Now we should be able to have a clear understanding of John 3:5. For years I could not understand why regeneration had something to do with entering into the kingdom of God. Then I began to see that regeneration is to receive the divine life and that this divine life is our entrance into the divine life’s kingdom. You must have this divine life; otherwise, there is no way for you to enter into its kingdom. If a chicken or tiger wanted to enter into the human kingdom, they would have to be reborn, to be regenerated with the human life. Once they received the human life, that human life would become their entry into the human kingdom. In the same principle, if we want to enter into the kingdom of God, we need to be born of the life of God. Once we have the life of God, this life is our entrance into the kingdom of God.
After the Lord’s resurrection, the book of Acts tells us that the Lord stayed with the disciples for forty days and in those forty days He taught the disciples concerning the kingdom of God (1:3). Some brethren teachers and Dr. C. I. Scofield, in their teachings regarding the kingdom held the concept that the Lord Jesus presented the kingdom to the Jews and the Jews rejected it. Therefore, He suspended this kingdom and put the kingdom aside. Then He began to touch the church. With this understanding as a basis, they say that today is not the kingdom age but the age of the church. To them, when the Lord comes back He will receive the kingdom from God and He will come back with this kingdom based upon Luke 19:11-12, 15 and Daniel 7:13-14. By that time the Jewish people will repent and believe in Him and will receive this kingdom brought back by the Lord Jesus. Then there will be the next age, the age of the kingdom. This concept is very much in contradiction with the Acts, the Epistles, and Revelation.
The Acts shows us strongly that the Lord Jesus never gave up the kingdom and never put it aside to come to the matter of the church. Rather, after His resurrection He stayed with His disciples for forty days purposely to show them the kingdom of God. Acts 8:12 tells us that Philip the evangelist went out to preach the kingdom of God and in Acts 14:22 Paul charged the saints that through many tribulations they must enter into the kingdom of God. Also, at the end of Acts (28:30-31) Paul stayed in Rome in a rented house for the purpose of preaching the kingdom of God both to the Jews and to the Gentiles. In our concept, we always consider that in the Acts the gospel was preached only for the purpose of producing and establishing the churches. We never thought that the gospel had much to do with the kingdom.
In Luke and Acts, Luke uses the word evangelize. Evangelize is the anglicized form of the Greek word euaggelizo, which means “to preach something as the gospel.” In Luke 4:43 Luke tells us that the Lord said that He had to evangelize the kingdom of God. This means to preach the kingdom of God as the gospel. The verb evangelize implies the noun, the gospel. To evangelize the kingdom means to preach the kingdom as the gospel. We cannot find a verse which says to evangelize the church, to preach the church as the gospel. Whatever was preached in the Acts was the preaching of the kingdom of God as the gospel. This is why the gospel is called the gospel of the kingdom of God. The gospel of the kingdom of God equals the gospel. The gospel of the kingdom of God equals the gospel of life because life is the kingdom and the kingdom is the life in the realm for the life to move, to work, to rule, and to govern.
Then in the Epistles, in 1 Corinthians (6:9-10; 15:50), Galatians (5:21), Ephesians (5:5), and Colossians (1:13; 4:11), the kingdom of God is referred to strongly. You must live a life that is according to the Spirit. You must live a life that is Christ Himself. Otherwise, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. You need to live a life which is the kingdom today. Then this life will qualify you to enter into the coming kingdom. Today the kingdom is your life and in the next age the kingdom will become your inheritance. What you live today will become your inheritance tomorrow. For example, what you earn in wages today is your living. Then these earnings will become your coming social security. In like manner, you must live the kingdom and then the kingdom will become your coming social security. That is the coming kingdom as an inheritance to all who live the kingdom as their life.
Romans 14:17 says, “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14 teaches us about the practical church life—how to receive the weaker believers without any kind of division. In that chapter on the church life, Paul says that the kingdom is this practical church life. Also, in Revelation 1 John stressed the church as the lampstands for the testimony of Jesus (vv. 2, 9, 12, 20). In Revelation 1:9, however, John did not say, “I John, your brother in the church” but he said, “I John, your brother...in the kingdom.” When he was in the church life he was in the kingdom because the kingdom is the reality of the church life.
The kingdom is the practical life, life’s practicality. Again, I refer to the example of the zoo where we can see an animal kingdom. The animal kingdom is the practicality of the animal life. If we live the divine life, if we live Christ as life, the practicality of this life is the kingdom. When people come among us they would see a kingdom. The kingdom is the expression of life. All the animals moving around in the zoo are an expression of the animal life and that expression is the animal kingdom. If all the animals were taken away, the animal life would be over and the expression would also be over. In the church, we are the believers living, moving, and acting in the divine life. As a result, there is an expression of this divine life. The expression of this divine life is the kingdom, the practicality of this life, and the practicality of this divine life is in the church. Now we can see that the kingdom is the reality of the church life. As long as the divine life is here, the kingdom is here. As long as the divine life is being lived, the kingdom exists. You could never suspend it and you could never put it aside.