In George Eldon Ladd’s pioneering book: The Gospel of the Kingdom, originally published in 1959, there is an incredible section where he tackles John the Baptist’s question to Jesus regarding Jesus’ identity as the Messiah.

Ladd suggests that John’s expectation of how the Kingdom of God would come was formed with an Old Testament understanding, meaning he likely struggled to comprehend what was happening in Jesus’ ministry.

Where John may have expected a big event with flashing lights and explosions in the places of influence, Jesus instead was quietly serving the lowest, lost, and the least throughout His ministry. Where John may have expected the dethroning of tax collectors, King Herod, and Caesar, Jesus was instead dethroning Satan through repentance, healing, and deliverance.

This Kingdom looked different than John expected.

In the chapters that follow John’s question Jesus talks to the people using a number of parables focusing on the mystery of the Kingdom of God. Ladd believes these teachings were a response to John’s question – I think he is probably correct (if he were alive today I’m sure he’d be delighted to have my agreement!)

Jesus through these parables reveals what the Kingdom is, what the Kingdom would be, and how we should perceive it. In truth, the whole section is worth a full read but I thought I’d like to post the conclusion on the chapter here, which in my humble opinion is one of the most beautifully, accurate, summaries of the Kingdom that I’ve seen.

“This is the mystery of the Kingdom: Before the day of harvest, before the end of the age, God has entered into history in the person of Christ to work among men, to bring to them the life and blessings of His Kingdom.

It comes humbly, unobtrusively.

It comes to men as a Galilean carpenter went throughout the cities of Palestine preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, delivering men from their bondage to the Devil.

It comes to men as his disciples went throughout Galilean villages with the same message.

It comes to men today as disciples of Jesus still take, the Gospel of the Kingdom into all the world.

It comes quietly, humbly, without fire from heaven, without a blaze of glory, without a rending of the mountains or a cleaving of the skies.

It comes like seed sown in the earth.

It can be rejected by hard hearts, it can be choked out, its life may sometimes seem to wither and die.

But it is the Kingdom of God.

It brings the miracle of the divine life among men.

It introduces them into the blessings of the divine rule.

It is to them the supernatural work of God’s grace.

And this same Kingdom, this same supernatural power of God will yet manifest itself at the end of the age, this time not quietly within the lives of those who receive it, but in power and great glory purging all sin and evil from the earth.

Such is the Gospel of the Kingdom.”

George Eldon Ladd

Amen – I’ll add nothing else!