Now and Processing Towards the Not Yet

Here is a research paper that I just finished on the paradoxical Kingdom of God for my NT1 class called Gospels at Fuller Seminary. The class was taken with D.A. Hagner and was very informative. Leave a comment, shoot me an e-mail, or give me a call if you would like to have a conversation about this good stuff. PEACE!!!

A bride and groom embrace in the promise of a covenant to one another. The change has happened. Two have become one. The love of the bride and groom is realized, yet there is something more to this mysterious celebration. While embracing and recognizing the beauty of the moment of promise to a covenant, the bride and groom also wait in anticipation, recognizing that their love is but a “mustard seed”, with potential to grow into “the largest of the plants in the garden”. Thus, there is also celebration and anticipation within the future of the love of the bride and of the groom on their wedding day. Similar to the realized and future celebration and hope that mysteriously manifests itself on a wedding day, so it is with the Kingdom of God. Even from the book of Amos, the Day of Yahweh was a day of expectation of the radical in breaking of God into history to establish his rule. The reign of God has come. The Kingdom of God has come and thus has established realized eschatology. Yet a paradox exists. While the Kingdom is realized, there is also a certain hope and celebration in the truth that more is to come. The reign is a process that will one day be manifested in a fuller sense. This is the future eschatological condition that humanity finds itself in. Thus we have a paradox. To gain a larger perspective on reality, this paradox must be embraced. The Kingdom of God is the dynamic reign of God and is both realized and waited for by the church. Also, the Kingdom is not either here, or not here. It is both here, and in the process of fully being here.
Biblically, this paradox is evident throughout the Gospels. Jesus tells stories that can often be confusing regarding the Kingdom. Some stories tell of a Kingdom that will be coming (future eschatology), and sometimes he speaks as if the Kingdom is near, or even here (realized eschatology). The best way to handle these different passages is to recognize whether Jesus is speaking of realized eschatology, future eschatology, or both. The following paragraphs will take a close look at this type of exegesis.
John the Baptist must be understood in order to understand realized eschatology. In chapter eleven of the gospel according to Matthew, he writes of a shift in reality that occurs through the coming of John the Baptist. Verse thirteen shares that an era has ended and has begun with John. This new time in space and reality is given the label “The Kingdom of God”. Matthew continues to develop thoughts regarding the Kingdom into chapter thirteen of his gospel. In verse thirty-three Jesus tells the parable of the leaven. This parable is of certain interest because it supports two opposite views. The first view, which has been the view of dispensational thinkers, speaks of the yeast within parable of the leavens as evil doctrine permeating an apostate Christian church. When the surrounding pericopes are taken into account, the dispensational view falls short when compared to the opposing view. The opposite view interprets the yeast as a beginning, not only to the Kingdom of God, but also to the process of the Kingdom of God coming in its fullest sense. In order for yeast to work within dough, it needs to be kneaded and kneading takes time, sweat, and effort. While the yeast seems small and insignificant, it begins to work through dough and becomes something more and more altering within the dough. The precise time and the precise action of how the future Kingdom will fully come has nothing to do with this parable. The parable is an announcement of realized eschatology and also embraces the mysterious process of the development of the Kingdom of God that is gradually occurring in the world here and now.
There is also ample material within the gospels that reveal portions of truth regarding the future eschatological Kingdom. Interestingly enough, both Bultmann and Bright agree that Jesus was not all that interested in having dialogue regarding apocalyptic instruction. While he was not interested in instruction, he did, however, share realities of what future eschatology will entail. Luke writes a dramatic account of future eschatology in his seventeenth chapter. (Similar to Matthew’s more detailed account in his twenty fourth chapter.) Verses twenty-two through thirty-seven include many interesting details. The first of the interesting details is that the timing behind the coming of the Son of Man will be mysterious. Luke writes that the coming will be like lighting. The second detail from this pericope is that there will be judgment for the individual at the second coming. George Eldon Ladd writes “Jesus really had little to say about the destiny of the individual apart from his or her place in the eschatological Kingdom of God.” With this in mind, Luke speaks of individuals being “taken away” towards the end of the chapter. (This idea aligns well with numerous visions of harvest and separation of peoples found in other portions of the Gospel.) In very end, the disciples ask where individuals will be taken at the coming of the future eschatological Kingdom, and Jesus responds with, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.” While many evangelicals picture a “rapture” of saints at this moment in time, Jesus seems to have a different perspective towards future eschatology. In Luke, Jesus describes the destiny of individuals who love God as being “left behind” while the others are sorted into a place of dead bodies and vultures.
The paradox of the eschatological Kingdom includes that the Kingdom is both here, not yet here, and in the process of coming more fully within time and space. Jesus often includes this paradoxical mystery in his teaching. A passage that represents the idea of a paradoxical Kingdom is found in the fourth chapter of the gospel according to Mark. Within the parable of the growing seed, Jesus speaks of a man scattering seed on the ground. This seed, similar to the yeast and the leaven, implies a “small” start to this new shift in reality called the Kingdom of God. Verse twenty-seven then describes that night and day the seed sprout and grows, though the man who spread the seed does not know how. This verse is representative of the ongoing process of the Kingdom and even alludes to God’s active work within this process outside of human effort. At the end of the parable, Mark writes that Jesus taught that a harvest would come, and that a sickle would be used on the ripe grain at the time of the harvest. Jesus here, of course, is speaking of future eschatology and the time of His return. Seedtime (realized) and harvest (future), both are the work of the sovereign God of the universe. Embodied within one parable we encounter the reality of both realized and future eschatology.
Matthew thirteen is another place where the realized Kingdom and the future Kingdom are taught simultaneously. In the parable of the sower, the Kingdom, once again, begins with the idea of seeds. (However in this parable Matthew adds the adjective good to tell his readers more about the condition of the seeds.) As the story continues, weeds that have been planted by the enemy also grow with the wheat. This is a reality of the realized Kingdom. Weeds and wheat from good seeds grow with one another. Raymond Brown parallels the weeds from the story as evil people whose stories will be intertwined with people of the Kingdom in this current state of realized eschatology. While there is a process of growth in the realized Kingdom, moving forward towards another radical in breaking, weeds are also present amongst the areas in life that seem to be representative of “good wheat”. Ladd recognizes that early scholarship missed the purpose of the parable by relating the field with only the church, and not the world. He continues with the idea that the Kingdom has come, but with the Kingdom did not come an uprooting of society. The stories of people, both good and bad, are bound together in the present world and only at the time of the future Kingdom will they be fully separated. This parable ends with a more detailed account of the future eschatological coming of the Kingdom. Again, at this time we see a time of judgment and separation. Ladd puts it best…
“This separation is sure to come. The Kingdom that is present but hidden in the world will yet be manifested in glory. Then there will be an end of the mixed society. The wicked will be gathered out and the righteous will shine like the sun in the eschatological Kingdom.”

The end of the parable aligns well with earlier thoughts from this paper found within Luke seventeen. The weeds will be gathered first at the time of this separation. The theology behind the weeds being bundled and burned while the wheat is gathered into the barn is for another time, but separation will assuredly take place within the framework of the future eschatological Kingdom. So again, within a teaching of Jesus, written down through the work of the first evangelist, as led by the Holy Spirit, embrace is encountered regarding the current paradox of the now and not yet Kingdom.
Through the Gospel writers, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Jesus speaks of a present Kingdom, and of a future Kingdom. Similar to a bride and a groom on their wedding day, there is hope and beauty in both the realized condition of their love and of the potential in the future depth love that will miraculously grow deeper as time and space allow. Jesus’ eschatology also includes the likes of both the realized and the future. His realized eschatology seems to point in the direction of a “small” beginning. Yet in the midst of realized eschatology also seems to be a movement of process towards the future eschatological condition. The Kingdom is extending towards this unusual time when Jesus will appear in an enigmatic fashion and will seemingly judge the individual. There will be another radical in breaking and it will be miraculous. The Kingdom is not either here, or not here. It is both here, and in the process of fully being here. A holistic understanding of the teachings of Jesus leaves room for this mysteriously important paradox.