Kingdom of God--Part I
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God fill every heart who reads these words and I pray that they may they enter into the Kingdom of God according the true desires of their hearts. I have meditated and prayed upon your request and the Lord has given me this answer.
As I meditated and prayed upon this subject, the Lord revealed to me that the New Covenant and the Kingdom of God are poorly understood realities in our modern age. Since the New Covenant and the Kingdom of God are inseparable, I will begin by discussing the New Covenant and then move to nature and meaning of the Kingdom of God.
The establisment of the New Covenant initiated the Kingdom of God within men under the new creation. Christ's birth as a man, His life, His crucifixon, His death and His Resurrection created the foundation for the New Covenant. Through faith in Christ and His works man enters into the New Covenant.
What is God's purpose in establishing this New Covenant? In the book of Hebrews (ch 8), the Holy Spirit teaches us that Jeremiah's (ch 31) prophecy about the New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus Christ and that all men, through faith, are heirs to the reality of the New Covenant:
"If that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second......
For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days ocme, saith the the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the house of Judah;....
For this is the covenant that I will make ......
I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
This is where God restores His Kingdom within the hearts of men.
When we have Faith in Jesus, we are born again-"not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by the Word of God". Then Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit and the New Covenant promises of 'putting God's laws into our minds and writing them in our hearts' is achieved. God puts his very nature and substance in man. This is how Christians become the sons of God. God recreates the human spirit and then fills man with His own divine nature--the Holy Spirit.
This is the origin of Christianity and this is the origin of the Kingdom of God in the new creation--God governing His people through their recreated spirits and Holy Spirit filled hearts and minds.
These principles now set the foundation to understand the Kingdom of God and its manifestation in and among men. I will divide this into two parts because of its length. Next time we look at the nature and meaning of the Kingdom of God
May the Spirit of God open the ears of all who read these words.
Emile, a servant of Christ called to proclaim the Gospel given once an d for all times given to the Apostles and disciples. |
