101 Historical Kingdom Advocates (Kingdom of God 10)

Who has believed in the kingdom over the history of Christianity?  In this lecture, you’ll find out who defended the kingdom belief in the first four centuries, before it faded out of the mainstream and got replaced with going to heaven instead.  In order to put you in contact with the primary sources, we read through a bunch of quotes, so you can hear the unfiltered voices of these remarkable kingdom advocates.

This is lecture 10 of the Kingdom of God class, originally taught at the Atlanta Bible College.  To take this class for credit, please contact ABC so you can do the work necessary for a grade.

Notes:

1st Century

 

Author(s) of Didache (wrote/edited ad 60-150)

Didache 8.2  Nor should you pray like the hypocrites.  Instead, pray like this, just as the Lord commanded in his Gospel: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”

Didache 9.4 Just as this broken bread was scattered upon the mountains and then was gathered together and became one, so may your church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom; for yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever.

Didache 10.5-6 5 Remember your church, Lord, to deliver it from all evil and to make it perfect in your love; and from the four winds gather the church that has been sanctified into your kingdom, which you have prepared for it; for yours is the power and glory forever.  6 May grace come, and may this world pass away.  Hosanna to the God of David.  If anyone is holy, let him come; if anyone is not, let him repent.  Maranatha! Amen.

Didache 16.6-8 6 And then there will appear the signs of the truth: first the sign of an opening in heaven, then the sign of the sound of a trumpet, and third, the resurrection of the dead—7 but not of all; rather, as it has been said, “The Lord will come, and all his saints with him.”  8 Then the world will see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven.

 

Clement of Rome (wrote ad 80-100)

1 Cl. 42:3  3 Having therefore received their orders, and being fully assured by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, and established in the word of God, with full assurance of the Holy Ghost, they went forth proclaiming that the kingdom of God was at hand.

1 Cl. 50:3 3 All the generations from Adam even unto this day have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love, now possess a place among the godly, and shall be made manifest at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ.

 

Barnabas (wrote ad 70-132)

Epistle of Barnabas 1.7 For the Master has made known to us through the prophets things past and things present, and has given us a foretaste of things to come.

Epistle of Barnabas 6.13 Again, I will show thee how, in respect to us, He has accomplished a second fashioning in these last days. The Lord says, “Behold, I will make the last like the first.” In reference to this, then, the prophet proclaimed, “Enter ye into the land flowing with milk and honey, and have dominion over it.”

Epistle of Barnabas 10.11…Because the righteous person not only lives in this world but also looks forward to the holy age to come….

Epistle of Barnabas 15.4-5 Observe, children, what “he finished in six days” means.  It means this: that in six thousand years the Lord will bring everything to an end, for with him a day signifies a thousand years…”And he rested on the seventh day.”  This means: when his son comes, he will destroy the time of the lawless one and will judge the ungodly and will change the sun and the mo