Thesis
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is the everlasting horizon under which every authority, every judgment, and every greatness in the present age is to be measured and finally remade. The Son who was equal with the Father and yet was sent (Paper 1) has already received “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18); He is already seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph. 1:21); and at His return, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Phil. 2:10–11). In the light of His already-given and not-yet-fully-displayed reign, the doctrine of structured equality reaches its consummation. Authority is no longer possession but stewardship; judgment is no longer caprice but justice; greatness is no longer rank but service. This final paper of the suite gathers the foregoing into the eschatological horizon and shows how the kingdom pattern is to shape the people of God now, while they wait for its consummation.
Introduction
The argument of this suite has moved from the Christology of Paper 1 through the doctrinal foundations of Papers 2 through 4, the diagnostic critiques of Papers 5 and 6, the architectural distinctions of Paper 7, the comparative survey of Paper 8, and the boundary case of Paper 9. The doctrine of structured equality has been worked out, paper by paper, against the standard of the Son who is equal with the Father and yet truly sent by Him. It remains to ask the eschatological question. Where is all this going? The answer of the New Testament is one answer, given in a hundred forms: it is going to the kingdom of Jesus Christ, which has already come in His person and ministry, which is now being extended through the gospel, and which will be consummated at His return.
This paper is therefore not a coda. It is the architrave that ties the whole suite together. The Christology of Paper 1 finds its consummation in the kingdom; the doctrines of submission, headship, and service of Papers 2 through 4 find their final exhibition there; the abuses of Papers 5 and 6 find their final exposure and rectification; the distinctions of Paper 7 find their final clarification; the relations of Paper 8 find their final ordering; the boundary case of Paper 9 finds its final vindication. The Lord whose pattern has shaped every paper is the Lord whose kingdom will, in the end, make every paper unnecessary, because what was here written about will then be seen.
The paper proceeds in six sections. The first sets out the present and future shape of the kingdom. The second through fourth address the three transformations named in the title—authority into stewardship, judgment into justice, greatness into service. The fifth treats the final order of 1 Corinthians 15. The sixth describes how the people of God live in the kingdom pattern now. A pastoral conclusion gathers the whole suite.
I. The Kingdom Already and Not Yet
The kingdom of Jesus Christ is, in the New Testament’s witness, already inaugurated and not yet consummated.
It is already inaugurated. The Lord proclaimed at the beginning of His ministry that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). He told the Pharisees that “the kingdom of God is in the midst of you” (Luke 17:21). He told Pilate that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and yet that “for this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (John 18:37). After His resurrection He declared, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). The Lord ascended to “the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Heb. 8:1), where He sits enthroned until His enemies are made His footstool (Heb. 10:12–13; Ps. 110:1). The kingdom is real now; the King is enthroned now; the proclamation goes out to the nations now.
It is not yet consummated. The Lord taught His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), which presupposes that the kingdom is not yet fully come. Paul writes that “we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20), and that creation itself waits “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8:19). John in Revelation sees the day when “the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15), which presupposes that the day has not yet come in its visible fullness. The kingdom is real; the kingdom is not yet displayed in its consummated glory.
This already-and-not-yet structure shapes the whole life of the people of God in the present age. They live under a real reign that is not yet visibly the only reign on earth. They obey a King who is, in fact, the King of all kings, although other kings still sit on thrones. They serve in offices that are real, though shadowed by the offices of the coming city in which the saints will judge angels (1 Cor. 6:3). They wait. They work. They pray. They suffer. They proclaim. They look for the city whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10).
The doctrine of structured equality is lived in this same already-and-not-yet. The pattern of the Son who is equal and obedient is the pattern that the kingdom will make complete. The offices the suite has traced—husband, wife, parent, child, elder, member, magistrate, citizen—are offices for the present age. The relations the suite has described will, in their present form, pass away. “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matt. 22:30). The husband and wife will still be the same persons in the kingdom, but the office of marriage will pass; the deeper love and joy of the kingdom will absorb and transcend it. The kingdom is the horizon under which the doctrine of structured equality is finally understood, because the offices are temporary servants of a permanent reality—the everlasting joy of God’s redeemed people in His presence.
II. Authority Transformed into Stewardship
Paper 4 established that authority among the disciples of Jesus Christ is service, not possession. Paper 6 traced the abuses that arise when this principle is forgotten. The kingdom is the place where the principle reaches its consummation.
The Lord taught His disciples on the night before His crucifixion, “You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Luke 22:28–30). The same disciples whom He had rebuked moments earlier for their dispute about who would be the greatest are appointed to thrones. The thrones they will occupy are not the thrones of the Gentile rulers; they are the thrones of the King whose pattern they have learned. The authority they will exercise in the kingdom is the authority that the Son has received from the Father and given to them. It is, in the kingdom, what it was in His ministry: stewardship, never possession.
This same pattern is described in Revelation. “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne” (Rev. 3:21). The believers who have overcome will reign with Christ. But the reign they will exercise is the reign of the One whose throne is at the right hand of the Father, and the right hand of the Father is the place from which the Lamb who was slain reigns. The thrones of the kingdom are not occupied by Gentile rulers; they are occupied by those who have learned, through the long apprenticeship of the present age, that authority is held in trust under the Lord whose authority all authority finally is.
This is why the abuses traced in Paper 6 are not, in the kingdom, merely corrected; they are made impossible. There is no place in the kingdom for the husband who lorded over his wife, the elder who fed himself on the flock, the magistrate who oppressed his subjects, the rich man who treated his servants as instruments of his comfort. There is no place for Diotrephes in the kingdom. There is no place for Pharaoh, for Nebuchadnezzar in his pride, for Herod, for the Pilate who washed his hands while crucifying the innocent. Those who held office as possession in the present age will, on the day of Christ’s appearing, find that their possession dissolves like smoke and that the only authority that remains is the authority they have not held.
The believers who have held their offices as stewardship will receive, in the kingdom, an inheritance. The crown of glory promised to faithful elders (1 Pet. 5:4) is one such inheritance; the inheritance of the meek who will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5) is another; the inheritance of the sons of God who will be revealed as such (Rom. 8:19) is another. Authority in the kingdom is therefore not abolished; it is reconciled to its proper character. It is stewardship made permanent, the stewardship of the faithful servant whose Master has said, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:23).
The pastoral implication for the present age is direct. Every officeholder is, in his very office, being trained for the kingdom or being unfitted for it. The husband whose office has been a school of self-giving love is being trained for the joy of the consummation; the husband whose office has been a school of self-pleasing has been unfitting himself by the very office that, rightly held, would have shaped him. The elder, the parent, the magistrate—each is in a school whose graduation day is the coming of the Lord.
III. Judgment Transformed into Justice
Scripture is unembarrassed about judgment. The Lord will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31; Ps. 9:8). The judgment will be by Jesus Christ (John 5:22; Rom. 2:16). The judgment will be exact: “the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done” (Rev. 20:12). The judgment will be public: “all the nations” will be gathered before Him, “and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32). The judgment will be final: the verdict will stand for eternity (Rev. 20:13–15).
The judgment of the present age is, by contrast, partial. The wicked sometimes prosper and the righteous sometimes suffer (Ps. 73). Magistrates sometimes punish the good and praise the evil (Isa. 5:20). Even faithful judges miss what is hidden, fail to see motives, and cannot reach the secret things. The judgment of the present age is real, and Scripture commands the magistrate to render it (Rom. 13:1–4), but it is partial.
The judgment of the kingdom is not the abolition of judgment but its perfection. It will be just. It will see what no human eye has seen. It will weigh what no human balance has measured. The hidden cruelty of the proud will be exposed; the hidden faithfulness of the poor will be honored. “Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God” (1 Cor. 4:5).
This perfection of judgment is part of the kingdom pattern that the doctrine of this suite presupposes. The abuses of Papers 5 and 6 will not finally go unaddressed. The midwives who refused Pharaoh will be vindicated; the three men in the furnace will be vindicated; Daniel who prayed at his open window will be vindicated; the saints who refused to bow to the beast will be vindicated. So also the abusers: the false shepherds of Ezekiel 34 will give account to the Chief Shepherd; the rulers who tore the flesh of the people in Micah 3 will be judged; the husbands who covered their garments with violence in Malachi 2 will answer. The judgment of the present age is partial; the judgment of the kingdom is just.
The transformation of judgment into justice has, again, an immediate pastoral implication. The believer who has suffered unjustly under abusive authority is not asked to pretend that the suffering was just. He is asked to entrust the justice to the Judge who will, on the appointed day, set everything right. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord'” (Rom. 12:19). Peter writes of the Lord, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23). The pattern of the Servant-Lord is the pattern by which the suffering believer can hold both the duty of submission and the certainty of justice.
The doctrine is also a warning to the officeholder. The judgment the abusive husband, the domineering elder, or the oppressive magistrate has escaped in the present age will not be escaped on the day of Christ’s appearing. The doctrine of authority as service has a sharp edge. It is not optional, and it is not undertested. The Chief Shepherd will appear (1 Pet. 5:4), and He will judge between sheep and sheep, and He will judge between shepherds and shepherds (Ezek. 34:17, 22).
IV. Greatness Transformed into Service
The Lord’s most direct teaching on greatness has been examined in Paper 4. “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:26–28). The pattern of greatness in the kingdom is the pattern of the Son of Man.
The kingdom is the place where this pattern is fully displayed. The first will be last and the last first (Matt. 19:30; 20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30). The meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5). The poor in spirit will inherit the kingdom (Matt. 5:3). The humble will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled (Matt. 23:12; Luke 14:11; 18:14). The reversal is not a momentary inversion; it is the permanent revelation of what greatness has been all along.
What is meant by this reversal is not that low office is preferred to high office on principle, or that the kingdom is hostile to authority. The thrones in the kingdom are real (Luke 22:30; Rev. 3:21; Rev. 20:4). The reign is real (Rev. 22:5). The differentiation of inheritance is real (1 Cor. 3:14–15; 15:41–42). The reversal is that in the kingdom the measure of greatness is no longer who has been served but who has served, no longer who has been honored but who has honored, no longer who has commanded but who has obeyed. The Servant who washed feet at the Last Supper is the King of kings.
It is hard to overstate how strange this looks against the backdrop of the world’s ordinary measures of greatness. The world measures greatness by visibility, power, wealth, and the number of those who serve the great one. The kingdom measures greatness by invisibility (the alms given in secret, Matt. 6:4), by the cross taken up (Luke 9:23), by the wealth surrendered (Matt. 19:21), and by the number whom the great one has served. The kingdom turns the world’s pyramid upside down. The same servants whom the world has overlooked—the midwives, the widows, the children, the lepers, the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoners visited—will, in the kingdom, be at the head of the table.
The doctrine has direct application to the relations of Paper 8. The husband who has loved his wife as Christ loved the church will be reckoned, in the kingdom, among the great. The wife who has submitted to her husband as to the Lord will be reckoned, in the kingdom, among the great. The child who has honored his parents will be reckoned among the great; the parent who has not provoked his child will be reckoned among the great. The elder who has shepherded the flock not for shameful gain but eagerly will be reckoned among the great; the member who has submitted to faithful elders will be reckoned among the great. The magistrate who has been God’s servant for the good of the people will be reckoned among the great; the citizen who has been subject for the Lord’s sake will be reckoned among the great. The whole architecture of structured equality is, in the kingdom, the architecture of greatness rightly understood.
V. The Final Order: 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 Revisited
Paper 1 examined Paul’s account of the final order of all things in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28. The passage deserves to be revisited as the climax of the suite.
“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death… When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:20–26, 28).
Three elements of this passage gather the whole suite.
First, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the foundation of the entire kingdom pattern. “Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.” The Lord whose obedience took Him to the cross and whose Father raised Him from the dead is the firstfruits of a great harvest. Every doctrine in this suite has presupposed the resurrection. The pattern of equal-and-obedient Sonship was sealed in time by the Lord’s resurrection from the dead; the pattern of authority-as-service has been validated in the world by the Lord’s resurrection; the doctrine of structured equality stands on the truth that the One who took the form of a servant has been raised to the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Second, the consummated kingdom is the destruction of every rule, every authority, and every power that has opposed God. “After destroying every rule and every authority and power.” This is the rectification of every abuse Papers 5 and 6 have traced. The pseudo-authorities will fall; the false shepherds will be deposed; the proud rulers will be cast down; the oppressors will be silenced. The end is not a settled accommodation with the present orders that have been ruled by sin. The end is the destruction of the orders’ sinful expressions and the establishment of the only order that finally satisfies God’s purpose.
Third, the consummated kingdom is the eternal display of the Son’s filial relation to the Father. “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Paper 1 examined this verse at length. The Son’s everlasting equality with the Father is not diminished by His everlasting filial relation to the Father; the Son who hands the kingdom to the Father is the same Son who upholds the universe by the word of His power. The end is not the eclipse of the Son but the consummated display of the very pattern this suite has been tracing all along.
The kingdom pattern is therefore not an imposition from outside. It is the eternal pattern of the life of God Himself, displayed in time through the incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign of Jesus Christ, and consummated when “God may be all in all.” Structured equality is the pattern of God’s own everlasting life, brought into time and into human relations for our good and His glory.
VI. Living in the Pattern Now
The kingdom is real now; the kingdom is not yet consummated; and the people of God live in the interval. How are they to live?
They are to live in faith. The kingdom is largely invisible in the present age. The thrones are not yet displayed. The crown of the Chief Shepherd has not yet appeared in the sky. The judgments have not yet been rendered. The believer is asked, in the present age, to live as if the kingdom were true—because it is true. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). The wife who submits to a less-than-faithful husband, the member who honors a less-than-perfect elder, the citizen who obeys a less-than-righteous magistrate, lives by faith that the King will, in His time, set every wrong right.
They are to live in hope. The kingdom is coming. The Lord whose patience has waited two thousand years and more for the consummation has not forgotten His promise. “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). The hope of the kingdom anchors the soul through every present trial; it forbids despair; it forbids the cynicism that says, “Where is the promise of his coming?” (2 Pet. 3:4). The believer hopes, and the hope is not in vain.
They are to live in love. The kingdom is love. The Father loves the Son; the Son loves the Father; the Father and the Son love the saints; the saints are commanded to love one another (John 13:34–35; 15:9–13; 1 John 4:7–12). The whole architecture of structured equality is, at bottom, an architecture of love. The husband’s headship is love; the wife’s submission is love; the parent’s discipline is love; the child’s obedience is love; the elder’s oversight is love; the member’s deference is love; the magistrate’s justice is love; the citizen’s subjection is love. Where any of these is exercised without love, it has departed from the kingdom pattern, and the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gift of knowledge, and the gift of office all become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal (1 Cor. 13:1–3).
They are to live in obedience. The kingdom is the kingdom of the One who said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). The pattern of structured equality is not a sentimental ideal; it is a set of commands. The husband is commanded to love; the wife is commanded to submit; the parent is commanded to discipline and not to provoke; the child is commanded to obey; the elder is commanded to shepherd; the member is commanded to submit; the magistrate is commanded to be God’s servant for the good; the citizen is commanded to be subject. The kingdom is entered, on Christ’s terms, by repentance and faith; it is lived in, on Christ’s terms, by obedience to His commands.
They are to live in suffering. The kingdom in the present age is the kingdom of the cross. “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). The wife who suffers under a hard husband, the child who suffers under a hard parent, the member who suffers under a hard elder, the citizen who suffers under a hard magistrate—each of them is, if they suffer for righteousness’ sake, blessed (1 Pet. 3:14; 4:14). The kingdom does not promise an end to suffering in the present age. It promises that suffering is not the last word and that the One whose suffering was the salvation of the world is reigning even now from the throne where the cross has placed Him.
Pastoral Conclusion: Gathering the Suite
The doctrine of structured equality is, in the end, the doctrine of the Son who was equal with the Father, took the form of a servant, was obedient unto death, was raised, was exalted, and now reigns until He delivers the kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all. Every paper of this suite has been an unfolding of that one doctrine in one or another of its applications.
Paper 1 established the Christological foundation. Paper 2 drew the doctrinal corollary that submission does not imply lesser worth. Paper 3 traced the implications for headship in family, church, and creation order. Paper 4 traced the implications for the manner in which authority is exercised. Paper 5 traced the abuse of equality against rightful office. Paper 6 traced the abuse of rank against personhood. Paper 7 distinguished the respect owed to every person from the honor owed to offices. Paper 8 compared the ordered relations of household, church, and commonwealth. Paper 9 traced the boundary case in which submission yields to obedience to God. The present paper has gathered all of these into the kingdom horizon.
The Lord whose pattern has shaped every paper is the Lord whose return will make every paper a footnote. When He comes, the doctrines we have labored to set out will be replaced by the sight of Him. The pattern of equal-and-obedient Sonship will be displayed before the eyes of all flesh. The authority that has been held as stewardship will be rewarded; the authority that has been held as possession will be dispossessed. The justice that has been waited for will be rendered. The greatness that has been hidden in the lives of unknown servants will be exalted. The cross which has been the pattern of every faithful office will be the throne from which the King reigns.
In the meantime, the people of God live by faith, in hope, in love, in obedience, and in the willingness to suffer. They occupy the offices God has given them in the manner of the Son who came not to be served but to serve. They submit where they have been called to submit. They lead where they have been called to lead. They honor where honor is owed and they refuse where God’s word forbids compliance. They give thanks for the offices that bless them and they bear with the offices that try them. They wait for the Lord.
And when He comes, the prayer they have prayed every day in the meantime will be answered. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). The kingdom will come. The will of the Father will be done. The pattern that the Son lived in time will be displayed forever. And the people of God who learned, in households and churches and commonwealths and prisons and lions’ dens and burning furnaces, to honor the offices God appointed and to refuse only what He forbade, to love the persons He loved and to serve the body He bought, will hear the words that are the end of every faithful labor:
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21).
To Him be the glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
Notes
- All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV).
- The already-and-not-yet structure of the kingdom set out in Section I is a long-standing reading of the New Testament’s eschatological witness. The reading is supported by the conjunction of texts that affirm the kingdom’s present reality (Matt. 12:28; Luke 17:21; Col. 1:13) with texts that anticipate its future consummation (Matt. 6:10; 1 Cor. 15:24–28; Rev. 11:15).
- The transformation of authority into stewardship in Section II is not a denial of authority in the kingdom. The kingdom contains real thrones (Luke 22:30; Rev. 3:21; Rev. 20:4) and real reigning by the saints with Christ. The transformation is in the manner of holding the authority, not in its existence.
- The transformation of judgment into justice in Section III is similarly not a denial of judgment. The kingdom contains real judgment (Matt. 25:31–46; Rom. 14:10; 2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 20:11–15). The transformation is in the perfection of the judgment, not in its abolition.
- The transformation of greatness into service in Section IV is not a denial of greatness. The kingdom contains real differentiation of reward (1 Cor. 3:14–15; 15:41–42; Rev. 22:12). The transformation is in the measure of greatness, not in its existence.
- The reading of 1 Corinthians 15:28 in Section V is consistent with the reading of the same verse in Paper 1. The Son’s everlasting subjection to the Father is the consummated display of the filial pattern that has run through Scripture, not a reduction of His deity or rule.
- The closing doxology of the Pastoral Conclusion names the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by their scriptural names, as has been the practice of the entire suite. The doxological pattern is consistent with the language of New Testament benedictions and trinitarian doxologies found throughout the apostolic writings (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 1:4–6).
- The matters in this paper that overlap with previous papers in the suite (especially Papers 1, 4, 6, and 9) have been addressed by way of summary and synthesis rather than re-argument. The previous papers should be consulted for the fuller exegetical and doctrinal work.
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