What exactly is the Good News—The Kingdom of God or the Person of Christ?

“We believe that God has created the entire cosmos; our work here is to say, ‘This belongs to God,’ and to help point out the beauty of creation to everyone we know, everyone we meet. And most of all, to live in it ourselves” (Chris Seay, The Gospel of John, 63).

Seay acknowledges God as the Creator as do almost all Emerging Church proponents, but notice his next statement. Is our central task to tell everyone that this is God’s creation and to point out its beauty during the process? Without denying the inherent beauty of God’s creation, one must ponder why Christ had to die given such beauty. Creation was at the height of its beauty when mankind was in full communion with God in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, the corresponding relational disconnect wrought by sin greatly affected the beauty of creation.  The original beauty is restored to a degree in the life of the Christian believer who repents of their sin and restores their relationship with God through placing their faith in Christ. Even so, sin somehow remains affective and effective within their fleshly bodies. Even Paul admits this struggle, a struggle which indicates that creation was and is still somehow less than perfect.

Without using the term, Seay is advocating a realized eschatology. In other words, he is arguing that the Kingdom of God is both a present and future reality. Our job, therefore, is to get to work making the world better and telling everyone about the present reality wrought by Christ’s work in the here and now. This is why he has allowed the good news of Jesus Christ to become the good news of the Kingdom of God.

Another example of this is found in Will and Lisa Samson’s Justice in the Burbs, “The kingdom of God requires primacy. It comes first” (I120). Was Jesus pointing to Himself or to His Kingdom? Who or what is to receive the glory?