The Doctrine of the Kingdom - Part 1

Introduction
It is enjoyable to think back to one’s Sunday School days and the Bible stories of the kings of Israel when one hears the term “the Kingdom of God.” After all, isn’t that what God had in mind when He made the promise of an everlasting kingdom? Is not the nation of Israel due a reinstituted kingdom according to the promises of the Old Testament prophets? Although no evangelical Christian would deny Christ’s kingly office or the sovereignty of God, the meaning of the term “Kingdom of God” is certainly varied across Christianity.

There are three basic views of the Kingdom of God. The first shall be called the “liberal hope” view of the Kingdom. In this view, the Kingdom is yet to come but is providing social, economic, and political salvation throughout the world. Proponents of this view often reduce Christ to simply a teacher or a prophet and turn the eschatological teachings of the New Testament into imagery of a present social evolution and a coming social bliss. The second view, and certainly the most common, is the dispensational premillennial view. Dispensationalists hold that the terms “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” (the latter used only in Matthew) describe a present kingdom and a future kingdom, respectively. The focus, however, is on a future, literal, earthly kingdom in which Jesus will reign as an earthly king. The third view is the Reformed view which sees the Kingdom of God as both present and future. At present, “it designates the rule of God established through creation and extending through providence over the universe.” In the future, it will be a whole-hearted recognition of all creation to that sovereignty. These three views will be surveyed with attention being given to the light that Scripture sheds on each position.

The Liberal Hope View
The liberal hope view can certainly not be accepted by any serious student of the Bible, let alone anyone who would call themselves an evangelical. Its very premise denies the deity and perfection of Christ. Christ did not possess “Messianic consciousness,” because the order of events was not according to the “outlined plan,” say these proponents. Vos writes of this view, “it shifts the emphasis in His teaching from the present-spiritual to the external-eschatological, making the former no more than a mans to the latter…seeing that a man so absorbed by these radical other-worldly, fantastic speculations, could not have possessed a well-balanced psychical temper; He becomes a subject for psychiatric investigation.” Jesus is not only ludicrous, but He is quite an impotent king, if even considered a king by this view at all.

The kingdom, according to the liberal hope view, is not yet arrived. Some liberal theologians, like Albert Schweitzer, held that Jesus expected the Kingdom to arrive in the near future. Therefore, when it didn’t, Jesus died “a deluded first century apocalyptist.” This view also sees the Church, not as the Kingdom, since the Kingdom has yet to arrive. Therefore, everything is building, moving toward a future point (the consummation of the Kingdom). That point, however, is not realized now. In the early twentieth century this view was a tool of the Social Gospel in America. In order to accommodate the pressures of Academia, specifically the notion of evolution, liberals saw the movement toward the coming Kingdom as a bettering of mankind. This view of the Kingdom had all the answers to the social, political and economic woes of the day. Furthermore, this progression showed how man was getting better; he was evolving. The final fulfillment of all of this would be the consummation of the Kingdom.

It seems simple enough to identify the problems with this view. The rejection of Christ’s deity and perfection of His mission to earth seem reason enough to reject the notion. However, it is important that one understands why this view came into existence. The rationalism of the Enlightenment had grown tantamount in America, and theologians were not going to be left behind. Therefore, rationalism became the standard of liberalism. The supernatural teachings of Jesus had to be explained away or eliminated. Any notion of a spiritual kingdom was not rational and therefore eliminated. The Kingdom could be seen in the future, where it fit rather nicely. Only pragmatic elements of Christ’s teaching that could support the social and political agenda of the liberals were taught. The result was that Jesus became only an icon and that God’s work in this world was reduced to the occasional good phenomenon.