Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Luke 17:20–21
Over the last twenty years, I've often heard the coming of the kingdom in terms of politics and economic—even by those who should have had the Shorter Catechism vocabulary of "Kingdom of Grace" and "Kingdom of Glory" (WSC102). Jesus teaches that the kingdom does not come with observation—and further explains that it cannot be seen because it is within believers.
Larger Catechism 191 adds "kingdom of His power," referring to His sovereign rule in heaven already, in its thorough, helpful description of what it is: In the second petition (which is, Thy kingdom come), acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan, we pray, that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed, the gospel propagated throughout the world, the Jews called, the fullness of the Gentiles brought in; the church furnished with all gospel officers and ordinances, purged from corruption, countenanced and maintained by the civil magistrate; that the ordinances of Christ may be purely dispensed, and made effectual to the converting of those that are yet in their sins, and the confirming, comforting, and building up of those that are already converted: that Christ would rule in our hearts here, and hasten the time of His second coming, and our reigning with him forever: and that He would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of His power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends.
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