The blood-washed redeemed
children of God who are in the world but not of the world are
designated or symbolized in the Scriptures by different names
which show up the different phases of their living and working
positions in this world of sinful, deceitful, religious and
irreligious people.
The prophets who
prophesied long before Christ was born tell us about the Kingdom
of God and also about the Church. In Daniel 2:44, we read, ³And
in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a
kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall
not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and
consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.²
When the prophet said,
³In the days of these kings,² he was referring to the four
literal kings who were universal rulers in their turn or time,
the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian, and Roman kingdoms that
literally ruled the world. He said in the days of these kings
shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom. God set it up, so it
is called the Kingdom of God. It is synonymous with the Church,
so the Church is called the Church of God. It could be said of
Godıs people, ³They are the Kingdom of God, the Church,² or
³They are the Church, the Kingdom of God,² because God is the
giver and originator of both, which are practically the same.
Although in the parables that Christ gives concerning the
working of the Kingdom of God, it varies to some extent in
contrast with the clearly, divinely organized Church of God, and
shows that Godıs kingdom would also include those without
knowledge of the divinely organized family or Church, but such
souls who keep themselves free from joining the many earthly
religious bodies called churches and free from the world would
easily be led of His Spirit into the divinely organized family
or Church, which is the Church of the living God, and is the
pillar and ground of the truth. (I Tim. 3:15).
Jesus says also in this
verse that this kingdom shall never be destroyed, and that
statement harmonizes with what Jesus said concerning the Church
in Matthew 16:18, which reads thus, ³And I say also unto thee,
That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.² He did not
mean to convey the thought that He was going to build His Church
upon Peter, but upon the solid truth He had uttered which God
the Father had revealed to Him, ³Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God.² For any one to know Christ, the Father will
have to reveal Him unto that one by His Spirit, and this is the
kind of material that the true Kingdom of God, or Church of God,
is built of, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone.
(Eph. 2:20). Jesus also makes this plain in Matthew 21:42 when
He says, ³Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which
the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the
corner. . . ?² In Acts 4:11, we read, ³This is the stone which
was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of
the corner.² In saying this, Peter denies that he is the stone
that the Church is built upon; and declares that it is Jesus
Christ of Nazareth whom the builders (Pharisees) crucified and
God raised from the dead.
In the next verse,
Daniel 2:45, we read, ³Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone
was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in
pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold;
. . .² This image that had the brass, the iron and clay, the
silver, and the gold represented four literal kingdoms: one then
ruling, and three yet to rule the ancient world, but the little
Stone, which represented Christ, broke them to pieces, and He
set up His kingdom, which is spiritual and is now ruling, not
only in the Church but also the world, and is now giving to
every man according to what he finds in his heart. That is why
we are exhorted to, ³Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out
of it are the issues of life.² Prov. 4:23.
In the seventh chapter
of Daniel, where he was speaking of the fourth beast, which
represents the Roman Empire or Kingdom, read the 23rd verse. The
time of the reign of the fourth king when the Roman kingdom was
flourishing was when Christ, the little Stone, was born. He
began to preach to the people, ³Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand,² and judgment was set; so reads the 26th
verse, ³. . . And they shall take away his dominion [his
kingdom], to consume and to destroy it unto the end.² Christ,
the little Stone, brought judgment against the Roman dominion
and it was destroyed so far as it being any more a universal
kingdom. Verse 27 says, ³And the kingdom and dominion, and the
greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given
to the people of the saints [the Church] of the most High, whose
kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve
and obey him.² Blessed be the name of Jesus! We read again in
the 14th verse of this same chapter what the Son of God has
done, ³And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a
kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve
him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not
pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.²
The gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. Read the
18th verse, ³But the saints of the most High shall take the
kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and
ever.² They took and began to possess the kingdom on the day
they received the Holy Spirit and have and are possessing it
today, and shall possess it forever.
Christ is the little
Stone which is the chief corner stone of the Church. Jesus said
to His disciples, ³Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.²
When Christ is in us, we are in the kingdom and the kingdom is
in us. As we yield to Christ, He makes us kings and priests unto
Him and we reign over sin and over all the evil spirits in the
world, giving glory to our King whose kingdom is an everlasting
kingdom. ³The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.²
Now
after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time
is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand [present tense.
At hand now, not over in an imaginary Millennial in some future
age]: repent ye, and believe the gospel.² In Matthew 6:33,
Jesus exhorts the people to seek first the Kingdom of God and
His righteousness. In Mark 9:1 we read that Jesus said, ³There
be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death,
till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.² This
prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost when the Holy
Ghost was poured out upon 120 souls and they were given power to
witness for Christ in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and unto
the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8). This kingdom that
came with power was also the Church, for the record is, ³And
the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.²
(Acts 2:47). In Hebrews 12:22 it is written, ³But ye are come
[speaking to His believing children] unto mount Sion [a metaphor
of the Church], and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To
the general assembly and church of the firstborn [who was God
manifested in the flesh] which are written in heaven [our names
are on the Lambıs book of life], and to God the Judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect.² Glory be to God!
We can see very plainly that he is speaking of the Church, the
family of God, saved people. In verse 28 of the same chapter the
apostle Paul calls it the kingdom. Let us read, ³Wherefore we
receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace,
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly
fear: . . .² This Church or kingdom of which we are members can
not be moved; it abideth forever. The gates of hell shall not,
and can not, prevail against IT-just one.
This one body of saved
people is the divinely organized Church of God, and it has never
been destroyed or put out of existence since Christ built it and
divinely organized it by the Holy Spirit. It shall never cease
to be a reality so long as this world stands, then it will shine
in the glory world. When Jesus said the gates of hell shall not
prevail against the Church, we know His statement is true, for
we have no record of its ever being extinct in the earth since
that day. Even during the hundreds of years of dark Catholicism,
Godıs Church existed. Also, during the 350 years of sect
making, or Protestantism, when it is stated that the two
witnesses, the Spirit and the Word, lay dead in the streets,
there was a remnant of the Church existing. There were groups of
saved people drawn together by the divine love of God and
functioning by divine leadership. God has always preserved a
body which has never drifted from the real apostolic truths, and
has not conformed to the world (Rom. 12:2), nor given way to
man-made rules and systems in making an ³Image to the Beast²;
but have allowed, and are allowing, the Holy Spirit and the Word
to govern and rule in all their functions, and so it always will
be.
Any group of saved
people at any place and at any time who are allowing the Holy
Spirit to govern them , are not conforming to the world, are not
of the world, but constitute the Church of the living God, and
are also the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is also referred
to in the Bible as a universal kingdom, ruling over all the
world, as God sets up literal kings and puts down kings. He also
rules over Satan and all his imps, for His power in a universal
sense is unlimited.
In I Corinthians 15:24,
we read, ³Then cometh the end, when he [Jesus] shall have
delivered up the kingdom [the Church] to God, even the Father; .
. .² We read of the end of the world and of this taking place
in I Thessalonians 4 beginning with verse 13, and we are told
that the righteous dead will be raised up, and we who remain and
are alive at His coming will be caught up with them to meet the
Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is
the Kingdom of God which stands forever, the Church which is
delivered up to the Father. According to John 5:28, the wicked
and unsaved will be resurrected at the same hour unto damnation,
but they will be cast into the ³lake of fire² which is the
second death. (Rev. 20:14-15).
Knowing these things,
brethren, let us be ³stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in
the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is
not in vain in the Lord.² (I Cor. 15:58). -Fred Pruitt
