"Such was the Person of Jesus. He was the Divinely foreordained Messiah, the supernaturally-born King of Israel, the unique Son of God. What then had been his work? It is clear that the editor of the Gospel is much more concerned with Christ's doctrine than with his work, with what he had said than with what he had done. He is interested in the events of the life chiefly in so far as they proved Jesus to be the Messiah of the OT ... We might have expected to find a good deal more emphasis laid on the significance of Christ's death, but such emphasis is strikingly absent. The death is rather regarded as without significance in itself, but as a necessary stage in the revelation of the Messiah. He had come to found a Kingdom, but in accordance with the Divine plan had been put to death. Clearly then the Kingdom remained yet to come, and the death was a necessary prelude to glorification. ...
The Kingdom. - The central subject of Christ's
doctrine had been the near approach of the 'kingdom of the heavens.' With this
he began his ministry (4:17), and wherever he went he
taught this as a Good News
(4:23).
The Kingdom, he taught, was coming, but not in his lifetime.
After his ascension he would come as Son of man upon the clouds of
heaven
(16:27, 19:28, 24:30), would send his angels to gather
together the elect
(24:31, 13:41), and would sit on the throne of
his Glory (19:28, 25:31) ...
Then the twelve Apostles should
sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (19:28). In the
meantime he himself must suffer and die, and be raised from the dead. How else
could he come upon the clouds on heaven? And his disciples were to
preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom (10:7, 24:14) among
all nations, making disciples by baptism ... The body of disciples
thus gained would naturally form a society bound by common aims (16:18,
18:17). ... Hence the disciples of the Kingdom would form a new
spiritual Israel (21:43 'a nation') which would include
many who came from east and west (8:11).
In view of the
needs of this new Israel of Christ's disciples, i.e. of the
true sons of the Kingdom (13:38), who were to await
his coming on the clouds of heaven, it is natural that a large part of the
teaching recorded in the Gospel should concern the qualifications required in
those who hoped to enter the Kingdom when it came ...
Most of the parables in this Gospel are parables of the Kingdom. ... [they] convey some lesson about the nature of the Kingdom and the period of preparation for it. ... it should be sufficiently obvious that if we ask what meaning they had for the editor of the First Gospel, and why he selected them for insertion in his Gospel, the answer must be that he chose them because he believed that they taught lessons about the Kingdom of the heavens in the sense in which that phrase is used everywhere else in his Gospel, of the Kingdom which was to come when the Son of man came upon the clouds of heaven. Thus the parable of the sower illustrates the varying reception met with by the Good News of the Kingdom as it is preached amongst men. That of the tares also deals not with the Kingdom itself, but with the period of preparation for it. At the end of the age the Son of man will come to inaugurate his Kingdom ... The 'good seed' is interpreted as equivalent to the 'sons of the kingdom,' i.e. ... those who are destined to inherit it when it comes. It is not inaugurated until 'the end of the age.' ...
There is nothing here or elsewhere in this Gospel to suggest that the scene of the Kingdom is other than the present world renewed, restored, and purified."
The above quote is by Willoughby C. Allen in The Dictionary of Christ & The Gospels, Article: 'MATTHEW (GOSPEL)', Vol. 2, p. 144-145.
