5. Apostolic conception of the Kingdom. — If we now ask what ideas the writers of the Apostolic Age attached to the term ' Kingdom of God ' or ' of Christ,' the answer must be that for them as in the teaching of Christ in the Gospels it is a term to symbolize the inexpressible — that is to say, the future blessedness of the redeemed.! The Anointetl King had risen from the dead, and was seated at the right hand of God. His reign had therefore begun. Why then did they not conceive of His Kingdom as a heavenly one into which His followers were admitted at death? Mainly, no doubt, because of the teaching, ascribed to Christ
* On the unique feature of the Apocalypse — the thousand years' reign of Christ upon earth — see A. Robertson, Regnuin 'Dei, p. 113.
t ' It connotes, with infinite richness of meaning, all that ia implied in the word "Salvation"' (Robertson, op. cit. p. 50).
678 KINGDOM, KINGDOM OF GOD
KNOWLEDGE
Himself, that He would return to gather together His elect. Partly, too, because of the common apocalyptic teaching that before the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom there must be the final act in the present world-order, the general resur- rection, final judgment, and transformation of this world to tit it to be the arena of the heavenly Kingdom. Thus the Kingdom was in being, but it awaited its manifestation. The King was crowned, His subjects could serve Him. But however close the union between Him and them, there was a sense in which they were now absent from the Lord, and aAvaited His coming. The Kingdom would be fully manifested only when He came. Meanwhile the Kingdom could be spoken of as a present reality rather because the Christian could be transported by faith into the presence of the King than because he brought (by his Christian life) tlie Kingdom down into this present world.
There is hardly any trace in the Epistles of the mediteval idea that the Church on earth was the Kingdom of God. And the idea of some modern theological writers, that this world as we know it will develop under Christian influence until it becomes the Kingdom, is quite alien to their thought. Indeed, the apostolic writers seemed to regard this world as incapable of becoming the arena of God's Kingdom. They felt that human nature as now constituted could reach a very im- perfect measure of Christian perfection. Limited as we are, even Cliristian knowledge must be im- perfect ; ' now we see through a mirror, in a riddle,' cries St. Paul (1 Co 13''^).
There was also the problem of physical death. So long as that remained, Christ's sovereignty could not be fully manifested. The ultimate per- fection which is the goal of the individual Christian could only be dimly guessed at. ' It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is ' (1 Jn 3^). And in a wonder- ful passage St. Paul seems to express the belief that physical nature as now known to us must undergo some transformation at Christ's return before it can be the scene of His Kingdom : ' we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain even until now.' ' For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God ' (Ro S'"- ^^).
Consequently, their anticipation for this world ■was far from being a hope of gradual amelioration. The period immediately preceding the coming of the Kingdom would be one of evil and not of good. Cf. 1 Th 11", ' the wrath to come,' 2 Th 2i-i^ ' in the last day evil times shall come,' 2 Ti 3^ and the Apocalypse, passim. The writer of 2 Peter stands alone in anticipating a destruction of the present world by fire (2 P 3''). If any one of these writers had been asked whether the Kingdom was now present, he would have answered. No. Christ was King, but His Kingdom would be manifested only when He came. If he had been further asked what that Kingdom would be, or in what relation it would stand to this present world, he would probably have answered that nearly all that con- stitutes this present world would have vanished — imperfection, sin, deatli ; and that as to the nature of the new world lie could say but little save tliat Christ would be there, and that His servants would serve Him, and that that was enough for anyone to know.
When modem writers ransack the records of Clirist's teaching or the other apostolic writings for traces of the conception that the Kingdom of God is now present in human life, it is, of course, possible to find them. For, wherever a human soul is in communion witli the absent King, there in some measure is the sovereignty of God exhibited
and the reign of Christ realized. But in the NT the admission that the Kingdom is now in somo sense present, whether in the subjection of the Christian soul to the law of Christ, or in the Church of which He is the Head, or in the life of God streaming down into the world through the Spirit of Christ in the forms of righteousness and peace, is always made on the understanding that these foreshadowings of the Kingdom of God imply a far more perfect realization of the Kingdom in the future, and that when Christ comes again the Kingdom Avill come in such sense that by com- parison it will seem never to have come before. The relation between the Kingdom now and the Kingdom of the future is perhaps much the same as that between the presence of Christ now and His presence when He returns. None has ever so fully been conscious of the life of Christ in him as was St. Paul : ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.' Yet none has ever looked forward more earnestly, with greater expectation of living hope, to the day of Christ's return. He could even speak of this present life as a condition of absence from the Lord (2 Co 5®). By contrast with such knowledge as we have of Christ now, vision of Him when He came again would be 'face to face' (1 Co 1312).