Published: August 6, 2026 | Speaker: Chuck Hartman | Series: Biblical Theology Part 3 - The Kingdom of God - Part 1 | Scripture: Matthew 4:12-25
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When John the Baptist was uh ministering at the Jordan River, Jordan River, there's uh a fairly interesting nonquest that was presented to him. He was asked
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who he was and by what authority he did what he did. But he was not asked why are you doing this? What what is this you do mean?
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And that is interesting because there's really nothing in the Old Testament that would explicitly lead us to John's ministry as the forerunner of the
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Messiah. Meaning his ministry in baptism, the baptism of repentance. He simply says, "I I baptize in repentance, but one is coming after me who will baptize in the Holy Spirit." But the
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whole idea of of baptism is not in the Old Testament. scholars have tried to uh take the Levitical ceremonial washings, the
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illustrations and say that this was a um forerunner of baptism, but they're completely different context and completely different people. The the
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washings were were not done by everybody, nor had the washings anything to do explicitly with repentance. So we have in John's baptism a
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phenomenon in a biblical theological sense. We have something that's that is accepted and even anticipated even anticipated but without any clear
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indication of what it is and why it has come. Well, there's about the same thing to be said about the kingdom of God.
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As it turns out, baptism is obviously a very important ordinance, but honestly, it doesn't hold a candle to the concept of the kingdom of God.
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So this being our third session of biblical theology and and as far as I can see our our last to me this is ending on a climax
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that the kingdom of God is the uh the central theme of all of the arc of revelation from Genesis 1 to
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Revelation 22 Revelation 22 is all about the kingdom of God. except that in the Old Testament there isn't a whole lot mentioned. The phrase itself,
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as far as I can tell, the phrase kingdom of God is not used in the Old Testament. Now, the pre the the um recognition of
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God as king is obviously in the Old Testament. Uh we can think of of God saying to Samuel, "They have not re rejected you but me from being king over
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them." Um, so we we talk about the kingdom of God with without a lot of explicit
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However, it's a lot easier, I think, to find Old Testament illusions and echoes of the kingdom than it is to find the same for baptism in the Old
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Testament. But they are both central to to John's ministry and then to Jesus's. In Matthew 3, we read, "Now, in those days, John
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the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
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And then a little later in Matthew chapter 4 chapter 4 verse 17 from that time Jesus began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of
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heaven is at hand. Now this one is obviously more important because it's in red letters whereas this one's only in black letters black letters but beyond that they are identical.
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Okay. So both of these men were preaching in Judea at the um uh the the crux of time, the fullness of
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time. And they both knew it. They John knew that he was the forerunner and that there was one coming after him. And Jesus knew that he was that one. So,
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we're we're standing at the the very um hinge of history as it were, the fullness of time. Galatians 4:4.
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And what's on each of these men's mind? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Now, I'm going to go ahead and deal with
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the technical issue ahead of time because I'm sure you've heard a great deal about it. And I'm not going to try we'll get to a point where we'll try to explain it more,
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kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. Uh if any of you have had any experience with dispensational teaching, you'll know that classic dispensationalism views these as two different things. But the kingdom of heaven has to do with
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Jesus and the kingdom of God, I'm sorry, the church, the kingdom of God has to do with is Israel. Um, that has never been held by any
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Christian denomination throughout Generally, most writers will say that Matthew being a Jew
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a Jew accommodated himself to the traditional Jewish aversion to saying or writing the name of God and they would use a
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circumlocution not the office just you know just the word um heaven where God's throne is. Okay. Uh the problem with that is that Matthew also uses kingdom of God which
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was clearly a later redactor who changed it. Okay. Um you know you it's not an airtight argument that you know he he used kingdom of heaven so as not to offend
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his Jewish audience because he does use kingdom of God in his gospel. And so he was at least at at the at the very best he was inconsistent. Um there are other theories and we'll
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we'll get into it. Uh but it is evident from a harmony of kingdom passages in the gospels especially Matthew, Mark and Luke, the synoptics
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that there is no difference between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. um parables that are identical. One, you
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know, Matthew might say the kingdom of heaven is like, you know, Jesus is the one talking here, and then Luke will have it as the kingdom of God. Um, but they're identical in in everything that
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is said about the two. There is no indication that one has to do with the church and the other has to do with Israel. That's that is a later interpolation. It has no basis in
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scripture. So I don't know what your thoughts are or what your thoughts have been about the that you know that little argument that little debate. Frankly I want to introduce it early so that we can kind of dismiss it because
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essentially the terms are synonymous within the scripture. I mean not even going into theology and esquetology and the difference between the church and Israel. It's just they're they're synonymous grammatically in the gospels.
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So um we can just dismiss unless anybody has a particular problem with that. we'll just say, "Okay, here it is." And then we'll dismiss it. When we get to the New Testament teaching, we'll deal
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more with the the various theories um between why Matthew said this versus that when in fact Matthew said both. Um but he did tend toward a favored kingdom
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of heaven. of heaven. What's important at this point, and I know it seems like we're starting in the middle or even toward the end, but what is significant about these two men, John
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and Jesus, is that each one of them saw themselves as part as a player in what
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would have been for Israel the esqueological climax of the messianic promises. Neither one of them as far as reading
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what they say. Now, I know liberals will say that Jesus didn't know he was the Messiah and he um that doesn't hold any water when when you understand what he's saying, especially in light of those promises from the Hebrew Bible. Jesus is
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clearly ascribing to himself pre-existence. For example, when he says in John 8, before Abraham was, I am. Just the I am. And they took up stones. They understood
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what he was saying because they took up stones to stone him for blasphemy. So modern liberals are dumber than first century Jews. century Jews. Um and so these two men, you know, the
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first point is these these two men
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had the same message. This message being the the introduction of their preaching ministry preaching ministry was the prologue to their entire ministry. For John, obviously, it wasn't very
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long. But for Jesus, it was all of the miracles, all of the teachings, everything that he did now is resting upon this initial prologue statement.
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Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And again, nobody bothered to ask John or Jesus, "What are you talking about?
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What is this kingdom you're talking about?" Just as they did not ask John about the baptism he was doing, but rather by what authority he did what he did. No one asked either John or Jesus,
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"What are you talking about? which again indicates a sense of expectation within second temple Judaism for the kingdom and we're going to see
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that in the Old Testament. That's one of the places where we have the implicit um foreshadowing of a kingdom especially places like Daniel where we have the
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kingdoms of the world followed by the kingdom of the son of man kingdom that is given to him by the ancient of days. So, you know, it's there. It it just isn't. The phrase isn't there.
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And the expectations that were held by second temple Judaism were by no means uniform. And we see that among the disciples that they they didn't all have
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the same view. People tend to look at things, institutions, religions as if they are
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homogeneous. The great argument used by the Roman Catholic Church against Protestantism is that Protestantism cannot be correct because there are so many different flavors. We have so many different
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denominations. And Rome, they say, is monolithic. It's just homogeneous. It is it is ancient and it is it is monolithic. But it's not because behind that monolith are the
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various different monastic orders and grave differences within the Catholic universities and debates within the councils, the ecumenical councils. So
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there's just as much division and heterogeneity in the Roman Catholic Church. They just don't split off and form another denomination. They just split off and form another monastic
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order. Okay? It's essentially the same thing. We tend to look at the same thing when we we see Judaism. We tend to think these are mistakes that Christians commonly make. One, Jews know
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their Bible. their Bible. No, they don't. They don't know their Bible now. In fact, they know it now less than they did then. And Jesus himself said to the Sadducees and the
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issue about the, you know, to to uh to which man would that woman be married to in the afterlife? And he says, you understand neither of the scriptures nor the power of God.
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They did not believe in him even though they read Moses when he says it was Moses that testifies of me. So the Jews didn't know their scriptures any really probably any if Barner had been living
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back then he would have done a poll and found that biblical illiteracy among Jews was very high as it is among professing Christians today. So we we
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should not glorify Judaism or even modern Judaism as if these people know their Bible. No, they they are fallen sons of Adam and Eve as we are.
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But the other error is to think that Judaism was also monolithic, that they had this expectation of a Messiah and they were looking forward to the Messiah. Well, yes and no. The
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Sadducees frankly weren't looking forward to the Messiah because that would mess up their program totally. And then the rest of the group, you went you went from zealots to Pharisees to
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Essenes. You have all these different groups that have a completely different definition in their own doctrines as to what the kingdom and what the king was
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supposed to be and what he was supposed to do. So as we look at the background of the kingdom of God, we once again we need to weed through the the accretions
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that occurred through the rabbis, through the Pharisees, through the political machinations of the Sadducees, the rebellion or the or the uh the militant attitudes of the zealots, the
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separatist movement of the Essenes leading to the Kuman, the Dead Sea Community, they were very heterogeneous. They were not all of one mind when it comes to the
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kingdom. And yet there is this sense of expectation. Now that sense of expectation is illustrated for us in the opening chapters of Luke,
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Luke chapter 3.
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Um well here I have it. I think I have Go ahead. Chapter two.
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Well, the the question is, has has God always been a king? Yeah, I think he's always been a king. He's always been the great king.
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But the kingdom of God is not eternal. It has a beginning
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the kingdom of God as it is taught in spoken of in in [snorts] scripture requires for its scope
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That make sense? A kingdom requires a realm and that realm is creation.
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There's never been a rival to God. So in an eternal and absolute sense, he is the complete sovereign. complete sovereign. But as far as we can tell from
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scripture, prior to the creation of other beings, there was the Godhead. There is, I should say, the Godhead, right? It is timeless. That is what is eternal.
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And nowhere within the godhead is any one of the persons represented as a king within that relationship. Does that make
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sense? So, so in other words, he is an eternal father because the second person of the trinity is the eternal son. Is that is that right? So, I'm only going off the word
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eternal here, not about God. God is king. But what I what I'm saying is is the biblical representation of what what is ascribed to his eternality.
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King is not part of that. We can say it also this way. G Jesus is not eternal
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because he was born in time. Right? Is that fair statement? Well, we can also say that Christ is eternal is eternal because that is the second person of the Trinity. Now, I know it gets a little
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mindboggling here, but I'm I'm keying off this word eternal because I think it's important because we do have a point in time when Jesus in the fullness of time, right, that tells us prior to
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the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary, that human being, the God man did not
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exist. He existed as eternal God. So we can we can attribute eternality to Christ's deity but we must attribute temporality
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to his humanity. Fair does that make sense? Abe? Okay. So what your your question is excellent
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because it it's something that we need to think about and that is when did the kingdom begin?
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Yeah. I wasn't sure is that kingdom initiation earth.
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but that would imply possibly to say that the kingdom has always been in heaven. Well, yet yes, it has, but I would say again, it had a beginning just as all angelic beings have a beginning.
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Angelic beings are not eternal. So God's sovereignty over all angelic beings began the very moment he created all
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angelic beings. And God's sovereignty over the earth began the moment he created the heavens and the earth. We'll get into that. That's a major major
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thought that we're going to be talking about. Genesis 1 and two are are major foundation blocks for the whole biblical doctrine of the kingdom. But what will be fine with the kingdom is is this. It
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was, it is, and it will be. Now, what what John and Jesus are doing, they come in
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right here.
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The modern application of the biblical teaching on the kingdom of God then splits then splits into two major categories of the willbe.
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Okay. So we Jesus John says the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is imminent. Jesus comes shortly afterwards and says the exact same thing. Were they both
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mistaken? 19th century liberals like Albert Scheer said yes they were that it didn't actually come. actually come. Dispensationalists say oh it came but
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the Jews rejected it so Jesus took it away and he'll bring it back in the millennium. Reformed theology says, "No, it came
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and has remained, but according to 1 Corinthians 15, it has yet to come in its fullness."
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So again, this is a broad brush. We're going to get into these details because it is very important to the church because many think that the church is synonymous and co-extensive with the
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kingdom, which it is not. The kingdom is broader. It is greater both in time and space than the church. So we we have to ask questions like
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that. What does he mean? What does he mean when he teaches us to pray, "Your will be done. Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." Well, that
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kind of answers your question, doesn't it? It's already in heaven. When will it come on earth? But isn't it already on earth? Is he not sovereign over all the
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nations? Well, Paul teaches at the Aropagus that God has appointed from one man every nation and has set its times and its boundaries. So throughout history, we can say God
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has always been king. And yet we must say with John and Jesus that with the advent of the Messiah, the kingdom is.
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kingdom is. And yet we must say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 that the kingdom will be. So it has these three temporal aspects
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to it. to it. None of which are in themselves eternal. Now the question of when it begins is another one that that does not have a
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uniform answer. Some people believe that it began with the resurrection and the ascension. Okay. Others believe it began at Mount Si with the giving of the law.
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I will say that it began in Genesis 1 verse three verse three when God said, "Let there be light." And that's because I believe and I'm
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getting ahead of myself, but I think hopefully this will give a broad overview that the fundamental purpose of a king
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a king and especially the great king. So we just say this as a
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Now I'm going to defend that thesis. That's that's kind of the the governing thesis of the of the class is that the purpose of the kingdom and the purpose of the king, a king, a Davidic king, a
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messianic king or the divine great king, God is to bring order out of chaos. Now, that's actually a fairly good
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definition of what any human king is supposed to do. Okay, the society and this is what Judges and
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then Samuel teaches us. Every man did what was right in his own eyes. And when you read the book of Judges, chaos is not a bad descriptive term to describe
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the 12 tribes of Israel during that period. And what did they want? Well, they wanted a king who would go out to battle for them. But what they needed was a king who would bring order out of
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chaos. And the first time that order is brought out of chaos is Genesis 1:3. That's the first time in biblical history that cosmos
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comes from chaos. And so that's why I believe that is where the kingdom, the concept of the kingdom actually begins. Even though the phrase and even the word is not used but
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it lays the foundation of all other teaching. This concept also shows us that we cannot draw from any human analogy.
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And that is another classic mistake within the the teaching on the kingdom is to try to draw from human kingdoms and the idea of human monarchy. In fact,
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in days gone by, the concept of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven has been used to justify the kingdoms and monarchies of the of the of Europe
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especially. This was what was behind some of the political motivation anyhow of the crusades. And we'll we'll talk about that. The idea of an earthly realm
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that can be brought into being by the political and military actions of the church is a is a misconception.
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In response to that misconception, modern Christianity has abandoned all idea of a physical realm and has spoken more of the reign of God, especially in individuals hearts. So we have now
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spiritualized the kingdom to where it has no has no actual political or physical extent whatsoever. These are kind of extremes. You know how
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I like spectrums and extremes. That's what you've got in terms of Christian thought over the last 2,000 years. So I think it's important for us in understanding uh this idea of kingdom to
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understand first of all that it is bringing order out of chaos and secondly from the moment man fell he was no longer an exemplar
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of a good king. Even the best kings of Judah were a far cry from the king of kings. And so, no, as much as they may
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have tried, and and I'll grant that one or two of them did, there is no human kingdom that we can turn to, no matter how lofty their titles of defender of the faith and whatnot, there is no human
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kingdom or any political system at all to which we can turn as an analogy or an illustration of the kingdom of God. I think Jesus tried to make this point
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to his disciples when he spoke of how the rulers of this world lorded over and it will not be that way with you. I think I think he he alluded or hinted very very strongly
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to the reality that their conception of a monarchy of a kingdom was often nothing more than a Roman empire with God as emperor.
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In other words, we take the patterns with which we are familiar and we simply take out the king and we put in Jesus. And that's true for both the temporal and the spiritual, right? Who is ruling
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in your heart? Yeah, you need to get off the throne and let Jesus get on the throne. You've heard that, I'm sure, that that kind of teaching. But that's just a spiritualization
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of a concept of the kingdom that is essentially based on our own political experience. My position is that we have to cast our
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political experience into into the trash can because there there is no political example. Even David is not a by any means a pure example.
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Uh and that can really trip people up. And I remember one person in particular, my my supervisor in engineering, who was a believer, um, but he had a real
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problem with David. A real problem with David. And he had a real problem with David is because he put David too high. You know, he he didn't understand that David at his best as a type of Christ
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was a tarnished one. And his and that was important. Moses was tarnished. Solomon was tarnished. Joshua. That's important to us to realize that none of
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them measure up. As as as great as they may have been and as high as we may want to elevate them, we must be as the writer of Hebrews. And that is we don't
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tear Moses down, but we say Jesus is so much better. You know, there there's a there's a qualitative difference, a difference in kind, not just degree,
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between Jesus as king and every other king. There was only one man who had the potential of being the king
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as God intended a king to be, and that man was Adam. And from that point on, the wheels fell off. And so we can't look at any, you
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know, we can look at the the kings of Judah that were righteous and walked in the way of their, but we have to realize, yes, they were righteous. It was a relative term. It was not an absolute term anymore than David was
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using it of himself. Absolutely. That's one of the things that this fellow was getting tripped up on, that David was a pompous and arrogant and claiming to be righteous when there are
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no righteous men. and he he just got he just had a real had a he had a neurosis what he had uh about David. Um and so the the point being here is that our
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political experience political experience um if we read history should not be exogetical or hermeneutical. We we don't ever want to look at any
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period of of human political dealings and say there there it is there's the kingdom right there. We need to go back and do it the way they did it because there's never been such a time
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from the time that Adam fell until the time when Jesus consummates everything and hands the kingdom back to the father which is not
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yet. So um what what does all this mean? Well, first of all, if we look at
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this idea of the kingdom, we do have to realize that it is temporal. It does it does consist within time. Prior to time, which is not even a good
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way of saying it, but eternity, which is timelessness, is God, the Godhead. And as I said before, the terms that are used of the
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persons of the godhead are in no way political terms. They are familial terms. They are felial terms. The father and
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son and holy spirit. They there is an interreationship of the of the godhead that is itself eternal. So that there never was a time when the sun was not.
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There never was a time when the spirit did not proceed from the father and from the son and within the godhead. I think that's the biblical teaching. The
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concept of the kingdom, however, is temporal. It it has a beginning and it has a consummation.
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And at that consummation, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, God will be all in all. So I think the nature of what we are
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calling the kingdom has a beginning and it has an end.
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And that end the beginning
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what what was God before he created all in all. What was God when he created? All in all, he was absolute sovereign.
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But during that era, rebellions occurred.
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rebellions occurred. One of which we have a pretty good historical record of it, and that is Genesis chapter 3. But one happened before that of which we have very little record and that is the
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fall of Satan and of a third roughly of the angelic host.
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his allness in all did not continue. There was rebellion. There was treachery
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and there are angelic beings as there are human beings who have rejected God as king over them.
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That a fair statement? Does that make him any less king? Does a rebellion make a king any less king? The rebellion of Abselum against David,
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did it make David any less God's king? I don't want to be misunderstood here.
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relate to Jesus. We know nothing. Yeah. Didn't the kingdom exist with the angelic beings?
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Uh God's sovereignty existed with the angelic beings, but the angelic beings are created. are created. So, I'm going to start with what the scripture starts with, and that is
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Genesis 1. But I'm going to address the fact that the scripture doesn't actually address the creation of the angelic beings. So what I'm saying is this.
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In eternity, let me see if I can put it this this way.
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Okay. Prior to the creation of any other thing or being, or being, God is. God is. Do we all accept that?
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And in that being, he is perfect. And as the theologian theologians use the phrase, he is complacent.
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Now, that doesn't mean he's lazy or laxidasical. What it means is he's satisfied. There is no need within the Godhead of
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anything other than the Godhead. Is that acceptable to everyone? He was not lonely. not lonely. Okay? He didn't need someone as a chess
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partner. Okay? He did not need anything. But for reasons known only to himself, he created. he created. So in time, okay, here we here we go.
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Now, first thing God
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and I'm just going to say angels. We we realize that within the angelic host there are cherubim, saraphim, there are archangels there. Okay, so we know that was Clarence. You know, there's all these different angels. All right. Um,
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but do we all accept that in time God created the angelic host? Do we accept that that creation was prior to the
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creation of man? Um, we'll get there. It was certainly before 127.
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Yes. Okay. That's all. You know, it's before the cre the six days. We we have no indication within the six days of the creation of the angelic
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hosts. So where we must find it, if we can find it at all, is Genesis 1:1 and two. And we we'll get there. Bill,
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I think you would be I'm I'm not an expert on the Sadducees, but I think you would find them to be um it it's really ironic the Pharisees
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has a reputation for being legalists when it was actually the Sadducees. The Sadducees built their kingdom on Torah, on the written law. The Pharisees
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added to that the oral law and traditions, but the Pharisees also believed in the Holy Spirit, which the Sadducees did
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not. They believed in the resurrection, which the Sadducees did not. So, I think you would say that the Sadducees were pretty much the unbelievers.
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Sad. They were sad, you see. Yeah. Yeah. They because they didn't believe in any of that stuff. Um, but they were pretty much You can't really look at them as a as a religious
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representation of Judaism. They were more a political and social one. They were the priesthood. they held all the power and they held
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the power at the behest of Rome. So they were largely in bed with the Romans. So I think you're you're safe in saying that what I'm saying about creation,
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they wouldn't have believed. Now I can also say that what I'm saying about creation of the angels and of man and all of that, the Muslims believe. Islam teaches what I'm teaching. Islam
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teaches Genesis 1 and two. Okay. Um then they they go off the rails after that. All right. So God created angels. He is
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still all in all. Okay. Now here's where it gets a little fuzzy.
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Now, I'm going to change the phrase a little bit. little bit. I'm going to say that God is all over all, but no longer all in all.
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He has not by one drop diminished the quantity of his sovereign authority. His
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kingship has not diminished one bit by Satan's rebellion and the angelic fall. But the situation is different. Okay. So
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he is now all over
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change but it is simply meant to represent two things. One, his rule is no longer recognized and submitted to by all
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creatures. Two, that does not diminish his sovereign power. He is no less king for that rebellion.
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But man falls and I think we need to recognize this fall as what it is. It's a rebellion. a rebellion. It's not just a temptation succumb to.
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It is a rebellion. Eve was deceived. Eve succumbed to the subtle deception of the accuser.
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the accuser. Adam rebelled against his king. His act was an act of treason. So what we have here then is rebellion
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And from that point on, we can summarize the whole thing. But what what happens once again is he's all over all.
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I don't remember the exact verse, but Acts 17 Acts 17 where Paul says he has created from one blood or from one man all the nations that cover the earth and having
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appointed their set times and their boundaries. So he has again we've he's never diminished never lost one bit of that sovereignty
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that sovereignty that he possesses as almighty God that is essential to his being as God and his being as creator of the angelic host
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creator of the human race. He's creator of the order and now the chaos of the six days of creation.
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So that that's the kind of the the the two uh overarching principles that we're dealing with here is one man has rebelled. The angelic beings have
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rebelled and so therefore God is not universally accepted and submitted to as king. There is rebellion in the cosmos
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and that rebellion creates chaos.
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So the purpose of of this entire plan of God is to restore order to the chaos. And that is the function of a king to bring order out of chaos.
44:30
Even within human history, the most notable kings, kings like uh Charlemagne or um Henry II,
44:41
um Edward the 1, the the you know, they they they were military. You know, you read about their battles and how they conquered, but what you often don't read read about that was more significant
44:51
actually to their reign and to their legacy was the law that they brought into being within their realm.
45:02
So for example, Henry II incorporated all the various tribal common law into English law which becomes the foundation
45:12
for American law eventually takes a while and some evolution. But the point I'm trying to make here is that even a human king and this this is kind of a fundamental rule of of correct politics
45:26
is to bring order out of chaos. What we generally see kings doing is bringing more chaos. Okay? But what we what we look for in a
45:37
model and what we look for in the divine model is bringing order, bringing cosmos. That's the Greek word for the created order. Bringing cosmos out of chaos,
45:48
which is also a Greek word. What we find in Genesis 1 verse 2 is chaos. is chaos. And the expressions used to describe
46:02
that phase of the creation account have no other meaning than chaos. And God said, "Let there be light.
46:47
Okay. Um fair fair enough. But um the the the two things that really it's one and a and a subset that destroy all idea of dispensationalism
46:58
is that throughout all of this we have God's
47:15
God's sovereign which takes us infallibly and inexurably from Genesis 1:3 or at Genesis 3. We can start um where we are introduced to
47:26
Satan, okay? To uh 1 Corinthians 15 or to Revelation 20 and 21 or 21 and 22.
47:36
So dispensationalism, the thing that saves us from that charge is that dispensationalism teaches trial and
47:46
error. God trying, man failing, God trying something different. That's the essence of dispensational teaching of dispensations. There should be no disagreement that God
47:58
has not dealt exactly the same way with all man in all history. Clearly he hasn't. And the word dispensation is actually just the translation of the
48:09
Greek word okonomos or economy and it is in some Bible English Bibles translated dispensation. That does not justify
48:20
dispensationalism because what what destroys dispensationalism is the consistent inexraable will of God which somehow and mysteriously has
48:34
incorporated these things because we find that Jesus was slain from before the foundation of the world. Okay. So even even his um
48:46
passibility his ability in other words his humanity his ability to die his humanity predates creation. Now that's a weird one I know because it actually
48:57
comes in time but the scripture says he was slain before the foundation of the world. So the scripture I think is very clear that he is the alpha and the omega and we say in the alpha god is all in
49:08
all. All right, that that's Genesis 1 verse3. And the omega, God is all in all. That's Roman 1 Corinthians 15 or Revelation 21
49:20
and 22. So we could say, you know, what we're dealing with here then is in terms of God's sovereignty, we're just simply
49:30
dealing with dealing with well, I should I should add one more thing here, and that is
49:55
1 Corinthians 15, the consummation of the kingdom of Messiah. And what we have then is
50:09
and there is an unbroken connection which is the immutability of our sovereign God. There's an unbroken connection between the alpha and the omega. I am the alpha. I am the
50:19
omega. And what is implied is I'm every letter in between. Okay? I'm the beginning. I am the end. And I'm everything in between. But then the manifestation
50:32
of God's of God's rule of his sovereignty is visibly impacted by the rebellion first of the angelic
50:42
hosts and then of mankind. And and this is where a lot of people get hung up. Is God if God is king, why does why do bad things happen? Why is there evil in the world? Why are there
50:52
natural disasters? Why do children die? what you know why why is all this going on if God is king they they're there they're there it's a it's a mistake of of of category
51:04
God is no less king simply because many of his creatures have rebelled against him and he has promised and he has already
51:16
inaugurated the solution the solution and and those who rail against his kingship because they don't like what's going on down here. Even though what's going on down here is
51:28
their fault and not God's. They fail to realize that God has already acted in time to inaugurate that consummation of the
51:40
kingdom by the victory of his son over death. So we live in a time where we have we have no excuse in saying you know we would be like those that that Peter
51:52
talks about that ever since the fathers fell asleep all has been the same or the psalmists the scoffers those who say that God doesn't see
52:03
so I think it's very important to establish upfront that we are dealing with our with our vision with the eyes of our flesh we are dealing with a situation in which God's sovereignty his
52:14
his absolute kingship is not acknowledged even among his own people. So even within the church as it was with
52:25
Israel and even among those who are faithful believers, I think we would we would be would be not just naive but dangerously arrogant
52:37
not to admit that not none of us submit fully to the sovereignty of God in our lives. because if we did, we wouldn't
52:47
sin. And so that that is what we see. That is that is what we experience. And if we if we walk by that sight, then we lose sight of of this. We lose sight of that
53:01
connecting overarching sovereignty that is God's as creator. That that's a fundamental theological
53:13
principle. for the justification of God is the great king and it's the one he uses himself especially in Isaiah but he establishes himself as king over
53:25
all kings all kings just in the same way as he established himself as god over all gods. So in both the the spiritual realm, the realm of the angelic beings, which is
53:37
where we would find the the demon gods, and in the human realm, we have the same thing that the justif the foundation of his abiding sovereignty is the fact that
53:49
he is the creator of all. And that's why it's so important when John in his prologue, the the apostle John now, not the Baptist John, okay?
54:00
John in his prologue and then Paul in his letter to the Colossians speak of Jesus as the one in whom, for
54:12
whom and by whom all things have been created. And the writer of Hebrews adds that he holds all things together by the word of his power. That can be no other than God himself.
54:24
you know these are these are biblical uh attestations of the divinity of the eternal divinity of Christ. So in in to answer Abee's earlier comment in terms of of all revealed
54:39
information, God has always been king because revealed information starts with a revelation of creation. And that's when God as creator
54:51
lays claim to all of creation so that it will be within his sovereign power and his sovereign purpose
55:02
to bring the the entire created order that is now subjected to the futility or the vanity Paul says in Romans 8 of
55:14
human sin. And I would also add angelic sin to that. He will bring it into order. And that order will involve both judgment and
55:27
eventual um not annihilation but eternal destruction of the rebellious and the reestablishment not only of his the I should say the
55:40
reestablishment of the recognition and the submission. the submission. That is what he has begun to do in Christ in the church. When we talk about the inaugurated kingdom, and we'll be
55:51
talking about that because that's a common theological position. We talk about the inaugurated kingdom, what we're talking about is not that God has become king,
56:02
become king, but rather that he has so worked through his son, our king, making us willing in the day of his power. Psalm 110.
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so that his people acknowledge his kingship, that the traitors lay down their arms, they repent, and they return.
56:24
It's almost like what we are in right now. And this sounds a bit Armenian, so don't don't misunderstand me, but we're in a period of amnesty, a time when traitors can lay down their
56:36
arms, repent of their treachery, and return to their king. This is essentially what the prophets are saying to Israel, especially the the minor prophets, the 12 that that God is
56:49
disciplining them and he's sending them all these different scorges really like plagues and yet what is it Amos who says or Joel he says and yet you did not return and yet you did not return and
57:01
yet you did not return. So finally an Israelite comes Jesus the Messiah who pays the price for the co cumulative
57:12
sin of humanity. And in him by the Holy Spirit God is bringing back to himself those who willingly submit to his
57:25
sovereignty. That's the period of time we are currently in. currently in. And that I think is the underlying purpose of the church as well as missions is this this idea of an inaugurated
57:40
So I think it's very important that we get a as much of a biblical understanding of what that kingdom is, what it's supposed to look like. And really I think where there have been
57:50
um diversions is the modern diversion is to say that the kingdom is yet in the future
58:00
and then to talk about the kingdom in terms of Gog and Mog and the 10 nations of the common you know European Union and and we talk about how it's coming but it's not here yet and then when it's
58:12
here we're not going to be here anyhow that That's ridiculous. That that is not what John the Baptist or Jesus meant when they said, "Repent for the kingdom of
58:23
heaven is at hand." Later on, Jesus is casting out demons. He's doing great works. And the religious leader says, "Well, he he he's casting out demons by
58:34
the prince of demons." And he he gives the famous treatise
58:45
on a kingdom divided against itself. And then he says, "But if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of heaven has come upon you."
58:56
That's one of those phrases that's pretty def definitionlike.
59:23
language. No chaos is something that he has to order. There are no enemies and there will be no enemies. The last
59:34
enemy will be destroyed that is death. Then the kingdom will be presented to the father that he might be all in all. Kingdom does not require enemies.
59:53
A kingdom does not a kingdom does not require chaos. When chaos exists, it is the job of the king to bring order out of chaos.
1:00:04
Nope. I know. I know. Yep. And he created man. But he did not create chaos.
1:00:16
He did. Yes. The two we should say, Satan and man. Adam.
1:00:33
In the earth. Yes. With Adam and Eve. And they walked in the garden. Yes. and Adam rebelled. So, prior to the rebellion of Satan and prior to the rebellion of Adam,
1:00:46
God was king without enemies. We don't know how long that lasted. Okay? We're we're we're given to believe it didn't last very long, but it didn't. It was there. Okay? And then at the end
1:00:58
at the Omega, we see the last enemy. You know he he said sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a foottool for your feet and the last enemy to be defeated is death and then
1:01:11
Jesus will present the kingdom to the father. So the kingdom is there before the enemies and the kingdom is there after the enemies.
1:01:21
Argo the kingdom does not require enemies. But when the enemies exist and when chaos is created, it is the purpose of the king to bring order.
1:01:33
No reason for king according to what you're saying. There's no reason for Um, no, I'm I'm not saying that because what
1:01:45
I'm saying is he is king by virtue of him being creator. Yeah. The name king is not necessary. I I don't agree because you don't have to
1:01:56
be a rebel to acknowledge someone as king over you. In fact, it's better that you not be a rebel acknowledging a king over you. It
1:02:07
is ideal. It is consummation. It is perfection when the king's subjects willingly and happily acknowledge him as king. That is
1:02:19
the situation before angelic and human sin and will be the situation after the consummation of the ages. He will still be king. He is king by virtue of his
1:02:32
being creator. He will never not be king now. He will never not be king. But in the consumation all will acknowledge his
1:02:44
kingdom. Some will do so in uh in the yeah in the fires of hell that there will be no rebellion at that
1:02:54
point. It will all be um there'll either be the the repentance and the return of all of God's chosen and there will be the punishment for
1:03:04
forever of those who remained in their rebellion. But those whom God has chosen that that consummate remnant will acknowledge him willingly as king, happily as king and there will be no
1:03:18
enemies. This seems like this also before the alpha and the omega.
1:03:31
Yes, that's a good way of putting it. A king at peace. A king at war. A king at peace. And I think uh what the way you just said it, you've just described David and
1:03:42
Solomon. Okay, that that is the typology. Solomon uh is is derived from shalomo or shalom. He is in fact the
1:03:52
prince of peace. Okay. And he is the one the who builds the temple. Okay, you know it's the the typology is
1:04:03
very powerful but that's an excellent way of putting it. peace or peace and at no point in time does he cease to be absolute and sovereign king. Okay. Does
1:04:16
that answer your I think so. I guess
1:04:29
apart from Okay, I understand. Yeah. Now, what you're dealing right now is the odyssey and that is why is there
1:04:41
evil? Why did God allow Satan to rebel? Why did he allow man to rebel? There are attributes of God like his mercy and also his holy judgment
1:04:55
that could not be manifested and therefore God in his fullness could not be manifested be manifested if sin had not come into his created order. It it had to but that is a very sticky
1:05:10
wicket. Okay. And has been for thousands of years. It is unless that was his plan. It was It was had to be I mean I don't want to put
1:05:35
and and that becomes that becomes even more evident when you realize that Adam himself was the was patterned upon Christ, not the other way around.
1:05:47
God did not become man because Adam was man. Adam became man because God was sending his son. So yeah, it it that's now
1:06:00
you're into that gray area of the purpose and the mind of God. And you have to refrain from in any way assigning evil or sin to God.
1:06:11
And yet, and I know you're not, I mean, this is the tricky part. and yet acknowledge that it didn't just happen and God woke up and said, "What just happened?" Okay? No. That that he had it
1:06:22
all figured out, alpha, to the fullness, omega. Okay? The entire purpose and plan of God incorporates everything we've
1:06:32
talked about so far. And that's why Christ was slain. Yes. Yes. Because he had to be at this consummation when the kingdom was at hand. Okay. Erin, did you have a
1:06:45
I did
1:07:03
while we were yet sinners. Yeah. God has commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So God himself has exampled what he teaches when he says love your
1:07:16
enemy as yourself he has done that and so even that that manifestation of required enemies I think that's where you're coming from is that the full
1:07:27
manifestation of the deity and and the ma majesty of God required enemies it required warfare it required victory and all of that and that and that is the
1:07:38
beauty of being on this side of the cross because the victory has has been won. It's really kind of a mopping up operation now. operation now. You know, the the war is over.
1:07:50
The strong man has been bound and his house is being plundered. That's the age in which we live. And that's why I think it is so important for the church to get a proper understanding of what the
1:08:00
kingdom is. Because I don't think it's just the reign of God in your heart. I think that's pathetic. And it has rendered the church pathetic.
1:08:11
In fact, it has rendered the church laughable when it is supposed to be a power through the gospel, the power of God. But it isn't because but then on the
1:08:24
other hand we can't go to the to the idea of of the high middle ages and Christendom where we conquer in the name of Christ you know and we physically
1:08:34
take over territories and claim them for Christ which is the view that much of modern theology has reacted against. And so we've gone from this idea of a
1:08:44
geographical temporal realm that we call the kingdom. In fact there's a movie called the kingdom of heaven. It's about Baldwin IV, the leper king, and the kingdom of Jerusalem. It's called the
1:08:54
kingdom of heaven. You know, they don't look for Hollywood for your theology. But you have that concept of of the realm. And then what we've done is we we've kind of
1:09:11
uh dandified it. We we've made it sweet, cute, fuzzy. It's it's now warm. It's inside. Well, Jesus did say the kingdom of heaven is inside you, right? He did say that. So that's what he's talking about. The kingdom in heaven is inside
1:09:23
you and and you need to get off the throne and let Jesus on the throne and and then your life will be all straight and everything fine because you know it's all inside you.
1:09:37
Look at what happened to the world. I mean the world is is literally going to hell in a ham basket and no it's going to hell in a parameulator. It's running down the hill. Okay, that's the basket. The basket has wheels. Um, and
1:09:49
and that's because the church today, it's a laughingstock. The literature of the last 200 years has ridiculed the church.
1:10:00
It and I think it's because the church has completely lost sight of the of the reality of the kingdom being at hand, being inaugurated. being inaugurated. Christ, the king, having gained victory
1:10:12
over the enemy, Satan, and over the last enemy, death. He's already victorious over death. over death. And so that that whole uh complex of
1:10:22
thoughts that begins as I say in Genesis 1 verse3 1 verse3 and let me this is getting ahead but this is one of the most powerful
1:10:33
associations of or the powerful evidences of interextuality. I know someone who hates that word, but this is this has got to be one of
1:10:44
the most powerful examples of biblical illusion in all of scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 6.
1:11:00
For God who has said, "Light shall shine out of darkness is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
1:11:12
In that verse, you have the ultimate purpose of Genesis 1:3. The God who said, "Let light shine." That's the God who said, "Let there be light and let light shine out of
1:11:23
darkness." That's what was there in Genesis 1:2. Genesis 1:2. And that's what is there in every heart before God says, "Let there be light."
1:11:34
So this is the power of the gospel is creative. It speaks into the darkness and chaos of rebellion and it says let there be light which is the glory of God
1:11:44
in the face of Jesus Christ. That's the kingdom. That is the king creating order out of chaos. But I do think that we we severely limit
1:11:56
the the the biblical teaching of the kingdom when we individualize it as sinners becoming saved. That is
1:12:07
absolutely part and parcel of it. But it is not exhaustive. You you cannot have the inaugurated kingdom without sinners becoming saved.
1:12:19
Okay? You you can't have the one without the other. But you can't have the one and not have the other. You can have individual sinners being saved and not have the kingdom.
1:12:29
At least not in any tangible manifestation of an inaugurated kingdom. And I would say largely that is the pos that is the state of the church today is
1:12:40
that we have a lot of people who have who have who have viewed themselves as ultimately entering the kingdom when it comes.
1:12:51
but have no understanding of being in the kingdom. Now, but how can that be when Paul says he has transferred you, he has translated
1:13:02
you from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son? How can you possibly be a born again child of the king of kings and yet not
1:13:15
dwell in his kingdom? Paul says, "Our citizenship is not of this world. We are resident aliens," Peter says, which all of the language
1:13:26
then of the New Testament is that we are now part of the kingdom of God. The parables, when we get to the parables,
1:13:37
none of them are in the future. They all speak of what is and what will be, but none of them start with the will be. None of them
1:13:48
wait for the millennium. Abe, you got a comment. Oh, no. Okay. I thought seeing hands. [laughter] Probably just swatting flies.
1:14:01
Oh, okay.
1:14:36
Oops. Not in nine yet. Okay. Nine 129. I'm sorry. Okay. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhore what is evil. Cling to
1:14:46
what is good. Okay. Um and you agree with that, don't you? [laughter] No, not at all. Just want to know where you're coming
1:14:58
from. I know you're studying to be an attorney, so wanted to establish the brief. That is pretty much the definition of the kingdom as is the sermon on the
1:15:09
mount which even the dispensationalist teaches as the ethical code of the kingdom and yet that kingdom is in the future. Okay. Um, and that's why why I said earlier
1:15:21
when you when you read this when you read sermon on the mount that reinforces what I said earlier that there is no earthly kingdom ever that can stand as
1:15:31
the remotest analogy of the kingdom of heaven. Okay. So we we go to the scriptures in terms of the kingdom of heaven. We are really tabular raza. We're blank slates
1:15:43
actually. No, actually. No, we're the train embankments in Germany covered in graffiti meaning nothing. Okay, that's what we
1:15:57
are in our in our understanding of the kingdom is we have 7,000 years of graffiti plastered all over our brain
1:16:08
and the history that we read and the politic. Now look at where we are now. you have in this is what I find fascinating about human history and we're going to talk about this because
1:16:19
as soon as man fell he started building cities and even after the flood it wasn't long until he's building a tower up to heaven and making a name for himself it's what
1:16:31
Augustine called the kingdom of man the kingdom of man manifests itself immediately in in the seven generations you get to lame actually 10 no seven I think seven
1:16:43
because Enoch and Lamech were on the same. Okay. Not Lamech, the father of Noah, Lamech, the killer of people who insulted him um at the drive-thru. So,
1:16:59
but you see in the first 11 chapters, really the first six chapters, how God, how man descended into chaos when he took over the reigns of his own destiny, became his own king. And so we we go
1:17:12
into a period of kings and empires as Daniel Daniel 7 and we go through the Roman Empire and then afterwards we have the the nation states. We have the great
1:17:22
powers of Europe. We have the age of colonization and we have all of these kingdoms. But within that there's now sewing seeds. And I think this is directly from the Protestant
1:17:34
Reformation. the seeds of republicanism and and then the the democracy and out of that come two modern systems
1:17:47
of government both of which are founded at least in principle on the power of the people. Now, being a child of the Cold War, this is going to sound rather
1:17:58
odd coming from me, but both American republicanism and democracy and Soviet communism and Chinese communism come from the same root.
1:18:10
And both of them had one goal in mind and that it was to uproot monarchies and to destroy empires and to put the power of governance in
1:18:21
the hands of the people as if that was going to be the utopia that man was seeking. Well, I think we've seen both in the communist world and if we would be admitting it in the western
1:18:32
democratic world, it hasn't brought any utopia. But what it has brought is a several generations now of people who have no concept, no working concept of what a
1:18:44
kingdom is. Do you think anybody in Great Britain understands any more about what the meaning of a kingdom is than those of us here in the United States that don't have a king?
1:18:57
The kings over there have been as worthless as can be since Richard III marched into battle and died. Okay, they they are that whole thing is nothing but a soap opera. And that is true of almost
1:19:08
all the kingdoms of the world. These are nothing but figureheads. They're nothing but but window dressing. So we're coming at this with a lot of misconceptions.
1:19:19
And we're also coming with it to it without and this may be a good thing. We're not coming to the kingdom of God in the Bible with any sensible idea,
1:19:30
political idea of living in a kingdom, right? I mean, is practically, what's the word? We are practically
1:19:43
ignorant of what it would be like to actually live in a true monarchy. Now, we do have dictatorships today. We
1:19:53
do have totalitarian states. Yes, we do. But they're not really of much significance in the world scene. But our history, our heritage is really one of rebellion, individualization,
1:20:04
rebellion, individualization, and the rule of the people. Um, so I guess what I'm trying to do in this first lesson to establish maybe to try to wash away all that
1:20:14
graffiti or to say don't don't pay attention to it. Don't think that anything that you'll read in history will have any bearing on the kingdom of heaven. That the kingdom of heaven is
1:20:27
something that is qualitatively different than any kingdom that mankind has experienced since Genesis chapter 3. And yet
1:20:38
And yet it's not something because it's not something that we've ever experienced. That also teaches us that it is not something that we can define through our
1:20:50
own reason, our own rationality. You know, we think, well, this would be a good idea and this is a good idea. We should help the poor and we should have, you know, those types of relief programs and that would be a good kingdom, but we
1:21:00
have to have a strong military. None of those things are biblical thoughts on the kingdom. None of those things are par parabolic thoughts on the kingdom. None of those things fit with
1:21:11
Jesus's teaching of the kingdom nor with the example of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament Old Testament because none of them actually have any
1:21:21
efficacy in bringing order out of chaos. War against poverty. Okay? There's no no effectiveness in bringing order out of chaos. Nothing
1:21:32
that mankind has ever done has managed to bring order out of chaos for any length of time or for any breadth of social life. So we we we are really on
1:21:44
the one hand we're at a loss and yet on the other hand we have the immeasurable treasure of wisdom in God's
1:21:54
revelation of himself and of his kingdom. But so much of Christian history has been an attempt to mold the two together
1:22:06
to try to take what the Bible teaches and synthesize it with human government, human politics. human politics. Now in in that sense there needs to be
1:22:16
an absolute separation between church and state that that we cannot synthesize even the constitution of the United States with the biblical revelation of
1:22:28
the kingdom of God. The the Constitution I think is one of the greatest political documents that mankind has ever written because it's founded on the awareness of human sin.
1:22:40
human sin. But it is not biblical and it does not represent anything close to the kingdom of God. The only institution on earth that was created to manifest at least in
1:22:52
some measure the kingdom of God on earth is the church. Not any nation, not any constitution, not any political system, not any
1:23:04
economic system. economic system. The best we can say about any of those is that they're less offensive than all the others, which is what Winston Churchill said about democracy.
1:23:15
Okay? It's the worst system on earth except for all the others. That and I think that's what we have to say. And so that that rules out any uh Christian
1:23:28
nostalgia. And you do know that Christians are very nostalgic and they're always nostalgic about eras in which they never lived. Okay? And if you read about those eras and you read the sermons from those
1:23:39
eras, you realize they were nothing to be nostalgic about. But we have this tendency to want to try to live in the past. I think we just need to live in the word. And I think that it will it
1:23:50
will reveal to us the true nature of the kingdom. Now caveat, what can we do about it? maybe nothing.
1:24:00
maybe nothing. There was very little that Jeremiah could do. In fact, there was so little that Jeremiah could do in his day that first of all, his his um his his sermons are now called Jeremiah ads.
1:24:13
Okay, which when you pronounce a Jeremiah, that's kind of that's all she wrote, right? It's all secondly, he was told not even to pray for the people. And that's pretty pathetic situation when God tells his prophet, "Don't even
1:24:24
pray because I'm not listening." So there are times that at times in which God's people live when they can be a pro that didn't shut Jeremiah up although he'd like to you know have shut
1:24:35
up but he couldn't. So it doesn't mean the church shuts up but it does mean we may not be able to do anything about it. And so when it comes down to the the the
1:24:45
responsibility Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4 of a steward is to be faithful. So what that means in terms of the church and in terms of believers is that whether we can do anything about it or
1:24:56
not does not alter the mission and that is to speak the truth to live and to speak the truth. though nobody is listening and that nobody will change
1:25:08
the way things are being done and often even within Israel within the church that doesn't relieve any faithful child of God from the responsibility to speak
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the truth the truth and that's what we're trying to do that's what many churches are trying to do small I think voices crying in the wilderness make straight the way of the
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Lord and most of the churches today are not listening not listening because they have a different agenda. They have a different purpose. Their purpose is is cloaked in
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Christianity. Their purpose is ostensibly saving the lost. And and maybe by God's grace, it's actually happening. That I think is for him to decide.
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But fundamentally, whether it's in evangelism or whether it's in disciplehip, whatever it's teaching or preaching or whether however we do our work as under the Lord, our responsibility is to be faithful.
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Jesus prayed on that last night of his life, sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth. Let's pray.
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Father, we do thank you for your word and ask that you would commit our hearts and our minds to it in spite of so many evident obstacles and so much marginalization and ridicule even within
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the church. We pray that as believers, as your children, as those in whom your spirit dwells, spirit dwells, that we would hold fast to the truth
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that you promised that he would guide us into. and that we would speak the truth and as it has been said that we would speak the truth to power
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and that we would even risk our own lives to live the truth if it should come to that. So sanctify us father as you have promised to do. Sanctify us in
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the truth. Sanctify us in your word we ask in Jesus name. They met.