Baptists view of the Church: Part 9 – by Dan Nelson
Dan Nelson 03/25/21
Baptists view of the Church: Part 9
Knowing the difference between the Church and the Kingdom of GodBaptists have made the distinction between the Kingdom of God and the church throughout their history. There are several factors today that make the two inseparable and fail to distinguish the difference between the two. 1-The universal nature of the gospel message causes us to send missionaries everywhere throughout the world. There is the tendency to refer to believers worldwide as the church. 2-The Catholic idea of the church as universal with one man in Rome as the head of it. It’s not that everyone is Catholic, but this model is in most Protestant churches because of the state church arrangement that was prevalent in the Reformation and in places like England where the King or Queen is the head of the church. Catholics don’t even refer to their buildings for assemblies in a place as the church. There is one church to them in Rome and the buildings and groups are the places that exist are referred to as parishes. The Anabaptists and English Baptists rebelled against the idea of Christendom. It fueled the State Church. A baby was baptized through the parent’s decision and the Church in that area and as was referred to as Christendom. In other words, whole countries are areas that were Christian by their leaders identifying either with the church in Rome or the Protestant state church. This resulted in the false assurance they were Christians by being in a “Christian country” that expected all families to have infants baptized into the state church and this type of arrangement. Leonard Verdun enlightens, “It appears then that the Anabaptists turned their guns on the institution of “christening” because they had rejected the “Christendom,” which the institution fed. And it appears that the Reformers read the riot act over these Anabaptists precisely because they had cast their lot with non-Christendom…The skirmish touching the property of infant baptism as it had been practiced for more than a millennium was but part of the battle concerning the dedication of Christ’s Church.”1 Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964), 42, 205.3-Last Times Eschatology has referred to the rapture of the church or the church age which leads people to think every true believer in the church. 4-Christian TV and modern media cause us to think of the church as all believers because we participate in some way in their ministry. In the recent pandemic, you hear statements like, “Well we are the church anyway, without participating in a local congregation.” People use zoom to stay home and not participate and now maybe permanently with this type of mentality. 5-Most Commentaries and Study Bibles we have referred to the Church as all believers and not the Kingdom of God. People like Schofield referred to the true church as all believers and by inference belittled what they would call the “little one that assembles.”2http://www.hisservice.com/galley/askpast/ask3.htm Does that mean they are the false church?The Kingdom of Heaven is mentioned all through the New Testament. John and Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand Matt. 3:2,4:17. Jesus told Nicodemus that You must be born again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. John 3:3,5. The gospel message is so powerful that people do not have to be in a church to be saved. A mark of a New Testament church is that they evangelize outside the doors of the building and win people to Christ without having to come to the church building and be saved. When one trusts Christ as Saviour that becomes a brother or sister in Christ. They are in the Kingdom but not in that local assembly until they come, assemble, join through believer’s baptism. All believers are obligated to join a New Testament church for growth, ministry, and obedience to Christ’s cause. We need to do Kingdom work but it cannot take the place of the church. Being in the church is the next step once one enters the kingdom. The Kingdom can’t be the church because:1-By nature it does not assemble regularly and cannot truly be the ecclesia as the Bible refers to it. 2-The Bible does not refer to the Kingdom and Church as being inseparable.The churches organized and had leaders Acts 14:23. The Kingdom was a part of a worldwide movement to lead people to Christ and make His name known everywhere missionaries and witnesses went. 3-The Kingdom can’t function as the church. It was not designed to do what the church can do. That is to nurture, provide regular fellowship, Christian growth, and deploy people in the community and world for witness and service. May we never lose sight of the church’s mission by confusing it with the Kingdom of God.
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