As one studies the parables, we come across time and time again the phrase, “the Kingdom of God.” It occurs so often and is so important a concept, that it seems worthwhile to spend some time studying the subject.
From the beginning of their history, the people of Israel had the conviction that they were, in some unique sense, the people of God. This was so ingrained that the thought of an earthly king was deemed an affront to God.
When Gideon, after his mighty exploits, was asked to be their king, his reply was, “I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.” (Judges 8:23), expressing his conviction that the kingship belongs to God and cannot be given to any man.
When the people came to Samuel asking him to give them a king, he was displeased and greatly upset. When he took counsel with God, God said to him, “They have not rejected you; they have rejected me from being a king over them.” (1 Samuel 8:6, 7)
Even though this conviction, that the kingship was God’s, did not last, the idea that they were a chosen people remained indelibly fixed in the minds of the people of Israel. The dream the Israelites had was that because they were the chosen people it was their destiny to rule the world. This often happens when a nation has some great period in history to which they look back as the golden age. To Israel, that time was the era of David and they looked forward to the day when some great king from the line of David would sit upon the throne again and lead them back to the greatness they once enjoyed.
Isaiah and Jeremiah are familiar prophets who addressed the coming of a light to the nations. However, human nature being what it is, the Jewish people did not see God’s kingdom except as a physical one for them to rule. The failure of the Jewish people to see their destiny as a spiritual one led to their history of disasters and centuries of enslavement in turn by the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans.
In the old days when they were still a nation they looked to their restoration to greatness through some son of David’s lineage. That hope never completely died, for it was the “Son of David” that crowds called Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem. But there was a major change in their dream. It was evident that they were unlikely to achieve greatness by human means so they began to dream of the day when God would intervene directly into history and fulfill their destiny by supernatural power.
Into this scheme of things was introduced another dominating concept. To the Jewish people, all history fell into two ages. There was the present age under Roman rule that was altogether bad and lost; and then there was the age to come that would be the age of vindication, of glory and of God. In between there would be the day, called the “Day of the Lord,” a day of world upheaval and of judgment. So we have the setting of a people sunk in material and national disaster, but clutching to their undefeatable hope and waiting for the sudden breaking of the “Day of the Lord” that would be the birth pains of the glorious age to come.
It was into this setting that Jesus came onto the scene as “The Son of Man,” the almighty deliverer promised by God. We can be quite certain that Jesus never thought of the Kingdom of God in terms of a physical empire, but He never left any doubt that He regarded Himself as God’s chosen instrument in the bringing of God’s Kingdom, a condition of heart and mind and will where God is Lord of all.
In Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom, He speaks of the Kingdom as being three things at the same time.
(a) In Luke 13:28, He speaks of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God. If patriarchs and prophets are in the Kingdom then it must have long existed.How can the Kingdom be past, present and future all at one time? The key to the answer may be in the Lord’s Prayer. In it, two petitions come in tandem, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” This is a common way of expression by the Jewish people, saying things in two different forms side-by-side. Thus, if these two phrases in the Lord’s Prayer are to explain each other, it means “the Kingdom of God is a society on earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven.” That is how the Kingdom can be past, present and future.
(b) In Luke 17:21, He says, “The Kingdom is within you.” In Luke 11:20, speaking of His miraculous cures, He says, “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, the Kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus was speaking about the Kingdom as here and now.
(c) Often, Jesus spoke of the Kingdom as something in the future. In Luke 12:32, He tells His disciples that it is God’s good pleasure to give them the Kingdom, which implies an event whose time is yet to come.
Any person in any age and generation who has perfectly done God’s will was in the Kingdom; those who do God’s will are in the Kingdom; but the final consummation when the whole world will do God’s will is something which is still to come.
So, when Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God He thought of doing God’s will as perfectly on earth as it was done in heaven. He Himself always did that, not just sometimes as others had done, but always. That is why the Kingdom perfectly begins with Him.
He thought of how happy all peoples would be if only they did that; of what a wonderful world this would be if it were ruled by God’s will; of how God’s heart would rejoice when people accept His will. Truly, when that happens, there would be heaven on earth.
That is why for Jesus, the Kingdom was the most important thing of all. And that it why for so long people did not understand Him. When they spoke of the Kingdom, they were still thinking of the old nationalistic dreams of world power and they would have liked to make Him a king like that. But He was thinking of doing the will of God and it was in their hearts and not on the early thrones He wished to reign.
