In every generation, the church is called to examine the message it is living and proclaiming. One challenge that quietly creeps into Christian life today is the prosperity gospel—also described as over-realized eschatology. This teaching suggests that God’s chief desire is to make us healthy, wealthy, and comfortable. While God indeed blesses His people, Scripture presents a far richer and deeper vision of discipleship.

The theological concept of the “already but not yet” teaches that believers are truly participating in God’s kingdom here and now, even though its full reality will only be revealed in the future. We are “already” part of the kingdom through Christ, but we do “not yet” experience it in its complete glory. This perspective is central to inaugurated or realized eschatology, which emphasizes that God’s reign has begun but awaits final consummation. Hebrews 2:8 captures this tension: “In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them” (NIV).

The term “eschatology” refers to the study of final or ultimate things, derived from the word eschaton, meaning “final event” or “culmination.” An over-realized eschatology, which prosperity gospel preachers teach, assumes that the eschatological hope of Christianity is fully present now. This leads to claims such as: “If Jesus has come and the Kingdom has arrived, then evil should no longer exist, everyone should be healed, there should be no poverty or suffering, and everything should be the way God designed it—right now. And if you have enough faith, you will experience it.”

By contrast, realized or inaugurated eschatology teaches that certain end-time promises and aspects of God’s kingdom are already experienced in the present rather than waiting exclusively for a distant future. While the Bible affirms that a final consummation still lies ahead (Revelation 21–22), realized eschatology emphasizes that Jesus’ work and teachings inaugurated strands of final redemption during His earthly ministry.

Conversely, there is also the danger of under-realized eschatology, which fails to recognize that with Jesus’ first coming, the kingdom of God has already broken into history. To live with an under-realized eschatology is to view the kingdom solely as a future hope, neglecting the reality that God’s reign is already present and active in believers’ lives through the Spirit. It overlooks that Jesus’ ministry, death, and resurrection were decisive turning points through which God’s new creation has begun.

Both over- and under-realized eschatology fail to grasp the “already but not yet” nature of our unique place in history: after Jesus’ death and resurrection, but before the eschaton. The church is called to discern the true gospel, embracing the tension between present participation in God’s kingdom and the ultimate hope of its future consummation. This balance guides us toward faithful discipleship, realistic hope, and reliance on God’s promises rather than empty formulas.