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The Present Aspect of the Kingdom

• For people to be healed and delivered by the power of God
(Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20).
• For Jesus to come again (Luke 22:18; Revelation 12:10; 22:20).

Tasting the Powers of the Age to Come

Jesus and the apostles talked about “this age” and “the age to come.”
The writer of Hebrews speaks of those who had “tasted…of…the powers
of the coming age” (Hebrews 6:5). In this verse, he ties the two ages
together. He says that in this age we can experience the powers of the
coming age. George Eldon Ladd comments, “The Age to Come is still
future, but we may taste the powers of that Age. Something has happened
by virtue of that which belongs to the future has become present. The
powers of the Age to Come have penetrated This Age” (Ladd 1959, 41)

What is this power of the age to come?
It is the power of God manifested through
the Holy Spirit. Today we taste the powers In this age we
of the age to come when we are saved, are only “tasting”
filled with the Spirit, healed, or otherwise
touched by the Spirit of God. of the powers of
the coming age.
There have been various “comings” of
the kingdom of God to earth. The kingdom
of heaven has broken into this age in
different ways and at different times. God’s presence and power has
been manifested throughout history. Figure 3.1 illustrates three major
breakthroughs of the Kingdom: the incarnation, Pentecost, and the
second coming of Christ (which is yet to come).

We must remember that in this age we are only “tasting” of the powers
of the coming age. The kingdom of God is really here, but it is not fully
here. Don Williams wrote:

The reason why this truth is so gripping is that it illumines so much
of our present experience. It explains both our sense of triumph
in Christ and the continuing spiritual warfare which we fight on
many fronts. It explains the reality that we have died with Christ
and, at the same time, the flesh still wars against the spirit. It

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