- the kingdom of God will be on earth

During Jesus’ ministry the focus of his preaching was “the gospel” (or good news) of the Kingdom, and in the days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension he spoke to his disciples further about the kingdom giving them instructions to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  We are told in Galatians that this gospel was even preached to a man called Abraham who lived 2000 years before Jesus was born, so the gospel message was an important one centred in the promises given to Abraham.

God gave Abraham some promises which ultimately revealed His plan and purpose with mankind. Some of these promises were about the land where Abraham was at the time, namely the land of Canaan.

God said ‘…“To your descendants I will give this land”…’ (Genesis 12 v 7), and “…all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever” (13 v 15). This land is further defined as ‘…this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates…’ (15 v 18). So this promise involved a literal, physical land on the earth.

In Acts 1, after Jesus’ ascension, two angels tell the watching disciples

‘“Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come, in like manner as you saw him go into heaven.”’
(Acts 1 v 11)

Jesus will physically and visibly return to the earth at some future point, to reign as king over the kingdom of God.

Psalm 72 describes what the kingdom will be like and the language used is that of a literal kingdom on the earth.

‘He (Jesus) shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.’
(Psalm 72 v 8)

The prophets Isaiah and Micah tell us that the Lord will reign from Jerusalem, which will be the world capital and the centre for worship in the kingdom (Isaiah 2 v 2-4, Micah 4 v 1-5).

God’s ultimate purpose with the earth is summed up in one beautiful verse:

‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea’
(Habakkuk 2 v 14)

[All Bible references are from the New King James Version unless stated otherwise (NLT = New Living Translation)]

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