The Two Kingdoms

By Scott Ferrier, MJ • Phoenix, AZ

“My kingdom is not of this world” (Jn 18:36).
“The chief priests said: “We have no king but Caesar” (Jn 19:15b).

Throughout his epistles, Saint Paul speaks of the mystery of the economy of salvation. God first constituted Christ as the King to whom the Father has given all judgment “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.” The stupendous victory that Christ won for us by His Life, Death, Resurrection and Ascension is not so visible to us here on earth. Most of humanity remains enslaved to sin and death — the condition of the world after the fall from grace by Adam and Eve.

There is another kingdom in God’s economy — the mysterious “dominion of darkness” (Colossians) with its ‘world rulers’ (Ephesians), forming a general organization of the rule of evil in the “present age” (1 Corinthians). The gospel of Jesus Christ is veiled to those who are perishing. “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor 4:4).

The two parables of the sower and the weeds in chapter thirteen of Matthew’s Gospel provide a kind of hermeneutic principle to interpret all history. Two kingdoms co-exist, one opposing the other. The children of God live in the world alongside the children of the evil one: this will last until Jesus returns in glory.

The Lord God took the first man, Adam, and put him in the garden of Eden “to work and keep it” (Gen 2:15). The words in the Hebrew mean “to work, to serve, to worship and to watch, to keep and guard.” The failure of Adam and Eve to follow this command to worship Him resulted in the corruption of the good which the Lord God intended. Mankind has been trying ever since, and by every means, to return to the garden. “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord…Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand” (James 5:7-8).

Beware of the devil who, with his fallen angels, sets up a screen between God and us, claiming their kingdom as THE final reality. They attempt to hold us in servitude by conveying a false wisdom, by the seduction of our sensible appetites, and to worship the inferior gods of the world’s false idols. Keep the Lord’s covenant, knowing that, at the height of their malice, they only serve, unwittingly, the divine plans.