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The Kingdom of God is Within
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ViaCrucis
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It's not simply my opinion though, this is the generally accepted position among New Testament exegetes, scholars, and theologians from across the entire Christian denominational spectrum.
In verse 21 Jesus is speaking to a group of Pharisees who demand of Him to know when the kingdom will come, to which He says it does not come with observation--because the kingdom is not what popular Jewish imagination and opinion was, a political revolution which would overthrow Roman rule and return sovereignty of the land to the Jewish people; the kingdom of God therefore can't be said to be "over there" or "over here", the kingdom had come and was coming in and through the person and work of God's Messiah. Immediately following this exchange Jesus then turns to His followers and gives them Luke's version of the Olivet Discourse.
St. Cyril of Alexandria saying, "Now it is only for the benefit of each individual that He says that which follows, For behold the kingdom of God is within you; that is, it rests with you and our own hearts to receive it. Tor every man who is justified by faith and the grace of God, and adorned with virtues, may obtain the kingdom of heaven." - Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea, Commentary On the Four Gospels, Volume III, Part 1
St. Gregory Nazianzus saying, "Or perhaps, the kingdom of God being within us, means that joy that is implanted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. For that is, as it were, the image and pledge of the everlasting joy with which in the world to come the souls of the saints rejoice." - ibid.
Ven. Bede saying, "Or the kingdom of God means that He Himself is placed in the midst of them, that is, reigning in their hearts by faith." -ibid.
The consistent teaching from the fathers is that the kingdom is associated with the work and person of Christ, Cyril speaks of it as our possession of God's grace by our justification through faith; Gregory speaks of it as the Spirit alive in us pointing us to that hope of blessedness in the future age, while Bede here uses the same language I have.
-CryptoLutheran
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I know. And they are entitled to theirs too.
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Dear bettercallpaul. Yes, the Kingdom of God is within us. In Matthew 22: 35-40: Jesus tells us: " The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: love thy neighbour as thyself." In verse 40, we are told: On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. God is LOVE, and God wants loving sons and daughters.
The Bible tells us: Give up our selfish wants, and start loving our brothers and sisters all around us.
In Matthew 7: 7-10: we are told: "ask and you shall receive." We keep asking for love and joy, then thank God and share all love and joy with all around us. God sees our loving and caring, and God will greatly Bless us. Let us try to be as loving and friendly as we like to be loved. Let us become the men and women which God wants. I say this with love, bettercallpaul. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.
The Bible tells us: Give up our selfish wants, and start loving our brothers and sisters all around us.
In Matthew 7: 7-10: we are told: "ask and you shall receive." We keep asking for love and joy, then thank God and share all love and joy with all around us. God sees our loving and caring, and God will greatly Bless us. Let us try to be as loving and friendly as we like to be loved. Let us become the men and women which God wants. I say this with love, bettercallpaul. Greetings from Emmy, your sister in Christ.
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God can work with individuals or groups. Philip was one of the original 12 disciples mentioned in all four Gospels and Acts. In Acts 8:26-40, he was sent by the Lord to travel down the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. There he found a eunuch from Ethiopia. The eunuch was a royal official employed by the Queen of Ethiopia. He was reading a Messianic passage from Isaiah. Philip preached the Gospel to the eunuch and baptized him. The Holy Spirit was working within each of the two men that day and was among them.
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PeaceJoyLove
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"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Where is the heart? Outside walking around?
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” His spirit is promised to come live within, cleansing our inward parts, right?
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." If the spirit isn't alive within us, then it is another kingdom that rules from the earth/dust realm, first Adam.
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RaymondG
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Jesus said to seek ye first the kingdom of God....then everything else will be added. Then he says that everyone who seeks finds.
If you are correct...the kingdom is somewhere outside. How is it that you find it?
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Translating "the Kingdom is in your midst" doesn't necessarily negate what Paul is saying, which is that God is immediately accessible to every human being.
I think its ironic that a Lutheran would argue with this, when the interiority of the Kingdom in the human heart was precisely Luther's emphasis. Of course Luther did not limit the Kingdom to the human heart ,it was emodied in sacramental symbols as well, but the interior emphasis is there. Certainly, the kingdom of God is not a political project in the usual sense.
Indeed, it was Rome that wanted to argue somehow it was the Kingdom, the Church was identical to the Kingdom. And this is precisely something Lutherans challenged, by distinguishing between the two.
I think its ironic that a Lutheran would argue with this, when the interiority of the Kingdom in the human heart was precisely Luther's emphasis. Of course Luther did not limit the Kingdom to the human heart ,it was emodied in sacramental symbols as well, but the interior emphasis is there. Certainly, the kingdom of God is not a political project in the usual sense.
Indeed, it was Rome that wanted to argue somehow it was the Kingdom, the Church was identical to the Kingdom. And this is precisely something Lutherans challenged, by distinguishing between the two.
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ViaCrucis
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My problem with treating the kingdom as an interior thing is when it becomes, "I can find the kingdom if I look to myself and inside myself" rather than in Jesus, in what Jesus was saying and doing, His death, resurrection, ascension, reigning, and coming again.
"When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.'
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'" - Luke 4:16-21
Jesus was preaching the breaking-in of God's kingdom, that is, the reality that God is King; that Kingly reality is present there in the Person of Jesus as God's Messiah, and as God Himself present. The kingdom isn't something that happens by violent revolution, the kingdom isn't a place we go to after we die, the kingdom isn't something we look for in ourselves: The kingdom is the reality that God is King in and through the Person of Jesus, His work, His death, resurrection, ascension; the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, through the Church, and ultimately in His glorious coming again as judge of the quick and the dead, and the fullness of the Age to Come. It is the reality that God is King, and God is King in Jesus, and it is Jesus who lives and reigns, in heaven and through His Church--not to the occupation of power, but through divine service in love, preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments, preaching forgiveness in Christ's name, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick, the poor, and the disenfranchised.
-CryptoLutheran
"When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.'
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, 'Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.'" - Luke 4:16-21
Jesus was preaching the breaking-in of God's kingdom, that is, the reality that God is King; that Kingly reality is present there in the Person of Jesus as God's Messiah, and as God Himself present. The kingdom isn't something that happens by violent revolution, the kingdom isn't a place we go to after we die, the kingdom isn't something we look for in ourselves: The kingdom is the reality that God is King in and through the Person of Jesus, His work, His death, resurrection, ascension; the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, through the Church, and ultimately in His glorious coming again as judge of the quick and the dead, and the fullness of the Age to Come. It is the reality that God is King, and God is King in Jesus, and it is Jesus who lives and reigns, in heaven and through His Church--not to the occupation of power, but through divine service in love, preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments, preaching forgiveness in Christ's name, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, caring for the sick, the poor, and the disenfranchised.
-CryptoLutheran
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I would be cautious here, equating God's reign with the Church and the sacraments is a serious mistake. God is bigger than religion. The whole thrust of mainline, and even Catholic, theology since WWII has been about opening our eyes to up what God is doing in the world, including other voices that the Church has historically marginalized. What the Church has excluded, God has not.
I notice you borrow alot from N.T. Wright's thought. He may be a good biblical scholar but he's not a very good theologian at all. The two are not synonymous.
The bit about service is important. But I don't see such service as being exclusive to a particular religious form or institution, or even necessarily to Christians. As Billy Graham said, heaven will have alot of people who simply love God.
I notice you borrow alot from N.T. Wright's thought. He may be a good biblical scholar but he's not a very good theologian at all. The two are not synonymous.
The bit about service is important. But I don't see such service as being exclusive to a particular religious form or institution, or even necessarily to Christians. As Billy Graham said, heaven will have alot of people who simply love God.
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The veil is torn.
What once was hidden has become available to all.
Abiding in Him (John chapter 15), we can remain, endure, make it.
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As I was away from the computer for a while, I remembered this post and was mulling it over. I have long understood that the original was saying "among" us.
It is no surprise that people would like it to mean "within", for we like to make ourselves look special or important. But when I think about it, I could teach how that it means "within" and give reasons for that teaching, but I don't believe that is correct. The kingdom Jesus was speaking about was what has been called "The Mediatorial Kingdom" in which Jesus (The King) will reign on earth, over the earth. There is also the "Universal Kingdom" in which God has always, and will always reign over the universe. The first is not some spiritual kingdom within us, as some have made it mean, but is a physical, visible, kingdom, which when Jesus was on the earth, was right there AMONG them being offered.
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ViaCrucis
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In what way is Christ in me? Do I look deep into myself and find Jesus, or do I trust in God's word that, because I have been justified by grace through faith, Christ lives in me through faith?
-CryptoLutheran
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And there is a truth to that, as we read in Matthew 25, "I was hungry...I was thirsty..."; because God in Christ has identified with the lowly, the poor, the hungry, and the powerless. And so we must see God in every person we meet for they bear the divine image--but inside of ourselves is not some divine spark that gives us unmediated access to the divine, that is found outside of ourselves.
If it were enough that we could look inside ourselves and discover the divine, then the Gospel is meaningless drivel.
-CryptoLutheran
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