Mark 1:15 -- The Kingdom of God in Bible Studies

In my last Bible study entry, I pondered the meaning of the phrase "the kingdom of God," and suggested one possible meaning, based on my reading so far in Mark: "the baptism of the Holy Spirit that John said Jesus would perform."

In a comment, Jen has an interesting reply. She says the kingdom of God is "a higher but separate level of government that equalized the people." That makes a lot of sense. One commentary notes that the Jews at the time, being ruled by the Romans, were eager for a new kingdom that would overthrow the Romans. When the Jews heard Jesus talk about the kingdom of God being near early in his ministry, no doubt some of them believed he was talking about a literal kingdom that he was about to establish right there in Israel. My understanding of the Jewish objection to Jesus is that they expected their Messiah to do exactly that, and the fact that Jesus didn't is, for them, an argument against him being Messiah.

Of course, most Christians believe that Jesus will, in fact, come back and establish a literal kingdom after the Second Coming, but with the hindsight we have now, we know the Second Coming is at least two millennia after Jesus said the kingdom of God was near. So if Jesus was referring to his eventual Millennial reign, that wasn't the only thing he was referring to.

The Gospel of Mark uses the phrase "the kingdom of God" a total of 14 times, and the other gospels use it 38 times, so this is a question that I'll be coming back to as I continue my studies.