Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! - shut up within this or that sharply defined or visible limit, geographical or ecclesiastical.
For the kingdom of God is within you - х entos (G1787) humoon (G5216)]. This may either mean, 'inside of you;' meaning, that it is of an internal and spiritual character, as opposed to their outside views of it: so the best expositors among the Fathers understood it; and so, of the moderns, Luther, Erasmus, Calvin, Campbell, Olshausen. Or, it may mean 'in the midst of you,' or 'among you'-as already set up in its beginnings, if they had but eyes to discern it: so Beza, Grotius, Bengel, Meyer, de Wette, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson. It seems a weak argument against the former sense, though urged by nearly all who adopt the latter, that the kingdom of God could not be said to be within or in the hearts of the Pharisees, to whom our Lord was addressing himself. For, all that the phrase, in that sense, implies is, that it is 'within men,' as its general character. The question must be decided by the whole scope of the statement; and though others judge this to be in favour of the second sense, we incline, on this ground, to the first. Compare Deuteronomy 30:11-14; Romans 14:17.