In 1964, when this book was published as Jesus and the Kingdom , George Eldon Ladd said, “There is a growing consensus in New Testament scholarship that the Kingdom of God is in some sense both present and future.” [1] THE PRESENCE OF THE FUTURE The Eschatology of Biblical Realism If the Kingdom of God is defined as an eschatological redemption realm of the age to come, and we know that Jesus proclaimed that this new age was imminent, then we have insuperable difficulties. Alternatively, if the Kingdom of God is defined as an experience in the human heart, then all that Jesus said about it as being imminent etc can be sloughed off as notions that he shared with Jews, which have nothing to do with his message. But, If, however, the Kingdom is the reign of God, not merely in the human heart but dynamically active in the person of Jesus and in human history, then it becomes possible to understand how the Kingdom of God can be present and futu...