The Kingdom of God in Hebrews

Introduction

The kingdom of God became a topic of great interest in biblical scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Perhaps not surprisingly, scholars could not agree on the meaning of Jesus’s proclamation of the kingdom.^[1] Classical liberalism rejected any historical dimension of the kingdom rooted in a risen and coming savior, opting instead to limit the kingdom to God’s reign in the hearts of individual people. Proponents of the Social Gospel distilled the kingdom into an ethical system that confronts societal injustices. God’s kingdom, they argued, would come only through righteous action in the world. Dispensationalists pushed the kingdom almost entirely into a future millennial reign of Christ when God would fulfill his promises to a restored national Israel living in Palestine. Liberation theologians saw the kingdom of God manifest in the alleviation of poverty and oppressive power structures, while reconstructionists emphasized the need for governments in every nation to submit to the reign of the Messiah Jesus.

1. Thousands of publications on the kingdom of God appeared in the twentieth century alone. See Lesław Chrupcała, The Kingdom of God: A Bibliography of 20th Century Research (Jerusalem: Franciscan, 2007).

With so many perspectives about the nature of the kingdom of God in biblical scholarship, it is not surprising that a lack of clarity about the nature of God’s kingdom still pervades many churches. It is common to hear Christians today use the word “kingdom” to describe all manner of activities: “kingdom work,” “kingdom perspective,” “kingdom building,” “kingdom growth,” “kingdom minded,” and so forth. While such language is not wrong in everyday conversation, it is rather ambiguous. I. Howard Marshall’s statement written over three decades ago still resonates today:

Although the phrase [the Kingdom of God] has been the subject of much biblical research in recent years, and although it is banded about with great frequency in discussions of Christian social action, it is unfortunately often the case that it is used in a very vague manner and that there is a lack of clear biblical exposition in the churches on the meaning of the term.^[2]

2. I. Howard Marshall, Jesus the Saviour: Studies in New Testament Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1990), 213; cited in Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A. Peterson, eds., The Kingdom of God, Theology in Community (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 23.

Despite the multiplicity of perspectives and ongoing debates about the nature of the kingdom of God, the influence of biblical theology has helped conservative scholarship arrive at a consensus that the kingdom of God is about God’s reign over the earth through human vicegerents. Graeme Goldsworthy says the kingdom of God is “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule.”^[3] Jeremy Treat helpfully articulates how the kingdom of God in redemption conforms to God’s design for the kingdom in creation: “God’s reign through his servant-kings over creation,” becomes “God’s redemptive reign through Christ and his reconciled servant-kings over the new creation.”^[4]

3. Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2000), 87.

4. Jeremy R. Treat, The Crucified King: Atonement and Kingdom in Biblical and Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014), 43.

Peter Gentry and Steve Wellum have demonstrated that the kingdom of God is not an isolated theme in Scripture, but foundational to Scripture’s covenantal framework.^[5] They argue that the metanarrative of Scripture is bound together by a series of covenants that progressively reveal God’s plan to establish his kingdom through a servant-king. To correctly understand the nature of God’s kingdom, we must keep the whole Bible’s story in mind, and here is where Hebrews is so helpful. In what follows, I will show from Hebrews how the kingdom of God is directly tied to the resurrected Son of God and how seeing Christ’s resurrection is directly related to understanding and defining the kingdom of God.

5. Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2012).

Hebrews and the Kingdom of God

Hebrews helps us understand the relationships between the biblical covenants and their fulfillment in Christ’s sacrificial death and enthronement in heaven. Hebrews unpacks the meaning of the kingdom of God within the framework of the biblical story. While the word “kingdom” (basileia) appears only twice in Hebrews (Heb. 1:8; 12:28),^[6] these two references to the “kingdom” bookend the theological argument of the epistle. The kingdom Christ rules in righteousness and uprightness (Heb. 1:8–9) is the unshakeable kingdom that we receive by faith in his perfect salvation (Heb. 12:28).

6. The word “kingdoms” appears in Hebrews 11:33 where it refers to the kingdoms of men, not the kingdom of God.

In between these two references to the kingdom, Hebrews answers some of the most pertinent theological questions about the kingdom of God: What is the relationship between the kingdom and the cross? What are the present and future realities of the kingdom? What aspects of the kingdom are “already” and what belongs to the “not yet?” When Jesus sat down at the right hand of God in heaven, does this fulfill Old Testament messianic hopes or does their fulfillment await a future millennial kingdom? Is the place of Christ’s kingdom the heavenly realm or the earthly sphere? Should we expect the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdom of our Lord and Christ before Christ comes again? Hebrews speaks to each of these questions.

The theological message of Hebrews is about the establishment of God’s kingdom through the divine and human Son who has been enthroned in heaven as the Davidic Messiah and priestly mediator of the new covenant. In Hebrews, the kingdom comes through a covenant mediator. If the storyline of Scripture is about God’s plan to establish his kingdom on earth through a series of covenants with men, then I hope to demonstrate in this essay that Hebrews (perhaps more clearly than any other New Testament book) presents the resurrected Christ as the fulfillment of the biblical story. He is the divine and incarnate Son of God, the last Adam and Davidic king, who fulfills God’s creation design for humanity to rule the world as priest-kings from the sanctuary and definitively inaugurates God’s kingdom through his sacrificial death and new covenant mediation.

The Divine and Human Son

As I will show, the kingdom of God is first and foremost about God, but it is also about God’s plan to reign through a human son in covenant relationship with God. The New Testament plainly reveals that God himself became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ to establish his own kingdom over the earth. God’s reign and human mediation come together in the person of Jesus. Hebrews 1:1–4 introduces us to “a Son” who is both divine and human (Heb. 1:2). He is the apex of God’s revelation, God’s final and climactic word spoken in redemptive history because he is God, and because he ushered in the last days by fulfilling Old Testament promises and expectations (Heb. 1:1–2). The Son is the divine agent of creation (Heb. 1:2), the radiance of God’s glory and exact imprint of his nature (Heb. 1:3), and the providential sustainer of the universe (Heb. 1:3). He is also the human messianic Son who made purification for sins (Heb. 1:3), rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven to take his seat at God’s right hand (Heb. 1:3). The kingdom comes through the eternal Son in relation to the Father who became the Messianic Son of David to accomplish our great salvation.^[7]

7. I first heard this way of speaking about Christ’s divine and human sonship (the divine Son who became the messianic/covenantal son) from Steve Wellum’s Christology lectures at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. See also R. B. Jamieson, The Paradox of Sonship: Christology in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2021).

A Davidic Son

Hebrews 1:1–4 and the catena of Old Testament citations that follow (Heb. 1:5–14) depend heavily on Davidic messianic texts (see Table 1). According to Hebrews 1, the hope for a Davidic Son to rule God’s kingdom has been fulfilled in the resurrection and enthronement of Christ in heaven.

8. A slightly modified version of this table is in my book Matthew H. Emadi, The Royal Priest: Psalm 110 in Biblical Theology, New Studies in Biblical Theology 61 (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022), 173.

Upon his resurrection and ascension, Christ was “appointed heir of all things” in fulfillment of Psalm 2:8. His kingdom is not relegated to the land of Israel; instead, the nations and the ends of the earth belong to him (Ps. 2:8). The resurrected Christ has taken his seat at God’s right hand in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1 (Heb. 1:3, 13). He mediates God’s reign even now as he waits until the day when all of his enemies will be made a footstool for his feet (Ps. 110:1). Upon his enthronement in heaven, Christ was “begotten” as God’s Son, meaning he was installed in the office of messianic kingship (Ps. 2:7; 2 Sam. 7:14; more on this below). God promised David in Psalm 89:27 that David’s greater son would become “the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (cf. Heb. 1:6). Jesus received the privileges of the “firstborn” by defeating sin and death. He is the first man to rise from the grave; the first man of the new creation, and has, therefore, obtained the inheritance of the cosmos and dominion in this age and the age to come (cf. Eph. 1:19–21). Hebrews’ use of Psalm 45:6–7 in Hebrews 1:8–9 builds on the Davidic typology. Psalm 45:6 addressed Israel’s king as “God” not because the king was divine, but because he represented God’s righteous rule on earth. Israel’s king in Psalm 45 was a type of a better king to come. Jesus not only represents God’s righteous rule as the Davidic Son, but he, unlike Israel’s king, is God incarnate.^[9] The scepter of Jesus’s kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. Unlike fallen kings of the earth, Jesus loves righteousness and hates wickedness. Justice and righteousness are the foundation of his throne, and his kingdom will endure forever (cf. Ps. 89:14).

9. Carson writes, “It is virtually impossible not to see that when God addresses the Son with the words, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,’ the words, ‘O God’ cannot be taken hyperbolically as they could with David and his immediate heirs. The Son, quite simply, is to be thought of as God.” D.A. Carson, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 59–61.

Kingdom Through a Covenantal Son

In the storyline of Scripture, the hopes of the Davidic Covenant are grounded in God’s covenant with Adam. God made Adam in his image to take dominion over the earth and establish God’s kingdom (Gen. 1:26–28). To be made in God’s image meant that Adam was God’s covenantal son and servant-king. Sons represent their fathers; they do what their fathers do. God is king, so Adam was a servant-king. Adam was not only a king, but a priest in the garden-temple, called to protect the garden’s sacred space from the serpent (Gen. 2:15). Adam failed in his task by sinning against God. God’s people were now subject to death. God’s place (the garden) was now off limits to sinful people and the earth would bear thorns and thistles. God’s rule through human image-bearers would need to be reclaimed in a world under the tyranny of Satan.

God did not abandon his plan to establish his kingdom through an image-bearing son after Adam’s failure. He promised Eve that one of her offspring would defeat the Serpent (Gen. 3:15). In time, Eve’s son would restore humanity’s crown as king of the earth. As the story of redemption progresses, Adam’s role is picked up by key covenantal figures: Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David. When God promised David that David’s offspring would build God’s house (temple) and exist in a Father-son relationship with God, David knew that these promises recaptured Eden’s glory (2 Sam. 7:19).^[10] The promises of the Davidic covenant carried forward God’s kingdom project that began at creation. He would bring blessing to the nations in fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and represent God’s rule on earth as a priest-king and faithful son—the true expression of the image of God in man.

10. Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, 399.

The Typology of the King

Kingdom through covenant mediator is the framework that makes sense out of Hebrews’ Christology and use of the Old Testament. For example, the author’s use of Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews 1:5—“You are my Son, today I have begotten you”—does not immediately refer to God’s eternal decree.^[11] The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, but Hebrews 1:5 is not about the ontological trinity. Neither should we understand the author’s use of Psalm 2:7 (in Hebrews 1:5; 5:5) or Psalm 110:1 (in Hebrews 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12–13), or Psalm 40:6–8 (in Hebrews 10:5–7) as a form of prosopological exegesis.

11. I interpret the quotation of Psalm 2:7 in Hebrews 1:5a as a parallel statement to the author’s allusion to Psalm 2:8 in Hebrews 1:2b. The Son who was “appointed heir of all things” (Heb. 1:2b) was installed in the office of messianic Sonship upon his enthronement in heaven. Alternatively, John Webster interprets the Son’s appointment in Hebrews 1:2b to refer to an “eternal, inner-divine relation” of God and the Son. The Son’s appointment, according to Webster, is not “an event in time between God and creature,” but is instead an enactment of eternal relations, a statement about who God “eternally is.” The Son’s appointment, therefore, “refers to the pre-temporal decision in which God the Father purposes that the Son should be the one in whom he creates, upholds and redeems the creation, and so expresses his rule over all things.” John Webster, “One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in The Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 82.

These psalms in their original contexts did not reveal a conversation between the Father and the Son before the world began. Instead, Hebrews interprets the Old Testament typologically. God’s plan for an image-bearing, covenantal son to rule the world has now been typologically fulfilled in the incarnate and resurrected Son. When the Messiah, Israel’s king, was installed in his office, he was “begotten today” as God’s son. That is, he was installed in Adam’s office to represent God’s rule in the world. Israel’s Davidic king was a type of Adam; Jesus is the antitype^[12] of Adam and David. He is indeed the eternal Son, but he is also the faithful and obedient human Son, the last Adam, the greater Son of David, the purest expression of the image of God in man. Dominion over the earth has been restored to humanity in Christ, the new Adam and true king of Israel (Heb. 1:8–9).

Angels Do Not Wear Humanity’s Crown

A typological understanding of Hebrews’ use of the Old Testament helps us see why Hebrews compares Christ to angels and what implications this comparison has for understanding the kingdom of God in Scripture. God never intended for angels to rule his kingdom. His plan from the beginning was for a son-priest-king to mediate his reign over the earth. Commentators are right to observe that the comparison of Christ with angels in Hebrews 1 demonstrates the superiority of Christ’s new covenant revelation. Angels were mediators of the old covenant (Heb. 2:1), but God has spoken a better and climactic word in Christ (Heb. 1:1–2). The logic of the comparison between Christ and angels, however, goes much deeper than revelatory supremacy.

12. The word “antitype” refers to the person or thing that corresponds to the type. The antitype is the future fulfillment of the type.

Hebrews 2:5–9 demonstrates why the divine Son of God had to become a flesh and blood man (not an angel) by appealing to Psalm 8. When David asked the question, “What is man?” in Psalm 8, he answered it by reflecting on Genesis 1:26–28. God crowned his image bearers with “glory” and “honor” and gave them dominion over the works of his hands and placed all things under their feet (Ps. 8:6). No angel was ever given such regal status. Due to Adam’s sin and transgression, we do not see all things subjected to humanity (Heb. 2:8). We still eat bread by the sweat of our brow, thorns and thistles still plague our gardens, earthquakes still level cities, tornadoes still wreak havoc on towns, diseases weaken our bodies, and death still claims every human life. People live 80 or 90 years before they are buried in the earth. The dust takes dominion over us.

There is one man, however, who has recaptured humanity’s glory. For God to accomplish our redemption, God the Son had to become man. Only a man, not an angel, could represent fallen humanity. Only a man could make atonement for sins, reconcile us to God, conquer death, reclaim humanity’s crown, and establish God’s kingdom over the earth. God never gave angels the status of image-bearing sons. He never said to an angel, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion” (Gen. 1:28), or “You are my Son, today I have begotten you,” (Ps. 2:7), or “Sit at my right hand” (Ps. 110:1). God said these things to human vicegerents; and thus, he said them typologically to the incarnate and resurrected Christ, the highest of the kings of the earth.

Jesus was made for a little while lower than the angels in his state of humiliation (Heb. 2:9). He lived an obedient life for us and died an obedient death for us. Humans, not angels, needed a “pioneer” to lead a new exodus of salvation (Heb. 2:10; 12:2). Jesus is the Son who leads many sons to glory (Heb 2:10). No angel could save us from death; no angel could make atonement for our sins; no angel could accomplish our redemption; no angel could establish God’s kingdom and restore dominion to humanity in a new creation.

The Kingdom Through the Cross

Hebrews helps us understand the relationship between the kingdom and the cross and between the Christus Victor and penal substitutionary motifs of the atonement. The cross is the prerequisite to Jesus’s installation as king over the cosmos. Fulfilling Psalm 110:1, Jesus sat on his throne at the right hand of the Majesty on High only after he made purification for sins (Heb. 1:3). When “Christ offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God” (Heb. 10:12). Jesus reigns as the messianic king because he successfully accomplished his sin-purifying work on the cross. Suffering is the path to glory. More precisely, his substitutionary death is the path to his glory and ours.

Jesus’s cross-work not only made full atonement for sins, it conquered Satan and spiritual forces of evil (Heb. 2:14–15; cf. Eph. 1:19–22; Col. 2:15). Jesus had to undo Adam’s failure and to defeat our enemies (spiritual rulers and authorities) to establish God’s kingdom. Only “through death” was Jesus able to “destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil” (Heb. 2:14). Satan was not, however, the object of Christ’s sacrifice. Jesus’s substitutionary death propitiated God’s wrath and reconciled us to God (Heb. 2:17). By paying the record of our debt in full, Satan’s power of accusation has been rendered null and void (cf. Zech. 3:1; Rev. 12:10). Satan cannot prosecute us in God’s courtroom by the standard of God’s own law because Jesus paid the law’s penalty in full for us. Satan cannot keep us in fear by holding death and condemnation over our heads because Jesus’s sacrifice has put away sin (Heb. 9:26). His blood has secured our “eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). Christ obtained victory over Satan through his sin-bearing death. Christus victor comes through penal substitution. The kingdom comes through a blood stained cross.^[13]

13. Treat, The Crucified King, 193–226.

A Kingdom Ruled by a Melchizedekian Priest-King

Hebrews depends heavily on Psalm 110, which conveys David’s belief that God’s kingdom would come through a Melchizedekian priest-king. Melchizedek was a gentile priest-king of Salem who blessed Abraham^[14] after Abraham’s victory in battle (Gen. 14:18).^[15] He was a servant-king and worshipper of the true God (Gen. 14:19–20). Melchizedek’s significance in redemptive history is tied to his association with Abraham. Melchizedek’s priesthood is the kind of priesthood capable of blessing Abraham, the recipient of the covenant promises.

14. For the sake of simplicity, I am using the name “Abraham” even though in Genesis 14 Abraham’s name is still “Abram.”

15. Psalm 76:2 identifies Salem with Zion (Jerusalem).

David’s belief that the Messiah would hold Melchizedek’s priestly office seems to indicate his belief that the Mosaic covenant, its sacrifices, and its Levitical priesthood would come to an end. “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Heb. 7:12). Not bound by the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant, Melchizedek’s priesthood is a permanent priesthood—“you are priest forever” (Ps. 110:4). Without record of his genealogical heritage, birth, or death, the only testimony we have of Melchizedek in Genesis 14 is that he lives (Heb. 7:3, 8). This of course does not mean Melchizedek was immortal or a pre-incarnate Christ. Instead, Melchizedek was a type of Christ, a forerunner who prefigured the greater king of righteousness. He resembled the Son of God in his literary profile in Genesis (Heb. 7:3). He held his priesthood permanently unlike the Levities who had limited terms of service. Jesus qualified for the Melchizedekian priesthood not by legal descent (like the Levites), but by the “power of an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16). In other words, Jesus rose from the dead, never to die again—his life is indestructible. He, therefore, holds his priesthood permanently.

The Levites were many in number because death prevented them from continuing in their office (Heb. 7:23). They were sinful, weak, and mortal men who had to offer sacrifices for their own sins (Heb. 7:27). The old covenant could never provide complete and perfect salvation because its mediators were insufficient to save (Heb. 7:18–19). Jesus, however, is a better priest, who offered a better sacrifice and who mediates a better covenant (Heb. 7:22; 8:6). He is “able to save to the uttermost” because he “always lives” to make intercession for his people (Heb. 7:25). His sacrificial death fulfilled the old covenant and unleashed the promises of the Abrahamic covenant to the nations. Jesus has inaugurated God’s kingdom by “laying hold” of the offspring of Abraham (Heb. 2:16). He mediates the permanent blessing of the new covenant because he holds his priesthood permanently (Heb. 7:24).

The Place of the Kingdom

Hebrews attaches the kingdom of Christ to “true,” “better,” and “abiding” heavenly realities (Heb. 9:24; 10:34; 11:16). Already the “world to come” has been subjected to the reign of Christ in fulfillment of Psalm 8 and Psalm 110 (Heb. 2:5–9). The world to come is the heavenly realm that Christ entered at his ascension. Jesus reigns from the heavenly Jerusalem as the Melchizedekian priest-king. Jesus’s entrance into heaven corresponds to God’s rest at creation. God rested as king over his creation after he completed his creative work (Heb. 4:4; cf. Gen. 2:2). Jesus entered his rest in heaven by taking his seat at God’s right hand—his saving work is complete (cf. Heb. 10:11–12). As a better Joshua, Jesus will give his people permanent rest in a better and abiding heavenly country (Heb. 4:8–14).

Many of the debates of the previous century about whether the kingdom of God is a spiritual reality in the hearts of people, a heavenly realm, or earthly sphere could have been settled by paying close attention to the message of Hebrews. The “kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28) entails every blessing of the new covenant, which includes the law written on the heart (Heb. 8:10), access to the heavenly Zion (Heb. 12:22), and eternal life in the new creation (Heb. 1:10–12). Deceased saints are the “spirits of the righteous made perfect” presently assembled in heaven (Heb. 12:23), but they await the resurrection of the body in the new creation. The present heavens and earth will “perish,” “wear out like a scroll,” and be “changed” (Heb. 1:11–12) to make way for the “city to come” (Heb. 13:14), the “better and abiding possession” (Heb. 10:34), the “world to come” (Heb. 2:5), the “city that has foundations” (Heb. 11:10), and “better country” (Heb. 11:16) that will come from heaven to earth with the return of the king.

The Already Not Yet and Concluding Reflections

Hebrews clarifies the already-not yet nature of Christ’s kingdom. The great and glorious promises of God have already been fulfilled in Christ. Jesus is already sitting on David’s throne at God’s right hand in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1. Already we partake in the blessings of the new covenant. Already we have forgiveness of sins. Already we have received an unshakeable kingdom. Already we have come to the heavenly Jerusalem in Christ. Already we taste the powers of the age to come (Heb. 6:5). Yet we do not see all things subjected to us (Heb. 2:9). We still live in a world of death where Christ’s enemies remain at large. One day they will be made a footstool for his feet, but not until Christ comes again to save those who are eagerly waiting for him (Heb. 9:28). Though we presently taste the powers of the age to come, we must persevere to our heavenly homeland and await the consummation of Christ’s kingdom in the new creation (Heb. 1:10–12).

Hebrews keeps us from erroneous and imbalanced perspectives on the kingdom of God and our place in it. The kingdom of God is not manifest in a posture of the heart devoid of Christ’s resurrection power in history. It is not manifest now in merely an ethical concept, social transformation, the alleviation of poverty, or liberation from political tyranny. Nor is it present in cultural, political, and institutional reform where Christ is not embraced as king. Hebrews shows us that the kingdom of God is primarily manifest in the victorious achievement of the Son of God incarnate. He has conquered sin, Satan, and death. He rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, and took his seat at God’s right hand. Hebrews keeps us from an over-realized eschatology that expects from the church prerogatives that belong to Christ. He upholds the universe by the word of his power (Heb. 1:3). He carries along the ages to their appointed ends. He governs human history and raises up and removes kings and kingdoms. All things are not yet subject to us, but they are subject to him. We should expect that our gospel proclamation will save sinners and build Christ’s church, yet we should not expect that the advance of the gospel will guarantee the transformation of society (though it happens at times as result).

Together then, God’s people will at times conquer kingdoms and stop the mouths of lions (Heb. 11:33). At other times, they will be imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, and killed with the sword (Heb. 11:36–37). As Hebrews indicates, both of these realities can and will occur, as the king enthroned in heaven accomplishes his variegated will on earth. We should not be surprised, therefore, that Christ’s rule from heaven coincides with our suffering on earth, nor should we only expect personal loss. Hebrews keeps us from cheerless pessimism that despairs when evil seems to gain the upper hand in society, and it also prevents us from untethered optimism that ignores the presence of evil remaining on earth. In all, Christ’s reign over the world guarantees that the church will prevail, but the path that our pioneer blazed to glory is a path of suffering. His triumph is manifested now, paradoxically, in and through a church that suffers like its king.

The kingdom of God has been inaugurated, and it advances even now, but it advances under the shadow of the cross. Luther’s words in the great reformation hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” capture well the exhortation of Hebrews:

Let goods and kindred go.
This mortal life also.
The body they may kill,
God’s truth abideth still.
His kingdom is forever.

The original readers of this glorious epistle let goods and kindred go for the sake of an everlasting kingdom. They joyfully accepted the plundering of their property because they knew they had the better and abiding possession (Heb. 10:34). Let us also be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. His kingdom is indeed forever.