Mark 1:15

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

Mark 1:15

Context

Mark frames these words as the opening scene of Jesus’ public ministry: after the baptism (1:9–11) and the temptation (1:12–13), and after the arrest of the Baptist (1:14), Jesus appears in Galilee and proclaims the “gospel of God.” Immediately the calling of the first disciples follows (1:16–20). Mark 1:15 is therefore a programmatic sentence and a compendium of the entire Markan composition — everything that comes later is the unfolding of these four members.

In the literary structure of Mark’s Gospel, 1:14–15 is the summary preaching-introduction, to which comparable passages correspond (cf. 1:39; 2:2; 4:33; 6:12). Mark does not let Jesus begin with a theory about himself, but with an announcement about God. The content of the first sermon is not Christology but the Father’s kingdom — an observation that is theologically decisive.

Historically the verse stands in the prophetic-eschatological tradition of Israel. Already Daniel 2:44 speaks of the heavenly kingdom that will be set up “in the days of those kings.” The Qumran texts, the writings of the Pharisaic schools, and the popular messianic expectation of the early first century all know the tension between the fulfilled signal of waiting and the still-outstanding consummation. Into this expectation Jesus steps with the announcement: now.

The four members are chiastically ordered. Two indicatives of God (the time is fulfilled — the kingdom is at hand) precede two imperatives to humans (repent — believe). This order is theologically dense: God’s initiative precedes the human response; the response is really demanded because the initiative is real. Socinianly this is the basic order of salvation: grace awakens the answer but does not coerce it.

The Markan parallels in Matthew and Luke (Mt 4:17; Lk 4:18–21) show that the Kingdom-of-God logion is early, widely attested tradition — not a Markan construction. Matthew reduces it to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”; Luke has Jesus read out Isaiah 61:1–2 in the synagogue at Nazareth. Both witness to the same emphasis: a sending in the service of the Father, not a self-report.

Socinian core thesis

The “kingdom of God” on Jesus’ lips is not Jesus’ own kingdom, but the kingdom of the one Father, to whom Jesus, as messenger and first servant, is subject. The possessive relation (“tou theou” — “of God”) shows the basic theological axis: God reigns, Jesus proclaims. Whoever makes Mark 1:15 a self-attestation of Jesus’ divine nature overlooks the genitive construction and invents a sense the verse does not bear.

Read socinianly, the kingdom of God according to Mark 1:15 consists of a double movement: outwardly in God’s emerging revelation and proclamation of his saving will (that is, in the whole working of Jesus, his words, signs, death and resurrection); and inwardly in God’s indwelling in the hearts of those who receive this revelation in faith. Both aspects interlock; both are simultaneously present in the kingdom-announcement of Mark 1:15.

The call to repentance (metanoeîte) is not a mere “regretting” in the sense of affective contrition, but a change of mind — a fundamental reorientation of the whole life towards God. Socinianly, repentance is not a dogmatic act with sacramental preconditions, but a real step in life to which the human being is actually enabled by God’s grace. Whoever interprets repentance merely as a feeling misses the active, biographical weight of the Greek verb.

Faith (pisteúete) is directed in Mark 1:15 not to a dogmatic proposition about Christ’s nature, but en tôi euangeíliôi — to the proclaimed kingdom-gospel itself. To believe here means: to trust this message deeply, to accept it as true, to direct one’s life according to it. Christ is messenger and guarantor of this message, not its metaphysical object.

With this Mark 1:15 is a key verse against every narrowing of the gospel to a doctrine of penal substitution. The good news here is not: “Christ has borne the wrath of God for you.” Rather: “God reigns now — turn back, entrust yourself.” The reduction of the meaning of euangélion to a transaction of atonement misses what Mark places at the head.

Exegesis: key terms and word-field

Five Greek terms carry the sense of Mark 1:15. Their philologically clean interpretation decides whether the verse is read as a Kingdom-of-God proclamation or as a disguised Christology:

kairós peplêrôtai — “the time is fulfilled”

Kairós is not chronological time (that would be chrónos), but the qualified hour, the moment of saving history. When this kairós is “fulfilled,” the saving measure of God is full — not in the sense of a mechanical deadline, but in the sense of a ripe moment of divine guidance of history. The verb stands in the perfect: the fulfilment has already occurred, its result stands.

The echo of Galatians 4:4 (“when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son”) is clear. In Pauline usage this kairós is the divinely appointed hour of Christ’s sending. So it is not about an astronomical or political turning of the age, but about God’s sovereign setting of a saving hour.

Important socinianly: the verse anchors the breaking-in of the kingdom in God’s acting, not in an ontological constitution of Jesus. The “fulfilment” is a date in God’s plan, not a deduction from Jesus’ being.

basileía tou theou — “the kingdom of God”

Basileía translates the Hebrew malkhût: not primarily a spatial realm, but God’s kingship as activity and reality. The kingdom is where God actually reigns. Where God rules — in hearts, in relationships, in history — there is his kingdom.

The genitive tou theou is theologically decisive. It is the kingdom of God, that is, of the one Father. Jesus does not speak of a kingdom that belongs to himself or of which he is the sovereign; he proclaims the coming reign of the one whom he calls Father. Mark 1:15 is in this respect a theocentric verse, not christocentric in the later-trinitarian sense.

Êggiken (“has come near”) is in the perfect: the kingdom has drawn near, the distance has shrunk. With that the old expectation is overstepped without the final consummation having yet entered. This tension of “already” and “not yet” runs through the whole synoptic theology of the kingdom.

metanoeîte — “repent”

The Greek metanoeîn is composed of metá (“through, after”) and noeîn (“to think, to perceive, to consider”). It denotes literally a change of mind, a shift in the direction of thought and life. The Vulgate translation poenitentiam agite has pushed the emotional dimension of regret into the foreground in the history of reception — the Greek word means more, and something different.

In the Old Testament background the Hebrew shûv (“to turn back, to return”) resonates. Prophetic calls to repentance (Hos 14:2; Joel 2:12–13; Jer 3:12) are not summons to inner feelings, but to the actual turning of the path of life back to YHWH. Mark 1:15 stands in this prophetic line.

The imperative is in the present: metanoeîte — “be repenting,” that is: remain in repentance, live repenting. Repentance is not a completed act but a lasting disposition. This fits exactly with the view unfolded in the Racovian Catechism: repentance is the life-principle of the Christian believer, not a one-time initiation act.

pisteúete en tôi euangeíliôi — “believe in the gospel”

Striking is the construction with en (in) instead of with eis (toward) or a bare dative. The en here denotes the realm in which faith grounds itself. It is faith in the gospel — a faith borne by the gospel and at home in it. With this Mark chooses an unusual phrasing that expresses the suddenness and embeddedness of the act of faith.

Euangélion here is the concrete content of Jesus’ preaching — not a later doctrinal formulation, but the immediate message of the breaking-in kingdom. Socinianly this is important: the gospel that is to be believed is not a metaphysical set of propositions, but the proclaimed kingdom-message of the Father.

Faith has here therefore a natural correlate: the kingdom-message itself. Jesus’ message is in its content a Kingdom-of-God message. Whoever believes it, believes God, who through Jesus announces his rule — and so faith in Christ is consistently understood as faith in God through Christ.

êggiken — “has come near”

The perfect form of eggízô (“to draw near”) denotes a movement that has already occurred with continuing result: the nearness persists. It is not the statement that the kingdom is already fully here; but neither that it is still far. It has come up to nearness.

With this Mark 1:15 is neither purely futurist (the kingdom comes only later) nor purely realised (the kingdom is fully here). Both readings miss the middle position of the verb. The kingdom is in the breaking-in, in the entering, in the readying. That is the specific nearness of Jesus’ kingdom-message.

In Mark’s Gospel this nearness becomes tangible in the miracles, the table fellowships, the words of forgiveness of Jesus — God’s rule enters through his work. But the consummation is still outstanding; it is the object of promise (cf. Mk 14:25; 9:1). Socinian theology has always taken this eschatological doubling seriously and has warned both against a purely inward understanding of the kingdom and against a purely futurist consolation.

Comparison of interpretations

Reference to Fausto Sozzini

Fausto Sozzini discusses the meaning of “kingdom of God” at length in his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, at the passage where the Lord’s Prayer is commented on — particularly on the third petition “Thy kingdom come” (Mt 6:10). This explanation is exegetically parallel to the Kingdom-of-God proclamation in Mark 1:15: both verses speak of a kingdom that comes, that is, is at hand. Sozzini distinguishes two meanings of the term and at the same time holds them as interlocking.

The more frequent meaning of the name ‘kingdom of God’, especially used in the way we have said, seems to be that it signifies the revelation of the divine will and its acceptance or acknowledgement, which is also called ‘kingdom’, in exactly the same sense as that kingdom of heaven. But from this very manner of God’s reigning follows what we here principally understand, namely that God himself should reign in our hearts; and if this does not follow, it cannot properly be said that God reigns.

Fausto Sozzini, Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (Explicatio primae Christi concionis), commentary on the Lord’s Prayer petition “Thy kingdom come” (Mt 6:10)

Sozzini’s definition fits Mark 1:15 exactly. The “kingdom of God” that “has come near” in Jesus’ proclamation has, according to Sozzini, a twofold shape: first, the revelation of the divine will and its acceptance or acknowledgement — that is the outer, emerging side: God’s will appears manifestly in the sending of Jesus. Second, the actual reigning of God in the heart of believers — that is the inner, fruitful side. Sozzini holds both together: without acceptance in the heart, the outer proclamation has not reached its goal; without the outer proclamation, the inner acceptance cannot begin.

This interpretation shows a double point: first, the kingdom is not a mystical inwardness that would rest somewhere “in the human being” without God’s self-revelation. It is God’s initiative — through messenger, word, sign and deed. Second, it is no merely outward political magnitude that would be accomplished past the human being. The kingdom-announcement aims at the human being, seeks his heart, will reign there.

The second part of Mark 1:15 — “repent and believe in the gospel” — corresponds in the socinian understanding exactly to this arrival in the heart. Repentance is the initial change of mind; faith is the grasping of the offered kingdom-message. The Racovian Catechism speaks in the same sense of the fundamental conversion under the New Covenant:

Under the New Covenant, however, not only sins committed out of imprudence and weakness are atoned for, but also the gravest sins, provided only that the one who has committed such a sin does not persist in it, but comes to his senses through true repentance, turns his life for the better and does not fall back again into that sin.

Racovian Catechism, section on the atonement of sins under the New Covenant

The bridge is exegetically load-bearing: “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mk 1:15a) correlates with the revelation of the divine will described by Sozzini; “repent and believe” (Mk 1:15b) correlates with the acceptance and acknowledgement Sozzini calls for. The “reigning of God in our hearts,” which Sozzini understands as what is really meant, is the effect to which Mark 1:15 calls. With this it appears: Mark 1:15 demands no metaphysical construction about Jesus’ nature, but a concrete movement of life on the part of the hearer towards the kingdom of the Father.

From this line a further important hermeneutical consequence follows: whoever reduces the gospel to a forensic theory of redemption loses the proclamatory centre. What Jesus in Mark places at the head is not penal substitution, but the kingship of God and the human response to it. Sozzini recalls this and so also places his own work On Jesus Christ the Saviour (De Iesu Christo Servatore) within the wider frame of Kingdom-of-God theology.

Overview of Sozzini’s books

Logical arguments

From Mark 1:15 the following linguistic-philological and theological arguments for a socinian-prophetic reading can be unfolded:

1. Argument from the theocentric genitive. Basileía tou theou is a genitivus auctoris/possessoris: the kingdom belongs to God, proceeds from God, is God’s activity. Jesus proclaims it as messenger. A reading that identifies the kingdom of God with the kingdom of Jesus, or makes him the subject of the kingdom, overlooks the basic grammatical structure.
2. Argument from the programmatic location. Mark 1:15 is the opening verse of the public ministry. What is said first carries exegetical weight. Mark has Jesus begin with a Kingdom-of-God announcement, not with a self-predication. This stamps the reading of all following texts: whoever turns Mark 1:15 into Christology turns the Markan proportions upside down.
3. Argument from metanoia. Repentance as “change of mind” is throughout the LXX and NT usage a turn of life that the human being actually carries out (cf. Jonah 3:8–10; Acts 2:38; 26:20). It follows that the human being is addressed in Mark 1:15 as an agent capable of action. A double predestination that grasps the response as the necessary consequence of a prior decree is incompatible with the imperative.
4. Argument from pisteúete en tôi euangeíliôi. Faith aims at the gospel, not at a later doctrinal formulation. What could be understood as euangélion in the moment of Jesus’ preaching is the kingdom-message itself: God’s rule is breaking in. A reading that already sees Nicene Christology or Anselmian soteriology behind “gospel” is anachronistic.
5. Argument from êggiken. The perfect says the kingdom has come up to nearness — not: is already fully here. Mark 9:1 confirms: some will not taste death “until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” The still-outstanding consummation excludes a purely realised understanding of the kingdom — and with it the notion that in Jesus’ person the kingdom has become identical with him.
6. Argument from the Lord’s Prayer parallel. Mt 6:9–10 is perhaps the most important theological parallel. Jesus himself prays to the Father: “Thy kingdom come.” Here it is unambiguous: the kingdom that comes is God’s kingdom, not Jesus’ kingdom. Sozzini’s exposition of the Sermon on the Mount on the third petition is therefore also hermeneutically decisive for Mark 1:15: the same theological usage.
7. Argument from the prophetic background. Mark 1:15 takes up the prophetic shûv (Hos 14:2; Joel 2:12). This tradition knows no substitutionary penal satisfaction as a condition of forgiveness, but God’s merciful covenant-faithfulness that calls to repentance. Mark 1:15 stands in this covenant logic, not in that of a juridical transaction.
8. Argument from the double indicative. Both indicatives (“the time is fulfilled,” “the kingdom is at hand”) are statements about God’s acting, not about Jesus’ identity. They carry the imperatives; they are not the consequence of the imperatives. This order corresponds to the socinian order of salvation: grace awakens the human response without compelling it.

Biblical cross-references

The following passages are essential for the right understanding of Mark 1:15:

Matthew 6:9–10 — the kingdom comes from the Father

In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus prays to the Father for the coming of his kingdom. The possessive pronoun “Thy” is theologically fundamental: the kingdom that comes is God’s kingdom, not the kingdom of Jesus. Mark 1:15 and Mt 6:10 stand exegetically parallel and define one another mutually: what in the proclamation draws near as “kingdom of God” is the same thing for which Jesus asks the Father. Cf. Matthew 6:10.

Mark 12:29–30 — the Shema as theological frame

Jesus himself quotes the Shema as the highest commandment: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.” This strict oneness of God is the theological frame within which the Kingdom-of-God word of Mark 1:15 is spoken. Whoever makes Jesus at the same time the “one Lord” and the kingdom of the Father the kingdom of Christ bursts the oneness of God that Jesus himself teaches. Cf. Mark 12:29.

Luke 17:20–21 — the kingdom of God is “in your midst”

To the question about the outward appearing of the kingdom Jesus answers: it does not come in such a way that one could observe it; entos hymôn — in your midst / among you. This statement stands in precise tension with the “êggiken” of Mark 1:15: the kingdom is not a passing political event, but a reality that leaves its trace in the community of hearers. Socinianly this fits exactly with Sozzini’s “God reigns in the hearts.” Cf. Luke 17:20–21.

Matthew 6:33 — seek first the kingdom

“Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” Here too: kingdom of God. Here too: a practical seeking, not a theoretical acknowledging. Mt 6:33 unfolds ethically what Mark 1:15 proclaims announcingly. Both verses make clear: the kingdom is God’s affair, the human being is a seeker, faith is a way of life. Cf. Matthew 6:33.

Daniel 2:44 — the kingdom set up

“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed.” Mark 1:15 takes up this eschatological expectation and says: now. The “setting up” (Daniel) and the “drawing near” (Mark) meet in the statement that God is the subject of the founding of the kingdom. Cf. Daniel 2:44.

1 Corinthians 15:24 — the goal of the kingdom

Paul shows the goal: Christ “delivers the kingdom to God the Father.” With this the Markan line is confirmed: the kingdom belongs in the end to God. The Son is mediator, not owner; administrator of the kingdom in the Father’s commission, not independent sovereign. Mark 1:15 and 1 Cor 15:24 form a theological arc that consistently centres the kingdom-genitives on the Father. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24.

Revelation 11:15 — the kingdom of the world becomes God’s kingdom

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.” Again a clear genitive chain: the kingdom belongs to God, mediated through Christ. The eschatological end-state confirms the Markan kingdom-introduction: what draws near in Mark 1:15 reaches its consummation in Rev 11:15. Cf. Revelation 11:15.

Acts 2:38 — repentance and faith as enduring response of salvation

Peter repeats on Pentecost what Jesus proclaims in Mark 1:15: Metanoêsate — repent, and believe; the consequence is forgiveness and the gift of the Spirit. The Markan initial sermon thus becomes the basic structure of all apostolic proclamation. This is important socinianly: the “gospel” even after Easter and Pentecost is not a later dogmatised doctrine of penal substitution, but the Kingdom-of-God message with the response of repentance and faith.

Objections and socinian answers

Objection 1: “But if Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God, then he himself is the king — therefore God!”

The conclusion goes beyond what the verse gives. Mark 1:15 says expressly basileía tou theou — the kingdom of God, in the genitive. If Jesus himself were this God, he would have to speak of his own kingdom — which he consistently does not do. In the Lord’s Prayer he even prays to the Father for this kingdom; that excludes an identification of Jesus with the king.

In the Old Testament prophetic tradition it is entirely usual that a prophet or messenger announces a kingdom without himself being its king. Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist — all are messengers of a kingdom that is not theirs. Jesus stands in this line, with a new, higher commission.

The New Testament witness-record is consistent: Jesus hands over the kingdom in the end to God the Father (1 Cor 15:24). That would be a logical impossibility if he himself were the divine king identical with the Father. The Markan kingdom-introduction is therefore not covertly christocentric but openly theocentric.

The christological narrowing of Mark 1:15 is a later dogma-historical reading. The text itself — lexically, grammatically, contextually — says something else. Socinian interpretation follows the language of the verse and not the trinitarian pre-interpretation.

Objection 2: “Repentance and faith — that is Pelagianism! The human being cannot turn back of his own power.”

The socinian position is not Pelagianism. The Racovian Catechism states clearly that the human being comes to repentance only “with the help of divine assistance and that child-like Spirit added.” God’s grace goes ahead — in word, messenger and Spirit; but it does not coerce the will, it awakens it.

The reading that interprets every human response as a covert divine act overstretches the biblical record. The imperative metanoeîte is only meaningful if it finds addressees who can actually respond. An imperative to the dead is mockery, not a call of salvation.

Socinian theology therefore takes a middle path: God’s initiative is absolutely required; the human response is nonetheless real and free. Both aspects are laid down textually in Mark 1:15: the indicatives carry, the imperatives call.

This position is exegetically well attested: Acts 2:38; 26:20; Rom 2:4 all speak in such a way that repentance is a real human response to God’s anticipatory kindness — not a necessary consequence of a prior decree. Whoever interprets this otherwise must bend the plain meaning of these verses.

The dispute between Pelagianism and Augustinianism is, moreover, a late-antique construction foreign to Mark 1:15. The verse itself knows no such alternative, because it understands the human response as the natural consequence of the divine initiative — without pressing it into a causal chain.

Objection 3: “The kingdom of God is at hand — but 2000 years later it is still not here. Was Jesus mistaken?”

The objection misses the Greek verb êggiken. It does not mean “will arrive in ten years,” but “has come up to nearness.” Nearness is a quality, not a deadline. A nearness can last long without ceasing to be nearness.

Mark himself shows in 9:1 that Jesus announces a realisation of the kingdom already during the lifetime of the first generation: some will not taste death “until they see the kingdom of God come with power.” This realisation took place in the resurrection, in the Pentecost event and in the spread of the kingdom-message. In this sense the kingdom has been breaking in since Pentecost.

The socinian reading distinguishes cleanly between inception and consummation. The kingdom has broken in in Jesus’ work, expands in the community of believers, and is consummated in the second coming of Christ (1 Cor 15:24). This three-stage structure is no makeshift solution, but the kingdom-dynamic consistently attested in the NT.

A better reading of the temporal statement results from the prophetic tradition: the nearness of God is never a question of the calendar, but of presence. When God draws near, the hour of response is here. Whether this hour lasts 2000 years or two days changes nothing about the nearness itself. Mark 1:15 calls anew in every generation.

The charge of a misprognosis takes the verb mechanically and ignores theological usage. It is not tenable against Mark 1:15.

Objection 4: “If the gospel does not teach penal substitution, what then remains of the message of salvation?”

The historical sense of euangélion on Jesus’ lips is exactly what Mark in 1:14 explicitly names: the “gospel of God” — the glad message that God’s kingship is entering. This content is not less than penal substitution, but something different and in many respects more comprehensive: God himself comes to his people and takes them into his rule.

This message is multidimensional: it is a message of creation, of covenant, of gathering, of reconciliation, of healing and of hope. It includes forgiveness, turn of life, covenant renewal and eternal life. But it does precisely not include the juridical narrowing in which God would first have to be paid by Christ in order to be able to forgive.

Socinian doctrine of redemption knows a broad theology of salvation: Christ reveals God’s love (Jn 3:16), defeats the power of death (Heb 2:14–15), brings the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:33), enters as high priest into the heavenly sanctuary (Heb 9:11–14), calls to following in suffering (1 Pet 2:21). None of these aspects requires a penal satisfaction to God; together they form a full gospel.

With this Mark 1:15 strikes an important correction: the gospel is primarily God-message, not description-of-mechanism. The “how” of forgiveness is secondary; the “that” and the “from whom” is primary. Whoever reverses this loses the proclamatory centre of the Markan beginning.

A message of salvation that begins with the kingdom of God is therefore not poor in content but richer than the juridical narrowing. It carries the whole biblical line from creation to consummation.

Objection 5: “But Mark 1:15 is plain pointed doctrine — why then any theological interpretation at all?”

Short is not the same as self-interpreting. Mark 1:15 contains four terms (kairós, basileía, metanoeîn, pisteúein), each of which has a deep linguistic and theological background. Whoever ignores this does not read the verse clearly, but superficially.

The history of reception shows: precisely because the verse is so dense, it has been read very differently by various traditions — pelagian, Augustinian, reformed, socinian. The exegetical task is therefore not complication but clarification: what does the verse really say according to its linguistic and contextual usage?

Socinian interpretation steps forward with the claim of opening up the verse through careful word, genitive and context analysis. Where this succeeds, interpretation is not addition but making the text visible. The supposed “self-explaining” of the verse is mostly an unreflective pre-shaping by one’s own dogmatic tradition.

Concretely: the question “Whose kingdom?” is answered by the verse itself through the genitive tou theou. The question “What is repentance?” is answered by the word-usage of the LXX and the prophetic tradition. The question “What is the gospel?” is answered by the immediately preceding verse 14 (“gospel of God”). Interpretation does no more than uncover these answers — but that is much.

Theological consequences

Related verses

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

• Matthew 6:10 — Lord’s Prayer parallel: the kingdom comes from the Father and is asked for by the praying one — not claimed by himself.
• Mark 12:29 — The Shema as theological frame of the Kingdom-of-God proclamation: one Lord, whose kingdom comes.
• Luke 17:20–21 — Entos hymôn: the kingdom is in your midst — Sozzini’s “God reigns in the hearts” in execution.
• Matthew 6:33 — Ethical unfolding: seek first the kingdom of God — the believer’s response to Mark 1:15.
• 1 Corinthians 15:24 — Eschatological consummation: Christ delivers the kingdom in the end to the Father — the kingdom remains God’s kingdom.
• Daniel 2:44 — Old Testament background: the kingdom that the God of heaven sets up — taken up in Jesus’ “the kingdom of God is at hand.”
• Revelation 11:15 — The kingdom of the world becomes God’s and his Christ’s — the Markan kingdom-proclamation finds here its consummation.

Summary

Mark 1:15 is the programmatic opening sermon of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. Four short members summarise the whole early message: God’s saving hour is here, his kingdom is at hand, the human being is to repent and believe. Socinianly the verse is a theocentric, prophetic-eschatological call — no covert Christology and no doctrine of penal substitution.

The decisive grammatical finding is the genitive tou theou. The kingdom that draws near belongs to God. Jesus proclaims it as messenger of the Father — and in the Lord’s Prayer prays himself for its coming. This double position — messenger and intercessor — excludes an identification of Jesus with the divine king.

Sozzini himself, in his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount on the petition “Thy kingdom come,” worked out a twofold meaning of the “kingdom of God”: the outer revelation of the divine will and the inner reigning of God in the hearts. Both belong together; both are laid down in the “kingdom of God is at hand” of Mark 1:15. The Racovian Catechism complements this with the corresponding doctrine of repentance as fundamental turn of life under the New Covenant. So read, Mark 1:15 is a key verse of socinian Kingdom-of-God theology and at the same time a touchstone against every dogmatic narrowing of the gospel.