- Gospel of Mark: 4:26-34
He also said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come." He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade." With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it; he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
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We have to phrase a major question, regarding the Kingdom of God. Is it a spiritual realm, or is it an earthly realm? Is it a visible phenomenon or is it an invisible one?
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17, Jesus says that “When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God will not come with observable signs. Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
It sounds like that the Kingdom of God is a spiritual development inside the people and in the relationships among the people. It mainly belongs to the operational scope of the soul and the human spirit, but of course it may affect the physical environment as well, including our body.
Being a spiritual realm, it can be a question too, that who are the citizens of this kingdom of God, manifested on Earth, descending from Heaven?
Are the deceased ones among its members, or only the living? Is there a difference between the Kingdom of God manifested on Earth and the so called Kingdom of Heaven, where the general understanding is that, that Heaven is out there somewhere, meanwhile we are on Earth. The Kingdom of Heaven is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, but in the Gospel of Matthew, however in more than thirty verses.
Once upon a time in a far, far away near eastern country, called Judea, occupied by Rome, it happened that some of the priests of the Jerusalem Temple came to Jesus, those who denied that there is a resurrection. Today, it is hardly imaginable that in that time the priesthood was the very religious body who rejected the very notion of the resurrection.
They asked Jesus, that “Teacher, there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless. The second took her as wife, and he died childless. The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died. Afterward the woman also died. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be?” For all the seven had her as a wife, in the frame of the lawful succession of the institution of the levirate marriage.
On Earth we can dispute that in Heaven maybe she should be the wife of the latest husband, or the most handsome one, or the richest one, or the one who loved her the most, or the one she loved the most, or the one who treated her the best, or the one she felt treating her the best.
Nonetheless, Jesus said, that “The children of this age marry, and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels, and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”
Regarding the answer of Jesus, it might be established, that the Kingdom of Heaven, where the co-existence of the angels and human souls are immanent, does not contain biological features, it is a spiritual kingdom, but it is also the place of the resurrection or the final destination of the souls.
It can be also a question that the earthly manifestation of the Kingdom of God is a present or a future phenomenon?
--- It might be interesting to see that the very exact term of “Kingdom of God” is very frequent in the New Testament, but it can not be found at all in the wholeness of the Hebrew Scriptures, though in the book of Daniel, the prophet talks about an eternal kingdom by saying that “In the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”
Those kings in the famous dream of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, meant the Persian, the Seleucid Greek, the Parthian and the Roman consecutive empires, thus, in the time of the writing of the book of the Daniel in the second century, the emergence of the eternal kingdom was supposedly present or near future time. It is also quite interesting that the closest Hebrew term to the Kingdom of God, the so called “world to come” or Olam HaBA in Hebrew, can not be found in the Old Testament, and it is extremely rare in the New Testament, as well. ---
However, it is also known that the book of Daniel along with the book of Zechariah was widely read by the early followers of John the Baptist and Jesus and the forerunners of the future Jerusalem congregation, and for them the very coming of the Kingdom of God was at least a near future event, or the very arrival of Jesus meant that the Kingdom was not only near, but it has come already in him.
When Jesus performed a lot of exorcism, he had to defend his actions by saying that “But if I but the Spirit of God cast out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come on you.”
However, his disciples frequently asked the big question of the when, saying that “ Lord, are you now restoring the kingdom to Israel? ” Or what? In their view the manifestation of the Kingdom of God, should be realized in the liberation of the Land of Israel from the Romans, in the restoration of the Kingdom of David, ruled by the Messiah of God, either for ever or at least a millennium.
Regarding the membership of the spiritual kingdom of God we have to see that it is rather exclusive than inclusive, like automatically not everybody is a member, as Jesus said that “again I tell You, it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.”
Nonetheless, sometimes it is not completely visible on Earth who really belongs to the Kingdom of God, as Jesus said that the repenting tax collectors and the repenting prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God before the non-repenting people. And as an ultimate criteria he told Nicodemus, that everyone who are seeking admission into the Heavenly Kingdom, they must be born again by repentance (water) and by the Holy Spirit. The kingdom of God, as a spiritual realm, is invisible for the earthly eyes, but it becomes visible after the departure of the soul to the Afterlife, which is the world to come.
Nonetheless, the invisible was visible to the prophets, as Elisha saw the opened Heavens and the chariots of fire, and as Isaiah saw the seraphs and the cherubs of God. That is why the prophets were called Nabiim in Hebrew, because it means the seers. Also, as God is omnipresent, his kingdom, as well, is omnipresent, not only somewhere out there, but as Jesus said, it is in our midst too. As we are children of God, we are not only biological creatures, but we are spiritual souls as well. Thus, the kingdom of God is not only among us but within us.
In this respect the kingdom is happening right now, and will continue to happen in the Afterlife, which is the world to come. In order to participate in the kingdom, in order to be admitted into the kingdom and becoming a citizen, we have to respect the laws of the great king, otherwise we rebel against the King on Earth and in Heaven. The greatest commandment says that we shall love the Lord our God from our whole heart, from our whole mind and with our whole strength, to keep all the Commandments not out of fear, but out of love toward the Creator Spirit, to whom praise be given, here and in the eternity,
Amen
