Lesson 31 Explore 1: Is the Kingdom of God in Your Heart? | Bible Questions
The Bible’s answer
No, God’s Kingdom is not merely a condition in the hearts of Christians. The Bible identifies its true location by calling it “the kingdom of heaven.” King James Version)
(Matthew 4.17: From that time on, Jesus began preaching and saying: “Repent, for the Kingdom of the heavens has drawn near.”)
Consider how the Bible shows it to be a real government that is ruling from heaven.
• God’s Kingdom has rulers, subjects, laws, and a mandate to establish the will of God in heaven and on the earth.-
(Matthew 6.10: Let your Kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also on earth.)
(Revelation 5.10: and you made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God, and they are to rule as kings over the earth.”)
• God’s government, or Kingdom, will rule over all “the peoples, nations, and language groups” of the earth.
(Daniel 7.13, 14: “I kept watching in the visions of the night, and look! with the clouds of the heavens, someone like a son of man was coming; and he gained access to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him up close before that One. And to him there were given rulership, honor, and a kingdom, that the peoples, nations, and language groups should all serve him. His rulership is an everlasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom will not be destroyed.)
The authority for its rulership comes, not from its subjects, but directly from God.-
(Psalm 2.4-6: The One enthroned in the heavens will laugh; Jehovah will scoff at them. At that time he will speak to them in his anger And terrify them in his burning anger, Saying: “I myself have installed my king On Zion, my holy mountain.”)
(Isaiah 9.7: To the increase of his rulership And to peace, there will be no end, On the throne of David and on his kingdom In order to establish it firmly and to sustain it Through justice and righteousness, From now on and forever. The zeal of Jehovah of armies will do this.)
• Jesus told his faithful apostles that they would join him in the Kingdom of heaven to “sit on thrones.”-
(Luke 22.28: “However, you are the ones who have stuck with me in my trials;)
(Luke 22.30: so that you may eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the 12 tribes of Israel.)
• The Kingdom has enemies, which it will destroy.-
(Psalm 2.1, 2: Why are the nations agitated And the peoples muttering an empty thing? The kings of the earth take their stand And high officials gather together as one Against Jehovah and against his anointed one.)
(Psalm 2.8, 9: Ask of me, and I will give nations as your inheritance And the ends of the earth as your possession. You will break them with an iron scepter, And you will smash them like a piece of pottery.”)
(Psalm 110.1, 2: Jehovah declared to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand Until I place your enemies as a stool for your feet.” Jehovah will extend the scepter of your power out of Zion, saying: “Go subduing in the midst of your enemies.”)
(1 Corinthians 15.25, 26: For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. And the last enemy, death, is to be brought to nothing.)
The Bible does not teach that the Kingdom of heaven is in your heart in the sense that it rules through a person’s heart. However, it does show that the “word of the Kingdom” or the “good news of the Kingdom” can and should affect our hearts.-
(Matthew 13.19: Where anyone hears the word of the Kingdom but does not get the sense of it, the wicked one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart; this is the one sown alongside the road.)
(Matthew 24.14: And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.)
What does “the kingdom of God is within you” mean?
Some people have become confused about the location of the Kingdom by the rendering of Luke 17:21 in some Bible translations. For example, the King James Version says that “the kingdom of God is within you.” To understand this verse correctly, we must consider the context.
CAPTION: God’s Kingdom was not in the heart of Jesus’ obstinate and murderous opposers
Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, a group of religious leaders who opposed him and shared in arranging for his execution.
(Matthew 12.14: But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him to kill him.)
(Luke 17.20: On being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God was coming, he answered them: “The Kingdom of God is not coming with striking observableness;)
Does it make sense to think that the Kingdom was a condition in their obstinate hearts? Jesus told them: “Inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”-
(Matthew 23.27, 28: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because you resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men’s bones and of every sort of uncleanness. In the same way, on the outside you appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.)
Other translations accurately clarify Jesus’ statement at Luke 17:21: “God’s kingdom is here with you.” (Italics ours; Contemporary English Version) “The Kingdom of God is among you.” (New World Translation, footnote) The Kingdom of heaven was “with” or “among” the Pharisees, in that Jesus, the one designated by God to rule as King, was standing before them.-
(Luke 1.32, 33: This one will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule as King over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end to his Kingdom.”)
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