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Document: Herman Ridderbos, When the Time had Fully Come: Studies in New Testament Theology (Jordan Station, ON.: Paideia Press, 1957).
Excerpt: The Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is one of the most central concepts in the history of revelation. Prepared in the Old Testament, notably in the so-called enthronement Psalms and in the prophecies, it makes its appearance in the overture of the New Testament as the contents of the great proclamation of salvation, first of the herald, John the Baptist, then of Christ Himself: “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15) . Especially in the Synoptic Gospels it remains in the foreground. It constitutes the nucleus of Christ’s parables, indeed of His entire mission and message. In John and Paul, however, it seems to withdraw. But this is only seemingly so, as I hope to show in detail in connection with Paul. And the conclusion of the New Testament, the Apocalypse of John, is connected with the beginning, inasmuch as in it the great antithesis between the Kingdom of God and the powers of the world is forcibly and dramatically expressed in all its fullness. So it can be established that the New Testament as a whole is the book of the revelation of the Kingdom of God.
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When The Time Had Fully Come: Studies in New Testament Theology – H. Ridderbos.pdf