Realized Eschatology: The Kingdom as Present Reality

Central Claim: The eschatological promises of scripture were fulfilled in the consciousness and ministry of Jesus and are available now to the believer. The Kingdom of God is not a future event but a present dimension of reality accessible through awakened awareness.

What is Eschatology?

Eschatology (from Greek eschatos, “last things”) is the theological study of end times, final events, and ultimate destiny.

Traditional eschatology addresses:

The Second Coming of Christ
The Final Judgment
The Resurrection of the Dead
The New Heaven and New Earth

Three Eschatological Frameworks

1. Futurist Eschatology

Position: All major eschatological events are yet to occur in the future.

The Kingdom of God will be established at Christ’s Second Coming
Current age is marked by waiting and preparation
Emphasis on apocalyptic prophecy and end-times signs

Psychological implication: Defers liberation to a future timeline, reinforcing temporal identification.

2. Inaugurated Eschatology

Position: The Kingdom has been inaugurated but not consummated—”already but not yet.”

Jesus’s ministry initiated the Kingdom
The Kingdom is growing but not yet complete
Believers experience a tension between present reality and future hope

Psychological implication: Maintains a split between present and future, partial liberation.

3. Realized Eschatology

Position: The eschatological promises were fully realized in Jesus’s ministry and are accessible now.

The Kingdom of God is already fully present
“Second Coming” is spiritual realization, not a future historical event
All waiting is a failure to perceive what is

Psychological implication: Collapses temporal deferral, inviting immediate recognition of the eternal now.

C.H. Dodd and the Birth of Realized Eschatology

The Provocative Thesis

In 1935, British biblical scholar C.H. Dodd introduced Realized Eschatology in his groundbreaking work The Parables of the Kingdom.

Dodd argued that Jesus’s central proclamation:

“The time has come… The kingdom of God has come near.” (Mark 1:15)

…should be translated:

“The time is fulfilled… The kingdom of God has arrived.”

The Kingdom is not approaching—it has arrived. The vertical dimension of eternity has intersected the horizontal dimension of time.

The Reinterpretation of Prophecy

Dodd’s thesis posited that:

All Bible prophecies about the Kingdom were fulfilled during Jesus’s lifetime
The prophetic language of “last days” referred to the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Waiting for a future fulfillment misses the present reality

This reframes eschatology from chronology (future timeline) to ontology (immediate reality).

The Challenge to Conventional Christianity

Realized Eschatology challenges core assumptions:

Not waiting for Jesus to return in a future historical event
Not awaiting a future judgment day
Not hoping for a distant New Heaven and Earth

Instead:

Jesus is present now in awakened consciousness
Judgment is the present discernment between illusion and truth
The “New Earth” is the transformed perception of this reality

The Non-Dual Interpretation

The Kingdom Within

Jesus’s most direct statement on this:

“The Kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)

Non-dual reading:

The Kingdom is not a geographic location (“see here” / “see there”)
The Kingdom is not a future event (“does not come with observation”)
The Kingdom is an interior dimension—the Nunc Stans, the timeless awareness

The Kingdom is your true nature recognized.

Jesus as Revealer, Not Exception

In the non-dual framework, Jesus is not the only Son of God but the prototype demonstrating what all humanity is:

“I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)

This is not a claim of unique divinity but a demonstration of the Divine Spark realized:

Jesus lived from the Nunc Stans (eternal now)
Jesus demonstrated that death (time-bound narrative) is illusory
Jesus revealed the Kingdom by being the Kingdom

His resurrection is the ultimate validation: The constraints of the narrative (death, time) are secondary to the power of awakened consciousness.

The “Second Coming” as Spiritual Awakening

Realized Eschatology reinterprets the “Second Coming”:

Not a future return of a physical Jesus
Instead: The recognition of the Christ principle within

“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27)

The “coming” is the arrival in your awareness of what has always been present.

When you recognize you are the Listener, not the Voice, Christ has “returned.”

The Collapse of the “Not Yet”

Orthodox Tension: Already But Not Yet

Traditional “Inaugurated Eschatology” maintains:

Already: The Kingdom is present in the Church, in believers, in acts of love
Not Yet: The Kingdom is not fully manifest; evil, suffering, and death persist

This creates a productive tension for action while acknowledging incompleteness.

Realized: Only the “Already” Exists

Realized Eschatology argues:

The “not yet” is generated solely by human failure to perceive the “already”
The Kingdom is fully present; suffering persists because of mistaken identity
Focusing on the “not yet” reinforces the illusion of separation and incompleteness

The Gnosis: Recognize the “already,” and the “not yet” collapses.

This is the meaning of anamnesis (recollection)—remembering what is already true.

Realized Eschatology and the DMN Framework

Time as the Barrier

The hijacked DMN maintains the illusion of time:

Past: Rumination on trauma, regret
Future: Anxiety about what’s coming, hope for “later”
Present: Missed entirely, obscured by temporal projection

The “not yet” of traditional eschatology feeds the DMN’s temporal narrative:

“Salvation is coming later”
“The Kingdom will arrive when Jesus returns”
“I will be whole after the resurrection”

This keeps consciousness trapped in the nunc fluens—the flowing, anxious now.

The Eternal Now as the Kingdom

Realized Eschatology invites the shift from nunc fluens to Nunc Stans:

Chronos (linear time, waiting) → Kairos (divine time, the opportune moment)
The Kingdom is not ahead in time—it is orthogonal to time
Accessing the Kingdom requires exiting the temporal narrative, not completing it

Neurologically: Quieting the DMN dissolves the temporal self, revealing the timeless Kingdom.

Theologically: Realizing the Kingdom collapses the waiting.

Critiques and Responses

Orthodox Critique: “Over-Realized Eschatology”

Critics argue Realized Eschatology ignores:

“The terrible sinfulness, brokenness, and misery that still characterizes human life.”

The objection: If the Kingdom is already fully present, why is there still suffering?

The Non-Dual Response

Suffering persists because of identification with the illusion, not because the Kingdom is incomplete.

The Kingdom (the Nunc Stans) is the absolute reality
Suffering (the nunc fluens) is the dream state
Recognizing the Kingdom within does not deny the suffering in the dream—it provides the exit

Analogy: A person having a nightmare is truly safe in bed. Waking them up does not deny the nightmare was experienced; it reveals the nightmare was not reality.

The Danger of Passive Quietism

The concern: If everything is “already perfect,” won’t people become passive, ignoring injustice?

The Response on Action

Recognizing the Kingdom paradoxically empowers action:

Acting from fear and ego (the hijacked DMN) generates reactive, often harmful action
Acting from peace and love (the realized Kingdom) generates compassionate, effective action

See: The Parable of the Talents—the Kingdom is not static but generative.

Awakening to the Kingdom does not mean inaction; it means acting from the Divine Spark rather than the counterfeit spirit.

N.T. Wright’s Defense of History

Theologian N.T. Wright argues that Realized Eschatology:

Diminishes the material world (risks Gnosticism)
Ignores the bodily resurrection as a validation of matter
Underestimates the New Creation as a future transformation of the cosmos

The Non-Dual Counter-Position

The non-dual view does not negate matter but re-contextualizes it:

Matter is not evil (Gnosticism) but secondary to consciousness
The Resurrection validates the malleability of the narrative (matter) under awakened consciousness
The “New Creation” is the perception shift from Kenoma (emptiness/illusion) to Pleroma (fullness/reality)

See: Orthodox Critiques for detailed engagement.

Kingdom Now Theology and Preterism

Kingdom Now

“Kingdom Now” theology applies Realized Eschatology to social and political action:

The Church is called to manifest the Kingdom in society now
Waiting for divine intervention is abdication of responsibility
The Kingdom’s values (justice, peace, love) should shape current structures

Alignment with this framework: The Kingdom is not a passive mystical state but an active reclamation.

Preterism

Preterism argues that biblical prophecies (especially Revelation) were fulfilled by AD 70 (destruction of Jerusalem).

Full Preterism claims all eschatological events (including the Second Coming) occurred in the first century.

Relevance: If the “end times” are past, the Kingdom is unequivocally now.

Practical Implications

Immediate Liberation

Realized Eschatology removes the temporal barrier to liberation:

You do not need to wait for Jesus to return
You do not need to wait for death to access Heaven
You do not need to wait for a future apocalypse to see the Kingdom

The Kingdom is accessible in this breath.

The Central Practice

To realize the Kingdom:

Recognize the temporal trap: Notice when your mind is in past or future
Return to the now: Bring awareness to present sensory experience
Ask the question: “Are you the voice or the Listener?”

The Kingdom is the awareness that is aware of the Voice—the Listener.

Dying to the Old, Birthing the New

Joel Goldsmith’s “Infinite Way” teaching:

“The Kingdom of Heaven is on earth now.”

But accessing it requires “dying daily”:

Not physical death
The death of the “old man” (the egoic, time-bound self)
Revealing the “new man” (the Christ consciousness, the eternal Self)

This is re-claiming, not destruction—transforming the Demon back into a Daemon.

Translation Table: Eschatological Frameworks

Aspect	Futurist	Inaugurated	Realized	This Framework
Kingdom Status	Coming soon	Already begun, not complete	Fully present now	The Nunc Stans, always accessible
Believer’s Task	Wait and prepare	Participate in growth	Recognize and awaken	Dis-identify from Voice, recognize Listener
Second Coming	Future historical event	Spiritual + future physical	Spiritual realization	Recognition of Christ within
Judgment	Future day of reckoning	Ongoing and final	Present discernment	Identifying illusion vs. truth
Suffering Explained	Result of sin, awaiting restoration	Birth pangs of new creation	Result of ignorance/non-recognition	DMN hijacking creating temporal loops
Temporal Orientation	Future-focused	Tension between now/later	Present-focused	Exit from time into Nunc Stans

Key Insights

Realized Eschatology collapses waiting—the Kingdom is now, not later
The “not yet” is a perceptual error—suffering persists due to mistaken identity, not Kingdom’s incompleteness
Jesus demonstrated the realized Kingdom—living from the eternal now, transcending death
Liberation is immediate—not dependent on future events but present recognition
The Second Coming is awakening—recognizing Christ (the Divine Spark) within

Scholarly Sources

C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (1935)
John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991)
Joel Goldsmith, The Infinite Way (1947)
N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (2008) — Orthodox critique
A Course in Miracles (1976) — Non-dual application

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

Not “will be fulfilled”—is fulfilled. Not “is coming”—is at hand. The Kingdom is here. The invitation is to perceive it.

“Realize the Kingdom now, or spend eternity in the waiting room of time.”