Kingdom #5: The Kingdom and the Church

In the Scriptures there is a dynamic relationship between the kingdom of God and the church. The kingdom of God was the dominant theme of Jesus preaching and teaching. In the person of Jesus the New Age was breaking into the present age.  Through Jesus and those who would become his disciples, God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The phrase kingdom of God in Greek is the term baseila tou theo which can also be translated the reign of God or the rule of God. Because of Jesus and through faith in him men and women can begin to live under God’s rule and reign right now in this present age.

To be in the Kingdom is to live a certain lifestyle and to treat people in a certain way—a way very different from the way we have all been taught by the world. As we said last week it is to live conscious that your citizenship is in heaven and you take your direction from there.

·      So what about the church? Is the church the same as the Kingdom? No, that would not be the right way to put it. Well, is the church in some way the Kingdom of God on earth? While there is definitely a crucial relationship between the church and the Kingdom, to put it that way would also be to diminish the scope of the kingdom and make it something less than what it is.

The Kingdom was being proclaimed by Jesus and was making its appearance through his life before he established his church. The Age to Come was dramatically breaking into the Present Age through his teaching, his exorcisms, his miracles and ultimately through the cross and his resurrection.

The Kingdom is so expansive in its meaning that Jesus found the best way to let us see it was to tell many different stories about it and give us a variety of views of its reality. The church, on the other hand, is something more tangible and easier to describe. The word for church is the word ecclesia means “those called out.” It means a group of people selected for a certain purpose.

There were a lot of “ecclesias” in the first-century world. That is not to say that there were a lot of religious denominations, but to say that there were a lot of groups selected for certain purpose—most of them quite secular. But Jesus said “I will build my ecclesia—I will call out my group for my purposes.”

It is not best to say that the ecclesia is the Kingdom of God. But the ecclesia has the purpose of making the Kingdom of God known to the world.

Think of it this way:

• ·     The Kingdom of God is the rule and reign of God.
• ·      The ecclesia is the fellowship of those who have said “yes” to God’s rule and reign and now are helping each other to live out the Age-to-Come lifestyle right in this present age. Just as Jesus said, “I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God” (Luke 4:33), the ecclesia must follow Jesus first in living the Kingdom of God and then going and proclaiming it and showing the world why it is such good news.

To pull together several things we have said the last few weeks:

The ecclesia should be the place 

• where you find people, praying earnestly, “Your kingdom come, your will be done in our lives on earth as it is in heaven,” 
• where you find people living with their citizenship in heaven,
• where you find people who are committed to living the wisdom of heaven as they find it in the Sermon on the Mount,
• where you find those who are going to all nations to proclaim the good news of the Kingdom.

To say the ecclesia is not the Kingdom is in no way to diminish its importance. God has but one plan to show the Kingdom to the world and that one plan is the ecclesia of Jesus Christ.