If Christianity is the ‘Fifth Kingdom’, then the implications for Christianity are as momentous as when Jesus Christ and his disciples preached the gospel to the Jews.
The world, as the Jews knew it, was being turned upside down.
The new covenant, promised in Jeremiah 31, had superseded the old Mosaic covenant.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be my people.
No longer will each one teach his neighbour or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.
I will forgive their iniquity and will remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:31-34)
In the synagogue at Nazareth, the Lord Jesus Christ read the Messianic prophecy from Isaiah 61 and announced its fulfilment in himself.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to proclam liberty for those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour.
He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them,
"Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
(Luke 4:18-21)
Those Jews who recognised Jesus as the Messiah, could step into the new covenant by faith and be set free from the regulations of the Mosaic law and the petty Traditions of the Pharisees.
Those Jews who rejected Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah, viewed Jesus and his disciples as mortal enemies of their Jewish faith and traditions; they were the ones who demanded that the Romans crucify Jesus and who relentlessly persecuted his disciples. Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee, was one such opponent of the gospel of the new covenant, until his encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:4).
But there were also Jews who, while recognising Jesus as the Messiah, misunderstood the full implications of the new covenant. Instead of embracing the freedom of the new covenant, they insisted on clinging to the Mosaic laws and traditions, and tried to compel Gentile believers to do likewise; these Jewish believers formed themselves into a powerful block, the Circumcision Party, and became a divisive force within the early churches.
There was only one law in the new covenant; LOVE.
Firstly, love fulfils the entirety of the Mosaic law;
A Pharisee, an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him:
“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
Jesus replied,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Deuteronomy 6.5)
This is the first and greatest commandment and the second is like it:
“Love your neighbour as yourself.” (Leviticus 19.18)
All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.
(Matthew 22:35-40)
Secondly, love is the distinguishing characteristic of Jesus Christ’s disciples;
I give you a new commandment,
“Love one another as I have loved you. If you love one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples."
(John 13:34-35)
Jesus and his disciples turned the world upside down with love!
Christianity has failed to represent the love of God in the world.
Implications for disciples of Jesus Christ.
If Christianity is the ‘Fifth Kingdom’, then God is about to turn the Christian world upside down!
The ‘Sixth Kingdom’, “the Stone, cut out without human hands”, will demolish Christianity, the final human kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
Then, “the God of heaven will establish his everlasting kingdom that will not be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44); the true Church of Jesus Christ will grow into a mountain and fill the earth ‘without human hands’; that is, without any human organisation.
The Sixth Kingdom, is a family, a spiritual community, not a human organisation.
In the Sixth Kingdom, the Holy Spirit writes God’s law on the hearts and minds of every disciple; he is every disciple’s Helper, Teacher and Guide, no professional priests or pastors required.
In the Sixth Kingdom, disciples submit themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and “seek first the kingdom God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).
A simple message to disciples in Christianity.
As there were Jews who embraced the new covenant, there are Christians who will embrace the ‘Sixth Kingdom’, the true Church of Jesus Christ.
First, their commitments will change.
Disciples will devote themselves to studying the scriptures and prayer; they will "delight themselves in the law of the Lord and will meditate upon his law day and night" (Psalm 1:2). They will become spiritually mature.
Disciples will obey Christ; they will “Go and make disciples in all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, they will be Christ’s “witnesses in their city, region, nation and globally” (Acts 1.8).
Secondly, their practices will change.
Disciples of Jesus Christ will stop entertaining the saints with silly Sunday services and instead, they will “equip the saints for works of service” (Ephesians 4.12) and for spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6.10-12) in the real world.
There is no room for Spectator Christians in the ‘Sixth Kingdom’; every disciple is expected to “take up their cross daily and follow Christ” (Matthew 16.24) and “to put on the full armour of God” so that they “may be able to stand their ground on the evil day and, having done everything, to stand”(Ephesians 6.13).
Thirdly, they will turn their world upside down.
They will "Go" in the power of the Holy Spirit and they will conquer the world with love; ‘theology in practice’ not the dead theology of Christian doctrine and dogma that has “the form of godliness but none of its power” (2 Timothy 3.5).
But, in turning the world upside down, disciples will be persecuted on Christ's account;
Blessed are you when people hate you, exclude you, revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
(Luke 6:22)
Above all, disciples will love one another, their neighbours and their enemies, and they will pray for those who persecute them.
Finally, the Sixth Kingdom, is God’s doing!
Disciples will trust God to build his Church because they understand that spiritual warfare is won "not by might nor by power but by the Spirit" (Zechariah 4:6).
As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
(Hebrews 3:15)
Will you embrace what God is doing?
Or, like the Jews before you, will you find yourself opposing God? (Acts 34-39)
Now be like the Berean Jews and "examine the Scriptures daily to see if these things are so" (Acts 17:11).
There has never been a better time to be a disciple of Jesus Christ!
