After analyzing at length in part 5 Preterists bits on the Resurrection of the Dead, let us now look at the same in relation to the Kingdom of God, which is to say the Kingdom of Heaven.
The prayer book reads:
“But let the burning coal of Thine all-holy Body and precious Blood be for my sanctification and enlightenment…and the acquisition of Thy kingdom.”
page 316
“Yet, O Master, Who…givest us these awesome and life creating Mysteries…grant that for me also these may be for the healing of soul and body, …and the acquisition of Thy kingdom,…”
page 342
“Vouchsafe the kingdom of Thy Son, Christ our God, unto us thy sinful servants.”
page 180
This kingdom wording telegraphs a Kingdom that we could acquire now in our lifetimes. This would necessitate this Kingdom to be immaterial, spiritual (John 18:36), one that is in our hearts, within us (Luke 17:21), not among us as many translations say, but within us, which is the proper meaning in the original Greek, and as such always reflected in the Slavonic.
Furthermore,
“Remember O Lord, the souls of Thy departed servants,…granting them the kingdom and share in Thine eternal good things and the enjoyment of endless and blessed life in Thee.”
page 46
This same Kingdom is what Christians have traditionally prayed God grants to those departed from this earthly life. We pray that God grants them that Kingdom, which is the same as Paradise, now, not at a future time after a future second coming. During futurist exegesis we hear that this Kingdom where the departed go, is not yet the full Kingdom, but that is not what the average layman understands and neither it is what sermons usually imply. If the Kingdom is in our hearts, of the spirit, then we could share it now, to a degree, with the spirit of the departed, who go to it upon dying.
Saint John of Kronstadt said in his My Life in Christ:
“How can the Kingdom of God come to a man during his present life? Through hearty repentance. ‘Repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”
“‘Thy kingdom come.’ The Lord reigns everywhere. In the whole visible world (being in every place) and in all the angelic hosts. He also reigns by his infinite Power and Truth over the spirits of evil, and over evil and unrighteous men…He reigns in every action of my body and soul…”
“‘Thy kingdom come’- that is, Thy perfect reign in our hearts!”
“When God is present in all a man’s thoughts, desires, intentions, words, and works, then it means that the kingdom of God has come to him; then he sees God in everything- in the world of thought, in the world of action, and in the material world…”
“Do unto them as you would to yourself, or even do not do unto them as you would not do unto yourself, and then you will see what you will obtain in your heart–what peace, what blessedness! You will be in paradise before reaching it–that is, before the paradise in heaven you will be in the paradise on earth. ‘The kingdom of God is within you,’ says the Lord.”
“It is also necessary for a Christian to fast, because, with the incarnation of the Son of God, human nature became spiritualized and deified, and now we hasten towards the kingdom of God, which is ‘not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’ ‘Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them.’”
“We must be most careful not to eat before Divine service. We must remember that ‘The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,’ that is, that God cannot reign in the heart that is overburdened with surfeiting and drunkenness.
“‘The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.’ ‘Is within you,’ that is, it is impossible even to distinguish the moment of the coming of the Kingdom of God into our soul: as soon as we have cast out sin from our heart, the Kingdom of God is in it, and we do not observe when and how this is accomplished; the moment of perfect rejection of sin from the heart is the moment of God’s perfect reign within us.
“…‘Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Is at hand—that is, it has come by itself. It is not necessary to seek for it long—it seeks us, our free inclination; that is, you yourself must repent with heartfelt contrition.”
How can the love of God, the kingdom of heaven, be in you when in your heart reigns earthly love—sensuality, cupidity, and pride? It is impossible, until you have “crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts;” “for no man can serve two masters;” and “whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”
O, how blessed is the soul when it is with God! Truly the Church is earthly paradise.
https://www.holytrinitypublications.com/my-life-in-christ-7
This is a kingdom now position, one that the best of Orthodoxy, the best of its monks and priesthood, assumed and practiced, maybe not always in theory, but in practice. It was the position of traditional Christendom for centuries. It is what the Bible says would be at the new covenant age, a Kingdom not of this world, but that would overlap with this world by the Holy Spirit being now inside of us, sanctifying us and making us agents of the sanctification of the kosmos.
