"Understanding the Kingdom of God According to Scripture" (An Introduction)
Lesson 4
What Is The Kingdom of God According to the New Testament?
What Is The Kingdom of God according to the new testament is a worthwhile question to ask in light of us who all claim to be Born Again having a relationship with God the Father through the Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Because so many of us have lived according to our "experiences" with God and our feelings, often times the results of those experiences, we've missed what is essential to God when it comes to what should be a matter of priority in the life of the Believer.
Through biblical academic education we've focused on what we've commonly called the doctrines of the Bible or the Church but totally missed what God sent really sent Jesus to establish, which is God's Kingdom, His government in the earth among mankind who by the New Birth surrenders to God's sovereignty, royal power, dominion and rule and becomes a co-laborer with God and Christ in the establishment of that Government by first and foremost living as God calls us to live and by serving with God in reconciling man back to God that mankind would also be able to enjoy the God-kind of life, living the God-kind of love operating in the God-kind of faith we are called to operate in as citizens of the Kingdom and sons and daughters of the Most High God. Our superficial Christianity has greatly limited us to only looking for God to manifest a miracle or send a breakthrough for our deprived condition. This mentality has totally missed the centrality of Jesus message and mission to establish the Kingdom here, now and eternal to come.
Leonard Robinson
The New Testament word for Kingdom is "basileia". This word as used by John the Baptist, then Jesus and later by the 12 and the 70 and ultimately by the Apostles of the first Church means and has always meant "sovereignty, royal power, dominion," and also means the action, the present action of God's reign over a territory or people over whom the King rules. This term Kingdom is used of the Kingdom of God and of Christ.Because of the traditions of our "religious" fathers, many who even today dominate the radio and television stations with religious programming, and as heads of denominations in the United States and around the world, we along with them have only seen the Kingdom primarily as a place where we are going after we die if we die in Christ instead of the expression of the Father in the earth now towards a people He has called to Himself to be reconciled back to Him.
Now the earth without doubt is the scene of universal rebellion. There is a certain anarchy in America and around the world and it would lead one to believe that the Kingdom is not nor could not possible be present now. As one Baptist Bishop put it, "The Kingdom could not be present now, look at the rape, murder and chaos in our society. How can anyone preached that the Kingdom is present now"?
And of course the congregation always being willing to believe its leader, was totally led into a ditch because of the blindness of the leadership. Now because of such easy deception a whole congregation of more than 2,000 people and the Churches that bishop oversees, and the people they are called to impact will now labor in the Lord yet not understand the true nature of the New Birth, their submission to the King and the results of such dominion as can only be obtained and experienced daily through submission to the King.
The Kingdom of God is the sphere, the realm or dimension where God "actively rules" in your life through your active "submission" to His rule through the word of God and work of the Holy Spirit. Now this Kingdom or active sovereign, royal rule of God is a "mystery". Religion does not deal with the mystery of the Kingdom only the philosophy that the Kingdom is to come and that the Kingdom is a place where you are going, eschatologically speaking. This lack of knowledge concerning the mystery of the Kingdom and its right now presence which includes righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and power that also leads to the provision of God regarding our material needs is of vital importance, such knowledge needing to be possessed by all.
More on the Kingdom in the next session
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