The most amazing event in the entire history of the world was the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who has ever read the Bible account of this event knows there is no way to ever justify, or declare as right and reasonable, the fact that the Lord was taken by lawless hands ...crucified, and put to death. To the best of our knowledge, no Bible-believing person has ever said the Jews and Romans were right when they conspired against and took the life of the Son of God. Many and severe have been the denunciations of the Jews and Romans who took part in the illegal trials and crucifixion of Jesus, and this is as it should be.

Notwithstanding the numerous prophecies of the Old Testament regarding the coming crucifixion of our Lord, there are those today who say that God never planned for this to come to pass. They say the Lord was sent by Yahweh to establish a physical kingdom upon this earth, and that the Jews and Romans crucified him, thus offsetting God's plan. They say since God was unable to establish his kingdom due to the crucifixion of Jesus, he established the church as a sort of stopgap measure until a coming time when the Jews will be willing to accept Jesus as Messiah, and he can successfully establish an earthly kingdom. My Friends, this means that our God is so weak that he was defeated in his plans to bring his kingdom into this world by mere men. One of the questions that comes to one's mind, and has never been answered is, if God failed to do what he wanted to do the first time he attempted, by what rhyme or reason can we think that he can possibly be successful at another time? Galatians plainly declares that God sent his Son into the world at the right time. The passage reads: "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law..." (Galatians 4:4 NKJV). If the time was not right, surely by the time Paul wrote this language God would have known that and not inspired him to write otherwise.

This doctrine is presented in a vain attempt to explain why Jesus did not establish an earthly kingdom during his sojourn on earth. But the reason Jesus did not establish an earthly kingdom was because God never intended to have an earthly kingdom after the crucifixion, resurrection and Ascension of the Lord. The earthly kingdom that God had under the Law of Moses was only a picture or shadow of the spiritual reality to come through Christ. And if Jesus failed to do what God intended, then we certainly serve a feeble God who is unworthy of our reverence and praise. Either he was wrong when he sent Jesus into the world, contrary to the statement of Paul just quoted, or those who teach that he made an error are wrong. Personally, we opt for the latter, because if God has ever been wrong about anything, he is not God!

Jesus never made the claim of being an earthly king, but he claimed to be King of a kingdom not of this world (John 18:36). If he had made the claim of being an earthly King, the Roman government had every right to try him for treason. Why do we say that? Because the only way he could have set up an earthly kingdom was to have done so with an armed rebellion against the Roman Empire. But that was not the case for Pilate said, "I find no fault at all in this man." You would think that modern students of the Bible would be able to learn from all their study what Pilate learned after a very brief conversation with Christ.

In making the accusation that God failed in what he intended to do when Christ came to earth, these folks utterly deny that Jesus ever came to establish a spiritual kingdom in which the souls of the righteous can reside for time and eternity. Somehow, they are "hung up" on the idea that the only way God can rule men is physically. Yet, the testimony of history is that he has ruled hearts by the millions in his spiritual kingdom also known as the church.