[testallthings]

ACTS 1:3 THE KINGDOM OF GOD (PART 1)

Act 1:3 To whom also He 1presented Himself alive after His suffering by many irrefutable proofs, 2appearing to them through a period of 3forty days and speaking the things concerning the 4kingdom of God. (RcV)

The second part of fotnote 4 regarding the kingdom says, “It is not a material kingdom visible to human sight but a kingdom of the divine life. It is the spreading of Christ as life to His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. See notes 151*in Mark 1, 261*in Mark 4, and 432*in Luke 4.”

(The New Testament Recovery Version, Revised edition 1991, published by Living Stream Ministry, Aneheim, California)


What we will try to find out in this post is if really the kingdom spoken of in verse 3 is an invisible kingdom, if it is the church, the spreading of Christ, etc.. We will put ourselves in Theophilus' shoes, so to speak, and see if these things (the things said in the footnote) are so. Theophilus already had got the first book, the Gospel according to Luke, in which certainly he learned about the kingdom of God. Now, in the second book, Acts, he reads that the risen lord spoke to the disciples for forty days about the kingdom of God. Did the Lord Jesus say something that he didn't mention in the Gospels? Was He mainly reviewing and clarifying what He already taught in the Gospels? Probably. Of this opinion is W. Lee, too. “If we want to know, at least by way of inference, what the Lord taught the disciples concerning the kingdom in those forty days, we need to read again all He said about the kingdom in the Gospels. It is likely that the teaching during those forty days was the same as that recorded in the Gospels.”(Life-Study of Acts, Chapter 4, Section 1) http://www.ministrybooks.org/books.cfm?n


Let's assume than (we cannot be 100% sure), that the Lord gave the disciples a review of what the kingdom of God is. As I said we will consider this point from Theophilus perspective. So let's open the gospel of Luke.

Luk 1:30 And the angel [Gabriel] said to her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God;
Luk 1:31 and behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus.
Luk 1:32 *He* shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father;
Luk 1:33 and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages, and of his kingdom there shall not be an end.

The first striking feature, that we see in this verses spoken by the angel Gabriel, is that the kingdom here is the one promised to David. The Lord Jesus will sit on the throne of David his father and rule over Israel.

Luk 1:46 And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord,
Luk 1:47 and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour.
Luk 1:48 For he has looked upon the low estate of his bondmaid; for behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
Luk 1:49 For the Mighty One has done to me great things, and holy is his name;
Luk 1:50 and his mercy is to generations and generations to them that fear him.
Luk 1:51 He has wrought strength with his arm; he has scattered haughty ones in the thought of their heart.
Luk 1:52 He has put down rulers from thrones, and exalted the lowly.
Luk 1:53 He has filled the hungry with good things, and sent away the rich empty.
Luk 1:54 He has helped Israel his servant, in order to remember mercy,
Luk 1:55 (as he spoke to our fathers,) to Abraham and to his seed for ever.


Luk 1:67 And Zacharias his father was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying,
Luk 1:68 Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, because he has visited and wrought redemption for his people,
Luk 1:69 and raised up a horn of deliverance for us in the house of David his servant;
Luk 1:70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been since the world began;
Luk 1:71 deliverance from our enemies and out of the hand of all who hate us;
Luk 1:72 to fulfil mercy with our fathers and remember his holy covenant,
Luk 1:73 the oath which he swore to Abraham our father,
Luk 1:74 to give us, that, saved out of the hand of our enemies, we should serve him without fear
Luk 1:75 in piety and righteousness before him all our days.
Luk 1:76 And *thou*, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to make ready his ways;
Luk 1:77 to give knowledge of deliverance to his people by the remission of their sins
Luk 1:78 on account of the bowels of mercy of our God; wherein the dayspring from on high has visited us,
Luk 1:79 to shine upon them who were sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.


Both Mary and Zacharias mentioned God's mercy toward Israel. Zacharias even mentioned the covenant that God made with Abraham.
Gen 15:18 On the same day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates;
Gen 15:19 the Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites,
Gen 15:20 and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaim,
Gen 15:21 and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girga****es, and the Jebusites.


So far, the kingdom spoken of in Luke is quite physical. In fact is the Messianic kingdom, the only kingdom Jews had known and were expecting. No wonder than, that John the Baptist when he started preaching repentance for the kingdom of God had drawn near, he didn't have to explain what he meant.

Luk 2:25 And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was just and pious, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
Luk 2:26 And it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see the Lord's Christ.
Luk 2:27 And he came in the Spirit into the temple; and as the parents brought in the child Jesus that they might do for him according to the custom of the law,
Luk 2:28 *he* received him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,
Luk 2:29 Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace;
Luk 2:30 for mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Luk 2:31 which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples;
Luk 2:32 a light for revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel.

Even here, in the words of the old Simeon (who was expecting the consolation of Israel) there is nothing that would have caused the excellent Theophilus to imagine that Christ had come to establish an invisible kingdom. We might actually presume (at least this is my opinion), that the picture that was forming in his mind was not different from the one that the Jews had and that even some pious and righteous men and women had expressed so far in chapter 1 and 2 of Luke. Of course W. Lee will dismiss their testimony by saying that they still bore an “Old Testament color in the Old Testament style and flavor” (see the last part of footnote 1 on verse 68 in Luke 1).

If W. Lee had problem with the words of these people, we can only say that they were the inspired word of God through the Holy Spirit. In addition we will refer back to the words spoken of by the angel Gabriel, words that bear the same color, style, and flavor of the Old Testament. Was he also to be “blamed” (W. Lee does not use this word) for uttering those words, which for sure were the words of God.

It seems to me that W. Lee was willing to defend some of his teachings even if that meant that he had to put the blame on the people of God (men, women, disciples, and even apostles. More on this in future posts).

To keep this post short I'll stop here. If anyone is interested he/she can search the rest of the Gospel of Luke on his/her own. We say goodbye to our friend (brother) Theophilus, and until the next post, God bless you all.


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P.S.
The kingdom of God is a big topic. I am not at this moment considering what is written in all the other N.T. books. But putting myself in Theophilus's shoes and with only the Gospel of Luke in my hand I trying to see what he might have seen. What did he see from the two books written to him by Luke?