Oh that's easy, brother. We are translated into *membership* of the Kingdom--we are not there yet!
As I said, Jesus was and is the King of the Kingdom. When he arrived in Israel during his earthly ministry, it could be said that the Kingdom spiritually dwelt within Israel and especially with Jesus' followers. It did not mean the Kingdom had actually come!
It was just a temporal form of the Kingdom that had been in the midst of Israel, just as the temple had temporarily been in the midst of Israel. The actual eschatological Kingdom remains future. Jesus said his disciples should pray, "Thy Kingdom Come." You don't pray for something that's already here!
It is not nonsense, nor it is necessarily Dispensationalism. It is precisely what Jesus said. And I'm not a Dispensationalist. If you think the Kingdom is already here, I wonder what you're hoping for in the future?
Matthew 6:10 says,
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”
You seem to be trying to employ the Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6:9-13 as support for their belief that the kingdom is to be a future physical temporal kingdom that will be set up on this sin-cursed earth for 1000 years. However, you do err in your basic understanding of the character of the kingdom AND do wrongly interpret this familiar prayer, misapplying the meaning of its wording.
Firstly, we must realise that every other request in this prayer is immediate and current in that it relates to the ‘here and now’. It is also personal and particular in that it has an intimate effect upon the actual individual making the petition. It is therefore a cohesive prayer that is totally and fully achievable in the life of the disciple making it. This prayer in full is therefore evidently answerable and realisable to the child of God in this life.
· “Give us this day our daily bread” (v11).
· “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (v12).
· “Lead us not into temptation” (v13).
· “Deliver us from evil” (v13).
There is no contextual warrant then to divorce
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” from the undoubted harmony and overall make-up of the rest of the prayer. Unfortunately, some premillennialists manipulate the passage to make it sound as if it reads ‘Thy kingdom come…in earth, as it is in heaven’ thus conveniently omitting or glossing over the inspired and vital words “Thy will be done” as if they are not in it. The passages reads:
· “Thy kingdom come” (v10a).
· “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (v10b).
It is thus a harmonious interrelated petition which is fully realized in the life of the Church generally and the believer individually in which they see
the will of God manifested and performed on this earth “as it is in heaven.” It is also a request to see the Kingdom of God (which is everywhere else described as a spiritual eternal kingdom) manifested in and through the believers’ life experientially. It is NOT a detached distant request to see a future temporal earthly millennial kingdom manifested after Christ’s Second Coming.
This is simply an individual’s petition. The kingdom God can be manifested through us as individuals because the kingdom of God is within. I see this as a request for the power of God to be displayed through us – nothing more, nothing less.
The simple import of this much-misinterpreted aspect of this prayer is that God would make His Kingdom manifest in all its power and glory in the life of the supplicant and that God’s Sovereign will would be manifested on this earth as in heaven through His praying people. In fact, the parallel reading in Luke 11:2 declares,
“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.”
The Greek tense in both texts reinforces the fact that this relates to the ongoing manifestation of the kingdom on this earth. It is written in the
aorist active imperative – in the present tense. So it cannot just be limited to a future happening but rather a continuous progression.
This thinking simply emanates out of a flawed notion of the kingdom; a view nowhere expounded by Christ in Scripture. In fact, the part of this petition that some Bible students selectively use in support of the idea of a literal thousand-year reign on earth after the second coming of Christ, simply says, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Thus, fitting in beautifully with the
immediate nature of the overall prayer petition and its
personal significance to the one making the petition.
Entering in to that spiritual kingdom in this life brings an immediate realisation in the ‘here and now’ and on this earth of true “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17) and is decisively personal to the recipient. Many Premillennialists, every time they see the term kingdom, automatically think ‘future, temporal and visible’ whereas the kingdom exists NOW and is current, eternal and spiritual. During His earthly ministry, Christ addressed the fallacy of a literal earthly kingdom, saying,
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation” (Luke 17:20).
The subject of Christ’s (example) prayer and the specific reference to “kingdom” in that prayer relates to the same spiritual kingdom about which He continually referred to in His earthly ministry.
That kingdom was not physical as many Jews envisaged but spiritual. It could only be entered in spiritually through the Christian new birth.
When we pray “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” we are praying that “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” would be manifested in us and around us; that God would be given His place and that unrighteousness would be banished. When we pray “Thy kingdom come” we are praying for heaven to come down in supernatural power in our midst – just like at Pentecost. This is a petition for the glory of God to be seen in our world.
