NOTES for Rom 8:11

What is that Kingdom which Jesus brought into the world? In brief, it is a space filled with the breath of God. The same breath that would later be called the Spirit, would be considered the third hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, and about which many theological treatises would be written.

And this breath, meanwhile, has its own history, going back to pre-Christian times: for the prophets were the first to speak of the breath of God, and they did not theologize, but simply sensed this breath not only in their heart, but in their whole being. But that was still only prehistory.

The real history begins on the day of Pentecost, when the breath of God bursts into the world, laying the beginning of that Kingdom whose unfolding fullness will become the meaning of all humanity's subsequent existence. And every Christian is to take a direct and immediate part in this. Paul does not say by accident that it is God who, by His breath, raises Jesus Himself from the dead. Death has no place only in the Kingdom; in the fallen world it is all-powerful, so that even the Messiah cannot escape its power. He is not subject to sin; death is not inevitable for Him. But if He is killed, then in the fallen world He dies just like any human being.

Such is the law of the fallen world that lies in evil: in it, death always has priority over life. But in the Kingdom everything is the opposite; here life has priority. In the Kingdom no one can be killed, and no one can die, unless he deliberately puts himself to death by giving sin power over himself, as happened with Ananias and Sapphira. It is no surprise that, dead in the fallen world, Jesus turns out to be alive in the Kingdom.

The Kingdom now enters the world, and the path of Christ's followers repeats His own: those who have entered the Kingdom die only in this world, and only insofar as it has not yet been transfigured. There are no dead in the Kingdom; here all are alive who have ever sought and awaited it, for in the Kingdom there is no past, present, and future, at least not as we know them in the world that has not yet been transfigured.

And at the end of time, when the Kingdom is revealed in all its fullness, everyone who has ever lived on earth will face a choice: the former order of things is passing away; where should one go next? This is what the day of the last Judgment will be. The day when life, finally, becomes life to the end and in fullness, while death, alas, becomes full and final death.