“All People to Myself”

Since the Council of Trent, theologians have argued that the Roman Catholic Church is the realized kingdom of God on earth, the reunification of the human race, the mediator and manager of the treasury of merits, and Christ’s continuing incarnation. Reacting against the inflated ecclesial ego of Roman Catholic and “high church” traditions, generations of Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians have bent over backwards to reduce the church to a footnote in God’s unfolding historical drama.

There are various ways of diminishing the role of the church in redemptive history. Pietistic Protestantism tends to make the church subordinate to the believer. Wary of “Churchianity,” this tradition has frequently pressed false choices between a “personal relationship with Jesus” and “joining a church.” According to the dispensationalist scheme of many conservative evangelicals over the past century, the “church age” is just a parenthesis in a story focused on the nation of Israel.

In more recent times, the church has become a footnote to the kingdom of God. It is this move I’m particularly concerned about. According to this perspective, the church exists as an advance team or rallying point for those who want to build the kingdom. It’s a means to something greater. As the modernist Roman Catholic theologian Alfred Loisy complains, “Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom, and what arrived was the Church.”1 There are “church people” and “kingdom people,” the Spirit being identified especially with the latter.

Kingdom Life Versus the Kingdom Itself

Much of contemporary theology has moved in the direction of “big kingdom, little church,” notes Scot McKnight.2 From this perspective, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and churches of the Reformation are characterized as being focused on ecclesiastical machinery, more in line with the apostles (especially Paul), while kingdom-oriented Christians (such as the Anabaptists) are more interested in Jesus and the kingdom-living he lays out in the Sermon on the Mount.

In liberal theologies, the kingdom is assimilated to the ethical idea of a gradual progress of humanity toward justice, peace, and righteousness. Presenting Jesus as a prophet, rather than the divine Savior and substitute for sinners, Walter Rauschenbusch (founder of the Social Gospel movement) writes:

Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom of God….Only two of his reported sayings contain the word “Church,” and both passages are of questionable authenticity. It is safe to say that he never thought of founding the kind of institution which afterward claimed to be acting for him.3

With the subordination of the kingdom to the church, Rauschenbusch argues, came the eclipse of social ethics by an ingrown focus on doctrine, worship, preaching, and sacraments—hence, the corruptions of the medieval church and the failure also of Protestantism to reform the structures of society.4 In Rauschenbusch’s thinking, the death of Jesus is subordinated to his life of experiential solidarity with suffering humanity:

If [Jesus] had lived for thirty years longer, he would have formed a great society of those who shared his conception and religious realization of God, and this would have been that nucleus of a new humanity which would change the relation of God to humanity.5

We can either be saved by non-ethical sacramental methods, or by absorbing the moral character of Jesus into our own character. Let every man judge which is the salvation he wants.6

In various ways, what these movements display is a common tendency to identify the Spirit with the kingdom as something different from the visible church. In the most recent versions, history, nature, and the body are celebrated; indeed, everything is “sacramental.” It is the particularity of the incarnation of the Son and this church and these sacraments he instituted that cause offense. Yet the opposition of kingdom and church is not limited to radical Protestantism. Fr. Richard McBrien writes in Do We Need the Church?:

The church is no longer to be conceived as the center of God’s plan of salvation. Not all men are called to membership in the Church, nor is such membership a sign of present salvation or a guarantee of future salvation. Salvation comes through participation in the Kingdom of God rather than through affiliation with the Christian Church.7

All men are called to the kingdom, because all men are called to live the gospel. But the living of the gospel is not necessarily allied to membership in the visible, structured Christian community.8

Thomas Sheehan’s The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (Random House, 1986) is yet another example of the opposition between the kingdom and the church in Roman Catholic circles today.

As Matthew Levering points out, even Gerald O’Collins, S.J., suggests that the church serves the kingdom.9 According to Levering,

This disjunctive language, which presents the church as a servant of the kingdom and thus as something that will not be needed when the kingdom fully arrives, construes the church in a merely juridical fashion.10

Since God offers grace to everyone, revelation must be universal, according to this perspective.11 Do we really need the church or special revelation in Scripture? Indeed, do we even need God to become flesh and rescue us? In the thinking of many today, Jesus is simply an example of an ideal we would have even if he had never been born. Separated from the church, the kingdom of God becomes just another human program for saving the world.

The Fathers, the Reformers, and the Church

However, for Luther and Calvin—and for Cyprian, Augustine, and all of the church fathers—the church is the mother of the faithful and “beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for.”12 The church is not merely a means to the greater end of something else, even the kingdom. It lies at the heart of history because it has been on God’s heart from eternity. The church doesn’t merely aid in the advance of the kingdom; it is the kingdom as it expands throughout the earth.

Throughout John’s Gospel (6:37, 39, 65; 10:29; 17:2, 6, 9, 24), Jesus refers to “those whom the Father gave me.” When he comes to his high priestly prayer in John 17, he says (sometimes referring to himself in the second person),

“You have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” (v. 2)

“[They are] the people whom you gave me out of the world.” (v. 6)

“I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.” (v. 9)

“Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” (v. 11)

“The world does not know him or the Father, but these do—as will the rest of those who belong to him.” (vv. 14–18)

“And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (v. 19)

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (vv. 22–23)

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.” (v. 24)

The church was founded not at Pentecost, nor even when God established his covenant with Abraham. Indeed, its origins are more ancient than Adam and Eve after the fall, when God promised a redeemer (Gen. 3:15) and when Seth and his descendants “began to call on the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26). The church was founded in eternity, “set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time,” when the Father gave a people to the Son, and the Spirit pledged to unite them to the Son through faith, “even as he chose us in [the Son] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4). It is the mystery of the church, the bride of Christ—the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body so that Christ is everything for everyone—that Paul says has been revealed in these last days. The rest of the Epistle unpacks this amazing mystery: the revelation of the ultimate purpose of all history. The promise God made to Abraham—not merely of ethnic descendants and a piece of real estate in the Middle East, but of a worldwide family redeemed through one descendant in particular—is the plot of the entire Bible.

The Church as the Kingdom in the Power of the Spirit

The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price” (Rev. 22:17). Together, the Spirit and the church invite the world to the wedding feast of the Lamb. The church is not merely the messenger, but the beloved who is in fact the bride of that feast. The church is therefore not only an agent of the kingdom but the goal of the kingdom itself. It is that part of the world Christ calls his own body. The kingdom call of “Come!” is inseparable from both the ministry and participation in the visible church.

If the Spirit worked only immediately in the hearts of individuals, then the church would have been dissolved at the outset into nothing more than an affinity group with shared private experiences. Yet, if the Spirit works through creaturely means that are inherently social, then the church is indeed “a kingdom of priests” (Rev. 5:9), “one body with many members” (1 Cor. 12:2), branches connected to one another because they share the same Vine (John 15:1–4). They are one in Christ because the Spirit has united them to Christ together through the word and the sacraments. Each member is chosen in Christ, redeemed, justified, regenerated, indwelled by the Spirit, and eventually glorified. Yet, because each member is in Christ, the Head of the body, the Spirit indwells the whole church, even as he indwelled the typological temple in Jerusalem.

Similarly, if the kingdom were merely a community of Spirit-filled agents bringing liberation within the kingdoms of this age, then it would no longer be the gift of the Triune God, but rather another sociopolitical movement in the history of this fading age. What makes the communion of saints more than just another special interest group, ideological camp, or political action committee? Surely it exhibits common characteristics of human society and organization. Nevertheless, the church is the human creature the Triune God has brought into being and united to the glorified humanity of God the Son. It is descending from heaven as a bride prepared for her husband, not rising from its own foundations with its own inherent possibilities, like other organizations and associations. The church is adopted by God the Father, with the Son as its Head and the Spirit as its regenerating and energizing Lord. For this reason alone it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is a bride descending from heaven, not a voluntary association or political action committee evolving on earth.

At the same time, if the church were to be defined apart from (much less over against) the kingdom, then it would lose its missional identity, becoming a self-enclosed and self-serving institution alongside other clubs and voluntary organizations. In both instances, the church is seen less in eschatological terms as the creation of the Spirit (the bride descending from heaven for her bridegroom) than as a human society evolving through the energies of sinners with similar outlooks, moral visions, and rites.

The Sermon on the Mount and the Letters to the Church

There is simply no basis for pitting Jesus and the Gospels against Paul and the Epistles. In Jesus’ teaching, the kingdom and the church were interchangeable terms. According to the Gospels, what is the chief purpose of the Spirit’s mission in equipping believers for the kingdom’s advance? They will be made witnesses throughout the world, proclaiming “repentance and forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:45–49). Is this not the message of Paul? Repeatedly, Jesus and the apostles describe the kingdom as a gift we receive. Jesus tells his disciples that the world will persecute the church. Nevertheless, he says, “Fear not, little flock, for it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). “I will build my church,” Jesus promised, “and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:15–18).

All other empires we build in history can and will pass away, but “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Heb. 12:28). Christ himself is the gift, along with his Spirit; and because the church-kingdom is brought into being, sustained, and growing to the ends of the earth through the preaching of the gospel, baptism, and Eucharist, it is a thoroughly divine work of grace through creaturely means of grace. There is a place for our agency, for actively following Christ’s example of humility and generous love as well as righteousness. However, there is something far richer, far deeper than our “willing and running.” It is the Holy Spirit who moves us beyond the imitation of Christ into union with Christ. The church does not repeat or extend Christ’s incarnation or his redeeming and reconciling work; rather, it is called—in all of its difference from Christ—to be the creaturely and sinful entity it is by testifying to Christ.

As Jesus taught it, what is the kingdom, and is this kingdom substantially different from what the apostles describe as the church?

• Jesus describes the kingdom as a great feast where “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11).

• “The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad” (Matt. 13:47).

• The kingdom is “the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; 13:38; 22:16; 26:18), and the authority to forgive sins in the king’s name was nuclear to the apostolic identity (Matt. 16:19; 18:18).

• The close connection between the Spirit and forgiveness of sins is evident in what Jesus decrees when he breathes on his disciples in preparation for their kingdom work. He says, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” adding immediately, “Whoever’s sins you forgive are forgiven” (John 20:23).

• The kingdom adorns outcasts in the wedding garment (Matt. 22:1–14).

• It is the regime in which the same Spirit who was upon Jesus without measure indwells his people as “living stones” being built into a holy sanctuary (1 Pet. 2:5).

In the early church, the pilgrims gathered from east and west were baptized with the Spirit—John the Baptist’s chief indicator of the kingdom’s arrival. They gathered regularly to share in a meal that is a foretaste of the wedding banquet in the kingdom, submitting to the discipline and doctrine of the apostles and the prayers (Acts 2:42). The charter of the kingdom, known as the Great Commission, then sent the apostles out to proclaim the gospel, to baptize, and to teach in his name (Matt. 28:19; cf. Mark 16:15–16). Indeed, our Lord asked Peter to feed and tend his sheep (John 21:15–17); and the chief purpose in sending the Spirit, according to Jesus, was that his disciples would be made his gospel witnesses to the ends of the earth until he returns (Acts 1:8). Are these not precisely the emphases of the apostles, including (even especially) Paul?

Far from opposing a charismatic community led by the Spirit on a kingdom mission in favor of an institutional church weighed down by doctrines, Scripture, offices, and rituals, the Gospels record the drama unpacked in the apostolic letters. Far from a freelance source of spontaneous revelation, the Spirit binds his ministry to Christ’s mission, as we have seen from the farewell discourse. It is the Spirit who inspires the apostolic canon that will be foundational for all times and places, and who calls and equips officers and the whole body for mutual love and mission. And when Jesus promises to build his church (Matt. 16:18), he knows it will be by his word and Spirit that this is accomplished.

When one compares the identification of the kingdom in the Gospels with the description of the church in the Epistles, any difference between a charismatic and dynamic kingdom of the saints and the church as an institution across all times and places vanishes. Consistent with his farewell discourse in John 13–16, Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ last question “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) is to wait for the Spirit’s outpouring at Pentecost. This is the conquest, the fulfillment of the event Jesus promised in answer to their question about the kingdom’s restoration. It is this restoration of the kingdom that the apostles identify with the growth and expansion of the church in these last days.

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus redefines the qahal (assembly) of Israel and redraws its boundaries around himself, as does the apostle Paul (e.g., Eph. 2:11–22). Jesus will gather “other sheep” into the fold of the true Israel and will be one Shepherd over one flock (John 10 as the fulfillment of Ezek. 34). For the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, the kingdom is no longer a geopolitical nation but a worldwide family of Abraham that flourishes and conquers through the word and Spirit. This is the basic structure of Paul’s message as he traces the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant with the fulfillment of the law in Christ’s advent. And isn’t his understanding of the cosmic battle—“we wrestle not with flesh and blood” or with “this world’s weapons,” but armed only with the gospel and the Spirit (e.g., Eph. 6)—precisely the same as Jesus’ sermon? Is Paul’s exhortation here so different from the report of the astonished seventy-two in Luke 10:17–20?

The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

In both instances, Christ’s followers are beneficiaries of his conquest of the evil powers, but the principal matter for rejoicing is that they are enrolled among the elect. The church will tread upon serpents (the demonic hosts), triumphing over them by “the word of their testimony” concerning Jesus (Rev. 12:11).

The nation-state of Israel is dismantled in order to expand the borders of the kingdom to the ends of the earth. Yahweh will at last be acknowledged as Israel’s only King. The Father’s benediction rests on its heirs—not as the reward for their faithfulness in the land, but at the outset, as a gift to the spiritually destitute (Matt. 5:1–12). As a “city set on a hill,” the church is to be characterized in its sacrificial fellowship by a higher ethic in terms of anger, lust, divorce, and lawsuits than society at large (vv. 21–37).

Possessing the security of a heavenly homeland and every good gift in Christ, they endure persecution, and, instead of driving out the nation, they pray for their oppressors and respond with foolish generosity (vv. 38–48). Shockingly, Jesus issues the imperative: “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:21). In the church, the leaders are not to jockey for power like the Gentile rulers but are to imitate the king who “came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

Are not all of these imperatives carried over by the apostles, as they enjoin obedience even to the wicked rulers as God’s servants (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Pet. 2:13–17)? They are to exhibit patient and nonviolent reaction to persecutors, mutual submission in love, and the settling of differences even over temporal affairs by the church.

Jesus breathes on the disciples, and they receive the Holy Spirit. He gives the apostles the keys of the kingdom, which are nothing other than the marks of the church. By preaching the gospel, baptizing, and teaching them to obey his commands, they will open and shut the kingdom’s gates (Matt. 16:17–19; 18:18–20; John 20:22–23). In view of these episodes in the Gospels, what is the apostle Paul’s message and ministry other than the triumph of Jesus over Satan, death, hell, and the curse of the law? The worldwide family of Abraham that reaches even the salons and courts of Rome itself? The nations streaming to Zion in willing submission to Israel’s king—in various ways is this not the vision the Epistles explore in great detail?

Therefore, far from setting the church and the kingdom in oppositional terms—or even from making the church little more than a base for advancing the kingdom—the New Testament treats the church as the kingdom in this present age. As Scot McKnight argues, “The kingdom is a people governed by a king,” and this describes the church. “Jesus connects the present church (a people) to the future kingdom (a people). He connects what Peter does now in the church to what God will do then in the kingdom…church and kingdom are indissolubly connected.…The church, then, is what is present and peopled in the realization of the kingdom now.”13

An understandable objection to identifying church and kingdom is the assumption that it restricts the kingdom (and the Spirit’s saving operations) to the official ministry of the assembled church. Are we really to believe that the kingdom of God means nothing more than the gathering of professing Christians for worship on Sunday? Yet this objection rests on a misunderstanding.

Even if the kingdom is visible today in the world in and as the church, the term may be understood in two ways. The church is first and foremost the people, the professing believers with their children. This congregation is gathered officially by its Covenant Lord to receive his good gifts, including his instruction but especially his promise and its visible seals in the sacraments, to pledge their loyalty and recount with thanksgiving his mighty acts, to confess their sins and their common faith, to receive his absolution, to seek his protection, and to embrace one another in the fellowship of a family.

Thus bathed and fed, the church is then scattered into the world as witnesses to Christ as salt and light, loving and serving their neighbors through their callings. This too is the work of the church, but it is the work of the church as scattered into the world as God’s secret agents who are pilgrims seeking a better homeland.

Michael S. Horton is the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).