Volume 54 Issue 3- March 2016 : Mokanoki

 

In this issue, we continue to examine Botswana as the Kingdom of God. In the Bible, rebellion against God is called sin. This is exactly what Adam and Eve were guilty of in the Garden of Eden. 

Their deliberate defiance of God`s prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree in the center of the Garden was an act of open rebellion. 

In so doing, they were exercising their free will, the freedom to choose that God had granted them. 

Before free will can truly exist, there must also be a component of choice because free will is only possible where there is an alternative. 

So the tree in the center of the Garden, and God`s prohibition against eating its fruit, provided Adam and Eve with the capacity to use a gift that God had given them. Unfortunately, they used it in the wrong way; they could have freely chosen to obey God rather than disobey him.

Adam and Eve declared rebellion against the government of Heaven, and the Bible calls it sin. In fact, the Bible speaks in some instances of sin, singular, and in others, of sins, plural, and there is a difference.

 Sin is the singular act of rebellion while sins are the manifestations of that one act. 

Rebelling against the Kingdom is sin; sins are the day to-day actions that constitute rebel-like behaviour. 

The declaration of independence of the Adamic race from the Kingdom of God was an act of rebellion that has caused all of us, like Adam, to go our own way.

This personal independence is the number one tenet of capitalism and democratic republics. 

The thing God hates is the very thing we magnify. The thing that God says is our condemnation is the very thing we regard as our highest achievement. 

As independent individuals, we can do whatever we like and pursue our own happiness and our own joy at our own expense. We take great pride in “doing our own thing,” while God says, “That`s the very problem with the world.” It`s a paradox. 

This is why it is very difficult to live in the Kingdom of God and live as a democracy under a capitalist system. 

It is hard to strike a balance between the two because the principles that operate them are diametrically opposed to each other. 

It is for this reason that many believers do not manifest Kingdom culture and values in their lives the way they should. In their struggle between the Kingdom and the world, the world usually wins.

Jesus Christ came to Earth to put an end to our sin of rebellion, and, through His blood, to cleanse us of our sins, the rebellious behaviour that was the inevitable consequence of our sin. 

Christ came as a “second Adam” to reverse the consequences of the first Adam`s failure. The apostle Paul explains it this way:

... Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.... Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous (Romans 5:12,18-19).

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22).

So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”- the last Adam, a life giving spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Christ came to announce the return of the Kingdom of Heaven and to give us access through the sin-cleansing power of His blood. 

But He also, through His Spirit, placed in us the capacity to manifest Kingdom culture and value in our everyday life so that, as we go about our daily affairs we can transform our  Botswana into a thriving garden of His Kingdom. ENDS

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