2.04. The Inauguration of the Kingdom
Chapter Four: The Inauguration of the Kingdom The Kingdom Advances In Matthew 11:1-30, the imprisoned John the Baptist has heard of Jesus’s teachings and miracles, and he sent several disciples to ask whether Jesus was the Messiah or whether he should expect another. (Matthew 11:1-3). John was likely baffled by Jesus’s teachings regarding the kingdom because he had envisioned the kingdom (as did the Old Testament prophets) as a unified event of salvation and judgment. He expected the Messiah to bring both political and spiritual redemption to the people of Israel. Jesus’s emphasis on the spiritual aspects of the kingdom, seemingly to the exclusion of the political element, did not fit his conception of what the Messiah would be like. He needed comfort and reassurance.
Jesus provided it. He told John’s disciples to go back and report to John the many Messianic signs performed by Jesus—“the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” (Matthew 11:4-5).
Then Jesus said something enigmatic. He told the listening crowd, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Matthew 11:11). Jesus thus drew a sharp line between John and the kingdom citizen. Both France and Carson believe Jesus was saying in this statement that John stood outside the kingdom of heaven.73 Jesus was not suggesting that John was not a believer; rather, his point was that John was the last of the Old Testament saints and, as such, he stood on the threshold of the eschatological kingdom. This implies that the kingdom was yet future during John’s public ministry.
Then Jesus said something even more strange: “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” (Matthew 11:12). The phrase “the kingdom of heaven suffers violence” (NASB) has been variously interpreted. The NIV states that the kingdom “has been forcefully advancing.” The verb biazetai holds the key to the correct view. Carson believes that it supports the NIV rendering of the passage because it is in the middle form.74 This implies that “the kingdom has come with holy power and magnificent energy that has been pushing back the frontiers of darkness.”75 Moreover, instead of violent men taking over in a negative sense, forceful men take hold of the kingdom in a positive sense. As Carson sums up this difficult passage, “from the days of the Baptist—i.e., from the beginning of John’s ministry—the kingdom has been forcefully advancing . . . . But it has not swept all opposition away, as John expected.”76
Carson thus views this verse as teaching that during John’s time of ministry, the kingdom of God was inaugurated.77 France similarly interprets this verse as meaning that John’s fate was “the foretaste of the conflicts which are already beginning to affect the new order” and that “God’s kingdom is clearly seen as already present, as a force sufficiently dynamic to provoke violent reaction.”78 In other words, the kingdom had come in some preliminary way at the time Jesus began his public ministry, after John had been put in prison (Matthew 4:12), through Jesus’s powerful preaching and miracles. The Kingdom of God Has Come Upon You
If there is any doubt remaining that the kingdom of God has arrived in an inaugural sense with the first advent of Christ, Jesus swept it aside by proclaiming in Matthew 12:28 that “the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Saucy has said in this regard:
Though the emphasis of the teaching of Jesus was on the futurity of the kingdom, His total message concerning the kingdom also included its presence and the possibility of men and women entering the kingdom now. He said it was present in the power of the Holy Spirit when He cast out demons (Matthew 12:28), and therefore it can be understood as having been present in all His miraculous works.79
Hence, Jesus’s driving out demons, by the power of the Holy Spirit, “prove[s] that the kingdom age has already dawned.”80 The words “has come upon” (ephthasen) suggests an arrival which catches unawares.81 Interestingly, Glasscock agrees: “the only logical conclusion was that the kingdom of God had come.”82 How had the kingdom of God come during Jesus’s earthly ministry?
Blaising and Bock summarize:
Whereas Jesus advances the tradition of the Old Testament prophets by predicting the coming of the eschatological kingdom with Himself as Messiah, there are some occasions in the Gospels when He speaks of the kingdom as being present in His own day. In these sayings, the kingdom is present in the sense that He Himself, the King of that kingdom, is present among them, displaying in Himself and in His activity the characteristics of the eschatological kingdom.83 They distinguish the kingdom as present in Jesus’s pre-cross ministry from the kingdom in its post-cross sense: The difference . . . is not only a difference between His service of suffering and His future glory, but also the difference between the kingdom being in Jesus and the kingdom being universally established. The kingdom was revealed in and through Jesus’ activity. It was quite dynamic, being seen in displays of His power. However, He did not at that time institute the kingdom as an abiding structure for the world. It was only after the cross that He inaugurated certain aspects of the kingdom in an institutional sense.84
Revised dispensationalists disagree. Although Walvoord does not treat 12:28 in his commentary on Matthew, Pentecost interprets the verse to mean that “since Christ did cast out demons by God’s power, it must be concluded that His offer of the kingdom was genuine and He was its bona fide King.85 In my view, this does not do justice to the passage. The sense is that the kingdom has “just arrived.”86 God=s kingdom has come; it is present in his person.87
Revised dispensationalists consider chapter 12 to be a pivotal passage to their central tenet that Jewish rejection of Jesus resulted in a postponement of a kingdom offer. As Pentecost has asserted, “the nation had rejected Him and the kingdom had to be postponed.”88
Many critics have had trouble with the idea that the kingdom was placed in abeyance because of the rejection of the Jewish religious leaders. Their critique has, for the most part, focused on the divine side of the equation. For example, Ernest C. Reisinger declares: My Bible knows nothing about a God who does not have power to perform His plan. The God of the Bible is sovereign in creation, sovereign in redemption, and sovereign in providence. He is all-wise in planning and all powerful in performing.89 Kenneth Barker likewise asserts:
I would not use such terminology. The omniscient, sovereign God never ‘postpones’ anything. Israel’s rejection of their Messiah at his first advent—and along with him, the full expression of the theocratic kingdom at that time—was foreseen by God and, in fact, was part of God’s plan to accomplish redemption through the “sufferings of Christ.90
Walvoord defends the postponement view against these attacks by stating that “what is postponed from a human standpoint is not postponed from the divine standpoint” because “with God, all contingencies and seeming changes of direction are known from eternity past, and there is no change of God’s central purpose.”91 Walvoord should be applauded for recognizing that God’s redemptive plan for humanity was centered around the cross and that His plan never changed. Still, the question remains: given this truth, why use postponement language at all? Indeed, from the “human standpoint,” was the kingdom really postponed?
It seems to me that, even from a human perspective, a postponement of the kingdom is hard to square with the biblical data. If the kingdom was postponed in chapter 12, why did Jesus say in Matthew 12:28 that the kingdom “has come”? In addition, why did he proceed in chapter 13 to discuss the nature of the kingdom in his parables?
Revised dispensationalists appear to be inconsistent in holding that the eschatological kingdom was postponed in chapter 12 but that another “mystery form” of the kingdom was presented in chapter 13. For example, Merrill Unger states that the kingdom of heaven is “now being consummated in this present age” as described in the “seven ‘mysteries of the kingdom’“ in Matthew 13.92 John Walvoord says that “in Matthew 13:1-58, the kingdom in its present mystery form is revealed, that is the rule of God over the earth in the hearts of believers during the present age when the King is absent.”93 But where is the evidence that the form of the kingdom in Matthew 13:1-58 is a separate kingdom from the eschatological kingdom prophesied by John and announced as “at hand” by Jesus? Isn’t it better to simply view the “mystery” as the revealing of a heretofore hidden phase of the same eschatological kingdom declared as “upon you” in Matthew 12:28?
Moreover, Matthew 12:28 is not the only verse to support a presently inaugurated kingdom. Matthew 19:12 also refers to the inaugurated form of the kingdom. There, in teaching on marriage and divorce, Jesus made the following comment: “For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.” Jesus’s point was that some believers can remain single rather than get married “for the sake of the kingdom” or as Carson puts it, “because of its claims and interests.”94 This must be a reference to the present kingdom (Cf. Matthew 22:30).
Matthew 16:27-28 also appears to discuss the inaugurated form of the kingdom. There, Jesus told the disciples that “there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Although some commentators take this enigmatic passage to refer to the Transfiguration,95 it seems to me that Carson is right in observing that this would be “an extraordinary way to refer to Peter, James and John, who witness the Transfiguration a mere six days later.”96 The better fit is that this is “a more general reference . . . to the manifestation of Christ’s kingly reign exhibited after the Resurrection in a host of ways, not the least of them being the rapid multiplication of disciples and the mission to the Gentiles.”97 The Mystery of the Kingdom In chapter 13, immediately after the rejection of his Messiahship by the Galilean Pharisees, Jesus teaches in parables. Parables were designed to reveal the truth to believers and hide the truth from unbelievers (13:13-15). Jesus told his disciples, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted” (13:11). Walvoord states that the parables in Matthew 13:1-58 were designed “to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom.” He believes that these mysteries were hidden in the Old Testament and revealed in the New Testament. They “deal with the period between the first and second advent of Christ and not the millennial kingdom which will follow the second coming.”98 After the Jewish leaders’ rejection of Jesus as Messiah and the resulting postponement of the kingdom, Jesus introduced “a new method of teaching.”99
Carson essentially agrees that the rising opposition to Jesus encouraged his greater and greater use of parables. However, he disagrees that there was a “sudden switch in method.”100 Jesus had taught in parables before (cf. Luke 5:36; Luke 6:29). Carson also disagrees that the kingdom undergoes a radical shift with the mention of mystery.”101 On the other hand, he agrees that Jesus introduced a “new truth” about the kingdom:
[T]he ‘mystery of the Kingdom is the coming of the Kingdom into history in advance of its apocalyptic manifestation.’ That God would bring in his kingdom was no secret. All Jews looked forward to it. ‘The new truth, now given to men by revelation in the person and mission of Jesus, is that the Kingdom which is to come finally in apocalyptic power, as foreseen by Daniel, has in fact entered the world in advance in a hidden form to work secretly within and among men.102 The mystery phase is thus not a separate kingdom from that which preceded it and that which will follow; it is a phase or form of the same eschatological kingdom. It is “the presence of ‘sons of the kingdom’ (that is, people who truly belong to the eschatological kingdom) in the world prior to the coming of the Son of Man.”103 What do the parables teach about the mystery phase of the kingdom? The parable of the soils (Matthew 13:3-9) teaches that the mystery phase will involve some who believe and many who will not believe.104 The parable of the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, Matthew 13:36-43) explains how the kingdom can be present in the world while not yet wiping out all opposition.105 Jesus’s explanation in verse 41 is interesting. He says that, “at the end of the age,” the Son of Man will “weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil” (NIV). This suggests that the kingdom exists before the Son of Man returns to establish his millennial kingdom. The parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32) explains that, while the kingdom has a small beginning, it is organically connected to the kingdom in its future glory.106 This organic development militates against speaking of the inaugurated and consummated phases of the kingdom as separate kingdoms. The parable of the yeast (Matthew 13:33) has essentially the same meaning. The parables of the treasure and pearl speak of the supreme importance and value of the kingdom.107 The parable of the householder shows that Jesus’s teachings are new and revolutionary (Matthew 13:52).108 The old treasure is the already revealed prophecies about the kingdom. The new treasures are the new knowledge imparted by Jesus with regard to the mystery phase of the kingdom. The new complements the old to create one “treasure,” the kingdom of heaven.109