By Bill Hepler | May 27, 2020
I first read The Gospel of the Kingdom, by George Eldon Ladd, 20 years ago; since then I have re-read this book several times (available at Christianbook and Amazon). The book was very helpful in making sense of the varied teaching of our Lord on the kingdom of God. Several chapters stood out to me then, but the entirety of Ladd’s study was an eye-opener concerning the central teaching of Jesus’ ministry.
The author begins by noting that, “When we ask the Christian Church, ‘What is the Kingdom of God? When and how will it come?’ we receive a bewildering diversity of explanations. There are few themes so prominent in the Bible which have received such radically divergent interpretations as that of the Kingdom of God” (Ladd 15). Yet, the predominant message of Jesus’ teaching and many of his parables deal directly with the kingdom of God (synonymous with the kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s gospel). The difficulty in understanding the Biblical teaching about the kingdom of God lies in its complexity, as Ladd points out in the opening chapter:
“The Kingdom is a present reality (Matt 12:28), and yet it is a future blessing (1Cor 15:50). It is an inner spiritual redemptive blessing (Rom 14:17) which can only be experienced by the new birth (John 3:3), and yet it will have to do with the government of the nations of the world (Rev 11:15). The Kingdom is a realm into which men enter now (Matt 21:31), and yet it is a realm into which they will enter tomorrow (Matt 8:11). It is at the same time a gift of God which will be bestowed to God in the future (Luke 12:32) and yet which must be received in the present (Mark 10:15)” (Ladd 18).
Ladd’s book, written more than 60 years ago, made the concept of the “now and not yet” available to a broad audience. The kingdom of God has come, and yet we still await the fullness of that kingdom which will come at our Lord’s return.
While Ladd’s chapters on the present and future realities of the kingdom of God, and his explanation of many of the kingdom parables opened my eyes to the central message of Jesus’ teaching and made sense of previously perplexing parables. The chapter “Mystery of the Kingdom” sparked my “aha” moment; Ladd’s explanation of this mystery helped make sense of how it is that the Jewish leadership largely rejected Jesus, why many can resist the offer of the gospel, and how the yet-future age has overlapped with this present age.
The other chapter that stood out was “The Demand of the Kingdom.” Ladd highlights the teaching of our Lord that will separate those who are truly committed to him from those who merely think they are committed to him. Early in this chapter Ladd states that “The basic demand of the Kingdom is a response of man’s will (Ladd 97).” The rest of the chapter unpacks Jesus’ teaching on the cost of entering the kingdom of God; this is a chapter to dwell on, for this teaching may well be the crux issue for those who would follow Jesus.
Reading the book today, I still find it a rewarding and thought-provoking Scriptural study on the Kingdom of God. The Gospel of the Kingdom is superb, readable, and written for a broad readership, which it richly deserves.