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THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Michael Heiser in his book “The Unseen Realm” in a summary statement says:
“The kingdom of God is already a present reality but isn’t yet realized. John the Baptist announced it. He introduced its king. Jesus preached its arrival and demonstrated what life in God’s Edenic world could and would be like; no disease, no infirmity, no demonic opposition.
The New Testament makes the rebirth of a struggle thousands of years in the making. The people of God have been isolated and under foreign rule. The divine presence of the days of Moses, David, Salomon, and the prophets is nothing but memory. When angels visit Mary and Zechariah to announce the impending births of Jesus and John, centuries of divine silence are broken. Thirty years later, Judea will explode. The unseen spiritual conflict is even more volatile.
Every chapter of the New Testament provides a glimpse into this conflict. The cosmic geography of the Old Testament is evident in the New. Where Jesus goes and what he says and does when he gets there is framed by confrontation with unseen powers. The conflict pursues him unto death – as God had planned, and as Jesus provoked. THE KINGDOM OF GOD ESTABLISHES A PERMANENT BEACHHEAD AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS AND THE DOOR OF THE EMPTY TOMB.

The Lamb Of God

Why did John call for a water baptism?
The ritual of water baptism was applied to Gentiles, unclean people, who wanted to convert to Judaism. Ritual baptism was never administered to Jews, only to non-Jews who converted to Judaism. Why? Because Gentiles were considered unclean and needed to go through a purification rite, to take a bath – in order to be welcomed and received into the covenant community of Israel.
However, John the Baptist primarily directed his calls for repentance to Jews. With that, he told Israel “the Messiah is about to arrive but you are not ready for Him. It is you, the people of Israel,that are unclean. That’s the reason why John called the Jews to submit to a ritual of cleansing that up to this point had been administered only to Gentiles. The typical procedure when a Gentile was going through the proselyte baptism, he was never baptized by a Levite or by a priest, who normally performed all the other purification rites in Israel. The convert was to baptize himself. No wonder the religious leaders asked themselves: Who does this man think he is, to call us, the children of Abraham, to undergo a cleansing rite?
The Lamb of God is also prefigured in the Passover, when God prepared to bring His final plague on the Egyptians, the death of every firstborn male of the Egyptians, including the crown prince of the Pharaoh (Exodus 12:3-31). Just as the blood of the lamb caused the people of Israel to be spared from God’s wrath, the Lamb of God redeemed His people from the penalty that was due for their sin.