Luke 17:20-21

“The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.”

Luke 17:20-21

Context

The scene is a Pharisaic question (v.20a): when will the kingdom of God come? The question aims at the date, at the observable sign, at the spectacular onset of a politically or cosmically recognisable magnitude. Jesus’ answer does not merely shatter the answer; it shatters the question itself: the kingdom does not come metá paratêrêseôs — not with observational calculation.

Luke frames the statement twice over: vv.20-21 addresses the Pharisees (a present-tense statement about the kingdom), vv.22-37 turns to the disciples and describes the future revelation of the Son of Man — which will be like lightning from one end of the heavens to the other (v.24). Both sequences belong together: the present hiddenness of the kingdom in Christ’s mission, the future making-visible at the consummation.

The question posed here about the “when” and “where” of the kingdom is a typical Pharisaic question. In first-century Judaism various expectations of the kingdom circulated: zealot-political liberation from Rome, apocalyptic-cosmic upheaval, restorative re-establishment of the Davidic dynasty. Common to all is that they conceive the kingdom as an outward, verifiable event. Jesus’ word breaks with this logic of expectation.

Read socinianly, the passage is a key text because it wards off two things at once: first, the relocation of the kingdom of God into a distant future with observable portents (apocalypticism, zealot politics); second, the spiritualising interiorisation as a mere state of soul (mystical inwardness). The kingdom is real and present — but it is the presence of God’s effective rule, which is made operative through his envoy.

The Socinian core thesis

Sozzini reads statements about the kingdom of God in line with biblical linguistic practice: the kingdom of God is the revelation of the divine will and its reception or acknowledgement — not an ecclesiastical institution, not a political programme, not a purely future cosmic act. In his Explication of the Sermon on the Mount Sozzini explicitly unfolded this reading in connection with the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer (“Thy kingdom come”), and that exposition holds mutatis mutandis for Luke 17:20-21.

The kingdom of God is present in Christ’s work because through him God reveals his will, confirms it, and inscribes it in the hearts of believers. Entos hymôn denotes this real presence: the kingdom is not within the Pharisees (in their interior), but among them, because Christ — the bearer of the kingdom — stands before them. The inward reception of this kingdom takes place only where people receive Christ’s message in faith.

In the Racovian Catechism the petition “Thy kingdom come” is explained in precisely socinian terms: one asks God that all human beings recognise his sovereignty and supremacy as that of their Creator, and submit themselves to his right and his power. The kingdom is therefore not a topographical or institutional location, but a relation of rule: wherever God’s will is acknowledged and obeyed, there the kingdom of God is real.

This reading preserves three tensions: (a) present and future — the kingdom is here and will be consummated; (b) outward proclamation and inward reception — God reveals, the human being receives; (c) Christ’s mission and God’s sovereignty — Christ is the bearer of the kingdom, yet the kingdom remains the kingdom of his Father, to whom he hands it over at the end (1 Cor 15:24).

Exegesis: key terms and lexical field

Four key terms decide the linguistic-philological interpretation of Luke 17:20-21:

basileía tou theou — kingdom of God as a relation of rule

In Septuagint usage the Greek basileía has a twofold semantic field: on the one hand the abstract act of reigning (rule, kingship), on the other the concrete domain over which one reigns (kingdom). In the kingdom-of-God sayings of the Gospels the first meaning dominates: what is in view is God’s effective reigning, not a delimitable territory.

Sozzini holds firm to this distinction: the kingdom of God is wherever God’s will is revealed and obeyed. That rules out equating the kingdom with any particular institution (temple, synagogue, church, state). But it also rules out making the kingdom into a purely future magnitude: wherever people obey God, the kingdom of God is already real.

In Matt 6:33 (“seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness”) and Luke 12:32 (“it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom”) the same logic sounds: the kingdom is given, effectively present, ethically demanding — and at the same time open toward consummation (Luke 21:31; 22:18).

entos hymôn — “in your midst” / “among you”

The Greek preposition entos with the genitive has a broad semantic range in Koine. It can locally mean “inside of” (sg.) or “in the midst of” (pl.). The interior reading (Vulgate: intra vos; Luther 1545: “inwendig in euch”) is linguistically possible but contextually implausible: Jesus is speaking to his opponents, the Pharisees. The kingdom of God was certainly not within the Pharisees.

The socinian reading therefore prefers the second meaning: “in your midst”, “among you”. The kingdom is present because the bearer of the kingdom — Christ himself — stands before his hearers. The Pharisees seek a sign, yet overlook the sign that stands bodily before them: the Messiah sent and commissioned by God.

This reading corresponds to the wider New Testament theology of the kingdom: Matt 12:28 (“but if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”); Luke 11:20 (parallel); John 18:36 (“my kingdom is not of this world” — not an external-political kingdom, yet very much a real one).

paratêrêsis — “observation, calculation”

The word paratêrêsis (v.20b) denotes in Hellenistic usage the attentive observation of signs — whether astronomical (observation of the stars), medical (symptoms of illness), or apocalyptic (signs of the end). The term is attested in the NT only here.

Jesus’ statement therefore strikes precisely at the apocalyptic logic of expectation: the kingdom of God does not come with calculable symptoms accessible to human observation. Read socinianly, this is a refusal of every form of chiliastic date-reckoning and apocalyptic expectation of spectacle. The kingdom of God does not function according to the logic of control and observation.

That does not mean the kingdom is invisible or purely spiritual. It is certainly recognisable — but by its fruits: by the spreading of the gospel, by the conversion of hearts, by holiness of life. These fruits are real, but they are not what the Pharisaic question was after.

ouk érchetai — “it does not come” (as spectacle)

The present indicative érchetai “it comes” is temporally ambiguous: it can mean either present coming or future arrival. Here both are intended: the kingdom is coming already now (in Christ’s work), and it will also not come in the future as observable spectacle. Both are warded off by the same logic of expectation.

Read socinianly that means: neither the present nor the future of the kingdom can be relocated into apocalyptic dates, political programmes, or ecclesial institutions. The kingdom comes as God’s effective rule — hidden now, visible then; but at both times unobtrusive, unspectacular, free from human controllability.

A comparison of readings

Connection to Fausto Sozzini

Sozzini unfolded the socinian doctrine of the kingdom of God above all in his Explication of the Sermon on the Mount, in connection with the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:10: “Thy kingdom come”). The meaning of the name “kingdom of God” developed there is the hermeneutical basis on which Luke 17:21 too must be understood. In the Racovian Catechism this teaching is then catechetically condensed.

The more common meaning of the name “kingdom of God”… seems to be that it denotes the revelation of the divine will and its reception or acknowledgement… But under the expression “revelation of the divine will” we comprehend not only its proclamation and preaching, but also the confirmation that proceeds from God himself… From this very manner of God’s ruling there follows, however, what at this place we above all understand, namely that God himself reigns in our hearts; and if this does not follow, it cannot properly be said that God reigns at all.

Fausto Sozzini, Explication of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter on Matt 6:10 (“The second petition: the coming of the kingdom of God”)

Sozzini’s definition has two layers: the kingdom of God is (1) the revelation of the divine will through proclamation, preaching and divine confirmation — and (2) its reception into the hearts of the hearers, so that God truly reigns in them. Both layers belong together: without reception the revelation is ineffective; without revelation there is nothing to receive. Applied to Luke 17:21: the kingdom is in the midst of the Pharisees — because Christ reveals — but it is not within them, because they do not receive the revelation.

Sozzini further specifies in the same place that by the will of God that constitutes the kingdom is meant above all the promise brought by Christ: “after the appearing of Christ himself there was, and there will be so long as the present age endures, no such will of God except that which Christ has brought and proclaimed to us and confirmed in many wondrous ways.” Fausto Sozzini, Explication of the Sermon on the Mount, chapter on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer That is precisely the logic of Luke 17:21: the kingdom is “in your midst” because Christ stands in their midst and reveals, confirms and inscribes the will of God.

In the Racovian Catechism the same teaching is catechetically condensed. The explanation of the petition “Thy kingdom come” runs: “We effectively ask of God that all human beings recognise his sovereignty and supremacy as that of their Creator, and submit themselves to his right and to his power.” Racovian Catechism, On Prayer, Exposition of the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer The kingdom of God is therefore not a place, but a relation of rule: acknowledgement of, and submission to, the rightful sovereignty of God.

In addition the Racovian Catechism defines Christ’s royal office: “God, after he had raised him from the dead and taken him up into the heavens, set him at his right hand and gave him all power in heaven and on earth, in order that he might most freely rule, protect and forever preserve his faithful.” Racovian Catechism, On the royal office of Christ Christ is bearer of the kingdom because God has given him power — not because he is himself God. This difference is socinianly decisive: the kingdom comes through the envoy, who bears the authority of the sender.

In his commentary on the fifth beatitude Sozzini also indicates of the persecuted: “they are in this life part of the true people of God, and the kingdom of God is in them.” Luke 17:21 is here implicitly drawn upon as the key to the understanding of the present dimension of the kingdom: in those who receive Christ’s righteousness and suffer for its sake, the kingdom of God is really present — not as a sensation, but as covenant belonging, as the fruit of the received divine will.

Overview of the writings of Sozzini

Logical arguments

The following logical and linguistic-philological arguments for the socinian reading of the kingdom emerge from Luke 17:20-21:

1. Argument from the Pharisaic address. Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, his opponents. An interior reading of entos hymôn (“within you”) is therefore implausible: the kingdom of God was not within those who were at that very moment rejecting Jesus. The second meaning “in your midst” fits the context and points to Christ himself as the bearer of the kingdom.
2. Argument from the correction of expectation. The Pharisees ask “when” and “where” — for observable signs. Jesus corrects not only the answer but the question itself (ouk meta paratêrêseôs). This speaks against every apocalyptic-speculative expectation of the kingdom that sees it coming with calculable signs.
3. Argument from the separation of present and future. Immediately after v.21 the addressee changes (v.22: to the disciples) and so does the theme: the future revelation of the Son of Man like lightning (v.24). The separation shows: vv.20-21 speaks of present hiddenness, vv.22-37 of future visibility. Both belong to the kingdom of God, without being allowed to be collapsed into each other.
4. Argument from the semantics of kingdom-as-rule. In Old Testament usage malkût / basileía is primarily the act of reigning, not a territory. Sozzini holds firm to this line: the kingdom is God’s effective reigning, which is revealed and received. With this both the identification with church/state and the interiorisation into a mood fall away.
5. Argument from a christology without pre-existence. The kingdom is present because God’s commissioned envoy is present — not because Jesus himself is God. Moses, Cyrus, the prophets brought God’s effective presence without being God. Christ’s authority is greater, but it is received authority (Matt 28:18: “has been given to me”; John 5:19; Acts 2:36).
6. Argument from the Racovian Catechism. The catechetical condensation of the petition for the kingdom as “acknowledgement of the divine rule” is the structural pattern: wherever acknowledgement of and submission to God’s will take place, the kingdom is there. Among the Pharisees this acknowledgement is missing — therefore the kingdom has indeed a location (“in your midst”), but no effective reception.
7. Argument from Matt 12:28 / Luke 11:20. Jesus himself binds the presence of the kingdom to his concrete healings: “If it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The kingdom thus comes through Christ’s Spirit-wrought action — concrete, real, unspectacularly effective.
8. Argument from Rom 14:17. Paul specifies: “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Sozzini cites this passage expressly in confirmation of his reading: the kingdom is present as ethical-pneumatic reality — not as external institution or as date.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages deepen Luke 17:20-21 in the light of the whole-Bible theology of the kingdom:

Matthew 12:28 — the kingdom has come upon you

“But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” The kingdom comes in the concrete acting of Jesus through the Spirit of God — not as spectacle, but as effective liberation. Luke 17:21 says structurally the same: because Christ is at work, the kingdom is there.

Luke 12:32 — the kingdom as a gift to the little flock

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” The kingdom is gift to the believing, not a cosmic demonstration. It is given to those who receive Christ’s message — and so it works in them, while at the same time remaining real among all.

Luke 22:18 — the kingdom is yet to come in consummation

“I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” The future consummation of the kingdom is clearly attested in the NT. Luke 17:20-21 does not contradict this, but distinguishes the present hiddenness from the future making-visible.

John 18:36 — my kingdom is not of this world

“My kingdom is not of this world; if it were of this world, my servants would have fought.” Jesus’ kingdom is not worldly-political — and yet very much real and effective. That is precisely the point of Luke 17:21: the kingdom is here, but it does not function according to worldly logics of power and observation.

Romans 14:17 — kingdom of God as righteousness, peace, joy

“For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Sozzini expressly draws upon this passage to confirm his reading: the kingdom is present ethical-pneumatic reality, visible in the fruits of the believing, not in the spectacular.

1 Corinthians 15:24 — the kingdom is handed over to the Father

“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father.” Christ is bearer of the kingdom in the present time of salvation; in the consummation he hands it over to God. That is the socinianly decisive point: Christ’s kingdom is derived, conferred, temporally structured — not autonomously divine.

Mark 1:15 — the kingdom of God has come near

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Jesus’ programmatic saying, which prepares Luke 17:21: the kingdom is near — in Christ’s mission — and calls to repentance, that is, to inward reception of the same reality which outwardly stands before the eyes.

Matthew 6:10 — Thy kingdom come

The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Sozzini expounded it as the hermeneutical key to the whole doctrine of the kingdom. For him “Thy kingdom come” means: that God through Christ’s proclamation reveals his will and finds reception in our hearts, so that he may truly reign among us.

Objections and socinian replies

Objection 1: “Entos hymôn literally means ‘within you’ — that is, interior.”

Linguistically entos with the genitive plural is ambiguous: it can mean “inside of” or “in the midst of”. The singular “in you” would be unambiguously interior; the plural “in/among you” leaves both readings open.

Decisive is the context: Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, his opponents. An interior reading would assert that the kingdom of God is at work in those who are at that very moment rejecting Jesus — that is exegetically untenable.

The socinian reading “in your midst” preserves the inward dimension where it belongs (with those who receive the kingdom, Rom 14:17), without projecting it onto Luke 17:21, where it does not fit. Inwardness is the consequence of reception, not the definition of the kingdom.

Sozzini holds both layers together: the kingdom is revealed (outwardly, through Christ’s proclamation) and received (inwardly, in the hearts of believers). The interior reading of Luke 17:21 separates these layers inadmissibly.

Objection 2: “If the kingdom is present through the mere presence of Jesus, then Jesus himself must be God.”

The argument presupposes what it sets out to prove. In the Old Testament God’s kingdom is present wherever God’s commissioned envoy is at work: Moses leads the people out of Egypt into the “kingdom of priests” (Ex 19:6), without Moses being God. Cyrus is called Mashiach (anointed) in Isa 45:1 — a bearer of the divine kingly rule, without divine nature.

Christ’s authority is greater than that of any prophet, but it is received authority. The Racovian Catechism specifies that God gave Christ “all power in heaven and on earth, in order that he might rule his faithful” (cf. Matt 28:18; Phil 2:9; Acts 2:36). The word “gave” marks the difference from God’s own self-sovereignty.

1 Cor 15:24-28 underscores: at the end Christ hands over the kingdom to the Father, “that God may be all in all”. An independent divinity of Christ would make this handing-over meaningless. Christ is bearer and steward, not himself the proprietor of the kingdom.

The socinian reading preserves John 5:19 (“the Son can do nothing of his own accord”) and 1 Tim 2:5 (“one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”): Christ’s mediation presupposes the ontological difference between God and Christ — otherwise there is no mediation, but identity.

Objection 3: “The passage teaches a purely present realisation of the kingdom — no end time, no second coming.”

This reading isolates vv.20-21 from the immediately following vv.22-37. The text itself sets both dimensions side by side: the present hiddenness (v.21) and the future revelation of the Son of Man like lightning (v.24). Both belong to the kingdom, without either being permitted to be reduced to the other.

Read socinianly both are held fast: the presence of the kingdom in Christ’s mission and the consummation of the kingdom in his coming again (cf. 1 Cor 15:24-28). Sozzini in his writings clearly taught the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement — a purely present realisation of the kingdom would have been foreign to him.

Luke 21:31 (“when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near”) attests the future consummation in the same Gospel. The same Luke who writes Luke 17:21 also writes Luke 21:31 — a contradiction can be constructed only by isolating vv.20-21.

The socinian doctrine of tension “already present, not yet consummated” preserves against two aberrations: against a false security (the kingdom is already fully here, history is irrelevant) and against a false hopelessness (the kingdom is only later, the present is meaningless). Both would be unbiblical.

Objection 4: “If the kingdom is not observable it is not falsifiable — pure private religion.”

The objection confuses “not observable by sensation” with “not recognisable”. The kingdom is very much recognisable by its fruits: by righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17), by the spread of the gospel, by the sanctification of believers, by the ethical practice of the community (Matt 5-7).

What Jesus rejects in Luke 17:20 is paratêrêsis — the calculating scrutiny of symptoms which asks for date, place and cosmic demonstration. This logic of knowledge is wrong because it reduces the kingdom to the categories of human power and control.

Read socinianly, the kingdom is precisely not private religion: it is the public acknowledgement of God’s rule through acknowledgement of Christ and a life led in his spirit. The visibility is the visibility of holiness, not of spectacle — but it is very much visibility.

On the contrary: it is precisely the spectacular kingdom-of-God programmes (theocratic models of state, chiliastic political projects, ecclesial claims to power) which are unbiblical. Luke 17:21 withdraws all of them from legitimation. That is not less validity, but a different one.

Objection 5: “If everyone who receives Christ has the kingdom in himself, what need is there of church, sacraments, office?”

The objection presupposes a specifically Catholic-Orthodox economy of salvation in which the kingdom becomes experienceable through institutional mediation. Read socinianly, this presupposition is itself to be tested: the NT knows the kingdom of God as God’s effective rule, not as an ecclesiastically administered institution of salvation.

This does not mean: no community, no proclamation, no baptism. These means of proclaiming the kingdom are biblically anchored. But they are means and signs, not preconditions without which the kingdom would not be. The kingdom is God’s work through Christ — the community is witness and instrument, not administrator.

In this line the Polish Brethren developed a strong doctrine of the community: the fellowship of brethren as the place of mutual admonition, of the exposition of Scripture, of ethical accountability — but without hierarchical elevation. The community is a visible sign of the kingdom, not its proprietor.

Luke 17:21 contains a critical point against every institution that wishes to lay claim to the kingdom. Neither Pharisaism (which insisted on the fulfilment of Torah), nor Roman power, nor later any ecclesial institution can claim disposal over the kingdom. It remains God’s kingdom.

Theological consequences

Related verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation set out here:

• Mark 1:15 — Jesus’ programmatic saying: the kingdom is at hand — in his mission. Direct parallel to Luke 17:21.
• Matthew 6:10 — The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, expounded by Sozzini in detail: kingdom of God as revelation and reception of the divine will.
• John 17:3 — Kingdom-of-God theology and the knowledge of God: eternal life as the knowledge of the only true God and of him whom he has sent.
• Acts 2:36 — Christ’s authority is conferred: “God has made him Lord and Christ” — the christological basis of the socinian understanding of the kingdom.
• Philippians 2:6-7 — Christ’s exaltation as the consequence of his obedience — bearer of the kingdom through divine commissioning.

Summary

Luke 17:20-21 corrects the Pharisaic logic of expectation that the kingdom of God comes as an observable, calculable spectacle. Jesus shatters at one stroke the question itself: ouk meta paratêrêseôs — not with observational symptom-scrutiny. Entos hymôn, read socinianly, means “in your midst” and points to Christ himself, the bearer and commissioned agent of the kingdom of God.

Sozzini in his Explication of the Sermon on the Mount hermeneutically grounded this theology of the kingdom in connection with the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: the kingdom of God is the revelation of the divine will and its reception — mediated through Christ’s mission. The Racovian Catechism condenses this: the kingdom of God is the acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty and supremacy, to which we submit ourselves as to his right and his power. Christ bears this kingdom out of conferred authority, not out of his own divinity.

The kingdom of God is therefore neither inwardness nor sensation, neither private religion nor institution, neither purely present nor purely future — but God’s effective rule, opened up through Christ and received in the believing, recognisable in the fruits of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and moving toward eschatological consummation.