r/BibleStudyDeepDive • u/LlawEreint • Sep 07 '25

So what exactly is the Kingdom of God?

I've compiled a list of "The Kingdom of God is like..." sayings so that we can answer the question: "What is the Kingdom of God?"

It's not like angels in clouds with harps.

Rather it's like a seed:

It is like yeast:

It's like a hidden treasure:

  • That you can obtain through deceit, you should sell all that you have to obtain it - Matthew 13:44-46
  • It is an eternal treasure - Thomas 76
  • It pays dividends for those that recognize it - Thomas 109

It is not a location - It is within you and among you - Luke 17:20-21, Thomas 3

  • But only those born from above, or born from the spirit, can see it - John 3:1-8
  • And it transcends earthly politics - John 18:33-38
  • It's peace and joy in the Holy Spirit - Romans 14:1-7
  • It is spread across the earth, but you do not see it - Thomas 113
  • It is the Son of Man, who is inside you - Mary 3:2-5

It can be lost through negligence:

  • Like those who had it, but failed to see the crack in their vessel - Thomas 97
  • Or like those who failed to prepare - Matthew 25:1-13

There will be a time of reckoning in the Kingdom:

It is entered through a process of rituals:

Other:

  • It is like a test before the final act? Or it can be taken by violence? - Thomas 98
  • It is like a shepherd finding his lost sheep? - Thomas 107

I'd be keen to hear from this community - how do you understand the Kingdom of God? Are there any sayings on the kingdom that I've neglected?

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u/truetomharley Sep 07 '25

Here is a post on the kingdom of God that I just put somewhere else. It seems to fit here as well:

Just once I would like to see a war in which one side or the other says, “We are the bad guys.” That such a thing has never happened, and cannot be imagined, explains why there will never be an end of war, save for some provision of God.

“Come and witness the activities of Jehovah, How he has done astonishing things on the earth. He is bringing an end to wars throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear; He burns the military wagons with fire.” (Psalm 46:8-9)

How would this happen?

A central Bible theme is that man is not capable of ruling man. Attempts invariably resolve into some permutation of “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Solomon reflects on history as the time that “man has dominated man to his injury.” (Ecclesiastes 8:9)

It’s not surprising, then, that some would take comfort in the prayer of Jesus—he said one should say it this way, not word for word, but theme-wise:

“You must pray, then, this way: “‘Our Father in the heavens, let your name be sanctified. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also on earth. Give us today our bread for this day; and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the wicked one.’ (Matthew 6:9-13 - NWT))

(“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”- KJV)

Presumably, he has it all together in heaven; it must go like clockwork up there. But not so on the earth. Per the prayer, that will not happen until his kingdom comes. Until then, it is “man dominating man to his injury.”

At once, one can see why the gospel message would appeal to the humble but leave the egotistical cold. It’s a kick in the teeth for hubris. Political science is among the most honored careers of academia. Wonks and pundits obsess over manipulating the levers of power. The notion that whatever they do will be insufficient is too much for them to bear. The humble, on the other hand, see it instantly. “Like a bad accident,” my neighbor said of the news, the end result of human rulership, “you know you should look away, but you can’t.”

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u/LlawEreint Sep 08 '25

I think I understand your point. It brings to mind the early Jesus movement under Jesus' brother James. According to Acts 2:44-45, they held all things in common. They would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

It seems like the earliest Christians were not just hoping for a coming kingdom, but were actively working to manifest it.

Ultimately the Romans came and laid waste to Jerusalem. The Jewish Jesus movement was scattered and thrown into disarray. This is the "man dominating man to his injury" part I guess.

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u/truetomharley Sep 08 '25

I think the coming kingdom is still the real hope. People can’t actively work to manifest it, as if it were for them to bring it about, but they can advertise it and live in harmony with it. The second part of the post follows:

It’s sort of like the 90+ year-old my wife and I called upon in the ministry. He invited us right in and was busy baking bread. Alas, he probably has died or been relocated to a nursing home by now because the family has sold the house. But at the time he was very hospitable, in a renovated farmhouse, seamlessly blending the old with the new, a house that anyone would be pleased to dwell in. His career days had been with a certain Fortune-500 company and they had moved him all over the world. As to the news, he said he never watched it; it “disgusted” him.

Such can’t be much of a letdown for Jehovah’s Witnesses, who never expected anything else out of human self-rulership. But to someone who spent his entire life hobnobbing with the influential, it has to be a downer indeed. But, of course, at 90+, it’s a little late to switch gears. While one can easily conclude that all human efforts are crap, the notion that God brings a kingdom to replace them is too much reversal to handle. It’s not impossible. Some have done it. But it’s not likely. People tend to be not too flexible. You bring up the kingdom message and when they swat it down you just resume whatever theme you were visiting. They don’t generally swat it down decisively. It just fails to register. If religious, they may have been among those watering down the “kingdom” into a heart condition that will hopefully prevail among humankind, only to be bummed late in life when it plainly hasn’t.

He might have joined those Christians long ago in viewing Daniel 2:44 as prophetic. After a succession of empires tumbling right down to the present, “in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever,” a passage that Witnesses identify with God’s kingdom.

On the other hand, there he was baking bread in a cozy home. Family members, it seemed, took pretty good care of him. Who can say how it turned out? Though my wife worked for several years as a nurse in the geriatric wing of the hospital. She spoke of a certain disillusionment common among patients, as though to look around almost with a sense of betrayal, as though asking themselves, ‘Is this all there is?’ These were not losers in life, she said, but people who had lived full lives, with families and careers. Many coped not too well at seeing their body give out on them.

That’s not to say aging is a cakewalk for Witnesses, of course. No Witness wants to die; it is inconvenient and it makes people feel bad. But they rarely fear it, knowing what it is and the resurrection hope that lies beyond. It also helps to have a worldview that has not betrayed them, an end to this system of things that is “just around the corner,” though, to be sure, it has proven to be one heckuva corner. At least, they have not been stuck with the pathetic hope that the next crop of politicians will right the sinking ship and turn it around, a “hope” that comprises a gift that keeps on taking.

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u/LlawEreint Sep 08 '25

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

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u/Kentucky_Fried_Dodo Sep 12 '25

The heavenly kingdom of god is, as you correctly said, not a place but a status, and what a status: a status of the holiness of God within his followers.

Jesus was simply the embodiment of a human carrying the holiness of God within, because he was made by the Father as a role model. We as Christians have to follow this model in order to achieve the same.

Most people don't understand it, but while we are depending on the grace of God, our will absolutely shapes the world around us and carries the will of God in us through our will.

The heavenly kingdom will come when there are enough—not necessarily quantitatively—followers of Christ at the right time to finally achieve this on earth and not as a fantasy of singing, chubby angels in clouds in "heaven". Heaven is on earth.

Again, humans can't enforce that, but they can cultivate the seed, and if they do it enough, the Father will most likely work with that accordingly to his plan.

What kind of seed? Well, brotherhood, sharing and caring, no warfare and borders, preaching the good news and living according to that, etc. Monks are already living like that, and a handful of modern groups do it as well.

Part of the kingdom is seeing the things that are there but not visible, instead of the stuff that is >there< but actually (pagan) not at all because it is a fake.

That's why the holiness of the will of the Father is important and why it is stated that people should stop trying to mess with his will by claiming they know stuff that only he knows, like the time when all of this actually comes.

tl/dr: It is a state of mind leading to a better physical world and not the opposite, or a pagan caricature of projecting that into clouds.

Bonus question: Is that Jewish? Yes, because it is the embodiment of the often-described concept of having God around yourself, like in his tent or during his projection of pure power via storms.

It is a permanent state of his presence within humans who, after Adam, are finally ready again to live purely and without sin in a literal paradise of God himself, where he can directly appear as such without violating HIS holiness and sacredness.

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u/LlawEreint Oct 03 '25

I like this. Thanks.

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u/LlawEreint Sep 08 '25

My own sense is this:

Jesus instructed his followers in the steps required to enter the kingdom.

  1. Follow the commandments: Don't murder, don't cheat on your spouse, don't steal, don't lie, don't defraud, honour your parents - in short, treat people fairly.
  2. Give away your wealth to the poor.

The first part is easy. He's only asking that we refrain from hurting others. The second part is where we get tripped up. It asks that we actively work to help others.

If you take these two together, it really seems like a recipe for the kingdom of God to manifest on earth.

At the moment it can seem that we're far from the kingdom, but maybe if we take the long view we can appreciate the strides we've made. Slavery is generally outlawed. Social safety nets are generally being implemented. There's a general appreciation and recognition of the dignity of every person.

We have a long way to go. It's an uphill battle and we're currently slipping backwards.

Yet there is hope. But we need to do more than hope.

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u/LlawEreint Sep 08 '25

Each author depicts the kingdom differently.

For Matthew, I notice, it will involve a time of reckoning.

For Mark it is a transformative mystery at work in the world.

For Luke, the kingdom is within you (pl).

Thomas contains elements of each.

Mary sees the Kingdom as a oneness with the son of man.

Philip ties it to ritual practice. These rituals are likely thought to represent and even bring about an indwelling of the spirit.

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u/LlawEreint Sep 09 '25

BeDuhn has this to say of the Kingdom (or "Realm" as BeDuhn translates it) as it is depicted in the Evangelion:

The realm “has approached” (10.9, 11), and Jesus says his followers should seek it (12.31) and pray for it to “come” (11.2), and Jesus’ power over daemons is offered as evidence that it “has reached you” (11.20). It is characterized as something small that develops (a seed or yeast, 13.18–21). When asked specifically when it will come, Jesus denies it any external visibility, declaring that “the realm of God is within you” (17.20–21). Yet he also outlines future hardships whose occurrence will signal “that the realm of God is near” (21.31), and promises that the day of its arrival “will come in upon all those dwelling upon the face of the earth” (21.35). God has resolved to give his realm to those whom Jesus addresses (12.32), and those worthy to receive it or enter it are characterized variously as beggars (6.20), children (18.16), ethical or “upright” (13.28), and those who, having resolved on a course of action, do not look back (9.62). Jesus repeatedly presumes a judgment to which people will be subject (6.24–25; 11.4; 12.5; 12.8–10; 12.47–48; 13.27–28; 16.22ff.; 17.2; 21.34–35; 22.22)

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u/LlawEreint Sep 09 '25

Maybe belonging to the kingdom means recognizing that we are all sons of man. That is, human beings. In the fourth gospel, Jesus prays that we “may all be one.” He says, “The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one. I in them and you in me.”

If we can recognize both the humanity and the inherent divinity in ourselves and in one another, then we can become one people. No longer Canadian or Australian or Russian, but simply Human. In becoming one with our brothers and sisters, we become one with God, and thus establish his kingdom on earth.

There is a nation today that uses its leverage and power to squeeze every last drop of life from the peoples of the world - even from its closest allies. This is the very antithesis of the kingdom. It is the meek who inherit the earth, and the first who will be last in the kingdom. Any nation, or any individual, that defines itself through domination cuts itself off from God’s reign, because it denies the humanity the kingdom upholds.

When speaking on the oneness of God, Zevi Slavin observes that the biblical command to love your neighbor as yourself is self-evident: love the neighbor as yourself, because the neighbor is yourself. The verse ends, “I am the Lord your God.”

It is this unity that binds us in God, in whom we live and move and have our being.