I’ve been going through Dallas Willard’s book, The Divine Conspiracy, and currently reflecting on his view of the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are not about what we can do. They are statements of spiritual conditions that exist to point out, basically, this: “Blessed are the spiritual zeroes because the rule of God can come to them.”

That doesn’t mean we “attain” to spiritual zero. We just understand that wherever we are, the Kingdom can touch us.

When God touches people who normal humanity doesn’t deem as “qualified” for whatever reason, the Kingdom shines. God gives the people he touches a certain radiance. There is a lamp that shines.

“The complete obliteration of social and cultural distinctions as a basis for life under God was clearly understood by Paul as essential to the presence of Jesus in his people. It means nothing less than a new type of humanity.”

Distinctions are gone. As Paul describes in Galatians 3, the usual divisions of male and female, bond and free, Greek and Jew are blown away by the new unity of Christ. Abraham inherited the Kingdom through faith, not being Jewish (obviously).

When the world looks and sees even the ones they consider “outcasts” shining forth a certain “radiance”, THEN you have the Kingdom of God at work. The Kingdom touching ANYONE is the power of salt and light.