Source: Margaret Barker, The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007), 104–130.
The Kingdom of God Through History.wav
This topic from Margaret Barker's "The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God" explores the multifaceted concept of the Kingdom of God throughout biblical history and its evolving interpretations. Barker argues that the earliest understanding of the Kingdom was deeply rooted in the imagery of the Jerusalem temple and its holy of holies, representing God's presence and a state of unity and light. She traces how this initial vision, often expressed through vivid and symbolic language, was later interpreted both as a future, literal restoration and a present, spiritual reality, particularly after the destruction of Jerusalem. Furthermore, the text emphasizes the crucial, often overlooked, role of Wisdom as a divine figure intimately connected to the Kingdom, its blessings, and its restoration, while also considering the influence of fallen angels as a counterforce.
The modern reader, steeped in the mathematical abstractions of a secular age, often recoils at the biblical "Kingdom" as a landscape of nonsensical fantasies. We encounter dragons, seven-horned lambs, and flaming wheels whirling through the heavens, yet we lack the visionary vocabulary to decode them. Our error is one of crude literalism, a failure to recognize that these images were never intended as zoological or astronomical reports.
According to the ancient writer Dionysius the Areopagite, these vivid descriptions were "concessions to the nature of our own mind," intended to translate formless spiritual intelligences into a language we could grasp. To engage with the Kingdom, one must move past the literal talking snake of Eden to the profound moral reality the serpent represents. We must reclaim the ancient "philosophy"—literally the love of Wisdom—that allows us to see the Kingdom as a deeply historical, temple-based reality rather than a mere afterlife destination.
In the ancient mind, the Kingdom of God was not a distant planet in orbit but the "Presence" at the heart of the world, specifically localized in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. This "temple cosmology" viewed the sanctuary as the intersection of time and eternity, where the visible creation met the invisible light of Day One. The "heaven" of the biblical authors was often the firmament itself, described by Ezekiel as "shining like fearful ice," a crystal screen separating the human realm from the fiery throne of the Creator.
The shift toward our modern "celestial" view began in the twelfth century, primarily through the influence of scholastic theologians like Anselm of Laon. By fusing the older temple imagery with Aristotelian physics, Anselm transformed the "inner house" of the Temple into the "outer space" of the Empyrean—the "fiery place" beyond the spheres. This intellectual migration moved the Kingdom from the center of human experience to the furthest periphery, changing the Ascension from a ritual entry into the Presence into a physical journey into the stars.