Luke 17:20-21
“And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
‘The Kingdom of God is within you,’ some one once quoted to Fredrick Maurice. ‘Yes,’ he replied,’ and so is the Kingdom of England.'”
Christianity and the American Commonwealth
Charles B. Galloway
Typically when Luke 17:20-21 is taught what is emphasized is that the Kingdom of God is not a real corporeal Kingdom that exists but rather the Kingdom of God is Spiritual — and so invisible. This teaching comes from the idea that if the Kingdom of God is within one then it must be the case that Jesus is speaking of a non-corporeal Spiritual reality.
But what if the point of Luke 17 is not that the Kingdom is Spiritual, invisible and so doesn’t manifest itself corporeally, but rather what if the point is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come from the outside in — i.e. “Lo here or, Lo there”? (Which is after all what the Pharisees were looking for.) What if the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation precisely because nobody observes the Kingdom of God coming from the outside in (like some attacking army) when the Kingdom is coming from the inside out as people live out the Kingdom that is within them?
The Kingdom of every potentate is always within the individual and the people who pledge allegiance to that Kingdom. Kingdoms couldn’t exist if that were not true. So when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is w/i you,” that doesn’t mean that God’s Spiritual Kingdom is non-corporeal or invisible. What Jesus seems to be getting at in Luke 17 is that the Kingdom of God doesn’t descend upon a people top down and outside in like the Mongol Kingdom descending upon poor hapless Asiatics.
It is precisely because the Kingdom of God is w/i God’s people that God’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Just as it is true that it is precisely because the Kingdom of Satan is w/i the Devil’s people that the Devil’s Kingdom manifests itself corporeally. Those who belong either to God or to the Devil carry within them their respective anti-thesis Kingdoms and because that is so the respective peoples will incarnate those Kingdoms into the cultures they build.
Yes, the Kingdom of God is Spiritual. Yes the Kingdom of God is within. But precisely because it is within God’s people we should expect that Kingdom to manifest itself corporeally among God’s people in the cultures and institutions that they build.
Just as Western Missionaries took the Gospel to Africa in the 19th century, having their respective homeland Kingdoms within them, would often set up little “English” or “American” compounds in the heart of Africa — thus expressing that they had taken their English or American Kingdoms with them (and often confusing those City of Man Kingdoms w/ the Gospel Kingdom itself) — so Christians bearing within themselves the Kingdom of God will always set up Kingdom of God compounds wherever they live out their lives. The Kingdom of God, within God’s people, will always express itself corporeally in the lives they live. If that Kingdom of God does not express itself in the lives of God’s people, in everything they build and touch then the Kingdom of God does not reside within them.
By their fruits you shall know them. If the Kingdom of God is within us, then the fruit of that Kingdom presence within us will be the corporeal manifestation of that Kingdom in the every day lives of God’s people.
