Kingdom of heaven?

The message of Jesus Christ is just what He preached.

"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near."

He spoke directly to the essential need of mankind, though those who heard did not understand it.

They thought He was saying that the physical kingdom of David would soon be restored; they wanted to see the Romans driven out and a Jewish nation reestablished. This hope was strongly embedded in their culture; even His disciples thought that He was referring to this.

But as Jesus taught, He often spoke of the kingdom of heaven in ways that did not make sense in their cultural understanding. As His disciples listened, they must have continued to be struck by the incongruity between what He said and what they assumed He meant. But even after His resurrection, at the time when He was going to ascend into heaven, His disciples asked Him if He was restoring the kingdom to Israel at that time. After three years, they did not understand what He meant.

Western civilization has looked at the kingdom of heaven in a similar way. We have taken the message of the kingdom of heaven in terms of the physical world. The Jews looked for a restoration of the kingdom to Israel; we have looked for the outward rule of Christianity in our cultures. We have looked for the institutions of Christianity to be the work of God in our world. We have looked for the kingdom of heaven in the church or in law or in culture.

But the kingdom of heaven is not found in the physical institutions of this world. At one point when the religious leaders were questioning Him about the kingdom of God, He answered them in a way that rejected their assumptions about the kingdom of heaven.

"Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, 'The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, 'Look, here it is!' or "There it is!' For behold the kingdom of God is in your midst." Luke 17:20-21

The kingdom of God is not seen in the outward. As Jesus Christ stood in their midst, the kingdom of God was in their midst. The kingdom of God is realized in a person, not in the outward.