It is often said that Jesus spoke of the kingdom in both the present and future tense. I will not dispute this. I would like to lodge some significant qualifications, however. I doubt we can say that they were perfectly well balanced. Rather one is informing the other, and that, in my view, is the future tense of the kingdom.
And, yet, to call it “future” is somewhat misleading, for Jesus spoke rather of imminence: “It’s at hand!” His emphasis was not on its futurity as such but its nearness. And that is where the present aspect comes into play: it’s so close, Jesus said, that you better start living as if it’s here; otherwise, you will not be recognized as a citizen when it arrives. It’s so close, in fact, that its powers are already beginning to be felt through the Spirit at work in me.
There is, of course, another sense in which the kingdom is present and I’m sure Jesus subscribed to it (cf. Matt 6.25-34), but in this he was no different than the writer of Psalm 145: God’s kingdom, as in his rule, is eternal.
When Jesus spoke of kingdom, however, we must think primarily of his appropriation and (re)interpretation of the promises made to Abraham and David and of the visions of the prophets (cf. Luke 1-2!). This future, eschatological kingdom was present proleptically in that its effects were beginning to be felt before its arrival; this "presentness," however, should not be conflated with God's eternally present rule and reign. To do that is to loose the distinctiveness of Jesus' message.
Jesus was an eschatological, millenarian prophet. He was not primarily a preacher of social justice. The message of the kingdom was not primarily about the eternal life that is present here and now. He spoke to these things in his own way, of course, but within the context I have sketched above.
It may be that the church in the twenty-first century should contextualize the message differently than did Jesus (though in a way that coheres with his preaching), but that is a theological question. Let’s ask the theological questions after we've answered the historical questions rather than importing our theology into history, and thereby distorting the biblical texts.
1 comment:
But Nick most of the shallowness in Evangelicalism stems from unimpeded eisegesis. How dare you imply that one be cautious in thier interpretation of Scripture?!
Aside from my bitterness, what do you think the implications of Jesus' understanding of the kingdom have for our understanding of ecclesiology today? It seems to me that kata Luke the Kingdom Jesus spoke of continues with the church in Acts. Therefore, one would expect Luke's presentation of Jesus' teaching on the kingdom to have serious implications for ecclesiology.
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