The Kingdom of God (1)

“‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’”(1:15)

For the time being, we will discuss “the kingdom of God” which Jesus said it is near. I am not sure it could be a week or a couple of weeks, or it could be a month, but I think I need enough time for that. There are two reasons. One is the fact that everything for Christianity is related with this kingdom of God directly, and the other is that the kingdom of God is so important but not understood enough in these days.

The kingdom of God is described in Greek Basileia tou Deu. It is alright to say simply “basileia”. From now on we will think about “basileia” from various kinds of viewpoints, but it is necessary to make it sure that Christianity totally depends upon the kingdom of God. Today’s text is saying that the kingdom of God is near. Maybe in Revelation it might be expressed that Jesus is knocking on the door. Christian faith and the gospels have the preposition that the kingdom of God is imminent. Every context in the New Testament has meaning just in front of this fact. If the fact of the imminent kingdom of God might be loose, the tension of the gospels will evaporate right away.

Nevertheless, the preaching podium does not take the topic of the kingdom of God. We are in the process of forgetting the kingdom of God. Instead, we pay more attention to growth of church as well as religious desire of Christians. It is a crisis to Christian faith to enlarge and reproduce the development of church and religious sensitivity with losing a cosmological horizon of the kingdom of God. But how many people do realize that this is a crisis? How many preachers and believers do feel this reality in which the kingdom of God is not preached at all as a crisis?

I would not explain in details why people could not realize this crisis as a crisis today. If we logically inquire into the reasons, it is possible for us to damage the basics of this writing. I would like to say shortly. Even though the kingdom of God is not proclaimed, but if we do not have any sense of crisis, it is because we don’t have any curiosity about the kingdom of God. Not having curiosity means not knowing the kingdom of God.

In church environment we are more used to the heaven, that is heavenly sphere, than to the kingdom of God. Even the New Testament sometimes differentiates the kingdom of God from the heaven. For example, in the beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 verse 3, the Greek “Basileia tou ouranon” is used for the meaning of the heavenly kingdom. But there is no definite difference between these two words, regarding that ancient people use these words of heaven and God with the same meaning.

In the practical sense at church, “the heaven” was understood as next stage after life in here. Even there are some people who insist that in the heaven there must be distinction between one with a golden crown and the other with a hat made of dog’s hair. This shows that the heaven is understood like an insurance policy of old age. If there is no heaven like that after death, many people might leave from the church. I don’t mean that there is no life after we die. That could be another topic, and now I am telling you the basic reality why the kingdom of God is misunderstood.
Maybe someone who is a little bit impatient might ask like this. Putting aside the question whether it could be the kingdom of God or the heaven, does the kingdom of God exist or not? Considering Jesus’ saying that the kingdom of God is near”, definitely it does exist. But it does not exist according to the dimension of time and space, as I explained the misuse of the lexicon of heaven. Just like the Garden of Eden in Genesis or the holy city the New Jerusalem, it is not the place with all kinds of beautiful things with perfect welfare system. Basileia could be beyond our description with our imagination. But it is clear that it is very imminent.

From tomorrow we would discuss this problem in more details. Without any prejudice I’ll try to get closer into the fact. But do not expect too much. I don’t know anything that much. Probably I think I have a little bit more, or almost not much being meaningful I could describe a theological frame of the kingdom of God. In the bottom of what we should talk, it must be the words of Jesus “the kingdom of God is near”.

Lord, I like to listen to spiritual message of your words “the kingdom of God is near”. Amen!