The Kingdom of God is the forming of Christ in us. To enter the Kingdom is equivalent to having Christ formed in us. The Spirit brings our first personality down to death so henceforth it is Christ who is living in us. It no longer is our original personality who is living but Christ who is living. This is the Kingdom of God.

The Kingdom of God does not consist of a set of theological beliefs. Theological beliefs can be helpful, but as far as eternal life is concerned, theological beliefs are sterile. Only Christ Himself is eternal life. It is only as His life is in us that we have the light of the Kingdom of God. Theological beliefs are useful in the Kingdom of God only to the extent that they contribute to the forming of Christ in us. Otherwise, such beliefs are dead religion.

The Kingdom of God is not in words but in the power of the Presence of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life.

Christianity is not a religion, although its practitioners have made it so. Rather, Christianity is a kingdom that soon will descend from Heaven and by great violence take over the governments of the earth. Christianity is the giving of Divine Life and Substance to the concepts of biblical Judaism.

Our church trappings, organs, pews, steeples and such, are not essential parts of the Kingdom. They are scaffolding that will be removed when they no longer are needed. Christendom has created a culture of its own, separate from the ordinary ways of earth and therefore alien to the Kingdom of God. The Body of Christ is being created in the midst of this alien culture, this Babylon (man-directed Christianity). How good God is! How patient and loving!

No sin ever can enter the Kingdom of God. Sinning people can be forgiven through the grace of God in Christ and thus be saved in the Day of the Lord. In fact, Christ pointed out that the "publicans and the harlots" go into the Kingdom of God before the chief priests and the elders of the people (Matthew 21:31). The remorseful and truly repentant find a welcome awaiting them at the door of the Kingdom, the cross of Calvary. Nevertheless sin cannot be brought into the Kingdom of God.

We do not obtain permanent status in the Kingdom of God on the basis of forgiveness, on the basis of the removing of our guilt by the mercy of God. Satan never will obtain residence in the Kingdom of God. We who believe become part of the Kingdom by means of the power of deliverance that resides in the Kingdom, and which is extended to people at the will of Christ. He is the King and Judge.

The churches on earth are composed of forgiven sinners. The Kingdom of God consists of new creatures.

Perhaps the greatest single mistake in Christian thinking is the concept that the grace of Christ brings the sinful and self-seeking into Paradise. This would be to destroy Paradise, to make it Hell.

Christ did not come in order to bring the sinful and self-seeking into Paradise. Christ came to convert the sinner into a righteous person and the self-seeking into a God-centered individual. For only the righteous and the God-centered enter the Kingdom, and are the Kingdom.

To be continued.