The kingdom of God.

[Checkpoint]

Some seem to think it is entirely future, while others give the impression they are always thinking of it as present, and to not be looking at the future in kingdom terms at all.

Jesus had much to say about the kingdom, including this:

Luke 16:

6 The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is being zealously urged into it.

So, where do you stand as to whether it is present, future, or has both a present and a future aspect?

On what basis?

According to which scriptures?

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 70 by onewithhim]

What if the God that is being represented were truly benevolent and worthy of being represented? What if He really was the Source of all life? What if He really did create everything? Why would we NOT honor Him?

Keeping in mind that you are answering a small portion of what i wrote, GOD can never be represented though form or imagery.
Honoring the notion of GOD is different from idolizing the biblical stories coming through Christendom regarding a king and a kingdom and what is expected of the subjects and all that specific elitist propaganda related to a white skinned, human looking individual on a throne, representing an elitist idea of GOD.

How is such imagery 'honoring GOD'? It is honoring an elitist idea of a GOD.

OK, you believe in a deception relating to Jehovah and His universal Sovereignty. That is your prerogative to believe what you are sure in your own mind are facts. I don't accept your viewpoint, but that is also my prerogative.

May you have peace.

[onewithhim]

I don't think anyone has answered my question.....is anyone able? My question was: Why would Jesus teach us to pray for the Kingdom TO COME if it was already here?


"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. THY KINGDOM COME. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, KJV)

[Checkpoint]

I don't think anyone has answered my question.....is anyone able? My question was: Why would Jesus teach us to pray for the Kingdom TO COME if it was already here?


"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. THY KINGDOM COME. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, KJV)

That is a fair question, which I did touch on in a post a while ago, but that may well have been on another thread.

The question seems to be assuming the nature of the kingdom Jesus was then including in a model prayer for believers.

So, we pray as believers, we pray in view of what Jesus has done, we pray in recognition that he now has "all authority", and we pray in the light of his command to "go therefore and make disciples".

Thus we pray for all sorts of situations of others we are in contact with, as well as for our own and for other believers.

We pray for God's will to be done, that His kingdom rule will prevail in individual lives.

When God answers, the kingdom does come, as people experience what Paul wrote about.

Romans 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

[William]

[Replying to post 70 by onewithhim]

What if the God that is being represented were truly benevolent and worthy of being represented? What if He really was the Source of all life? What if He really did create everything? Why would we NOT honor Him?

Keeping in mind that you are answering a small portion of what i wrote, GOD can never be represented though form or imagery.
Honoring the notion of GOD is different from idolizing the biblical stories coming through Christendom regarding a king and a kingdom and what is expected of the subjects and all that specific elitist propaganda related to a white skinned, human looking individual on a throne, representing an elitist idea of GOD.

How is such imagery 'honoring GOD'? It is honoring an elitist idea of a GOD.

OK, you believe in a deception relating to Jehovah and His universal Sovereignty. That is your prerogative to believe what you are sure in your own mind are facts. I don't accept your viewpoint, but that is also my prerogative.

May you have peace.

At least I showed why I think it is the case, and you chose not to respond to those observations, and instead simply told me that you will believe whatever you want to. I showed that it is likely what you believe in is deception.

Yes, you are correct, you can choose to believe whatever you want to.

[peacedove]

I don't think anyone has answered my question.....is anyone able? My question was: Why would Jesus teach us to pray for the Kingdom TO COME if it was already here?


"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. THY KINGDOM COME. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, KJV)

That is a fair question, which I did touch on in a post a while ago, but that may well have been on another thread.

The question seems to be assuming the nature of the kingdom Jesus was then including in a model prayer for believers.

So, we pray as believers, we pray in view of what Jesus has done, we pray in recognition that he now has "all authority", and we pray in the light of his command to "go therefore and make disciples".

Thus we pray for all sorts of situations of others we are in contact with, as well as for our own and for other believers.

We pray for God's will to be done, that His kingdom rule will prevail in individual lives.

When God answers, the kingdom does come, as people experience what Paul wrote about.

Romans 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Ahh... but what does it mean to pray for 'the kingdom to come'?

If we understand the nature of the kingdom to come, for which the disciples were instructed to pray, we can identify more easily when it came, or whether it still hasn't come.

The context of the Lord's Prayer in Mat 6:9-13 includes the concept of reward, e.g. 6:1 and 6:4 and 6:6.

The kingdom comes to reward. And to punish the adversaries. Jesus said that he would repay each man according to his deeds in the lifetimes of those he spoke to:
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Mat 16:26-27)

So we can see that:
your kingdom come = the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom, and
your kingdom come = the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

The disciples were taught to pray for the coming of their reward and the repayment and punishment of the adversaries.

We can see this in the parable of the persistent widow:
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:1-8)

From this we can see that
your kingdom come = grant me justice against my adversary
and
your kingdom come is fulfilled when: 'the Son of man comes' in judgement and for vengeance and finds no faith on the 'earth' (land of Israel)

The prayer is for vindication of the suffering of the martyrs, and the avenging of their blood against the unjust judge. The unjust judge, who violated the law of Moses by failing to give the widow justice is Old Covenant Israel. Jesus promised his followers that justice and vengeance against the land would come speedily. It would not delay.

This raises the question of how long they would have to wait to be avenged. How long before this coming of the kingdom and vengeance against the land?

This question is asked and answered in Revelation:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Rev 6:9-11)

At the time the book of Revelation was written, the kingdom had not come, the martyr's blood still cried out for vengeance. But vengeance was promised after a short time. The same book promises that the Son of Man would come 'soon'. This helps confirm:
your kingdom come = the coming of the Son of Man

The martyr's prayer is answered in the following seal:
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? (Rev 6:12-17)

So we have:
your kingdom come = great earthquake
your kingdom come = sun darkened, moon to blood, stars fall from the sky
your kingdom come = old heaven and earth passes away, new heaven and earth perfected
your kingdom come = judgement of the kings of the earth
your kingdom come = fulfilment of Is 2 and related passages predicting the time when people would run to the hills, hide in the ground, call for the mountains to fall on them, and
your kingdom come = wrath of the Lamb poured out

Jesus predicted the fulfilment of the same prophecies of Is 2 etc. in vengeance of his own blood against Jerusalem:

And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed! Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? (Luke 23:26-31)

Notice that Jesus gave a time-frame for the judgement: it would come in the life-time of the women who mourned him, it would affect those women and their children. And the 'they' would be the Jewish authorities / powers and the Romans. They would do a whole lot worse than crucify one man, they would destroy the entire country.

The judgement referred to would be in vengeance of the blood of Jesus, and in repayment of the blood-guilt of Jerusalem.

Jesus taught that upon Jerusalem, and at the desolation of her house, would come all the blood shed on the land since Abel, and including the blood of his own apostles and sages and scribes (Mat 23:29-39). The wrath of the Lamb would come upon that generation.

So we can add:
your kingdom come = the judgement of Jerusalem at the desolation of her house in Jesus's generation, in repayment of the blood of the martyrs.

This means that we can give the fulfilment of the prayer a date: 70 A.D.

Let's have a look at the messiaic kingdom promised in the Old Testament. For example, this from Isaiah:

O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
They are dead, they will not live;
they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
and wiped out all remembrance of them.
But you have increased the nation, O Lord,
you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
you have enlarged all the borders of the land. (Is 26:13-15)

This is the context: other lords had ruled over Israel, but they fell and will not rise again. But the kingdom is promised to Israel, her boarders will be increased and the nation increased.


O Lord, in distress they sought you;
they poured out a whispered prayer
when your discipline was upon them.
Like a pregnant woman
who writhes and cries out in her pangs
when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
we were pregnant, we writhed,
but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. (Is 26:16-18)

Yet it appears salvation and the messanic kingdom have not come, Israel is suffering birth pains of the tribulation, yet where is the kingdom? Where is the new body?

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.
Come, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until the fury has passed by.
For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
and will no more cover its slain. (Is 26:19-21)

The resurrection comes in and through the repayment of Israel for shedding the blood of the prophets, and when the inhabitants of the land are punished for their iniquity. Jesus said that would happen at the desolation of Jerusalem's house in his generation. Is that not good enough for us? Is this somehow inconclusive? Is it unsatisfactory, is it not the kind of kingdom we had hoped for?

If our hope does not align with the time-frame, context and framework given to us in the scriptures, do we just throw the scriptures out? If our kingdom concept and coming of the kingdom concept is something that happens at some other time than the repayment of Old Covenant Israel for shedding blood at the fall of Jerusalem then we need to revisit the matter and revise our concept so that it is faithful to the sayings of our Lord. We can't take the Old Testament prophecies of the coming of the kingdom and make them applicable to things and times and people in contradiction to the things and times and people our Lord applied them to.

[JehovahsWitness]

I don't think anyone has answered my question.....is anyone able? My question was: Why would Jesus teach us to pray for the Kingdom TO COME if it was already here?


"After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. THY KINGDOM COME. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:9,10, KJV)

That is a fair question, which I did touch on in a post a while ago, but that may well have been on another thread.

The question seems to be assuming the nature of the kingdom Jesus was then including in a model prayer for believers.

So, we pray as believers, we pray in view of what Jesus has done, we pray in recognition that he now has "all authority", and we pray in the light of his command to "go therefore and make disciples".

Thus we pray for all sorts of situations of others we are in contact with, as well as for our own and for other believers.

We pray for God's will to be done, that His kingdom rule will prevail in individual lives.

When God answers, the kingdom does come, as people experience what Paul wrote about.

Romans 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Ahh... but what does it mean to pray for 'the kingdom to come'?

If we understand the nature of the kingdom to come, for which the disciples were instructed to pray, we can identify more easily when it came, or whether it still hasn't come.

The context of the Lord's Prayer in Mat 6:9-13 includes the concept of reward, e.g. 6:1 and 6:4 and 6:6.

The kingdom comes to reward. And to punish the adversaries. Jesus said that he would repay each man according to his deeds in the lifetimes of those he spoke to:
For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. (Mat 16:26-27)

So we can see that:
your kingdom come = the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom, and
your kingdom come = the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will repay each person according to what he has done.

The disciples were taught to pray for the coming of their reward and the repayment and punishment of the adversaries.

We can see this in the parable of the persistent widow:
And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, Give me justice against my adversary. For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? (Luke 18:1-8)

From this we can see that
your kingdom come = grant me justice against my adversary
and
your kingdom come is fulfilled when: 'the Son of man comes' in judgement and for vengeance and finds no faith on the 'earth' (land of Israel)

The prayer is for vindication of the suffering of the martyrs, and the avenging of their blood against the unjust judge. The unjust judge, who violated the law of Moses by failing to give the widow justice is Old Covenant Israel. Jesus promised his followers that justice and vengeance against the land would come speedily. It would not delay.

This raises the question of how long they would have to wait to be avenged. How long before this coming of the kingdom and vengeance against the land?

This question is asked and answered in Revelation:
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. (Rev 6:9-11)

At the time the book of Revelation was written, the kingdom had not come, the martyr's blood still cried out for vengeance. But vengeance was promised after a short time. The same book promises that the Son of Man would come 'soon'. This helps confirm:
your kingdom come = the coming of the Son of Man

The martyr's prayer is answered in the following seal:
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? (Rev 6:12-17)

So we have:
your kingdom come = great earthquake
your kingdom come = sun darkened, moon to blood, stars fall from the sky
your kingdom come = old heaven and earth passes away, new heaven and earth perfected
your kingdom come = judgement of the kings of the earth
your kingdom come = fulfilment of Is 2 and related passages predicting the time when people would run to the hills, hide in the ground, call for the mountains to fall on them, and
your kingdom come = wrath of the Lamb poured out

Jesus predicted the fulfilment of the same prophecies of Is 2 etc. in vengeance of his own blood against Jerusalem:

And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. But turning to them Jesus said, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed! Then they will begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry? (Luke 23:26-31)

Notice that Jesus gave a time-frame for the judgement: it would come in the life-time of the women who mourned him, it would affect those women and their children. And the 'they' would be the Jewish authorities / powers and the Romans. They would do a whole lot worse than crucify one man, they would destroy the entire country.

The judgement referred to would be in vengeance of the blood of Jesus, and in repayment of the blood-guilt of Jerusalem.

Jesus taught that upon Jerusalem, and at the desolation of her house, would come all the blood shed on the land since Abel, and including the blood of his own apostles and sages and scribes (Mat 23:29-39). The wrath of the Lamb would come upon that generation.

So we can add:
your kingdom come = the judgement of Jerusalem at the desolation of her house in Jesus's generation, in repayment of the blood of the martyrs.

This means that we can give the fulfilment of the prayer a date: 70 A.D.

Let's have a look at the messiaic kingdom promised in the Old Testament. For example, this from Isaiah:

O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us,
but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
They are dead, they will not live;
they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
and wiped out all remembrance of them.
But you have increased the nation, O Lord,
you have increased the nation; you are glorified;
you have enlarged all the borders of the land. (Is 26:13-15)

This is the context: other lords had ruled over Israel, but they fell and will not rise again. But the kingdom is promised to Israel, her boarders will be increased and the nation increased.


O Lord, in distress they sought you;
they poured out a whispered prayer
when your discipline was upon them.
Like a pregnant woman
who writhes and cries out in her pangs
when she is near to giving birth,
so were we because of you, O Lord;
we were pregnant, we writhed,
but we have given birth to wind.
We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,
and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen. (Is 26:16-18)

Yet it appears salvation and the messanic kingdom have not come, Israel is suffering birth pains of the tribulation, yet where is the kingdom? Where is the new body?

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.
You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and the earth will give birth to the dead.
Come, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until the fury has passed by.
For behold, the Lord is coming out from his place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,
and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,
and will no more cover its slain. (Is 26:19-21)

The resurrection comes in and through the repayment of Israel for shedding the blood of the prophets, and when the inhabitants of the land are punished for their iniquity. Jesus said that would happen at the desolation of Jerusalem's house in his generation. Is that not good enough for us? Is this somehow inconclusive? Is it unsatisfactory, is it not the kind of kingdom we had hoped for?

If our hope does not align with the time-frame, context and framework given to us in the scriptures, do we just throw the scriptures out? If our kingdom concept and coming of the kingdom concept is something that happens at some other time than the repayment of Old Covenant Israel for shedding blood at the fall of Jerusalem then we need to revisit the matter and revise our concept so that it is faithful to the sayings of our Lord. We can't take the Old Testament prophecies of the coming of the kingdom and make them applicable to things and times and people in contradiction to the things and times and people our Lord applied them to.

So from all of that can you explain in a sentence or two (a) what is God's kingdom and (b) in what sense does it "come"?

[peacedove]

So from all of that can you explain in a sentence or two (a) what is God's kingdom and (b) in what sense does it "come"?

No, I don't think it is possible to explain either in a sentence or two. But I'll try for a short summary.

The kingdom of God is the reign of God and the government of God. It includes the law of God, the teaching of the law of God, compliance with the law of God and the administration of the law of God dealing with non-compliance. The law of God for the messianic kingdom was taught by Jesus and his apostles, and the teaching function was institutionalised in the form of the church (assembly) established by Jesus and his apostles. This involved a new jurisdiction and judicial system separate from the Mosaic system. The administration of the law of the kingdom is through the court of the three sages set out in Mat 18:15-20, where each side chooses one judge, and together they choose a third. So this system of judiciary is highly decentralised and ad hoc, and it does not have a domination structure or a hierarchy that we see in Ex 18, for example. The government of the kingdom is delegated to the apostles who judge the 12 tribes of Israel and are the foundation stones, built upon the cornerstone. Other elders or overseers are established over assemblies or cities around the world, and there is some administration and service to care for the widows and to teach the law and to meet for fellowship and eating the love feast meal. Jesus explained how the kingdom would be restored to Israel as follows:
He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. ... So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:3,6-8)

The kingdom of God is restored to Israel through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, and the power given to the apostles who are witnesses in Jerusalem and who also provided testimony in Judea, Samaria and to the end of the earth. This happened in the First Century, and is recorded in the book of Acts.

In what sense does it 'come'. The kingdom comes with the coming of the Son of Man in power, to take vengeance against the adversaries, as I documented previously at length. This can be seen, for example:
This is evidence of the righteous judgement of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering" since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. (2 Thes 1:5-10)

The Thessalonian saints were suffering for the kingdom of God. They were being persecuted by the Jewish adversaries. Paul said that their suffering would be vindicated, and relieved -- and by implication the kingdom would 'come' in fullness and power -- when their persecutors were repaid. That repayment would reveal the glory of the Christ and his saints, and that day would reveal and display the authority of Jesus as the Christ, who was coming in judgement as the Father had come before. It would be the revelation of the sons of God, it would show those who claimed to be Jews but were not, but who were the synagogue of Satan, that they were the children of the devil, and that their kingdom, the political, coercive, earthly kingdom they sought to set up in Jerusalem was not the kingdom of God, and it was not what the kingdom of God is like.

Unless we can appreciate the different nature of the kingdom of God, as compared to the previous kingdoms of man, funded by taxation and with centralised coercive domination structures, we are destined to repeat or to teach the future coming of a kingdom that is what the kingdom of God came to conquer and destroy. Jesus taught that in his kingdom, we are sons, and are exempt from taxation (Mat 17:24-27). He taught that his kingdom we are not to exercise coercion, and that we are not to be like the Roman empire (Mat 20:25-28). Sadly many Christians still believe in the tax-funded coercive kingdoms of this world, and that the kingdom of God is like that.

[Monta]

[Replying to post 83 by Checkpoint]


"We pray for God's will to be done, that His kingdom rule will prevail in individual lives.

When God answers, the kingdom does come, as people experience what Paul wrote about.

Romans 14:17

For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit."

Yes, not one off but continuously flowing to all peoples/generations.

[JehovahsWitness]

So from all of that can you explain in a sentence or two (a) what is God's kingdom and (b) in what sense does it "come"?

No, I don't think it is possible to explain either in a sentence or two. But I'll try for a short summary.

The kingdom of God is the reign of God and the government of God.

Does Jesus play a role in this governement?

ISAIAH 9:6
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

[peacedove]

So from all of that can you explain in a sentence or two (a) what is God's kingdom and (b) in what sense does it "come"?

No, I don't think it is possible to explain either in a sentence or two. But I'll try for a short summary.

The kingdom of God is the reign of God and the government of God.

Does Jesus play a role in this governement?

Sure, as founder, king, lawgiver, prophet and example.

The kingdom is the re-entrance of mankind into the divine council. Have a look at what Jesus taught:

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Mat 18:15-20)

This passage shows the judicial nature of the kingdom on earth in the church. It is a judicial institution for hearing and deciding cases and administering the law to cases of discord and dispute. It is to compose disputes and to administer the law in the kingdom.

The church meets judicially as an assembly of three judges on earth, each side chooses one, and together they choose a third. That assembly or church is a meeting of the divine council, their decisions have heaven's authority. When the assembly meets on earth, the divine presence is there with them, provided:
1. The quorum of two or three judges is present, and
2. They meet under the name and authority of Jesus Christ, and
3. They are following the procedural and evidence law just given.

When these people meet in these circumstances:
1. they are those 'raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus'
2. A kingdom and priests to our God (Rev 5:10). That is, they are functioning in the kingdom, but they are also functioning as priests, to reconcile men to each other and to God.
3. A holy priesthood, and a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2).

This kingdom was born in the personal ministry of our Lord, and perfected at the destruction of his enemies, even those who pierced him. The divine presence comes down from heaven to earth (Rev 22:10). The prayer for the kingdom to come is the prayer for God's will to be done on earth as in heaven (Mat 6:10). Heaven and earth were separated when man was cast out of the garden. That separation is removed in the kingdom, and man re-joins the divine council. Men become sons of God. As the watchers (Dan 4:17), and the holy ones (Job 15:15; Ps 89:5,7; Dan 4:17), the gods (Ps 82:1) in the divine council are called sons of God (Gen 6:2,4; Deut 32:8; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Ps 82:6), so we, through Christ and his kingdom (Mat 5:9; Luke 20:36; Rom 8:14,19; 9:26; Gal 3:26; 4:6; Heb 12:7).

In the divine council, the Christ is exalted to the right hand of God (Mat 26:64; Acts 2:33; Rom 8:34). If he is present with us when we meet in his name and if we are in his presence we are part of the divine council. The kingdom is the kingdom of God and also the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom reigns in and over the earth, but it does so in a heavenly manner and from heaven.