The Kingdom of God (Part 1)
(Acts 1:6-8) “So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Introduction:
Rick Warren in his book “The Purpose Driven Life” openly discourages his readers from studying Bible prophecy by taking unwarranted and unbiblical liberty in interpreting Acts 1:6-8. He states that the Lord Jesus told His disciples that the details of His return “are none of your business” and that they needed to focus on “fulfilling” their “mission” rather than “figuring out prophecy.”
He wrote: “When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus quickly switched the conversation to evangelism. He wanted them to concentrate on their mission in the world. He said in essence, “The details of my return are none of your business… What is your business is the mission I’ve given you. Focus on that!” (The Purpose Driven Life op. cit, pp. 285-286).
Today there is a widespread doctrine within wider Christendom in the Kingdom Now, Kingdom Dominion camp that teaches that the Kingdom of God will be established by a triumphant Church possessing the nations for the Lord Jesus, establishing God’s kingdom on earth, and presenting it to Him when He returns.
This movement called ICAL (International Coalition of Apostolic Leadership) within wider Christendom with this doctrine actually bypasses God’s end-time prophetic purposes for Israel. Some years ago speaking to one of their leaders at a meeting I asked the question “has your movement replaced Israel?” He said “yes”. Looking at what they actually teach is clearly Kingdom Dominion doctrine.
This doctrine is also behind “The Seven Mountain Mandate,” another bedfellow of Kingdom Now, Kingdom Dominion doctrine aligned with the New Apostolic Movement.
In reality, when looking under the surface, it is another form of replacement theology. Formerly the movement was known as NAR (New Apostolic Movement) promoted by C.Peter Wagner who was perpetrating the Kingdom Dominion doctrine.
See “Kingdom Dominion Now?”
This doctrine had been unleashed upon the Body of Messiah by the heretic William Branham, a man who denied the trinity and who taught the Manifest Sons of God doctrine emphasising the same Kingdom Dominion emphasis.
Having said this, what in fact does the Word of God teach about the Kingdom of God in relation to Eschatology?
When the disciples asked the Lord Jesus about restoring the Kingdom to Israel they had in view the Old Testament prophecies clearly teaching that The Messiah would return to establish His Messianic Kingdom on earth. The Lord Jesus told them not to worry about the timing of His return saying that God the Father had already set by His own authority.
The Lord Jesus was not telling them to ignore Bible Prophecy but wanted them to be empowered to witness and to work for Him. In no way was He telling them that “it was none of their business.” In the light of the gospels and the epistles the apostles preached and wrote a great deal about eschatology. Added to this, there are references to holy living directly related to the Second Coming of Messiah (Christ) e.g. (2 Peter 3:10-13).
In fact the Apostle peter tells us that we should pay attention to Bible prophecy because it is “as a light shining in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19a).
See “Why is Bible prophecy Important”
If we do not have a basic understanding of Bible prophecy and what the scriptures teach then we will not be able to understand what is happening in the world when we see things spiralling out of control.
Kingdom Dominion doctrine is not preparing the Body of Messiah for the time of Great Tribulation, the coming of the Antichrist, the role of Israel in the end times and the persecution that will come upon the Body of Messiah within the realm of the beast empire of the Antichrist (Daniel 7:25-25) (Revelation 13:5-7).
In the work of evangelism Bible prophecy is a very effective tool as everyone wants to know about the future! When the apostles preached the Kingdom of God it not only included salvation but also the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth at the return of the Messiah when He would rule over the nations that have survived His Second Coming.
See “Why there must be a Messianic Millennial Kingdom”
The Kingdom of God is now but not yet.
The Kingdom of God spiritually is now being revealed through the Body of Messiah corporately and the Messiah is present with His Body through the Holy Spirit living in believers (Luke 17:20-21) (Romans 14:17).
However from the Jewish perspective according to the prophets the Kingdom will be visible to the nations of the world when the Messiah has returned as the King of the Jews and is reigning on David’s throne forever and the government of the whole world will be upon His shoulders (Luke 1:32-33) (Isaiah 9:6-7).
He will reign for a thousand years on earth and then continue His reign forever after the New Jerusalem comes down to earth after the new heaven and earth is created, for the old heaven and earth will have passed away (Revelation 21:1-4). So then with these things in view let’s briefly look at what God’s Word teaches us about the Kingdom of God.
What is the Kingdom of God?
(Mark 1:14-15) “Now after John (the Baptist) had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
When the Lord Jesus started His ministry God’s kingdom had come to earth as He Himself was the living temple of God in a flesh and blood body (John 2:19), and He inaugurated His kingdom, a kingdom that was made up of all those who repented of their sins and believed in Him for salvation who were born again by the Spirit and became members of His kingdom (John 3:3) (John 1:12-13).
When the Lord Jesus sent out seventy other disciples to preach the gospel of the kingdom accompanied with signs following they were to say that “the Kingdom of God has come near to you” (Luke 10:8-9). In fact the Lord Jesus told us that the last great sign that would indicate His return would be the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). The gospel of the kingdom included eschatology.
Rabbi the Apostle Paul tells us; “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14-17). Even as a Jew skilled in the Torah he saw that God’s kingdom was already on earth in the corporate Body of Messiah but not a visible one seen in the world.
The visible kingdom which will be seen in the world when the Messiah our Lord Jesus will rule over the surviving nations will happen after He has come back to reign on David’s throne at Jerusalem where He will reign over the nations with a Rod of iron (Psalm 2:8-9) (Isaiah 11:4) (Revelation 12:5; 19:15).
When the Lord Jesus stood before Pilate He said to him; “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is not of this realm” (John 18:36). Clearly the Lord Jesus confirmed that the Kingdom of God was in the world but not as a visible kingdom like the Roman Empire.
We also read how the Messiah our Lord Jesus answered the Pharisees when they questioned Him about the Kingdom of God.
“When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. / Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:20-21).
They knew from the scriptures that the Messiah would reign over the kingdom of Israel and this is what they were expecting of the Messiah that He would get rid of the Romans. They had a Kingdom Dominion mindset.
We see this reflected in the crowds in Jerusalem that welcomed the Lord Jesus when He entered Jerusalem on a donkey and laid cloaks and palm branches on the ground. They were shouting out the psalm which says; “O LORD, save us, we pray. We beseech You, O LORD, cause us to prosper! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD we bless you.” (Psalm 118:25-26) (Mark 11:8-10).
They thought He was going to deliver them from the Romans in the same way Judas Maccabeus had delivered Israel from the Seleucid Greeks around 160 years before Jesus was born. They were sadly mistaken. They had the right Messiah but they had Him all wrong! The same applies to the advocates of Kingdom Now, Kingdom Dominion doctrines and those into the faith prosperity gospel. They have the right Lord Jesus but have him all wrong!
Military conquerors always rode into a city as a warrior on a white horse. In His first coming the Messiah rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. In His Second Coming He will be riding on a white horse accompanied by the armies of heaven, with the powerful angels and the glorified saints as the KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS, delivering a fiery judgement on Israel’s enemies, the antichrist and his beast empire, the false prophet and the unsaved nations (Ezekiel 38:18-22;39:1-6) (Zechariah 14:1-5, 12-13) (Revelation 19:11-21) (2 Thessalonians 1:6-10).
If the Pharisees had spiritual insight into the Word of God, being the Old Testament scriptures, they would have recognised the Lord Jesus as the suffering servant in the character traits of Joseph. They would have recognised from the prophet Isaiah that the Lord Jesus was the Messiah who came to free the people of Israel from their sins, not from the Romans!
In His Second Coming then He will come with the character traits of King David the warrior king and rescue Israel from the armies gathered against them to wipe them out (Joel 3:1-3, 12-16).
Yes the Kingdom was to come physically in the future at the end of this age for the sake of the Jewish people, but the kingdom had already come in the person of the Lord Jesus to be established in people’s hearts uniting them as one Body through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
As Rabbi the Apostle writes; “There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6).
In the Messianic Kingdom to come the twelve apostles upon whom the Lord Jesus had conferred on them the kingdom, will, like they did at the last supper, eat and drink at the table with the Messiah with glorified immortal bodies sitting on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. This will happen in the future Messianic kingdom on earth in the age to come (Luke 22:29-30).
So we see that the Kingdom of God is now on earth and at work in and through the Body of Messiah, but prophetically for Israel it is still to come in the future as a physical and visible kingdom on earth.
So then the Kingdom of God is now present in the world through the Body of Messiah corporately but not yet as a visible kingdom on earth with the Messiah reigning over the nations from Jerusalem.
