088-Prop. 85. Neither Abraham, nor his engrafted seed have as yet inherited the Kingdom: hence th...
Prop. 85. Neither Abraham, nor his engrafted seed have as yet inherited the Kingdom: hence the Kingdom must be something different from “piety” “religion” and “God’s reign in the heart?
WE HAVE SHOWN THAT ABRAHAM IS TO INHERIT THE PROMISES IN THIS KINGDOM (PROP. 49, ETC.), AND THAT SAINTS INHERIT WITH HIM (PROP. 62, 63, ETC.). THE TIME OF INHERITING THE KINGDOM IS SPECIFIED, IN ACCORDANCE WITH OUR ARGUMENT, E.G., IN MAT 25:34. THEREFORE TO MAKE “PIETY,” ETC., THE KINGDOM IS AN INCONGRUITY. To say that the Patriarchs were in this Kingdom, before the Advent of “the Christ,” is a palpable absurdity; to infer that they and others are now in it, when it has not appeared in its covenanted form, and when it has been postponed to the Second Advent, is equally unworthy of credence.
Obs. 1. This is virtually to make “piety” inherit “piety.” This is a substitution of the means by which the Kingdom is obtained for the Kingdom itself. The saints with Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, inherit the Kingdom because they are pious, religious, and acknowledge obedience to God. The ancient and the Christian believers receive their inheritance on the same conditions.
Consequently the “Plymouth Brethren” position, which would limit “the heirs of the Kingdom” to members of the Christian Church, must be rejected as untenable. The positive statements of inheriting with the Patriarchs, the necessity of being engrafted and becoming the children of Abraham in order to inherit, etc., forbid such a limitation. Besides, such a view perverts the Scriptural idea of the election and its continuation (as previously presented in detail by us). It must never be overlooked, in order to avoid both extremes, that “heirs” are “heirs” of the same promise given to the Patriarchs, and that so long as simply “heirs” of the salvation and Kingdom included in that promise, they have not yet inherited. The time of inheritance is specific; it is determinately located at the Second Advent. To antedate it, or to substitute something else, or to fritter it away by a process of spiritualizing, or to limit it to modern believers, is to ignore the express, plain language relating to “the inheritance, not of law, but of promise.”
Obs. 2. With the idea that believers now enjoy the Kingdom in the present dispensation, the most unjust reflections and comparisons are instituted derogatory to the ancient worthies. Some of these we have noticed, but to impress the matter another illustration is given from Reuss (His. of the Ch. Theol., p. 150), who seems to take it for granted that saints already have inherited, or are in the enjoyment of the Kingdom of God, to the disparagement of ancient worthies, thus:-“Before time the Kingdom of God presented itself to the imagination(!), now it reveals itself in the heart. Formerly knowledge, reflection, factitious duty conferred the privileges of the Kingdom; now it is the heritage of children and the childlike,” etc. A mass of just such invidious representations might readily be presented, drawn from various writers utterly unscriptural and dangerous in tendency. The simple truth is, that they are destructive of the covenant promises, of the true hope, and of the Kingdom of God itself.
We give another: Beecher, Sermon on “The Future Life” (Ch. Union, Sept. 5th, 1877), after referring to the apostles being mistaken (comp. Prop. 74) in their notion of the Second Advent of Jesus, then adds: “The best Jews had a mistaken notion of the Kingdom of God founded on the old prophets; but when you look at what was the scope and teaching of the apostles, I think that you will find that it amounts simply to a knowledge addressed to men’s hearts by the understanding, the intellect, acting through the ministry of the imagination-if you can get that sentence into your mind. It is an intellectual teaching; but it is expressed through the imagination,” etc. All that we now say is this: if Beecher is correct in his degradation of ancient believers, who trusted in the plain and indubitable gram. sense of the Scriptures, then how miserably (as our history of the doctrine conclusively proves) those who sat under this intellectual preaching of the apostles failed to have their “imaginations” impressed and exercised. It required the “imagination” of Origen or Whitby to bring forth this intended “intellectual teaching,” which tramples on covenant and prediction, and makes men-even school children-of today wiser respecting the Kingdom than John the Baptist and the inspired apostles, owing to a continuous inspiration. Alas! what new paths!