HE ADDRESSES TO THE CHURCHES, Laodicea:What Brings the Time of Christ's Patience to an End. (Rev. 3:14-22.)
We come now to the solemn close of these addresses, the Lord's last word to the churches; and it is very striking that we come to that close here, just after that epistle to Philadelphia, in which we have seen recognized a certain real return of heart to Christ, and a true revival by His Word and Spirit. Now, there are, on the contrary, procrastination and collapse:and the most serious thing is that these are the infallible signs of the failure on the part of Philadelphia itself. Laodicea springs out of Philadelphia. The blessing there leads to the judgment here.
In the states of the professing church which these addresses have already pictured, there is not only historical succession, but development. Even Protestantism sprang out of the bosom of Romanism, as Philadelphia out of Protestantism. In neither case is the one absorbed into the other, however. Romanism continues, outside the Reformation. The signs of a remnant are unmistakable in Philadelphia. Moreover, "overcomers" are implied in each case until the coming of the Lord. In Thyatira, thus, they are exhorted to "hold fast till I come; and he that overcometh, and keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations." In Sardis, " If therefore thou shalt
not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief." In Philadelphia, " I come quickly." In this way, Protestantism, springing out of Romanism, runs henceforth side by side with it to the end. Philadelphia springs out of Protestantism, and similarly accompanies it. And so Laodicea, we may conclude, springs out of Philadelphia, and runs its course parallel with the rest.
But there is more positive proof. For if in Sardis there has been the absolute coldness of death, in Philadelphia, the glow of revival, in Laodicea there is the fatal lukewarmness which shows at once the effect (and the limited effect) of one upon another. And this is why the cold of Sardis itself is preferable to the lukewarmness of Laodicea. All God's grace has been spent in vain upon it.
Laodicea gives us, then, the failure of Protestantism, as Thyatira of that which assumes to be the Catholic Church. It is the complete failure of Christendom the second time; and now, in the full light of an open Bible, and after repeated intervention of God in wide-spread and protracted revival and blessing. The full end of patience has at last been reached, and the time to display also the results of the divine work, which no failure or opposition of man can in any wise hinder.
But before entering upon the details of this address to Laodicea, let us inquire as to the name itself. It was given to a city by Antiochus II., after his enlargement of it, in honor of his wife Laodice, and is a compound of two words-laos, "people,"and dike. "Dike" is given by the dictionaries as having the three meanings, closely connected together, (i) of "manner, custom, usage;" (2) of " right;" (3) of " requirement," and so " vengeance," punitive justice. We have thus three possible meanings:"custom of the people," "people's right," "judgment of the people." And these three things have equally plain and solemn connection with one another.
For it is indeed the "people's custom" that is here unfolded. If under popery it is rather the usurpation of the leaders that is the question, in Protestantism, with its open Bible, the people are tested as never before. The earliest ages of Christianity, dependent upon the toilsome labor of copyists for the multiplication of copies of the Word, had in no wise the privileges of which the Reformation, with its providentially furnished printing-press, at once came into possession. Hence, also, responsibilities as great, and brought home to the door of every man. People may still be ignorant, but it is now assuredly a willing ignorance. They may still seek to cast responsibility upon others, and blindly follow still leaders as blind, but this has necessarily now another character from what it had before. Hence it is the people who are now being manifested,-their way which is being made apparent; and judgment, however delayed, must at last follow with proportional energy. Thus two significant applications of this word "Laodicea" are made evident.
But again, and connected with this, there is a feature of the last days which Scripture puts prominently forward,-the self-assertion which indeed on man's part has never been lacking, but which now pervades, in a manner not before seen, the masses of the population. That Protestantism has favored this, is one of the reproaches of the Romanists. And it is undeniably true that in one
sense it has favored it. The breaking of ecclesiastical yokes,-the yoke of a tyranny more prostrating than any other,-with that awaking of the mind of man which is ever found where the light of the Word of God has penetrated,-has produced a state of things in which, if Christ's yoke be not accepted, man's will assuredly assert itself as never before. And so it has proved; and so Scripture long before declared that it would be. " Laodicea," in its third sense, as "people's right" has become, morally, spiritually, and politically also, the watchword of the times. On the one hand, there is an immense march of civilization, a predicted running to and fro, and increase of knowledge; on the other, an uprise of what threatens civilization, and is ominous of an approaching end of the whole state.
"People's right!" The rights of the masses! and which the masses themselves mean to define and pronounce upon. Here is that condition of things which Hobbes, more than two centuries since, declared to be the national condition, and which he rightly said meant universal war. For who is to judge as to these conflicting interests? and who is to enforce the judgment? Class will disagree with class,-nay,.individual with individual:every man's hand will be against his brother; might will make right upon a scale the world has never seen, until out of this surging sea a power rises strong enough to command once more. Then they that will be lords shall have a lord, and they that will not receive Christ shall have Antichrist. So the Word of God declares. For this ominous watchword, "people's rights," in the end of centuries of divine long-suffering, is a terrible claim in the ears of a God, strong, if yet so patient, and who is provoked every day.
It is a claim which denies the fall, and the sentence confirmed by countless individual sins,-the claim of a world which has refused and crucified the Son of God come into it in simplest loving mercy;-which would take the earth out of its Maker's hand, and enrich itself at His cost and to His dishonor. What wonder if they should quarrel over the spoils of victory, and the nations be quaking, as they are, over the success of their policy of liberty and equal rights? When democracy meant only the curbing of the despotic power of rulers, when it meant still respect for wealth and rank, and law and order, they could rejoice over it, and cite it as the evidence of morally improved times. Arbitrary power only was to be restrained:there was to be equal justice, and quietness and assurance as the effect of righteousness. Certainly the abuse of power had been great enough to provoke reprisals, and make the downfall of absolutism an apparent real advancement. But man was and is the same; and the mistake has been ever to suppose that alterations of this kind could really heal or touch a moral state which was the essence of the trouble. The leprosy, skinned over here, would only break out elsewhere, for it was deeper than the surface,-in the blood, in the vitals of humanity itself.
Who can say where the movement for men's rights shall stop? If they be rights, must it not be unrighteousness to stop any where? Who can say to the restless, resistless, surge of the sea, Come no further! here shall thy waves be stayed? There were, there are, most real and gigantic evils,-tyrannies which no form of government yet devised has taken into account, or probably can take. What does every man's right to his own imply? What is " his own "? How can you take from wealth the power which wealth implies? or allow power without allowing the abuse of it? Settle all inequalities, make one general plain of all the mountains upon earth, you have stopped the fertilizing rivers also which the mountains roll over the plains and in the valleys which you deprecate, but for whose benefit, spite of all, they rise.
Rights! what scale have you of rights? Listen to the voices from a lower level than you desire, which will interpret for you, and enforce their interpretation,-socialism, communism, nihilism,- dread names, not merely for the monarch, but for the man of property also, and for the law-abiding citizen. People's rights are already in terrible conflict with one another, and in their name how many wrongs may be inflicted yet! This Laodicea of politics is destined to be the rock upon which all governmental reform will end in anarchy and chaos. He who can read the great typical book of nature may read the scriptural presages upon a scroll written with lamentation and mourning and woe:"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth, distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth:for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Luke 21:25, 26).
But the removal of the things that can be shaken will only make way for a kingdom, not such as they anticipate, absolute beyond all the tyrannies of old, a "rod of iron," which shall break as potsherds all the opposing powers of man, yet be the shepherd's rod under which the poor of the flock will lie down at last in peace, and none shall make them afraid. How refreshing to turn from what has been engaging us to contemplate such a rule as the world has never seen!
" He shall judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people; He shall save the children of the needy, and break in pieces the oppressor. … In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace as long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. All kings shall fall down before Him; all nations shall serve Him" (Ps. 72:2-4, 7,8, II).
But, it may be objected, this is altogether political:what has this to do with Laodicea as a condition of the churches ? It would have little indeed to do with it if only the Church realized its separation from the world. As it is, it has very much indeed to do,-so much, that in Christendom a political Laodicea involves, as a matter of course, an ecclesiastical one. The world and the Church are so allied, so mingled, so permeate each other now, that ideally alone will they endure separation. And as a matter of fact, "people's rights" has become scarcely less an ecclesiastical than a political watchword. In this sphere, the masses are rising up against the long rule of their spiritual leaders, and claiming their rights at their hands. The oldest and best established oligarchies are accepting popular methods and forms upon all sides. The few must yield to the many. They choose their pastors as they choose their lawyer or their doctor, and insist upon having what they pay for. What can be a better "right" than that? Thus, however, it is clear, they "heap to themselves teachers," if you must not assume that they have "itching ears." But, in truth, the ear it is that is largely consulted; and necessarily so, where the very idea at the bottom is a commercial equivalent, and popular majorities rule, as quantity instead of quality. Even in the Church, and at its best, most spiritual have never been the larger number. How much less in churches demoralized by heterogeneous mixture, competing for power and popularity!
Think of it, however, as we may, there is no doubt that, in church as well as state, "liberal" thoughts are prevailing,-democratic forms are succeeding to the old aristocratic ones. And here certainly Philadelphia has prepared the way for Laodicea. Distinctive priesthood, and the vested rights of clerisy, have in measure yielded to the free evangelization going on, and the equality of Christian brotherhood, and it is impossible not to rejoice that this should be so. But yet who can doubt that the overthrow, such as it is, of these ecclesiastical superstitions has favored claims that are no more of God than they? The laity may dispossess the clergy, and dominion pass from one class to another without reverting to the hands to which it really belongs. Christ is alone Master, not clergy, and not people. Ministers are indeed servants, as the very name imports, yet not servants of men,-a thing against which the apostle so vehemently contends. " Ye are bought with a price; be ye not the servants of men:if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Thus these two things are in essential opposition. Christ needs to be in His true place,-a thing which so marks Philadelphia, but from which Laodicea excludes Him as does Thyatira. Bring Christ in, and the ministers are His servants. Bring Christ in, and the people are His people. His service, on the part of all alike, is true and equal freedom at once to all.
But the spiritual phase of Laodicea we are now to follow. May we do it honestly, with hearts open to receive rebuke; remembering that, not ecclesiastical place, but spirit, is in question. It is an old deceit to pride one's self on possession of the truth, while yet the sanctification by the truth is unknown. And this indeed makes a large part of the character of what is before us.
The Lord presents Himself here as the One who amid the general failure is " the Amen, the faithful and true witness:" He has not failed.
He is the Amen:"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ," says the apostle, " who was preached among you by us, even by me and Sylvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in Him was yea. For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us" (2 Cor. 1:19, 20). No uncertainty, no doubtfulness, is there in Christ or His Word. He is always simple, positive " Yea," speaking one thing, absolutely to be depended on. If we have but a word of His, it is a blessed reality, given us in God's infinite love, which we may rest our souls on for eternity, and which can never fail us. This is a resource which the denial of verbal inspiration would completely take from us; but His own assurance is, "Scripture cannot be broken" (Jno. 10:35). If it be a question, as in the case which the Lord is speaking of here, of but a title applied by an inspired writer to a certain class of men, there must be perfect suitability and divine wisdom in the application. " If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken." How precious is this assurance! Coming where it does, is it not itself a significant warning, this claim of His as "the Amen, the faithful and true Witness" to such a generation as the present? Does He not in it challenge the unbelief so common all around us?
But this presentation of Himself as a true and faithful Witness is in contrast with the failure of the Church, which has been any thing but that. He is just about to remove the candlestick because it has been unfaithful and untrue. But His people's shortcoming is not His own. Infidelity may seek to justify itself by the failure of Christians; and even Christians, alas! are almost capable of taking it as in some sort a reflection upon Himself. But "if we are unfaithful, he abideth faithful," as the Rev. Ver. rightly puts it now (2 Tim. 2:13). And He is just ready to rise up and bring in that day in which, with the revelation of all things, this faithfulness of His will appear abundantly. In the general wreck, this only now remains to Him.
He proclaims Himself with this:"The Beginning of the creation of God." The old creation, spoiled by sin, is passing away; its history is nearly completed; its judgment has been long since pronounced in the cross, and in Christ risen from the dead is begun all that God owns as really His,- first and always in His thought, and for which the ruin of the old only prepared the way.
When the Psalmist lifted up his eyes to heaven, and in view of God's glorious handiwork there exclaims, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" the answer is, " Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels; thou hast crowned him with glory and honor; Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet." But of whom is he speaking? As the apostle in the second of Hebrews assures us, not of the first, but of the Second Man. " We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." It is Christ in whom the true ideal of man is realized, and of whom the first Adam was but the fleeting image, and in many respects the contrast.
Now in Laodicea, with Christ outside, it cannot be the new creation in which their riches are. Yet they say they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing. Thus there are things which are gain to them which they have not counted loss for Christ.
It is an exceedingly solemn thing that the very truth which with all its grace judges and sets aside man most thoroughly is the very truth which he is prone to take and use for the purpose of self-gratulation. Take the law:God gave it "that every mouth might be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God" (Rom. 3:19). But how has man used, and how is he using it? Always to establish his own righteousness by it. The large part of the Christian world, so called, to-day is taking the "strength of sin" (i Cor. 15:56) to accomplish holiness by it, and are taking salvation itself to be, "not" indeed "by the merit of works, but" yet "by works as a condition."
So, exactly, with Christianity:God has brought in the truth of new creation, the world before Him lying under death and judgment. Yet man takes the blessed truth of Christianity to patch up the world with it, and make it better if he can. And in the very presence of the ruin and break-up of things on every side, men are vaunting the success of the effort. On the eve of judgment, they are fulfilling the Scripture-portents of such a time by their smooth auguries of prosperity and peace.
No doubt God's Spirit is really and largely working; but His end and man's thought are diverse, in that, while He is converting souls to " deliver them out of this present evil world," man's thought is an improved world, a Christian world:the effect of which is, to amalgamate Christians and the world, and spoil the scriptural character of Christianity altogether.
But in these last days God has given many to recognize the truth of the Word as to this. He has revived the truth of new creation, and revealed to us the practical and fruitful consequences which result from a place in Christ, where He is, in the heavens. But the question for us is, What are we doing, then, with the truth we recognize? Shall we talk of being in Christ a new creation, old things passed away, and all things become new, and yet cling to what has in it all the moral elements that make up the world-"the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life"? Is it theory with us, or practical reality, to have " put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him:where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is ALL, and in all"? Has the Lord need to appeal to us as the One who is " the Beginning of the creation of God"? If so, is not Laodiceanism with us in that proportion?
To Laodicea, as to the rest, He says, " I know thy works" Here is the test,-the only true one. " I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot:I would that thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth." This is the certain and near end of professing Christendom. Of course He will not spew His own beloved people out of His mouth. He must take these first of all to Himself before He can reject the whole mass as nauseous. And we have already seen, in the address to Philadelphia, that the Lord tells them He will keep them out of the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world:-not merely out of the temptation; He might hide them in the desert so, but out of the hour of it. For this, He must take them out of the world altogether. And that is what the " I come quickly " connected with this also intimates.
Here, then, we have the brief, solemn pause before the Lord takes His people to Himself. He must do this before the professing body can be spewed out of His mouth. He cannot so reject even the poorest, weakest, most wayward of His own. And it is important to insist upon this, because there is abroad a view according to which only a class of better than ordinary Christians will be taken up when the Lord comes, while the rest will be left upon earth to go through the tribulation which follows this, when the earth is enduring the vials of His wrath. They point to the promise to Philadelphia as in this way the promise to a special class; and the ten virgins of our Lord's parable they maintain to be all Christians, as they bring forward the fact of their being "virgins" to prove;- only foolish ones, unwatchful and unready, with indeed the oil of the Spirit in their lamps, but no extra supply in their " vessels." Thus their lamps, which had been burning, cease to burn at last, and the fresh supply of oil they get is obtained too late for admission to the marriage. The Lord rejects them only as the bride:they lose their place in this, and are shut out to be purified by tribulation, and made ready for the kingdom afterward.
But how many precious realities must be denied in order to hold this view! Is it our faithfulness, then, that gives us a place among those who are admitted to the dignity of the bride of Christ? Is the Lord when He comes indeed going to discriminate in this way between less and more faithfulness? -between ordinary and extraordinary Christians? What an engine is this for turning the blessed and purifying hope into a means of self-occupation and despair! If things are so, where is the line of acceptance to be drawn? and on what side of it are we? Is my joyful expectation of this blessed time to be based on the belief in my own superiority to many of my brethren? What comfortable Pharisaism, or what legal distress must such a view involve!
If true, why should such a discrimination be made between the living saints alone? Why should
it not equally affect the dead? And then, is there to be a purgatory to purify these?
As to Scripture, the support it gives to any such view is only apparent, and results from an interpretation of single passages, which is at issue with its whole doctrinal teaching. The coming of the Lord to remove His saints is not in Scripture ever connected even with our responsibilities and their adjudication, but with the fulfillment of the hope with which grace has inspired us. Our responsibilities and the reward of our works are connected with that which is called the "appearing" or "manifestation" or "revelation of Christ,"-His coming with His saints, not for them. At the door of the Father's house to which He welcomes us when He comes, no sentry stands, no challenge is required. We go into it as purged by the precious blood of Christ, and in Christ. Already are we not only entitled, but " meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light."
When He comes to the world, and His people take their places with Him as associated with Him in government, then dignities, honors, rewards of work, will find their place. It will be " Have thou authority over ten"-"be thou also over five cities." But salvation, righteousness, the child's place with the Father, membership of the body of Christ, our relationship to Christ as His bride,-nay, even our being kings and priests unto His God and Father, are things which, as they are not gained, so they are not lost by any work of ours at all. Christ has procured them for us, and grace bestows them,- grace, and grace alone.
When, therefore, the Lord descends from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and
the trump of God, is there discrimination among those in Christ?-of the dead who shall be raised? of the living who shall be changed? Nay, but the " dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; so shall we be ever with the Lord." Blessed words! how they pierce and scatter the chilling fogs of legalism, and make the "blessed hope," not a means of sorest perplexity and doubt, but hope indeed!
Nor are the passages which these writers build upon in contradiction with this at all. The promise to the overcomer at Philadelphia is one of a class which, as the eye runs over them throughout these apocalyptic addresses, show plainly that they apply more or less to every true believer. Take the promise to him at Ephesus, and ask, Will any believer not "eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God"? Take that to Smyrna, and ask, Will any " be hurt of the second death"? And so on through the remainder. Their special significance in relation to the overcomer in the cases there pointed out is not in the least diminished by their general application to all believers.
Again, as to the ten virgins, it is a mistake to suppose that in that character (according to the par-able,) Christians are represented as espoused to Christ at all. Those who go forth to meet the bridegroom are not the bride; and to make them this, disjoints the parable. According to the whole tenor of the prophecy in these chapters, the Jewish people and the earth are in the foreground, and the parable of the virgins only parenthetically brings in the connection of Christians with these.
According to the common language of the Old-Testament prophets, the Lord is coming to take a Jewish bride; and on His way to do this, His people of the present time are called up to meet Him and return with Him. So much is implied in the expression in the Greek. It is thus when He is come to earth that the foolish virgins are rejected, and cast out of His kingdom altogether. The parable is a parable of the kingdom; and the kingdom, in all the parables, speaks of earth, not heaven, and of the whole field of profession. "Virgins," "servants," and the like titles, merely intimate responsible profession, not necessarily the truth of it. He was a servant who had laid up his lord's money in a napkin, and never really served at all. He was a servant, but a wicked one; and so with these "foolish" virgins.
Oil they are explicitly stated not to have; and though their lamps are only represented as "going out," when the cry is raised, "Behold, the bridegroom!" this is the constant style of these parables, in which the inner thoughts of the soul are mirrored and exposed, not dogmatic truth taught. In their own imaginations, the Pharisees were the "ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance; "not in dogmatic reality. Moreover, the Lord's words of rejection, " I know you not," are decisive from One who " knoweth them that are His," and can never disown them.
No, He cannot spew His own out of His mouth, but must have them with Him out of the world before the first drops of the storm of judgment fall. Even then it will be made manifest, before He rejects the public professing body, that they have on their part rejected Him. Christendom ends in
open apostasy. The day of the Lord will not come except there come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed. Popery, evil as it is, and anti-christian too, is not the last evil, nor the worst. It is the sinful woman, not the man. It has been revealed over three hundred years as this, and the day of the Lord is not yet come. The Antichrist will deny the Father and the Son alike.
(To be continued.)
"THE MYSTERIES OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN."-186
I. WHAT THE KINGDOM IS.
'There is perhaps no term in Scripture so largely used and so little understood as that of "the kingdom of heaven." Yet its importance must be (in some measure at least,) proportionate to the frequency of its use. It is only, indeed, one book-the gospel of Matthew,-in which it is found, though there thirty-one times; but the kindred expression, " the kingdom of God," is used much more extensively, and in some parables in other gospels is found in its stead. Taken together, these expressions have a very large place in the New Testament, and their interpretation will correspondingly affect a great deal of Scripture. I propose, therefore, a serious examination of the doctrine of the kingdom as covered by these terms, and to inquire as to the practical bearing of the doctrine also, which assuredly there must be, for "all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
"The kingdom of heaven" is a New-Testament term, then; but it has its roots in the Old Testament. The idea is found in the germ in Daniel, in the prophet's words to Nebuchadnezzar, who, effectually humbled by his durance among the beasts, should learn by it that "the heavens do rule" (chap. 4:26). This is expanded afterward into the thought that "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will" (5:32). Here we have but the idea, however,-the rule of God, supreme necessarily over men. Here there is no thought of a special, limited, dispensational kingdom. This " dominion," as the king himself says, "is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation " (5:34).
But the book of Daniel carries us further than this in the direction we are seeking. Historically and prophetically both, it has for its scope "the times of the Gentiles," of which the Lord speaks (Luke 21:24),-that is, of Gentile supremacy over Israel. But this is the consequence of her sin, and of God's controversy with her, and it means the interruption of His own dwelling in her midst, as of old He did, and as He yet will do. For Jerusalem shall yet be, saith the Lord, "the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel forever." (Ezek. 43:7.)
The "place of His throne" had been given up before Nebuchadnezzar could lay waste the city and the temple, and a notable change, therefore, is found in the Old-Testament books which give us the history of that solemn and important time. The ark had been the symbolic throne of Him who "sitteth between the cherubim;" and as "the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth " it had passed through Jordan to take possession of the land. (Josh. 3:11.) Now the glory had left its dwelling-place on earth, as Ezekiel had seen (chap. 10:18; 11:23), and the very decree which ordains the rebuilding of the temple is that of a Persian king to whom the " God of heaven has given all the kingdoms of the earth."(2 Chron. 36:23 ; Ezra 1:2.)
This is no mere casual expression. It is characteristic of the books of the captivity-of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel. Although the eternal throne of God can never be given up, yet a dispensational throne is now removed; and this is what characterizes the times of the Gentiles,-a responsible throne on earth which is set up by God, and yet not God's throne, not the kingdom of God. For the kingdom of God men must wait, but in hope; for the kingdom of God shall come.
Daniel accordingly shows us the end of these Gentile empires, and beyond them all a wholly different one:"In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." (Chap. 2:44.)
This is in Nebuchadnezzar's vision, but the features of this final kingdom he is not able more distinctly to see. The vision granted later to the prophet (chap. 7:) develops, as we may easily see, the spiritual significance both of the Gentile powers and of that which supersedes them. For the king, the image has the form of a man, though with no breath of life in it; and there is brilliancy enough, though increasing degeneracy. But to the prophet's eyes there is no human form, no unity; plenty of life and vigor, but bestial. On the other hand, as to the final kingdom, though not much is seen as to detail, one feature newly given is of the sweetest encouragement. It is that the government is in the hands of One like a son of man, under whom the saints too possess the kingdom.
Here, then, is a " kingdom of heaven "-a heavenly rule on earth,-a final world-wide triumph of righteousness and peace. We recognize it as that of which all the prophets speak, the expansion of the first prophecy of the victory of the woman's Seed, -the unforgotten goal and purpose of the ages.
Old-Testament prophecy soon comes to an end after the voice in Daniel has uttered itself. There is a long pause of expectancy, and then one more than a prophet takes up the burden of those many years past, and announces the kingdom of heaven as at hand. But the people are not ready:and the voice is of one crying in the wilderness, a priest who has forsaken the sanctuary, and stands apart from men. The baptism of repentance must precede the remission of sins. The mountain must be leveled with the plain, that the way of the Lord may be prepared.
Then there is another Voice, and He who was announced is come. The kingdom is presented, now with the signs and powers which make good its claim, and are ready to establish it among men. Nothing is wanting, except, alas! the loyal hearts that should greet their divine King; but here is a lack that nothing can compensate for. The more fully manifested, the more fully He is rejected. He finds in a Gentile the faith He cannot find in Israel. (Matt. 8:10.) And thereupon declares that many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness, with wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The steps of His rejection it is not necessary here to trace. The twelfth chapter of Matthew already shows it complete. His mighty works, instinct with the power and love of God, they ascribe to Beelzebub, and He warns them that for blasphemy against the Holy Ghost there is never forgiveness. They sought signs, but none should be given them but the sign of the prophet Jonas, the Son of Man three days and nights in the heart of the earth. The chapter ends with the solemn disowning of natural ties:whosoever did the will of His Father in heaven, the same was His brother and sister and mother.
This introduces the thirteenth chapter, in which seven parables give us the prophetic character of the kingdom of heaven as it now is, the King rejected and away. Instead of finding fruit in His vineyard, He goes forth to sow the seed of fresh fruit among the Gentiles. Speaking in parables, because hearing they heard and understood not, He instructs His disciples in the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (5:11),-that is, in things not forming part of what had been revealed in Judaism, things which had been kept secret from the foundation of the world (5:35).
We see, in fact, in these parables that while the essential idea of the kingdom of heaven is preserved, the form of it is widely different. It is still a kingdom of heaven, and in the hands of the Son of Man; not yet, however, established in power, but committed into the hands of men, and of men who fail in the administration of it. Thus there is disorder, and a possibility of evil even in" high places,-purging and rectification needed when the King comes in power. " He shall send forth His angels, and they shall purge out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity." The mysteries of the kingdom terminate thus in its manifestation. The kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:9) looks on to His kingdom and glory (i Thess. 3:12), when the fruits of the present sowing-time are husbanded.
These two forms of the kingdom of heaven need to be distinguished carefully. The Lord's address to Laodicea very plainly distinguishes them:" Him that overcometh will I give to sit with Me in My throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with My Father on His throne." It is as Son of Man He is seen in these addresses; His own throne, therefore, is clearly what is His as Man, in contrast with the Father's throne, the divine one. It is plain at once that while His saints are promised to sit with Him upon the one, none but One Himself divine could sit upon the other.
The Lord has, then, a present kingdom; but in it we can serve only and not reign. We are "translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son." (Col. 1:13.) The time for Christians to reign cannot be yet; cannot be till He takes the kingdom in the form in which the Old Testament shows it,-comes as Son of Man, and reigns publicly.
It is with His present kingdom we are now occupied. This is established in a very different way, namely, by the sowing of the seed-"the Word of the kingdom." The kingdom extends no further than as this is, in some way, "sown in the heart." Yet it may not be savingly. It is the sphere of profession and privilege that is before us. The devil may take away that which was sown in the heart. The man may have no root in himself, the heart being a " heart of stone." Or the springing up of what is native to the soil may choke the good seed so that it is unfruitful. By and by, among the wheat also the enemy sows tares. All this is a picture of the kingdom.
There may be other aspects of it, and there are. We may be called, as in the last three parables of this series, to look at the divine plan and purpose, which cannot fail of accomplishment; but from the human side there cleaves to it ever the idea of condition, of possible failure, of a mixture of evil with the good, of coming judgment needed to rectify this. If the idea of mercy come in, it is still conditional, never pure grace, as witness the parable which closes the eighteenth chapter of the same gospel.
The King is away, the administration in the hands of man in the meantime:this accounts for most of the characters we are considering. It is the distinctive, fundamental feature of this " mystery "form; and as such, we must now examine it more attentively.
(To be continued.)