The Kingdom of God, Part II
Yesterday I explored the idea of the Kingdom of God as it unfolded in the Old Testament. You may remember that Jeremiah said, “The time is coming…”
Jesus said, “The time has come” (Mk. 1:15)!
Jesus and the coming of the Kingdom
Nothing was more central to the ministry of Jesus than the Kingdom of God. He believed himself to be the Messiah (Jn. 4:26), the “King of the Jews” (Mk. 15:2), sent by God to establish his Kingdom. Everything he did revolved around the Kingdom! His message (Lk. 4:18-21), his miracles (Lk. 11:20) and his feasting (Mat. 9:14-15) were all signs that the Kingdom of God had finally arrived!
It’s just that it hadn’t arrived in the sense that many in Israel were hoping for. What they wanted was liberation from the Romans! What they wanted was peace! What they wanted was prosperity! So they tried to take Jesus and make him king by force (John Jn. 6:15). But in so doing they fell once more into the same trap as their fathers. The Kingdom of God was not the same thing as the Kingdom of Israel, and so Jesus withdrew to the mountains.
The Kingdom he came to establish was, “not of this world” (Jn 18:36). The armies at his disposal were not military men but legions of angels (Mat. 26:53). It’s citizens were not inhabitants of a region but those who did the will of his father (Mat.12:50). And they entered his Kingdom not through birth but re-birth (Jn. 3:3).
Jesus has been given “all authority in heaven and earth” (Mat. 28:18) and now he reigns over a multitude scattered throughout the nations. They recognize his Kingship and submit to him as Lord. They are the universal invisible Church, a people purchased by God with the blood of his Son. The Kingdom of God had finally arrived with the coming of Jesus.
“Really? That’s it? Why doesn’t that feel quite right… are you sure we’re not missing something?”
His disciples thought the same thing. They knew that in Jesus they’d found the King but they couldn’t quite figure out his Kingdom. So after he rose from the dead they asked him, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6)
Good question. Come back tomorrow for Part III of this article!
This entry was posted on 15/01/2010 at 9:33 am and is filed under Clarifying Questions. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: bible, God, Israel, Kingdom, Messiah
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26/08/2010 at 5:50 pm
[...] Kingdom of God as it unfolds throughout the Bible. We’ve seen it in the Old Testament and in the ministry of Jesus, and so today I want to finish by taking a quick look at the Kingdom in all its glory- when Jesus [...]