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This Kingdom...That Jesus choose the word "Kingdom" is not insignificant, rather important in the bigger picture.
I agree that the word matters, but I think the general understanding of "kingdom" is wrong, so the conclusion is often wrong. "Basileia" means kingdom in the sense of the reign or authority of a ruler. The older sense of "kingdom" retains this, where -dom comes from judgment, the judgment of the king (his authority). It's not strictly a place, it is a reality that maps a place. So the kingdom of an earthly ruler is the place where his judgment carries authority, it is the place where his reign is effected.
The Lord has no limit to His authority; so His kingdom, His reign, is eternal and everywhere. It is not "made up of people" because it precedes people. It is not constituted by a group of people, it isn't made real by overlap with a physical place where His authority is supreme. It makes far more sense to understand it as His reign, which is more of an absolute, and less about place or being made real by created things.
This is the same as Psalms - "Your (reign) is an everlasting (reign)" - "The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His (reign) rules over all." Daniel shows us this meaning - "And to him was given dominion and glory and a (reign), that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his (reign) one that shall not be destroyed." Everywhere "kingdom" I put reign is the same in the Greek.
He is the king of kings, the king over all the earth. "I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession." -- "Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!"
In the end the two become one - "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." But this doesn't mean the reign or kingdom of the Lord changed. It isn't as if He
weren't king over all the earth and
became the king. His reign is eternal, His kingdom is eternal.
He reigns over all people, He is the God of all mankind, the savior of all mankind,
especially those who believe. He
becomes the king over all on the cross in a sense because He draws all mankind to Himself. He becomes the king of men because He became Man. The kingdom is brought to us, we are included as heirs. Our relationship to the kingdom is what changes, not His kingdom. We humans do not make up the kingdom of heaven!
However, we are drawn in through Christ, and it is in Christ that there are no differences between us. Israel was created as a new nation -- not one of the seventy in the able of nations -- to serve as a nation of priests. This mission never changed, except that Israel continued to become the Christians. Christians are Israel in continuity, with a new and better priesthood. Just as Israel existed before Levi, it exists after the Levitical priesthood, fulfilled in Moses. Just as "a mixed multitude" went out of Egypt to become Israelites and receive the covenant under the blood, a mixed multitude reconstitute Israel from the gentiles, resurrecting the dry bones of the tribes. And through that, All Israel saves the whole world. We gentiles were grafted in to become part of Israel.
If we are of Abraham, heirs to the promises of Abraham, and Abraham's offspring are Israel, how could we not be a nation? If we are part of All Israel, and as St Paul says, "our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea" how are we not that nation of priests, the people called to God and chosen?
You can't be a nation and not be a nation. You can't be a people and not be a people.
We are a singular nation of people, comprised of people from many nations, retaining those unique and beautiful features. Just like Israel was comprised of distinct tribes, All Israel is now filled with people from all nations, and we are His inheritance from all nations. It is much more profound than saying nothing prevents us from being adopted as heirs - this is true! But it is more than that. It is a fulfillment of the purpose to which Israel was called, which was to save the world through Christ Jesus.
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To be clear, my definition of "nation" is what I would say most ascribe to- a place where people have a common language, culture, politics, etc.
Yes. I mean, that's what the scripture say too, a people who have a certain way of living in the world (a nomos). That's what an ethnos is. Today we use ethnos to describe genetic traits, but in the ancient world they had only a fuzzy notion of heritability and no understanding of genetics. The ethnos or nation was defined by its nomos or way of life. Following the Torah made you a Jew. Following the way of life of Athens is what made you Athenian. That's why you could be adopted into a tribe and truly become part of that nation.
So if the authors of the scripture knew that, and
still referred to Christians as a single ethnos, a single nation - what then?
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"Christian Nationalism" is another way to separate us along geographic and political lines
Christian Nationalism means whatever people want it to mean. For some it means they want white people to be the majority group in the US. For others it means they want Christianity to be the dominant religion. For others it means they are both Christians and patriots. It's a useless term without further definition.
