The Kingdom of God
and The Kingdom of Heaven
There are two Kingdoms mentioned in the New Testament and they are not the same—“God” is not “heaven”, and “heaven” is not “God”. Things that are different are not the same! To explain the differences takes some Biblical explanation and an exciting look into Biblical prophecy. Of course you won’t be this stuff correctly unless you’ll be using the AV 1611 Holy Bible.
In St. Matthew’s Gospel we read
that one of the first things out of Jesus’ mouth when His public ministry first
began was, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.” (Matthew 4:17). And from
St. Mark’s Gospel we get a similar phrase, “The time is
fulfilled, and the
To understand the Bible you must understand covenants: and God had several covenants with men in the Old Testament but one was with Abraham and his seed. Abraham’s promised son was Isaac, and Isaac’s son of blessing was Jacob—whose name was changed by God to Israel: he is the father of the twelve tribes and the Israeli race. God has made many special promises to this people and the promise I’ll mainly be dealing with in this article is the promise of the KINGDOM and its KING. When Jesus began His public ministry in 30 A.D. He was anouncing Himself as the long anticipated and prophesied of King, and He was would bring the Kingdom with Him. But the kingdom was an Israeli kingdom; God had not yet open the doors of Gentile salvation at this point; so God was mainly dealing with the Jewish people. When the wise men came looking for the child Jesus they said, “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” Those wise men knew something most people don’t know today. They knew Jesus was a Jew, and would be the King of the Jews, and that all the prophecies in the Old Testament about a literal, physical, visible, political, Jewish kingdom here on earth would be ruled by Him. But Jesus Christ was not hasty about His Kingdom, He never has been. He’s also interested in trying the hearts of His people, and that’s exactly what He did during the 3 and half years of His public ministry. Jesus tried people to see if He was Daniel’s predicted Messiah. Some believed and some didn’t. But the majority of the Jewish people moved by Satan’s ignorance and hatred, rejected their king and had Him crucified on a Roman cross as a common thief. But the story is not over there! Three days later Jesus arose from the tomb, proving all His claims of Divinity! So the Jews had rejected their King, but Christ was risen again and back in heaven; but there was another kingdom in the works—the kingdom of God! We are told in Romans 14:17, “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Therefore we see the kingdom of God is opposite from the kingdom of heaven; while the kingdom of heaven is a physical kingdom headquartered in Jerusalem (predicted of in the Old Testament), yet the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. It was also revealed in the Book of Acts that the Gentiles would be able to part of this spiritual kingdom through faith. The kingdom of God represents all born-again Jews and Gentiles throughout the church age. But does this mean it is all over for the Jewish kingdom that all the old Jewish prophets spoke of? I’ll let Jesus Himself answer that! In His constitution of the kingdom speech (known as the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Matt. 5:17-18) So where is the kingdom of heaven and where to the Jewish people stand with God? The kingdom was been postponed. It has been postponed for nearly 2,000 years since the Jews refused Jesus Christ. But now after centuries in exile, in 1948, the Jewish people returned to their land and Israel became a nation again! Not only that, but there is also a spiritual awakening taking place among the Jewish people—there are many Messianic Jews and Rabbis who have received salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. These are the times of the end, and though there has been a parenthetical period of the kingdom of God, Daniel’s final 70th week is drawing nearer and nearer. The proof that Jesus offered the kingdom of heaven to the Jews (though they rejected it) is that everywhere in the Old Testament Christ’s first and second coming are prophesied together in the same verses! Had the Jews accepted Jesus there would have been no need for the New Testament canon to be written, but God saw the need for a greater testament and the death of the Testator.
When Jesus was on earth the kingdom
and God and the kingdom of heaven were there together. But since He was rejected, crucified, buried,
resurrected, and ascended: the kingdom of heaven has been postponed for 2,000
years. However, He did send the Holy
Spirit in Acts 2. And since Acts we have
had the kingdom of God in the church age (see Rom.
The kingdom of heaven is a physical kingdom. Look up at heaven: you can see it. When you can see Jesus face to face you will be in the kingdom of heaven. Right now, because we are in the spiritual kingdom of God, we walk by faith, not by sight. But when Jesus shows up we will walk by sight, and not by faith: because we will be in the kingdom of heaven and Christ will be right in front of us.
When you read Rom.