The theologian John Bright wrote that if the Bible were to be given a title, it should be “The Book of the Coming Kingdom of God,” because “that is, indeed, its central theme everywhere.”[1] The Gospels record that our Lord “Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom” (Matt 9:35: cf. Matt 4:24).Then he told his disciples that “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt 24:14).[2] The book of Acts ends with the statement that Paul was “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance (Acts 28:31).

Not surprisingly, missio Dei, “the mission of God,” is often described as the establishment of his Kingdom, beginning with the advent of Jesus the King, continuing with its proclamation to every ethnic people group, and concluding with its consummation in the age to come, as described in Revelation 21-22.[3] Tennent writes, “No sharing of the gospel can be considered adequate apart from an understanding of the kingdom of God.”[4] At the same time, “a proper understanding and revelation of the Kingdom of God reveals the mission of God.”[5] But as the Gentiles turned to Christ and the church grew among them, the concept of the Kingdom of God became somewhat marginal to their thought. The historian Viviano says the Gentiles did not understand the concept of the Kingdom because they lacked an adequate knowledge of its Old Testament roots in Daniel and its Jewish cultural background.[6] Over the last fifty years, however, biblical scholarship has grown in its understanding of the concept of the Kingdom of God and of its relevance to ministry and life. In what follows I briefly outline the biblical concept of the Kingdom of God, showing that it is a complex concept with many components of meaning. In Part Two, I will examine Christ’s teachings about the Kingdom and discuss their significance for understanding the mission of God and our part in it.

Old Testament and Jewish Background to the Kingdom of God

The concept of the Kingdom of God originates in the Old Testament. There one finds the Hebrew word malḵûṯ “kingdom” with regard to God in two main senses. One is sovereignty, so when used of God’s sovereignty the phrase signifies his cosmic or universal reign. An example is Psalm 103:19: “The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” The second sense is the common one of a nation-state. When used in this sense with regard to God, it signifies the redemptive kingdom that God will establish on earth, and this is the focus of this article. This Kingdom established by God is sometimes called his mediatorial or messianic kingdom, because it is through this kingdom that God mediates his will and redemptive purposes in the person of the savior king, the Messiah.[7] The clearest OT passages about this are in Daniel:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, (Dan 2:44 ESV)

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed … But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever.' (Dan 7:13–14, 18)

This future redemptive kingdom was presaged by the kingdom God created among the children of Israel. When God delivered them from Egypt and brought them to Mt. Sinai, he said to them, “you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” (Exod 19:5). He was acknowledged as their national King (Isa. 44:6), and they were his people (Exod. 6:7; Deut. 7:6). He would care for them as their Father (Deut 32:6; Jer 31:9), and they would corporately be his son (Exod 4:22–23; Hos 11:1) and children (Deut. 4:1). When David and his descendants were appointed human kings over God’s people, they were subordinate kings to God, the “great King.” They ruled as his “sons” over his kingdom (Ps 89:27; 1 Chron 17:13–14; 29:11; cf. Ps. 82:6; 2 Chron 13:8), sitting “on the throne of the kingdom of the Lord” (1 Chron 28:5; cf. 2 Chron 9:8).

The prophets revealed that in the future God would send a special Savior King, a divine Son of David, who would rule God’s kingdom in righteousness forever (Isa 9:5–7; 11:1–10; Jer 33:14–16). That future time was described as God’s “salvation”:

He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, … let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. (Isa 25:8, 9)

By the first century, Jewish theologians were interpreting all of the “son” and “messiah” and future “David” passages as Messianic,[5] along with most references to God’s future triumphant reign.[6] A psalm from before Christ prays that God would “raise up for them their king, the son of David,” “the Lord Messiah,” “the king of Israel.”[7] The Eighteen Benedictions of the synagogue service did likewise, praying that God would send the “Messiah,” “the Son of David,” to bring in God’s “salvation.” The Jewish teachers called this salvation “the Kingdom of Heaven,” “the Kingdom of God,” “the Kingdom of the LORD,” “the kingdom of David,” “the Kingdom of the Messiah,” or the “Days of the Messiah.”[11] It was expected that the messianic kingdom would be a time of great blessing under the Messiah’s righteous rule and that it would last many centuries, to be followed by the new world in the age to come, which would be perfect and eternal.[9] Zechariah wrote:

And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one. (Zech 14:9)

The Jewish scholar Klausner wrote, “This is one of the fundamental verses of the Jewish conception of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the Messianic hope of Judaism, and the spiritual goal of human history.”[13] Another Jewish theologian wrote that “the drama of history moves toward the climax of the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.”[14]
By the time of Jesus, Daniel’s vision of the seventy weeks was fueling anticipation that the time was near for the Messiah to appear and inaugurate the Kingdom of God.[15] Before going further, however, we should examine the concept of a kingdom.

Characteristics of the Kingdom of God

Kraybill provides the following sociological definition of a kingdom:
A kingdom in a literal sense means that a king rules over a group of people. Social standards and group policies order the collective life of a kingdom. Agreements spell out citizens’ obligations to each other as well as to their king. The king’s ruling activity makes practical differences in the life and relationship of his subjects. . . . Membership in a kingdom spells out a citizen’s relationship to the king, to other citizens, and to other kingdoms.[16]
Cognitive scientists call a complex concept like this a “schema,” because it is composed of an entrenched network of interdependent concepts, each of which is one aspect of the whole. The kingdom preached by Jesus is likewise is a complex concept with similar aspects. This is illustrated in the following chart:(See the next page.)
As the foregoing chart shows, the concept of God’s redemptive kingdom includes all of the aspects common to any kingdom. In the New Testament, each of these aspects except the last one, assemblies, is expressed somewhere using the Greek word basileia ‘kingdom.’ In some passages the concept as a whole is in focus, but usually the focus in a given context is on one of its components concepts. An analysis of the Kingdom of God schema is represented in the diagram below:

The concepts that belong to the KINGDOM OF GOD schema are enclosed within the shaded area. Concepts like HUMAN and MALE are outside because they do not take their meaning from this schema, they only contribute to it, but the concept of MESSIAH takes its meaning from the schema. The concept of the CHURCH in its broad sense as the saints, the true citizens of the Kingdom, takes its meaning from the schema. The LOCAL CHURCH is a complex schema of its own, not shown here, but it connects to SAINTS, LEADERS, and other concepts in the KINGDOM OF GOD schema.

God’s program for establishing the Kingdom is dynamic, with several phases: Christ inaugurated the Kingdom on earth, he reigns over it in heaven, he is extending it to every ethnic group, and he establish it fully at the end of this age. Its members on earth enjoy many of the blessings of the Kingdom, and more when they go to heaven, yet they look forward to its consummation in the age to come, after the resurrection and judgment.[18] Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt 24:14).

We can also understand that God’s mission is Trinitarian, since opera trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt “all external operations of the Trinity are inseparable,” with each Person having a special mission. Tennent attributes the roles as follows:

The People of the Kingdom

Williamson notes that the “rich and varied message [about the Kingdom] clusters about two major foci: Jesus as king and his disciples as subjects in the Kingdom of God.”[20] A careful consideration of all of the kingdom passages in the Gospels shows that the aspects of the Kingdom most frequently in focus are the community of citizens itself (those in the Kingdom) and the process of becoming a citizen (entering the Kingdom).[21] The New Testament itself provides a rich variety of designations for citizens of the kingdom, as shown in the list below:[22]

In addition there are also several designations in the New Testament for the whole body politic of those who belong to the kingdom, such as the following:

As noted, the word ecclesia “church” is used in two principal ways. One is to designate the whole body of people who belong to the Kingdom of God, while the other is to designate individual assemblies. Jesus led a group of Jewish disciples, yet there were Gentiles who believed in him as well, in Tyre, Gerasa, and Decapolis, and there were Samaritan believers. Perhaps this is what he meant when he said to his Jewish disciples, “And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd” (John 10:16). There is one shepherd and flock, but more than one fold. This characterizes in figurative language the fact there is one body of members of the Kingdom, called the ecclesia, but there are many assemblies of members (and others), each of which is called an ecclesia. This is shown in the figure below:

At the same time, Jesus said there were some “tares” inside his realm who were not really “sheep” but “goats,” not “sons of the Kingdom” but “sons of the devil” (Matt 13:24–30, 36–43; 25:32), some of them even like “wolves” “in sheep’s clothing” (Matt 7:15). So the situation should be represented more like the diagram below:

Calvin noted that “many wolves are within the fold,”[23] and he quoted Augustine saying “there are very many sheep without, and very many wolves within.”[24] Calvin therefore distinguished between the “invisible church” of true sheep, whether in a visible fold or not, and the “visible church,” which includes both true sheep and non-sheep.[25] This is shown in the diagram below:

The truth of these images is seen in the fact that true, born-again believers in Jesus Christ are found today in a variety of socio-religious groups. This is shown in the diagram as follows:(See next page.)

The socio-religious groupings are visible through their shared customs, public gatherings, and social identity. Membership in the Kingdom of God is invisible, but the evidence for it is found in their shared faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, their love for God and the saints, their meeting together as faith communities to praise God and learn from his Word, and their shared spiritual identity as members of his Kingdom.

When people come to faith in Jesus Christ and “enter the Kingdom,” it is not uncommon for some of them to join another socio-religious group, often at the invitation of members of that group. So one finds Pentecostals who have become Messianic Jews, Jews who have become Baptists, Baptists who have joined an Orthodox church, Muslims who have become Catholics, and Catholics who have become Pentecostals or Anglicans. Many believers, however, remain in the socio-religious group in which they were born, in which case the “Kingdom of God spreads in and through [their] social networks … like yeast in the dough.”[26] It is not my purpose, however, to argue for or against people converting from one group to another, but rather to note that if the mission of God is to save people of every ethnicity into his eternal Kingdom through Christ the King, then he seems to be doing so in a variety of socio-religious groupings.

May his Kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.(AFMI)

Endnotes

[1] Bright, The Kingdom of God: The Biblical Concept and its Meaning for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1953), p. 197.
[2] Unless otherwise noted, all quotations of Scripture in English are taken from the ESV, The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. This translation has rendered the Greek word ethnos as ‘nation,’ but the word means “nation” only in its archaic sense of an ethnic group, meaning a “people group” with its own identity, culture, and dialect.
[3] Similarly in Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), p. 478. “The mission of God is to lead the whole creation and all nations to that universal worship that so fills the final vision of the canon of Scripture.”
[4] Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010), p. 342. He adds (p. 343), “The kingdom of God encompasses the origin, purpose, and final destiny of the entire universe.”
[5] Fernander, The Kingdom Focused Life (Xulon Press, 2008), p. 97.
[6] Viviano, The Kingdom of God in History (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988), p. 32. Newbigin adds the following: “My point is that if it is true that the mission of Jesus was not only to proclaim the Kingdom of God, but also to embody the presence of the kingdom of God in his own person, then it is understandable that the switch from a Judaic to a Greek environment should have entailed a switch from proclaiming the kingdom to proclaiming Jesus.”( Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (revised edn.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 41.)
[7] See McClain, The Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive Study of the Kingdom of God as Set Forth in the Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959), p. 21; Hodge, Systematic Theology (3; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1940 [1871]), p. 856.
[8] It was later claimed that all of the prophecies speak of Messiah (Talmud Sanhedrin 99a). For a list of Old Testament passages applied to the Messiah in ancient rabbinic writings, see Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (3rd edn.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), Appendix 9. For extensive examples of the use of the phrase ‘Son of God’ in the first century and before to designate the king and the Messiah, see Collins and Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids & Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008). In subsequent centuries the rabbis abandoned this usage and paraphrased it when translating the Bible, evidently to avoid anthropomorphic interpretations. It might be that this careful avoidance of the term by Jews influenced the Muslim custom that followed it.
[9] A favorite passage of the nationalists was Micah 4:7, which says that the LORD will rule over them. This was rendered in the Targum as “the kingdom of the Lord.” The following verse then interpreted this as mediated through the Messianic kingdom: “And you, O anointed One of Israel, who have been hidden away because of the sins of the congregation of Zion, the kingdom shall come to you, and the former dominion shall be restored to the kingdom of the congregation of Jerusalem.” (Translation from Cathcart and Gordon, The Targum of the Minor Prophets: Translated, with a critical introduction, apparatus, and notes (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989).)
[10] Psalm of Solomon 17; 21, 32, 42.
[11] See Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel; from its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah (3 edn.; New York: MacMillan, 1955), p. 524; Glasson, ‘The Temporary Messianic Kingdom and the Kingdom of God’, Journal of Theological Studies, 41 (1990), p. 108; Werblowsky and Wigoder (eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc, 1966) p. 229. Note that the Targum for Isaiah 53:10, about the Servant of the Lord, talks of his suffering inaugurating the Kingdom of the Messiah.
[12] Edersheim notes that in rabbinic expectations, the kingdom of the Messiah was but a stage in the realization of the kingdom of God on earth. See Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, pp. 267–268.
[13] Hertz, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book: Hebrew text, English Translation with Commentary and Notes (revised edn.; New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1948), p. 211.
[14] Cohon, ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, in Isaac Landman (ed.), The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (6; New York, 1942), p. 390.
[15] “The Qumran community actually linked Isaiah 61 with Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy weeks of years that should lead to the kingdom of God. They calculated that the fulfillment of both prophecies was about to happen.” Beasley-Murray, ‘The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 35/1 (1992), p. 21.
[16] Kraybill, The Upside-down Kingdom (revised edn.; Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990), pp. 20–21.
[17] Falwell, InnovateChurch: 8 Innovative Ways to Lead and Grow the Church (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2008), p. 112.
[18] For discussion of the temporal phases of the Kingdom, see Ladd, The Presence of the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974); MacArthur, Matthew 1-7 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985), p. 56.
[19] Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century.
[20] Williamson, Mark: Interpretation– A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983), p. 9.
[21] See Albright and Mann, Matthew: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (The Anchor Bible 26; Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1971), p. lxxxvi
[22] Note that the term ‘disciples’ is not found in the Epistles, and that the terms found there, ‘saints’ and ‘believers’, are not found in the Gospels (except in Matt. 27:52, where the referent is the Old Testament prophets). The term ‘brothers’ is found throughout the New Testament.
[23] Calvin, Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1949), at 6:1.
[24] Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (London: J. Clarke, 1949 [1559]), p. 2288, book 4, chap. 1, §8. See Augustine of Hippo, ‘Lectures on the Gospel of John’, NPNF1 (7; New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1890 [416]), at 10:16.
[25] See Calvin, Institutes, book 4, chap. 1.
Higgins, ‘The Place of the Bible and the Body of Christ in New Movements to Jesus’, AFMI/ASFM Bulletin, 4 (2010), p. 5.

References

Albright, W. F. and Mann, C. S., Matthew: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (The Anchor Bible 26; Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1971).
Augustine of Hippo, ‘Lectures on the Gospel of John’, NPNF1 (7; New York: Christian Literature Publishing Co, 1890 [416]), 1–452.
Beasley-Murray, G. R., ‘The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 35/1 (1992), 19–30.
Bright, John, The Kingdom of God: The Biblical Concept and its Meaning for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1953).
Calvin, John, Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1949).
Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Henry Beveridge (London: J. Clarke, 1949 [1559]).
Cathcart, Kevin and Gordon, Robert, The Targum of the Minor Prophets: Translated, with a critical introduction, apparatus, and notes (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989).
Cohon, Samuel S., ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, in Isaac Landman (ed.), The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (6; New York, 1942).
Collins, Adela Yarbro and Collins, John, King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids & Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008).
Edersheim, Alfred, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (3rd edn.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971).
Glasson, T. Francis, ‘The Temporary Messianic Kingdom and the Kingdom of God’, Journal of Theological Studies, 41 (1990), 517–525.
Hertz, Joseph H., The Authorised Daily Prayer Book: Hebrew text, English Translation with Commentary and Notes (revised edn.; New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1948).
Higgins, Kevin, ‘Beyond Christianity-Insider Movements: The Place of the Bible and the Body of Christ in New Movements to Jesus’, AFMI/ASFM Bulletin, 4 (2010), 3–8.
Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology (3; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1940 [1871]).
Klausner, Joseph, The Messianic Idea in Israel; from its Beginning to the Completion of the Mishnah (3 edn.; New York: MacMillan, 1955).
Kraybill, Donald, The Upside-down Kingdom (revised edn.; Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1990).
Ladd, George Eldon, The Presence of the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974).
MacArthur, John, Matthew 1-7 (Chicago: Moody Press, 1985).
McClain, Alva J., The Greatness of the Kingdom: An Inductive Study of the Kingdom of God as Set Forth in the Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959).
Viviano, Benedict, O. P., The Kingdom of God in History (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1988).
Werblowsky, R.J. Zwi and Wigoder, Geoffrey (eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc, 1966).
Williamson, Lamar, Jr, Mark: Interpretation– A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983).