Originally published in "The Lord's Coming Herald & Wesleyan Bible Prophecy Advocate," Winter Edition 2004
Jesus Doctrine Of The Kingdom
"In the days of these kings shall the
God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom
shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all
these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever" (Daniel 2:44). "And there was
given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and
languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed" (Daniel 7:14). "For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his
feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" I Corinthians
15:25-26).
Now, are the above messianic kingdom prophecies of Daniel
2:44 and 7:13-14 referring to what happened at the first, or at the so-called
"second" advent of Jesus Christ? Did Jesus establish the promised messianic
kingdom at his first advent, or is it something that he sets up when he returns?
The question is legitimate. The issues that flow from the
answer we give to it are vital, and are determinative to our conception of the
whole Christian system.
The truth-claim issue of what the messianic kingdom really is
can be conclusively settled, we believe, by a careful consideration of what
Jesus Himself taught about the subject of His kingdom.
First, we observe that Jesus began his public ministry by
proclaiming that the time was fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven was at hand
(Mark 1:15). Then we notice that the chief activity in which he engaged
throughout that ministry was to preach the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 4:23;
9:35). Jesus illustrated the nature of the kingdom at various times, and in
different ways. The kingdom of heaven is like unto this, or like unto that, are
words that we hear so often fall from the lips of the Saviour. In fact, the
entirety of Jesus' message revolved around the kingdom concept. Without
understanding the kingdom, friends, we cannot comprehend the religion that Jesus
came to bring to the world at all.
Jesus' doctrine of the messianic kingdom we find to be true
holiness of heart and life. The kingdom consisted in being forgiven of all of
one's sins, and of being purified in heart. Such inward impartation of
righteousness was a standard that vastly exceeded the externalities that the
Scribes and Pharisees, with their false conceptions of the messianic kingdom,
mistook for holiness.
Jesus' doctrine of the kingdom was a personal righteousness
of character based on redemption, and that doctrine conflicted and antagonized
the antinomianism of the religious leadership of his day. Always going about to
establish their own righteousness, they failed to submit themselves to the
righteousness of God, or the righteousness that comes by faith in the Messiah
(Romans 10:3). Jesus made it perfectly clear, however, that only those who
experienced the redemption that He, as the Messiah, had come to provide could
enter the kingdom (Matthew 5:3ff.; 18:1-4; John 3:3-5).
Not one single time in the entire New
Testament did Jesus ever indicate that His kingdom consisted of any
nationalistic, political, or military aggrandizing or ascendancy of the Jews. To
the contrary, He made it perfectly clear that His kingdom was "not of this
world" (John 18:36).
Christ's kingdom, further, is not the church; it is the
redemption by which men are gathered into that relationship, of which the church
is called. The kingdom is redemption, its plan, its power, and all of its
effect. The kingdom is for the redeemed, and only the redeemed are in the kingdom. It is
the sphere of God's rule, where sin has been abrogated, and where God's will is
done, on earth as it is in heaven. The kingdom is the Holy Ghost in a pure and
perfect heart. It is preeminently Christ crowned within. It is the influence
of the true Christian as the salt of the earth, and as the light of the world.
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