Matt Postiff's Blog

I received this comment from an acquaintance:

Some people say there is no present fulfillment of the kingdom for believers. My difficulty in fully agreeing with them on this is based on passages such as Col. 1:13 and Rom. 14:17.

And another:

There is a present heavenly sphere of the Kingdom of God into which the Church has entered.

Here is how I reply to the above thoughts. It took me a little while to become untangled from the doctrine that there are many kingdoms—kingdom of God, kingdom of Heaven, spiritual kingdom, millennial kingdom, kingdom of Satan.

After much study, I came to agree with the statement that there is no present fulfillment of the kingdom for believers.

One big reason: I believe the disciples' prayer (commonly known as the Lord's prayer) in Matt. 6:10 is still relevant: "Your kingdom come." We should not pray for something to come if it is already here. We pray for the kingdom to come precisely because it is not present yet.

A second reason: "heavenly sphere" language is vague. It is better to say plainly something like this: church saints have not yet entered the kingdom; they have entered the CHURCH. That is what this present age is about—the church. We are not in the kingdom age. We are awaiting the coming of the kingdom. See for example Acts 14:22—we have not entered the kingdom of God yet, but we must through many tribulations enter into it. See also 2 Peter 1:11 and 2 Tim. 4:18 for forward-looking and entrance language regarding the kingdom.

A third: the sphere idea and the texts that are "troublesome" like Romans 14:17 and Col. 1:13 can be explained—fairly straightforwardly in my understanding—like this: when we are saved, we are immediately constituted as citizens of the future kingdom. Without being born again, we cannot see that kingdom, but being born again does not mean you immediately enter it. God is busy right now calling out a people for His name in the church, and preparing them to be members of the Kingdom which will come in the next dispensation.

As citizens and ambassadors of that kingdom, "kingdom ethics" should be displayed in our lives now, in advance of the king's coming. We are not citizens of the kingdom of darkness anymore. Our priorities are not food and drink, but righteousness, etc. Those ethics are not required of us because we are IN the kingdom, but because we are displaced citizens, ex-patriots, ambassadors of that kingdom to the kingdoms of this world.

This citizenship idea is a crucial notion for our relationship to God and this world. Our citizenship is indeed in heaven (Phil. 3:20) but the harsh fact is that we are not in heaven. Indeed, in Christ we have a place there (Eph. 2:6), but we are actually on earth. The heavenly connection demands something of us in the here and now.

Fourth: if a kingdom has a ruler, realm, and a functional actual reign, a quick look around the world will tell us that we are not in the kingdom at all because those features of the heavenly-kingdom-sort are not present. These features include spiritual and societal blessings that are just simply not present today.

Fifth, the Lord's parable in Luke 19:11-27 teaches that He was going to go away on a long journey to a far country. There He will receive a kingdom (be invested with the right to rule) and then return to actuate that rule. Christ has to be back on the earth for the kingdom to be operational. While He is away, other rulers are ruling.

I have enjoyed auditing a class on the doctrine of Israel at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary with Dr. Mark Snoeberger and Dr. Sam Dawson. Just now I am reading Forsaking Israel: How it Happened and Why It Matters by Larry Pettegrew and company at Shepherds Seminary.

The thought occurred to me that God has had a people from ancient times in order to glorify His name. Said another way, God must have a people to bring honor to himself. Should the people He chose (Deut. 7:6-8) disappear from the earth, it would appear to the peoples of the world that that people's God was no more significant than all the other deities of extinct people groups. But the Triune God is no temporal phenom. He is eternal and thus must have a people for all eternity to show forth His glory. That people, Israel, will be re-constituted as a glorious nation in order to bring glory to God (Ezekiel 36:22-23). God will be vindicated through the means of the existence of a human people group.

Contained in the paragraph above is an argument as to why Israel cannot disappear or be "replaced." So what is the place then of the church? God's keeping of the people of Israel is, in the words of Isaiah 49:6, too small a thing to proclaim the glories of our God and His Messiah. Therefore, God will choose out from the entire world another people—the church— to further glorify the Messiah. The benefit of this to people will be not only "salvation to the ends of the earth" but also an expanded understanding of the infinite glory of God. The benefit to God will be an expanded base from which His excellencies may be known by the angelic and human realms.

It is not enough that God should have one people. He deserves more glory. He will have two peoples, one from the past age and one from the present. And then, there will be an expansion of both groups in the millennial kingdom, to the praise of the glory of God's grace.

How are these two peoples related to God? The only way possible: through Jesus Christ! Are they forever distinct? YES, in the sense that a Gentile is never a Jew and a Jew is never a Gentile. Physical lineage is what it is. But this distinctness does not undercut the completely harmonious, happy existence of saved Israel and the saved Church throughout the upcoming millennial kingdom. Different, yet united. Distinct, yet without discrimination.

Today's question:

What does it mean in Matthew 11:12 that the kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent take it by force?

Here is the text from three modern English translations:

And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. (Matt. 11:12 NKJV)

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people have been raiding it. (Matt. 11:12 NIV-2011)

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it. (Matt. 11:12 NIV-1984)

Initially, I find it interesting to note that the 2011 NIV changed the 1984 NIV translation, albeit with a footnote mentioning the earlier translation.

A careful study of three key words in the verse seem to me to be determinative that the NKJV and NIV-2011 are in fact correct.

The verb "suffers violence" is a passive verb that seems to follow BDAG's first definition, namely to inflict violence on, dominate; or, in the passive, to be afflicted with violence or to be dominated. The second semantic domain, "to gain an objective by force" seems only to fit in a triumphalist interpretation of the verse and the kingdom of God. The problem with this interpretation is that the kingdom of God is not, at Matthew 11, in triumphant mode. It is being rejected by many in the nation of Israel, and its leaders. By chapter 12, it is clear that the leaders want nothing to do with Jesus and His kingdom announcement; and in chapter 13, the Lord adopts the parable method of teaching in order to conceal truth from the unbelieving in his audiences.

The noun "violent" (really, "violent ones" or "violent men") is a fine translation, and most modern English versions render it this way. Unfortunately, this is a hapax, but given the negative things happening to the kingdom proclamation in Matthew at this point, the connotation is not good. Violent people are doing something bad to the kingdom.

The next verb, "take it" or "have been raiding it" fits this negative connotation. The verb is harpadzo, the same verb used for the rapture in 1 Thessalonians 4:17. It means to seize, steal, kidnap, snatch, to (attempt) to take control of something. Of course at the rapture, the snatching up of believers is a good thing. But it doesn't seem so here with the kingdom. The national leaders of Israel have been and will continue to attempt to shut up the kingdom of heaven to potential entrants (Matthew 23:13). They are, by their actions, effectively taking the kingdom away from the generation present during Jesus' public ministry. They would soon kill John the Baptist, and not long after, they would kill Jesus as well. The murder of John the Baptist puts him squarely in the line of prophets in the Old Testament, which often suffered similar fates at the hands of the rebellious houses of Israel and Judah throughout Old Testament history.

In addition to the above, it is important to consider that believers are not well described with words such as "violent" and "seize."

The parallel passage in Luke 16:16 presents somewhat of a difficulty for this view, but perhaps Jesus said something in addition to what Matthew 11:12 records. And I think it could be argued that instead of "everyone is pressing into it," a valid translation would be "everyone is (trying to) dominate it." It it obvious that not everyone is trying to enter the kingdom, for there are a large number of people who are rejecting Jesus' teachings. But neither is everyone trying to destroy the kingdom either. Perhaps pessimistically, I assume that there were more who were against Jesus and His kingdom than for it; in that case, everyone would be a bit of a hyperbole, meaning "basically everyone is against it."

For full disclosure, let us hear the opposing viewpoint from John MacArthur in his study Bible:

But the kingdom can never be subdued or opposed by human violence. Notice that where Matthew says, "the violent take it by force," Luke has "everyone is pressing into it" (Luke 16:16). So the sense of this verse may be rendered this way: "The kingdom presses ahead relentlessly, and only the relentless press their way into it." Thus again Christ is magnifying the difficulty of entering the kingdom..."

In response, I would say that the kingdom was in fact opposed by human violence. Humans killed its first messenger—John the Baptist. They also killed its second messenger—Jesus Christ. They did much the same to the apostles. This happened because God permitted it to be so for His own good purposes, not because it was out of His control. In the end the kingdom cannot be opposed, but along the way, it in fact has been opposed.

In addition, MacArthur lets Luke 16:16 control the interpretation of Matthew 11:12, whereas I advocate for the reverse.

In the big picture there is little difference in our theology of the kingdom, at least in its future manifestation, for I agree that the kingdom will eventually take over the whole earth--not in a postmillennial way, but suddenly when Christ returns. And the way of entry is narrow into this kingdom. We can learn this much from a synthesis of other Bible texts. I'm convinced that we don't learn it from Matthew 11:12.

In Perspectives on Israel and the Church: 4 Views, Chad O. Brand and Tom Pratt, Jr. criticize Robert L. Thomas's view of the kingdom on page 150:

He then identifies that as the millennial kingdom, which in his view includes only Israel with Christ in the Holy Land.

I read Thomas's chapter, and I did not get that exclusive of a definition of the kingdom from what I read--only Israel? It strikes me that Brand and Pratt are imposing their view of dispensationalism upon Thomas.

Granted, I could have missed something in my reading of Thomas with my own predisposed view of dispensationalism. That matters far less than this fact: the text of Scripture is clearly against such an exclusive view of the kingdom, even on a dispensational reading of it.

For example, Isaiah 19:25 speaks of Egypt and Assyria along with Israel, and a highway connecting them. We understand this to be in the millennial kingdom. Zechariah 14:18 speaks of judgment on any nation that does not come up to share in the Feast of Booths with Israel during the kingdom. Psalm 2 refers to the nations who will be subjugated under the world-wide rule of the Messiah. This too is during the millennial kingdom. Revelation 2:27 promises power over the nations emanating from the iron-rod rule of Christ. The Son has always been destined to rule all nations, not just Israel, according to Revelation 12:5 and 19:15. This reign will be shared with resurrected saints of unspecified ethnicity, according to Revelation 20:4, 6. We know that the faithful in Christ will be privileged to participate in this reign, according to 2 Timothy 2:12, which is a reference to the church.

Thus the nation of Israel will be the head and not the tail: they will sit atop the nations of the world as closest to the Messiah in His reign (Deut. 28:13) instead of in the despised position they occupy in this age.

Let theologians of every persuasion be clear, whether progressive dispensational, covenantal, progressive covenantal, or new covenant, that the millennnial kingdom includes Israel in its holy land, and Christ, and the church, and the nations of the world as well.

Here is today's question, responding to the belief that the kingdom of God is future to the church age:

How we do explain Colossians 1:13, Romans 14:17, 1 Corinthians 4:20, 1 Thessalonians 2:12, etc?

Colossians 1:13 indicates that our citizenship has been transferred from the domain/kingdom of darkness to the domain/kingdom of Christ. We are therefore citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). So, our citizenship has changed, but our location has not changed. We still live in this earth, and Jesus is absent from this earth. His kingdom will come with Him when he returns. Remember--we are strangers/foreigners/pilgrims in this life.

Romans 14:17 teaches that because our citizenship has changed, our conduct should match the conduct of a good kingdom citizen, even as we live here in this place while we wait for the kingdom. In other words, our future living arrangements and our present change of citizenship must affect our present conduct.

1 Corinthians 4:20. Earlier in the chapter, v. 8, Paul criticized the Corinthians for their attitude. They acted as if they were "kings already." They were not, because they were not in the kingdom. If the Corinthians were in fact reigning in the kingdom at that time, Paul would not be suffering the hunger and persecution that he was suffering! Their boastful attitude consisted of words. But Paul, who was an apostolic representative of the King, had "kingdom power" that was more than mere words.

1 Thessalonians 2:12 has the same idea as Col. 1:13 and Romans 14:17. God calls (present tense) us into His kingdom. Therefore we should walk as good citizens.

A good source to read on this question is Alva McClain, Greatness of the Kingdom, chapter 25, p. 431-441. He points out that many times in the epistles, the kingdom is spoken of as coming in the future. For example, "If we endure, we shall also reign (future) with him" (2 Timothy 2:12).

In summary, the future kingdom has important effects on present church life, but church life is not equal to kingdom life. God is using the church in the present age to call and prepare citizens of His future kingdom.