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In Acts 1:3 the Lord Jesus as the One in resurrection must have helped the disciples to have such a proper realization concerning the kingdom of God:
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The disciples must have begun to see that the kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life in the believers, that it is the propagation of Christ as life in His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life (John 3:3, 5).
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The disciples certainly must have understood that they were now part of the propagation, the spreading, of Christ, and thereby were part of the kingdom of God (Acts 1:8-9; 8:12; 20:25; 28:23, 31).
Morning Nourishment
John 3:5 ...Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.Acts 8:12 But when they believed Philip, who announced the gospel of the kingdom of God and of the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.
The Lord Jesus appeared to the disciples for a period of forty days [Acts 1:3]. In the Bible forty days are a period of trial and testing (Deut. 9:9, 18; 1 Kings 19:8). When the Lord Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, He fasted forty days and forty nights (Matt. 4:1-2). Also, the children of Israel were tested, educated, by God in the wilderness for forty years....In Acts 1 the Lord appeared and disappeared during a period of forty days in order to test and train His disciples. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 2974)
Today's Reading
During these forty days, Christ as the One in resurrection also spoke to the disciples the things concerning the kingdom of God. Although we are not told in Acts what the Lord spoke concerning the kingdom, we may infer what He said by considering other portions of the Word. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus taught the disciples much concerning the kingdom. It is not likely that during the forty days after His resurrection, He gave the disciples something new concerning the kingdom. Rather, He may have repeated what He taught them in the Gospels. When the Lord spoke regarding the kingdom in the Gospels, the disciples were not able to understand what He was teaching them. They did not have the spiritual insight to understand the kingdom of God, because the Lord was not yet in them. But in John 20 they received the wonderful person of the resurrected Christ into them as the life-giving Spirit. As a result, in Acts 1 they were very different, for Christ, the life-giving Spirit, was now within them as their life and person. Because they had the life-giving Spirit within them, they were able to understand the Lord's speaking concerning the kingdom of God.In Acts 1:3 the Lord Jesus as the One in resurrection must have helped the disciples to have such a proper realization concerning the kingdom of God. The disciples must have begun to see that the kingdom of God is the spreading of Christ as life to His believers, that it is the propagation of Christ as life to His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The disciples certainly must have understood that they were now part of the propagation, the spreading, of Christ, and thereby were part of the kingdom of God.
In Mark 4:26-29 the Lord Jesus told the parable of the kingdom seed. "So is the kingdom of God: as if a man cast seed on the earth, and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and lengthens—how, he does not know. The earth bears fruit by itself: first a blade, then an ear, then full grain in the ear" (vv. 26-28). The man is the Lord Jesus as the sower. The seed is Christ Himself as the seed of life sown into us. This parable reveals that the kingdom of God is a matter of life, the life of God, which sprouts, grows, bears fruit, matures, and produces a harvest. The kingdom is not a matter of lifeless organization through man's wisdom and ability. The kingdom in its reality is a matter of Christ as the seed of life sown into us and growing in us unto maturity.
The kingdom's reality is also seen in Christ's expansion as the enlargement. Christ's expansion is His growth within us, and His expansion is His enlargement.
Revelation 1:6 tells us that we have been made the kingdom of God. Christ released us from our sins by His blood (v. 5) and made us a kingdom. The believers redeemed by the blood of Christ have not only been born of God into His kingdom (John 3:5) but have also been made a kingdom for God's economy, which is the church (Matt. 16:18-19). John, the writer of the book of Revelation, was in the kingdom (Rev. 1:9), and all redeemed and reborn believers are also part of this kingdom (Rom. 14:17).
We are God's kingdom because we are the expansion of Christ, His enlargement. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 2974-2975, 2638-2639)
Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 250