understand this aspect of Christ’s mission, but they flatly refused to believe it.It is understandable, then, that the disciples were shocked when their Leader, whom they expected to overthrow the ruling Roman occupational government, was arrested. “Then all the disciples forsook Him and fled” (Matthew 26:56). Confused and devastated by this unexpected turn of events, they scattered as Jesus was tried, condemned and executed as a criminal.

Later, after they received the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4), the disciples came to understand that, as the Scriptures had prophesied, the Messiah would have to die and be resurrected. The apostle Peter, in his first inspired sermon to the Jews gathered at Jerusalem, proclaimed that David, in one of his psalms, “spoke of the resurrection of theof the Gospels—Mark, Luke and John—use the term “Kingdom of God” to refer to the Kingdom by name.

“Kingdom of heaven” is a term used exclusively by Matthew, with 32 references in his account of Jesus Christ. However, he uses the terms “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” interchangeably. In Matthew 19:23, 24, he uses the terms in consecutive verses, clearly implying that they were synonymous. Often he calls it simply “the Kingdom.”

Why did Matthew call it “the kingdom of heaven”? Because heaven is where God is, as Jesus Christ made plain (Matthew 5:34, 45, 48). Matthew makes it clear that the Kingdom was not, at that time, an earthly monarchy like the kingdoms around them. However, he understood that it was a kingdom to come, for which