If we had to summarize the ministry of Jesus in one sentence, what would we say? What message did He proclaim? What stood at the centre of His teaching?
Some might answer: the cross, salvation, or the forgiveness of sins. And all of these are absolutely central to the Christian faith.
Yet when we read the Gospels carefully, we discover that the central theme of Jesus’ preaching was the Kingdom of God.
Jesus came proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom — the good news that God’s reign had come near, that God was beginning to act among His people in a new way.
We could therefore say that, even though the cross stood at the centre of Jesus’ redemptive mission, the Kingdom of God stood at the centre of His preaching and teaching.
The Kingdom at the Center of Jesus’ Ministry
As we turn to the Gospels, we find a summary of Jesus’ ministry in passages such as Mark 1:15.
The gospel of Mark tells us that after John the Baptist was put in prison, Jesus came into the synagogues of Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. Then Mark provides a summary of what Jesus proclaimed:
The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’
Mark is not suggesting that Jesus simply went from synagogue to synagogue repeating the same sentence. Rather, he is summarizing the very heart of Jesus’ ministry and message. This was the essence of what Jesus proclaimed and what His ministry was all about.
The same idea is repeated in Matthew 4:23 (and again in its parallel in 9:35):
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and illness among the people.
From Matthew’s account we can see that Jesus not only preached, but also healed the sick and brought deliverance from demons, as is stated in other passages. [1] All of this was part of the good news that the Kingdom of God had come near.
Jesus was not the only one to proclaim the message of the Kingdom. He also sent out the Twelve and later the Seventy-Two with the same message (Matt. 10:7; Luke 10:9). [2]
This shows that the good news of the Kingdom of God stood at the heart of Jesus’ entire ministry.
We must now ask what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God, and especially how we are to understand His words in Mark 1:15: “The time has come” and “The kingdom of God has come near.”
Jesus nowhere gives a direct definition of the kingdom of God, nor do we find anyone asking Him what the term means. This suggests that the expression was already familiar and broadly understood among His hearers.
The Jewish Expectation of the Kingdom
The Jewish understanding of this concept in the time of Jesus is illustrated in the New Testament by the ministry of John the Baptist.
John’s understanding of the Kingdom of God was connected with the expectation of a dramatic intervention of God into history, in which the present world order would be overturned.
This expectation was connected with the Old Testament idea of the “Day of the Lord” — the time when God would come to judge evil, save His people, and establish His rule over the earth.
This can be seen clearly in John’s preaching, where he warns about the coming wrath, speaks about the axe already laid to the root of the trees, and describes the separation of the wheat from the chaff (Matt. 3:7–12). John expected that the wicked would be judged, while the righteous would enter the blessings of the coming age.
Within this Jewish framework, the kingdom of God was understood as the great turning point of history: the end of the present evil age and the beginning of the age to come under God’s reign.
John believed that this new age was about to begin through the coming of the Messiah, who was already present among the people.
This shows that the kingdom of God was understood as an eschatological reality — something expected to arrive in the last days with the fulfilment of God’s purposes for the world.
The Kingdom as a Future Reality
This same eschatological understanding of the Kingdom of God also appears throughout the teaching of Jesus.
He repeatedly speaks of the kingdom as a future reality connected with judgment, resurrection, reward, and the age to come.
For example, in Matthew 8:11 Jesus speaks of many coming from east and west to sit at the messianic banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Christians generally understand this as a future event that will take place after the return of Christ.
In Matthew 13:41–43, where Jesus explains the parable of the wheat and the weeds, the coming of the Kingdom is associated with final judgment, when the Son of Man separates the wicked from the righteous. The same connection appears in Matthew 25:31–34, where Jesus describes the judgment of the nations and links the Kingdom with the coming of the Son of Man in glory.
Jesus also speaks of the righteous inheriting “eternal life” in the age to come (Mark 10:29–30), and during the Last Supper He tells His disciples that He will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the kingdom of God comes (Matt. 26:29; Luke 22:18).
Furthermore, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches His disciples to pray for the coming of this future Kingdom: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10; cf. Luke 11:2).
All of these passages show that Jesus shared the Jewish expectation of the kingdom as an eschatological reality connected with the fulfilment of God’s purposes at the end of the age.
If this were all that Jesus meant by the kingdom of God, His teaching would not have differed greatly from that of John the Baptist, except that His ministry was accompanied by miracles.
Yet there was clearly something more in Jesus’ message about the kingdom. This explains why even John the Baptist struggled to fully understand Him, and why Jesus was eventually rejected by the religious leaders and by many within the nation.
Kingdom as a present reality
What many of Jesus’ hearers struggled to understand was His proclamation of the Kingdom as a present reality already breaking into history. This was the other side of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom.
Alongside the future, eschatological aspect of the kingdom, Jesus also spoke of it as something already present and active in His ministry.
In Luke 11:20, Jesus declares, “If I drive out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”
Likewise, in Luke 17:20–21, Jesus tells the Pharisees that the kingdom of God is already in their midst.
The same truth is reflected in Jesus’ parables, where the Kingdom is portrayed as a present reality that has already begun in a hidden and seemingly insignificant way, yet awaits its future and glorious consummation.[3]
Through His miracles, healings, and proclamation of the Kingdom, Jesus repeatedly demonstrated that the Kingdom of God was not merely a future hope, but a present reality manifested in His person and ministry.
As I already mentioned, for the Jews living in the time of Jesus, the coming of the Kingdom of God and the “last days” were closely tied to their messianic expectations. These hopes often included Israel’s national renewal and liberation from foreign rule, although the precise form of this restoration varied among different Jewish groups.
What united them was the conviction that God would act in a dramatic and powerful way to inaugurate the Messianic age, establish His righteous reign, and transform the world.
Jesus shared this expectation of divine intervention. However, He redefined both its nature and its timing in ways that many of His contemporaries did not anticipate.
Rather than focusing primarily on the political liberation of Israel or the overthrow of Rome, Jesus had in view a far more cosmic dimension of the conflict. The victory of the Kingdom was not merely to be won over earthly empires, but over sin, evil, and Satan himself.
This helps explain why healings, exorcisms, and deliverance from demonic powers played such a significant role in Jesus’ ministry. They were signs that the Kingdom of God was already breaking into the present age and that Satan’s dominion was beginning to be overthrown.
Jesus’ exorcisms were not merely acts of compassion toward those who suffered, but visible evidence that the Kingdom of God had arrived in their midst. With the coming of the Kingdom, God began to reclaim those who were held under the power of Satan and to set them free from the forces of evil.
This was consistent with the illustration Jesus used when He spoke of binding the “strong man” in order to plunder his house (Matt. 12:29; Luke 11:21–22). Someone stronger had arrived—Christ Himself—who had entered the enemy’s territory and begun the work of setting people free.
The same was true of Jesus’ healings. They too were visible signs of the Kingdom of God at work and a testimony that God’s power had begun to break the effects of sin and evil in people’s lives.
Thus, in Jesus’ teaching we see this eschatological tension:
- On the one hand, Jesus — like many of the Jews of His time — taught that there would be a future kingdom coming in power and glory. From the perspective of the New Testament, this future manifestation of the Kingdom is associated with the Second Coming of Christ.
- On the other hand, the Gospels continually show that through Jesus’ ministry — especially His preaching, healings, miracles, and deliverance from demons — the kingdom was already present and at work. Thus, while the future manifestation of the Kingdom awaits Christ’s return, the Kingdom itself had already entered history through His first coming.
This was the mystery of the kingdom of God.
The mystery of the kingdom
This expression, the mystery of the kingdom, comes from Jesus Himself.
Following His teaching by the Sea of Galilee, He said to His disciples:
“To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11 NKJV)
In this context, the word “mystery” refers to a divine truth that had previously been hidden but was now being disclosed through God’s revelation. It is not something mysterious in the modern sense, but a part of God’s redemptive plan that could not have been known apart from His self-disclosure. [4]
In that case, what did the Mystery of the Kingdom consist in?
- The idea that God would one day establish His Kingdom was not a mystery. This expectation was deeply rooted in Jewish thought and is reflected throughout the prophetic and apocalyptic writings.
- It was also not a mystery that the Kingdom would come with power, judgment, and the dramatic intervention of God at the end of the age. This was part of mainstream Jewish expectation.
- The “mystery” was something new in God’s unfolding plan. What was new was that through Jesus, the Kingdom that would one day come openly in power had already entered the world in a hidden form. Before its final visible manifestation, the Kingdom was already at work quietly among people through the ministry and mission of Jesus and His disciples.
In this way, what was meant to come at the end of the age became present in the here and now, even though its fullness still belongs to the future.
THE PARABLES
The mystery of the Kingdom of God is most clearly illustrated in Jesus’ parables, especially those found in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. Through these parables, Jesus explains that the Kingdom had already come among people through His ministry, yet it had not arrived in its final form with power, glory, and judgment.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus uses an image that was familiar to His listeners—a man sowing seed in a field (Matt. 13:3–9; Mark 4:3–9; Luke 8:5–8). In the fields there were worn paths where people walked, rocky places, and areas overgrown with thorns and weeds. As the seed was scattered, some fell on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good soil.
Jesus uses this image to illustrate an important truth about the Kingdom of God. Although the Kingdom had already come among people, it had not yet arrived in the visible power and glory that will be revealed at the end of the age. Instead, it had come like a man sowing seed in a field – an image that illustrates how the Kingdom comes through the proclamation of the Word of the Kingdom.
The seed scattered by the sower represents the Word of God, or the message of the Kingdom, while the four kinds of soil symbolize four different responses to that message.
Some reject it, some receive it only temporarily, and others allow the cares of this world to choke it. Only those who receive the Word with faith and perseverance bear lasting fruit. The parable teaches that the Kingdom comes through the proclamation of God’s Word and must be personally received.
The parable of the wheat and the weeds tells of a farmer whose enemy secretly sowed weeds among his wheat. Rather than removing the weeds immediately, the farmer allowed both to grow together until the harvest. Jesus explains that this pictures the present age, in which both the righteous and the wicked continue to live side by side. Although God’s Kingdom is already at work, the final separation between the two awaits the judgment at the end of the age. Yet during this time the Kingdom is actively producing “sons of the Kingdom” – people who submit themselves to God’s reign and are transformed by His saving work. Thus, while the world may appear much the same as before, God’s rule is already at work gathering a people for Himself and preparing them for the coming harvest.
The parables of the mustard seed and the leaven emphasize the contrast between the Kingdom’s present and future manifestations. Although the Kingdom has already entered the world, it presently appears small, hidden, and insignificant. Yet this same Kingdom will one day be openly revealed in power and glory and will extend throughout the whole earth. Just as a tiny mustard seed becomes a great tree and leaven eventually permeates the entire dough, so God’s Kingdom, though now largely hidden, will ultimately reach its appointed fulfillment.
The parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price focus on the value of the Kingdom. In one story, a man discovers a treasure hidden in a field and gladly sells everything he owns to obtain it. In the other, a merchant finds a pearl of extraordinary value and likewise gives up everything to possess it. Jesus teaches that participation in God’s Kingdom is worth more than anything this world can offer.
Finally, the parable of the net describes fishermen gathering fish of every kind in a large net. Only after the catch is brought ashore are the good fish separated from the bad. Through this image, Jesus teaches that God’s Kingdom is already gathering people under His reign, yet the final separation between the righteous and the wicked has not yet taken place. Until the end of the age, both continue to exist side by side within the sphere of the Kingdom’s activity. Only then will God bring final judgment and separate the righteous from the wicked.
Taken together, these parables reveal the central mystery of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom has already entered history through Christ and is already transforming the lives of those who receive its message. Yet it remains largely hidden from the world and has not yet brought the final judgment or the complete renewal of creation. Its full manifestation awaits the return of Christ, when God’s reign will be openly revealed in power and glory.
The Kingdom and the Church
When speaking of the Kingdom of God that came among people, we must keep in view the whole mission of Jesus—from the beginning of His earthly ministry, through His death and resurrection, to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. All of these were part of the same redemptive mission through which God’s Kingdom entered history before the Day of the Lord and the final judgment.
This brings us to the question of the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Church.
Jesus’ disciples—those who received the gospel of the Kingdom that He proclaimed—formed the first community of believers that would become God’s Church, what the Apostle Paul later described as the body of Christ. The Church did not arise independently of Jesus’ ministry; rather, it grew out of the community of Jewish disciples whom He called, taught, and prepared for their future mission. After His death and resurrection, Jesus commissioned this community to proclaim the Kingdom of God among the nations, a mission empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
When considering the relationship between the Kingdom and the Church, it is important to distinguish between the two. The Kingdom is God’s reign – His rule and saving activity through Christ – while the Church is the community of those who have responded to that reign in faith.
Through the message of the Kingdom, people are called to submit to God’s rule, and those who respond become part of the fellowship of believers. In this sense, the Kingdom creates the church.
In the present age, entering the Kingdom normally results in participation in the church, since those who belong to God’s Kingdom also become part of His people.
However, outward participation in the church is not necessarily the same as truly entering the Kingdom, because a person may belong to the visible community of believers without genuinely submitting to God’s reign in the heart.
This helps explain why the visible church, like the world in Jesus’ parables, may contain both true believers and those who have not truly submitted to God’s reign. The final separation between the righteous and the wicked belongs to the future and will take place at the return of Christ.
Thus, while the Kingdom and the church are inseparably connected, they remain distinct concepts. The Kingdom is God’s sovereign rule, while the church is the community of those who live under that rule and await its final consummation at the return of Christ.
Already, but not yet
Before I conclude, I would like to introduce one more concept that is closely related to the teaching of the Kingdom of God.
The understanding of the Kingdom of God that emerges from the New Testament is often described by the theological expression “already, but not yet.”
In this sense, the Kingdom of God has already come into our world through the first coming of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, however, the Kingdom is not yet here in its fullness. The full manifestation of God’s Kingdom still belongs to the future and will take place at the return of Christ.
This principle of “already, but not yet” is essential for understanding not only the Kingdom of God but the entire New Testament. Throughout the New Testament, believers are portrayed as already participating in the blessings of the age to come, though they have not yet experienced them in their fullness.
- Christians have already been saved, yet they await the fullness of salvation at the return of the Lord (Eph. 2:8; Rom. 13:11).
- They are already new creations, yet await the complete renewal of all things (2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 8:21).
- They already possess eternal life, yet await its full manifestation in the age to come (John 5:24; Mark 10:30).
- They are already God’s children, yet await the full revelation of their sonship (1 John 3:1–2).
- They have been sanctified in Christ, yet continue to be transformed into His likeness (Heb. 10:10; 2 Cor. 3:18).
- They have received the Holy Spirit as a foretaste of the coming age, yet await the redemption of their bodies (Eph. 1:13–14; Rom. 8:23).
- They share in the resurrection life of Christ, yet await their own bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20; Phil. 3:20–21).
- And they participate in Christ’s victory over Satan, yet await his final destruction (Col. 2:15; Rev. 20:10).
The Christian life, therefore, is lived in the tension of the “already, but not yet.” God’s saving work has truly begun, yet its final fulfilment still awaits the return of Christ and the consummation of His Kingdom.
Living in the radical middle
The picture that emerges from the New Testament is that Christians live in the tension of the “already, but not yet.” God’s Kingdom has already entered history through Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, yet it has not yet come in its final and complete form.
Because of this, Christians often fall into two opposite extremes.
One extreme focuses too much on the “already.” This view acts as if believers should already experience the fullness of the Kingdom’s blessings, with little or no place for suffering, weakness, persecution, or spiritual struggle. A modern example is the “health and wealth gospel,” which teaches that Christians can claim health, prosperity, and success now through faith. While God truly does answer prayer and bless His people, this teaching wrongly assumes that the fullness of the Kingdom has already arrived.
The other extreme focuses too much on the “not yet.” This view tends to minimize the present reality of the Kingdom and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers. As a result, the Christian life can become dry and powerless, focused mainly on rules, moral effort, or simply waiting for the future Kingdom.
The New Testament presents a different way – a radical middle.
Christians are called to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and experience the reality of God’s Kingdom now, while also recognizing that suffering, weakness, and waiting are still part of this present age.
Believers already have forgiveness, eternal life, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and a foretaste of the coming Kingdom. Yet they still wait for the full restoration of all things at the return of Christ.
Therefore, the Christian life is neither triumphalistic nor defeatist. It is a life of faith, hope, perseverance, and participation in God’s Kingdom, experiencing its blessings in the present while awaiting its future consummation.
In conclusion, the Kingdom of God will one day come in its fullness, glory, and power at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the Kingdom has already entered the world through His first coming and continues its work through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
In the present age, however, the Kingdom remains largely hidden from the world. It is actively at work among men and women, but it must be received by faith. Those who respond to God’s invitation experience the reality of the Kingdom in their lives, while for others it remains unseen.
Footnotes
[1] We find the same thing in Luke’s account, where Jesus is described as preaching the good news of the Kingdom of God (Luke 4:43 and 8:1).
[2] Many interpreters see symbolic significance in these numbers. The Twelve correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel and Jesus’ mission to Israel, while the Seventy-Two may symbolize the nations of the world and the expansion of the Kingdom mission to all peoples. This interpretation is often linked to Genesis 10, where Jewish tradition understood the listed nations as representing all humanity. The Hebrew tradition commonly counted seventy nations, while the Greek Septuagint counted seventy-two, which may also explain the manuscript variation in Luke 10 between seventy and seventy-two disciples.
[3] For example, in the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven in Matt. 13:31–33; Mark 4:30–32; and Luke 13:18–21.
[4] Paul understood “mysteries” to be revealed secrets, divine purposes hidden from men for long ages but finally disclosed by revelation to all men (Rom. 16:25–26).
Author: Artur Pluta