A New Kingdom Within the Shell of the World
- London Catholic Worker
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Community member Harry Wills writes on the call to prefigure the Kingdom to Come.
When the Son of Man comes in His honour and all the messengers with Him, then He will sit upon His throne of honour. And all the peoples will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another, like the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Indeed, He will set the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. Then the King will say to those on His right: “Come, those praised by My Father, inherit a Kingdom prepared for you from the throwing down of civilisation.”
(Matt. 25:31-34)
In the KJV Bible, Matthew 25:34 reads: “...the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” In the NIV, it reads: “...since the creation of the world.” There are ten instances of this phrase throughout the New Testament and, generally, the above translations are correct. There is, however, some depth to it that I feel is overlooked and should be examined in relation to the Gospel message of prefiguration, beginning with an analysis of the Greek and ending with an interpretation rooted in the broader context of the New Testament.
The word translated in the above passage as “world” is κόσμος (kosmos), but in Koine Greek this does not denote the physical earth (γῆ, ge). Instead, this word should be understood as “world order, government, civilisation, humankind, etc.” It is in this sense that Jesus uses the word throughout the Gospels. See, for example, John 15:18–19:
If the World hates you, know that it hated Me before you. If you were of the World, the World would love you as its own. You are not, however, of this World, for I chose you out of the World and the World hates you because of this.
And in Revelation 17:8 we see both earth (γῆ) and world order (κόσμος) in the same verse, reinforcing the distinction:
And those dwelling on the earth (γῆ), whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the World (κόσμος), will be astonished, seeing the beast which once was, and now is not, and yet will be.
Next, the word καταβολή (katabole), usually translated foundation, has the literal meaning throwing down, from the verb καταβάλλω (κατα = down + βαλλω = to cast/throw). This is a versatile word which can mean the laying down of a foundation, i.e. the base or beginning of something, but also the throwing down, slaying, or overthrow, i.e. the end of something.
Therefore, a more literal translation would be: “from the throwing down of the world order.” Regardless of
whether it is intentional in the context of this parable, I find the lexical ambiguity of καταβολή thought-provoking. Taking the word in both its senses we get a kingdom prepared from both the foundation and overthrow of the world order. It does follow, after all, that in order for a new world to be realised, the old one must abdicate or be overthrown:
You do not pour new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins and both wine and wineskin will be ruined. No, you pour new wine into new wineskins. (Mk. 2:22)
Perhaps one implication of this understanding of “world”—as something human or social—and the new kingdom’s preparation “from/since its foundation” is that this new kingdom is being prepared through us. Every act of radical love, “the blood of every saint and prophet shed from the foundation of the World” (Lk. 11:50), paves the way for its eventual fulfilment. In other words, it is prefigured.
Prefiguration, in politics, is the philosophy that in order to realise a desired future society we must live out that new society in the present: to build a new world within the shell of the old. This is an important element of anarchist thought and praxis, and it was the methodology of Christ and the early Church. Rejecting the lex talionis, private property, and human authorities, they instead practised transformative justice, built communities of resilience, and obeyed God above all others. They were living out God's Kingdom within the shell of the Empire and, in the process, unmasked its tyranny and idolatry.
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. (Col. 2:15)
This is what the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (and the entire Gospel) is inviting us to do: to live prefiguratively in preparation for God’s Kingdom. To live and love as though we are not of this World, since Jesus has chosen us out of it (John 15:19; 17:16). Clearly, the Apostles interpreted the goal of the Christian to be living according to a new Way in spite of human structures when they declared: “It is necessary to obey God, not human beings” (Acts 5:29). For, as Petr Chelčický said, “he who obeys God needs no other authority.” Paul, too, dedicates much of his letter to the Colossians to the topic of living a new life in spite of worldly order:
Do not be held captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition according to the principles of the World and not according to Christ … He blotted out the writing against us in the decrees which were adverse to us … If you have died with Christ away from the principles of the World, why, as if living in the World, do you submit to decrees … having taken off your old self with its practices and having put on the new self, being renewed in knowledge according to the likeness of its Creator, where there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian, slave or free…. (Col. 2:8,14,20; 3:9-11)
To summarise, Jesus promises a new Kingdom, a new World, but to have a share in it, He warns, we must become anew ourselves (Jn. 3:3). To be inheritors, we must persevere in love, living prefiguratively until the World is eclipsed by the Kingdom of God. As it is written, “everyone born of God overcomes the World” (1 Jn. 5:4), for the World, as it is, is already dead and condemned. And so we, having become dead with Christ to the principles of this World, will become alive. Only through this new life, by living in the World but not being of it, can the evil of the current system be disarmed. (Jn. 3:18; Rom. 8:13; Col. 2:13-15, 20-22)
To Him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.
