WHAT SORT OF KINGDOM WERE JOHN THE BAPTIST AND YESHUA (JESUS) PREACHING?
Dispensationalists[1] will tell the tale that when John the Baptist said, "the kingdom of Heaven is at hand", both he and Yeshua were offering "The Millennium" to the Jewish people. When they said "The Kingdom of God" that meant a "Jewish Age"; an earthly Davidic Kingdom fully established in Israel. Rome would be overthrown, the cross could have been avoided and the Messiah would have been instantly made King. All the Old Testament prophecies (which they say were never made to the Church) would have been realized by the Jewish people, and they would have "ruled the world". Perfect environment on earth, they say, would have also become an immediate reality.[2]
They will tell us that John the Baptist and Yeshua were both preaching this "Gospel of the Kingdom" and offering only an earthly kingdom to the Jewish people. For their system to work, they must convince us that this earthly kingdonm only was being offered to the Jewish people.
But is what they are teaching really true? What did John the Baptist, Yeshua and the Apostles really say?
WHAT THE SCRIPTURE SAYS
1. The Archangel Gabriel said Marys' child is Davids' son. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His Kingdom "there shall be no end". Luke 1:31 ff.
Dispensational view: Scofield: Scofield said that this passage in Luke meant, "The promise of the kingdom to David and his seed...enters the New Testament completely unchanged." In other words, this "Davidic kingdom" was offered, rejected and so is still completely unfulfilled. So it is still future. This disagrees with Matthew 28:18.
2. The kingdom announced by John and Yeshua was a moral and spiritual kingdom.
Dispensational view: The "Gospel of the Kingdom" was not this at all they say, but a very visible, material, physical, earthly Kingdom. There would later be a completely "different gospel" (not their "Kingdom Gospel") preached to the Church.[3]
3. If John the Baptist was preaching only "The Gospel of the Kingdom" and the crucifixion could have been averted, why did John say, "Behold the Lamb of G-d which taketh away the sin of the world." John 1:29b?
4. Yeshua refused to be brought into disagreement, let alone rebellion, against the Roman rule.
Dispensational view: Had "the Jews" accepted Jesus, he would have forcibly overthrown all Roman rule, making the Jews "rulers over the whole earth". Dispensationalists find it difficult to explain John 6:15.
5. Yeshua said, "My Kingdom is not of this earth".
Dispensational view: This statement came after "the Jews" rejected Jesus' offer of an earthly kingdom. So he was perhaps in the process of "switching it" (?) during the interrogation by Pilate.
6. Yeshua said, "The Kingdom cometh not with (outward) observation".
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: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20,21
Dispensational view: The Dispensationalists have no real answer for this.
7. If the "great multitude which no man could number" (Revelation 7:9) were Saved in "The Great Tribulation" or "The Millennium" and not under the "gospel of the Grace of God" of the "Church Age" which Paul preached ("Jesus Christ and Him crucified", and was over at the Darby Rapture), how is it said that they had "washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb." (Revelation 7:14)?
Dispensational view: The Dispensationalists have no real answer for this.
8. The Apostle Paul said:
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of G-d; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. I Corinthians 15:50
The Apostle here is stating the His Kingdom is a Spiritual Kingdom and not of the carnal earth, but within His Elect only.
Dispensational view: This has to do, they say with Pauls' "gospel of the grace of God" preached to the Church only and represents the "heavenly" blessings of the Church, and is unrelated to the earthly Kingdom they say Yeshua and John the Baptist were preaching and is promised to the Jews in the "Millennium"?
10. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the Kingdom of His Dear Son: Colossians 1:13
Here is plainly says that we are already in His Kingdom. The issue the Dispensationalists make over "Kingdom of God" being Israel only and "Kingdom of Heaven" being the Church only is taken away and we have "The Kingdom of His Dear Son".
Dispensationalist view: Since this appears in Pauls' Epistles, it is only for the "Gentile Church" and not the Jewish people.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
It has been and is the opinion of many serious Bible scholars over the years that the interpretation of Scripture offered by Dispensationalism is simply not actually found in the Bible.
In fact, it can be said that the same kingdom that the Dispensationalists tell us the Jews should expect is identical to the kingdom the Pharisees of Yeshuas' day were teaching and also expecting, and that we should now also expect? Yes, they are saying the kingdom of the Pharisees was what Jesus was preaching and is their "Millennium to come".
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