Matthew 3:2

Matthew 3:2 is the second verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament. John the Baptist has just been introduced and this verse describes the message that he is preaching.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

The New International Version translates the passage as:

For a collection of other versions see BibRef Matthew 3:2

Clarke notes that this is the first of twenty-nine references to the Kingdom of Heaven in the Gospel of Matthew. Luke and Mark tend to prefer the term "kingdom of God." That Matthew uses the word heaven is often seen as a reflection of the sensibilities of the Jewish audience this gospel was directed to, and thus tried to avoid the word God. Most scholars believe the two phrases are theologically identical. Robert Foster rejects this view. He finds the standard explanation hard to believe as Matthew uses to word God many other time and even uses the phrase Kingdom of God four times. Foster argues that to Matthew the two concepts were different. He feels that the word heaven had an important role in Matthew's theology and links the phrase especially to Father in Heaven, which Matthew frequently uses to refer to God. Foster argues that the Kingdom of God represents the earthly domain that Jesus' opponents such as Pharisees thought they resided in, while the Kingdom of Heaven represents the truer spiritual domain of Jesus and his disciples.

Scholars believe that when it was written this phrase intended to be eschatological with the Kingdom of Heaven referring to the end times. When the last judgment failed to occur Christian scholars gradually redefined the term to refer to a spiritual state within, or worked to justify a much delayed end time. This passage presents a difficulty in this later endeavour as the phrase translated as "at hand" or "is near" both refer to an imminent event. Albright and Mann suggest better translation would state that the kingdom is "fast approaching." France sees it as even more immediate suggesting that the phrase should be read as referring to "a state of affairs that is already beginning and demands immediate action."

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