The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down.

By David W. Bercot.

A Review.

By Richard M. Friedrich.

The author shows himself more acquainted with history that most people holding his key positions. This knowledge, however, does not free him from the same prejudices, assumptions, and fallacies universally found with those holding the same. Several foundational assumptions lie at the base of this perspective. And several fallacies are resorted to to give the assumptions the force they have with such people.

Chapter 1.

The author begins the book with no introduction at all. He just begins with the events of a bloody war between two groups of peoples: The Crusaders coming against the Islamic people within the walls of Jerusalem in the year 1099. No attempt is made throughout the narrative to give any perspective of the events, until near the end when the words are thus given: "On might think that the next day the Crusaders were filled with remorse for massacring close to 100,000 people, many of whom were little children. But not at all, for they were certain that their Lord Jesus Christ had given them their victory and was smiling down at them as their happy King."

This statement thus is the author's personal opening statement in the book. The effect naturally was intended to make the reader disgusted with the worst extreme example of the view opposite to that held by the author. If the purpose of this was to encourage the reader to suppose there was only two alternatives, either this bloody massacre or the author's position in relation to 'the kingdom', then the author has engaged in frequently used fallacy among those holding his position. An easy way to dismiss any positions contrary to one's own position, is to create the impression that their is only two positions: your positive position, and an opposite position that revealed in its worst forms possible. If the reader does not examine all the facts to see alternative positions, they may fall for this fallacy. When Jesus was placed in such a position when asked about a man, Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind, He did not fall into the faulty dilemma, but responded, neither this man or his parents, but a third alternative. This may not be the intended purpose of this opening chapter, but it is a very common fallacy used by people holding this position; and because the author took no pains in the opening chapter to show any alternative positions in this discussion, he does tend to encourage that frequently used fallacy.

Chapter 2.

In the second chapter the author begins to make far more subjective statements. Among this are various terms of undefined meaning. The first is "upside-down values." This use of the terms upside-down and right-side up in this chapter also plays into this oversimplification of all the positions in this subject matter. The author attempts to give the reader the impression that there is only two obvious positions possible, one physical or earthly kingdom, and one somewhat spiritual kingdom; and that the two are contrary to each other. Instead, there is in fact a long held well known alternative as we shall get into.

The author proceeds to label the ancient Israelite relationship with God a "right-side up kingdom". He quotes Ex. 10: 5, 6, which refers to spiritual matters ("kingdom of priests and a holy nation"), but later gives a few quotes in the attempt to prove that it was rather only a earthly physical kingdom. The author needs to consider all the facts of the matter before making such sweeping statements, like the following: "Despite these special features, the kingdom of Israel was still an earthly kingdom... In fact, even God's promised blessings to the Israelites were earthly, material blessings." This very ambiguous word "earthly" as used in this way, is often equivocated to prove and support this faulty dilemma fallacy of only two positions or two kingdoms teaching.

The author specifies that that kingdom was limited to a geographic territory and ethnic nationality. But he never attempts to establish this. The author continually makes a partial presentation of the facts of this and other matters, stressing matters of fact that people superficially acquainted with the bible will see and agree with from consulting their memory, and thus the partial presentation, without mention of the less known or stressed facts of the matter, will tend to convince those who wish to accept the investigations of the author, of the author's over-generalized and partial positions. Anyone who takes the pains to read the whole bible through, instead of just studying a few verses here and there while merely relying upon memory for the rest, will see that this assumption about "earthly" kingdoms is contrary to the testimony. While there were in fact many earthly or material blessings and curses, whole chapters are given about non-earthly matters. While the writes in the closing of the first chapter about the new kingdom of Christ being that of love, what should he and his readers make of Deut. 30: 6? "Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your soul, in order that you may live." Throughout the Old Testament the Lord so addressed those people. Thus the author's position is not only over-simplistic, but contrary to the testimony.

Further, the author states that "The laws of the kingdom of Israel were the Mosaic Law". Any reader of the bible will see that there were universally binding laws given before Moses was born. It will be important to keep that in mind when people holding to the author's position attempt to confine either the entire Old Testament into the Mosaic Laws, or ignore all that was before given before the existence of the people of Israel. We also need to keep in mind that while certain laws were given to those people of a temporary nature, such as for example, the sacrificing of animals for atonement, a great number of them were for all mankind in the present state of human life. It must be remembered that any and all laws given by God are part of the moral law, and are necessary under the circumstances. No laws are arbitrary, but all God's laws are perfect and just and loving. Any contrary position results in a position that makes God's laws unjust, and thus makes God ignorant and unjust at points in history.

Another additional unsupported assumption of the author is in the following sentence: "In fact, in many aspects, ancient Israel was modeled after the same pattern on which their [of the world] nations had been built." No details are given to support this. The impression given in this paragraph, and with those holding this position generally, is that man originated this Israelite kingdom and its laws. And that some of those laws were in fact wrong, or needed to be improved upon because they were at least in error of the real truth of the nature of God. Jumping a head of this chapter if we consider the laws given to the Israelite people about taking the life of another person under certain circumstances, we will find that people holding to the author's positions will often speak in a way that implies that such laws are wrong, unloving, and unjust or unchristian. The real question in this example, or in this second last paragraph in chapter two, is are these laws and similarities between nations merely wrongful human inventions, or actually divine institutions that are just and right (while many times corrupted by sinful man)?

This chapter hardly does justice to the topic given. Only a brief mention of a partial set of facts is given, just enough to support the position of the author. As such it reveals a great ignorance of the dealings of God with those ancient people.

Chapter 3.

In chapter three the author continues building support for his position of a different kind of kingdom. Before telling us exactly what he thinks that kingdom is, and why the other one is wrong or should be abandoned, he enters into a new fallacy in relation to statistics. While the author is right in saying Jesus stressed the words kingdom of God a frequently, he overstates his case in claiming the theme of Jesus' gospel and preaching was not "man's need for salvation", "God's love for mankind", "the necessity to be born again", and "the fact that Jesus would die as a ransom for us". The only support for the author's claims was the frequency of times these phrases occurred. While he says "they are all essential truths." He says "But none of them was the theme of His message." The author may be setting the stage here in this distinction, as so many others holding his position do, in trying show that people holding to contrary positions to his are also ignorant of Jesus' gospel and most important teachings.

So does the frequency of a term determine what was the main theme? And does the frequency of a phrase in any way support the claims of this author? Notice what this author claims in the same paragraph: "We've all been given the impression that the primary purpose of Jesus' coming to earth was to save us from our sins. And that definitely was one of the purposes of His coming here. But it was not the only purpose." So we have here that it is an important purpose but not actually, the only, but also not even the primary! How can we know this is true? Because "there are nearly one hundred references to the kingdom throughout the Gospels", and "most of Jesus' parables were about the kingdom." The author does not consider that his understanding of the kingdom may be mistaken in fact. What if "the kingdom of God" teaching was actually the same as these other less important themes of Jesus. The assumptions of the author are fatally erroneous at this point. Consider the following scriptures: "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins." Matt. 1: 20-21. No certainly when the first gospel opens up with such an important statement then we know it is of fundamental importance. Just how many times is that theme repeated? Well if we do carefully read our bibles it will mean every time we read the name Jesus that most wonderful theme is repeated to us. Further, we are exhorted to pray in Jesus' name. If his name means salvation from sins, and we read numerous times the name Jesus, and pray all day long in that same name, and sing and preach and heal and baptize in that name, etc., then just what is the most frequent theme? Not some abstract kingdom teaching, but HOLINESS. Holiness is the theme of the bible. The kingdom is a holy kingdom of holy persons. They are not separate as this author assumes. Jesus and His apostles stressed similar things in different ways to help people understand the truth. For example, the Hebrews often used a parallelism where they made a statement and in the next line repeated it in other words or with a slight variation. This was helpful.

Notice how the next gospel opens up: "John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins." And in Luke we have "and He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, while yet in His mother's womb. And He will turn back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God..." This is the general statement given about what Jesus will do. Certainly that is the all-important theme. Finally we see in the gospel of John that it does not open with the kingdom, but the nature and person of God again, and his manner of bringing salvation to man. With many more considerations we can plainly see in the gospels and rest of the New Testament that theme of the Bible is not a strange kingdom opposed to the earthly existences we all live in. Only one more verse need be quoted from the multitude that exist even within the Epistle of John: "And you know that He appeared in order to take away our sins; and in Him there is no sin." Notice carefully the statement "and you know". This shows that the whole church at that time knew this contrary to our author's position. In fact our author claims that the church still today believes something like this. One of the problems people have in justifying this one kingdom only position is that they have to draw people into only certain portions of the bible to support their new claims to truth. In this case we find one author select the frequency of the word kingdom to prove an idea. But as shown, if we stop to use the same kind of argument we find just the opposite kind of results. We find that if we will take the time to carefully read beyond the sermon on the mount and a few of Jesus' parables and statements, that the whole bible teaches us a different theme than what this author supposes. That is, there is really three kingdoms or more instead of two. In all the universe, not just earth, there is a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness. Those are the two possible kingdoms in relation to spiritual matters. There is also an earthly kingdom comprised of people made of physical and spiritual natures. While people live in their bodies they have physical needs and limitations. They may in fact set up family, civil, religious, etc., governments in a way consistent with either of the two spiritual kingdoms, but it is simply absurd to suppose that human governments necessarily belong to the spiritual kingdom of darkness--especially when our Lord has abundantly said contrary. The Kingdom of God Jesus was talking about was not a lifestyle as so many people think, but communion in the holy presence of God. It is walking in the light just as Jesus walked in the light (1 John 1).

If the above observations are correct, then the entire foundation of the kingdoms teaching in this book is mistaken. This makes all the resulting claims unsupported.

Under the heading "What is This Kingdom of God?" the author tells us every kingdom has four basic components. One essential component in every kingdom which is not mentioned is that the ruler has sanctions. Laws by themselves, without sanctions, are not laws at all but only advice. Advice is not law, and is not binding. There are many people holding to the kingdom teaching in this book being reviewed that do not focus on sanctions for some of the governments they are involved with. Failure to realize this essential aspect of all governments reveals a great misunderstanding about governments. This misunderstanding, we will see later, is a cause of many errors in this two kingdoms teaching.

Later in this chapter another new claim is made that the kingdom of God is a new kingdom, and a new type of kingdom "totally different from what anyone--Jew or Gentile--had ever heard of before." Again, no evidence was given for any of these three claims. We have already established that the kingdom Jesus spoke of was holiness. It was having God's character and walking with God. Certainly many had that before the coming of Christ, so it was not new or a new type of kingdom. It will be agreed that Christ's coming greatly advanced that cause, and fulfilled the essential conditions in the incarnation and atonement, etc. His coming made the promises more sure, and opened a whole new experience in the church with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. In that sense many things were new and not clearly understood. But we cannot overstate this to the place of saying a new kingdom started at that point, especially a new type of kingdom. The author does not define himself in all these places where it is necessary, and neither does he support his claims, so it is difficult to understand fully what he means.

Another example of creating a straw man argument that is easily knocked down is in the following paragraph: "'Oh, I see,' you may be thinking. 'Jesus was talking about a spiritual kingdom, not a real one.' No, Jesus was talking about a real kingdom." I am not aware of anyone who would make such a statement. Anyone who supposes there is a "spiritual kingdom" supposes it is real, with real people and a real Moral Governor as King. This confused supposition of the opposite theory does not answer that position. Jesus was talking about a real spiritual kingdom that pertained to matters of salvation and spirituality. That is not contrary to living in this world and being part of governments "ordained of God." The only way it is contrary is when those governments violate the moral or spiritual laws of God. Then, as in the stories of the bible, men and women of God had to refuse and suffer.

The kingdom of God is within you because it pertains to your transformed character from sinfulness to holiness, and thus from being estranged from God to walking with Him. The coming of the Holy Spirit made a great difference from times previous. Although that subject is somewhat related to this one, it is more involved than needs to be mentioned in this place.

Chapter 4.

[MORE TO COME]