The central claim being advanced was straightforward. Christ is not yet reigning in any meaningful sense because the world is still filled with evil, disorder, and rebellion. Therefore, He must return in the future to establish His kingdom, understood as a visible, earthly Davidic reign in which such conditions no longer exist. That argument has an intuitive appeal. But it rests on a definition of “reign” that Scripture itself does not use.
The pushback typically takes the form of a question: if Christ is reigning now, why does the world still look like this? Why is there still so much evil, conflict, and instability? Underneath that question is an assumption that often goes unexamined, namely, that reign must mean the immediate absence of opposition. In other words, if Christ were truly reigning, the world would already reflect a state of universal peace and righteousness. But that definition is not drawn from the biblical text. It is imposed onto it.
When we turn to the passages that actually shape the New Testament’s understanding of Christ’s kingship, a different pattern emerges. Psalm 110 is decisive here. The psalm speaks of the enthroned king seated at God’s right hand “until” his enemies are made a footstool, and it explicitly describes him as ruling “in the midst of” those enemies. This is not a picture of reign beginning after opposition disappears. It is a picture of reign exercised in the presence of opposition, moving toward its subjugation.
This same structure is carried directly into the New Testament. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:25 that Christ “must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet.” The logic is explicit. Christ’s reign is not postponed until the defeat of His enemies; His reign is the means by which that defeat is accomplished. The presence of enemies, therefore, is not evidence against His reign. It is the very context in which that reign is being carried out.
At this point, some will attempt to soften the force of this present-tense language. In the debate, the premillennial position appealed to what is often called the “prophetic perfect,” suggesting that passages describing believers as already raised and seated with Christ are simply speaking of future realities as though they have already occurred. While such a category exists in certain contexts, its application here is misplaced. Paul is not projecting a future hope in past-tense form; he is describing a present reality grounded in union with the risen Christ. The language is not anticipatory but participatory. To reclassify these statements as “not yet true” is not demanded by the text itself, but by a prior commitment to a framework in which Christ’s reign must still be future. In that case, the category functions less as an exegetical insight and more as a way of explaining away the force of the passage.
A category error often enters the discussion at this point. Two distinct biblical realities are collapsed into one. On the one hand, there is Christ’s present reign, established in His enthronement, exercised through His authority, and advancing through the subjugation of His enemies. On the other hand, there is the future consummation, when death itself is destroyed and the full effects of that reign are manifested without remainder. Scripture maintains this distinction. The objection erases it. The absence of evil is not the definition of Christ’s reign; it is the result of its completion.
This also clarifies how the appeal to David is frequently mishandled. It is often said that David was anointed long before he truly reigned, and that this provides a typological framework for understanding Christ as enthroned but not yet reigning. But this misreads David’s own kingship. David was not an inactive or merely nominal king during the period before he ruled over all Israel. He reigned concretely and authoritatively over Judah. His rule was real, though not yet extended over the entire nation. What followed was not the beginning of his reign, but its expansion.
The pattern, then, is not enthronement without reign followed by later reign. It is real reign followed by fuller manifestation. David’s authority was exercised from the outset, even as opposition remained and consolidation was still underway. That is the relevant analogy, and it aligns closely with the New Testament’s presentation of Christ. The difference, of course, is that Christ’s authority is not geographically limited or politically contested in the way David’s was. There is no rival throne, no competing dynasty, no uncertainty about His status. The question is not whether He reigns, but how that reign is being worked out in history.
This brings us to the prophetic imagery often invoked in these discussions, particularly in passages like Isaiah 65, where we read of the wolf dwelling with the lamb and the child playing near the serpent’s den. These texts are frequently taken as describing a future, literal state of universal peace in the natural world, and then used to define what Christ’s kingdom must look like in order to qualify as a true reign. On that basis, the continued presence of conflict in the world is taken as proof that His reign has not yet begun.
But this reading flattens the function of prophetic language. The imagery in Isaiah is not operating as a zoological forecast. It is portraying the restoration of covenantal order under the rule of God, where hostility is overcome and peace is established within the sphere of His people. This includes, centrally, the reconciliation of former enemies into one body, most notably Jew and Gentile, as articulated in passages like Ephesians 2. The imagery is rich, symbolic, and theologically charged, but it is not intended to provide a literal checklist by which the timing of Christ’s reign is to be measured.1
If that is the case, then the continued presence of evil in the world does not undermine the claim that Christ is reigning. On the contrary, it confirms the very pattern Scripture lays out. Christ reigns in the midst of His enemies, bringing them under His authority over time. His kingdom is not static or deferred. It is active and advancing. This advance takes place through the means He has appointed, particularly the proclamation of the gospel and the work of the Spirit. The authority given to Him is exercised as the nations are brought into submission, not all at once, but progressively.
A related issue appears within the New Testament itself. In passages like 1 Thessalonians 4, believers express concern about those who have already died. The question is not whether the dead will ultimately be saved in some distant, undefined future, but whether they will participate in the anticipated vindication and glory associated with Christ’s coming. Paul’s response is not to push the timeline out indefinitely, but to reassure them that those who have died will not be excluded. That concern only makes sense within a framework in which something climactic was expected in their own horizon. If the fulfillment in view were thousands of years removed, the anxiety reflected in the passage becomes difficult to explain. There would be no meaningful reason to worry that those who had died would somehow miss out. The concern presupposes imminence, and Paul’s answer preserves that expectation while clarifying that the dead in Christ will share fully in what is about to take place.
This also helps correct an overstatement that can sometimes appear in discussions of the kingdom’s advance. Scripture does not promise a uniformly visible or uninterrupted trajectory of improvement in every place and at every moment. There is real resistance, real opposition, and real fluctuation in how that reign is experienced across history. But the direction is not in doubt. The reign of Christ moves toward its appointed end, the subjugation of every enemy, culminating in the destruction of death itself.
At bottom, then, the disagreement is not merely about eschatological timing. It is about the definition of kingship. If one defines reign as the immediate and total elimination of all evil, then it follows that Christ cannot be reigning now. But that definition is not derived from the texts that speak most directly about His kingship. If, instead, one follows the biblical pattern of enthronement, present reign in the midst of enemies, and final consummation, then the continued presence of evil is not a problem to be explained away. It is an expected feature of the period in which Christ’s reign is being exercised.
Christ does not need to return in order to begin reigning. He has been enthroned, and He reigns now. What remains is not the inauguration of His kingdom, but its completion. Until that point, His reign continues exactly as Scripture describes it: in the midst of His enemies, bringing them under His feet, until the last enemy is destroyed.
— Romans 11:33
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1. For a fuller treatment of this, see my paper on the “new heavens and new earth” in Isaiah 65–66, where this language is best understood as describing covenantal renewal rather than material re-creation in the sense often assumed. (I revised the paper—tightened and more precise—and made two papers (OT/NT) out of it, which are currently under review for publication).
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