«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Matt. 4:23 And Jesus went about in all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom...

　　7:14 Because narrow is the gate and constricted is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.

　　Although the church and the kingdom are interrelated, there is nonetheless a difference between them. Because any kind of life is a kingdom, the kingdom is the life itself....The life of God is the kingdom of God. The church, however, is not the life, nor is the life the church. Rather, the church is the product of life. The divine life is the kingdom, and this life produces the church.

　　The New Testament concept is that the gospel brings in the kingdom....The gospel brings in the kingdom of God, and the gospel also brings forth the church of God. For this reason, in the New Testament the gospel is called the gospel of the kingdom (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 24:14). But there is not a verse telling us that the gospel is the gospel of the church. The gospel of the kingdom brings forth the church because the kingdom is the life itself, and the church is the issue of life. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 1740)

　　In the first preaching of the New Testament gospel people were told to repent because the kingdom of the heavens had drawn near (Matt. 3:2; 4:17; 10:7). This meant that the time had come for God to dispense Himself as life into people. The gospel brings God as life, and this life is the kingdom. The kingdom is the realm of life for life to move, work, rule, and govern so that life may accomplish its purpose. The kingdom as the realm of life is actually the life itself. The gospel brings in the divine life, and the divine life has its realm. This is the kingdom. The divine life with its realm produces the church.

　　Because the kingdom is the reality of the church, according to the New Testament revelation, we cannot live the church life apart from the proper kingdom life....To enter the kingdom of God is to be regenerated. We may talk about regeneration without realizing that regeneration is for the entry into the kingdom....Regeneration results in the kingdom, for regeneration issues in an entrance into the kingdom. When God regenerated us, He regenerated us into His kingdom.

　　We need to be deeply impressed with the fact that the reality of the kingdom of the heavens is the content of the church life. This means that without the reality of the kingdom, the church is empty. The reality of the kingdom is actually Christ Himself as our life. Christ as life is the essence, the substance, for us to live a proper life so that in this life we may be built up with other believers to bring in the real church life, which is a glorious expression of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. Because Christ is the embodiment of the Triune God, when Christ is expressed, the entire Triune God is expressed. This expression depends on whether or not the believers live a life that is the reality of the kingdom, a reality that is fully revealed and described in chapters 5 through 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. These chapters are a complete message on the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, and this constitution is the reality of the kingdom life. This reality is the genuine content of the church life.

　　If we would have the reality of the kingdom as the content of our church life, we need Christ to be our life and our life supply. Through the dispensing of the Triune God into our being, we need to experience and enjoy Christ as our life.

　　Today we have the processed Triune God with Christ as the embodiment and the Spirit as the consummation. Day by day we need to open to Him, call on Him, stay in His presence, fellowship with Him, and allow Him to work within us to dispense all that He is, all that He has, all that He has done, and all that He is doing into our being. As the spontaneous issue of this dispensing, we shall have the kingdom life, and this kingdom life will be our church life. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1740-1742, 1746)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 160