In Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God, George Eldon Ladd brings to the modern student of eschatology both an up-to-date survey of the literature of the kingdom of God and a fruitful discussion of some of the more crucial problems facing this concept which lie at the root of the controversies over this central theological subject. Rather than uncritically repeating the old inherited positions, Ladd makes a thorough and independent study oriented to the entire stream of biblical interpretation, and presents here the conclusions he feels the biblical data requires. Including the important literature on the subject in the French, German, and English, the author treats briefly the eschatological interpretations of the ancient, medieval, and modern writers. The section focusing on modern interpreters covers the formulations since Schweitzer and concludes with the modern search for a synthesis of the kingdom as futuristic and as a present reality.Feeling the biblical evidence requires a premillennial interpretation of the concept of the Kingdom of God, Ladd's own exegesis of the futurity and presence of the kingdom and of a millennial interregnum represents an informed and critical pre-millennialism.
He presents these formulations over against the popular dispensational form of the chiliastic position and against the amillennial position whose criticism of premillennialism, the author says, is limited to only its special dispensational form. "The book is thoroughly documented ...and opens a way for a new positive presentation of eschatological truth. Pastors and teachers will find it valuable as an aid to orienting their thinking in the field of eschatology." - Merrill C. Tenney Wheaton College. George Eldon Ladd (1911-1982) was professor of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California. His numerous books include The New Testament and Criticism, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, and Theology of the New Testament.