Laetare—The True Kingdom of Christ: Not of This World
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman’ (Galatians 4:28–30).
So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free.
When Jesus perceived that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone.
The people of Christ’s day, as He preaches and gives this miracle to the people—the feeding of the five thousand—they could not manage to understand the true nature of His kingdom and His rule. Before the Lord’s suffering and death, the disciples fight against one another about who is greatest in the kingdom. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, even asked Jesus to let them sit on His right and His left when He comes into His kingdom. And they couldn’t understand that the ones who were appointed to sit on His right and on His left were actually the thieves who were going to be on the right and the left of our Lord as He took up His throne, nailed to the cross for our sins as the King.
They couldn’t understand that He came to give His life as a ransom for many—that this was how He was going to rule as King in His kingdom of grace.
Even after the Lord’s resurrection, before He is about to ascend into heaven, He had just given the promise of the Holy Spirit to the disciples—that “wait, in a while I am going to send the Holy Spirit to you.” And their response is to ask, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
When Pilate questioned the Lord Jesus concerning whether Christ was a king or not, our Lord confessed to Pilate—and did not deny—but confessed: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here… You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:36–37). To which Pilate responds, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).
The vast majority of people in our time, as well as in the time this Gospel first took place, do not understand the nature of God’s kingdom. The vast majority of people in this world—even professing Christians—do not understand the true nature of Christ’s kingdom.
If you’ve paid attention to the recent news, you might have heard professing Christians in our government and our military demonstrate a failure to understand the nature of Christ’s kingdom. Leaders in our government—like our own Senator Ted Cruz, the ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and many others—have given voice to a false view of Christ’s kingdom.
There have been apparently over 200 reports from non-commissioned officers after they heard from their military commanders, in their official capacity speaking to soldiers, that the conflict we’re currently engaged in with Iran is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy—that it is going to lead to the rebuilding of the third temple in Jerusalem, that it is going to bring about Armageddon and usher in Christ’s return.
Over 200 reports, apparently, according to the news—complaints from non-commissioned officers.
Know that these concepts come from one of the clearest misunderstandings concerning Christ’s kingdom that we have in our day. That is a system of end-times theology called premillennial dispensationalism.
I said it is a system. It is. It is a system that was developed in the 1800s, popularized by the Scofield Reference Bible in the early 1900s, and brought into pop culture in the 80s and 90s and even up to the present day—especially among American evangelicals, but in Lutheran circles too.
In the series Left Behind—the books and the movies—or another one that is lesser known but was popular when it first came out, The Late Great Planet Earth. That’s where this all comes from—the 1800s, 1900s, and then these popular series of books.
Know that you are dealing with the false theological system of premillennial dispensationalism when you hear, in reference to the modern nation of Israel, a political leader, a military commander, a political pundit, a friend, a preacher, or anyone else saying something like this:
“We are biblically commanded to support Israel.”
“Those who bless Israel will be blessed.”
Or who say, like Ambassador Mike Huckabee recently said, “Jews have a biblical right to the land of Israel, including the land between the river Euphrates and the river Nile—not just current borders.”
They believe and teach—when they say these things—that genetic descendants of Abraham, and even people who convert to a Judaism that rejects Jesus as Messiah, are descendants of Abraham entitled to the benefits of all the promises God made to Israel in the Old Testament, regardless of personal faith in Jesus or not.”
“It isn’t just a far-away thing. It isn’t something that you can just unplug from if you give up TV or YouTube for Lent. It is around us. There are churches around us and prominent voices around us in media that believe and teach that the Church didn’t begin until Pentecost and that the Church and Israel are distinct.
Many churches and voices in the media believe and teach that the return of Christ will be accompanied by Israel, according to the flesh—so genetic descendants of Abraham—being restored to the land of Israel and the realization of God’s covenant promises made to Israel according to the flesh.
Churches teach these things actively around us in our midst: that the Church didn’t start until Pentecost, that the Church and Israel are distinct, and that Israel according to the flesh is entitled to this promise given by God—that they would inherit the land—regardless of faith.
The Church—all believers, regardless of genetic descent—are the true descendants of Abraham, the true Israel of God, the true kingdom of God.
This is true whether it be the Church of the Old Testament, who put their hope in the coming Messiah, or us of the New Testament, who believe in Jesus as the Messiah explicitly now.
This is the kingdom of God. Or as the Small Catechism puts it:
“Thy kingdom come. What does this mean? The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer, but we pray in this petition that it may come to us also. How does God’s kingdom come? God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity.”
God’s kingdom is not ushered in by military conquest against true imminent threats, or by bombing civilians, or sending red heifers over to a foreign country for the purpose of sacrificing to build a temple that the Lord Jesus Himself destroyed. That’s not how God’s kingdom comes.
The kingdom of God is Christ’s rule over the Church through the Means of Grace. All who, through the Word, Baptism, the Holy Supper, and Absolution, are given faith in Jesus as their God, as their Messiah, as their Savior from sin, death, and the power of the devil—and strengthened in that faith—constitute the kingdom of God where Christ rules.
This is why John, in Revelation, when he writes to the seven churches concerning this vision given to him by God, greets them and gives this doxology:
“To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us a kingdom and priests to His God and Father—to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5–6).
Anyone who wants to say that Israel and the Church are distinct needs to answer a big question here: How in the world is it that we are washed in the blood of Jesus and made a kingdom and priests to God the Father—us Gentiles? How is that the case—and that Israel in the Old Covenant is said to be a kingdom of priests?
How is it that they are distinct if the same promise is given to both peoples—the Old Testament Church and the New Testament Church—that by faith we are made a kingdom and priests to God the Father?
“And then this is from Hebrews: ‘Therefore, since we have received an unshakable kingdom, let us be thankful’” (Hebrews 12:28).
This is how we serve God in an acceptable way—with reverence and awe.
In the rest of chapter 6 of John’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear who it is that receives the benefits of the promises of God—whether they be genetically descended from Abraham or not.
After the feeding miracle, the crowds were seeking Jesus out and following after Him. When they found Him, they said, “Rabbi, when did You come here?” And Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him” (John 6:26–27).
They then asked Him, “What shall we do, that we may do the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent” (John 6:28–29).
Then they asked for a sign from Him. They said, “What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness.”
And Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:32–33).
“Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day… It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me” (John 6:43–45).
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (John 6:47–51).
Unless one eats Christ, the Bread of Life, by faith, he will perish—just as the fathers of Israel according to the flesh perished in the wilderness, even after eating what the Psalms call “the bread of angels.”
To seek after any other kingdom than the one established in the true food and drink of Christ’s flesh and blood will only lead to death.
Branches broken off of the true vine of Israel—Jesus of Nazareth—seek an earthly kingdom, attempting to bring God down through earthly means, as if He cannot return “as a thief in the night” (2 Peter 3:10) at any moment unless we accomplish some earthly goals.
This is to seek after food that perishes.
Because the whole world is going to be consumed in fire. As Peter says in 2 Peter 3, the only reason that the Lord has not come in glory is because He desires all to reach repentance.
He will come as a thief in the night, and all of this—all the kingdoms of the world, all possessions, all powers, all buildings—everything will be melted away in the wrath of God.
It is food that perishes to seek after these things.
This is to put faith in a building rather than the God who dwells with His people—whether they have a building or not. This is to put faith in our works rather than the works of Jesus Christ the Righteous done in our place. This is to put faith in genetic descent rather than the indwelling of the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace.
What Paul talks about in Galatians—the child of the bondwoman and the child of the freewoman, the Jerusalem that now is versus the Jerusalem above—he says in other places, like Romans 9–11, that not all who are Israel according to the flesh are true Israel.
“This is how he puts it… ‘They are not all Israel who are of Israel… nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham… but in Isaac your seed shall be called’” (Romans 9:6–7).
“What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness—even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained… Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law” (Romans 9:30–32).
“They stumbled at that stumbling stone… ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame’” (Romans 9:33).
There is a false dichotomy presented—either modern political Israel is the Israel of the Bible, or God has taken back His promises.
Those are not the options.
There are two errors: one that separates Israel and the Church as if God had two brides, and another that becomes arrogant and denies hope for Jews according to the flesh.
But Paul says: “Do not be haughty, but fear… if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either… and they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in again” (Romans 11:20–23).
So let us not fall into either extreme.
Let us understand the true nature of Christ’s kingdom: all those who are brought to saving faith in Jesus by the Means of Grace.
There are no human beings genetically predisposed to belief or unbelief.
We are all by nature children of wrath.
The promises of God are irrevocable—but the benefits of those promises are received by faith alone.
That is the true nature of His kingdom.
Do not strive for food that perishes.
Do not strive for earthly kingdoms.
Live soberly in this present age. Live faithfully in the Church, in your homes, and in society.
But never lose sight of the eternal food.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread… and said, “Take, eat; this is My body, which is given for you.”
And likewise the cup: “This cup is My blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
“And whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:54).
“This is the bread which came down from heaven… he who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:58).
Let us pray: Lord God, heavenly Father, in the wilderness Your Son fed over five thousand people with five loaves and two fish. Graciously remain with us and bless us. Preserve us from greed and the cares of this life, that we may seek first Your kingdom and Your righteousness, and in all things remember Your fatherly goodness; through Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen.
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