he New Testament writers all have their own particular theme. Matthew, for example, is writing to prove that Jesus was the promised Messiah. John writes to prove that Jesus is the Son of God. Paul’s theme is salvation by grace through faith. When taken all together the books still present a dominant theme. It is the same theme that Jesus himself made the burden of his message. That theme is “the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus centered all of his parables around the kingdom. Many of them begin, “The kingdom of heaven is like . . .”
Jesus taught three things concerning the kingdom. He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In the New Testament we learn, then, the way into the kingdom, the truth taught there, and the life lived there. The way is a birth process, the truth held is a faith process, and the life lived is a love process.
The most startling thing Jesus taught concerning the kingdom of heaven was that we could start living in it right here and now. We don’t have to wait for it. Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” Many people believe that a person must die before he can enter the kingdom. In a sense, they are right. But there is more than one way in which a person can die. Jesus said, “Who-ever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). Again he said, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). He teaches us how to die and be reborn.
“No one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). We must die before we can be born again. So the kingdom of heaven presents us with a new life from a new birth based upon a new truth. Again Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
The kingdom of heaven begins with the birth process. Christ is born of Mary, begotten of God. He went forth at the age of 30 to teach the kingdom of heaven to men. The scholars refused him because they were looking for a great thought process. The kings and the mighty refused him because they were looking for a process of great action. But the humble and simple could accept him because they were not too sophisticated to surrender to the birth process. No wonder Jesus said, “Except you repent and become as a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3) or, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25).
To these simple ones he gave the great principles and the great parables. They were not credal formulas or stereotyped dogmas or philosophic systems. They were seed. Jesus referred to his teaching as the seed of the kingdom and to himself as a sower sowing seed. You do not cut up a seed and analyze it if you want it to accomplish its purpose. You plant it with faith, cultivate it, and it grows. First, however, you must weed and break up and prepare the land. So we prepare our land, break up our hard ground of prejudice and pride, tear out our weeds of worldly cares and vanities, and plant the great principles of Jesus in our lives. They bring forth fruit.
If we would live in the kingdom of heaven which came with power on the day of Pentecost, we must first die to the old carnal self and life. We must be born again of the water and of the Spirit. Thus are we lifted into a whole new world. This is a world where Christ rules in each heart as well as in heaven and earth. Here, by the eye of faith, we behold the glory of God invisible to the eye of carnal lust. And here we learn to live abundantly.
The higher the form of life, the more opportunity and the more responsibility. The life of an animal is more abundant than the life of a plant. It has added something. The animal has senses and is capable of both pleasure and pain unknown to the life of the plant. The kingdom of man offers a yet more abundant form of life. It adds an understanding; it is capable of joy and grief that the animal cannot experience. The kingdom of heaven, according to Jesus, is a yet more abundant form of life. “I am come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).
In the kingdom of heaven we add faith and hope and love to life. We are introduced to opportunity for greater bliss than we formerly knew existed. We are also introduced to new suffering. “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).
In this new life, we find that spiritual progress is not so much a matter of individual betterment as a surrendered response to the will of God. Our first question is not, “What is best for my soul?” or even, “What is most useful to humanity?” but rather, “What does God expect of me at this moment?” Since our dependence on him is absolute, this is the only question that really matters. Then we see that the meaning of our life is bound up with the meaning of the Universe. Our horizons are broader, our experience enriched, and our responsibilities enlarged.