Claim. The Exposition of the Divine Principle states that at Christ’s Second Advent the Kingdom of Heaven is realized first in the hearts of believers, and only “gradually… manifested in the world as an outward, visible reality” as those individuals increase to form societies and nations — explicitly making messianic eschatology dependent on cumulative believer growth rather than divine imposition.
Elaboration. Per take-a-time-peace-and-do, the EDP citation Hendricks pulls (EDP pp. 394, 107, 388 — DP not yet ingested into this vault, so primary citation is via BR) reads: “At Christ’s Second Advent, because he will be born on the earth, the Kingdom of Heaven will be realized first in the hearts of those who believe in him and follow him. When these individuals increase in number to form societies and nations, the Kingdom of Heaven within will gradually be manifested in the world as an outward, visible reality.”
The Principle text also prophesies the Messiah “will emerge from among a group of reborn believers to become the leader of Christians” and will be persecuted as that movement “sprouts and grows amidst the final phases of the old age and comes into conflict with that age.”
This atomic grounds the chapter’s strategic argument (paired with stark-3-42-percent-annual-growth-of-early-christianity and causa-decades-long-strategy-as-template-for-church-growth) in DP doctrine itself: the path is sustained believer-network expansion. It also tightens dp-popular-acclaim-conditional-on-fulfilled-responsibility — popular acclaim isn’t a side effect, it’s the condition of Kingdom manifestation.
See also. believers-responsibility-as-third-providential-phase, dp-popular-acclaim-conditional-on-fulfilled-responsibility