The opening proclamation of the New Testament is this: "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). The New Testament calls immediate attention to the matter of the kingdom. But after a while, when the disciples have come to know Him, the Lord raises the question of the church. The church was a mystery that had been hidden throughout all the generations of the past, and it was not until the Lord Jesus had brought His disciples to the point of recognizing Him as "the Christ, the Son of the living God," that He spoke openly of the church. When Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," the Lord came in at once with the word: "Upon this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:16-18). It was as though He was saying: "I am the Son of God, the Christ, for this purpose—the building of My church. As the Son of God and as the Christ, I am a Rock, the Foundation Stone of a building that is to be built; and that building of which I am the foundation is the church."
Let us bear in mind that the first mention of the church is in Matthew 16, and Matthew is the book that proclaims the kingdom. The Lord's second mention of the church is still in the book of Matthew—chapter 18. The four Gospels record only two occasions when our Lord on earth made reference to the church, and both of these are in the book which specifically proclaims the kingdom. From that fact we may know how intimately the kingdom and the church are related. Throughout the New Testament we find these two advancing together in the closest connection. When the Lord said, "Upon this rock I will build my church," He immediately added, "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." The keys of the kingdom are given to make the building of the church possible. Where the authority of the kingdom is absent, there the building of the church will be lacking. Anyone who refuses to submit to the authority of the kingdom can at best be a saved person; he will never be built into the structure of the church.
The Bible first presents the kingdom and thereafter presents the church. Where the kingdom of heaven is in authority, there a church will be built up. A church comes into being where a company of people accept the government of heaven. So it would appear to be the presence of the kingdom that produces the church. But the New Testament goes beyond that. That is only one half of the New Testament revelation; the other half is this—the church brings in the kingdom. The church which comes into being under the rule of heaven, by reason of her submission to the heavenly rule, deals with God's enemy. It is the presence of God's enemy that hinders God's will from being done on the earth, and it is the exercise of God's authority by the church that casts him out. Then the New Jerusalem appears, and in the New Jerusalem you see the kingdom and the church blending into one. The New Jerusalem is the Bride, which according to Ephesians 5 is the church. It is also a city, which speaks of government, and in this center of government there is the throne of God and of the Lamb. The New Jerusalem combines in itself both the church and the kingdom. And in saying this we have summed up in a sentence the entire content of the New Testament. We might express it in three phrases—the kingdom produces the church, the church brings in the kingdom, and the ultimate issue is the kingdom and the church. The New Testament opens by presenting the kingdom and thereafter presenting the church. But how does the church become an actuality? It is through the exercise of kingdom authority. When the church has ceded to the kingdom the right to rule and has submitted to its sway, the church then brings the dominion of heaven to the earth. All the way through the New Testament we see the church blending with the kingdom and the kingdom blending with the church, until eventually this blending issues in the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem, where you can detect the nature of the church and the conditions of the kingdom, God is able to express His sovereignty fully and can therefore execute His will and display His glory.