<p>17:21 <i>Neither shall they say, Here it is, or, There it is For the kingdom of God is among you- </i>The life that He had and now lives is the essence of the Kingdom life. Who He was and is, this is the definition of the Kingdom life. It&rsquo;s why one of His titles is &ldquo;the kingdom of God&rdquo;. And it&rsquo;s why it can be said that we &lsquo;have&rsquo; eternal life now, in that we can live the essence of the life we will eternally live, right now. &quot;The kingdom of God is within you&quot; (AV) is more correctly translated &quot;the kingdom of God is <i>among</i> you&quot; (see A.V. mg.).&nbsp;The context shows that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees (:20);&nbsp;the &quot;you&quot; therefore refers to them.&nbsp;They were certainly not Christian believers- the kingdom of God was not established in <i>their</i> hearts. The Jews were making a great public show of their zeal in looking for Messiah.&nbsp;In this passage, &quot;the kingdom of God&quot; seems to be a title of Messiah, seeing He is to be the king of the kingdom.&nbsp;Thus when the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people shouted, &quot;Blessed is he (Messiah) that comes in the name of the Lord:&nbsp;blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that comes in the name of the Lord&quot; (Mark 11:9,10).&nbsp;This parallels Messiah and &quot;the kingdom&quot;.&nbsp;Thus John the Baptist preached that &quot;the kingdom of heaven is at hand.&nbsp;For this is he (Jesus) that was (prophesied)&quot; (Matt. 3:2,3).&nbsp;So here, the Lord answered their question about &quot;when the kingdom of God should come&quot;, by speaking about the coming of &quot;the son of man&quot;. His point was that the Jews were making so much show of being on the look out for Messiah's coming, expecting Him to be suddenly revealed in power, that they failed to realize that that Messiah- &quot;the kingdom of God&quot;- was already among them in the humble person of Jesus.&nbsp;Thus He warned them:&nbsp;&quot;The kingdom of God (Messiah) comes not with outward show... behold, the kingdom of God is among you&quot; (Luke 17:20,21). A well known theologian, Joachim Jeremias, has come to the same conclusion: &ldquo;The meaning &lsquo;indwelling in&rsquo; can certainly be excluded. Neither in Judaism nor elsewhere in the New Testament do we find the idea that the reign of God is something indwelling in men, to be found, say, in the heart; such a spiritualistic understanding is ruled out both for Jesus and for the early Christian tradition&rdquo; (Joachim Jeremias, <i>New Testament Theology</i> (London: SCM, 1972) p. 101).&nbsp;He goes on to draw out the parallel between Lk. 17:21 and Lk. 17:23,24: &ldquo;Neither shall they say, Lo, here or, There for lo, the kingdom of God is within you&hellip;And they shall say to you, Lo, there Lo, here go not away, nor follow after them: for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the heaven, shines unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of man be in his day&rdquo;. <br />The parallel is between the Kingdom of God coming at the return of Christ at the last day- and the Kingdom being &lsquo;within&rsquo; or &lsquo;among&rsquo; you. Jeremias suggests on this basis that &ldquo;the Kingdom of God is within / among you&rdquo; means &lsquo;The Kingdom of God will come among you suddenly and visibly, at the last day- so it&rsquo;s no good expecting it right at this moment now&rsquo;.<br />Who He was and is, this is the definition of the Kingdom life. It&rsquo;s why one of His titles is &ldquo;the kingdom of God&rdquo; (Lk. 17:21). And it&rsquo;s why it can be said that we &lsquo;have&rsquo; eternal life now, in that we can live the essence of the life we will eternally live, right now.</p>