Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (17:20–21)

The experience of a kingdom is foreign to most Americans. The United States was born in a revolution against the rule of the British monarch George III, and has never had a king or absolute ruler in its history. Although monarchy was the most common form of government for centuries, few countries now are ruled by a king and those with absolute, unchecked power, privilege, and authority are regularly deposed. In those countries that still recognize monarchs they provide some cultural influence and perform ceremonial duties only, while having little or no actual power.

But it is precisely that unilateral rule and authority which society disdains that God claims for Himself. He is the absolute King (Ps 24:8–10; 47:2; 1 Tim. 6:15) who rules over His kingdom (Ps. 45:6; Matt. 6:33) with sole supremacy, absolute sovereignty, and the unrestrained, free exercise of His will. The apostle Paul closed the eleventh chapter of Romans with a benediction that extols God’s absolute sovereignty:

Isaiah asked a series of rhetorical questions that form an Old Testament counterpart to Paul’s doxology:

God has supreme wisdom and knowledge, and makes judgments on the basis of information unknown to man. No one gives Him counsel, nor is He obligated to anyone. Based on His perfect knowledge, wisdom, power, and will, God does exactly what He wants when He wants with whom He wants, and for the purpose that He wants.

Job understood that truth. In Job 42:2 he said to God, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” In Psalm 33:11 the psalmist declared that “the counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation.” Isaiah wrote, “For the Lord of hosts has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?” (Isa. 14:27). Later in Isaiah’s prophecy God declared,

In a doxology recorded in 1 Chronicles 29:10–13,

The Bible teaches that God’s sovereignty extends over both the material kingdom, and the spiritual kingdom. The material kingdom is the external, universal kingdom in which God reigns over everything He created. Psalm 10:16 says that “the Lord is King forever and ever”; Psalm 29:10 that “the Lord sits as King forever”; and Psalm 47:2 that He is “a great King over all the earth.” Psalm 103:19 declares that “the Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all,” while Psalm 145:13 adds that His “dominion endures throughout all generations” (cf. Dan. 4:34).

The universal kingdom is suffering the effects of rebellion. It is cursed because of sin, both that of the human race, and of Satan and the demons. That curse has stained it both spiritually and physically. As a result, what scientists call the second law of thermodynamics is operating, and the universe is running down, heading toward its disastrous dissolution when “the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!” (2 Peter 3:12). Spiritually, Satan and his demon hosts, along with the fallen human race, persist in foolishly and futilely attempting to thwart the kingdom purposes of almighty God.

The universal created kingdom is not, however, in view in this passage. The Lord’s discussion with the Pharisees on this occasion involved His internal, personal, spiritual kingdom. That realm of God’s rule, the sphere of salvation, includes all those whom God has redeemed. God reveals His authority over the universal kingdom through the general revelation manifested in creation, in human reason, and in the moral law written in the heart and conscience. He reveals the nature of His rule over the spiritual kingdom through the special revelation of Scripture.

As He does in the universal kingdom, God exercises absolute authority in His spiritual kingdom. He is sovereign over who enters it and how they enter, exercises absolute right, power, and privilege, and does exactly what He wills by the means of His Word. Thus, Jesus Christ is Lord and King over the spiritual kingdom just as He is over the material kingdom; He is sovereign in the universe, and He is sovereign over His people. God’s external, universal rule is direct; His internal, personal rule is also direct, through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

In contrast to His rule in the universal kingdom, which is immediate (without a mediator), God mediates His rule over the spiritual kingdom through agents. Through those men He gave the special revelation in Scripture that ushers people into that kingdom. Although angels were involved in mediating the law (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2), for the most part God used men, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Samuel, and Israel’s priests, prophets, and kings (e.g., David, Solomon). God channeled His mediation through the nation of Israel, “to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:4–5).

But the culminating, unequalled, all-glorious mediator is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is far superior to all other mediators first of all because He is God incarnate; “the radiance of [the Father’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Heb. 1:3) and the one in whom “all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9; cf. John 1:1, 14; 14:9). Further, Jesus is the ultimate mediator because His sacrificial death on the cross makes all reconciliation possible. Paul wrote, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). Before His birth the angel Gabriel told Mary that Jesus “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end” (Luke 1:32–33). His coming as King was the fulfillment of Israel’s hope. Psalm 2:6 speaks prophetically of God’s establishing the Messiah as King, while Isaiah wrote of Him,

Jesus did not come into the world to establish the universal kingdom; He was already King over that realm (cf. Eph. 1:20–21), as His power over death, disease, and creation demonstrated. Jesus did come to provide access into His spiritual kingdom for His people. But the Jewish people did not understand that, and were expecting the Messiah to establish the promised temporal, earthly kingdom. In this brief passage, the Pharisees questioned Jesus about the kingdom, and He corrected their misunderstanding regarding it.

THE KINGDOM QUESTIONED

Now having been questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, (17:20a)

The kingdom the Jewish people expected Messiah to establish encompassed everything promised in the Abrahamic (Gen. 12), Davidic (2 Sam. 7), and New (Jer. 31) covenants. According to the prophets, it will be marked by a time of unprecedented peace in nature, when predators will no longer harm their prey (Isa. 11:6–7) and children will play in safety near venomous snakes (v. 8). The topography of the planet will be drastically changed; for example, the Mount of Olives will be split in two (Zech. 14:4). Messiah’s kingdom will be marked by peace (Isa. 32:17–18; Mic. 4:2–4), joy (Isa. 61:7, 10), comfort (Isa. 40:1–2), prosperity (Amos 9:13–15), health (Isa. 35:5–6), holiness (Isa. 35:8), truth (Isa. 65:16) and Messiah’s personal rule (Isa. 9:6–7; 11:1–4, 10).

The nineteenth-century historian Emil Schürer summarized the Jewish people’s expectations regarding the coming of Messiah and the establishing of His kingdom as follows: First, the coming of Messiah would be preceded by a time of tribulation. Second, in the midst of the turmoil an Elijah-like prophet would appear heralding Messiah’s coming. Third, Messiah would establish His glorious kingdom, and vindicate His people. Fourth, the nations would ally themselves together to fight Messiah. Fifth, Messiah would destroy all those opposing nations. Sixth, Jerusalem would be restored, and made new and glorious. Seventh, the dispersed Jews scattered all over the world would return to Israel. Eighth, Israel would become the center of the world and all the nations would be subjugated to the Messiah. Finally, the Messiah would establish His kingdom, which would be a time of eternal peace, righteousness, and glory (A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ [New York: Scribners, 1896], 2:154–178).

Those expectations were drawn from the Old Testament and embellished in the extrabiblical writings. They reveal that the Jews did not see two comings of Messiah. They were not looking for the spiritual kingdom; they were not looking for a Savior who would be the sacrifice for sins, because they regarded themselves as righteous (cf. Luke 18:9–12).

What the people of Israel were eagerly anticipating was the establishment of the earthly kingdom. Luke 19:11 records that “Jesus went on to tell a parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.” The frenzied crowds at the triumphal entry shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel” (John 12:13). That misunderstanding of the purpose of His first coming explains why Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming (cf. the disciples’ similar question in Luke 17:37). They missed the reality that the kingdom comes first in the hearts of believers before it will be fully realized in its millennial glory (see the exposition of 13:18–21 in chapter 17 of this volume).

Neither Jesus nor the kingdom that was the constant theme of His preaching (cf. 4:43; 6:20;7:28; 8:1; 9:11, 60, 62; 11:20; 12:31; 13:20, 28–29; 16:16; 18:16–17; Matt. 4:17) met the Pharisees’ expectations. Jesus claimed to be a king, but He had no regal coronation or bearing. He was born under the most humble of circumstances, in a stable with a manger as His crib. Instead of royalty, His first visitors were lowly shepherds. Even when the magi (king makers from Persia) arrived, their visit to Him was private. And He grew up in the despised village of Nazareth (John 1:46), which was located in Galilee, a region looked down on by the more sophisticated Judeans.

The Pharisees constantly demanded that Jesus perform the type of spectacular, cataclysmic signs in the heavens and on the earth (cf. Joel 1:15; 2:1, 2, 10, 11, 30–32; 3:1–2, 14–20) that they associated with Messiah’s coming (cf. 11:16; Matt. 12:38; 16:1; John 2:18; 4:48; 6:30). When He did not, they refused to believe in Him, slandered Him, and sought to discredit Him. That consistently cynical attitude makes it likely that the questions they addressed to Jesus on this occasion were insincere and intended to mock Him (cf. 16:14).

THE KINGDOM EXPLAINED

He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” (17:20b–21)

As He consistently did in His confrontations with the Pharisees, Jesus dismantled their misconceptions. The present form of the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, He told them. Their constant seeking after signs was therefore misguided, based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the spiritual kingdom. There are no visible signs of the coming of that aspect of the kingdom that would lead people to say, “Look, here it is!” or, “There it is!”; its coming will not be heralded by visible spectacles.

The Pharisees failed to discern the spiritual kingdom because not having experienced the new birth, they were dead and blind. Jesus told the prominent Pharisee Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3; cf. Matt. 13:11–16). As the apostle Paul would later write, “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). Those who fail to recognize the King cannot see His kingdom.

But the spiritual kingdom will not always remain invisible. At Christ’s second coming, it will be unmistakably visible to all (Rev. 1:7; cf. 19:11–21). Not only will He be revealed in all His glory, but the redeemed will also be unveiled for who they really are (Rom. 8:19–21; 1 John 3:2). But until then the kingdom will continue to expand invisibly as people are added to it by salvation.

Idou (behold) introduces the Lord’s shocking statement that “the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Entos (midst) literally means “inside.” In its only other appearance in the New Testament, the word refers to the inside of a cup (Matt. 23:26). Many translators, seeking to avoid the apparent difficulty of Jesus saying that the kingdom was inside the unbelieving Pharisees, translate the phrase in which it appears in your midst. However a different phrase, en mesō, is regularly used to communicate the idea of “in the midst of,” or “among” (e.g., Matt. 10:16; Luke 2:46; 8:7; 10:3; 22:27; 24:36; Acts 1:15; 2:22; Heb. 2:12). The apparent difficulty is easily resolved by understanding your in the broadest national sense rather than as a narrow reference to the Pharisees. As was inevitably the case, the crowd listening to the Lord’s dialogue with the Pharisees ran the gamut from the outright rejecters to the curious but uncommitted, to the true disciples of Jesus. The Lord was reinforcing the point that the spiritual kingdom is internal and not manifested by observable signs.

The kingdom of which Jesus spoke is, as Paul wrote, marked by “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). It exists in the hearts of all those in whom the King lives. The wonder of wonders is that the Trinity takes up residence in the hearts of those who embrace Christ and enter the spiritual kingdom. In John 14:17 Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would indwell believers, while in verse 23 He added, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

Entering the spiritual kingdom by the gospel became the message of the early church. During the forty days between His resurrection and His ascension, Jesus prepared them to preach that message by “speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Philip the evangelist’s ministry involved “preaching the good news about the kingdom of God” (Acts 8:12). The apostle Paul “strengthen[ed] the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’” (Acts 14:22). In Ephesus “he entered the synagogue and continued speaking out boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God” (Acts 19:8). When he met with the leaders of the Jewish community at Rome Paul “was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening” (Acts 28:23). He told the Corinthians that “the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20), and warned them that “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God” (6:9; cf. Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:5). So central was the kingdom to Paul’s ministry that he described himself as a worker for the kingdom of God (Col. 4:11).

The prophesied signs concerning the future earthly kingdom that the Pharisees demanded from Jesus will be manifested when that kingdom is established at the second coming. Our Lord’s return to judge unbelievers and establish His earthly kingdom is the subject of the next section of Luke’s gospel.