Why were the apostles in such a rush for the glorius kingdom? Well, according to some, they were not in a rush at all. They had no expectations of the kingdom and never uttered a word about it. This we have sufficiently shown to be untenable.
Here’ we take the issue one step further to show that Paul used the same imminent languge about the glory of God as he did about the kingdom of God, the resurrection and judgment. See the previous post regarding Paul’s preaching of the glory of God from 2 Corinthians 4:3-5.
The journey today will take us to a text in Romans, a letter authored by Paul, as was 2 Corinthians. The subject matter is undoubtedly eschatological in its focus on the glory of God.
The Glory About To Be Revealed
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Once again, we encountered the word mello in the context. (See my book on the Re-Examination) for an analysis of the translators use of this term.
Paul compares the present sufferings of the church with the “mellousan doxan” the “about to come glory” Those sufferings they presently experience paled in comparison to the glory which was about to be revealed.
Verse 19, notes this as the “earnest expectation of the creation who eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. This eagerly awaited time and event is the adoption or redemption of the body, i.e. the resurrection. Thus it is Christ’s return in glory.
But as sitting at the right or left hand of Christ in glory equals sitting in his kingdom, the eager expectation of glory is saying the same thing as eagerly expecting the kingdom. In all these passages, they kept the imminent kingdom clearly in view.
You may also compare 2 Corinthians 4:17, with Romans 8:18
Peter Endorses the Eschatological Writings of Paul
Paul’s writings, even to the apostle Peter, were somewhat hard to understand, though he never said it was impossible to do so. Rather, it is the unlearned and unstable who misinterpret them and wrest them out of context.
“As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
Peter’s subject is eschatology. He addresses the New Heaven’s and earth. He reminds his readers that what he wrote in the second letter reiterated what he said in the first. Let’s note a couple of texts
A Partaker of the About to Come Glory
Peter, likewise expected the imminent glory of Christ.
“The elders who are among you exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witnes sof the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker fo the glory that will be revealed.” Once again the world mello is used to express the imminent arrival of glory, –mellouses apokaluptesthai.
This meaning is that the “apokalupses” or the Revelation of Christ was about to come. In the first chapter Peter encouraged his readers who suffered persection that the apokalupsis or revelation of Christ would soon come.
In conclusion, it matters not what description one gives to the gospel of Christ, be it grace, glory, salvation or faith. They all equate with the preaching of the kingdom, not a delayed, postponed Dispensational figmentation of the imagination, but a kingdom realized in the first century generation, before the apostles then living died, Matthew 16:27-28.
