The Kingdom of God in
the Gospel of Matthew - Part 1

by Dr Lydia Gore Jones (Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies)

The topic first came to me as a research question. At the opening of every Divine Liturgy, we hear the acclamation, “Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit!”. But what does Scripture say about the Kingdom of God? I decided to begin with the Gospel of Matthew, and what I discovered was this. The “Kingdom of God” is not only a central theme in Matthew, but a fundamental structural scheme around which Matthew shaped his version of the Gospel narrative. Through Matthew’s perspective, who interpreted Scripture through the lens of Christ, we are enabled to see that the entire Bible is concerned with the Kingship and Kingdom of God established among human beings and His creation.

“God reigns” or “the LORD is King” is a central idea in the Old Testament, and by further extension, that divine sovereignty has been realised through His Christ is a common notion of the New Testament, even though it can be argued that not all NT authors use the kingdom motif explicitly. John’s Gospel, for instance, uses the word “kingdom” only five times in two utterances of Jesus (Jn 3:3, 5; 18:36). In John, the idea of God’s reign through His Christ is more prominently expressed with the Temple rather than the Kingdom motif. By contrast, the Kingdom motif is concentrated in the synoptic Gospels. The word appears 56 times in Matthew, 45 times in Luke, and 21 times in Mark; a third of all its appearances in the NT are found in Matthew. Statistics are not the only indicators. Although both Matthew and Luke have a high frequency of use of the term, for both have Mark as a common source –– as the majority of biblical scholars argue, it is where they differ that shows Matthew to be the one that consciously and fully develops the Kingdom theme, to such an extent that one may even call Matthew the good news about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Before we go further about Matthew, we need to briefly establish the Kingdom theme that is common to all three synoptic Gospels found in Mark. The opening of Mark shows that its intention is to announce the good news about the triumphant taking-back of the world by the Son of God, its rightful king. Its narrative arch can be described as such:

•   The King sends his messenger and herald, John the Baptiser, before-hand to announce his coming;
•   The true identity of Jesus as the royal Son of God is revealed at his baptism in the Jordan;
•   His overcoming the temptation by the Devil is the initial win of the battle against the enemy, a proof of his authentic divine, royal identity;
•   His ministry is represented as the reclamation of his rightful Kingdom from the enemy through battles in the spiritual realm: the miracles of healing are presented as the driving out of the foreign, demonic forces that oppress his people;
•   His calling of the disciples and the sending out of the twelve is the establishment of his ministers for the Kingdom;
•   His teachings revolve around how to be worthy leaders and children of the Kingdom;
•   His parables are words with hidden meanings about the nature of the Kingdom;
•   His triumphant entry into Jerusalem is the beginning of the final showdown with his enemy;
•   His cursing of the fig tree and the parable about the vineyard show his rejection of the stewards of the Kingdom and announce the return of the King himself through the Son;
•   His teaching before the Passion concerns the ultimate establishment of the Kingdom at his second coming;
•   The crucifixion of Jesus on the cross is the enthronement of Christ the Son of God and his exaltation, told in a highly paradoxical manner.

The Kingdom theme in Mark shows it to be a common theological notion in scriptures. But that theme is even more greatly emphasised in Matthew, which significantly intensifies Christ’s kingly image, and thus becomes outstanding among all NT writings in terms of its focus on the Kingdom theme.

It’s common recognition that Matthew, the Jewish disciple of Christ, is inspired by Mosaic Torah (or the Pentateuch) and organises his Gospel into five sections (approximately chs 3-7; 8-10; 11-13; 14-18; 19-25) each of which finishes with the formula: “When Jesus had finished these sayings” or something similar. The five-fold ‘torah’ is then sandwiched between a beginning: the nativity of Christ (chs 1-2) and an ending: the Passion, Resurrection and Great Commission of Christ (26-28). The thread that runs through to form a cohesive whole is Kingdom. For example, the message of the Gospel is summed up as “The kingdom of heaven is near,” and is announced three times, first at the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry (3:2), then at the beginning of Jesus’ own ministry (4:17), and then at his sending off of the Twelve to begin a wider ministry to “the lost sheep of Israel” (10:7). That the Gospel is the “good news of the kingdom” is repeated strategically three times at structural seams, 4:23, 9:35, and 24:14. “Kingdom” is the structural focus which holds the components of the Gospel together as a whole.

For example, the first fold of the Gospel, the entire Sermon on the Mount, is rife with the language of the Kingdom (5-7). The Beatitudes are framed around the reference to the Kingdom: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (5:3): “Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” 5:10). The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew’s presentation, which is the version used in the Church’s liturgy, also has at its heart the petition of the coming of the Kingdom: “Thy Kingdom come … on earth as in heaven” (6:10). This reference to the kingdom is a major difference from Luke’s shorter version. Entering the kingdom is regularly featured as the gist of Jesus’ exhortations, not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but throughout all sections of the Gospel (e.g., 5:19–20; 7:21; 18:3; 21:31; 23:13).

Another way to illustrate the structural significance of the Kingdom theme is how Matthew modifies Mark’s parables. On the one hand, Matthew presents a larger number of Jesus’ parables that all describe, in manifold metaphors, what the kingdom is like. It is compared to a field where the sower sows his seeds, a grain of mustard seed that grows into a tree where birds nestle, the yeast that raises a whole lump, and –– unique to Matthew–– the harvest of the wheat among the weeds, treasures hidden in a field, a fine pearl searched for and bought by a merchant at all costs, a fisherman’s net that catches fish in the sea abundantly. More importantly, Matthew positions these Kingdom parables together at the chiastic centre in the shape of his Gospel (ch 13), making “Kingdom” the core of his Gospel book, both thematically and structurally.

In his treatment of the motif, Matthew emphasises the eschatological nature of Christ’s Kingdom. We can discern this by looking at how Kingdom features prominently in Jesus’ parables about the Last Judgment in the final part of the five folds of his Gospel: labourers in the vineyard (20:1-16) – “the last will be first, and the first last”; the wedding banquet (22:1-14) – “many are called, but few are chosen”; the ten virgins keeping their lamps for the Bridegroom (25:1-13) – “watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour”; the talents (25:14-30) – “to every one who has will more be given … but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away”; and the separation of the sheep and the goats (25:31-46) – those who will inherit the Kingdom and those who will be in eternal banishment from the Kingdom. What these parables share in common is their orientation towards the eschatological end. Hence they have become features of the Church’s liturgical celebrations during Holy Week, because they offer important lessons about preparedness in order to enter the Messianic Kingdom.

Yet what makes Matthew’s Kingdom theme even more remarkable in its overall structure is its beginning and ending, or the narratives of Christ’s Nativity and Passion. That is going to be the focus of Part Two of this article.

About the Author

Dr Lydia Gore-Jones Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies (Old Testament) Lydia Gore-Jones is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies (Biblical Studies) at St Andrew’s. Her doctoral thesis completed at Macquarie University dealt with two Jewish apocalyptic works as response to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans in AD 70. She has taught subjects related to biblical history and Hebrew language at tertiary level. She had previously worked as radio journalist, translator, and teacher of English as a Second Language... Read author's full bio here..

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