Featured Was the Kingdom of Heaven Really at Hand When Jesus Came

I have no doubt what is the words of God. I have studied the KJV Bible for years and it has proven itself to me in many ways that it is completely trustworthy. I learned as a young man how important meditation on the word of God was to understand the deep things of God and to this day I meditate on the words I have read and the stories I am told from the scriptures. Often times for me it is the use of a single word that unlocks the meaning of a passage or a doctrine and I receive light from it.

However, let me quickly say that you are not a second class Christian if you do not agree with me and if you like ten or twelve translations and read them daily. The only effect it will have on me is that there will be places in the scriptures where we will not agree. We will not be linked in our minds or by what we are reading to the same cross references and ideas. If you have been saved by believing the gospel of Jesus Christ you will never be any less saved and you are equal with me as a son of God through the new birth. God has not asked you or me to understand and believe the doctrine of the kingdom to be saved. Our salvation is not dependent on that doctrine even as important as it is. If you fail to believe the truth about the kingdom or some other Bible doctrine because of your views on the scriptures, it will probably cause you to lose rewards but it certainly will not do any damage to your salvation.

I am not advocating one must believe the KJV to be saved. One must believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was saved when I was 14 years old in the Baptist church my family faithfully attended. I had heard the gospel of Jesus Christ all my life because it was faithfully preached in our church. I came to understand and to be persuaded and believe that I was a sinner in need of salvation and in my heart and to the best I could I asked Jesus Christ to save me, and he did. I believed then that Jesus Christ died for me and paid my sin debt and that he rose from the dead and the pardon he gave me was free and without cost. That is all I knew then but I have learned much since that day. I would still be saved if along the way I would have bought and studied from an NIV. I doubt that I would have been here speaking about the kingdom but I would still be as saved as ever.

But thank God for his faithfulness in his words.

 

.....okay,........ I guess........

 

Actually this is not true except as it pertained to his overall stated reason for his first coming, and that is stated clearly and plainly here:

44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
45 Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,


Reason and logic is the order between these verses, 45 and 46..

46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And ye are witnesses of these things.

More reason and logic:The gospel of Jesus Christ could not be preached before the death, burial, and resurrection, unless it pertained only to his coming to establish his government over the world.
because who in Israel would understand it and believe it?

49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
50 And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them.
51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

More reason and logic; They were not instructed to begin their preaching ministry immediately after he left but to wait for his promise from the Father, which we know as the indwelling Spirit that he must send after he has ascended. We are told that on the eve of his crucifixion.

John 16:7
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

Jn 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.


20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

John 14:26
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Sometimes when I am reading the commentary I find myself wondering if some folk who comments have ever read the scriptures. And how do these folk decide to be called a Baptist? Is logic and reason and rules of grammar tossed aside when reading the scriptures, or if not reading, scanning the scriptures?

Jesus did not speak to his disciples about his death, burial, and resurrection until they were on the way to Jerusalem from Galilee where he would be crucified and none of them understood it or accepted it as they wondered out loud about what Jesus meant by saying it. Logic and reason determines that his disciples had not preached any gospel except the gospel of the kingdom. They had not preached the gospel of salvation through a crucified and risen Christ.

Try reading carefully to try to understand what is being said and to define terms.

 

Well,,,, okay.....

The doctrine of comparison. Jesus Christ says his words are spirit and they are life, Jn 6:63 I believe that. Paul says the spiritual man learns the deep things of God by comparing spiritual things with spiritual. There is not a single word, even in your Bibles, that instructs you to translate the scriptures, much less paraphrase them and in some instances make a joke out of them. The scriptures says in the same passage in 1 Cor 2, that "we have the mind of Christ." Our minds thinks thoughts and thoughts are conveyed in words. Jesus says the following about his words;

Joh 12:47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
50 And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

That is all I will say about it here except that God the Father does not take the same view concerning his words as you. It is he who inspired these words;
1Co 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.

The man who had the authority to rebuke and to say these words was the man who had been given the authority, the apostle. The apostles spoke as if they were Christ.

Col 1:23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;
24 Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church:
25 Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God;
26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
28 Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:
29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

I advise reading the whole context and meditating on this great truth. I say again that the signature of Satan is all over this philosophy of continual printing of new Bibles and Paraphrases in the English language, IMO..

There is a concise terminology of scripture that I think embodies the fundamentals of Christianity. It is this, "THE FAITH." This is a NT Christianity phrase not appearing in the OT or the gospels, but first appearing in Acts 3:16 at the beginning of Christianity. When he speaks of the faith he is speaking of the fundamentals of Christianity. These are things that are most surely believed among us. The phrase appears in 42 verses in the NT and I suggest that reading them will be a valuable use of time.

Now again, this is true of my Bible and it may or may not be true of yours. There is a numerical structure to the scriptures and #42 is a number that is associated with gentiles.

Well, you did not provide any examples and I have not wavered on my beliefs. However, I have been as conciliatory as possible, not wanting to be offensive through my personality and presentation of the truth so we can keep this discussion going. I think I have some important things to say.

This is al I have to say on the KJV Bible and the translation issues here because this thread is about the kingdom, at hand.

 

There cannot be the kingdom of God as described in the scriptures without the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ because of sin and death in the world. His kingdom is described as an everlasting kingdom and the citizens of his kingdom have everlasting life from God as a gift. That situation was not possible until the very minute that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. As long as sin is in the world there will be death in it. Jesus Christ came into the world, not to conquer nations and men but to conquer sin and death, the great enemies of mankind.

Now, whether anyone wants to believe this or not, Jesus Christ has put away sin by his sacrificial death on behalf of all men. By putting away he simply means he has provided the atonement for sin, which is a covering to take sin out of the vision of God. This covering is his own righteousness that God testifies that he, Jesus, possesses. The sacrifice was his own blood, which is the life of man and the Spirit of God who indwelt his body, the life of God, and God was fully satisfied on behalf of the whole world by this once forever offering for sin. God has made reconciliation now between himself and sinful men, not being able to see sin, but it takes two parties for restoration. Sinful men must receive the atonement during their lifetime because there is a judgement after men are dead and if the atonement was nor received there will not be a resurrection of the body unto life.

Heb 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

Mal 3:16 Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.
17 And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.
18 Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

Consider these verses:

John 1:29
The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (kosmos = planet)
When?
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world (kosmos=planet)): but now once in the end of the world (aion=age) hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself..

Now let's go back a moment to the kingdom at hand when Jesus came. If the kingdom would have already been in place before Jesus even chose his officers of his kingdom, logic and reason would tell us that it is quite silly to preach that something is at hand that is already in place.

After Jesus rose from the dead, sufficient time would be needed to baptize those Jews who had believed in him during his public ministry and to give them the indwelling Spirit that Jesus had promised to them in passages like John 6. The apostles and the elders which had been chosen by Jesus were commissioned to preach the gospel to none but Jews only. I know this by the fact that their commission included the command to baptize every creature before they received the Holy Ghost and the Holy Ghost was given by the laying on of the apostles hands. These men had been specially equipped to have the discernment of Jesus Christ when he pronounced that whatsoever they would bind on earth would be bound in heaven and whatsoever they loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven. At this same time they were given the Spirit of Jesus Christ by his breathing him into them in John 20 on resurrection Sunday. I have followed their careers for the next 7 years and know they did not leave Jerusalem and Judaea. Look at this passage after the national rejection of the Holy Spirit by the Jewish rulers when they killed Stephen.

Ac 8:1 And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles. What Jesus had said to the apostles just a few weeks earlier when he was facing crucifixion may have had an influence on their decision to stay in Jerusalem. Remember what he said?

Mt 19:27 Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?
28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

So the pattern of the kingdom is structured after Moses and later the judges. Moses, Joshua, and David on his throne in the future being the three principle men in the kingdom.

Remember what the apostles asked Jesus when he ascended back to heaven. It was a legitimate question because both Jesus and the apostles preached for 31/2 years that the kingdom was at hand and was coming. Here is the exchange;

Ac 1:6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Now, they were completely without understanding and light concerning this age until Paul, the man commissioned of God to reveal the mysteries of this age, which would include the gentiles as equal in stature and with God as the Jews during this mystery form of the kingdom while the King was gone back to heaven to receive his kingdom from the Father and to return.

Lu 19:11 And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear.
13 And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.
14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us.

Ac 3:19 Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord;
20 And he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you:
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool.

When Jesus said he came to fulfill all that was written of him in the Psalms, Moses, Prophets, he was not speaking of this age because the mysteries of this age are not written in those portions of scriptures. They are revealed in this age and they are temporary on the earth.

The kingdom that was "at hand" surely was. I have chosen to continue speaking about the kingdom in this post. There is much to know and God will teach us if we will believe the words and honor context. I know your first introduction to the truth of the kingdom is difficult for you, but hang in there and allow God to teach you .The reward will be great.

 

Who made ChatGPT and the internet the end of all authority?

If that is what you think, then I am okay with it and certainly not intimidated or anxious because you take that view. I have already indicated that your choice of Bibles is between you and God, or maybe ChatGPT and the internet and it is not my calling to try to change your mind about it. This one thing is dead sure though, there is going to be areas of disagreement on doctrines between you and me because we are not reading the same words and our studies of those words do not take us to the same comparisons of scriptures. Dead sure this is true.

This would not apply to one who had several Bibles all with different words.

Well...... okay!!........

I like to make up my own mind about the scriptures. Do you have any opinion on the kingdom of heaven is at hand?

 

Thanks for your input on my op, CB4U, but I do not see any answer to the question of the op in your comments.

If you want to talk about baptism in water, I will write a few words. It seems to me that God baptizes all of his physical creation in water. It seems the universe itself is under water. I do not mean we are immersed in water but we are certainly under it and over it.

Ps 136:6 To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever.
Ps 148:4 Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.

The earth
2Pe 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

Israel the nation of God and the Son of God was baptized in water in connection with the Father when they were born in the flesh in Egypt and were baptized in the red sea proving one does not have to get wet to be baptized in water.

1Co 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea;

They were baptized in water in connection with the Son;

Mt 3:5 Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan,
6 And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.

They were baptized in water in connection with the Holy Ghost;

Ac 2:36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.
37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

It is interesting that baptism in water didn't save any of the house of Israel.

The church of Jesus Christ is baptized in water after the Holy Ghost is given;

Ac 10:42 And he commanded us (the apostles) to preach unto the people (of Israel), and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.
43 To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
44 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost.
46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,
47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

All these same entities will be baptized in fire in the future but I will not give you all the references now, but they are there. I will give you the fire baptism of the church of Jesus Christ. It will take place in heaven.

1Co 3:8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour.
9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
9 Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Fire is the great refiner but here I am just musing waiting for someone to answer the op, but in a mood to write something about the Lord and his wonderful book..

 

thanks Charlie24, that is some sound reasoning.