Where In The Bible Will I Find:

The Kingdom And The Church Being The Same?

Some of the unbelieving Jewish rulers were often trying to find something to discredit Jesus and His teaching. Luke records this occasion, "And being asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God cometh, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! Or, There! For lo, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20, 21).

They looked for an earthly kingdom, politically and military. Jesus is pointing out that His kingdom is spiritual. The only way to see the kingdom is to see the changed lives that result from people accepting the gospel of Christ. It works from within. Jesus promised His apostles, "I will build My church, And I will give unto you the keys of the kingdom" (Matt. 16:18, 19).

Christians at Colosse had been "delivered out of the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son" (Col. 1:2, 13). The "church of the firstborn" (Heb. 12:23) is called a "kingdom which cannot be shaken" (v. 28). The apostle John wrote that he was a brother in the “kingdom” and that Christ had made "us (Christians, members of His church) to be a kingdom" (Rev. 1:6‑9).

Christ is "head of the body, the church" (Col. 1:18), He is "King of kings" in His kingdom (I Tim. 6:15). We are "born of water and the Spirit" to enter the kingdom (John 3:5), and we "receive the word and are baptized" to be added to His church (Acts 2:41, 47). The term "kingdom" shows the governmental aspect of Christ's rule in our lives. He is Lord, He is the King, and we are citizens who are to be subject to Him.

The term "church" means "called out" and it refers to the believer's relationship to the world: we have been “called out of darkness into His marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9). So, those in the church are in the kingdom, and those in the kingdom are in the church: they are the same institution.