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I came across the following quote in a book called Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (originally written in German in 1892) by Johannes Weiss. This book was credited (along with Albert Schweitzer’s Quest for the Historical Jesus) as the critical work that changed the tide of Jesus scholarship in Germany (and eventually the United States). In fact, by the late 19th century nearly everyone in scholarship believed that the kingdom was either the church or something in your heart. In a mere 76 pages, Weiss changed that conception to such a degree that today the majority of Jesus scholars still believe that Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom was something intimately related with the end of the world, the time when the final judgment would occur followed by paradise on earth (where the wolf will dwell with the lamb, etc.).

Throughout his short book, Weiss is dealing with a lot of the texts traditionally used to prove that the kingdom is not a future, political entity but instead something that is already here. One such saying is found in both Matthew and Luke.

Matthew 12:22-28
22 Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. 23 All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” 24 But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.” 25 And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. 26 “If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? 27 “If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. 28 “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

Luke 11:4-20
14 And He was casting out a demon, and it was mute; when the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.” 16 Others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven. 17 But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. 18 “If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. 20 “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

The temptation is to take Matthew 12.28 and Luke 11.20 as saying that the kingdom of God is somehow equivalent to the ministry of Jesus. However, Weiss points out another interpretation that is worth considering. Bear with me, because this is a bit of a lengthy quote.

Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom Lives of Jesus Series, by Johannes Weiss, pgs 74-79.
“We have to bear in mind that for the Israelites, and likewise for Jesus, there existed a twofold world, and thus also a twofold occurrence of events. The world of men and history is only the lower floor of the world’s structure. The world of the angels and spirits is erected above that. Both parts make up the world (1 Cor. 4:9). Moreover, what happens on earth has its exact parallel in heaven. All history is only the consequence, effect, or parallel copy of heavenly events. Thus an event which on earth is only just beginning to take place may not merely be already determined, but even already enacted in heaven. A classical example of this is Rev. 12:7 ff. Satan, in the form of the dragon, is cast down from heaven by Michael and his angels, whereupon the heavenly hosts begin to sing the song of triumph: now salvation, and power, and the kingdom of our God…for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down (Rev. 12:10). Through the fall of Satan, God’s rule is won in a fully real sense. Yet the kingdom of God is still in no way realized on earth…

It has recently been shown how in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ whole life is regarded as a struggle on the part of the bearer of the Spirit of God against the kingdom of Satan…He is conscious of carrying on a struggle against the Satanic kingdom. This is to be seen most clearly in the exorcisms. Jesus naturally shared the view that demoniacs were actually possessed by spirits. And when, through the impact of his powerful personality, through the upsurge of fear and confidence which he aroused in the sick, he freed them from their demonic tyrants, he knew that he was doing decisive damage to the well-organized kingdom of Satan. He was taking ever vaster provinces of this kingdom away from the rule of the Prince of this world. Accordingly, what could be observed outwardly in his success in healing, what amazed his friends and aroused the suspicions of his enemies, all referred back to great decisive events in the kingdom of the Spirits. To Jesus, every visible healing signified an invisible, yet no less certain, defeat for the “Enemy.”

This meaning comes out in that very important dispute with his adversaries when they charged him with being in league with Beelzebul. Here he showed how absurd it was of them to suppose an alliance with Beelzebul for the destruction of Satan’s kingdom (Matt. 12:25-27), and that instead, they ought…to draw the conclusion from his successful excorcisms that the kingly rule of God was already begun. Certainly this fact was not an obvious one, and would have been admitted least of all by his opponents, but in Jesus’ prophetic consciousness it was incontrovertible….

Jesus’ answer evidently struck them as startling. Therefore Jesus asserts something here which generally he does not presuppose elsewhere: that the kingdom is already here in some invisible fashion. He clearly wishes to impress upon the minds of his malevolent questioners how, though they have eyes, they do not see….

Therefore, if Jesus already speaks of a Kingdom of God which is present, it is not because there is present a community of disciples among whom God’s will is done, as if God’s rule were realized from the side of men. Rather, Jesus does so because by his own activity the power of Satan, who above all others is the source of evil, is being broken. But these are moments of sublime prophetic enthusiasm, when an awareness of victory comes over him. It is noteworthy that these expressions are uttered in a context of fiercely hostile attack, and in response to scoffing questions (Luke 17:20). In such moments it may have become clear to Jesus that he knew and saw more than did these dull observers who still refused to notice any change in the course of the world (Luke 12:54 ff.).

Alongside such expressions as these, however, stands a great profusion of sayings in which the establishment of the Kingdom remains reserved for the future, whether near or distant. This relationship between these two types of sayings is to be explained by reference to the parallelism implicit in the religious viewpoint mentioned above: Satan’s kingdom is already broken, the rule of God is already gaining ground; but it has not yet become a historical event. The Kingdom of God, in the form that Jesus expected it, is not yet established on earth.”

(I have taken the liberty of putting the English translation where Weiss had originally written Greek and this is noted by italics. Words that were originally italicized by Weiss have been set in bold type.)

I think that this understanding of the kingdom is better than the “already-not-yet” mentality that we have espoused in the past. According to that way of thinking the kingdom was present “already” though it had “not yet” been fully realized. According to Weiss, the kingdom has been established in the world above earth (the spiritual dimension), Satan has already been defeated, though the affects of this have not yet come to bear on earth. Thus, the expression of Jesus found in Matthew 12.28 and Luke 11.20 may be paraphrased as, “wake up you Pharisees, if I am defeating Satan’s kingdom via the miraculous deeds done through the Spirit of God then the kingdom has invaded that sphere of reality right before your eyes.” Another point that needs to be made is that these two spheres (the spiritual realm and the physical realm) are not completely separate from each other. In fact they intersect any time God acts in his creation or Satan/demons occupy someone. In no place was this more clearly seen than in the ministry of Jesus. He is filled with the power/spirit of God to the brim; and he not only performs miraculous restorative work on God’s behalf through healing but he also does major damage to the kingdom of Satan through exorcisms.