The prophets
Isaiah prophesied before the time of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. While Nebuchadnezzar launched campaigns against Jerusalem, Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem, and Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon, among the earlier captives to be taken there. Later Daniel prophesied in Babylon, and Zecharian prophesied after a remnant of the Jews returned to Jerusalem under Ezra and Nehemiah.
(Isa 9:6-7 ESV) 6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
(Jer 23:5-6 ESV) 5 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’
(Jer 33:14-18 ESV) 14 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’ 17 “For thus says the LORD: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, 18 and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to make sacrifices forever.”
(Eze 37:22-28 ESV) 22 And I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. And one king shall be king over them all, and they shall be no longer two nations, and no longer divided into two kingdoms. 23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will save them from all the backslidings in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 24 “My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. 25 They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. 26 I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. 27 My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 28 Then the nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”
(Dan 2:44-45 ESV) 44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, 45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
(Dan 7:13-18 ESV) 13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. 14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. 15 “As for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me. 16 I approached one of those who stood there and asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things. 17 ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. 18 But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.’
(Zec 9:9-11 ESV) 9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. 11 As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
WAIT! Go back and actually read the quotes. You are not allowed to skip them, because they aren’t as familiar as you think. What do we learn (and this is but a very small sampling of the Kingdom prophecies)?
a. The Kingdom is forever
b. The Kingdom will encompass the entire world and all nations
c. War will end.
d. The citizens of the kingdom will enjoy God’s salvation and peace.
e. The citizens will do God’s will
f. The son of David will sit on the throne — and will be the only king
g. The King will rule with justice and righteousness
h. Human kingdoms will be destroyed
i. This fulfills God’s covenant with Israel and will free his people from death (the waterless pit)
j. The stone is not cut by human hands — God himself will do these great things
k. God will live among his people in the Kingdom
l. The citizens will have their sins cleansed
m. All peoples, nations, and languages will be in the Kingdom. Babel will be undone.
Now, for us in the Churches of Christ, “Kingdom” = “church.” That’s what Foy Wallace, Jr. taught us, so we’d not be premillennialists. But that’s like saying marriage is where a man and woman sleep together and God says it’s okay. True, but not really the entirety of it. Yes, the church is in there, but it’s not a complete answer. The prophets weren’t just saying that there’d be Pentecost and missionaries and red brick church buildings.
Rather, the prophets were telling us that the world would be radically changed by the Kingdom. It would supplant the nations that divide us. It would bring people into right relationship with God and with each other. Justice and righteousness will prevail in the Kingdom. There’s more, but that’s enough for now.
And so, when we read the Kingdom parables, this is what Jesus is talking about. Consider —
(Mat 13:45-46 ESV) 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
What is the pearl of great price? We want to say “salvation”! Which is a pearl of great price — but it’s not the pearl Jesus was discussing. He was speaking more specifically of the Kingdom — God’s presence on earth through the Messiah, uniting the nations in peace and bringing justice and righteousness — restoring the world to rights, the way it was before sin entered the world. We are supposed to sell all that we have, not to get to heaven, but to bring heaven to earth!
Just so, the Lord’s Prayer changes when we think in Kingdom terms —
(Mat 6:9-10 ESV) 9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
(Mat 6:9-10 MIT) 9 You, then, are to pray in this manner: Our father in the heavens, May your name be held in holy awe. 10 May your kingdom arrive. May your will be implemented on earth just as in heaven.
(“MIT” is McDonald’s Idiomatic Translation.) “Hallowed be your name” is not a praise. It’s a prayer that people will revere God as holy. “On earth as it is in heaven” modifies all three phrases —
hallowed be your name, on earth as it is in heaven
Your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven
your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
The prayer is that God’s name be revered, that the kingdom will come, and that God’s will be done — on earth as it is in heaven. All three are prayers for the Kingdom not just to arrive but to encompass the earth and all its people. It’s a prayer for the success of God’s mission to redeem to world through his covenant with Abraham. It’s still a good prayer today.
And this explains why the New Testament is so very focused on love and guidance on how to get along. Jesus speaks of forgiving one another because there’s no other way for peace to prevail in his kingdom. Paul tells us to imitate Jesus because there’s no other way for the mission to be accomplished. We will be the Kingdom and the Kingdom will be extended to the ends of the earth simply and solely by being like Jesus — individually and, most importantly, as a community — because only a community is in the image of God.
God sent Jesus to preach and bring the Kingdom, not so we can escape this world and fly away, but so we can join in his mission of redemption. And there are many ways to do this, but the most important is by the church being the church — by the church being the Kingdom — by bringing to reality what the Prophets longed to see and Jesus demonstrated and God initiated at Pentecost. But Pentecost was just the beachhead — not the final victory.
(1Pe 2:9-12 ESV) 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
V. 9 emphasizes that God’s people, Christians, are a nation — indeed, the Kingdom. And v. 11 tells us that we are “sojourners and exiles” in human nations. We are citizens of heaven, not of earth or its nations. Rather, we are citizens of the Kingdom, working to unite all nations under God.
And part of what this “holy nation” is called to do is “good deeds” — so good that even the pagans will be enticed to join the Kingdom and so glorify God when Jesus returns. The church draws people into the Kingdom by being the Kingdom — by bringing the prophecies to reality, by living the Kingdom parables, and by doing the works of God, the works of redemption that make the world a little more like heaven — works that bring the Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.
Community
And so we put some meat on the bones of “love.” Love not just being kindly disposed toward the homeless — although that’s part of it. Love is being like God and like Jesus —
(Eph 5:1-2 ESV) Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
We are called to imitate God, the God who is working to redeem the world and restore us to his image and to Eden. We do this by walking in love, defined by the sacrifice of Jesus. It’s self-sacrifice and self-giving. It’s selling everything you own to obtain the Kingdom — not just to be in it but to bring the Lord’s Prayer to reality.
It’s being peacemakers, because the Kingdom is supposed to be all about peace. It’s about preaching the gospel of faith in Jesus, because the Kingdom is built on faith. It’s about seeking and saving the lost, not only out of fear for their eternal fate if you don’t, but delight in being a part of God’s plan to expand the Kingdom. It’s intentionally crossing ethnic and racial boundaries to show the world that in Christ we are all one, and there’s no division in the Kingdom. The Kingdom is about ending division.
And it’s realizing that the natural, right, God-given way to be and to live in the Kingdom is in community, a community that’s thousands of years old, united with the saints, living and dead, praying and striving so that God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Jay,
Thanks for the thoughts. I have been interested to learn that what I knew about the "kingdom" is somewhat different than what I had learned, and your post continues that learning.
Just as you have done in your previous posts, you have the ability to describe very well, but for me, I think you can encapsulate everything with this one phrase:
We have been taught to worship God not to imitate him, there is a tremendous difference. Thanks for pointing this out.
Keep up the good work.
Jay,
Thanks for this excellent article. I have contended for years that our understanding of the kingdom is far too limited. You have confirmed everything I believe about it in a far more detailed and eloquent way.
Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord Our God He is One.
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!
then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.
Larry Cheek
Great post and comments.
Those outside of Christ's Kingdom should not be drawn to a relationship with a church (the called out) by the church, but to be drawn into a relationship with Jesus by observing the love that Christians have for each other.
Then god adds them to the church, even those that we have trouble accepting, as brothers and sisters. Judges, we should not be, becuse we cannot judge the heart.