Thinking about the Kingdom of God lately. It started off as a result of reading Sobrino’s Christology at the Crossroads, but it has long been in my mind, ever since I realised how much the early church, especially Paul, put its own stamp on the Gospel. The ‘Kingdom of God’ was the central platform of Jesus’ message, not himself. After the Resurrection this changed and Jesus himself became the message and the ‘Kingdom of God’ was relegated. This raises many fascinating points.
- What did Jesus mean by the K of G?
- How much did his ideas change as a result of the poor, or non-reception of his message?
- Was one of the reasons why the K of G was relegated post Resurrection because it carried too many Jewish connotations which limited its wider acceptance?
- Even though the criteria for belonging to the Kingdom were universal and humanitarian and not cultic.
- Did the Church in relegating the K of G and placing all emphasis on the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit lose something?
Whatever was meant at the time it is obvious that Jesus understood himself to be inaugurating a time of definitive change when God would be present in a new way, or better perhaps, there would be a sea change in our awareness of his presence. Some, influenced by OT prophecies, saw this presence as in terms of the definitive coming of God in the near future to bring the present state of things to an end and to establish his full and unimpeded rule over the world in general and Israel in particular. According to Meier* this was Jesus’ understanding. I think that Jesus’ understanding was more nuanced than this and that it changed as his mission progressed. I feel that the idea that the Kingdom represented God’s timeless or ever-present rule in daily life was very much to the fore in Jesus’ thinking. This comes out especially in the Beatitudes which do not make sense if the Kingdom is seen as the reversal of all unjust oppression and suffering. The Kingdom is present in the midst of suffering and injustice. The relevant verb each time is in the present tense, not the future – ‘Blessed are you’, not ‘will be’. Furthermore the poor in spirit possess the K of G now, even though they (assuming they are also those who are gentle, persecuted, etc.) will have to wait for some future time before their situation is redressed. It is clear the Kingdom is transcendent, transcending even death itself. It is not something which can be understood in sociological, political, or even psychological terms.
I am unhappy though with the terms malkut and basileia, which mean reign, or kingdom. Unhappy is probably the wrong word. In the context of his time it was no doubt the best that was on offer if Jesus was to get across his message. He used this term but he filled it out in his teaching – the parables, the Beatitudes and in his confrontations with the Pharisees and those who opposed him. I think that what he meant by it was that God was not just the transcendent creator but also the immanent abba, father. Especially that God was immanent.
[* John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. II, Bantam, Doubleday, Dell, p. 348ff.]