Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 180:720 (Oct 2023)
Article: The Kingdom Of God Will Come Upon You: Jesus’s Reply To A False Accusation
Author: John P. Harrigan

BSac 180:720 (October-December 2023) p. 427

The Kingdom Of God Will Come Upon You: Jesus’s Reply To A False Accusation

John P. Harrigan

John P. Harrigan works for an evangelical organization in the Middle East as a church planter and missions trainer.

Abstract

Jesus’s saying concerning the kingdom of God coming upon people (Matt 12:28) has become the cornerstone of realized or inaugurated eschatology for many scholars. In this view, Jesus’s curative power is the realization and redefinition of Israel’s eschatological expectations. This article argues to the contrary: Jesus’s pronouncement is an ardent affirmation of common Jewish apocalyptic expectations and simultaneously an eschatological condemnation of the Pharisees.

Generally speaking, the teachings of Jesus concerning “the kingdom of God” accord with common Jewish apocalyptic expectations of the late Second Temple period.1 The majority of Jesus’s sayings about the kingdom fit comfortably within the worldview that Jews held concerning the coming day of YHWH, the new heavens and new earth, the resurrection of the dead, divine judgment, gehenna, the two ages, and the like. A few sayings, however, do not seem to fit as well (e.g., Matt 12:28; Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21).2 These are commonly used to argue that Jesus sought to

BSac 180:720 (October-December 2023) p. 428

fundamentally redefine the expectations of his contemporaries.

Of these sayings, however, Matthew 12:28 particularly stands out.3 In response to the healing of a demon-oppressed man, the Pharisees claimed that Jesus was actually empowered by Beelzebul/Satan, to which Jesus famously answered: “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”4 This saying has become the cornerstone for many New Testament scholars who argue for a redefinition of Jewish apocalyptic expectations. “The only conclusion that can be drawn from the Spirit-empowered miracles of Jesus is that the saving power of God’s kingdom has arrived among Jesus’s contemporaries.”5 However, is this what the passage as a whole is saying? The myopic nature of its common citation led Sullivan to lament:

An obscure verse...