“TRANSLATED INTO THE KINGDOM.”
We commend the following article to the attentive perusal of the reader. It was sent to the Gospel Banner in England for insertion there; but that periodical having been discontinued, it has been forwarded to us for the Herald. The writer is a young lady, formerly of the National church in that country, whom we had pleasure of assisting to the understanding and obedience of the gospel, under considerable persecution for the times in which we live. The article is well written and very much to the point, and evinces considerable progress and proficiency in the truth. We delight in such correspondents, and have but one wish concerning them, and that is, that they may hold fast their begun confidence to the end, and multiply a thousand fold. —Editor Herald.
To the Editor of the Gospel Banner:
Dear Sir—There being a good deal of disagreement among your correspondents just now as to the situation of believers, whether they be in the kingdom of God or no, I offer you a few remarks on that subject, which, if you think well to insert in the Banner I shall feel obliged.
One of the principal passages in dispute is contained in Paul’s letter to the christians of Colosse, chapter 1 verse 13.
“Who hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son.”
There is a similar phrase in 1 Thessalonians 2: 12.
“Who hath called us unto his kingdom and glory.”
Why in the English the preposition is different in these two phrases is a mystery to me, as in the Greek the same is used. If he hath translated us into the kingdom he hath called us into his kingdom and into his glory. If christians be rejoicing in the glory, then are they enjoying the kingdom, but we know they are “rejoicing in hope” (Romans 12: 12. Hebrews 3: 6.) of the glory, and even so are they by faith enjoying that kingdom which is theirs in reversion. And just as Abraham “rejoiced to see the day of Christ” (compare John 8: 56, Hebrews 11: 13, 27.) “afar off,” so do we “look upon Zion the city of our solemnities” and “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” while contemplating “by faith” the setting up, not the creation of that kingdom, the characteristic qualities of which are “righteousness, peace, and joy.”
It is too generally forgotten, or overlooked, that when the kingdom of God shall be established under Messiah the Prince, it is not the creation of a thing which has had no previous existence, but the setting up again of that which has been down. To illustrate from the word: Amos 9: 11. “In that day,” viz. (verse 9.) when the house of Israel has been sifted among the nations, and all the sinners of the Lord’s people (verse 10) are dead by the sword, “I will raise up” saith the Lord “the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.” The tabernacle of David is the house and kingdom of David as can be easily demonstrated from the scriptures; they have been built once but when Jehovah took away the hedge of his vineyard and broke down the walls thereof, letting in the boar out of the wood to waste it, and the wild beast of the field to devour it, then was the strong-hold of David brought to ruin, its glory made to cease, and its throne cast down to the ground. (Compare Psalm 80. Isaiah 6: 7. Psalm 89: 38-45.)
Nevertheless though the tabernacle is in ruins, it exists; though the stakes are removed, and the cords that united them broken, though the covering of glory is rent, and the ark of the covenant taken away, yet are all the portions and materials in existence, waiting for the return of the builder, in the appointed time, to put them together and set them up in righteousness, enlarging the place of the tent, stretching forth the curtains of the habitation, and all on such an enduring basis, that it shall “never be taken down, not one of the stakes thereof ever again be loosed, nor any of the cords thereof broken.”
But, to quit the allegory—this dilapidated tabernacle, I conceive, illustrates and proves the present state of the kingdom of God. The constituent parts are existent, but all is separation, all is scattered, all is low and abased, save the King himself, who, for various reasons, has been exalted to the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens. There is He retained; his subjects are dispersed, his capital in the hands of his enemies, his land desolate; his fellow heirs, the aristocracy of his kingdom, some of them sleeping in the dust, and the rest lost and hidden from the world’s eye, yet all in some sense existent. And this is the point to which I would more particularly direct the attention of your readers, that when the kingdom is set up again, it would be incomplete without an aristocracy, just as it would be incomplete without subjects, or, without a capital, or, without a king. If then when set up, it would be incomplete without any of these component parts, each of these parts before its setting up is in fact a portion of the kingdom; and when a sinner is turned from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God; when he is, through the law of spiritualisation, grafted into “the commonwealth of Israel” and becomes by mystical union to the Head a member of the very body of Christ, surely it may be said with propriety that “he is translated into the kingdom of God” without necessitating the fact of the kingdom being now set up; since he is converted from his former state of uselessness to God and service to Satan, into the royal priesthood of God’s kingdom, without which necessary order that kingdom cannot be established. I trust I have made my meaning sufficiently plain, but lest it should not be so, I will just refer to the “tabernacle of witness” to illustrate—Exodus 39: 33. The component parts tho’ in a state of dismemberment are called “the tabernacle”—“and they brought the tabernacle unto Moses.” Then follows an enumeration of the different portions, after which Moses sets it up. Again, Numbers 4, the charge of bearing the tabernacle when taken down is committed to the three families of the Levites, and yet it is said of each family, (though bearing only a portion of this taken down tabernacle,) “bearing the tabernacle”—Numbers 10: 17, 21.
With all respect I remain,
Mr. Editor, yours sincerely,
SIBELLA ANNE THORPE.
Derby, June 17th, 1851.
