The Coming Kingdom of Glory.
By Dr. Cumming
THE first prophecy that sounded, amid the wrecks of Paradise, rich music in the ears of the fugitives that had sinned and fled from the glorious presence of the Almighty, was in these words: “The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head.” This prediction has not yet been wholly exhausted. That the seed of the woman is the Christ of Nazareth is unquestionably true. That he has finished transgression, made an end of sin, brought in everlasting righteousness, is also true. But can it be said as a historic fact already accomplished that he has finally bruised the serpent’s head? That this has not been fully done, is obvious from such considerations as these: Satan is still the prince of the power of the air; Satan still works in the children of disobedience; Satan still sifts every Peter, buffets every Paul, and goeth about seeking whom he may devour. If these can be predicated of his power and presence in the midst of us now, it cannot with any fairness be alleged that his head is bruised. Satan is a living, restless, malignant power in this world, perverting where he cannot destroy; he still goeth about seeking whom he may devour; him we are still to resist. Therefore this prophecy has not been wholly translated into history; it is a process not yet completed. When Satan is cast down from Heaven, driven to the bottomless pit, and the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, then the great primal prediction will be exhausted. * * * Isaiah says, “The government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever.” This is the portrait of a personally present, triumphant, and glorious Prince. The 53d chapter of Isaiah has been fulfilled on the cross; but the promises in this chapter of Isaiah will only be exhausted when the crown shall be unveiled in all its glory, and the throne shall be established forever. It is obvious that the Jews looked for a temporal sovereign. Were they wrong? No, certainly not; but they looked for a profile instead of a full-face view. They looked far across the humiliation, and rested their admiring eyes only on the glory. They spurned the intervening, necessary cross, and looked only for the splendid and the promised crown. Their ignorance of their error was fatal and disastrous; yet still what they looked for was a reality; but what they ignored was the only way by and through which that reality could ever be historically fulfilled. I admit a figurative interpretation is not excluded where that interpretation can be justified by a fair and reasonable exegesis; but here the words of a most able and accomplished divine are well worthy of our remembrance. The judicious Hooker, author of the Ecclesiastical Polity, says, “I hold it as an infallible rule of exposition of the sacred Scriptures, that where a literal construction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst.” And Prof. Stuart, a very learned American theologian, says, “It is one of the plainest and most cogent of all the rules of hermeneutics, that every passage of Scripture or any other book is to be interpreted as bearing its plain and primary and literal sense, unless good reason should be given why it should be tropically, figuratively, or metaphorically understood.” A disastrous error lay in the one-sided or partial interpretation of the Jews; but let us never forget that it is possible for us Christians, holding to the cross, which is our safety, to ignore or to shut our eyes to the rising splendor of the crown, which is the source of our hope and our happiness forever. The Saviour, no doubt, teaches that true religion must have its birth in the individual heart, and that until true religion secures a lodgment in the heart, all expectations of a glorified Messiah are utterly vain. Hence he says, in words which have been very often misinterpreted, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.” It is urged, Will not our idea of a visible, triumphant, and glorious reign, be a procession with observation? He is speaking to a people who misapprehended its fundamental nature at the time, and therefore, he says, The kingdom cometh not with material pomp, and procession, and visible splendor, such as you see to accompany the kingdom of Cæsar, and the approach of his Proconsul, or his Procurator; it comes first like the breath of spring, and must be first lodged in the individual heart; for “the kingdom of God is within you.” They were looking for a visible, and overlooking an invisible, but real, spiritual kingdom, evermore within. The apostle defines the “kingdom within” in these words, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Jesus does not say that their expectation of a splendid and triumphant kingdom was vain, for he tells them expressly, “When the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” But he shows them that, as an essential preliminary to a kingdom that should be universal, there must be an inner, spiritual, heartfelt kingdom in each individual heart, consisting of righteousness, and peace, and joy, grace first within, and glory next around. Another expression of his has also been misinterpreted: “My kingdom is not of this world.” It is literally from the Greek, “My kingdom is not from this world.” It does not spring from Cæsar; its birth is not in this world; it does not descend in any shape from the powers of this world. This meaning is obvious from what he adds: “If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews.” He evidently speaks of that spiritual kingdom he came to inaugurate, a kingdom which has lasted now eighteen centuries. But these words are not in the least inconsistent with the expectation of a future, glorious kingdom, visible from the river unto the ends of the earth; they simply rebuke the partial misapprehension of the Jew, who looked across Calvary, invisible to his jaundiced and prejudiced eye, and saw only the fulfillment of a glorious promise, that related to a kingdom that should have no end, and a glory that should have no shade. That this is no forced connection of these passages will be obvious from other texts scattered over the New Testament, one or two of which I will now quote. Gabriel said, “Thou shalt conceive, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.” This was literally fulfilled. But what follows? “And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David,” this has not been fulfilled, “and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Nathaniel said, what the Saviour accepted, “Thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.” The dying thief was not corrected when he prayed, “Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;” a thing still future. And Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory”—that is, the throne of David—“ye also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” And again, “I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” We must understand this to mean what the words imply in ordinary usage. They coerce and constrain the meaning of the word of God who try to prove that these words have simply a spiritual significance, and that they are all fulfilled and actualized in Christ’s reigning over the hearts and consciences and minds of his believing people. Can it be said that the words of the Saviour in the gospel of St. Matthew have been fulfilled, “When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory”? or the promise of Gabriel to Mary, “He shall give him the throne of his father David”? “And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit,” what we have never yet inherited on earth, “the kingdom”? If it be a spiritual kingdom, “the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,” that is meant in all these passages, then every true Christian has inherited the kingdom already. But this cannot be, for he says, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” St. Paul writes, “The Lord Jesus Christ shall judge the quick and the dead.” When? “At his appearing and his kingdom;” something still future. In the Apocalypse, when Christ returns, we are told, “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever.” And says St. Paul in the Epistle to the Thessalonians, “The Lord himself shall descend from Heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first,” called in the Apocalypse “the first resurrection;” after which, says John in that same book, “they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” I have shown there are countless predictions of a future advent of Christ into our world. I have also shown that it is impossible, with any reasonable interpretation of the passages I have given, to suppose that Christ has fulfilled these glowing and magnificent predictions in any century that has passed away, from his crucifixion on the cross, onward to the present hour. It will follow, therefore, from all this, that the earth is to be restored; that this orb of ours is to be the capital not only of our solar system, but, in all probability, of the universe itself; that the sunshine of Sinai, Calvary, Tabor, and Olivet, shall never be extinguished, they are too memorable ever to be forgotten; and that from this earth shall go forth the law, the light, and the love, that are to be the admiration and law of surrounding orbs, and that to this world other kingdoms throughout the universe shall look as to the kingdom of grace and righteousness now culminating in this kingdom of glory, swayed over by a sceptre that shall have no interruption, and governed by a King of whose reign there shall be no end. Such seems the just and inevitable conclusion from the passages I have quoted, and I cannot come to any other. There never yet has been a perfect nation, a perfect government, or a perfect ruler. Despotism, monarchy, republics, aristocracies, all have risen, and all have disappeared in succession; and the very imperfections of all human governments, imperfections that multiply with their duration, seem to indicate, almost to prophecy, that some more perfect and more excellent order yet will be, and that a Ruler and a reign will one day be reproduced in the world that will satisfy the demands, and gratify the yearnings of the human heart, and bring in a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. It is impossible to come fairly to any other conclusion than that a personal King is to reign over all the earth; that Jesus, the same Jesus whom they saw ascend from the Mount of Olives, “shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go;” and he will fulfill in his person, and in the manifestation of his glory, and in the erection of his everlasting kingdom, all the prophecies I have quoted; for not one jot nor tittle shall pass away from one of them until all shall be fulfilled.—Dr. Cumming.