Lk 17:20-21 Questioned by the Pharisees as regards when the kingdom of God was coming, Jesus gave this reply: “God’s kingdom is not coming with observable signs to announce it. None will say, ‘It is over here.’ None will say, ‘There it is!’ The kingdom of God, you see, is within.”
Thematic Relevance:
|
The King speaks of His kingdom. |
Doctrinal Relevance:
|
The kingdom of God is in you, in your midst. It is not future. It is now. |
Moral Relevance: |
It was true of the Pharisees, it’s true of me. The kingdom of God is within you, within me. That is a statement of fact. As a believer, I ought to reflect that internal kingdom by my outward behavior and action. |
Doxology:
|
The kingdom of God is! Whether it is acknowledged by all or not, it remains the truth. The kingdom of God is within. In each and every man, there is the Truth of the kingdom. Willing subject or not, subject we are to the King of all kings. He is not subject to man’s acceptance. Man is subject to His. |
Questions Raised: |
Within or in your midst? |
There is something of a question as to how that conclusion Jesus reaches is to be understood. Within you? In your midst? Among you? The word is a bit imprecise as to the exact meaning. That being the case, I have to suppose that those who heard Him say this must have either been casting about for the intended meaning themselves, or have read into His statement whatever their preferred implications might be.
Thus, the Pharisees, upon hearing that the kingdom is within, may have taken it as something of a confirmation of their ways. See? We’ve done it! The kingdom is in us! Why, of course it is! Don’t we take great care to follow the Law with all scrupulousness? Where else would one expect to find it?
Others, convinced still that the Messiah was to be a military hero for Israel, may have looked upon this Jesus with a degree of curiosity, wondering how this unimposing man was going to be transformed into a commander of worth. If, after all, the kingdom was present and in their midst, then surely the King must shortly exert his power to remove the foreign interloper. What must be done to immanentize the eschaton?
I wonder ,though, if any actually heard Him as He intended?
“The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed.” Thus does the Amplified version give us the message. It is not far different in the others. Thus just seemed to me to strike to the core of it. Yet, there is such excitement today over the finding of a red heifer, or news out of Jerusalem suggesting in any way that the temple is about to be rebuilt. Never mind the more obvious question of why God would reinstate the types and shadows when He has already manifested the real. Here is Jesus Himself delivering the antidote to such excitability.
The point is only reinforced by His conclusion. “The kingdom of God is.” Leave aside, for the moment the question as to how we ought to understand the entos of where it is. It is. It is already. It is not coming later, it has come. This is the problem. We look about us, and this does not appear to be the kingdom of heaven to us. Corruption not only continues. If anything, it increases. The darkness has not dispersed, it has grown darker. How, then, can we suppose that we are already in His kingdom? If that is the case, how is it that things are the way they are? God would not allow such things in His kingdom!
Of course, that same logic should lead us to suppose that God would not allow such things in His creation, yet here we are, and the reality of things around us cannot be denied. Were we not so full of ourselves we must surely recognize our problem immediately. It is, quite simply, that we do not understand God as well as we like to think. As much as He declares His truth to us, we are determined to clean up the picture He has painted, airbrush out the things that don’t seem right to us. God of wrath? He causes calamity? Oh, we can’t have that! Who would follow such a Leader? No, no. God is Love, man. God is Peace. He’s, like, totally against war, y’know? My, but how the philosophies of our day have infected our view of God. Shall we ever allow that to reverse, and let God infect our view of philosophy? I hope so!
Listen to the thrust of what Jesus is saying here. Stop looking for the coming of the kingdom, because it’s already here! Don’t get caught up in waiting for some instantaneous and miraculous sweeping away of all the corruptions of mankind. How about this? Start looking for a corner of that kingdom in which you can act the broom! How about you start focusing on how you can reflect the kingdom that is already here! How about you so advertise the King by your ways that His other citizens are more inclined to obey their King, too!
Let me borrow from the Message: “God's kingdom is already among you.” Sounds good! Of course, as I have already said, if I look around me, it’s hard to buy into that. If this is God’s kingdom, then why am I looking to have a part in it? Injustice still rages around me. The poor still die in the cold of winter. Men still abuse one another. Children are not safe. Politicians are not honest, nor are the leaders of religion. War still rages, and becomes less humane than ever before. What’s to desire in this kingdom? And, if this is God’s kingdom, then maybe we should find a new king.
The alternate reading for this, as the King James has it, is, “the kingdom of God is within you.” Now, the NET provides a footnote to explain the problem those translators have with such a reading. Why, Jesus would never say such a thing to the Pharisees, they reason. But, why not? If it is the Truth of the matter, I see no reason why Jesus would not tell them so.
Again, I sense a misunderstanding on the part of believers as a whole. We suppose that to have the kingdom of God within us must mean that we agree to His rule, that we are happy citizens of that realm. But, I ask you: what realm has ever required the conscious acceptance of citizenship from its denizens? Am I, for instance, American because at some point I declared myself happy to be so? No. I am American by birth. I live here, and have lived here all my life. I am an American. All those protesters back in the sixties, for all they complained of their government, and for all that they decried the ways of their countrymen, remained Americans.
Were I to go back to the period in which Jesus and His hearers lived, I dare say there was even less choice in the matter. If Rome said you were now subject to Rome, then so you were. Citizen or no, you were stuck with their rule, because might gave them the right to rule. You didn’t like it? Too bad. You thought Rome a corrupt and evil societal order? That changes nothing. You didn’t vote for Caesar? Hey, that’s funny! You don’t vote for a kingdom, nor for its king.
Come back to that great passage which every Christian loves to dwell upon. “Every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God” (Ro 14:11). Every knee shall bow. There are no exceptions. It’s not necessarily a matter of bowing because one is so happy to be ruled by Christ. It’s an action emblematic of a certain subjugation. However much I may hate it, I admit You have the power and I submit to Your rule.
As has been my wont of late, I’ve been reading many books that are based on the conflicts of the Napoleonic Wars, particularly those covering the exploits of the British Navy in that period. Something comes to mind out of those texts which bears on my point here. Wiser captains would recognize that at some point continuing to fight was certain to result in death, and so, they would strike their flag and surrender. For the officers, part of that surrender involved making a choice. One could choose to remain an unwilling prisoner intent on escape or retaking of the vessel at first opportunity, or one could offer his parole. What did that latter option mean? It meant giving one’s sworn promise that he would not seek to escape, that he would not rejoin battle with his captors. Such was the power of that promise that the one giving it would be allowed his sword (symbolic of his dignity), and granted liberty to move about in the ship, rather than be confined as a prisoner under armed guard.
This same sense is to be understood in the bowing of the knee, at least when applied to those who are yet enemies of the King. It’s not a sudden overwhelming love for this King that has moved them to bow. It is the constraint of necessity. Resistance has become clearly futile, and there really is no course remaining except to accept it.
I am returned to the point that those who most like to rail against this country are yet citizens thereof. Never mind the inconsistency in such a stance, for nothing really prevents them from emigrating to a place more to their liking. My point is more that citizenship does not expressly indicate acceptance of the ruling power of the nation of one’s citizenship. Around the world we are witness to this truth. In nation after nation, we see that there those who are move to oppose their rulers. Indeed, the same must be held true in our own country, else why are there multiple political parties? Clearly, those in the one party must oppose much of the purpose of the other party, else they would be of that party. Yet, as the party in control shifts, our citizenship does not.
All of this is to labor the point that there is nothing about the Pharisees that requires us to suppose the kingdom of God is not within them. There is nothing in any man to require such a supposition. Indeed, the thing I find far more marvelous is that the kingdom of God is in any man. For, I have only to look to myself to recognize how unfit a vessel I am for such glorious use. This God of Pure Holiness has established a throne in me? If He cannot abide so much as the least degree of sin in His presence, how is it that He is with me? This is too marvelous for my comprehension, and yet, I know it is true. So, if He can abide my nature and make a home here, who is precluded? And again, if the kingdom is not predicated upon the consent of the citizenry, why should I suppose the kingdom is any less present within the most outspoken unbeliever? Every knee shall bow, whatever the reason for bowing.
Is it fully necessary to understand the matter in this way? No. The word would seem to admit of either meaning. I would take minor note, however, that the word is only to be found twice in the text of the New Testament: here, and in Matthew 23:26, where Jesus speaks of cleansing what is entos the cup and platter, so that the outside will be clean as well. Here, the idea of ‘in the midst of the cup and platter’ makes no sense. The meaning of ‘within the cup and platter’ is clearly intended. I suppose I shall have to leave off hoping for a definitive answer on this, given that the experts are so divided on the topic. But, for myself, I find I am preferring the ‘within’ meaning for this passage.
Of greater interest to me is that this is spoken of as the present condition. Whether you choose to consider it the kingdom within or the kingdom in your midst, the great good news is that the kingdom of God is. You don’t need to keep looking for its arrival. It is now. Although we look forward to a glorious return of our Lord and King, the fact remains that the kingdom is. He has already ascended the throne which He shall never relinquish. How this ought to inform our eschatology I shall leave for some other time, but let us consider how this ought to inform our present.
If the kingdom now is, and I am a glad citizen thereof, how ought I to live my days? Clearly, it will not do to keep going at life as if to be an American citizen was what mattered. Clearly, it will not do to live as though I were the ultimate ruler of my way. Now, we are taught with no room for doubt that we are to look upon the civil authorities as extensions of God’s kingdom, that their authority derives from His Authority, they being appointed at His direction. They may not seem like the best choices just now, but this is what God has told us, and shall we argue? That He has chosen to give these particular leaders power in this time does not require us to suppose that they are good men or even wise. It does, however, require that we heed their right of rule insomuch as doing so will not lay us directly athwart the higher Law of God. To the degree that obedience to their law does not require of us an abrogation of God’s Law in our own person, we are yet bound by His Law to heed theirs. When and if their law crosses this line, then their authority is surely at an end, and we are no longer so bound. But, until that point, however odious their rule, rule it remains.
Yet, we can still rejoice, even in such a trial. Why? Because the kingdom of God is. Nothing about that is changed by the situation around us. It is neither hindered nor hurried along by the antics of man. We are so foolish as to suppose we can control the weather in our modern fantasy land. It is more foolish yet to suppose that we can control the timetable that God has had set in place since before the beginning! Yet, many in the Christian camps believe just such a thing. They are not so far different from that madman over in Iran, supposing that the actions of man can somehow speed up the heavenly schedule. It is not the case, for it is heaven which rules over the schedule of man, not the reverse. Likewise the weather, for what little that’s worth. My, what a swollen pride permeates our sense of mankind! How it can be so when every example set around us indicates the utter foolishness and powerlessness of man to change a thing, I don’t know. And yet, we persist in our mad delusion of power.
But, the kingdom of God is. And, with God at its helm, it is hardly to be disturbed by the foolishness of citizens like us. No, nor citizens of a most rebellious nature as we see more often than not. If Satan is incapable of disrupting the plans of heaven (and he is thus incapable), who are we to suppose that we shall do so? This is the deadly error of the faith movement. If God isn’t doing as we require of Him, it’s because there’s something wrong with our faith! Stuff and nonsense! If God isn’t doing as we require of Him, it’s quite probably because we are so stupid as to suppose we can require anything of Him! It’s certainly because the object of our prayer has nothing to do with the purpose of His throne. God’s Word does not go forth in futility. It accomplishes all His purpose without fail. He is not taken by surprise when events seem to run counter to His purpose. All of those countervailing forces (such as our own sin-soaked willfulness) have long since been accounted for in His planning.
Oh! What a marvelous, all-wise God we serve! Oh! What security in knowing that His kingdom is now! What security in realizing that His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven! What insuppressible joy in knowing that this King of all the earth, Who reigns supreme forever and ever, amen, is not only our King, but also our Father, our Brother, our Husband. We are His, for He has chosen us for His love of us. Why He should do so, I may never understand, but that He has is beyond question. He has first loved us, that we might in turn love Him. He has shattered the heart of stone within me that the responsive heart of flesh might be liberated. He has destroyed the chains of sin that kept me prisoner that I might evermore be free to follow after Him. Yes! And He has bound me to His household to my great satisfaction, bound me with the mark of a lifetime commitment, and that lifetime shall never come to an end.
The kingdom of God is in you, in me. Let the joy of this incredible truth permeate my activities and my words today. Whether it be in active evangelism, or in the simple display of living like a child of God, let it be manifest that my Father, Who art in heaven, is hallowed by this child, and His will is done in me as it is in heaven.
Oh, God! Let it be so!
