Hi Mike:

Was reading your article on free will and had this observation and question.

You said…

We still must be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Salvation is not in us coming out, it is rather outside of us through Christ coming into us and changing us.

But you also said the tree of life grows out of the ground.

We are the ground, right? And the Kingdom of God is within us, right?

So, wouldn’t the Kingdom or the life grow out of us from within? Wouldn’t it manifest from within.

Just being a curious thinker…

W____

Hi W_____,

Oh yes, God’s kingdom grows “within you.”

Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

But notice who Christ is talking to when He puts it this way:

Luk 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:

What the Pharisees and the people wanted was a physical free Jewish state. They certainly didn’t see any need to make any internal changes first. So while the physical and natural is always first, it is also true that the natural must first begin to die, before the spiritual will ever be born and at that point begin to grow.

1Pe 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may [ begin to] grow thereby:
Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

What Gen 2:9 depicts is Luk 17:20-21. Here you have the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil,’ the Pharisees in the law of Moses [(Rom 7:7 “I had not known sin, but by the law “)] demanding to know how to get into the kingdom of God. Of course they didn’t know that that was what they were asking, but that is how Christ (the Tree of Life) answered it. The Tree of Life also, growing “out of the earth,” is simply a prophecy that Christ would come “in the flesh,” “under the law,” meaning that he too, would be “born of a woman.”

Gal 4:4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.

There is the definition of “under the law.” The law shut “every mouth.” Not just Jewish mouths. “The whole world” becomes guilty before God, not just Israel ‘according to the flesh:’

Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Until we come to see that the ‘law of Moses,’ though given to Moses by God, and necessary “to bring us [ all] to God,” is yet “not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient,” we will never fully understand that God originally made Adam “of the earth” (corruptible), “naked” (sinful), “not willingly but by reason of Him who hath subjected the same in hope.” So we are plainly told: “the creature [ Adam] was MADE subject to vanity.”

Christ could not sin, so the only way for Him to partake of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was to come “made of a woman, made under the law.” Now he had fulfilled another ‘jot and tittle’ of ‘the law and the prophets’ which said: Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me (Psa 51:50). So He, who knew no sin and never sinned, was “made [ of a woman] to be sin.”

2Co 5:21 For he hath made him [ of a woman, shapen in iniquity] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Christ is not advocating ‘New Age Christianity,’ telling these Pharisees, who, tomorrow would be crucifying Him, that they themselves, by virtue of being born of Abraham had the kingdom within themselves. What He was saying was that when they did receive the kingdom it would be within them, and grow from within them, as it must in us all. Contrary to what Christendom teaches about Grace, it does not simply cover sins. Grace actually makes us the righteousness of God in Him.

Rom 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace does not reign through a life of sin. It reigns “through righteousness.” (See The Scriptural Definition And Function Of Grace in the article The Law of Moses Versus The Law of The Spirit as well as The Purpose and Function of Grace in the article Strong Delusion.) Christ is not denying that there would be a millennial kingdom on earth. He turns from the Pharisees, having just told them that “the kingdom of God comes not with observation,” and tells His disciples:

Luk 17:22 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it.
Luk 17:23 And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them.
Luk 17:24 For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.

What it all boils down to is that the kingdom of God will never be “within us” until we have first learned to begin to “die to the flesh.” This seems like a daunting task at first. Up against the giants in the strength of the flesh, we appear “as grasshoppers … in their sight” (Num 13:33). It is through faith that we realize the truth. And this is THE TRUTH:

Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

Here is the formula:

Joh 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Joh 12:25 He that loveth his life [ in this flesh] shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto [ spiritual] life eternal.

So yes, the kingdom of God is within, but it is not ‘from’ within this earth, this flesh, “the ground.” This “ground,” must return to “the ground” in order for the “much fruit,” the spiritual life, not of the ground, to be born. “Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return,” are as spiritual in their application as any words in scripture. Until we are willing (that ‘will’ being the sovereign work of God) to “lose” this life of flesh, we will never attain to real life.

1Co 15:46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
1Co 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
1Co 15:48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
1Co 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

For both Christ and us, flesh is but a pre- ordained, necessary evil, which must be endured and overcome.

Mat 10:22 And ye shall be hated of all [ men] for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.

Let me know what you think. I like to think that I am able, through Christ, to adjust my thinking to align with the scriptures.

Mike