THE GOSPEL-STORY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1

The Gospel-Story of the Kingdom of God

Greggory J. Hampton

Judson University

January 14th, 2019

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The Gospel-Story of the Kingdom of God

The kingdom of God is among the most fundamentally misunderstood doctrines of

Christianity. It could go without saying, but will be mentioned here, that many, if not the great

majority of Christians, do not have a strong concept of what the kingdom of God is or is not. Upon

hearing the phrase “kingdom of God,” the average church-going Christian might very well ask,

“What is the kingdom of God?” They might wonder if it is something that arrived rather suddenly

with Jesus in the first century, and may never consider whether both the old and new testaments of

scripture have something to teach us of this mysterious realm. With a great spade of digging we

may get to slightly deeper and dirt-covered questions. Of course, if the average church-going

Christian would only ask these questions with a great bit of guiding, are they after all, important

questions to ask? I would state, for one to attend the services of a church for years long and not

find one’s self asking these questions is tantamount to diving deep under the surface of Lake

Superior without wondering if one might need further oxygen resources to survive. With this

weight, I propose, and intend to support that, the gospel-story of the kingdom of God is the good

news announcement that Jesus is king, and that his kingdom, once experienced with only

occasional heavenly in-breaking, is now a permanently present potential within the church, to be

desired by his followers in this present age, and to be perfectly and fully revealed in all of creation

(or re-creation) upon Jesus’ triumphant return.

Let us begin with ‘kingdom.’ What kingdom? We are not accustomed to thinking of

kingdoms. Today, the most common references to kingdom might be The UK (United Kingdom)

and Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. And when one of these references to kingdom is

fictional, and the other has a royal family by name, but not by rule, these modern examples only

serve to erode our concept of kingdom. However foreign the concept of kingdom is to us today,
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kingdom was paramount in nearly every other era, not least, the era(s) of the biblical writings. If

we scan the old and new testaments of the bible we find no less than 45 kings related to the Israelite

people, not to mention the kings and kingdoms outside of Abraham’s descendants. Throughout the

biblical writings, kingdom was important. And this is to say, for as long as humans have been,

kingdoms have been important. McKnight (2014) lays out multiple views of the gospel and

kingdom, all of which begin at creation, (p. 23). It follows, that from the beginning, God’s desire

was and has been to be the king of all creation, not only in God’s own ‘mind’ or view, but in

creation’s consciousness, full awareness, and actions. But this was not the resulting history we find

in humankind. Stanley Grenz (1996) states, “humans have rejected the kingship of the Creator and

have erected an enclave of rebellion in which another—Satan—appears to reign” (p. 211). Tim

Keller (2012) takes it further saying, “we are, therefore, exiles and aliens here. Why? Because the

human race turned from God to live for itself; our first parents were turned out of the garden of

God and banished from the face of God, in whose presence is our true home” (p. 41).

Humankind’s true home is in God’s kingdom, choosing his kingship. When McKnight

introduced his ABA concept of the gospel story, we see God’s desire, not to be a cruel king, but to

share this good earth as a good king, in no way less than sharing his rule with us, leading us to rule

the world as he rules. But McKnight (2014) continues, “we learn from YHWH that Israel doesn’t

want to rule for God in this world but wants to be like the world and rule like God” (p. 30). In

other words, Grenz, Keller, and McKnight’s answer to “what kingdom?” is, the kingdom that God

has always intended, that we rejected, even discarded, that must now be reintroduced in Jesus. And

so, this new kingdom is the old kingdom, reintroduced. Peterson (2007), as he so consistently did,

says it plainly, “Jesus launched his public ministry by saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the
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kingdom of God has come near’ (Mark 1:15). Time's up, we're inaugurating a new government.

Kingdom” (p. 202).

Before I go further into what this kingdom is, I may need to answer another burning

question. If the gospel-story of the kingdom of God is the good news announcement that Jesus is

king, what do I mean when I say Jesus is king? I mean that Jesus is king in the simplest and yet

grandest form possible. In the smallest way in which one, sovereign over a geographical area, and

followed by subjects, is king, Jesus is king. But, of course, Jesus isn’t seeking to be a king among

other kings, but the only king. According to Hauerwas & Willmon (1989), Jesus taught that his

kingdom now “brought an end to other kingdoms” (p. 87). Many kings in history hoped to be the

one and only king, in fact, Jesus was born into an era of emperors hoping this very thing. But

unlike all others, Jesus is now, according to his own teaching, the one and only king. And he is

king in a way no other has been able to be king, because Jesus not only declared it so, but in action,

he liberates us from all other ruling powers holding us under other kings, Satan, or otherwise.

Keller (2012) writes:

As Romans 1:25 tells us, whatever we worship we serve, and since we all must worship

something, we are enslaved to various forces and powers in this world. The search for a

true leader, judge, and king absorbs much of the history of God's people (see Deut. 17:14-

20; 2 Sam 7). None of these leaders fully succeed in protecting the people from falling into

idolatry, servitude, and exile. (p. 43)

There is no comparison between the kind of king Jesus is, and the kinds of kings we have

lowered ourselves to follow under. Keller (2012) continues, “Jesus' kingship is not like human

kingships, for it wins influence through suffering service, not coercive power” (p. 43). And because

Jesus is a king like no other, we cannot follow him like any other. Keller (2012) closes this thought
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saying, “we enter it not through strength but through the weakness of repentance and the new birth

(John 3) and becoming like a child (Matt 18:3-4)” (p. 43). I also believe, Jesus, being king, he is

an all-in-one king. You’ve heard the adage, “God broke the mold when he made you.” The good

news proclamation that Jesus is king is that he is breaking every king-mold. McKnight (2011), in

the King Jesus Gospel alludes to this all-in-oneness characteristic of his kingship, writing, “the

gospel Story of Jesus Christ is a story about Jesus as Messiah, Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Savior, and

Jesus as Son” (p. 55). Jesus is king in every way (worth being king).

There is one more question to clarify before diving back into the nature of this kingdom.

Why is Jesus and his kingdom good news? While all analogies have their shortcomings, imagine

you and your family had for generations, for hundreds of years, been the proprietors of a bread

bakery. Now imagine the world around you decided the gluten in your bread was dangerous,

something in your bread is bad. Suddenly, your bread is out. In this scenario, you feel great loss at

your business ending, slowing, or having to make major changes to compete. But you are not the

only one at a loss. The bread lover loses as well. The bread-baker and the bread-eater both have

had their worlds turned over.

“Good news” is finding, deep in the archives of your family’s records, an original recipe,

shelved at one time in haste by a money-hungry relative in favor of an easier and cheaper recipe,

but now it is revealed to be both delicious and free from gut-wrenching forms of gluten. Yes! You

are pleased to be in the position you have always longed to be, a provider of bread. The bread-

eater is also ecstatic there has been found a way to eat bread without the bad. The good news

announcement of the kingdom of God and that Jesus is king is like this: there has been found a

kingdom, an original way, a way left behind in haste in favor of lesser ways, that meets and exceeds

all needs humans might ever have. This is good news on the lips of the king, and good news in the
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ear of those living in or on the edge of the kingdom. And it is supremely good news that Jesus is

king because Jesus crashes down the kings of evil ruling, welcoming us to embrace the redemption

his kingdom brings. He pulls us out from under every evil we have dumbly served. Ladd (1959),

says it best, asking and answering:

What is the Gospel of the Kingdom? What means the announcement that the Kingdom of

God has come near? It is this: that God is now acting among men to deliver them from

bondage to Satan. It is the announcement that God, in the person of Christ, is doing

something—if you please, is attacking the very kingdom of Satan himself. (p. 47)

To the one that did not know, or now realizes that they are the subject of an evil kingdom,

there is no better news than to hear you no longer must stay and serve under evil. But what is to

replace these fallen kingdoms? It is replaced with a permanently present potential within the church.

I have stated that this kingdom, now come, was once experienced with only occasional

heavenly in-breaking, but is now a permanently present potential within the church. In order to

flesh this out, I have to bring to the front one of Jesus’ key teachings. When Jesus taught his

disciples to pray, he told them to say, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Luke 12:2-4).

There is in Jesus’ teaching an expectation that we seek, hope for, and aim to live out what God

wills here on earth as God wills in heaven. What is happening in heaven, how things happen in

heaven, are meant to be hoped for here. And when God’s will is effectively lived into this world,

this is what we might call in-breaking. And this is where I will spend a lot of time.

A key aspect of the kingdom of God, is not only that it once was (McKnight’s A), that it

was rejected (McKnight’s B), and reinstated, reintroduced, or reinvented in Jesus (McKnight’s A

revisited). But rather, building on McKnight’s (2014) concept of ‘A revisited,’ it is that his

heavenly reality was never lessened or altered by human rejection. On earth? Yes. In heaven? No.
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When the first humans left the garden, God’s kingdom reality did not end. No, God’s will in heaven

has always been just that, his will, perfect, and realized in its fullness there. But his hope has always

been that this kingdom not stay only in the heavenly realm, but find its way progressively more

into this earth. Jesus teaches his disciples to ask the Father that what he wills in heaven, might also

be done here on earth, because what is happening there can actually happen here. It is not wishful

thinking on the part of Jesus, or empty prayers on the part of the believer. What do I mean?

Examining old and new testament scripture examples of in-breaking we see a kind of

mirroring where events of heavenly in-breaking seem to repeat as Jesus inaugurates this new/old

kingdom. I’ll begin with Abraham. Genesis 18 tells us the LORD appeared to Abraham, in the

manifestation of three “men” standing nearby. In this encounter we are led to believe these three

men are in some form, God, or angels of God. In some way here, heaven has broken into earth.

And what is the purpose of this in-breaking? It is to tell Abraham that his wife will bear a child

though she is beyond her ability to bear a child. Matthew 1 tells us a similar story. Joseph, the

earthly step-father to Jesus is told by an angel, that his wife will bear a child when a child should

not be expected. What broke in for the father of a people (Abraham), broke in for the step-father

of Jesus (Joseph). In Genesis 28, with his head on a rock, Jacob sees and hears a promise about his

future family and who they will be in the world. Luke 2 tells us shepherds under the night sky see

a great hoard of angels singing, and they are told of Jesus, and that he would be good news for all

people. Exodus 16 shows us a hungry people provided manna and quail on a daily basis as they

travelled 40 years. Matthew 4 shows us Jesus fasting 40 days being tempted to make his own bread

and then being attended to by angels. I could go on. There are too many examples to exhaust here.

Throughout the old testament scripture, we see that heavenly in-breakings and signs of

God’s great and true kingdom, would occasionally find their opening. But now with greater
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frequency, something is breaking in. My point is, in Jesus we find out this kingdom of God has

always been there. When John the Baptist or Jesus the Messiah say, “the kingdom of heaven is

near” (Matthew 3:2, 4:17), they are not saying a new-having-never-existed-until-now kingdom is

near. No, but a kingdom that has always been is now arriving. THE kingdom. And the last example

I referenced, of Jesus and his temptations in the wilderness, is our prime example and sign of

heavenly in-breaking. Why? Because those waiting for the Messiah were looking for specifics,

and while Jesus being baptized in Matthew 3 may seem like the proclamation of his ministry

beginning and heaven breaking in, it is actually his response to temptation that says more:

Rabbis in the first century, had all sorts of expectations about the messianic kingdom. One

of them ran like this. When King Messiah comes, he will stand upon the roof of the holy

place. Then he will announce to Israel, ‘Ye poor, the time of your redemption draws nigh…’

There would be a repetition of the gift of manna in the desert…They knew that when manna

in the wilderness came, that would be the sign of the kingdom breaking in (emphasis added).

(Green, 1988, Matthew 4:1-11)

Jesus is not only the bringer of heavenly in-breaking, he is the in-breaking. And inasmuch

as Jesus is the in-breaking, what was once occasional, is now a permanently present potential with

the church. McKnight (2014) words it this way, saying, “the kingdom has invaded this world in

and through redemption in Christ, and to the degree that the kingdom has been inaugurated, it can

make us new people.” (p. 11). And these “new people” McKnight speaks of, and Jesus seems to

be proclaiming this kingdom to, are those that would be eventually be named “church.”

Now I must turn to the church. I have great fondness for McKnight’s treatment of Israel,

where he says the church is not instead of or a replacement of Israel, but rather Israel-expanded.

(2014, p. 88). I think Ladd (1959) reinforces this when he says:

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The Church properly speaking had its birthday on the day of Pentecost, for the Church is

composed of all of those who by one Spirit have been baptized into one body (I Cor.

15:13), and this baptizing work of the Spirit began on the day of Pentecost. (p. 117)

It should then be obvious this church we speak of began with Israelites. They were at

least the great majority present on that day of Pentecost. And this is fitting. Ladd (1959) points

out, “The Kingdom was theirs by right of election, history, and heritage. So it was that our Lord

directed His ministry to them and offered to them that which had been promised them” (p. 107).

But regarding kingdom-rejection, Ladd is not as kind to the overarching concept of Israel-

expanded when he says, “the Kingdom in its new manifestation was taken away from Israel and

given to a new people” (p. 114). But as is noted in so many places, and I agree, God was not

eliminating his people, but creating a way for his people to receive the kingdom as they had

never received before. This was not by the full exclusion of Israel, I think, but as McKnight says,

the expansion of Israel.

The kingdom that was once available to an old testament Israel, seen with occasional in-

breaking of heaven, is now permanently present in this Israel-expanded church of the new era.

This is what I mean when referring to church. Of course, a “permanently present potential”

sounds like kind of moniker chosen by diplomatic committee. But I am not alone in this

diplomacy. People are still people. McKnight (2014) says, “the kingdom now is not the perfect

kingdom of the not yet, and that means kingdom citizens are not yet perfect, not yet fully loving,

not yet fully holy, not yet fully just, and not yet fully peaceful” (p. 11). He continues:

When comparing kingdom to church, most people make fundamental logical errors. The

most common is to compare future kingdom and present church. Kingdom is a both-and,

a now and a not yet. The church also is a both-and, a now and not yet. The church, then,
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is an eschatological reality. To compare kingdom to church, one must compare now-

kingdom with now-church and not-yet-kingdom with not-yet-church. (p. 206)

We want, in our humanness, to declare that if Jesus is present and his kingdom here, then

heavenly in-breaking should also always be present. Is Jesus perfect? Then nothing less than

perfection ought to be expected. Yes? Bonhoeffer (1959) confirms, yes, “in Jesus Christ his

followers have witnessed the kingdom of God breaking in on earth” (p. 166), but Bonhoeffer

continues:

The evil will is still alive even in the followers of Christ, it still seeks to cut them off from

fellowship with him; and that is why they must also pray that the will of God may prevail

more and more in their hearts every day and break down all defiance. (p. 166)

There is a great frustration when considering just how magnificent this kingdom of Jesus

is, and just how lousy the church is at living in it. In fact, there is no shortage of explanation for

why this heavenly in-breaking is only “potential” in the church. If we’re to believe Keller (2012),

“Christ's liberating rule is not fully here,” and this is why “All his disciples are to pray for it to

come, according to Matthew 6:10, and at the end of time we will receive it in completion (Matt

25:34). (p. 43).” Or do we believe Ladd (1959) when he says, “The Kingdom of God is here but

not with irresistible power. The Kingdom of God has come, but it is not like a stone grinding an

image to powder. It is not now destroying wickedness” (emphasis added, p. 56). But why? Why is

it not? Ladd closes this thought on the nature of the now-kingdom church, saying, “On the contrary,

it is like a man sowing seed. It does not force itself upon men” (p. 56). There is something curious

about potential. It has to be chosen, constantly. One thing us humans that make up the now-

kingdom church have difficulty with, is doing anything consistently. And so, while the kingdom

of Jesus, and the heavenly in-breaking that follows, is permanently present, it is also only a
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potential, unless the church consistently prays what we have been taught to pray and live, “thy will

be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Finally, we’ve explored kingdom, the king, good news, potential, and Israel-expanded.

Now we turn lastly and briefly to what is beyond us. Perfection. We cannot discuss the gospel-

story of the kingdom of God and not point to the future perfection that awaits. McKnight (2011)

points out, “the Story of Jesus includes, by implication, the life of Jesus (birth, teachings,

actions)…and beyond…the Story of Jesus continued beyond the appearances” (p. 53).

Ultimately, what is beyond Jesus’ appearance(s) is the hope of his re-appearance. Grenz (1996)

says, “the church is the ‘eschatological company,’ a people of the future. We are the body of

those who bear testimony by word and deed to the divine reign, which will one day come in its

fullness” (p. 212). We do not and cannot know the fullness of potential and the fullness of Jesus’

kingdom until he re-appears. This is, in a way, the greatest expression of our prayer, “thy will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Each time we pray as Jesus taught us to pray, we hope for the fullness of God’s heavenly

presence to be found here. For his return to be the revelation of this fullness. Wright (2008) tells

us Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, “are designed not to take us away from this earth but rather

to make us agents of the transformation of this earth, anticipating the day when, as we are promised,

‘the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea’” (p. 201). As we

wait, there is more we are hoping for. We know there is more still to come. Just to briefly reconnect

to my Lake Superior analogy mentioned earlier, we should not simply dive down deep without

knowing it may be quite some time before we will come back up. This kingdom we now live in, it

has no official timer. The gospel-story of the kingdom of God is the good news announcement that

Jesus is king, and that his kingdom, once experienced with only occasional heavenly in-breaking,
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is now a permanently present potential within the church, to be desired by his followers in this

present age, and to be perfectly and fully revealed in all of creation (or re-creation) upon Jesus’

triumphant return. And so, we wait. We wait with God’s scriptures and Spirit as a kind of oxygen

tank to help us breathe in this new kingdom-community. And we wait for his return.

But there is hope. I will close with a word from Brian McLaren (2006), a word I think that

wraps up our conversation on kingdom nicely, even playfully:

So often we do not see it. But then, suddenly, we do. We look with our hearts, not just our

eyes, and there it is, as if it had been there all along, among us, within us, near, here: the

kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, his Messiah,

his liberating King. The world has not yet become the kingdom, and yet we see that it has.

It is in that tension—perhaps the most truly creative tension in the world—that the secret

message of Jesus dances. (p. 203)

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References

Bonhoeffer, D. (1959). The Cost of Discipleship. New York, NY: Touchstone.

Green, M. (1988). Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Matthew. Stott, J. R. W. (Ed.). Downers

Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

Grenz, S. J. (1996). Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian Livings.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

Hauerwas, S., & Willmon, W. H. (1989). Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony. Nashville,

TN: Abingdon Press.

Keller, T. (2012). Center Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Ladd, G. E. (1959). The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God. Grand

Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

McKnight, S. (2014). Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church.

Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press

McKnight, S. (2011). The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited. Grand Rapids,

MI: Zondervan.

McLaren, B. D. (2006). The Secret Message of Jesus. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group.

Peterson, E. H. (2007). The Jesus Way: a conversation on the way that Jesus is the way. Grand

Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Willard, D. (1997). The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. New York,

NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Wright, N. T. (2008). Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission

of the Church. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

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