This I Believe Notes Week 6 - The Kingdom of God

Confessional

The Kingdom of God

We believe that those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ by faith and through regeneration by the Holy Spirit enter the kingdom of God and delight in the blessings of the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the inward transformation that awakens a desire to glorify, trust, and obey God, and the prospect of the glory yet to be revealed. Good works constitute indispensable evidence of saving grace. Living as salt in a world that is decaying and light in a world that is dark, believers should neither withdraw into seclusion from the world, nor become indistinguishable from it: rather, we are to do good to the city, for all the glory and honor of the nations is to be offered up to the living God. Recognizing whose created order this is, and because we are citizens of God’s kingdom, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, doing good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of God. The kingdom of God, already present but not fully realized, is the exercise of God’s sovereignty in the world toward the eventual redemption of all creation. The kingdom of God is an invasive power that plunders Satan’s dark kingdom and regenerates and renovates through repentance and faith the lives of individuals rescued from that kingdom. It therefore inevitably establishes a new community of human life together under God.

The Restoration of All Things

We believe in the personal, glorious, and bodily return of our Lord Jesus Christ with his holy angels, when he will exercise his role as final Judge, and his kingdom will be consummated. We believe in the bodily resurrection of both the just and the unjust—the unjust to judgment and eternal conscious punishment in hell, as our Lord himself taught, and the just to eternal blessedness in the presence of him who sits on the throne and of the Lamb, in the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness. On that day the church will be presented faultless before God by the obedience, suffering and triumph of Christ, all sin purged and its wretched effects forever banished. God will be all in all and his people will be enthralled by the immediacy of his ineffable holiness, and everything will be to the praise of his glorious grace.

What is the Kingdom of God?

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second George Eldon LaddEdition) (6. The Church and the Kingdom of God)

The Kingdom is primarily the dynamic reign or kingly rule of God, and, derivatively, the sphere in which the rule is experienced.

In biblical idiom, the Kingdom is not identified with its subjects. They are the people of God’s rule who enter it, live under it, and are governed by it.

The church is the community of the Kingdom but never the Kingdom itself. Jesus’ disciples belong to the Kingdom as the Kingdom belongs to them; but they are not the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is the rule of God; the church is a society of men

The Kingdom of God

1. The Intention of the Kingdom

Genesis 1:28 (CSB)

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

The Kingdom of Israel — a failed Kingdom

but led to the true Kingdom.

2. The Initiation/Inauguration of the Kingdom

Mark 1:15 (CSB)

15 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

The beginning of the New Beginning

3. The Realization/Consummation of the Kingdom

Revelation 11:15 (CSB)

15 The seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.

Revelation 21:1–8 (CSB)

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

2 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:

Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.

4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

5 Then the one seated on the throne said,

“Look, I am making everything new.”

He also said,

“Write, because these words are faithful and true.”

6 Then he said to me,

“It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

7 The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

8 But the cowards, faithless, detestable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars—their share will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

4. The Present Kingdom (Now-Not Yet/Already-Not Yet)

Begins Small (mustard seed)

Grows Gradually (leaven)

Is unseen directly, but it’s effects are seen (in your midst)

Progressive (Spiritual becoming flesh)

Final Form:

Will come suddenly but with signs

Final Judgment

Acts 17:30–31 CSB

30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

2 Timothy 4:1 CSB

1 I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom:

Heaven and Hell

Bodily Resurrected Heaven on Earth

Application:

So then, seeing the end, how will you respond?

Scriptures

Romans 8:19–23 (CSB)

19 For the creation eagerly waits with anticipation for God’s sons to be revealed.

20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it—in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.

22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.

23 Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

Hebrews 9:26–28 (CSB)

26 ...But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself.

27 And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—28 so also Christ,

having been offered once to bear the sins of many,

will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

2 Peter 3:8–14 (CSB)

8 Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.

9 The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief; on that day the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, the elements will burn and be dissolved, and the earth and the works on it will be disclosed.

11 Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, it is clear what sort of people you should be in holy conduct and godliness 12 as you wait for the day of God and hasten its coming. Because of that day, the heavens will be dissolved with fire and the elements will melt with heat.

13 But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

14 Therefore, dear friends, while you wait for these things, make every effort to be found without spot or blemish in his sight, at peace.