RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Kingdom of God
pledge of forgiveness in Christ is the certainty of salvation, the faith of the Christian means for Luther experience of salvation in a way quite different from that of Augustine, and thus for him the future " reigning with God " coincides with the present " rule by God " both in time and in content. Luther extends the thought of the royal dominion of the believers over all creatures and over heaven and earth, in the sense that the assurance of the fatherhood of God includes the assurance that all things work together for good, i.e., for eternal life. Thus by his concept of the kingdom, which is a share in the dominion of God or Christ over all, he avoids the disregard of the good and evil of this world which had been taught by Augustine and, at first, by himself.
As the kingdom of God consists of the Christians over whom and in favor of whom God or Christ rules, and who rule with him, it was but natural for Luther to regard the kingdom on earth as in an extensive and intensive state of growth, so that it is the duty of every Christian to in-
7. Luther's crease the number of the faithful or to Earthly build up God's kingdom (Erlangen ed.,
Kingdom viii. 241, xii. 319, xxxiii. 344, xxxix.
of God. 14, 1. 153, 235). But Luther did not go far enough to regard the kingdom of God as the highest ethical good or as an all-comprehending ethical end. This was because, in the first place, his ethics was not teleological but experiential, and in the second place because he did not subordinate the spheres of the economic and political states which, together with the Church, make up his ideal of life on earth, to a common and eternal purpose. The secular spheres and their various vocations have for him only earthly aims, and their works are governed by natural law. He did not think of the possibility and necessity of elevating earthly callings to a higher sphere of morality by means of Christianity; yet he did not contradict the view of Melanchthon, who saw in the good works of Christians in their secular callings a " policy of Christ to show his kingdom before the world." For Luther, as for others, the realization of the kingdom of Christ was the Church, which, however, he held to be the congregation of believers whom Christ rules through the Word and the Spirit. On the other hand, he recognized the kingdom of God wherever faith and love were manifest in earthly callings, and he held the Church to be the kingdom only where her activity truly proceeded from faith and love (Erlangen ed., xxiii. 385).
With Zwingli the ethical conception of the kingdom of God preponderated. For him it is contained, in the first place, in preaching, i.e., in the offering of heavenly blessings and of the grace vouchsafed in Christ, and, in the second place, in the Church, to which preaching calls. Where the Gospel is received, there is established
8. Theories the kingdom of God, which consists of of Zwingli faith, piety, justice, and innocence, so
and Calvin, that it coincides with those who are
regenerated through Christ (Opera, ed.
H. Schuler and J. Schulthess, Zurich, 1828-42, vi.
210, 236, 239, 289, 302, 352, 390, 609, 693); and he
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emphasizes the view that the " people of God " are characterized simply and solely by their striving to have the kingdom of God within them. With Calvin the fundamental characteristic of the kingdom was the rule of God, in the sense of the subordination of man to the divine will (Commentarii inN. T., ed. A. Tholuck, Berlin, 1833-34, i. 167). It is not in the future, but begins in faith upon earth through the Word and the secret working of the Holy Spirit (ib., i. 167, iii. 44, 336). It is, therefore, a product of divine as well as human activity; nor did it first come with Christ, whose office it was " to spread through all the world the kingdom of God, which was then restricted to a corner of Judaea " (ib., i. 287). The future kingdom is thus the completion of the one begun on earth, and is characterized by continued progress (ib., i. 167; CR, xxx. 667). Unlike Luther, Calvin sought to bring the kingdom of God to expression in the external forms of life. The realization of the rule of God is, in the eyes of Calvin also, the Church, and the communion of saints is the test of the empirical church (ed. A. Tholuck, i. 146, 262, ii. 198; CR, xxx. 757). He again differed from Luther in so far as he was inclined to regard the constitution of the New Testament as an eternal law given by God, and to regard church discipline as an order instituted by God for the conservation of the spiritual state (CR, 776 sqq., 867 sqq., 891 sqq.); while he carefully distinguished political from ecclesiastical dominion (CR, xxv. 1092 sqq.).
In Pietism (q.v.) the longing for the betterment of religious conditions led to a distinction between the kingdom of God and the official Church or Christian morality. Spener advocated the expectation of better times for the Church, interpreting
this as a preparatory triumph of the
9. Pietism glorious kingdom of Christ; a time of
and the the expansion and awakening of the
Enlighten- Church, which was to begin with the
ment on the destruction of Babylon (the Roman
Kingdom. Catholic Church); and the conversion
of the Jews. The younger generation of Pietists, like J. J. Moser, dated the beginning of the kingdom from the movement of Spener, thinking of the contrast between traditional and genuine Christianity. Emancipation from dogmatics, a deeper study of the Bible, and its historical interpretation led to the tenet that the Scriptures contain the records of a history of revelation and religion passing through a series of developments comprised under the general term " kingdom of God," a theory represented especially by Bengel, C. A. Crusius, and Johann Jakob Hess. The period of the Enlightenment (q.v.) emphasized primarily the active ethical side in the kingdom of God and its analogy with a community of obedient subjects, but did not overlook the religious side, since it was only through God's government of the world that the harmony between the sphere of morality and that of nature was accomplished, or that the comprehensive union of humanity was effected which was necessary for the realization of the moral idea. Owing to the indelible goodness of the heart, it was held that there is no sharp distinction between the history of natural humanity and the history of sal-
Kingdom of God Kingo