The prior two posts were designed as introductions to this blog itself. Now, this post will serve as an introduction to George N. H. Peters’ The Theocratic Kingdom by way of discussing his very own introduction to the 3-volumes he’s written about The Kingdom of God. The contents of his introduction can be read in full here.

Covenant, redemption, resurrection, Israel, the Church, and the future are all threads back to this theme. Yet modern theology often treats the Kingdom as something nebulous: a feeling in the heart, a moral influence, a renewed social ethic, or vague “kingdom work” we perform in the present age.

Peters warns that this drift is not accidental:

“For many centuries, under the interpretation given by men who have, probably unconsciously, largely imbibed the spirit of the Alexandrian school, the kingdom has been made to mean a variety of things at the option of the writer. Modern authors, with but few exceptions, instead of discarding this looseness, seem to revel in it, making the kingdom to denote almost everything that fancy connects with religion… or even with humanity.”
— Prop. 3, intro

The result is a view of the Kingdom that is symbolic, flexible, and endlessly adjustable, rather than the concrete, covenantal reality Scripture presents.

This blog aims to challenge that approach.

Throughout this blog we will work through the arguments of George N. H. Peters’ The Theocratic Kingdom, one of the most exhaustive and honest attempts to trace the Kingdom through the covenants, the prophets, Christ’s own preaching, and the expectation of the early Church. Peters believed, and stresses throughout his introduction, that truth is not advanced by elevating modern theories or by shunning the older, heavier labor of past students of Scripture.

He criticizes the tendency of his day (and ours) to dismiss earlier testimonies while applauding ear-tickling ideas, a habit he calls spiritually and intellectually unhealthy. He insists that the modern confidence in “progression of truth” often disguises an unwillingness to listen to Scripture or to the voices of the earliest believers.

The Stability of Scripture

For Peters, stability comes not from novelty but from Scripture itself. He insists that when we handle the text with the “plain, grammatical teaching” given by God, the fog lifts. E. R. Craven captures this same interpretive posture when he writes:

“The literalist…is not one who denies that figurative language, that symbols are used in prophecy, nor does he deny that great spiritual truths are set forth therein; his position is, simply, that the prophecies are to be normally interpreted (i.e., according to received laws of language) as any other utterances are interpreted— that which is manifestly figurative so regarded.”1

Peters’ own argument stands firmly within this tradition:

"What God says is true, what man says may be true; and the truthfulness of the latter can be ascertained, its certainty demonstrated, by comparing it with that which God has declared. If the comparison is favorable, let us accept of it; if unfavorable, then let us have the Christian manhood to reject it, no matter under whose name, patronage, or auspices it is given. Rendering the regard due to the writings of others, it does not follow that we must elevate them to the position of competitors of, or peers with the Divine utterances. Such a test the author solicits from the reader, bringing to the consideration of the subject an impartial judgment, and weighing its value and authority in the scripture balance and not in human scales. Every sincere lover of the truth, even should his labor be rejected in part or whole, must feel honored by the institution of such a comparison."

That comparison, he argues, leads the careful reader back to the ancient view—the Kingdom promised to David, preached by John, offered by Christ, expected by the apostles, and embraced by the early Church: a literal, restored, earthly reign under the Messiah.

The Kingdom: Far Older Than the Christian Church

Peters presses this point even further by reminding readers that the literal Kingdom is anything but a theological novelty.

“It is far older than the Christian Church.”

Long before the apostles preached the gospel, Israel’s prophets and the Jewish people themselves expected a restored land, a restored throne, and a real Messiah reigning over a real Kingdom. This anticipation shaped their national hope and framed their reading of Scripture; it was the expectation Jesus stepped into—not an ethereal ideal, but the fulfillment of covenants grounded in geography, monarchy, and unconditional promise.

Yet this ancient expectation stands in stark contrast to how some modern voices characterize a future, earthly Kingdom. Postmillennial author David Chilton offers a representative example of this dismissal, summarizing his view with notable disdain:

“The notion that the reign of Christ is something wholly future, to be brought in by some great social cataclysm, is not a Christian doctrine. It is an unorthodox teaching, generally espoused by heretical sects on the fringes of the Christian Church.”2
— David Chilton

Peters anticipated this kind of response a century before Chilton. Long before modern debates polarized the discussion, he insisted that a restored, Davidic Kingdom was neither new nor sectarian but the original, unified belief of God’s people:

“The doctrine herein advocated… must not be regarded in the light of a novelty. It is far older than the Christian Church, and was ably advocated by the founders and immediate supporters of that Church. The Apostolic Fathers and many of their successors endorsed it… We therefore are not open to the charge of introducing a ‘modern novelty.’”

And he presses the point further, responding directly to those who mock this view as a return to “Jewish forms”:

“Persons of reflection… perceive how deeply we are indebted to ‘Jewish forms,’ even if unable to accept of its teachings, regard its faith with respect. Indeed, it is difficult to apprehend how any one can scorn that which inspired a hope that supported and strengthened the ancient steadfast witnesses for the truth… Cut off the believers of this very kingdom as they existed and testified in the first, second, and third centuries, and where would be the Church?”

Peters’ historical reminder sets the stage for the theological clarity expressed by John Walvoord, who expands this argument into a full defense of premillennialism rooted in the entire sweep of Scripture:

“Rooted in the Old and New Testaments, a product of literal interpretation, nurtured by the apostles and the early church, eclipsed for centuries by the dark shadows of pagan philosophies and allegorizing methods of interpretation, emerging once more as a dominant strain in Biblical theology in these eschatological times, premillennialism is more than a theory, more than a doctrine. It is a system of Biblical interpretation which alone honors the Word of God as infallibly inspired, literally interpreted, and sure of literal fulfillment… Premillennial truth has been an inestimable blessing to those who have received it. To them the Bible has become a living book to be interpreted in its ordinary sense.”3

Walvoord’s words echo Peters’ insistence that we have not invented a new doctrine but are returning to the earliest, simplest, and most unified understanding of the Kingdom—a view held by Israel, affirmed by Jesus, preached by the apostles, and embraced by the Church in its earliest centuries.

How a Revisit of the Kingdom Will Be Received

Peters knew that simply returning to the biblical Kingdom would provoke resistance or even outright disdain, as seen in the harsh judgments of premillennialism voiced by figures such as David Chilton. Revisiting this doctrine is not a calm exercise in academic curiosity; it is, he says, a courageous act that confronts entrenched assumptions.

Some readers refuse “to hear another opinion,” and others push away any view that threatens inherited systems. Still others are unwilling to examine the Kingdom honestly out of fear, as he puts it, that such study might “lead to a revolution” in their theology.

Chuck Missler often warned that this kind of resistance is not merely intellectual but deeply psychological. “It is disturbing to discover,” he said, “how much we are all victims of our own presuppositions.” He frequently appealed to Dresden James’s observation that “a truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed,” and that when a “well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses… the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”4

Missler also frequently quoted in his lessons the old caution of Edmund Spencer:

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is condemnation before investigation.”

These insights mirror Peters’ own: revisiting the Kingdom is difficult not because Scripture is unclear, but because long-held assumptions are.

Peters understood this reluctance. He saw that most readers prefer the security of familiar frameworks—even if those frameworks conflict with Scripture. And he warned, with prophetic emphasis, that discussions like his would be unwelcome in times of comfort:

“In this period of prosperity, of sanguine hope of continued and ever-increasing peace and happiness, the minds and hearts of the multitude will be closed against all appeal, all instruction.”

When life is stable, systems feel sufficient. Abstract theology satisfies curiosity. Seminary debates remain safely academic. Few feel compelled to wrestle seriously with the future reign of Christ when present explanations seem adequate.

Only when optimism collapses—when cultural stability erodes, when the world does not Christianize, when cherished theories strain against reality—do many believers begin to ask harder questions. Increasingly, even those outside the Church are noticing the same trend: a world marked by moral confusion, growing violence, and a sense that things are not steadily improving but unraveling. In moments like these, questions once dismissed as outdated or extreme quietly return.

It is then, Peters argues, that the biblical Kingdom is rediscovered not as an academic construct, but as a source of solace, hope, and joy.

Yet he stresses that such future revival of this doctrine will not be driven by philosophical depth, scholarly novelty, or theological fashion, but by Scripture itself:

“Such a future estimation is not based on literary or theological merits… but solely upon a strict adhesion to and firm belief in the Infallible Word of God, under the guidance of a legitimate rule of interpretation.”

In other words, the Kingdom doctrine will matter most not when people want theory, abstraction, or intellectual comfort—but when they need concrete truth.

  1. E. R. Craven, Lange’s Commentary on Revelation, p. 98, as cited in J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 1965), 13. ↩

  2. David Chilton, Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Fort Worth: Dominion Press, 1987), 494. ↩

  3. John F. Walvoord, The Millennial Kingdom (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1959), 126. ↩

  4. Chuck Missler, “Shackles of our Presuppositions,” K-House Personal Update, 2009, https://www.khouse.org/personal_update/articles/2009/shackles-our-presuppositions. ↩