When we are reading the Bible, one of the language barriers that exists between our age and that of the biblical authors is the language of kings and kingdoms. This would not have been a barrier for most people throughout history. It was not until the very late part of the modern era that democracies have fully become the norm — or at least, the norm in our heads, even if not in fact. Besides, what images do come into people’s minds is typically of a dark backdrop where those who ride on horses are always defending castles from the danger of dragons and wizards as much as of invading hordes.

We moderns have far more superstitions about kingdoms than probably existed in the genuine articles. And yet we are drawn to such imagery because it is our native land. The present mad dash to global markets and global governance which promise a shared world of values in fact flattens any real meaning. Its endless web of information and elite-policed social networking multiplies cynicism with ignorance, fragmenting more people into warring tribes than ever before. Now more than ever, we long for a country that can never be taken away, where pain and suffering is no more, and in which all are on the friendliest terms with the King and with everyone else. We seldom think about how “gospel of the kingdom” (Mat. 4:23) means precisely what it says when it shows up in Scripture.

The Problem of Defining the Kingdom

I think all Christians agree that the kingdom of God is a big concept. That God’s kingdom will be uncontested and rule over all things in the eternal state of the blessed — this too must be considered a shared Christian doctrine. To be a believer in Christ at all is to have this hope. It is when we step back into our own age that disagreements over the topography and trajectories and timetables of the kingdom begin. Even all of those terms I just used exist somewhere between metaphor and the literal state of things. 

But since we have to start somewhere, let me offer this simple definition.

Most basically, the kingdom of God is the whole of His dominion — both the scope and the exercise of that rule.

Right away, questions emerge. Would not God’s dominion be over everything? “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). This total view of God’s kingdom just follows from a basic implication of various divine attributes, like His sovereignty, omnipotence, and omnipresence. All that exists by virtue of creation is thus a sphere of his kingdom, and everyone who lives is subject to its rule.

Yet we understand that there is greater specificity. If we don’t, we soon will come to see that as we run into all kinds of passages that speak of God’s kingdom as located, so to speak, in heaven (Ps. 103:19), or as a kin to Israel (1 Sam. 15:28), or to that rule out of Mount Zion (Isa. 2:3), or that which is promised to the Messiah (Dan. 7:14), or even in the Gospels where it is linked to salvation (Mat. 13:44) and the proclamation of the gospel (Mk. 1:15).  

Some may think it is equal to the church. However, kingdom and church are not logically co-extensive. They are not strict synonyms. On the other hand, the church is the most central manifestation of Christ’s kingdom in this age. 

The Problem of Anticipating the Kingdom

Speaking of “this age” versus an “age to come,” there are also confusions over the timetables of the kingdom. And confusions can exist from the vantage point of either age. One could ask: “If Christ is now ascended to his throne and defeated the devil, how come it doesn’t look like it down here?” Or else one could ask, “If the kingdom is described as a place of universal peace and righteousness, such that flesh and blood cannot inherit it, in what sense does it exist at all until the end?”  

The German theologian Oscar Cullmann devised an analogy to explain how Jesus’ prophecies could be fulfilled in two stages. Just as the Allied Invasion of Normandy on D-Day signaled the final victory of WWII, so the First Advent of Jesus signaled the kingdom coming in power and glory. Although the seeds of this concept were already in biblical theologians like Geerhardus Vos, it was Herman Ridderbos who completed this idea with the corresponding concepts of the “already” and the “not yet.” The kingdom in the First Coming was its inauguration, whereas the Second Coming brings its consummation. Answering this question goes a long way toward dealing with the parallel problem of who runs the world (God or Satan); not to mention the more immediate matters of why sin, sickness, and death still assail us if Christ’s work is perfect.  

The Problem of Counting the Kingdom

Is there one kingdom or two? If we understand God’s kingdom as his whole reign and rule over all that is his, then we would have to conclude that all is in his kingdom. To some, this seems to make it straightforward that there is only one such kingdom. However, because sin entered the world, there is another sense in which (in this age) we have to take seriously the language of “two kingdoms.” Augustine spoke of a heavenly and earthly city, each progressing forward in history toward the end. We can see such a duality and even kingdoms in conflict from Genesis 3:15 down to Revelation 20. 

While Augustine’s City of God spoke of the conflict between two rival forces in an ultimate battle of good and evil, the language of “two kingdoms” has also been used to draw boundaries between the sacred and secular as to spheres of activity. As a parallel to this, the church (with its keys) and the state (with its sword) as institutions are spoken of as these two kingdoms. Aside from the fact that this was not quite what Augustine was talking about, such a conceptual shift can marginalize (and even demonize) Christian involvement various parts of secular life. It sets up cheap answers to already shallow questions of method: “Do we advance the kingdom by politics or evangelism?”

Whether we have inherited a basically sound or unsound way of viewing this overlap of the one and the two, it forces us to think hard about how all of the other doctrines of the Christian faith come to bear on the sense in which we are under Christ as the only rightful, final King, and in what sense Jesus has delegated authority to officers in various institutions in this age. Most pressing on our souls, how do we interact with the elements of the kingdom of God and (to the extent it can be said) the kingdoms of men, without wrongly desiring a shadow kingdom, or else, in fear of that, without shrinking back from honoring King Jesus on the temporary stage?