Introduction:
The
Centrality of the idea of the Kingdom of God (or in Mathew, the Kingdom of
Heaven) in the teaching of Jesus is all
beyond question: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand’
(Mark 1:15); But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the
Kingdom of God has come upon you (Luke 11:20); ‘……the Kingdom of God is in the
midst of you (Luke 17:21);…… know that when you see these things talking place,
you know that the Kingdom of God is near’ (Luke 21:31). The kingly rule of God
is certainly present in the person of the King-Messiah; but it will be fully
manifested only at the end of time.
The
tension between the present (‘already now’) and further (‘not yet’) aspects of
the Kingdom has been reflected in almost every period of Christian history.
Often the tendency has been to opt for the one rather than the other. Often,
too, the use of the term ‘the Kingdom of God’ has been a means of speaking of a
Christian Theology of history.
THE EARLY CHURCH EXPECTATIONS
KINGDOM OF GOD:
The
early Church expected the final manifestation of the Kingdom in the future (cf.
Mark 9:1); but as this original hope waned, the kingdom came to be identified
either with the visible church itself, or with the rule of Christ over the
individual believers. It was in opposition to the former interpretation that
the Reformers stressed that the kingdom is not identical divine grace, while
Galvin saw it as in part embodied in a theocratic society, in the establishment
of which individual might play an active past under God. There were the seeds
here of later controversy among Protestants.
The
point at issue was whether individual Christians might work toward the coming
of the kingdom, or whether it remains wholly in God’s hands as a gift of grace.
Pietists and Evangelical linked ‘the extension of the Kingdom’ with
evangelistic and missionary work (cf. Matt. 24:14), blessing every converts to
be a new citizen of the kingdom of Christ. A further theological elements was
introduced by Kant, Sehleimacher and Ritsehl, who saw the kingdom as the redm
of ideal human relations on earth, and
therefore as an ideal Christian Society. This opened the way a secularization
of the kingdom idea in terms of nation of progress, development, evolution and
material prosperity. This dominated
liberal theology down to the 1930’s. In the USA the ‘social Gospel’ was very
largely a practical kingdom theology.
CRITICALISM ISSUES OF KINGDOM OF
GOD:
Beginning
in about 1900 German Lutheran theologian criticized this ‘Anglo Saxon’
Calvinish view of the kingdom bitterly and often. These reason were partly
political and partly theological. Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzr and others
emphasized that the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ view was a fruit of the Enlightenment and not
of the Bible, and stressed the eschatological aspect of the teaching of Jesus.
At first was mainly a historical exercise, but the disasters of the letter was
years (post-1917) for Germany’s part gave force to eschatological
interpretation over against evolutionary idealism. Between the wars there were
repeated confrontation on this issue. Beginning at the Stockholm ‘life and
Work’ conference of 1925. During the 1930’s the eschatological interpretation
was further strengthened by the progressive collapse of idealism, by economic
crisis, by the witness of dialectical and non-orthodox theologians and by the
findings of ‘biblical theology’. However
, the notion of ‘bringing in the kingdom’ survived in liberal circle, and in
the popular piety, chiefly in the English-speaking world. But by the latter
1950’s and 1960’s virtually the only acceptable interpretation of the kingdom
of God among Protestant scholars was eschatological in character.
CHARACTERIZED SINCE THE MID
1960’S:
Since
the Mid 1960’s, however, the notion of the kingdom of God as an ideal society,
characterized by quality, justice and truth, has once more been gaining ground,
partly due to a fresh injection of ideas from the direction of
religio-political socialism. This newer form of kingdom theology is closely
allied to various theologies of liberation though it has deep roots in a
tradition of Christian socialism reading back at least to the mid-ninth
century. It has been expressed repeatedly in recent years not least at the
Melbourne ‘Your Kingdom Come’ conference of 1980. As in earlier phase, this
latest wave of socio-ethical kingdom theology has aroused opposition from
Conservative Evangelical and (Lutheran) confessional group.
CHRISTIAN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE
KINGDOM OF GOD:
In
evaluating Christian interpretation of the kingdom of God, much depends on what
a particular age or school of though has come to regard as the antithesis of
the kingdom, since each interpretation has emerged in opposition to a manifest evil ranging all
the way from slavery in the nineteenth Century to transnational companies in
the late twentieth. Conservative still tend to regard the kingdom in its
individual and future aspects, liberals in its corporate and present aspects.
Thus although the words ‘the kingdom of God’ remain constant, these content has
varied greatly. Often that content has been determined as much by sociological
and political as by biblical considerations.
In
recent Christian history, the words ‘the kingdom of God’ have been used
repeatedly to provide biblical justification for programmes of social renewal.
How far these programme are related to anything which Jesus may have meant by
these words remains a highly controversial issue in which there is nothing
approaching a concusses. It is perhaps not surprising, there, therefore, that
no historian of Theological ideas has yet attempted a comprehensive account of
all the varieties of ‘kingdom ‘ interpretation in Christian theological
writing. Even the best existing literature remains as a rule silent on the
wider socio-political issue involved.
Books consulted:
1. J. Bright: The Kingdom of God in Bible
and Church, 1955
2. C.H. Dodd: The Parables of the Kingdom
3. G. Lundstrom: The Kingdom of God in the
Teaching of Jesus ET 1963
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