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We can only grow if we are broken; if we no longer act from our own ego, but from the Spirit of Christ within. Meditate on Gal. 2:20 until this becomes, not just part of our theology, but part of our life. Our true life is from Christ within. Any other “life” is sin and ultimately death, no matter how “good” we might seem to be. If possible, meditate on Gal. 2:20 in small groups.
As more and more people yield to the one Life that is from Christ within, so the Kingdom will spread and mature. The rock not cut by human hands becomes a mountain over all the world, the spring of water from the Temple becomes a mighty river. Profound changes will surely take place. Isiah saw people living as long as the trees!
Eventually, Heaven & Earth become one. About one hundred years ago, Indian evangelist Sundar Singh was granted visions of Heaven. He described it as much as he could in human language, but the one thing that made it Heaven was the vision of the glorified Christ being constantly visible like a spiritual Sun from whom the transforming spiritual Light radiated to all the company of the redeemed. Just speculation, but maybe there will come a time when Heaven will be so opened that those of the Kingdom on Earth at that time will have this same Beatific Vision as those now in Heaven and Heaven and Earth will completely merge. Then the Kingdom will have come in all its fullness!
This is an interesting suggestion, but there are some serious problems with it.
For one thing, the length of the darkness was too long for a solar eclipse. The partial phases are not really “dark” – in fact, the eye adapts to the reduced sunlight and hardly notices the “twilight” phase, making the few minutes of near-total darkness at totality even more dramatic.
But an even more serious problem relates to the time of the Crucifixion. This happened at Passover, which is celebrated on the night of the first FULL moon following the northern vernal equinox. That makes a solar eclipse impossible at that time.
There are three main explanations for the darkness mentioned in the Gospels.
1.) A supernatural/miraculous happening.
2.) A meteorological phenomenon (high-altitude dust or smoke as evidenced in other “dark day” and “dry fog” events or even a very deep storm cloud blocking out the Sun).
3.) A non-literal account referring to spiritual darkness rather than physical darkness.
For what it is worth, my guess is a meteorological phenomenon, albeit providentially times (like the earthquake also mentioned in Scripture) to coincide with the death of Jesus.
Further to the above, I should add that the “Kingdom consciousness” is also the awareness of the old sinful self having been crucified with Christ and therefore DEAD, GONE, VANISHED. It can no longer “compete” with Christ within for control of one’s life, so temptation to sin no longer arises from it. Such temptation is from Satan or the human environment in which one lives. Therefore, freedom from sin is an achievable goal for the Christian – not in the sense that sin becomes IMPOSSIBLE but that avoidance of sin becomes POSSIBLE.
When Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within you, the “you” seems to have been collective and is sometimes translated as “in your midst”. Nevertheless, the presence of Christ within us by the Holy Spirit is strongly taught in the New Testament. The”religious consciousness” approaches Christ as Other, in a sense of worship. The move to the “Kingdom consciousness” is to a deeper worship of Christ as the Fountain of our life. It is the sense of complete surrender to Christ within, as Other, but also as one with us. As Norman Grubb said “Christ as us” not just “Christ in us” or, as St. Catherine of Genoa said “My ME is God”. God in Christ becomes all in us. William Law once said that unless our goal is the Kingdom of God, our goal in life is useless. Anything other than the Kingdom is wasted. Strong words, but words that we need to seriously consider.
