The kingdom of God has different sections. One section, mentioned previously, is the kingdom of God in the Old Testament age. The kingdom of God as the realm of God’s governmental administration also has a particular section which is the kingdom of God in the New Testament age, that is, in God’s New Testament economy. The section in the New Testament is different from that in the Old Testament.
The particular characteristic of the New Testament section is the divine life. The kingdom of God has a section of the divine life in God’s New Testament economy (Mark 1:15). The divine life was only partially revealed in the Old Testament, but the divine life is a particular characteristic of the New Testament. In Genesis 2 the divine life was revealed in a symbolic way with the tree of life (v. 9). It was not revealed as definitely in the Old Testament as it is in the New Testament. In John 10:10 the Lord Jesus said, “I came that they may have life.” In Greek the word for life in this verse is zoe, referring to the eternal divine life, not psuche, referring to the soulish life, or bios, referring to the physical life. In Colossians 3:4 Paul used the expression “Christ our life.” We cannot find such a definite and clear expression in the Old Testament. In John 3:14-15 the Lord said, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Again, the life referred to here is the divine life.
The particular characteristic of the New Testament is this divine life. This is why in John 3 the Lord Jesus told us that if we desire to enter into the New Testament section of the kingdom of God, we must be reborn, or regenerated (vv. 3, 5). Nicodemus was a leading teacher in Israel, yet he could not understand such a word spoken by the Lord. He misunderstood the Lord’s word to mean that he had to return to his mother’s womb and be born a second time. The Lord Jesus told him that even if he could return to his mother’s womb, he would still be the flesh, because “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (v. 6). The flesh and the spirit are of two different realms and of two different natures. If we desire to enter into the New Testament section of the kingdom of God, we must be born of the Spirit; we must have another life.
Every kingdom has its particular life. One cannot enter into a kingdom without having the life that matches that kingdom. To enter the animal kingdom, we must have the animal life, and to enter the vegetable kingdom, we must have the vegetable life. If we are not a lion, we could never be a part of the kingdom of the lions. If we desire to understand the communication among the birds, we must be born into the kingdom of birds. The only way to be a part of a particular kingdom is to be born into that kingdom. By our physical birth we were born into the kingdom of man, and by the divine birth we, as men, are born into the kingdom of God.
As we have seen, a particular matter in the New Testament section of the kingdom of God is the divine life, the life of God, which is God Himself to be our life. In the Old Testament, we could not see that God was life to Noah or to Abraham. But today, in the New Testament age, God is life to us. Thus, the realm of God’s governmental administration has a section of the divine life in the New Testament economy of God. Mark 1:15 indicates that at the time the Lord Jesus lived on the earth, the kingdom of God had only drawn near. However, Matthew 21:43 indicates that the kingdom of God was already present with the children of Israel. It seems that these two verses contradict each other. Actually, they refer to two sections of the kingdom of God. In Mark 1:15 the Lord Jesus preached the gospel, saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near.” This indicates that while the old section of the kingdom of God was in existence, a new section was about to begin. This new section is new in the divine life. In the old section, the divine life had not yet come. However, the very content of the new section of the kingdom of God is God’s divine life.
The new section of the kingdom of God is of the seed of life sown by Christ. Mark 4:3 says, “The sower went out to sow.” The Lord Jesus was the Sower, and He sowed Himself as the seed of life into Peter, John, James, and all the disciples. In verses 26-27 of the same chapter we find, “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed on the earth, and sleep and rise night and day, and the seed sprouts and lengthens—how, he does not know.” The kingdom of God is like a seed that grows after it has been sown. This is something new.
In the Old Testament, there was no regeneration. God was not a seed sown into His chosen people that this seed might grow in them. The word concerning the new section of the kingdom of God reveals that God came through incarnation to sow Himself as the seed of life into His chosen people. The seed of life is the seed of the kingdom of God. It grows up to be the kingdom of God. This does not refer to the old section of the kingdom of God. In the old section of the kingdom of God, God Himself was not there growing as the seed of life. It was in the new section of the kingdom of God that God came to sow Himself as the seed of life into His chosen people. Hallelujah, God has been sown into us!
The kingdom of God in the new section is God Himself as the seed of life that is sown into us and grows to be the kingdom of God. The seed of life, which is God Himself, not only produces the kingdom of God; it grows to be the kingdom of God. Just as the kingdom of lions is the lions themselves, and the kingdom of vegetables is the vegetables themselves, so the kingdom of God is God Himself growing in us. We are part of the kingdom of God because God is in us growing as the kingdom of God. If we do not walk according to God, we will not bear the appearance of the kingdom of God. Whenever we walk according to God, we bear the appearance of the kingdom of God.