The Earthly Kingdom
Bible Study Time 9-16-07
Bible Study Time 9-16-07
Now, we’ve been talking about the kingdom that will bring about the restoration of all things. After His resurrection, the Lord Jesus spent 40 days with His disciples, and Luke records in Acts, Chapter 1, that the Lord spoke to His disciples of things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Then Luke says that:
Acts 1:4-5 NKJV
4 . . . being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me;
5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
From this we see that at that time there were two distinct baptisms. The baptism associated with John the Baptist was a baptism in water, while the baptism associated with the Lord Jesus was to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is never at time when the Bible brings these two baptisms together as one. They are always independent one from the other.
John the Baptist was actually the first to make this distinction. At one point:
John 1:29-34 NKJV
29 . . . John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30 This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'
31 I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water."
32 And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."
The Apostle John was the one who wrote about these comments by John the Baptist, and certainly he was one who understood this distinction between water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Chapter 4 of John’s Gospel, John said:
John 4:1-3 NKJV
1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John
3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),
The Apostle John knew, as did John the Baptist, that Jesus did not come into this world to baptize people with water, but He came for the purpose of making the baptism of the Holy Spirit available to all who would believe in Him.
The Old Testament saints had water baptism, but they did not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament saints all looked forward to the day when the baptism of the Holy Spirit would come because that was the baptism that would make possible the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.
Water baptism had always been an important aspect of the Old Testament Law. Under the Law, whenever a person was ceremonially unclean, they would have to wash in water before they could reenter Jewish society. Therefore, none of the Jews considered it to be the least bit strange that John the Baptist would ask sinners to repent and be baptized in water.
Jesus came not only to fulfill the Law but to take believers into a realm of purity and holiness that only the Holy Spirit of God could provide. So in Acts, Chapter 1, when Jesus spoke to His disciples about the Kingdom of God, He concluded His teaching with the glorious truth that they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit within just a few days.
Well, the disciples got the point. They understood that the coming of the kingdom was dependent upon the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, so they asked the Lord point blank:
Acts 1:6 NKJV
6 . . . "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
But Jesus said:
Acts 1:7 NKJV
7 . . . "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
Obviously, the Lord Jesus knew things that He was not at liberty to discuss with His disciples at that time. All the disciples had to know was that the power of the Holy Spirit was going to come upon them in just a few days and that this would open the door for the blessings of the kingdom to come to the earth.
Now, it seems obvious that when the disciples asked Jesus if He was going to restore the kingdom at that time, they were thinking of an earthly, political kingdom. They were hoping that when the Holy Spirit came, Jesus would come to the earth very shortly thereafter and exercise His power as the Son of God to defeat the Gentile nations and establish His kingdom over all the earth.
That’s what Peter had in his mind as he spoke to the Jews on the very day that the Holy Spirit was given. Peter explained that the speaking in tongues which they had witnessed was actually the fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy. He said:
Acts 2:14,16,17 NKJV
14 . . . "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.
16 . . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
When Peter spoke of the last days, he wasn’t talking about the last days of the world, as if the world was about to come to an end. Peter was talking about the last days of the age in which they were living.
Just before Jesus was crucified, the disciples had asked Jesus what events would occur as signs of the end of the age. Jesus told them to look out for the abomination of desolation which the prophet Daniel had predicted.
Since all of Daniel’s prophecies had to do with the age of Gentile dominion over the earth, this tells us exactly what age the disciples were talking about. The disciples wanted to know what signs will occur as the age of Gentile dominion comes to an end.
Well, that’s exactly what Peter and Joel were talking about when they spoke of the last days. They were talking about the last days of this age of Gentile dominion which will be followed by the age in which the nation of Israel rules the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Acts, Chapter 2, Peter went on to say that Jesus did many miracles to prove that He was the Messiah, but instead of being exalted by the people and glorified as King, He was crucified. Then Peter told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead and had been exalted at the right hand of God in heaven.
There are some believers who believe that this point in history is where the Church of our present age began. They see the gift of the Holy Spirit, and they conclude that this is the beginning of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
According to this point of view, the kingdom of God did come to the earth here in Acts, Chapter 2, and Christ has been ruling over the earth through the Church from His throne in heaven ever since that time. Since the Jews rejected Jesus, God rejected the Jews and decided to give Israel’s promised kingdom to the believing Gentiles.
This point of view is often called Covenant Theology because it assumes that the covenant blessings which God promised to Israel were transferred to the Church of today. Covenant Theology technically holds to the idea that God has given the Christian Church of today the task of conquering the unbelieving world either by evangelism or by military force so that God can establish His political will on the earth. They take the Lord’s prayer as a command to establish the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.
In contrast to this, there are those who believe that God simply set the nation of Israel and her promises aside on a temporary basis so that He could call out the Church of today as a separate body of believers. This point of view is referred to as Dispensational Theology because it says that God has had distinctly different programs for different people at different times through the ages.
Covenant Theology says that the tribulation period took place during the early years after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and it says that the next item on God’s agenda is for Christ to return to separate believers from unbelievers so that believers can enter into the New Heaven and the New Earth while the unbelievers are cast into the Lake of Fire.
Dispensational Theology says that the next item on God’s agenda is for Christ to catch the Church up into heaven so that He can resume His dealings with the nation of Israel during the tribulation period. At the end of the tribulation period, Christ will return to the earth, defeat the antichrist and rule over the earth for a thousand years. After this thousand year period, all unsaved people will stand before the Great White Throne judgment of God before they are sentenced to the Lake of Fire.
In spite of the basic differences between these two systems of Biblical interpretation, both sides have a great deal in common. Most Dispensationalists recognize that the spiritual blessings which were promised to Israel have been carried over into God’s program for the Church of today. All believers recognize that believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit into Jesus Christ and that as a result of this baptism we have access to the power of God through the Holy Spirit. We all believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict the believer of sin and deliver the believer from sin.
Also, most Covenant theologians acknowledge some of the concepts of Dispensational Theology. They would acknowledge that Old Testament Jews did think that the promised kingdom would be a political kingdom which would be dominated by the nation of Israel. They would agree that the Apostles were anticipating an earthly, Jewish kingdom as they went out preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And they would probably acknowledge that Peter and the other eleven Apostles had this Jewish political kingdom in mind as they went out preaching during the Acts-period.
This in itself would imply a change in God’s program for mankind. Even if God knew in the Old Testament that He was ultimately going to give the kingdom to a Gentile Church, He never said anything about that until after Israel rejected Christ. Therefore, at some point God would have to change His program for mankind to start revealing this fact to believers.
This brings even Covenant Theologians to the point of having to determine when the first program ended and the second one started. In other words, when did God start telling believers that He was going to give the blessings that were promised to Israel to a Gentile Church.
History tells us that it was not until after the Roman Empire became Christian under the Emperor Constantine that men like St. Augustine came to the conclusion that the tribulation period was over and the kingdom had begun. This made sense to them because Christians were no longer being persecuted, and all of a sudden Christians had the power to dominate the world.
There is no evidence to suggest that any of the Apostles ever gave up on the idea of a literal, earthly, Jewish kingdom. Men like St. Augustine looked at verses at the end of Galatians Chapter 3, where Paul said:
Galatians 3:26-29 (NKJ)
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
They look at Romans 14:17 where Paul said:
Romans 14:17 (KJV)
17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
These verses appear to give evidence that God had changed His program from a political Jewish kingdom to a spiritual Gentile kingdom. However, Covenant Theology fails to account for the fact that the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans said that the Gentiles were only being grafted into Israel’s kingdom program. He emphasized that God had not cast aside the nation of Israel, and in fact, he said that someday all of Israel will be saved. This, of course, is referring to the believing remnant of Jews who will survive the tribulation period and enter into the kingdom.
It is precisely because of statements like these by the Apostle Paul that I personally hold to the Dispensational point of view. If all of the Apostles believed in a literal Jewish kingdom, they must have believed that for a very good reason, and that reason was that God had promised the kingdom to Israel and God never goes back on His promises.
After all, God said through Jeremiah that as long as the sun and the moon and the stars shine in the heavens, He would never reject the nation of Israel forever. He has rejected them for this period of time in which we live today, but that is only temporary and it’s only for the nation as a whole. Individual Jews can be saved today through faith in Jesus Christ just like anyone else, but God has temporarily set aside Israel’s kingdom program while He builds the Church and brings it to completion.
Now, there still remains a very important issue which Dispensationalists have to address, and that is when did God set aside Israel’s kingdom program so that He could start calling out the Church? If all of the Apostles continued to hold to the hope of the earthly, Jewish kingdom throughout their lifetimes, when did that hope get set aside?
The fact is that as we look at the scriptures, we can see clear evidence of the change even though we cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the change occurred. When we look at Paul’s writings, we see that in his Acts-period epistles, he spoke frequently about Abraham, the New Covenant, the tribulation period, the antichrist, and so forth. But when we get to Paul’s prison epistles of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, we find no mention of any of these things.
As it turns out, it is in these little epistles where Paul says that he has been given the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ. And it is in these epistles where Paul tells us that this revelation is something that God never revealed to anyone at any time throughout the previous ages.
Therefore, Paul and the other Apostles never had to change their point of view in regard to God’s program for man. They just kept right on believing in that kingdom which will indeed someday be established upon the earth.
As time went on the program for the Church which God revealed through Paul came to the forefront while Israel’s kingdom program faded into the background. Paul never even had to say specifically that Israel’s kingdom program had been set aside. God was perfectly capable of providing for the transition through His own sovereign will.
It is because of this divinely inspired transition that Christians today emphasize the spiritual blessings that God has provided for us rather than the earthly kingdom that God promised to Israel.
The earthly kingdom is not our hope, but it is so very important for us to understand because that kingdom is the focus of most of the Bible. We have to acknowledge it and understand it in order to understand the Bible. With this understanding, God is free to use all scripture to thoroughly equip the saints for the work of the ministry of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
Well, thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/
Acts 1:4-5 NKJV
4 . . . being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, "which," He said, "you have heard from Me;
5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
From this we see that at that time there were two distinct baptisms. The baptism associated with John the Baptist was a baptism in water, while the baptism associated with the Lord Jesus was to be the baptism of the Holy Spirit. There is never at time when the Bible brings these two baptisms together as one. They are always independent one from the other.
John the Baptist was actually the first to make this distinction. At one point:
John 1:29-34 NKJV
29 . . . John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
30 This is He of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'
31 I did not know Him; but that He should be revealed to Israel, therefore I came baptizing with water."
32 And John bore witness, saying, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and He remained upon Him.
33 I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'Upon whom you see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'
34 And I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God."
The Apostle John was the one who wrote about these comments by John the Baptist, and certainly he was one who understood this distinction between water baptism and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Chapter 4 of John’s Gospel, John said:
John 4:1-3 NKJV
1 Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John
3 He left Judea and departed again to Galilee.
2 (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples),
The Apostle John knew, as did John the Baptist, that Jesus did not come into this world to baptize people with water, but He came for the purpose of making the baptism of the Holy Spirit available to all who would believe in Him.
The Old Testament saints had water baptism, but they did not have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament saints all looked forward to the day when the baptism of the Holy Spirit would come because that was the baptism that would make possible the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.
Water baptism had always been an important aspect of the Old Testament Law. Under the Law, whenever a person was ceremonially unclean, they would have to wash in water before they could reenter Jewish society. Therefore, none of the Jews considered it to be the least bit strange that John the Baptist would ask sinners to repent and be baptized in water.
Jesus came not only to fulfill the Law but to take believers into a realm of purity and holiness that only the Holy Spirit of God could provide. So in Acts, Chapter 1, when Jesus spoke to His disciples about the Kingdom of God, He concluded His teaching with the glorious truth that they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit within just a few days.
Well, the disciples got the point. They understood that the coming of the kingdom was dependent upon the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit, so they asked the Lord point blank:
Acts 1:6 NKJV
6 . . . "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
But Jesus said:
Acts 1:7 NKJV
7 . . . "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.
Obviously, the Lord Jesus knew things that He was not at liberty to discuss with His disciples at that time. All the disciples had to know was that the power of the Holy Spirit was going to come upon them in just a few days and that this would open the door for the blessings of the kingdom to come to the earth.
Now, it seems obvious that when the disciples asked Jesus if He was going to restore the kingdom at that time, they were thinking of an earthly, political kingdom. They were hoping that when the Holy Spirit came, Jesus would come to the earth very shortly thereafter and exercise His power as the Son of God to defeat the Gentile nations and establish His kingdom over all the earth.
That’s what Peter had in his mind as he spoke to the Jews on the very day that the Holy Spirit was given. Peter explained that the speaking in tongues which they had witnessed was actually the fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy. He said:
Acts 2:14,16,17 NKJV
14 . . . "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words.
16 . . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
When Peter spoke of the last days, he wasn’t talking about the last days of the world, as if the world was about to come to an end. Peter was talking about the last days of the age in which they were living.
Just before Jesus was crucified, the disciples had asked Jesus what events would occur as signs of the end of the age. Jesus told them to look out for the abomination of desolation which the prophet Daniel had predicted.
Since all of Daniel’s prophecies had to do with the age of Gentile dominion over the earth, this tells us exactly what age the disciples were talking about. The disciples wanted to know what signs will occur as the age of Gentile dominion comes to an end.
Well, that’s exactly what Peter and Joel were talking about when they spoke of the last days. They were talking about the last days of this age of Gentile dominion which will be followed by the age in which the nation of Israel rules the earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In Acts, Chapter 2, Peter went on to say that Jesus did many miracles to prove that He was the Messiah, but instead of being exalted by the people and glorified as King, He was crucified. Then Peter told them that Jesus had been raised from the dead and had been exalted at the right hand of God in heaven.
There are some believers who believe that this point in history is where the Church of our present age began. They see the gift of the Holy Spirit, and they conclude that this is the beginning of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
According to this point of view, the kingdom of God did come to the earth here in Acts, Chapter 2, and Christ has been ruling over the earth through the Church from His throne in heaven ever since that time. Since the Jews rejected Jesus, God rejected the Jews and decided to give Israel’s promised kingdom to the believing Gentiles.
This point of view is often called Covenant Theology because it assumes that the covenant blessings which God promised to Israel were transferred to the Church of today. Covenant Theology technically holds to the idea that God has given the Christian Church of today the task of conquering the unbelieving world either by evangelism or by military force so that God can establish His political will on the earth. They take the Lord’s prayer as a command to establish the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.
In contrast to this, there are those who believe that God simply set the nation of Israel and her promises aside on a temporary basis so that He could call out the Church of today as a separate body of believers. This point of view is referred to as Dispensational Theology because it says that God has had distinctly different programs for different people at different times through the ages.
Covenant Theology says that the tribulation period took place during the early years after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, and it says that the next item on God’s agenda is for Christ to return to separate believers from unbelievers so that believers can enter into the New Heaven and the New Earth while the unbelievers are cast into the Lake of Fire.
Dispensational Theology says that the next item on God’s agenda is for Christ to catch the Church up into heaven so that He can resume His dealings with the nation of Israel during the tribulation period. At the end of the tribulation period, Christ will return to the earth, defeat the antichrist and rule over the earth for a thousand years. After this thousand year period, all unsaved people will stand before the Great White Throne judgment of God before they are sentenced to the Lake of Fire.
In spite of the basic differences between these two systems of Biblical interpretation, both sides have a great deal in common. Most Dispensationalists recognize that the spiritual blessings which were promised to Israel have been carried over into God’s program for the Church of today. All believers recognize that believers are baptized by the Holy Spirit into Jesus Christ and that as a result of this baptism we have access to the power of God through the Holy Spirit. We all believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to convict the believer of sin and deliver the believer from sin.
Also, most Covenant theologians acknowledge some of the concepts of Dispensational Theology. They would acknowledge that Old Testament Jews did think that the promised kingdom would be a political kingdom which would be dominated by the nation of Israel. They would agree that the Apostles were anticipating an earthly, Jewish kingdom as they went out preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. And they would probably acknowledge that Peter and the other eleven Apostles had this Jewish political kingdom in mind as they went out preaching during the Acts-period.
This in itself would imply a change in God’s program for mankind. Even if God knew in the Old Testament that He was ultimately going to give the kingdom to a Gentile Church, He never said anything about that until after Israel rejected Christ. Therefore, at some point God would have to change His program for mankind to start revealing this fact to believers.
This brings even Covenant Theologians to the point of having to determine when the first program ended and the second one started. In other words, when did God start telling believers that He was going to give the blessings that were promised to Israel to a Gentile Church.
History tells us that it was not until after the Roman Empire became Christian under the Emperor Constantine that men like St. Augustine came to the conclusion that the tribulation period was over and the kingdom had begun. This made sense to them because Christians were no longer being persecuted, and all of a sudden Christians had the power to dominate the world.
There is no evidence to suggest that any of the Apostles ever gave up on the idea of a literal, earthly, Jewish kingdom. Men like St. Augustine looked at verses at the end of Galatians Chapter 3, where Paul said:
Galatians 3:26-29 (NKJ)
26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
They look at Romans 14:17 where Paul said:
Romans 14:17 (KJV)
17 For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
These verses appear to give evidence that God had changed His program from a political Jewish kingdom to a spiritual Gentile kingdom. However, Covenant Theology fails to account for the fact that the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans said that the Gentiles were only being grafted into Israel’s kingdom program. He emphasized that God had not cast aside the nation of Israel, and in fact, he said that someday all of Israel will be saved. This, of course, is referring to the believing remnant of Jews who will survive the tribulation period and enter into the kingdom.
It is precisely because of statements like these by the Apostle Paul that I personally hold to the Dispensational point of view. If all of the Apostles believed in a literal Jewish kingdom, they must have believed that for a very good reason, and that reason was that God had promised the kingdom to Israel and God never goes back on His promises.
After all, God said through Jeremiah that as long as the sun and the moon and the stars shine in the heavens, He would never reject the nation of Israel forever. He has rejected them for this period of time in which we live today, but that is only temporary and it’s only for the nation as a whole. Individual Jews can be saved today through faith in Jesus Christ just like anyone else, but God has temporarily set aside Israel’s kingdom program while He builds the Church and brings it to completion.
Now, there still remains a very important issue which Dispensationalists have to address, and that is when did God set aside Israel’s kingdom program so that He could start calling out the Church? If all of the Apostles continued to hold to the hope of the earthly, Jewish kingdom throughout their lifetimes, when did that hope get set aside?
The fact is that as we look at the scriptures, we can see clear evidence of the change even though we cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the change occurred. When we look at Paul’s writings, we see that in his Acts-period epistles, he spoke frequently about Abraham, the New Covenant, the tribulation period, the antichrist, and so forth. But when we get to Paul’s prison epistles of Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, we find no mention of any of these things.
As it turns out, it is in these little epistles where Paul says that he has been given the revelation concerning the Church which is the Body of Christ. And it is in these epistles where Paul tells us that this revelation is something that God never revealed to anyone at any time throughout the previous ages.
Therefore, Paul and the other Apostles never had to change their point of view in regard to God’s program for man. They just kept right on believing in that kingdom which will indeed someday be established upon the earth.
As time went on the program for the Church which God revealed through Paul came to the forefront while Israel’s kingdom program faded into the background. Paul never even had to say specifically that Israel’s kingdom program had been set aside. God was perfectly capable of providing for the transition through His own sovereign will.
It is because of this divinely inspired transition that Christians today emphasize the spiritual blessings that God has provided for us rather than the earthly kingdom that God promised to Israel.
The earthly kingdom is not our hope, but it is so very important for us to understand because that kingdom is the focus of most of the Bible. We have to acknowledge it and understand it in order to understand the Bible. With this understanding, God is free to use all scripture to thoroughly equip the saints for the work of the ministry of the Church which is the Body of Christ.
Well, thank you for listening to Bible Study Time this morning. It’s been a pleasure studying with you, and I’ll look forward to studying with you again next week at this same time.
Church links:
http://www.peacechurch-ok.org/
http://www.eleventhavenuechurch.com/
http://gracebiblechurch-fw.com/
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