The Life of Jesus in Harmony | Index

kingdom of God

KINGDOM OF GOD, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Heb. Malkut, Gr. Basilea; both mean "rule or reign" at any given period.

In Jewish thought both kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven were synonymous terms as Hebrew parallelism since heaven is where God rules from. Therefore "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done is Hebrew parallelism and equal terms.

Kingdom of God embraces all created intelligences, both in heaven and on earth, who are willingly subject to God and thus in fellowship with Him. The kingdom is a term descriptive of the rule of God at any given period.

John the Baptist, Christ, and the apostles announced that the kingdom of national Israel was "at hand." That offer was rejected. As a result the "kingdom of heaven" in its earthly manifested form was postponed until Christ's second advent.

According to the clear teaching of the Bible the full manifestation of the kingdom will be revealed at the second coming of Christ.

According to (Mt 13) the present gospel age represents the mystery form of the kingdom. "Since the kingdom of heaven is no other than the rule of God on the earth, He must now be ruling to the extent of full realization of those things which are termed 'the mysteries' in the NT and which really constitute the new message of the NT" (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 7:224).