About this sermon
A Morning Instruction class on chapter 3 of Geerhardus Vos’s The Kingdom of God and the Church. The word kingdom can mean God’s reign, an abstract sense, or the realm over which he reigns, a concrete sense; the Old Testament leans toward the first, and Jesus’ teaching uses both. Matthew’s phrase “kingdom of heaven” and the “kingdom of God” in Mark and Luke name the same reality, for Matthew wrote for Jewish readers who reverently avoided the divine name. There is no line to draw between the two.
Sermon transcript
So, we are talking about the Kingdom of God, also the Kingdom of Heaven. This is Chapter 3, Your Heart is False, the Kingdom of God, and the Church. Very old book, but still has a lot of good things to say to us. First, we are going to talk about the word Kingdom. The word Kingdom. Does anyone remember what the word He wrote it out in Greek, what the word for kingdom is.
Yes? Basilea? Very close. Very good job. Basilea. But this is very good. You are to be commended. Good job. We’re going to talk about the Greek word Vasileia. It is a word that happens, that is found all over God’s Word. Especially in the New Testament, in the Gospels. We could say especially in three of the Gospels, the three Gospels that they call the Synoptic Gospels. That’s Matthew, and Mark, and Luke.
What Vos says in our first paragraph is that this idea of kingdom, basileia, both in its New Testament and in its Old Testament forms can be broken down into two different concepts. He says this is true also of the Old Testament word for kingdom. This is also true for our New Testament, excuse me, for our English understanding of the word kingdom. What Voss does is he breaks it down into two separate concepts, like I said.
The first one is what he would call the abstract. the abstract understanding of the kingdom. And that has to do, really, with the reign. When we talk about someone’s reign, we can talk about their kingdom in an abstract way. Like if I were to say that some king of England, his kingdom went from 1648 until 1655. That is an abstract understanding of what his kingdom is. It’s talking about his rule, his reign.
Now what we want to do, to understand that, and ultimately, if we don’t understand that, let’s just compare it with a concrete understanding of the word kingdom. And that has to do, that has to do with the idea of someone’s realm, or someone’s area. Think of concrete, as things that you can see, things that you can touch, feel. Think of things that are abstract, as things that are mental, but they’re not something that you can go put your hands on. So when we understand the kingdom as a concrete reality, that we want to think about spatial location.
We want to talk about where it is, its borders, things like that. So we might say that, you know, where is the kingdom of the universe? Let’s say Nebuchadnezzar. We could say the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. We could look on a map and say, this is how far the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar spread.
There’s a point where you’re outside of it. There’s a point where you cross a border and you come into it. So these are concrete understandings of it. What is its realm? Where does it exist? All the way, we wanna understand that against the idea of just its reign and its power. Now the question is, in what sense does Jesus, well let’s even back up a little bit more. In what sense ought we to understand the Old Testament and its concept of kingdom? Do you remember what Voss says? I got two hands, either one. Chris? Yes, I’m going to go ahead and agree with you. Yes. Yes. yes I’m gonna go ahead and agree with you this is what’s very interesting to me I read Um, your hardest boss here and understand we’re, we’re not, let’s just say your hardest boss is no chump.
He is the, I mean, it’s, it’s sad how, how little known he is. His, his writings are very difficult to read, but he is, I mean, there, he, he stood with very few peers. if any peers. He’s just really remarkable in his faithfulness to the reformed faith and his ability to defend the reformed faith against people who, well basically almost everybody in his theological climate except for two schools, basically Princeton and Old Amsterdam.
So this is what he said. In the Old Testament, where a kingdom is ascribed to Jehovah, with the exception of Exodus 19-6, where the Israelites are called a kingdom of priests, and therefore the meaning is concrete, that of a body of subjects ruled over, standing. Then he goes even stronger. He says, God’s kingdom is always his reign, his rule, and never his domain.
I say this, I emphasize this because I’m going to go ahead and just, I’m going to agree with Chris, I’m going to agree with Seal. I think that we’re gonna get into the New Testament idea in just a moment, but I think he might be wrong about the Old Testament understanding of kingdom in this sense. But we’ve talked about last semester, I hope you don’t, won’t think me to be just a one-trick pony or anything like that, but we want to talk about the time period of protology, typology, and eschatology. When we talk, What we ought to understand, I think most biblical theologians, which Gerhard is amongst the best, he’s a founder of conservative, reformed biblical theology. What ought to be our concept of the kingdom concerning Adam? We ought to see Adam as a man who was given a holy realm because God wants to be a holy God to rule over a holy people. a holy realm, I think I already said that, a holy realm. What happens when the mediator, when the prophet, priest, and king, this is the time of Adam, this is the time of Israel, this is the time of Jesus, just for anyone who was not there. What happens to the people when they rebel against God in the garden? Well, they’re thrown out of the garden, right? They’re thrown out of a holy realm. They’re thrown out of a kingdom. So there was a concept, it seems to me, both of Adam’s reign and of his realm, the area in which he was. We also would understand this in terms of the realm idea when we talk about Old Testament Israel.
They were outside of the land, they’re delivered from Pharaoh, and they enter into the land. In a sense, they’re somewhat recreated as the people of God as they’re going into the land, as they’re being baptized through the Red Sea. They go into the land with and laws are given for the covenant land. Laws are given for the covenant land that don’t apply outside of that land. So their kingdom is land focused. Their kings reign.
There is both an abstract understanding of it, a la seal. There is a a concrete understanding of it within that land. Basically, if you enter into the covenant land, the Old Testament understanding, you better not bring your false gods with you. You better not bring certain obvious sins. They’re going to bring a holy war upon you. if you do so.
So I’m not sure why, and I say, I just want to lavish praise upon Gerhardus Voss. I’ve read him a lot, I have much appreciation for him. But I’m not sure why he was saying that it is exclusively the abstract. And I’ve been thinking, thinking really hard, trying to understand that, I just can’t see it.
I’m gonna say, I’m gonna respectfully disagree and say I think that clearly there’s an abstract and a concrete understanding of kingdom in the Old Testament, both in the protological time period and the typological time period. Now, What ought we to see then? Let me just begin the second paragraph.
He says, we have already seen that the relative absence of the phrase kingdom of God from the Jewish sources points to the same conclusion for it was the lack of interest in the truth that Jehovah would be supreme that prevented this phrase from becoming popular. Basically what he’s saying is, Aside from what we just talked about, the kingdom of God is a phrase that we don’t really find in our Old Testament, right? He says that the Jews didn’t seem to have an understanding that they wanted to have the reign of God. He says on the other hand, comparing Jesus to Jesus, To Jesus, the thought that God would rule was a glorious thought which filled his soul with the most sacred joy. How ought we to understand the New Testament understanding of kingdom?
Aside from what we just talked about, I’ll just tell you what Voss says, and I think he’s right on the money here. He says that it is both an abstract and a concrete sense. An abstract and a concrete reality. This is what Voss says at the bottom of paragraph two. He says, in point of fact, a single glance at the gospel discourses shows how utterly impossible it is to carry through the abstract rendering in each single instance where our Lord speaks of the kingdom.
So what he’s saying is we This is what he’s saying is the Old Testament understanding is abstract only. The New Testament understanding is that it is abstract and concrete. But what he’s saying is you would think Go with his understanding. You would think that there’s just going to be an abstract understanding in the Old Testament, so there’s just going to be an abstract understanding of it in the New Testament.
But he’s saying that God expands upon it, expands upon the abstract and makes it both abstract and concrete. Let’s give some examples, lest we be abstract only. Gerhardus Voss talks about the abstract understanding, and there are certain buzzwords that are going to be used by Jesus when he talks about the kingdom, when he talks about it in its abstract sense.
This is paragraph three, at the bottom of page 22 if people are following along. And the abstract rendering, as when we read of the kingdom, coming, appearing, being at hand, or being seen. Coming, appearing, being at hand, being seen. These are all words that Jesus uses and he is talking about this kingdom. They’re not examples where you would look and say, it’s coming, show it to me. Show me the kingdom versus the non-kingdom. Show me where that is.
Because Jesus is talking about the abstract sense, the way in which He is ruling and reigning. Should we understand Jesus as a King only in His exaltation or in His humiliation as well? Anyone have a thought on that? Our catechism talks about it. Sarah. Yes, the question is, think about it.
Jesus comes in humiliation, and he comes in exaltation. He comes as a servant, as a humiliated servant, and after the resurrection, he is exalted, and he is glorified. Should we say that he’s a king in only one of those? either his humiliation or his exaltation. No? Yes. He’s king in both.
In fact, our catechism rightly says that Jesus is prophet, priest, and king in humiliation and exaltation. Which one ought we to see as the preeminent? Prophet, priest, king, and exaltation? All three, it’s a priestly kingdom, a kingdom of priests that he’s the ruler over.
Yes, Andrew. You answered my question. Okay, all right. So he wants to say that it is abstract and Jesus uses it. Coming, appearing, being at hand, being seen, these are abstract terms. But then we wanna talk about concrete terms. And this would be page 23, paragraph four. He says, then there are a great number, perhaps the majority of passages in which the note of the concrete plainly dominates when the figure is that of calling to the kingdom of God, of entering into it, of its being shut, or of people being cast out from it, of its being sought, given, possessed, received, inherited. These are all, Voss wants to say, concrete Talking about the realm, talking about its area. As stated above, he says, in a number of cases, we have no data for choosing between the two.
So that’s very important. Our New Testament understanding of kingdom is composed of abstract and concrete understandings of it. And the beautiful thing about Vos, I find is his humility. If you read him at all, or if you’ve read him a bunch, he states when he doesn’t know. It’s a beautiful thing. He doesn’t wing it. He doesn’t try and just fib a little if he’s not sure.
He says, clearly, a whole bunch of verses, a whole bunch of occurrences of the word basileia, kingdom, I find to be abstract. A whole bunch of the occurrences of Basilea Kingdom I find to be concrete, talking about the realm. And then there are a fair number of other ones I’m just not sure of. The jury’s still out. So I have much appreciation for his humility. He is, in more than one way, a model for us.
Then he talks very briefly about the idea of some people would like to erase this whole, get rid of this whole idea of kingdom of God, or at least, not the idea, they want to get rid of the words. They don’t like the word kingdom of God, because it’s It causes problems for them. I think he’s talking about liberal scholars here. What they want to do is they want to talk about sovereignty of God. So anytime in your Bible when it says kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, they want to translate it differently. And they want to say the sovereignty of God.
Any objection to that? Yes, Mr. Brandenburg. I think you’re right about that. And I think it’s important for people to understand that part of that is also an abandonment of the supernatural. And that the kingdom of God has absolutely nothing to do with some kind of a heavenly afterlife or a supernatural intervention human affairs, and they would even redefine sovereignty of God, so that God does not act to carry out his decrees, but God is sort of like the general manager that’s there. maybe be a little unkind to them, but they’re really, when you abandon a belief in the scripture as the word of God, you’re abandoning all that’s not, what is there? It’s just another writing. So this is one thing that that led to. Absolutely. Was it the case that only conservatives are talking about kingdom? Mr. Vrenderberry? No. Liberals talk about kingdom all the time. You’re absolutely right.
And they talked about, they were the champions of the consciousness of Jesus. I mean, I understand that great things have been written about that, but, you know, it’s like, what did Jesus know? Did Jesus know who he was? You know, it’s as though Jesus was some kind of schizophrenic sometimes when you would read some of their writings. So, yeah, they took everything that we talk about and that we love and hold dear in the scriptures and read them. Just for clarity’s sake, if I might just clarify what you’re talking about with the consciousness of Jesus. There’s a debate during the time of Jesus, probably during the time of Jesus, but during the time of Vos, having to do with was Jesus conscious of his own messianic ontology, was he conscious of the fact that he was the Messiah?
Well, we would think, of course, we don’t even need to flinch, we say Jesus is fully conscious of his divinity from the beginning, even from his birth, and there’s mystery to that. The liberal scholars talk about the kingdom of Christ. They also talk about his being conscious, and different liberal scholars debate how conscious Jesus was, but they very much had an understanding of the kingdom. I mean, Albert Schweitzer, who was a scholar, very popular at that time, he believed that Jesus believed that he was going to bring about the kingdom.
But ultimately, Schweitzer said that Jesus had failed. But still, the kingdom has been realized. Even though Jesus failed, even though his life and his work was very different than he thought it was going to be. It turned out very different. Such a different understanding of what Jesus said and did. It’s almost as if we have a different religion from liberal Christianity.
That’s really what’s pushing paragraph 4, which is the sovereignty of God changing. We don’t want to do this kingdom mess nonsense. Let’s just kind of do the Jedi mind trick. Make it all go away and just call it the sovereignty of God. That’s really What is behind that? It’s liberalism, we want to be respectful to liberals, but we must respectfully disagree. Yes? In my unsophisticated mind, I’ve been meditating on this as I’ve been reading and thinking about it, and it just seems to me that Israel wanted a king that they could touch, And God said, I’m your king. And they insisted on a human king because their neighbors had a king. And then when Christ came, they said, we have no other king but Caesar.
And so I see this same debate as being as being absolutely in the New Testament. The Jewish leaders were having this debate against him and his kingdom throughout the Gospels, and very venomous, and how dare you, and even Pilate, Take this off, came with the Jews.
He said, no, no. And so, I don’t mean to be digressing, but that seems to me that this is, I just see this as being such a long-lived thing. Well, that’s not digressing, and from one simplistic mind to another, that was very profound, so I thank you for that.
I mean, I think you’re absolutely right. They had an abstract understanding, at least, of their king in the Old Testament. They wanted a concrete one, and then a concrete king comes, and they wanted Well, they reject him. I guess they want a different concrete king. But you’re absolutely right. There’s nothing new under the sun. These things have been around.
Look at the difference, though, between Kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven. Or really, is there a difference between the two? That’s what we ought to really be asking. In paragraph five, Gerardus Vos talks about the fact that there’s one evangelist, there’s one gospel writer, who seems to major on calling the kingdom, whenever Jesus talks about the kingdom, he calls it the kingdom of heaven. And which one is that?
No, no. Matthew. Matthew says kingdom of heaven. The other two synoptic gospels, Mark and Luke, use exclusively kingdom of God. Matthew uses kingdom of God, I think, six times. The rest of the times are kingdom of heaven. And I think John only uses kingdom the kingdom words twice. Why is it that Matthew uses kingdom of heaven?
Is it possible that he has a strategy? Or there’s a reason for it? Or is there a reason that Mark and Luke predominantly use the idea of kingdom of God? Anyone remember what Vos says? Yes, Chris. I don’t remember what Paul says, so I think I’ll just skip it. Take a stab at it. Oh, OK.
Well, it’s my understanding that Matthew was very much a Jew, and that he got very much a Jewish way of thinking and Jewish way of speaking. And as such, the Jewish way of speaking tends to, circumlocute talk around using the name of God. So kingdom of heaven is a way of saying the kingdom of God without actually using God’s name. Did you read Voss? Because I think you hit it. If you didn’t read Voss, then wow. I’m impressed. I mean, exams in school must have been, phenomenal for you. You got it. If you didn’t read it, that was excellent. Yes, that is absolutely right.
The kingdom of heaven is probably what was predominantly used because they had a superstitious understanding of God’s name. It wasn’t fully superstitious, it was grounded in a right understanding of not using God’s name in vain. They were afraid that God would strike them down if they used the word God or the proper name God, so they shy away from that. So Jesus probably did that too, not because he feared it, because, I mean, Jesus can’t dishonor God’s name, but Jesus probably adopted that usage, which is fine.
Matthew, he majors on that. Hey, there’s our stink bug friend again. He’s always with me, it seems. The kingdom of heaven is what Matthew predominates. with his usage. Probably the reason for that is because his audience is, we’ve got six minutes, his audience is Jewish people and so they want to present it in such a way that it will be more palatable, more understanding to them. Palatable, I mean he says some harsh things against the Jews so it’s not palatable in that sense. Who was the audience? Probably of Mark and of Luke. Probably the audiences were the Romans for Mark and for Luke, the Gentiles, the Greeks, just in general, not specifying a certain people.
So where does this leave us? This is what we ought to talk about, the fact, is there a difference between these? Or should we draw a line between, should we draw a line between the idea of kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven? No. We’re gonna say, with Vos, I think he’s absolutely right, they’re synonymous. We wanna say with Vos that Jesus used the two terms and that Jesus uses them synonymously. Is there any advantage to one over the other? No, not per se.
However, just in closing, Voss has some really wonderful things to say in our paragraph having to do with Matthew’s use of the idea of heaven and God. It’s really beautiful to see what he says. Number, paragraph seven, Voss talks about Matthew’s use of heavenly father or father in heaven.
I mean, think about the Lord’s Prayer. We have the father in heaven. What ought we to think after we’ve thought about this on Gaussian terms? When we think of the kingdom of God, the heavenly father. What he says, and I think he’s absolutely right, is that the heavens, when we talk about heavenly father, just take the idea of heaven, that is to think of God’s kingdom, infinite majesty above us when we think of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is that unchangeable place, that unchangeable realm of God’s glory and Jesus’ previous, present, and future home, which is heaven. But what do we want to think when we think of the fatherhood of God?
We ought to think of God’s condescending love and grace. So when we think of heaven and earth, sometimes we are so used to these terms, heaven and earth, the seen and the unseen, the visible and the invisible, these terms that are used constantly throughout the epistles. How ought we to understand this? I think Vos is using the Heavenly Father, Father in Heaven, to bring these two things together, the seen and the unseen. the heavens above and the earth beneath. He’s bringing these together to show that the unchangeable God is also the one who is the heavenly father who has come down condescended to love us. And to love us by giving us his son. And to give us, to make us heirs of a kingdom.
A kingdom that is on earth and in heaven. We ought to really think that the realm of God’s kingdom, of Jesus’s kingdom, is the whole earth. The whole earth is his kingdom and the heavens above. I think we ought to continue to think of the understanding of abstract and concrete usages of the word kingdom, especially when we think of Jesus in his kingdom now, especially in the kingdom that is to come.
We are already in the kingdom. Jesus rules over the whole earth. The things that I do, the things that you do, don’t advance the kingdom. or our failures don’t withhold it. Elections, if they go our way or are not our way, those things don’t advance the kingdom or push back against it.
The kingdom has gone out through all the earth. and preaching ought to be a proclamation of that kingdom, which is now and which is to come. A proclamation of that kingdom that is about Jesus’s reign and about his realms that he rules over. namely heaven and of earth. So we can say with revelation that the nations have become, the kingdoms of the world have become basically the possession of the Lord and of his Christ. Well, we are one minute over and we want to stick to that time, Mark. Let’s pray, and we’ve got about 19 minutes. Any visitors, please feel free to go right next door. We have coffee and refreshments, things like that. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the grace that you have given to us to examine such wonderful ideas and thoughts and concepts. How beautiful it is, this kingdom of which we are heirs by faith, co-heirs with Christ. We thank you that we rule and reign with Christ, having been seated with Him in heavenly places. We thank you that He rules and reigns regardless of what we do. His kingdom conquers and has conquered. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.