When Jesus came on the scene He transformed the way people understood the Word of God. In reality, He transformed the way people understood God! Until He came the Word of God had been something leaders used to control, manipulate, and restrict God’s people. In fact, in Isaiah 52:5 the Prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the leaders caused the people to go into captivity and blaspheme the name of God!
In verse 7 Isaiah also prophesied that a day would come when people would see God as He really is and in that day they would say, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace…” When the angels proclaimed Peace on Earth and good will toward men, the day of peace had finally arrived. Through Jesus a covenant of peace would be established. Man could receive the gift of righteousness through faith in the resurrected Jesus and finally experience peace in his own heart with God (Romans 5:1). Billions of people have received Jesus and are secure in their eternal destiny, but few have really found the ultimate quality of life they hoped to find in their walk with God.
Jesus preached and lived God’s Word the way God originally intended. He lived by faith, fully trusting the character of God as expressed in His Word. He related to God as Father, something that had never been seen. He did everything from the motive of love and He showed us what real righteousness looks like… a righteousness which exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees!
Jesus revealed all the secrets to Kingdom living through the principles found in His message concerning the Gospel of the Kingdom! Sadly, religious leaders in the New Covenant did exactly what had been done under the Old Covenant and turned Jesus’ teaching into a legalistic approach about how to earn your way into Heaven, thereby completely missing the nuggets of gold about the guiding principles of the Kingdom of God!
The Kingdom of God is a realm that we can only enter through our heart. The Kingdom of Heaven is the resources available to the believer within that realm. The parables and other messages about the Kingdom are the principles we must embrace in order to operate within that realm.
In His messages about the Gospel of the Kingdom Jesus:
- Showed us the kind of character that can abide in righteousness, peace, and joy
- Revealed the ultimate secret for always feeling the love and forgiveness of God
- Gave us the simple, yet powerful tools for influencing our heart
- Explained and demonstrated the secrets of operating faith
- Exposed the difference between religion and true righteousness
- Showed us the absolute laws of authority and how to use them
- Gave us the keys for understanding everything that God ever said and everything that would be written in the Epistles
The Gospel of the Kingdom is a message designed to influence your heart’s beliefs. With a heart established in the Gospel of the Kingdom the believer is able to understand and apply all of God’s Word without falling into the trappings of legalism or mysticism.
Paul tells Timothy and all believers to rightly divide the word of God (2 Timothy 2:15)! Peter warned that many unstable people misunderstood Paul’s writings and twist them to their own destruction (2 Timothy 3:15). Failure to understand the Gospel of the Kingdom will ensure failure to understand the writing of Paul and the other apostles!
Click here to learn more about Dr. Jim Richards’ teaching series, “The Gospel of the Kingdom”
I really appreciate your previous series on the kingdom and I agree that there are kingdom principles that make life bearable and workable. After listening to the series, I was hoping that I could get a better handle on the differences between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God so I decided to do a phrase study using the search feature found on Blue Letter Bible. First I searched for the phrase “kingdom of heaven,” but what I found was surprising. I found that, in the kjv, this phrase only occurs in Matthew. Next I searched for the term “kingdom of God.” It occurs 5 times in Matthew and only twice in John, but numerous times in Mark and Luke.
Next I wondered if the phrase “Kingdom of God” was used interchangeably in parallel incidents found in Mark and Luke with “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew. I used a harmony of the Gospels and looked for such passages. I found quite a few. I only went through Matthew 13, but I believe there are more. Here are the interchangeable passages that I found:
Matthew 5:3 and Luke 6:20
Matthew 10:7 and Luke 9:2
Matthew 13:11, Mark 4:11 and Luke 8:10
Matthew 13:31, Mark 4:30 and Luke 13:18-19
There doesn’t seem to be a Biblical difference between the use of the phrase “kingdom of heaven” and the phrase “kingdom of God.”
Hi Becky,
Good research but I think you need to research the phrases in the Greek or Aramaic. I did a search on a couple different translations and came up with a different number of uses of the phrases, so I tend to think it is the translators that use the phrase interchangeably and not the original word. Keep at it and remember the Holy Spirit is your teacher.
the Kingdom of Heaven is a Place (a Country). Do you have your citizenship? through Jesus Christ. I am a citizen of Heaven.
the Kingdom of God is Heaven’s influence on earth (the Holy Spirit). live your life according to the laws and the principals of our country’s (Heaven) constitution (the Bible) and God can do his work here on earth through you by the power of the Holy Spirit influencing earth to be just like Heaven.
(Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.)
Here are the Greek words in the phrases kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God:
The phrase “kingdom G932 of heaven G3772 ” is only found in Matthew with the Strong Greek words of G932 and G3772.
Kingdom= the transliterated word basileia (Strongs G932) (This is the only new Testament word for “kingdom.” This word kingdom is used for “kingdom of heaven” and “kingdom of God”)
In the phrase kingdom of heaven, which is only found in Matthew, always uses the same word for “heaven” except for Matthew 25 (there the phrase is implied and provided by the translators referring to an earlier reference to the phrase). heaven=the transliterated word ouranos (Strongs G3772)
In the phrase “kingdom G932 of God, G2316,” the same word for “God” is used throughout the New Testament in all of the Gospels and all other New Testament passages. The word used is God= the transliterated word theos (Strongs G2316)
Therefore the parallel passages shared do, in fact, use the same Greek words consistently for kingdom, heaven, and God, and the phrases kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are used interchangeably in those verses.
I do appreciate Jim’s teaching and have been reading his books and watching his videos for years. They have helped me a great deal. One of the things that he has said many times is that early in his walk as a believer, he told God that he would believe anything he could find in the Bible, but he wouldn’t believe anything else people told him, like the Bereans.