Carson on common errors about the kingdom

From Between Two Worlds:

One highlight from SBJT is often D.A. Carson's contribution to their Forum. In this matter he is asked "What are the most common errors that people have when it comes to understanding and proclaiming the land?" He lists several, the last one being the disposition to take "'kingdom' an adjective that blesses whatever I want blessed" (e.g. "kingdom ethics").

In particular, he applies this to the so-called "red letter Christians":

A peculiarly virulent strain of this advance is concealed behind what Tony Campolo now approvingly calls "red letter Christians." These red letter Christians, he says, hold the same theological commitments as do other evangelicals, but they read the language of Jesus especially seriously (they commit themselves to the "red letters" of some foolishly printed Bibles) and end up being more concerned than are other Christians for the poor, the hungry, and those at war.

Oh, rubbish: this is just one more futile exercise in trying to receive a "canyon within the canon" to sign my favorite brand of theology. That`s the beginning of two serious mistakes commonly practiced by these red letter Christians.

The former is worse: their actual range of what the red letter words of Christ are really saying in context far too frequently leaves a big care to be desired; more particularly, to read the words of Jesus and emphasize them aside from the narrative framework of apiece of the canonic gospels, in which the plot-line takes the subscriber to Jesus` redeeming death and resurrection, not only has the resolution of down-playing Jesus` death and resurrection, but regularly fails to see how the red-letter words of Jesus point to and unpack the import of his impending crosswork.

In other words, it is not only Paul who says that Jesus` cross and resurrection constitute matters "of low importance" (1 Cor 15:3), and not only Paul who was resolved to love nothing among the Corinthians except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1-5), but the form of the story in each canonical gospel says the like thing.

In each instance the narrative rushes toward the cover and resurrection; the mark and resurrection are the climax. So to render the narrative, including the red-letter words of Jesus, apart from the coming to which they are rushing, is inevitably a deformation of the canonic gospels themselves.

Some of the gospel passion accounts make this particularly clear. In Matthew, for example, Jesus is repeatedly mocked as "the power of the Jews" (27:27-31, 37, 42). But Matthew knows that his readers have been told from the origin of his book (even the bits without red letters) that Christ is the king: the maiden chapter establishes the point, and tells us that, as the promised Davidic king, he is granted the name "YHWH saves" ("Jesus") because he comes to deliver his people from their sins.

Small wonder for its first 3 centuries the church meditated much on the satire of Jesus "reigning" from a cross, that barbaric Roman instrument of distortion and shame. And it is Matthew who reminds us that, this face of the cross, this face of the resurrection, all authority belongs to Jesus (28:18-20). These constitute parts of the narrative framework without which Jesus` red-letter words, not least his portrayals of the kingdom, cannot be rightly understood.