Paul's Idea of The Kingdom of God

Introduction

In Matthew 6:13, there’s an interesting part of the prayer that is excluded from virtually every translation of the Bible except the KJV and YLT. The part which pertains to the kingdom of God is excluded and seen as a later added liturgy of the early church based on 1 Chronicles 29:11-13.

Young’s Literal Translation sees Matthew 6:13 as including the kingdom reference and refers to the ageless reign of God and defeat of man’s greatest enemy.

Matthew 6:13 YLT

13 ‘And mayest Thou not lead us to temptation, but deliver us from the evil, because Thine is the reign, and the power, and the glory—to the ages. Amen.

Paul’s Kingdom Idea

Paul imagines that through Christ, Israel’s long expected future has come to pass. So, without Christ, the hope of Israel is unrealized.

Acts 28:20 CSB

20 For this reason I’ve asked to see you and speak to you. In fact, it is for the hope of Israel that I’m wearing this chain.”

The powers of the pagan gods have been defeated in and through the crucifixion of the Messiah.

Colossians 2:11–15 CSB

11 You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ, 12 when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. 14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

It is important to know that Paul saw the Jewish eschatology as being centered around Jesus and completely realized through the Spirit!

While others would have expected something besides what Jesus brought, Paul would say—this is it! Now, Israel’s rebellion plays a critical role in all of this. Their covenant blessings were satisfied, not in them, but in Christ who is the true and faithful Israel.

In the Messiah, the defeat of both the earthly and heavenly rulers are secured. This is the goal of the nation of Israel, which could not be sufficiently earned through tanks and weapons of war, but through the faithful sacrifice of the Son of God (Psalms 2; Psalms 8; Psalms 110; Daniel 2, 7, 9).

The ultimate end is: The universal praise of the Son and the turning over of the kingdom back to the Father—God all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28; Philippians 2:10).

Paul’s Exodus Theme

Per NT Wright: As a result, Paul believes that the new Exodus has been launched through the work of Jesus. When he speaks in 1 Corinthians 10 of ‘our ancestors’ being ‘bap- tized into Moses’ and so forth, clearly indicating the parallel with being baptized into the Messiah, he seems to be envisaging Jesus’ death as the moment of new Exodus, an impression confirmed, if somewhat kaleidoscopically in terms of theme, by his almost casual reference to the Messiah as the Paschal Lamb (1 Corinthians 5.7). This is then filled out by his large-scale exposition, in Romans 6— 8, of the entire Exodus theme as applied to the people of God in Christ. To re- capitulate the point: in Romans 6 God’s people come through the waters which mean that they are delivered from slavery into freedom; in Romans 7.1—8.11 they come to Sinai only to discover that, though the Torah cannot give the life it promised, God has done it; with the promise of resurrection before them, they are then launched onto the journey of present Christian life, being led by the Spirit through the wilderness and home to the promised land which is the renewal of all creation (8.12–30). This is Paul’s version of the retold Exodus story, in loose parallel with the final chapters of the Wisdom of Solomon. It is based, as was Wisdom’s retelling, on a fresh reading of the stories of Adam and Abraham (Romans 5 and Romans 4 respectively, out of narrative sequence because of the rhetorical needs of the argument at this point). And this story continues to inform his thinking at many other points. What then of the return from Exile? How has that been rethought or reimagined? The clearest passage is our old friend Romans 10.5 – 13, on which I may refer to my commentary for full details. Paul’s own exegesis of Deuteronomy 30 indicates, in implicit dialogue with other Jewish readings of this key text, that he believes that in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah God fulfilled at last the promise to bring his people back from exile after the long curse. The main difference here with those of his contemporaries who thought like him is that, in parallel with 4 Ezra and some other texts, for Paul the period of Israel’s rebellion and (in that sense) ‘exile’ did not start when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem, but with the time when Torah arrived in Israel – that is, at Mount Sinai.[18] Indeed, even this moment simply made explicit what, for Paul, was already the unrecognized, unnoticed, fact of the case: that all human beings are deemed to be sinners be- cause of Adam. Israel’s exile is thus ultimately subsumed under Adam’s, and though Paul uses texts which for some of his contemporaries spoke more specifically of a problem which had begun only with Babylon, he appeals with some exegetical justification to the fact that, for instance in Deuteronomy 27—32, Moses himself denounces the people of his day as hard-hearted and bound to break the Law and so incur its curse, culminating in actual geographical exile.

What Does This Mean To Us?

God has done something in Christ that includes us and makes us a part of the story. God is still remaking the earth, because the forces of darkness are often found in preceding generations and peoples. This hope Israel had is contextualized within an issue that is tremendously concerned with the manifestation of God’s promise through Israel. However, the ultimate end is, as was said earlier, rooted in the hope that Christ will give the kingdom back to the Father—making Him all in all.