Does anyone know what the Kingdom of God is?

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:30 pm by Roger E. Olson

Does anyone know what the Kingdom of God is? 2011-08-18T19:30:50-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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One of my pet peeves is the fact that most Christian lay people and even many pastors don’t seem to know what they think the “Kingdom of God” means or have no idea what the Bible really says about it and yet use the phrase all the time.

A couple years ago I taught every adult Sunday School class in my church a series on the Kingdom of God. I began by asking these good, educated, thoughtful folks what they thought it meant. They brainstormed. A large variety of answers emerged with no real consensus. Eventually some people said things like: heaven, the church, Jesus living in my heart, wherever God’s will is being done.

Then I had them sing quite a few hymns and gospel songs about the Kingdom of God: I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord, We’ve A Story to Tell to the Nations, He Will Set Up His Kingdom within You (a Dottie Rambo song), When the Whole World Lives for Jesus, The King is Coming (Gaither), etc., etc. What emerges from such an exercise is a blooming, buzzing confusion of images of the Kingdom of God. No wonder people are confused! Many Christian churches sing hymns and songs that express totally conflicting accounts of the Kingdom of God.

Then I had them read and discuss dozens of Scripture passages about God’s rule and reign, God’s Kingdom, the “thousand years,” etc., etc. What they realized was that it is no wonder hymns and songs express different views of the Kingdom of God! And it’s no wonder Christians are confused and bewildered about what that means. The diversity of Scriptural references about it is staggering: the Kingdom of God is “within” or “among” you (Jesus), the Kingdom of God will be handed over by Jesus to the Father (Paul), the Kingdom of God will be an earthly utopia (some Old Testament prophets), the Kingdom of God grows, the Kingdom of God comes suddenly, the Kingdom of God is taken by force, the Kingdom of God is brought by Jesus at his second coming, etc., etc.

One of the best books on this subject is Models of the Kingdom by Howard Snyder that surveys all the major options for picturing the Kingdom of God: the institutional church (Rome), the alternative community (Anabaptist), the future reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years (premillennial), the great future Christianized world (postmillennial), etc., etc.

Of course, many people’s first response to all this is that the Kingdom of God must be “all of the above.” But that doesn’t work because some of the images seem flatly to contradict each other. Another common response is that the Kingdom of God is anywhere God’s will is being done. But that seems too general and vague to fit some portions of Scripture.

I ended my series on the Kingdom of God using George Eldon Ladd’s “already but not yet” paradox and introducing these fine adult Sunday School students to his historic premillennialism. I met some resistance to that. Many Christians don’t really like any of the concrete models of the Kingdom but don’t know what to think of it. So, we continue to use the phrase all the time without any clear idea of what it means.

I think one of a pastor’s main jobs, as it were, is to teach his or her congregants the meaning of such crucial biblical and Christian concepts. I certainly grew up knowing what our church believed about the Kingdom of God. There was no ambiguity about it. The Kingdom of God meant to us that future time on earth after Jesus returns when “Satan will be bound a thousand years, we’ll have no tempter then….” (words from a gospel song that was in our hymnal and we sang often). Later on, especially during seminary, I began to think differently about the Kingdom of God without entirely discarding that idea of it. I was influenced by George Eldon Ladd and later by Jurgen Moltmann–both historic premillennialists (like the earliest church fathers). (Some of you may question whether Moltmann is a premillennialist, but I had the chance to ask him and he affirmed it while rejecting apocalypticism. He believes in a future “new appearing” of Jesus Christ to usher in the “great Sabbath of God’s glory” on earth and it’s clear that for him this is not just some ethereal heaven but this world socially transformed.)

I worry that “Kingdom of God” is like many good biblical-theological concepts in contemporary Christianity–often used but rarely understood in any concrete way. “Kingdom of God” seems to be a warm, fuzzy idea without any real content. Other similar, usually emotive but empty ideas include God’s sovereignty, being filled with the Holy Spirit, Christian community, grace and faith, and many more.

I would like to see every Christian church have some idea what it believes about these important biblical and theological concepts. That doesn’t mean every person in the congregation has to agree one hundred percent, but it means there should be some thick description of them from the pulpits and lecterns.

And I would like those who plan worship and choose hymns to think theologically about the words and pass over ones that communicate faulty theological ideas such as the popular new hymn Bring Forth the Kingdom of God. I cannot find anything in Scripture about bringing forth the Kingdom of God except through prayer (“They kingdom come….”) We are to do Kingdom work, but that’s not the same as bringing forth the Kingdom of God.

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