It should be, yet those who believe that the Church was present in the OT, then it needs to be qualified. I was just qualifying it, thats all. Anything else than a reference to the Church (believers from Acts 2 - Rapture) would be inappropriate.

I don't think this passage proves that association. Since the Church hasn't begun at this time, and Christ is talking to the Pharisees, this Kingdom has to be something other than a spiritual Kingdom since the Pharisees aren't saved. Christ was saying that the Kingdom was here b/c its King was here. It just had to be accepted through repentance and on the King's terms. He was rejected thus the Kingdom was rejected.

I am sorry but always is an overstatement. The majority of its usage is in the gospels (pre-Church). That being said, it refers to the Kingdom message preached to Israel. That means it is not the Church. Any mention of the Kingdom of God after Pentecost in Acts 2 still does not change its meaning. So it is not associated with Christians. It is associated with its future culmination and fulfillment in the Millennial Kingdom. That said, it was preached due to the soteriological aspect of entrance into the Kingdom. So to preach the Kingdom of God in the early Church would be to preach that the Kingdom has been prophetically postponed but entrance is still to be born again (John 3). Thus it was preached - for its message of regeneration and to explain the new program of the Church.

Jim, this is a monumental day. We agree here! Is this an April fools joke ? Are you setting me up, getting my hopes up that we are brothers who don't always have to fight?

This post was last modified: Tue Apr 01, 2008 08:50 PM by Greektim.

Also, the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the heavens are the same thing - Matt. 19:23-24.

Understood. I do not believe the church is even remotely referred to in the OT, because it was referred to as a "mystery" in the NT.

I believe it does, Jesus was referring to the term "you" as in mankind "all of you", not just the Pharisees and their possible salvation, yes Jews did get saved during Jesus' time here on earth, just not as a covenental acceptance by the Oracle-keepers. Gentiles accepted Christ, opening the Kingdom of God to them. The fact that the Church had not been established at that point is moot at this time. The term "Kingdom of God" was used 68 more times in the NT all of which referred to christians, why would this term "Kindgom of God" be used any differently?

OK, I will give you that. I was even a little apprehensive in it's use when I typed it. The overall picture we glean from the use of the term "Kingdom of God" in all the NT, gives us an understanding that it refers to the reign of Christ Jesus over the saved. Christians. e.g. "realm of Salvation". The ultimate inheritance of Christians. It is an encompassing term, and it is associated with the saved.

As stated above, I disagree. Salvation and christianity is synonymous with the Kingdom of God:

John3:5
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Acts 8:12
But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Romans 14:17
For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Acts 28:31
Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.

1 Cor 6:10
Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

2 Thess 1:5
Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:

Amen! Amen! and Amen! No way, I agree with this completely! This is not a joke.

It IS good that we agree about something, now if I can only convince you that we have the Word of God in English, and we do not have to rely on the Greek Texts to understand it's meaning. We have the Holy Spirit to do it for us.

Love in Christ,

Jim

This is quite extraordinary. I had noever seen the difference used between the two verses here:

[quote]
19:23
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

19:24
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

I do not see "heavens" plural? Is that a typo or is it somewhere where you are reading it? Either way, I will look into this also.

Referring to Luke 17:20-21:

Well let’s look at the context. The KJV says in vs. 20 that “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said…” Who did He answer? Them. Who is “them” according to the context? The Pharisees. Thus Christ says in vs. 21 “behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (probably meaning “among you”). This has to be an earthly, political, and Davidic aspect of the Kingdom of God.

When was the Kingdom of God ever offered to Gentiles? It was only for Israel.

That is an Amillennial teaching. The beginning of Luke states the Kingdom idea associated with Christ and the Jews in Luke 1:32-33. The reign was over the Jews, not the saved (unless you believe that Jews refer to saved like an Amill). It was a physical kingdom. Otherwise, the 1,000 years in Rev. 20 should be spiritualized since it also refers to the reign of Christ over the saved.

I would say that salvation is only related to the Kingdom of God in that entrance into the Kingdom is through regeneration (John 3:3 & 5). Christ says in vs. 3 to “see” the Kingdom. That is a physical idea. Christ says in vs. 5 that no one can “enter” the Kingdom w/o regeneration. Again, this is another physical word conveying a physical idea of a physical kingdom. I said earlier why the Kingdom of God was preached.

Did a heretic actually show you something new? Wow !!!

You don’t see “heavens” b/c most English translations mistranslate the passage (of course I am saying this to make your blood boil. But again, I think the authority rest in the Greek and the English does not trump the Greek). It is not a typo, I am just reading it from the Greek text. I feel like I can joke around with you a little bit now. I hope you get my humor here .

I do understand that the address was towards the Pharisees, because it was the Pharisees that demanded an answer, but Jesus answered many times a general asnwer in relation to things that were not specific to the questioner or accuser. I too gathered that a direct translation could be considered "among you", however, using the bible as it's own commentary, the reference to the Kingdom of God all used the same Greek (setting aside the Kingdom of Heavens for now) to describe it. So, in essence, referring to the other scripture I gave it could very well not have been a physical location. It is like the "church discussion we just had. We both just agreed that the term "church" refers to a body of believers, yet ,why cannot we also understand that the Kingdom of God refers to also the same context, a realm of believers representing salvation? the Bride of Christ as the people of a Spiritual Kingdom where CHrist is King? This Kingdom exists now. Remember that Jesus said about this kingdom cometh not with observation. I believe Him to mean that it is only understood in the spiritual realm of salvation.

I am also looking at how there are differences in the kingdom of heaven in the spiritual aspect and the kingdom of heaven in the literal, political sense. Yes, I will admit that in some instances there is a reference to the literal kingdom of God for the Jews that Christ will restore unto the Jews.

I will admit that I need to study this more.

Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch. I definitely am not an amillennialist. I certainly believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ to set up His kingdom here on earth. I am a premillenialist.

The only way to expain in a nutshell, my belief without all of this vocabulary, is that I believe that Jesus Christ came for the Jews alone. They rejected the lamb at which time Christ turned to the Gentiles, at which point we were grafted in. We have only salvation through His shed blood through His grace, and that makes us part of the Bride (church). This is the age of grace (This does not include the reference to the remnant of Israel who will wait until his turn). After the completion of the Bride of Christ in the rapture, then Jesus will turn His attention back to Israel to finish the promise.

That is what I believe.

Ouch again, I never thought of you as an heretic. Anyhow, what I meant is that I didn't see the difference in the words, as in I didn't give it any thought.

Yes brother, I get the humor, lol. Anyhow, as concerning this word, I know now what you and Tim were discussing in the other thread on this subject.

I am assuming that you are referring to heaven at the end of verse 23?

If so, Strong's has it as the same Greek word as all of the others. Yes, I know it does not show the translation itself, but it is showing the same exact Greek masculine noun of "ouranos". So where is the contradiction?

I just checked Tischendorf, Westcott/Hort, TR 1500-1800, Byzantine Majority, Greek NT Orthodox, and Tischendorf with Diacritics. Every single instance of "heaven" shows this:

οὐρανῶν

Is there something outside of the word itself that leads you to believe that it is in the plural?

Love in Christ,

Jim

This post was last modified: Tue Apr 01, 2008 10:29 PM by Jim.

Are the Jim and Tim posting here amiably the same Jim and Tim that are chew each others' legs on the preservation thread? Based on the relative times, I hope that ye (which being interpreted "y'all") have shook hands and made up. Next we will have lions and lambs hanging around.

Lol, yes it is us, amazing, huh?

I just realized that I posted the K of the heavens parallel to the K of God on the other post. Now we are getting into the K of the heavens vs. the K of Heaven on this post. We flip flopped. I am going to post my reply to the statements Jim made about the Greek in the other thread so I don't confuse myself.

Brought from the "of Heaven" vs. "of the heavens" thread:

Let me state my view first that any reference to the Kingdom/Kingdom of God/His Kingdom/Kingdom of the heavens/etc. refers to the same Kingdom. Proper interpretation (no matter what translation you use) should employ a consistent & literal method of interpretation. Kingdom in the NT almost exclusively refers to the future Messianic Kingdom. That is why we see the terms K of God & K of the heavens used interchangeably. Just b/c you don’t see the phrase K of God in the OT, there are reference after reference to the future Davidic, Messianic, Millennial Kingdom. There is no reason to change the meaning of the K of God when Christ never defines it differently from the OT definition of the coming Kingdom.

Matthew doesn’t use the phrase K of the heavens exclusively. He switches back and forth (showing its interchangeable nature). Matt. 12:28 is a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy. His credentials of Messiah was proved in chapters 8-10. Chapter 12, we see Christ prove His Messiahship again w/ another miracle. This time, the religious leaders rejected it (ultimate rejection w/ the ultimate sin). Thus you have the parables in chapter 13 of the postponement of the Kingdom. But the miracle in chapter 12 would refer them back to the OT credentials of the Messiah. Thus the Kingdom referred to is still Messianic.

This is true b/c both are the same thing. They are used interchangeably.

I would argue and say that they are both found in the OT. It was the prophesied Kingdom. Just because the phrase wasn’t used, that doesn’t show what they meant. It is likely that by the time of Christ, 400 years had passed since any written revelation had come. Thus the phrase Kingdom of God would have developed from that time of anticipation of the Kingdom. As to the reference to the K of the heavens, it is not used outside of Matthew so Acts 2 or 7 is not going to mention it.

Even just before Christ ascended back to the Father, the disciples after being trained 40 days on the Kingdom of God by Christ (Acts 1:3), the disciples understood it to refer to Israel (Acts 1:6). If their view of the Kingdom of God was wrong, then this would be the best place for Christ to correct it. But their view wasn’t wrong, just their timing of its fulfillment. We have to remember that they were “ignorant” of these truths at this time in Acts 1 b/c the Holy Spirit had not come yet and brought these things back to their memory (John 14:26 & 16:13). But they knew enough to know that the Kingdom of God was for Israel.

Something else to consider with the view of the Kingdom of God being a spiritual reign of Christ. To have a Kingdom and a reign, one must have a throne and the title King. Christ is not on a throne. The messianic Psalm 110:1 says that Christ must sit at the right hand of God until He begins His reign. Matt. 25:31 necessitates that Christ's rule is reserved only to the future Millennial reign. It necessitates that He sits on a throne only in the future (the context making the future referring to the MK). Also, Christ is at the right hand of the Father. THe Father is on the throne (Universal rule Ps 10:16, 145:13, 29:10, 103:19, & Jer. 10:10). That is why we pray to the Father and approach the throne of grace boldly.

The title of King with Christ is never given as a reference over the Church or the saved. Mostly you see the term King of the Jews or King of Israel. But you never see King of the Church or King of the saved. The title King of kings is always set in the future Millennial reign. So this spiritual/soteriological reign of Christ lacks 2 very important features of a reign - a throne and the title king of said reign.

For more, see this article: http://debatingtheologicalissues.blogspo...hurch.html

This post was last modified: Thu Apr 03, 2008 09:16 AM by Greektim.

Folks, I'm to tired tonight to read everything on this thread right now, so feel free to shoot me down. I'll pick up the pieces later.

IF Matthew is the Jewish Gospel, and the church didn't exist until Pentecost, then just where was offended brother supposed to take his case? Did the disciples listening to Jesus speak have ANY CLUE about what He was saying? (Andrew elbows Peter and whispers, "Hey, Simon, what is a church?")

Oh, oh, oh (Andrew's hand is raised and waving)

And just as he thinks he is going to ask an intelligent question, Jesus, continuing His thoughts says,

, simply and contextually defining the local church. (gasp!)

They had more than a clue. Since the Church was first mentioned by Christ back in Matt. 16:18, they knew about a new program (of course it didn't click immediately). But Christ was still teaching His disciples of this new program, and as you pointed out the ministry of this new program in the local church. The fact of Christ's teaching shifting is seen directly after the first prophecy of the Church (16:18}. After Christ reveals the future building of the His Church, in verse 21, Christ began to change His teaching (probably a dispensational distinctive from one economy to the other). It would make sense that though the Church did not begin until Acts 2, Christ would prepare in advance His disciples of this new and different program of the Body/Bride of Christ.

This post was last modified: Fri Apr 04, 2008 09:53 PM by Greektim.

Curious to me: Matt 16 could be understood as future (post-Acts 2?), but how could that be understood in Matt 18? Appears to be present action to me: "tell it" (v.17) and "are gathered" (v.20) ooh, ooh, wait ... it's that verb thing again, isn't it. yea, that's the ticket!