John’s message:  “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  Matthew 3:2

So we have discussed the idea of repentance from John’s perspective.  So what does he mean by “the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”?¹

The idea of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is central to the gospel.  You could say the coming of the kingdom is the gospel (good news).  Indeed, that is what Jesus said in Luke 4:43  “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.” Do we understand the idea of the kingdom?  Do we emphasize it as we should?

Krister Stendahl, in Meanings: The Bible as Document and as Guide, states “But it remains a fact worth pondering that Jesus had preached the kingdom, while the church preached Jesus.  And thus we are faced with a danger: we may so preach Jesus that we lose the vision of the kingdom, the mended creation.”  I fear we have done just that.  As Tim Mackie says, “The church has done a pretty good job of teaching about Jesus, but an incredibly poor job of teaching what Jesus taught.”²

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Part of the problem is that the idea of a ‘kingdom’ itself is not a common concept today.  In the time when the Bible was written, kingdoms were the usual method of governing a nation.  But kingdoms are a rarity today.   Most people immediately think of the United Kingdom,  though the power of the king there is very limited as it is a ‘constitutional monarchy’.  The only absolute monarchies today are in some Muslim countries (Brunei, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates).  Though these do have a representative body of some kind, the king retains most of the power.  

The monarchies of the Bible times were mostly absolute.  The king holds all the power and can not be questioned.  If you think Jesus came to establish a democracy where we all vote on what is right and what is wrong then you have bought the serpent’s lie in Genesis 3.  But there are some other differences between the idea of ‘kingdom’ that we hold and the idea in the Bible.

The English word, ‘kingdom’, is defined as ‘a territory ruled by a king or queen.’³  So we define the geographic limits of a Kingdom by setting land boundaries.  If you cross the English Channel and step on land then you are in the Kingdom of Great Britain. If you cross the Jordan River today from Jericho you will enter the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The extent of the kingdom is defined by lines on a map. If you use that definition with ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ in Matthew you miss the meaning.  And many people do.  They think of the Kingdom of Heaven as a place outside of time and space where God lives “up there” and their goal is to get to the Kingdom of Heaven someday in the ‘sweet by and by.’  And, for them, John the Baptist’s message and Jesus’ message is all about how to get to heaven.  This is not exactly what Jesus was preaching.  The Greek and Hebrew views of ‘kingdom’ define the geographic limits of a kingdom by the area where the king reigns.⁴  If a group of people places themselves under the rule of a king, they are part of his kingdom.  If they refuse to follow the edicts of a king, then the king does not reign over them so they are not part of the kingdom.  Dallas Willard, in The Divine Conspiracy, said, “Now God’s own ‘kingdom,’ or ‘rule,’ is the range of his effective will, where what he wants done is done. The person of God himself and the action of his will are the organizing principles of his kingdom, but everything that obeys those principles, whether by nature of by choice is within his kingdom.”  We only are part of the kingdom if we submit ourselves to the rule of the king.

God’s kingdom is wherever God’s will is done.

This is why Jesus can say the kingdom is already here.

Luke 17:20-21   Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”  “In the midst” could also be translated as “within you” or “inside you”.  The kingdom is where Jesus is because Jesus always obeys the will of the king.  Are you part of the kingdom?  Do you follow the will of the king without question?

Understanding this concept of the kingdom makes it easier to understand what Jesus was praying for in the Lord’s prayer.  

“Thy Kingdom come,”

Jesus wants us to pray for the kingdom to come.  Do you know what that means?  Jesus defines it in the next part of the prayer —“thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”  In God’s space, God’s will is followed perfectly.  There is no rebellion.  Jesus wants us to pray for the complete coming of God’s kingdom when all evil will be destroyed, all rebellion quashed, and everyone will follow the will of the king always.  That day is coming and Jesus wants us to pray for that day to come.

If you have 5 minutes this week, I highly recommend watching this wonderful Bible Project video, “The Gospel of the Kingdom”.  https://bibleproject.com/explore/video/gospel-kingdom/#fn-13

David

1. Matthew says “Kingdom of Heaven” while John says “Kingdom of God”.  What is the difference?  Metonymy, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated.” We use this also.  It is understood to be the same thing when we say, “The Federal Government has issued a mask update.” or “Washington has issued a mask update.”  Some scholars.
2. Tim Mackie, Bible Project Podcast,  “The Kingdom”
3. The Oxford Dictionary
4. Mounce Greek Dictionary