What Is The Kingdom Of Heaven?
“I have heard this term ‘kingdom of heaven’ but don’t understand what Jesus meant by it. What is the kingdom? Why did Jesus use this name? Where is it and can I go there?”
We are told by our Revelators that Jesus’ gospel message regarding the kingdom of heaven has been thwarted. In effect, and up until this time, His gospel message and mission has failed by no fault of His. The ‘kingdom of heaven’ is submerged in dormancy until His true teachings are brought forward for men and women to comprehend anew. There is more than one meaning for the kingdom of heaven as Jesus spoke of it.
Here’s what we said:
Jesus gave us a number of explanations regarding the breadth of definitions of the kingdom of heaven. We realized how very much we have to learn in this area.
Statements to consider from Journey To The Father/The Urantia Book:
Mistake not! there is in the teachings of Jesus an eternal nature which will not permit them forever to remain unfruitful in the hearts of thinking men. The kingdom as Jesus conceived it has to a large extent failed on earth; for the time being, an outward church has taken its place; but you should comprehend that this church is only the larval stage of the thwarted spiritual kingdom, which will carry it through this material age and over into a more spiritual dispensation where the Master’s teachings may enjoy a fuller opportunity for development. Thus does the so-called Christian church become the cocoon in which the kingdom of Jesus’ concept now slumbers. The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is still alive and will eventually and certainly come forth from this long submergence, just as surely as the butterfly eventually emerges as the beautiful unfolding of its less attractive creature of metamorphic development. 170:5.21
The kingdom of the divine brotherhood is submerged for now but it is still ‘alive’. What brings it forward will be the teachings/awareness of the Father fragments as experienced in personal spiritual experience by each and every human mind.
170:4.1 Jesus never gave a precise definition of the kingdom. At one time he would discourse on one phase of the kingdom, and at another time he would discuss a different aspect of the brotherhood of God’s reign in the hearts of men. In the course of this Sabbath afternoon’s sermon Jesus noted no less than five phases, or epochs, of the kingdom, and they were:
170:4.2 1. The personal and inward experience of the spiritual life of the fellowship of the individual believer with God the Father.
170:4.3 2. The enlarging brotherhood of gospel believers, the social aspects of the enhanced morals and quickened ethics resulting from the reign of God’s spirit in the hearts of individual believers.
170:4.4 3. The supermortal brotherhood of invisible spiritual beings which prevails on earth and in heaven, the superhuman kingdom of God.
170:4.5 4. The prospect of the more perfect fulfillment of the will of God, the advance toward the dawn of a new social order in connection with improved spiritual living — the next age of man.
170:4.6 5. The kingdom in its fullness, the future spiritual age of light and life on earth.
170:4.7 Wherefore must we always examine the Master’s teaching to ascertain which of these five phases he may have reference to when he makes use of the term kingdom of heaven. By this process of gradually changing man’s will and thus affecting human decisions, Michael and his associates are likewise gradually but certainly changing the entire course of human evolution, social and otherwise.
cardinal
-
adj.
Of foremost importance; paramount: a cardinal rule.
170:4.8 The Master on this occasion placed emphasis on the following five points as representing the cardinal features of the gospel of the kingdom:
170:4.9 1. The preeminence of the individual.
preëminence
-
n.
The quality or state of being preëminent; superiority in prominence or in excellence; distinction above others in quality, rank.
170:4.10 2. The will as the determining factor in man’s experience.
170:4.11 3. Spiritual fellowship with God the Father.
170:4.12 4. The supreme satisfactions of the loving service of man.
170:4.13 5. The transcend-ency of the spiritual over the material in human personality.
Definition of transcendent
: exceeding usual limits : surpassing
: extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience
: transcending the universe or material existence
This world has never seriously or sincerely or honestly tried out these dynamic ideas and divine ideals of Jesus’ doctrine of the kingdom of heaven. But you should not become discouraged by the apparently slow progress of the kingdom idea on Urantia. Remember that the order of progressive evolution is subjected to sudden and unexpected periodical changes in both the material and the spiritual worlds. The bestowal of Jesus as an incarnated Son was just such a strange and unexpected event in the spiritual life of the world. Neither make the fatal mistake, in looking for the age manifestation of the kingdom, of failing to effect its establishment within your own souls. 170:4.14
Although Jesus referred one phase of the kingdom to the future and did, on numerous occasions, intimate that such an event might appear as a part of a world crisis; and though he did likewise most certainly, on several occasions, definitely promise sometime to return to Urantia, it should be recorded that he never positively linked these two ideas together. He promised a new revelation of the kingdom on earth and at some future time; he also promised sometime to come back to this world in person; but he did not say that these two events were synonymous. From all we know these promises may, or may not, refer to the same event. 170:4.15
His apostles and disciples most certainly linked these two teachings together. When the kingdom failed to materialize as they had expected, recalling the Master’s teaching concerning a future kingdom and remembering his promise to come again, they jumped to the conclusion that these promises referred to an identical event; and therefore they lived in hope of his immediate second coming to establish the kingdom in its fullness and with power and glory. And so have successive believing generations lived on earth entertaining the same inspiring but disappointing hope. 170:4.16
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We can be reached at marindejohn@goddiscovered.net
