The Second Coming and the Kingdom

Text: Colossians 1:13

Series: Restoration Sermons

Date:

Speaker: Ed Rangel

Location: Waupaca Church of Christ

Bible Version: NASB 1995

Sermon Type: Expository

Learning Objectives

By the close of this lesson the hearer should be able to:

1. Distinguish literal from figurative language in Scripture and see why it matters for the kingdom.
2. Give the New Testament evidence that the kingdom is here now, spiritual, and reigning.
3. Show that the church and the kingdom are the same body under two figures.

Thesis

The kingdom of Christ is not a future, earthly, material realm awaiting His return; it is here now — begun at Pentecost, spiritual in nature, with Christ already reigning — and it is identical with the church, as both Christ and Paul plainly teach.

Burden

The whole premillennial system rises or falls on one question: is the kingdom here now, or still future? If the kingdom is yet to come — an earthly, political realm Christ will set up at His return — then the church is a parenthesis, a stopgap, and the real program is on hold. But if the kingdom is already here, spiritual and reigning, then the church is the kingdom and the program is fully underway. the forces the question into the open and answers it from the text. This is not a quarrel over words; it shapes how we read half the Bible and what we expect Christ to do. The burden is to settle, from Scripture, that the King is already on His throne.

Introduction

There is a close connection between the second coming and the kingdom, and how a person understands the one depends on how he reads the other — which in turn depends on how he interprets Scripture itself. The outline takes up the matter in four steps: the two kinds of biblical language, the question whether the kingdom is here now, the nature of the kingdom, and the identity of the church and the kingdom.

I. The Two Kinds of Biblical Language (John 18:36)

1. Scripture speaks in plain, literal statements and also in figurative, symbolic statements — and both are God's truth.
2. One school insists on taking everything literally and accuses the other of "spiritualizing."
3. The other school answers that the first is "literalizing" — forcing a wooden, earthly sense onto language meant to be spiritual.
4. So who decides which is which? Not a theory imposed from outside, but Scripture interpreting Scripture — and when Jesus says "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36), He Himself tells us the kingdom is not to be read as an earthly, political realm.

II. Is the Kingdom Here Now? (Acts 2:29-36)

1. Some say no — and their position commits them to a chain of claims: that Christ has not yet received a kingdom; that He is not now on His throne; that He sits only on His Father's throne; and that His kingdom will be given Him only when He comes again.
2. Others say the kingdom is here now — and the New Testament is with them:
• It began on Pentecost, as Jesus said it would come "with power" within His hearers' lifetime (Mark 9:1; Acts 2).
• Christ is now reigning — He "must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet" (1 Cor. 15:24-28); the reign is present, not postponed.
• He is now on David's throne — Peter declares at Pentecost that God raised Christ to sit on David's throne, exalted to God's right hand (Acts 2:29-36).
• His kingdom continues unchanged until the final judgment, when He delivers it back to God (1 Cor. 15:24).

The reign of Christ is a present fact, announced the day the church was born.

III. The Nature of the Kingdom — Spiritual, Not Material (Romans 14:17)

1. By common admission some kingdom is now in existence. If it is not Christ's, it must be God's — and then either that kingdom must cease when Christ's begins, or there would be two kingdoms at once. The tangle disappears the moment we see that the present kingdom is Christ's.
2. Some say the kingdom will be material — that Christ came the first time to set up an earthly throne in Jerusalem, that the Jews' rejection forced a postponement, and that He will establish the earthly kingdom at His return.
3. But Scripture says it is a spiritual kingdom:
• "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36).
• It is inward, not outward — "the kingdom of God is in your midst" (Luke 17:20-21); "the kingdom of God is... righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 14:17).
• Christ rules as Lord in the heart — "sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts" (1 Pet. 3:15).

The kingdom was never postponed, because it was never meant to be the earthly throne men imagined; it is the spiritual reign of Christ over willing hearts.

IV. Church and Kingdom Are Identical (Colossians 1:13)

1. Once it is admitted that some kingdom is here now, only two options remain: either that kingdom is the church, or God has two parallel institutions — a church and a separate kingdom — running at once. Scripture knows nothing of the second.
2. The New Testament declares the church and the kingdom to be the same:
• Christ uses them interchangeably — "I will build My church... I will give you the keys of the kingdom" (Matt. 16:18-19).
• Paul says believers have already been "transferred... to the kingdom of His beloved Son" (Col. 1:13) — present tense, the same body as the church into which they were baptized.

The church and the kingdom are not two things but one, seen under two figures — a building with a Head, and a realm with a King.

Application

What you believe about the kingdom decides what you expect of Christ. If you wait for a future earthly kingdom, you will read the Bible as a book of postponements and treat the church as a placeholder. But Scripture says the King is already enthroned, the kingdom already came at Pentecost, and you — if you are in Christ — have already been transferred into it. So live as a present subject of a present King: His reign is spiritual, exercised over your heart, and your loyalty is owed now, not at some future coronation. And do not be moved by systems that put the kingdom off into the future; the New Testament puts it here. The King is reigning. Are you living under His rule?

Conclusion

The kingdom is not coming; in the sense that matters, it has come. It began at Pentecost, Christ reigns now from David's throne, it is spiritual and inward, and it is the very church He built. When He returns, He does not establish the kingdom — He delivers it up to God. Settle that, and the second coming falls into its true place: not the start of the kingdom, but its glorious end.

Invitation

If the King is reigning now, then the urgent thing is to come under His reign now. You enter the kingdom the same way you enter the church — for they are one: believe that Jesus is the Christ, repent, confess Him, and be baptized for the remission of your sins, and you are "transferred... to the kingdom of His beloved Son" (Col. 1:13; John 3:5; Acts 2:38). Bow to the King today. Come while we sing.

Word Study

Scripture Interlock Table

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Converted from H. Leo Boles, Outline 38. Doctrinal audit: core-framework — this is a central kingdom-is-present-now / church = kingdom sermon, explicitly refuting premillennial postponement (no future earthly material kingdom; Christ reigns now from David's throne; the kingdom is spiritual and inward; at the second coming Christ delivers the kingdom UP to God rather than setting it up). Fully consistent with the framework; no correction. Style audit: OCR cleanup. Source note: no primary-text line; Col. 1:13 (cited at IV.2.b) supplied as text and flagged. Supplied supporting references (Mark 9:1; Acts 2) flagged; Boles' own citations retained. (Outline 37 absent from source.)