THE KINGDOM OF GOD
[p. 143] THE KINGDOM OF GOD
Romans 8: 1 - 11; Romans 8:20, 21; Romans 15: 1 - 7
JT The kingdom of God is presented in Scripture in a variety of ways, and is a very extensive subject, so that it cannot be compassed in one meeting, but I would dwell on our entrance into it, and what it is that we enter; and how as having entered, we in a sense become the kingdom. John says, “To him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom”, Revelation 1: 5.
I think it would help us at this meeting, in view of others, to dwell a little on this truth, for many things militate against our apprehending intelligently what is meant by it. Although the term is familiar to us, its significance is not much known. Its practical application may be seen, but not so as to be distinguished intelligently.
When God began with the idea of a kingdom in Adam, giving him dominion (Genesis 1: 28), He tested him as to whether he could give suitable names to the animals of the field and the fowls of heaven, and evidently Adam qualified in that, for God altered none of the names which he gave. God allows us to take as much part in His realm as we are equal to.
Romans 5 helps us as to initial ideas concerning the kingdom. In John 3 we have the idea — first of seeing it, and then of entering it. Romans 14 tells us explicitly that “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. That is to be arrived at, and this chapter presents the idea of “access by faith into this favour in which we stand” after the unfolding of the gospel in its doctrine in chapters 3 and 4. It opens with our entrance into it. Paul speaks of the character of christians, and, making his subject more attractive, speaks buoyantly. Those who read this epistle should be drawn into divine things, learning to name them aright. The term “kingdom” would be readily understood in Rome, as it was the centre [p. 144] of the government of the world of that day. How much more necessary it was for the saints in Rome to understand the principles underlying the kingdom of God into which believers come. “Therefore having been justified on the principle of faith, we have peace towards God through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom we have also access by faith into this favour in which we stand”, Romans 5: 1, 2. We have access. The earlier part of the epistle has to do with God’s movement toward us. It is the “gospel of God ... concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord”, and the unfolding of His righteousness and power in chapters 3 and 4. Then in chapter 5 there is the question of our movement, which perhaps is not so much noticed as it should be. There is presented the idea of our having access. Do we take advantage of that?
HWR Is “this favour in which we stand” the kingdom? Romans 5: 2.
JT It is one of the features making it attractive. The nearer to God you get on this line, the more liberty you have. It begins in Romans with being in favour with God and ends in Ephesians where we have access to the Father.
CCE What is the entrance into the kingdom that is presented to us in this epistle?
JT The beginning of it is a sense of favour. John quotes the Lord as saying, “Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, John 3: 5. So that it is a question of what is effected in us in relation to the kingdom, but the thing is there for our entry into it. Romans does not raise the question of birth, but it is made the underlying principle in the believer. What do you say as to that?
CCE Certainly. John does not tell us so distinctly what the kingdom is, but that we enter in. Paul describes it.
JT In Romans, and particularly in this chapter 5, it is all through Christ’s instrumentality, what is opened up through Christ, what He has effected for us,
[p. 145] what has come in for us through our Lord Jesus Christ. That is a title which involves the kingdom.
JS You spoke of being able to name things. Is that in relation to our entering the kingdom?
JT Yes. As reading Romans, one ought to be able to name things; for this would show that we understand our characteristics.
LW Naming implies intelligence.
JT Exactly. You see the need for intelligence. God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and Man became a living soul”, Genesis 2: 7. Adam thus was intelligent, and this was shown, as we have said, in his naming the animals.
HWR Is it only as indwelt by the Spirit that we can name things?
JT It begins with new birth. It is remarkable how soon a child begins to speak as others do. You might train a dog, but it will never come to what a child will. The faculty is not in him. John shows what is effected in us, so that we are constituted able to name things. Take the American constitution as an illustration. A citizen would be supposed to know and understand its legislative and administrative features, and be able to use its current phrases in speaking of the government. He is rendered able to do so by coming daily into contact with it, and should he come to Washington, because he is a citizen he has the privilege, at certain times, of shaking hands with the President. A citizen has a sense of favour, of being brought into all the advantages of the State; he is conversant with whatever is there, the country’s wealth and its society. The more he knows of it, the more richly he enjoys his citizenship. So in spiritual things you become the richer in your soul as you can name what you have come into. It has a delivering effect from man’s kingdom. You have come into what is so much greater.
JHH In that way the kingdom is a means to an end?
JT “So also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Romans 5: 21.
[p. 146] It leads up to eternal life and to the assembly. A sense of divine favour is a very great thing. It has an effect upon you. You want to spread that thought and also to show it to others. You must have discernment to see what you are coming into. John says that, first you see it and then you enter into it. “Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God”, John 3: 3. “Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God”, John 3: 5.
In Colossians 1: 13, it is “the kingdom of the Son of his love”, a further and more exalted thought — we are translated into it. Here we have access into this favour in which we stand, we move into it.
JHH In presenting the kingdom, is your thought that you present all these details so that souls enter into it more thoroughly?
JT You make it attractive, acquainting the believer with the power of God in raising Christ and with the lengths to which God went on his behalf. “Him who has raised from among the dead Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. We dwell on the power that is effective on our behalf. The earlier teaching of the epistle would simplify the idea of favour, and in the sense of that “we boast in hope of the glory of God”, Romans 5: 2. One is in favour and has a great outlook, so great that he is boasting in it. Paul calls upon us to think of these things and how worth while it is to go in for them.
LW What is the glory of God in the hope of which we boast?
JT What God is, shining out in the future. It is God coming out in the millennium. Of course Romans does not touch on the assembly properly. Here it has the general significance of the coming out of God and the establishment of His kingdom publicly.
JMB Has this a bearing on verse 3, where we are said to glory in tribulations? Does it correspond with,
“[p. 147] Jesus ... who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God”, Hebrews 12: 2?
JT Yes. A great prospect is set before us. “Boast in hope of the glory of God”. Thus it is future, but the passage continues, “And not only that, but we also boast in tribulations”. That is to say, though circumstances now are adverse, there is before us a great prospect entirely in our favour. In the meantime, things are outwardly against us; the very confession of Christ brings persecution, but we boast in these things. We see how much the hope of the glory of God laid hold on Paul — he boasted in tribulation.
JMB It would help us in regard to tribulation to realise what Jesus endured “in view of the joy lying before him”.
JT Paul told the disciples in Lystra and Iconium and Antioch “that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God”, Acts 14: 22. He reminded the Hebrews how “having been enlightened, ye endured much conflict of sufferings”, Hebrews 10: 32. Through many tribulations, says Paul. We may as well accept that, yea, boast in it, and in verse 5 of Romans 5 he gives the reason. The idea of knowledge comes into it — the intelligence we have by which we name these things. Tribulation is different from the glory of God — which I can also name. It makes a great difference if I am experiencing these things knowingly. Then I am not confused and baffled by my circumstances. Eternal life comes at the end of the chapter. Tribulation is pretty sure to come on Monday, following on Lord’s day. I put a name to it and I am not overwhelmed by it, because, though the devil causes it, I know God has allowed it.
JMB “I went down to the potter’s house; and behold, he wrought a work on the wheels”, Jeremiah 18: 3.
JT It is one of the things used for that purpose. An intelligent christian knows what he is experiencing [p. 148] in his circumstances and the enemy gets no advantage. “In all these things we more than conquer through him that has loved us”, Romans 8: 37.
HWR If we are intelligent, we shall neither faint under tribulation nor despise it.
JT A young christian does not stop to analyse, and so gets baffled, but tribulation works endurance, experience, and hope. What are they but workers for us? It is a great advantage to the young believer to realise that these actually work for us.
NR “But we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God”, Romans 8: 28. This brings out the spirit of buoyancy.
JT That is how it works out. The teaching is cumulative.
CMM If a believer stops short of tribulation, he will get no further.
JT If you do not use these workers, you make no headway; you must come back to them. Tribulation discourages many young believers — because they do not know what it is for.
CCE You would not limit the tribulation referred to as that which is endured for the sake of the testimony?
JT I think it includes all tribulation. Paul said, “What persecutions I endured”, 2 Timothy 3: 11. As soon as a christian takes his stand, the devil says, I will upset that. He brings in a wave of tribulation. Now intelligence in believers enables us to name that as a worker in our favour.
CCE Those Thessalonians were troubled in their souls because of tribulation, 1 Thessalonians 3: 3.
JT Quite so. Those epistles had that specially in view. In the second Paul can say, “so that we ourselves make our boast in you in the assemblies of God for your endurance and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations, which ye are sustaining”, 2 Thessalonians 1: 4. They had not been intelligent as to this at [p. 149] the first.
CCE They had not apprehended what they would have to contend with.
HWR “And they came to Marah, and could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; ... And the people murmured ... and Jehovah shewed him wood, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters became sweet ... and there he tested them”, Exodus 15: 23 - 25.
JT It turned out for their salvation. Jehovah shewed Moses. The thing was there, but he had not seen it. It was what we have been saying, there are things all round, but we do not see them and God shows them to us. Then we have to name them. The passage here runs on to hope, “hope does not make ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”, Romans 5: 5. Everything helps us because of the love of God. The Holy Spirit is able, through Paul, to call our attention to all these things, and they culminate in “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”.
VP Is this all individual experience?
JT Yes; the individual coming into it. We have the collective thought in chapter 12. In this section believers are like the boards of the tabernacle. God said to Moses, “the boards for the tabernacle thou shalt make of acacia-wood, standing up”, Exodus 26: 15. That is remarkable. A carpenter does not make them so. “Standing up” is a spiritual thought. This chapter shows how young christians are made trustworthy, so that God can hang things upon them. The curtains of the tabernacle were supported by the boards. How great a thing to have the love of God in the heart!
JHH The experiences mentioned in Romans 5 go on. When I reach the love of God I am not finished with tribulation.
JT All things work together. Here they are working one after another. God has set them up in relation to one another. Things are in our favour. Everything that comes up in the government of God is in our favour. As [p. 150] you apprehend this you are a board of the tabernacle standing up; a man upon whom God can put something in the way of testimony. The collective thought is reached in chapter 12: 5: “we, being many, are one body in Christ”. “In Christ” is our status. When we pursue the principles in this chapter we are able to name things as they come before us: Paul says, “I speak as to intelligent persons: do ye judge what I say”, 1 Corinthians 10: 15. We survey the realm of God and are able to name what is therein. Satan also is a worker, under the Lord, for our good. “Jehovah said to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job?”, Job 1: 8. Satan had, and God allowed him certain latitude, but only to the extent needed for Job’s good: “Only upon himself put not forth thy hand”. It was all in view of Job’s deliverance. For us, too, discipline is ordered, so that God can spread out His thoughts before us for our spiritual apprehension and growth in Christ.
JMB As one has such experiences he moves on into the divine thoughts.
JT It all leads up to sonship (chapter 8). “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. Sons have knowledge corresponding with the Father.
JHH Chapter 14: 4, with reference to the weak brother says, “he shall be made to stand; for the Lord is able to make him stand”.
JT That involves the kingdom. In that chapter the kingdom of God is named. It is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Chapter 12 shows the saints contemplated as overcoming evil with good. They are possessed with the good. The Lord Himself overcame evil with good. None of the world’s administrators do that, they merely endeavour to restrain evil with physical force. In the kingdom of God evil is overcome with good. A christian knows also how to behave with regard to the external government. We are not radical in opinion. We respect what is of God. The book of Daniel helps a christian to see these kingdoms in perspective.
[p. 151] God ordained the four great monarchies in view of christianity, in view of what this epistle teaches. The world is said to be reconciled (chapter 11: 15); this is in view of the testimony of the gospel. In keeping with this “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself”, 2 Corinthians 5: 19. Alongside of that is the truth, “behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you”, Luke 17: 21. Romans opens up that very thing; the presence of the Spirit here in the saints involves the kingdom. It was in Rome, the metropolis of the empire — a kingdom in the midst of the kingdom of this world. Yet we pray for Caesar and his servants all the time the kingdom of God is here. What can Caesar do for a weak brother? He is no good for Caesar’s army, but in the kingdom of God he has a place and is cared for. So in chapter 14 we get the kingdom and the fact that it functions in the saints. We are to exhibit the features of the kingdom; exercising its power in a practical way.
JS Is eternal life the normal life of the kingdom? It is based on the reign of grace.
JT It is the great end in view; “the end eternal life”. “The act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”, Romans 6: 23. In chapter 5, it is through Jesus Christ our Lord, but in chapter 6 it is in Him. It is morally outside of the world.
JR As we cease to do evil, do we become stronger as we move on?
JT Yes. We specially become rich in goodness: “despisest thou the riches of his goodness?” (Romans 2: 4.) We cannot overcome evil with good if we have not the good. That is the idea. We must have it. The saints are made a kingdom so that God may set down in Rome what is greater than Rome. “Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold — the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter”, Daniel 2: 45. “And the stone that smote the image became a [p. 152] great mountain, and filled the whole earth”, Daniel 2: 35. All this exists today in a moral sense, and affords the means of moral superiority in the people of God.
NG Are we made conscious of being in the kingdom by the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts?
JT Yes, although it implies more than the kingdom; it links on with God’s purpose (chapter 8: 28). The love of God gives lustre to all that you do or say, it gives us a glorious character, we are to serve one another in love. Christ is set before us in the epistle as the great example of those serving in the kingdom: “We ought, we that are strong, to bear the infirmities of the weak ... the Christ also did not please himself”, Romans 15: 1 - 3.
WS In Romans 14 we are told what the kingdom is. Then that “he that in this serves the Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men”, Romans 14: 18.
JT We turn round as it were, having come into it, we become part of the kingdom. He has made us a kingdom — obviously to set out this great principle.
VP Peter says, “Beloved, take not as strange the fire of persecution which has taken place amongst you for your trial, as if a strange thing was happening to you; but as ye have share in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice”, 1 Peter 4: 12, 13.
JT That would qualify us to function in the kingdom. Many give way in tribulation and hence become ineffective in this sense. The Lord Himself said, “when tribulation or persecution happens on account of the word, he is immediately offended”, Matthew 13: 21. The word is given up. When it is received it works effectively in those who believe (1 Thessalonians 2: 13); then tribulation is accepted and is a worker for us. The throne of grace relates to the kingdom. We may draw near to it with boldness to obtain mercy and find grace for seasonable help. How available and how great is this source of supply!