The Already and Not Yet Kingdom — Mark 1:15

Jesus' inaugural proclamation in Mark 1:14-15 — "the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe" — sets the tension of New Testament eschatology: the kingdom has arrived in him, yet awaits consummation. Wright frames Jesus' whole ministry as the in-breaking of God's reign and the end of exile, while Augustine's City of God distinguished the two cities now intermingled. The parables of Matt 13:31-33 picture a kingdom that grows hiddenly before its harvest. The 'already' is secured by the resurrection of 1Cor 15:20; the 'not yet' awaits the new creation of Rev 21:1. Between them the church lives by hope.