Kingdom of Heaven or God?

I was asked recently why the rest of the New Tes­ta­ment uti­lizes the phrase “king­dom of God” while the Gospel of Matthew alone uses the “king­dom of heaven.” It is a good ques­tion, and a solu­tion was pro­posed that “heaven” was uti­lized instead of “God” due the rev­er­ence held to the name of God by eth­nic Jews (as Matthew was writ­ten to the eth­nic Jews as an apolo­getic for Jesus as the Christ).

First we must estab­lish what this phrase, which is clouded seem­ingly in much mys­tery, refers to, and George Eldon Ladd who is famous for his work on this topic elaborates:

When the word [basileia, βασιλεια] refers to God’s King­dom, it always refers to His reign, His rule, His sov­er­eignty, and not to the realm to which it is excer­cised.
George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of The King­dom (Quoted in Per­spec­tives on the World Chris­t­ian Move­ment, pg. 65)

Estab­lish­ing that the King­dom of God refers to Christ’s sov­er­eignty and rule is not lim­ited to the earthly realm but over all. Now we move to ratio­nal­iz­ing why the terms “king­dom of God” and “king­dom of heaven” are used in dif­fer­ent contexts.

Besides the phrase, “the king­dom of God,” which is found in all four Gospels (also in Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthi­ans, Gala­tians, Colos­sians, 1 and 2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans, 2 Tim­o­thy) we meet with the phrase η βασιλεια των ουρανων, which is pecu­liar to Matthew. This phrase has been explained on the basis of the Jew­ish cus­tom to use “heaven” as a sub­sti­tute for the name of God, against pro­nounc­ing which scru­ples were enter­tained, and traces of which cus­tom are found even in the New Testament.

Com­pare Luke 15:21; 20:4. On this view the two phrases “the king­dom of God” and “the king­dom of heaven” would be entirely equiv­a­lent. The expla­na­tion is undoubt­edly cor­rect inso­far as it finds in heaven a cir­cum­lo­cu­tion for God. But it is not likely that the motive which led Jesus to put the one for the other was a desire to avoid the use of the divine name as such. Heaven stands for God not as a mere con­ven­tional sub­sti­tute, but adds a new ele­ment to the con­cep­tion expressed by the lat­ter. Heaven is the cen­ter of all super­nat­ural influ­ence that is brought to bear upon the lower world. To say that a work is done by God leaves the mode of its accom­plish­ment unde­ter­mined; to say that it is done from heaven is the strongest pos­si­ble affir­ma­tion of its strictly super­nat­ural ori­gin. Heaven means God in a spe­cial mode of activ­ity; com­pare Daniel 2:44, 7:13; Matthew 16:17, 18: 35; Romans 1:10; 1 Corinthi­ans 15:47; 2 Corinthi­ans 5:1, 2. Heaven is also, as the abode of God, in rela­tion to earth the ideal pat­tern to which all things here below ought to con­form. In this sense to say that a thing is “of heaven” means not only that it is “of God” in gen­eral, but in that spe­cific sense in which the heav­enly real­i­ties agree with God’s nature (cf. Matt. 6:10).

Finally, heaven is in the con­scious­ness of Jesus the goal towards which every aspi­ra­tion of the dis­ci­ple in the king­dom ought to tend (cf. Matt. 6:19–21). It is no longer pos­si­ble to deter­mine the exact pro­por­tion in which the two phrases “king­dom of God” and “king­dom of heaven” were used by our Lord. It seems likely that Matthew most faith­fully reflects the orig­i­nal pre­pon­der­ance of the lat­ter name, and that Mark and Luke, writ­ing for Chris­tians from the Gen­tiles, made freer use of the more intel­li­gi­ble “king­dom of God.“
Geer­hardus Vos, The King­dom of God

Do you buy Geer­hardus’ reasoning?