Snyder - The community of the King

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father delights to give you the kingdom. (Lk. 12:32)

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To Gilbert M. James and Charles W. Kingsley who in very different ways combine the evangelistic and prophetic dimensions of the Kingdom of God

This book is written out of frustration and hope. Frustration with so much that I have seen and experienced in the contemporary church which has led me to question seriously whether the church as we know it can ever be renewed. But also hope-hope because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and because of those faithful communities of believers down through history which have honestly followed the Risen One and have revealed the reality of the community of the King.

Though in some ways the present book is a sequel to The Problem of Wineskins, a book on church structure, the focus here is upon the relationship between the Church and the Kingdom of God. Only secondarily is the question of church structure examined. The book is essentially an expansion of a paper entitled "The Church As God's Agent of Evangelism" which was prepared for the 1974 International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland. Chapter nine comprises, in somewhat revised form, material which appeared as a chapter in The New Face of Evangelicalism, edited by C. Rene Padilla (InterVarsity Press, 1976).

In reading the New Testament I am impressed that early Christians and New Testament writers understood the Church as part of God's dramatic action in Jesus Christ of reconciling all things to himself, "things in heaven and on earth" (Eph. 1:10). The New Testament calls this reconciling work the Kingdom of God. This book

I have tried in these pages to set forth what Scripture teaches and what history illustrates about the Church. I have taken the biblical record very seriously as God's authoritative and reliable revelation to us. But in speaking of the Church and the Kingdom I have been little concerned with following specific theories, theologies or traditional viewpoints. No particular millennial system is espoused or presupposed in the book. There is a dynamic character to the Church and the Kingdom which no millennial or dispensational theory (whether modern or medieval) can comprehend. Obviously, this book cannot totally comprehend it either.

I am especially indebted to a number of people who read the manuscript and offered valuable criticisms. I have taken these criticisms into account in making final revisions. Especially I would like to thank John F. Alexander, Donald W. Dayton, G. Roger Schoenhals, Ralph D. Winter and my father, Edmund C. Snyder, for their criti- ;isms and suggestions, though perhaps none of them will agree totally with the final result.

Is it good news when the Church succeeds?

A theologian once wrote, "Speaking frankly, I do not really know whether the current prosperous condition of the church is more pleasing to God than its earlier humility. That earlier condition was perhaps better, but the present one is more agreeable!"1

Those were the words of Otto of Freising, apologist for the Holy Roman Empire in the twelfth century. Otto identified the Kingdom of God with the Church and saw the Kingdom coming to fruition in the political and ecclesiastical order of his day. Yet apparently he was attracted to the "weakness" and simplicity of the early church. The longing for a return to primitive Christianity eventually became a self-conscious impulse toward reform which led to what some have called "the renaissance of the twelfth century," and which reached its spiritual high point in Francis of Assisi and his humble band of followers.

The "success" of the Church at various points in history caused uneasiness which, joined with a new vision of its early days, prompted reassessment, reform, even renewal. The Protestant Reformation is the most well-known of several such times. Again in our day Jesus' followers might do well to ponder the contrast between the seeming prosperity of the present and the humility of the first-century Christian community.

Too little attention has been given to the doctrine of the Church in much modern thinking about evangelism, discipleship and social action. Donald Bloesch in The Evangelical Renaissance observes that "the doctrines of the church and the sacraments are conspicuously lacking in much contemporary evangelical writing."2 Yet proper thinking about the Church's ministries can only occur in the context of a clear, biblical understanding of the Church itself. It is encouraging, then, that in new ways the question of the Church is now beginning to come to the fore in orthodox Protestantism. One sign of the Spirit's moving in very recent years has been a new concern to discover the biblical picture of the Church. There is a growing awareness that many problems of contemporary Christianity trace directly to the view of the Church as essentially static, organizational and institutional.

In this book the Church is seen as the community of God's people-a people called to serve him and called to live together in true Christian community as a witness to the character and values of his Kingdom. The Church is the agent of God's mission on earth.3 But what is that mission? It is nothing other than bringing all things and, supremely, all people of the earth under the dominion and headship of Jesus Christ. If not all come willingly, nevertheless, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:1011).

But to say the Church is the agent of God's mission on earth is equivalent to saying the Church is the agent of the Kingdom of God. The Church is the messianic community-the community of those who recognize the true Messiah, already confess him as Lord and proclaim his good news to the ends of the earth.

So the Church is the agent of the Kingdom of God. To speak of either the evangelistic or prophetic role of the Church without relating these to the Church's kingdom mission is to lose the biblical perspective and develop a truncated vision of the Church's calling. Biblically, neither evangelism nor social action make full sense divorced from the fact of the Christian community as the visible, earthly expression of the Kingdom of God.