The Kingdom of God

What Is the Kingdom of God? Understanding Its True Meaning

The phrase "Kingdom of God" resonates deeply with us, but what does it truly mean? According to Luke 17:21, Jesus declares, “The kingdom of God is within you.” This powerful statement shifts the perspective from a physical realm to an internal, spiritual experience. The illustration continues in Luke 13:21, comparing the Kingdom to “leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” But what is this "leaven"? In Matthew 16:12, the reader is warned against “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees,” identifying it as their doctrine. Simply put, the Kingdom of God is a transformative understanding of wisdom rising within us.

The Original Teachings: Parables and Sayings Before the Gospels

Before the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were written, no narrative of miracles, resurrection, or ascension existed. Instead, the earliest records of Jesus’ teachings were most likely collections of parables and wise sayings. These sayings, often centered on the Kingdom of God, formed the foundation of early Christian philosophy. Written after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Gospels wove these sayings into narratives to support traditional beliefs, but their core rested on philosophical wisdom.

This original wisdom, free from later narrative additions, focused on an inward spiritual journey. For example, the concept of resurrection wasn’t about a physical rising but a spiritual awakening—a “rising up” of understanding within the heart, as promised in Jeremiah 31:33: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.”

Redefining Death: A Spiritual, Not Literal, Concept

The promise in John 8:51, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death,” challenges traditional religious understanding. If the Kingdom of God is an internal experience, then the “death” referenced here isn’t physical but spiritual. This spiritual death is tied to the “righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees” (Matthew 5:20), which the Jesus character critiques as insufficient. In Mark 7:9, he condemns their adherence to “your own tradition” over their Deity’s commandments, equating traditional religious law with spiritual stagnation.

The Hebrew Scriptures philosophically define sin and death as the philosophy of rigid religious law. This definition can be found in the New Testament, wherein 1 Corinthians 15:56 states, “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.” By embracing the Kingdom of God’s understanding, one can avoid this spiritual death and experience a resurrection of thought, or a renewal of heart and mind, fulfilling the saying, “Create in me a clean heart...and renew a right spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).

The True Message: Liberation from the Curse of the Law

The narrative of a demigod dying and rising for humanity’s sins is a later addition, not the Hebrew Bible’s core teaching. Yet Galatians 3:13 declares, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law.” The crucifixion, in this context, symbolizes liberation from the traditional religious law; the true “sin” and “death.” By focusing on the Kingdom of God experience, one can reject outdated religious traditions/ideals/supposition/ and embrace wisdom sparking spiritual awakening.

This message is revolutionary: adhering to Jesus’ sayings prevents spiritual death by fostering a living, transformative faith. As the doctrine of the Kingdom rises within, it reshapes devotional thought and ignites a resurrection of the soul.

Why This Matters for Your Spiritual Journey

Understanding the Kingdom of God as an internal, transformative experience empowers one to move beyond rigid and useless traditions. We are supposed to be cultivating a belief that is alive, intellectual, and dynamic. The Bible’s original concern of spiritual or inward resurrection; free from the “curse of the law”; offers a path to deeper connection with the intended will and journey of at the core of the scriptures.

Let the Kingdom of God rise within you, transforming your heart and mind.

From Serapis to Christ: How Syncretism Shaped Imperial Religion

History teaches us that religious identity is never static. It is a fluid negotiation of power, culture, and community. In the ancient world, few examples better illustrate this than the State-sanctioned creation and adaptation of gods like Serapis and Jesus the Christ. These figures did not emerge in cultural vacuums. Rather, they were carefully crafted through syncretism—an intricate blending of belief systems—to unify fractured empires and legitimize rulers.

Serapis: The Politics of Invention

When Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian general of Alexander the Great, assumed power in Egypt around 305 BC, he faced a unique dilemma: how to govern an empire split between native Egyptians and Hellenistic (Greek) settlers. His solution was Serapis, a deity forged not from faith, but from political necessity. Serapis was a hybrid god, combining elements of the Egyptian Osiris and Apis with Greek gods such as Zeus, Hades, and Asclepius. He had the appearance of a Greek ruler but bore the attributes of Egyptian underworld gods, complete with a grain basket (modius) atop his head symbolizing abundance and fertility (Murphy, 2021).

Ptolemy introduced Serapis not just to unite religious traditions, but to also reframe the State itself. As Dawson (2014) notes, the cult of Serapis allowed Greeks in Alexandria to claim a spiritual stake in their new home while pacifying Egyptians by linking Serapis with their revered Osiris-Apis tradition. Temples like the Serapeum in Memphis bore dual architecture and symbolism, housing statues of both Greek philosophers and Egyptian sphinxes – visual testaments to a calculated fusion of cultures.

Yet, Serapis was not readily accepted by all. Despite state sponsorship, his cult struggled to win widespread Egyptian devotion. Egyptians often saw him as a “counterfeit” version of their own gods, while Greeks viewed him as a legitimizing tool of Ptolemaic rule (Murphy, 2021). His success lay not in winning hearts, but in stabilizing a divided polity.

Constantine: The Syncretist Emperor

Fast forward to the 4th century AD. Constantine the Great stood atop a similarly divided empire, this time between pagans and a growing Christian (pagan Hellenistic Jew) population. Like Ptolemy before him, Constantine saw in religion a powerful tool for imperial unity. But where Ptolemy invented a god, Constantine rebranded a religion.

Though Constantine is often hailed as Christianity’s champion, his policy was less about theology and more about control. Constantine maintained tolerance toward traditional pagan practices while promoting the Christian religion as the new ideological glue of the empire. His edicts did not immediately ban pagan sacrifices, as some scholars have claimed, but instead reflected a careful balancing act between religious communities (Errington, 1988).

To ease the transition, Constantine employed a similar syncretic strategy. Christian holidays were aligned with pagan festivals; most famously, Christmas with Saturnalia. Temples once dedicated to pagan deities were rededicated to Christian saints. Even the Jesus character’s image gradually took on the visual likeness of Roman gods like Sol Invictus, reinforcing familiarity through resemblance.

Syncretism as Statecraft

Both Ptolemy and Constantine used religious syncretism to perform a crucial function: to unite disparate populations under a single cultural umbrella without resorting to outright repression. Their approach was pragmatic, not pious.

For Ptolemy, Serapis offered a symbolic common ground between colonizers and the colonized. For Constantine, the Christian religion provided a unified moral code and institutional framework adaptable to Roman governance. In both cases, religion was not imposed from below by prophets or mystics, but shaped from above by rulers wielding “divine authority” as an extension of political will.

This strategy resonates with modern attempts at multicultural governance. From India’s policy of religious pluralism to the inclusion of interfaith prayers in U.S. civic ceremonies, states continue to use symbolic fusion to forge unity out of diversity. I suppose it is on us to be on the look out for another Constantine or Ptolemy I, and their new Jesus Serapis.

Learn From History

Religious syncretism in antiquity wasn’t merely theological, it was a form of imperial strategy. Serapis and Jesus, though born of different eras, embody the same impulse: to craft religious meaning in the service of social cohesion. One would then think, for example, that the Jesus character would shriek at such a masterful sociopolitical opportunity to rule an empire, seeing as how in John 6:15, when he “perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” Why, once Constantine takes office, does Jesus change his mind? Whether through the merging of Isis and Demeter or the transformation of Saturnalia into Christmas, empires have always sought to anchor their authority in what is to be thought of as “sacred.”

I believe that we, as we move through our present world, can learn from this history. The blending of “faiths” is not just a practice of the past, it’s a living process, and one that continues to define how we share space, stories, and ultimately, what we revere as supposedly “divine.”

References

Dawson, D. (2014). A Cult of Fusion. Vulcan Historical Review, 18.

Errington, R. M. (1988). Constantine and the Pagans. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 29(3), 309–314.

Murphy, L. (2021). Beware Greeks Bearing Gods: Serapis as a Cross-Cultural Deity. Amphora, 2, 29–44.