What is the kingdom of God?
The Greek word used in the New Testament is basileus (king) and basileia (kingdom). Basileus is a broader term than the
literal English ‘king’ in that it is used to speak of Emperor (e.g. the Roman
Emperor) and of Jesus the Messiah, King of the Jews.
Basileia is primarily an abstract noun
speaking of dominion; regal power; sovereignty.
Secondarily, it is used as a concrete noun speaking of the territory or
the people over whom the king has dominion and authority. This is what Jesus was talking about when he
said, “all dominion, rule and power has been given unto me” in his
commissioning of the first apostles. A
person’s kingdom is that which the person has dominion, power and authority
over.
By definition, God’s kingdom is that which
God has dominion, power and authority over.
But don’t blindly jump in and conclude that, by that definition, everything
then is God’s kingdom. Note what Jesus
said: ‘my kingdom is not of this world’.
The kingdom of God is an eternal kingdom, not a temporal kingdom. So it is important at this point to realise
an important fact about eternity: eternity is not unending time – time that
goes on and on without end. There is no
such thing as unending time. Whether we
like it or not, time ends – that’s why it’s time. It is a measurement that we use to speak of
the progression of life as we know it, past, present and future.
For a moment, think back to the story of the
temptation of Jesus as recorded in Luke 4:5-8:
And he [Satan] led Him [Jesus] up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment
of time. And the devil said to Him, “I
will give you all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
Therefore if you worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” Jesus answered him,
“It is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’
The whole point of Jesus’ coming; the whole
point of the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God; the whole
point of the existence of ecclesia;
is for Jesus’ victory over death and the power of the devil to be realised and
then enforced. Jesus won the victory and
set that process in motion; his body on earth now (ecclesia) continues and completes it under the dominion (the
kingdom) of God the Father, the headship of Jesus the first-born Son, and the
power and encouragement of the Holy Spirit.
Satan thought that in the death of Jesus, he
had won, but the opposite was true.
Satan thought he had untouchable control over the kingdoms of the world,
but Jesus stole them from him. Until the
resurrection, Jesus couldn’t say “all dominion, power and authority has been
given to me”, but the victory of the resurrection is that the kingdoms of the
world are now ripe for a transfer of allegiance from Satan to Jesus, and
thereby to the Father and His family and household. Hence he declared at the commissioning of the
twelve and at Pentecost some days later that ‘all authority in heaven and on
earth has been give to me; so, as you go through life now, herald and proclaim
the good news of my Father’s kingdom.
And remember – I will be with you at all times, right up to the very
end.’
Life as we know it tends to be limited by
time, space and matter and the natural laws of the created universe. Eternity, on the other hand, has no beginning
nor end and is not restricted by these limitations. It is another dimension altogether. You can see glimpses of it all through the
New Testament record. I believe that,
post Pentecost, the expression “in the Spirit” attributed to Paul by Luke for
instance is a metaphor – perhaps even a synonym – for eternity. Consequently, I also believe that the
comparison between “in the Spirit” and “in the flesh” is a comparison between
eternity and time; eternal and temporal.
Below is a simple illustration of what I am
saying.
Where two or three are gathered together
under His dominion, power and authority, that is a gathering “in my name” as
Jesus said, and He is present. As such,
it is an outpost of the kingdom of God on earth – an exclave of eternity,
existing in the human time-space-matter continuum. I have elsewhere spoken of this matter of
exclave in more detail and you can find it in the Household of God and This Good News series in this blog.
In essence, the kingdom of God is the
dominion of God and the space or
environment where His dominion is welcomed, embraced and submitted to; every
place where that happens becomes a place of His authority and power – His
kingdom is near, present, around and about.
Now read some of the accounts in the gospels where Jesus said that the
kingdom is near or present. His birth,
life and ministry were all spaces or environments where the dominion of God was
welcomed, embraced and submitted to – by Jesus himself in the first instance,
and secondly by the people Jesus was sharing his life with.
In this paradigm, eternity is what it is all
about. The starting point for an
explanation of corporate human life – and our lives as individuals – is the
mind and heart of God in eternity. The
starting point for an explanation of the birth, life, death, resurrection and
ascension of Jesus is the mind and heart of God in eternity. Jesus both personifies and bears in his
person the DNA of eternity – and in that he is unique, one of a kind; he is
also the prototype of many to come after him.
He is the firstborn of a new breed; all who welcome and submit to his
DNA join the family whose father is God Himself and whose natural ecosystem is
eternity, not time-space-matter earth.
Remember Paul’s insistence that the in-Christ
ones – the ecclesia – are ‘strangers’, ‘foreigners’ and ‘aliens’ to this world.
And it all emanates from the mind and heart
of God. He set the whole thing in motion
when he planted His DNA – the DNA of eternity – into the womb of Mary the
mother of Jesus. Because of this, a
second birth is possible – even necessary.
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus makes this point well. Jesus was the first-born of a breed who
possess the DNA of eternity in a human body.
Here let me explain a mis-translation in the
New Testament. Older English versions of
the bible refer to Jesus as “the only begotten son”. Given that ‘begotten’ means born, the text is
saying that Jesus is the only born son – which is patent nonsense. In Greek, the word translated only can also
be translated first and once. Why either
or both of these options was not chosen by the English bible translators I can
only guess, but both these alternatives work.
Jesus is, as I just explained, the first-born son of the new breed.
But Jesus is also – and I stress this is
absolutely unique – the once-born son of this breed. The uniqueness of Jesus is that he only
needed to be born once. But when he is
talking to Nicodemus (John 3), it becomes clear that all the sons to follow
have to be born twice: a natural birth and a spiritual, ‘second’ birth. In other words, being born again (the second
birth) is necessary. Nicodemus was like
many of us today – he scoffed at the thought, asking ‘how can this be?’ “Can a man enter into his mother’s womb a
second time and be born?” Of course
not. So Jesus told Nicodemus how it
happens. And today, we need to be told
how it happens – and that it is
necessary! For without it (note
Nicodemus again) one cannot see the kingdom of God.
And what did Jesus tell Nicodemus? “Except one receive birth from above, he is
not able to see and perceive the kingdom of God.” [literal translation] And the second time he said, “except one
receive birth out of water and spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom
of God.” [literal translation]
Jesus continues, “that which experiences a
flesh birth is flesh; that which experiences a spirit birth is spirit; those
who receive spirit birth experience the life of eternity (the kingdom of God),
the life of God Himself. Link this back
to John 1: “He came to his own and those who were his own did not welcome him. But as many as welcomed him, to them he gave
the right to become children of God – to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” The second birth is the spiritual birth,
the birth from above, the birth from eternity – which secures entry into the
family of God, the household of God and the kingdom of God.
The second birth is also referred to as a
birth ‘out of water’. This is likely a
reference to the same thing Peter wrote to the Jews about in 1 Peter 1:23, “You
have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable – through
the logos (word) of God that lives and abides throughout this age.” This living ‘word’ of God is often characterised
as living water. And Peter could well
have been harking back to Luke 16:16 when he speaks of the word that lives and
abides throughout this age – it is the good news of the kingdom of God, not the
Jewish old testament.
The reference to birth ‘out of water’ to some
is a link to water baptism, not as the means of the birth but as the symbol of
the believer’s identification with Christ in his death, burial and
resurrection.
W.E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (page 1225) comments:
“So the new birth is, in one sense, the setting aside of all that the believer
was according to the flesh, for it is evident that there must be an entirely
new beginning.”
Most of this story – and much of the stuff
Jesus talked about – makes little sense apart from the paradigm I sketched earlier. Without that paradigm, the explanations we
come up with are fanciful and they remain in the realm of metaphor and
analogy. Within that paradigm, the
things we are talking about become practical reality. They are practical reality in my life and in
the lives of many others since the time of Jesus, starting with the first
disciples/apostles. Therefore, there is
no doubt at all in my mind that when they went out heralding the good news of
the kingdom of God, part of the message was, “you must be born again”.
And since the truth remains that, in order to
perceive and experience the reality of the kingdom of God now, one must be born
a second time – from above; from the spirit; from the living word of the good
news of the kingdom of God – that truth and that message must be an integral
part of our practice of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. We defraud God and we defraud people when we
skip that essential part of the message.
Next post: What is Heaven
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