Kingdom of God in Judaism
The phrase, Kingdom of
God, rarely occurs in pre-Christian Jewish literature. However, the idea of God as ‘king’ was
fundamental to Judaism, and Jewish ideas on the subject might have underlined,
and to some extent might have determined, the New Testament usage.
The
concept of kingship of God appears in Judaism with references to "His
Kingdom". In Daniel 4:3 it says, "His kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom". It is tied
to Jewish understanding that God will restore the nation of Israel to the land, following the Abrahamic covenant. However, in later Judaism a more
"national" view was assigned to God's Kingship in which the awaited
Messiah may be seen as a liberator and the founder of a new state of Israel. When speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai,
God tells Moses that the Israelites "will be for me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation."[Ex 19:6] God's Kingdom is also spoken of in Dan.
4: 3: “How great are His signs. And how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom. And His dominion is from generation to generation.”
To most Jews of
Jesus' time the world seemed so completely alienated from God that nothing
would deal with the situation short of direct divine intervention on a cosmic
scale. It was widely expected that God
would send a supernatural, or supernaturally endowed, intermediary (the Messiah)
who would decide who was worthy to “inherit the Kingdom.” This Kingdom was
thought of as a divine gift, not a human achievement. Almost all the episodes
shown in Exodus speak about the Kingdom of God in heaven and earth in spiritual
sense rather than political and geographical sense.
The greater the oppression of the Worldly Kingdom of Rome,
the more eager the Jewish people were for "the Kingdom of Heaven," as
they called it, to come speedily. This is the ever-reiterated object of the
prayers in the liturgy (Masseket Soferim, xiv. 12).
It was even laid down that no benediction would be effective without reference
to the Kingdom (Ber. 12a). It is the approach of this Kingdom of Heaven, in
opposition to the Kingdom of Rome, which John the Baptist announced (Matt. iii.
2). Jesus preached the same Kingdom of
God (Matthew has preserved in "Kingdom of Heaven" the rabbinical
expression "Malkut Shamayim"), and when he said, "the kingdom of
God cometh not by observation [that is, calculation] . . . for, behold, the
kingdom of God is among you" (Luke xvii. 20-21).
However, the interpretation of the trend of events led
early Christianity to make a decided disavowal of all political expectations
antagonistic to Rome and the confined conception of the Kingdom of God was entirely
spiritual, refutes the very trend of the mission and activities of the
historical Jesus Christ during his short period of Ministry. Most of the classical interpretations of the
Kingdom of God have been taken as a Kingdom of God in Heaven while the emerging
trend of interpretation goes for Kingdom of God on Earth as well as in Heaven.
Kingdom of God in Christianity
Some
think it is in heaven. Others say it’s here on earth. Some think it’s a feeling
of brotherhood among believers or the Church.
Others think it wholly apocalyptic.
What is this Kingdom of which Jesus Christ spoke so often and for which
he was sentenced for execution on charges of sedition and rebellion?
It’s
remarkable that among the two billion people in the world of Christianity have
given much thought to it, but very few have agreed at common perception. Jesus Christ gave it top priority saying, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness”[1]
Jesus agreed to his crucifixion but did not turn his face from this claim.
Its
importance for Jesus is underlined in the earliest gospel of Mark, which
presents the opening scene of Jesus’ public ministry—his “inaugural address”—to
state the theme of his gospel. Jesus’
first words in Mark are about the Kingdom of God:
“Now after John
the Baptizer was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying: “The time is
fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is
at hand; Repent, and believe in the gospel.”[2]
The
Kingdom of God has more than one meaning in the message of Jesus. Sometimes it
points to the power of God active in Jesus’ work as a healer and exorcist;
sometimes it has a mystical meaning, referring to the presence of God. In other
texts, it refers to a community, which “many from east and west” will eat “with
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God.”[3]
The
Kingdom of God also has a political meaning, and it is this meaning which is
highlighted here. It is, of course, a political metaphor as kingdom is a
political term. The people to whom Jesus
was speaking lived in a world in which there were real kingdoms. And there must
have been some reason why Jesus appeared in such a time and such a place. The
people lived in a kingdom which referred to the political system of domination
by the powerful and wealthy elites. It was the kingdom of Herod and the kingdom
of Caesar. When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God, his audience heard an
immediate contrast.
So
what is the political meaning of the Kingdom of God? It is, in a nutshell, what
life would be like on earth if God were king. This kingdom of God is about
God’s justice in contrast to the rule of injustices of the kingdoms of Herod
and Caesar.
Significantly,
this Kingdom of God as depicted by Jesus was something for the earth, equally
with the Kingdom of Heaven. The reason
we have mis-interpreted this, might be a linguistic decision made in the
gospels of Matthew. Matthew wrote his gospel using the phrase “Kingdom of
Heaven” instead of “Kingdom of God.” He preferred to avoid using the word “God”
because the Jews of his time avoided frequent pronouncing or writing the word
“God” out of reverence. And because Matthew’s synoptic gospel was most commonly
read in the lectionary of the church throughout the centuries, generations of
Christians heard Jesus speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven. The natural
assumption was taken that Jesus was talking about heaven, the world afterlife.
This concept of Heaven was strengthened in the perception of the followers of
Jesus in the later centuries by his other gospel: “Render, therefore, unto
Caesar, the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God, the things that are
God’s.”
The
Kingdom of God in Heaven is beyond any question, as may be seen scattered in
the three gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus elan for this Kingdom of God subtly denoted to its coming on the
earth eradicate the oppressive system of economic injustices during his
time. His announcement for the Kingdom
of God was meant for Judah and Jerusalem, as it was already established in the Heaven.
Christians pray for the coming of God’s
Kingdom on earth every time they pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it already is in
heaven.” To cite one memorable quip:
“Heaven’s already in great shape; earth is where the problems are.”[4]
Jesus’
prayer as a whole also points to its earthly meaning. We need to remember Jesus’ primary audience was
peasants. Excepting Jerusalem, Jesus avoided cities where powerful and wealthy
elites lived along with their support class. He preached in the rural areas where
most of underclass peasants lived. He spoke in small towns, villages, and the
countryside. The elites also heard of him, and a few of them were attracted to
him and even supported him, but he spoke primarily to peasants. He spoke about
their bread, food and adequate sustenance. Lord’s Prayer is pointedly about the
exigencies of peasant life. “Thy kingdom
come on earth; Give us this day our daily bread.” Debts, debtors,
forgiveness and sins used to be the subjects of prayer.
,Blessed are you
who are poor,
For yours is the
kingdom of God.
Blessed are you
who are hungry now,
For you will be
filled.[5]
Blessed are you
who weep now,
For you will
laugh.”
The
Kingdom of God is what life would be like on earth. It is God’s dream as
dreamed by the great figures of the Semitic faith traditions, like Moses, the Prophets,
Jesus and Mohammad (Peace and Blessings be upon them).
Jesus
was charged of sedition and rebellion for proclaiming the coming of the Kingdom
of God, persecuted and crucified for this pronouncement. The key of seeing the
political implications for the Roman emperor in the slogan of Kingdom of God is
following. “Lord” was one of the titles
of the Roman emperor: Caesar was called ‘Lord’. To affirm the lordship of
Christ is to deny the lordship of Caesar. Moreover, several of the titles of
Jesus in the New Testament were also titles of Caesar. On coins and
inscriptions, Caesar was referred to as “son of God,” “savior,” “king of
kings,” and “lord of lords.” Early Christians used all of these titles to
Jesus. Thus the familiar affirmation that “Jesus is Lord,” originally
challenged the lordship of the Roman Empire.
The
political passion of the Bible calls us to a ‘politically engaged spirituality.’[6] At the center of the Christian vision of life
as we see it in the Bible and in Jesus' life, we find two transformations, personal
and political; spiritual and mundane.
If
we emphasize only one, we miss half of the biblical message and half of the
gospel. The strength of much of conservative Christianity is that it has
emphasized the first, i.e. personal transformation. The strength of much of liberal Christianity
has been emphasis on the second. A politically engaged spirituality affirms
both spiritual transformation and political transformation. The message of Jesus, and the Bible as a
whole, is about both. What we see in Jesus and the Bible answers our deepest
personal longing, to be born again, and the world’s greatest need, the Kingdom
of God.
Kingdom of God in Islam
The Biblical phrase "Kingdom of God"
does not occur in the Qur’an as it conveys the meaning and interpretation in
the Bible phraseology; but it speaks frequently about the Kingdom of heavens and earth. “All
that is there in the heavens and the earth has glorified Allah, and He alone is
the All-Mighty, the All-Wise. To Him
belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth: He alone grants life and
causes death and has power over everything.
He is the First as well as the Last, the manifest as well as hidden, and
He has knowledge of everything” (57:1-3).
God
did not create this world in the whole universe, the only world inhabited by
human beings, out of frivolity, pastime, or sport, without a purpose. “We
haven’t created the heavens and the earth and whatever between them purposelessly”
(38:27 and 3:191), but with a serious purpose.” That purpose is the “service of God,” i.e.
the implementation of the divine imperatives for man, for this “service” is for
man’s own benefit, not for God’s: “On no soul Allah places a burden greater
than it can bear. It gets every good
that it earns, and it suffers every ill that it earns.” (2:286). “And if any one earns sin, he earns it
against his own soul…” (4:111). It
is incompatible with the power of the Powerful and the mercy of the Merciful
that He should produce toys for amusement. “Do
you think that We have created you purposelessly and that you will not be
returned to Us? The True Sovereign is too exalted above that” (23:115).
For
this purpose, God’s mercy reaches its logical zenith in ‘sending
messengers,’ ‘revealing Books,’ and
showing man ‘the Way.’ God’s ‘guidance’
(hidaya) is kneaded into man’s
primordial nature insofar as the distinction between good and evil is
‘ingrained in his heart.’ “Truly he succeeds that purifies it; And he fails
that corrupts it!” (91:8-10).
The
laws of nature express the Command of God.
Nature does not and cannot disobey God’s commands and cannot violate
natural laws. Hence the entirety of nature surrenders to and obeys the command
of God: “Do they, then, seek an obedience
[or religion] other than that to God, while it is to Him that everyone [and
everything] in the heavens and the earth submits?” (3:83). The fundamental difference between man and
nature is that whereas natural command disallows disobedience, commands to man
presuppose a choice and free volition on his part. Hence what is natural command in nature
becomes moral command in man. This gives
man a unique position in the order of creation; at the same time it charges him
with a unique responsibility which he can discharge only through piety and
virtue (taqwa). Hence man is called
upon to serve God alone and abandon all false gods, including his own desires
and the wishful whisperings of his soul, for all these bar him from an
objective perception of the whole reality, narrow his vision, and fragment his
being (109:1-6).
Every
religion designates some element in this world as mediating the other
world. For Muslims, history mediates the
eternal. For Christians the link is the
person of Christ. For Muslim and for the
Semitic religious traditions generally, the mediator between man and God is
‘righteousness.’ It is in moral behavior
that the human and the divine meet at one point.
In
Islam the insistence on the transcendent reference has been symbolized in the
notion of Heaven and Hell, of another world after the end of history. The Last
Judgment, as depicted in the Quran, is crucial for multiple reasons. First, the quality of men’s performance must
be judged, else fairness cannot be ensured merely on the basis of what
transpires in this life. Secondly, the
‘end of life’ must be clarified beyond doubt, so that men may see what they
have been striving for and what the true purposes of life are. This is absolutely crucial in the entire doctrine
of resurrection, since the “weighing of deeds” presupposes and depends upon
it. Since on that day all the interior
of man will become transparent. Truth will show through in that Hour of Truth,
and to this the Quran makes frequent references in 34:25-26; 22:17; 37:21; and 3:55.
This
metaphor has impinged on the whole course of the Muslim historical development.
They have sought a Paradise beyond this world and within history too, a kind of
society which, they believe, is proper to personal preparation for the Paradise
hereafter and, at the same time, proper to the life hereunder.
A
central aim of the Quran is to establish a viable social order on earth that
will be just and ethically based. The
concepts of human action we have discussed elsewhere, particularly that of
piety and virtue (taqwa), are meaningful only within a social context because
man’s behavior, good or bad, relates to his fellow-being.
The
Quran is adamant that every community or nation gets what it deserves by “what its hands have earned.”(4:147); “God is
not the one who would destroy towns (i.e. civilizations or peoples) unjustly
while their people are active in goodness” (11:117; 6:131; 10:13). God does nothing but operate through those
unchangeable laws that govern the rise and fall of peoples: “God does not change the condition of a
people until they change it themselves” (13:11; and 8:53).
All
Qur’anic statements about evidence on the Day of Judgment lead to the one point
that one must bear responsibility for one’s deeds, thoughts, and
intentions. One will have no opportunity
to change anything, to offer new performance, or to redeem one’s failings, for
the only opportunity for that is here, now in this life, which is given only
once. This one life is the only life where man can work and sow his seeds of
good or evil that will bear fruit in his eternal life in the shape of eternal
bliss or eternal pain and torture in the world hereafter.
