The Kingdom of God and the spiritual fulfillment of the last three feasts of the Lord. Is there a common denominator here? Does the current need for additional understanding of the Scriptures have anything to do with the burden of the Lord toward the land and people of Israel?

We believe there is a point at which these two burdens, the one for the land and people of Israel and the other for a return to apostolic doctrine, will converge.

The area of convergence is the Kingdom of God and the spiritual fulfillments of the last three feasts of the Lord. The last three feasts typify the entrance into the physical realm of the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom of God.

The last three feasts of the Lord are the Blowing of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:24,27,34). The spiritual fulfillments of the last three of the seven feasts of the Lord are not nearly as familiar to Christian people as is true of the spiritual fulfillments of the first four observances.

For centuries the Christian Church has been pursuing the spiritual, religious dimension of the Kingdom of God, as typified by the first four of the seven feasts of the Lord: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost (Leviticus 23:5,6,10,16).

The spiritual dimension of the Kingdom of God has been emphasized for so long a period of time the Christians have come to believe that the goal of the Christian salvation is to make one's eternal home in the spiritual Heaven.

Now we are coming to understand that there is a material dimension of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God, like a human being, is spiritual in its spirit and soul but material in its outward form.

Throughout the Church Age God has been developing the spiritual nature of the Kingdom. Now, however, we are drawing close to the hour when the invisible, spiritual nature of the Kingdom of God will appear in glorified flesh and bones.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. (Luke 24:39)

A Greek term often employed in the New Testament for the coming of the Lord is the word parousia. Parousia may be employed to signify presence, or being near, as distinguished from an emphasis on travel from a far-distant place.

For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence [parousia ] is weak, and his speech contemptible. (II Corinthians 10:10)

The coming of Christ and His Body will be the bodily manifestation of a spiritual nature that has been perfected throughout the hundreds of years of the Christian Era. The emphasis is on presence rather than on a journey from a distant place.

Christ and His saints in glory are "far away" from the peoples of the earth only in the sense they are in a holy spiritual realm. They are not "present," not because they are a long distance away necessarily but because they are in the spirit realm in the Presence of God. As soon as Christ removes the veil by which He hides Himself from the sight of earth's people He will be "present"; He will be near.

And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. (Isaiah 25:7)

To be continued.