In the previous chapter we discussed Van Ruler's understanding of the kingdom of God as the purpose of history. We also discussed the protological relationship of Jesus Christ with creation and rejected the supralapsarian view that the purpose of history is salvation in Christ. In the present chapter we have discussed the present relationship of Jesus Christ with creation. The Spirit of Christ has been poured out on all existence, but the Spirit is not to be identified with the glorified Christ - He is also the Spirit of the Father. In other words the work of the Spirit is not only and not primarily concerned with reconciliation but rather with the expression of salvation in this world, that is, the work of the Holy Spirit is directed more at the kingdom of Glory than at Christ. Before we discuss the idea of the eschatological kingdom and the relationship of Jesus Christ to this kingdom we will briefly discuss and clarify the notions of the `covenant' and `kingdom'.
The covenant is a moment in the special revelation - the election of Israel stands at the center of the doctrine of the covenant. The covenant must thus always be thought of as a covenant of grace. The covenant is this: the living God associating with lost and sinful man.3.59 There can be no absolute distinction between the old and the new covenant. When God redeemed Israel from Egypt, He made them His own property and He gave them His law to preserve the salvation that they received in the redemption out of Egypt, and to express this salvation in their entire individual and social existence. This covenant of God with Israel, is not replaced with another covenant by the reconciling sacrifice of Christ. In the blood of Christ this covenant is renewed, confirmed and erected for all nations.3.60
The covenant is salvation in Christ. Thus there is almost an identity between the covenant and the regnum Christi. We have already discussed the characteristics of the regnum Christi and will not repeat them here. We only wish to emphasize the fact that election, the giving of the law, the covenant, the incarnation, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the special revelation are forced emergency measures of God. They can only be understood in connection with sin. The covenant is this: God associating with lost man. In the preceding pages of this chapter we have seen how this association is to be understood as the concealed union with Christ through the Holy Spirit. In the Covenant God himself has entered our fallen reality. The covenant is to be understood in terms of the Immanuel - God with us.3.61
However it is extremely important to recognize the difference between the covenant of grace and the eschatological kingdom of God. It is true that the kingdom of Christ cannot be separated from the kingdom of God either in terms of content or in a temporal sense.3.62 There are not two different kingdoms but rather a difference in modality in one and the same kingdom. In Christ we have the full and complete salvation of God but in the modality of concealment in the flesh, in the modality of the indwelling of the Spirit, of the unio mystica cum Christo, of the promise. In the eschatological kingdom the promise will become reality, our salvation will be revealed. The concealment in the flesh, the humanity of God in Christ, will be undone in the eschatological act of revelation. There will no longer be mediation between the world and God - God will be all in all. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit will also cease - there will no longer be the struggle of the Spirit with the flesh. Having gone through the `fire' of sin and grace man will move from the posse non peccare to the non posse peccare. All that will remain is the triune God and the naked existence of things. The regnum Dei is to be understood in terms of `man before the countenance of God'.3.63
In the kingdom of Glory there is no union of human and divine nature such as that found in Christ. In the following pages we will clarify this eschatological border between the present fulfillment and the future consummation. But for the moment it is only necessary that we are aware of this difference between `covenant' and `kingdom'. Without the acknowledgement of this difference we would not be able to understand Van Ruler's theology. It is clear, for instance, that A. Konig has overlooked this distinction when he states: ``If the world was created to be the place where the covenant was to be realized, then it was most certainly created with Jesus Christ in view...On this issue it seems unnecessary to play off Barth and Van Ruler the one against the other. According to Van Ruler, the purpose of creation is creation itself, the joy of existing. But is this not already salvation?...And is this not precisely what will come about on the new earth? Yet this is the purpose of creation!''3.64 Konig has simply identified Barth's christomonic covenant theology with Van Ruler's trinitarian kingdom theology. It is precisely on this issue that it is necessary to distinguish between Barth and Van Ruler.