The Kingdom of God has always existed in heaven, and always will.
The Kingdom of God has also always existed on earth - in different senses at different times.
For example God offered to make Israel a kingdom of priests. Solomon sat upon the Throne of the Lord.
Israel lost the Kingdom to a great extent, but during that time God's Kingdom still reigned over all nations in a sense. Soon afterwards the Kingdom was also restored to Israel to a certain extent at the return from captivity.
But Jesus brought the Kingdom near in a much greater sense, through His own person, and ministry, through the New Covenant, through the blood of His cross. Believers are now in the Kingdom.
In another sense both the wicked and righteous co-exist at this time in the Kingdom (in another sense of the Kingdom). Yet the time shall come when the wicked will be uprooted from the Kingdom in that sense.
At that time the Kingdom shall appear for all to see. Then only the born-again shall enter it, even though in another sense they were already in it. The enjoyment of the eternal state after that is also called the Kingdom of God in still another sense.
Bible-Prophecy cannot always be correctly understood by rigidly applying only one sense of the many different senses in which the term The Kingdom of God is used in Scripture.
There are past, present, ongoing, and future aspects to the Kingdom - not only a still-future aspect, and not only a now past aspect.
The Prophets, the Lord Jesus and the Apostles discussed the coming of the Kingdom in more than one sense.
The Kingdom of God has also always existed on earth - in different senses at different times.
For example God offered to make Israel a kingdom of priests. Solomon sat upon the Throne of the Lord.
Israel lost the Kingdom to a great extent, but during that time God's Kingdom still reigned over all nations in a sense. Soon afterwards the Kingdom was also restored to Israel to a certain extent at the return from captivity.
But Jesus brought the Kingdom near in a much greater sense, through His own person, and ministry, through the New Covenant, through the blood of His cross. Believers are now in the Kingdom.
In another sense both the wicked and righteous co-exist at this time in the Kingdom (in another sense of the Kingdom). Yet the time shall come when the wicked will be uprooted from the Kingdom in that sense.
At that time the Kingdom shall appear for all to see. Then only the born-again shall enter it, even though in another sense they were already in it. The enjoyment of the eternal state after that is also called the Kingdom of God in still another sense.
Bible-Prophecy cannot always be correctly understood by rigidly applying only one sense of the many different senses in which the term The Kingdom of God is used in Scripture.
There are past, present, ongoing, and future aspects to the Kingdom - not only a still-future aspect, and not only a now past aspect.
The Prophets, the Lord Jesus and the Apostles discussed the coming of the Kingdom in more than one sense.
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