Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 67:3 (Sep 2024)
Article: A Kingdom Of God Hermeneutic? Assessing The Place Of A Biblical-Theological Theme Within An Interpretive Approach
Author: Andrew T. Abernethy

JETS 67:3 (September 2024) p. 447

A Kingdom Of God Hermeneutic? Assessing The Place Of A Biblical-Theological Theme Within An Interpretive Approach

Andrew T. Abernethy*

* Andrew T. Abernethy is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. He may be contacted at [email protected].

Abstract: The kingdom of God is a popular framework among evangelical biblical theologians for conceptualizing how the entire Bible holds together. This article evaluates whether and how the kingdom of God might serve as a hermeneutical lens for interpreting Scripture. It begins with a survey of evangelical scholars who utilize the kingdom of God as a biblical-theological concept for articulating the storyline of the Bible, and then it showcases how the kingdom of God features in a sizable number of individual books of the Bible. In view of the prominence of God’s kingdom within biblical theology, the article next tempers any inclination toward making the kingdom of God a central, exclusive lens for interpretation. The article concludes by reframing how a kingdom of God hermeneutic might properly fit into an interpretive approach through four theses.

Key words: hermeneutics, biblical theology, kingdom of God, Irenaeus, Augustine, redemptive history, interpretation, exegesis

Having written on the kingdom of God in the book of Isaiah,1 I received an invitation to deliver two papers on the kingdom of God at the Southwest Regional meeting of ETS in 2023—one on God’s kingdom in Isaiah and the other on God’s kingdom in hermeneutics.2 The article before you is a revision of the latter. As I refined this article in view of subsequent input, it became clear that the attempt to specify how the kingdom of God fits within a given hermeneutical approach illustrates how any significant biblical-theological theme might fit within a given hermeneutic. So, as this article attempts to clarify how the concept of God’s kingdom fits within an approach to interpreting the Scriptures, it is merely illustrative of the place of biblical-theological themes in general within one’s interpretive framework.

JETS 67:3 (September 2024) p. 448

We begin with a select overview of the utilization of the kingdom of God in biblical theology, and then we temper any inclination toward making the kingdom of God central to all interpretation. Finally, we conclude by reframing how a kingdom of God hermeneutic might fit into an interpretive approach through four theses.

I. The Kingdom Of God In Biblical Theology

1. The kingdom of God in evangelical biblical theology. Within evangelicalis...