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The Daily Word of Righteousness
A Description of the Kingdom of God, #11
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (I Timothy 3:16)
God's purpose in creating a spiritual-material kingdom and revelation. Now we come to a great mystery.
The question is, What is the significance of the Kingdom of God? Why is God creating an eternal revelation of Himself that is both spiritual and material?
A related question is, Why did God require that His sons, the rulers of His Kingdom, even His only begotten Son, be born physically in the material realm? God could have created mankind in the spirit realm as easily as He put Paradise on the earth and created Adam and Eve in that environment. And why did God permit Satan to enter His new creation?
The beauty and wonder of the spirit paradise was created by and for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who have had visions of the spirit paradise say there are parks, children playing on the grass, tame animals, lovely valleys and hills, rural and suburban scenes of unblemished beauty and joy. Some have seen the jasper wall, the gates of pearl, and the transparent gold street of the heavenly Jerusalem.
No one who has returned from such an experience has expressed disappointment in what he or she has witnessed. Many were grieved because of having to return for a season and finish their tasks in the world.
The Logos of God dwells in His spirit paradise. Paradise is His true environment. Paradise came from God who dwells in the Logos.
But Paradise is not the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God began when the Logos became flesh.
. . . These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; (Revelation 3:14)
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; (Colossians 1:18,19)
God envisioned a state of being for the Logos that is better than the spirit paradise. God counseled the Logos:
Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. (Psalms 2:8)
Why should the Logos be required to pray in order to receive that which He Himself had created? Another mystery!
God's Kingdom is the eternal union of the Person and Life of God and the material world. The everlasting inheritance of Christ is the nations and the farthest reaches of the earth. Christ had to pray for possession of the nations because God cannot possess a human being merely by creating him. God must gain his love, his heart.
Isn't Paradise marvelous and wonderful enough for us? Why does the Father deem it desirable that the Kingdom of God include the material realm as well as the spirit realm?
Perhaps it is easier for us to understand the reasons for a temporary sojourn of God's Son and sons in the material world, a temporary spiritual-material revelation of God and His Kingdom.
To be continued.