THE CONSTITUTION AND LAW OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.
By C. P. Bollman
The constitution of the kingdom of heaven is the divine nature. To this even the Creator of all things is subject. “If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful; He cannot deny Himself.” The law of the kingdom is the will of God. “My Father,” said the Saviour, “is greater than I.” And again: “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” And finally, when the great controversy between Christ and Satan is over, and all things shall have been subdued to God, “then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him [the Father] that put all things under Him [the Son], that God [the Father] may be all in all.” 1 Cor. 15:28. The Father’s will is Christ’s law even now; and that it is equally the law of the humblest subject of the kingdom we know from the words, “Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father, which is in heaven.” The will of God—the law of His kingdom—is revealed in many ways. That will is just what God is, and every revelation of what God is, is in the nature of a transcript of His character. Such revelation was made first of all in nature. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the psalmist. God’s glory is not the visible brightness of His face; that is only the outward manifestation of His character, which is His real glory. And it would have meant just what it does now had the psalmist said, The heavens declare the character of God. Again, God’s character is revealed in His written Word, especially in the “ten words,” the law given on Sinai. They are a transcript of what God is, of His righteousness. “Hearken unto Me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is My law.” Isa. 51:7. And again we have the words of the psalmist, “All Thy commandments are righteousness.” Ps. 119:172. But neither in the brightness of the noon-day sky, nor in the azure dome set with countless suns, nor in the “bands of Orion;” nor in the beauty of the Pleiades, nor in the Milky Way, nor in the depths yet3unexplored by unaided human eyes,—in none of these could fallen man find out God. And then God spoke again—spoke “unto the fathers by the prophets;” yea, from Sinai’s smoking top His own voice was heard in mighty thunderings, declaring His righteousness, giving His law, that men might know and do His will. But still man was slow to learn, slow to discern God. Something more was needed than the law in rolling thunders, or written on tables of stone. And so God said, “I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” And to do this the Creator first of all made that law—His Word—flesh, and sent Him to dwell among men, that that same law might become a part of every man who would open his heart to receive it. Only those who love the divine law can keep it; and only those can love it who love its Author; and only those can love its Author who know Him. But “no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him.” Therefore, that man might know God, and knowing Him might love Him, and loving Him might love and keep His law, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Christ does not despise nor take the place of the law once spoken amid the thunders of Sinai and graven on tables of stone. He is the law, the living Word made flesh; for it is written: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” John 1:1, 14. “And in His life the law appears,
Drawn out in living characters.” The individual sinner is by conversion delivered from “the power of darkness,” and is translated “into the kingdom of His [God’s] dear Son.” Col. 1:13. Christians, tho in this world, are not of it; they are only sojourners. The apostle Peter says, “I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims.” 1 Peter 2:11. Again, in Phil. 3:20, R. V., we are told by the apostle Paul, that “our citizenship is in heaven.” As the child of God is a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, the law of that kingdom is his law. Every act of his life is done with reference to the law of the kingdom to which he belongs. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Cor. 10:31. Therefore in rendering to Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s we are exhorted not to do it from fear of punishment, but “for conscience sake.” Rom. 13:5. The Christian—the citizen of the kingdom of heaven—does not regulate a part of his conduct by one law and part by another, but because “the law of his God is in his heart, none of his steps shall slide.” The man of whom this is true will love his neighbor as himself, and “love worketh no ill to his neighbor.” Apropos to this subject is the following from the author of “Arius the Libyan:” — “The only relation which these Christians sustained to the ‘government’ of Cyrenaica, or to that of Rome, was to pay the taxes demanded of them; and they had no concern as to who might be emperor or proconsul, except so far as these rulers might be disposed to persecute the Christians, or otherwise. They paid taxes to avoid giving offense; . . . but they never acknowledged the Roman authority in any other way.” “They never had recourse to any temporal penalties to enforce the law of Christian brotherhood; knowing that no one who refused to be controlled without the use of force was a Christian, they publicly disowned him, and that was the end of it. . . . They were citizens of a kingdom in but not of the world, desiring to be at peace with all worldly kingdoms.” “They knew that Jesus proclaimed a good news, or Gospel, for the poor, the very foundation-stone of which is the absolute equality, liberty, and fraternity of man. And they learned from the same divine Teacher that kings, lords, nobles, all personal and class distinctions among men, are mere creations of legal fiction, sustained by unjust force, like slavery and piracy, and do not exist in the nature of things or by the will of God. . . . Hence, in place of teaching men a better slave code than the world had known before, Jesus taught freedom for all men. In place of teaching a more effective art of war, He proclaimed the Gospel of peace, love, justice. In place of ordaining only more wise and just regulations for governing the intercourse of men with their female chattels, He elevated monogamic marriage into a holy sacrament, and applied to man and wife alike the same divine law of personal rights, duties, and responsibilities. In place of teaching better laws for the government of men by other men as erring, sinful, and selfish as themselves, He taught that all such laws and government are unnecessary to any people who believe that there is something more sacred, higher, and holier than private rights, and are willing by faith to renounce all human, statutory advantages in order to acquire divine truth.” “So in beautiful Cyrenaica, while Greek and Roman, Egyptian and Jew, concerned themselves about politics, and struggled for offices, and toiled beyond measure for useless gain, the Christian communities pursued the calm and even tenor of their way, meeting on every Sabbath for religious services and instruction; closing each week-day’s labor with a pleasant formula of evening prayer; training up their sons and daughters to despise all the false statutory and customary distinctions and vanities of worldly life, ‘after which the Gentiles seek;’ teaching them to seek knowledge, especially the knowledge peculiar to their faith; to love all men, especially the brethren; and to regard this earthly life as but the threshold of a higher, holier, and more perfect state of being that lay only a few brief, fleeting years away from every one of them.” O, that the church might return again to the simplicity of the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and to loyalty to the law of His kingdom.