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The following is an excerpt from the chapter The Two Covenants and The Two Sons of Abraham, in the book Behind the Veil of Moses, by Brian L. Martin.
The Nature of The Kingdom If one searches for the word “kingdom” from
Acts–Revelation, it seems that there is only one passage that is definitely
speaking of a physical kingdom–Acts 1:6. After Pentecost we do not see the
kingdom in a physical context. Admittedly, not all usages are definitely
spiritual either, but most seem to be—for example: · The
kingdom is not eating and drinking. (Rom · Flesh
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. (1Cor · Delivered
from the power of darkness into the · Paul
is preserved for His Heavenly Kingdom.
(2 Tim 4:18) ·
The unshakable kingdom, not made [in the physical realm]. (Heb
12:27-28) The bulk of the remaining “kingdom” passages refer to
walking worthy of the kingdom, and those deeds of the flesh that will prevent
access to the kingdom. These passages speak more to the spiritual walk of
Christians on this earth, as opposed to a future existence. One is hard pressed
to find a single passage that speaks of a physical kingdom after Pentecost. On
the other hand, there are several that indicate a spiritual nature, several that
link it with the preaching of the gospel, and several that show that the Jews
did not receive Paul’s teaching about the kingdom with all joy (thus putting
that teaching at odds with their current interpretation). The remainder, as we
have noted, seem to lean towards our walk in the Spirit. When added together, we
think that the scales tip heavily in favor of a spiritual kingdom. Is it too far-fetched to believe that, after Pentecost, just
as the Spirit directed the ministries of the disciples and there was no more
need for casting lots, so the Spirit had corrected the erroneous teaching of the
Jewish leaders of the day regarding a physical kingdom? The Spirit had led them
into all truth, and taught them of the things to come. Why would
Jesus, Paul and others even need to teach about the kingdom, unless the current
teaching of the Jewish leaders was either inadequate or inaccurate? Do we not
see, subsequent to Pentecost, the Spirit pulling back the veil, and, through the
apostles, revealing the substance of the Kingdom of the New Covenant? In light of the many passages that indicate a nonphysical
nature for the “You, O king, were
watching; and behold, a great image! This great image, whose splendor was
excellent, stood before you; and its form was awesome. This image’s head was
of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its
legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. You watched while a
stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and
clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver,
and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer
threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found.
And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole
earth. “This
is the dream. Now we will tell the interpretation of it before the king. You, O
king, are a king of kings. For the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power,
strength, and glory; and wherever the children of men dwell, or the beasts of
the field and the birds of the heaven, He has given them into your hand, and has
made you ruler over them all—you are this head of gold. But after you shall
arise another kingdom inferior to yours; then another, a third kingdom of
bronze, which shall rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be as
strong as iron, inasmuch as iron breaks in pieces and shatters everything; and
like iron that crushes, that kingdom will break in pieces and crush all the
others. Whereas you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly
of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; yet the strength of the iron shall be in
it, just as you saw the iron mixed with ceramic clay. And as the toes of the
feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly
strong and partly fragile. As you saw iron mixed with ceramic clay, they will
mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as
iron does not mix with clay. And in the days of these kings the God of heaven
will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not
be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these
kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut
out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the
bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold—the great God has made known to the
king what will come to pass after this. The dream is certain, and its
interpretation is sure.” Dan 2:31-45 Most commentators recognize these successive kingdoms as . . . you also, as living
stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up
spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Pet 2:5 Now, therefore, you are no
longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members
of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone . . . .Eph 2:19-20 After giving the parable of the wicked vinedressers, Christ
alludes to Himself as being the chief cornerstone: Jesus
said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The
stone which the builders rejected Has
become the chief cornerstone. This
was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our
eyes’? Therefore I say to you, the Those who fall upon Christ in repentance are broken by the
conviction of their sinful natures. Those who refuse to acknowledge their need
of Christ are crushed by the judgment of God—He becomes a rock of offense to
them: He
will be as a sanctuary, But
a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense To
both the houses of As
a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Isa 8:14 Both the nations of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the
unrepentant individuals of Christ’s parable of the wicked vinedressers were
crushed into fine particles: Then the iron, the clay, the
bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff
from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of
them was found. Dan 2:35 And whoever falls on this
stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.
Matt In both instances, the wicked are turned to dust that can be
blown away, while the righteous have a firm foundation: When
the whirlwind passes by, the wicked is no more, But
the righteous has an everlasting foundation. Prov 10:25 The
righteous will never be removed, But
the wicked will not inhabit the earth. Prov 10:30 One of the reasons that Christ was a stone of stumbling and
a rock of offense was because He was proclaiming a spiritual Kingdom. Jesus answered, “My
kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants
would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom
is not from here.” John 18:36 Now when He was asked by the
Pharisees when the Clearly, the Jews missed their Messiah because they were
looking for a physical kingdom. The disciples were also looking for a physical
kingdom prior to Pentecost. After Pentecost, when they received the Holy Spirit,
Who led them into all truth and taught them of the things to come,
their understanding of the nature of the kingdom was enlightened, and they no
longer taught of a physical kingdom. Rather, they applied spiritual
interpretations to Old Testament prophecies, and used them to describe the
Church and associated the kingdom with the gospel. The veil had been removed. In ca. AD
30 Jesus told the disciples “It is not for you to know times or seasons
which the Father has put in His own authority” (Acts 1:7). But after
approximately 20 years of instruction by the Holy Spirit Paul said, “concerning
the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write
to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so
comes as a thief in the night.” 1 Thess
5:1-2 (Emphases added—these words [times and seasons] are the same in the
Greek in both passages.) Of these two verses, Max R. King comments: “The
times and the seasons” is equated with the “restorations of the kingdom,”
and this time and season was withheld from the apostles. They were not permitted
to know the day or hour. Later, Paul wrote the Thessalonians and reminded them
that no man could know the “times and the season,” . . . The apostles
didn’t know the “times and seasons” before Pentecost (Acts 1:7), nor did
they know them after Pentecost (1 Thess 5:1) (p. 138, The Spirit of Prophecy) But does Paul actually say that no man could know the times
and the seasons? No, what he says is, “concerning the times and the
seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you.” Is
he then contradicting Jesus’ statement in Acts that the disciples were not
permitted to know the times and seasons, as King sees it? Again, no—what he
says is that the Thessalonians did not need to be instructed about the
times and the seasons. Why? “For you yourselves know perfectly . . .”
Paul states. The intimation is not that, because no man could know about the
times and seasons, there was no point in Paul writing about them. Rather, the
implication is that they already knew, and knew perfectly! Furthermore,
Paul’s statement implies that had there been a need for instruction, he
could have supplied it. We feel that the implication is that Paul knew about the
times and the seasons. If one man could know about them, then certainly others
could as well. Some may argue that what the disciples “knew perfectly”
was that the day of the Lord would come “as a thief in the night;”
that is, that it would be unannounced and secretive. Therefore, the day of the
Lord could not be known and there was no reason for Paul to waste his time on
the subject. However, we must be careful to not equate “times and seasons”
with “day of the Lord.” Regarding timing, one is general in nature, the
other specific. That no one knows the specific timing of the day of the
Lord we agree, as Jesus Himself taught—“but of that day and hour no one
knows” (Matt 24:36). However, Jesus also taught His disciples regarding
events that would indicate the general timing of His return—“when
these things begin to happen, look up . . . because your redemption draws near”
(Luke 21:28)—thus indicating that the general timing could, and should, be
known. When we recall that one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit
was to teach the disciples of the things to come (John 16:13), we feel that it
is safe to assume that after some twenty years of that very teaching, the
disciples would know perfectly that which could be known—the general timing,
or “times and seasons” of God’s redemptive plan. The scenario that better
fits the two passages of Acts 1:7 and 1 Thessalonians 5, in our opinion, is that
the Spirit had been removing the veil. They now understood the times and
the seasons—that the That the Because you have rejected
the word of the LORD, He also has rejected you from being king. 1 Sam 15:23 But Samuel said to Saul,
“I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the LORD, and
the LORD has rejected you from being king over This foreshadows the fact that the “Hear another parable:
There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it,
dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and
went into a far country. Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants
to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit. And the vinedressers
took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. Again he sent other
servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them. Then last of all
he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the
vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come,
let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ So they took him and cast him out
of the vineyard and killed him. Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes,
what will he do to those vinedressers?” They said to Him, “He will destroy
those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who
will render to him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have
you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The
stone which the builders rejected Has
become the chief cornerstone. This
was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our
eyes’? Therefore I say to you, the The religious leaders of the Jews realized that Christ had
spoken this parable against them. The Kingdom was to be taken from them. But to
whom was it to be given? The Church—those children of Abraham represented by
Isaac, the son of the promise: Not everyone who says to Me,
“Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of
My Father who is in heaven will enter. Matt 7:21NASU He answered and said to
them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom
of heaven, but to them it has not been given.” Matt The Kingdom is not made up of any nationality, but of
believers of all nations: .
. . and do not think to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father.”
For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these
stones. Matt 3:9 But it is not as though the
word of God has failed. For they are not all There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female;
for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Gal
3:28 That the Kingdom was taken from national “The
LORD has torn the David, the newly anointed king, became the type of Christ,
the man after God’s own heart. The Messiah is called the “Son of David,”
not the “Son of Saul.” After Saul disobeyed God, Samuel anointed David as
king of
Israel. Yet David did not ascend to the
throne until after the death of Saul. In the interim, David respected Saul as
God’s anointed, even though he persecuted David. Here again we see a picture of the New Covenant of the
gospel coexisting with the Old Covenant of the Law (Gal 4). The Jewish believers
continued in their respect and observance of the Law, even though the Jews
persecuted them. Just as David waited on God to remove Saul from the throne, so
the New Covenant waited for God to officially end the Old Covenant that the New
might succeed it: When He said, “A new
covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming
obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. Heb Now when
these things have been so prepared, the priests are continually entering the
outer tabernacle performing the divine worship, but into the
second, only the high priest enters once a year, not without taking
blood, which he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in
ignorance. The Holy Spirit is signifying this, that the way into the holy place
has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing,
which is a symbol for the present time. Heb 9:6-9 NASU (emphases
added) The first covenant was obsolete, but had not disappeared
yet. While the Tabernacle (Temple), which signified the Old Covenant,
was still standing, the fullness of the New Covenant had not yet been disclosed.
The Temple
was destroyed in AD 70, ending the
Old Covenant forever, and finalizing the establishment of the New Covenant. When The LORD
said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they
say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being
king over them.” 1 Sam 8:7 NASU From the time that “And afterward they asked
for a king; so God gave them Saul the son of From the time that
Israel
rejected their Messiah (ca. AD 30),
until the time that the Old Covenant was eradicated (AD 70), about 40 years
elapsed. David, who is a type of Christ in the New Covenant, ascended the throne
of the physical kingdom at 30 years of age. Christ, the fulfillment of that
type, began preaching that the spiritual Kingdom
of David was thirty years old
when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.
2 Sam 5:4 When He began His ministry,
Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age . . . .Luke Thus, in the transference of the physical Kingdom from Saul
to David, we see a foreshadow of the spiritual Kingdom transferred from national
Jesus answered, “My
kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants
would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is,
My kingdom is not of this realm.” John Now having been questioned
by the Pharisees as to when the The kingdom was torn from the physical realm and delivered
into the spiritual realm, never to return, as typified by the kingdom being torn
from Saul: “The
LORD has torn the Therefore I say to you, the
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