the kingdom of god in the old testament

One of the most significant and yet misunderstood concepts in all of scripture is the Kingdom of God.  I say this because for most of Christian history the Kingdom of God has been equated with heaven.  This is partially due to Matthew’s use of the term Kingdom of Heaven rather than Kingdom of God.  It was much easier for the church to focus on a heavenly afterlife than it was to focus on an earthly kingdom.  The trouble with such an approach is that it misses the point of the Kingdom of God.  When the prophets or Jesus, or for that matter Paul spoke of the Kingdom of God they were speaking about a Kingdom here on earth.  In order for us to begin to grasp that idea we will begin by looking at how the Kingdom of God is presented in the Old Testament.

What had initially set the Hebrew people apart from all other people around them was the fact that the only king they had was YHWH.  It was YHWH and YHWH alone who was to be the ruler and protector of Israel. The Hebrew people found this arrangement, having an invisible God as king, rather than a human king to be a drawback when it came time to defend themselves.  They pressed God to give them a king, which God did.  However even after the Hebrews demanded and received a king to lead them, the religious leaders were clear that the earthly king only served at the pleasure of the heavenly king.  We can see this in Psalm 45:6-7 that depicts the enthronement of an earthly king. “Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness and hate wickedness.  Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”

The upshot of this was that the people of Israel always understood themselves to be God’s subjects; people who lived in God’s kingdom here on earth.  In fact it is not until rather late in the history of Israel when people began to think of an afterlife in heaven…so Kingdom was always about what God was doing here on earth.  This concept shaped their vision of how the people of God were to live and what kind of a world they were to be creating.  This kingdom then was defined by the Torah (the Law of God).  
The Torah made it clear that life was to be respected, honesty in all areas of life adhered to, the poor, the stranger, the widow and the foreigner welcomed and cared for and goods were to be shared among all people.  People in God’s kingdom were to allow rest for themselves, their servants, their animals and their fields on the Sabbath?.  In other words the Kingdom of God, if it was lived out in appropriate ways was a very nice place to live.  It was to be a place where people loved God, neighbor and cared for the world.

Needless to say this was not the Kingdom in which the people lived.  The scriptures remind us of just how corrupt and violent the world, including God’s people, could be.  None the less, the prophet Isaiah offered a vision of what God’s Kingdom could and should look like.  In chapter 11 he wrote, “A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots…He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; …Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox…They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  This is what God’s earthly kingdom was supposed to look like; a place of love, community and peace.

Finally as the Old Testament draws to a close, in the words of the prophet Zechariah, we see this theme of God’s restored kingdom in these words, “Then all who survive of the nations …shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the harvest festival.”  Zechariah’s vision lay’s a foundation for Jesus’ and the early church’s understanding of the Kingdom, which we will examine next. 

the kingdom of god in the new testament

Even though the specific language of the Kingdom of God was not central to the Old Testament, by the First Century it had been formalized and was widely used by Jesus and the early church.  We see this in that the word kingdom is used more than 160 times in the New Testament.  Most of those references are to the Kingdom of God.  Matthew, unlike the other Gospel writers, uses the term Kingdom of Heaven, but this is simply another way of speaking of the same concept; God’s rule and reign over the earth.  There is speculation that Matthew, dealing with a Jewish audience, probably tried to stay away from using the name God as much as possible because of Jewish sensitivities to its use.

Jesus and the Gospel writers use the term Kingdom of God 53 times.  It was in fact, one of the key concepts of Jesus’ teachings.  We can see how significant the Kingdom of God was for Jesus in the opening of the Gospel of Luke.  In Luke 4:43 Jesus states, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose.”  This task of proclaiming the Kingdom of God was not only Jesus’ mission but it was also the mission of the disciples.  In Luke 9:1-2 we read, “Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.”  Because it was Jesus’s mission he spent a great deal of time teaching about the Kingdom of God.  He told parables about the Kingdom (Mark 4:25-27, 30-32; Matthew 13:3-9, 33, 44-46; 18:23-35; 22:2-14; 25:1-13); and taught about who would be in and out of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-25; Mark 9:46-48; 12:34; Luke 9:62; 18:17 ), the benefits of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:32-34; Luke 18:28-30 ) and about how one enters the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:14; John 3:4-6).  In some ways it is impossible to understand Jesus apart from his connection to the Kingdom.
This focus on the Kingdom of God continues in the Book of Acts (the story of the founding of the church).  Acts reminds its readers that when Jesus was resurrected he spoke to the disciples about the Kingdom of God (Acts 1:2-4).  This focus on the Kingdom then became a central component of the proclamation of the early church.  Everywhere Paul and the other disciples went they talked about the Kingdom (Acts 8:11-13; 14:21-23; 19:7-9; 28:22-24; 28:31). 

The Apostle Paul’s writings emphasized the centrality of the Kingdom.  This is especially true of his first letter to the church at Corinth.  In this letter Paul refers to the Kingdom of God four times.  Three of those occasions have to do with inheriting the Kingdom of God.  This inheriting the Kingdom of God is also mentioned in his letter to the Galatian churches.  In a sense the idea of inheriting the Kingdom gives us some insight into Paul’s understanding of the Kingdom.  The Kingdom was God’s glorious reign here on earth (initiated by Jesus’ death and resurrection) that one could only enter into through inheritance; meaning one had to be graciously adopted by God.  Entry into the Kingdom could not be purchased or earned…only received.  If someone wondered if they had been adopted and would gain entry into the Kingdom, the surest way to tell was to look at how they lived (Galatians 5:20-22; I Corinthians 6:9-11).  Those who had been adopted would reflect the values of the family (God’s family) into which they had been adopted. 

While the Kingdom of God is not specifically mentioned in Revelation it is the focus of the book.  We meet God who sits on the throne.  We meet Jesus who shares the throne and is proclaimed to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  We meet the Holy Spirit who shares the throne with God and Jesus.  It is God who has all dominion and power and who makes people of all races and nations into a single new kingdom.  In a sense then, the creation of and entry into the Kingdom of God becomes the focal point of the New Testament and of the church.

the kingdom of God current considerations

The church has long struggled with the concept of the Kingdom of God.  As Wikipedia puts it, “Some scholars have interpreted it as a Christian lifestyle, some as a method of world evangelization, some as the rediscovery of charismatic gifts. Others relate it to no present or future earthly situation, but to the world to come. The interpretation of the phrase is often based on the theological leanings of the scholar-interpreter.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_God_(Christianity))

The writer of this article is correct in that each of us who try to define the Kingdom of God does so through the lens of our own church/theological background.  So what you will read below is my take on the Kingdom.  First however let’s deal with the views mentioned above in the Wikipedia article. While they all have their theological backers, I would argue that they all fall short of the Biblical meaning of the Kingdom of God.  The Christian lifestyle view falls short because its concept of kingdom is personal and not corporate.  The world to come, meaning a heaven view falls short because its view of kingdom is other-worldly rather than this worldly.  Finally the focus on charismatic renewal (gifts of the Spirit) falls short because it focuses on only a small portion of what God’s kingdom has to offer.  The question becomes then, what is my image of the Kingdom of God?

My belief is that scripture teaches us that the Kingdom of God is the reign of God on earth.  This is the view held by N.T. Wright (though my explanations will not do his work justice) with which I agree.  What Wright, in a number of his books, tries to do is to return to the Biblical story as it was told and lived, as the means of discerning what Jesus and others meant by the Kingdom of God.  In a sense Wright has tried to allow the scriptures and the cultures in which they were written shape his understanding of Kingdom.  I would argue that this is the best way to proceed.  That being the case, there are four things, at least, that we can learn about the Kingdom of God, and how it relates to us.
First, we learn that the Kingdom of God is, as stated above, the rule and reign of God here on earth.  This is based in the Old Testament’s continual reminder that God exercises God’s kingship in real time here on this planet; meaning God’s kingdom encompasses all people, of all time here on earth.  This is why when Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come”, he meant Thy Kingdom come here on earth.  An otherworldly kingdom would have made no sense to anyone in the First Century (or before).

Second we learn that because the Kingdom of God is a kingdom here on earth, the earth is our final destination.  God did not create this earth merely as a place of testing to see if we could get to heaven (a very common view) but God created it as a good place in which men, women and children could all come to love God, neighbor and creation.  This is the meaning of the bodily resurrection in the Gospels and in Paul’s letters.  Resurrection means our future is here in God’s Kingdom on earth.

Third we learn that in Jesus of Nazareth, the promised Kingdom (meaning again, God’s rule and reign on earth) has been inaugurated.  It has been inaugurated because in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension the power of, as Paul calls them, the powers and principalities of the world, has been broken.  Though evil is still real in the world, it is a broken power and will one day be vanquished by God.  Thus it becomes possible for us to live more and more like God’s people.

Fourth we learn that we are already citizens (or children if you prefer) of the Kingdom which is present and coming.  Our lives then are to be focused on following the path of love, forgiveness and compassion that God has set before us in Jesus Christ.  One of the ways Presbyterians have always spoken about this is that the church (meaning the people and not the building) is to be a provisional demonstration of the Kingdom.  In other words our lives are to show to the world, as best as they can, what life in this Kingdom of God looks like.  

the kingdom of god and apocalyptic

In our age of hype, one type of scripture that is often over-hyped is what is called apocalyptic.  Apocalyptic includes portions of the Gospels, Isaiah, Daniel and above all Revelation. These portions of scripture are over-hyped because their imagery is so otherworldly and spectacular. 

For those of you not familiar with apocalyptic, let me offer you two examples.  We begin with Daniel 7, “I Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then, as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being; and a human mind was given to it.”  Then from Revelation 20, “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended.” As you can see these passages could lend themselves to both confusion and to some pretty outrageous interpretations. 

Regardless of how you have seen apocalyptic passages interpreted (either from the pulpit or in the movies) I would like us to see these texts as part of a larger genre of literature present in and around the time of Jesus. I say this because the images and themes contained within apocalyptic were familiar to both Jews and Christians of that era.  The strange images of beasts, dragons, angels, heavenly thrones, cosmic catastrophes and the like were part of parcel of their world view.  In fact almost every image in the Book of Revelation comes from the Old Testament.  Thus the highly symbolic language that makes up apocalyptic literature was both readily available for writers to use and readily understood by its readers.
I believe the main reason that apocalyptic arose is that earlier promises of the coming of God’s Kingdom and the rescue of God’s people had not yet occurred and people were worried. In other words, if God had promised the rescue of God’s people and a new Kingdom (which God had done), and that Kingdom and rescue had not come (which it had not), but instead the people of God were persecuted (which they were), then God’s people would be forced to either abandon their faith in God’s coming Kingdom because God had not acted, or reframe the Kingdom promises in such a way that the Kingdom’s delay could be explained, thus still offering hope for the rescue of God’s people.  Apocalyptic accomplishes both of those reframing tasks by, as I said before, using images and concepts familiar to the reader but unfamiliar to us.

First apocalyptic literature explains the delay.  The delay is caused by God’s plan for the future.  This future is no longer an easy slide into the Kingdom but is instead a hard fought victory over the spiritual powers which oppose God’s way of love in the world.  This battle will take the people of God through times of testing and trial.  In a sense the difficult times are intended to see who is or is not faithful; which means they are part of God’s intentions for the world and not a sign of God’s absence.

Second apocalyptic gives hope.  It gives hope because in the end God wins.  Apocalyptic literature is very clear about this.  The forces of evil (natural or spiritual) are no match for God.  This is because God is creator, redeemer, sustainer and judge.  Therefore God will defeat spiritual evil (Satan) and thereby defeat natural evil (any nation or movement that defies God’s love and grace).  God will also insure that God’s people will be kept safe until God’s final rescue.  Please note that this view affirms that ultimate victory is going to be achieved by God, and not by human military might.

 One of the great gifts of apocalyptic is that it is not tied to any single time or place.  Every generation can find hope for themselves in these stories as they await the coming Kingdom of God.  Every generation can rediscover that God is still at work even in the midst of difficult times.

the kingdom of god and the book of revelation

Any examination of the Kingdom of God would be incomplete without a closer examination of the Book of Revelation.  Revelation, the final book of the Bible, is the most dramatic expression of apocalyptic literature in the Bible.  Though there are dozens of ways in which Revelation has been interpreted I will offer you mine; that Revelation is a play in three acts.  In fact I believe that much of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is based on it.  Both Revelation and Tolkien offer us stories in which the powers of good are deceived by the powers of evil thereby corrupting humanity and thus necessitating a war of liberation.  In each, the struggle to liberate humanity is told in three parts: the creation of a liberating fellowship, a contest between two competing powers and the return and triumph of the rightful king. 

I call part one, The Fellowship of the King.  This section is composed of chapters 1-7.  In these opening chapters the focus is on the church itself.  The first three chapters contain letters to churches which were in existence when Revelation was written.  These churches are critiqued, challenged and encouraged.  Chapters 4-5 take place in heaven where there is great concern that God’s liberating future (symbolized by a closed scroll) cannot be completed.  It is in this moment that we meet the hero of the story (Jesus-the Lamb) who is worthy not only to open the scroll (thus insuring liberation) but to be worshipped and followed (compare to Aragorn in Lord of the Rings).  Chapters 6-7 foreshadow difficult times (the four horsemen of the apocalypse) but also offer hope for the faithful.  This hope is contained in the “sealing” of all of the faithful from every nation, tongue and race.  These people (the Fellowship of the King) will be kept safe.  So we end part one with a holy fellowship of Jesus’ followers.

I call part two, The Two Powers (the Holy Trinity vs. the Unholy Trinity).  This section is composed of chapters 8-13.  In the first two chapters (8-9) we witness evil beginning to befall the earth.  There are hybrid animals (representing those opposed to God’s ordered creation – and in Tolkien, the orcs) which bring misery to humanity through war and violence. 
 In the next two chapters God sends two messengers to proclaim God’s word to the people.  They are killed and people throw a party because of their deaths.  God however raises the witnesses from the dead and protects them (sort of like Gandalf dying and rising in Tolkien).  In the next chapter we see the war reach heaven itself where Satan (the Dragon) attempts to take control but is thrown down to earth, where he will wage war on the saints.  Finally in chapter 13 we encounter two more beasts.  One is representative of Jesus (it has a fatal wound which has been healed), and the Spirit (it causes fire to come from heaven and speaks with the voice of the dragon).  The confrontation is set…the Holy Trinity against the Unholy Trinity.

I call part three, The Return of the King.  This section is composed of chapters 14-22.  The Return of the King opens with Jesus and his forces (those who died for the faith) waiting for the final battle.  While they wait, angels begin the destruction of the enemy.  God’s anger is poured out (symbolically from bowls) against Babylon (representative of all evil nations that oppress God’s people) and people on the earth mourn and wail at Babylon’s destruction because they have benefited economically from it.  Next heaven is opened and Jesus and his followers defeat the enemy.  The two beasts are thrown into the Lake of Fire while Satan is bound and imprisoned for a thousand years (in a sense like Sauron who waits in Mordor for his return to power).  Finally Satan is released and in a final battle, utterly destroyed and cast into the Lake of Fire (think of Mt. Doom) along with death itself.  The Holy Trinity renews the earth as a place of peace and eternal life.  There is no longer any evil to be found. 

This story has given hope to persecuted Christians for the last two-thousand years.  It has done so because they see clearly that God has not abandoned them; that their oppressors will be defeated; and that in the end God will win and new life will be theirs.  

the kingdom of god and judgment

For many people, one of the most disturbing aspects about the Kingdom of God is that it incorporates judgment as one of its main elements.  It disturbs some of us because we were taught that God was a tyrant who was always ready to condemn people straight to hell.  It disturbs others of us because we were taught that God was too nice to judge. While I certainly understand both of these points of view, I hope the following article will help us understand why judgment is both good and necessary.

First, we begin with the fact that God’s judgment is rooted in God’s love for the world.  This means that what God desires for the world is that all persons share in the bounty and goodness of God’s creation.  This is the context of Genesis chapter two in which God tells the first couple not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil…because if they do they will die.  God is lovingly warning them to steer clear of what will harm them.  This is God’s love in action.

Second, God always tells God’s people how they are to act as people living in this good creation.  They are to love God, neighbor and creation.  This is the essence of the Torah.  If one reads through the first five books of the Old Testament and listens to Jesus’ teachings, one will find constant reminders of caring for the poor, the stranger, and those in need.  People are called upon to be forgiving and generous.  These are the expectations of God for humanity.

Third, God tells God’s people what the judgment will be if they choose to act in death dealing rather than life giving ways.  Throughout the Old Testament, God, through the prophets is continually warning God’s people that unless they shape up then God will be forced to deal with them in rather unpleasant ways.  We can see this clearly in the words of the prophet Jeremiah who warns God’s people that unless they return to loving God and neighbor, then God will send them into exile.  
Fourth, God is long suffering.  God regularly forgives and attempts to reconcile God’s people and the world to God’s self.  This was the task of the prophets who called God’s people back to faithfulness.  The penultimate example of this was God sending God’s only Son Jesus into the world in order to save humanity…even when it meant Jesus dying on the cross.  In essence because God loves the world, God is willing to go to any length to try to save humanity.

Fifth, judgment is about holding all people accountable for their actions.  This sense of dispensing justice is most clearly seen in Chapter 20 of Revelation where all human beings come before God in order to be judged on their actions vis-à-vis God’s call to love God and neighbor.  This judgment is for all people, including Christians.  No one escapes coming into the courtroom.

Finally judgment is always done by Jesus, the one who died for us, rose for us, reigns in power for us and prays for us.  Judgment is based not only on our actions but on the grace of God as demonstrated in Jesus of Nazareth.  Thus, as the scriptures tell us, we have a judge who is able to sympathize with us since he too had to live a fully human life.

This is the essence of just judgment; a clear set of expectations, clear reasons for the expectations, continual warnings when people get off track, patience to give people time to return to the way of life, judgment for everyone (no favoritism), and judgment dispensed by a grace filled judge.  All of this is necessary firstly, if God’s Kingdom is going to be any different from the world as we know it.  By holding all persons accountable, human beings are given an opportunity to confess, be forgiven and transformed.    This is the hope of the Kingdom of God.  All things and all people are made new by coming face to face with who they are, admitting what they have done and then finding new life…under the grace of God.  All of this is necessary secondly if justice is done, because all persons are forced to acknowledge how they have engaged in ways that brought harm to others and thus cannot escape their past.

the kingdom of god its final consumation

N.T. Wright recently tweeted, “In God’s new creation, all that was good in the original creation is reaffirmed.”  While that may sound a bit cryptic, it is in fact a wonderful summary of the Kingdom of God come to fruition in the world; an event with which most of us are somewhat unfamiliar because it has not held a prominent place in Christian theology.  Fortunately Wright and others have written extensively on the final consummation of the Kingdom of God in order that the rest of us might come to understand more fully not only its importance on the Biblical story but in our lives as well.

So what is the final consummation of the Kingdom of God?  Simply put, it is a world in which people can and do fully love God, neighbor and care for creation.  In other words, referring back to Wright’s tweet, the Kingdom of God will look like the creation as described in the opening chapters of Genesis.  That creation was one in which people listened to God, got along with one another and understood their role as caretakers of creation.  While it was not exactly heaven on earth, after all there were devious snakes slithering around, it was a world in which humanity (as played by Adam and Eve) was truly at home without shame, anger, jealousy or violence.  This, according to the scriptures, is the kind of world which God will ultimately bring about.  This is what the world will look like when God’s Kingdom has fully come.

We see this in the scriptures of both of our Testaments.  In the First Testament we read in Isaiah 11:6-9, “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  
The Prophet Hosea puts it this way in 2:18-19, “I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety.  And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy.”  Needless to say these are images and not exact biological predictions (I doubt that lions will eat straw) but they offer us a glimpse of a very different world.

In the Second Testament we encounter similar metaphors in the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-10.  “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Again we see clearly that the kind of world Jesus predicts will arrive is one that does not look like the one we see on the television news.  Finally the penultimate expression of this Kingdom of God is found in the closing chapters of Revelation.  There we witness God’s intimate presence with humanity, plenty of food for all to eat, peace among the nations and an end to sin and temptation. 

What this all means is that God has a plan for healing all of creation and that that plan has as its ultimate goal the establishment of a world in which pain, suffering, sin, and death no longer exist.  This is the world to which human beings are to be resurrected.  This is the world which fulfills our prayer of, “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”  This is the world for which we are to be not only waiting but working.  As Wright tweeted, “The church exists primarily for two closely connected purposes: to worship God and to work for his kingdom in the world.”  This vision is our work and our hope.