Law & Grace - Universal kingdom vs earthly kingdom
Vern Peterman · Sep 4, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492624675077

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I'm glad that Wayne made the connection for us between this Milo name. You see with the Matthews, it has to be something botanical. The names all have to be botanical, right? So Milo and Olive and Ivy and, you know, Poppy, all that. So that's the explanation there. You have on the top of your handout this chart, and we want to explain some things with it.

Now, as you look at it, you may look at it and think, well, that looks like the back end of a school bus. And that may be. And as a matter of fact, at this time of year, that may particularly come to mind. Or considering that it's less than an hour before lunchtime, it might look like a very large slice of bread. But that's OK. If it looks that way to you, that's fine.

What we want to take the time to do here is explain a couple of different uses of the word kingdom. You have, as the title of the message in your handout, the universal kingdom of God. and the earthly kingdom. And so that's a distinction we'd like to make clear here as we go through it here this morning. So I believe it's the top half of the handout has this and I think it's even been color-coded in your copies there. The one thing that you will have is the passage that Wayne read for us here.

In Psalm 47, I'm just going to look at the first four verses here, just for our purposes. Clap your hands, all you peoples. And one of the patterns that we've laid out is the Bible refers to Israel as the people, singular, and to the Gentiles, that is the non-Jews, as plural, the peoples. and also the nations. So you see this pattern, O clap your hands all peoples, that's referring to the Gentiles.

So here is Psalms, which is Israel's national hymn book. Here is Psalms, which is making an invitation to the Gentiles to join in worship. Shout to God with a voice of joy, for the Lord Most High is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. Now this is not King of Israel, this is God as the ruler over the entire earth for all time.

He subdues peoples, here's the word people in plural again, so he's referring to the Gentiles, and nations, so that's another alternate term, again plural. So referring to the Gentiles, he chooses our inheritance after the glory of Jacob, whom he loves.

Jacob and Israel are two names for the nation of Israel, following after the name for Jacob himself out of the Old Testament. Then we also give reference to Hebrews 3, 4. Here is Hebrews 3, 1 through 4 to give you the larger context. The author of Hebrews writes, Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus the apostle and high priest of our confession.

He was faithful to him who appointed him. That is, Jesus was faithful to God who appointed him, as Moses also was in his house. Here is the house of Christ. That's the house we are. And here is the house of Moses. And he was faithful in his house. Moses was. For he that is Christ, has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself, right?

In verse 4, for every house is built by someone but the builder of all things is God. This is God's kingship over everything. He is the universal king over all the earth and everything in the universe actually. He is over it all. It also makes this statement here, God is the builder of all things. This is the universal kingdom of God or universal building of God, if you will. And it's God's sovereignty over all of creation.

The term universal kingdom of God is God's rule and building and management of the present heavens and earth. this whole world. Now at times if you turn on the evening news you may wonder if anybody is managing anything. But what this is saying is that God is in fact managing everything and as we'll see shortly God actually has a direction towards which he is managing everything. So here with this diagram now, this is the universal kingdom of God. This is God's management of everything Gentiles, that is non-Jews, and Jews, you could say they're non-Gentiles, right? And the Church.

Okay, now, the Kingdom of God on Earth. This is also called the Kingdom of Heaven, or the Millennial, that is a thousand-year Kingdom. That's where the word Millennial Kingdom comes from. That's a thousand years, that's six times in Revelation chapter 20, that duration of that earthly kingdom is given. It is the final phase of this present heavens and earth.

Now, if you see in your chart, it says seven year tribulation, and then a thousand year reign of Christ on the earth. That means that it is possible, if the Lord were to take us out now, the believers here in the church, it is possible that the end of this present heavens and earth is one thousand seven years from now. And then this whole earth is all wrapped up and done. New heavens, new earth. That is not exactly what is going to happen, but it is possible if the Lord were to come now. So you have this next depiction here of this earthly kingdom. That is the last stage of this present heavens and earth.

So you have the universal kingdom, which includes God's management and kingship over and building of the entire universe and everything in it. And then you have the earthly kingdom where Christ will reign as the King of Israel. Remember the wise men came and they were asking what question? Where is he who is born King of the Jews? It will be Christ who will be King over the earthly kingdom centered from Jerusalem reigning over Israel as the King of Israel, King of the Jews, and over all the Gentiles as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So those are the two different kingdoms, if you will.

In that last and final phase, Christ will reign on earth on David's throne. Why? Because King David, about 3,000 years ago, was promised that his descendant, would reign on his throne from Jerusalem as the Messiah. Our word Christ is simply the bringing over into the Greek for the word anointed. The Messiah is from the Hebrew, Hamashiach, and it means anointed as well. The King of Israel and King of Kings and Lord of Lords over the Gentiles. He will reign from Jerusalem over Israel and over the entire earth from Jerusalem. Now here's something that is not in your handout.

The Bible indicates that during the millennial, that is thousand-year reign of Christ, this is the earthly kingdom, Israel's land will expand well beyond its present small size. Right now, you know, there's all these negotiations, how can we clip a little bit more out of Israel, right? And Israel has this little tiny piece of land really There will come a time when that will all be put aside because Israel will extend as far north as into Lebanon and Syria. It will go all the way to the Euphrates River, real close to Baghdad, all the way to the edge of Kuwait. It will go into the northern part of Saudi Arabia.

That is what is coming as soon as seven years from now, if you can imagine that. This is Ezekiel chapter 48. Here is the breakdown by tribe. Each tribe will have an east-west band. And Ezekiel 48 spells out which tribe will have which part. So Israel will be greatly expanded in this coming millennial kingdom.

Okay, now I want to take a look at Ephesians 1.10 and I've got all these little red arrows to point out what.

Ephesians 1.10 is a passage that talks both about the universal kingdom of God, that is God's management of all things, and this coming earthly kingdom all in one verse. So you have this on your handout on page 1, and we have this from 9 and 10, Ephesians 1, 9 and 10, and I have it in what's called Expanded and Explained. That is, I expand on what's the meaning of the Greek and I try to explain things so that there's no scratching your head other than wondering how I could put so many words in one sentence.

So it reads like this, He, that is the Father, made known to us in the church through the apostles and the prophets the previously unrevealed mystery of his will. Now the word mystery in the Bible has a different meaning than oftentimes we may be thinking. We often think of a mystery as something that remains very mysterious, really hard to understand. The biblical use of the word mystery is a truth that was not previously revealed but is now revealed and made clear.

According to His kind intention which He, the Father, purposed in Christ from the plan and perspective of God's administration of all things. God's administration of all things, that is the universal Kingdom of God. That's God being the builder of all things. He manages everything.

You know, we may think history is just some sort of crazy hodgepodge. One accident of politics and military action after another. But in fact, God is managing history, and he's managing history in a particular direction. And that's what the rest of the verse is about. God's administration of all things which we now know includes the church. See, previously in the whole Old Testament, you know how much it talks about the church in the Old Testament?

None. Zip. Vilge. And so now that has been revealed. We now know it includes the church. And then towards what? Now this is cool because this tells us where and in what direction history is being managed. You're wondering, what is going on in the world? People must be crazy. There's riots here and wars over there, rebels and skirmishes. But look, here's the direction.

Toward the full completion and final stage of the earthly times, that is the summing up and bringing into submission of all things in Christ in the millennial kingdom. That thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, from Jerusalem, from Israel, over the entire earth, including all the things in heaven and things on the earth. Everything is being managed by God towards that final time, that final 1,000 years. That's the earthly kingdom that the Bible talks about.

So we have God's administration of all things, the universal kingdom, and then we have the earthly kingdom there in the last part of Ephesians 1.10. Here's the thing that's very interesting. It is oftentimes not recognized that in the book of Ephesians, the Christ, which is a phrase that means the Messiah, when Caiaphas asked Christ, you know, are you the Christ, meaning are you the Messiah? He put the definite article in front of it. Same thing in here. 23 times in Ephesians. It actually has the Messiah.

This in Ephesians 1.10 is the first place that it does so.

So summing up all things in the Christ, the Messiah in the Millennial Kingdom. So in the chart As you look at that chart on the top of the page, Christ is, and we have that changing over time. One of the things that we put on there at the very top part, Christ is the Alpha and the Omega. The Alpha is the first letter in the Greek alphabet, the Omega is the last one, so He is the Alpha and the Omega.

Rabbis would say, He is the Aleph and the Toph. He is the first letter and the last. And matter of fact, we talk like that in English, A to Z, right? When we say A to Z, we mean the first thing and the last thing and everything in the middle. So the expression is actually the same in a number of cultures. And we put that on there.

Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, as Revelation puts it. He is also the Creator. This is Colossians chapter one. Everything was created by Him. Nothing was made without being created by Him. As we went through several years ago, teaching through the book of Genesis, we saw that Christ, until He was born of Mary, was referred to as the Angel of the Lord. And we see Him appearing several times, particularly, but not exclusively, in Genesis as the Angel of the Lord. He is, as the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation say, He is the Lamb, He is the Word made flesh. He is seated in the heavenlies and He is also our life on this earth, referring to us in the church.

In Revelation, beginning in The fourth and fifth chapters, we see the introduction where Christ is the seal opener and through revelation for chapters to follow. He is the one who breaks the seals, the seven seals. Christ is more than what you see in the chart, isn't he?

He's the Prince of Peace, the Counselor, These are titles we see in Isaiah, and we sung even in this morning's hymns. Christ is also, as he claims in the Gospel of John, the bread of life, the door, the good shepherd. He is a mediator. Revelation calls him the Lion of Judah. So what he is is not limited to what you see in the chart, but it's at least intended to give you some representation.

Christ has varying roles and titles throughout the span of this present heavens and earth. There will be one title that he will have. It's very interesting. Out of all these titles, which one continues? The one that continues is to call him the Lamb.

Can you imagine when we're in the new heavens and new earth and everything on this earth is forgotten? We won't be crying or whimpering or regretting anything. Everything is forgotten. But we will look upon Christ and recognize Him as the Lamb. We won't be saying, oh, I did this and I did that. We won't remember all those things, but we will remember that He paid the price, that He was the Lamb. And since we, the church, are the bride of Christ, we remember that He paid the bride price in His own blood. Christ's roles and titles are not equal in duration. Christ will be the Lamb forever.

Now, one of the things that makes this abundantly clear, God does time management. What do we mean by that? An aspect of God's managing all things, this is the universal kingdom of God, God being the builder of all things, in the heavens and on the earth, that's the universal kingdom, is that God selects spans of time and points of time. Spans of time and points of time. We think of time management, we don't think of it in this way. God is the one who sets the specific points in time, and he sets spans of time. We can think of various instances.

Here is Acts 1, 6, and 7, which is on the screen there, but not on your handout. Here's the disciples. Christ is just about to be ascended, and they're asking him questions. So the question that they have for Christ is this. It says, so when they had come together, they were asking him, Christ, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel, the physical earthly kingdom? In verse 7, He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.

You see, we wonder, oh boy, when is this going to happen? Or how long? I even saw a little postcard one time. There's this guy at this desk and he says, how long until the next delay? Right? And so durations and spans of time and specific points in time, God fixes these things. And some of them are very significant, and others less so.

But God is the one who sets these spans of time and points of time. God would have the Israelites in Egypt for centuries, about four, and then select the exact time when they would leave Egypt. You're going to be here this long, but this day, you're going to depart. God is the one who manages the spans of time and points of time.

Christ didn't die at just any old time. Whenever you're ready, just go ahead and do it. No. Christ died, Romans 5, 6, for our sins at the right time. God picked the right time in history to do it. And in fact, there were some good things that God set up so that that could be accomplished then and told more easily.

Alexander the Great had come in several centuries before and had made Greek the common language throughout the whole eastern part of the Roman Empire and even well known in the western part of the Roman Empire and even into the eastern area east of the Roman Empire.

The Romans built enough roads to go two times around the earth by hand. Two times around the earth. And those roads made it possible to travel with the gospel as never before. And the Pharisees were missionary about spreading the stories of the Old Testament.

So that when Paul and others who went out to spread the gospel in different places would talk about Moses and would talk about David, that people had already heard of it. God had Christ come at just the right time. And that's not all. He also came in the fullness of time.

Galatians 4.4. God is the one who picks the points of time. He picks spans of time. He picks the right time. And have you ever been in a position where you're really eager for something to happen and you're just anxious, you know, when is this going to happen? And you're just going crazy because it's not happening at what you think is the right time. Well, guess what? God picks points in time and spans of time. He selects them. And here is the Father who has the authority, Jesus said, the authority to pick those spans and points of time.

Now, we make the point here just to get it clear in people's minds that Gentiles is an ethnic distinction. Those Gentiles, non-Jews, who believe are saved. So not all of the Gentiles are saved. As a matter of fact, a great number of them are not. Of Israel, it is an ethnic distinction. As an ethnic group, they were God's chosen people.

But only those who believe are saved. So some of the Gentiles are saved, the ones who believe. Some of the Israelites were saved because they believed. Ethnically, they are God's chosen people, but only those who believe are saved. Of the church that we are a part of, it is a spiritual body, all of whom are believers. Gentiles, some saved. Israel, some saved. The church, only the saved.

We are believers, we are a spiritual body, incidentally ethnic Jews and Gentiles. The ethnicity is incidental. Those are the three groups that the Bible talks about. Gentiles and Israel brought up starting in Genesis. The church not brought up until the end of the Gospels. Okay, so here we have this chart that we've been working with here. And we want to take a look. Here are the Gentiles, the non-Jews. They began in Adam, right? The Gentiles all began in Adam.

Can all be saved by faith? Not all are, but can be saved by faith. Those saved by faith, even though they're Gentiles like me, I'm a northern European mongrel, right? Those saved by faith from the time of Acts 2 to the rapture, that is the taking up of the church, are part of the church. Once the church is taken out, the identification of Gentiles as a critical ethnic distinction will resume until the end of the time on this present earth, which, if the Lord were to take us home today, would be 1,007 years from now.

Now we have Israel, which is under the law. Israel was given the Law of Moses, all 613 of those individual laws given by Moses, and they were God's chosen ethnic people, it does not mean that all of them were saved. Why? Because salvation always was, is now, and always will be by faith.

And only those who believe are saved. Those saved by faith, Israelites or Gentiles, are saved by faith from the time of Acts 2, the time of Pentecost, to the rapture, when the Lord comes and takes his church home, are part of the church, that spiritual body that is only composed of those who believe. Once the church is taken out, the identification of Israelites as an ethnic distinction will resume until the end of the time on this present heavens and earth. That's why you'll see in this diagram that we have on the top of your first page, when you have the time of the church, which is shortly after the cross shown there, up until the time when the church is taken out, you notice Israel and Gentiles are dashed. Why? The ethnic distinction now becomes secondary during that period of time, during this time of the church.

The church operates by the principle of grace. Romans 5, 17, and 21 say that grace is the reigning principle. And by the way, if you want to mix law and grace, and frankly there are a lot of churches that do, you've missed your chance. You've missed your chance. Why? Because the law that was given by Moses was already a mixture of law and grace. The church operates entirely under the principle of grace. Grace alone. Period. That's all. No law. Not ten. Not ten minus one for the Sabbath. Not ten minus one plus one more for the tithe. None of that. Pure, total, complete grace.

The church is a spiritual body which incidentally is composed of Gentiles and Jews. It is not under any part of the law of Moses. Here in Romans 6, 14 and 15, you're not under law but under grace. Oh, verse 15, in case you didn't get it, not under law but under grace. All of you, this is Galatians 3, 27 and 28, all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. Now the reality is that we're Jews and Greeks, right? But what's primary is the church is a spiritual body. There is neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female. We're all one in Christ Jesus. Does it mean we're all neuter? No. What it means is the primary distinction doesn't have to do with anything earthly.

The primary distinction is it is a spiritual body composed only of believers. The church consists of those Gentiles and Israelites who have believed in Christ from Acts 2 to the rapture. The church, even now, has its blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, which include a heavenly seating and heavenly citizenship. And you can set your mind and hope on that. Back to the diagram here. Now, we have this up arrow, which is coded in blue there. I want to talk about that.

Why does the church depart before the seven-year tribulation period? The Gentiles and Israel can both be shown to be subject to God's wrath. Example, and this is only one example, Psalm 78-59, when God heard he was filled with wrath and greatly abhorred Israel. Where is the wrath directed to? Israel, right?

Here is Jeremiah 10.25. Pour out your wrath on the nations, again, nations, plural, is the Gentiles, that do not know you, and on the families that do not call on your name for they have devoured Jacob, also called Israel. There's wrath on Israel, and there's wrath on the nations. But the church is promised multiple times to be saved from God's wrath. Romans 5, 9, and 10. It's interesting, the 9 and 10 combinations. 1 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10, and 5, 9, and 10. I'll read 1 Thessalonians 1, 10.

And to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come. There is wrath coming on this earth. It could start today. Okay? If the Lord takes us out of here. We will be rescued from the wrath. It is not so that we can not have any troubles. That's not the point. Because we will have troubles.

As a matter of fact, God has purpose in trials. And we are appointed to trials. I hope you're enjoying those. Right? We're appointed to trials. The point is not to keep us from having any troubles and trials and tribulations. You're going to have them. Guaranteed. And if you don't, you've got a problem. But we will not be subject to God's wrath. That's the distinction.

The beginning of the seven-year tribulation period, Revelation chapter 6, begins God's wrath for those who are on the earth. So the earth has to have been taken out prior to that point. Revelation 6, 16 and 17, the wrath of the Lamb, the wrath has come, who is able to stand. This is the beginning of God's expression of wrath on Gentiles and upon Israel, but not on the church. There's another reason.

Those of us who are in the church, grace is the reigning principle. Scripture is abundantly clear. Once the seven-year tribulation period begins, law returns as do sacrifices in the temple. While the mention of the church on earth ends once that seven-year tribulation period begins, The language of the book of Revelation returns to the 12 tribes of Israel and to the Gentile nations.

Immediately it starts up. We have here a quote from Revelation 7, 4, and 5, and there's actually more of it. I just took a sampling. Every tribe of the sons of Israel, the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad, and on and on, the whole listing of all the tribes. The Gentile nations are spoken about later on in that very same chapter. Now, a couple years ago we did a year-long study through the book of Revelation.

You'll be glad to know we won't do that this morning. But you can feel free to look it up and you have a link on your handout on the back there. If you want to you can go ahead and put all those letters and numbers and everything weird notations in, or you can download it and just click on it. But anyway, we do have that available. Now, here's the interesting contrast.

Only unbelievers will enter the tribulation period. Got that? Only unbelievers will enter the seven-year tribulation period. Why? Because the church will all be taken out. And only believers will enter the Millennial Kingdom. Those who have these kinds of bodies, those who have these kinds of human bodies, who survive the tribulation period and believe, will enter, whether Gentiles or Jews, whether Gentiles as non-Jews or Jews, will enter into that Millennial Kingdom and will populate, in these kinds of bodies, the earthly kingdom. None of the unbelievers will be qualified to enter that Millennial Kingdom. All the believers who enter that Millennial Kingdom, Gentiles and Jews, will have become believers during the Tribulation and will have survived all the plagues and persecutions.

Now, for the next two weeks we're going to be addressing the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of substitution, because those are two things that are presented in the New Testament and actually presented initially in the Gospels in the New Testament. And here's the distinction that I'd like to make.

The gospel of substitution, that is, Christ died for your sins. He was our substitute. for every person on the planet, and it doesn't matter what your ethnic background is or anything, every person on the planet from the very beginning to the very end of this present earth, Christ died for the sins of all those. He died in place of, as a substitute for us. You see, we were due to pay for those, right? I should have paid for it. But out of God's grace and mercy, He paid for it. He was my substitute.

So the gospel of substitution is all about Christ's first coming. The gospel of the kingdom, mentioned in Matthew 4 and 9, the gospel of the kingdom is about Christ's second coming. See the distinction there? So, several years ago, I was even talking to some people here in the hallway about, oh, there's two different Gospels. What? Ah! You know? But that's what we're talking about. The one Gospel is the Gospel that everybody needs to know and hear about, because it's that that they need to believe in order to be saved. That Christ died for your sins and was buried and rose again.

The gospel of the kingdom was specifically directed to the Jews. And that's why in Matthew chapter 10, and we'll get there before very long, if the Lord allows so long. Matthew chapter 10, Jesus told his disciples to go out two by two. He said, go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Do not go on a road that leads to the Gentiles. Why?

The gospel of the kingdom has its primary focus on Israel and will be fulfilled in the land of Israel. There are two different gospels and that's what we'll be looking at. The third point here that's key is the church. We the church are under grace, not under some portion of the law of Moses.

We can't go snipping and clipping because one of the points that we made is 613 laws were given in the Law of Moses. When we trim that back, we don't need so much grace. And that's a problem. Mini-law only requires mini-grace. Or micro-law only requires micro-grace. In fact, we need infinite grace. And that's exactly what God intends.

Let's thank Him for His amazing grace. Lord, we do give You thanks. Your grace is amazing. And we thank you as we look at this diagram and think these things through, that in spite of what appears to be chaos, you do have an intent in this earth to manage everything towards that final time when everything will be summed up in Christ. You are, in fact, managing all things as a part of your kingship over the entire universe. So that everything is summed up in Christ in that final earthly time in this present heavens and earth. And we give you thanks for you're doing it because you love us. You do it because you care and you do it for your glory. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.