Kingdom Principles

The Original Kingdom Concept

find that Jesus always talked about the Kingdom. Everything He said and did related to the Kingdom and its arrival on earth. Jesus said, “ Repent ” (which means to change your mind or adopt a new way of thinking), “ for the kingdom of heaven is near ” (which means, in effect, that it has arrived). In other words, Jesus was say ing, “Change your way of thinking! The Kingdom of Heaven is here! I brought it with me!” When Jesus brought the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, He brought also the promise of restoring to mankind the dominion over the earth that Adam and Eve had lost in Eden. He brought back our rulership. Before we could be fully restored to our Kingdom, however, the matter of our rebellion against God had to be dealt with. This rebel lion is what the Bible calls sin, and it is universal in human nature, a legacy of Adam and Eve’s treason in Eden so long ago. Jesus’ death on the cross paid the price for our rebellion so that we could be restored to a right standing with God, our King, and be reinstalled in our orig inal and rightful place as rulers of the earthly domain. The “gospel” message—the “good news”—is more than the Cross. The Cross is the doorway that gets us back into the Kingdom. The Cross of Christ, therefore, is all about Kingdom restoration. It is about restoration of power and authority. It is about regaining rulership, not religion. SONS, NOT SERVANTS Why did God wait thousands of years from the promise in Eden of Kingdom restoration to its realization with the coming of Jesus? He had to allow the course of human history to flow until the timing was right. In order for us to understand what we lost when we lost the Kingdom, much less understand kingdom princi ples, God needed the right prototype as an example. Across the millennia, many human civilizations and kingdoms rose and fell until finally a kingdom appeared that had everything God needed to show how His Kingdom was supposed to work. When the Roman Empire came to power, it had a concept of citizenship. It

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