The Kingdom of Heaven: What is it

"...repent ye:for the kingdom of heaven is at hand..." Matthew 3: 2

We tend to think of a kingdom as being a certain land under the authority of a monarch. This is true but it is not complete; for all things in the land people, livestock, wildlife, crops, the very land itself belong personally to the king. In this way all things are his to do with as he pleases. For this reason many translations have translated the word reign for kingdom.
In the light of this Jesus statement that the kingdom of heaven is within you becomes more clearly understood. The kingdom is not in a future land but in a submitted heart that has given itself completely over to God.
So what of the old testament saints; where they not submitted? Yes they where submitted but not in the way in which the grace of the new testament affords. Saints, before the precious gift of Jesus death on the cross, had their will and their love towards God, but the only power to live came from their fallen human nature. It is from this power source that the Holy and royal law of God as given to Moses was, as Paul concluded, the law of sin and death. This is not because the law is flawed in any way, but because its perfect standard shows men that their self powered life source is irrevocably flawed.
Most all have heard it said that the Holy Spirit lived with men before the redemption of Jesus, but that now he lives in men. It is very few men who experienced the awesomeness's of this truth, and I would guess almost none live in it completely.
When we trust in what Jesus did for us at the cross the old man(self powered life) is crucified with Jesus. We become a new man who has the life of God(powered by the Holy Spirit)shared in him. The reflection of this Paul calls the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Yet this is not a switch but a relationship; for only as we trust him to live through us is his righteousness revealed in us. When we do trust his life to not only be in us but to live through us; our life becomes as Paul would say "when the gentiles with out law do the things contained in the law". In this way the law of Moses is not a thing to be feared by the believer; where it was a mirror of mans inability to live Godly it is for those who have trusted Christ a promise of the life he is forming in us.
Rick Rosamond
A bond slave ofJesus