All this and much more lies back of Jesus’ proclamation as we return finally to Mark 1 and listen again to him say, “The time has been fulfilled.” He is saying quite simply that the decisive threshold of fulfillment of everything spoken by the law and the prophets has already been crossed. That is the force of the verb he uses here. The sense is not, “The time is about to be fulfilled.” It is not even, “The time is presently being fulfilled.” It is rather, “The time has been fulfilled.”

The decisive threshold of the fulfillment of all the Old Covenant promises has already been crossed. It is now already God’s appointed time to visit mankind, to set up a kingdom of righteousness and peace that will never end and indeed will fill the earth, replacing universal cursing with universal blessing. It is now already God’s appointed time to enthrone the anointed son of David, who is both the Son of God and the Son of Man as the law and the prophets told us, who is Jesus himself, the God-Man. It is now already God’s appointed time to restore human dominion over the earth and human communion with God. It is already here, that is what Jesus is saying. We must try to imagine how this would have thrilled the heart of a Jew who really knew the Old Covenant Scriptures – if he or she could even have taken it all in!

Then there is this curious language, “The kingdom of God has come near.” This is probably a better rendering than “is at hand,” because “is at hand” could still leave a sense that the thing is about to happen, about to arrive. No, the kingdom of God has drawn near; the verb Jesus chooses means that the thing of which he speaks is already definitively here. The preceding phrase established this: the time has been fulfilled; and in that fulfillment the kingdom of God has come near. But this is still an interesting verb to choose, “has come near,” because it leaves open the possibility that the kingdom of God may have come near in less-than-full form. Let me try to explain.

To come near is not necessarily, as of yet, to fill and dominate the scene. A thing may already have come near without yet having taken the whole of the stage. The possibility is left open in the word Jesus chooses that the kingdom, though definitively present, may not be manifested in its fullness all at once. And this is fairly obvious, when you think about it: clearly not every enemy of the God-Man, the Son of David, is already visibly under his feet when Jesus makes this announcement. As of the moment Jesus speaks, the kingdom has already come near, but it is not yet in its full expression as it will be in time to come.

Ben Miller – The Kingdom Has Drawn Near: Studies in the Gospel Jesus Preached