The Kingdom of God

- the unshakeable Kingdom that is forever

It is said that the Kingdom of God is not a democracy. It is not like a historical Monarchy from the near or distant past either; and neither is it a fascist state.

Jesus is proclaimed King of Kings and Lord of Lords in the Bible, but His Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom.

The Kingdom of God cannot be a democracy - else it would deteriorate into the fallen and flawed condition of the human race and would disintegrate in a tower of Babel type confusion of incoherency. God cannot lend His fair Name to colossal human failure. Various philosophers and commentators, even Presidents and Prime Ministers may conceive of democracy as the ideal type of government, but, as I have shown in my first essay in this series, democracy itself has become the “god that failed.”

Nor can the Kingdom of God be identified with or even approach close to royal earthly rule, even rule by a good or godly monarch. Fond as some people may be of monarchies, royalties, the pomp and splendour of the court and the “simpler” option of a hereditary line of Kings and Queens, my previous essay should have put to rest any notion that monarchy is the answer to our quest for an ideal form of government.

Fascism may succeed in human terms for a season - but only for a season and only in temporal, transitory human terms. Again and again, fascism has regularly descended into barbarism, General Franco of Spain being one of the few exceptions to this rule. And even Franco would not claim that his fascist government could in any sense be compared to the rule of the Kingdom of God.

Entry into the Kingdom of God demands total surrender to Christ as Lord and Saviour - a total abandonment to the Grace and Mercy of God. And once entered into this everlasting and glorious Kingdom, Christ requires total loyalty and total dependence upon Him. But far from being a totalitarian Kingdom, it is quite the opposite - for those who enter in, find true freedom; true personal and corporate freedom and fulfilment. As Jesus Himself said, “He who loses his life for my sake, will find it.”

When Jesus was asked about His Kingdom, he made a statement that must have startled its hearers: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” The transformation that Christ brings about is within us - and occurs at the foot of the Cross. As the great American missionary to India, E. Stanley Jones once said, “the central miracle of Christianity is within.”

The Kingdom of God starts with inward transformation, the “new creature in Christ” that the New Testament gloriously proclaims. It is not a future, blissful state - but a very real and verifiable, present state.

How does this belonging to Christ, to His Kingdom, translate to the affairs and governments of men and women and children - and does a corporate identity of those who belong to the Kingdom of God also lead to corporate governance that surpasses by far anything that monarchy, democracy or fascism is capable of?

It stands to ordinary reason that transformed individuals, born into the Kingdom of God, will bring about transformative and righteous societal change as they impact their fellow human beings with the values of the Kingdom of God. This has in fact happened repeatedly in history with committed Christians bringing about the abolishing of slavery in the West (Wilberforce), humane prison conditions (Elizabeth Fry), banning of forced child labour and improving working conditions for women (Earl of Shaftesbury) - and numerous other achievements of these citizens of the Kingdom of God. Those like Mahatma Gandhi in the East have made the values of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on The Mount a living manifestation of the power and purpose of the Kingdom.

The subjects of the Kingdom of God, those who have yielded their allegiance to Christ, know the King in their hearts and commune with Him in prayer, although they do not see him with human eyes. Even in the ancient royal Kingdoms ruled by human monarchs, subjects often never actually saw the King or Queen, although they lived in his or her Kingdom and knew who the monarch was.

Christians look forward to what in Greek is called the “parousia” - when Christ will return in glory and “every eye shall see Him.” But the Kingdom of God was ushered in by His first coming - the Babe in the manger, the Cross and the Resurrection. It continues today in the hearts and lives of millions upon millions of His subjects - and it looks forward to the parousia, the consummation of time and the wiping from every eye of every tear.

At the start of His ministry and mission on earth, Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom of God starts now, starts with Him:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor;

he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,

to preach deliverance to the captives,

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty them that are bruised,

to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Citizens of the Kingdom of God are not limited by oceans, deserts or mountains - and across borders and earthly domains, all over the world, these citizens recognize each other and try to work with each other to carry out the mission of their King - “deliverance of the captive, recovering of sight to the blind, healing the broken hearted.” Sometimes, under the fierce fires of persecution, as in ancient Rome, Christians signal citizenship of this Kingdom by drawing the secret sign of a fish; and sometimes in workplaces and political groupings, in hospitals and prisons, Kingdom citizens search out and collaborate with other citizens. Everywhere in the here and now, the Kingdom “presses forward” and as the Gospel of John reminds us “the darkness has never mastered it.”

The Kingdom of God is an everlasting and unshakeable Kingdom. This is true both individually and in the corporate life of the Kingdom. The ordinary citizen of the Kingdom has assurance of eternal life - life that never ends, life that is lived with Christ forever. Jesus proclaimed: “He who lives and believes in me shall never die.” The physical body will end, but the essential me, the essential you (the soul) will live forever with God, and will receive a new and glorified body, like the resurrected Jesus. So that citizens of this Kingdom proclaim with St. Paul, “O death where is thy sting? O grave where thy victory?”

Corporately, the Kingdom of God is indestructible and has unlimited resources in Christ. Numerous tyrants and tyrannical governments have tried to destroy the citizens of this Kingdom and bring it to an end. But the Kingdom of God always triumphs - over ancient Rome and Greece; and in our own time, over the demonic forces of communism. And over every force that is ever thrown against it.

Governments and kingdoms (fascist, democratic, monarchist, even communist) come and go - but the Kingdom of God is forever.