Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 12:1 (Spring 2008)
Article: The Kingdom of Heaven in Paul’s Gospel
Author: Brian J. Vickers

SBJT 12:1 (Spring 2008) p. 52

The Kingdom of Heaven in Paul’s Gospel

Brian J. Vickers*

*Brian Vickers is Assistant Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as assistant editor of The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology. Dr. Vickers is actively involved in leading short-term mission trips and teaching overseas. In addition to articles published in various journals he is the author of Jesus Blood and Righteousness: Paul’s Theology of Imputation (Crossway, 2006).

Introduction

The kingdom of God is a popular theme these days. The kingdom is a topic of books, articles, papers, conferences—even a whole issue of a journal may be devoted to it. Though not everything written about the kingdom is beneficial,1 the general recognition of the kingdom and the renewed emphasis on the kingdom as an important biblical-theological theme and concept is welcome. For the most part, discussion of the kingdom centers on Jesus and the Gospels. It is not difficult to see why this is so. Jesus inaugurated his ministry with a proclamation about the kingdom: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). His ministry is all about the arrival of the kingdom and discourse about who will (or will not) enter the kingdom, and what the kingdom is like fills the pages of the Gospels. When we leave the Gospels and turn to Paul, however, what happens to the kingdom? We might get the impression that outside the Gospels the kingdom, except for a few mentions here and there, fades away into the background of the New Testament. People who put most of their emphasis on the Gospels may draw the conclusion that there is a marked distinction between Jesus’ concept of the kingdom and Paul’s theology. Similarly, people who spend most of their time preaching, teaching, and writing on Paul’s epistles may rarely speak of the kingdom, perhaps inferring that since it does not appear explicitly that often it must not be that important. A careful consideration of Paul’s letters, however, should give us pause before we either assign the kingdom exclusively to the realm of the Gospels, or we relegate the kingdom to the outer reaches of Paul’s theology.

The aim of this article is not primarily to compare and contrast the kingdom of God in the Gospels with the kingdom of God in Paul, though it will be necessary and helpful occasionally to do so, but to explore the theme of the kingdom in Paul and the role it plays in his presentation of the gospel.2 This article serves to set out the basic patterns of the kingdom as it appears in Pau...