This Is Appendix 114 From The Companion Bible. We have seen in Apendix 112 that the word
"kingdom", like the Greek basileia, has regard
to sovereignty rather than territory, and to
the sphere of its exercise rather than to its
extent.
Using the word "kingdom" in this sense,
and in that which is conveyed in its English termination
"dom", which is short for dominion, we note that the former
expression, "the Kingdom of heaven", occurs only in Matthew,
where we find it thirty-two times But in the parallel passages in the other Gospels we
find, instead, the expression "the Kingdom of God" (for
example; compare Matthew 11: The explanation of this seeming difference is that
the Lord spoke in Aramaic; certainly not in the Greek of the Gospel
documents. See Appendix 94. III.
Now "heaven" is frequently used by the
Figure Metonymy (of the Subject), Appendix 6 for God
Himself, Whose dwelling is there. See Psalm 73: Our suggestion is that in all the passages where the
respective expressions occur, identical words were spoken by the Lord,
"the Kingdom of heaven"; but when it came to putting them
into Greek, Matthew was Divinely guided to retain the figure
of speech literally ("heaven"), so as to be in
keeping with the special character, design, and scope of his Gospel (see
Appendix 96);
while, in the other Gospels, the figure was translated as
being what it also meant, "the Kingdom of God".
Thus, while the same in a general sense, the two
expressions are to be distinguished in their meaning and in their
interpretation, as follows :-
1 The Kingdom of God occurs only five times in Matthew (6:33; 12:28; 19:24; 21:31, 43). |