Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 97:386 (Apr 1940)
Article: The Relation of the Church to the Kingdom Part 1
Author: Edwin C. Deibler

BSac 97:386 (Apr 40) p. 229

The Relation of the Church to the Kingdom
Part 1

Edwin C. Deibler

{Editor’s note: Footnotes in the original printed edition were numbered sequentially by chapter with each chapter starting anew at 1, but in this electronic edition footnotes are numbered sequentially for the article.}

Chapter I: Introduction

Even to a casual student of God’s Word, it must be clearly evident that a theme involving the concept of a divine kingdom on earth stands forth prominently among doctrines of Scripture. The amount of space accorded in both Testaments to passages in which a kingdom idea is the central theme is so large that the importance of this subject is immediately suggested. And when a more careful search reveals the fact that the term βασιλεία, correctly translated “kingdom,” appears about 250 times in the Septuagint, over 100 times in the gospels and about 60 times in the remainder of the New Testament, the importance of this subject is more than suggested, it is certain. Then when it becomes evident, to the inquiring student, that some kingdom concept is involved in practically every major doctrine of the Christian faith, the probable information to be gained from a systematic consideration of this subject looms large. Moreover it is clear that an understanding of the kingdom truth is essential to a proper interpretation of God’s message to man.

Our Lord, in His earthly ministry, devoted much attention and attached great importance to this aspect of His teaching. The apostles were zealous for it and preached it constantly. The accounts we have of the early Christian church make certain the fact that this body of believers was deeply influenced in their manner of life by truth relating to a divine kingdom on earth. But with the gradual disappearance of the early Catholic church into Romanism, as a hierarchy centered in Rome began to develop, the early prominence accorded to the Bible teaching relating to the kingdom became overshadowed by a growing conviction

BSac 97:386 (Apr 40) p. 230

that the Roman Catholic church and God’s kingdom on earth were one and the same thing. Such a theory, by its very nature, greatly facilitated the rapid growth of Romanism. And it was itself stamped more indelibly upon medieval thinking as this church assumed a power and authority that enabled it to establish its every whim of doctrine, whether scriptural or unscriptural, in the heart of each communicant as the very law of God. The coming of the Reformation made but small contribution in this field of Bible doctrine. The churches of the Reformation were founded on creedal statements that allowed the Romish teaching regarding the church and the kingdom to remain practically unchange...