Jesus Didn’t Invent “Kingdom of God” in 30 A.D. What Did It Mean Before? - Paul Lamicela

Lesson Transcript

But this whole storyline of this, this theme of the Kingdom of God brings entirely, I think, richer and deeper meaning to when Jesus says the Kingdom is at hand. He's not saying, "Hi, I'm the King. I'm here to teach you new laws." He's saying, "Yahweh has come back to save you. Yahweh has come back to finally give you soft hearts that will obey from the heart." Well, Paul Armagello, welcome back to Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. And, uh, there's a topic that we've hit from a number of angles in the past.

It's been a minute since we talked about it. And I'm curious to get your angle on this as well. And that's the whole phrase, the Kingdom of God, which is an Anabaptist thing that's talked about, you know, quite a bit and, um, and so forth. And from what I understand, you've done a little bit of work on this and have some stuff to share. So I'm going to leave it there as pretty general and, and see what you have, and then we'll kind of go from there.

So, um, in the, I, of course, I teach on the biblical storyline two week intensive. We spend a chunk of time tracing the theme of the Kingdom of God through the Bible. So there's a lot that could be said, but I want to just maybe just hit a couple of, a couple of highlights. So as you, as you mentioned, Kingdom of God or just Kingdom has become something of a buzz phrase, uh, in, in some of our circles.

And as with all buzz phrases, um, there's a, there's always a chance that, that, that we, we can use the phrase without really thinking, always thinking super deeply about like, where does this originate? Like, what is the, what does the Bible mean? What does Jesus mean when he says the Kingdom of God is at hand or whatever? Where does it come from? Did like, where does it come from? Did he just make that up? Or, I mean, that sounded bad.

Like, of course he didn't make it up, but it's like that the first time we ever see it or he's hinted at somewhere else, like all that. And I think that, um, sometimes we have, when we, when we hear Jesus use the phrase Kingdom of God, we've sort of taken that phrase sort of in a vacuum and said, okay, so what does this mean? Well, let's see, what is a kingdom? Um, okay, a kingdom has a king and a kingdom has subjects and it has laws and maybe a realm. And so that's what a kingdom usually has.

So let's fill in the blanks. Well, Jesus or God is the king. The subjects are the Christians and the laws are maybe the Sermon on the Mount or something. And the realm is, I don't know, people's hearts or the church or whatever. And some of those, I mean, none of those things are false, but, but that phrase in a vacuum, uh, with us filling in, what is it? What is a kingdom that when we think of a kingdom, um, completely misses the, uh, what Jesus is trying to evoke when he says the Kingdom of God is at hand?

Because as you may be hinting, hinting at, Jesus is not making this phrase up. See, and it's not, okay, but see, that's as important because it is very easy to be like, you read that chunk and you're like, oh, first time we see it. Right. This is, this is a new thing Jesus is kind of bringing up for the first time ever. And, and to be honest, I, I think there's more to the context, but I don't know it. It's huge. Yeah. Yeah. It's incredibly huge.

So yeah, what it, what is some of the, um, biblical context, the historical context? I'm not sure what all. Yeah. Well, I'm going to pull, you know, a biblical scholar. So that's where I'm going to go. Um, I, I think the risk is that we can truncate what we think Kingdom of God means and limit it to things like the Sermon on the Mount or whatever, when in reality the, the, the theme of the Kingdom of God is something that is so big. It includes so much more of the Bible story.

Um, and it, it really is one angle, um, on so much of what, what creation and redemption is supposed to be about. And then if we get that lens from the Old Testament, uh, that's going to help us to really understand and to see so much more of the New Testament in light of what Jesus is trying to say when he says the Kingdom of God is at hand or to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.

So it's far from being an abstract, um, an abstract thing where Jesus is saying, I am the king and I'm giving you laws and you're the subjects. Jesus is, is tapping into this Old Testament vision that starts in Genesis one, but especially he's drawing from the prophets. So the theme of the kingdom really starts on in the first page of the Bible where God creates Adam and Eve in his image so that they can have dominion over, over the earth. That's a really good point. Okay.

So it's, uh, I mean, well, there's one, uh, if anyone's interested, uh, there's a fantastic book by Jeremy Trete called, um, Kingdom, sorry, uh, The Crucified King. And it, it traces the theme of kingdom and atonement, shows how, how they intersect in the biblical storyline. But he said, he, he talks about God's goal in creation is, um, God, God's reign through his servant kings over creation. Right.

What the kingdom of God meant there was God had created this beautiful world and his, and he's in a sense the ruler of it, but he's, um, humans are his sub, his vice regents called to mediate his rule and his presence to the rest of creation. Um, and then of course they, they decide, no, we want to be our, we want to be the high kings. We don't want to be sub kings. We want to, you know, we want to decide good and evil for ourselves, you know, and they get thrown out.

Um, and so much of the rest of the story in the Old Testament is of God, um, seeking to establish, to, to bring back that, right? Um, and so God calls Abraham, um, and, and eventually the people of Israel whom God calls a kingdom of priests, right? They're supposed to be a devoted nation, a kingdom of priests. There's, there's this whole nation is supposed to take on, in a sense, the role that Adam and Eve and all humanity is supposed to have, but fails, right?

That this role of mediating God's presence as priestly people, a priestly nation, right? Um, having special access to God and then, um, you know, spreading that to the world. So that's, that's what the kingdom of God starts being. It's not an abstraction. It's, it's this relationship that God enters into with Abraham and then with Israel to, um, re, to sort of start the process of bringing Eden back, right?

Of bringing of God and humanity dwelling together and God blessing this people who will rule sort of under him type of thing, right? Um, but then where you really reach the high point of this in the Old Testament is with David, because David is promised, he's, he's not just like Saul, he was a king and then he got rejected. David is somehow promised this unending line in, in Second Samuel seven.

And so his reign is always going to, it has this like incredible significance that somehow, um, David becomes this figure and his line becomes his, this line that is so closely intertwined with God's kingdom. There's a couple of passages in Chronicles, for example, that speak of how David and David's descendants sort of sit on the throne of the kingdom of God, right? And so as one scholar, Scott Hahn, says, from this point on, the kingdom of God is the kingdom of David.

And from, from this point on, God's kingdom is inseparable from the Davidic throne, right? So all of the, you know, from, from here on through the prophets, the hope of God's kingdom is simultaneously the hope that God would send the ultimate descendant of David to rule, right? And again, not an abstraction. It's this very real, um, story, right? That was working itself out in Israel and is, is so tied to God's presence in the temple in Jerusalem and any number of other things, right?

Um, but, um, God's kingdom gets tied to the fulfillment of his promises to David. David is this, and his ultimate descendant is going to be the one that mediates his presence and kind of is, is inseparable from the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the kingdom that is going to be ruled over by the Messiah, right? It's that, it's that thing.

But then, so I think, so when we come to the story of Solomon in, in the Old Testament, we are so used to the, we know the ending of the story, like Solomon crashes and burns. That's kind of what he's known for, right? So he, you know, he like threatens to cut up a baby, cut a baby in half. And that, that is a very clever thing that shows his wisdom. And then after that, uh, he maybe writes some proverbs and then he goes, goes haywire, right?

Um, but I think we've gotten so used to this story, um, that we, I think if we would read it, um, like pretend we don't know the ending. Um, Solomon is spoken of in incredibly, uh, incredibly pretty exalted ways in terms of his reign marks the zenith of God's kingdom in the Old Testament. You have like, he's renowned for his wisdom, like the world over. Um, his Jerusalem and Israel prospers.

There's peace and the nations are streaming in to pay tribute and to hear the wisdom that God has, you know, brought to this, this guy. And it sort of culminates in the story of the Queen of Sheba, who shows up with all these, all these gifts, gold and, and, you know, frankincense and all this kind of stuff. And, uh, and is just blown away by Solomon's wisdom. And like, that's the story wants you to think, man, this guy just might be the Messiah, right?

Like he's this descendant, this descendant of David, and this is what God's kingdom on earth looks like. Whoa. I've never thought of that before. Yeah. And then he, okay, and then he crashes and burns. Right. It's like you take it, you as high as you can. You're like, wow, this is getting close to what we mean by God's kingdom coming on earth. Uh, getting closest to back to Eden we can and the closest to the nations coming in and realizing Israel's got all this stuff. And then he just plummets, you know. Wow.

And then, and of course, immediately after the kingdoms gets fractured and all this, it just, all this crazy stuff happens, right? And eventually, um, they end up in exile. Israel ends up in, I mean, Judah, the southern, I mean, the kingdom fractures, but then the northern kingdom gets taken away by Assyria. But then the southern kingdom, which is the one, the kingdom that stayed with the Davidic line, uh, they get carted off to Babylon and the kingship is over. Yeah.

And that is where, um, you start this, this is where the language of that is that Jesus draws from. Uh, this is where this picks up. So the idea of the kingdom of God or the, the coming of this Davidic figure, um, picks up massively. So what the, what say Isaiah speaks of is, um, God returning to his people. His idea is in the exile, uh, Israel was ex, Israel was removed from God's presence. Um, God left in Ezekiel, you have this vision of God leaving the temple. Um, yeah, Israel gets carted off.

Just, I mean, it's, it's just like what happened to Adam and Eve in the garden, right? They get booted out of, of the garden. They get booted out of God's presence. So, so thinking like there's that threat of exile coming back, pointing us back to Eden and what happened there. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Very much so. Yeah. Okay. And then I honestly hadn't thought about it quite like that. Yeah.

And I mean, that's not original to, to me, of course, but, um, the expectation, the hope is that God would come back someday to his people and, and what would God do when he came back? He would redeem them, restore them, rule over them. And very much tied to that is the, that age is the coming of this new David. Um, Ezekiel 34 is this incredible passage about where, uh, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy against the evil shepherds, the bad leaders of the people. Okay.

Um, because the, these shepherds, these leaders of Israel have been, instead of feeding the sheep, they've been barbecuing them as lamb chops and stuff, right? Basically, that's what it, pretty much what it says. And so God says, I, he says, I, I will, I will seek the lost. I will bind up the straight. I will bring them back. And then he, so God is going to come back and do this and be the good shepherd. And then he says, and I'm going to send my servant David to rule over them.

And you're like, how, what's the connection? Who's, who's actually coming back? Is God returning or is David or is it, are they somehow tied together? Is the coming, the return of God to bring back his lost sheep? Hmm. The same as this David coming, this new David figure. What's the, what's the relationship? It sets up, of course, for the incarnation. Yeah.

But that is part of this hope of the prophets that this, that the kingdom of God, that God's, God would come back to restore his people and to renew all things, to forgive them and to, to, you know, change them. The new covenant is, is part of this where God would finally change the hearts of his wayward people so that they would love him forever and obey him. And then that brings us to Isaiah.

So there's, uh, uh, there's three passages, but I can just look at one or two because they say pretty much the same things that the specific language of the good news. So we, the term gospel in all, in, you know, Christianity, especially Protestant Christianity, uh, and, and our circles too, um, has kind of become just this default word that we use, right? Um, but it's rooted in, of course, what the New Testament, the language of the, that the New Testament uses, which is good news, right? The good news.

And Jesus, I mean, Paul talks about the good news that he's not ashamed of the good news and, and he, he's all about, he tells people, you must not proclaim a different gospel, a different good news. It's this Greek word, evangelion, that means good news. And, um, Jesus in the gospels goes around proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. And you say, oh, that's interesting. Where does this come from? Like you said at the beginning. And it comes, it comes straight out of Isaiah.

There's these three passages in Isaiah that use this word, good news. So, okay, Isaiah was written in Hebrew, but it's, uh, then translated into Greek. When in the Greek translation, Septuagint, it uses this, this word, evangelion, or, or the, or the verb equivalent. Um, and Jesus, of course, is probably speaking Aramaic, but the, in the gospel, as we've received it in Matthew's gospel or whatever, it's the Greek word, evangelion, and it matches what we see in, in Isaiah. Jesus is clearly drawing on this idea.

And what is this? So, um, it's very much tied to this whole theme of, um, God's, God's answer to, um, the problem of Israel's failure, right? Israel has been in exile. They've lost God's presence. And the hope is that God would someday come back, right? So Isaiah 40, where, you know, this famous comfort, my people, says God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem, cry to her that her warfare is ended, uh, her iniquity is pardoned, uh, et cetera. So a time of mercy is coming. Isaiah is looking forward to this in the future.

And a voice cries out in the wilderness, prepare the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill made low. The uneven ground shall become level, et cetera. So this is language we're really used to hearing in the New Testament because John, uh, sort of thinks of himself as this guy, right?

He's like that voice that's preparing the way for Yahweh to return, uh, is him, which, which is really fascinating because then who ends up showing up? Yeah. It's Jesus, right? And the text is implicitly telling us that's Yahweh, right? Yeah. So, and then the next verse is verse nine, go up to a high mountain, Zion, Ozion, heralds of good news. There's that language, good news.

So it's picturing, it's like, hey, you, you know, these news reporters, the ancient news reporters, like go up, uh, go up so you can shout out this good news. Um, lift up your voice with strength, Jerusalem, herald of good news, lift it up, fear not. And what is the good news that they're supposed to proclaim? Behold, your God, God is coming back. Yahweh comes with might, his arm rules for him, his reward is with him, he will, his recompense is before him, and he will tend his flock like a shepherd.

He will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. So good, the good news is that Yahweh is coming back to bless, to rule over, but to restore his people, right? And it's, it's that, this is where, this is where all subsequent Christian good news language in the New Testament comes from. It's this vision. It's not, again, it's not an abstraction. It's not, oh yay, here's a king, here's laws, here's subjects.

No, it's God is going to end Israel's exile and by restoring, coming back to his people, forgiving them, changing their hearts, bringing in the Gentiles. That's a big part of this vision of what would happen when God comes back to his people, bringing in the Gentiles and eventually bringing about a new heavens and new earth. Like all of that, uh, for Isaiah is tied to this era when God would, to this good news that God is coming back to reign over his people again after him.

So really what we're, what we're looking at when we say things like kingdom of God, for one thing that that phraseology is not in a vacuum, you know, this, this is a thread that we're following. You're really tracing the messianic story in a lot of ways, right? Like the, this expectation of the Messiah essentially coming or. Yeah, but yeah, yeah, it's very tied to that, but okay, but especially if we're thinking of like this good news because Jesus comes proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, right?

If we say where exactly does that come from, that brings us back to Isaiah saying this whole, the story that started, kind of started with in the garden of Eden, but then really started with, you know, Israel and David and everything else being this kingdom of priests and crashed in exile. They were supposed to be this group of people that came closest to restoring Eden, failed big time. Mm-hmm. And, uh, this, the good news is that after exile, God is not done and God is going to come back.

His presence is going to be with his people and he's going to change their hearts, restore them. So it's this whole era, when we say kingdom of God, when, when, when a Jewish person would say kingdom of God, where Jesus says, good news, the kingdom of God is here. What everyone heard is the vision of Isaiah is about to come true. Which again is God coming back to his people.

God coming back to his people to do all the things that Isaiah and Ezekiel said and Jeremiah said were going to happen, which means forgiveness of sins, transformed hearts, bringing in of the Gentiles, um, and eventually, you know, judgment and new creation as well. Whoa. That is, that is really interesting. Okay. This is making a lot more sense because I always kind of wonder, like when Jesus comes and says that, he never defines what he's talking about. It's, it doesn't need to. Yeah. Right.

And now I'm seeing why. Yeah. Because it's like, oh yeah, it's Isaiah. Yeah. And, and so many others are, are waiting for this day as well, right? Some violently, you know, zealots are trying to push for it maybe. And the Qumran community, the Dead Sea Scrolls people are going out to a desert to wait for the kingdom of God. Because they actually thought that they were the people crying out in the wilderness to make way for the people to, oh, that, that role that John the Baptist believed he had. Yeah.

They thought they were in that position, right? So people are waiting for God to come back to his people to, to bring about this age of fulfillment, the age of restoration. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Just there's one more passage from Isaiah, Isaiah 52. Uh, so this comes right before the suffering servant passage, right?

And, uh, and this, it's all tied to New Exodus language, but here, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation. So what is this good news, this gospel? Mm-hmm. Who says to Zion, your God reigns. Mm-hmm. But it's not just this abstract God reigns as your king, but it's God is coming back to reign over you. Because this is, it's this good news.

So the next verse, the voice of your watchmen, they lift up their voice. So they're, they're looking out metaphorically. Mm-hmm. And then they, they start getting all excited together. They sing for joy for eye to eye. They see the return of Yahweh to Zion. Mm-hmm. And they see God is coming back to reign over us again and to, to dwell with us. And then the next thing that happens in Isaiah is the servant mysteriously suffers for the people and seems to come back to life.

And then all sorts of good things, all sorts of good things come out of that, right? So that is where the good news of God coming back to reign, but to restore, to bring about this whole vision of restoration. Mm-hmm. Uh, it's all rooted directly in it. When Jesus said the kingdom of God is at hand, Mm-hmm, you know, he's saying the vision of Isaiah, Mm-hmm, is here. Like the days of waiting, waiting are over. Mm-hmm.

God is returning to forgive your, forgive your sin, to forgive sins, change hearts, Mm-hmm, renew, renew his people, bring in the Gentiles and eventually, you know, culminate in, in all things, uh, judged and renewed. This is essentially one of the, one of the big threads through all scripture. Yeah, really huge, right? I mean, yeah. And this is why I say we, we can't truncate it.

So even when we get to the New Testament, it doesn't start in Matthew five, or even it doesn't start in when Jesus announces the good news of the kingdom. It starts in Matthew one, where we read, yeah, that Jesus is, uh, Matthew announces Jesus as the son of Abraham, right? Uh, the son of David, right? And when you read that the son of David, we were supposed to say is the new David is here, right?

Which means this era of God coming back, restoring his people through this new ultimate seed of David has arrived, right? The kingdom of God is here. Mm-hmm. And so this is where I think, um, this, this tapestry of the Old Testament, this rooted in Isaiah, but Isaiah is just looking back, right? And saying this is what God has done so far. This is what we've lost and this is what we're waiting for God to do.

But this whole storyline of this, this theme of the kingdom of God brings entirely, I think, richer and deeper meaning to when Jesus says the kingdom is at hand. He's not saying, yeah, hi, I'm the king. I'm here to teach you new laws. He's saying, yeah, Yahweh has come back to save you. Yahweh has come back to finally give you soft hearts that will obey from the heart. Yahweh has come back to make, uh, to, to bring in the Gentiles, right? Yahweh has come back to, to renew all things, right?

And to judge, and to judge your enemies. So it's not like he's announcing something brand new. It's like he's actually deeply rooting himself into these past statements through the prophets and so forth. But he's, what's new is that he's saying, I mean, just, it's the same thing when Jesus stands up in the synagogue in Luke four and he reads the spirit of the Lord is upon me. And then he says, today this is happening. The scripture is fulfilled, right? Yeah. He's, which is wild. Yeah. Right.

And it's like, it's completely over the top unless it's true, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. C.S. Lewis says either he's a total like lunatic, you know, or it's true. Or it's true. Like, yeah. And, and that's what's happening here. Jesus is, is saying, Mm-hmm, it's happening that what the pro, what Isaiah said God would do, I'm, I'm here as the embodiment of Israel's God, but also as the descendant of David, Mm-hmm, to bring it about, right? Yeah.

That, that makes a lot of sense because it got back to that whole, it's not in a vacuum or it's not, again, it's not like Jesus says, oh, like here's a new thing that, that I'm announcing for the very first time. It's like, oh no, no, no. Like we're talking about something that's already been talked about, talked about and prophesied. It just hasn't happened yet. But here it comes. Here it comes. Yes. Exactly.

Um, and then if, if that's what the king, how the kingdom of, what the kingdom of God means, that means that so much more of the New Testament, so much more of the gospels is about the kingdom of God. Yeah. So I spend time when we talk about the kingdom in my, uh, class, we spend time talking about how Jesus' healings in the Gospel of Matthew are, are very, very much part of the, the kingdom of God material. And it's not, it was like, what? That's not what we tend to think of.

But part of this vision, like in, in Ezekiel, for example, uh, is that, or, or, or, um, Isaiah is that this day when God would come and restore his people is this day when the eyes of the blind would be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped and things like that. So when Jesus goes around healing in Matthew, there's this one passage where people see him healing and then they say, could this be the son of David? And it's like, they're like, they're right.

They're realizing, wait a minute, this type of thing's happening. This is, this is what we expect from, Mm-hmm, from the son of David, who's bringing in, you know, who's connected to this age of the kingdom of God, age of fulfillment. So all of this, uh, with the parables of the kingdom in Matthew 13 are all about how Jesus, uh, Jesus is trying to teach his disciples. That whole vision of Isaiah, Mm-hmm, it started, but it's actually going to come in two stages, right?

There's, it's not, it's not going to be new creation and final judgment yet. That's going to be in the future. And so he's got to tell these parables about, um, how the kingdom of God seems very small now, but eventually it'll be big, right? To try to, to try to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right about the vision of Isaiah, but it's going to, there's going to be, there's a, a sense in which it's here now, but it's here in a small, often kind of overlooked form, but it's going to eventually get there, right?

All of these things in the gospels start making so much sense. And then in light of that, the Sermon on the Mount is one component of that, where I think what's going on in the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus announcing. So part of the vision of this age to come, this age of the kingdom of God, this age when God comes back to restore his people, um, is from Jeremiah. Jeremiah speaks of this new covenant where God would write his Torah on the hearts of the people.

And, and I think the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus saying, kind of announcing what a heart, uh, what a, a Torah written on the heart would look like, right? It's not just, here's some laws, I'm the king, kingdom of God's here, go obey them. It's, it's part of this larger vision of the kingdom of God, the age of restoration. Um, what would a, a heart that has the Torah written on it look like?

And that's why Jesus spends so much time saying, um, yeah, it used to be that divorce, you know, Jesus allowed, God, Moses allowed it for the hardness of your heart, right? But Jeremiah says that, that this new kingdom of God age is one where God would make your heart, heart soft. So any provisions from the law that are there because of the hardness of your heart, not going to be there anymore. So therefore divorce, you know, divorce is out, right? Mm-hmm. Things like that.

The Sermon on the Mount is a part of this large vision of God restoring his people. And, and a big part of that is God, um, uh, changing his people's hearts so that full, so that people who are only, only those who have their heart transformed by Jesus atoning death, right? Um, will be able to, um, live out what it means to have that Torah on the heart, right? It's part of that larger package, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm.

But that makes sense because it is pretty easy to look at something like the Sermon on the Mount and be like, ooh, okay, this is, this is a, again, look at it in a vacuum, right? You know, exactly. Yeah. That's very easy to do, you know, um, and you're basically admonishing or encouraging us to, hey, don't, don't necessarily do that. Like, look at it in the broader context of the rest of scripture.

Because yeah, that's, that's if the kingdom of God is this big vision, Mm-hmm, that God is coming back to restore, redeem, and transform his people and eventually all of creation. Um, Matthew starts out with this Jesus, who's the son of David, who's God, Emmanuel, God with us. What's he going to do? He's going to save his people from their sins, right? How is he going to do that? Well, the end of Matthew's gospel makes it pretty clear. He sheds his blood for the forgiveness of sins. That book ends the gospel.

And then inside it is, is all about all these different signs of what it means that this era of the kingdom of God is here. Healings is one of those signs. It's this little burst of the kingdom of God coming into the present, like this burst of healing or whatever.

Um, Jesus, but Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is him teaching, hey, those only those, you know, this is what, this is what it looks like to live inside this new age when of God restoring his people, to live as, as someone who's part of this new age is, is to be someone who has a greater righteousness than the scribes and Pharisees, because it's the righteousness of someone who has the Torah written on the heart and not just somebody who has it external to them, right?

It's this, yeah, but that, and that itself is this gift that God will give as part of this new covenant age, right? Mm-hmm. So it's, it's, uh, I think we could go to Paul, we could go to Revelation, the whole rest of the New Testament, um, and say that what they're all doing is, is the same, the same thing.

They're looking and saying, wow, what happened is that in, in Jesus coming is that God has returned to his people to save, to bring in the Gentiles, to, um, make us people who can and must obey from the heart, right? And who promises to come and restore all things in the future. How does this work out? Right? That's what the whole rest of the New Testament's about. It's all about the good news of the age of fulfillment, right? From this, uh, from Isaiah and the prophets' perspective.

That, that whole thread of the good news. Yeah. From the perspective of Isaiah. Right. Um, that, that's a, that's a key piece. It seems like, yeah, to me. Yeah. Wow. That is, that's quite the, quite the theme really. Like this, yeah. And like we skip biblical themes so much, but those are some high, those are just some highlights to help us, I think, to say when we hear the phrase good news of the kingdom of God, we should be thinking back to Isaiah and then all the way back to Garden of Eden, really. Yeah. Really.

Yeah. Whoa. And forward to Revelation where, um, where we read that, you know, Jesus will reign on the earth with his king, new, with his renewed kingdom of Christ, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's, that's a, wow, that was a lot, you know, and, and I think, um, hopefully this will encourage people to not, like you were saying, look at the kingdom of God in a vacuum, but as something a much greater scope. Yeah.

And, and maybe go back to the scriptures with a renewed, uh, you know, like looking a little deeper through this and wow, yeah, that's a lot, it's a lot to take in. That's a lot to think about right there. Um, so, well, thanks for taking the time to share this. I think this is going to give people a lot to think about and, uh, hopefully is a, is an encouragement as they dig into some of this, uh, themselves. So yeah, thanks for sharing today, Paul. Yeah. Thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode with Paul Amichela on the kingdom of God. If you enjoyed this episode, you might want to enjoy the conversation we had with Paul on the storyline of scripture and the theme of exile, which you can find linked in the description below. Of course, you can find all our content on our website at anabaptistperspectives.org, as well as links to all our different platforms and for our email newsletter. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.