THE CHURCH DISTINGUISHED FROM THE
KINGDOM.

IN

N neither the universal (Roman Catholic) nor the invisible (Protestant universal) idea of the church is there supposed to be any distinction between the church and the kingdom of Christ. Both are supposed to cover all saints. Their identity, moreover, is commonly asserted, as may be seen by reference to the current confessions of faith and definitions of the church, or to writers upon church polity and current topics. In many respects, of course, they are identical, both having common doctrines, common purposes of grace, and a common head or king. But this does not render them identical as wholes, and now that the local idea of the church has begun to lift its head in such prominence above the agitations of the past, it is high time their relations were carefully canvassed. If they are identical, they are right who say, "The wide view of the church as the total of believers, the whole kingdom of Christ on earth, is the original one; the narrower sense of the term in which it denotes a particular local congregation, as the Church of Corinth or of Rome, is the derived." Then, too, the local body should, of course, be simply a reflection of the larger and more important, and should make no requirements of its members which are not equally laid upon all in the larger. Such practices as strict communion or ecclesiastical nonintercourse in any form are utterly untenable, and such writers as

Dr. Dagg, who defines the church universal as "the whole company of those who are saved by Christ," are quite illogical, not to say burdensome, when they make baptism "a prerequisite to membership in a local church;" for why require in the inferior and derived body what is not essential to the superior and original? But if the church and the kingdom are not identical in any view of the former, it may transpire that the local idea of the church is the original, and that instead of abating local church ordinances or usages in deference to a greater than that body, we should be even more stringent because of the dependence of the apparently greater upon the less.

The phrases kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, kingdom of Christ, or simply kingdom as an abbreviation of either, are commonly, though not universally, synonymous. When it is said: "Jehovah has established his throne in the heavens, his kingdom rules over all," or when the reign of God after the Son "delivers up the kingdom" is referred to, a reign different in some senses from Christ's Messianic is meant. But when this reign is referred to, whether under the name of the Son or of the Father, one or more of three forms of thought are in the mind, we suppose:

1. Christ's spiritual dominion, as affecting all whom it influences whether for the better or worse, as when it is said, "the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers of every kind;" or, "he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet," his friends of course being exalted; or

2. That dominion in its exclusive saving effects upon those who are born of the Spirit, and thus enter the kingdom; or

3. The future resultant of this in the blissful reign of God the Father over all Christ's subjects made willing in the day of his power.

The term church awakens no such sweep of thought, and we shall now proceed to show some of the things in which the institution it names differs from the kingdom, having more especial reference to the second sense of the kingdom specified.

It differs in the date of its

Beginning.

According to the prophet Daniel, it was in the days of certain future kings the God of heaven was to set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed, which prophecy was fulfilled at the beginning of Christ's mediatorial work upon earth, as is indicated by both John the Baptist and himself who concurred in saying: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." But at a considerably later period the building of the church was still in the future. Its visible existence cannot be

dated earlier than the day of Pentecost subsequent to Christ's ascension, and its completion not until a period still later. While Christ was the chief corner-stone of the institution, apostles whose work only fairly began after his ascension were mainly the architects, especially Peter and Paul, the leaders of the Jewish and Gentile wings of the sacramental host. But apostles had nothing to do in setting up the kingdom of God. They stood spiritually related to it as we all stand naturally related to creation, non-existent until the work is done.

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Members,

the difference is equally marked. The members of the kingdom are vastly more numerous than those of the church. Multitudes under the ministries of John the Baptist and the Saviour had entered before the church had a substantial existence. Other multitudes who, like the thief on the cross, accept of Christ in the dying hour without having an opportunity for baptism, will come up to the Paradise of God from all the Christian ages. Of such as infant children, too, is the kingdom of heaven, though the New Testament furnishes no proof that such ever entered the church. Then if we allow any distinction between churches in name and churches in fact, we shall doubtless have to concede that not a few members of the former have been, are, and will be in the kingdom, though never in a bona fide Christian church. But the distinction we are making is not wanting, we think, in a clear Scriptural recognition. Among the notable things to which the believer in Christ has come-not will come—are two classes or conditions of "the first born who are enrolled in heaven," one denominated the "general assembly" (navýɣupes), and the other "the church" (xxinoia). The first of these terms was used to designate the immense unorganized multitudes who convened to celebrate the Greek national games, a festive term including all ages, sexes, ranks, and conditions. The second is the name of that select company known as citizens who, in the Grecian democracies or free cities, enjoyed the elective franchise and controlled the interests of the public. When then the Holy Spirit divides the first-born on earth into these two classes, he can allude only to the distinction we are making between the members of the kingdom and those of the church. The ordinary conception which makes the terms synonymous and refers them to the heavenly state will not do. Clearly they are not synonymous, and they refer to the earthly. The first-born are not said to be in heaven, but only to be enrolled there. Besides, the whole connected description refers to things with which believers come

1 Hebrews xii. 18-24.

into new relations here. They have come to Mount Zion, etc., as really as Moses and the Israelites with whom they are contrasted did come to Mount Sinai, which, unlike Mount Zion, can be "touched." The some distinction is implied, we think, in Matt. xvi. 18, 19:

And I also say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of the underworld shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Here the kingdom in existence and the church to be built, though both on earth, stand in contrast with each other, and evidently the point of the contrast is this: The power of the keys or the power of binding and loosing, with which Peter is here emphatically though not exclusively invested, enables him, as the one on whom the church is in some sense to be built, to enter the great store-house of the kingdom, take its raw or uncultured disciple material, organize and put it to work under such a church constitution, and hence in such ways, as will be approved in heaven. He is invested with this power emphatically, because as an apostle he has to take the initiatory in the work. But his and his Lord's object is the same as that of the church organization itself, viz., that its members, put under a process of training, may attain as they could not otherwise, to "the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Thus the members of the kingdom and those of the church stand related to each other as the raw material to the wrought fabric, differing in both bulk or numbers and quality.

Organization.

The kingdom is sometimes spoken of as organized, having a king, a code of laws, and an executive body (the church) for administering those laws. This is all very well, provided the right ideas be attached to such terms. The kingdom consisting for essence in "righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit," and having no business gatherings of its subjects for any purpose whatever, could hardly be organized in any ordinary sense of that term. Its King is not an ordinary king either in person, rule or method of rule. Upon being asked by Pilate whether he was a king, he admitted that he was, and indicated the character of his reign by saying: "To this end have I been born and to this end have I come into the world, that I may bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears

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my voice." But truth's reign is assuredly no ordinary administration of the kingly office. The reign of ideas and the reign of a temporal power are two so dissimilar things as hardly to be called alike parts of an organization. Moreover, the code of laws which the kingdom possesses is not a code of laws which the kingdom as an organized body either accepts or enforces. Not even does it elect or appoint or officially accept the church as its executive. For illustration's sake it may be very well to talk of its organization, but in fact it has no external organization whatever. We can only speak of internal and spiritual relations to Christ and others as the results of the life of Christ and the rule of his truth in the members. But in the case of the church we can say as to its internal, all we have said of the kingdom, and add that it has a bona fide external organization whose form of government, officers, constitutional doctrines, ordinances, and rules of discipline are specifically given. No combination of men nameable can be more completely organized. Some of the figurative designations of the church look especially toward organization, such as the one body with many members and diverse gifts, a temple or a fitly-framed building, etc.

As the executive of the kingdom, it is a volunteer, save so far as a divine call may modify that idea. Indeed the kingdom as such does nothing. The church is the only organized institution known to the New Testament for doing anything.

Nature.

In nature, both have some things in common; we may say the fundamental things, which give their great value to either, such as the righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit which constitute or characterize the life of each. But when we have said this we must immediately begin to distinguish between them, for, while they.correspond in these internals, the church embodies or externalizes them as the kingdom does not. In kingdom men, they exist simply as the blessings or characteristics of individuals not related organically to other individuals; in church men, they exist not only as individual characteristics, but also as the characteristics of the church organism, the body of Christ, subject, hence, to new uses and trials. Everything the church does in its organized capacity will both use and try these kingdom elements as they never would be used or tried if their possessors had not come into church relations. And this fact is very largely the explanation of the benefit of church life. The Lord's people were intended to be tried as well as used, tried by their church uses, and thus they not only develop in uses and graces, but become

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