more on the kingdom

I am now an "amillennialist". To be fair, I still haven't listened to the series (HT:Philip) of 10 one hour messages (93-102) by Jim McClarty reviewing weaknesses and inconsistencies in Anthony Hoekema's amillennialism. McClarty represents the Premillennial/Pre-Tribulational position. I should hope to give these a listen and probably I should spend a little time looking at preterism if for no other reason than fellow cigar smoker Virgil Vaduva is passionate about it. For me, I haven't been able to square dispensationalism with my understanding of Scripture and while I formerly held to the premillennial view, I was always post-tribulational - I never got the pre and mid-trib thinking.

That aside, as I read Kim Riddlebarger's A Case for Amillennialism, I am very impressed with his take on the Kingdom of God (some which I think runs counter to at least preterism and post-millenialism. With that, here's more from Riddlebarger.

On the one hand, Christ's kingdom is a present reality, it arrived in Jesus' person (Matt 3.2; Mark 1.15). It was evidenced by Christ's power over the demoniac (Matt 12.28; Luke 11.20); by the fall of Satan (Luke 10.17-20), by miracles and the preaching of the gospel (Matt 11.2-19). Even though the kingdom is present, it is, as Jesus said, "not of this world," for his kingdom is "from another place" (John 18.36). In fact, when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come, he replied: "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17.20-21). This is why Paul could say, "The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14.17). The unshakable nature of this kingdom means that Christians can face that which Paul called the "last days" - in which some have "shipwrecked their faith" (1 Tim 1.19), "will abandon the faith" (1 Tim 4.1), persecute the church (2 tim 3.11), and "reject sound doctrine" (2 Tim 4.3). Paul's warnings about the future course of "this age" do not sound like a description of "spiritual prosperity ... characterized by increasing peace and economic well-being," ...

Let us not forget that this present, spiritual kingdom also has an eschatological consummation yet to come. Thus, "not every one will enter" (Matt 7.21-23), and those outside the kingdom will "weep and gnash their teeth." Only the redeemed participate in the blessings of the "age to come." Indeed, the parables of the marriage feast (Matt 22.1-14), the wheat and the weeds (Matt 13.24-30, 36-43), the net (Matt 13.47-50), and the talents (Matt 25.14-30) all speak of the present spiritual kingdom as finally consummate in "the age to come" but not before.

Paul also made reference to this future consummation of the present kingdom as an age in which the wicked will not receive its blessings (1 Cor 6.9; Gal 5.21; Eph 5.5) and which cannot be inherited by flesh and blood (1 Cor 15.50). It is the already/not yet tension, the present spiritual kingdom in tension with the future consummated kingdom, which forms the interpretive grid through which we must interpret those texts cited by postmillenarians as describing a victory of the kingdom of God in the present. Though the kingdom of God spreads to the ends of the earth throughout the course of this "present evil age," it spreads through word and sacrament and is a spiritual kingdom "which is not of this world." When men say "here it is" or there it is," we must say that "the kingdom of God does not come visibly" (Luke 17.20).

But when the last trumpet sounds, the kingdom of the world will at long last become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ (Rev 11.15). It is then, and only then, that our blessed Lord Jesus will hand his kingdom over to his Father (1 Cor 15.24-25). Our last and greatest enemy, death, will finally be destroyed.

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