The kingdom is a great and difficult subject. We must realize that any kind of life is a kingdom. The plant life is the plant kingdom, the animal life is the animal kingdom, the human life is the human kingdom, and the divine life is the divine kingdom. A life is always a kingdom. The life of God is the kingdom of God. If you want to enter into a kingdom, you need that kingdom’s particular life. If you want to enter into the botanic kingdom, you need the botanic life. If you want to enter into the animal kingdom, you need the animal life. We human beings are all in the human kingdom because we were born into it—we have the human life. The human life is our entrance into the human kingdom. In the same principle, John 3:5 tells us that we must be born of the Spirit, which means we are born with the divine life, God’s life, the uncreated eternal life. Then we can enter into the kingdom of God. The life of God is our entrance into the kingdom of God. We must see this basic principle. When most Christian teachers touch this matter of the kingdom, they do not see this basic principle.
Now we must see the difference or the relationship between the kingdom and the church. This is very hard to discern and to understand clearly. We have seen that any kind of life is a kingdom, so the kingdom is the life itself. The kingdom of God is the life of God, but the church is not the life, nor is the life the church. The church is the product of life. The divine life is the kingdom and this life produces the church. The New Testament concept is that the gospel brings in the kingdom. The gospel does not bring in the church, but the gospel brings forth the church. Thus, the gospel brings in the kingdom of God, and the gospel also brings forth the church of God. This is why the gospel is called the gospel of the kingdom in the New Testament (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). There is not a verse in the New Testament that tells us that the gospel is the gospel of the church. The gospel of the kingdom brings forth, produces, the church because the kingdom is the life itself and the church is the issue, the produce, of life. As you can see, the kingdom and the church are very closely related. The New Testament refers to the preaching of the gospel of peace (Eph. 2:17). This peace produces the church. No verse, however, tells us to preach the church. The Bible also tells us to preach forgiveness of sins (Luke 24:47) and to preach the gospel of the kingdom, but never to preach the church because the church is the product of what is preached.
The Lord told Peter in Matthew 16:18-19 that He would build His church upon the revelation of Christ which Peter had received from the Father. Immediately after this the Lord said to Peter, “I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of the heavens” (v. 19). Without the kingdom as the reality of life, the church could never be produced or built up. To produce the church and to build up the church, we need the kingdom. The kingdom actually is the reality of the church. We cannot say, however, that the church is the reality of the kingdom. We can only say that the kingdom is the reality of the church.
With this understanding as a basis, we can understand many verses in the New Testament. The first preaching of the New Testament gospel told people that they needed to repent because the kingdom of the heavens had drawn near (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). There is no verse that says the church is coming, so repent. John the Baptist, Jesus, and the twelve apostles initiated the New Testament gospel by telling people that the kingdom had drawn near. This meant that the time had come for God to come to dispense Himself as life to people. The gospel brings God as life, and life is a kingdom. The kingdom is the realm of life for life to move, to work, to rule, and to govern that life may accomplish its purpose and this realm is the kingdom. Actually, the kingdom as the realm of life is life itself. If one were to take away all the animals in the zoo, there would be no animal kingdom there. When the animals are there, the animal life is there and that realm of animal life is the animal kingdom. The gospel brings in the divine life and the divine life has its realm for it to move, to work, to rule, and to govern that this life may accomplish its purpose. This is the kingdom, and this divine life with its realm produces the church.
Mark 4:26 says that the kingdom is like a seed sown into the earth. The kingdom is the seed and the seed is the seed of the divine life (1 John 3:9; 1 Pet. 1:23). When the Lord says the kingdom is like a seed, that means the kingdom is the life. The kingdom grows like a seed grows and the kingdom develops like a seed by its growing until it develops unto a harvest. Matthew 13 also shows us that the kingdom is like a seed sown into the human earth and that this seed grows in our heart to be the kingdom (vv. 8, 23). Now we can understand why in Luke 17 when the Pharisees asked the Lord when the kingdom of God would come, He told them that the kingdom of God was among them. This indicated that Jesus, He Himself, is the kingdom because He is the seed.
In 1972 in a summer conference in Los Angeles, I gave messages on the kingdom. In those messages I indicated that the kingdom is the “King” plus “dom.” Jesus is the King. When Jesus expands, He becomes the kingdom. The King plus the dom is the kingdom. The preposition among in Luke 17:21 where Jesus told the Pharisees that the kingdom of God was among them can also be translated into within. The kingdom of God is within you. Both of these translations are right. At that time Jesus, the seed of the kingdom, was sown among the Jewish people and He was also sown into some of them like Peter, James, and John; the kingdom was not only among them but was also within them. According to the Pharisees, however, the kingdom at that time was only among them. This kingdom is Jesus as the seed of life sown into humanity.