The book opens with a broad overview of the Hebrews' progress from being called out as the chosen people of God, to the zenith of the Kingdom of Israel. Professor Bright notes some important distinctions of Israel and some significant developments in this stage of her history.

Bright emphasizes that "Israel's faith was a drastic and, one might say, a rationally inexplicable break with ancient paganism" (p. 24). It was monotheistic, aniconic (no form of imagery for God) and historically decisive in that God controls the events of history and natural forces. Nature is "de-mythologized" in Israel's faith. Bright emphasizes Israel's strong belief in their being the chosen people of Yahweh. This covenant belief permeates their consciousness. He also stresses that this was a covenant of grace, not being merited by Israel in any way, and that the Hebrews understood it as such. The "works righteousness" that the Apostle Paul preached against in New Testament times was not a distortion that characterized the faith of early Israel.

Israel began as a "tribal league" and not a nation. The tribes were bound together around the worship of a common God. Her leaders, from Moses to David, led by virtue of their charisma and talent for dealing with whatever problems beset Israel at their particular point in time. Heredity counted for nothing.

This mode of leadership began to change when Israel was faced with a more organized foe (i.e., the Philistines). The change in mode occurred with David, who was the last leader of Israel chosen for his charisma. He subdued the Philistines, established a capital at Jerusalem which was called "the city of David" (2 Sam. 5:9) and extended his empire over it's greatest expanse in history. The state that David established was so personally his own that it required one of his descendants to continue it, thus setting the pattern for the later succession of kings. With the reign of David and Solomon, Israel experienced a Golden Age, the like of which she as never seen since. Bright wonders whether Israel might then have believed that God had finally established his Kingdom. He then answers his own question in the negative.

There were too many people who remembered the moral covenant of God with Israel and disapproved of Solomon's breaking of it with politically expedient marriages to foreign women who brought the worship of their gods to Jerusalem. The nation of Israel entered a period of judgment pronounced on her by the Prophets (of which Bright focuses on Amos). Israel's faith in the covenant became a mechanical one. She approached Yahweh as she approached the pagan gods: In manipulative ritual rather than worship and obedience. She had become an "unfaithful wife" to her God, as the prophet Hosea reflected in his own experience with Gomer. The northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians, leaving only Judah as the hope of Israel and Isaiah as her prophet. Isaiah presented not only judgement, but hope that God will yet fulfill his promises to Israel through the coming Messiah and a remnant of God's people who shall repent through the purifying process of persecution. Isaiah turned the optimist when Assyria laid siege to Jerusalem, believing that God would save his faithful remnant out of Judah for his own sake and that of his servant David. (Bright seems to think that the later prophet Jeremiah was vexed by Isaiah's optimism, though this reader cannot see the evidence for that view.) The Assyrians did not conquer Jerusalem, but God was not really given the glory by its citizens for having delivered them. The Kingdom of God could no longer be identified with the kingdom of Judah (present or future). If Isaiah had hoped to make such an identification, he was forced to shift his hopes to some future remnant of Israel.

Bright suggests some application of Isaiah's message for our own day. We all yearn for good times of peace and prosperity, but "good times" for us may not be so from God's point of view: "... For the purpose of God for us is not the comfort of our bodies or the preservation of our interests, but the discipline of our spirits that we may become truly his people" (p. 96).

The prophet Jeremiah saw a brief attempt at reform under King Josiah. Though it looked promising, it did not go very deep. All the external evidence of reform was there, but little lasting change of heart among the people. Bright suggests that the people lost heart in the reform when it did not seem to pay off in tangible terms (i.e., according to pagan standards of prosperity for appeasing deity -- p. 110). After the collapse of reform, Jeremiah pointed toward the rising power of Babylon as the tool of God's punishment on the sinful state.

Jeremiah was agonized and torn by his ministry of prophet, yet in him Bright finds a model for true faith:

... Here indeed we learn what faith really is: not that smug faith which is untroubled by questions because it has never asked any; but that true faith which has asked all the questions and received very few answers, yet has heard the command, Gird up your loins! Do your duty! Remember your calling! Cast yourself forward upon God!

In this connection, it would seem, Jeremiah refutes the popular, modern notion that the end of religion is an integrated personality, freed of its fears, its doubts, and its frustrations. ... Spiritual health is good; mental assurance is good. But the summons of faith is neither to an integrated personality nor to the laying by of all questions, but to the dedication of personality--with all its fears and questions--to its duty and destiny under God (pp. 119-120).

The Covenant of Israel with God had been irreparably broken. Yet God is faithful and, through his judgement, Jeremiah pointed toward a New Covenant and a new start; a covenant not written on tablets of stone, but on the heart of God's people (Jer. 31:31­34).

The house of Judah fell into captivity and Bright continues the story through the writing and ministry of Second (Deutero-) Isaiah. In a footnote (p. 136) he briefly describes the reasons for regarding chapters 40 - 66 of the book of Isaiah as being written by a later prophet who was apparently living in the Babylonian captivity in the late 6th century B.C. While the argument seems good on the face of it, there also seem to be good reasons for viewing the whole book as the work of the earlier Isaiah. [A summary of the arguments, pro and con, which favors the unity of Isaiah may be found in the introduction to Geoffrey W. Grogan's commentary on Isaiah in vol. 6 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary.] Here, though, the vision of the Suffering Servant is developed. In the sacrificial labor of this Servant, God's people may find meaning in their suffering that transcends the actual suffering itself.

In the centuries following the exile, two paradoxical perspectives on the Kingdom of God emerged. With the attempts at rebuilding Jerusalem and the Temple, an apocalyptic mind-set emerged. Leaving relative comfort and security in Babylon, a remnant had returned to rebuild. The feeling among them was that the Kingdom was soon to be established. This perspective did not significantly diminish as the vision of Israel as the Holy Commonwealth, based on the keeping of the law, emerged: "If the Apocalyptic hoped for a Kingdom that only God could produce, it might be said that the Holy Commonwealth envisioned a Kingdom with man's righteousness could, if not produce, at least precipitate" (p. 170). "Apocalypse and Law point to an inescapable paradox in the notion of the Kingdom of God. The former affirms that the Kingdom is beyond man's doing. The latter replies that it is nevertheless a Kingdom that demands every thing of man; it expresses the deep conviction that God will rule only over an obedient and righteous people" (p. 177). This tension was to carry Israel though the Hellenization of the Middle East and on up through the conquest by Rome and the coming of Jesus, the Messiah.

Bright then launches into a very fine exposition of Jesus as the Messiah. There is no doubt in his mind that both Jesus and his early followers understood him as the One who was to come and fulfill the promise of the Kingdom to Israel. Needless to say, however, Jesus did not fulfill this expectation in everyone's eyes. Jesus did not fulfill the popular patterns of the Messiah.

Some (like the Zealots) expected him to be a liberator in the political sense, come to deliver Israel from the yoke of Rome. Others (the Pharisees) looked for the return of the Holy Commonwealth of Israel through strict observance of the Law. Still others expressed an apocalyptic hope--a catastrophic intervention of God to establish an eternal Kingdom. Even Jesus' disciples still wondered after the Resurrection if he would restore the Kingdom of Israel (probably having the "golden age" of the Davidic empire in mind). Jesus met none of these desires. Bright stresses that Jesus did not come to proclaim a new ethic, reveal a God that was unknown to the Jews, or give them a loftier idea of God. Jesus message was that their God had acted at their point in history to fulfill his eternal promise of salvation.

This expectation gap was at the root of the rejection by most people of Jesus as the promised Messiah. Not only did Jesus not fulfill the popular expectations of the Messiah, but he went beyond blasphemy, claiming divine status for himself. He did not give a detailed formulation of his deity (perhaps because he wished to keep the theologians of later centuries busy) but there is no doubt that he claimed a special divine status, a Sonship to God. He spoke God's words in the first person with the annoying practice of saying "Truly, truly I say to you ...", not "Thus says the Lord ...", and "Moses said in the Law ... but I say to you ...".

Jesus took the role of the Suffering Servant foretold by the prophet Isaiah and suffused all other messianic patterns with this one. It was not understood to be a messianic role by most people. It is evident that the nascent Church understood him in this role, however (Phil. 2:5-11; cf. Isa. 52:13-53:12), as did Christ himself. Christ's call to those who would be his followers is to be imitators of him in this sense.

"It lies at the very heart of the gospel message to affirm that the Kingdom of God has in a real sense become present fact, here and now" (p. 216). Jesus came announcing that "the Kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15). The miracles that Jesus performed were and integral part of this conviction of both Jesus and the gospel writers. With regard to the miracles of Jesus, Bright plows a middle ground between those who are skeptical of supernatural manifestations of power and those who focus on, and defend the absolutely supernatural character of them as peripheral manifestations of Christ's power done in order to prove that Christ was who he claimed to be. Perhaps he is avoiding some tough questions here, but he does come up with a good point: The miracles of Jesus were "integral to his person" and "were understood eschatologically". They represented the cosmic struggle taking place between the Kingdom of God and the present evil age. They are never spoken of as "signs and wonders" but are instead referred to as "mighty works". They are not proofs of an identity but advertisements of an event.

Christ called his followers to be servants of the Kingdom. He appealed to the hearts of individual people. The members of his Kingdom are those that obey him.

Bright gives a very good exposition of the paradox of the Kingdom being a present and victorious reality, yet did not seem so from outward appearances. The Cross would appear to be defeat, yet it broke the stranglehold of sin upon humankind and defeated the power of evil and death once for all. Curiously, professor Bright refers only to the Cross and does not mention the Resurrection in this connection. He mentions it only in passing when he goes on to discuss the "eschatological community" that Jesus left behind to live out the implications of the Kingdom now come (pp. 231-233).

Bright's discussion of how the New Testament Church had to live "in tension between its confidence that the victory of the Kingdom of God had already been made actual in Christ, and its eager expectation of the victory which as yet no human eye could see" is very challenging and inspiring. The Kingdom is both a present and future reality. The apocalyptic vision presented in the book of Revelation is "a powerful summons to Christians of all ages to stand firm in the faith with utter confidence that the triumph of God's purpose is quite sure. It is also a reminder to the Christian that in the cosmic moral struggle there is no neutrality, that in his every action he is invited to take sides--for the kingdom or against it" (p. 240). It was a vision presented to a church that needed to endure suffering and remain faithful. The present-day Church is not that kind of church and does not wish to be. For much of it "the victory has been so long delayed that we no longer believe in its coming, and are content to nurture ourselves if, perchance, we many only survive". Other parts of it have become triumphalistic, seeking to bring the Kingdom to its consummation with energetic programs.

The book concludes with a very thought provoking chapter which applies the principles of the kingdom of God to the modern Church. There is much cause for reflection here and every word of it needs to be said as a challenge for the "Church to be the Church". However, this reader finds a few things to criticize.

Professor Bright begins the final chapter with a suggestion for too much of a shift in the eschatological vision of the church. He notes that the early Church believed in the immanent consummation of history; the Kingdom would come soon, in their generation. Today, he says, we have no assurance that we are living in the "last days". Perhaps not, but is there any more assurance that we aren't? Even if the End is still a long way off, it's still true that each person is living in their last days. The urgency of our own contribution in calling people to the Kingdom and living out its message is no less. The end of the age may come later for all than it does for us, but it will come soon for us just the same. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What we do before that time will make a difference, by the grace of God, in both our own preparedness and the preparation others make for the Kingdom.

What bothers me is the way Bright seems to use this condition to justify a shift in perspective away from individual concern for the Kingdom to a corporate concern when the two should be in balance. He says that we have more to do with the condition of "sin" than with "sins" (p. 247), yet clearly these are two sides of the same coin. When Christians err in focusing on the latter they become self-righteous and bigoted, as Bright correctly points out. But to err by focusing too much on the former leads to hypocrisy and a weak sense of personal accountability. In order to bolster that sense of accountability, Bright seems prone to couching his admonishments in existentialist terms. But there are few of us who can be good for goodness sake alone. What is good depends on the God with whom we have to do--both as individuals and as the Church.

Our hearts often do respond to inspired ideals presented in the manner that Bright does. But, for many of us perhaps, the inspiration works only on occasion and then not for very long. All the things that he calls the Church to be are good and right and I have little quarrel with them. But the impetus he gives for these things seems inadequate (though it is necessary). My moods also respond to the caffeine in my cup of coffee, but if I had to depend on caffeine to get me though life, I would soon become an emotional wreck. (Substitute any events, activities or thoughts that give you an emotional lift, if you're not a coffee drinker, and I think my point will be the same.) I have to know how to handle myself during the many times that I am beyond such stimulation. Most of what Bright says in this final chapter works well as a often needed stimulus which helps me to see the purposes of God on the grand scale when I am overcome by life's more mundane situations. I expect to come to that stimulus time and time again, but I will always have to put the book down, let those inspiring thoughts recede to the back of my mind and continue the struggle with my own sinful nature in the events of everyday life (yet, hopefully with a renewed and strengthened perspective on that struggle). We desperately need such inspiration to lift us out of the mundane on occasion. But we also need the more definite discipline of personal accountability to get us through the between times. Being faithful to the grand vision as the Church requires individuals who are faithful in smaller things. Examples are easier followed than just plain ideals.