Church and Kingdom Through the Authority of the Ekklesia
- Jesus builds his church as an assembly of kingdom people who display what God’s reign looks like under King Jesus.
- Through Matthew 16, the church receives the keys of the kingdom to open the door for others to come under Jesus’ rule.
- When believers live out their kingdom mission with purpose and identity, the kingdom of God becomes visible through the church.
What does the kingdom of God look like through the church?
Now, the reason the answer is so critical is because of the importance of the church to King Jesus. I know in our day and time that kind of sounds like a fallacy, that the church is important, because we’re living in an age where attendance numbers in churches are on the decline, interest in the church seems to be on the decline, and in the minds of many, the relevance of the church has been on the decline for decades.
But that only tells half the story. That only tells how man views the church. It doesn’t speak of how King Jesus views the church. And for Jesus, the church is vital in demonstrating and projecting the kingdom of God.
So here’s our short answer to that question:
The church is an assembly of kingdom people who display what the reign of God through King Jesus looks like.
That’s how the kingdom of God is displayed through the church.
But let me show you how we get to this answer. The word church that we read about in the New Testament comes from the Greek word ekklesia. Now, for us, it is just connected with church, but for the ancient world, an ekklesia was so much more. An ekklesia was an assembly of people, a called-out assembly, but they were also seen as people who had powers to establish policy, deny citizenship, or elect officials. They had ruling powers.
And I believe that when Jesus speaks of ekklesia, he’s speaking of the ekklesia with this in mind because the church is going to prove itself to be kingdom people. That’s what he wants for the church.
In Matthew 16:15–19, Jesus said to Simon Peter and to his disciples, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter replied, “You are the Christ. You are the King, the Son of the living God.”
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”
“On this rock I will build my church.”
There’s ekklesia. On this rock, I’m going to build my people. But then he says, “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” Kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous phrases. They are one and the same.
“And whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Peter’s confession was that Jesus is King. But upon that confession, Jesus says, “I’m going to build my church. I’m going to establish my people.” The church would be the people of King Jesus, but people who had a certain task, people who had a certain mission.
They were to open the doors of the kingdom to the world.
This is why Jesus says, “I’m going to give to you the keys of the kingdom.” Not just to Peter, but to the other apostles and to every disciple of Jesus who walks underneath the kingdom of God from that point in time.
“They were to open the doors of the kingdom to the world.”
So this would be their role. Their role was to open the doors of the kingdom to men and women of any age, during any point in time, to allow them to be ruled by Jesus as well.
So how does the kingdom of God express itself or show itself? How is it displayed through the church? It’s displayed through the church when the church takes on its kingdom mission. When they’re living out who they are, they are displaying the kingdom of God to the world.
