What Is the Kingdom of God?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Happy Friday everyone.

00:00:06.200 | Thanks for listening to the podcast.

00:00:08.840 | Well, for many of you, you know the kingdom

00:00:10.720 | is a big theme for Jesus.

00:00:12.920 | In the ESV translation, the kingdom language

00:00:16.040 | is mentioned 126 times in the gospels.

00:00:20.040 | But then kingdom is mentioned only 34 times

00:00:22.800 | in the rest of the New Testament,

00:00:24.360 | which prompts Christopher from the UK to write in.

00:00:27.520 | Hi, Pastor John, thank you very much

00:00:28.880 | for your excellent APJ podcast.

00:00:30.960 | I'm amazed you can put so much effort

00:00:32.320 | into such complex and difficult questions

00:00:34.300 | for complete strangers like me.

00:00:36.560 | My question for you is this.

00:00:38.480 | The gospel of Matthew alone is full of references

00:00:40.740 | to the coming kingdom, 55 of them in Matthew alone.

00:00:44.440 | But from Acts and into the epistles,

00:00:46.440 | there seems to be very little mention of the kingdom.

00:00:49.360 | So what is the kingdom of God and is it the church

00:00:52.880 | or is it something larger than the church?

00:00:55.840 | So I hear two crucial questions.

00:01:00.160 | One is what is the kingdom of God?

00:01:04.200 | And the other is why does it get so much prominent,

00:01:08.920 | explicit focus in the teachings of Jesus,

00:01:12.780 | but far less prominent, explicit focus

00:01:16.960 | in the letters of the New Testament?

00:01:18.880 | So let me say a word about each of those questions.

00:01:22.960 | I think the most important thing I could say

00:01:26.760 | about the kingdom of God that would help people make sense

00:01:30.880 | out of all the uses is that the basic meaning

00:01:35.160 | of the word kingdom in the Bible is God's reign,

00:01:40.160 | R-E-I-G-N, not realm or people.

00:01:46.280 | The kingdom creates a realm, the kingdom creates a people,

00:01:52.760 | but it is not synonymous with its realm or its people.

00:01:57.680 | For example, consider Psalm 103, verse 19.

00:02:01.520 | The Lord has established his throne in the heavens

00:02:04.480 | and his kingdom rules over all.

00:02:09.060 | Now you can hear the basic meaning

00:02:11.040 | of the word kingdom as rule.

00:02:14.920 | It doesn't mean that his realm rules over his realm.

00:02:20.320 | It means that God's reign or rule governs all things.

00:02:25.320 | He sits as king on his throne of the universe

00:02:31.160 | and his kingly rule, his kingdom,

00:02:35.360 | his reign governs all things.

00:02:39.200 | So the basic meaning of the word kingdom in the Bible

00:02:43.720 | is God's kingly rule, his reign, his action,

00:02:49.040 | his lordship, his sovereign governance.

00:02:53.120 | And then you add this.

00:02:54.280 | Since God's purpose for the world is to save a people

00:02:58.920 | for himself and renew the world for that people,

00:03:01.920 | his kingly rule implies a saving

00:03:05.880 | and a redeeming activity on their behalf.

00:03:10.880 | This is why the coming of the kingdom in the New Testament

00:03:13.800 | is called good news.

00:03:16.200 | In and through Jesus, God, the king,

00:03:20.920 | is coming in a way, a new way,

00:03:25.240 | in the world to establish his saving rule,

00:03:30.240 | first in the hearts of his people and in their relationships

00:03:35.080 | by triumphing over sin, Satan, death,

00:03:38.560 | and then by the exercise of his reign,

00:03:42.040 | gathering a people for himself in congregations

00:03:44.660 | that live as citizens of a new allegiance

00:03:49.660 | of the kingdom, not of this world.

00:03:51.960 | And then Christ comes a second time

00:03:55.520 | and completes the reign,

00:03:59.440 | the kingdom in establishing a new heavens and a new earth.

00:04:03.720 | So the picture you get in the gospels

00:04:07.080 | as Jesus unfolds the teaching of the kingdom

00:04:11.940 | is that it is both present and it is still future.

00:04:16.940 | In fact, this is what he means when he says

00:04:20.640 | that the mystery of the kingdom is here,

00:04:25.040 | presence without consummation.

00:04:28.240 | So for example, the future dimension of the kingdom,

00:04:31.540 | you can hear it in the Lord's prayer,

00:04:33.200 | your kingdom come, we should pray that every day.

00:04:35.920 | Bring it, Lord, it's not here the way we want it to be.

00:04:38.520 | Bring your kingdom, bring your reign fully

00:04:41.700 | in people's lives, in my life, in the world.

00:04:45.560 | Or Luke 19 11, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable

00:04:50.560 | because he was near Jerusalem and because they supposed

00:04:55.360 | that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

00:04:59.160 | In other words, it's not.

00:05:01.120 | The kingdom of God is not going to appear immediately.

00:05:04.920 | And yet, repeatedly, Jesus says the kingdom is at hand.

00:05:09.480 | Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

00:05:11.800 | In fact, he's more explicit than that, Luke 11 20.

00:05:15.400 | If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons,

00:05:17.940 | the kingdom of God is upon you.

00:05:20.100 | Or even more explicitly, Luke 17 21,

00:05:25.040 | behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

00:05:30.040 | So how can the kingdom of God be both not yet present,

00:05:36.180 | pray for it, it's coming, it's not yet here,

00:05:38.560 | it's not gonna be immediate, and yet already present

00:05:42.880 | in your midst, upon you, at hand?

00:05:45.380 | And the answer is the kingdom of God is God's reign,

00:05:51.280 | his sovereign action in the world to redeem

00:05:56.200 | and deliver a people and then at a future time,

00:06:00.220 | finish it and renew his people and the universe completely.

00:06:06.560 | Now, if we ask, why is the term kingdom of God

00:06:11.320 | or kingdom of heaven prominent and explicit

00:06:15.160 | in the teachings of Jesus, but much less so in the epistles,

00:06:19.780 | which is true, my suggestion is this.

00:06:23.840 | During the lifetime of Jesus, he was walking a very fine line

00:06:32.800 | between making himself known as the son of God

00:06:36.960 | and the actual presence of the king himself,

00:06:41.960 | on the one hand, and concealing himself

00:06:46.240 | from being taken and made to be an earthly king,

00:06:49.720 | 'cause they were ready to come and make him king.

00:06:52.320 | And you recall how Jesus repeatedly told people

00:06:56.500 | not to tell others about what they had seen,

00:06:59.720 | Matthew 17, nine, Mark 7, 36.

00:07:03.400 | And that's because there would be such a widespread

00:07:07.720 | misunderstanding about the nature of his kingship

00:07:11.160 | that a political revolt might happen

00:07:14.040 | as people tried to sweep him onto the throne,

00:07:17.680 | like John six, no, he came to be crucified.

00:07:21.960 | That's why he came, he came to die,

00:07:24.680 | not to be put on a throne yet.

00:07:28.600 | He would only be king through crucifixion and resurrection,

00:07:33.600 | and the disciples could scarcely comprehend that.

00:07:37.680 | So after the resurrection, it could be seen now

00:07:41.960 | with crystal clarity what the disciples couldn't fathom

00:07:46.960 | during his lifetime, namely, the kingdom of God

00:07:52.520 | would be most gloriously revealed in a crucified and risen

00:07:58.240 | king, and therefore the shift that happens in no way

00:08:03.240 | diminishes the importance of what was taught

00:08:07.840 | about the kingdom during the lifetime of Jesus,

00:08:10.560 | but it does shift, it does put the overwhelming emphasis

00:08:15.560 | now on the king himself as the crucified risen Lord

00:08:22.360 | of the universe.

00:08:25.000 | So the new emphasis, which is more explicit

00:08:28.920 | in the epistles, is Jesus is Lord.

00:08:33.840 | In fact, if you were to press me, I'd say,

00:08:37.480 | the kingdom has come is almost synonymous

00:08:40.880 | with Jesus is Lord, or to say it the other way around,

00:08:45.160 | Jesus is Lord is almost synonymous in the epistles

00:08:49.080 | with the kingdom, the reign, the king has come.

00:08:54.240 | It's not just that he has come, he will come.

00:08:59.240 | And I think we probably do well today to keep in mind

00:09:05.560 | whenever we start to foreground the kingdom of God,

00:09:11.360 | let's make sure that our teaching has the flavor

00:09:16.520 | of the apostolic application of the reign of Jesus

00:09:21.760 | in the churches and in the world.

00:09:24.240 | It's the Lordship of the crucified and risen Christ

00:09:29.240 | that should receive the emphasis today.

00:09:33.020 | - Amen, what a glorious sovereign savior we serve.

00:09:36.880 | Thank you, Pastor John,

00:09:37.960 | and thanks for the question, Christopher,

00:09:40.040 | and thank you for listening and joining us.

00:09:41.880 | Three times a week, we publish this podcast.

00:09:43.720 | You can subscribe to our audio feeds

00:09:45.480 | and search our episode archive,

00:09:46.760 | and even reach us by email with a question

00:09:48.120 | that you may be facing as you read through your Bible.

00:09:50.280 | You can do all that through our online home

00:09:51.800 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

00:09:55.800 | Well, we now break for the weekend.

00:09:57.160 | We're gonna return on Monday

00:09:58.520 | to look at personal suffering once again.

00:10:00.680 | We looked at this about a week ago,

00:10:02.800 | specifically when it comes to

00:10:04.680 | our most difficult pains in life.

00:10:07.860 | How do we thank God for those sufferings?

00:10:09.880 | How do we thank God for those sufferings?

00:10:13.240 | And are we to thank him for the trials?

00:10:16.680 | That's next time.

00:10:17.600 | Have a wonderful weekend, a long Labor Day weekend

00:10:21.360 | for those of you in the stays,

00:10:22.560 | but we'll be back on Monday.

00:10:24.640 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

00:10:27.200 | (upbeat music)

00:10:29.780 | (upbeat music)

00:10:32.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

What Is the Kingdom of God?

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