The Inner Kingdom and the Outer Kingdom

The inner kingdom is essential, but it was never the final goal – it must become an outward reality

The Kingdom Within

Part 2 of a sermon by Dr. Michael Balcomb, President of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification in Europe and the Middle East, given online at an international Sunday worship service for the Nordic countries on Zoom 20^th September 2026.

Continued from part 1: The Kingdom Within

Continued in part 3: Beyond Escapism: Making the Kingdom Real

A Word in Defense of the Pharisees

I want to go back again to Luke 17, with the Pharisees demanding of Jesus to tell them when the Kingdom is coming.

I’m going to be a little controversial here. I’m going to put in a good word for the Pharisees. Normally they get the short end of the stick, in that we portray them as a monolithic group of hypocrites who wanted nothing more than to trip Jesus up and trap him. There might have been some Pharisees like that, of course, but the reality is the Pharisees and Jesus shared a lot in common – similar beliefs in the Kingdom of Heaven, the spirit world, the resurrection of the dead, and the authority of Scripture.

In those days, it was natural to ask really robust questions. In educated Jewish society, vigorous questioning and challenging was not a sign of disrespect; it was the norm to “argue for the sake of heaven” to find the truth. Actually, even today, if you go to a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, you will hear what sounds like a riot going on with people arguing with each other at the top of their voices.

This tradition, started by Rabbi Hillel [See editor’s note below] might well show the fact the Pharisees asking these demanding questions was a way of showing that they were taking him seriously. Jesus sometimes criticized their motivation, or the barriers they set up for themselves and others, but he never said they asked too many questions. And this was a very legitimate concern because the people of Israel were oppressed and occupied by Rome. Everyone wondered “Where is the Kingdom?”

The Two Courses: External and Internal

To be clear, Jesus’ response “The Kingdom of God is within you [or among you]” didn’t please anybody at all:

• The traditionalists didn’t like it because they spent a lot of time in prayer, purification, and devotion, believing in a supernatural intervention from heaven in response.
• The Zealots – the freedom fighters who believed Rome could be overthrown by physical force and unified politics (probably Judas Iscariot was a zealot) – didn’t like it because it sounded too other-worldly.
• The common people didn’t understand it either. On that particular day, they might have liked it, but a few days later during the last week of Jesus’ life, they were calling for his crucifixion. They were starving and suffering and didn’t want to hear that the Kingdom was within them.

And I think we’re like that today, right? We don’t want to just be told the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, or it’s in our midst, when we can see that the world is really not like that.

Let’s remember that at the beginning, Jesus talked about the Kingdom coming in no uncertain terms. Both he and John the Baptist proclaimed, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” The Divine Principle makes it very clear that this was Jesus’ primary course, and that the failure of people like John the Baptist and other religious leaders contributed to the Savior eventually going the way of the cross.

More recently, through the Champumo-ron [a two-volume series published in 2025, composed of excerpts from True Parents‘ messages and arranged by topic], True Mother has emphasized another important fact: that Jesus should have married and become the True Parent. Both agree that this led to the tragedy of Jesus dying on the cross.

Where we differ from the traditional Christian view – all those millions and millions of people who call us heretics – is that Christianity came to believe that the cross was plan A all along, and that the people who blocked Jesus were in some way just acting out the destiny of God. But Jesus contradicted that view when he said, “Woe to the man by whom offense comes. It would be better if they had not even been born.”

The external, earthly Kingdom was always plan A. It was the cross that was plan B.

The Danger of Escapism and the importance of all Three Blessings

And you may ask,

“Then, is this theological pivot to the idea of a ‘Kingdom within’ actually just a way of coping with a harsh and inconvenient reality? We didn’t see the Kingdom of Heaven come, so let’s be satisfied with the internal kingdom?”

No, that’s not the meaning.

However, it is certainly true that without internal, personal change, nobody can live in a Kingdom of peace, regardless of the external circumstances. That’s why people with good fortune – like winning the lottery – often end up miserable. That’s why Father said: – and we always quote it – “Before seeking to dominate the universe, seek to dominate yourself!”

Mother puts it a slightly different way:

“I’ll be more grateful today than I was yesterday, and I’ll be more grateful tomorrow than I was today.”

However, neither Father nor Mother ever said that was enough. Both insisted that the goal of life was to build the Kingdom of God on earth, in substance.

Continued in part 3: Beyond Escapism: Making the Kingdom Real

Continued from part 1: The Kingdom Within

Featured image above: Dr. Michael Balcomb speaking online from London 20th September 2026. Screenshot from live transmission by FFWPU

[Editor’s note: Rabbi Hillel the Elder (c. 110 BCE–10 CE) was one of the most influential Jewish sages of the late Second Temple period. A leading teacher and legal scholar in Jerusalem, he founded the House of Hillel, a major school of Jewish interpretation. His teachings emphasized compassion, ethical conduct, humility, and careful interpretation of the Torah. He was a contemporary of Shammai, whose school often differed with his.

Hillel’s teachings later became foundational to rabbinic Judaism and provide important context for understanding the Jewish world of Jesus. The teachings of Rabbi Hillel provide an important Jewish context for understanding some sayings attributed to Jesus rather than treating them as ideas emerging in isolation. Hillel is particularly interesting when studying the historical Jesus, because he was a prominent Jewish teacher living around the same period. There are some striking parallels between sayings attributed to Hillel and teachings attributed to Jesus.]

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