THE KINGDOM IN PROSPECT
[p. 221] THE KINGDOM IN PROSPECT
The three evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke, each has his own way of presenting the transfiguration. Matthew brings the light of the future into the present: “Verily I say unto you, There are some of those standing here that shall not taste of death at all until they shall have seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom”, Matthew 16:28. It is “The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ... And we have the prophetic word made surer ... until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your hearts”, 2 Peter 1: 16,19. God would set every one of us in the present blessed light of what is still actually future, so that what we get here may be spoken of as the kingdom in prospect.
It is an extraordinary favour from God that we can live spiritually in the light of the coming kingdom of the Son of man. Faith makes the unseen more substantial to us than the seen, but hope makes the future to be spiritually present. Hope brightens the soul as nothing else does; it causes the light of the future to fill the soul with present radiance. “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing”; but do not stop there! “So that ye should abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”, Romans 15: 13. God has in prospect a scene of manifested glory in which the Son of man will be resplendent, and men will be supremely blessed in the shining forth of God in Him. And He sends a celestial beam of glory into believing hearts to illuminate them with the present light of what is yet future. Believers are not behind the times, but far ahead of them. One would desire to be more in the brightness of hope. Peter supposes that it will so shine out [p. 222] in the countenance and ways of christians that people will ask questions about it. “Be always prepared to give an answer to every one that asks you to give an account of the hope that is in you, but with meekness and tear”, 1 Peter 3:15. We are not called upon to answer every sort of question; the Lord did not always answer questions; and that might be a model for us when we are asked cavilling or infidel questions. But if I am asked to give an account of the hope that is in me, I am to be prepared to give an answer. If the light of the future were brighter in our souls, we should be more often asked as to the secret of our happiness, and what a joy it would be to answer! The effect of having seen the Son of man coming in His kingdom would be that we should “appear as lights” — heavenly luminaries — “in the world”, Philippians 2:15; we should be liberated from the controlling influence of the present world.
Peter, when writing of this scene on the holy mountain, speaks of “The power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” as a reality and not as “cleverly imagined fables”. He writes as one who had been an eye-witness of His majesty; ‘admitted into immediate vision of the glory’ (see note to Darby translation), and he writes that it may be as great a reality to us as it was to him. What were they “eyewitnesses” of? “His face shone as the sun, and his garments became white as the light”. That is a majestic view of Christ. We know something, thank God, of the grace in which He was here in humiliation, and in which He went into death. That grace has touched us and blessed us, and set us free to contemplate a majestic view of Christ. What will mark the kingdom when He comes in it is that the effulgence of God will be seen in the glorified Son of man. There will be the unclouded shining forth in a public way of what God is in full revelation. The glory was veiled when He was here, but it was all there; He was Immanuel.
‘We see the Godhead glory
Shine through that human veil’. (188:6)
Outwardly the Son of man was a poor Man; He had not where to lay His head. It is in “a high mountain apart”, in a spiritual elevation far above and apart from human thoughts, that we can become “eyewitnesses of his majesty” as now in heaven. He would take us with Him into that holy elevation.
In Matthew’s gospel we see the Lord here announcing that the kingdom of the heavens was drawn nigh. It supposed from the outset that there would be no place for Immanuel here; He was passing through on His way to the heavens where His place was appointed: “In them hath he set a tent for the sun”, Psalm 19:4. The prophetic Spirit had Christ in mind when inditing that psalm. Paul quotes it with reference to the universal going forth of the gospel consequent upon Christ being in heaven. There is now a universal testimony to what God is as set forth in Christ in heaven. That blessed One having gone by way of death and resurrection into heaven, His majesty is unveiled. God has set a tabernacle for Christ in heaven, “And he is as a bridegroom going forth from his chamber; he rejoiceth as a strong man to run the race. His going forth is from the end of the heavens, and his circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof”, Psalm 19:5,6. It is a heavenly Christ who as a Bridegroom is attracting the affections of His saints to Himself by becoming to their hearts the effulgence of God. He is moving in all His majesty and heavenly attractiveness through His appointed course, bringing what He is to bear upon the subjects of divine purpose here.
Though the present time is, from one point of view, the dark night of His rejection and absence, from another point of view it is a glorious day during which myriads of hearts [p. 224] are being illuminated and made glad by the light of Christ in heaven so as to be secured in their affections to be His companions — to be the bride of that heavenly Bridegroom. That day has covered long centuries, as men mark time, but it is one day in God’s reckoning, during which a heavenly Christ is shedding forth the light of God, so that every one who is in the purpose of God has been, or will be, illuminated by that holy and blessed light.
The expanse of the heavens sets forth the whole scope of God’s purpose in securing sons to shine forth with Christ in a future day. Christ will shine in the heavens until every one of them has been attracted and illuminated. Think of Christ going forth in heavenly light and strength from hour to hour of this wondrous day, from His ascension to the rapture of the assembly, until every soul given to Him by the Father as His bride has been illuminated and won in affection for Him! What a course He has been pursuing in relation to the purpose of His Father! He will complete the whole circuit; He will illuminate every one who has a place in the Father’s purpose, and all will stand in affectionate response to Him as the Bridegroom.
“There is nothing hid from the heat thereof”. His is not a cold light; it is the light of love; it is God revealed, not only in His power or His attributes, but in His nature. “God is love”; it is what He is essentially and absolutely; and it is His glory that His nature can shine forth in all its blessedness. Nothing that is under the heaven of divine purpose will be “hid from the heat thereof”. All the subjects of the Father’s purpose are being brought under the shining of Christ into the warmth of the love of God. Presently they will shine forth with the Son of man when He comes in His kingdom in public glory, but He is known to them now as shining in heaven. He commands them as having become to their hearts the effulgence of God.
Then “his garments became white as the light”. His garments would set forth all that invests Him morally as found in manhood. “Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness ... Myrrh and aloes, cassia, are all thy garments”, Psalm 45:7,8. His garments are in perfect moral correspondence with the effulgence of God shining in His face. He has shown Himself to be competent to deal with every moral question in a righteous way for the glory of God. It was proved by His going to the cross to establish righteousness through His own death and to remove lawlessness. The more we see the effulgence of God in His face the more thankful we are that He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. He is “Jesus Christ the righteous”. How blessed to know that His garments are “white as the light”! The linen vest, trousers, girdle and mitre of the high priest on the day of atonement speak of the unsullied righteousness and holiness with which He took up and settled the whole question of sin for the glory of God. His personal excellence came out in the way in which He did it. “Myrrh and aloes, cassia ...”. How fragrant was that suffering love in which He went through the sorrows and the darkness of the cross, so that the lawlessness which He hated might be removed and the righteousness which He loved might be established, and so that ultimately all His redeemed ones might have garments like His own.