The Nature of the Kingdom of God

There has been much discussion in the religious world surrounding the topic of the kingdom of God. Many have debated the time of the establishment of God’s kingdom, others have debated its duration, and still others have debated the very nature of the kingdom. This particular article seeks to discuss the nature of the kingdom while mentioning briefly the time of its establishment.

Daniel wrote, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure” (Daniel 2:44, 45). In this passage Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the “great image” (2:31). In his dream Nebuchadnezzar saw a great image which had a head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass (2:32), legs of iron, and feet of part iron and part clay (2:33). The image represented the succession of kingdoms beginning with Babylon as the head of gold. The Babylonians were followed by the kingdom of Media and Persia as the breast and arms of silver, then the kingdom of Grecia (Greece) as the belly and thighs of brass. Finally, the kingdom of Rome was represented by the legs of iron and the feet of part iron and part clay. It was in the days of those kings (the kings of the Roman Empire) that God would establish his kingdom made “without hands”. The phrase “without hands” gives us an important insight into the nature of God’s kingdom.

As we travel through the Bible we will notice that the phrase “without hands”, or something synonymous, is always put in contrast to something physical and thus denotes something that is spiritual. It is declared that that God does not dwell in temples “made with hands” (Acts 7:48; 17:48; cf. also 1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 2:6; 6:18) but rather His temple is a spiritual one, indeed it is heaven itself (Psalm 11:4; Habbakuk 2:20). Notice also 2 Corinthians 5:1: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Here Paul contrasts our physical earthly bodies with the spiritual bodies “not made with hands” that we will have upon our resurrection from the dead. This spiritual body is described as a “house which is from heaven” (5:2). When Paul wrote to the Colossian brethren he spoke of spiritual circumcision: “And ye are complete in Him [Christ], which is the head of all principality and power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead” (2:10-12). Here the spiritual circumcision of “putting off the body of the sins of the flesh” is called a circumcision “made without hands.” Finally, notice a contrast made by the Hebrew writer between the physical tabernacle in the wilderness and the spiritual tabernacle in heaven: “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (9:24). In this same chapter it is stated that Christ is a high priest “by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands” (9:11). Over and over again we notice that the phrase “without hands”, or its equivalent, references something that is not physical but spiritual.

When this is applied to the kingdom of God (the stone cut out “without hands”) it can mean nothing except that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom. Notice a statement from the mouth of our Lord Himself: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36). There is no better commentary on Daniel 2:44, 45 than that statement. The kingdoms of Babylon, Media and Persia, Grecia, and Rome were all established and sustained by physical combat and the strength of mighty men, but not so with the kingdom of our Lord. The kingdom of God, the church of Christ, was established by Christ’s redemptive work on the cross (cf. Matthew 16:18, 19; Acts 20:28). It was a spiritual battle, not a physical one (Hebrews 2:14). Just the same, Christ’s soldiers fight a spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12), with spiritual armor (Ephesians 6:10-17), even in the face of physical death (Revelation 2:10; Matthew 10:32, 33).

Not only do these truths fly in the face of Pre-Millennial doctrine, which champions the establishment of a physical kingdom on earth during the “last days”, but these truths should also give us great comfort. Because of its spiritual nature the kingdom of God “shall not be left to other people” (Daniel 2:44). No number of mighty men can shake the kingdom of God. No nuclear bomb can destroy its walls, nor can any amount of technology subdue its borders. For we take our stand on the blood of Christ in the midst of a kingdom which “cannot be moved” (Hebrews 12:28).