Abrahamic religions The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned throughout Abrahamic religious scriptures such as the Bible and the Quran. Jewish traditio ...

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' The "Kingdom of God" and its equivalent form " Kingdom of Heaven" in the

Gospel of Matthew The Gospel of Matthew), or simply Matthew. It is most commonly abbreviated as "Matt." is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people and form ...

is one of the key elements of the teachings of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

. The Gospel of Mark indicates that the gospel is the good news about the Kingdom of God. The term pertains to the kingship of Christ over all creation. Kingdom of "heaven" appears in Matthew's gospel due primarily to Jewish sensibilities about uttering the "name" (God). Jesus did not teach the kingdom of God per se so much as the ''return'' of that kingdom. The notion of God's kingdom (as it had been under Moses) returning became an agitation in "knaan," modern Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon, 60 years before Jesus was born, and continued to be a force for nearly a hundred years after his death.''The Gospel of Matthew'' by R.T. France (21 Aug 2007) pp. 101–103 Drawing on

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

teachings, the Christian characterization of the relationship between God and humanity inherently involves the notion of the "Kingship of God". The

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sin ...

does not include the term "kingdom of God", but includes

the Throne Verse The Throne verse ( ar, آيَةُ ٱلْكُرْسِيِّ, ''Ayat Al-Kursi'') is the 255th verse of the 2nd chapter of the Quran, Al-Baqarah ( Q2:255). The verse speaks about how nothing and nobody is regarded to be comparable to Allah. This ...

which talks about the throne of

Allah Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", a ...

encompassing the heavens and the Earth. The

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sin ...

also refers to

Abraham Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Je ...

seeing the "Kingdom of the heavens". Writings of the

Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...

also use the term "kingdom of God".

Hebrew Bible

The term
kingdom of the LORD
appears twice in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' "Yours is the kingdom, O Lord" is used in and "His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom" in ( in the verse numbering used in Christian Bibles) for example.''Psalms: Interpretation'' by James Mays 2011 pp. 438–439 There are also verses like that show how Israel, as God's chosen people, are considered to be a kingdom, mirroring some Christian interpretations that view God's kingdom as

Christendom Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwin ...

. "The Hebrew word ''malkuth'' ..refers first to a reign, dominion, or rule and only secondarily to the realm over which a reign is exercised. ..When ''malkuth'' is used of God, it almost always refers to his authority or to his rule as the heavenly King." The "enthronement psalms" (

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived f ...

45, 93, 96, 97–99) provide a background for this view with the exclamation "The Lord is King".''Dictionary of Biblical Imagery'' by Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit and Tremper Longman III (11 November 1998) pp. 478–479 , Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1 and all speak of the Throne of God, although some philosophers such as

Saadia Gaon Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon ( ar, سعيد بن يوسف الفيومي ''Saʻīd bin Yūsuf al-Fayyūmi''; he, סַעֲדְיָה בֶּן יוֹסֵף אַלְפַיּוּמִי גָּאוֹן ''Saʿăḏyāh ben Yōsēf al-Fayyūmī Gāʾōn''; ...

and Maimonides interpreted such mention of a "throne" as allegory.

Intertestamental period

The phrase ''the Kingdom of God'' is not common in intertestamental literature. Where it does occur, such as in the Psalms of Solomon and the Wisdom of Solomon, it usually refers "to God's reign, not to the realm over which he reigns, nor to the new age, or to ...the messianic order to be established by the Lord's Anointed." The term does occasionally, however, denote "an eschatological event," such as in the Assumption of Moses and the Sibylline Oracles. In these cases, "God's Kingdom is not the new age but the effective manifestation of his rule in all the world so that the eschatological order is established." Along these lines was the more "national" view in which the awaited

messiah In Abrahamic religions, a messiah or messias (; , ; , ; ) is a saviour or liberator of a group of people. The concepts of '' mashiach'', messianism, and of a Messianic Age originated in Judaism, and in the Hebrew Bible, in which a ''mashiach' ...

was seen as a liberator and the founder of a new state of Israel.

Gospels

The

Gospel of Luke The Gospel of Luke), or simply Luke (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a tw ...

records Jesus' description of the Kingdom of God, "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." In the

Synoptic Gospels The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose c ...

, Jesus speaks frequently of God's kingdom. However within the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

, nowhere does Jesus appear to clearly define the concept.George Eldon Ladd, The Presence of the Future: The Eschatology of Biblical Realism, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids: 1974), 45. Within the Synoptic Gospel accounts, the assumption appears to have been made that, "this was a concept so familiar that it did not require definition." Karen Wenell wrote, "Mark's Gospel provides for us a significant place of transformation for the space of the Kingdom of God, precisely because it can be understood as a kind of birthplace for the Kingdom of God, the beginning of its construction ...". Within the non-canonical, yet contemporary Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is quoted as saying, "If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you and outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father."Gospel of Thomas’s 114 Sayings of Jesus
Biblical Archaeological Society. 4 June 2017. Downloaded 4 September 2017. This same Gospel of Thomas further describes Jesus as implying that the Kingdom of God is already present, saying, "The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.” The Apostle Paul defined the Kingdom of God in his letter to the church in Rome: "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." The Kingdom of God (and its possibly equivalent form Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew) is one of the key elements of the teachings of

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

. Drawing on Old Testament teachings, the Christian characterization of the relationship between God and humanity inherently involves the notion of the "Kingship of God".''Mercer Dictionary of the Bible'' by Watson E. Mills, Edgar V. McKnight and Roger A. Bullard (2001) p. 490 Most of the uses of the Greek word, ''basileia'' (kingdom), in the New Testament involve Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven). Matthew is likely to have instead used the term

heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

because the background of his Jewish audience imposed restrictions on the frequent use of the name of God. However, Dr. Chuck Missler asserts that Matthew intentionally differentiated between the kingdoms of God and Heaven: "Most commentators presume that these terms are synonymous. However, Matthew uses ''Kingdom of Heaven'' 33 times, but also uses ''Kingdom of God'' five times, even in adjacent verses, which indicates that these are not synonymous: he is using a more denotative term." Kingdom of God is translated to

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of ...

as ''Regnum Dei'' and Kingdom of Heaven as ''Regnum caelorum''.

Christianity

The

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

refers to "God the Judge of all" and the notion that all humans will eventually " be judged" is an essential element of Christian teachings.''Introducing Christian Doctrine'' (2nd Edition) by Millard J. Erickson (2001) pp. 391–392 Building on a number of New Testament passages, the

Nicene Creed The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is a ...

indicates that the task of judgment is assigned to Jesus.''Systematic Theology'' Vol 2 by Wolfhart Pannenberg (2004) pp. 390–391 No overall agreement on the theological interpretation of "Kingdom of God" has emerged among scholars. While a number of theological interpretations of the term Kingdom of God have appeared in its

eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that nega ...

context, e.g. apocalyptic, realized or Inaugurated eschatologies, no consensus has emerged among scholars.''Familiar Stranger: An Introduction to Jesus of Nazareth'' by Michael James McClymond (2004) pp. 77–79''Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research'' by Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (1998) p. 255–257 R. T. France points out that while the concept of "Kingdom of God" has an intuitive meaning to lay Christians, there is hardly any agreement among scholars about its meaning in the New Testament.''Divine Government: God's Kingship in the Gospel of Mark'' by R.T. France (2003) pp. 1–3 Some scholars see it as a Christian lifestyle, some as a method of world evangelization, some as the rediscovery of charismatic gifts, others relate it to no present or future situation, but the

world to come The world to come, age to come, heaven on Earth, and the Kingdom of God are eschatological phrases reflecting the belief that the current world or current age is flawed or cursed and will be replaced in the future by a better world, age, or pa ...

. France states that the phrase Kingdom of God is often interpreted in many ways to fit the theological agenda of those interpreting it. In the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

, the Throne of God is alluded to in several forms. Among these are

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

as the Throne of God, The Throne of

David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...

, The Throne of Glory, The Throne of Grace and many more. The New Testament continues Jewish identification of heaven itself as the "throne of God", but also locates the throne of God as "in heaven" and having a second subordinate seat at the

Right Hand of God The right hand of God (''Dextera Domini'' "right hand of the Lord" in Latin) or God's right hand may refer to the Bible and common speech as a metaphor for the omnipotence of God and as a motif in art. In the Bible, to be at the right side "is ...

for the

Session of Christ The Session of Christ or heavenly session is a Christian doctrine stating that Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven—the word "session" is an archaic noun meaning "sitting". Although the word formerly meant "th ...

.

Islam

The term "kingdom of God" does not occur in the Quran. The modern Arabic word for kingdom is ''mamlaka'' (المملكة), but in the Quran ''mul'kan'' (مُّلْكًا), refers to Heaven, e.g. in 4:54 "Or do they envy mankind for what Allah hath given them of his bounty? but We had already given the people of Abraham the Book and Wisdom, and conferred upon them a great kingdom" and 6:75 "Thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and the earth."''Biblical Prophets in the Qur'an and Muslim Literature'' by Roberto Tottoli (2001) p. 27 The variant ''Maalik'' (Owner, etmologically similar to ''Malik'' (king)) occurs in 1:4 " llah isThe owner of the

Day of Judgement The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...

".Quran 1:4

Bahá'í Faith

The term "kingdom of God" appears in the writings of the

Baháʼí Faith The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people. Established by Baháʼu'lláh in the 19th century, it initially developed in Iran and parts of the ...

, including the religious works of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the religion, and his son `Abdu'l-Bahá. In the Baháʼí teachings, the kingdom of God is seen both as a state of individual being, and the state of the world. Bahá'u'lláh claimed that the scriptures of the world's religions foretell a coming messianic figure that will bring a golden age of humanity, the kingdom of God on earth. He claimed to be that figure, and that his teachings would bring about the kingdom of God; he also noted that the prophecies relating to the end times and the arrival of the kingdom of God were symbolic and referred to spiritual upheaval and renewal. The Baháʼí teachings also state as people worship and serve humanity they become closer to God and develop spiritually, so that they can attain eternal life and enter the kingdom of God while alive.

References and notes

External links

Lord Message Kingdom Of God

Jewish Encyclopedia: Kingdom of God

*
Life in God's Kingdom
A Christian Viewpoint {{Authority control Judeo-Christian topics Biblical phrases Christ the King Christian terminology Heaven in Christianity Jewish eschatology Christian eschatology Islamic eschatology Luminous Mysteries Mythical utopias

Hebrew Bible

Intertestamental period

Gospels

Christianity

Islam

Bahá'í Faith

See also

References and notes

External links