Topic
The sentiment of religion is omnipotent in the end. We may rest in assurance of its triumph, even without appealing to the work of the Holy Ghost, whom Christianity promises as the omnipotent coadjutor of the truth. Whil…
Finally, the thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the…
Fourthly, the message of the kingdom imparts to Christianity, as Jesus proclaims it, the professed character of a religion of salvation, and of salvation not primarily by man's own efforts but by the power and grace of G…
Secondly, the doctrine of the kingdom stands for the principle that the Christian religion is not a mere matter of subjective ideas or experiences, but is related to a great system of objective, supernatural facts and tr…
In the first place, the kingdom-conception involves the historic unity of Jesus' work with the Old Testament work of God. These two constitute one body of supernatural revelation and redemption.
The principle thus disclosed is of the greatest conceivable practical significance. It teaches that in the very order of things provided for the salvation of mankind, everything is in its ultimate analysis designed to gl…
To him the kingdom exists there, where not merely God is supreme, for that is true at all times and under all circumstances, but where God supernaturally carries through his supremacy against all opposing powers and brin…
The main reason for the use of the name by Jesus lies undoubtedly in this, that in the new order of things God is in some such sense the supreme and controlling factor as the ruler in a human kingdom. The conception is a…
The underlying supposition of this argument is, that, where the kingdom of Satan is destroyed, there of necessity the kingdom of God begins. If the former already took place at that time, then the latter also had become…
Side by side with the kingdom that is we meet in the Old Testament a kingdom yet to come.
The true explanation is undoubtedly to be found in the absolute, ideal character our Lord ascribed to the order of things associated with the name of the kingdom. To his mind it involved such altogether new forces and su…
The meaning of this order of things was that in Israel's life all other interests, both public and private, were subordinated to and made a part of religion. Whilst elsewhere religion was a function of the state, here th…
Jesus seized upon that in the Old Testament which enabled him at one stroke to make its whole historic movement converge upon and terminate in himself. There is in this a unique combination of the most sublime self-consc…
It were utterly out of harmony with this fundamental principle of our Lord's kingdom-gospel to represent him as the founder of a new religion. His work was the realization of what in the ideal form of prophecy had been k…
That the idea of the church, where it emerges in his teaching, is a direct outgrowth of the development of his doctrine of the kingdom, will appear in the sequel. But not only this, also the consummation of the world and…
The doctrine of God in its entire fulness alone is capable of furnishing that broader basis on which the structure of his teaching on the kingdom can be built in agreement with Jesus' own mind.
Because God is what he is, the kingdom bears the character and embodies the principles which as a matter of fact belong to it.
If any deduction and systematizing are to be attempted, logic and the indications which we have of our Lord's habit of thought on this point alike require, that not his teaching on the kingdom but that on God shall be gi…
Salvation with all it contains flows from the nature and subserves the glory of God, and we can clearly perceive that Jesus was accustomed consciously to refer it to this divine source and to subordinate it to this God-c…
In their life likewise the kingdom of God forms the supreme object of pursuit, and therefore of necessity the theme about which before all other things they need careful instruction.
According to the common testimony of the Synoptical Gospels Jesus opened his public ministry in Galilee with the announcement, that the kingdom was at hand, Matt. iv. 17; Mk. i. 15; Lk. iv. 43. In the last mentioned pass…
No new weapon does the Church get to fight her enemies withal. No change of dispensation does she undergo. She is already all that she needs to be. She is complete in her living and ever-present Head, having "all power i…
The kingdom shall grow, says the parable of the mustard seed, till it overspread the earth: It shall work into human society, says the parable of the leaven, till it penetrate with its blessed principles and character th…
For civil government, as such, whatever be the form of it, is a divine ordinance. The mission of the Church is not to supplant, but to impregnate and pervade it with a religious character, and to render it subservient to…
The millennium, therefore, if there be one, precedes, and does not, cannot follow the second coming of Christ.
Now, as the growing character of the kingdom, taught by the "mustard seed," and the penetrating and assimilating character, taught by the "leaven," go on till "the whole (earth) is leavened," and all the world have been…
What, then, have we found with respect to these ordained means of grace? Why, that the second advent, come when it may, will put them all out of date. The passages which teach this make no distinction between the means a…
The Lord's Supper is the symbol of that double attitude of the believer—to which we find ourselves ever recurring—the backward look of his faith and the forward look of his hope—its present crucifixion and anticipated gl…
Christ's second coming will exhaust the object of the Scriptures. His coming is the goal of all revelation, its furthest horizon, its last terminus, its Sabbath and haven. Thither are directed all the anxieties which div…
We have seen that the whole elect and ransomed Church is complete when Christ comes. If this be correct, we may expect to find the ordained means for the gathering and perfecting of the Church disappearing from the stage…
Here we have Christ's commission to establish his kingdom upon earth, the authority on which that commission is based, and a gracious encouragement to undertake and go through with it. The commission is, properly speakin…
"The field," which was to be sown both with tares and with wheat, is "the world" (ὁ κόσμος): that is to say, a world-wide kingdom is to be formed, embracing the genuine and the false-hearted subjects of Christ under one…
Now is it conceivable, that any primitive Christian should persuade himself that all nations might be thus discipled, baptized, and brought under the discipline of Christ's laws, in his own lifetime, or within the larges…
I attach no importance, in this argument, to the precise period of a thousand years. It occurs nowhere in Scripture but in one solitary passage. There are reasons for taking it definitely and literally; but, to some thes…
We have seen that Christ's second coming is the Church's "blessed hope." Its place in the Christian system, and in the Church's view, is over against his first coming, as its proper counterpart. As "once in the end of th…
All is thus made to centre in the Person of Christ—the contemplations and the affections of the believer travelling between his Abasement and his Exaltation, and finding in Jesus, under both aspects together, a completed…
Here both comings of Christ are brought together; the first in "grace"—the second in "glory"; the first "bringing salvation"—the second, to complete the salvation brought. To the first we look back by faith—to the second…
But the Redeemer's second appearing is, to the believer, an event of unmingled joyousness, whether as respects the honour of his Lord, which will then be majestically vindicated before the world which had set it at nough…
With them we affirm, that the Redeemer's second appearing is the very pole-star of the Church. That it is so held forth in the New Testament, is beyond dispute. Let any one do himself the justice to collect and arrange t…
Instead of the first Adam God brings in the "last Adam," the "second Man," the Lord from heaven, as His King, and He introduces His offspring as kings under Him, to fill, subdue, and rule the earth. He has found His King…
For as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more, an…
And to sum the matter up: behold how the Saviour's doctrine is everywhere increasing, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily dwindling, and losing power, and falling.
For whom they used to worship, them they are deserting, and Whom they used to mock as one crucified, Him they worship as Christ, confessing Him to be God. And they that are called gods among them are routed by the Sign o…
But when they hear the teaching of Christ, straightway instead of fighting they turn to husbandry, and instead of arming their hands with weapons they raise them in prayer, and in a word, in place of fighting among thems…
Who then is He that has done this, or who is He that has united in peace men that hated one another, save the beloved Son of the Father, the common Saviour of all, even Jesus Christ, Who by His own love underwent all thi…
But when they have come over to the school of Christ, then, strangely enough, as men truly pricked in conscience, they have laid aside the savagery of their murders and no longer mind the things of war: but all is at pea…
For now that the Saviour works so great things among men, and day by day is invisibly persuading so great a multitude from every side, both from them that dwell in Greece and in foreign lands, to come over to His faith,…
Calvinism thus is the guardian not only of the particularism which assures me that God the Lord is the Saviour of my soul, but equally of the universalism by which I am assured that he is also the true and actual Saviour…
50 quotes
The sentiment of religion is omnipotent in the end. We may rest in assurance of its triumph, even without appealing to the work of the Holy Ghost, whom Christianity promises as the omnipotent coadjutor of the truth. Whil…
Finally, the thought of the kingdom of God implies the subjection of the entire range of human life in all its forms and spheres to the ends of religion. The kingdom reminds us of the absoluteness, the pervasiveness, the…
Fourthly, the message of the kingdom imparts to Christianity, as Jesus proclaims it, the professed character of a religion of salvation, and of salvation not primarily by man's own efforts but by the power and grace of G…
Secondly, the doctrine of the kingdom stands for the principle that the Christian religion is not a mere matter of subjective ideas or experiences, but is related to a great system of objective, supernatural facts and tr…
In the first place, the kingdom-conception involves the historic unity of Jesus' work with the Old Testament work of God. These two constitute one body of supernatural revelation and redemption.
The principle thus disclosed is of the greatest conceivable practical significance. It teaches that in the very order of things provided for the salvation of mankind, everything is in its ultimate analysis designed to gl…
To him the kingdom exists there, where not merely God is supreme, for that is true at all times and under all circumstances, but where God supernaturally carries through his supremacy against all opposing powers and brin…
The main reason for the use of the name by Jesus lies undoubtedly in this, that in the new order of things God is in some such sense the supreme and controlling factor as the ruler in a human kingdom. The conception is a…
The underlying supposition of this argument is, that, where the kingdom of Satan is destroyed, there of necessity the kingdom of God begins. If the former already took place at that time, then the latter also had become…
Side by side with the kingdom that is we meet in the Old Testament a kingdom yet to come.
The true explanation is undoubtedly to be found in the absolute, ideal character our Lord ascribed to the order of things associated with the name of the kingdom. To his mind it involved such altogether new forces and su…
The meaning of this order of things was that in Israel's life all other interests, both public and private, were subordinated to and made a part of religion. Whilst elsewhere religion was a function of the state, here th…
Jesus seized upon that in the Old Testament which enabled him at one stroke to make its whole historic movement converge upon and terminate in himself. There is in this a unique combination of the most sublime self-consc…
It were utterly out of harmony with this fundamental principle of our Lord's kingdom-gospel to represent him as the founder of a new religion. His work was the realization of what in the ideal form of prophecy had been k…
That the idea of the church, where it emerges in his teaching, is a direct outgrowth of the development of his doctrine of the kingdom, will appear in the sequel. But not only this, also the consummation of the world and…
The doctrine of God in its entire fulness alone is capable of furnishing that broader basis on which the structure of his teaching on the kingdom can be built in agreement with Jesus' own mind.
Because God is what he is, the kingdom bears the character and embodies the principles which as a matter of fact belong to it.
If any deduction and systematizing are to be attempted, logic and the indications which we have of our Lord's habit of thought on this point alike require, that not his teaching on the kingdom but that on God shall be gi…
Salvation with all it contains flows from the nature and subserves the glory of God, and we can clearly perceive that Jesus was accustomed consciously to refer it to this divine source and to subordinate it to this God-c…
In their life likewise the kingdom of God forms the supreme object of pursuit, and therefore of necessity the theme about which before all other things they need careful instruction.
According to the common testimony of the Synoptical Gospels Jesus opened his public ministry in Galilee with the announcement, that the kingdom was at hand, Matt. iv. 17; Mk. i. 15; Lk. iv. 43. In the last mentioned pass…
No new weapon does the Church get to fight her enemies withal. No change of dispensation does she undergo. She is already all that she needs to be. She is complete in her living and ever-present Head, having "all power i…
The kingdom shall grow, says the parable of the mustard seed, till it overspread the earth: It shall work into human society, says the parable of the leaven, till it penetrate with its blessed principles and character th…
For civil government, as such, whatever be the form of it, is a divine ordinance. The mission of the Church is not to supplant, but to impregnate and pervade it with a religious character, and to render it subservient to…
The millennium, therefore, if there be one, precedes, and does not, cannot follow the second coming of Christ.
Now, as the growing character of the kingdom, taught by the "mustard seed," and the penetrating and assimilating character, taught by the "leaven," go on till "the whole (earth) is leavened," and all the world have been…
What, then, have we found with respect to these ordained means of grace? Why, that the second advent, come when it may, will put them all out of date. The passages which teach this make no distinction between the means a…
The Lord's Supper is the symbol of that double attitude of the believer—to which we find ourselves ever recurring—the backward look of his faith and the forward look of his hope—its present crucifixion and anticipated gl…
Christ's second coming will exhaust the object of the Scriptures. His coming is the goal of all revelation, its furthest horizon, its last terminus, its Sabbath and haven. Thither are directed all the anxieties which div…
We have seen that the whole elect and ransomed Church is complete when Christ comes. If this be correct, we may expect to find the ordained means for the gathering and perfecting of the Church disappearing from the stage…
Here we have Christ's commission to establish his kingdom upon earth, the authority on which that commission is based, and a gracious encouragement to undertake and go through with it. The commission is, properly speakin…
"The field," which was to be sown both with tares and with wheat, is "the world" (ὁ κόσμος): that is to say, a world-wide kingdom is to be formed, embracing the genuine and the false-hearted subjects of Christ under one…
Now is it conceivable, that any primitive Christian should persuade himself that all nations might be thus discipled, baptized, and brought under the discipline of Christ's laws, in his own lifetime, or within the larges…
I attach no importance, in this argument, to the precise period of a thousand years. It occurs nowhere in Scripture but in one solitary passage. There are reasons for taking it definitely and literally; but, to some thes…
We have seen that Christ's second coming is the Church's "blessed hope." Its place in the Christian system, and in the Church's view, is over against his first coming, as its proper counterpart. As "once in the end of th…
All is thus made to centre in the Person of Christ—the contemplations and the affections of the believer travelling between his Abasement and his Exaltation, and finding in Jesus, under both aspects together, a completed…
Here both comings of Christ are brought together; the first in "grace"—the second in "glory"; the first "bringing salvation"—the second, to complete the salvation brought. To the first we look back by faith—to the second…
But the Redeemer's second appearing is, to the believer, an event of unmingled joyousness, whether as respects the honour of his Lord, which will then be majestically vindicated before the world which had set it at nough…
With them we affirm, that the Redeemer's second appearing is the very pole-star of the Church. That it is so held forth in the New Testament, is beyond dispute. Let any one do himself the justice to collect and arrange t…
Instead of the first Adam God brings in the "last Adam," the "second Man," the Lord from heaven, as His King, and He introduces His offspring as kings under Him, to fill, subdue, and rule the earth. He has found His King…
For as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails no more, an…
And to sum the matter up: behold how the Saviour's doctrine is everywhere increasing, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily dwindling, and losing power, and falling.
For whom they used to worship, them they are deserting, and Whom they used to mock as one crucified, Him they worship as Christ, confessing Him to be God. And they that are called gods among them are routed by the Sign o…
But when they hear the teaching of Christ, straightway instead of fighting they turn to husbandry, and instead of arming their hands with weapons they raise them in prayer, and in a word, in place of fighting among thems…
Who then is He that has done this, or who is He that has united in peace men that hated one another, save the beloved Son of the Father, the common Saviour of all, even Jesus Christ, Who by His own love underwent all thi…
But when they have come over to the school of Christ, then, strangely enough, as men truly pricked in conscience, they have laid aside the savagery of their murders and no longer mind the things of war: but all is at pea…
For now that the Saviour works so great things among men, and day by day is invisibly persuading so great a multitude from every side, both from them that dwell in Greece and in foreign lands, to come over to His faith,…
Calvinism thus is the guardian not only of the particularism which assures me that God the Lord is the Saviour of my soul, but equally of the universalism by which I am assured that he is also the true and actual Saviour…