In an earlier post, I said that in 35 years I had never met anyone who claimed that the kingdom of God was anywhere other than on earth. My record has been broken! I have to disagree with Lloyd (I seem to spend most of my time on this site disagreeing with people), though I agree in one respect: that kingdom terminology does have a continuing relevance and application for us. So I’m distancing myself from an alternative view which the site has proposed, that ‘kingdom’ refers to an action which was completed by Jesus in the 1st century.

It may be true that Jesus’s kingdom is ruled from heaven, but the meaning of the term as it is used in the NT is to do with God’s activity on earth. In that sense, kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous terms.

A trawl through a concordance would reveal the earthly emphasis of kingdom of heaven. The idea is also supported by the historical derivation of the term, in which Jews were looking for an earthly kingdom, perceived to be a restoration of David’s kingdom, and understood along those lines.

The king of the kingdom was (and is) Jesus - enthroned at his ascension. Since he was returning at his ascension to a place that was always rightfully his, and which he had always occupied, we might ask what had changed? Answer: his kingship (and therefore the kingship of God) had been restored on earth; his rule in heaven was now also a rule on earth over the powers that had previously not been successfully challenged, namely sin and death. The outpouring of the Spirit was the tangible evidence of life being poured out on earth from heaven to all who believed in Jesus and made him their Lord.

Jesus is the key to the kingdom. As the man in whom heaven and earth came together and were one, so the kingdom over which he is king is a place where heaven and earth meet. The Lord’s prayer contains the words: "Your kingdom come; your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Does the Lord’s prayer suggest that this was a kingdom of a God other than Jesus (the kingdom of ‘Our Father’)? The kingdom was both the kingdom of the Father and of Jesus; but in that kingdom, as far as the earth was concerned, and as it as reflected in his place in heaven, Jesus was the king through what he had accomplished on earth.