When the Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray, He instructed us to petition our Heavenly Father that His kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9-10).
There are a number of things this may mean. It expresses the petition that all the earth would obey Christ the king as He is obeyed perfectly in heaven. It points to the kingdom of heaven coming down to earth and transforming the world (something similar to what Paul writes in Philippians 3:20-21).¹
In this article, I want to examine the thought of the kingdom of God coming on earth as it is in heaven and what this means for the church, particularly in America’s individualistic culture.
“Not a Religion, A Relationship”
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship.” This declaration is accurate to the degree that Christianity is not a way to earn our way to heaven or earn God’s favor through our good works. In this sense, it is not “religious” when “religion” is defined as human-made ways to get to God. Furthermore, our life of faith is a relationship with the one True and Living God. John writes to believers that “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Earlier, John records Jesus’ words that eternal life is to “know God” (John 17:3). The heart of the Christian faith is fellowship with the Trinity.
However, while this notion of Christianity being a relationship rather than religion is accurate in the above senses, it can be misleading if not properly nuanced. It can lead to the idea that salvation and the life of faith is a personal thing that we experience individually. It may even lead some to believe that things like “going to church” are inherently “religious” rites or activities without meaning. This can lead to an individualistic faith that operates on the principle that if I’m right with God and having a good “relationship” with Him, then I don’t need all the outward “trappings” of religion or to engage in the activities of the Christian faith like baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or gathering with the saints. “I’m just as close to God on a hike by myself or in my bedroom as I am if I go to church and participate in ‘organized’ religion.”
This seems to be a common sentiment in our culture now. We live in an individualistic culture that prioritizes the needs and opportunities of individuals over the group. But it’s not just that. We naturally, soaked in the spirit of our age as we are, think in terms of individual experience. Our faith walk is defined by how our individual relationship with Jesus is doing and that is often, in our minds, defined by how we feel about Him. If we are downtrodden by guilt or shame, we feel far away from God. If we are confident in our standing before God, we feel close to Him.
Even the contrast between “religion” and “relationship” betrays our natural individualistic tendencies. A relationship is something personal and individual. I have a relationship with my wife. And many other people have relationships with her: her parents, siblings, friends, etc. But their relationships are not mine and vice versa. My relationship with my wife is mine. It is personal and “custom” if you will. On the other hand, religion is something bigger than one’s self. If I have a “personal” religion that is “mine” I am a deranged lunatic lost in my own delusion. To have a personal religion is to have a personal delusion. Religions are only recognized as “legitimate” when we share them with others. Even to say that “my religion” is Christianity is to say that I share it with other Christians. If someone asks, “what is your religion?” they are not asking what my personal, custom religion is, but rather, they are asking which religious group I belong to. Religion is by definition collective while relationship is naturally individual and personal.
This is where I see a problem with the notion of Christianity being a “relationship, not a religion”. This phrase sounds good at face value but when we think about it, it is, often unintentionally, expressing an individualist worldview that views faith as a private and customizable thing, not as a participation in a corporate reality with others.
Of course, faith is in many ways personal. I’m not denying that we all, as individuals, have “relationships” with God. We pray personal prayers. We meet Him in His word and He reveals Himself to us. And He certainly loves each of us, as individuals. It’s not like we are in one big mass of humanity that God generically “loves”. He knows our names. We will all, one day, see Him face to face. He knows us and loves us intimately.
The Body, the Church
All that said, I believe our individualist culture has infected our churches to the result that we have lost, in large part, our understanding of the church’s corporate and communal identity.
Take for instance the biblical imagery of the Church as the “bride of Christ”. We find this parallel in places like Ephesians 5, Revelation 19, and Revelation 21. But notice that it is the Church, as a whole, that is Christ’s bride. I am, as an individual, not the bride of Christ. This is why, while affection for Christ is good, the “Jesus is my boyfriend” culture is so cringey. We are not, as individuals, married to Jesus Christ. Our intimacy with God is sweet but when taken in isolation, can become rather inappropriate. Therefore, I am not the bride of Christ but rather we are the bride of Christ, the one singular bride.
Another image used to describe the Church in Scripture is that of Christ’s body. Once again, this body is one body made up of many members (1 Corinthians 12:12). We, as individuals, are members of the body but we are not a body on our own. The Church is a community, a whole corporate body. The Church, in biblical language, is “one”. While this may be hard to reconcile with our experience of denominations, divisions, and dissent within the Church, it is the picture the Bible paints for us. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13, ESV) One Spirit. One body. One.
God’s Kingdom in Heaven
This brings us back full-circle to the idea of God’s kingdom on earth being as it is in heaven. The question of course is twofold: what is God’s kingdom and what does it look like in heaven?
The question of defining God’s kingdom is beyond the scope of this article. God’s kingdom is spiritual but also has physical expressions. God’s kingdom has looked differently throughout redemptive history. There is much debate over whether God’s kingdom is solely spiritual and what Christ’s rule over the nations actually entails practically. These are all things that we don’t have space to discuss here. But we can simply say that the Church is God’s kingdom as Scripture plainly tells us:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Revelation 1:5b-6, ESV
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
1 Peter 2:9, ESV
And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are you to take the scroll
Revelation 5:9-10, ESV
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
These passages refer to the redeemed (i.e. the Church) as the kingdom of God.
So the next question is: what is the kingdom of God (i.e. the Church) like in heaven?
The book of Revelation gives us a picture:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:9-10, ESV
Here is a picture of the faithful and victorious Church, having come through the great tribulation (v. 14). They are a great multitude beyond count “from every nation…tribes…peoples…languages”. And yet, in the midst of all this diversity, there is one song being sung: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Paul tells the Romans to encourage one another and promote unity in the church “that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 15:6, ESV) When we all get to heaven, we shall not all be raising our voices in a cacophony of individual songs to God. We will be praising Him with one voice along with billions of other saints. The personal fellowship with God is not lost, as Revelation 7:17 reminds us, God will wipe away our tears. But even then, the text says that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes“. We will experience restoration and healing in the bosom of our Father as a community of the redeemed. We will be presented to Christ as His bride corporately.
On Earth As In Heaven
What does this mean for us on earth now? How do we work in the Spirit to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven? What does it mean to pray this petition?
One way we do this is to pray for and promote unity in the Church. Of course, this starts on the local church level but it goes beyond that. We want to glorify God with one voice as His Church on earth. This doesn’t mean we can’t have doctrinal differences or differences of practice and ministry. In fact, Paul wrote what he did about the unity of the Church in the context of discussing differences of conscience between Christians!
Unity in the earthly Church does not mean no disagreement. It doesn’t mean that we agree on everything. And there are certainly doctrinal lines that we must draw to protect the Church from false teaching and heresy. But we also ought to understand that we are redeemed to participate in the body of Christ, as the singular Bride of Christ. As such, we can have fellowship with Christians with whom we disagree theologically. We can have fellowship and worship God with Christians from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. In fact, we should if the earthly church is to look anything like the Church in heaven!
This will not be perfectly done this side of heaven and eternity. But we can press on knowing that one day, Christ will return and we will enjoy perfect union with Him as His perfectly united Bride.
Footnotes
¹ See N.T. Wright, Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 100 for the concept of Philippians 3:20 speaking of a “heavenly colony” on earth.
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