Blessed. See on Matt. v. 3.

Ye poor. See on Matt. v. 3. Luke adopts the style of direct address; Matthew of abstract statement.

Kingdom of God (h basileia tou qeou). Matthew has kingdom of heaven, or of the heavens (twn ouranwn), a phrase used by him only, and most frequently employed by Christ himself to describe the kingdom; though Matthew also uses, less frequently, kingdom of God. The two are substantially equivalent terms, though the pre-eminent title was kingdom of God, since it was expected to be fully realized in the Messianic era, when God should take upon himself the kingdom by a visible representative. Compare Isa. xl. 9, "Behold your God." The phrase kingdom of Heaven was common in the Rabbinical writings, and had a double signification: the historical kingdom and the spiritual and moral kingdom. They very often understood by it divine worship; adoration of God; the sum of religious duties; but also the Messianic kingdom.

The kingdom of God is, essentially, the absolute dominion of God in the universe, both in a physical and a spiritual sense. It is "an organic commonwealth which has the principle of its existence in the will of God" (Tholuck). It was foreshadowed in the Jewish theocracy. The idea of the kingdom advanced toward clearer defination from Jacob's prophecy of the Prince out of Judah (Gen. xlix. 10), though David's prophecy of the everlasting kingdom and the king of righteousness and peace (Psalms 22, 72.), through Isaiah, until, in Daniel, its eternity and superiority over the kingdoms of the world are brought strongly out. For this kingdom Israel looked with longing, expecting its realization in the Messiah; and while the common idea of the people was narrow, sectarian, Jewish, and political, yet "there was among the people a certain consciousness that the principle itself was of universal application" (Tholuck). In Daniel this conception is distinctly expressed (vii. 14-27; iv. 25; ii. 44). In this sense it was apprehended by John the Baptist.

The ideal kingdom is to be realized in the absolute rule of the eternal Son, Jesus Christ, by whom all things are made and consist (John i. 3; Col. i. 16-20), whose life of perfect obedience to God and whose sacrificial offering of love upon the cross reveal to men their true relation to God, and whose spirit works to bring them into this relation. The ultimate idea of the kingdom is that of "a redeemed humanity, with its divinely revealed destiny manifesting itself in a religious communion, or the Church; a social communion, or the state; and an aesthetic communion, expressing itself in forms of knowledge and art."

This kingdom is both present (Mattthew xi. 12; xii. 28; xvi. 19; Luke xi. 20; xvi. 16; xvii. 21; see, also, the parables of the Sower, the Tares, the Leaven, and the Drag-net; and compare the expression "theirs, or yours, is the kingdom," Matt. v. 3; Luke vi. 20) and future (Daniell vii. 27; Matthew xiii. 43; xix. 28; xxv. 34; xxvi. 29; Mark ix. 47; 2 Pet. i. 11; 1 Cor. vi. 9; Revelation 20 sq.). As a present kingdom it is incomplete and in process of development. It is expanding in society like the grain of mustard seed (Matt. xiii. 31, 32); working toward the pervaion of society like the leaven in the lump (Matt. xiii. 33). God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, and the Gospel of Christ is the great instrument in that process (2 Cor. v. 19, 20). The kingdom develops from within outward under the power of its essential divine energy and law of growth, which insures its progress and final triumph against all obstacles.

Similarly, its work in reconciling and subjection the world to God begins at the fountain head of man's life, by implanting in his heart its own divine potency, and thus giving a divine impulse and direction to the whole man, rather than by moulding him from without by a moral code. The law is written in his heart. In like manner the State and the Church are shaped, not by external pressure, like the Roman empire and the Romish hierarchy, but by the evolution of holy character in men. The kingdom of God in its present development is not identical with the Church. The Church is identified with the kingdom to the dgree in which it is under the power of the spirit of Christ. "As the Old Testament kingdom of God was perfected and competed when it ceased to be external, and became internal by being enthroned in the heart, so, on the other hand, the perfection of the New Testament kingdom will consist in its complete incarnation and externalization; that is, when it shall attain an outward manifestation, adequately expressing, exactly corresponding to its internal principle" (Tholuck). The consummation is described in Revelation 21, 22.

Robertson's NT Word Studies