Understanding the End Times, Part One: The Kingdom of God

 

Remember the former things long past,

For I am God, and there is none other;

I am God, and there is no one like Me,

Declaring the end from the beginning,

And from ancient times things which have not been done,

Saying, “My purpose will be established,

And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.” – Isaiah 46:9-10

There is significantly more to the end times issue than the popular focus on matters of when and how end-time events will take place. The question of “Why?” is also extremely important. We have to understand why this period of history is coming, what it is designed to achieve. Nor can we restrict our study of scripture to what is specifically said concerning the end. No, if we want to fully understand the end, it’s essential that we go back to the beginning, for all of human history has been steadily leading up to this time.

God created human beings to be his imagers—that is, to reflect and represent him—and he gave us the task of caring for this planet. In other words, mankind was to act as God’s regent or viceroy on the earth, ruling over the world on his behalf. Ultimately, Adam and Eve—the father and mother of the Adamic race—chose to rebel, seeking the knowledge to live without the guidance of God. They chose their own will over God’s will, and this unfortunate choice soon became the defining characteristic of the human race: the gratification and exaltation of self. As a result of their rebellion, Adam and Eve were cast out of the place of privilege and blessing that God had prepared for them, doomed to labor for their sustenance and, eventually, to die. Yet, even in the midst of judgment, God showed them mercy and promised a redeemer.

In the centuries that followed, God worked through various individuals who were willing to be led by him. One of the most prominent of these was a man named Abraham, with whom God entered into a covenant, which is a solemn agreement based upon promises (marriage is a type of covenant). In his covenant with Abraham, God promised several things, including:

1. He would have descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven.
2. He and his descendants would possess a great land inheritance encompassing the territory between the Nile and Euphrates rivers.
3. He would become a blessing to all nations.

Abraham’s descendants multiplied greatly and eventually became the nation of Israel, which was named for Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, whose name God changed. In time, God established a covenant with Israelites in order to establish them as a holy people, meaning a people set apart to himself, so that he could bless them for Abraham’s sake and bring them into the land he had promised. This covenant became known as the Mosaic Covenant or the Law of Moses in that it was given to Israel through Moses after the Israelites were freed from a period of bondage in Egypt. In this covenant, God promised Israel many blessings, but he also sternly warned them that these blessings (including the privilege of living in the land they inhabited) were conditional on their loyalty to him. If they departed from him and served other gods like the nations around them, God promised to visit many different types of judgments upon them and to evict them from the land.

Israel started off well under Moses and his successor, Joshua. They established the civil and ceremonial law that God had commanded, and they took the land of Canaan from the various tribes living in it and became prosperous. In time, however, many of them left off serving God in favor of worshiping pagan gods and adopting the religious practices of the nations around them, such as child sacrifice. Time after time, God warned and judged his people for their idolatry, often by sending foreign conquerors to rule over them; and, time after time, the Israelites repented and turned back to God, who then delivered them through a host of judges and prophets.

This cycle continued until the people finally demanded a king to rule over them, just as the nations around them had kings. God warned them of how a king would tax and otherwise oppress them, but the people were insistent, so God set a man over them named Saul. Saul was effectively the nation of Israel in a microcosm. He started off well, just as Israel had in the day s of Moses and Joshua, but he became proud and stubborn and disobeyed God repeatedly. God then revoked the kingship from Saul and chose another man, a young man named David. David was by no means perfect, but he was a man after God’s own heart. He remained loyal to God throughout his life, and while he was king over Israel the people worshiped and served God as the Law of Moses prescribed. God entered into a covenant with David as well, promising that his family would retain the throne forever.

After David and his son Solomon passed off the scene, ten of Israel’s twelve tribes rebelled against David’s grandson Rehoboam and broke away, becoming known as Israel or “the Northern Kingdom.” The remaining two tribes became known as “Judah” or “the Southern Kingdom.” The Northern Kingdom became steeped in idolatry and paganism early on, and had no really good kings at all apart from a man named Jehu, and even he tolerated idolatry in the land to a degree. Eventually, the Northern Kingdom was destroyed and its people were taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire. For its part, the Southern Kingdom remained loyal to the house of David and produced some good kings, but it also had some kings who gave themselves wholeheartedly to the service of pagan gods. As a result, the Southern Kingdom outlasted the Northern Kingdom but eventually fell to the Babylonian empire under Nebuchadnezzar and its people were carried off into exile for seventy years.

As he had in the days of the judges, God sent one prophet after another to Israel and Judah, warning of impending judgment and calling on them to repent and return wholeheartedly to their God. Even as they prophesied of overthrow and captivity, however, a number of these men also foretold a time when God would restore the fortunes of his people, defeat their enemies, and re-gather them in their own land, establishing an everlasting kingdom. In this kingdom, justice and righteousness would reign supreme, and God himself would dwell among men as he had not since the beginning. The kingdom would be centered on Jerusalem, which the prophets commonly referred to as Mount Zion, and the land of Israel would become a place of peace and particular blessing, just as the Garden had once been. God also promised to inaugurate a new covenant with both Judah and Israel, and to write his laws in their hearts so that they would never stray from him again.

This covenant and kingdom would be established and ruled over by a descendant of David known as the Messiah. Messiah is a title taken from the Hebrew word Mashiach, meaning “anointed one,” after the ancient practice of anointing kings with oil. In the Greek language, it is Christos: Christ or “the Christ”. Thus, Messiah was to be both deliverer and king, and it was prophesied that even the gentile nations would come to revere him.

Yet, the prophets also warned that the coming of the kingdom would involve a time of great calamity for Israel. The nation’s enemies would rise up against it, intent on destroying it. God would eventually intervene and stop this, but it would be a terrible time for humanity as a whole. Judgment would fall on those who hated Israel as well as those who hated God and refused to acknowledge him and honor Christ as king.

Eventually, in what the Bible calls “the fullness of time,” God sent his Son, Jesus of Nazareth, into the world. When he began his public ministry, the Bible tells us that Jesus came preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17), which effectively means: “Turn from your rebellion against God, because the Kingdom of God is coming and judgment is coming with it.” The Jews of Jesus’ day knew very well what this reference meant: the time of Israel’s prophesied restoration was near, and they began to openly debate whether Jesus was the expected Messiah, the Christ. Yet, Jesus refused to openly proclaim himself as such, and he would not allow others to prematurely put him in that position. Instead, he taught the people, healed them, freed them from spiritual oppression, and even raised the dead back to life. In so doing, he fulfilled Old Testament prophecies concerning the work of the Messiah, and he exemplified the blessings of the coming Kingdom age, in which disease, the oppression of evil, and even death itself would be overcome. In other words, he showed himself—and those who followed him and did the same works as he did—to be the living Kingdom of God among them: the very personification of the Kingdom and the proof that it was in fact on its way, with both blessing and judgment.

 “I AM the bread of life…” – John 6:35

“I AM the light of the world…” – John 8:12

“I AM the gate for the sheep…” – John 10:7

“I AM the good shepherd…” – John 10:11

“I AM the resurrection and the life…” – John 11:35

“I AM the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6

“I AM the true vine…” – John 15:1

In a nutshell, the ministry of Jesus Christ was a ministry of reconciliation. Everything he did was geared toward restoring what humanity had lost when it lost access to God and the blessings of Eden: peace, health, and life in all of their various dimensions. He set right all that had been made wrong in human experience. In healing the sick and lame, he restored people’s bodies to their proper function. In raising the dead, he restored life that had been lost. In teaching, he restored truth where it had been clouded or distorted. He came to bring restoration, and he was the very embodiment of it.

Yet, not all accepted him or recognized him for who he was. From the very beginning, Jesus called out a select few to follow him and learn from him intimately. These people—both men and women—became his disciples. The closest of these were twelve men whom Jesus called “apostles.” It was specifically these that he trained to carry on his ministry, for he knew that he would not continue with them for long. Those who were jealous of him and hated him were conspiring to kill him. This, too, had been prophesied in the Old Testament, although the prophecies were not well understood. They told of one who would come and carry away the sicknesses and diseases of the people, who would bear the burden of sin to make atonement, and who would be put to a shameful death. Jesus warned his disciples that this was coming, but he also promised that it was not the end: after he had suffered and died, he would rise again; and as he lived, they would live also.

Jesus inaugurated the promised new covenant with his disciples the night before his death; and when he was raised from the dead, he commissioned them to go and preach what he called “the Gospel of the Kingdom” throughout the world. The word “gospel” is from a Greek word meaning “good news.” The Kingdom of God is indeed good news—even with its prophecies of judgment—if you view it the way God views it, for it represents the end of evil’s domination of this world. From that time forward, true justice and righteousness will reign supreme, and the old, corrupt regimes of this world will never come to power again.

In his ministry of reconciliation, the New Testament calls Christ “the last Adam.” Why? Because he is the embodiment of what man was meant to be under God. He is the first—not of a new race, but of a renewed race of man—in perfect fellowship with God. Where Adam failed, choosing to follow his own will and effectively be God to himself, Christ succeeded, remaining faithful to God and doing his will perfectly and consistently. He is the perfect image of God.

“If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” – John 14:9

“For in him, all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” – Colossians 2:9

All of this brings us back to the time of the end.

The purpose of the end times is to bring in the Kingdom of God with Christ at its head, to do away with everything that is contrary to the will and character of God, and to establish eternal righteousness and blessing with man restored in perfect, eternal fellowship with his creator. In the words of the angel Gabriel as recorded by the prophet Daniel:

“…to finish the wrongdoing, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” – Daniel 9:24

Just as the events of the creation in Genesis prepared the world to be handed over to the government of humanity, which was made in the image of God to represent him in the world but fell into rebellion, so the events of the end times are to prepare the world to be handed over to the government of Jesus Christ, who is the perfect, unfailing image of God and will reign in eternal righteousness. He has indeed declared the end from the beginning.

As they say, “That’s what it’s all about.”

“Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and he will reign forever and ever.’” – Revelation 11:15