TRANSLATION INTO THE KINGDOM.

Men who understand not the nature of the kingdom of which the gospel treats, will be ever like the Scotch fiddler referred to by our Linlithgow friend—a discordant monochord! They comprehend not that “the kingdom of God is not in word but in power”—1 Corinthians 4: 20. They vainly imagine that on the supposition of their having obeyed the gospel—of their having believed the words of Peter, and having had the words, “I baptise you into the name, &c.,” pronounced over them—they are “in the kingdom, and are subjects of its reign!” Such an in-being as this is a mere matter of words, with the single act of dipping. Paul’s saying, according to their experience, ought to read, “the kingdom of God is not in power, but in words!” And this is the tree nature of the kingdom in which they say they are, and of which they are “subjects.” Behold them, and what do we see? A few men, of whom the world knows little or nothing, and cares less, hereditary assenters to the worship of Jesus, aggregated into small communities on the Lord’s day, when they ceremoniously eat bread, and prophesy to suit one another for the sake of peace! Study the organization and practices of these communities, and you have before you the kingdom of Christ according to their notions of things. They say they are in the kingdom, and being there, are kings and priests to God, and subjects of the kingdom! Over whom are they kings, and for whom do they mediate in the offering of gifts and sacrifices for sins? Are they kings, and mediators, or middle-men, for the nations, or for one another? The latter, if at all; for the nations yield them no allegiance, and bring them no offerings, and they pretend not, we apprehend, to officiate as such in “heaven.” And what is their hope? A kingdom, or rather “kingdoms beyond the skies!” They are so dissatisfied with the kingdom in which they say they are, and have in possession, that they hope to evacuate it, and to take possession of kingdoms they know not where, but somewhere, they imagine, beyond the skies! This is scraping mid the octaves sky high! But “every scribe instructed unto the kingdom of the heavens” (eis teen basileian toon ouranoon) has no respect for such fabulous speculation as this. He admits of no interpretation of “the Word of the Kingdom,” which reduces it to an absurdity. In a kingdom such as that, attuned to praise on fiddles of a single string, he sees nothing to be desired. He thanks God that his hope is not “the baseless fabric of a vision,” or words, and nothing else; but the real and substantial blessedness of all nations in Abraham and Christ; when, as an adopted son of God’s friend—James 2: 23, and a brother of his own Beloved Son, he shall with them possess Israel’s kingdom, and its dominion over all the earth, with eternal life and glory. Such is “the One Hope”—the Hope of Israel—on account of which Paul was an ambassador in chains.

The sky-kingdomers, supposing that their churches are “the kingdom of grace, imagine that the apostle has reference to translation into them when he speaks of being “translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.” It is to be hoped that our glorious Lord is heir of a more desirable kingdom than such “a kingdom of grace”—a kingdom in which his gospel is despised, and denounced as “wicked, destructive, and infamous heresy,” and the names of those who believe and advocate it cast out as evil. But we would remark here, that there is no such phrase in the Bible as “kingdom of grace,” absolutely or relatively to an “everlasting kingdom,” or “kingdom of glory.” This systematising of the kingdom of God is a mere human invention. His “kingdom and glory”—1 Thessalonians 2: 12, will be all of grace or favour, for they will be the manifestation of “his goodness,” which he “hath purposed in himself” (ap ‘aioonos) “from the age,” being moved thereto by no other consideration than his own pleasure—Revelation 4: 11. For this cause “the word of the kingdom” is styled “the word of his grace”—Acts 14: 3, to which he gave testimony by the “signs” which accompanied it. The “gospel of the kingdom” of God is also synonymised by “the gospel of the grace of God”—Acts 20: 24; so that those who have obeyed it, are said to have “access by faith into it;” as it is written, “Being justified from faith (ek pisteos), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: through whom also, we have access by faith into this grace, (eis teen charin tauten) wherein ye stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God—Romans 5: 2. Here, then, it will be seen, that the justified in Rome had been “delivered out of the power of darkness, and translated into the grace of God (en hee), in which they stood,” when Paul wrote to them. Standing in the grace of God is being “in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ,” “rejoicing in hope” of the “kingdom and glory unto (eis) which” they had been “called” through the invitation contained in the gospel of the kingdom. To deliver them out of the power of darkness was “to open their blind eyes,” an operation the sky-kingdomers of this generation have not been the subjects of as yet. So long as men are ignorant of the gospel of the kingdom, they are in darkness, and in the power of it by knowledge sincerely and earnestly believed; for it is by faith in the word of his grace that we have access into the grace of God in which we stand, when so translated or introduced. But the believer of the gospel of the kingdom of God’s grace can only get into that grace through Jesus, “the Son of his love.” Until he can prove by God’s testimony that he is in the grace, he is not delivered out of the power of darkness. Now, Paul says that it is the Father that delivers the true believer through Jesus. How is that deliverance effected in the present state? By the believer of the gospel of the kingdom lovingly admitting the claims of Jesus to its throne, recognising his divine sonship, his blood as the purifying blood of the New Covenant of the kingdom, by which the heirs of that kingdom are cleansed, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension to the right hand of power—by his believing these things, and being united to the name of Jesus in being “baptised into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” and so receiving repentance and remission of sins—by being the subject of faith and obedience such as this, he is translated into the grace of God by the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The passage in Colossians contains an antithesis, or opposition of words and things; one being “the power of darkness,” and the other, “the kingdom of God’s dear Son,” in relation to which, the apostle affirms that the Colossians had changed sides. This antithesis is expressed in the words of Jesus to Paul, when he said to him, “I now send thee to the Gentiles to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness into light (eis phoos), and from the power of Satan towards God (epi ton Theon), that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among the sanctified by faith which is in me”—Acts 26: 18. In this text, “darkness” and “light” are the opposites; also, “the power of Satan,” as opposed to “God.” God’s light and Satan’s darkness are the antithesis in both places, and Gentiles the subject thereof at two distinct periods of their individual history. God’s light is the gospel of the kingdom of his Son, or the word of his grace; while Satan’s darkness, or the ignorance of the adversary to that light, the pagan superstition, or “spirit then working in the children of disobedience”—Ephesians 2: 1. These were the two sides of the antagonism introduced among the Gentiles by the proclamation of the glad tidings of the kingdom, announcing a New Era, when the world should be ruled in righteousness by a Man whom the God of Israel had produced for the purpose—Acts 17: 31. Now, being in the ignorance, or darkness, of the gospel’s adversary, the Gentiles could at no subsequent period become “light in the Lord,” or be in the light, unless they were “delivered” from their ignorance, and consequently its powers, and “translated into” the light of the gospel of the kingdom. The apostle saith, that the Colossian Gentiles had been the subjects of this deliverance and translation, by which they had “put off the old man with his deeds, and had put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge (or light), after the image of him that created him”—Colossians 3: 9-10—they were therefore in the new man, having put him on.

But, the original word rendered “translated,” does not require into after it to give it its full force and signification. The verb of which it is the first aorist is methisteemi, and signifies “to move from one place to another, remove, transfer.” By metonymy it also signifies, “to cause to pass from one mode of thinking to another, and to cause to change sides.” The Colossians had changed their position, as the result of their mode of thinking, being changed by the knowledge sent them from God through Paul’s preaching. Formerly, they thought as the children of disobedience think; now, their thinking was according to the mind of God; then they were in darkness; now they were in the light; then they worshipped in the temples of dumb idols; now in the assemblies of the saints: they had passed over from the adversary unto the hope of the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Having come, therefore, unto this, the apostle encourages them to hold on to it, assuring them that Christ would present them holy, and unblameable, and unreprovable in God’s sight; “if,” says he, “ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven”—Colossians 1: 22. These things are as plain and obvious as the truth in Jesus. But after all, what is the use of expending the rich tones of celestial harmony upon those whose ears are responsive only to the scrapings of a tyro on a single string? The harmony of truth is sacrificed by such to one signification of an English preposition. Well, it has ever been so. Mule-itiveness and self-esteem—stubbornness and pride—are too strong for the gospel of the kingdom. They blinded Judah, laid Jerusalem and the Temple in ruins, and broke off the nation from its goodly olive; and, ere many years have passed away, they will be the capture and destruction of many “pious,” but crooked and perverse religionists, who have a zeal of God, but not according to truth. What can we do more than leave them to themselves? This may be expedient in the case of Mr.-----.

EDITOR.

* * *