In my opinion, understanding the differences between the ‘Kingdom of God’ and the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ is THE biggest key to understanding the overarching story of the Bible. What happened when Adam fell? Why do we need Jesus to save us? What happened to get us to this point and what will happen in the future?
All these questioned get answered here.
The danger in many of the “new bible versions” is that they combine the two kingdoms into one, and in doing so have caused mass confusion in the Christian community. Combining these two kingdoms has directly lead to many ‘amillennial’ and ‘postmillennial’ heresies.
HERE’S A CHART TO HELP YOU FOLLOW ALONG.
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So, lets start by separating the two Kingdoms and to do that we’ll start at the beginning…
The very beginning.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Genesis 1:1
The first four words of the Bible answers a lot of questions.
In the beginning, God. Plain and simple.
God is Spiritual.
What follows is what God did: CREATED the heaven and the earth.
Anything created is physical. So heaven and earth are physical.
A lot of people think heaven is spiritual but it’s not. There are three heavens in the bible. We won’t get too far into them right now but in short the sky is the first heaven (Think the tower of Babel/skyscraper). Space/universe is the second heaven. And then the third heaven is where the throne of God rests (where Jesus is right now) and it’s described as a physical place by both Ezekiel and the Apostle John (Revelation).
So, if God is spiritual, not physical (and we know he’s not physical because Jesus Christ represents the physical body of the Godhead and God the father is the Soul of the Godhead while the Holy Spirit is the spirit of the Godhead. “Let us make man in “OUR” image.” Body, Soul, Spirit. -Genesis 1:26), then the Kingdom of God is also spiritual.
And we have scripture to back it up:
For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Romans 14:17
And if Heaven is physical (it was created so it’s physical), then the Kingdom of Heaven is also physical. And we have scripture to back that up too:
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Matthew 11:12
A spiritual Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, cannot be taken by force. Only a physical Kingdom (the Kingdom of Heaven) can.
Now we won’t really dwell here but it must be mentioned (and will be a future study [see the Gap theory]), that before God made Adam he made the angels and Lucifer. We know this for many reasons but one of the easiest to surmise is that Satan (Lucifer) had already fallen and was in the Garden in Genesis.
And we know, from Isaiah 14 that Lucifer had a throne on earth before Adam. He was a ruler of a physical kingdom. And, as the anointed Cherub, made by God, he was also a spiritual being. So Lucifer, before falling and becoming Satan, had BOTH the kingdom of God (spiritual) and the Kingdom of Heaven (physical) when he was the king on earth.
But Lucifer fell and God replaced him with Adam. God made Adam from the dust of the earth (Physical), and in the image of God (Spiritual). And God placed him as ruler over all the earth. So when Adam was around, before he fell, he held both the “crowns” (Adam was a type of King), of the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now lets pause here and digest something. The bible only ever states that two men were made in the image of God. Adam (Gen. 1:26) and Jesus (Col. 1:12-15). Both had God the father as their father and both were made out of the earth (Adam from dust and Jesus from his human mother). That’s why Jesus says he’s son of God (Spiritual, Matthew 27:43), and the son of Man (Physical, John 8:28).
So here’s where all the trouble starts. Adam eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge and his spirit dies. He had the spirit of God in him but now he has the spirit of man in him instead, and the spirit of man is carnal. That’s why our natural state end in us going to Hell. That’s why we need to Jesus to save us. Because WE are NOT born in the image of God! We are born in the image of Adam (fallen Adam). And, we have scripture to back that up:
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, and after his image; and called his name Seth:
Genesis 5:3
But God had mercy on mankind. See, unlike Satan mankind didn’t fall by trying to overthrow God. Nor did they sin entirely of their own volition. It took Satan to manipulate Man into sinning and losing the Spirit of God. So God prophesied right then and there that it was going to be through Man that Satan would be undone. This is the very first prophecy of Jesus Christ and it happened right after mankind fell:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Genesis 3:15
So God allowed Man to stay and rule on the earth. And Adam still was king over it and had the “crown” of the Kingdom of Heaven (physical), but the Kingdom of God (spiritual) was gone.
But since mankind was no longer made in the image of God, but in the image of a fallen Adam, mankind became corrupted and forgot God and had only wickedness in their hearts (With the exception of a few Godly men). But it came to pass when the last “Godly man” was Noah, that God decided to start over again (Kind of like he did when he destroyed the earth after Lucifer fell [see again the Gap Theory]) and passed the “crown” of the Kingdom of God to Noah. We can see this because both Noah and Adam were given the same decree by God:
To Adam:
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” -Gen 1:28
To Noah:
“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” -Gen 9:1
So Noah was the new “king” over the physical earth, chosen by God, and his three sons spread out and created the three races of Men on earth. Asians through Shem. Caucasians through Japheth. And Africans through Ham. God blessed the line of Shem, Cursed the line of Ham and enlarged the line of Japheth (Genesis 9).
So the “crown” of the Kingdom of Heaven was set up to be passed down through the line of Shem, who would breed the Jewish people through his descendent Abraham (Yes, Jews are technically Asian. Think “middle east” vs “far east”).
So Abraham was chosen by God to be the grandfather of the Jewish people. The people who would eventually birth the messiah who would fulfill the prophecy of Genesis 3:15. So Abraham held the “crown” of the Kingdom of Heaven, which was then passed on to his son Isaac, and then to his son Jacob, who becomes the nation of Israel.
Israel then heads in to Egypt with God’s promise that he will one day bring them back out of Egypt (Gen. 46:4), which happens, nearly 400 years later with Moses being the new bearer of the “crown” of the Kingdom of Heaven. And from Moses onward the Kingdom of Heaven was at WAR. War with Egypt. War with Babylon. War with Rome. Clearly, a physical kingdom (I’m stressing the point that the Kingdom of Heaven is NOT the Kingdom of God, like so many claim, which is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”)
So Moses held lead the kingdom to the promised land, but it was actually Joshua who God chose after Moses to finish the Job. And soon after God rose up a king in David, and the “crown” of the Kingdom of Heaven passed to him, and then to his son Solomon, and then to generations of kings after Solomon (I and II Kings).
And then Jeconiah, king of Judah, took the throne and lead the entire nation away from God. So God cursed Jeconiah so that none of his descendants would ever sit on the throne of David (Jeremiah 22:28–30). And he stripped the “Je” (“I AM”) from his name, calling him only Coniah from thence forth. And, for the first time since before Adam, neither the Kingdom of God nor the Kingdom of Heaven were on the face of the earth. And Israel was taken captive by Babylon not to be a nation again until 1948 AD (about 2,500 years later).
** It is worth noting here that even though it was Jeconiah who ended the lineage of the seed of David, and thus the Kingdom of Heaven, until Jesus showed up on the scene, the Jews lost their nation several hundred years earlier (2 Chronicles. 12), around 975BC. However, even though in Captivity (not always “carried of” in captivity, however) for the next 1000 years (from Egyptian rule, to the Assyrian captivity (around 700BC), then the Babylonian Captivity (600 BC), then ruled under the Persians (500 BC), Alexandrian Empire (325BC) and then under Roman occupation by the time of Jesus starts preaching), they still had a line of kingly lineage that the crown of the Kingdom of Heaven sat on. Until, as just mentioned, Jeconiah shows up. At that point the crown, in the eyes of God, was removed.
But, whilst still in the captivity of Babylon, God rose up a prophet in Daniel. And Daniel prophesied of the nations that would rise and fall after Babylon, and of the return of both the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven (Daniel 2).
And, about 500 years later, both the kingdoms were finally at hand, called out by John the Baptist. And he preached that the one who would bring the kingdoms was here, on earth, and he was.
And at 30 years old Jesus begins his ministry, calling out that the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God were at hand (do a simple word search on “Kingdom of Heaven” and “Kingdom of God” to see the many times Jesus preaches on both, It’s A LOT). And the Jews celebrated for the Kingdom of Heaven, which had always been reserved for the Jewish people (Romans 4:13), A physical kingdom, as promised to Abraham, was finally at hand, after being oppressed for a thousand years! Finally, their messiah, the conqueror king, had arrived!
But the Jewish people didn’t realize that their messiah came not as a conqueror (2nd coming), but as a sacrificial lamb (1st coming). And they were confused as to why Jesus didn’t free them from the grasp of Rome and restore the kingdom of Heaven. So they rejected him. They didn’t understand that Jesus came to restore the Kingdom of God first, and for that, he had to die. He died so he could take away the sin of the world and so that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in them that would receive him, and that the Kingdom of God (Spiritual) would be restored:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
John 3:3
Once the sacrifice was complete, and Jesus rose from the earth, the Kingdom of God was available to Men. But it was an invisible kingdom because the Kingdom of God is spiritual . Remember, the kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” And, for the first time since the creation of man, people could now receive the Kingdom of God, and so Church Age began (through Paul).
But not before the nation of Israel had one last shot at redemption. At accepting Christ, starting the rapture, and the tribulation, and the final restoration of the Kingdoms, as God promised (Rev. 11:15). And it was Stephen that gave this message to the Jews in Acts chapter 7. But the Jews rejected Christ and stoned Stephen. So Christ sat back down at his father’s right hand (he was standing in Acts 7, getting ready to come down for his people) until the time of the gentiles (us) comes to an end (very soon!!!).
God made a promise to restore both Kingdoms, and he will, very soon.
Here is what is about to happen here on the earth:
First, the rapture (coming very soon, the church age is almost over)(1 Cor. 15:52), then the “great tribulation” (Matthew 24 and most of Revelation/Isaiah/Daniel). Then Christ’s return and the 1000 year reign of Christ on the throne of David, ruling with a rod of iron (Rev. 2:27) known as the “Millennial Kingdom.” After the millennial kingdom comes the Great White Throne of Judgement (Rev. 20), and a New Earth and a New Heaven (2 Peter 3:9-15), and, with Satan finally defeated and thrown in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10), man and God will walk hand in hand, with Jesus ruling from New Jerusalem, like they were supposed to before Adam fell. And God’s kingdom will never end (Luke 1:33) and will be ever increasing (Isaiah 9:6-7):
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6-7
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.
And friends… where does a government with no end and eternal increase go?
Why do you think it’s called the “Kingdom of Heaven” and not the “Kingdom of Earth”?
With the Kingdom of God restored in man (spiritual), man will increase with no end, into the heavens (Physical). That’s right. There’s a whole universe (the heavens) waiting to be filled.
-End
Thank you all for reading. I know there’s a lot to take in here (that’s why I broke this one into 3 videos!) but if you’d like to listen to the master at work, Peter Ruckman has a great sermon on this very subject, linked HERE.
Hope you found this a blessing,
-Lotan