If the Kingdom is the reality of God's reign and repentance is the human response to that reign, we must ask a deeper question:
Who is the God whose Kingdom Jesus announces?
The answer takes us to one of the most important words in Jesus' teaching:
Father.
Again, the word itself was not new.
The Jewish Scriptures could speak of God as Father, and Jewish traditions before and around the time of Jesus contained language describing God in paternal terms. It would therefore be historically inaccurate to claim that Jesus introduced the idea of God as Father into Judaism. The more important question is what Jesus did with this familiar language.
This is precisely where our earlier methodological principle becomes important.
The word was familiar.
The relationship Jesus communicated through the word was distinctive.
God as Father
When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, he does not begin with an abstract theological definition of God. He begins with a relationship:
“Our Father…”
The prayer immediately places the human being in relation to God.
God is not merely the distant ruler of the universe.
God is not merely the judge who will one day determine the fate of humanity.
God is Father.
This does not eliminate God's authority. A father can have authority. Nor does it eliminate judgment from Jesus' teaching. But it changes the emotional and relational framework within which God's authority is understood.
The Kingdom is therefore not simply the domain of a powerful ruler.
It is the household of a Father.
The Kingdom and the Father belong together
This helps us understand why the Kingdom and Father themes in Jesus' teaching should not be separated.
If God is King, human beings are called to live under God's reign.
If God is Father, human beings are invited to live in relationship with God.
The first emphasizes God's rule.
The second emphasizes God's relationship.
Together they produce a different understanding of what it means to repent.
Repentance is not merely submission to an authority.
It can become a return to a relationship.
It is not merely moving from the wrong side of a boundary to the right side.
It is coming home.
The Prodigal Son revisited
This is why the parable of the father and his two sons is so important for understanding Jesus' teaching.
The younger son leaves the father's house. He takes what he regards as his and goes away. His journey is not simply geographical. He chooses life outside the relationship that had given him his identity.
Eventually he comes to himself.
He decides to return.
What happens next is extraordinary.
The father sees him while he is still far away.
The father runs toward him.
The father embraces him.
The father restores him.
The father celebrates.
The son expects to return as someone who has forfeited his place.
The father receives him as a son.
The difference is profound.
The son understands his return primarily in terms of his failure.
The father understands it in terms of their relationship.
This does not mean that the son's wrongdoing is irrelevant. He has genuinely gone wrong. His turning is real. But the father's response reveals something about the character of God as Jesus presents God.
The initiative of love precedes the son's ability to restore himself.
The son does not first make himself worthy and then receive the father's love.
He discovers the father's love as he returns.
Repentance and love
This gives us a deeper understanding of repentance.
If a person believes that God is primarily waiting to punish wrongdoing, repentance can easily become an attempt to escape punishment.
But if a person discovers that God is Father, repentance can become an act of trust.
The question changes from:
“How can I avoid God's punishment?”
to:
“Why am I living away from the One who loves me?”
That is a very different motivation.
Fear may turn a person away from evil.
But love can draw a person back toward God.
This may help explain the unusual character of Jesus' welcome of sinners. His fellowship with tax collectors and other socially or religiously disapproved people was not simply an expression of tolerance. Within the framework of his Kingdom teaching, such actions can be understood as embodying the character of the God he proclaimed.
The Kingdom was being announced not only with words.
It was being enacted in relationships.
A new understanding of God
Here we can see again the characteristic pattern of Jesus' teaching.
He did not necessarily replace the familiar word.
He transformed what people saw through it.
People already knew the language of kingship.
Jesus spoke of the Kingdom.
People already knew the language of repentance.
Jesus called them to turn.
People already possessed language for God as Father.
Jesus invited them to approach God as Father.
The containers remained.
The contents were transformed.
This may be one reason Jesus' teaching can appear simultaneously familiar and revolutionary.
Nothing about the vocabulary necessarily announces a completely new religion.
The revolution occurs inside the familiar vocabulary.
From servant to child
If God is Father, then the human person is not merely a subject living under divine authority.
The person is also a child invited into relationship with the Father.
This does not mean that Jesus taught that human beings are automatically righteous simply because God is Father. Nor does it erase moral responsibility. Rather, it gives moral transformation a relational foundation.
A child who knows that the father loves him does not need to obey merely because punishment is feared.
He can learn to desire what the father desires.
This gives new meaning to the prayer:
“Your Kingdom come; your will be done.”
The prayer can be understood not merely as a request that God establish a Kingdom that does not yet exist, but also as a longing:
“Let your reign become real in me.
Let your will become my will.
Let me live as your child.”
In this understanding, Kingdom, repentance, and Father are no longer separate teachings.
They form one movement:
God is King.
God is Father.
His reign is already a reality.
I have wandered from it.
I turn back.
I return home.
I learn to live according to the Father's will.
And perhaps this is the heart of Jesus' proclamation.
The good news is not merely that God will someday come to rule.
It is that God already reigns, God is Father, and human beings are invited to return home and live within the reality of that reign.
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