Principles of the Kingdom of God. Kenneth B. Alexander BSL, JD, Deacon
sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness" (Hebrews 12:7-11).
The Father is also the recipient of the labors of His Son, and we as adoptive Sons, in the bringing forth of the Kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 15:24-25 says: "then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He [the Son] has abolished all rule and all authority and power" and made all His enemies the footstool of His feet, so God can be over all, in all and through all”. The main thing to remember is that the Father is our perfect Father, loving us each in a personal relationship that surpasses all understanding. And that as His family we are one with Him and each other even as the Trinity is one.
Lastly, and foremost, God is love. That is the core of His being and the motivating factor for everything He does. John said: “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). One important aspect of God’s love is that He loved us, long before we loved Him. He accomplished salvation of all mankind all by Himself long before we were even aware of His existence. He loved us while we were still sinners, isolated from God as a result of the curse of the original sin. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That love of God extends to our brother. “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21).
Love is the greatest commandment. “One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:35-40). So as God loves we return that love to Him and to all who live on the earth. “For God [the Father] so loved the world, that He gave His only [unique, one of a kind] begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
The Son
The Son is the Word of God, the “logos” in Greek. He has been with God the Father for eternity as He is the vehicle through whom the creative powers of the Father were exercised. The Apostle John puts it this way: " In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He [Jesus] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ". (John 1:1-12, 14, 17).
Since the beginning, the spoken Word of God (logos in Greek) has caused all things to come into being. The Bible itself is the Word of God in written form. Yet Jesus was the Word of God made flesh so we could see and experience it. Everything Jesus did was at the behest of the Father, representing the Word of the Father in human form.
The Son came to forgive all people their sins but that was not an end in itself. He forgave so mankind could receive His nature and, like Him and also become Sons in the Kingdom of God like Him. Hebrews 2:10 confirms this: "For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing MANY SONS to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings". The Son came to offer the ultimate sacrifice on the cross that we too may partake of His and the Father's nature--to become like Them. "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be LIKE HIM, because we will see Him just as He is" (John 3:2).
The Son came to initiate a New Covenant between God and man (hence New Testament). Hebrews 9:11 explains: "Now the first [old] covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;” The Old Covenant, made between God and the Nation of Israel through Moses, was conditional. That is to say God agreed to bless Israel as long as they were obedient to Him and followed all His laws. He made a provision for the forgiveness of sin, through the blood of bulls and goats, but the provision was temporary in that Israel had to come at least once a year to have the forgiveness applied. There were other sacrifices that needed to be made to forgive certain types of sin (Leviticus 1-7). The Old Testament sacrifices were but a “type and shadow” of the perfect ministry Christ was to initiate. “Now if He [Christ] were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Hebrews 8:4-5).
“For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? [in the Spirit] For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Hebrews 9:13-15)
The New Covenant was unconditional, not depending on works and sacrifices. It was fulfilled through grace (unmerited favor) by faith in the Christ who made the perfect eternal sacrifice on our behalf. And what is this New Covenant? "You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Corinthians 3:1). In other words God writes His nature on our hearts, granting us a completely new nature, so that it is impossible to sin any longer.
Jeremiah, Old Testament prophet, speaks prophetically of the New Covenant: "Behold, days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, "declares the LORD. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the LORD, "I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (31:31-33; quoted in full in Hebrews 10:16-17).
Thus where the Old Covenant offered only temporary forgiveness for sin, the New Covenant was eternal; the laws of God were written on man's heart. It therefore became impossible for man to sin since his old nature was changed into the sinless nature of Christ. This is why Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it to its very jot and tittle. Christ was the embodiment of the Law of God in that He did nothing but what He saw the Father do; we likewise partake of this promise through grace.
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