Every sacrament is also a sign that points to something. It indicates the existence of a deeper and greater reality. The people of God is also an indicative sacrament, precisely in this sense: it points to the reign of God insofar as it is still hidden and incomplete, yet at the same time it reveals essential features of what is to come.
But a sacrament is not only a sign that points to something. It is also an effective sign. It effects participation in Christ himself and thus in his work and his destiny. In the same way the people of God is also more than a mere pointer. It makes present the reign of God as “already and not yet.” It gives a share already in the reign of God. It makes its members already companions at table in the reign of God. It allows them to experience the power of the reign of God even now, through the Holy Spirit. And as church it links its members already to the risen Christ, in whom the reign of God has already become a perfected reality.
Thus the concept of sacrament seems to be a meaningful possibility for defining the correlation between the reign of God and the people of God more precisely. It secures the visibility of the reign of God and prevents it from drifting without a location. We can, for example, with the help of this model, interpret something like Luke 11:20 without incurring the usual problems: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the reign of God has come to you.” As we can see, Jesus’ exorcisms of demons liberate deeply disturbed people from diseased compulsions that bind them and deprive them of freedom. Such liberation is a tangible and perceptible reality, not only for the sick people themselves, but also for their environment. A bit of the world has been changed.
What we can see is the reign of God itself. In the process of healing it remains hidden, but it is already present in the sign: the sign is the healing of mentally ill people. Those signs are so powerful that they attract attention. People are talking throughout the country about Jesus’ mighty deeds. The signs thus create space for the reign of God and allow it to come.
Nevertheless, the reign of God preserves its incognito status. It has to be believed, just as the hidden grace of the sacraments must be believed. One can take the sacraments to be empty signs with nothing behind them, and in the same way it was possible to regard Jesus’ exorcisms as trickery or the work of the devil. That is just what Jesus’ enemies did (cf. Mark 3:22).
So what is the reign of God? In New Testament exegesis it often remains remarkably ambivalent. It has no real place in the world. It is true that it was visible for a short while in Jesus, in his words and his deeds, but after that it apparently remains suspended like mist in the air. No one can grasp it. This book takes a different tack. It is meant, among other things, to show the deep connection between the reign of God and the people of God. That is the primary purpose of the next chapter.
Chapter 4
The Gathering of Israel
In the preceding chapters I have already spoken more than once about Jesus’ “gathering of Israel.” It is high time to take a closer look at that idea, because it is not at all clear what it means. “The gathering of Israel” is not one of the classic theological concepts. You can still search theological dictionaries in vain for it. The closest you will come is “collection.”
The Concept of Gathering
Still, “gathering” is a word that appears frequently in the Bible. From the time of the exile onward, the gathering of the scattered people of God was one of the fundamental ideas in Israel’s theology.1 Deuteronomy 30:1-5 reads:
When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the LORD your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The LORD your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.
We see in this text that the idea of the gathering of the people of God presumes that it is scattered among the nations. Among the prophets, in particular, the “gathering of what is scattered,” that is, those in the Diaspora, plays a major role—and always with great theological significance. “Gathering” in many cases becomes almost a soteriological terminus technicus, that is, a fixed concept representing the bringing of salvation. “Gathering” Israel is often parallel to “liberating,” “saving,” “healing,” and “redeeming” Israel. Thus the term acquires a certain independent quality of representing the coming of salvation, even though “gathering from the Diaspora” remains controlling.
It is always God who gathers the people. It is never said that the people will gather themselves. The background is the image of the shepherd who gathers his or her flock and leads them home—and scattered sheep, as we know, cannot gather themselves. The goal of the gathering is a renewed dwelling in the Land. It is true that the gathering of the people of God means more than simply bringing them together. It always means as well that the people will find unity among themselves:
[The LORD] will raise a signal for the nations,
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth.
The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart,
the hostility of Judah shall be cut off;
Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,
and Judah shall not be hostile towards Ephraim. (Isa 11:12-13)
Ephraim here represents the Northern Kingdom, Judah the Southern Kingdom. The division between the northern and southern realms will be healed by the gathering of the people of God. The rivalry of the tribes will come to an end. Gathering from the exile is thus not only being led back into the Land but also the overcoming of the mortal divisions within the people of God itself.
In the postexilic period the gathering of Israel gradually became a central part of the promise of salvation, comparable to the exodus from Egypt, Israel’s primal confession. “With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” God will lead Israel out from among the nations—as once before out of Egypt. In Jeremiah 23:7-8 we even read:
Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, “As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the LORD lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them!”
Thus the bringing back of the people from the Diaspora more and more clearly becomes a fundamental statement about God, God’s nature, and the way God acts. This is evident in the relative clausal construction in Isaiah 56:8: “Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel.” Here we already find prayer language, a praise of God’s action that has become a fixed formula. In fact, the “gathering of Israel” enters more and more into the inventory of prayer formulae. In Psalm 106:47, Israel prays: “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations.” And in the final Hallel, the great conclusion to the book of Psalms, Psalm 147:2-3 reads: