The Lord’s Day – 17 April 2005


The Ministry of Jesus (11)


An Answer To A Christadelphian Challenge Concerning

The Nature Of The Kingdom Of God And

The Return Of Christ


FIRST SCRIPTURE TEXT – Matthew chapter 24


  1. When Christ Spoke To His Disciples About The Destruction Of The Temple In Jerusalem, The Event Was Understood As Connected Directly With Christ’s Return And The End Of The World.











This aligns perfectly with the Lord’s seven woes pronounced upon the Jews (scribes and Pharisees) in Matthew 23, (which was just before the discussion about the destruction of the temple in chapter 24), whereby He declared, “All these things shall come upon this generation.” (Matthew 23:36) Note Matthew 27:25, “His blood be on us and on our children!” This was the Jews’ answer to Pilate when he washed his hands of the matter of Christ’s condemnation before the mob that thirsted for His blood. So, we see that this awful judgment upon the Jews was not only sovereignly decreed by the Lord, but that it was decreed as a just punishment for the most heinous crime ever committed by a generation of human beings – the wilful and malicious murder of their God, their Maker, and their only hope of redemption for their sins.



Again, Josephus records how that, just 40 years later, in 70AD, that same generation Jesus was speaking to, experienced that ‘great tribulation” and ‘days of vengeance”, literally the vengeance of God upon an unbelieving and Christ-rejecting Jewish nation, the covenant people of God, who outwardly, were partakers of all the advantages of the kingdom of God but who were not part of that spiritual and eternal kingdom which Christ spoke of. They had the prophets, the Scriptures, the Messiah Himself, God in the flesh, but they did not have the one thing needful, a changed heart, a spirit made eternally alive by the new birth, which is the sovereign work of God’s grace.


And if anyone is hearing this Truth today, it can only be fully appreciated and comprehended if there is an inward work of God’s grace going on in the heart, if God is awaking that soul by His Spirit. This is the very reason for the apostasy we have noted previously, the falling away of Churches. It is because in so many cases men “having not the Spirit”, men who are not born of God, men who are still “dead in trespasses and sins”, occupying the pulpits, teaching the people of things they do not comprehend themselves, for “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness un to him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) So, Churches stray further and further away from God’s Truth, to the point where even rank unbelievers can see their error. Such men are usually marked by two prominent sins – pride and dishonesty. They are men who justify their actions and their lies, but never submit themselves to the test of Scripture Alone. This is the acid test; If we are willing to give up all our own desires and preferences and be judged by Scripture, and let God be God, then we are not far from the kingdom of God.





Various interpretation have been suggested. Of all these perhaps one seems to have some credibility – i.e. that Jesus was referring to all these things except His return. The main problem with that explanation is that it simply does violence to the actual words He spoke.


As I see it, only one possible explanation exists which does not do violence to the actual teachings of Jesus, and which also agrees with what the Scriptures say on the subject in other places – i.e. that, all the events through which the Lord took His chosen people (Israel) were typical of the spiritual kingdom of God. As the descent of Jacob and his family into Egypt typifies the descent of the human race into sin and death and bondage, as the Exodus from Egypt with its Passover feast and passage through the Red Sea typify the spiritual redemption of all God’s elect by the blood of Christ and the ‘washing of water by the word” i.e. salvation itself, so the destruction of Israel as a nation, of Jerusalem’s temple and Old Testament system of worship (which Hebrews teaches us is all types and shadows of Christ and His spiritual kingdom), typifies the final destruction of the whole world, the judgment of sinners, and the gathering of the elect into the eternal kingdom. So, as Israel is not literally the people of God (only typically, “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men but of God.” – Romans 2:28-29), and as Christ did not come in judgment of literally the whole world, but that generation and that nation, He will surely yet come at the end of the world, as many Scriptures plainly foretell. This, I believe, is the only way to explain what are otherwise contradictory statements.


So, to conclude on this first proposition, it was for good reason that Christ did not hesitate to deal with the destruction of the Jews’ temple (and thereby the whole Old testament system of worship), the return of Christ, and the end of the world – all three issues – as one event, for so they were as they applied to that generation, and secular history confirms it is so, even with the inclusion of an account of the miraculous signs and wonders of that day. In handling the question that way Jesus was not being deceptive, but only maintaining the typical significance the nation of Israel had always had as a Covenant people of God.


  1. The only specific instructions Jesus gave his disciples about His final return to this world were (I believe) actually in typical form (as they also were given in the context of His discourse on the end of the Jewish ‘world’);


  1. Nobody will know the day or the hour (Mattthew 24:36) – Nothing can be clearer than the fact that all who have tried to predict anything about the Lord’s return have been proven wrong, and there has been a steady stream of them over almost 2000 years, but they still don’t give up trying.


  1. It is compared to other great tokens of judgment of the past (Matthew 24:37-51) – especially Noah’s flood.



SECOND SCRIPTURE TEXT – Joel chapters 1 & 2 – This prophecy declares, “Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.” (Joel 1:15). What follows (up to 2:27) proves that Joel spoke of a particular judgment of God on the people of his day, which actually had to do with famine and a plague of locusts, which was likened to an army. Yet the prophecy continues through chapter two to the outpouring of the Spirit, which the apostles recognized as fulfilled in Acts 2.


The main lesson in this is that terms like “the day of the Lord” do not always refer to the end of the world, but as in this case, prefigure that event. So, every calamity that we see in the world, (as Mr Jensen, Dean of Sydney Anglicans said when he commented on the recent tsunami in Indonesia), is a token of the final judgment.


THIRD SCRIPTURE TEXT – Matthew 22:1-7- As with many other parables of the kingdom of God/heaven, this parable speaks of a time of probation, a time which the Jews would yet be given to prove themselves to see whether they were really children of God (and of Abraham) or not. And the judgment of that came only 40 years later in 70 AD as the whole world knows.


FOURTH SCRIPTURE TEXT – Matthew 10:1-7, 23. – The task Jesus gave the disciples, to preach, “… not into the way of the Gentiles … rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”, did not take 2000 years! It was a glorious, final visitation of God to Israel through Christ and the preaching of His gospel, before He would return in judgment. Clearly those who were given this task expected Christ to return in their day – the context can hardly mean anything else, unless we twist and turn it about to make it fit with our own preferred understanding of prophecy.


FIFTH SCRIPTURE TEXT – Acts 2:16-36 – As all Scripture (history, prophecy, and teachings) tie so wonderfully and perfectly together, and agree together, so this passage goes on to show that the King (Christ) of the kingdom of God, is already enthroned and reigning. This is a doctrine of great importance.


  1. Old Testament prophecy is interpreted by the apostles – i.e. Christ’s being raised up “to sit on his throne” (David’s throne that is) (Acts 2:30) is seen declared to be fulfilled by his resurrection and ascension to the throne in heaven. The King is enthroned! This was the “kingdom” that the Jews had so long looked forward to but generally misunderstood! And so it is today – as many Christians are still looking for a Jewish-style kingdom on earth yet to come, of which the Scriptures have absolutely nothing to say.


In my Christian experience for over twenty years I have seen Christians who have been watching the political signs and being preoccupied with the world events concerning Israel. And all that time their expectations have been disappointed, because their hope was a false hope. They should have occupied themselves with the spiritual and eternal kingdom of God and of Christ, which has nothing to do with the nation of Israel, for the Old Testament order, the temple, the priesthood, the animal sacrifices, and even the Jews themselves have been utterly destroyed.


The Lord Jesus Himself told them plainly, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36), “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21) How much plainer could it be made?! It is a heavenly kingdom! That is the reason why it is also called (interchangeably) “the kingdom of heaven”.


  1. Acts 2:34-36 teaches us that Christ is now ruling over His enemies. The next Scripture we look at (1 Corinthians 15) confirms and clarifies further this point.


SIXTH SCRIPTURE TEXT – 1 Corinthians 15:20-26 – Here we have a definite order of events set out; note especially verse 23:


  1. Christ (“the firstfruits”) is raised from death


  1. “afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” – When He comes at the end of this present world, all who belong to Him will be raised like Him.


  1. “Then cometh the end….” – not the millennium, not another crack at Jewish religion on earth, not a rebuilt earthly, symbolic temple, which Christ has already destroyed. When the Jews accused Christ of saying He would raise up the temple, the Scriptures tell us plainly that, “… he spake of the temple of his body..” (John 2:20-22).


  1. “For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). – When Christ comes, the resurrection and judgment will put an end to death for ever. What remains for every man, woman, and child is only eternity with Christ or eternity without Him.


Please mark – not my words – but the Scriptures; They teach us that the only thing left to be done when Christ returns is the judgment of the quick and dead!


IMPORTANT IMPLICATIONS OF A CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST’S KINGDOM AND SECOND COMING:


  1. His eternal nature and deity – He came from eternal glory in heaven to redeem His people. Having accomplished that fully by His vicarious death and resurrection, He then ascended into heaven to receive again that eternal glory, “which He had with the Father before the world was..” (John 17:5)


  1. The temporary and typical nature of the Old Covenant


  1. The finality of the New Covenant – it is not a mere interval in a Jewish programme


  1. The spiritual nature of Christ’s kingdom


  1. Christ is reigning now


  1. You must be born again, for when Christ comes again, it will be too late for those who are not His now.


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