The Kingdom: From Eden to Eternity

Much of Western Christianity today struggles with the concept of the kingdom. We have vague ideas floating around: heaven, some future realm, the millennial reign. But if we’re honest, these notions aren’t very defined in our minds. We hear the phrase “the kingdom of God,” generalize it, and move on. But what if we stopped and took a closer look at how Scripture actually defines the kingdom?

This is an immensely complex topic that encompasses so many areas of theology: your view of eschatology, ecclesiology, even soteriology. To adequately and systematically lay out the full picture would require months of careful study. But we can take a 10,000-foot flyover view that reveals the sweeping narrative of what the kingdom is and how it unfolds across the entire biblical story.

A Kingdom Lost

To understand the kingdom, we must go back to the beginning. Our beginning. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

There was once a kingdom. A good kingdom. A righteous kingdom. One that was created and established by a good and righteous Creator, all to the glory of that Creator. It was the kingdom of man, though of course, it was God’s kingdom. But remember what God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

He had created a kingdom, then created an image bearer of himself in order to have dominion over this kingdom. That goodness and righteousness in heaven was to be the same on earth, because the earth was a reflection of heaven, just as man was a reflection of God.

Look at what God told man to do: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

To multiply, fill the earth, and in so doing, to subdue it and have dominion over it. Multiplying meant that Adam, being the first image bearer created, was called under the rule of the Almighty Creator to represent this posterity and rule as prophet, priest, and king. As father of all, the representative of all. With the garden being the temple where God dwelt with his people.

This kingdom was to expand throughout the creation, with the presence of God being with his people throughout the whole of their dominion. And just like with any kingdom, there is a covenant, a constitution of sorts, that binds this kingdom together. This covenant was the law of liberty, one that was based on perfect righteousness. It was a covenant of works, one given to a people who were upright.

God placed this covenant right in the center of the garden. “You may enjoy my presence, have dominion over this kingdom, and enjoy the fruit of any tree and live. But eat of this tree and die.” This covenant had two sides. It could bring life or it could bring death. Bless or curse. Justify or condemn. Provide communion with God or isolation from God.

And we all know what happened by the time we get into Genesis chapter 3. In this picture of a beautiful kingdom, a seemingly small, insignificant spark of sin set off an explosion that decimated this kingdom into rubble.

The serpent (who we know to be Satan) made his way into this garden with lies and hatred in his heart, planting that seed into the mind of Eve that God was not telling the truth. Hoping to usurp the Creator by bringing this good creation into the same fate as him. “How dare these inferior creatures have dominion over this.” I can only imagine his ecstatic joy as Eve took that first bite, handed the fruit to Adam, and watched as he blatantly spat upon this covenant of works, bringing this kingdom to its knees so that Satan could dance upon its ruins.

Adam failed at his job of prophet, priest, and king. He failed to protect that sanctuary. He failed to protect his wife, whom he was tasked to guard. And because of this, they were cast out of the presence of God, to no longer be his people. Satan became their ruler. This once beautiful, luscious kingdom of man became the kingdom of darkness. And that grace and mercy that God had shown to his creation turned to righteous wrath and judgment. Adam failed to protect his posterity from futility.

Sin had brought death into the world. God’s goodness sustained life, but now the wages of sin are death, and everything was subjected to this: the animals, even the ground. In that moment that the covenant was broken, darkness set in. They themselves, as Paul said in Ephesians, became darkness.

A Ray of Light

However, as soon as that darkness set in, a single ray of light penetrated through. A gracious, loving, merciful God (the one who had been sinned against, the one whose covenant was broken) rushed in to provide hope. And that hope came as a promise. What was that promise? It was a seed.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

God then furthered that imagery by clothing them with skins.

You see, what God knew all along, something that even Satan was not privy to, was that he had an eternal plan. The plan to reestablish the kingdom, but better, and stronger, and everlasting. But that kingdom could not be reestablished as long as that covenant of works remained unfulfilled. So this hope required that covenant would be satisfied. This would mean that a new covenant of grace would not do away with the covenant of works. Rather, it would establish it.

Just as we see God’s promise of hope intertwined in his declaration of judgment in Genesis 3:14-19, the actual outworking of this great hope came in the midst of great judgment. Even though the walls of the old kingdom had come crumbling down, the foundation of the new kingdom was being laid. This is what is known as the Adamic Covenant.

The covenant of works that Adam broke must be fulfilled.

Covenants of Hope

We see another glimmer of this hope in what we know as the Noahic Covenant. The result of the fall and Adam’s posterity had led to unprecedented wickedness, and God chose to wipe the slate clean. However, God is a God of his word, and remember, he had promised that the seed of the woman would defeat the serpent.

So God preserved Noah and his family. He had him build an ark, and when the floods came and covered the earth, killing every living creature, Noah and his family were safe inside God’s provision of an ark. The wrath of God was poured out onto wicked men, and even though Noah and his family were also descendants of Adam, God made a way of protection. We see another glimmer of hope pointing to the provision of God in providing a Messiah, so that when we are in him, we are protected from the wrath of God.

After this, God promised never to destroy the earth with water again.

The light gets even brighter as we come to the Abrahamic Covenant. Even though God had wiped out the wicked men of Noah’s day, Satan was still the ruler of this kingdom, and that darkness remained. The hope of that promise seemed to be fading. The people of God were far and few between, and it was impossible to identify them. I’m sure once again, Satan was hopeful of his victory as history was unfolding.

God chose to reestablish his covenant of works with a particular people of his choosing. “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’”

God separated him from the other people of this kingdom and promised him a land. Notice a much bigger picture than just the nation of Israel. Hebrews tells us that Abraham “was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.” Abraham knew this was something much bigger. But through this covenant, walking through this world as sojourners, they were set apart.

In the midst of these people…

we get the law defined in the Mosaic Covenant.

We get the priest of this kingdom in the Aaronic Covenant.

And we get the king of this covenant in the Davidic Covenant.

After 700 years, this people of God had been overtaken, seen as insignificant. Then comes the great king David. And this was pointing to the seed of David, the victor, the king of kings. “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”

You see, David wanted to build God a house in his kingdom, but God promised to build David a house by giving his son a kingdom that would be a dwelling place for both God and his people.

Isaiah prophesied: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.”

All of these covenants were part of that covenant of works, pointing to a covenant of grace: the new covenant. But remember, the covenant of works must be fulfilled.

The Kingdom Breaks In

So at the perfect time, when the darkness was at its darkest, the last Old Testament prophet appears: John the Baptist. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Declaring in the wilderness, Jesus, the very Son of God, the light of the world, walks among the weak and the broken down to the river to be baptized by John. And as he comes out of the water, the clouds open: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

And Jesus sets out to fulfill the covenant of works, the one that the first Adam could not fulfill. He does so by first going out into the wilderness. Adam had a lush, beautiful garden, a full stomach, and comfort unimaginable, and his temptation was merely the fruit of a single tree. And he still failed.

But the true and better Adam was in a desert wasteland, decimated by the fall, starving, thirsty, hot, exhausted. And here comes Satan once again, not offering him a single tree but the whole of creation. And unlike Adam, who tasted of the forbidden fruit, Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’”

“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

In English, “kingdom” primarily refers to a place. In Greek and Hebrew, it refers to an activity or action: the reign of a king over a people. Jesus, the true and better Adam, is the true prophet, priest, and king. And he solidified this in his life, fulfilling the covenant of works. His death bore the guilt of his people. His resurrection was a declaration that death has no hold on him.

The Already and Not Yet

And now Jesus reigns as king, the king of a spiritual kingdom. One day you and I will see it come to fruition. That’s why we call it the “already and not yet.” Jesus is waiting for the very last of his sheep to be called, and he will put the final enemy under his feet: death. He will burn up this world and all of the iniquity as a result of the fall and create a new heavens and a new earth.

Saint, the kingdom of God is in you.

We no longer need the garden. We no longer need the tent. We no longer need the temple. For this kingdom is not of the earth. This kingdom is where God dwells with his people.

When Paul writes in Ephesians 5:5 that the sexually immoral, the impure, and the covetous have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God, he’s not talking about some vague, future realm. He’s talking about this present reality and future hope: the reign of the true King who has come to reestablish what was lost in Eden, to fulfill what Adam failed to do, and to bring his people into eternal communion with him.

The kingdom has broken into our world through Christ. It grows and expands as the gospel goes forth. And one day, it will be consummated in full when Christ returns and makes all things new. This is the kingdom we’ve been brought into, the kingdom in which we now live, and the kingdom for which we wait with eager expectation.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Resources for further study on this subject:

The Kingdom of God: A Baptist Expression of Covenant and Biblical Theology by Jeffrey Johnson

To the Judicious and Impartial Reader: Baptist Symbolics by James Renihan