Part One

The Old Covenant is a mere shadow and type of the Kingdom of God that was to come as a heaven on earth. Let’s compare Deuteronomy 11:21 with Matthew 6:10.

“That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.” – Deuteronomy 11:21

But now, the realization of the Kingdom in Christ Jesus, occupying that which has been conquered (Luke 19:13). The occupation was handed to the keepers of the Old Covenant but now falls to Christ’s men under the New Covenant in the Kingdom of God. As they were to take a kingdom physically, we are to take the domain spiritually. Occupation assumes taking. The goal in the Kingdom of God is to take the world for God by the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ unto salvation; the Father’s will be accomplished on earth, that is, entirely subjected to Him, as those in Heaven are. Work toward this goal to bring in the Kingdom that now is; are still and only a type of the final domain in Christ yet to come. But as a type, we should not be slack but desirous of bringing Him glory.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” – Matthew 6:10

These words in the New Covenant aren’t mere words to recite in vain repetition: “Thy Kingdom come.” If only Christians meant it with all seriousness when they prayed this. Nothing happens in Heaven except what God commands. All proceeds from His throne. God to rule and reign in every Family, State, and all aspects and enterprises of civilization because Christ is the head of His church and all things are the design of God that every Christian should seek (1 Corinthians 15:25). Though our weapons are not carnal, call it Christian Militancy; we take no offense at the label. Every soul saved and serving (James 2:20) takes and occupies ground for Christ in the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

The messianic portion of this Psalm is a look at Christ’s conquering of the world in the Kingdom of God now.

“7 I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” – Psalm 2:7-8

The end is that God may be all in all. We can find the answer in the ongoing redemptive work of Christ through the ages, for no man can imagine the things that God has prepared (1 Corinthians 2:8-9); God has made a place (John 14:2-3) for those that love Him. Surly, our wicked bodies cannot attend.

First, the Potter made a vessel in Adam; in the time to come, we would be fitted as the habitation of the Spirit of God for the Kingdom of God but remain only a foretaste of the end. We move in increments to our mind, knowing that God inhabits all times at once, always marching toward the likeness of God that we will be at the end.

“24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” – 1 Corinthians 15:24-28

When we see Him, we will be like Him (1 John 3:2). This world is the beginning of the end, the preparation and proving ground of the final kingdom yet to come. To be fit for that estate, He is remaking us in His image and likeness. Our bodies are prepared at first not only to tend toward religion but a housing, a temple for the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16) that would come to indwell in the New Covenant at the second birth. This temporary spiritual Kingdom of God we inhabit now would prepare us to be fully translated into being like Him at the resurrection. If we are made joint-heirs, types of Christ, little Christ’s, yay Christians than to inherit eternity with Christ, we must have been a receptacle from the very start, that could at the final day, be like Christ (1 Corinthians 15:23-24).

Christ is the express image. We are closer than fallen Adam, now a type of Christ by His Spirit in us. But it would seem that we must be like Him to come into the place prepared.

“2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” – Hebrews 1:2-3

Like us, Christ was made flesh and the first (re)born from the dead (Colossians 1:18) by His physical resurrection. We are now spiritually reborn (baptism the like figure 1 Peter 3:21); it naturally follows that we will be fit unto glorified bodies (Philippians 3:20-21) at the resurrection. All one with another, zero error left in us, we can then fully enter into Christ and Christ in us, that as the Father and Christ are one, we in Christ with God will be all in all when Christ hands us up with His kingdom.

What a beautiful thing that from the start, the Father would prepare for His only begotten Son an inheritance and that Christ would work miracles through the ages on earth and in the hearts and minds of men as He brings His wedding to fruition to finally consummate the great domain that God intended from the start. And Jesus, when He completes all that the Father has given Him to accomplish, will hand it right back to the One that conceived it all. Want to know humility; look to Christ.

Too many straddle the fence on this. Pick a side; either God is error-prone and not a god making the church age an aside or parenthetical era, or God is holy and perfect, driving glory unto Himself in the obedience of men and, yes, in our failures. We reject the notion that life now is an audible, either by Adam’s fall into sin or the rejection of Messiah by the Hebrews. All are planned for God’s great glory that His purposes in judgment, grace & mercy, and for instruction in righteousness would lead us to have zero doubt, for there shall be no fearful, no unbelieving thing, no doubt, and not a molecule of it. There can be no lack of faith in the end state. We cry holy now but wonder what we’ll do. Only worship, we suppose, for what else could one do; holy will finally be defined; for we shall gaze upon it and see Him as He is.

If the end object is God be all in all, then these bodies with questions of perception and prone to sin must be disposed. There is no misperception of God in His presence; Holy is He.