The Kingdom of God

by Peter Leithart

Scripture seems to be almost deliberately vague about the kingdom. It is like a seed, like leaven, like a sower going to sow His field, like a merciful master who forgives our debts. The kingdom is also a place where we enter to eat and drink with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus Christ Himself. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Light and of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The coming of the kingdom, in John the Baptist’s preaching, also brings judgment. The kingdom is our inheritance, a grant that has been taken from the Old Testament people of God, and given to a people producing its fruit.

Given this mind-boggling complexity (and these descriptions only scratch the surface), it is extremely difficult to arrive at a brief definition of the kingdom that does justice to every dimension of the reality. Of course, this is always the case when we study Scripture. We are always, as creatures, limited to looking at things from one perspective at a time. We cannot attain a God-like comprehension of the kingdom, or of anything that God says or does. But the problem is even more acute in the case of the kingdom because Scripture connects the kingdom with so many other important (and almost equally complex) themes.

Still, I think it proper, as much as we are able, to seek a brief summary definition of what the Bible means by the “kingdom of God”. So, my effort at a single-sentence definition of the kingdom of God is this: The kingdom of God is the new world-order, in heaven and on earth, produced by the revolutionary changes brought about in Jesus’ fulfillment of the Old Covenant in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

Let me point to several of what I think are the strengths and weaknesses of this definition. First, the weaknesses. This definition does not stress dynamic character and growth of the kingdom. The kingdom was established in Christ’s first advent, but it is growing, and will be consummated. I could define the kingdom as a “growing world-order” or a “world-order in the process of realization”, but such language makes for awkward definitions.

Similarly, this definition contains nothing explicit about the future consummation of the kingdom. The New Testament describes the kingdom of God as our “inheritance”, and this is a crucially important facet of the kingdom (Matthew 25:34; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 15:50; Galatians 5:21). But my definition does not mention it. If someone wishes to define the kingdom as the “consummated new heavens and new earth”, I will not quibble, so long as it is clear that the kingdom is already a reality in its main features. Since Jesus’ preaching emphasizes the nearness of the kingdom’s coming, however, I have made the present reality of the kingdom the focus of my definition.

My definition also tends to blur the Bible’s focus on the fact that the kingdom is ruled by the Lord. One of the central features of the biblical doctrine of the kingdom is that it belongs to and is established by God. Along similar lines, my definition pushes into the background the stress that the New Testament places on God’s sovereign will as a central feature of the kingdom.

I consider the strengths of the definition to be as follows: It is a comprehensive definition. Though the features of this “new world order” remain to be spelled out, the definition captures the absolutely universal dimensions of the kingdom. The kingdom is not, on this definition, confined to the Church. Christ has authority even over those who do not acknowledge it.

My definition runs counter to much of modern scholarship, which emphasizes that the Greek word basileia means “rule”, not “realm”. That is, the word “kingdom” does not in the first instance refer to the geographic area over which a king rules, but to his authority as a ruler. Thus, some translate basileia as “rule” or “dominion” or “reign”, rather than as “kingdom”. I believe, however, that an emphasis on “realm” rather than “rule” is valuable. As much as I’ve tried, I have not been able to understand what such common evangelical definitions of the kingdom as “God’s saving rule dynamically exerted” mean. It makes much more sense to me to say that the coming of the kingdom of God means that God Himself comes in Christ – to assert His rule to be sure – but, just as importantly, to assert His rule by radically altering the existing order of things, or, better, by restoring and fulfilling the original order of things.

My definition has the advantage of calling attention to the structural characteristics of the kingdom, and this seems to me to be more in keeping with the political connotations of the phrase and with wider biblical themes than more abstract definitions. While I recognize the risk of treating the text in an overly rationalized manner, it makes sense to me to say that the “coming of the kingdom” involves some change in the way God governs and orders the world, and it does not make as much sense to say that the coming of the kingdom refers simply to His assertion of His royal rights within history. When God comes forth to exert His royal power in blessing and judgment, the face of creation is changed. Mountains are brought low, valleys exalted. The spirit goes forth and renews the face of the land (Judges 5:4-5; Psalm 68:7-8; Amos 1:2; Habakkuk 3).

My definition, finally, avoids the distortions of some definitions of the kingdom by virtue of its comprehensiveness. This may best be explained by surveying different answers to the question, “If I were to point at the kingdom, what would I be pointing at?” Those who define the kingdom narrowly as “God’s saving rule” would dismiss the question as itself embodying a misunderstanding of the nature of the kingdom. The kingdom cannot be pointed at. It is an abstract reality; though the kingdom manifests itself in righteousness and life, these are more the effects of the kingdom than the kingdom itself. We would receive a similar response from those who concentrate on the temporal aspect of the kingdom. The kingdom is the age of fulfillment, and as an “age” is not a “point-at-able” thing. Again, those who approach the kingdom from an exclusively linguistic viewpoint would dismiss the question; the kingdom is a “tensive symbol”, not a “thing” or even a “concept”.

Biblical scholars of earlier centuries would have pointed to the Church. Some today would point heavenward, others to the new heavens and new earth that will be established at Christ’s return. Others, and not all of them liberation theologians, would suggest that social action is “kingdom-building” activity, and would imply that the kingdom is intimately related to, if not identical with, some ideal historical social order.

I believe that there is some truth and some distortion in all of these. But my answer to the question would be: I’d point to all of it, the whole cosmic order of things since 70 A.D., developing through history until it is perfectly realized at the Second Coming of Christ. Thus, for example, the breaking down of the wall between Jew and Gentile in the New Covenant Church is a feature of the kingdom; but the Church is not equivalent to the kingdom. Similarly, I believe that the revolution in heaven and earth that Jesus accomplished has implications for social and political order, and that social and political activity has a part to play in the full realization of the kingdom (see below). But social activism cannot, on my definition, be equated with “building the kingdom”; the kingdom “grows” by the power of the Spirit working through human agents. There will never be a historical social order that can be identified with the kingdom of God.

It might be objected against my definition that I am defining the kingdom so broadly that my use of the phrase “kingdom of God” is no longer interchangeable with biblical usage. I will concede the point, but only to the extent that every humanly constructed theological concept in some way modifies the biblical material. Having made this concession, however, I believe that in fact my definition is more directly interchangeable with Jesus’ use of the phrase than some other definitions.

My reasons for this rather arrogant statement are the following. First, Jesus Himself uses the phrase to describe the proximate goal of His entire ministry. His purpose on earth was to proclaim the kingdom of God (Luke 4:43). Thus, from Jesus’ own usage, we are justified in saying that everything that Jesus accomplished can be subsumed under the category of the kingdom of God. It remains then simply to determine what Jesus accomplished.

Moreover, and this point is particularly directed against the definition of the kingdom as “saving rule”, I think it is clear that Jesus’ conception of the kingdom is more concrete than “rule” suggests. He speaks of “entering” the kingdom; how is it possible to “enter” a “rule”? It is, of course, possible to “come under the dominion” of a ruler, but this is not what Jesus said. Whatever He meant, He was referring to something that can be called an “environment” (Matthew 5:20; 7:21; 18:3; John 3:5; etc.), a place where people can sit to enjoy a meal (Matthew 8:11).

Finally, my definition does justice to the fact that Jesus preached the end of the world. A careful reading of the gospels, generations of liberals have argued, shows that Jesus preached that the world was about to end. It obviously didn’t. Therefore, Jesus was wrong. Evangelicals have had difficulty meeting this challenge. They do not stress the structural changes brought about by Christ’s death and resurrection. Thus, they do not explain the coming of the kingdom of God as “the end of the world”. But then they are hard-pressed to explain Jesus’ emphasis on the nearness of the end.

My definition answers this liberal criticism first by agreeing that Jesus indeed did proclaim the end of the world. But, I would argue, the world did in fact end. Jesus was right. From the moment of His incarnation, and more especially from His death, resurrection, and ascension, the old world ended, and a new world was born. Heaven and earth were never the same.

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