That the expressions “kingdom of God” and “kingdom of heaven” are interchangeable teach us that the kingdom that Jesus inaugurated is principally eschatological but was manifested clearly during his ministry on the earth and, according to the early church, the Apostles’ Creed, the medieval church—during which the question was not whether Christ is reigning now but through whom and in what order—Jesus was thought to reign now, from heaven, over the earth generally and particularly over his people, the church.

It is basic to historic Christian teaching and confession that Jesus is reigning and ruling now. In the sixth article of the Apostles’ Creed all Christians confess, “He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” Our interest just now is in second clause of this article: “and sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty” (sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis). This is a truly ancient confession. Ignatius of Antioch, writing well before 150 AD confessed, “and sits at his right hand” (καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἐκ δεξιῶν αὐτοῦ).¹ In the early 3rd century Tertullian confessed, ” sitting now at the right hand of the Father” (sedentem nunc ad dexteram Patris). He used virtually identical language in his summary of the Rule of Faith (regula fidei) Against Praxeasand and on his Prescription Against Heretics.²

In the context of the widespread influence of various forms of Dispensationalism it is important to observe that the notion that Christ is reigning now, over his (twofold) kingdom, is an ancient and even universal Christian doctrine. It is not peculiar to Reformed nor even to Augustinian Christians. It’s important to observe the ancient roots of this confession since many evangelicals have little or no familiarity with the Apostles’ Creed—which was not written by the Apostles but is a summary of the faith of the early church—and thus, have not had the experience of saying these words on a regular basis.

I mention Dispensationalism in part because, when I first encountered Reformed theology and piety, one of the questions that I discussed with my evangelical friends was whether “Christ is reigning now.” Those with strongly Dispensational commitments said to me, “Well, if he’s reigning now, he’s doing a bad job of it.” What they meant is that their conception of Christ’s millennial reign included such earthly glory and conquest that, absent the features they associate with his reign, e.g., the rebuilt temple and his visible, glorious reign on the earth, they could not say that he was reigning now. Thus, it’s interesting that John Walvoord, in The Millennial Kingdom, under the heading, “The Premillennial Concept of the Present Age” makes no mention of Christ’s present reign from heaven. He wrote that the Premillennial point of view makes, “the inter-advent period unique and unpredicted in the Old Testament.”³ His account of Christian existence between Christ’s ascension and his return is fairly described as bleak.

In 1996 Stephen J. Nichols argued “the rejection, postponement, and entirely future fulfillment of the Davidic kingdom is and has been a consistently held view within “normative” dispensationalism.”⁴ He notes that Charles Ryrie’s revised version of Dispensationalism had four ways of speaking about the kingdom.⁵ It’s not clear to me how each of these relates to the traditional Christian view that Christ is now seated at the right hand but perhaps the traditional view is implicit in one or more of them? The problem inherent in classic and revised Dispensationalism is that the kingdom that Jesus announced seems to be  closely associated with an offered, earthly, Davidic kingdom that was rejected.

Read More