Folks seem to be saying that the kingdom arising from the stone not made by mans hands, is the Millennial kingdom. Is that what all dispensationalists are saying or only a few? I notice Clarence Larkin in one of his old diagrams seems to say that.
So, next question please: Why does John and Jesus say, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” if in fact it was to be 2000 year away?
What is the resolution between the initiation of the kingdom of God that was at hand in Matthew 3:2 and Mark 1:15 and its future consummation conveyed in 1 Corinthians 15:50? There can be little doubt that the consummate security of the age to come has a footing in the present through us, who genuinely avow Christ. The NT states we are delivered from the power of the prince of this world (John 16:11), Satan, through Christ, which also conveys the kingdom of God has come to fruition.
We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you…. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:3, 12-14)
Christ proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God with his ability to cast out demons.
But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. (Matthew 12:28)
Christ’s proclamation that the kingdom of God was at hand (Matthew 3:2; Mark 1:15; Luke 10:9) and its subsequent arrival impart the underpinning of the consummate attributes of the age to come. The age to come is intruding into the dominion of Satan through the redemption of Christ and his mediation. As covenantalist Meredith G. Kline expressed it,
the Covenant of Redemption all along the line of its administration, more profoundly in the New Testament but already in the Old Testament, is a coming of the Spirit, an intrusion of the power, principles, and reality of the consummation into the period of delay.1
Kline labels his doctrine, eschatological intrusion.
Now the consummation that Kline wrote about is the age to come, and the phrase the kingdom of God is also placed in this future age by Christ’s testimony.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7:21-23)
Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. (Mark 14:25)
And as they heard these things, he added and spake a parable, because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear. He said therefore, A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. (Luke 19:11-12)
Again, we can take great solace in the NT evidence that the eschatological kingdom of God establishes absolute peace, security, the power, and principles of Christ in temporal as well as in a spiritual sense, which are now merely intruding into the dominion of Satan. This intrusion is by Providence. In other words, the teleological goal of Providence is to end of the ordained worldly powers of God of this age and to establish Christ’s consummate reign in the age to come. The early church’s failure to grasp the concept that the consummate age was intruding into this age led the allegorists to disdain Chiliasm. As stated above, this controversy ended with the legalization of the Christian religion by Constantine, and acceptance of the allegorical interpretation supplanted Chiliasm. This controversy has reared its head again in comparatively recent times in such doctrines of Amillennialism, Postmillennialism, and Premillennialism. Kline’s perception of eschatological intrusion is on the right track, but it is much simpler than his take on the issue.
When Christ proclaimed the kingdom was at hand, he was utilizing classical or general prophecy, specifically what is termed prophetic telescoping today, which historicist Jon Paulien defines,
It was argued that general prophecy, because of its dual dimensions, may at times be susceptible to dual fulfillments or foci where local and contemporary perspectives are mixed with a universal, future perspective.2
Classic prophecy expresses imminence in the same context with the distant eschatological consummation, without chronological notification within the context, which exposes the folly of the theory of preterism. Preterism hitches their theory on the imminence in classic prophecies, such as the Olivet Discourse, but fails to grasp the principle of dual fulfillment in the method and account for future fulfillment. The Old Testament’s typical use of the “Day of the Lord” and the New Testament’s prophecy of a future “Day of the Lord” (Zephaniah 1:7; 1 Thessalonians 5:2) emphasizes this principle. Classic prophecy is the method Christ used when he prophesied the kingdom of God was at hand. In support, Christ testified that Elijah must precede the restoration of all things but that he had already come in the person of John the Baptist.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. (Matthew 17:10-13)
Christ interprets the phenomenon of Elijah as having the dual foci that Paulien related, “where local and contemporary perspectives are mixed with a universal, future perspective.” Additional support is in Christ’s rendering of Isaiah 61.
And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee… and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue… and stood up for to read… The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. (Luke 4:14, 16-21)
Christ fell short of confirming the “day of vengeance of our God” in Isaiah 61:2, and the only tenable explanation is that it is held in abeyance until the consummation of the kingdom of God (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). In the absolute sense, “deliverance to the captives” is a delivery from our enemies on the day of vengeance, when the wicked are vanquished (Matthew 13:38; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; Revelation 18:4-5). In eschatological intrusion, deliverance is from sin and the second death (Romans 6:14; Hebrews 9:25; Revelation 20:11-15). The “recovering of sight” in the absolute sense is common in the age to come (1 Corinthian 15:52-53), while by the eschatological intrusion sense, it is a miracle (Matthew 9:30; John 9:11). Being “set at liberty” in the age to come ends all oppression (Romans 8:18-23), in the Providential sense, it is peace in spite of oppression or adversity (2 Corinthians 8:4-9; Philippians 4:12-13). Christ expressed imminence and fulfillment of each aspect in what Isaiah prophesied, except for the “day of vengeance of our God;” that day is held in abeyance until Christ returns. These aspects of the eschatological kingdom are intruding into Satan’s domain through Christ’s Providence until he consummates them at his return.
There is one other issue concerning the eschatological intrusion of the kingdom to come that must be addressed; was Christ's Providential intrusion of his Church into Satan's domain prophesied? If it was, then the notion that Christ established the promised Messianic kingdom, the stone kingdom of Daniel 2, at the first advent is erroneous. The parables in Matthew 13 concerning “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” reveal this eschatological intrusion. One of the parables is explicit in revealing this intrusion.
Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. (Matthew 13:24-25)
Christ interprets the illustration later in the chapter as God sowing or scattering his elect people throughout the world to produce a good harvest of souls. The command to go “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) is this sowing. Jeremiah, Hosea, and Zechariah’s prophecies are the source of the parable.
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 31:27-28)
And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God. (Hosea 2:23)
And they of Ephraim shall be like a mighty man, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine: yea, their children shall see it, and be glad; their heart shall rejoice in the LORD. I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them: and they shall increase as they have increased. And I will sow them among the people: and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again. (Zechariah 10:7-9)
In a subsequent verse of Jeremiah, within the context, he reveals this day as the day God makes a New Covenant with Israel and Judah.
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. (Jeremiah 31:31-33)
When the Romans scattered the remnant of Jews who avowed Christ and the elect descendants of the lost tribes, Israel/Ephraim, received the gospel (1 Peter 1:1-2), the prophecies mentioned above and the mysterious kingdom of God/heaven became the eschatological intrusion into Satan’s domain. The nations to which the elect remnant of Israel migrated fulfilled the kingdom that was at hand, while in classic prophetic style, the prophecy in Jeremiah 31:34, which ends the need to preach because everyone knows the Lord, was held in abeyance. Christ did not come to establish the Messianic kingdom, as Covenantalism and dispensationalism maintain. The first advent was intended to deliver the elect of Israel from sin and the second death through Christ’s sacrifice and the establishment of the NC, and then scatter the house of Israel throughout the world to gather in the gentiles. The Covenantalist and dispensationalist have failed to grasp that it was the second advent in which God intended to gather Israel to receive their inheritance, and establish the stone kingdom of Daniel 2, which is prophesied in Jeremiah, below (Isaiah 14:1, 27:12-13, 43:5-6, 65:8-10; Ezekiel 34:13, 36:24, 37:25; 39:28; Zephaniah 3:20; Amos 9:14-15).
Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land. (Jeremiah 23:5-8)
The Hebraic festivals foreshadowed the two advents; the spring festivals foreshadowed the first advent, and autumnal festivals foreshadowed the gathering of Israel from their sowing at the second advent. The seven churches in the Revelation represent the seven months between the spring and fall festivals, which is substantiated in
Thy Kingdom Come: Re-evaluation of the Historicist’s Interpretation of the Revelation, by Marsue and Jerry Huerta.
[1] Meredith G. Kline,
The Structure of Biblical Authority, Wipf & Stock Pub; 2nd ed. edition (November 1, 1997), 156.
[2] Jon Paulien, “The End of Historicism? Reflections on the Adventist Approach to Biblical Apocalyptic—Part One,”
Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 14/2 (Fall 2003), 15–43.
