Chapter 5
(_b_) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of power. "Behold," said the ascending Christ, "I send forth the promise of My Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city until ye be clothed with power from on high." And, again, "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you." Of Jesus Himself it was said by one of His disciples "that God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power"; and of His disciples Jesus said: "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall He do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father." Here, again, our best commentary is the history of the Church, and especially the first chapter of that history as it is written in the Acts of the Apostles. This was the promise, "Ye shall receive power," and this, in brief, the story of its fulfilment, "With great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus." Let any one read the early chapters of St. Luke's narrative; let him mark the utter disparity between the "acts" and the "apostles"--between the things done and the men by whom they were done--and then let him ask if there is any explanation which does really bridge the gulf short of this, that behind Peter and John and the rest there stood Another, speaking through their lips, working through their hands, Himself the real Doer in all those wondrous "acts"? When D.L. Moody was holding in Birmingham one of those remarkable series of meetings which so deeply stirred our country in the early 'seventies, Dr. Dale, who followed the work with the keenest sympathy, and yet not without a feeling akin to stupefaction at the amazing results which it produced, once told Moody that the work was most plainly of God, for he could see no real relation between him and what he had done. Is not this disparity the very sign-manual of the Holy Spirit's presence? "Why," asked Peter, when the multitude were filled with wonder and amazement at the healing of the lame man, "Why fasten ye your eyes on us as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?" Work that is really of God can never be accounted for in that fashion. There is always a something in the effects which cannot be traced back to a human cause. Let "our own power and godliness" be what they may--and they can never be too great--they are all vain and helpless apart from the power of God. "I planted, Apollos watered; God gave the increase." Wherefore let the Church trust neither in him that planteth nor in him that watereth, but in God who giveth the increase.
(2) We come now to the Holy Spirit's work in the world. And, just as in speaking of the "Church" it was not any visible organization which we had in mind, so now by the "world" is not meant merely the persons who are outside all such organizations. There is, as we are often reminded nowadays, a Church outside the Churches; and, on the other hand, not a little of what Christ meant by the "world" is often to be found inside what we mean by the "Church." The "world," then, is simply the mass of men, wherever they are to be found, who are living apart from God. Now, of this world Christ said it "cannot receive" the Spirit of truth; "it beholdeth Him not, neither knoweth Him." If, therefore, there is a ministry of the Spirit in the world, it must be wholly different in kind from that spoken of above. And this is what we learn from Christ's teaching: "He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." There is a ring of judicial sternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a court of justice--the indictment, the conviction, the condemnation. And yet one can well believe that there were hours in the after life of the apostles when, of all the comforting, reassuring words which Christ had spoken to them in that Upper Room, there were none more helpful than these. For they knew now that, when they stood up to bear their witness before a hostile world, they had a fellow-witness in men's hearts. They could go nowhere--in Jerusalem, Judæa, Samaria, or the uttermost parts of the earth--where the gracious ministries of the Spirit had not preceded them. He, the Paraclete, was not only with them, their "strong-siding Champion," He was in the world also, in the hearts even of them who set themselves most stoutly against the Lord and against His Anointed, subduing their rebelliousness and reconciling them to God. We who teach and preach to-day, do we think of these things as we ought? Does not our message sometimes win a response which is at once a surprise and a rebuke to us? We knew that the seed which we cast into the ground was the word of God; but the soil seemed so poor and thin we scarce had looked for any harvest; yet the seed sprang up and grew, we knew not how. We had forgotten that over all that wide field which is the world the Divine Husbandman is ever at work, at work while men sleep, breaking up the fallow ground, and making ready the soil for the seed. We need to learn to count more on God, to grasp more fully the glorious breadth of promise which He has given us in His Spirit, to remember that, not only in the Church, but in the world--which is His world--that Spirit is always present to testify of God, to convict men of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
And yet, while we encourage ourselves with thoughts like these, we dare not forget that men may resist, they may grieve, they may quench the Holy Spirit. He is grieved whensoever He is resisted; He may be resisted until He is quenched. It was Christ Himself who spoke of a sin against the Holy Spirit which "hath never forgiveness." Is there any more painful, perplexing, and yet more certain fact in life than this, that man can resist God? Is there any that has bound up with it more terrible and inevitable issues? "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears," cried the martyr Stephen to his judges, "ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." And the end for their fathers and for them we know. Wherefore the Holy Spirit saith: "To-day, if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts."
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CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
"The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."--ST. PAUL.
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VI
CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF GOD
"_Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth._"--MATT. vi. 10.
I
One of the most obvious features of the teaching of Jesus is the prominence which it gives to what is called "the kingdom of heaven," or, "the kingdom of God." And this prominence becomes the more striking when we turn from the Gospels to the Epistles where the phrase is only rarely to be found. With Jesus the kingdom was a kind of watchword which was continually on His lips. Thus, _e.g._, St. Mark begins his account of the preaching of Jesus in these words: "After that John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the Gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the Gospel." In like manner, St. Matthew tells us that "Jesus went about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom." Parable after parable opens with the formula "The kingdom of heaven is like unto--," or, "So is the kingdom of God as if--," or, "How shall we liken the kingdom of God?" When Christ sent forth the Twelve, this was His command, "Go ... and as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand." Again, when He sent forth the Seventy, He said, "Into whatsoever city ye enter ... say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you." And in the great Forty Days, before He was received up, it was still of "the things concerning the kingdom of God" that He spake unto His disciples. Every time a little child is baptized we call to mind His words, "For of such is the kingdom of God." Every time we repeat the prayer He taught His disciples to pray we say, "Thy kingdom come." In all, it is said, there are no less than one hundred and twelve references to the kingdom to be found in the Gospels.
When, however, we turn to the Epistles what do we find? In the whole of St. Paul's Epistles the kingdom is not named as often as in the briefest of the four Gospels. It is mentioned only once by St. Peter, once by St. James, once by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and not at all in the three Epistles of St. John. Not only so, but at least until quite recent times, the Church of Christ has in the main followed the lead of the apostles, and has said but little of the kingdom of God. How is this to be explained? Does it mean that the whole Church of Christ, including the Church of the apostles, has failed to understand the mind of the Master, and has let slip an essential element of His teaching? So some recent writers do not hesitate to declare. Burke once said that he did not know how to draw up an indictment against a whole people; but these, apparently, have no difficulty in drawing up an indictment against the whole Church. "With all respect to the great Apostle," writes one of them, "one may be allowed to express his regret that St. Paul has not said less about the Church and more about the Kingdom."[28] To which I hope one may be forgiven if he is tempted to retort that the great apostle probably knew what he was about as well as his modern critic can tell him. We shall do well to pause, and pause again, before we accept any interpretation of the facts of the New Testament which implies that we to-day have a better understanding of the mind of Christ than the apostles had. For my own part, whenever I come across any writer who tries to correct Paul by Jesus, I find it safest to assume that he has misread Paul, or Jesus, or both. Moreover, though we need make no claim of infallibility for the Church, yet, if we believe in a Holy Spirit given to guide the disciples of Christ into all the truth of Christ, we shall find it difficult to believe at the same time that the whole Church has from the beginning missed the right way, and in a matter so important as this, failed to apprehend the thought of Christ.
We are not, however, shut up to any such unworthy conclusions. There is another and sufficient explanation of the facts to which reference has been made. It was natural that Jesus, speaking in the first instance to Jews, should move as far as possible within the circle of ideas with which they were already familiar. Now, no phrase had a more thoroughly familiar sound to Jewish ears than this of the kingdom of God. It needed, of course, to be purified and enlarged before it could be made the vehicle of the loftier ideas of Jesus. Still, the idea was there, "a point of attachment," as one writer says, in the minds of his hearers to which Jesus could fasten what He wished to say. But after our Lord's Resurrection and Ascension, and especially after the fall of Jerusalem, the whole condition of things was changed. A phrase which in the synagogues of the Jews proved helpful and illumining, might easily become, among the populations of Asia Minor, of Greece, and of Italy, to whom the gospel was now preached, useless, and even misleading. Is it any wonder, therefore, if the first Christian missionaries quietly dropped the old phrase and found others to take its place? Men who knew themselves guided by the Spirit of Jesus would not feel compelled to quote the words of Jesus, if, under altered circumstances, other words more fittingly expressed His thoughts.[29]
II
What did Jesus mean when He spoke of the kingdom of God? The idea as set forth in the Gospels is so complex, the phrase is used to cover so many and different conceptions, that it is practically impossible to frame a definition within which all the sayings of Jesus concerning the kingdom can be included. The nearest approach to a definition which it is necessary to attempt is suggested by the two petitions in the Lord's Prayer which are quoted above. The second petition explains the first: the kingdom comes in proportion as men do on earth the will of God. For our present purpose, therefore, we may think of the kingdom as a spiritual commonwealth embracing all who do God's will. To much that Christ taught concerning the kingdom--its Head, its numbers, its growth and development--it is impossible, in one brief discourse, even to refer. Here again, it must suffice to single out one or two points for special emphasis:
(1) In the doctrine of the kingdom of God, we have set before us the social aspect of Christ's teaching; it reminds us of what we owe, not only to Him who is its King, but to those who are our fellow-subjects. Of particular duties it is impossible to speak, though these, as we know, fill a large place in the teaching of Jesus. But let us at least bring home to ourselves the thought of obligation, obligation involved in and springing out of our common relationship as members of the kingdom of God. The obligation is writ large on every page of the New Testament--in the Gospels, in the doctrine of the kingdom; in the Epistles, in the corresponding doctrine of the Church. It can hardly be said too often, that, according to the New Testament ideal, there are no unattached Christians. The apostles never conceive of religion as merely a private matter between the soul and God. All true religion, as John Wesley used to say, is not solitary but social. Its starting-point is the individual, but its goal is a kingdom. Christ came to save men and women in order that through them He might build up a redeemed society in which the will of God should be done. We do, indeed, often hear of Christians whose religion begins and ends with getting their own souls saved. This simply means that so far as it is true they are not yet Christian. To think only of oneself is to deny one of the first principles of the kingdom. Wesley taught the early Methodists to sing--
"A charge to keep I have. A God to glorify; A never-dying soul to save, And fit it for the sky;"
and some of his followers, both early and later, seem to have thought that this was the whole of the hymn; but the verse goes on without a full stop--
"To serve the present age, My calling to fulfil; O may it all my powers engage To do my Master's will!"
And until we who profess and call ourselves Christians have learned this lesson of service, and have entered into Christ's thought of the kingdom, with its interlacing network of obligations, we have still need that some one teach us again the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God.
(2) Again, the kingdom of God, Christ taught, is _present_; it is not of, but it is in, this world, set up in the midst of the existing order of things. There are, it is true, passages in which Christ speaks of the kingdom as in the future, and to come. Thus, _e.g._, He speaks of a time when men "shall come from the east and west, and from the north and south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God"; when "the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father"; when they shall "inherit the kingdom prepared for" them "from the foundation of the world"; and so forth. But there is no real contradiction between this and what has been already said. The kingdom is a growth, a movement working itself out in history, and therefore it may be said to be past, present, or future, according to our point of view. In the sense that it has not yet fully come, that its final consummation is still waited for, it is future; and so sometimes Christ speaks of it. But it is simply impossible to do justice to all His sayings and deny that in His thought the kingdom is also present. Its consummation may belong to the future, its beginnings are here already. When Christ calls it the kingdom of _heaven_, it is rather its origin and character that are suggested than the sphere of its realization. In parable after parable He speaks of it as a secret silent energy already at work in the world. He called on men here and now to seek it, and to enter it. So eagerly were the lost and the perishing pressing into it that once He declared that from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffered violence. Not in some future heaven but here "on earth" He bade His disciples pray that God's will might be done. "When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven, be sure He did not mean an unseen refuge, whither a handful might one day escape, like persecuted and disheartened Puritans fleeing from a hopeless England, but He intended what might be and then was in Galilee, what should be and now is in England."[30] "Thy kingdom come"--it is here on earth we must look for the answer to our prayer. And every man who himself does, and in every possible way strives to get done, God's will among men, is Christ's co-worker and fellow-builder.
"I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land."
That is the spirit of all the true servants of Jesus.
(3) But the most important fact concerning the kingdom in Christ's view of it is that it is _spiritual_. And, because it is spiritual, it failed wholly to satisfy the earth-bound ambitions of the Jews. For generations they had fed their national pride with visions of a world obedient to Israel's sway, and when one who claimed to be the Messiah nevertheless told them plainly that His kingdom was not of this world, they turned from Him as from one that mocked. He and they both spoke of a kingdom of God, but while they emphasized the "kingdom" He emphasized "God." So wholly did men fail to enter into His mind that on one occasion two of His own disciples came to Him asking that they might sit, one on the right hand, and one on the left hand in His glory. And even when He was just about to leave them, and to return to His Father, the old ambitions still made themselves heard. "Lord," said they, "dost Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" But with all such dreams of temporal sovereignty Christ would have nothing to do; He had put them from Him, definitely and for ever, in the Temptation in the wilderness. He completely reversed the current notions concerning the kingdom. "Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God cometh, He answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you." And when self-complacent religious leaders flattered themselves that, of course, the first places in the kingdom would be theirs, He sternly warned them that they might find themselves altogether shut out while the publicans and harlots whom they despised were admitted. Through all His teaching Christ laid the emphasis on character. Pride, and love of power, and sordid ambitions, and all self-seeking--for these things, and for them that cherished these things, the kingdom had no place. "Blessed," Christ said, "are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." "Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister; and whosoever would be first among you shall be servant of all"--these are they that are accounted worthy of the kingdom of God.
The earliest account of Christ's preaching which has already been quoted, gives us the right point of view for the interpretation of Christ's idea of the kingdom as spiritual: "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: Repent ye, and believe in the gospel." He had come to establish a kingdom whose dominion should be for ever, against which the gates of hell should not prevail, and the foundation of it He laid in the penitent and obedient hearts of men. This explains why Christ had so little to do with programmes, and so much to do with men. If a man's right to the title of reformer be judged by the magnitude of the revolution which he has effected, it is but bare justice to call Him the greatest reformer who ever lived. Yet He put out no programme; He made Himself the spokesman of no party, the advocate of no social or political reform. To the disappointment of His friends, as much as to the confusion of His enemies, He absolutely refused to take sides on the vexed political questions of the hour. "Unto Caesar," He said, "render the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." But on individuals He spent Himself to the uttermost. "He is not only indifferent to numbers, but often seems disinclined to deal with numbers. He sends the multitude away; He goes apart into a mountain with His chosen disciples; He withdraws Himself from the throng in Jerusalem to the quiet home in Bethany; He discourses of the profoundest purposes of His mission with the Twelve in an upper room; He opens the treasures of His wisdom before one Pharisee at night, and one unresponsive woman by the well."[31] Always His work is done not by "external organization or mass-movements or force of numbers," but from within: "Repent ye and believe in the gospel."