THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM.
(CONTINUED)
The Word of the Truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom, though a long title to the message borne by Jesus to the children of Israel, will be easily understood by the inquirer from what has gone before. It imports, the Law and the Testimony that sets forth the Promises which make the message relating to the kingdom good news. Paul says, that “the Hope laid up in heaven” is reported of in the word of the truth of the gospel; and therefore he styles it “the Hope of the Gospel;” and as there is but one true gospel, though many false ones, there is but one true hope, which he terms, “one hope of the calling”-Colossians 1: 5, 23; Ephesians 4: 4. A hope is something in the future, promised but not possessed. The calling is a particular invitation; and the one hope of the calling, the promised thing to the possession of which you are especially invited. This being the meaning of the phrase, and seeing that the hope belongs to the gospel, it follows that the gospel contains an invitation or call to the possession of some particular thing. The one hope of the calling of the gospel-what is it? Paul says,
“God hath called you to his kingdom and glory”-1 Thessalonians 2: 12.
Then the kingdom and glory are the hope of the called, that is, of those who accept the invitation. The kingdom and glory are the one hope of their calling. The word which God sent to the children of Israel by Jesus Christ was an invitation to them to possess his kingdom and glory, of which he had said so much in the prophets, upon certain conditions. Jehovah’s kingdom and glory under Messiah’s administration was the great hope of the nation. It was the Hope of Israel, and of Israel alone. No other nation shared with them in this hope. It was the Hope of the Restoration of the Kingdom again to Israel-Acts 1: 6-under a New and Better Covenant than the Mosaic-the hope of the restitution of all things spoken by the prophets-Acts 3: 21. This is the hope promised to the fathers, and evangelised in the word of the kingdom, and therefore the Gospel’s Hope by which we are saved-Romans 8: 24. Expunge this hope from the gospel and it ceases to be gospel; for it is the hope that makes the tidings glad, and the news good; in short, there would be no tidings to report if the hope of the kingdom and glory was suppressed.
Jehovah is the accepted king of Israel-1 Samuel 12: 12; Isaiah 43: 15, and Israel therefore his nation-Exodus 19: 6; Isaiah 51: 4. He formed it for himself, that through it he might show forth his praise-Isaiah 42: 21. The prophet saith of Israel,
“We are thine, O Lord; thou never barest rule over our adversaries; they were not called by thy name.”
It is therefore A JEWISH KINGDOM. Jehovah never owned any other kingdom upon earth. He acquired the Jewish kingdom by creation; and purposes to obtain possession of all other kingdoms by conquest, because they are mere usurpations, and adversaries of his nation. He intends his kingdom to be ruled by a Vicegerent in his name, whom he styles “My king”-Psalm 2: 6, and by him to subdue the world, so that all thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, may become his. This being accomplished the Twelve Tribes of Israel will constitute “the first dominion” in actual organised possession of their own country-the kingdom proper. This kingdom will rule over all other nations, which in the aggregate will form the secondary dominion, or empire. Thus a family of nations will be created of which Abraham, then risen from the dead, will be the federal father, and Israel, the First Born-Exodus 4: 22.
This kingdom and dominion which Jehovah and his king are to set up are to exist unchanged for a thousand years, at the end of which things will occur which do not pertain to the gospel of the kingdom, though they affect the kingdom itself. The kingdom is imperishable, and non-transferable from one set of rulers to another-“it shall not be left to another people.” This is an important feature in the gospel. If it could be transferred from hand to hand, then flesh and blood might inherit it; but it cannot be transferred, therefore “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” They who are promoted to the possession of the kingdom at its establishment are to retain its honours, glory, power, and emoluments the whole thousand years, and as long afterwards as it exists, which will be for ever. Can flesh and blood that dies and turns to dust after three-score years and ten possess such a kingdom? Impossible. What then is indispensable to the inheritance of this kingdom? That the Heirs whom God has chosen to possess it be made immortal. This necessity God has promised to fulfil in promising to give them “the kingdom under the whole heaven for ever, even for ever and ever.” Hence the gospel call to the kingdom and its glory is equally a call to eternal life; and the hope of the kingdom consequently the hope of eternal life and glory, which are all comprehended in “the Hope of the gospel,” which is said to be “laid up in heaven,” and “reserved in heaven,” because He who is to convert the hope into a received gift, is there.
“Our life,” says Paul, “is hid with Christ in God. And when Christ our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory”-
The life, the glory, and the kingdom, are all bestowed at once:
“Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ”-
1 Peter 1: 13.
“SALVATION IS OF THE JEWS”-John 4: 22; and this salvation which is very great, is announced through the gospel of God’s Jewish kingdom. The salvation is national or kosmical rather; and individual. The salvation of the world of nations through the kingdom is social, civil, and ecclesiastical or spiritual; and is best perceived by those who comprehend the work of setting up the kingdom. The obstacles to the world’s regeneration must first be removed. These obstacles are “the powers that be.” Israel and the Saints under the Captain of salvation, will abolish them. Their removal being effected, “He will speak peace to the nations,” which they will joyfully accept, and submitting to his terms, will henceforth “rejoice with his people, Israel”-Deuteronomy 32: 43.
All that Jehovah proposes to bestow on men he intends to impart through this kingdom alone. Hence, if a man obtain the kingdom he obtains every thing; but if he be counted unworthy of it, he gets nothing. Doth he desire eternal life, eternal honour, eternal glory, equality with the angels, wisdom, knowledge, riches, power, and dominion? Let him “seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto him.” What said Jesus to his apostles when Peter asked him what recompense of reward they should have, who had forsaken all and followed him? Did he tell them that when they died their disembodied spirits should be borne aloft on angel’s wings to mansions in the skies? Did he tell them they should meet their friends and children there, and feast, and dance, and sing, enraptured in eternal ecstasy! He abused their reason with no such pagan foolishness as this; but said,
“Verily I say to you, that ye who have followed me, shall, in the regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, also sit upon twelve thrones, judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel”-Matthew 19: 28.
He promised them a joint rulership with himself in a kingdom, and that kingdom God’s kingdom of the Jews.
“Ye are they,” said he, “who have continued with me in my trials. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the Twelve Tribes of Israel”-Luke 22: 28-30.
This was to be their reward in the Age to Come, (en to Aioni to Erchomeno,) with Eternal Life-Mark 10: 30. The kingdom therefore was every thing to them. Jesus taught them to pray to the Father, saying,
“Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven; deliver us from evil, because the kingdom is thine, the power and the glory for ever.”
He instructed them in the mysteries or hidden things of the kingdom-Matthew 13: 11; and after he rose from the dead, having opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures, he conversed with them during the forty days preceding his ascension “on the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” Under the influence of this divine teaching they became full of the matter. “The Gospel” and “the kingdom” were with them convertible terms. They knew of no gospel without it. The resurrection was the door of entrance into the kingdom. They desired to rise from the dead that they might possess it; for they knew that if they did not “inherit the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world”-Matthew 25: 34, there would be for them neither glory, honour, nor eternal life in the Age to Come. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the last question they should put to the resurrected king of the Jews before his departure from the earth should be to know when He would restore again the kingdom to Israel-Acts 1: 3, 6. That it would be restored there was no question; for “the Regeneration,” or “Restitution of all things,” was a first principle of Christ’s teaching, and of their own faith and preaching afterwards. What they wanted to know was the time when the restitution of all things belonging to the kingdom of Israel should be accomplished.
“Wilt thou not at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”
They doubtless thought that the time to favour Zion had certainly then come. They knew that Jesus had been put to death for maintaining that he was “the king of the Jews;” and they saw that God approved his claim to David’s throne in delivering him from the death he had incurred by confessing his rightful claim to the kingdom. Could any time be more opportune than the then present to call to his aid those “twelve legions of angels,” which he said the Father would give him, and at their head to expel the Romans from Judea, and re-establish Israel’s kingdom under his own rule as the hereditary representative of the House of David, and “King of the Jews?” They were right in expecting the restoration, but they erred in looking for it at that time. All things were not ready. The king was provided, but where was his Household? -where were his body-guards-where were they who were to cooperate with him in the administration of the kingdom, and government of the world? Some say, “they were in their graves, to wit, the fathers or saints who had died under the Law.” “These might have been raised from the dead and associated with Jesus in the kingdom.” But, it was written in the word,
“Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth”-Psalm 45: 16.
This is said to the Messiah in a psalm which Paul applies to Jesus. Hence, whatever place his fathers may occupy in the kingdom, they will not be its “princes,” or chiefs, ruling with Jesus as “Prince of princes,” over the nations of the world; besides that, we apprehend, there will not be a sufficient number saved from the generations of Israel previous to the resurrection of the king of the Jews to supply the administrative demands of the kingdom under its new constitution, or covenant. That all things were not ready is represented in the parable of a certain man who made a great supper, and bade many. His object was to have his house filled that his supper might be eaten. He sent invitations to various classes; but though the supper was ready to be partaken of when the first class were invited, the eating of it was deferred until the seats provided were all occupied by guests procured by several subsequent endeavours to obtain them-Luke 14: 15-24.
The union of the King of the Jews with the kingdom is the marriage of the king’s son; and the sitting at table in the kingdom-the possession of it-is the eating of the marriage supper in the certain man’s house. The kingdom is Jehovah’s house into which he invites guests, that they may partake of the good things therein provided. He wills that His house shall be filled by the assembling of all the guests before the supper be eaten. Israel were bidden, being politically “the children of the kingdom.” Jehovah called them by his prophets to the life and glory of his kingdom; but they would not hearken-Jeremiah 7: 13; he invited them by John, but they made light of it; he sent them a message by Jesus, but they killed him; and lastly, he urged the invitation upon them by the apostles and a great company, but “they entreated them spitefully and slew them.” Thus, with comparatively few exceptions, Israel treated Jehovah’s call to his kingdom and glory. His feast of fat things, and wines on the lees well refined, were amply provided, but still there were not sufficient of Israel to occupy the seats. There was still room. The kingdom could not beset up until occupants were provided for the empty places. Seeing therefore that Israel turned a deaf ear to the invitation, the apostles were ordered to go and call the Gentiles that dwelt in the streets and lanes of the City, and even the highways and hedges of the nations, that the house of the kingdom might be filled with as many as the nature of the case required.
Though the materials of the House were all ready at the resurrection of the King of the Jews, it will be perceived from what hath gone before, that the Household had still to be formed. Till this had been formed and reconciled the kingdom could not be established. It was the work of the apostles and others to collect this household together-to call out from Israel and the nations a people numerous enough to fill all the official places of a kingdom that is to rule all the nations, languages, and tribes of the earth. The time was not yet come, then, to “restore the kingdom again to Israel” before the ascension. A long time was to elapse before the restitution to afford scope for the work of separating the Heirs of the Kingdom from the undistinguished multitude of the world. The King of Israel directed the attention of his ambassadors to this work instead of gratifying their curiosity about the time of the restoration, which the Father had not thought proper to reveal to them, He told them “they should be witnesses for him.” They should receive power after that the Holy Spirit had come upon them. Thus qualified, they would have to demonstrate that God had raised him from the dead; that He was the man ordained of Jehovah to rule the world in righteousness, as the prophets had of old declared-Jeremiah 23: 5-8; Psalm 96: 13; Daniel 7: 13-14; Zechariah 14: 9: and to proclaim the conditions upon which both Jews and Gentiles might inherit with him the kingdom and eternal glory.
What we have said may be regarded as an outline of the great salvation as exhibited in the gospel of the kingdom of God. It can hardly be regarded as anything more, seeing that the Bible as a whole is the Book of the Kingdom, and therefore an exhibition of the gospel in detail. The details of the gospel are set forth under certain heads, summarily styled “the things of the kingdom”-Acts 8: 12. The country where the kingdom is to be established occupies a distinguished place among “the things.” A great deal is said about it of a highly important and interesting character. Indeed, the testimony concerning the territory and throne of the kingdom are so intimately connected with the gospel, that a person cannot believe the gospel and be ignorant of it; for the territory and throne are principal subjects of the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the covenant made with David. These are “the covenants of promise” which the ignorant, and consequently unbelieving, are “strangers from”-Ephesians 2: 12. It is useless to talk about believing the gospel, and at the same time to be ignorant of these and of their true import; for they contain the gospel as we have shown abundantly in Elpis Israel. They define not only the locality and throne of the kingdom, but its subjects, the line of its king’s descent, his humiliation and exaltation, &c., the duration of the kingdom, the contemporary blessedness of all nations, and so forth. But we cannot particularise every thing here. He that studies the word will find the things of the kingdom shining forth from the writings of all the prophets and apostles. The more he understands the more he will see. We will only add here at present that they teach that the territory of the kingdom of the heavens is the land in which Abraham dwelt with Isaac and Jacob, and tended his flocks and herds; the subjects of the kingdom, Abraham’s descendants in the line of Isaac and Jacob; the King, one of his seed, the antitype of Isaac when he died and rose again “in a figure”-Hebrews 11: 12; the throne, David’s in Zion and Jerusalem; the empire, all the nations of the earth in a state of blessedness; the duration of the kingdom, like its king “for ever.”
The heaven that the gospel proclaims is a heavenly kingdom upon the earth. The kingdom is heavenly, because it is created and established by the God of heaven, and ruled by a King from heaven, and destined to rule by a King from heaven, and destined to rule “the heavens,” or kingdoms of the world. Because it is God’s kingdom it is sometimes styled a Theocracy-a government under the immediate direction of God. The kingdom of Israel was a theocracy, and the gospel kingdom is that theocracy restored under a constitution so amended as to be styled “a new and better covenant.” Under the old theocracy the rulers and the ruled were all flesh and blood, and therefore mortal; but under the RESTORED THEOCRACY the members of the government and the peers of the realm, with the King, will be immortal, while the people both of Israel and the Nations will be subject to death until death shall be abolished at the end of the thousand years.
It is to be hoped that the reader hath now a distinct conception of the future constitution of the world exhibited in the gospel of the kingdom. “The world to come” of which it treats is that system or arrangement of things upon the earth which subsists uninterruptedly for a thousand years after the restoration of the kingdom and throne of David. The gospel of the kingdom relates not to the constitution of things which shall obtain upon the earth after the thousand years have passed away. That is another world-a post-millennial kosmos, or arrangement of things, to be treated of in that Word yet to go forth from Jerusalem, when the Law shall proceed from Zion at the commencement of the thousand years-Isaiah 2: 3. The Millennial Kingdom is the gospel kingdom, and the gospel hope; that which follows after pertains to the faithful who shall be born in the Age to Come.
Having premised then so much as this, we come now to consider
