Jung-Ryu’s Ecclesiology in His Commentary on Matthew: Israel, Church, and the Kingdom of Heaven

Abstract

The present study investigates Jung-Ryu’s ecclesiology as it appears in his commentary on Matthew. Although he got his Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary which advocates dispensationalism, he has differing views on the ecclesiology. Both Jung-Ryu and dispensationalism admit Israel’s prerogative status in God’s salvific scheme. However, while Israel’s restoration is an indispensable precondition for the parousia in dispensationalism, it is not a prerequisite but a result of the Christ’s return in Jung-Ryu’s view. Besides, unlike dispensationalists, he does not sharply distinguish Israel from the church nor does he consider its foundation is a contingency plan of God. For him, the church is the universal community where both Israel and the gentiles, being saved by Jesus, become one united body, and the barrier between them is overcome by the cross. It is Jung-Ryu’s uniqueness that associates the church with the kingdom of heaven. For him the church is the present kingdom of God where his royal authority is exerted. Thus he considers Matthew 13(the chapter of the kingdom parables) as the lessons for the church. His interpretation has the following four features: the primary mission assigned to the church is to spread the gospel to the world; its present state is the corpus mixtum where both good and evil exist together; it continues to grow despite its small beginning; the true Christians commit themselves to the Christ alone. Jung-Ryu is a scholar of great insight who, already in ’70s, understood the kingdom of heaven not as a postmortem utopia but as the present realm where God’s sovereignty is exercised. Yet, it is still difficult to agree with his argument that equates the church itself with the kingdom of heaven. Admittedly, the church should be the place where God reigns. However, God is not only the Lord of the church but also the ruler of the whole world. The kingdom of God(or heaven) must extend beyond the church and proceed into the world. Despite its slight drawback, Jung-Ryu’s theology is still worthy to learn today. In many Korean churches, the kingdom of heaven has long been understood as a postmortem utopia. It is only recently that they began to realize that its gist is God’s royal sovereignty. This being so, Jung-Ryu’s kingdom theology is truly ahead of his time. It was only possible because he, based on the Reformed tradition, was not biased toward dispensationalism, but embraced various strands of argument at that time, attempting to establish a holistic and biblically balanced theology.