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30
-- IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD WITHIN YOU?
Luke
17:20-30
Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God
would come, He answered them and said, "The kingdom of God
does not come with observation; nor will they say, "See here!' or
"See there!' For indeed, the kingdom of God is within [among]
you."
Then He said to the disciples, "The days will come when you will
desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see
it. And they will say to you, "Look here!' or "Look there!'
Do not go after them or follow them. For as the lightning that
flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven,
so also the Son of Man will be in His day.
But
first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the
Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given
in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the
flood came and destroyed them all.
Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they
bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that
Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed
them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son
of Man is revealed.
This scripture is sometimes quoted to support the erroneous idea that the Kingdom of God is not a literal kingdom that will one day rule the whole earth, but simply a state of mind, a kind of mini-kingdom within the hearts of Christians -- an idea that is immediately contradicted by the context of the verses that follow, as we shall see below.
Alternative translations say that the Kingdom of God was among them -- as it was by virtue of the presence of Jesus the Messiah, although the Pharisees could not appreciate that fact because of their hypercritical and legalistic attitudes.
As we have already seen a number of times and as Jesus again makes clear, the Kingdom of God will be established when he returns as the Christ, the Messiah, an event that will come unexpectedly and dramatically, as we saw in the previous section -- as did the Flood of Noah and also the fire and brimstone that rained down on the sinners of Sodom.
As Jesus also makes plain here, his return with divine power will not be a secret or hidden event -- for his presence will manifest itself as immensely powerful flashes of lightning, as other scriptures also make clear (Matthew 24:23-30).
However, as he also explains here, these matters concern his second coming in power and glory -- and before that he had to suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.