02.01 The characteristics of the kingdom
I. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KINGDOM
“THE Kingdom of Heaven” “The Kingdom of God” what is it? The parables describe its characteristics, its modes of operation and fulfilment. We must try to form some clear conception as to what it meant in the mind of Jesus. The subject demands a treatise not a paragraph. For its fuller treatment by English writers I can only refer to such books as those of F. D. Maurice, of Dr. A. B. Bruce, of Dr. Stanton, or of the Bishop of Exeter. For “the Kingdom” the whole experience of the Old Testament was a preparation; in “the Kingdom” was summarized the whole teaching of Jesus; from “the Kingdom” have come all the best and truest energies of human life; towards “the Kingdom” in its full realization, moves the course of the world. Our Lord Himself never gave a definition of His Kingdom; and we cannot presume to speak where He was silent. To define a conception so wide and deep would be to isolate some aspect of it and thus give to that single aspect an undue importance. The history of the Christian religion is full of instances of this danger.
Some, for example, have identified the Kingdom with the visible, organized Church; others have declared that it is exclusively an inward principle. Our Lord was content to select a phrase striking and easily remembered, a phrase which gathered up the spiritual history of His people; to repeat it, after His manner, over and over again in different contexts, and thus to leave it in the minds of His hearers as the centre of many thoughts and associations. But though it is impossible to define “the Kingdom of Heaven,” we may perhaps, without injustice to any of its aspects, describe it as simply the true life the life which is in free and full accord with the will of God. Our Lord speaks of it in relation sometimes to its inherent qualities of growth and expansion; sometimes to its moral and spiritual characteristics; sometimes to its sources and means of sustenance; sometimes to its outward forms. But in whatever context the phrase occurs it always denotes something vital, energetic, progressive. It is the life which He Himself as “Son of Man” embodied and manifested; the life which, by His words, His example, His spirit, He communicated to His brethren; the life which came from Him by a new birth to the spirit of man, and springing up there flowed out into all the energies of his body and soul; the life with which His Spirit endowed the “body,” the community of His Church, and with which that Church should in its turn inspire and transform all humanity. This is the Kingdom of Heaven an inward vital energy moving out from the King’s Spirit, uniting His subjects to the King’s self and to each other in the fellowship of a community, inspiring and enabling them to do on earth the King’s will. Is there not need of reviving this conception of the vital, the dynamic character of the Kingdom of God? Has not our “Churchmanship,” i.e, our membership in the visible “organ” of the Kingdom, become something stiff, immobile; a means of satisfying the conscience, rather than of stirring the will? We profess the faith which the Church keeps. We attend dutifully the services which it provides. We even receive obediently the Sacraments which it dispenses. We commend and possibly subscribe to the work which it undertakes. But are we conscious of the thrill of its life, as we are of the spring on an April morning? Are we kindled by the warmth of its spiritual energy to the flame of sacrifice and service?
I know well that such questions as these even exaggerated they suggest the artificial eloquence of the pulpit rather than any real facts of life. Probably there is not one out of any ten professing “Churchmen” who is accustomed to think of the Church as having a life, a corporate energy, of its own. It is simply an institution. If they think of its life and energy, they think primarily not of spiritual forces which move and act through it, but rather of its “business” as an active institution. In thinking of the family most men know that it has a life of its own, a life of memories, of associations with the living and the dead, of influences subtle and far-reaching, moving, so to say, “in the blood” a life lying behind and animating the outward activities and characteristics of its members. In thinking of the State, though perhaps less readily, most men know that it too has a great hidden life of its own, a spirit which links the past and the present, an abiding energy which in times of national crisis emerges with surprising force; a set of instincts, of moral and intellectual qualities which determine its place among other States in the world’s history a life as real though not so obvious as its immediate political activities.
But, strange to say, in regard to “the Church,” most men have singularly little effective belief that it is in itself a living organism, a body in which the Spirit of God dwells, which possesses, springing from Him as their source, its own spiritual energies and powers, by means of which “the Kingdom of God” is ever coming into this world. Restrained indeed and hindered that intrinsic spiritual life of the Church is by the divisions, inconsistencies, worldliness of its members. But faith in its reality would surely bring the tokens of its power. The true “Churchman” is not only one who lives for his Church, but one in whom his Church lives, inspiring and animating him with the energies of the Kingdom of God. In the parables of the mustard seed and of the leaven, our Lord describes the way in which the Kingdom influences men.
They are closely related, but yet distinct. The former describes the outward signs of the vital energies of the Kingdom, the latter the mode of their inward working. Both are alike in this, that they seem primarily to refer to the Church as the visible “organ,” through which the Kingdom affects the history and life of the world. The definiteness of the seed and of the leaven, containing yet concealing the inward properties of life and growth, suggests a definite body.
Just as physical life, of which we can tell neither the origin nor the destiny, has its organ in the body; just as within the body the faculty of thought which we cannot really explain, finds its organ in the brain; so the Kingdom of Heaven, which is nevertheless wide as the scope of the Spirit of God, finds its special organ in the Church. In these two parables we see the outward sign and the inward process of the life of the Church in the world.
TAGS: [Parables]