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What Is The Way Of The Kingdom Of God?

What Is The Way Of The Kingdom Of God?

Last updated on: June 11, 2026 at 1:50 am by Henry Karlson

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What Is The Way Of The Kingdom Of God? 2026-06-11T01:50:59-05:00 Henry Karlson

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Prof. Mortel: Fra Angelico’s Sermon on The Mount / Wikimedia Commons

It is easy for us to misconstrue religious conventions that we end up employing them in ways which contradict their original intent. Many, if not, most of those conventions are intended to help us apprehend various truths which transcend our understanding. This is why we must not take them simply, that is, literally; they were made to be seen as symbols, and we are to look at the way they present the truth as metaphors, because if they are taken literally, we end up rejecting the transcendental nature of the truth. Sadly, many, if not most today, do not understand this, and interpret all such conventions in the most literal fashion possible. They end up claiming that if the conventions are not literal, then they are lies, and the faith itself it a lie. In doing this, and having many follow them in their poor hermeneutic, we find how bad our education has become in the modern world. We have lost the way the truth can and should be expressed through poetic diction. This mistake is keenly seen in the way integralists engage Scripture and the Christian tradition. They claim the way Scripture talks about the “kingdom of God” and God (and Jesus) as “Lord” must not only be understood literally, but engaged in and through politics with the goal of the creation of a theocracy. This shows that they really have not paid too much attention to Scripture, because we find throughout it, a rejection of such a worldview.

Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world, not of course, to suggest a dualistic approach between the kingdom of God and material being, but rather, to deny the way of the fallen world and its political methodologies as being the way of the kingdom of God. Most of the time, those who run theocracies (and the integralism which promotes them) confuse their own desires, desires which come out of their own political ideology, with God’s desires. They argue what they want comes from God and to deny them is to deny God. They put themselves in the place of God and end up imposing themselves upon the world, doing so in the name of God. From a Christian standpoint, it can be said that they heed Satan and Satan’s temptation to take control of the world instead of following the example set by Christ (when he rejected the temptation to establish a purely earthly kingdom which he ruled by force). To be sure, they are not the only ones. We all find ourselves challenged by this temptation, so that even when we try to resist it one way, we find it coming to us from another direction. Every time we justify unjust means by saying the ends validate them, we give into temptation and turn away from the path Christ set up for us to follow.

Thus, when talking about the kingdom of God, we must not fall for this temptation; we must not think of God calling us to establish a theocracy. The kingdom of God is not something we establish, but rather, it is what is already there behind all things. Its purity, its reality, is the purity and reality of creation itself. It’s goodness is the goodness God gave to it, a goodness which it possesses even if sin has defaced creation and leads us in ways which go against our natural goodness. Because it is in us, and all around us, because it is in all creation, and underlies all creation, everything and everyone find themselves drawn to it. The truth of its nature and reality will be perceived in the eschaton when God is revealed to be all in all:

“Kingdom of God” does not mean a national theocracy, nor does it mean a territory. Nor, on the other hand, does it denote something purely spiritual. It means a new world order, where God is all in all (cf. 1 Cor. 15:28). The kingdom is not a reward for the devout and chastisement for sinners. It is practically the contrary: it is Good News for sinners, and for all willing to be converted. [1]

The preaching of the kingdom of God is good news because it shows us that despite the way sin has defiled world, despite the way sin has hurt us, the original integrity of creation remains intact. We also learn that God works through Jesus to restore the proper relationship between God and creation, to cleanse creation from the defacement it experiences through sin. Sin does not have the final say. We yearn for the realization of the truth. We yearn for the good which we know is in us. We want the good, we want to experience it, we want to experience God, and all that comes from experiencing the presence of God:

The theology that speaks of the Kingdom of God speaks symbolically of the Kingdom yearning for the unlimited in its many forms. This is the Kingdom of the perfect man, perfect woman, perfect world, and perfect God – the man, woman, world, and God of our yearning. Hence from the angle of the Kingdom we can sing with Mary , “He has deposed the powerful from their thrones and has raised up the lowly ….” This is the song of the continual battle in the history of the lowly ones confronting the seat of absolute power that tortures and inebriates many and prevents the hungry “being filled with good things …” [2]

This is why the kingdom of God must not be misunderstood by using earthly kingdoms to understand the way God works in and with it. Zealots old and new (like the integralists) are wrong when they try to merge the kingdom of God with some earthly kingdom. Nonetheless, we must not confuse the distinction as thinking the kingdom of God is something completely external to creation, that it is something outside of us. Nor should we think it is something which is only to be in the future, for that, again, leads people to think it is something which they create. The kingdom of God is already here. It has always been here. It will always be here. We are to open ourselves to it and experience it, receiving its grace so that we can be transfigured by it. Then, we will be able to bless the world with the grace which we have received. But we must do so by following the way of God, the way of love, and not in the way of political mechanization. When we blur the distinctions, what we call the kingdom of God is not the kingdom of God, but rather, a pseudo-kingdom, the kingdom which Satan offered Jesus, the kingdom which ultimately denies God. Thus, as Solovyov said:

If, instead of waiting on God, I try myself to attain to power, I shall have to use the means that are usual in the world, beginning with deceit and cunning and ending with violence and murder. Men cannot be led to the kingdom of God by such methods, and it is more than possible that I shall be put further away from it. [3]

The more we try to impose political ideologies upon the world, labeling their execution as the establishment of the kingdom of God, the further we will be from participating in the actual kingdom of God. We, rather, find ourselves participating in the pseudo-kingdom, the kingdom of Satan, even though we do so in the name of God. It is the way of the anti-Christ, not Christ. It is the perversion of the Gospel through equivocation and sophistry. If we want to engage the kingdom in our lives, if we want to share its graces, we must do so as it is revealed in the beatitudes, not in the way of might:

Another very special teaching reported by Matthew (that no one else dared to report) is that “those who take the sword shall perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52). The Kingdom of God does not come about through brute force or physical violence, but by the practice of the Beatitudes.[4]

If we want to experience the kingdom of God, we must listen to and heed Jesus. He said his kingdom is not established by us; it is is not a mere earthly kingdom. It is rather found all around us. Our participation in it requires us to follow the way of love. In the beatitudes we find God’s blessings is found in the weak and powerless. Jesus says this to make sure they do not embrace the way of those who treat them poorly, to try to take their place. This is why he warned, as seen in Luke, that those who embrace the opposite will experience the curse of sin. They have closed themselves from the kingdom of God where grace abounds.

[1] Leonardo Boff, Ecclesiogensis. Trans. Robert R. Barr (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1986). 51.

[2] Ivone Gebara and Maria Clara Bingemer, Mary Mother of God, Mother of the Poor. Trans. Phillip Berryman (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989), 38.

[3] Vladimir Solovyey, God, Man & The Church. The Spiritual Foundations Of Life. Trans. Donald Attwater (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2016), 27-8.

[4] Archbishop Joseph Raya, The Abundance of Love: The Incarnation and Byzantine Tradition (Combermere, ON: Madonna House Publications, 1989; 3rd ed.: 2016), 103.

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N.B.: While I read comments to moderate them, I rarely respond to them. If I don’t respond to your comment directly, don’t assume I am unthankful for it. I appreciate it. But I want readers to feel free to ask questions, and hopefully, dialogue with each other. I have shared what I wanted to say, though some responses will get a brief reply by me, or, if I find it interesting and something I can engage fully, as the foundation for another post. I have had many posts inspired or improved upon thanks to my readers.

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