Introduction

Many Christians think of the Kingdom as if it were synonymous with the church, not understanding that the church consists of the citizens of the Kingdom, while the Kingdom includes three other important elements: the King, His laws, and territory. By definition, the church consists of those who follow the King, Jesus Christ, but many reject His laws as if they were evil or detrimental to one’s faith.

As for territory, many believers sing, “This world is not my home; I’m just passing through,” whereas Scripture tells us that “the meek will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5, KJV). Jesus taught that the earth is our inheritance. It is not to be thought of as a mere incubator, as some say. Our inheritance is not heaven itself. The earth was not created evil but “very good” (Gen. 1:31), and Adam’s sin did not disqualify it as our inheritance. Sin did indeed bring about a long detour to give time to bring it back to its original purpose.

In the end, our calling is to proactively fulfill Jesus’ prayer to bring the will of God from heaven to earth (Matt. 6:10) so that the earth reflects the will of God.

The Kingdom is everything that God has created. Its scope is seen from the beginning in Gen. 1:1,

¹ In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

God’s Kingdom, then is defined as the heavens and the earth. One cannot eliminate the earth from the Kingdom, nor can it be said that believers will live forever in heaven. In fact, the overcomers are promised a glorified body in which they—like Jesus after His resurrection—will be able to minister in both realms until things have been restored.

While Scripture has much to say about faith in Christ and Christ’s place as the Universal King, the main thrust of Christ’s ministry was in “proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt. 4:23). So we read in Matt. 9:35,

³⁵ Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

As His disciples, we are called to this same purpose, for we are called to preach the same gospel that He preached. This includes the great concepts of faith, repentance, and a host of Kingdom ingredients, all of which have their part in the overall Kingdom message. Yet the trend is to focus upon personal salvation and neglect the larger purpose. In fact, “building the church,” which is seen as gathering more church members, has become a substitute for building the Kingdom.

In the fourth century, when the Roman Empire was Christianized by Emperor Constantine, the church reoriented its view. The Empire became the territory of the Kingdom, and its laws, insofar as they reflected Christian principles, became the laws of the Kingdom. This conversion of Rome put an end to the persecution of the church as a whole, but almost immediately the church began to persecute those who did not submit to the creeds that church councils declared to be necessary for good standing in the politically recognized church.

Very quickly, the gospel of salvation shifted from simplicity to complexity and no longer believed Paul’s statement in Eph. 2:8,

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

The church seemed to shift its view of salvation as if Paul had written,

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith and belief in the creeds devised by church leaders…

Any study of those church councils makes it clear that most of those church leaders were carnal and ambitious men who often threatened their peers or bought their votes to determine the truth of Scripture. While they may have opened up those councils with a formal prayer, they failed to wait on the Lord to receive a word from the Spirit that might resolve the conflicting viewpoints. Yet the people were supposed to profess the views of those church councils or face excommunication—or even death.

It is clear that this church “kingdom” was not the Kingdom of God but just another kingdom of religious men who claimed to be Christians. To be led by the Spirit was often a capital offense, and it was not long before believers were denied the right to hear God for themselves—unless, of course, the “revelation” they received was in agreement with the creeds of carnal men.

So in the centuries following, the church became a religious organization instead of being based on a personal relationship with Christ Himself. Men could be saved only if they were members in good standing in a church organization. The gospel of the Kingdom was less and less important and so it was forgotten.

This book is an attempt to reestablish the basic principles of the Kingdom, principles that have faded from church memory. In Heb. 5:11-14 Paul saw how, even in his own time, the basic principles had been forgotten. He seemed incredulous that the church so soon needed to go back and study the “milk” of the word. Few seemed to understand the “meat” of the word because they had not yet properly absorbed the “milk.”

The problem in Paul’s time has persisted to the present day. It is my hope that this book will be helpful, not only to new believers but also to those who need to reexamine the foundations of Kingdom teaching.

Because the doctrine of the church changed from time to time, and as the official religion of the governed world required submission, regardless of its verifiability, translators were influenced by their environment, resulting in some obvious mistranslations.

Today, we have two issues to deal with. The first is our flesh, and how the flesh works in its narcissism. The second is the priority Jesus established in Matt. 6:33, and the direct command of Matt. 28:19-20. Therefore, we have broken the milk of the word into two parts. First, we will address the proper definition of the words used every day in the evangelical churches so there can be an unambiguous definition of Christianity. Second, we will attempt to lay the foundation Paul taught, as listed in Heb. 6:1-2.