The Church and the Kingdom of God.

“Who is the city of God but the holy Church? “Is the Church and the Kingdom of God the same? Augustine agrees, “Then already now, the Church is the kingdom of God and heaven. “ This kingdom of Christ is here below (nunc) yet warring (militia)”; only at the end of the ages (in fine saeculi, tunc)  it will be perfect. Thomas Aquinas says nothing else: “It is spoken especially  of the kingdom of God in a twofold sense: once as a host  of those who wander in faith; and in this sense, the Church militant is called the kingdom of God; but then as a gathering  of those who are already safe, at the goal, and in this sense, the Church is the overcoming Church is called the kingdom of God. “

For Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, the two successive states of the Church, nunc et tunc, now and then, the final and continuous state of the kingdom of God. J. Bonsirven says the same thing in “Le Règne de Dieu”: “Is the kingdom of God the same as the Church…? The answer can only be yes. ” Cardinal Charles Journet claims no different: “We believe that there is no  identification of the Church and the kingdom of God cannot be abandoned. They are two terms, but they denote a single reality. The Church is the kingdom; the kingdom is the Church. The term ‘kingdom’ refers to eschatology. But it is with Christ  stepped eschatology, primarily a qualitative order, into time. Since the time of Christ, the whole Church has stepped into the last time; it is eschatological. ” But over the last hundred years, this precise  identification in the name of eschatology has been questioned in discussions  that are not yet closed. Yet it is  much is at stake, for it is not only the character of the Church that is at stake but also the practical implications with great implications. If the Church is, by it is heavenly, because “it is where Christ is” If it is his body, and if that body includes not only those believers who are here today but also those who have gone before us and those who will come after us until the end of time.

 “We do not consider why the Church and kingdom should not be identified.” For more than a hundred years, on the other hand, it has been said that the Church and the kingdom are not to be identified because the kingdom is a purely eschatological reality, while the Church is said to be only a sign of the kingdom, which points to it. And this tangled question is, we must try to clarify; therefore, let us first hear what the Council teaches. Then, let us consider the reception of this teaching.