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1 " Jesus’ message of the Kingdom of God is the announcement by word and deed that God is acting and manifesting dynamically his redemptive will in history. God is seeking out sinners; he is inviting them to enter into the messianic blessing; he is demanding of them a favorable response to his gracious offer. God has again spoken. A new prophet has appeared, indeed one who is more than a prophet, one who bring to people the very blessings he promises. "
― George Eldon Ladd , A Theology of the New Testament
2 " The mission of Jesus brought not a new teaching but a new event. It brought to people an actual foretaste of the eschatological salvation. Jesus did not promise the forgiveness of sins; he bestowed it. He did not simple assure people of the future fellowship of the Kingdom; he invited them into fellowship with himself as the bearer of the Kingdom. He did not merely promise them vindication in the day of judgment; he bestowed upon them the status of a present righteousness. He not only taught an eschatological deliverance from physical evil; he went about demonstrating the redeeming power of the Kingdom, delivering people from sickness and even death. "
3 " The miracles of healing, important as they were, were not an end in themselves. They did not constitute the highest good of the messianic salvation. This fact is illustrated by the arrangement of the phrases in Matthew 11:4-5. Greater than deliverance of the blind and the lame, the lepers and the deaf, even than raising of the dead, was the preaching of the good news to the poor. This “gospel” was the very presence of Jesus himself, and the joy and fellowship that he brought to the poor. "
4 " The presence of the messianic salvation is also seen in Jesus' miracles of healing, for which the Greek word meaning "to save" is used. The presence of the Kingdom of God in Jesus meant deliverance from hemorrhage (Mk 5:34), blindness (Mk 10:52), demon possession (Lk 8:36), and even death itself (Mk 5:23). Jesus claimed that these deliverances were evidences of the presence of the messianic salvation (Mt 11:4-5). They were pledges of the life of the eschatological Kingdom that will finally mean immortality for the body. The Kingdom of God is concerned not only with people’s souls but with the salvation of the whole person. "
5 " The Kingdom of God is His kingship, His rule, His authority. When this is once realized, we can go through the New Testament and find passage after passage where this meaning is evident, where the Kingdom is not a realm or a people but God’s reign. Jesus said that we must “receive the kingdom of God” as little children (Mark 10:15). What is received? The Church? Heaven? What is received is God’s rule. In order to enter the future realm of the Kingdom, one must submit himself in perfect trust to God’s rule here and now. We must also “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matt. 6: 33). What is the object of our quest? The Church? Heaven? No; we are to seek God’s righteousness—His sway, His rule, His reign in our lives. "
― George Eldon Ladd , The Gospel of the Kingdom: Scriptural Studies in the Kingdom of God
6 " The righteousness of God’s Kingdom is the product of God’s reign in the human heart. God must reign in our lives now if we are to enter the Kingdom tomorrow. "
7 " Love does not mean the abandonment of justice and right; nor is it a sentimental benevolence which does not have the capacity for holy wrath. "
8 " The righteousness of the Kingdom is a righteousness which only God Himself can give. Perfect purity, perfect honesty, perfect love, perfect forgiveness: what man is there anywhere in any dispensation who can live such a life? "
9 " Now I know in part.” This lays a demand upon us that we hold the Word of God both in humility and in charity: in humility towards God and in charity towards our brethren. "
10 " La resurrección de Jesús no es un hecho aislado que proporcione a las personas una confianza cálida y una esperanza de una resurrección futura; es el comienzo de la misma resurrección escatológica. "
11 " Justification is an eschatological fact that has occurred in history. It means acquittal from the guilt of sin by a favorable decision of the Judge. This decision has already been rendered for believers on the ground of the death of Christ (Rom. 3:21-26). Because of present justification, we shall be saved from wrath on the day of judgment (Rom. 5:9). "
12 " The events of the eschatological consummation are not merely detached events lying in the future about which Paul speculates. They are rather redemptive events that have already begun to unfold within history. The blessings of the Age to Come no longer lie exclusively in the future; they have become objects of present experience. The death of Christ is an eschatological event. Because of Christ’s death, the justified person stands already on the age-to-come side of the eschatological judgment, acquitted of all guilt. By virtue of the death of Christ, the believer has already been delivered from this present evil age (Gal. 1:4). He or she has been transferred from the rule of darkness and now knows the life of the Kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:13). In his cross, Christ has already defeated the powers of evil that have brought chaos into the world (Col. 2:14f.). "
13 " In fact, Christ’s resurrection was itself the first act of the final resurrection. It is the “first fruits” of which the eschatological resurrection will be the harvest (1 Cor. 15:20). Therefore "
14 " In short, the earliest Christianity did not consist of a new doctrine about God nor of a new hope of immortality nor even of new theological insights about the nature of salvation. It consisted of the recital of a great event, of a mighty act of God: the raising of Christ from the dead. Any new theological emphases are the inevitable meanings of this redemptive act of God in raising the crucified Jesus from the dead. "
