Coming of the Kingdom

'The history of salvation is the heart of the New Testament kerygma.' p xxiii German liberal theology had shown an upsurge in eschatological analyses when Ridderbos re-stated the authenticity of Scripture. Especially the Gospel narratives had come under intense scrutiny and criticism by anti-supernaturalists. Of course, as the obvious title (and quote above) to this present volume implies, they have to be rejected. The claims of Jesus, Ridderbos will show, take precedence over everything else. To the future revelation of kingly glory Ridderbos attached certain provisos: 'The kingdom of God is not a state or condition, not a society created and promoted by men. It will not come through an immanent earthly evolution, nor through human moral action; it is not men who prepare it for God. The kingdom of heaven is, therefore, absolutely transcendent in its origin, it is the revelation of God's glory. Viewed from the human standpoint, therefore, the kingdom of heaven is in the first place something to keep praying and waiting for with perseverance.' p 24 In opposition to every kind of metaphysics, Ridderbos believes the revelation of the kingdom is the revelation of Christ, thereby emphasizing the christological character of the evangelical message. The incarnation led to the proclamation which led to the realization. 'The manifestation of the kingdom of heaven cannot be conceived as an impersonal metaphysical event, but the coming of God Himself as king. This conception is borne out by a whole series of parables about the kingdom of God.' p 25 The stage is set for a redemptive-historical supremacy in hermeneutics by doing justice to both the eschatological view and the present character of the kingdom. 'On the other hand, the parables indicate the special veiled way in which the kingdom has come. The wisdom offered in it, the mysteries revealed in it, are only knowable to those who have been privileged to understand the fundamental truth: the coming of the kingdom in Christ.' p 127 'The millennium and the interadvental period are coextensive.' Professor Richard Gaffin, Theonomy & Eschatology, p 6 Much modern exegesis equates Israel's rejection of their Messiah as a postponement of the coming of the kingdom, yet both John the Baptist and then Jesus Himself proclaimed that the kingdom of God was at hand in the person of Christ the Messiah. To be sure, New Testament writers linked the coming of the kingdom with the first advent of our Messiah. 'We have seen that the Old Testament most often speaks of its coming as the coming of a person. The same observations hold for Jesus' use of the word 'basileia'. Until now we have translated it as kingdom, but in Greek it may mean kingship, kingly dominion, and kingdom. There is no doubt that the former sense, especially that of dominion as the exercise of royal dignity, is the most prominent usage of the word in various central pronouncements.' pp. 24-25 'Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King o

I bought this book hoping to obtain a deeper understanding and appreciation for what the Kingdom of God as understood biblically. Ridderbos' work is of the highest caliber and exhaustive in its scope. The only reason I gave it four stars is beacause it is a very challenging read. It's not a book you can simply pick up and read, you have to really work at understanding it and following it. Mainly I think because of the abruptness due to it being a translation. (Doesn't flow as fluently as a native English book would). For someone completely unfamiliar with the Kingdom of God idea and/or not needing a seminary-level discussion of the idea, I would strongly recommend looking at George Eldon Ladd's Book on the same topic. Much less dense. Probably not as scholarly in terms of dealing with liberal lines of thinking (Such as Culmann, Barth, Bultmann, Schweitzer, etc.) but my guess a good start for someone not adept at liberal theology and the historical debates raging around the gospels and the nature of the kingdom.

Herman Ridderbos does in biblical theology what Cornelius Van Til does in apologetics: he takes the New Testament self-revelation of God as a given and defends it against all (mainly European) comers in a thorough and scholarly (in the best sense of that word) manner. In fact, he says in the Introduction that the fierce controversy over the kingdom of heaven in the past hundred years is actually "a rich source of instruction to the attentive observer. It is above all the confirmation that the power of divine truth which finds its sublime and most variegated expression in the gospel of the kingdom of heaven again and again triumphs over all human limitations and commitments."Ridderbos puts the kingdom of God in its rightful place at the very center of the gospel preached by Jesus: "the whole of the preaching of Jesus Christ and his apostles is concerned with the kingdom of God, and...in Jesus Christ's proclamation of the kingdom we are face to face with the specific form of expression of the whole of his revelation of God."If reading this book attentively does not bring you into a quietly intense frame of worship and thanksgiving, you're just not paying attention. It's not pop theology. But it does amply reward the effort it requires.

Ridderbos does an excelent job at interpreting Jesus' preaching of the kingdom in the synoptic gospels. This book is redemptive-historical at its finest and when understood gives the reader a good grasp of the whole Bible.