In his new book, “The Two Gospels,” Bible scholar and long-term missionary in China, R. Dawson Barlow, observes, “Many devotional Bible readers genuinely love the Bible but never seem to ‘catch’ the fact that way back in the beginning of the Bible, God made a covenant with Abraham.

“God made it clear that throughout the Old Testament, He would be dealing with Israel (the Jewish people, the Hebrews, i.e., the physical descendants of Abraham) on the basis of that great Abrahamic Covenant.

“I can honestly confess that growing up in church I never heard a sermon or a lesson expounding the content and meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant. I dare to say that as long as Believers remain ignorant of the message—the merit and unconditional nature of the promises of God to Abraham and his posterity—they will never be clear in their understanding of the Bible.”

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The bottom line to everything biblical is understanding that when Christ came to earth, the kingdom He was coming to bring in (and will bring in at the Second Advent) was a literal, physical, visible, earthly kingdom with Jerusalem as its headquarters—not the spiritual ‘rule in the hearts of men’ kind of

Writing about the Bible myself, sometimes I think, “If I could get across just one thing, what would it be?”

a kingdom taught by mainline Christianity for time immemorial.

As Barlow explains, “The second coming of Christ . . . will mark a completely new way the human race will dwell on this earth. It will be a utopian time of a perfectly righteous society, governed by the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. He who once wore a crown of thorns will then wear a diadem of resplendent glory and will rule over all the earth with a ‘rod of iron’ (Psalm 2:9; Rev. 2:27).”

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Without understanding that this future kingdom will manifest itself in a real political institution on the earth, Bible students can never understand why it is that the nation Israel is given works to do in connection with their salvation, justification and entrance into the kingdom.

Jordan explains, “The works are the outward expression of their faith, because the verses they’re believing tell them to go do something—tell them to live in a certain kind of a way and perform in certain kinds of activities. Why? Because God’s purpose with the nation Israel is to establish a literal, physical, visible kingdom on this earth.

“People, in order to establish a kingdom on this earth, it’s going to take some WORK—some physical activity because it’s a physical kingdom!

“You take Abraham. God tells Abraham, ‘You’re going to have a son.’ I don’t mean to be risqué with you, but if you’re going to have a son, you don’t just say, ‘Well, let’s watch TV tonight.’

“There are some physical activities that have to be entered into to have a kid. You with me? It might be a work you enjoy, but it’s a work. People say, ‘Can you do something you enjoy and serve God?’ Well, Abraham did.

“I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when he tried to convince Sarah that that’s what he ought to do. She’s 90 and he’s 99! That would have been an interesting evening! The thing is, it’s real, and without it they couldn’t have fulfilled the promise.

“When your faith is in a message that tells you to do something, what do you do? You do what you’re told. Why? Because you believe the message. If you didn’t have the faith it wouldn’t do you any good. Abraham had already had a kid that he didn’t have by faith—Ishmael—and God threw that out.

“But then when he did the same work, this time for the right reason—faith—he had Isaac and that was God’s blessing. The seed line. Now, that’s why works are involved in Israel’s justification and salvation program. Because there’s a literal, physical, earthly program for them that requires their faith to express itself in some physical activity to accomplish God’s purpose for them.

“If you throw out an understanding of that earthly, literal nature of Israel’s program, you lose the ability to even understand their salvation program and you wind up thinking in a very fuzzy manner about James 2. You wind up confused not only about justification for them but for us as members of the Body of Christ.

“And you never met anybody more confused about justification—basic salvation issues—then somebody like D. James Kennedy, or R.C. Sproul, or any other Preterist, or Calvinist, or Covenant Theologian who rejects dispensational bible study.

“I use the names of these people because you hear them on the radio every day. They talk good about a lot of things but folks, the Dalai Lama talks good about a lot of things.

“You know, the pope sounds good about a lot of things. The pope believes in all the fundamentals of the faith—he believes in the virgin birth of Christ, deity of Christ, bodily resurrection of Christ, substitutionary death of Christ and the inspiration of the Scripture. Big deal, he’s a fundamentalist. He can sit right on the platform with Bob Jones and Ian Paisley and say, ‘I’m a Fundie!’

“There’s more to things that just that, and understanding the Bible dispensationally is a key element to understanding not just the Bible but who you are in Christ, and who Israel is, and keeping them straight. And the angels, when they proclaim peace on earth, they’re talking about the nature of the ministry of the Messiah in its ultimate, and it’s a literal, physical, visible issue.”

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Job is the oldest book in the Bible—the first one ever written—and Job knew that his hope was to stand in resurrection on the earth (Job 19:25). He didn’t hope to die and go to heaven.

“Nobody in the Old Testament hoped to die and go to heaven because they DIDN’T die and go to heaven!” confirms Jordan. “They died and went to Abraham’s bosom which is in the heart of the EARTH because that’s where their hope was—in the earth.

“Psalm 2:8 says, ‘Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.’ That verse is quoted in Acts 1:8 by Jesus Christ as He speaks to His apostles and said, ‘The Holy Spirit’s gonna come upon you and you’ll be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea and the uttermost parts of the earth.’ It was the earth back there and it’s the earth here! That’s the kind of kingdom that the prophets think is coming.

“Psalm 72 is the last psalm of David—everything David prayed for is summarized in it—

and in the last couple of verses he writes, ‘[17] His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.
[18] Blessed be the LORD God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.
[19] And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.’

“Everything David hoped for finds its fulfillment and culmination when the whole earth is filled with God’s glory. Verse 7 and on says, ‘In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.
[8] He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.
[9] They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.
[10] The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts.
[11] Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.’

“That’s why the wise men in Matthew 3 brought the gifts they brought. At Christmastime we sing, ‘Joy to the world, let the earth receive her king,’ but nobody does. All kings are going to serve Him then—can you name one who does today? That’s a real thing when Christ comes.

“Isaiah 2:2 says, ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.’

“In Psalm 133, the blessing is going forth out of Jerusalem. Isaiah 60:2 says, “For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee.’ That stuff’s real, folks, and it’ll happen just that way.

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In Daniel 2, when Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, he sees the Gentile kingdoms given the opportunity to rule over the earth in Israel’s place because of Israel’s apostasy.

While Israel’s under the Fifth Course of Judgment, the ‘Times of the Gentiles’ rule in the earth comes, but then at the end of the vision, Daniel sees a stone come out of heaven and destroy all the Gentile nations and a new kingdom is established in their place.

Daniel 2:44 says, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”

Jordan reasons, “Does it say it shall stand hereafter and the dream is ‘symbolic and the interpretation is highly figurative, apocalyptic and uncertain’? No, it said you can bet your 401K on this one—it’ll come to pass right on the money!

“We are told in Daniel 7:24 that ten kings shall arise ‘and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.’

“I mean, it’s a literal kingdom that the Antichrist rules and it’s a literal kingdom Christ rules. An earthly, visible, political kingdom in Palestine as the headquarters. You just keep reading through the Scripture and you can’t miss the fact that all this stuff is looked at and thought about to be just as real as it’s said to be!”

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In Habakkuk 2:14 is the promise, “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”

Jordan explains, “The earth is going to be filled with the knowledge, not just of the Lord, but of the glory of the Lord, and when he sits upon His throne of glory, which is located in the city of Jerusalem, the 12 apostles will sit upon 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of a king reigning in a city in Jerusalem. You can just go on and on and on with these things.

“What I want you to see is that when you read these passages, you get a sense that it’s real; it’s not some symbolic ‘spiritual rule in the hearts of men,’ and when you ask somebody where is that verse in the Bible, they always run over to Luke 17.

“We already studied that passage where Jesus said to the Pharisees ‘the kingdom of God is within you.’ If you think that the kingdom was within those Pharisees—that it was a ‘spiritual rule in the hearts’ of those lost Pharisees that Jesus was talking about—then you got bigger problems than just not understanding this verse! You see, Jesus said, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and then all these things will be added unto you.’

“It’s only the nation who trusts Him with heart faith who receives the literal, physical kingdom. When God promised Abraham some land to him and his descendants forever, if He doesn’t give it to them, He’s a liar and He’s not ‘the God who cannot lie,’ and you got a big problem. But it is real!”