By Jim Mettenbrink
At the beginning of His three year walk performing miracles proving His divinity, Jesus announced that His kingdom was “at hand” (Matthew 4:17; Mark 1:15). “Where is His kingdom? The territory? His palace? His throne? His royal attendants? His army? His subjects? What is His royal jurisprudence (bench law and common law)? The answer is in His declaration that ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ (John 18:36) indicating an entirely different nature of kingship and kingdom.” So what is Jesus’ kingdom?
In the last year before His death and resurrection, Jesus’ disciple Peter confessed that Jesus is the divine Savior (Matthew 16:15). Jesus’ response was that the fact that He is God and the Savior would be the basis upon which He would “build” His church. In the same breath, Jesus told Peter that He would give him the keys to His kingdom (Mat 16:18-19). In other words, Peter would open the door for admission to Jesus’ kingdom.
Forty days after Jesus rose from the grave, He ascended into heaven (Acts 1). Where was this church? Jesus’ kingdom He promised? As Jesus left the earth, He instructed His disciples (followers), soon to be apostles (messengers that are sent) to wait in Jerusalem, because soon the Holy Spirit would guide them (Acts 1:8) as Jesus had promised during the previous Passover meal the night before His death (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:7-8, 13-14).
Just 10 days after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, on the Jewish annual feast of harvests called Pentecost, where thousands of Jews from 16 nations had gathered at the temple, this promise of the Holy Spirit’s takeover of Jesus’ ministry occurred (Acts 2:1-13). Peter’s speech, thereby announcing the opening (keys) of the kingdom is in the record (Acts 2:14-36). In that speech, he propounded that Jesus is “Lord and Christ” (King & Savior) sitting on His throne at the right hand of the God ( Acts 2:30, 33).
Peter was calling the Jews into Jesus’ kingdom. In his epistle to the new congregation at Thessalonica, Paul encouraged the folks to “…walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory” (1 Thess 2:12). Note he said they are “called”, i.e., invited into the kingdom. The entrance to the kingdom is critical. How a person enters is critical. That Jesus said that He is “the Way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6), indicates that he is the only way to God and eternal life. Thus He sets the criteria for entering His kingdom.
That there is just one way to enter is implied several times by Jesus, e.g., “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat 7:13-14). Contrary to Jesus’ words, the world says there are many ways (religions and/or churches) to God, heaven, and life eternal. What is Jesus’ one narrow way into the kingdom and thereby heaven?