9. Although God has always had a kingdom upon earth, yet the kingdom of which the prophets speak began in its messianic form when the Son of God came in the flesh. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, came preaching that the kingdom of God was at hand. Our Lord Himself, it is said, went from village to village, preaching the kingdom of God. (Luke iv. 43 ; viii. 1.) When asked by Pilate whether He was a king, he "answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world." (John xviii. 37). The Apos- tles wherever they went "testified the kingdom of God." (Acts xxviii. 23.) Their business was to call upon men to receive the Lord Jesus as the Christ, the anointed and predicted Messiah or king of his people, and to worship, love, trust and obey Him as such. They were, therefore, accused of acting contrary to " the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus." (Acts xvii. 7..) Men are exhorted to seek first the kingdom of God, as a present good. It is compared to a pearl or treasure, for which it were wise for a man to sacrifice everything. Every be- liever receives Christ as his king. Those who receive Him in sin- cerity constitute his kingdom, in the sense in which the loyal subjects of an earthly sovereign constitute his kingdom. Those who profess allegiance to Christ as king constitute his visible kingdom upon earth. Nothing, therefore, can be more opposed to the plain teaching of the New Testament, than that the king- dom of Christ is yet future and is not to be inaugurated until his second coming. This is to confound its consummation with its commencement.
10. As to the nature of this kingdom, our Lord Himself teaches us that it is not of this world. It is not analogous to the king- doms which exist among men. It is not a kingdom of earthly splendour, wealth, or power. It does not concern the civil or political affairs of men, except in their moral relations. Its rewards and enjoyments are not the good things of this world. It is said to consist in " righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." (Rom. xiv. 17.) Christ told his hearers, " The kingdom of God is within you." The condition of admission into that kingdom is regeneration (John iii. 5), conversion (Matt, xviii. 3), holiness of heart and life, for the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ; nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners (1 Cor. vi. 9, 10 ; Gal. v. 21 ; Eph. v. 5).
11. This kingdom, in the interval between the first and second
858 PART IV. Ch. IV. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
advents of Christ, is said to be like a field in which the wheat and tares are to grow together until the harvest, which is the end of the world. Then " the Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity ; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire : there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Matt. xiii. 41-43.) Experience concurs with Scripture in teaching that the kingdom of Christ passes through many vicissitudes ; that it has its times of depression and its sea- sons of exaltation and prosperity. About this in the past, there can be no doubt. Prophecy sheds a sufficiently clear light on the future to teach us, not only that this alternation is to con- tinue to the end, but, more definitely, that before the second coming of Christ there is to be a time of great and long continued prosperity, to be followed by a season of decay and of suffering, so that when the Son of Man comes he shall hardly find faith on the earth. It appears from passages already quoted that all nations are to be converted ; that the Jews are to be brought in and reingrafted into their own olive-tree ; and that their restora- tion is to be the occasion and the cause of a change from death unto life ; that is, analogous to the change of a body mouldering in the grave to one instinct with joyous activity and power. Of this period the ancient prophets speak in terms adapted to raise the hopes of the Church to the highest pitch. It is true it is dif- ficult to separate, in their descriptions, what refers to " this latter day of glory " from what relates to the kingdom of Christ as consummated in heaven. So also it was difficult for the ancient people of God to separate what, in the declarations of their prophets, referred to the redemption of the people from Babylon from what referred to the greater redemption to be effected by the Messiah. In both cases enough is plain to satisfy the Church. There was a redemption from Babylon, and there was a redemp- tion by Christ ; and in like manner, it is hoped, there is to be a period of millenial glory on earth, and a still more glorious con- summation of the Church in heaven. This period is called a millennium because in Revelation it is said to last a thousand years, an expression which is perhaps generally understood lit- erally. Some however think it means a protracted season of indefinite duration, as when it is said that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. Others, assuming that in the pro- phetic language a day stands for a year, assume that the so-called