In his stimulating
book, The Bible and the Future,
Anthony Hoekema, apparently following Karl Ludwig Schmidt (TDNT 1:589), refers his readers to some parallel expressions in
some parallel passages in the Synoptics: Matt 19:27; Mark 10:29; and Luke
18:29.
He sees the parallel expressions “for my name’s sake” (Matthew) and “for
my sake and for the gospel” (Mark) and “for the sake of the kingdom of God”
(Luke) as equivalent. Hoekema points out what he sees as a similar phenomenon
in Acts, where he similarly takes “the kingdom of God” and the “name of Jesus
Christ” (8:12) as equivalent expressions and “the kingdom of God” and “teaching
about the Lord Jesus Christ” (28:31) as likewise equivalent.
Now although I do
not think these parallel expressions are exactly equivalent, as Hoekema
proposes, yet we can say with confidence that they speak to gospel realities that
are tightly tied together. And herein lies an important insight then that answers
a not uncommon question: Why is it that the epistles speak so infrequently of
the “kingdom of God” (or simply “kingdom”)[1]
when it looms so large in the Gospels?
Hoekema points us to what I think is a
good partial answer in the dictionary article in volume 1 of TDNT. Schmidt avers there that the
reason why the epistles appear to speak so infrequently of the kingdom of God
in comparison with the Gospels is that the expression “kingdom of God” (or the like) found in the Gospels is
stressed implicitly by reference to the Lord Jesus Christ in the epistles.[2] And so, as it turns out, the epistles refer implicitly quite a lot to the kingdom of God as they speak of King (the Lord) Jesus.
If this is on
track, and I think it is indubitable, what this means is that we ought often (always?) to think of the kingdom when we read of the “Lord Jesus” or the “Lord Christ”
or similar phraseology. The kingdom does, then, after all, loom really large in the epistles, which is what we might expect since it is a great going concern right through the whole of Scripture.
[1] In the ESV, fifty-three times for “kingdom
of God” in the Gospels (fifty-three for the “kingdom of heaven” in Matthew) and
124 times for “kingdom” in the Gospels, over against only eight times in the
epistles for “kingdom of God” (all in Paul) and eighteen times in the epistles
for “kingdom.” (This data comes from Robert W. Yarbrough, “The Kingdom of God
in the New Testament: Matthew and Revelation,” in The Kingdom of God, eds. Christopher W. Morgan and Robert A.
Peterson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway),
99–100.)
[2] Schmidt, TDNT 1:589.
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