Vision for the Kingdom of God (Vision Series 3 of 5)

In our last article we discovered from Scripture the answer to the ancient question, “What is God’s purpose for the world?” We learned that God’s purpose for creating humanity and world is to glorify His name among all the nations of the earth. In this session we’re discovering from Scripture the answer to the question, “How has God chosen to glorify His name?” 

Jesus answers this question for us in what has been called the Lord’s Prayer. After he instructs his disciples to pray “Our Father who is in Heaven, hallowed by your name” he tells them to pray, “May your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10).

We learn here from the teaching of Jesus on prayer that God’s purpose for the world is to glorify His name through the coming of His kingdom, in such a way that causes His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God designed the world to be an eternal, cosmic display of His glory as He ruled over everything as Creator King through His image bearers. So, as God’s image bearers, we learn in the early chapters of Genesis that we are created to multiply, to fill the earth, and to rule over it in a way that carries out God’s perfect will on the earth.

But evil entered the world through a real villain, Satan—who enticed humanity to sin. Then something horrible happened. God’s paradise on earth was lost. God’s image bearers came under the just curse of God’s wrath and their hearts became corrupt and idolatrous.

Man’s broken relationship with God then caused all of mankind’s other vital relationships for life and joy to be broken--with self, with others, and with creation. This is why things are not the way they’re supposed to be. The Shalom of God, ultimate peace and joy on earth, has been shattered. This is why there is so much brokenness in the world, not just spiritually but socially, culturally, economically, even politically. This is why there is so much violence, poverty, disease, and injustice.

So we’re now faced with a very ancient question: “What is the ultimate solution to all the world’s problems?” Let’s pursue the Bible’s answer.

• What is the ultimate solution to all the world’s problems?

• What is the ultimate solution to all the world’s problems?

Believing there could even be an ultimate solution is usually seen as being naïve and foolish. Everyone agrees we must keep striving for things like: 

• Quality education

• Just governments

• Stable economies

• Affordable health care

• Cures for diseases

• Global collaboration of governments and service organizations

• and a host of other things

Now these are all good solutions. But they are not the ultimate solution to all our global problems of broken humanity on this runaway planet. According to Scripture, the only ultimate solution is found in a very foolish-sounding story called the Good News of Jesus Christ. It’s the Good News that about 2000 years ago God’s kingdom entered our world in a new way through the person and work of Jesus, to restore God’s fallen humanity and creation—as far as the curse is found.

This is the Good News that the Father's creation, ruined by humanity's sin, is now being redeemed by Christ and renewed by His Holy Spirit into the Kingdom of God on earth. This is the Good News that through the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus God has given Him authority to form a New Humanity, made up of His people from every tribe, tongue, and nation – people who repent, believe in, and follow Jesus Christ.

The Good News is that the Father's creation, ruined by humanity's sin, is being redeemed by Christ and renewed by His Holy Spirit into the Kingdom of God.

And God promises His New Humanity in Christ–the Forgiveness of sin, a New Standing before God, the Gift of His Holy Spirit, a New Heart, and a New World when Jesus returns. In this new world God promises to restore His Shalom, His Peace—everything that was lost in the Fall—including not only our broken relationship with God but also our broken relationships with ourselves, with others, and with all of creation.

The Good News of the Kingdom is not only that one day when Jesus returns God’s Kingdom is coming to earth to make all things new. The Good News is also that God’s Kingdom has already come to earth to make all things new through the resurrection and ascension of Christ.

When God raised Jesus from the dead He was not only proclaiming His ultimate victory over death and evil—He was also inaugurating His new rule on earth as the “first born from the dead” (Rom 8:29b), referring to the many who would follow Him by their resurrection in the New Age to come.

The Good News is that the Father's creation, ruined by humanity's sin, is being redeemed by Christ and renewed by His Holy Spirit into the Kingdom of God on earth.

Through the many miracles and ultimately through the resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrated that His Kingdom has already been launched on earth. And when Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, He and the Father poured out His Holy Spirit as a magisterial display that He is enthroned on High as our Redeemer King carrying out God’s cosmic rescue mission to restore fallen humanity and creation as far as the curse is found.

This is the Good News of Jesus Christ that our broken world desperately needs to hear and to see in our day. It’s the Good News that “Our God Reigns!” over all things through Jesus Christ and by His Holy Spirit. As the former prime minister of the Netherlands Abraham Kuyper used to say, it’s the good news that… "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!

Jesus is now answering the very prayer he taught his disciples to pray. There is an unseen dimension of this world that is actually more real than what is seen. In this invisible realm the ascended Christ is now ruling over all things, making God’s invisible Kingdom more visible on earth.

Again, Jesus is now answering the very prayer He taught his disciples to pray. He is now bringing glory to the Father’s name among the nations (Hallowed by Thy Name), by causing God’s Kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God’s purpose for the world is not merely the rebirth of human souls but the rebirth of all fallen creation. In Col 1:20 Paul writes, “For God was pleased…through (Christ) to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.” God’s ultimate purpose for the world includes the restoration of the entire cosmos and the creation of a New Heaven and a New Earth.

This is why the ultimate Christian hope is not merely that one day when we die we will go to heaven to worship Jesus forever. No matter what so many Christian hymns say, heaven is not our eternal home.  Everyone who goes to heaven is making a round trip. Heaven is a glorious, mysterious, intermediate paradise where the dead in Christ will temporarily be with Him as disembodied souls.

The ultimate Christian hope is not merely that one day when we die we will go to heaven to worship Jesus forever. No matter what so many Christian hymns say, heaven is not our eternal home.  Everyone who goes to heaven is making a round trip.

But our ultimate hope is in another day, when Jesus will return and bring heaven back down to earth as it was at creation, and unite our souls with our resurrected bodies – so we will not only worship and enjoy Him forever—but do so by ruling and reigning with Him forever over a new earth.  This is what Jesus mean when He taught His followers, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”

It’s been well said that our ultimate hope is “…not going back to Eden, or up to heaven, but going forward to the New Jerusalem – which God promises will one day come down from heaven to earth as our final home.” In the meantime, we are living in a very unique period of redemptive history—between the resurrection of Jesus and the restoration of all things through Him. God takes pleasure in manifesting His presence and pouring out His power on those who will dare to radically align their life purpose with his.

God’s purpose for the world is that His name be glorified by His invisible kingdom becoming more visible, not only in human hearts but in every sphere of life, including:

• Government: Where injustice and evil is either restrained or endorsed

• Education: Where truths or lies about God and his creation are taught

• Media: Where information is interpreted through the lens of good or evil

• Arts & Entertainment: Where values and virtue are celebrated or distorted

• Religion: Where people truly worship God or settle for a religious ritual

• Family: Where blessing or curse is passed on to successive generations

• Business: Where people work for the glory of God or the glory of man [1]

This is what it means to have a vision for the Kingdom of God

[1] Adapted from 7culturalmountains.com

Vision for the Church of God (Vision Series 4 of 5)

In our last two articles, on a vision for the Glory of God and a vision for the Kingdom of God, we learned from Scripture that God’s purpose for the world is to glorify his name through the coming of his kingdom in such a way that causes His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

In this chapter our focus is on answering the question, “How has God chosen to advance His kingdom in the world today?”

How has God chosen to advance His kingdom in the world today?

From the time of creation, God has been carrying out His purposes in the world in some very unique ways.

In the beginning, God carried out His purposes for the world primarily through individuals like Adam, Enoch and Noah who were commanded to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it…”(Gen 1:28)  thereby glorifying God’s name and making His invisible Kingdom visible over all the earth. 

       Then, in Genesis 12, we learn that God began working primarily through one family, the family of Abraham, and through him one nation—the nation of Israel. But we learn from the New Testament that today God has chosen the Church to be His primary instrument for advancing His kingdom purposes in the world. 

Jesus said to His disciples “…I will build My Church; and the gates of Hell shall not overpower it” (Matthew 16:18b). In Ephesians 3:10 Paul writes, “God’s intent is that now, through the Church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm.”

In the Book of Acts we’re meant to see not only the Acts of the Apostles but the Acts of Jesus as He continues His ministry on earth from His ascended throne in Heaven by His Holy Spirit and through His Apostles.

So what was the ascended Jesus doing on earth through His Apostles by His Holy Spirit--to cause His and our Father’s name to be honored and His Kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it was in heaven?   

He was fulfilling His promise to build His Church—breaking down the gates of hell. This is why the book of Acts is largely devoted to the advancement of God’s Kingdom through the planting of Churches throughout the Mediterranean world. 

This is why the Apostle Paul’s ministry was not merely to proclaim the Gospel to as many people as possible but to plant Churches in every nation—especially those nations where Christ has yet to be named (for him that was Spain).  

In Acts 14 (21-23) we see that Paul’s pattern in ministry was not only to “preach the gospel in cities and win many disciples… but also to appoint elders…in every Church..” Paul saw the churches he planted throughout the world as Kingdom outposts through which King Jesus, as the Head of the Church, mysteriously continued His ministry through His visible body spreading the flame of the gospel, in both word and deed, making God’s invisible Kingdom visible over both human hearts and all spheres of life.  

This is why the Church is the hope of the world!

The Church is the only institution in the world both designed and equipped by God for the spiritual, cultural and social renewal of all nations.

God has ordained that His Kingdom come with transformational power into every sphere of life primarily through the Church. This why global Church planting is so important. 

The Church is the only institution in the world both designed and equipped by God for the spiritual, cultural and social renewal of all nations.

We’re facing a very serious problem throughout the world today. Never has there been a time in history when there have been more churches and more professing Christians than today. And yet despite the remarkable spread of Christianity, spiritual darkness, cultural, and societal decay are reaching unprecedented levels.

Even where the Church is growing most rapidly the results are often forms of Christianity with little or no true, lasting transformation of individuals, families and cultures.

Author James Engel writes,

 There is widespread agreement that the western-driven agenda of the last 50 years of missions to ‘finish the task’ of world evangelization has tragically missed the mark in its narrow focus only on conversion. The Great Commission has become a ‘great commotion’ of proclamation in virtual disregard of making disciples and effecting social transformation.

The roots of this problem can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece. Much of today’s form of Christianity has been unduly influenced by Greek Philosophy (Platonic Dualism)—which emphasizes a great division between things like:  

• the soul and the body or

• the spirit and matter or

• the spiritual and the social  

This is one of the reasons most of evangelical Christianity in our day has lost sight of its historic roots by proclaiming a very pragmatic, privatized, prosperity Gospel that rarely results in: 1) authentic Christian conversions, 2) holistic discipleship, and 3) societal transformation. As a result, the evangelical Church is slowly losing its transforming influence on the world at large.

In light of these realities, there is a desperate need in our day for recapturing a vision for the church of God to be the primary means through which the invisible kingdom of God becomes more visible causing God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven to the ultimate end of seeing the glory of God fill the earth as the waters do the sea.

And I have Good News: Our Redeemer King Jesus is fulfilling His promise to build His Church and the gates of hell are not prevailing against it. But exactly how is He doing this today through His Church? Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck helps us understand the answer when he describes our need to see a biblical view of the Church as being both an institution and an organism. 

To see the Church as institution means to see the Church as gathered together for the central purpose of making disciples through the means of grace.

This includes the proper preaching and teaching of God’s Word, the proper administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, a devotion to prayer, and to fellowship under the oversight of ordained Church elders. These are the primary marks of what Bavinck calls the institutional church. 

But we must also learn to see the Church as organism.

That is when the Church regularly scatters all those individual Church members throughout all their diverse spheres and disciplines of life with the central purpose of Making God’s invisible Kingdom visible over all their areas of life–to be salt and light to a culture in decay and darkness. 

       These kinds of Churches are not fortresses but their Kingdom outposts in the domain of darkness bringing light to the nations.

When they gather on the Lord’s Day as the institutional Church for worship, the preaching of the Word, the sacraments, prayer, and fellowship, they are experiencing a foretaste of what will one day be their home territory.  

       There they are renewed and refreshed as they learn how to live out the principles of the Kingdom in the world.          

But when the Church as institution, when they leave, they become the Church as organism—scattered as individuals like salt and light into all their spheres of public life where they put those Kingdom principles into practice.  

Where they serve the poor, the oppressed, the sick, and the uneducated. Where they stand against all forms of injustice and fight for righteousness. They make art and music that bears witness to the beauty and glory of their future eternal home in the new heavens and earth.

Because of their unique union now with Jesus, He mysteriously works through them as Prophet, Priest, and King. Church historian Richard Lovelace writes,

In their Prophetic Role they proclaim and uphold God’s truth in a world filled with lies. In their Priestly Role they pray and intercede for others to experience God’s mercy and blessing. And in their Kingly Role they use all their resources to help make God’s invisible kingdom more visible, not only in human hearts, but in every sphere of their lives until it reflects the order of heaven.

 This is how spiritual, social, and cultural renewal takes place in towns, in cities, and nations. This is how Great Awakenings and Gospel Renewal Movements are born.   

Vision for the Gospel of God (Vision Series 5 of 5)

Our focus in this chapter is on what it means to be a Gospel-Centered Church through which God’s invisible Kingdom becomes more visible bringing transformation to both human hearts and society to the glory of God.

In Romans 1:16 the Apostle Paul writes “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…” Paul’s understanding of the power of the Gospel in salvation included more than merely saving people from being under sin’s penalty.

He saw the Gospel as also saving people from sin’s domineering power and transforming the whole world. In Colossians 1:6 Paul writes, “All over the world this gospel is producing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God’s grace in all its truth.”

Paul is referring here to the saving power of the Gospel at work in and through people’s lives since the day they heard and understood it not merely on the day they heard and understood it. Many Christians today have a very limited understanding of the Gospel as merely being good news of salvation for non-Christians with little or no relevance to the Christian life once someone has believed in the Gospel. 

But the Scriptures teach that the Gospel should be seen as not just a gate we must pass through one time, but also as a path that we need to be walking on every day of our lives. Paul shows us this same view of the Gospel in Romans 1:8 when he’s commending the Roman Christians for their strong, mature faith by writing, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed in all the world.”

Then, in Romans 1:15, Paul writes to these same mature Christians, who’s faith was so strong it was proclaimed throughout the world, “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. “So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”

Many Christians today would be confused by Paul’s eagerness to preach the Gospel to them because after they believe in the Gospel, they think the Gospel is no longer really for them anymore it’s for unbelievers.

In Romans, Paul taught that the salvation through the Gospel should be seen as encompassing all three tenses: In the past tense–We have been saved from sin’s penalty. Paul expounds that in Romans 1-5. In the present tense–We are being saved from sin’s domineering power. Paul expounds that in Romans 6 and 7. And in the future tense–We will be saved from sin’s presence. Paul expounds that in Romans 8 and following. 

You can’t fully understand the meaning of the Good News until you understand more fully the bad news. As a result of sin, something terrible happened. Our relationship with God was broken, but through that, our relationships with ourselves, our relationships with others, our relationships with creation or vocation and work, they were all broken and are now marked by alienation. 

There are three primary consequences of sin that have resulted from the fall: First: Is the problem of Personal Guilt. Because of sin, our relationship with God changed from a status or state of innocent obedience to a different state, a status of guilty disobedience. We now have a bad record in the heavenly court. We lost our original right standing with God and we’ve became alienated from him.

One of the tragic results of sin is becoming guilty before God, in the heavenly courts, under his just judgment. The result of sin is death, both physical and spiritual—eternal separation from God in hell. And although God is loving and merciful and does not want to punish us, The Scriptures also teach He is also perfectly just so He must punish sin.  

The Second consequence of the Fall is the problem of Personal Corruption. Sin not only separates us from God and places us under His just judgment. Sin also defiles us, it enslaves us. Jesus said, “…everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Sin is not just a legal problem before God—it’s also a deep problem of the heart. At its root, sin should always be seen as idolatry–that is trying to find ultimate happiness in life apart from God, apart from Christ, and apart from His purposes.  

Sin is more than disobeying God’s laws. Sin is a deep-seated, invisible, terminal disease. The Scriptures teach that outward sins are always the result of inward sins of the heart.  Jesus said, whatever comes out of men comes from a defiled heart and defiles him/ So we not only need forgiveness from sin’s condemning penalty but we need freedom from sin’s corrupting, enslaving, and dominating power.

A third consequence of the Fall is the problem of World Corruption. The Scriptures teach, as a result of God’s curse on humanity, all creation has also been cursed. That means every sphere of God’s creation has now been disrupted, it’s now been broken by the fall of humanity into sin. It’s now under the domain of darkness. This is why life is not the way it’s supposed to be. All suffering, injustice, poverty, racism, and terrorism. Death, it can all be traced back to sin, to our rebellion against God.  

And in light of this understanding or Vision of the Gospel of God, what is a Gospel-Centered Church? A Gospel-Centered Church primarily focuses on proclaiming this Good News. The Good News that God promises all who repent of their sin and trust in Christ a new record, a new heart, and a new world to come.

This means a Gospel-Centered Church is one that places a top priority on the ministries of Good News for the lost or evangelism. Good News for the found or discipleship or spiritual formation. And Good News for the poor through ministries of mercy and justice.

Let’s review and summarize these three priorities in order to gain a deeper understanding of what a Gospel-Centered Church is: 

A GOSPEL-CENTERED CHURCH PROCLAIMS GOOD NEWS FOR THE LOST.

This Good News is that God promises to save from sin’s penalty everyone who will believe in Christ, and He promises them to consider them as His children.

And as Judge, in the heavenly court, God promises to accept the sacrificial work of Christ, the shedding of His blood on the cross as satisfying His just wrath against sinners. He substituted Himself to satisfy Himself. And consider all of humanity’s sin counted to Christ and all Christ’s perfect righteousness counted to their record, it’s a new record, its an alien righteousness Marin Luther said that God gives to us through faith.

As Father, God promises to accept and love those who believe in Christ and consider them as His beloved, adopted children. With a love for them that He previously reserved for His one and only Son.

A GOSPEL-CENTERED CHURCH ALSO PROCLAIMS GOOD NEWS FOR THE FOUND.

God also promises to save Christians, to save those who believe in Christ from sin’s on going, domineering power over their lives. He does this by giving us a new heart and a new Spirit, the Holy Spirit, so we have new life, and so we can know God, honor God, and find our ultimate joy in God forever.

Although we can never be free from sin’s ongoing influence until heaven God does promise us, through Christ, that we can be delivered us from sin’s domineering, enslaving power if we will just keep coming to Him by drawing near to Him in repentance and in faith in Christ.  

A Gospel-Centered Church not only proclaims Good News for the lost by prioritizing the ministry of evangelism and Good News for the found in prioritizing the ministry of discipleship and spiritual formation…

A GOSPEL CENTERED ALSO CHURCH PROCLAIMS GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR IN ACTS OF MERCY AND JUSTICE.

Jesus began his public ministry (Luke 4) by picking up the scroll and reading from the prophet Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.”

He was not speaking of merely the spiritual poor, but those who are truly 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 favor.” That’s how Jesus commenced, that’s how He began His ministry with the proclamation of that Good News for the poor.

A Gospel-Centered Church does not see the world as rigidly divided between the sacred and the secular, but instead sees that God is right now, through the resurrected and reigning Christ, by His Spirit “reconciling to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20).

So a Gospel-Centered Church focuses on so much more than merely seeing “souls saved,” as important as that is. It also focuses on seeing the invisible Kingdom of Christ made more visible throughout the every sphere of life by not only words of truth, but also relentless acts of mercy, acts of justice through which the crookedness in our corrupt society is made more straight and the darkness of our culture and corrupt world is dispelled, more and more by light of God’s truth.

And all of this to see God’s Kingdom come and see God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven to the hallowing, to the glorifying of God’s name. 

The Resurrection of the Dead and the Life in the World to Come

Nicene Creed ends with the statement, “We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life in the world to come.” The pleasures we look forward to experiencing in this life can easily crowd out the far superior pleasures we should be looking forward to in the life to come.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s primary concern for his readers is not for them to believe in Jesus’ resurrection. They already believed that Jesus was raised from the dead. Paul’s concern is that they were not looking forward to their coming resurrection from the dead and their life in the world to come.

The pleasures we look forward to experiencing in this life can easily crowd out the far superior pleasures we should be looking forward to in the life to come.

Some of Paul’s readers denied their future resurrection from the dead or minimized its significance. Instead, they looked forward to being released at death from their corrupt bodies and this corrupt world so they could live forever in heaven with Jesus as disembodied spirits free from everything physical and material.

Most religious beliefs and philosophies embrace the survival of the human soul after death, and affirm that death does not end all – that there is some kind of future life after death. Among pagan religions and philosophies the teaching on the afterlife ranges from a dreaded state to be feared to a happy state to be longed for.

Greek philosophers made use of a metaphysical argument to prove the indestructibility of the soul by teaching that the soul is immortal in the sense of having no beginning and no end. Pagan views of the “immortality of the soul” usually present the spiritual part of humans as not affected by death because it is indestructible and imperishable.[1]

Most pagan views of immortality affirm the continued existence of an immaterial soul, but not the immortality of the material, physical body. At death, the immaterial soul is suddenly no longer with the material body and assumed to be in another disembodied, immaterial state. But the body remains behind and physically disintegrates.

In contrast, the Scriptures teach the value of the material world God created by affirming that immortality is not merely the survival of the soul after death in heaven with God, but the redemption and restoration of the whole person, soul and body together, at the resurrection of the dead – along with God’s final restoration of the entire physical universe in the age to come.

The Apostles’ Creed strongly affirms the centrality of the physical world in the Triune God’s person and work by its description of God the Father Almighty as creator of heaven and earth, and in its declaration of God the Son’s incarnation by being born of the virgin Mary and his resurrection as the one who rose again from the dead, to the creed’s final statement on God the Spirit’s work in the resurrection of the body and the life in the world to come.

For believers to experience immortality, their souls must be miraculously resurrected from spiritual death at their new birth, and then their bodies must be miraculously resurrected from physical death at their resurrection from the dead. The Bible teaches that when Jesus returns, all the glorified souls of believers in heaven will be reunited with their glorified bodies on earth, so they will flourish in both their bodies and souls on a glorified earth in the new “world to come.”

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[1] This is not a biblical doctrine. The Scriptures teach that the human soul is created by God at conception.

[2] The early church father Augustine (354-430 AD) describes the essence of God’s salvation in Christ by using a series of Latin couplets that describe God as “Former and Re-Former,” “Creator and Re-Creator,” and “Maker and Re-Maker.”

The Spirit’s Restoring Presence: The Existential Perspective

The good news is that the Father’s creation, ruined by the Fall, is being redeemed by Christ and restored by the Holy Spirit as the Kingdom of God on earth. This revelation of God’s Triune Lordship in the gospel is not just a set of theological beliefs. It’s also a way of seeing God and all things, a biblical worldview, so we will know, love, serve, and worship God as Triune Lord in all areas of life.

This is the good news that our God reigns[1] over all things through the Lord Jesus Christ and by his Holy Spirit. It’s the good news that our Triune God is Lord.[2] The Bible associates three ideas with God’s Lordship: authority, control, and presence.[3] These lordship attributes are unique reflections of God’s attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, through which God reveals to us who he is and what he does.

In the biblical history of God’s mission for the world, he reveals unique aspects of his Triune Lordship in his person and work as Creator, Redeemer, and Restorer[4]:

• God the Father reveals his supreme authority as Lord in his creation of all things.

• God the Son reveals his sovereign control as Lord in his redemption of all things.

• God the Spirit reveals his transforming presence as Lord in his restoration of all things.

Although we are identifying particular lordship attributes of individual members of the Trinity, it’s important to see these attributes as forming a unit, not as separate from one another. Remember that God is “simple” in a theological sense, meaning he is one and not made up of parts. So there is a sense in which all of God’s attributes involve one another, including these three lordship attributes.[5]

This revelation of God’s Triune Lordship in the gospel gives us a way of seeing God and all things we call Triperspectivalism. We define Triperspectivalism as multiple perspectives rooted in the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that apply God’s revelation in Scripture to all areas of life.

Triperspectivalism sees the revelation of God’s Triune Lordship in the gospel – the good news of who God is and what God does as Triune Lord in creation, redemption and restoration of fallen humanity and the world. 

See the Spirit’s Transforming Presence as Lord in Restoration

The Scriptures teach that God the Spirit, through his transforming presence as Lord, applies the redemptive work of the Son by restoring all things lost in humanity and creation because of the fall.

When Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father in Heaven, he and the Father poured out his Holy Spirit on his Church, to make God’s invisible kingdom visible on earth, not only in human hearts, but in every sphere of life until it reflects the order of heaven.[6]

This is the good news that the Father's creation, ruined by humanity's sin, is being redeemed by Christ and restored by His Holy Spirit as the Kingdom of God on earth. Through God’s Spirit, God gives his new community, the Church, the forgiveness of sin, a new record of Christ’s righteousness, a new heart, and a new world when Jesus returns.[7]

God will bring heaven down to earth. And God’s transforming presence that was lost in the garden will be regained in the new heaven and new earth. The Apostle John writes, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” (Rev 21: 3)

We call this the existential perspective through which we see the Spirit’s transforming presence as Lord in the restoration of all things. 

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[1] When the Apostle Paul encourages followers of Jesus to proclaim this good news, he quotes the prophet Isaiah, “As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’” (Rom 10:15) What is this good news? In Isaiah 52:7 we read, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”

[2] More than 7000 times in the Bible God reveals himself as Lord. So if we want to know the God of Scripture, we must know him as Lord. The name Lord is a personal name that tells us about God’s nature, what he is like.

[3] For an in-depth study of these concepts, see A Theology of Lordship Series (4 Volume Set) by John M. Frame, published by P&R Publishing.

[4] Likewise, in the first part of the Apostle’s Creed, the Father’s supreme authority over all things is presented as “God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.” In the second part of the creed, the Son’s sovereign control in the redemption of all things is presented as a description of his person and work. And the final part of the creed, which ends with the coming “resurrection of the body and the life everlasting”, is a description of God the Spirit’s transforming presence in the restoration of all things.

[5]  For example: 1) The Father’s supreme authority over creation is displayed in the Son’s sovereign control in the redemption of fallen creation and the Spirit’s transforming presence in its restoration. 2) The Son executes his sovereign control in redemption in submission to the supreme authority of the Father’s plan for creation by the Spirit’s transforming presence in its restoration. 3) The Spirit’s transforming presence in the restoration of fallen creation is the application of the Son’s sovereign control in its redemption in submission to the supreme authority of the Father’s plan.

[6] Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck summarizes the essence of this good news in the phrase “grace restores nature.”

[7] In this new world God promises to restore everything that was lost in the Fall—including not only our broken relationship with God but also our broken relationships with ourselves, with others, and with all of creation.

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