“His Kingdom is Spiritual”

Some assert Christ’s kingdom is spiritual [only]. They don’t expect Christ will literally reign on this earth.

In this article, I want to address four of the reasons I do not believe this argument.

The Kingdom of God is Within You

Jesus told Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (Jn 3:3). We know Christ’s kingdom is spiritual, but is it only spiritual?

Luke 17:20-21 (NKJV)
20 Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

Jesus was addressing their first need—to be born again into the kingdom of God spiritually. The Pharisees for the most part did not believe Jesus, and were active in the plot to put Him to death (Mt 12:14).

In the very next verses, Jesus addresses His disciples, who already believed in Him. To them, He spoke of the days leading to His second coming.

Luke 17:22–25 (NKJV)
22 Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there!’ Do not go after them or follow them. 24 For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. 25 But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

He’s telling us in advance that there will be some hard days when we will eagerly desire to see, “one of the days of the Son of Man,” but we will not see it. And people will try to deceive us to believe He has come when He has not. We’ve been warned. Lk 17:23-37 is about identifying the true coming of Christ, as well as exhortation to abide in Christ despite severe persecution.

Lord, Will You at this Time Restore the Kingdom to Israel?

After Jesus was resurrected from the dead, He appeared to the disciples and taught them over a period of forty days (Ac 1:3). At the end of this time, the disciples asked Him, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Ac 1:6). If the kingdom of God was spiritual only, this would have been a good time for Jesus to correct His disciples in their expectations of prophecy. He did not do this. Notice how He replied:

Acts 1:7-8 (NKJV)
7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

He told them the Father has set the times and it’s not for them to know. Jesus wanted them to be His witnesses, to make disciples on the whole earth. We are still doing this today, and the end (His coming– and “restoring of the kingdom”) will only come when the work is done (Mt 24:14).

The Lord’s Prayer

When one of the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, He said this:

Matthew 6:9-13 (NKJV)
9 In this manner, therefore, pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Why would He ask us to pray in this way if He’s never going to establish His kingdom on earth?

The LORD’s Unconditional Covenant

The Old Testament prophets (and other Scriptures) speak often of the future salvation of Israel. But there is another promise, very tangible, and it does not fit with a purely spiritual kingdom. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s the covenant He made concerning the land of Israel.

The LORD had promised descendants like the stars in the sky to a childless Abram, and Abram believed Him. Then the LORD told him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it” (Ge 15:7). Abram asked, “LORD God, how shall I know that I will inherit it?” The LORD had Abram bring specific animals to Him. The larger animals Abram cut in half and arranged the pieces opposite each other. This was the way of establishing a covenant: if two people were making a covenant with each other, they would walk through the pieces together, symbolizing that if one of the partners broke the covenant, he should be made like the animals—cut in two. When God sent a smoking oven and flaming torch between the pieces—while Abram slept—He was making an unconditional (one way) covenant. Abram was a witness (in his dream), but he himself did not walk through the pieces. The LORD did it alone.

Genesis 15:18-21 (NKJV)
18 On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying:
“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

What stands out to me is the borders of the land. As far as I can understand, the borders or Israel have never reached as far from the wadi of Egypt to the river Euphrates (which is in Iraq). David and Solomon’s kingdoms were close in a matter of lands that gave them tribute, but as a sovereign nation, Israel has never possessed the land for themselves according to these borders. The LORD does not break unconditional covenants—it is not in His nature.

The covenant of land is defined in terms of the present earth (the wadi of Egypt, the Euphrates river) and the peoples who once called it home. It’s not the new earth of Revelation 21, where New Jerusalem is a cube with an approximately 1.9 million square mile footprint—the size of about 60% of the contiguous United States.

In the book of Isaiah, there are several prophecies concerning the land of Israel.

Isaiah 9:1-7 is about the Messiah—portions were fulfilled in His first coming, and the rest will be fulfilled at His second coming. Check out verse 3:

Isaiah 9:3-5 (NKJV) (emphasis added)
3 You have multiplied the nation
And increased its joy;
They rejoice before You
According to the joy of harvest,
As men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
4 For You have broken the yoke of his burden
And the staff of his shoulder,
The rod of his oppressor,
As in the day of Midian.
5 For every warrior’s sandal from the noisy battle,
And garments rolled in blood,
Will be used for burning and fuel of fire.

Isaiah 26 is about the return of Christ, and immediately afterwards.

Isaiah 26:15 (NKJV)
15 You have increased the nation, O LORD,
You have increased the nation;
You are glorified;
You have expanded all the borders of the land.

This will be the praise of Israel after the Messiah returns! He increased the nation and expanded all the borders of the land.

How does that happen?

Isaiah 27:12 (NKJV)
12 And it shall come to pass in that day
That the LORD will thresh,
From the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt;
And you will be gathered one by one,
O you children of Israel.

It would be easy to just gloss over this, but it’s very significant. To thresh is to remove the chaff—a throwaway casing around the grain. Before Jesus returns, Israel will be filled with a great army of many nations, bent on her destruction (Zech 14:2, Rv 16:12-16). But Christ will return and annihilate them (Zech 14:12-15, Rv 19:21)!

Matthew 3:12 (NKJV)
12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

When Christ threshes the land, the borders will be according to the covenant the LORD made with Abram thousands of years ago!  This is no coincidence!

Fundamentally, we who worship Him should know the LORD keeps His promises. If He promised to reign on this earth, He will. I haven’t addressed all the passages in this short article (I will cover more in various blog posts), but I am confident He has promised to reign on this earth, and He will do it. Will we believe Him?