Expressing God's Kingdom
Serving God's Royal Rule (3)
[Students of the New Testament agree that the kingdom of God, ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ, God’s royal rule, is central to Jesus’s mission and message in the Synoptic Gospels. We find further reflection on God’s royal rule throughout the New Testament. In part one of this series, I demonstrated that Jesus didn’t bring or introduce the kingdom of God. In part two, I located Jesus’s coming within the grand scriptural narrative of God’s kingdom that extends from creation to new creation. This series on “Serving God’s Royal Rule” continues below.]
What can we learn a lot about God’s royal rule simply by surveying the ways the various phrases (e.g., “kingdom of God,” “kingdom of heaven,” “the Father’s kingdom,” “Jesus’s kingdom”) are used in the Gospels?1
The term βασιλεία (basileia, usually translated as “kingdom”) is used 126 times in the four New Testament Gospels:
55 times in Matthew
20 times in Mark
46 times in Luke (plus 8 in the Acts of the Apostles)
5 times in John
The vast majority of these have to do with the kingdom of God / heaven, though reference can also be made to the world’s kingdom or the devil’s kingdom (Matt 4:8; 12:25–26; 24:7; Mark 3:24; 13:8; Luke 4:5; 11:17–18; 21:10), to Herod’s kingdom (Mark 6:23), and so on. The Gospels assume a basic equivalence among several related expressions—for example, the kingdom, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven (more on this anon), kingdom of the Father, kingdom of Jesus, and kingdom of the Son of Man.
Do you know “Bible Odyssey”? A project of the Society of Biblical Literature, it provides often helpful approaches to a range of key motifs and issues in the Bible and in biblical studies. The short article on “Kingdom of God/Kingdom of Heaven,” by Jonathan T. Pennington, is a great example.
What Happens with Respect to God’s Kingdom?
Most frequently, God’s kingdom is entered (Matt 5:20; 7:21; 8:11; 19:23, 24; 21:31; 25:34; Mark 9:47; 10:23, 24, 25; Luke 18:17, 24, 25; John 3:5), with the result that people can be in (Matt 5:19; 11:11; 13:43; 18:1, 4; 20:21; 26:29; Mark 14:25; Luke 7:28; 13:28, 29; 14:15; 22:16; 22:30), not far from (Mark 12:34), or out of the kingdom (Matt 23:13).
In terms of frequency, second, the kingdom can be proclaimed (Matt 4:23; 9:35; 10:7; 13:19; 24:14; Luke 4:43; 8:1; 9:2, 11, 60; 10:9, 11).
The kingdom can be desired (Matt 6:33; Luke 12:31), forcibly entered (Matt 11:12; Luke 16:16), or anticipated (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:51).
The kingdom is a possession (Matt 5:3, 10; 19:14; Mark 10:14; Luke 6:20; 18:16) or gift (Luke 12:32) that one can receive (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17), be granted (Luke 22:29), or inherit (Matt 8:12; 25:34); or that can be taken from someone (Matt 21:43).
One can be discipled for the kingdom (Matt 13:52), receive the keys to the kingdom (Matt 16:19), or suffer on account of the kingdom (Matt 19:12; Luke 18:29).
The kingdom is mysterious (Matt 13:11; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10), and can be explained in parabolic terms. Thus, for example, the kingdom grows (Matt 13:24, 31; Mark 4:26, 30; Luke 13:18), permeates (Matt 13:33; Luke 13:20), can be found and purchased (Matt 13:44, 45), involves sifting (Matt 13:47) or the settling of accounts (Matt 18:23; 20:1), and involves entry and preparation (Matt 22:2; 23:1; cf. Luke 9:62).
The kingdom also appears sometimes as the subject of a handful of verbs: The kingdom comes, draws near, has come upon you, is among you, and appears (Matt 3:2; 4:17; 6:10; 10:7; 12:28; 16:28; Mark 1:15; 9:1; 11:10; Luke 10:9–11; 11:2; 11:20; 17:20; 19:11; 21:31; 22:18; 23:42).
What Can We Gather from These Data?
We can learn a lot from these data. Speaking globally, and, perhaps most importantly, given contemporary kingdom-talk, the kingdom of God about which the Gospels concern themselves does not depend for its existence on human activity. Humans do not create, build, construct, extend, or make present the kingdom. The kingdom is God’s.
This essay continues after this book recommendation. [Note: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. This doesn’t affect the price you pay and helps support this website.]
Michael F. Bird, Whispers of Revolution: Jesus and the Coming of God as King (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2025). ISBN: 9781540970237. 376 pp.
Bird offers a portrait of Jesus centered on the conviction that, in his words and deeds, God’s kingship was breaking into the world to rescue Israel and renew creation. Drawing on archaeology and Second Temple Jewish history and literature, he presents Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish messianic figure whose kingdom proclamation was both deeply rooted in Israel’s Scriptures and inherently subversive to existing power structures.
Exploring Jesus’s life and career, his words and deeds, Bird argues that Jesus initiated a quiet but radical revolution—a reordering of power, the regathering of Israel, the defeat of Satan, and the beginning of cosmic renewal. The whispers of this revolution in Jesus’s ministry are then taken up in the public proclamation of the early Jesus-movement.
The kingdom originates with God, it draws its character from God, and it precedes any human response to it, even though its presence invites (or demands) human response.
What Does It Mean “to Enter” God’s Kingdom?
The most natural sense of the verb “to enter” depends on a portrait of the kingdom as a “container” or “place,” as though one might move from one location to another. This doesn’t make much sense of God’s royal rule, though, since God’s kingdom is all-pervasive and eternal.
Instead, we ought to imagine entering a “sphere,” that is, a field of influence, activity, and/or operation. (Think of Gal 1:4, which, in the J. B. Phillips New Testament reads: The Lord Jesus Christ “rescued us from the present evil world-order”—that is, Jesus transfers us from one sphere of influence to another.)
In other words, “entering the kingdom” entails experiencing, identifying with, participating in, coming under the influence of, and joining the community formed in relation to God’s kingdom. This makes sense of God’s royal rule, which cannot be confined to a particular region or set of borders. This is not because God’s rule lacks a sense of “place” (as, for example, in the older, deeply flawed, and overly subjective and sentimentalized view of God’s kingdom finding a home in human hearts) but because God’s rule knows no geographical boundaries.
Coming next: God’s Royal Rule as Interpretive Lens
Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. Although this brief essay derives from my notes on God’s kingdom, inevitably there will be some overlap with my article, “Kingdom of God/Heaven,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed., ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 468–81.
This is a really helpful way of framing the kingdom as God’s royal rule rather than something humans construct. One thing that strikes me reading this is how naturally our instincts push us the other direction. We often gravitate toward language about “building” or “advancing” the kingdom because it gives us a sense of agency and control. But psychologically we tend to overestimate the role of our own actions in large movements or outcomes. Your reminder that the kingdom originates with God and precedes our response is an important corrective to that impulse.