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What is "Kingdom"?

At church we are coming to the end of a series in the gospel of Matthew on the "kingdom", arguably the key theme is Jesus' preaching.

Before embarking on this series, after many years in ministry, I had a working definition of "kingdom" which went something like this: "The kingdom of God/heaven is the saving rule or reign of God in the lives of people through the person of Jesus Christ." 

While there is much that is true in the working definition above, most particularly the centrality of Christ's person (without him there is no kingdom), I do now think this definition could be misleading in suggesting that the kingdom is now, when the consistent teaching of the Lord and his Apostles is that the kingdom is future; the "kingdom of God" is virtually synonymous with "the age to come". 

It is something of a commonplace that the kingdom is not a place. It might however be true to say that the kingdom *is* a time (namely the age to come). 

Now that does not mean that the kingdom/age to come has no impact on here and now. Christ's preaching proclaimed that the kingdom of God has approached (Matt 4). He also said, "But if I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has arrived among you." (Matt 12:28 NLT). In this vein, there is a phrase in Hebrews that speaks of those who have "tasted the powers of the age to come".

However, it also remains the case that "entering the kingdom" or "inheriting the kingdom" is something that is future. This is not only the teaching of the Lord in the gospels; it is also repeated in the teaching of the Apostles. When Jesus speaks of "... in the kingdom" he is always describing the age to come, and never our present experience of God's grace. This also casts new light on verses such as John 3:3 and Matthew 18:3. 

An interesting angle is the relationship between the church and the kingdom. A Christian brother recently noticed that Christ said, "I will build my church," not, "I will build my kingdom." In fact the latter terminology arguably does not appear and may not be accurate. What is being built in this age is Christ's church - an outpost of the kingdom/age to come. 

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