O'Donoghue MTh_Thesis-FinalCopy.pdf - South African Theological ...

established on earth in this present age. Those who hold this view maintain that thekingdom of God can be established by human effort which will in turn pave the wayfor the second coming of Jesus.Fourthly, there is a widespread contemporary view of the Kingdom of God whichviews it as something which can be entered only once one dies (Young 1995:76).Clearly Jesus would disagree with this. Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer of Matthew 6:10taught His disciples to pray for the kingdom to come on earth. Further as Bowden(2005:690) argues Luke 11:20 contains the story of Jesus casting out a demon, withJesus making the point that if He does this enabled by God then the kingdom of Godwas present.Ladd presented the idea of the Kingdom being already present and still to come,often referred to as the “already but not yet (Young 1995: 76).” The idea of God’sKingdom being a reality that is already present and still to come is the view that willbe adhered to in this thesis. As just mentioned Jesus clearly believed and proved itto be a present reality. Jesus also taught the Kingdom as a future/still to come reality(Matthew 25:34).That the Kingdom of God includes its present existence on earth nullifies the viewsheld by Weiss and Dispensationalist. That it is also a future reality nullifies the viewof the Kingdom Now Movement. Further the Kingdom Now Movement ignores thatthe age people live in now, that is the age before eternity will be imperfect. This isknown as the scriptures look forward to eternity as a time will there be no more curse(Rev. 22:3).The idea of the Kingdom being both present and future seems at best a paradox andat worst contradictory. Metzger (1992:148) helpfully resolves the contradiction andnotes that scholars do not have to eliminate either the present or future aspect of theKingdom. Metzger does this by examining the verbs associated with the Kingdom inthe Gospels. The verbs show that God’s Kingdom refers to the “reign” or “kingly rule”of God and not a physical territory. I.e. there is no point in asking whether or not theKingdom is future or present as the Kingdom includes both realities.71