Church as kingdom

James of Viterbo ( From Irenaeus to Grotius: A Sourcebook in Christian Political Thought , 381) says that the church is not only metaphorically a kingdom, but “properly called a kingdom.”

He explains by citing 1 Corinthians 15:24, where the kingdom of God that is delivered to the Father is glossed (in the Glossa Ordinaria ) with “Surely his faithful whom he redeemed by his blood are called here his kingdom, whose kingdom is also all creation.”

With this double notion of kingdom (church and creation), James writes, “the kingdom of Christ is said to be all creation according to divine power, whereas the church is truly said to be the kingdom of Christ in a special sense, by virtue of the faith which comes from him and through which he reigns in the faithful themselves.”

The church is a kingdom because it “includes a great multitude gathered from different peoples and nations . . . ; contains all things sufficient to the salvation and the spiritual life of men . . . ; was instituted for the common good of all men; and . . . comprehends many congregations ordered to each other and increasing in size.”