Articles
What The Kingdom Is About
When the apostle Paul wrote to the brethren in Rome, one of the things he addressed was the apparent conflict over whether or not one should be eating meats, or even certain kinds of meats. Paul wrote that, among them, there may have been one who “believes he may eat all things” and another who “eats only vegetables” (Rom. 14:2). The problem was, each thought the other wrong and were condemning one another (Rom. 14:3, 4).
Paul would answer the matter of what was right, writing, “I know and am convinced by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself” (Rom. 14:14), but he would also write, “It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak” (Rom. 14:21). The point was, while it was not wrong to eat meats [or abstain from eating], one should not disregard the conscience of their brother in Christ and cause him to stumble by urging him to violate his conscience and do something he doesn't believe to be acceptable — no matter what you might think or even know for certain.
[It must be noted here that these are not matters of sin, for this discussion is about something Paul said was up to the individual; sin is never acceptable to God.]
With all this time spent on addressing the eating of meats or refraining from eating meats, we might miss an important point Paul makes in this context, and that is, “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). In other words, what defines the kingdom of God's people is not their diet, but their behavior, demeanor, and what guides them in every part of life! This is a point often forgotten by many churches and individual disciples, and the fact many have forgotten this has been the cause for many in the world to wonder what the church is all about anymore.
If it seems like the religious world has lost its focus, it is because it has! Take a look around and what you will probably see are churches and disciples focused on the external and the material, physical things of this world, rather than focusing on “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” You will hear preachers in pulpits directing the audience's attention to the temporal, material, visible world around them, rather than on heaven and the eternal, spiritual, and invisible things. Let's take a few minutes and try to re-focus on what is most important — the very things the kingdom is all about.
Righteousness. Let it be said, first of all, that the Kingdom of God is not about eating and drinking because that is not why Christ came; He did not come to this earth so we could know the right foods to ingest, but that we might be saved. Jesus came to die for our sins because we were then unrighteous and we needed to obtain righteousness that we might be reconciled to God.
In the first century, the religious leaders were overly concerned with externals, questioning Jesus about why His disciples did not wash according to tradition (Matt. 15:1, 2), but Jesus would point them to a truth they had ignored: “Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man” (Matt. 15:11, 12). The religious leaders were offended at this (Matt. 15:13), but they were offended because they were focused on externals, rather than on being truly righteous. They were more concerned with appearing “outwardly…righteous to men” while “inside” they were “full of hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matt. 23:28). They had completely missed the point of the Old Law's regulations on food and even the washing of self, thinking it was all about merely external cleanliness, when God was trying to get them to be righteous [spiritually clean] from the heart and in all parts of life. The ‘righteousness’ they had was insufficient, for it was based on externals; Jesus said plainly, “unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:20). External ‘righteousness’ was not true righteousness at all, for it was merely outward.
The fact is, Christ came to this earth because God looked on man and saw the reality “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one” (Rom. 3:10-12). It was to this world He sent His Son to live, and to die for our sins “that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). For emphasis, let me repeat that Christ did not die for us to follow some dietary regimen, but to become the righteousness of God in Him. The kingdom is not about eating and drinking, but about God's righteousness.
Peace. We might never have guessed this by looking at all the religious division, but God intended the Kingdom be about peace; that is, He intended His Kingdom be a place where men could be united in peace, instead of finding ways to divide themselves. Paul noted that it was Christ who “made both [Jew and Gentile—SH] one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross” (Eph. 2:14-16). No longer was it ‘Jew’ and ‘Gentile’ as our designations; now it is simply ‘Christians’ who are part of the Kingdom, united by faith in Christ.
Paul also noted, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26-28). What divisions man has made, and whatever reasons we can come up with to divide us should disappear and be eliminated altogether for those who have the common faith in Christ. Gone are those reasons to divide [Ex., eating of meats] and, now, we unite on our faith in Christ. Peace should be the inevitable consequence of that common faith.
Joy in the Holy Spirit. Albert Barnes correctly notes that this joy is produced ‘by’ the Holy Spirit, and that is exactly the point Paul is trying to make here. Instead of reasons for contention and animosity, brethren who disagree on minor differences and personal matters of conscience should still be able to rejoice together in the fact they are in the Kingdom of God! The fact they are all saved should be reason enough to have joy, as we saw with the Ethiopian eunuch when he was saved (cf. Acts 8:38, 39). Outside of Christ, and following the worldly thinking, we have no reason to rejoice; but, in Christ, we should find multiple reasons to rejoice.
The Holy Spirit has revealed to us the plan of God for our salvation (cf. Eph. 3:1-6), and for that we rejoice; He has assured us of an inheritance (cf. Eph. 1:13, 14), and for that we should rejoice; He intercedes for us in prayer when we simply cannot put into words what our heart desires (cf. Rom. 8:26, 27), and for that we should rejoice.
Don't look for a church that offers the external things; look for the one that offers what the Kingdom is all about: righteousness, peace, and joy. —— Steven Harper
