In what sense is the kingdom of God present since His rule is active right now and in what sense does the kingdom of God await eschatological consummation? George Ladd attempts to provide some clarity to key concepts related to the Kingdom of God. He traces the OT roots of this unifying historical principle and then looks at its development in the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. The following abstracts from his book will provide some sense of his overall thesis.
The Consummation of the Kingdom:
The thesis of this book is that, for Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the dynamic rule of God which had invaded history in his own person and mission to bring men in the present age the blessings of the messianic age, and which would manifest itself yet again at the end of the age to bring this same messianic salvation to its consummation. We must now consider the nature of the eschatological consummation.
Three essential factors enter into Jesus’ view of the future as it is set forth in the Gospels:
- a historical perspective,
- an apocalyptic consummation,
- and an apparent emphasis on the imminence of the end.
These elements may be most vividly seen in the Olivet Discourse. . .
The tension between imminence and delay in the expectation of the end is characteristic of the entire biblical eschatology. . .
Among recent critics, C. E. B. Cranfield has seen this most clearly: “The clue to the meaning of the nearness of the End is the realization of the essential unity of God’s Saving Acts in Christ—the realization that the Events of the Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and Parousia are in a real sense one Event. The foreshortening, by which the Old Testament sees as one divine intervention in the future that which from the viewpoint of the New Testament writers is both past and future, is not only a visual illusion; for the distance actually brings out an essential unity, which is not so apparent from a position in between the Ascension and the Parousia.”
It is from this perspective that we are to understand the saying in Mark 9:1, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” This saying shares the same perspective as those statements by the prophets which announce a historical judgment in the immediate future but describe it in terms of the eschatological Day of the Lord (see pp. 64 ff.). It was the Day of the Lord, for God did act; and this action of God in history was an anticipation of the eschatological consummation. The Kingdom of God was near; it did manifest its power before Jesus’ disciples had all died. But it did not come without remainder; the consummation still lay in the indeterminate future. The substance of Jesus’ saying cannot be reduced to a simple calendric statement. “Jesus’ paradoxes are far too lively to be successfully caught and confined in so simple and rectilinear a strait-jacket.”
This perspective explains the exegetical difficulties of the Olivet Discourse. Probably the discourse in its original form involved an interweaving of the historical and the eschatological which the Gospels have reported with differing emphases. As is true with Isaiah 13 and the prophecy of Joel, it is difficult to say where the historical leaves off and the eschatological begins. In the Olivet Discourse, the historical is described in terms of the eschatological and the eschatological in terms of the historical. This perspective indeed creates difficulties which are perhaps insoluble for the modern exegete; but it can be understood and appreciated even if the texts cannot be dissected into neat chronological patterns. . .
The eschatological consummation of the Kingdom is inseparable from and dependent upon what God is doing in the historical person and mission of Jesus. . .
Conclusion:
The Kingdom of God means that God is King and acts in history to bring history to a divinely directed goal. Bowman is right in insisting that any biblical view of the Kingdom of God must recognize that God acts on the plane of history. . .
If God has acted in history in this Kingdom, he will bring history to his Kingdom. Christian faith “announces the Kingdom of God as the goal of history and the only hope of man’s redemption.”7 “ ‘The Kingdom of God’ describes the state of things after the Judgment as seen from the divine point of view. It is God’s sovereignty consummated by the annihilation of everything hostile to it.” “If there is no final victory of good over evil, the Kingdom of God becomes an empty dream.”8 The Christian gospel is concerned about mankind as well as about individual men. Its God is the Lord of history who acts in history and who will surely establish his Kingdom at the end of history. . .
In Jesus, God acted in history. The consummation of the Kingdom, although breaking into history, will itself be beyond history, for it will introduce a redeemed order whose actual character transcends both historical experience and realistic imagination. However, its coming is inseparable from what God has already done in history. Therefore, even though the goal of history is beyond history, it nevertheless means the redemption of history, when history is transformed into a new and glorious mode of existence. . .
The church, as has often been said, is a people who live “between the times.” They are caught up in a tension between the Kingdom of God and a sinful world, between the age to come and the present evil age. The church has experienced the victory of the Kingdom of God; and yet the church is, like other men, at the mercy of the powers of this world.22 The church is a symbol of hope—a proof that God has forsaken neither this age nor human history to the powers of evil. The Kingdom of God has created the church and continues to work in the world through the church. This very situation creates a severe tension—indeed, acute conflict; for the church is the focal point of the conflict between good and evil, God and Satan, until the end of the age. The church can never be at rest or take her ease but must always be the church in struggle and conflict, often persecuted, but sure of the ultimate victory.