The Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God (also “The Kingdom of Heaven”1) is a spiritual reality and metaphorical picture, illustrated in the story of the Bible, about what God’s power and authority are like expressed in human lives and the larger universe. It describes the reality of God’s power in terms common in Per-modern times (Hero VS) when monarchies and royal dynasty-based empires were the political norm. For example, about 2,000 years ago in the time of Jesus, the Roman Empire ruled the nation of Israel where much of the New Testament story took place. This makes the Kingdom of God an important concept in determining what Jesus’ Gospel means for us in modern times.
The Biblical Idea of Kingdom
A kingdom is centered on a king. Thus, a kingdom could be given or taken away from a king (1 Samuel 28:17, 1 Kings 14:8, Daniel 4:28-36). Unlike modern governments centered on institutions and fixed geographical boundaries, a kingdom was the extent to which a king could exert his power and influence over a people and place. Kingdoms had fluid edges that would grow or shrink according to the king’s power.2
Samuel said, “Why do you consult me, now that the Lord has departed from you and become your enemy? The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors—to David. (1 Sam 28:16-17 NIV)
‘I raised you up from among the people and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I tore the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it to you, but you have not been like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what was right in my eyes.’ (1 Kings 14:7-8 NIV)
“This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority has been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.” (Daniel 4:31-32 NIV)
The idea of “kingdom” was especially important to the nation of Israel. Their “Golden Age” had come in the reign of King David, Jesus’ ancestor. But the Kingdom was lost to more powerful outside empires: first the Babylonians, then the Medo-Persians, then the Greeks, then the Romans. God had promised the Jews in passages like this, that David’s dynasty wouldn’t end:
“‘I declare to you that the Lord will build a house for you [, David]: When your days are over and you go to be with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever.’”
1 Chronicles 17:10-14 NIV
When Jesus arrived on the scene, the Jewish people had been already been waiting for the restoration of David’s kingdom for more than five centuries. They believed that the Messiah would do this: he would end the rule of the Roman Empire and restore a kingdom under the rule of David’s royal house. The Jew’s also expected that this restoration would mean the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of David would be one and the same thing (“I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever”).
What The Kingdom Is Not
This is a more important point then it may seem at first. Consider this: the people of Jesus’ day often missed what he was trying to show them precisely because they had the wrong expectations of the coming kingdom. Most Jews expected the Messiah to fight against the occupying Romans and restore the Golden Age of Israel by reestablishing King David’s dynasty. That’s the sub-text of Jesus’ interaction with the religious experts of Jesus day:
Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
Luke 17:20-21 NIV
The Pharisees missed the way God’s power was being extended over the lives of the people around them (the Kingdom in their midst) because they were looking instead for a geo-political reality. They couldn’t see the signs of the Kingdom — “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,3 the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.4” (Matthew 11:5 WEB) — because they were looking for something that would better serve their own agendas and positions.
But Jesus own disciples didn’t necessarily get it any better:
Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:6-8 NIV
The disciples still expected a political reality when they were already experiencing the Kingdom in the ministry of Jesus. They would understand better when the Holy Spirit fell on them at Pentecost, but their experience of the Kingdom would be their own witnessing to others in ever-expanding territories about what they had seen as disciples of Jesus — so these people too could become disciples and live in the transforming reality of the Kingdom.
It is still easy to make this mistake. Historically, much of Christendom has equated the Kingdom with the institution of the church and its control of public life.5 Other religious streams have equated the Kingdom with the cultural dominance of Christians and Christian value systems. More pessimistic or conservative groups thought of the Kingdom as a primarily future reality where Christianity will one day be victorious over all the systems that resisted or persecuted it. Even if we don’t think in these terms, its still an easy thing in our “you-deserve-to-get-all-you-imagine” culture to equate the Kingdom with our own expectations of success and security.
If Jesus’ Kingdom was about political, social, cultural, and personal agendas — about concerns centered in the human-created world — than he and his followers would have had completely different methods to reach their ends. But consider what Jesus said in his own life-and-death trial when it mattered most:
“My Kingdom is not of this world. If my Kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight, that I wouldn’t be delivered to the Jews. But now my Kingdom is not from here.”
John 18:36 WEB
That doesn’t mean that the Kingdom is some theoretical, abstract, or philosophical ideal that isn’t connected to real, every-day life. Nor does it mean that the Kingdom doesn’t touch systemic, social, or political realities. This also doesn’t this mean that the Kingdom won’t one day be victorious over all resistance (Daniel 2:44-45, Romans 14:11, Philippians 2:9-11). The problem is when we make the Kingdom about end results we want to achieve instead of about the King. Just as institutions have a habit of dehumanizing people when they can’t connect to them personally (think about a DMV or welfare office visit), we both dehumanize and de-deify Jesus when we see his Kingdom as a external, institutional reality. Not only does that make Jesus less of a person, it also strips person-hood from everyone involved, including us. Only when life is centered on knowing Jesus the King, and by knowing him, coming to fully know ourselves and others through love and mission — only then are we experiencing the true Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom Demonstrated
References & Notes
- The terms seem to be interchangable in the Gospels, however there may be some slight difference in emphasis depending on the term.
- See the saga over David’s succession and the eventual divided kingdom in 1 Kings.
- A Fulfillment of Isaiah 35:5.
- A fulfillment of Isaiah 61:1-4.
- This mistake led to abuses such as the Crusades and the Doctrine of Discovery that supported Colonialism.