Kingdom of God

Introduction

In the New Testament, the kingdom of God is that divine power or reign which Jesus of Nazareth proclaims as present reality and therefore good news (cf. Mark 1: 15). Consequently, it is the eschatological irruption of God's will into the world, the power of eternity which Jesus wields and which, in the achievement of miracles , validates his ministry as messiah (cf. Luke 4:16-21). The kingdom of God is thus intimately related to the claims made by and for Christology in the Christian tradition, specifically in relation to the encounter between church and society.

Discussion and Analysis

This was the opening theme of the teaching and preaching of Jesus. He declared that, 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.' ( ) From the beginning of their life as a nation, the Israelites had believed themselves to be under the rule of God. During their history, before and after their exile in Babylon, they came to think of the kingdom of God as including all nations, although the other nations did not acknowledge the rule of God. Over his own people, God was the supreme ruler; but he was opposed by the other nations and this opposition would in the end be overcome. During and after the exile of the Jews in Babylon, the recovery of the independence of Israel was expected to be achieved under a prince of David's line, the Anointed of the Lord or the Messiah. Then God would reign in the whole world. The prophets of Israel had foretold a day of judgment and purging by suffering which would precede and usher in the universal rule of God. When the Jews were in the grip of alien occupation and persecution, under the empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome, they hoped for the triumph of the kingdom or empire of God, after the fall of all these empires, as the result of a supernatural intervention in human history. The writers of the Book of Daniel and the Book of Enoch foretold a 'Son of Man', descending through the clouds to establish the kingdom of God in the future, at the end of the period in which the world is dominated by the 'Beasts', which are the Gentile empires. This hope of supernatural deliverance is called 'apocalyptic', as it meant that God would reveal or unveil his purpose for his people ('apocalypse' means 'revelation'). (González, 179)

The eschatological character of the kingdom of God, particularly as found in the earliest Christian traditions, identifies its origins in the world of Jewish apocalyptic; for, as Christopher Rowland has demonstrated, eschatology is one form of such apocalyptic, i.e. viewing of the heavenly secrets (cf. Rowland 1981). In this sense, specific questions which naturally address themselves to God's kingdom concern its nature, time of arrival, dimensions and locus (cf. Mark 13), all of which is held to be vital information for the believer expecting the kingdom's present inauguration. In the early Christian witness, these questions about the nature ...