which is “a strengthened form of ἐν used where it is important to exclude any of the possible meanings of that preposition other than ‘inside’ . . . When Luke means ‘among’, he says ἐν μέσῳ.”4
Colin Roberts takes a middle position. He recognizes “within” as the correct translation of ἐντός, dismantling the attempt to derive “among” from two Xenophon passages, arguing for the meaning “within” or “within the limits of.”5 Roberts sees Luke 17:21 intending both internal and external meanings. The kingdom is “a present reality, but only if you wish it to be so”; it is not “something external to men, independent of their volitions and actions”; elsewhere, the kingdom can be received, sought, or possessed.6 A weaker form of this view is given by J. C. O’Neill, for whom the kingdom-within means “the responsibility for doing what God required actually lay within their own grasp.”7 These are correct, as far as they go, but they do not go far enough; they underestimate the forcefulness of the single-word object; the kingdom is within “you,” not merely “within your power, your choice.” Do people have decision-making power? Of course, but this unremarkable point is not the punch line of one of Jesus’ most vivid sayings. What is it that they would be choosing, except to experience God’s reign in their own lives? This is the whole import of Jesus’ teaching, and it is obtainable by any person! A point that should follow from Roberts’s and O’Neill’s emphasis on free choice is that it is largely a message directed at individuals—not that any contrast is being made between individual and group. Verse 21 uses both the grammatically singular imperative “look!” (ἰδού) and the plural pronoun “you” (ὑμῶν).
The point is that people have the inward or spiritual capacity to experience God’s kingdom, although some readers resist this suggestion, since the saying is addressed to Jesus’ enemies, the Pharisees. It is precisely this fact that testifies to its genuineness: it is too radical for doctrinaire people to handle, including latter-day scribes who are sure that Jesus cannot have made the kingdom so readily available, even to Pharisees! But it makes sense both that the historical Jesus said it, and that the author Luke recorded it, since it is consistent with the message (in all the Gospels) that the kingdom is available to all, and because Luke includes more positive portraits of Pharisees than the other evangelists.8 What is stunning about this passage is that Jesus says the kingdom is already resident within people. It may not yet be realized, but it is “within” you.
Some analysts think the “within you” notion sounds Gnostic, and reject it for that reason. But this is anachronistic and distorting. The Gospel was written prior to the sharp division between Gnostics and orthodox, before the Gnostics made some of his sayings their favorites, and the orthodox made others determinative. There is no reason that Jesus could not have said something that later hearers think sounds “Gnostic,” any more than it is impossible for Jesus to have said something that later hearers will pronounce “Catholic-sounding” or “Protestant-seeming,” even though he spoke them centuries before these church divisions emerged. A supposedly Gnostic-sounding saying in no way implies an endorsement of later-articulated Gnostic doctrines about cosmic corruption, a hidden Father, or the body as a tomb of the soul.
Other critics allege that Luke 17:21 cannot mean that the kingdom is internal, that such a notion occurs nowhere else in the Gospels. This overlooks the closely related idea of being filled with the Holy Spirit, which is central to Luke’s two works. The Spirit comes upon the disciples (Acts 1:8), it fills them (Luke 1:15, 41, 67; 12:12; Acts 2:17; 4:8) and speaks the word of God through them (Acts 2:4; 4:31). In fact, the Spirit spoke through David and the prophets (Luke 1:70; Acts 1:16; 4:25; 28:25). To be “full of the Spirit” is to be “full of grace and power” (Acts 6:3, 8), able to prophesy (Luke 1:67; Acts 2:18), even to see the “glory of God” (Acts 7:55). These teachings about the motivating power of the Spirit are just one place to look for hints of Luke’s received tradition about the kingdom. One could look further into the thinking and feeling aspects of faith, and their relation to action.
The exhortation to look within would logically mean that people should look for evidence of God’s activity within their minds, their values, and their religious experience. In the canonical Gospels, Jesus never over-emphasizes one of these three at the expense of the other two. One is to love God with mind, heart (one’s deepest values), and soul (which manifests in action). The notion of a kingdom within does not speak of an imbalance in the spiritual life, but of a profound balance between thinking, feeling, and doing. One thinks about the will of God, hungers and yearns for God, and does the will of God (Matt 5:6; 7:21; 21:31; Luke 8:21; 10:27).
Inwardness is important in all the Synoptic Gospels. What characterizes a person is the “treasure” or “light”—or “evil”—within (Luke 6:45; 11:35–36; Matt 6:23; 12:34–35; Mark 7:15, 20). “Treasure” refers to one’s deepest desires and values, and spiritual desire shapes destiny: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:34). We are to seek “treasure in heaven” (Luke 12:33; 18:22; Matt 6:20; 19:21; Mark 10:21).
A divine indwelling also occurs in John: Jesus is within the believer: “I abide in you”; “I in them”; “the love . . . in them” (John 15:4; 17:23; 17:26). “The Spirit of Truth . . . will be in you” (John 14:17). All these sayings use ἐν, a preposition related to ἐντός, as do passages in the Johannine and Pauline epistles that speak of Christ within (1 John 3:24; 4:13; Rom 8:10; Gal 2:20; Col 1:27; 3:11). This inwardness has profound results. All the streams of the NT teach that people can “discern what is the will of God” (Rom 12:2; cf. Col 1:9; Eph 5:17; Jas 1:25), and then actually “do the will of God” (John 7:17); in fact, a follower of Jesus is defined as “whoever does the will of God” (Mark 3:35; cf. Matt 7:21; 12:50). One acts out of the treasure of the heart, and that can be “good treasure” (Matt 12:35; Luke 6:45).
Despite the emphasis of many theologians, the historical Jesus was not pessimistic about human nature. People can actually love God “with all your heart” (Luke 10:27). People can be “pure in heart” (Matt 5:8). The Johannine tradition does emphasize a certain inwardness of spiritual experience—“The Holy Spirit . . . will teach you everything” (John 14:26; cf. 1 John 2:27)—but the Spirit-within is a central Lukan and Pauline theme, and doing the will of God is a central Matthean and Markan theme.
The Apostle Paul certainly has a concept of inwardness: “our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). The believer has the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16); the transformed mind discerns the will of God (Rom 12:2). In fact, we will “be conformed to the image of his Son” (Rom 8:29; cf. Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 15:49), and will be “transformed into the same image” (2 Cor 3:18; cf. Col 3:10). For teachings on transformation, the Pauline literature is the richest in the NT, yet we see them elsewhere as well: we “may become participants of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4; cf. 5:4); “we will be like him” (1 John 3:2); “will shine like the sun” (Matt 13:43); and “stand without blemish” (Jude 24).
The notion of an indwelling divinity, or at least a capacity for individual perception of divinity, is not alien to the OT, either. “The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord, searching every inmost part” (Prov 20:27). “Truly it is the spirit in a mortal, the breath of the Almighty, that makes for understanding” (Job 32:8). The Lord spoke to Elijah as “a still small voice” (1 Kgs 19:12 RSV). These theological points suggest an anthropological one: “There is something divine in man, or he could know nothing of God.”9 The notion that people have God-receptive capacities or spiritual faculties, often called “natural theology,” is a time-honored thread in Christian thought, though often attacked.
Still, the kingdom is not separable from Christ. The NT affirms Christ as not only the revealer, but the bringer, of the kingdom. His healings and exorcisms reveal the kingdom: “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Matt 12:28; cf. Luke 11:20). Many scholars who resist the notion of an inward kingdom will allow that such texts—and not just the “eternal life” passages in John—speak of “realized eschatology,” the
