Paul, like Jesus, spoke of the Dominion of God in the present tense as a reality in the here and now. For example, in Romans 14:17 Paul says, “The Dominion of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the Spirit forms these qualities in the life of the believer, and they become evidence that God’s saving activity has been at work in this person’s life, evidence that the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in this person. Of course, the evidence that God has worked in the believer will be manifested in the believer’s relationships in the Christian community and with the world. Righteousness, “shalom” (peace), and joy all manifest themselves in deeds and relationships. The starting point, however, is the transformed inner life of the individual.

—Luke 17:20. Jesus was saying, there is already more here in your midst than meets the eye, there is more beyond what is empirically in evidence. The only visible evidence of this inbreaking Dominion was changed human lives.

But what God is doing now in our lives is but a foretaste of things to come, a preview of coming attractions.

To most modern people the term “kingdom” always implies a place, whether one is thinking of the United Kingdom or the Magic Kingdom. Yet the Greek term that we often translate “kingdom” (basileia) and more importantly the Aramaic term that Jesus likely used (malkuta) do not always refer to a place. Sometimes they refer to an activity or a condition instead.

To be more specific, when the Greek or Aramaic word is used in conjunction with “God,” sometimes it refers to God’s saving activity, sometimes to the resulting condition of that activity in someone’s life (namely God’s rule in one’s life), and sometimes to a place which one enters, inherits, obtains, or is excluded from at the end of human history. In all cases the term refers to something that is part of God’s final design or plan for humankind, namely salvation. I would suggest that we use “dominion” instead of “kingdom” since it can refer to an activity (God exercises or has dominion over us and we are in turn ruled by God) or a place (God’s Dominion is where the divine rule is manifest). Lest all this sound like an exercise in theological abstractions and mere semantics, we need to remind ourselves that the Dominion of God rather than the church was the featured subject of all of Jesus’ parables and much of early Christian preaching. It is thus important for us to get a clear grip on the meaning and importance of this language.

Jesus and his followers believed that there was an already and a not yet dimension to this Dominion, which in turn meant that they considered themselves witnesses of, heralds of, even bringers of this final or end-time Dominion of God into the world. In their view, the future was now. Jesus put the matter this way: “If it is by the finger of God I cast out demons, then you will know that the Dominion of God has already come upon you” (Luke 11:20/Matt. 12:28). The coming of the Dominion was signaled by the miracles of Jesus and their interpretation by Jesus.

Church folk are apt to mistake the Dominion for the church. A moment’s reflection will show, however, that the two terms do not refer to exactly the same entity. For one thing, none of us are praying for the church to come, but every time we say the Lord’s Prayer we ask God to send his Dominion. For another thing, we don’t talk about obtaining or inheriting the church, but we certainly use these terms about God’s Dominion. Nevertheless, one can say that God’s Dominion can be seen within the church, if by church we mean the people of God. There is a sense in which when God is ruling and saving and transforming his people so that they become the Dominion of God, the church is at least the place where that Dominion can be seen and experienced.

If Jesus had been questioned about the location of God’s Dominion during his ministry, he might well have responded, “It’s hiding in plain sight.” This is in fact the gist of several of his parables. For example, in the parable of the mustard seed he compares the Dominion to the sowing of a seed that later grows and produces a large mustard bush (Luke 13:19), or again he draws an analogy with the hiding of yeast in a mass of dough (Luke 13:20) or the sowing of wheat seed in a field (Mark 4:1–9). In all these parables, the Dominion is seen as present and yet hidden to the naked eye.

Paul likewise, when he speaks about where one can find the Dominion of God in the world in the present, speaks of qualities manifest in Christians’ lives that make it clear that Christ and Christ’s likeness is within them through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit. “The Dominion of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. The one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and has human approval” (Rom. 14:17–18). The Dominion involves not just inner qualities but also outward actions that bring about righteousness, peace, and joy in this world.

the Dominion of God in the present cannot be limited to a specific locale such as the Holy Land or any other place. It will be found wherever God’s transforming Spirit is at work throughout the world.

The Pharisees’ question is quite understandable. They expected that there would be clear visible signs or evidence of the Dominion’s coming, signs like the resurrection of the righteous, the appearance of a messianic figure that would cast Israel’s enemies out of the land, the renewal of the land of Israel itself. Jesus is suggesting that the Dominion is already present during his ministry, but the visible signs of it are not as expected or as advertised.1 Indeed, the only visible signs of it during Jesus’ ministry were changed human lives, the impact Jesus’ words and miraculous deeds had on those who encountered him. This is very much the situation of the Dominion today. Lives are still being changed by the proclamation and application of the Good News, but the fallen world as we know it continues without any other visible signs of transformation.

The Lord’s Prayer, which the church today should and must pray in good faith, includes the words “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.” This prayer makes it clear that God’s Dominion in heaven is not the same as God’s future Dominion on earth, or otherwise there would be no point to this petition. The petition suggests that the Dominion is not yet fully present on earth as it already is in heaven. Bearing these things in mind, a series of questions need to be considered at this point.

Let us consider first the meaning of the term “heaven.” Heaven is the dwelling place of God. Since God is thought to be omnipresent, some have reasoned that therefore heaven is likewise everywhere. This represents a misunderstanding of the concept of God’s omnipresence. The Bible does not affirm that a little bit of God is everywhere or in all things in the material universe.

What then does it mean to say that one cannot enter the Dominion unless one receives the Dominion here and now as a child? I suspect that in the first place Jesus had in mind the fact that children have no difficulty receiving gifts. Indeed, nearly everything children receive comes as a gift, not as something they have earned. Have you ever noticed how at Christmas children have no difficulty receiving gifts, without immediately wondering who they must repay?

An adult, on the other hand, often has difficulty or feels uncomfortable with receiving a gift from someone he or she has not also given a gift to. Why is this? I suspect it is in part because our society tells us repeatedly “you don’t get something for nothing” or “you get what you earn or pay for.” Our culture is fundamentally works-oriented, not grace-centered. We like to think of ourselves as those who need no help, but rather, given an opportunity, can get it for ourselves. We like to be independent. A child, on the other hand, knows very well that he or she is dependent on others.

John Wesley once said, the gifts of the Spirit must be normed by the fruit of the Spirit. Christian character, rather than talent or giftedness, is a clearer sign of the reign of God in a person’s life.

The Dominion of God was not fully present, and so Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Thy Kingdom come … on earth,” which meant that it was most certainly not fully here. But at the same time, as we have already seen, both Jesus and Paul were also saying “the future is now.”

In the first half of this study we have been concentrating on the present dimension of God’s Dominion on earth. Yet it would be myopic if we stopped with such a discussion, for there are at least as many passages in the New Testament that focus on the future manifestation of God’s Dominion on earth.

(1) The New Testament says nothing explicit about the timing of the second coming of Christ, but simply affirms the fact of that coming. Indeed, Mark 13:32 informs us that Jesus himself said during his ministry that he did not know the timing of the second coming of the Son of Man. (2) Often when the issue of timing comes up we fail to bear in mind that God is not a creature bound within the space-time universe. God transcends time and is not limited by time as we know it within the material universe. This is in part what is meant in 2 Peter 3:8–10: “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise … but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.…” (3) The earliest Christians, since they did not know the timing of Christ’s return, were prepared to reckon with and hope for the possibility that Christ would return in their own day, but they used images like the thief in the night to convey the fact that Christ would come at a surprising or unexpected time and therefore that one must always be ready. The upshot of all this is that it is a mistake to suggest that the earliest Christians believed that Christ would definitely return in their own age and then, when that proved untrue, had to conjure with the delay of the Royal Return. The viable future of God’s Dominion on earth should not be dismissed on the basis of a misreading of what the New Testament claims about the timing of Christ’s return.

Adoniram Judson, the famous missionary to Burma, was right when he told a pagan tribal chieftain, even as the latter was about to kill Judson, that the future was as bright as God’s promises. Jesus said as much when he reassured us all that it is God’s will to give us the Dominion of God, in part now, in full later.

it is not enough for God to reign in the human heart. That Dominion must manifest itself in everyday human behavior, in human relationships, in society. God demands of us a bold witness for Christ and a prophetic witness against evil and injustice.

In the nineteenth century a medical missionary in Aintab, Armenia, named Dr. Sheppard was brought a small man who was near death and enduring much suffering. Dr. Sheppard slowly ministered him back to health, but he also shared the gospel of Christ with the man. In due course the man became both well and a Christian. He returned to his own village and like many a new convert could hardly stop talking about Jesus. At one point an irritated listener responded to the small man: “Why should I believe you? You have never even seen this Jesus. On your own account of things he died over 1,500 years ago.” Undaunted, the little man immediately responded: “To the contrary, I have seen Dr. Sheppard, and Christ lives in him. And furthermore, Christ now lives in me.”

Holiness in its purest form means manifesting the life and lifestyle of Christ in one’s own life, manifesting the purity and power of Christ in one’s own life, manifesting the graciousness and humility of Christ in one’s own life. Though of course holiness involves not doing a variety of sins and misdeeds, as the list of vices in Galatians 5 (see above) makes clear, holiness is not primarily about what we are not or what we don’t do, but rather primarily about what we are and what we must do. Holiness, then, is not primarily about what we abstain from but rather about what we manifest, namely the reign of God in our lives.

Awareness of God’s reign in one’s life necessarily changes one’s view of life, the world, and what is important in living in this world. For one thing, a person who lives under the reign of God does not view this life as the be-all and end-all of existence.

One of my fellow New Testament scholars likes to say that Christian love is not like a heat-seeking missile, prompted by something inherently attractive in the target. Rather, Christian love gives to all and sundry because it is the right thing, the Christ-like thing, to do.