Kingdom Come
19 October, 2009, 2:04 pm
Matthew 10:7 ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’
Jesus talked a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven. Really – A lot. So don’t you think it is important to understand what he meant by that.
Some of the things he said were:
the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force
if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you
Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Now, it is up to us to make sense of all these things in the context which he said them, so we can understand what and where is Kingdom is.
First it is essential to realize that Jesus did not just appear without any background or context. He comes at a point in the story line of the Bible when it has become obvious that God needs to step in and make things right.
Humans had caused the fall when they disobeyed, God had instituted a people who would change the world. and even their greatest king, “a man after God’s own heart.” Was too weak to keep himself from the causes of the fall, let alone redeem the world. God had told him there would be a greater king who would follow him, and that king was Jesus.
So when Jesus talked about a kingdom to his followers, not a single one of them would have thought he meant some mystical place in the sky. Rather, they all expected him to establish an army and defeat Rome at any minute.
So here we are two thousand year later. We have lost faith that he will defeat our enemies here in the world, and only hope that one day he will take us away.
This is a terrible twisting of the gospel. Jesus will defeat all of our enemies. Even the ones we face right now. He is king of all the earth.
We live in his kingdom here where our feet touch the dirt. It’s just that some of his subjects live in rebellion. Chances are good that those that you consider your enemies are small nuisances to him and those that you consider your friends are really his enemies.
