What is the Kingdom of God?
An audio version is included below if you prefer to listen rather than read the article.
Jesus and the Kingdom
The kingdom of God is what Jesus talked about more than anything else. He was all about the kingdom.
Most of his parables and conversations had links in some way to the kingdom. Jesus breathed the kingdom of God, it’s what concerned Him, captured His attention, and imagination.
For many Christians, the kingdom of God can feel ambiguous in nature, confusing to identify. Like when someone asks you how to pronounce gif or jif, a gif, a jif. Or when you try to spell congratulations (which autocorrect just fixed) and instead you give up and write congrats on that birthday card for Kim at work.
But if Jesus was all about the kingdom, we should be about it too. This article is going to walk through the kingdom of God in a clear and simple way.
Let’s begin in the book of Mark.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14-15, ESV)
This is one of the key “kingdom texts” in the Bible. It is also a historical text. The book of Mark is not a myth, the stories in the Gospels actually happened. It’s important the kingdom came into time. In other words, Christianity is connected to history, they are inseparable. Meaning this happened and the kingdom is happening everywhere today.
What does the text mean when it says, “the kingdom of God is at hand?”
Hasn’t the kingdom of God always existed? Hasn't God always been all-powerful? And the answer to those questions is yes.
However, when the Old Testament speaks of the coming kingdom of God, this great and wonderful promise, it refers to God personally coming into our fallen world in Jesus and redeeming humanity. The promises and prophecies of the Old Testament are now being fulfilled.
Jesus comes preaching the kingdom and says,
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.
This short, yet packed text is broken up into two parts. First, the announcement that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand and second, the call to action, repent and believe the gospel.
This article will focus on the announcement.
Time & Kingdom
There are two ideas I want to lift out of this text and lay on the table for us to examine.
They are the words “time” & “kingdom.”
Let’s start with the idea of “time.”
Time is sacred, God set up time; it did not exist till God created it.
Therefore, God does not submit to time, time submits to God. He is outside of the hourglass.
The Mark passage says, the time is fulfilled.
In the New Testament there are two main Greek words for time, the first word is chronos and the second word is kairos.
Chronos means a certain time, like when we say, “what time will you be there?” Or, “we had a great time.” Whenever Scripture refers to a chronological sequence of time, it uses the word chronos.
The second word for time is, well, different.
The word is kairos, signifying a moment where something special happens; in Christian thinking, a time where God acts in a unique and particular way.
The text is saying the time has come, not chronos but kairos, and now everything will be defined by this moment in time.
The world will never be the same.
In this moment through Jesus, God is doing something unique. The time has come.
For what?
All of the stories of the Old Testament are anticipating this moment. Jesus speaks and says, the time has been fulfilled, what you have longed for is now here.
This is not an ordinary moment but a special one.
In our lives we have both.
Many moments are ordinary. You woke up this morning, some of us went to the gym, some of us hit the snooze, you got attacked by your dog wanting to go outside to pee (well at least I did). You took a shower, you made coffee, ordinary moments.
But, there are also kairos moments in our lives, spaces of time where God is revealing something to us, could be about his character, his love, or about us and where we need to receive His grace.
Are we aware of the Kairos moments in our lives?
The moments that break beyond the ordinary. The times where God is saying, “hush and listen to Me. Be still and quiet yourself.”
Could it be that if we feel stuck where we are, it is because we are not aware of the kairos moments where God is calling us to something new?
The kairos time is fulfilled.
This word fulfilled means super fullness. When you pour a cup of coffee, you don't fill it to the brim, you don't overfill because you don't want it to spill. Mark is saying that the time has come and the kingdom of God is brimming over, the kingdom of God cannot be contained and has entered the world in super fullness1.
For God time matters.
It is his creation, he sustains it.
Time is our most precious commodity.
The one thing every person has an equal portion of. One of the few things you can’t buy or trade for.
When you follow Jesus around in the gospels, he uses his time well. He knows time matters, that time is God’s gift.
This leads to the second idea, the kingdom of God.
This kingdom is near and personal. Another way to translate Jesus’ phrase is to say that the kingdom of God is within your reach. I love that imagery, it is in our reach, this means no matter where we are, what we have gotten ourselves into, the kingdom is always just a reach away.
The concept of the kingdom of God tends to be thought of as something foggy. Something ambiguous or too lofty to understand. As if you need to change your voice and intonation when you say, the kingdom of God (Though it would sound lofty if Morgan Freeman said it).
So, before we explore its impact, we need a clear picture of what the kingdom is.
The clearest definition I have heard on the kingdom of God is this:
The kingdom of God is the reign and rule of God in the world and our lives2.
It's God’s rule. It's the sphere where God’s will is done, where what God wants to happen, happens. This definition comes from Dallas Willard.
Simply put this is the kingdom of God. The kingdom is about God’s rule.
The Kingdom has often been misunderstood and hijacked. Here are a few ways people have gotten it wrong.
The kingdom of God is heaven.
The kingdom of God is synonymous with heaven. This is not true. The reason people think this is because the book of Matthew calls the kingdom of God the kingdom of heaven. But the terms mean the same thing and are for the most part interchangeable. God does reign in heaven, but the kingdom of God is not heaven.
The kingdom of God is the church.
The church is in the kingdom of God, but they are not the same thing. The kingdom is more than a place, or location. It is more than a group of people (ekklesia), it is an activity, it is God at work in us, but also beyond us. The kingdom works through the church, but it is not the church.
The kingdom of God is political.
This was the view of many of the Jews in the first century. They thought God's kingdom was going to come and sweep out Rome, but that's not how God works.
Although there is truth in all three of these ideas, they are not at the center of the kingdom; the kingdom is the reign and rule of God.
Three Implications of the Kingdom
The idea of the kingdom has universal, personal, and cultural implications. To have a full orbed view of the kingdom we need to understand all three.
Universal
The universal is that God's kingdom is here, it's pushing forward and advancing, preparing the way for when Christ will come back. The kingdom is returning God’s full and complete shalom to earth.
Theologians call this the “already” but “not yet.3”
Here is what this means: the kingdom of God has already happened but is not yet complete. When Jesus came in Mark with His announcement, this was the kingdom manifesto. But it was only the beginning.
The kingdom is here and in Him we experience forgiveness of sin, new life, and God reigning in us in a greater way. This is the “already” started, but “not yet” completed.
Although we are saved in Christ, we still have to live in this world, we walk through pain and troubles. It's already started, but not yet finished.
A theologian by the name of Oscar Cullman summed this up best by using an analogy of WW2.
Christ’s death and resurrection (D-Day) marked the decisive victory over sin, death, and Satan. His second coming (VE-Day) will bring the final and complete triumph. In the meantime, Christians live in the tension of the “already, but not yet ” experiencing Christ’s victory, but still battling sin and suffering. Though the fight continues, the outcome is certain: Christ has already secured the final victory.4
This is the universal aspect of the kingdom, initiated in Jesus. He has come to rescue his people. His reign and rule is beginning in our lives. The universal is pushing towards the day when God will reign and rule over everything on the earth.
Personal
Now to the personal aspects of the kingdom. “What does it look like for God to reign and rule in our lives?”
And to understand this reign and rule we need to understand God's will.
Heaven is the place where God’s will always happens, there is never a time in heaven where God's will doesn't happen. But on earth that’s not the case, on earth God's will is in conflict, battle, under siege. It is in opposition with two primary things, the will of people and the will of the lesser gods5, the devil being chief among them. Both the latter wills are against the will of God.
The earth is a battleground of the will.
Therefore the kingdom entering our world is about the inbreaking of God’s will on earth manifesting itself in a way it hasn't before. It is God's will reigning in a more visible, powerful, and pronounced way.
God is manifesting his will in a stronger more tangible way than before. The kingdom is now within our reach.
To understand the kingdom of God, is to desire to have God reign and rule in every area of your life.
This is more than faith in the kingdom, it is allowing the kingdom to change our desires. To change what we love6.
Our tendency is to compartmentalize our lives. To say, God, here are the areas I want you to influence and guide, but that area over there, leave alone.
I want you to be a part of my relationships, my vocation, my thoughts, but I don't want to submit my money to you. I don't want to submit my sexuality to you. Or, I don’t want to submit my politics to you, I want to leave God enmeshed with America7.
But that is not how the kingdom works. God’s will for you is that He would reign and rule in every aspect of life. Particularly the idols we hold, the spaces we don’t want him to enter into.
When Jesus walked the earth, He allowed the Father to guide every area of his life.
Yes, He was God, but He was also man, and He chose to subject himself to the will of the Father. He trusted in the Father’s timing.
For 30 years Jesus lived an ordinary life in obscurity. Can you imagine, you are the Son of God, second member of the Trinity, divine and yet, the Father was waiting, Jesus didn't start his ministry for 30 years.
He learned to wait, He learned to live an ordinary life. To wait on the Fathers timing.
Jesus is the perfect prototype. Jesus lived with such joy because he knew joy was found in doing the will of the Father.
If you want to live well in this life then allow God into every area, allow him to reign and rule over your choices, your identity, your future, over everything.
This practice is submitting your kingdom to God’s kingdom.
Whether you knew this or not you are a king or a queen.
You have your own kingdom. This morning you decided what you were going to do, how you would behave. No one told you what to wear, unless you are married, then you gave up that part of your kingdom.
This is about giving up our own autonomy and kingship. To say, Lord I want you to be the king of my life, I don't want to be king.
Look at history, we make crappy kings and queens. But there is a perfect king who wants to reign and rule in your life.
Which means we have to constantly reorient ourselves to kingdom living. To seek the kingdom is to seek God’s will over my life.
God’s will is not an ambiguous thing, it's not a hope you figure it out or you're stuck, He is not a magic eight ball or a first pick in a fantasy football draft (two years in a row you got me McCaffery).
God’s will is the kingdom and the kingdom is always in reach. You are never as far from God’s will as you think.
Cultural
Lastly, the cultural aspects of the kingdom. To see God’s reign and rule all around us. It is learning to practice “faithful presence.8”
Whenever Jesus talked about the kingdom, he didn’t use analogies the way we would expect. He didn’t say the kingdom of God was like a roaring ocean, a mighty sequoia, a powerful government, but a mustard seed.
Something small, barely noticed and this is how the kingdom starts and moves in our life. Small but over time it can grow into something meaningful and significant.
Too often when we think about the kingdom, we think it has to be this grand thing. But living out the kingdom is starting where we are.
This is done on a micro and macro level.
On a micro level it means going to the same coffee shop or restaurant consistently, so we can get to know the people there.
On a macro level it’s pursuing a career in an area that we want to change. Do you have a passion for a better public school system? Go be a great public school teacher. Have a passion for kids to have stable homes? Be a great stay at home parent. Have a passion for political change? Go be a local politician.
Often we have this idea that pursuing the kingdom has to be large, big, and idealistic. But that’s not the expectation of the kingdom. Just be a mustard seed.
God doesn't change the world through angels or great ideas; he changes the world by people who are living out the kingdom. He changes the world by people who practice faithful presence.
Benediction
The kingdom is not lofty or out of reach, but near and simple. Allow God to reign and rule over every aspect of your life.
If this post helped you see God or the world a little more clearly, you can keep the coffee flowing and the ideas coming by supporting me here.
For a full treatment on the kingdom of God, check out The Gospel of the Kingdom by George Ladd.
The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering our Hidden Life in God by Dallas Willard
The Teachings of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church by Geerhardus Vos
Christ and Time by Oscar Cullmann
See Michael Heiser’s Unseen Realm for a deeper analysis of the concept of lesser Gods.
Desiring the Kingdom by James KA Smith
Amazing article! Really helpful.
God Bless!
I love the phrase "...within your reach". Two ways that in Marks time that could have been true - 1. The Holy Ghost is something that people could get within a few years. 2. The dead who had waited in darkness could soon be resurrected.
I see the kingdom of God as being all things in his presence, and the Holy Ghost is a way to access that without being at Mt. Sinai or the temple when it was actually holy.