(upbeat music) - Happy Friday everyone. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Well, for many of you, you know the kingdom is a big theme for Jesus. In the ESV translation, the kingdom language is mentioned 126 times in the gospels. But then kingdom is mentioned only 34 times in the rest of the New Testament, which prompts Christopher from the UK to write in.

Hi, Pastor John, thank you very much for your excellent APJ podcast. I'm amazed you can put so much effort into such complex and difficult questions for complete strangers like me. My question for you is this. The gospel of Matthew alone is full of references to the coming kingdom, 55 of them in Matthew alone.

But from Acts and into the epistles, there seems to be very little mention of the kingdom. So what is the kingdom of God and is it the church or is it something larger than the church? So I hear two crucial questions. One is what is the kingdom of God?

And the other is why does it get so much prominent, explicit focus in the teachings of Jesus, but far less prominent, explicit focus in the letters of the New Testament? So let me say a word about each of those questions. I think the most important thing I could say about the kingdom of God that would help people make sense out of all the uses is that the basic meaning of the word kingdom in the Bible is God's reign, R-E-I-G-N, not realm or people.

The kingdom creates a realm, the kingdom creates a people, but it is not synonymous with its realm or its people. For example, consider Psalm 103, verse 19. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all. Now you can hear the basic meaning of the word kingdom as rule.

It doesn't mean that his realm rules over his realm. It means that God's reign or rule governs all things. He sits as king on his throne of the universe and his kingly rule, his kingdom, his reign governs all things. So the basic meaning of the word kingdom in the Bible is God's kingly rule, his reign, his action, his lordship, his sovereign governance.

And then you add this. Since God's purpose for the world is to save a people for himself and renew the world for that people, his kingly rule implies a saving and a redeeming activity on their behalf. This is why the coming of the kingdom in the New Testament is called good news.

In and through Jesus, God, the king, is coming in a way, a new way, in the world to establish his saving rule, first in the hearts of his people and in their relationships by triumphing over sin, Satan, death, and then by the exercise of his reign, gathering a people for himself in congregations that live as citizens of a new allegiance of the kingdom, not of this world.

And then Christ comes a second time and completes the reign, the kingdom in establishing a new heavens and a new earth. So the picture you get in the gospels as Jesus unfolds the teaching of the kingdom is that it is both present and it is still future. In fact, this is what he means when he says that the mystery of the kingdom is here, presence without consummation.

So for example, the future dimension of the kingdom, you can hear it in the Lord's prayer, your kingdom come, we should pray that every day. Bring it, Lord, it's not here the way we want it to be. Bring your kingdom, bring your reign fully in people's lives, in my life, in the world.

Or Luke 19 11, Jesus proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. In other words, it's not. The kingdom of God is not going to appear immediately. And yet, repeatedly, Jesus says the kingdom is at hand.

Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. In fact, he's more explicit than that, Luke 11 20. If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, the kingdom of God is upon you. Or even more explicitly, Luke 17 21, behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.

So how can the kingdom of God be both not yet present, pray for it, it's coming, it's not yet here, it's not gonna be immediate, and yet already present in your midst, upon you, at hand? And the answer is the kingdom of God is God's reign, his sovereign action in the world to redeem and deliver a people and then at a future time, finish it and renew his people and the universe completely.

Now, if we ask, why is the term kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven prominent and explicit in the teachings of Jesus, but much less so in the epistles, which is true, my suggestion is this. During the lifetime of Jesus, he was walking a very fine line between making himself known as the son of God and the actual presence of the king himself, on the one hand, and concealing himself from being taken and made to be an earthly king, 'cause they were ready to come and make him king.

And you recall how Jesus repeatedly told people not to tell others about what they had seen, Matthew 17, nine, Mark 7, 36. And that's because there would be such a widespread misunderstanding about the nature of his kingship that a political revolt might happen as people tried to sweep him onto the throne, like John six, no, he came to be crucified.

That's why he came, he came to die, not to be put on a throne yet. He would only be king through crucifixion and resurrection, and the disciples could scarcely comprehend that. So after the resurrection, it could be seen now with crystal clarity what the disciples couldn't fathom during his lifetime, namely, the kingdom of God would be most gloriously revealed in a crucified and risen king, and therefore the shift that happens in no way diminishes the importance of what was taught about the kingdom during the lifetime of Jesus, but it does shift, it does put the overwhelming emphasis now on the king himself as the crucified risen Lord of the universe.

So the new emphasis, which is more explicit in the epistles, is Jesus is Lord. In fact, if you were to press me, I'd say, the kingdom has come is almost synonymous with Jesus is Lord, or to say it the other way around, Jesus is Lord is almost synonymous in the epistles with the kingdom, the reign, the king has come.

It's not just that he has come, he will come. And I think we probably do well today to keep in mind whenever we start to foreground the kingdom of God, let's make sure that our teaching has the flavor of the apostolic application of the reign of Jesus in the churches and in the world.

It's the Lordship of the crucified and risen Christ that should receive the emphasis today. - Amen, what a glorious sovereign savior we serve. Thank you, Pastor John, and thanks for the question, Christopher, and thank you for listening and joining us. Three times a week, we publish this podcast. You can subscribe to our audio feeds and search our episode archive, and even reach us by email with a question that you may be facing as you read through your Bible.

You can do all that through our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Well, we now break for the weekend. We're gonna return on Monday to look at personal suffering once again. We looked at this about a week ago, specifically when it comes to our most difficult pains in life. How do we thank God for those sufferings?

How do we thank God for those sufferings? And are we to thank him for the trials? That's next time. Have a wonderful weekend, a long Labor Day weekend for those of you in the stays, but we'll be back on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music)