Why Did Matthew Use the Phrase “Kingdom of Heaven”?

All four gospels are unified by the theme of the kingdom of God. But the Gospel of Matthew is the only book in the Bible that uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven.”

Out of reverence for God, the Jews often avoided using the divine name — or anything close to it — so that they would not accidentally take God’s name in vain. One way that they did this was by replacing the word “God” with the word “heaven.” And this is precisely what Matthew did when he used the phrase “kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven” almost the whole time in his gospel for what we, in the other gospels, refer to as the “kingdom of God.” I think that there’s a couple of occasions when he uses the phrase “kingdom of God,” but it’s because Matthew is a Jewish writer, a Jewish believer in Christ, and for Jews, the name of God was something almost too holy to use, so to use the phrase “heaven” is another way of referring to God. We read in another gospel, “I have sinned against heaven and against earth”; it means, “I have sinned against God.” And the danger is that when we hear the phrase, “kingdom of heaven,” we mishear that and think, oh, it sounds rather ethereal and anaemic — “the kingdom of heaven” — can’t see that. But in fact, he was talking about the kingdom of God, with the idea that God really now is becoming king of this world through Jesus Christ. So, there’s a real danger for Christians later to mishear “kingdom of heaven.” Actually, Jesus is saying, God is King, and is becoming King through me. [Dr. Peter Walker]

When we compare parallel passages in the Synoptic Gospels, we see that where the other gospel writers used the term “kingdom of God,” Matthew used the phrase “kingdom of heaven.” Listen to Mark’s record of the parable of the mustard seed in Mark 4:30-31:

Jesus said: “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground.”

Here Mark used the normal form of the phrase “kingdom of God.” But listen to Matthew’s version of the parable in Matthew 13:31:

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field."

When Matthew recounted this same event, he used the term “kingdom of heaven.”

When you compare what Matthew calls the kingdom of heaven with other places where Mark and Luke have the very same passage and call it the kingdom of God, that’s one of the definitive ways to see that they have the same reference, that they refer to the same thing. Well, when you read Matthew overall, you’ll see that there’s a major theme of contrasting God in heaven with humanity on earth. God’s way of doing kingdom, which he calls the “kingdom of heaven,” and humanity’s way of ruling and reigning and acting and behaving towards each other which we might call the kingdoms of this world. And for Matthew to talk about the kingdom of heaven is a very powerful way for him to feel the difference between merely the things of this world and our Father in heaven who reigns and rules and promises to come again. So, the point of the “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew’s language is to let us feel and taste the difference between God’s reign that is still yet to come, and all the reigns and ruling and behavior of this earth. There’s a contrast between those two realities, and Matthew using “kingdom of heaven” helps us feel and taste and hope in that time coming for God’s kingdom of heaven. [Dr. Jonathan Pennington]