Great Themes of the Bible (continued)
Kingdom of God 145
Lord, they that shall be recompensed in the resurrection of the just shall eat bread in the kingdom, and that is a greater recompense than being re-invited to the table of the greatest man on earth." (d) Or, again, observing Christ to be silent after He had given the foregoing lessons, he was willing to draw Him in again to further discourse, so wonderfully well pleased was he with what He said; and he knew nothing more likely to engage Him than to mention the kingdom of God.
7. THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE KINGDOM What this man said was plain and acknowledged truth, and it was quoted very appositely now they were sitting at meat. "Blessed are they that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God."
(a) In the kingdom of grace. In the kingdom of the Messiah, which was expected now shortly to be set up. Christ promised
His disciples that they should eat and drink with Him in His kingdom. They that partake of the Lord's Supper should eat bread in the Kingdom of God.
(5) In the kingdom of glory—at the resurrection. The happiness of heaven is an everlasting feast. Blessed are they that shall sit down at that table, whence they shall rise no more.
"Yes," answers Jesus, ''it is very true, blessed are they that shall partake of the privileges of Messiah's kingdom.' But who are they that shall enjoy that privilege? You Jews, that think to have the monopoly of it, will generally reject it, and the Gentiles will be the greatest sharers in it? This He shows by parable, for if He had spoken it plainly the Pharisees would not have borne it.
8. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE KINGDOM
This rejection of the Jews is brought out more forcibly in Christ's answer to the question of the Pharisees "when the kingdom of God should come"' (Luke xvit. 20ff.). Forming a notion of it as a temporal kingdom, which should advance the Jewish nation above the nations of the earth, they were impatient to hear some tidings of its approach. They understood perhaps that Christ had taught His disciples to pray for the coming of it, and they had long preached that it was at hand. Now, say the Pharisees, when will that glorious view open? When shall we see this long-looked for kingdom?
g. A SPIRITUAL KINGDOM
The kingdom of the Messiah was to be a spiritual kingdom and not temporal and external. They asked when it would come. You know not what you ask, said Christ. It may come, and you be not aware of it. For it has not an external show, as other kingdoms have, the advancements and resolutions of which are taken notice of by the nations of the earth and fill the newspapers. So they expected this kingdom would do. No, says Christ.
(a) It will have a silent entrance: without pomp, without noise. It ''cometh not with observation'', i.e. ''with outward show'. They deserved to have their curiosity satisfied concerning the time of it, to which Christ does not give them any answer, but will have their mistakes rectified concerning the nature of it. "It is not for you to know the times"' of the kingdom. Those are secret things which do not belong to you. Only the great intentions of this kingdom are revealed. When Messiah the Prince comes to set up His kingdom they shall not say, ''Lo here, or Lo there", as when a prince goes in progress to visit his territories. That news is in everybody's mouth. He is here, or He is there. For where the King is there is his court. Christ will not come with all that talk. His kingdom will not be set up in this or that particular place. Nor will the court of that kingdom be here or there. Those who confine
Christianity and the Church to this place, or that party, cry, 'Lo here, or Lo there.' Nothing is more contrary to the designs of catholic Christianity than that. The same is true of those who make prosperity and external pomp a mark of the true Church.
(6) It has a spiritual influence. 'The kingdom of God is within you." It is not of this world (John xviii. 36). Its glory does not strike men's fancies, but affects their spirits. Its power is over their souls and consciences, and from these it receives homage, and not their bodies only. The kingdom of God will not change men's outward conditions but their hearts and lives. It comes when it makes those humble, and serious, and heavenly, who were proud, vain and carnal; when it weans those from the world who were wedded to the world; and therefore look for the kingdom of God in the revolutions of the heart, not of the civil government. "The kingdom of God is among you," so