098-Prop. 95. If the church is the Kingdom, then the terms church and kingdom should be synon...
Prop. 95. If the church is the Kingdom, then the terms “church” and “kingdom” should be synonymous.
THOSE TERMS OUGHT, IF SUCH IS THE FACT, TO BE CONVERTIBLE OR INTERCHANGEABLE WITHOUT VITIATING THE SENSE. THAT THEY ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS CAN BE READILY TESTED BY EVERY ONE. THE NUMEROUS DEFINITIONS AND CONFLICTING OPINIONS OF THOSE WHO ENTERTAIN THIS VIEW ALREADY SUFFICIENTLY INDICATES THAT THEY ARE NOT TO BE SUBSTITUTED, THE ONE FOR THE OTHER.
Obs. 1. It may be proper to illustrate the application of the Test. A few examples will suffice, as the subject is too momentous to be triflingly touched, being forced to it by the argumentation of our opponents. The word church is used for (1) an individual congregation. This usage of the word, of course, will not bear the Test for then there would be as many kingdoms as there are congregations. (2) For the general body of believers. Passing by the passages which would then make believers to inherit the church, and which would teach that the church itself shall inherit the church, we select such as Ephesians 5:23-30, in which the church (i.e. Kingdom) was once so lost that Christ “gave Himself for it” (comp. Ephesians 1:7; Galatians 2:20, etc.), that it needed special sanctifying and cleansing “with the washing of water by the word,” etc. Or, Acts 20:28, where the church (i.e. Kingdom) is to be fed, “which He has purchased with His own blood,” phraseology applicable to believers and not to the predicted Kingdom. Take everyplace where the word church occurs, and either in the passage itself, or in the context, or by a parallel passage, the notion of believers in their associated capacity is understood. But let us take the word kingdom and substitute for it that of church, and the result is seen e.g. in Mark 11:10; Luke 12:32; Luke 22:29; Luke 21:43; Mark 9:47; Acts 14:22, etc.
If the Church is synonymous with the Kingdom, then what becomes of the notion held by many that the Kingdom is invisible, seeing that the Church is spoken of as something visible, externally manifested, as e.g.Matthew 18:16-17; Acts 8:1, etc., being used in the same sense so far as visibility is concerned, as that in Acts 19:32 (Greek: where it is employed in a secular sense).
Obs. 2. But the absurdity of making such terms synonymous will be more clearly seen if we take the definitions given of this Kingdom, and observing their intimate connection with this church notion. Selecting the example afforded by Dr. Thompson (see preceding Proposition, Obs. 8), we are told that this Kingdom consists in “the presence and power of God felt and acknowledged in the hearts of those that trusted in Him and did His commandments,” etc. Put this “spiritual conception” in place of the Kingdom or church, and sad work will be made of God’s oath-bound covenanted promises. If this is all that is meant, then the most solemn pledges given by God will be set aside and remain unfulfilled. It is strange that men of ability are so wedded to this mystical conception of the Kingdom that they cannot see how, with their own theory of Christ’s delivering up the Kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:24), if the Kingdom be such as above, or “God’s reign in the heart,” etc., then such “a presence,” etc., or “reign” once “felt and acknowledged” will also be given up. Or, select any one of those definitions, and substitute them for “Kingdom,” in Matthew 8:12; Matthew 16:19; Mark 11:12, etc., and it will be found that they directly introduce a confusion of ideas, making the Scriptures inconsistent and contradictory.
Take for example Dr. Neander’s (given in detail under Prop. 106) definition and apply it to the first New Testament text where the Kingdom is mentioned (Matthew 3:2), and it then reads as follows: “Repent ye: for the whole of a series of historical developments, or a great assemblage of coexistent spiritual creations is at hand.” Or, take Dr. M’Cosh’s favorite, and then we have: “Repent ye: for God’s reign in the heart is at hand.” Comp. Prof. Lummis’s Essay “The Kingdom and the Church” (read before “The Proph. Confer.” at N. York), in which the inconsistency of making Church and Kingdom synonymous, the absurdity of men talking of advancing and building up this Kingdom, the inability of making a Methodist Kingdom, Lutheran Kingdom, etc., and of saying that the Church (if Kingdom) is “within you,” is shown. This synonymous nature is so much taken far granted, and so confidently held, that the titles of books indicate it, as e.g. Maurice’s “Kingdom of Christ,” Jarvis’s “His. of the Mediatorial Kingdom,” Gray’s “Mediatorial Reign,” Symington’s “Mediatorial Dominion of Jesus Christ,” Uhden’s “New England Theocracy,” Wilson’s “Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ,” an Anon. work, “The Inner Kingdom.”
Obs. 3. Such substitutions are unwarranted and dangerous, although presented by most able men. Neander (Life of Christ, S. 82) informs us that while the name kingdom is “borrowed from an earthly kingdom,” “was immediately taken from the form in which the idea of the Divine community was represented by the Jewish nation,” yet this idea is to be discarded and a “symbolical” one is to be substituted. This exchange of ideas is, however, unproven, and merely assumed to sustain the theory that the church, in some aspect, is the Kingdom. If this is so, that the first preachers of the Kingdom presented the leading subject (i.e. Kingdom) of their discourses in symbolical language, we may well ask, If the Kingdom was symbolical, why not then repentance, faith, and everything else connected with this Kingdom? For, if the main subject is such, why not the subsidiary? This leads us where some have, from a false premise, logically landed, making the whole teaching of Jesus and the apostles a symbolical or typical one of that religion of humanity which is now arising.