faithful and true.

Out from Each. We begin with the meaning of Paul’s Kingdom term, “just innocence.”

Giving thanks comes first. Giving thanks, in all of its expanded forms, is the only thing that causes us to know that we are inside of God; giving thanks is the only thing that turns us around. Then, inside of giving thanks for the sake of all, it is speaking Christ, every Word God speaks made personal as us, that causes us to know the Father and thus to see out from His eyes. Those who speak Christ, but do not give thanks inside of and for the sake of all, justifying God in all circumstances, regardless, only deceive themselves, for it is not God they want.

The unfolding of the Kingdom then proceeds out from those whom God has seized into Himself and into His throne; it comes from nowhere else. The “gospel of the Kingdom” has not yet been preached.

To Subdue. Only overcomers are able to subdue in truth. All other sources of subjection are the beast. To subdue is the inflexible requirement for honesty; it is the “rod of iron” in the hand of a broken vessel.

Why does it have to be a broken vessel? – Because only one who knows no sufficiency in self will give all respect to the other, even while continuing to require honesty. A broken vessel is the absence of contempt, found in one who carries all with him inside of God, and especially this dishonest person squirming away from the truth of “I am wrong.” Two things define lostness, the absence of “I am wrong” (unbelief) and the presence of “woe is me” (lying). But the one who subdues is inflexible inside of all respect.

Through the Church. Paul’s Kingdom term “peace” defines the Church and all interrelationships taking place inside any gathering together. The unfolding Kingdom comes out from faith and through peace. Peace is the result, but the cause of peace is loving one another.

Peace will come into the world ONLY as the people of the world can see small Communities of Christ, close by – in their vicinity, speaking their language, and in those Communities, peace, that is, Christians loving one another in their culture and dialect. “Come and see” is the gospel of the Kingdom, and it must be found in every language and people group on earth before God’s completion comes.

Come and see – Father at Home. Come and see – Christians loving one another. Every eye shall see Him – where He dwells.

To Increase. Increase actually comes third, although much Christian “evangelism” tries to put it first, just like Adam did. So God created man in His own image (overcome through faith) …And God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth (increase in joy) and subdue (subdue into peace)” Genesis 1:27-28).

Adam was busy with the “be fruitful” part BEFORE he rejected being like God and thus threw the whole creation into war. To be like God is to be a broken vessel, to humble yourself. The increase of the Kingdom, then, comes only out from the PEACE such a one brings inside the Church. All of Adam’s children came out from his contempt for Eve.

Into All Creation. Paul’s Kingdom word, joy, is the increase we bring into the lives of others. As Paul said to the Thessalonians, “You are my glory and my joy.” This is the river of life going forth from our bellies, from the Church together, bringing life and healing to all, bringing all into the knowledge of God. Father at Home, Father revealed, is abundance in every direction.

The Kingdom of God, unfolding out from those who sit upon Mercy, through a Church inside of which all can see God Love, brings an unending increase of life and joy into every particulate of God’s creation. As Isaiah said, “Of the increase of His Kingdom, there shall be no end.”

The Gospel of the Kingdom. I made an extraordinary statement just above – “The gospel of the Kingdom has not yet been preached.” Translating telos into either “perfect” or “the end” has caused so much damage in Christian thinking. In the JSV it is translated only as “complete.” Complete means – as God intends.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14 – a Calvinist translation). The Kingdom has nothing to do with “the end,” but rather, God’s completion. There is no gospel of the Kingdom being preached, there is no increase except – faith (the sons of God) energeoing all the way through love (the Church) into power, that is increase (joy in creation) (Galatians 5:6 – modified).

Father at Home. I have on my shelf one of the most important books ever written in human history titled The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander. Every time I read through even the first few pages, I am filled with such wonder and great anticipation. (We will bring Alexander into our picture later in this text.)

You see, I am always adapting such wondrous ideas into the knowledge of God and the unfolding of the Kingdom. Here is Alexander’s introductory quote. “To you, mind of no mind, in whom the timeless way was born.” Here is how I hear it. “To You, Father at Home, in whom all enduring ways are born.”

I always discover Father at Home in everything, for Father at Home is the only One for whom I am ever looking.