Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

P ART II: T HEOLOGICAL AND M ISSIOLOGICAL P RINCIPLES AND I NSIGHTS • 123

4. Gnawing theodicy issues: if Christ is victor, what has gone wrong with the world?

5. A perceived dualistic framework: God or the devil understanding, with little room for ambiguities or grayness

C. Jesus’ presence as the “presence of the future” in the here and now

1. The distinctiveness of Jesus’ gospel: “The Kingdom is at hand,” Mark 1.14-15

2. Jesus and the inauguration of the Age to Come into this present age

a. The coming of John the Baptist, Matt. 11.2-6

b. The inauguration of Jesus’s ministry, Luke 4.16-21

c. The confrontation of Jesus with demonic forces, Luke 10.18ff.; 11.20

3. The teaching of Jesus and his claim of absolute authority on earth, Mark 2.1-12; Matt. 21.27; 28.18

Christ’s death for our sins – His payment of the penalty declared against us – was His legal victory whereby He erased Satan’s legal claim to the human race. But Christ also won dynamic victory. That is, when He was justified and made alive, adjudged and declared righteous in the Supreme Court of the universe, Satan, the arch foe of God and man, was completely disarmed and dethroned. Christ burst forth triumphantly from that age-old prison of the dead. Paul says that He “spoiled principalities and powers” and “made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2.15).”

~ Paul Billheimer. Destined for the Throne. p. 87.

4. “The Kingdom has come and the strong man is bound,” Matt. 12.28, 29

a. The kingdom of God “has come” – pleroo

b. The meaning of the Greek verb: “To fulfill, to complete, to be fulfilled, as in prophecy”