Once we get inside the world of Jesus’s day and begin to understand what he might have meant by the word “God,” we begin to understand too the breathtaking claim that Jesus was, himself, now in charge. He was the one who had “an everlasting dominion” (Dan. 7:14), a kingship that would never be destroyed. This claim can never be, in our sense or indeed in the ancient sense, merely “religious.” It involves everything, from power and politics to culture and family. It catches up the “religious” meanings, including personal spirituality and transformation, and the philosophical ones, including
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