The Time Is Fulfilled
The Time Is Fulfilled
These first words of the summary suggest two related realities about Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom. First, the kingdom of God is an eschatological term, belonging primarily to the category of “time” rather than “space.” It refers to a time that was promised and was to be fulfilled, not to a place where people were to go. Thus, reflecting several kinds of themes from the OT,148 the kingdom of God refers primarily to the time of the future - the Eschaton (“End”) - when God would finally excercise his kingly rule over the whole of his created order. Those around Jesus, therefore, never ask about what or where, but “when does it come?”149 They are looking for the time in the future when God will “wrap it up” as far as the present is concerned.
Second, and closely related, the language of “fulfillment” indicates that the kingdom of God is ultimately tied to Jewish messianic (= end-time) expectations. These go back as far as the covenant made with Abraham, that through his seed “all the peoples on earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3). They found historical focus in the throne of David, so that in the ensuing years both people and prophet looked back longingly to David’s time and yearned for the days of former glory. This hope is reflected especially in such Psalms as 2 and 72, which were probably originally composed for the coronation of the Davidic kings, but in time came to be understood as pointing to the “great king” of the future.
As the prophets in particular gave articulation to this hope, they saw the future in terms of judgment and salvation — judgment not only on the surrounding nations, but especially on Israel, because it had failed to keep covenant with its God, Yahweh. Instead of worshiping and serving Yahweh alone, and doing his will, expressed in the covenant stipulations of the law, the people of Israel gave themselves to every kind of idolatry, sexual immorality, and injustice. Thus, the day of the Lord, the great day of the future, would be “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (Joel 2:2; cf. Amos 5:18-20); included would be an overthrow of the oppressor, the idolator, the adulterer. The old values would be overturned; God would come with justice and judge all those who had not walked in his ways.
But because it was “Yahweh’s day,” it would also be a day of salvation for that righteous remnant who were doing his will, as well as for those who, chastised by the judgment, would return to the Lord. Because it would be God’s day, his supreme day, the whole creation would feel the effects of his redemption: the vine would produce in abundance (Amos 9:13); the cow would feed with the bear, and their young lie down together (Isa 11:7). Especially — and significantly — included in this restoration-salvation would be the gathering of the nations, who would also “go up to the mountain of the Lord, so that [they] may walk in his paths” (Mic 4:2).
Then it happened. Judgment came in the form of exile and the destruction of Jerusalem. Eventually a small remnant returned to the land, and hope sprang up that this would be it — the great day of Yahweh with the full blessings of his salvation. The restoration, however, turned out to be a colossal disappointment. The desert did not blossom like a rose; the nations did not gather at Jerusalem to honor Yahweh — indeed, only a minority of Jews did. The result was a long period of gloom in Israel’s history as they eventually became a political pawn of the great powers — and many of God’s people had become less than ardent Yahwists. It was a time when no prophetic voice was heard in the land, because there was no presence of the Spirit150 (who was by now understood to belong strictly to the final future day of the Lord151).
However, the hope for the future did not die. A group of writers emerged in Israel known as the apocalyptists,152 who gave up on history as such, and looked for God to bring a crashing end to the present age, with its evil and oppression, and to usher in the Age to Come as an age of Spirit — an age of righteousness and justice.
It was into this kind of eschatological fervor that John the Baptist appeared announcing the nearness of the future. “Repent,” he urged, “for the kingdom of God is near.” “Get ready for the great coming day of the Lord” was his urgency. The Baptist’s conviction was clearly proclaimed: the Messiah, though unrecognized, is already in our midst. Here was the return of the prophetic voice, and the people went out to hear with great anticipation. But the kingdom did not appear with John. Rather, he was arrested and eventually murdered. But soon after John’s arrest news began to filter out of the synagogues in the north that another prophet had arisen who was announcing not simply the nearness of the kingdom, but the good news of the kingdom — that “the time was fulfilled; the kingdom of God was at hand.” Indeed in his own home synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus announced that the great messianic prophecy of Isaiah 61, about the coming of God’s “anointed one” who would proclaim the good news to the poor and the coming of the year of the Lord’s favor, had in fact been fulfilled in his own coming (Luke 4:16-30).
What had been “fulfilled,” according to Jesus, was that in his own ministry the time of God’s favor toward “the poor” had come. In his healing the sick, casting out demons, and eating with sinners — and thereby showing them God’s unlimited mercy — the people were to understand that God’s great eschatological day had finally dawned.