Thank you for joining us in this ongoing study on the Kingdom of God. For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, and Week 6. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.

I highly recommend completing the worksheets for a week before reading the blog or watching the teaching video – listen to what God has to teach you through His Word.

Over the past seven weeks, we have truly seen how the Bible as a whole is the story of a king. This king who, in the very beginning, created an entire world and people in it and was content to walk with His people on the same, warm earth He created. And then, because He loved His people enough to let them choose, they chose to honor themselves over Him. So He handed dominion over the earth into the hands of the one who deceived His people, while beginning right there in that moment the promise of rescue, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The serpent would one day be crushed by the offspring of the woman by whom sin and darkness entered the world.

A number of generations later, God came once again to establish His authority over the earth and decided to start with just one family – or, rather, a man who didn’t even have yet more than just a wife. Not a son or descendant to speak of. Yet, because of His faithfulness, He was chosen by God to venture to a new land and have a son who would be the beginning of this new Kingdom. We learned how over the course of three generations, God revealed this promise to three men and then left it quiet while the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel grew into a nation in the span of four hundred years in a foreign land. During that time, His people, His promised nation, was vacillating between the God who had promised and the gods of the Egyptians, among whom they dwelt. Thus, when God rescued His people out of slavery, He did the work to show Himself King. He again promised them their own land, He gave them a law code to follow, and He promised His protection, time and again, as their king.

But the people, time and again, rejected Him, eventually demanding a “real” king – a human king on the throne, so that they could look like all the other nations, when they were never intended to look like all the other nations. We studied how when the people replaced God as their king, the kingdom on Earth spiraled into non-existence. Yet God, still on His throne in Heaven, did not abandon them. He used this time to prepare their hearts for another King – one that was both man and God – that He would send. The rescuer He had promised from the very beginning to crush the head of the Enemy. And the people waited with eager anticipation, but they missed the point of what they were waiting for. They thought God would once again establish His territory on Earth. They had stuck to the law code and wanted their land back and expected to be His people, under an earthly king, like it should have been all along.

But the king God sent wasn’t yet a warrior king. The king God sent was a shepherd king, preparing the hearts of the people for a Kingdom beyond this Earth. This shepherd King planted the word of the kingdom in the hearts of those who were ready and became the way to the true kingdom, the one prepared by God in Heaven, for His people. And those who saw and understood and had faith in the Kingdom that was ushered in, yet was not visible on Earth, continued to grow this Kingdom in their own hearts and spread the word, the seed, throughout all the nations, no longer restricted by geographical and political boundaries, because the shepherd King gave His own life for His sheep in order to fulfill the old law code and establish a new law code, a law that summarized everything they had been taught: Love your God and love all the people around you, even the hard ones. “It is too light a thing,”  God had said, “that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). And, so, the new Kingdom ushered in by the Shepherd King had expanded to every nation.

And when this Shepherd King, Jesus, ascended into the true Kingdom of Heaven, it became the task of the Kingdom bearers left behind to spread the gospel, the good news, of the kingdom. And they did so by going out into the nations, by proclaiming the goodness of God and of the sacrifice of Jesus and they left instructions for the new body of Christ, the kingdom of God still dwelling on Earth, for how to live on Earth as those whose citizenship is in Heaven.

And now we come to the culmination, because all of this has been leading to a moment we are still, a couple thousand years later, waiting for, that has been revealed to God’s people multiple times throughout Scripture – the final victory over the Enemy and the King fully established over His new Kingdom. I love how Jen Wilkin said it in her book None Like Him – “The Bible recounts the story of a king whose claim to a throne is recognized from the beginning, but whose majesty and authority are only fully apprehended in its closing pages, when we see him crowned and ruling at last” (p150). To be sure, after these weeks of sifting through Scripture looking for the kingdom, it elicits a bit of a victorious response to see God finally, once and for all, sitting on His throne, His kingdom fully constructed and its members bowing in worshipful submission.

Finally!

The whole of Scripture has pointed and led to this moment and those with ears to hear and eyes to see have eagerly watched for it through all of history – that moment when the king banishes the enemy and reclaims what has already been rightfully His.

While we caught a glimpse of the king on his throne in Isaiah, we see in the book of Daniel a foretelling of the final days, when He won’t just be on His throne, but the beast, the Enemy to the throne, will be defeated – he will no longer have reign over the realms of the earth. At that point, “one like a son of man” will be given dominion over the kingdom. This description is to distinguish the new king from the other creatures of heaven with many eyes and wings and taking on the appearance of beasts of the earth. This one to whom the kingdom is given looks like us – like a son of a man. This is Christ, reclaiming the kingdom! Jesus Himself pointed to this truth when he referred to himself throughout his time on Earth as “the Son of Man” – this was him saying, “Remember the vision Daniel saw? Remember how He said the King would give dominion over to a ‘son of man’? That’s me! I’m him! Both the son of man and the Son of God. And I’m here for my kingdom.” The rightful king, foretold by the prophets, will take His rightful place!

The New Testament writers pointed, too, to this moment, reminding the early Church of their citizenship, not of the individual nations into which the people of God were spilling over, but in Heaven. There, the rightful king has been ruling all along, with His Son there beside Him, at His right hand. God has not actually ever ceased to be on the throne; it’s only that His heavenly Kingdom has not fully extended to Earth – nor will it until the moment when He makes all things new.

The New Testament writers remind us, as well, that we do not and cannot know when that time will come. Thus, it is the task of the kingdom remnant on Earth to live out God’s will – justice, kindness, mercy – in the meantime, making the most of the time, living righteously and bearing fruit to grow the kingdom.

So, then, we come to the Revelation given to John of the final battle and the Kingdom reborn. There in Revelation we start with a glimpse of that same king from of old, the Ancient of Days revealed to Isaiah and to Daniel, reigning on the throne, worshipped by the creatures of the heavens, but He is now joined by His Son who, in His full glory, has taken on the appearance of the Father, as detailed in Daniel 7, with hair white like wool.

The Father then declares of Himself, “I am the Alpha and the Omega [the beginning and the last] who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). The king eternal means just that – not that He extends forward into eternity, but that He extends back, as well. He has always been. He is still. And He will always be. And those in Heaven gather round to worship Him for this fact, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come” (Revelation 3:8).

What follows is a series of signs and symbols and scrolls, each with their own significance, which scholars debate their entire lives to understand, but which culminate in one key event – the Warrior King comes at last, riding on a white horse, stained with the blood of His enemies and finally, the beast, the serpent, the enemy that has prowled this earth like a roaring lion since his day in the garden long ago, will be thrown for eternity, into a lake of fire. At that point, Revelation promises, the kingdom of God will no longer be tainted by the despicable, the twisted and the distorted, but God will make all things new – in the perfection only His hands can craft. He once made all the splendor of this earth, and when it has been cleansed, He will re-make it – an entirely new creation for His Kingdom.

There does remain one step between the casting out of the enemy and the opening of the Kingdom. First, the king, our lawgiver and judge, will call for the books to be open, including the Book of Life. Previously in Revelation 13:8, this book is referred to as “the book of life of the Lamb who was slain.” He was slain so those written in the book might have life. Thus, we are told the people of Earth will be judged based on their deeds written in the books, but we can have confidence that the blood of the Lamb has covered all the deeds of those who have faith in His name.

And then God’s Kingdom – the once and forever Kingdom – is revealed and God comes once again to dwell with His people and be their God (Revelation 21:2) in this new heaven and new earth, where “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Every ounce of what we are experiencing now is a part of “the former things” which will pass away. Every hardship, difficulty, pain that makes us feel we can’t breathe, all of it will pass away in a Kingdom with no end where there is no enemy. There will be joy without sorrow; love without hate; truth without deception; good without evil. All will be pure. This is the promise we can cling to now. This is the Kingdom that we are continuing to live for now. We can feel the homesickness, the longing for what we know can be, because we know it will be and every hurting, broken part of us cries out for that kingdom now. This is our hope as Christians dwelling in a fallen world. When we look around us now and ask, “Why?” we look forward to the Not Yet and hold on to the truth that our God – our King – is the one who says, “Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:5-6)

Find the companion teaching video for this week’s lesson here.

For the introduction to this study, read the blog here. Follow this link to find the workbook for this study. Follow each of these links to see Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, and Week 6. Visit the YouTube Channel for teaching videos.