Knowing The Word in Luke 17:20-27, The Coming of the Kingdom

The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed as in the marching of an army into the center of a town. Rather, it is present in the person and ministry of Jesus. Jesus teaches his disciples regarding the future of the kingdom. People will want the Messianic age to have begun, but people cannot control the coming of the kingdom. The second coming of Jesus will be as obvious as the lightning. There will be nothing secret about it. Yet there can be no second coming until Jesus is crucified, resurrected, and ascends to the Father. While awaiting the second coming, people will not be paying attention because they will be absorbed in their daily routines. The real problem, Jesus teaches, is self-centeredness. When the day comes, however, the situation will be urgent. Jesus talks about Lot’s wife to make this point: she came as close to deliverance as anyone without achieving it. She was not self-denying but self-serving as she disobeyed God’s command. At the day of judgment, there will be a separation between those who are for Jesus and those who are against him. Jesus does not explain what “taken” means exactly, but we can assume it means taken to be with him. Jesus does not directly answer his disciples’ question about where this will take place, but he states that where the spiritually dead are found (the corpse), there one will find judgment (the vultures).

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.”

22 And he said to the disciples, “The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. 23 And they will say to you, ‘Look, there!’ or ‘Look, here!’ Do not go out or follow them. 24 For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. 25 But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,29 but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all— 30 so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. 32 Remember Lot's wife. 33 Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. 34 I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.” 37 And they said to him, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.”

Prayer: Almighty God, who in many and various ways didst speak to thy chosen people by the prophets, and hast given us, in thy Son our Savior Jesus Christ, the fulfilment of the hope of Israel: hasten, we beseech thee, the coming of the day when all things shall be subject to him, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

Church of South India