Expectations of the kingdom of God in early Christianity

In early Christianity’s expectation of the kingdom of God, two types were inherited from Judaism. The first was the expectation of a messianic kingdom in this world, with its centre in Jerusalem, which was to be established by an earthly messiah from the house of David. The second expectation was that of a heavenly kingdom, which was to be inaugurated by the heavenly messiah, Son of Man, and in which the “elect” of the kingdom from all times would share in the state of the resurrection.

The two types of eschatological expectation did not remain neatly separated in the early church but rather intersected in manifold ways. Under the influence of the persecutions, a combination of the end-time expectations was established. In Paul’s letters and in the Revelation to John, the notion emerged that faithful Christians will first reign together with their returning Lord for some time in this world. Those Christians who are still alive at his return will take part in the reign without dying (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Christians who have already died will rise again and, as resurrected ones, share in the kingdom on earth. Only after completion of this first act of the events of the end-time will there then follow the general resurrection of all the dead and the Last Judgment, in which the elect will participate as co-judges (1 Corinthians 6:2).

In the Revelation to John this expectation is condensed into the concept of the 1,000-year (millennial) kingdom. The dragon (Satan) is to be chained up and thrown into the abyss, where he will remain for 1,000 years. In John’s vision, Christians, the first resurrected, “came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4). Only later does the resurrection of all the dead take place, as well as the general judgment, creation of the new heaven and the new earth, and the descent of the new Jerusalem. According to the Revelation to John, this 1,000-year kingdom is composed of the saints and martyrs and all who stood the test in times of persecution; it is a kingdom of the privileged elect.

This promise has exerted revolutionary effects in the course of church history. In the early church the expectation of the millennium was viewed as a social and political utopia, a state in which the chosen Christians would rule and judge with their Lord in this world. Such chiliastic (or millennial) expectations provided the impetus for ecclesiastical, political, and social reformations and revolutions in the course of church history. The establishment of a 1,000-year kingdom in which the elect, with Christ, will reign has fascinated religious expectations as well as political and social imagination far more than the second part of the eschatological expectation, the “Last Judgment.”

The delay of the Parousia resulted in a weakening of the imminent expectation in the early church. In this process of “de-eschatologizing,” the institutional church increasingly replaced the expected kingdom of God. The formation of the church as a hierarchical institution is directly connected with the declining of the imminent expectation. The theology of St. Augustine constitutes the conclusion of this development in the West. He de-emphasized the original imminent expectation by declaring that the kingdom of God has already begun in this world with the institution of the church, which is the historical representative of the kingdom of God on earth. The first resurrection, according to Augustine, occurs constantly within the church in the sacrament of baptism, through which the faithful are introduced into the kingdom of God. The expectation of the coming kingdom of God, the resurrection of the faithful, and the Last Judgment have become a doctrine of the “last things” because the gifts of salvation of the coming kingdom of God are interpreted as being already present in the sacraments of the church.