Articles
Kingdom of God
Years ago, W.L. Wharton (interesting preacher of a past generation - great thinker) said of Lenski: "You will not always agree with him, but he will make you think." I have spent many hours reading through Lenski's writings and agree with Bro. Wharton. Here is a short bit that he wrote concerning the kingdom of God. Hugh DeLong
Lenski on the Kingdom of God
“The kingdom of God” is the supreme concept of the New Testament. Matthew uses it a few times, otherwise he employs the expression “the kingdom of the heavens.” Both expressions mean the same thing, the distinction being merely formal. The two genitives “of God” and “of the heavens” may be considered genitives of possession: the kingdom which belongs to God and to the heavens. But it is hard to keep out of the former the subjective idea: the kingdom which God rules; and out of the latter the qualitative idea: the kingdom whose very nature is that of heaven. The plural “of the heavens” is a translation of the Hebrew shamayim; this is natural to Matthew who wrote for Jewish readers, but in Greek and in English both are used: “the heavens” and “heaven.” It is idle to bring in the seven heavens in explaining the plural. No one can decree that we should not think of Dan. 2:44 and 7:14 in conceiving of this heavenly kingdom of God.
This grand Biblical concept cannot be defined by generalizing from the kingdoms of the earth. These are only imperfect shadows of God’s kingdom. God makes his own kingdom, and only where he is with his power and his grace is his kingdom; earthly kingdoms, which are many and various, make their kings, often also unmake them, and their kings are nothing apart from what their kingdoms make them. So also we are not really subjects in God’s kingdom but partakers of it, i.e., of God’s rule and kingship; earthly kingdoms have only subjects. In God’s kingdom we already bear the title “kings unto God,” and eventually the kingdom, raised to its nth degree, shall consist of nothing but kings in glorious array, each with his crown, and Christ thus being “the King of kings,” a kingdom of kings, with no subjects at all.
This divine kingdom goes back to the beginning of time and rules the world and shall so rule it till the consummation at the end of time. All that is in the world, even every hostile force, is subservient to the plans of God. The children and sons of God, as heirs of the kingdom in whom God’s grace is displayed, constitute the kingdom in its specific sense. The kingdom is in them. This kingdom is divided by the coming of Christ, the King, in the flesh to effect the redemption of grace, by which this specific kingdom is really established among men. Hence we have the kingdom before Christ, looking toward his coming, and the kingdom after Christ, looking back to his coming—the promise and the fulfillment to be followed by the consummation—the kingdom as it was from Adam and in Israel, as it is now in the Christian Church, the Una Sancta in all the world, and as it will be at the end forever.
With this understanding of the kingdom, that where the King is and rules with his power and his grace there the kingdom is, we see what Jesus means when he says that the kingdom “has come near.” Jesus has come, and by the revelation of himself with power and with grace as the Messiah and by the completion of his redemptive work he will stand forth as the King of salvation from heaven and will enter by faith into the hearts of men, making them partakers of his kingdom. Since the kingdom is present in Christ, the King, all men should long to receive this kingdom. The way to this Jesus now states. Hugh DeLong
