*** w55 10/15 p. 622 pars. 2-6 The Triumphant Message of “The Kingdom” *** kingdom yet to be established in answer to the prayer that Jesus taught, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”—Matt. 6:9, 10. 3 An honest examination of history, however, shows that shortly after the death of all twelve of Jesus’ apostles by the end of the first century the message of even a coming kingdom of our heavenly Father began to die out. The church came to be understood as the Kingdom, and the Kingdom would come when the church was visibly or powerfully established in the earth. Less and less the emphasis was laid on the coming kingdom as the church fell away more and more from the true Christian hope and became allied to the Roman state. When finally the Roman emperor, Constantine, claimed to be converted and became a Roman Catholic, the religious clergy felt that the Kingdom had come and they sought to increase the rule of this religio-political kingdom. In 800 (A.D.), when the Holy Roman Empire was established by Charlemagne’s being crowned emperor by Pope Leo III at Rome, it was felt still more that God’s kingdom had been established and that, although the kingdom of God was one, it manifested itself in two directions, in the temporal direction through the political empire and in the spiritual direction through the Roman Catholic pope. 4 The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was mixed up with politics of western Europe and this led to the marriage union of the Protestant sects with the political states. The political rulers of such religio-political states were declared to rule by divine right and to be the visible representatives of God on earth, ruling in His name. This understanding of matters affected all views regarding God’s kingdom, and although missionaries were later sent out to all parts of the earth their proclamation concerning God’s kingdom was bound to be incorrect because they misunderstood the subject and they preached the teachings of the church systems that had become a part of this world. 5 On the other hand, Jesus, when on trial for his life, told the Roman governor of Judea: “My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought that I should not be delivered up to the Jews. But, as it is, my kingdom is not from this source.” (John 18:36, NW) In no way, therefore, could the preaching that the Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Protestant missionaries did during past centuries be interpreted as fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy at Matthew 24:14. 6 In this prophecy Jesus did not mean the preaching by such missionaries of apostate Christian religions. The Kingdom-preaching that he predicted had to wait until this twentieth century in order to go into action. God’s timing of events made it so. What is the kingdom the good news of which was to be preached earth-wide to all nations at the foremeant time? The point of the question that the four apostles put to Jesus determines the right answer. They said: “Tell us, When will these things be, and what will be the sign of your presence and of the consummation of the system of things?” (Matt. 24:3, NW; Mark 13:3, 4) It was about Christ’s actual presence in his God-given kingdom that those apostles asked. And
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 04:14:19 +0000
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