KINGDOM - OLOGY 14

The Mediatorial Kingdom will include the Church as the bride of Christ

But this is not to say that the Church is the kingdom. The early church never understood this to be the case, and no formal conclusion of this nature was advanced during the first three hundred years of the Church.

But there were trends developing that finally led to this conclusion. One was the method of interpreting the Scriptures introduced by Origen about 200 A.D. The other was the growing materialism and sensualism to the exclusion of the moral and the spiritual in the area of Premillennialism. These together led the great church father, Augustine, to abandon Premillennialism for Amillennialism. Amillennialism denies that there is a millennium to be introduced at the Second Coming of Christ and to run its course before the ushering in of the eternal state.

On the one hand, it seems quite natural that the Christian Church now living in such close communion with a risen and ruling Lord, that it would conclude He had already entered upon His work as the Messianic King, and that the Church was called to be the ruler of the nations under Christ. Christ possessed all authority in heaven and in earth, and He was now positioned at the Father's right hand far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion. Was Christ then not in the fullest sense a King? Why was there any necessity for Christ to return to the earth to reign? As the Church was being constituted from all nations, including the Jews, was this not sufficient evidence that the Jews as a nation had fulfilled its mission? Why, then, could not Christ reign from heaven through the Church, guided and inspired by the Spirit?

Certain facts seemed to support such reasoning. The risen and ascended Christ was established as Lord over all the nations. His gospel was to be preached to all nations, and the Church as His body was the instrument through which he would execute His will. The next step was to declare that He was seated on the throne of His glory, and since the ascension was reigning. This led to the formulation, "the Church is the Kingdom." All the promises of God relating to the Messianic Kingdom were therefore interpreted as fulfilled in the Church. And the Church was therefore empowered to exercise not only spiritual authority among the nations, but also temporal power as well.

This sort of reasoning began in the third and fourth centuries of Christian era and has become fixed in the doctrine of Church. The Reformation did not affect this view, and save for a revival of Premillennialism within the last century, within a limited area of the Church; there is a definite resurgence of Amillennialism within the past several decades. This grows out of an unwillingness to take the Scriptures at face value, and a feeling that perhaps a grand conception of a coming golden-age is too much to expect in a world of harsh realities.

Extremes are so much the pattern of human thinking that on the one hand good men will conclude that the Church is the kingdom in its totality, and on the other hand some will insist that the Church has no relation to the kingdom in any respect. The truth seems to lie somewhere between these two extremes. As of now, the Church is the aristocracy being gathered today, and as the bride of Christ will rule and reign with Him in His coming Kingdom (1 Cor. 6:2; Rev. 5:10; 20:6). As queen, the Church will sit with Him in His throne, exercising power over the nations (Rev. 2:26-27; 3:21).

There is a clear distinction between the rule of God in His Church today and His rule over the nations. Christ does not rule over the Church as king, but as Head to the body. His rule is not legal and external like that of an earthly king. As Head to the Church there is a living and vital relation. His will is the law, and the Spirit of God works in the believer an answering response of approval to His will. God's rule over the nations is not immediate, as promised for the Messianic Kingdom but is providential (Dan. 4:17). Except for the nation of Israel there was no theocratic rule for any other nation. And even that has been withdrawn, and will not be renewed until the ushering in of the Mediatorial Kingdom. In the Church, Christ exercises complete control through the Spirit. But among the nations there is no exercise of immediate or royal prerogatives as will be true in the Messianic kingdom.

Today, the mysteries of the kingdom are in fulfillment. One of these is the purchase and polishing of a pearl of great price (Matt. 13:45-46; Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:25-27). One day this body of people will be like Him, both bathed and washed (1 John 3:2), and as a chaste virgin will be joined to Him in wedlock (2 Cor. 11:2; Rev. 19:7-8) fully qualified to sit as queen with Him in His throne and constitute the aristocracy of the kingdom. Until then it is her business to carry out the Holy will of Her Head and reach the elect with the saving knowledge of Christ, practicing within her own, the washing of the water of the word (Eph. 5:26-27), thereby revealing to the world the love He has for each by their loving each other in this way. Wherever this message is heard and accepted, "God . . . hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor. 4:6). And such respondents "have been delivered from the power of darkness and have been translated into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Col. 1:13).