God’s Camelot: The Security of the Kingdom

By Edwin Zackrison

The allusion of Camelot came long after the scriptural pictures of heaven. But human vision has always idealized what began in the story of the Garden of Eden. Camelot produces gardens in our minds, though it is far broader than a simple garden. It represents that vision of perfection or more demonstrably utopia with justice and mercy and others. Visioning everything to be precise is a possibility that the human mind freely involves itself. There is no attempt to see Camelot allegorically in this book. But we all have the vision of the knights of the round table and their desires to make the kingdom successful. Yet Lancelot also plays a kind of role that is not uncommon to the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781532073816

Edwin Zackrison

Edwin Zackrison is a retired professor of theology and ministry at La Sierra University in Riverside, California. He is the author of The First Temptation (2015), People Under Construction (2020), and Profile of a Religious Man (2020).

Book preview

Books by Edwin Zackrison

Melvin Campbell and Edwin Zackrison. Interactive Readings for Christian Worship (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2003).

Melvin Campbell and Edwin Zackrison. Readers Theatre for Christian Worship; Biblical Stories of Courage and Faith (New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2003).

Edwin Zackrison. In the Loins of Adam; A Historical Study of Original Sin in Adventist Theology (New York: iUniverse, 2004).

Edwin Zackrison. The First Temptation; Seventh-day Adventists and Original Sin (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2015).

Edwin Zackrison. About Tomorrow, Let God Worry (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2019).

God’s

Camelot

The Security of the Kingdom

EDWIN ZACKRISON

Foreword by Zoey Zackrison

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GOD’S CAMELOT

THE SECURITY OF THE KINGDOM

Copyright © 2019 Edwin Zackrison.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-7380-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-7381-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019904599

iUniverse rev. date:  04/24/2019

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1     God’s Camelot

Chapter 2     When Christians Differ

Chapter 3     Run in Such A Way As to Get the Prize

Chapter 4     Flight 266

Chapter 5     Hear What the Spirit Says

Chapter 6     Worthy is the Lamb

Chapter 7     Christian Ministry

Chapter 8     An Antidote for Doubt

Chapter 9     The Mordecai Syndrome

Chapter 10   Predicament, Promise and Power

Chapter 11   The Better Ministry

Chapter 12   Choose Wisely

Chapter 13   The Paradoxes of Christmas

Chapter 14   Determining the Direction of Your Life

Chapter 15   The Suffering Savior

Chapter 16   What Hannah Did with Grace

Chapter 17   Dorcas—Resurrected Worker

Chapter 18   The Inward Law

Chapter 19   Into Eternity

Chapter 20   Today is Getting from One to the Other

Chapter 21   Will You Go the Distance?

Chapter 22   The Law in the Mind

Chapter 23   Is God Lost?—The Burden of Advent

Chapter 24   Making Wise the Simple

Chapter 25   Another Kind of Loser

Chapter 26   We Will Not Forget You

Chapter 27   Fools Forget the Flood

Chapter 28   Hail to the Chief

Chapter 29   The Freedom Principle

Chapter 30   Loving God and Keeping the Commandments

Chapter 31   The Greatest Quality of All

Chapter 32   Does God Really Care?

Dedication

To EUGENE BORG

My fellow Prayer Warrior.

For years we have shared our Christian

growth through efforts to recognize that

God’s Camelot involves constant comprehension.

Foreword

Kings and queens all have their own way of running their kingdoms, everything that is rightfully theirs. They all have expectations and dreams of a perfect kingdom, so they can be proud of their works. God is one of those kings. We live in God’s kingdom—a place where tragedy, mistakes, sin, happiness, laughter, and betrayal are all present. But that is a paradox.

Everyone is different, and no domain is flawless. Though the rulers of a kingdom may wish for something from their people, they can never expect anything being guaranteed. God loves everyone equally, for he has created us. That’s how he differs from other leaders. He understands us more than anyone else and he accepts us for who we are.

We may mess up, we may make mistakes, but God knows that we will suffer for the harshest of these sins. God always works to make earth part of his Camelot.

My father, Edwin Zackrison, is an eloquent writer and has a way with words, keeping the reader captivated in the subjects he brings to the light. He is a lifetime professional theologian, with impeccable credentials who has spent most of his time in the university classroom. His writing is persuasive, motivating, encouraging, and overall beautiful. He puts everything into his work, which is what counts.

Maybe that effort is something to be compared to God’s work: perfectly imperfect, his present Camelot.

— Zoey Zackrison

Sixth grade student

Heritage Middle School

Preface

Camelot is our myth of life. It is a legendary castle but as with all legends it envisions some of our utopian thoughts. These are reflected in the musical lyrics that have entertained audiences on stage for the last six decades. But Broadway was second to the Kennedy myth made popular in the 1960s that took the mythical structure to present a caricature of the New Frontier. The imagination was played to create a political vision that built a new picture of human insight.

The allusion of Camelot came long after the scriptural pictures of heaven. But human vision has always idealized what began in the story of the garden of Eden. Camelot produces gardens in our minds though it is far broader than a simple garden. It represents that vision of perfection or more demonstrably utopia with justice and mercy and order. Visioning everything to be perfect is a possibility that the human mind freely involves itself.

The favorite word in scripture for the work of God is kingdom. Humans can relate to this term because we have kingdoms even today. Kingdoms are made of heads of state, territory, subjects, and authority. The scriptural term puts emphasis on the latter. The Greek word kingdom emphasizes kingship. And in the vision of that authority resides the human will.

Camelot is not an all standing reality anywhere. King Arthur can’t even be proven historically. A study of the Camelot of medieval fame ends in a lot of speculation. But the study is filled with thrill as we view our hopes for finding out what actually existed. Is Camelot history? Was King Arthur a reality as our dreams wander? One theory is better than another.

We will not exhaust the visualization of Camelot in this book. We will only seek to understand the promise of God’s word regarding the nature of characteristics seen in scripture. Any last words? No just growing understandings of that revelation.

I grew up in a denomination that continually talked about the great disappointment. That distress was caused by its forerunners who had predicted the advent of Christ. For years the group preached with certainty that Jesus would return on a certain day. And when he didn’t the persecution became intense. Perhaps embarrassment would be a better description. What had happened? Where had Camelot gone?

The result of the disappointment was a vast reordering of thought. History of faith took on a new intensity in those pioneers’ thinking. We often call such revisioning by a technical psychological term: reframing. This procedure requires serious objectifying of the mind. Not all believers are capable of such operations. But the gospel requires such thinking.

Reframing requires a vast revision of life. Not the least of this is a reawakening of how scripture is applied in a modern age. The study of the great fathers of the church like St. Augustine and Martin Luther become touchstones of reality. But they lived centuries ago. So, their thinking should be studied and understood, but they need application. They do not live in the twenty-first century. Camelot provides for us a mental trip filled with some of the same types that occupy the weaknesses of the kingdom we live in.

There is no attempt to see Camelot allegorically in this book. But we all have the vision of the knights of the round table and their desires to make the kingdom successful. Yet Lancelot also plays a kind of situation that is not uncommon to the human condition as we understand it.

The story is very old giving us the first materials of romance from the twelfth century. It was transported to Great Britain where most scholars consider the whole story as fictional. But the comparisons have a surreal similarity that plays into our minds today in the light of scriptural realities.

We launch our ship to understand the nature of God’s kingship. From the intricate troubles of the present kingdom as it exists and survives through the age of evil—the present age—to the final day of judgment we will be encouraged to be courageous and persistence.

Edwin Zackrison, Ph.D., M.B.A.

University of Phoenix, Retired

Chattanooga, Tennessee

May 2019

Chapter One

God’s Camelot

He who would have fruit must climb the tree.

— Thomas Fuller

REVELATION 19:6-7

⁶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude,

      like the sound of many waters

              and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying,

"Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

⁷ Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,

              for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

              and his Bride has made herself ready.

CAMELOT IS NOT FREE OF DISAGREEMENT

Those who are not acquainted with the character of God’s Camelot have a common notion that the Christian religion is utopian. But a view of Camelot that is the imagined society of Utopia creates a picture of Camelot with nothing undesirable. The perfect community is the concept of imagination. The perfect place where no problems exist.

The closest scripture brings God’s kingdom to bear is not the kingship we experience here prior to the Parousia of Christ. In Christian theology we call that utopian idea by a technical term, the kingdom of glory. That is one photograph of God’s Camelot. But we all know that none of us have seen that here on earth. We talk about such things as church and Christian community, without destroying the possibility of the utopian wish.

In this book we are going to look at God’s Camelot from a different angle than the kingdom of glory. Theologians often refer to this period as the kingdom of grace. It is the period of time that resembles most the idea of Camelot. Those who know the story of King Arthur and his Camelot understand that in spite of the hope for everything to be right, there was a recognition that here the human condition was very much in place.

The legend of Camelot included a wish, but it had that disconnection we know as sin. The wish of the king was put on hold as sin expressed itself. Everywhere we look we will see this characteristic springing up.

THE KINGDOM OF CAMELOT

Each evening from December to December

Before you drift to sleep upon your cot,

Think back on all the tales that you’ll remember of Camelot.

Ask every person if he’s heard the story

And tell it strong and clear if he has not,

That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory called Camelot.¹

Once upon a time God’s kingdom was Camelot. It’s not important whether there was a legal limit to the snow there or whether July and August could not be too hot. If winter was forbidden until December and summer lingered on until September is beside the point.

Whether rain never fell until after sundown or by 8:00 a.m. the morning fog had disappeared is unimportant. And should the snow be allowed to slush upon the hillsides or by 9:00 the moonlight be required to appear is extraneous to the truth about this Camelot of God.

THE SECURITY OF THE KINGDOM

In that kingdom there was security and righteousness. The territory was unchallenged, nothing lived unto itself, all lived to serve others. There was simply not a more congenial spot for happily-ever-aftering than God’s Camelot.

But just as in the popular musical, a triangle messed it up. The perverse affair was a love-fling with self—something that logically can’t work and experientially hasn’t. The glorious kingdom of God, for shining moments of eternity the idyllic fulfillment of purposeful existence, where the climate was perfect all the year, found itself inundated with a credibility challenge and terrible rumors.

Scripture views God’s kingdom from the standpoint of authority more than power. If power were the issue in the great conflict the fight between good and evil would have been over long ago. As Camelot ran on natural laws so did God’s kingdom. But God’s realm also included moral laws which must be obeyed voluntarily for the king to realize the full weight of his kingship.

Affairs with self interfere with that freedom for they set up contrary allegiances and result in disaster. Thus, the Greek word, basileia, or kingdom, is better translated kingship. One cannot enter God’s kingdom (kingship) unless one is born again, i.e., comes voluntarily to recognize the kingship of God in life.

THE KINGDOM OF GLORY AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE

So, there is a Camelot future as well as the principles of God’s Camelot working battle with evil in this life.

The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must receive the kingdom of God as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now. We must also seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (Matt. 6: 33). What is the object of our quest? The Church? Heaven? No; we are to seek God’s righteousness—His sway, His rule, His reign in our lives.²

One who becomes part of the eternal kingdom preserves the principles of its government in the heart. Unlike the musical, God’s Camelot is not one brief, shining moment, destined only to be a fleeting wisp of glory. Sin is not glorified. Rather, intelligent subjects see its destructive nature and call on the king finally to remove it. Thus, the perverse love affair with self does not ride off as a hero on a white steed to elevate sin to the position of normality.

Instead God is victorious, right wins out, the triangle is seen as perverse, and Camelot becomes God’s eternal kingdom of glory never to abide such rude interruptions again. The final act of God’s musical ends, not with a melancholy reprise about what had been or could have been, but with the glorious peals of praise.

⁶ Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude,

      like the sound of many waters

              and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying,

"Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

⁷ Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,

              for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

              and his Bride has made herself ready. (Revelation 19:6, 7).

Chapter Two

When Christians Differ

In actual life, every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.

— August Wilhelm von Schlegel

JOHN 17:24-26

²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, the world has not known thee, but I have known thee; and these know that thou hast sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them thy name, and I will make it known, that the love with which thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

CRITICISM AND DISCUSSION

Some time ago, before the latest round of attacks was launched on the Adventist prophetess Ellen White’s credibility, several church members sat in a family room somewhere in North America discussing certain aspects of thought and lifestyle. One suggested that to live a rich, dynamic Christian life one must study the Bible, pray, and share.

A second member felt that Bible study alone was not enough; one must also study regularly the writings of the prophet. His rationale was that she offered modern applications of biblical principles that help solve modern problems. Therefore, he argued, while the Bible might give some basic help, the modern prophet is equally important and, in many cases, more relevant.

A third member disagreed. What the prophet gave to the modern church, she insisted, was primarily advice. Such could be helpful, but it should not be considered on the same level as the gospel material of the scriptures because it did not constitute revelation so much as pastoral guidance.

"What about her inspiration, then? asked the first member. Is it comparable to that of the writers of the scriptures or not?"

At this theological injection all discussion momentarily stopped. The first to respond, after the long pause, was still another member who insisted that inspiration was a subjective term and must be understood from the standpoint of what effect it has on the inspired person. It is a gift, he suggested, which is not transferable, but which may come in degrees.

"Our modern prophet was inspired religiously like Beethoven was inspired musically, and John Calvin theologically," he said. I believe one must pick and choose from the gems of her inspired statements—that not all of what she wrote was equally inspired. Some of it is either antiquated, outdated or historically conditioned. Thus, I must decide for myself what to follow and what to reject.

Now, you are the pastor. These are your church members. How do you respond? Is this conversation an indicator to you that your church is a bed of confusion, a den of heretics? Is your church falling apart? How do you go about correcting error?

To some degree this conversation represents a microcosm of discussions now going on in the broader circles of one denomination. Camelot involves complications. It raises some pastoral questions that all ministers must face sooner or later regarding theological controversy within their churches, regardless of the subject under discussion.

PLURALISM IN THE CHURCH

Could we explain this conversation based on pluralistic views about the prophet? If so, is such pluralism acceptable, desirable or warranted? Much, of course, depends on our understanding of the word itself. Philosophically, the term pluralism refers to the theory that ultimate reality has more than one true explanation, that there are varying views of which perhaps any could prove acceptable—like the old all-roads-lead-to-heaven argument.

Because of the emphasis on the truth, many church members tend to suffer temporary shock when faced with different perspectives of truth than they have hitherto encouraged. For many, truth comes in a package and any hint of pluralism suggests more than one package, a phenomenon they cannot handle.

But if one understands pluralism to mean varying expressions of truth, rather than varying doctrines, then, the church can become a residence for pluralism. If, on the other hand, we accept pluralism in its strictest philosophical meaning, then the cause of truth as it is in Jesus can suffer.

In the study of soteriology [salvation] we can distinguish three theories regarding human response to God’s redemptive activity: (1) universalism—the theory that all things work together for good and thus everyone will ultimately be saved; (2) predestination—the theory that God decrees who will ultimately be saved through the free exercise of his sovereignty by way of irresistible grace; and (3) free will—the theory that God in his sovereignty has limited himself by allowing us to have free-moral choice, i.e., the ability to refuse the grace of God.

How could conservative Christians hold all three theories and still be doctrinally and biblically consistent? Confessional churches insist on the organic unity of doctrine and the comprehensive nature of truth, and to hold one of these views would logically exclude the other two. Furthermore, each brings with it a certain world view, and a certain understanding of the character of God, the work of Christ, the nature of evangelism and personal lifestyle.

Using the strict philosophical definition of pluralism, the church cannot be pluralistic in its confession of the prophetess. She claimed to be a modern messenger inspired by God and the church affirms these claims. She has traditionally carried an authority for the church greater than any writings other than the scriptures. This is a confession to the world, even part of the denomination’s uniqueness. Either she is what she claims, or she is not.

These four church members believed she was what she claimed to be. They were church members and accepted their denomination’s position on the gifts of the Spirit. They viewed her as a recipient of the gift of prophecy. They believed God had used her to establish and keep this church and to bring its task to fulfillment.

Thus, regardless of their expressions, they were not pluralistic in the philosophical sense of the term. But it is a fact that they did not all express their faith in the same terms or from the same background. If people think through their faith, if they are growing and gaining new insights of their Lord, if the saints continue to mature in Jesus Christ, their expression of faith will become richer and deeper and reveal an ever-advancing experiential growth. That is part of the Holy Spirit’s work in the church, and the pastor most resist the temptation to interfere with the Spirit’s work.

HERESY IN THE CHURCH

Some would immediately recognize the case of the four views as a situation where two, three, or even four heresies were contending for attention. I found myself facing momentary panic at the thought of heretical views. Personally, I do not believe that the prophet’s inspiration should be compared to the natural phenomenon of a Beethoven or a Picasso.

Thus, I suffered some noticeable discomfort at that suggestion. Spiritual gifts are distinct from natural talents. Nor did I welcome the suggestion that inspiration comes in degrees. The denomination settled that issue many decades ago and has generally disagreed with any comparison made between books of the Bible based on alleged degrees of inspiration. A person is either inspired by the Spirit of God or he is not.

Here I was immediately confronted with my professional duty. How was I to correct these errors, as I perceived them, and lead these people back to a more biblical foundation of inspiration?

The church’s position has been that although there are no degrees of inspiration, not all inspired material carries the same redemptive value. Some is gospel material, some is divine counsel, some is necessary historical, chronological and statistical background. But not all holds the same value in one’s Christian life.

Yet we have never said that the essential gospel material of the apostle Paul is more inspired than the ethical counsel of the same writer just because it has a different purpose. It is true that experientially the gospel message sometimes has been given prior to divine counsel. God established himself as the deliverer of the Hebrews before he gave them commands.

¹And God spoke all these words, saying, ² "I am the

LORD

your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. (Exodus 20:1-2).

Putting gospel material before ethical demands avoids simple moralism and self-righteousness, but this is not a question of degrees of inspiration.

The church believes and teaches that the prophet’s inspiration is qualitatively identical to that of the biblical authors. But, in saying that, it does not suggest that she is to replace the Bible, which takes priority over her writings.

SDAs acknowledge the prophetic gift apart from the Sacred Canon as having operated prior to, during, and since the composition of the Bible, but affirm that the canonical Scriptures constitute the norm by which all other prophetic messages are to be tested.³

Thus, the authority of the prophetess or any other prophet is based on the passing of the tests of a true prophet as set up by scripture itself.⁴ In current denominational discussions, non-biblical norms are often set up that tend to confuse the issue.

Originality is an example. To insist on originality of thought or expression in the work of a prophet is to invent a non-scriptural norm. Truth is the possession of God, and where he desires his prophet to obtain truth in the inspiration process is his business. The Spirit uses the prophet, the prophet does not use the Spirit. Nowhere do the scriptures set up originality as an objective test of the prophetic gift.

A second area being probed is the ethical question or intentionality. If a prophet intends to mislead and destroy one’s soul, then this test becomes a part of the influence of the prophet’s life.

²⁰ Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:20).

Intentions are motives of which only God has accurate knowledge. Since we do not own the power to read motives, we can