What Do You Think The "kingdom Of God" Is?

[Invicta]

Genevan

I believe the KJV - every word of it. 

No offense to you, but I have no use for the Geneva Bible.  It served its purpose very well in its day, and it played an important role in the process of the preservation of Scripture.  However, as I see it, the preservation of Scripture has been culminated in the KJV.

 

However, your quotation of John 14:3 only proved the legitimacy of my use of the word "if."  It is a well recognized tool to show a logical train of thought.

 

Invicta, the first person to make a distinction between the KOG and the KOH was God Himself.  I have demonstrated that difference in the essay I posted on this thread earlier (it is a download.)  That same essay is on the other thread I started. 

 

God is not Heaven.

Heaven is not God.

 

God is a PERSON.

Heaven is a PLACE.

 

God is the Creator.

Heaven is a Creation.

 

In Christ,

 

Not a valid reason. They are two ways to describe the same thing.  Just as Simon is called Peter, Meaning 'He has heard' and 'stone'

[Invicta]

Confusion only reigns when you attempt to force an interpretation into two different words that do not mean the same thing.  I have very clearly delineated the difference between those words - any grade school student knows that "God" and "Heaven" are not the same thing. 

 

When I die, I will be IN Heaven WITH God.  Can you see the distinction?

I will not be IN God WITH Heaven. 

You see, the two words are not interchangeable.  Therefore to force them to be interchangeable in the Gospels is simply absurd. 

They are two separate, distinct kingdoms, that have overlapping aspects, ruled over by the same King. 

 

This is the biggest prOBlem I have with Covenant Theology - it denies the plain meaning of the text, and blends things together that do not belong together.

 

II Timothy 2:15 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."

 

The verse says that we are to make DIVISIONS, not try to lump everything into one big pot.

 

In Christ,

 

You invent divisions where there are none.

 

AS I have said Matthew uses KOG and KOH to describe the same thing at times.  And the other gospel writers use one when Matthew uses the other for the same thing.

 

But I don't need to prove you wrong.  Jesus does.

 

John 18:36  Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world:

[Covenanter]

Covenanter:

I already defined the KOH and KOG in my essay.  Did you download it and read it?  Apparently not!

No - I didn't see a link, but I've seen most of your posts. I prefer Scriptural definitions.

 

So when you come across the passages mentioned (Matt. 6 and Daniel 7), then the student of the word of God cannot legitimately ASSUME that it is all one Kingdom.  There are two kingdoms, as I have demonstrated, and nOBody has refuted.

No-one has refuted to your satisfaction. The LORD is King over his creation, whether men accept that truth or not. The devils know it. Then all believers comprise a spiritual Kingdom. To that extent I can agree two Kingdoms. As the KOG & KOH are used interchangeably in the Gospels, they cannot be read as different Kingdoms. (e.g. Luke 8:10, Mat. 13:11, Mark 4:11)    

 

The student of the word of God must use the proper divisions within the Scripture to define the terms, and then interpret the other passages in light of the clear passages.  The student of the word of God must understand the context of each separate passage, and seek to understand through the comparison of Scripture where it fits in the overall scheme of things.

Agreed.

 

Thus:

The context of Matthew 6 is Jesus teaching His Jewish disciples.  The Kingdom the Jews were looking for was a physical kingdom, and they were told to pray for that Kingdom to come to the earth.  It is clear from the context that they are praying for physical provision, and thus looking for a physical kingdom. 

Almost all of Jesus' teaching was of Jewish disciples, though there are notable exceptions. (John 4) The Jews may have been looking for a physical, earthly kingdom, but that does not mean Jesus was teaching such. The Jews got it VERY wrong. They crucified their Messiah. Why should we not pray for our daily needs? We need our daily food, and we also need the spiritual blessings we are taught in the Lord's prayer. 

 

The rejection of their Messiah was prophesied as God's plan of salvation. His death was the atoning sacrifice to end all sacrifices. He rose & ascended to David's throne. (Acts 2)  

 

 

Daniel 7 is speaking of the physical kingdoms on this earth that are passed from one nation to another - one kingdom dominating other nations, and then another nation rising up and conquering its predecessor, and so on.  Eventually , Christ conquers the PHYSICAL kingdoms ON EARTH, and establishes a PHYSICAL kingdom ON EARTH that extends into eternity.  Thus, this is the KOH. 

Jesus was condemned for claiming Dan. 7 applied to himself.

Mat. 26:⁶⁴ Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven. ⁶⁵ Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy. ⁶⁶ What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.

 

Dan. 7:¹³ I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. ¹⁴ 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.

After his resurrection, he declared that ALL power was indeed his:

Mat. 28:¹⁸ And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. ¹⁹ Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: ²⁰ teaching them to OBserve all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

 

How is that "running amok?"  This is Bible interpretation 101 - interpret the UNCLEAR passages in light of the CLEAR passages, not vice-versa.

 

Romans 14:17 is absolutely crystal clear - the KOG is a SPIRITUAL kingdom, God being a Spirit.

Matthew 11:12 is absolutely crystal clear - the KOH is a PHYSICAL kingdom that nations fight over - Heaven is a creation.

 

All other passages must be interpreted in light of these.  To ignore them, or pretend that there are no differences is to create confusion by mixing to things together that don't belong together - hence "rightly dividing."

 

Moving on...

 

In Christ,

No, you haven't proved your case. Mat. 13 shows the ways sinners are gathered into Jesus' Kingdom - the Gospel of the Kingdom calls them - some respond & are gathered in, some reject the Gospel & are cast away.

 

God is gracious, his Gospel continues to call sinners to repentance, but at the same time those who do not respond are lost. Very specifically, he gave the Jews a generation (40 years) to repent at the preaching of the Apostolic Gospel. Many thousands did respond, & so became citizens of the Kingdom. The Jews who judged Stephen were declared "uncircumcised." Circumcision as a covenant sign ceased to be, though as faithful Jews it was still practised by the believers, so as not to give offence.

 

By "running amok" I mean making division where Scripture does not, & in particular, applying passages like the Sermon on the mount as applying only to Jews, & Hebrews to millennial Jews, while applying Paul's letters only to Gentiles. I've seen that from another contributor, I don't know how far you make such false divisions.

 

Jesus applies the whole OT to himself. (Luke 24) Peter applies prophecies of Moses, Samuel & Abraham to these days & the people he was addressing:

Acts 3:²² For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. ²³ And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. ²⁴ Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. ²⁵ Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. ²⁶ Unto you first God, having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.      

[Genevanpreacher]

EXCELLENT Sir Covenanter!!

 

I think Steve is not gonna let us believe our own convictions. 

I plan on being 'persuaded in my own mind' what the will of the Lord is in these verses.

Matthew 10 opens up some good questions on the parallel verses in Luke 9 and Mark 6, as the KOH and the KOG are once again interlaced, and the disciples are preaching the Gospel and telling all men to repent.

Sounds like the same to me again. What say you all?

[ASongOfDegrees]

Covenanter:

I already defined the KOH and KOG in my essay.  Did you download it and read it?  Apparently not!

 

So when you come across the passages mentioned (Matt. 6 and Daniel 7), then the student of the word of God cannot legitimately ASSUME that it is all one Kingdom.  There are two kingdoms, as I have demonstrated, and nOBody has refuted.

 

The student of the word of God must use the proper divisions within the Scripture to define the terms, and then interpret the other passages in light of the clear passages.  The student of the word of God must understand the context of each separate passage, and seek to understand through the comparison of Scripture where it fits in the overall scheme of things.

 

Thus:

The context of Matthew 6 is Jesus teaching His Jewish disciples.  The Kingdom the Jews were looking for was a physical kingdom, and they were told to pray for that Kingdom to come to the earth.  It is clear from the context that they are praying for physical provision, and thus looking for a physical kingdom. 

 

Daniel 7 is speaking of the physical kingdoms on this earth that are passed from one nation to another - one kingdom dominating other nations, and then another nation rising up and conquering its predecessor, and so on.  Eventually , Christ conquers the PHYSICAL kingdoms ON EARTH, and establishes a PHYSICAL kingdom ON EARTH that extends into eternity.  Thus, this is the KOH. 

 

How is that "running amok?"  This is Bible interpretation 101 - interpret the UNCLEAR passages in light of the CLEAR passages, not vice-versa.

 

Romans 14:17 is absolutely crystal clear - the KOG is a SPIRITUAL kingdom, God being a Spirit.

Matthew 11:12 is absolutely crystal clear - the KOH is a PHYSICAL kingdom that nations fight over - Heaven is a creation.

 

All other passages must be interpreted in light of these.  To ignore them, or pretend that there are no differences is to create confusion by mixing to things together that don't belong together - hence "rightly dividing."

 

Moving on...

 

In Christ,

You are wasting you time trying to apply any doctrine or NT passage of scripture to the Jews with some in this forum, unless it is a passage that has Israel smoldering in the flames of hell. In their minds those are the only promises of God left for the Jews.

[Genevanpreacher]

You are wasting you time trying to apply any doctrine or NT passage of scripture to the Jews with some in this forum, unless it is a passage that has Israel smoldering in the flames of hell. In their minds those are the only promises of God left for the Jews.

Wow! What a statement.

I have never heard that implied since I have been here. I think.

Anyway, that no longer matters since Jesus Christ came for all men, Jew or Gentile.

And includes all in the blessings of eternity for those who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

We are all one in Christ. Right?

Are not the chosen people in the kindom of God/heaven, all who believe in Jesus Christ with their whole heart?

So the end result is 'us with God' in eternity, as it was 'God with us' before?

Are not the saved of God, his people?

Those that were not his children, have become his children as per Romans 9:24-26.

[ASongOfDegrees]

Wow! What a statement.

I have never heard that implied since I have been here. I think.

Anyway, that no longer matters since Jesus Christ came for all men, Jew or Gentile.

And includes all in the blessings of eternity for those who believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God.

We are all one in Christ. Right?

Are not the chosen people in the kindom of God/heaven, all who believe in Jesus Christ with their whole heart?

So the end result is 'us with God' in eternity, as it was 'God with us' before?

Are not the saved of God, his people?

Those that were not his children, have become his children as per Romans 9:24-26.

As far as some who frequent this forum are concerned the nation of Israel should be left wandering homeless throughout the world till God pours out his final wrath on them. This has been the European mindset since the Dark Ages. The only promises that apply to Israel from the OT are the promises of cursing (Duet. 28:15-68). In fact, they can't even be called Israel anymore since the church is now Israel. 

 

In this case the Jews need to be grafted into the Gentile's tree.

[Steve Schwenke]

Covenanter,

My essay is not a link, it is a word document that you can download.  The same essay is on the other Kingdom of God thread which I started.  I provide SCRIPTURAL definitions.

 

You and Geneva and Invicta keep saying that you know the "God" and "Heaven" are not the same thing, but then you turn around and say that the KOG and the KOH ARE the same thing...how can this be?

I believe EVERY WORD of God is pure, and I believe that God is much smarter than we are.  I believe that God is so smart that even He knows the difference between "God" and "Heaven", and would not use a phrase like KOG and KOH as an interchangeable term when clearly "God" and "Heaven" are not interchangeable terms.  That being the case, then we must ask ourselves why God would use two distinct terms.....hmmmmm....maybe because He is referring to two different things????

 

You see, I did NOT make the distinction - God Himself did when He chose to use two different terms.  God is the author of Scripture, and I think God knows better than to confuse people by using two distinct terms to refer to the same thing.  "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace."  I Cor. 14:33.

 

So believe what you want.  But don't pretend I didn't define my terms and make a detailed explanation just because you chose not to download my essay.  I defined the terms quite carefully and Scripturally - you chose not to read it.

 

I think I have explained myself to the best of my ability. 

I don't see much else to be gained by debating with those who have closed their minds to what the Scriptures are actually saying. 

 

If God had meant for us to believe that there is only one kingdom, then I think God is smart enough linguistically, grammatically, and with His Knowledge of ALL known vocabularies to use ONE PHRASE to express that doctrine.  He chose not to - He chose to use TWO DISTINCT PHRASES, from which I gather (correctly) that there are TWO DISTINCT KINGDOMS.

 

If anyone else has any honest questions on the subject, send me a PM....

 

In Christ,

[Genevanpreacher]

Hmm, interesting Steve. But could it also be because he used different authors/writers to explain what was going on, and they chose the wording that God gave them the ability to use, because they had different 'minds' than the other, and their choice of words happened to be KOG for one, and KOH for the other, but meaning the same thing?

 

I am serious. God didn't leave the 'gospel' to one writer in the beginning of the writing of the New Testament, he chose 4 authors/writers. To give a clear rendering by giving all sides and views to each thing that went on in the history of when Jesus was here and what and how he taught and preached.

[Steve Schwenke]

I understand that God used man to write His words, but they are His words.  I think the safest approach is to go by the exact word, and not attempt to "interpret" what God "meant" by a word, but rather accept the word He chose to use, and assume that the word He chose to use was chosen on purpose to express a specific idea.  We are not given the authority to assign an arbitrary definition to a word that already has a known definition.  We are not given the authority to make a word mean something that it does not mean. 

As I explained in my essay, when Jesus Christ is present, He has the authority to offer BOTH Kingdoms.  The Bible itself defines those kingdoms, as I have shown - Rom. 14:17 and MAtthew 11:12-13.  I did not define them.  I simply believe the words as they are found, and trace those words through the Bible.  I have already demonstrated this, but here we go again.

God is a PERSON

Heaven is a PLACE

 

The Kingdom of Heaven refers to the Kingdom that deals with the entire creation.

The Kingdom of God refers to a spiritual kingdom - God is a SPIRIT (John 4:24), and the characteristics of the KOG are listed in Rom. 14:17.

 

It is not really all that difficult to grasp when we simply follow the plain meaning of the WORDS as they are given to us.  It is only when we attempt to redefine those specific words that we get ourselves into trouble.

[beameup]

I will be quite content in the "third heaven" (Kingdom of Heaven) following the Rapture (Harpazo).

Meanwhile, the "second heaven" and the "first heaven" and the earth will still be in Satan's possession.

[Covenanter]

You are wasting you time trying to apply any doctrine or NT passage of scripture to the Jews with some in this forum, unless it is a passage that has Israel smoldering in the flames of hell. In their minds those are the only promises of God left for the Jews.

The promises of God to the Jews are the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ - a Gospel now calling all mankind to repent. In no way are the Jews excluded from that Gospel call. The Jews are included in God so loved the world ...  I do not believe that when Jesus returns (for what you call the "rapture") he will organise the slaughter of 2/3 of the Jews during 7 years of tribulation.

 

I do believe God's dealings with Israel as a nation ended with the destruction, as Paul wrote: the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. This generation did suffer the wrath of God for rejecting their Messiah. That happened; they were destroyed by the Romans for their rebellion; now they are in the same position as sinners everywhere - welcomed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Persecution of Jews (& baptists & any other religious group) down the ages is & must be totally abhorrent to God & true believers. God is love.

 

If God has a plan to reinstate the ethnic Jews in some future dispensation, I will leave it for him to effect it. I don't see it in the teachings of Jesus & his Apostles - only the command to make Jesus known to all - ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

[EKSmith]

I can't get my article to paste here, so I have attached it.

This article is written in an attempt to give my beliefs on the issue.  Any honest questions are welcome.  All other counter-arguments by those who like to cause division will be ignored.

Very good and thanks pastor, I believe a lot of others should read what you've written and not just take it out of context to debate/argue about, but do as I am now doing using what you've giving to study Gods word deeper that we may be of one mind together in fellowship. 

[EKSmith]

I can't get my article to paste here, so I have attached it.

This article is written in an attempt to give my beliefs on the issue.  Any honest questions are welcome.  All other counter-arguments by those who like to cause division will be ignored.

Very good and thanks pastor, I believe a lot of others should read what you've written and not just take it out of context to debate/argue about, but do as I am now doing using what you've giving to study Gods word deeper that we may be of one mind together in fellowship. 

[Genevanpreacher]

I understand that God used man to write His words, but they are His words.  I think the safest approach is to go by the exact word, and not attempt to "interpret" what God "meant" by a word, but rather accept the word He chose to use, and assume that the word He chose to use was chosen on purpose to express a specific idea.  We are not given the authority to assign an arbitrary definition to a word that already has a known definition.  We are not given the authority to make a word mean something that it does not mean. 

As I explained in my essay, when Jesus Christ is present, He has the authority to offer BOTH Kingdoms.  The Bible itself defines those kingdoms, as I have shown - Rom. 14:17 and MAtthew 11:12-13.  I did not define them.  I simply believe the words as they are found, and trace those words through the Bible.  I have already demonstrated this, but here we go again.

God is a PERSON

Heaven is a PLACE

 

The Kingdom of Heaven refers to the Kingdom that deals with the entire creation.

The Kingdom of God refers to a spiritual kingdom - God is a SPIRIT (John 4:24), and the characteristics of the KOG are listed in Rom. 14:17.

 

It is not really all that difficult to grasp when we simply follow the plain meaning of the WORDS as they are given to us.  It is only when we attempt to redefine those specific words that we get ourselves into trouble.

 

As I said to Covenanter, you are not gonna let us be 'fully persuaded in our own minds'.

We OBviously disagree, and the same thing you say about 'redefining' I could say back to you. It is an endless discussion. Thanks for the brain/mind/spirit workout and strengthening.