Ever heard the wheelbarrow joke? It is an oldie but a goodie and one that circulates every so often. There are lots of good versions but here is the version I heard:

In a Russian factory back in the Soviet Union days a factory worker got in the exit line at the end of the day pushing a wheelbarrow. When he reached the gate, the guard looked in and saw nothing but sawdust and wood shavings. “What do you have in there, Petrov?” he asked. “Nothing, sir. It is just sawdust and wood shavings.” The guard took his baton and poked around in the sawdust before staring suspiciously at Petrov and then letting him go.

This happened again the next week with the same result. Just sawdust and wood shavings. There was nothing else in the wheelbarrow.

The guard was suspicious but what could he do. Petrov was not smuggling anything out. Week after week after week this happened. Finally, at the end of the year, the guard held Petrov and his wheelbarrow back after the other workers had departed.

“Petrov,” he said, “I have known you for a long time. And I know you are stealing something. But every week it is the same thing: sawdust and wood shavings. Listen: I am retiring. This is my last day. I like you. I will not report you or turn you in. But I have got to know: What are you stealing?”

Petrov smiled, paused, then looked around. He leaned in close to the guard and said, “Wheelbarrows, my friend. Wheelbarrows.”

A classic! I love that joke!

The joke, of course, is that the answer was right under the guard’s nose the whole time, and he missed it! It happens. In fact, it happened to the Pharisees in Luke 17 as Jesus revealed in His answer to their question about the Kingdom.

²⁰ Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, ²¹ nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

This is a powerful and, as we will see, controversial text.

We said earlier that the Kingdom of God is the “already/not yet” Kingdom, as it has been famously put. The Kingdom has already broken into the world in Jesus but it has not yet come in fullness. So it is here, but it is coming. And in our text, Jesus is highlighting the “already” nature of the Kingdom, the fact that it has arrived in Jesus here and now, even as we wait for it to arrive in fullness and unveiled glory and power.

Let us consider what Jesus is saying here about the already Kingdom.

The Kingdom of God is no mere visible, external, political reality like the kingdoms of the world.

We begin with a question. It was asked of Jesus by the Pharisees.

²⁰ Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come…

There were, behind this question, two assumptions. One had to do with the timing of the Kingdom and the other with the nature of the Kingdom.

Concerning the timing of the Kingdom, the question assumes a future answer. Clearly, the Kingdom of God as the Pharisees envisioned it, had not come yet, else they would not have aske the question. “When will it come?” carries with it the assumption that it is not here yet.

And this first assumption buttressed the second assumption, namely, that these Pharisees would recognize it when it came. This was an assumption about the nature of the Kingdom.

It is telling to note what they do not ask. They do not ask what the Kingdom is, what the Kingdom is like. They assume knowledge of the nature of the Kingdom, so, in their minds, there is simply no reason to ask such a question.

How did they envision the Kingdom of God, these Pharisees? To get at how they and, ostensibly, many other Jews in the first century, viewed it, we need to look at an ancient writing called Psalms of Solomon. Now, Psalms of Solomon is not in our Bibles. We have the books of Psalms. We have the Song of Solomon. We do not have Psalms of Solomon. This was a Jewish text written in the first or second century BC.

What is interesting about Psalms of Solomon is its depiction of the Kingdom of God in chapter 17. Listen closely:

²¹ Look, O Lord, and raise up for them their king, a son of David, to rule over your servant Israel in the time that you know, O God. ²² Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from the Gentiles who trample her down to destruction; ²³ in wisdom and in righteousness to drive out the sinners from the inheritance, to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s jar, ²⁴ to demolish all their resources with an iron rod; to destroy the lawbreaking Gentiles with the word of his mouth; ²⁵ to scatter the Gentiles from his presence at his threat; to condemn sinners by their own consciences.

Now this is most fascinating!

You will note, consistent with the Pharisees’ question to Jesus, that Psalms of Solomon assumes ignorance concerning the timing of the coming of the Kingdom: “raise up for them their king…in the time that you know, O God.” So their question to Jesus concerning the timing likely shows the influence of this view of the Kingdom, if not of Psalms of Solomon specifically.

But then the nature of the Kingdom of God as envisioned in Psalms of Solomon. The Kingdom, it asserts will be a time and reality in which:

• a God-raised son of David rules of Israel;
• this ruler destroys all unrighteous rulers;
• Jerusalem is purged of the Gentiles who occupy her;
• sinners are driven out;
• the arrogant are smashed;
• the resources of the wicked are demolished;
• Gentiles are destroyed with the word of the ruler;
• Gentiles are scattered;
• sinners are condemned.

When the Pharisees ask when the Kingdom is coming, this is the image that they have in mind. To get at it another way, here are the words that describe the activity of the kingdom the Pharisees envisioned as it is depicted in Psalms of Solomon. Listen again:

• raise up
• rule over
• destroy
• purge
• drive out
• smash
• demolish
• destroy
• scatter
• condemn

This is what the Pharisees meant by “Kingdom of God.” This is what they were looking for. This is what they wanted. These verbs of destruction would signify for them that the Kingdom of God had come.

Now note Jesus’ response:

²⁰ Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed…”

It is as if Jesus is saying, “That destroying, that purging, that driving out, that smashing, that demolishing, that scattering, that condemning that you want to see, that you want to hear, that you want to observe…that is not the Kingdom of God. You are not going to get the verbs you want. Not yet. And not in the way you think when those verbs do come to fruition.”

The “already” Kingdom of God that has broken into the world with the coming of Jesus has very different verbs. In Christ, the verbs of the Kingdom come are:

• mercy
• forgiveness
• no condemnation
• grace
• gathering
• healing
• bringing in
• the Gentiles welcomed
• salvation
• second chances
• goodness
• love

The Pharisees wanted the politics of vengeance. What they got was the politics of grace. What they wanted were the observable instruments of power: rebellion, overthrow, a great hero, death to their enemies. What they got was the God who lays down His life on the cross.

When Jesus comes again, He will indeed come with judgment. But now He has come with mercy and salvation.

The signs of the Kingdom’s arrival are a seismic relational transformation and a radical shift in allegiance.

No, the Kingdom of God is no mere external, observable, political reality. It is something different, as Jesus will say in verse 21, in one of the most fascinating and discussed verses in the New Testament. Watch again:

²⁰ Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, ²¹ nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Those words—“the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”—have been the subject of much debate. You might notice that it is rendered a bit different in your own translations. In fact, here is an overview of how different translations have rendered verse 21.

for lo, the kingdom of God is within you. (American Standard Version)

For the kingdom of God is among you [because of My presence]. (Amplified Bible)

For Look! God’s Empire is among you. (Scot McKnight, The Second Testament)

For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst. (Christian Standard Bible)

For the Kingdom of God is already among you. (New Living Translation)

for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. (King James Bible)

God’s kingdom is here with you. (Contemporary English Version)

for lo, the reign of God is within you.’ (Young’s Literal Translation)

So which is it? Is the Kingdom of God “within you” or is the Kingdom of God “among you” or “in your midst”?

Here is the basic problem. The word used is the Greek word entos which should be translated “within you.” As the great Greek scholar A.T. Robertson points out, “within you” is “the obvious…and…the necessary meaning of entos.” Robertson observes that entos never means “among” when it used in ancient literature and that “[t]he only other instance of entos in the N.T. (Matt. 23:26) necessarily means ‘within’ (“the inside of the cup”).” More recently, David Bentley Hart has argued that translating entos as “among you” or “in your midst” “is surely wrong” and points out that whenever Luke wants to say “among you” or “in your midst” he “always uses either the phrase…en mesō…or just an…en…followed by a dative plural.”[1]

Ok, so that sounds simple. “The kingdom of God is within you.” What is the problem? Well, the problem is that Jesus is talking to Pharisees, most of whom will reject Him and the gospel, and the New Testament never depicts the Kingdom of God as some sort of inherent reality that is within everybody regardless of their posture toward Christ.

We can certainly reject the notion that Jesus is depicting the Kingdom of God as an innate aspect of the unredeemed human soul. In other words, that the Kingdom of God is simply a de facto part of human existence and consciousness. That is not the witness of scripture. The entire witness of the New Testament speaks against such an idea and depicts the Kingdom of God as something one may enter or one may miss and something that is ushered in Jesus, something that has come and is coming, and a reality that can only be entered through Jesus. I agree with Darrell Bock that:

When Jesus says it is “in your midst,” he does not mean in one’s heart…Jesus is speaking to Pharisees who have rejected him. They do not have the kingdom in their heart. And nowhere else in the New Testament is the kingdom described as an internal entity. He must mean something else here.[2]

There is something else here that needs to not be missed. David Lyle Jeffrey points to the literal syntax of verse 21 and says that the syntax is the key. What the verse literally says is “The kingdom of God in the midst of you is.” So Jesus is saying to the Pharisees, Jeffrey argues, that the Kingdom of God is “right under your noses.” Jeffrey believes that translating the words “the kingdom of God is within you” “misses the point because it misses the syntax.”[3] In other words, a literal, word rendered of “within you” does not do justice to the unique structure of the sentence which appears to be highlighting the irony of the Pharisees asking about the Kingdom when the Kingdom was standing right in front of them in Jesus!

So there is a literal argument: The word means “within.”

There is a contextual argument: It cannot simply mean “within” without bringing these words into conflict with the rest of the New Testament (i.e., lost people having the Kingdom within them).

And there is a syntactical argument: The very structure of the sentence is highlighting the tragic irony of their question in the face of the King.

There is a fourth argument, actually. William Barclay, commenting on our verse, said “we are not quite sure” what Jesus is saying here![4]

But I am not quite sure that we are not quite sure!

What if, after all, there are good reasons to see the verse as saying both that the Kingdom of God is “within” us and that the Kingdom of God is “in the midst of” us?

Malcolm Tolbert argued in 1970 that we need not choose between “within you” or “among you.” Instead:

We can still speak of the kingdom as being both “within” man and “among” men. In Jesus the kingdom of God lays its claims upon the heart, i.e., upon man’s will and loyalties, and demands a decision. It is not, therefore, a question of what is “out there” either in time or space, but what is “in there” in terms of their inward response to the demands of the kingdom here and now.

            At the same time, the Son of man is “among” the Jewish people at the time when they look for him “our there.” He is the decisive reality with which they have to do.[5]

In other words, yes, we must on the witness of scripture and Jesus’ on words reject the idea that Jesus is saying that the Kingdom is innately within us, inherently within us. It is not until we come to Christ. But, as a statement of fact, the Kingdom of God is indeed an internal reality, a change of heart and allegiance, a seismic relational transformation. In other words, saying “the kingdom of God is within you” does not negate the need for faith and God’s grace to bring you into that reality. It is a simple matter of fact.

If I may paraphrase: “Stop looking for the Kingdom of God out there. It is here, within you, in the world that I will do in you!”

And, yes, in Jesus, the Kingdom is among you, in your midst. For Jesus is here, Jesus is standing among us, and Jesus is the King and the Kingdom is here!

When you give your life to this Jesus, He takes up residence within you through His Spirit. He gives you a new heart. Indeed, the Kingdom of God is within you! Not as some sort of aspect of human consciousness and enlightenment, no. But rather as an act of divine grace and goodness! It is a work of God, a change in the heart. And when Jesus takes up residence, the verbs change in your life and the focus changes in your life and the goals change in your life. Why? Because the King of glory is present!

Now, Psalm 24 just opens up beautifully to us:

⁷ Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. ⁸ Who is this King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle! ⁹ Lift up your heads, O gates! And lift them up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. ¹⁰ Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory! Selah

Yes! Yes! The King has come! Open the doors! Open the gates! The King will come in!

 

[1] Hart, David Bentley. The New Testament: A Translation. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017), p.148nm.

[2] Bock, Darrell L. Luke. The IVP New Testament Commentary Series. Series Editor, Grant R. Osborne. Volume 3 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1994), p.287.

[3] Jeffrey, David Lyle. Luke. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2012), p.210.

[4] Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. The Daily Study Bible. (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1970), p.228.

[5] Tolbert, Malcolm O. “Luke.” The Broadman Bible Commentary. Gen. Ed. Clifton J. Allen. Vol. 9 (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1970), p.137.