TNDL: “IN MARK CHAPT. 1, WHAT WAS YESHUA MESSAGE ABOUT, WAS IS IT NOT ABOUT THE KINGDOM OF HRAVEN/KINGDOM OF GOD?”

Kingdom of God, also called Kingdom Of Heaven, in Christianity, the spiritual realm over which God reigns as king, or the fulfillment on Earth of God's will. The phrase occurs frequently in the New Testament, primarily used by Jesus Christ in the first three Gospels.Though the phrase itself rarely occurs in pre-Christian Jewish literature, the idea of God as king was fundamental to Judaism, and Jewish ideas on the subject undoubtedly underlie, and to some extent determine, the New Testament usage. Behind the Greek word for kingdom (basileia) lies the Aramaic term malkut, which Jesus may have used. Malkut refers primarily not to a geographical area or realm nor to the people inhabiting the realm but, rather, to the activity of the king himself, his exercise of sovereign power. The idea might better be conveyed in English by an expression such as kingship, rule, or sovereignty.To most Jews of Jesus’ time the world seemed so completely alienated from God that nothing would deal with the situation short of direct divine intervention on a cosmic scale. The details were variously conceived, but it was widely expected that God would send a supernatural, or supernaturally endowed, intermediary (the Messiah or Son of Man), whose functions would include a judgment to decide who was worthy to “inherit the Kingdom,” an expression which emphasizes that the Kingdom was thought of as a divine gift, not a human achievement.