Chapter 4

What is the Kingdom of God?

The Kingdom of God was the main thrust of the preaching of Christ and his Apostles. From the many references in the New Testament you can build up a picture of some of its features.

As we say, from these references you can get a fair idea of some of the basic things about the Kingdom of God. It is yet future – for Christ has not yet returned; entrance to it will be selective; and those judged worthy to be accepted into it will be transformed in some way before they can enter it.

Now I suggest that if you asked an average cross section of churchgoers what was the kingdom that their leader devoted his mission to talking about, you would get few responses that would tally with these basic Bible concepts.

What do you think? When you recite the Lord’s prayer and say Thy kingdom come what are you asking for?

Do you say that the Kingdom of God is the Christian church? Or do you believe that it exists where Jesus rules in the believer’s heart? Do you say that it is heaven, where God reigns and where the faithful go to be with Him? Or do you say that the Kingdom of God refers to a transformed earth that will result from Christ’s second coming?

Please do a little experiment. Before you continue reading go back to the bullet pointed references above and replace the words “kingdom” or “kingdom of God” with what you have been taught to believe. For example, would changing “kingdom of God” to “a reign of grace in the heart” or “the church” make sense in all the references?

Please do that – it should make you think.

What did you find? I suggest that in all fairness you would have to say that the only concept that fits all the references is that the Kingdom of God is a yet future event occurring when Christ returns.

And this is just what the Bible teaches. The Old Testament predicts that sometime in the future, human kingdoms on earth will be replaced by a worldwide Kingdom of God. The prophet Daniel, after describing a succession of human kingdoms, predicts a time when all will be removed and replaced by a divine kingdom on the earth:

The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these [i.e. human] kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.10
- Daniel 2.44

And the final book of the Bible also tells of a future time when: The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.11

This is all in keeping with the angel’s assertion to the virgin Mary that her promised son would: reign over the house of Jacob [i.e. Israel] forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.12

Jesus himself says that his kingdom will be established at his return to earth: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then he will sit on the throne of His glory. He will then invite the faithful to enter that kingdom: Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.13

There is no doubt that these Bible passages tell of a future literal kingdom on earth, with Jesus as its king and into which the faithful will be invited to enter.

But what about…?

As we have intimated, many Christians have alternative understandings about the Kingdom of God – and even if they have some hazy views that it may also include some yet future events, such events are very far off and so remote from modern times as to have no personal impact.

A state of grace

One piously held view is that the Kingdom of God refers to the state of grace existing in the heart of a believer when Christ reigns there. For example, the Catholic Encyclopaedia says: The ‘kingdom’ means Christ’s reign of grace in men’s hearts, and this view is widespread among all Christian churches.

But do you know that this is based on just one comment by Jesus – and that is taken out of context? This should make us prick up our ears, for doctrine based on one verse and not confirmed elsewhere in Scripture (let alone being actually contradicted by other Scripture) should make us pause. But the almost inevitable response when the view is questioned is: Did not Jesus say The kingdom of God is within you?

Yes, so it is recorded. But rather than divorce Christ’s words from their context, let’s read the whole of the conversation as recorded by Luke: Now when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, See here! or See there! For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.14

The first important thing to note is that Jesus was talking to his inveterate opponents, those hypocritical Pharisees that we read so much about in the gospels. It was to these that Jesus said: The kingdom of God is within you. Yes, the evil Pharisees. So we ask: “Did Jesus reign in their hearts? Was the Kingdom of God in them?” Surely not! Here is how Jesus describes the contents of the Pharisees’ hearts: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.15 Is it really being suggested that these evil traits inside the Pharisees were characteristic of the Kingdom of God?

What did Jesus mean, then? The Pharisees had asked when the Kingdom of God would come, and Jesus’ reply was that in one sense it had already arrived. Most modern translations correctly render Jesus’ words as, The Kingdom of God is already among you (NLT) or, is in your midst (NIV, ESV, RSV). An intriguing reply admittedly, but Jesus rarely spoke plainly to the evil Pharisees. The Kingdom was in their midst in the sense that Jesus was there preaching about it and asking the people to accept this good news. As the opening chapter of Mark records, Jesus said: The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.16

Another way of looking at Jesus’ words has been suggested by Greek scholars. Manuscripts discovered from New Testament times throw light on the colloquial use of the word “within”. It was an idiom17 for “within reach”. In an Egyptian papyrus dating from New Testament times a doctor writes that his cloak be sent up from the country so that he may have it “within him”, obviously meaning “within my reach”. He didn’t intend to eat it.

So the fundamental meaning of “within you” is “having something within your reach”, something that you have the power to grasp, rather than suggesting something actually inside a person. Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was accessible, within their grasp.

With this understanding, Christ’s words tally with all the other Bible references to the kingdom of God.

The church is the Kingdom of God

Some Christians believe that the Kingdom of God is the church, the present community of believers. This was first propounded by the fourth–century Christian “father”, Augustine. In his book The City of God he wrote: “Therefore even now the Church is the kingdom of Christ”, and this view became widely accepted. The Westminster Confession of Faith states that: “The visible church… is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.”18

If asked for scriptural confirmation, these words of Paul are usually quoted: For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.19

But bearing in mind the many references by Paul (and in the rest of the Bible) referring to the Kingdom as a future event, can we really use this to prove beyond doubt that the Kingdom exists now?

Again, the background is essential for the right understanding. Paul is here using contrasts that are regular features of his writings. Elsewhere he indicates that believers had changed masters;20 they were “in Adam” but now “in Christ”;21 they were once “far off” but are now “brought near”.22 And in the same vein in this instance he makes the contrast between the “dominion of darkness” and “the kingdom of the Son”. In other words, what Paul is saying is that the Christians had left their previous life and had been brought within the orbit of the things Jesus preached, things that were centred around a belief in the coming Kingdom.

That the first Christians, including Paul, regarded the Kingdom as a future development rather than an existing one is plain from the very many other references he made to it,23 let alone the teaching of Jesus himself.

“My kingdom is not of this world”

Ah yes, another may say, But what about Christ’s statement to Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world.24 Surely that means that the kingdom is either in heaven or is a purely spiritual one?” But was Jesus by this contradicting the many clear references to his Kingdom we have considered earlier, or did he mean something else?

As always, the context helps us decide. Here is the full account of this exchange between Christ and his judge. Pilate said: Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now my kingdom is not from here.25

It all depends on what Jesus meant by “this world”.

The situation was this. As Pilate said, the Jewish rulers and religious authorities had brought Jesus to trial on the pretext that he was a threat to Roman rule because he claimed to be king of the Jews. Hence Pilate’s question: Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus did not deny this but said his kingship would be under a different administration.

It was the Jewish “world” of his day, with all its hypocrisy and formalism, that Jesus was repudiating. The original word for “world” in this verse is kosmos, κόσμος) – a Greek word that means: an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government.26 The word is used for the arrangement of things on the earth rather than referring to the actual planet, for which in Greek there is a different word. So Jesus was telling Pilate that his kingship was not of this arrangement of things. His mission was not an attempt to immediately revive the old Jewish monarchy or perpetuate the Jewish system of worship, but would be a future kosmos or arrangement, as he had consistently preached during his mission. And indeed Christ’s coming Kingdom will be truly “out of this world” in the sense that we often use the phrase.

Thus, a closer look at some of the popular ideas concerning the Kingdom of God shows that a true understanding of the Bible’s message does not support many of them, however sincerely they may be held.

We now proceed to look at another aspect of first-century preaching that is largely ignored by Christians today, one that is closely related to the teaching about the Kingdom of God.