Report of the Study Committee:
the Kingdom of God [2012]
EDITOR’S NOTE: This committee replaced a previous study committee on The Millennium, whose proposal was to simply drop Article 27 “The Millennium” from the Articles of Faith. Conference did not adopt that recommendation and instead appointed this committee to examine the Kingdom of God in Scripture. They reported in 2011 and wrote many papers on the topic. Based on the findings of this committee, in 2012 Conference adopted the proposed Article 27 “The Kingdom of God” as a replacement for the existing article “The Millennium.”
FIRST READING – 2012 Yes – 148; No – 10; Abstain – 1. Minutes
SECOND READING – 2014 Yes – 146; No – 19 Minutes
This committee was formed at the 126th Annual Conference.
The first meeting of our committee took place on June 13, 2009 at Royersford BFC. This was a preliminary meeting where we discussed the goals and approach of this committee. During this meeting we addressed key issues as they relate to the Kingdom and assigned each member to write a one page summary of our current understanding of the Kingdom.
Three emphases were proposed with respect to the kingdom: (1) the universal aspects (God’s sovereign rule); (2) the present aspects of the Kingdom with respect to Christ’s reign; (3) the future aspects of the Kingdom with respect to Christ’s reign (e.g. Millennial; New Heavens & New Earth).
Our second meeting was convened August 12, 2009 at Pinebrook Bible Conference. We invited Todd Magnun from Biblical Seminary to give us a presentation. He reviewed with us the state of the questionof the Kingdom of God in evangelical theology and beyond.
At this meeting some of the discussion centered on the “already” and “not yet” aspects of the Kingdom of God. This conception has brought a greater degree of unanimity to Evangelical Theology. Traditional rigid divisions between Dispensational and Covenant Theology have been softened to a degree as numerous Bible scholars and theologians are recognizing there is a greater degree of possible unity if we center on the New Testament’s “inaugurated eschatology.” One example of this trend is Darrell Bock and Craig Blaising’s so-called “Progressive Dispensationalism.”
At this time the committee requests to continue its work and hopes to bring recommendations to the 128th BFC Conference. We still have much work to do for a thorough handling of the issue of the kingdom of God.
Study Committee on the Kingdom: Calvin T. Reed, Chairman; Timothy J. Bertolet, Secretary; Davis Duggins, Robert A. Kaatz, Richard B. Ravis, Jacob J. Susek, Jr., John C. Studenroth.