In order to appreciate Van Ruler's understanding of the kingdom we will present, in summary, a few contrasting understandings of the kingdom of God,2.8 with the names of those who represent them. The approach of `consistent eschatology' states that the coming of the kingdom must be understood exclusively as the intrusion of the great final catastrophe (A. Schweitzer, M. Werner).
W. Bousset supported a metaphysical-dualistic understanding which presents the kingdom as an eternal, invisible world of a higher order that surrounds our world.
The liberal theologians Harnack and Wellhausen represent an ethical-evolutionary approach which states that the kingdom is a reality in the souls of mankind. The eschatological aspect is relegated entirely to the background and is understood as merely an accommodation to the conditions of the time in which Jesus lived.
R. Bultmann represents the crisis or `Entscheidungs' approach which sees the New Testament idea of the approaching end of the world as belonging to the mythology of the time. The kingdom consists of the idea that every moment man is confronted with the necessity of deciding because the `now' is the last hour for him. The dominion of God does not enter the world but invokes man to make a choice against the world.
C. H. Dodd is well known for his realized eschatology which states that with the coming of Jesus the eschaton has become present instead of future, from the sphere of expectation it has passed into that of experience. The eschatological expectation has been fulfilled as a spiritual reality.
The salvation history approach rejects the notion that the kingdom is developing in this world as an immanent entity, as well as the basic tenet of radical eschatology, according to which the kingdom is supposed to have merely a future character. The dynamic meaning of the concept `kingdom of God' is emphasized, that is, the eschatological, redeeming and judging activity of God. The coming of the kingdom has a redemptive historical significance. That which Jesus preaches is not a timeless truth and what he brings is not only a new spirituality, a new disposition. It is also not a new form of society in the sense of the social gospel or an action carried on by men and slowly developing to its consummation. The kingdom is present on this earth as an historical reality, but in its eschatological essence it goes beyond this reality and includes more. In this sense authors like J.Jeremias, E.Stauffer, O.Cullmann and W.G.Kummel try to do justice to both the eschatological and the present character of the kingdom.