The disciples repeatedly asked Jesus when He was going to set up His Kingdom. I find that many of His disciples are still asking the same question. We look at current events and ask, “How much longer Lord?” Many conclude this will happen soon, even in our lifetime. Of course, every generation for the past century and a half has concluded the same thing. So, when will He set up His kingdom? What does it look like? And, why does that matter for us?
Let’s tackle the first question.
According to some teachers and theologians with whom I would agree, Jesus set up His kingdom. He declared early in His ministry, “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” The word used for “at hand” is eggizo”. The word means “extreme closeness, immediate imminence – even a presence (‘It is here’) because the moment of this coming happened (i.e. at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry)”(www.biblehub.com) According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, eggizo, when used by the writers of the gospels, refers to the “great turning point in world history…the coming of the Kingdom of God directly into the present.” The verb is in the indicative mood, indicating a fact or actual occurrence from the viewpoint of the speaker. It is also in the perfect tense which indicates a completed act. Jesus is stating a fact that the coming of the Kingdom is a completed act. Consider our modern use of the term “at hand”. If you are about to work on something and you want to check to be sure you have the materials at hand, what do you mean? It means the materials are available for use, not needing to be purchased or gotten at some point in the future. This is exactly what Jesus meant when He said the Kingdom of God is “at hand.”
Daniel prophesied that the Kingdom would be established during the Roman Empire when he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream that a rock cut from a mountain not made by hands crushed the empires of the world. This rock then became a mountain that filled the earth. The Kingdom of God was established when Jesus came and it will fill the earth. The kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of Jesus Christ(Rev. 11:15) and the increase of His government will not stall, nor decrease, nor end(Is. 9:7). It will be always increasing…advancing.
This would be different than the dispensational view, which is the new kid on the block as far as eschatology. Dispensationalists believe the kingdom has not come yet but it is in our future. According to them we are in the church age. Even the most committed dispensationalists will admit there is no biblical grounds for a church age. Jesus will do set up His Kingdom some time after He has raptured the church. The world will deteriorate and the church will decline. But, as I said, this is the new kid on the block. Dispensationalism was first introduced in the mid-1800s and didn’t become popular nor mainstream until about 75-100 years later.
There are two other views that are more orthodox, having been taught for centuries, even millennia. One, the restorational view, believes Jesus established His Kingdom and the early church was the glory days of the Kingdom. Then, when Constantine established Christianity as the religion of choice, ending persecution, the church went into serious decline. Since then, there are resurgences and declines but we are always seeking to restore what we once were. Because adherents to this viewpoint see Constantine’s acceptance of Christianity as the impetus for the church’s decline, many have come to view persecution as desirable, the primary means for maturity and growth through which the church will be restored to her glory days of the 1st several centuries.
The third view has been called the progressive view by some, or advancing. I’ve heard it referred to as “The Rising Tide” or “The Advancing Kingdom”. It is the belief that the Kingdom was established by Jesus and continues to grow, advancing throughout history, and will one day, as Daniel prophesied, fill the earth. This has been the traditional view of the church throughout history.
In Matthew 13, Jesus compared the Kingdom of heaven to a man who sowed good seed in his field. His enemy came and sowed weeds. If the Kingdom of Heaven was referring to a future time, how can the enemy plant weeds? The Kingdom of Heaven is here on the earth, the world is the field, and good seed has been planted. The enemy also planted weeds. In this same chapter, Jesus uses two other metaphors for the Kingdom of God. Leaven and the mustard seed. Leaven is put into the dough and it works its way through the entire lump. The mustard seed is the smallest seed yet grew to the largest tree.
Jesus used these pictures to teach the concept that the Kingdom starts how small and is ever expanding. Think about the evidence. On the Day of Pentecost, the believers number about 120. That day, 2000 were added to their number. A few days later, another several thousand. By about 100AD, it is estimated that 1 of every 360 people were believers. Today, 1 in 3 confess Christ. The Kingdom is here and it is growing. It is not in decline.
What about verses that speak of love growing cold, growing deception and such in the last days?
If the Kingdom He established was to grow, it needed a new wineskin…a new paradigm. Jesus also brought that new paradigm…the New Covenant. This new Kingdom could never expand if kept within the old wineskin of the Old Covenant. That Covenant must be destroyed if the New Covenant would be the law of the land within the Kingdom of God. In 70AD, Jerusalem was destroyed…completely. Every vestige of the Old Covenant and its system was obliterated. Throughout the New Testament, this was prophesied and warned about. When the writers of the New Testament warn of the last days, they are not referring to the last days of the Bride of Christ but to the last days of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is gone. The New Covenant is what we have. In this covenant, the church will grow and expand, shining throughout the world, bringing the people of the earth into the body. The light of this New Kingdom will grow brighter and darkness will diminish. And, the exciting thing is, He wants to partner with us to bring this about!
The Kingdom of God is not in our future, but in our present reality. It is here….it is fully functioning…it is available to all….NOW!!