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FULL BACKGROUND
Kingdom of God — (Matt. 6:33; Mark 1:14, 15; Luke 4:43) = “kingdom of Christ” (Matt. 13:41; 20:21) = “kingdom of Christ and of God” (Eph. 5:5) = “kingdom of David” (Mark 11:10) = “the kingdom” (Matt. 8:12; 13:19) = “kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 13:41), all denote the same thing under different aspects, viz.: (1) Christ’s mediatorial authority, or his rule on the earth; (2) the blessings and advantages of all kinds that flow from this rule; (3) the subjects of this kingdom taken collectively, or the Church. 1
KINGDOM OF GOD, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. The kingdom of heaven or kingdom of God is the central theme of Jesus’ preaching, according to the Synoptic Gospels. While Matthew, who addresses himself to the Jews, speaks for the most part of the ‘kingdom of heaven’, Mark and Luke speak of the ‘kingdom of God’, which has the same meaning as the ‘kingdom of heaven’, but was more intelligible to non-Jews. The use of ‘kingdom of heaven’ in Matthew is certainly due to the tendency in Judaism to avoid the direct use of the name of God. In any case no distinction in sense is to be assumed between the two expressions (cf., e.g., Mt. 5:3 with Lk. 6:20).
I. In John the Baptist
John the Baptist first comes forward with the announcement that the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Mt. 3:2) and Jesus takes this message over from him (Mt. 4:17). The expression ‘kingdom of heaven’ (Heb. malek_uÆt_ sûaµmayim) originates with the late-Jewish expectation of the future in which it denoted the decisive intervention of God, ardently expected by Israel, to restore his people’s fortunes and liberate them from the power of their enemies. The coming of the kingdom is the great perspective of the future, prepared by the coming of the *Messiah, which paves the way for the kingdom of God.
By the time of Jesus the development of this eschatological hope in Judaism had taken a great variety of forms, in which now the national element and now the cosmic and apocalyptic element is prominent. This hope goes back to the proclamation in OT prophecy concerning both the restoration of David’s throne and the coming of God to renew the world. Although the OT has nothing to say of the eschatological kingdom of heaven in so many words, yet in the Psalms and prophets the future manifestation of God’s royal sovereignty belongs to the most central concepts of OT faith and hope. Here too various elements achieve prominence, as may be clearly seen from a comparison of the earlier prophets with the prophecies regarding universal world-sovereignty and the emergence of the Son of man in the book of *Daniel.
When John the Baptist and, after him, Jesus himself proclaimed that the kingdom was at hand, this proclamation involved an awakening cry of sensational and universal significance. The long-expected divine turning-point in history, the great restoration, however it was conceived at the time, is proclaimed as being at hand. It is therefore of all the greater importance to survey the content of the NT preaching with regard to the coming of the kingdom.
In the preaching of John the Baptist prominence is given to the announcement of divine judgment as a reality which is immediately at hand. The axe is already laid to the root of the trees. God’s coming as King is above all else a coming to purify, to sift, to judge. No-one can evade it. No privilege can buy exemption from it, not even the ability to claim Abraham as one’s father. At the same time John the Baptist points to the coming One who is to follow him, whose forerunner he himself is. The coming One comes with the winnowing-fan in his hand. In view of his coming the people must repent and submit to baptism for the washing away of sins, so as to escape the coming wrath and participate in the salvation of the kingdom and the baptism with the Holy Spirit which will be poured out when it comes (Mt. 3:1-12).
II. In the teaching of Jesus
a. Present aspect
Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom follows word for word on John’s, yet it bears a much more comprehensive character. After John the Baptist had watched Jesus’ appearance for a considerable time, he began to be in doubt whether Jesus was, after all, the coming One whom he had announced (Mt. 11:2f.). Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom differs in two respects from that of the Baptist. In the first place, while it retains without qualification the announcement of judgment and the call to repentance, it is the saving significance of the kingdom that stands in the foreground. In the second place—and here is the pith and core of the matter—he announced the kingdom not just as a reality which was at hand, something which would appear in the immediate future, but as a reality which was already present, manifested in his own person and ministry. Although the places where Jesus speaks explicitly of the kingdom as being present are not numerous (see especially Mt. 12:28 and parallels), his whole preaching and ministry are marked by this dominant reality. In him the great future has already become ‘present time’.
This present aspect of the kingdom manifests itself in all sorts of ways in the person and deeds of Christ. It appears palpably and visibly in the casting out of demons (cf. Lk. 11:20) and generally in Jesus miraculous power. In the healing of those who are demon-possessed it becomes evident that Jesus has invaded the house of ‘the strong man’, has bound him fast and so is in a position to plunder his goods (Mt. 12:29). The kingdom of heaven breaks into the domain of the evil one. The power of Satan is broken. Jesus sees him fall like lightning from heaven. He possesses and bestows power to trample on the dominion of the enemy. Nothing can be impossible for those who go forth into the world, invested with Jesus’ power, as witnesses of the kingdom (Lk. 10:18f.). The whole of Jesus’ miraculous activity is the proof of the coming of the kingdom. What many prophets and righteous men desired in vain to see—the breaking in of the great epoch of salvation—the disciples can now see and hear (Mt. 13:16; Lk. 10:23). When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask, ‘Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?‘ they were shown the wonderful works done by Jesus, in which, according to the promise of prophecy, the kingdom was already being manifested: the blind were enabled to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear; lepers were being cleansed and dead people raised to life, and the gospel was being proclaimed to the poor (Mt. 11:2ff.; Lk. 7:18ff.). Also in the last of these—the proclamation of the gospel—the breaking through of the kingdom is seen. Since salvation is announced and offered as a gift already available to the poor in spirit, the hungry and the mourners, the kingdom is theirs. So too the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed, not merely as a future reality to be accomplished in heaven, nor merely as a present possibility, but as a dispensation offered today, on earth, through Jesus himself; ‘Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven; for the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins’ (see Mk. 2:1-12, et passim).
As appears clearly from this last-quoted word of power, all this is founded on the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. The kingdom has come in him and with him; he is the auto-basileia. Jesus’ self-revelation as the Messiah, the Son of man and Servant of the Lord, constitutes both the mystery and the unfolding of the whole gospel.
It is impossible to explain these sayings of Jesus about himself in a future sense, as some have wished to do, as though he referred to himself only as the future *Messiah, the Son of man who was to be expected on a coming day on the clouds of heaven. For however much this future revelation of the kingdom remains an essential element in the content of the gospel, we cannot mistake the fact that in the Gospels Jesus’ Messiahship is present here and now. Not only is he proclaimed as such at his baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration—as the beloved and elect One of God (plain Messianic designations)—but he is also endowed with the Holy Spirit (Mt. 3:16) and invested with full divine authority (Mt. 21:27); the Gospel is full of his declarations of absolute authority, he is presented as the One sent by the Father, the One who has come to fulfil what the prophets foretold. In his coming and teaching the Scripture is fulfilled in the ears of those who listen to him (Lk. 4:21). He came not to destroy but to fulfil (Mt. 5:17ff.), to announce the kingdom (Mk. 1:38), to seek and to save the lost (Lk. 19:10), to serve others, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mk. 10:45). The secret of belonging to the kingdom lies in belonging to him (Mt. 7:23; 25:41). In brief, the person of Jesus as the Messiah is the centre of all that is announced in the gospel concerning the kingdom. The kingdom is concentrated in him in its present and future aspects alike.
b. Future aspect
There is a future aspect as well. For although it is clearly stated that the kingdom is manifested here and now in the gospel, so also is it shown that as yet it is manifested in this world only in a provisional manner. That is why the proclamation of its present activity in the words, ‘The blind receive their sight; the dead are raised; the poor have good news preached to them’, is followed by the warning: ‘Blessed is he who takes no offence at me’ (Mt. 11:6; Lk. 7:23). The ‘offence’ lies in the hidden character of the kingdom in this epoch. The miracles are still tokens of another order of reality than the present one; it is not yet the time when the demons will be delivered to eternal darkness (Mt. 8:29). The gospel of the kingdom is still revealed only as a seed which is being sown. In the parables of the sower, the seed growing secretly, the tares among the wheat, the mustard seed, the leaven, it is about this hidden aspect of the kingdom that Jesus instructs his disciples. The Son of man himself, invested with all power by God, the One who is to come on the clouds of heaven, is the Sower who sows the Word of God. He is depicted as a man dependent upon others: the birds, the thorns, human beings, can partially frustrate his work. He has to wait and see what will come of his seed. Indeed, the hiddenness of the kingdom is deeper still: the King himself comes in the form of a slave. The birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man (Dn. 7:13) has no place to lay his head. In order to receive everything, he must first of all give up everything. He must give his life as a ransom; as the suffering Servant of the Lord of Is. 53, he must be numbered with the transgressors. The kingdom has come; the kingdom will come. But it comes by the way of the cross, and before the Son of man exercises his authority over all the kingdoms of the earth (Mt. 4:8; 28:18) he must tread the path of obedience to his Father in order thus to fulfil all righteousness (Mt. 3:15). The manifestation of the kingdom has therefore a history in this world. It must be proclaimed to every creature. Like the wonderful seed, it must sprout and grow, no man knows how (Mk. 4:27). It has an inward power by which it makes its way through all sorts of obstacles and advances over all; for the field in which the seed is sown is the world (Mt. 13:38). The gospel of the kingdom goes forth to all nations (Mt. 28:19), for the King of the kingdom is also Lord of the Spirit. His resurrection brings in a new aeon; the preaching of the kingdom and the King reaches out to the ends of the earth. The decision has already come to pass; but the fulfilment still recedes into the future. What at first appears to be one and the same coming of the kingdom, what is announced as one indivisible reality, at hand and at close quarters, extends itself to cover new periods of time and far distances. For the frontiers of this kingdom are not co-terminous with Israel’s boundaries or history: the kingdom embraces all nations and fills all ages until the end of the world comes.
III. Kingdom and church
The kingdom is thus related to the history of the church and of the world alike. A connection exists between kingdom and church, but they are not identical, even in the present age. The kingdom is the whole of God’s redeeming activity in Christ in this world; the church is the assembly of those who belong to Jesus Christ. Perhaps one could speak in terms of two concentric circles, of which the church is the smaller and the kingdom the larger, while Christ is the centre of both. This relation of the church to the kingdom can be formulated in all kinds of ways. The church is the assembly of those who have accepted the gospel of the kingdom in faith, who participate in the salvation of the kingdom, which includes the forgiveness of sins, adoption by God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the possession of eternal life. They are also those in whose life the kingdom takes visible form, the light of the world, the salt of the earth; those who have taken on themselves the yoke of the kingdom, who live by their King’s commandments and learn from him (Mt. 11:28-30). The church, as the organ of the kingdom, is called to confess Jesus as the Christ, to the missionary task of preaching the gospel in the world; she is also the community of those who wait for the coming of the kingdom in glory, the servants who have received their Lord’s talents in prospect of his return. The church receives her whole constitution from the kingdom, on all sides she is beset and directed by the revelation, the progress, the future coming of the kingdom of God, without at any time being the kingdom herself or even being identified with it.
Therefore the kingdom is not confined within the frontiers of the church. Christ’s Kingship is supreme above all. Where it prevails and is acknowledged, not only is the individual human being set free, but the whole pattern of life is changed: the curse of the demons and fear of hostile powers disappears. The change which Christianity brings about among peoples dominated by nature-religions is a proof of the comprehensive, all-embracing significance of the kingdom. It works not only outwardly like a mustard seed but inwardly like leaven. It makes its way into the world with its redeeming power. The last book of the Bible, which portrays Christ’s Kingship in the history of the world and its advancing momentum right to the end, especially illuminates the antithesis between the triumphant Christ-King (cf., e.g., Rev. 5:1ff.) and the power of Satan and anti-christ, which still survives on earth and contends against Christ and his church. However much the kingdom invades world-history with its blessing and deliverance, however much it presents itself as a saving power against the tyranny of gods and forces inimical to mankind, it is only through a final and universal crisis that the kingdom, as a visible and all-conquering reign of peace and salvation, will bring to full fruition the new heaven and the new earth.
IV. In the rest of the New Testament
The expression ‘kingdom of heaven’ or ‘kingdom of God’ does not appear so frequently in the NT outside the Synoptic Gospels. This is, however, simply a matter of terminology. As the indication of the great revolution in the history of salvation which has already been inaugurated by Christ’s coming, and as the expected consummation of all the acts of God, it is the central theme of the whole NT revelation of God.
V. In theological thought
As regards the conception of the kingdom of heaven in theology, this has been powerfully subjected to all kinds of influences and viewpoints during the various periods and trends of theological thought. In Roman Catholic theology a distinctive feature is the identification of the kingdom of God and the church in the earthly dispensation, an identification which is principally due to Augustine’s influence. Through the ecclesiastical hierarchy Christ is actualized as King of the kingdom of God. The area of the kingdom is coterminous with the frontiers of the church’s power and authority. The kingdom of heaven is extended by the mission and advance of the church in the world.
In their resistance to the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the Reformers laid chief emphasis on the spiritual and invisible significance of the kingdom and readily (and wrongly) invoked Lk. 17:20f. in support of this. The kingdom of heaven, that is to say, is a spiritual sovereignty which Christ exercises through the preaching of his word and the operation of the Holy Spirit. While the Reformation in its earliest days did not lose sight of the kingdom’s great dimensions of saving history, the kingdom of God, under the influence of the Enlightenment and pietism, came to be increasingly conceived in an individualistic sense; it is the sovereignty of grace and peace in the hearts of men. In later liberal theology this conception developed in a moralistic direction (especially under the influence of Kant): the kingdom of God is the kingdom of peace, love and righteousness. At first, even in pietism and sectarian circles, the expectation of the coming kingdom of God was maintained, without, however, making allowance for a positive significance of the kingdom for life in this world. Over against this more or less dualistic understanding of the kingdom we must distinguish the social conception of the kingdom which lays all the stress on its visible and communal significance. This conception is distinguished in some writers by a social radicalism (the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ Christianity of Tolstoy and others, or the ‘religious-social’ interpretation of, e.g., Kutter and Ragaz in Switzerland), in others by the evolutionary belief in progress (the ‘social gospel’ in America). The coming of the kingdom consists in the forward march of social righteousness and communal development.
In contrast to these spiritualizing, moralistic and evolutionary interpretations of the kingdom, NT scholarship is rightly laying stress again on the original significance of the kingdom in Jesus’ preaching—a significance bound up with the history of salvation and eschatology. While the founders of this newer eschatological direction gave an extreme interpretation to the idea of the kingdom of heaven, so that there was no room left for the kingdom’s penetration of the present world-order (Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, the so-called ‘thoroughgoing’ eschatology), more attention has been paid latterly to the unmistakable present significance of the kingdom, while this significance has been brought within the perspective of the history of salvation, the perspective of the progress of God’s dynamic activity in history, which has the final consummation as its goal.
Bibliography. The literature on the kingdom of God is immense. For the use of the term in the Gospels, see G. Dalman, The Words of Jesus, 1902; SB, pp. 172-184; for the interpretation of the kingdom in the history of earlier theology see A. Robertson, Regnum Dei (Bampton Lectures), 1901; for the older liberal approach, see E. von Dobschstz, ‘The Eschatology of the Gospels’, The Expositor, 7th Series, 9, 1910; for the ‘social’ interpretation, see N. J. van Merwe, Die sosiale prediking van Jezus Christus, 1921; L. Ragaz, Die Botschaft vom Reiche Gottes, 1941; for the newer eschatological interpretation (since J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 1892; Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 1910), see H. M. Matter, Nieuwere opvattingen omtrent het koninkrijk Gods in Jezus’ prediking naar de synoptici, 1942. More general works: F. Holmström, Das eschatologische Denken der Gegenwart, 1936; H. D. Wendland, Die Eschatologie des Reiches Gottes bei Jesus, 1931; G. Gloege, Reich Gottes und Kirche im Neuen Testament, 1929; J. Jeremias, Jesus der Weltvollender im Neuen Testuinent, 1929; idem, New Testament Theology, 1, 1970; C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom, 1935; W. G. Kümmel, Die Eschatologie der Evangelien, 1936; idem, Promise and Fulfilment, 1957; R. Otto, The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, 1943; W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft, The Kingship of Christ, 1947; S. H. Hooke, The Kingdom of God in the Experience of Jesus, 1949; O. Cullmann, Christ and Time, 1951; G. Vos, The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom and the Church, 1951; J. Héring, Le royaume de Dieu et sa Veuve, 1959; H. Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 1962; G. Lundström, The Kingdom of God in the Teaching of Jesus, 1963; R. Sshnackenburg, God’s Rule and Kingdom, 1963; G. E. Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom, 1964; idem, A Theology of the New Testament, 1974; H. Flender, Die Botschaft Jesu von der Herrschaft Gottes, 1968; R. Hiers, The Kingdom of God in the Synoptic Tradition, 1970; W. Pannenberg, Theologie und Reich Gottes, 1971; K. L. Schmidt et al., TDNT 1, pp. 564-593; B. Klappert, NIDNTT 2, pp. 372-390. h.r. 2
Heaven — (1.) Definitions. The phrase “heaven and earth” is used to indicate the whole universe (Gen. 1:1; Jer. 23:24; Acts 17:24). According to the Jewish notion there were three heavens,
(a) The firmament, as “fowls of the heaven” (Gen. 2:19; 7:3, 23; Ps. 8:8, etc.), “the eagles of heaven” (Lam. 4:19), etc.
(b) The starry heavens (Deut. 17:3; Jer. 8:2; Matt. 24:29).
(c) “The heaven of heavens,” or “the third heaven” (Deut. 10:14; 1 Kings 8:27; Ps. 115:16; 148:4; 2 Cor. 12:2).
(2.) Meaning of words in the original,
(a) The usual Hebrew word for “heavens” is shamayim, a plural form meaning “heights,” “elevations” (Gen. 1:1; 2:1).
(b) The Hebrew word marom is also used (Ps. 68:18; 93:4; 102:19, etc.) as equivalent to shamayim, “high places,” “heights.”
(c) Heb. galgal, literally a “wheel,” is rendered “heaven” in Ps. 77:18 (R.V., “whirlwind”).
(d) Heb. shahak, rendered “sky” (Deut. 33:26; Job 37:18; Ps. 18:11), plural “clouds” (Job 35:5; 36:28; Ps. 68:34, marg. “heavens”), means probably the firmament.
(e) Heb. rakia is closely connected with (d), and is rendered “firmamentum” in the Vulgate, whence our “firmament” (Gen. 1:6; Deut. 33:26, etc.), regarded as a solid expanse.
(3.) Metaphorical meaning of term. Isa. 14:13, 14; “doors of heaven” (Ps. 78:23); heaven “shut” (1 Kings 8:35); “opened” (Ezek. 1:1). (See 1 Chr. 21:16.)
(4.) Spiritual meaning. The place of the everlasting blessedness of the righteous; the abode of departed spirits.
(a) Christ calls it his “Father’s house” (John 14:2).
(b) It is called “paradise” (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7).
(c) “The heavenly Jerusalem” (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22; Rev. 3:12).
(d) The “kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 25:1; James 2:5).
(e) The “eternal kingdom” (2 Pet. 1:11).
(f) The “eternal inheritance” (1 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 9:15).
(g) The “better country” (Heb. 11:14, 16).
(h) The blessed are said to “sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” and to be “in Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22; Matt. 8:11); to “reign with Christ” (2 Tim. 2:12); and to enjoy “rest” (Heb. 4:10, 11).
In heaven the blessedness of the righteous consists in the possession of “life everlasting,” “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17), an exemption from all sufferings for ever, a deliverance from all evils (2 Cor. 5:1, 2) and from the society of the wicked (2 Tim. 4:18), bliss without termination, the “fulness of joy” for ever (Luke 20:36; 2 Cor. 4:16, 18; 1 Pet. 1:4; 5:10; 1 John 3:2). The believer’s heaven is not only a state of everlasting blessedness, but also a “place”, a place “prepared” for them (John 14:2). 1
HEAVEN. Several words are translated ‘heaven’, but the only important ones are the Heb. sûaµmayim and the Gk. ouranos. The former is plural, and the latter often occurs in the plural. But, just as in Eng., there does not seem to be any great difference between ‘heaven’ and ‘the heavens’. The term is used of the physical heaven, especially in the expression ‘heaven and earth’ (Gn. 14:19; Mt. 5:18). Some suggest that the Bible writers thought of heaven in this aspect as solid, and rather like an inverted bowl (the ‘firmament’, Gn. 1:8). The sun makes his daily pilgrimage across it (Ps. 19:4-6), and there are windows through which the rain might descend (Gn. 7:11). Some Hebrews may well have held this idea, but it must not be forgotten that the men of the OT were capable of vivid imagery. It will never do to treat them as wooden literalists. The theological meaning of their language about heaven can be understood without recourse to such hypotheses.
Heaven is the abode of God, and of those closely associated with him. The Israelite is to pray, ‘Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven’ (Dt. 26:15). God is ‘the God of heaven’ (Jon. 1:9), or ‘the Lord, the God of heaven’ (Ezr. 1:2), or the ‘Father who is in heaven’ (Mt. 5:45; 7:21, etc.). God is not alone there, for we read of ‘the host of heaven’ which worships him (Ne. 9:6), and of ‘the angels in heaven’ (Mk. 13:32). Believers also may look forward to ‘an inheritance kept in heaven’ for them (1 Pet. 1:4). Heaven is thus the present abode of God and his angels, and the ultimate destination of his saints on earth.
Among many ancient peoples there was the thought of a multiplicity of heavens. It has been suggested that the NT bears witness to the rabbinic idea of seven heavens, for there are references to Paradise (Lk. 23:43), and to ‘the third heaven’ (2 Cor. 12:2; this was called Paradise on the rabbinic reckoning, cf. 2 Cor. 12:3). Jesus also is said to have passed ‘through the heavens’ (Heb. 4:14). These, however, are slender bases on which to erect such a structure. All the NT language is perfectly capable of being understood along the lines of heaven as the place of perfection.
Heaven comes to be used as a reverent periphrasis for God. Thus when the prodigal says ‘I have sinned against heaven’ (Lk. 15:18, 21), he means ‘I have sinned against God’. So with Jn. 3:27, ‘what is given him from heaven’. The most important example of this is Matthew’s use of the expression ‘the kingdom of heaven’, which seems to be identical with ‘the kingdom of God’.
Finally, we must notice an eschatological use of the term. In both OT and NT it is recognized that the present physical universe is not eternal, but will vanish away and be replaced by ‘new heavens and a new earth’ (Is. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21:1). We should understand such passages as indicating that the final condition of things will be such as fully expresses the will of God.
Bibliography. TDNT 5, pp. 497-543; NIDNTT 2, pp. 184-196; ZPEB, 3, pp. 60-64. l.m. 2
1. Easton, M. G., M. A. D. D., Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1996.
2. The New Bible Dictionary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1962.
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