“The Case for Christ: - The Kingdom of God”

‘The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every one is pressed to enter it.’ (Lu 16:16)

Tonight, we continue on in Jesus’ discourse about stewardship in the Kingdom of God.

His disciples must be faithful in the administration of their earthly effects and they must be faithful in the light of the part each one has in the community of believers, as we saw last week.

A single community, which is part of the Church-at-large, is a representation of the mutuality of life in the Kingdom of God in Christ.

Faithfulness and commitment tied together with willingness characterize it.

Thus, Jesus joined wise and prudent stewardship in the fellowship of believers with His kingdom upon the earth.

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Tonight, let us look, in a general sense, at the ‘kingdom of God’ as Jesus spoke of it, and talk a little about the embodiment of it.

We will start with a cursory view of the general conception of the kingdom of God among the people.

By the time of this Luke 16 discourse, the phrase ‘kingdom  of God’ had become a standard phrase.

It was the basic motif of the divine revelation in the Old Testament, for there, the chief component of the word ‘kingdom’ was that of God’s dominion in the exercise of His royal dignity.

In Greek, it can mean kingship, kingly dominion, and kingdom.

For our purpose, we can say that it means simply ‘God’s kingship’ or ‘the perfect rule of God’.

In Mk 1:15, Jesus ‘came into Galilee, then, preaching the good news’; that is, the message of the kingdom of God.

His mission included, not only the announcement of its having come, but it also involved exhorting, warning, explaining, and correcting concepts about its conditions to those ‘pressing in’. 

What He was teaching was a smooth transition that was perfectly aligned to the revelation God had given in Jewish history of His kingdom.   

But there was trouble in seeing or thinking of it as the Divine kingly rule actually and effectively in force now.

To see it as God carrying out His revealed will in Jesus ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ was a foreign and offensive concept to most.  

At one point, Jesus had to say: ‘Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind...’. (Mt 15:14)

And, He said of them, as well: ‘Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing, see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive.

For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.’ (Mt 13:13-15)

That was the typical response to God’s rule over men’s hearts! 

Let me rephrase that: that is the typical response of God’s rule in men’s hearts!

When the people wanted a king to rule over them, did they gladly accept the ongoing rule of God over them?

They certainly did not! 

God told Samuel: ‘They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I should not be king over them.’ (1 Sam 8:7)

‘They reject My Kingship over them!’ 

Even yet, many, at the time of Jesus’ teaching, could not ‘see’ that His mission was enlarging the thought of God’s rule over all people and all things. 

Rejected - yes - that is always possible, by any and everyone! But terminated or vanquished - that could never be! 

His power and majesty, whether accepted or rejected, would extend into a universal knowledge of His Kingship, as Nahum 1:4-6 and Zech 12:1 declared.

Let me read those Scriptures to you, too.

Nahum 1:4-6: ‘Jehovah hath His way in the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. He rebuketh the sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up all the rivers....The mountains quake at Him and melt, and the earth is upheaved at His presence, yea, the world and all that dwell therein.’

Zech 12:1: Thus saith Jehovah, Who stretched forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him: Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about.’

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And, not only is God King over all, but He had also promised to make His kingship actual and visible to all.

However, the Jewish thought of this was, basically, an apocalyptic one. They thought of it in terms of being a foreboding, ominous event that would strike the whole earth.

Even though their history was one of continuous domination by pagan powers, they framed their troubles in the sphere of the spirit world.

They thought in terms of overthrowing the ‘sons of Belial’, of the spirit world being crushed and ousted, since it was the cause of all the distress and disturbance within the framework of their history.

When that would happen, God would execute His judgment on it and destroy the control it has over the world. That would drastically change the very nature of the universe.

When His kingdom comes, the world would be caught up in this cataclysmic calamity - like a ‘cup of reeling unto all peoples round about’ that would change conditions for the Jews.

Then the righteous will shine. Then, ‘...they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament...’. (Dan 12:3)

This is how the Jews pictured themselves - in this idyllic, restored setting of the kingdom of David in Palestine.

The crowds even shouted, when Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, ‘Blessed be the kingdom of our father, David...’. (Mk 11:10) 

That hope still lay within them!

This nationalistic element of their concept caused them to overlook the course of nature and the condition of the rest of the world: those things were not taken into account in their concepts.

It was a thoroughly pessimistic outlook. It had no hope at all for improvement of present conditions.

John the Baptist shared this apocalyptic expectation of that time. 

His understanding of it was intrinsic in his warning of: ‘And now the ax lies at the root of the trees; every tree which does not bring forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.’ (Mt 3:11)

His idea of the kingdom of God was one that was to come after God’s great world judgment.

God would bring into being a society where His righteous people would receive His fullest blessings and do His will completely!

With this general belief as background history, Jesus came and started preaching the kingdom of God. 

At the time of this Lu 16 passage, the people thought of Him as a new prophet.

To their understanding, He was saying that God was ready to bring about their conception of ‘paradise on earth’, so - it is no wonder that He caught the attention of the masses.

John had introduced Him as the One Who would execute judgment, as the One Who was coming with ‘...a fan in His hand...to cleanse the threshing floor...to gather up the wheat ...burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ 

Of course, as with much of everything else, its meaning was grossly misunderstood and largely disregarded. 

Yes - it meant a drastic change all right! But it was not the drastic change that naturally comes to men’s minds.

Man was going to be confronted with the demand to make
decisions that would change their whole course of life.

It would agitate everybody - no exceptions! And it would change everything - from their false rest and their comfortable smugness to an upside-down, right-side-up setting! 

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Let me say this before we go on. Yes - Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom reminds men of the supremacy of God over all earthly powers and forces, of the requirement of faith in His will over all facts of life!

It serves as a reminder that nothing can stand against Him - nothing - whether it is the ‘rebelliousness of human wills, or the hostility of pagan governments, or the demonic forces of the spirit world.’

And - yes - the proclamation by Jesus of the Kingdom of God also makes one long for the better day to come.

But the revival of that longing is only a solid affirmation of how much discontent and how horrible the wretchedness of the current careless, sinful condition is. 

It shows, once again, that God’s ultimate Standard, attainable only through His power, is sadly deficient upon the earth among His people.

I will leave these thoughts for now - we must move on!
 
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With conditions as they were, and with the many diverse concepts of God’s kingdom, the most dynamic element of Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God that, heretofore, was not accurately discerned, was the concept of the embodiment of it. 

First and foremost, it was actually embodied in His Person! 

This is how the Old Testament speaks of the Kingdom of God.

When God spoke to David about building a ‘house’, David could see, in 1 Chron 17:17, that God had in mind much more than David’s current affairs in his kingdom and even in Solomon’s kingdom yet to come.

He said to David in verse 14: ‘I will settle Him - settle Him - in Mine house and My kingdom for ever: and His throne shall be established forevermore - established forevermore.’

And in Jer 23:5, ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.’

And in His Messianic message of Ezek 21:27, God said: ‘I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come Whose right it is: and I will give it to Him.’ 

Zech 9:9: ‘Rejoice...behold, thy King cometh...He is just and having salvation...’, the prophet wrote.

Clearly, the kingdom of God was to be embodied in a Person. He was to be the ‘King’, ‘the Most High’ Who ‘...ruleth in the kingdom of men...’. (Dan 4:25)

So, that which was still a future matter when John the Baptist was preaching, even though it was close at hand, became reality in the embodiment of the Person of Christ.

Therefore, we should think of the divine action of God in Jesus as a tremendously powerful breakthrough, a violent pushing its way, a coming with power and with glory, a pressing in of His actual and virtual kingship in which He is the personification and the essence of it all!

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In addition to the Kingdom of God being embodied in the Person of Jesus, His kingdom is also embodied in the association with other like believers.

This is visible in the group He called unto Himself that was to become the nucleus of His Church-at-large in this present age.

It was to them that He opened the ‘keys’ to His kingdom. He remarked about this privately to Peter at one point in their time together. 

Putting together this group of disciples was actually an affirmation that His kingdom embodied the concept that there is no completeness apart from the alliance with other committed and faithful members.

The word ‘kingdom’, of course, evokes a ‘social concept’: that is, it suggests a group of people having a common allegiance, a social solidarity, just as the disciples represented God’s kingdom. 

Together they would move on in it. And that suggested that the perfect rule of God is not a scattered ‘here and there, now and then’ unrelated persons, but it is the perfect rule of God over a group having a common allegiance to Him.

Actually, there is no ideal goodness for one individual by himself!

I trust - as you think about how His perfect rule brings all things together - that you see how a group of individuals bound together by Christ in a common allegiance to God will do His will completely and receive the fullest of His blessings.

Under His divine kingship, His rule is actually and effectively in force - I trust you can see that!

The process is of a dynamic character that cannot be looked at apart from the divine power manifested by His redeeming effect among the group. 
  
It is a kingdom that shall not be ‘left to other pieces but it shall break in pieces’ all other kingdoms and consume them and this is what will stand forever. (Dan 2:44)

Even the kingdoms we have set up in ourselves and for ourselves are broken to pieces in His kingdom - it has this effect in and among us!

In other words, the dynamic of His kingdom in the fellowship of believers permeates and transmits itself into everything and in all who are touched by it!

It cannot be denied that it is so full of power and it is so full of divine energy that nothing can come up against it and win victory over it!

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But, as in Jesus’ time, men were not ready for the complete rule of God. Many of those who talked most about it were really unwilling for God to rule.

What He said in Luke 16:17 concerning marriage was included as an example of the unwillingness toward God’s rule as King. 

But Jesus had to make clear to this initial group what was involved with the kingship of God as it was embodied by them.

Not only did He use the seriousness of the marriage vow to stress their responsibilities for the kingdom but He explained His kingdom as having come to earth.

And He explained how His disciples, as the social part of His kingdom, play a significant part in its establishment and in its continuing growth in faithfulness and in power.

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With Jesus the new era has come, that of the kingdom of heaven pushing its way with force into the world, and everyone pressing into it.

He embodied it in His Person and it is embodied in His people who are brought together by Him as His Church.

It exists only because He reigns - our God reigns! We, the embodiment of His kingdom - keep pressing in and bring ourselves under His sovereign will.

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I will close for tonight. This is only a very cursory touch concerning the Kingdom of God. We will go on next week, Lord willing.

But I pray we all will see more clearly the wisdom and the riches we have in Christ, our King.

And that we will grasp the importance of moving into the depths of His kingdom embodied in His Church.

May the Lord bless you beyond measure this week in some glorious way!

Amen.

In closing, as our prayer, let us sing the benediction written to the church, or to a group of churches, by Jude.

‘Now unto Him Who is able to keep -
Able to keep you from falling,
And present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.’
  
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