Luke 17:20-21 Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Matthew 12:28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Mark 1:15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Mark 9:1 And he said to them, “I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.”
1 Corinthians 15:50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
Where is the kingdom of God? Do we understand the world of the Spirit or are we always trying to anthropomorphize God and his kingdom? The latter is often more true for us than the former. We cannot comprehend the God who made the trillions of galaxies and stars, so we construct him in our own image, according to our own awareness. We make him fit our concepts, our ideas about existence. But Jesus says, the kingdom of God is within you. How can a kingdom, an eternal existence, be within us? For us, a kingdom takes up space, has physical dimensions. How can such be within us? The Bible says, God is a spirit. He does not take up space: He is space. He does not exist outside of creation: He is the essence of creation, the creator. All that we know, all that we understand, abides within the dimensions of God. All that we have never seen, never heard, never experienced in our human state remains within the dimensions of God. All that is God.
Now, how can we at all comprehend God? The Bible says we know God by knowing Jesus Christ. Jesus says, Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. Jesus tells us that He is the fulness of the Godhead: He exemplifies and demonstrates God, for He is the son of God who came to do the Father's will. However, as mere humans, caught in this dimension of reality, when we view Jesus, we sometimes make the mistake of placing him only within our limited context of existence, within our created world. We make Jesus Christ into a being like us rather than view him as God, the living Word, creator of all.
When Jesus says, the kingdom is within us, He is saying that is where God abides. Well, where is that? Jesus brought the kingdom with him. He secured the possibility of people entering into the dimension where God dwells. Jesus told the Jews, The kingdom of God is near, or the kingdom of God has come upon you. Yet, none of them could enter the kingdom in themselves, for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: the finite (perishable) cannot inherit the infinite (imperishable). God's kingdom is not one of flesh and blood and lands and houses, all of which are perishable. God's kingdom is far beyond our understanding, our fleshly concepts. Paul could not even speak of God's dwelling place because he did not have words or concepts to express what God's kingdom is like. However, through his death on the cross and resurrection from death, Jesus came to bring us that kingdom.
When we read the Old Testament, we are still dealing with this kingdom, but it is a kingdom where death reigns, where little babies are killed in order to cleanse a land. We are still dealing with the perishable, with the need of cleansing all that is sinful, all that has the signature of death upon it. But Jesus brought us a New Testament, one of the Spirit, where God reigns supreme and comes to abide within us. He brought us something so unimaginable that He could say the kingdom is within you. The question is, how can we enter into this new kingdom? How can we inherit this kingdom? Only the born again will find and inhabit this kingdom of love and light.
Jesus said the kingdom of God is near: if you desire to, you can touch it. But if you want to enter into this realm, you must be born again. Jesus is the kingdom of God: the place where we abide. He is in the Father, and the Father is in him; we are to be in him, and He is in us. This is the kingdom of God and this reality comes through faith in Jesus Christ, the door to the kingdom. No man will see God outside of Jesus, for He is God, and He came as the way, the truth, and the life. God demands we enter into his domain by faith in Jesus' finished work. We move from this world to the spirit world through faith, and faith alone. Nothing else pleases God; nothing else will open the door to intimacy with God. If we go back into the Old Testament and try works, we will still be under judgment, under the threat of hellfire, for the law and works do not open the door to a relationship. Under the law, we remain under God's judgment because flesh and its efforts cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Only Jesus holds the key to God's kingdom; only He is perfect and pleases the Father. Therefore, my friend, there is "GOOD NEWS": Jesus came to save the world. The kingdom is near you right now, and today you can enter in to God's sufficiency. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.
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