Kingdom Come

Ready to rumble? Got on your thinking cap? Want to be stretched beyond your comfort zone? Actually read verses that are referenced for a change? Use your brain and do some real Bible study?

The kingdom, like our salvation, has three tenses. In salvation, on the cross we have been justified, by the Spirit we are being sanctified, and one day we will be glorified. The kingdom is also 3-D.

1. The kingdom had a past territorial dimension, because it is based on the Davidic covenant.

2. The kingdom has a present abstract spiritual dimension, because Christ has inaugurated "new covenant" salvation. (There is a sense in which we are translated into the kingdom of Christ right now because the Spirit has already come, Col 1:13).

3. The kingdom has a future concrete and material dimension, because Christ brings it in at his Second Coming and judgment. (There is a sense in which the kingdom has not yet come, and will not arrive until Jesus' return, Matt 26:29).

John the Baptist had the same concept of the kingdom as the OT prophets (that it includes salvation plus judgment), and naturally fused together the second and third dimension, because he did not see the church age in between. Hence his "at hand" kingdom included a strong spiritual element (Matt 3:6,11).

"Preaching the good news (or the gospel) of the kingdom" (cf. Matt 4:23; 9:35, both summary statements of what Jesus was preaching in Matt 1-12, which the disciples also preached, Matt 10:7) meant announcing the good news that the return of the Davidic kingdom was finally at hand. In each case just listed, the proof that follows are the miraculous signs of healing and casting out demons.

As the King is rejected and events unfold in the course of biblical progressive revelation, Jesus begins to make clear that the salvation aspect of the kingdom would be accomplished during his first coming, and the judgment aspect would be suspended until his second advent. The mystery that lay hidden in between was the opening-up of the spiritual aspect of kingdom blessings to the Gentiles by faith in Jesus Christ, even (and only) without the works of the law. It was the revelation that the inclusion of Gentiles was not a last-minute adjustment to God's plan, but actually something he predestinated before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4-5,11).

• At hand meant the kingdom was being offered in the person of the King, but could be rejected (Matt 13).
• At hand meant the kingdom existed wherever Jesus himself went, because all things were subject unto him (Matt 12:28).
• At hand means the hour of decision, to submit and join it has already arrived.

Today it means that the kingdom is present temporally to all who submit, and is approaching spatially when Christ returns. The foreshadowing of his coming (Matt 16:27-28) was his transfiguration (Matt 17:1-3).
At hand means it is inevitable (Matt 26:46-47).

We do not fight to bring in the kingdom (in the absolute, concrete sense; only Christ does that at his return). Instead, we fish and bring men and women into the kingdom. The kingdom is coming; until then, we are to get men and women coming into the kingdom (Acts 14:22).

The King craves subjects. Are you one of them? The goal of discipleship is to make kingdom subjects. Are you ready for the King's dominion to come?


George Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, revised, Donald Hagner, ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993, reprinted 1997).
Craig A. Blaising and Darrrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1993).
Blaising & Bock, ed., Dispensationalism, Israel, and the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992).
Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1995).
G.E. Ladd, "Kingdom of Christ, God, Heaven" in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984).
Alva McClain, "The Greatness of the Kingdom - Part I" Bibliotheca Sacra 112, no. 145 (1955).
Paul Enns, Moody Handbook of Theology (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1989).
Herman A. Hoyt, "Dispensational Premillennialism" in The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, ed. Robert G. Clouse (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1977).
Robert L. Saucy, The Case for Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993).
Robert Saucy, "The Presence of the Kingdom and the Life in the Church," Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 145, issue 577 (1988).
Craig A. Blaising, "Development of Dispensationalism by Contemporary Dispensationalists," Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 145, issue 579 (1988).