In this episode, Johnathan Arnold and Darrell Stetler II discuss the kingdom of God as one of the most important yet misunderstood themes in Scripture.
Highlights from Darrell Stetler II:
- The kingdom is a mega-theme in Scripture.
- We tend to zoom in on particular elements of salvation, such as justification by faith, but forget the context of the kingdom.
- Our understanding of the kingdom is sometimes conflated with our understanding of heaven as though the kingdom of God is only what is going to happen at the end.
- What is the kingdom of God? It is the saving reign of God—that when God rules and reigns, he reigns in a saving way. It rescues us from all that is not holy, all that is broken, all that ends in futility. It rescues us to a safe and established kingdom that is a place of peace.
The gospel of the kingdom—the good news that Jesus and the apostles proclaimed—is that the saving reign of God has come through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus for our sins and in our place.
- When we start to see the kingdom in its beauty and comprehensiveness, we begin to see that it affects everything.
- To explain the gospel without the kingdom is like reading your favorite novel but only reading the top half of the page.
- The gospel of the kingdom—the good news that Jesus and the apostles proclaimed—is that the saving reign of God has come through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus for our sins and in our place.
- The theme of the kingdom makes heaven so much more exciting and glad. Heaven is not just a city with streets of gold or floating on the clouds in an eternal church service.
- Sometimes when the kingdom comes, it looks different than what we would have expected.
