Thy Kingdom Come

SpareOom (New Messages)
1

As I started to type this, I noticed that I already posted this, more or less, several times in the past. But the last time was in 2019, so I guess it won’t hurt to post it again, given the current state of the world’s affairs.

This is how Lewis describes his thoughts on that verse of the “Our Father”, in Letter V of “Letters to Malcolm”:

" ‘Thy kingdom come’. That is, may your reign be realized here, as it is there. But I tend to take ‘there’ on three levels. First, as in the sinless world beyond the horrors of animal and human life; in the behavior of stars and trees and water, in sunrise and wind. May there be “here” (in my heart) the beginning of a like beauty. Secondly, as in the best human lives I have known: in all the people who really bear the burdens and ring true, and in the quiet, busy, ordered life of really good families and really good religious houses. May that too be ‘here’. Finally, of course, in the usual sense: as in Heaven, as among the blessed dead.

“And ‘here’ can of course be taken not only as ‘in my heart’, but as ‘in this college’ – in England – in the world in general.”

Dimitry

“Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Love will last forever.” (1 Corinthians 13: 4-8)

2

It’s interesting to me that Lewis would apparently think of “in my heart” as the first application of “thy kingdom come.” I’d never argue that it’s an application, but it isn’t the one I’d think of first. Here’s how the Westminster Larger Catechism describes it:

Q. 191. What do we pray for in the second petition?
A. In the second petition, (which is, Thy Kingdom come,) acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fulness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrates; that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of his second coming, and our reigning with him for ever: and that he would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends.

“That Christ would rule in our hearts” is of course a part of it, and an essential part at that, but I don’t think I’d see that as the main thrust of that petition.