In philosophical terms: the very substance of salvation is God's reign bringing wholeness of life.
In this blog I'll explore Moltmann's proposal to understand salvation in terms of the (messianic) Kingdom. Next week, I'll explore Pannenberg.
[Part 9 in a series on New Wine and systematic theology, drawn from my research master thesis Life to the Full. From Creation to Re-Creation, VU University 2014]
Kingdom: Both “rule” and “realm”
Kingdom: Liberation, healing and deliverance, and restoration
Criticism: How about sin and justification?
Moltmann: The Salvation of the Messianic Kingdom
As we noted previously, Moltmann is very much intend on rooting his theology in the soil of Judaism. Israel’s messianic hope roots back into both its understanding of Yahweh as “the true King of Israel” and its perception of Davidian kingship as kingly rule in the name of this God. Salvation for the people of God comes through his kingly rule.
God’s
kingship isn’t merely spiritual – his reign is grounded on liberation from
slavery, as the covenantal text of the Ten Commandments states: “I am the LORD
your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
slavery” (Exodus 20:2). The concept of Davidian kingship is characterized by
“defending the rights of the poor, having mercy on humble, unimportant people, protecting the weak, and liberating the oppressed.”[1]
As Israel’s
brief political independence comes to an end and many are taken into exile,
this image of kingship transforms into images of the Messiah, expressed by
Israel’s prophets. The exile cannot be the end of God’s promise of his divine
reign, this just can’t be it. When Isaiah speaks of the “Immanuel” this goes
beyond the memory of King David, as does the figure of the “suffering Servant”
spoken of in Deutero-Isaiah. It is in keeping with this tradition that in
Jewish apocalyptic the figure of the “Son of Man” emerges, to whom all power
will be given, whom the peoples will serve, and whose kingdom knows no end.
Israel’s messianic hope becomes universal, even cosmic: this divine kingdom
comprises all nations and all of creation.[2]
It is in the
light of this messianic hope, that Jesus understands his own ministry of
bringing salvation for the world, Moltmann argues. Messianic salvation,
therefore, comprises much more than just forgiveness of sin.
“Admittedly, in the past the Christian doctrine of salvation was often applied solely to the eternal situation of human beings in God’s sight, in order that eternal salvation might be related to the fundamental existential situation of men and women: their separation from God, their transience, finitude and mortality. This meant that often enough this doctrine ignored the actual, practical human situation, in its real misery (…)If Christian soteriology confines itself to this metaphysical dimension, it can even actually contribute to physical affliction. In the theological sense, salvation is whole salvation and the salvation of the whole, or it is not God’s salvation.”[3]
Kingdom: Both “rule” and “realm”
The βασιλεία
τοῦ θεοῦ - the basileia tou Theou,
Kingdom of God - in the New Testament can refer to both the present lordship or
rule of God in the world and to the
universal goal of that divine rule, the realm
of the future Kingdom. In agreement of the Kingdom-theology within Vineyard
and New Wine, Moltmann argues that both terms must be maintained, as
complements to each other.[4]
This double
definition prevents the relegation of the Kingdom of God to the future, “to a
beyond which is totally unrelated to earthly, bodily and historical life”, as
happens when we perceive the “Kingdom of heaven” as something purely spiritual
and “not of this world” (as in much of Reformed and conservative Evangelical
theology), Moltmann argues. It equally prevents the identification of the Kingdom
of God with any existing state of affairs - the imperium christianum, for example - or with any chiliastic, utopian
“golden age” (as in certain other strands in Evangelical and Charismatic
theology).
Much of
Modern Protestant theology, on the other hand, has restricted Kingdom of God to
the present rule of God in the lives of individuals, reducing it to moralistic
terms: God’s lordship reaches as far as people obey and do his will. But in
this way it is helpless in the face of sickness and death, and it neglects the
biblical perspective of the new creation that is typified by justice, peace,
healing and wholeness of life.[5]
The eschatological concept of the Kingdom of God
as both rule and realm is thus essential for a biblical understanding of
salvation.
Kingdom: Liberation, healing and deliverance, and restoration
This double
definition determines our understanding of Jesus’ salvific ministry, Moltmann
argues. At the beginning of his ministry, the Spirit moves Jesus to proclaim
the Kingdom of God in the words of Isaiah 61, announcing the messianic Sabbath
year (Luke 4: 18-19),
‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,to release the oppressed,to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
Jesus drives
out demons, heals the sick and restores spoiled creation. These miracles of
healing and deliverance “are the mark of Jesus’ ministry”, and they also belong
to the messianic mission of his disciples, including the present church,
Moltmann argues. For true knowledge of Christ involves “living the life” - Christopraxis.
“Christopraxis inevitably leads the community of Christ to
the poor, the sick, the ‘surplus people’ and to the oppressed. Like the messiah
himself, the messianic community is sent first of all to unimportant people,
people of ‘no account’: ‘Preach: The kingdom of God is at hand. Heal the sick,
cleanse lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons’.”[6]
These are no
“way-out phenomena”, but belong intrinsically to the Kingdom of God, Moltmann
argues. This is what God’s salvation is
about.
“The lordship of God drives out of creation the powers of destruction, which are demons and idols, and heals the created beings who have been damaged by them. If the Kingdom of God is coming as Jesus proclaimed, then salvation is coming as well. If salvation comes to the whole of creation, then the health of all created beings is the result – health of body and soul, individual and community, human beings and nature.”[7]
Especially
in the case of healing and deliverance, the question arises how Moltmann
perceives this practically. Being a non-charismatic, could he actually be
thinking of bodily and inner healing (and of the casting out of demons), as the
charismatic renewal of New Wine does? Or are these mere metaphors for Moltmann?
His section on “the healing of the sick - the expulsion of demons” is
fascinating, as many Charismatic theologians could wholeheartedly concur with
the phrasings of Moltmann.[8]
Moltmann closely relates these works of Jesus to his mission - the healings
themselves “are the message”, because this is what the salvation of the Kingdom
is about: the healing of creation, freeing creation from the powers that
disintegrate life.
Moltmann positively refers to Christoph Blumhardt
(1842-1919), the German evangelist who practised the ministry of healing of the
sick. Jesus “makes the world whole and free”, “through the power of the age to
come” (Hebrews 6:5). This healing intrinsically is part of the new creation
that the Kingdom is about, Moltmann argues.
“In the context of the new creation, these ‘miracles’ are not miracles at all. They are merely the fore-tokens of the all-comprehensive salvation, the unscratched world, and the glory of God (...) They point to the bodily character of salvation and to the God who loves earthly life.”[9]
Moltmann
identifies salvation with both inner and bodily healing in the present earthly
life to the extent that it is hard to perceive how he could refute the
importance of healing ministries in the life of the present-day Church.
This is
somehow different for his perception of “exorcism”. It does make sense to speak
of “demons” and “driving out demons”, Moltmann argues, for the “powers of
destruction” are very real and “destructive of life” as they enslave and damage
people, “destroying the personality and deranging the organism”, sometimes
rousing the death-wish in people. In the time of the New Testament, these
forces were conceived of in personal terms. But, Moltmann argues,
“we do not have to believe in a particular, separate world of spirits in order to see how human life is destroyed by the powers of annihilation (...) for today too there are possessions and dependencies which rob men and women of their freedom, making them ill, and subjecting them to external compulsions. The ‘demons’ have simply been given other names.”[10]
Moltmann
emphasizes the importance of the “expulsion of demons” as part of the salvation
of the Kingdom, relating them to “bondage” and “illness”, but clearly does not
conceive of demons as actual spirits or demons.[11]
Likewise,
the poor are restored in dignity[12],
outcasts are accepted and the humiliated are raised up.[13]
Wherever Christianity lives from the promise of the future of the Kingdom,
mission in the power and authority of this Kingdom becomes its hallmark,
committing themselves to justice, peace and humanity.[14]
Moltmann
distinguishes between “Apologetic Christology” and “Therapeutic Christology”.
The former has always been strong in Protestant theology (defending faith in
accordance with Scripture), but the latter has often been neglected, Moltmann
argues, to the demise of a fully biblical understanding of the nature of salvation.
“Therapeutic Christology is soteriological Christology. It confronts the misery of the present with the salvation Christ brings, presenting it as a salvation that heals. Healing power belongs to salvation; otherwise it could not save.”[15]
The Kingdom
of God is “the real heart of eschatology”, Moltmann stated already in his Theology of Hope.[16]
Therefore, it is at the heart of all theology. Moreover, it is at the heart of
the gospel of Christ, as the whole cosmos will be brought to salvation, healed
and made whole, in the Kingdom of God.
Criticism: How about sin and justification?
To the point
as his innovatory perspectives on salvation and the Kingdom of God may be,
Moltmann has been criticized by both Evangelical and Reformed theologian for failing to work out an adequate soteriology:
How exactly do Jesus’ life, ministry and death have salvific meaning?[17]
In general,
Evangelical theologian Tim Chester observes, there are two major problems in
Moltmann’s soteriology:
●
the question of the justification of God predominates over the question of
the justification of humanity[18]
●
the solidarity of Christ with human suffering is
emphasized to the exclusion of the redemptive uniqueness of Christ’s suffering.
(...)
Reformed and
Evangelical theology could not ignore the problems with Moltmann’s theology, as
they are rooted in its basic structure. But what should be affirmed, is the
messianic notion that salvation comes as
the reign of God breaks way in history (healing creation from all brokenness,
injustice and suffering) and is to be consummated in the future Kingdom of
glory. The need for salvation lies in the present brokenness of reality,
the separation of mankind from God, the sin, the hurt and the injustice, - and
consequently the failure of creation to glorify God.
Earlier in this series on salvation & New Wine theology:
Footnotes
[1] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 7.
[2] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 20. Also N.T.
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God,
Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1996).
[3] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 45.
[4] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 97. See also my
Introductory chapter (paragraphs on Ladd and Morphew.
[5] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 98-99.
[6] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 43.
[7] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 104.
[8] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 104-112. In
Part III of my dissertation I will pay further attention to the ministries
healing and deliverance in the life of the Church.
[9] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 107.
[10] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 109.
[11] However,
also within the charismatic renewal the understanding of evil spirits and
demons is divergent, and many charismatic theologians would probably be able to
concur with Moltmann to a large extent (see my Introductory chapter).
[12] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 94.
[13] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 112.
[14]
Müller-Fahrenholz, The Kingdom and the
Power, 56-57.
[15] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 44.
[16] Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 216.
[17] See Tim
Chester, Mission and the Coming of God.
Eschatology, the Trinity and Mission in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann and
Contemporary Evangelicalism (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 65-76.
[18] Chester, Mission and the Coming of God, 67.
[19] Chester, Mission and the Coming of God, 67-72.
See specifically Moltmann, The Future of
Creation (London: SCM Press, 1979), 164, and Moltmann, The Coming of God, 90-94. I will return to this important issue of
sin and salvation in my chapter on salvation and creation, as the problems of
both human sin and creaturely finitude
impose themselves when we think of the meaning of salvation as wholeness to all
creation.
[20] To the
defence of Moltmann could be said that he aims at correcting objectifying,
legalistic interpretations, and alleged suggestions in Reformed and Evangelical
theology that God had to be “appeased”, his “wrath” had to be “stilled” by
offering a “scapegoat”. However, Moltmann replaces these interpretations (which
largely are caricatures of what Reformed soteriology asserts, manifold as they
may be in popular - Evangelical - piety) with an interpretation that is hard to
reconcile with the tradition of Reformation theology.
[21] For
instance as he speaks of the meaning of Christ’s death at the cross in term of
“justification”, “forgiveness of sins” and “liberation from the power of sin
and the burden of our guilt” (Moltmann, The
Way of Jesus Christ, 182 ff.), and of “atonement for sin” at the cross, as
God himself atones for our sin in order to reconcile the hostile, sinful world
(Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A
Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 132-138).
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