Those two
kingdoms – the spiritual and the physical – are not the same kingdom, yet in in a way they are because together they form a whole realm under God. Your spirit and your body are not the same thing, yet both of them are you, a single person [hopefully]. To confuse the two would be a mistake, and to completely separate the two would be a mistake. So it is with the following two Biblical expressions:
1)
the kingdom of God and 2)
the kingdom of heaven.
The expression
the kingdom of God is
basically a reference to the
spiritual aspect of the kingdom as
God is a spirit (Jn.4:24).
The expression
the kingdom of heaven is
basically a reference to the
physical aspect of the kingdom, as heaven is a
place (Rev.12:8, 20:11).
But since God is in heaven, it is normal to think of
the kingdom of God and
the kingdom of heaven as referring to the same thing, especially when you read equivalent statements:
So it appears these two expressions refer to the same kingdom. The confounding element is that the expression
kingdom of God – though mostly a reference to the spiritual aspect of the kingdom – is a general expression which sometimes refers to the holistic aspect of the kingdom – both spiritual and physical. It’s as with the term “America” which sometimes refers to the nation and sometimes to the continent – which also includes the nation – and the main way to tell the difference is the context. Likewise, the term “kingdom of God” sometimes refers to the narrower
physical/political kingdom of God and sometimes to the
wider and fundamentally spiritual kingdom of God – which also includes the physical/political kingdom of heaven:
The spiritual kingdom and the physical kingdom are part of the same overall kingdom, but they are not the same and that will begin to explain what the Lord called
the mystery of the kingdom of God (Mark 4:11). The lower two are
never identical. The expression
the kingdom of God can refer to the kingdom of heaven when the context is physical/political/Israelitish, but when the context is spiritual it cannot; and vice-versa the expression
the kingdom of heaven can never refer to the spiritual aspect of the kingdom of God.
Any study that fails to note the following differences between the two aspects of the kingdom is non-scriptural study: