this world" are, literally, "not out of, or not taken out of, this world;"
enthronement that we also anticipate as the day of our triumph, for then shall we "shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father " (Matt 13:43 ).
2. I t is the kingdom of Christ ( Col 1:13 ). This assures that we shall feel at home there. It is no stranger who is to seat us on the throne beside him; but our nearest of kin,—the Man who died for us. It is the pierced hands that wield the sceptre. This meets our case. For we are strangers here, specially feeling not at home in the courts and palaces of earth. But then it shall be otherwise. Here we are as men standing outside the kingdoms of the world. They belong to the "prince of this world," but not to Christ, and therefore not to us. They greet us with no friendly welcome. They have no honours for us. They make us stand without. They are to us what Pilate, and Herod, and Annas were to Jesus; they bid us be wronged and smitten, or, at least, look on while we endure "tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword." Much of the church's tribulation has arisen from the kingdoms of this world not being Christ's. But in the age to come, it is Christ that is to reign, all things being put in subjection to him. He who is to reign knows what it is to be hated by the world, and knows, therefore, how to make up to us, in his kingdom, for all the hatred wherewith we have been hated, and for all the sorrow which has bowed us down while here. And such is obviously the point of Christ's declaration to his disciples (Luke 22:28 -30). For having said to them, "Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations," he adds, "and I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel;" thus linking together present suffering for Christ and future reigning with Christ,—present continuance with him in trial, and future association with him in his own kingdom, when he returns to receive the crown.
3. It is a kingdom not of this world (John 18:36 ). The words "not of this world" are, literally, "not out of, or not taken out of, this world;" just as when Christ says, "Ye are of this world, I am not of this