"Your kingdom come...on earth as it is in heaven"

A statement on the Kingdom of God in the world today

• The kingdom that is already but not yet

"It is the vocation of every Christian and congregation to show the world by how we now live what the kingdom of God will look like when it comes in all its fullness. We also are called to proclaim to a pluralistic world what God has revealed – that he alone is ruler over all and that Jesus Christ soon will make this reign and realm visible to all."

• "The Greek word order of [your kingdom come] is ‘Let it come, the kingdom of you.’ In secular Greek, the word here translated ‘let it come’ often was used in a theological sense, especially in prayers for a deity to come and bring deliverance. According to Jan Lochman, the term also is used in this way in the New Testament, where it ‘includes the future but already impinges on the present.’
• "God is not bound by human notions of time. Lochman notes that in the Bible ‘time is not chronos, a mechanically measurable concept, but kairos, the opportune hour, to which we must react, not neutrally as waiting spectators, but with involvement, making a decision either for or against. … Hence we can and should make the most of the time (cf. Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5), not letting it pass by idly but grasping it and filling it with prayer and action.’
• "So keep seeking above all else the kingdom of God and the righteousness he demands, and all of these things will also be yours." Matthew 6:33, as translated by Donald Hagner.
• "Capturing the sense of the Greek imperative, which also may be translated ‘seek and keep on seeking,’ Hagner adds: ‘The kingdom, and the kingdom alone, is to be the sole priority of the disciple and that toward which the disciple devotes his or her energy.’
• "Imagine how our lives would look if we made seeking God’s kingdom our sole priority; if, as individuals, families and congregations, we unfailingly sought and practiced the beliefs and behaviors God requires. What impact would such attitudes and actions have on the ways we spent our time and money, on the strength of our families, on the vitality of our churches?" From, Thy kingdom come, by Robert P. Mills

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• The kingdom in conflict"The interim between the first and second advents of Christ (the present age) is marked by violent confrontation between the power of the Kingdom and the power that dominates the world in this present age.
• Divine conflict with the demonic characterizes the present era. It is the era of conflict as well as the era of the Spirit. Believers must engage the forces of darkness ...."Position Paper, Assemblies of God

• A divine purpose for history"The Kingdom of God is the work of God, not of men; nowhere do we find (in Scripture) the idiom...of building the Kingdom of God. [We] may proclaim the work of the Kingdom...but the Kingdom is ever and always God's Kingdom, God's rule... [and] shows why the Second Coming of Christ is essential to a biblical theology: apart from his victorious return, there will be no final victory over sin, Satan, and death. However, God's redemptive purpose is not merely a way of salvation for individual souls; it is a purpose for history." George Eldon Ladd

Copyright 2009, 2010 © Paul C. Guttke