The Gospel of Jesus Christ (20) The Gospel of the Kingdom of God (2)

​“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”” (Mk 1:14-15)
 
Review
Last Sunday, we started to talk about the kingdom of God. The reason I include the kingdom of God in the gospel series is because of the close relationship between the kingdom of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.
 
The first thing Jesus proclaimed as He started His ministry in earnest was the good news of the kingdom of God. He came to the world to announce that the kingdom of God had come with Him. And in order to complete the good news of the kingdom of God, He was crucified and resurrected from the dead.
 
This shows how important it is to read Jesus’ salvation story through the kingdom perspective. If we fail to see the connection between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God, we’re missing a lot of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ exists for the sake of the kingdom of God, which means that without understanding the kingdom of God, we can’t truly understand or live out the gospel.
 
Last Sunday, we tried to answer the question, “What is the kingdom of God?” We haven’t gotten to the heart of the question yet, but we explored common misconceptions about the kingdom of God.
 
Since the kingdom of God is also called the kingdom of heaven in the gospel of Matthew, those who don’t know why Matthew used the term “heaven” instead of “God” can easily interpret the kingdom of God as just the spiritual realm in heaven.
 
So, they think the kingdom of God is a spiritual place where their souls go after they die. But that’s not what Matthew intended when he used the term “the kingdom of heaven.” He didn’t use the word “heaven” to imply where the kingdom is located. To Matthew, heaven was just an alternative word for God. He likely used it to avoid directly referring to God.
 
So, the kingdom of God is not a place for our souls to go because it is the place that’s coming to us. When Jesus talked about the kingdom of God, He specifically used the word ‘come,’ not ‘go.’
 
“The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near.” (Mk 1:15)
 
“But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28).
 
 “…The kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Lk 17:20-21)
 
“This is how you should pray… your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt 6:9-10)
 
These verses show that the kingdom of God is not something that we’ll only experience in the distant future, because it has already come with the first coming of Jesus, is coming now through the work of the Holy Spirit, and will perfectly come true when Jesus returns. That’s how the Bible describes the kingdom of God.
 
It’s very important to understand this as Christians. If we only think of the kingdom of God as a spiritual world where our souls will go, we may not see any connection between what’s happening in this world and the kingdom of God, and we won’t try to build the kingdom here on earth.
 
But if we really believe that the kingdom of God is closely related to our lives here on earth, we should be more careful about what we’re doing now in the world because everything we do here on earth is related to the eternal kingdom of God. As the apostle Paul said,
 
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (1Co 15:58)
 
If the kingdom of God is only a spiritual realm in heaven, what we do here on earth may have nothing to do with it. But, if the kingdom of God has come, is coming, and will perfectly come true on earth someday, what we do for our Lord now is not in vain because we are actually contributing to the coming of God's kingdom here on earth.
 
What Is the Kingdom of God?
1) Kingdom as People
Then, what is the kingdom of God? There are three ways the phrase is used in the Bible. First, it refers to the people ruled by God.
 
After delivering the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, God led them to Mount Sinai. There, He made a covenant with them, saying,
 
“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. You will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Ex 19:4-6)
 
Here, God told the Israelites three things about the identity He wanted them to have—His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. They were God’s treasured possession because He chose them to be His people. They were to be a kingdom of priests to mediate between God and the other nations. And in order to carry out their mission, they were to be a holy nation, following God’s law, not the ways of the world.
 
What’s important is that the words “you (the people of Israel),” “kingdom,” and “nation” are parallel here, which means that God considered His people to be His kingdom. That’s the first meaning of the kingdom of God: it refers to His people that He chose to be His own for His purpose.
 
2) Kingdom as Territory
The word “kingdom” also has a territorial meaning. The kingdom of God refers not only to His people, but also to where He places them.
 
Numbers 32:33 says, “Then Moses gave to the Gadites… the kingdom of Sihon… and the kingdom of Og… - the whole land with its cities and the territory around them.” (Num 32:33)
 
Here, “the kingdom,” “the land,” and “the territory” are parallel, meaning that the word “kingdom” is also used to refer to territory or a physical realm in the Bible.
 
3) Kingdom as Sovereignty and Reign
The first two meanings give us an important perspective on the kingdom of God, but the last one is the most important. The kingdom refers not only to people and territory but also to God’s sovereignty and His reign.
 
Psalm 103:19 says, “The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all” (Ps 103:19)
 
The Greek word for kingdom is βασιλεία (basileia). Even though it can mean physical territory and people, its original and most important meaning is royal power, kingship, or rule. So, this term refers primarily to God’s sovereign power and will as King.
 
When we think about a country, we first think about its physical territory or the people inhabiting it. Even though these are essential elements of a country, the most important meaning of the term Basileia is God’s sovereign authority.
 
Then, these are three important aspects of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God can be defined as wherever God’s people are, and His people are those who willingly surrender to His sovereignty and follow His will. It means that the kingdom of God isn’t in a specific place, but anywhere and everywhere we exist as His people, following His will.
 
So, we might say that the kingdom of God is here, not because we’re gathered in a church, but because we come here with the purpose of worshiping God, which is in accordance with His will for us.
 
However, as I said before, even though we’re gathered in a church, we may not experience the presence of the kingdom of God unless we surrender ourselves to Him and accept Him as our only true King and Lord.
 
We find these three elements of the kingdom of God in the Abrahamic covenant as well. When God called Abraham in Mesopotamia, He told him,
 
“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gn 12:1-3)
 
Here, God promised Abraham three things. First, He would give Abraham the land He would show him. Second, He would make him into a great nation, which meant that he would have many descendants. So, we find promises of a land and people. But that’s not all. God also promised that He would bless Abraham so that he and his descendants would be blessings to all people on earth.
 
This blessing refers to becoming righteous by faith in God. The blessing God wanted to give Abraham, his descendants, and all people on earth is the blessing of having a proper relationship with Him through faith. And, we can’t have a proper relationship with God without recognizing Him as our King and Lord and acknowledging His sovereignty over us.
 
So, it becomes clear what God planned through Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites. God wanted to establish His kingdom on earth where He would reign as King through His people. And that’s actually what the entire story of the Bible is about.
 
Bible Story
In the Bible, we find many stories and important topics. But, if someone asked you to pick just one theme that covers all other topics in the Bible, what would you pick? If you were asked to summarize the whole Bible story in just one sentence, how would you answer?
 
A lot of Bible scholars try to search for the best way to tell the Bible’s story. In fact, what kind of story we have is important because the story determines our mission. That's why we say it's important to know history. History is not just about what happened in the past because it gives us our identity in the present along with a direction for the future based on what has already happened.
 
1. Salvation Story
The story of the entire Bible is most often told as the story of salvation. It is to view the entire Bible through the lens of salvation.
 
It consists of four parts, which go like this:
 
1) Creation
First, God created the whole world, and it looked good to Him. Human beings were designed by God in His own image and likeness, and they lived an innocent and good life in the Garden of Eden with God.
 
2) Fall
God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden and told Adam and Eve not to eat from it. The tree was a reminder to them of who the true Lord of everything was. By not eating from the tree, they acknowledged that God is the true Lord.
 
But, out of a desire to make themselves like God, they ended up eating from the tree, which led to the fall of humans into sin. Through their disobedience, sin came into the world and death along with it. And with the growth of the human population on earth, sin also spread widely throughout the whole world.
 
3) Redemption
But God didn’t give up on the people He created. With the desire to save all people on earth, God called Abraham and made a covenant with him, which is considered to be the beginning of God’s redemptive work.
 
God wanted Abraham and his descendants to be His blessing so that the nations would come to know Him through them. However, Abraham’s descendants, the Israelites, failed to make God known to other nations because they also rebelled against God in their sins.
 
So God ultimately sent His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, as a descendant of Abraham to make full redemption for all people on earth. Jesus Christ came to the world in human form, shed His blood, and died on the cross to make eternal redemption once for all. Now, all those who believe in Him can be freely justified by God’s grace and become children of God.
 
4) Consummation
 But, that’s not the end. Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, and after 40 days He ascended to heaven. But He will come back, and on that day our salvation will be complete. This will be the consummation of redemption.
 
This is a short summary of the entire Bible story centering around the subject of salvation. This is what we’ve all heard about, and reading the Bible from this perspective covers most of the important subjects in the Bible.
 
There’s nothing wrong with this perspective in and of itself. However, it can’t be called the whole story of the Bible because there are many parts of the Bible that this story is missing.
 
The first part, creation, only covers the first two chapters. The second part, the fall, covers Genesis chapters 3-11. And, the third part, redemption, covers the rest of the Bible except for the last two chapters, which are the consummation.
 
Another problem of reading the Bible with this perspective is that the focus of the story becomes the salvation of individuals and thus cuts out other important matters in the Bible. When the Bible’s story is reduced to the redemption story in this way, we lose a lot of important themes.
 
Because this story is so focused on salvation, it puts less emphasis on the story of Jesus who came to the world as the Messiah, Lord, and King.
 
Yes, it’s true that Jesus came to the world to save all people from their sins. That’s what the name “Jesus” means. But still, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that Jesus came to the world not only as our Savior but also the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
 
So, even though it’s good to read the Bible with the redemption perspective, we need to remember that it doesn’t cover the entire Bible story. In fact, if we tried to collect passages that are related to redemption, we’d be surprised at how little we find.
 
2. The Kingdom Story
So we need a different story that can cover both of Jesus’ roles—Jesus as our Savior and Jesus as the Lord. And I believe that’s what the story of the kingdom of God does. Then, what does the story of the kingdom of God say?
 
1) Plan A: God’s Reign through Human Beings
When Jesus declared, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news,” the average Jewish listener of that time wouldn’t have said, “Finally, someone has come to save us from our sins.”
 
Instead, they likely would have thought of King David, the messiah, justice, and so on.
 
The kingdom story begins with Plan A in which God rules over the world through the humans He created and chose. When God created human beings, He said,
 
“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground” (Gen 1:26)
 
Here, we find God’s purpose in creating human beings. God created humankind to have a loving relationship with them. We find this from the expression “our image.” But, that wasn’t the only reason. Another reason is found in the phrase “rule over.”
 
God made human beings in His image so that they could rule over all of His other creatures with love and care. The mission given to the first humans was to take good care of the world as God’s representatives so that it may continue to be “good” in His sight, just as it was created.
 
However, the first human beings failed the mission because, like I said earlier, they refused to have God as their King and tried to make themselves like God by disobeying His command. That was when they failed the mission God gave them to rule over the world.
 
But, even though they failed, God didn’t give up on ruling over the world tainted by sin through His people. At this point, God’s mission goes in two directions. The first direction is to solve the problem of sin. And the second is to continue to rule over the world through His people that He chose and set apart. That’s what we read about from Abraham to Samuel.
 
The most important characteristic in this part was that His people, Israel, had no human king because God alone was King. He ruled over Israel through leaders such as Moses, Joshua, and the judges.
 
2) Plan B: God’s Reign through Human Kings
But things changed when the people of Israel began to ask for human kings. 1 Samuel 8:5-7 says,
 
“They said to [Samuel], “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.” (1Sm 8:5-7)
 
At the end of the Judges’ era, when Samuel was the judge, the people of Israel came to him and asked him to appoint a human king like the other nations had. They rejected God as their King. But God granted their request. That was how the Kingdom era started.
 
But that doesn’t mean God gave up on ruling over them. Even though there were human kings in Israel, God was still the true King. God appointed human kings and reigned over Israel through them.
 
So the rest of the Old Testament story is actually the story of David because God ruled over Israel through him and his descendants. As God said,
 
“I will set [David’s son] over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’” (1Ch 17:14)
 
In Plan B, God focused His plan on David, whose descendants would be the rulers in Israel, and their “kingdom” would be “the kingdom of God.” We see this from 2 Chronicles 13:8, which says,
 
“And now you plan to resist the kingdom of the Lord, which is in the hands of David’s descendants” (2Ch 13:8)
 
But, David’s descendants also ended up failing the mission because of their sins and rebellion. But God still didn’t give up on building His kingdom on earth. He promised through prophets that He would send the Messiah as a descendant of David who would rule over Israel forever with His justice and righteousness. That was the Messiah that the people of Israel were waiting for in Jesus’ day.
 
3) Revised Plan A: God’s Reign through the Son
And then, finally, God sent His only Son to the world as the promised Messiah. And Jesus proclaimed,  “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk 1:15)
 
Under Jesus, God’s plan to build His kingdom on earth and rule over the world through His people took on a new form. God returned to Plan A because He now rules through Jesus and those who believe in Him, not through kings. And this kingdom will never fail because now, the King of this kingdom is Jesus, the Son of God, not humans.
 
There was one major problem that needed to be solved in order for Jesus to truly make God’s kingdom come on earth—the problem of sin. What broke the kingdom of God in the first place was disobedience and rebellion caused by sin. The kingdom of God is where God reigns with His sovereignty through His people’s obedience. Then, sin is the greatest hindrance to the reign of God's kingdom.
 
That’s the reason Jesus shed His blood and died on the cross. He did so to save us from our sins, but we should know that He had a bigger purpose in mind. What Jesus wanted to achieve through His death and resurrection was much greater than the salvation of individuals. He wanted to make us truly righteous people of God, reconciled with Him through His blood, who would willingly surrender our lives to God’s sovereignty and strive to build His kingdom on earth.
 
That is the point at which the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God come together. That’s the reason I say that we can’t truly accept or live out the gospel of Jesus Christ without understanding what the kingdom of God is. The gospel of Jesus Christ exists for the bigger purpose of the kingdom of God.
 
The cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ redefined the kingdom of God in all directions: Israel is not the same, obedience is not the same, love is not the same, and justice is not the same. All of these values were now revised and renewed. In Jesus we see perfect justice, righteousness, love, and obedience. Now in Jesus Christ, God’s will is truly done as it is heaven. God’s kingdom has come with Him.
 
Now, God reigns over the world, building His kingdom on earth through His people who are justified and sanctified through the precious blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s who we are.
 
So, the entire Bible story can be summarized into God’s story of building His kingdom on earth. The gospel of Jesus Christ and the story of redemption were essential to the coming of God's kingdom on earth, but they are not greater than or prioritized over the kingdom of God.
 
And this is how the kingdom story will end.
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for ever and ever.” (Rv 11:15)
 
When Jesus comes back, we’ll see the kingdom of God perfectly coming true on earth. All the kingdoms of the world will be gone, but the true kingdom of God, where He reigns, will last forever. And on that day, all true believers will join in His reign with Him. As Revelation 20:6 says,
 
“Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him…” (Rv 20:6)
 
That’s the day we should be looking forward to as Christians. That’s the eternal, kingdom perspective we must have to truly live as God’s holy people, set apart for His purpose to build His kingdom on earth.
 
Even now, the kingdom of God is being built and expanded throughout the whole world. The kingdom of God started in earnest with the first coming of Jesus Christ, is coming on earth through our obedience, and will perfectly come true when Jesus, our Messiah, returns.
 
And everything we’re doing now here on earth is not irrelevant to that day because every step we take—following God’s will, seeking His kingdom, and praying His will be done on earth—contributes to its coming.
 
So, it makes no sense not to live for the kingdom of God as those who believe in Jesus Christ and accept His gospel. If we’re truly forgiven and saved by God’s grace, we should live under God’s sovereignty as His people who build His kingdom on earth by obeying His word because that was the purpose of Jesus dying for our sins on the cross.
 
Let’s pray.
 
[Prayer]
Our Father in Heaven, the true Lord and King of everything on earth, we thank You for teaching us Your word and reminding us of what Your kingdom is and how we should seek it as Your people.
 
Oh Lord, we want to see Your kingdom coming wherever we are. We want to see Your will being achieved through our obedience. We want to be filled with Your holy presence at all times so that we may experience the presence of Your kingdom in our daily lives.
 
Please open our minds, hearts, and souls and give us the desire to seek Your kingdom. Let us not lose this perspective because of temporary worldly things, but please continue to guide us through the Holy Spirit so that we can always live in Your kingdom until it is complete when Jesus returns.
 
We pray that Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven through our lives. Please use us to build and expand Your kingdom here on earth. We thank You, Lord, for everything You’ve done to save us and make us Your kingdom people.
 
In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
 
[Reflection Questions]
1. If you were asked to summarize the whole Bible in one sentence, what would you say? What do you think is the most important concept in the Bible that covers everything else?
 
2. What is the kingdom of God? Where is the kingdom of God? Are you experiencing the presence of the kingdom of God in your life? What are some obstacles that prevent you from doing so?