"From that time Jesus began to proclaim and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near!'" - Matthew 4:17 (BLB)
In last week's writing, we dwelt on what it means to repent. Today, we will focus on the second half of the gospel as preached by Jesus Himself, the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near!
Instead of the usual English Standard, I used a more literal translation here (BLB) because it shows how Jesus is using the plural form of "heaven" in Greek. This is important to note because "Jewish cosmology conceived of a series of heavens one above the other" (A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament). One example of this belief is found in 2 Corinthians 12:2 when Paul describes an experience a fellow believer had, where he was "caught up to the third heaven", which is the realm of God. To put it simply, the belief is that there are three heavens (sometimes seven, depending on who you ask). We live and breathe and walk and move within the "first heaven", the air surrounding us right now. Though this may sound foreign and crazy to you, living in the "first heaven" is merely putting a label on the air around us, the "realm" we live in. If you think about it, this ancient Jewish idea has not been dismissed at all by modern science but is proven by what we have discovered about the layers of our atmosphere. We may not say we live in "first heaven" anymore, but we do say we live in the "troposphere". This isn't surprising, as Jesus was indeed, among many other things, the most intelligent Man to have walked the earth, but it certainly is interesting to note.
This helps us understand the context of how amazing the message of Jesus truly is. To our modern ears, many of us hear that the "kingdom of heaven is at hand" and don't think much of it. Many assume that God's kingdom is up in the clouds somewhere, detached from "normal" and "ordinary" life.
Jesus is preaching the exact opposite; He is preaching that the heavens are colliding and smashing together. The third heaven, in Jesus, merged into our current first heaven. The Kingdom of the sky has entered the troposphere. His presence brings His kingdom near.
Are you tracking with me?
So whenever Jesus says that "the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near" He is saying that His kingdom pervades everything, rules everything, every "heaven" under the sun, every sort of realm, every atmosphere. He is King over not just the sky, but also every "heaven" below it.
"[Jesus] spoke to them another parable: 'The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman having taken, hid in three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.'" -Matthew 13:33 (BLB)
Yeast takes over the entire batch of dough, it expands outward and swells up.
If you have ever made bread before, you know that the leaven takes a little bit, but eventually, the batch of dough has tripled in size. If you get close to it and listen, you can just barely hear the dough quietly "sing" as it rises. Sometimes, after a couple of hours of rising time, you'll need a bigger bowl because there's not enough space to contain it. So is the Kingdom, as Jesus was saying, within us. When we live as a disciple, follower, and friend of Jesus the Christ, the Kingdom expands outward and doesn't stop with us. His Kingdom has a way of, like yeast in dough, expanding. As a by-product, it touches people around us.
Jesus invites us into a new authority to live under. The Greek word translated as "kingdom" refers to a kingdom in a "concrete sense" (A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament). Jesus' Kingdom is concrete and shapes the reality in which we live and breathe. The Kingdom of the heavens is the ultimate, concrete reality of our existence. It is not a far-off place in the clouds but is the power we live under today if we choose to believe and follow Jesus. We truly are, as Paul writes, citizens of heaven. Or rather, citizens of the heavens, because he uses the plural form here, too.
So, then, God truly is an ever-present help in times of trouble (Psalm 46:1) because He has ultimate authority over every single corner of the vast universe, He is king overall.
It is through Jesus that the kingdom was able to come to earth, and it is by His Spirit that we are living in it now. Though not fully, and that is why Jesus asked His friends to pray "your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10).
By praying this we are partaking in Jesus Christ's epic plan to bring God and His Kingdom to earth. We are "co-conspirators", as Dallas Willard put it, in King Jesus' plan to overthrow the evil forces of this world with His good, lovely, and beautiful Kingdom. A Kingdom which, by the standards of earth, is very upside down. A Kingdom where the persecuted will inherit the Kingdom (Matthew 5:10) and the poor are made rich (Matthew 5:3).
Because even though the day has not yet come (but soon will) when the King will reign overall and we will, fully, be ushered into the Kingdom and we will receive our inheritance, we must also recognize that the Kingdom is now at hand. It is much closer than we can imagine, and believing that truly changes how we live. I once heard our current age described as the "now and the not yet of the Kingdom of God", which I think is a wonderful way of putting it.
The Greek word Jesus uses for "near" means to "show very plainly"; it means there is proof to back this claim up. "See for yourselves! The Kingdom has come near." This word is also used in Mark 16:6 when the angel told the women that they weren't going to find Jesus inside that tomb, but "see the place they laid Him!"
Jesus was able to put it this way because the people with whom He was speaking were looking directly at the Kingdom Himself. He was offering evidence to back up His teaching, and that was His very presence among them.
"Now when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, 'The kingdom of God does not come with ⌊things that can be observed⌋, nor will they say, ‘Behold, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.'" - Luke 17:20-21
Are you still tracking with me?
Let's take it one step further. Since Jesus is, Himself, the Kingdom of the Heavens, bear that in mind as you read a snippet from Paul's teaching:
"God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.'" -Acts 17:27-28
The Kingdom of the Heavens is that near to us. It is through it, through Christ, that we live and move and have our very being.
It is not just through Him that we have a "spiritual" type of life, but simply life. Not just in a divine sort of way, but in a very here and now sort of way. Jesus called Himself bread for a reason, because He also nourishes our physical needs, for stuff such as, well, air, as well as food and clothing, which He invites us to lean into His provision for. For Jesus said, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the [daily needs of life] will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33).
The Enlightenment idea that there is a separation between the "spiritual" and "material" is not something taught by Jesus. His whole point was merging the two, merging His Kingdom into the world, until the whole world was pervaded by it, leavened by it. His Spirit is very much present in us and in the "material" world, but it is also a reality that is deeper than anything we can grasp with any of our senses.
When a tornado is forming directly overhead, you cannot see the tornado starting to tighten because it is so many miles wide that your eyes cannot grasp the magnitude of it. You are much too close to it to be able to do that. This is like the Kingdom. The Kingdom of the Heavens is so near that it's hard to see just how much it changes everything around us. When you are in the eye of the storm, it can be easy to miss, unless you're looking at external factors, such as the color of the sky, the temperature of the air around you, maybe some rain, wind, and so on. But if you were to look up you'd only see clouds because you cannot see the grand scheme of the tornado forming. But no doubt about it, it is moving, ready to reach down into the atmosphere in which we live.
And so, to conclude, Jesus' invitation to us all is to repent and believe that the Kingdom of the heavens is near. Saying "yes" truly changes everything. It opens doors to being misunderstood by others, scorned, mocked, and much worse...because living under a different Kingdom and new order, taking on the "easy yoke" confuses people. Confusion leads them to reject us, even condemn us.
Why would you trust in something you can't see?
Answer: because the Kingdom is, right now, too large and vast to see. The storm is directly overhead.
We are all living lives right now that will resemble our eternity because we are living our eternity right now. We are becoming who we will be, forever. Are you being changed and renewed by the Kingdom of Jesus, or the kingdom of the earth? Moment by moment it is either one or the other.
The Kingdom is nearer to us than we can imagine, it is deeper than tangibility. Will you believe and let it enter you, ushering in the eternal sort of life?
"As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all." -Psalm 103:15–19
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