KINGDOM OF GOD. – A biblical expression that conveys a twofold meaning, abstract and concrete: the dominion or sovereignty of God, and the territory or society where this sovereignty or lordship is exercised. This corresponds to the double use of the term βασιλεία already in classical Greek: “royalty,” dignity, royal power, and by extension “kingdom,” territory. The Hebrew words rendered by the Septuagint with βασιλεία have a rather abstract sense (“royalty”); cf. G. von Rad, Βασιλεία, im Alt. Test., in Theol. Wört. zum Neuen Test., I, Stuttgart 1932, p. 569).
In the Old Testament, the expression “Kingdom of God” or the equivalent “your kingdom, his, my kingdom” referring to God is found rarely: in Tob. 13:1; Dan. 3:54, 100; Ps. 144(145):11-13; Ps. 102(103):19; Ps. 21(22):29. Similar expressions occur in Abd. 21 and Wis. 6:4 (the kings are ministers of God’s royal authority; doubtful is ibid. 10:10). Yet the idea that God is king permeates the whole Bible. God is king of all the earth (Ps. 46[47]:3, 8). He reigns over all nations (ibid. 9; 95[96]:10). The kingship of Yahweh is celebrated in very ancient psalms (e.g., 23[24]:7-8). An entire group of psalms (95–98[96–99]) extols the kingship of Yahweh. The idea of this kingship cannot be connected with a festival (of presumed pre-exilic origin) of Yahweh’s enthronement (the theory of S. Mowinckel) nor with an annual covenant festival (the theory of M. Weiser).
The Kingdom of God is promised for the future: God will reign from Zion, in restored Israel (Isa. 24:23; 52:7; Dan. 7:14; Ps. 2; 71[72]; 109[110]). “The idea of the divine Kingdom perfectly integrates into the messianic perspective” (J. Bonsirven).
In the mouth of Jesus, the Kingdom of God (called by Matthew “Kingdom of Heaven” in accordance with Jewish usage) has the predominant sense of sovereignty, but also the concrete sense of kingdom as a society. The Kingdom is both inward and social, both present and future.
The Kingdom of God is realized in different stages. “The Kingdom of God is here” (Mk. 1:15, rather than “is near”), cf. J. Bonsirven, Les enseignements de Jésus Christ, Paris 1946, p. 43). With this (cf. also Lk. 10:9; 11:20) Jesus announces and has his disciples announce that the Kingdom has already come: it is already in the midst of the people (Lk. 17:21). Yet it is also a reality in the making, which must continually be realized (ibid. 11:2: “your Kingdom come”; Mt. 13: the parables of the Kingdom presuppose a future slow expansion of the Kingdom of God: growth of the good seed, penetration of the leaven, the mustard seed that becomes a tree; cf. Mk. 4:26-29: the seed that germinates and grows without the farmer’s knowledge).
The Kingdom will have a final, definitive stage of reward (Mt. 25:34: prepared for the elect; ibid. 13:43 and 26:29: the Kingdom of the Father). The definitive stage of the Kingdom will be inaugurated with the coming of the Son of Man (v. PAROUSIA; cf. Mt. 16:28; Lk. 9:27; Mk. 9:1: the return of Christ as king-judge before the death of some present is to be understood as the destruction of Jerusalem).
The Kingdom of God, in the three stages described, is spiritual and inward, and at the same time outward or social. It is spiritual in the conditions required to enter it (Mt. 4:17; Mk. 10:15: receiving the Kingdom as a child in order to enter it), in the aspect of doctrine that it embodies (the word of the Kingdom, Mt. 13:19; mystery of the Kingdom, Mk. 4:11), and in its inseparability from the goods of salvation that it procures, or in which it consists (M. Meinertz, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, I, Bonn 1950, pp. 39-56): forgiveness of sins, liberation or salvation, redemption, divine sonship, new life, perfection of life in the future vision of God. These are goods of a spiritual order, not of a temporal or national order (M. Meinertz, ibid., p. 52 ff.), though destined in the first place for the chosen people. The universality of the Kingdom of God is intimately linked to its spirituality; it appears more clearly, however, in the outward or social aspect of the Kingdom.
The Kingdom is also a society: by founding the Church (v.), Jesus gives Peter the keys of the Kingdom of God (Mt. 16:19), describes the Kingdom as a collectivity of good and bad men (parable of the darnel: ibid. 13:24-30 and 36-43), as a feast to which all are invited (ibid. 22:1-10). One cannot simply identify the Kingdom of God with the Church (M. Meinertz, ibid., p. 70): but since the Kingdom has both a present and a future aspect, and since it already operates in the present time, the Church can be the bearer of the Kingdom. The relationship between the Kingdom and the Church can be expressed (with Y. de La Brière [V. BIBLICA.], col. 1248) as follows: the Church constitutes the Kingdom of God in its outward and social aspect, procures the Kingdom in its inward aspect, prepares it in its eschatological, heavenly aspect.
The genuine doctrine of Jesus on the Kingdom, as it emerges from the texts, is distorted both by the “liberal school,” which held that Jesus preached a present but only inward kingdom, and by the eschatologists, who held that Jesus had in view only the Kingdom of the end times, preaching an apocalyptic messianism and deluding himself about the imminent coming of the Kingdom (F. M. Braun, Jesus, histoire et critique, Paris-Tournai 1947, p. 85). Recently, however, even Protestant critics have come to admit both the future character of the Kingdom (and of the Church), denied by the liberal school, and the present aspect, denied by the eschatological school, and they discern between the Church and the Kingdom a relationship of mutual belonging.
The Kingdom of God, the object of early Christian catechesis (cf. Acts 19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31; texts concerning the preaching of St. Paul), has little prominence in the Pauline epistles: for the most part it appears as a good of the consummation (as an inheritance, 1 Cor. 6:9-10; 15:50; Gal. 5:21); yet it has already begun, because Paul works for it with others (Col. 4:11). The Kingdom of God is identified with the Kingdom of Christ (M. Meinertz, op. cit., II, pp. 109 ff., 159), began with Jesus, and has its visible manifestation in the Church (ibid., p. 234). In St. John the Kingdom of God, which in the synoptic tradition had a fundamental role, is mentioned only twice (Jn. 3:3, 5, where the eschatological accent is not lacking); it is equivalent to the concept of Life (M. Meinertz, ibid., pp. 282, 316).
The phenomenon of regeneration seems to respond perfectly to a finalistic principle that leads to anatomical and functional harmony within the organic unit. However, many authors, basing their arguments on facts that appear to contradict this principle, have sought to exclude the finality of regeneration. Examples are numerous; suffice it to consider bicephalic formations and Siamese twins, more or less anatomically united, as well as phenomena of hyper-regeneration. In both double monstrosities and hyper-regenerations, regeneration certainly does not lead to equilibrium. But does this suffice to exclude a finalistic principle in regeneration? It seems not, because in these cases there is a reason for the failure to achieve equilibrium: the organism always tends toward this equilibrium through regeneration, but if material conditions do not permit it, this cannot be realized. Thus, in cases of double formations, it is known that this is due to the imperfect separation of the embryonic primordia; in hyper-regenerations, such as the multiple regeneration of limbs, it is known that experimental or accidental factors have caused a subdivision of the regenerative system. Similarly, in higher forms, although the tendency toward regeneration exists, it is quite modest, and this in relation to the high degree of cytological differentiation that limits the reproductive and pluripotential possibilities of cells.
It has been said that regeneration is not a phenomenon limited to living beings: even in the inanimate world there would be regulatory phenomena. Thus, a broken crystal, immersed in the mother solution, eventually repairs the break. But in reality, this is a profoundly different process: in the crystal, it is a matter of the superimposition of molecules from the mother solution that deposit in an orderly fashion upon the ordered molecules of the crystal, with a juxtaposition phenomenon that may be likened to the orderly settling of marbles in a box; in the regeneration of living beings, the part is formed through intrinsic activity according to an intrinsically determined plan.