p. 11 | THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 4, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 40.

THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST.

1. At present the kingdom of Christ is in this world as a spiritual power. "The kingdom of God is within you" [margin, "among you"]. Luke 17:20, 21.

2. At the same time Christ recognizes the physical government of men. "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's." Mark 12:17. When a multitude of people sought to make Jesus a temporal king, He left them, and thus thwarted their purpose.

3. The parable of the nobleman (Luke 19:11-26) illustrates Christ's going away to get for Himself a kingdom, and then to return. Dan. 7:13, 14 indicates that Christ's physical kingship will be given Him by the Father, and not by earthly authority.

4. While we may be spiritually "translated" into the kingdom of Christ in this life (Col. 1:13), we will not be physically translated into His eternal kingdom of glory until His physical return. 1 Thess. 4:15-17.

5. While Christ's spiritual kingdom is co-existent with the kingdoms of this world, it is not itself a kingdom of this world. John 18:36.

6. While this spiritual kingdom has no conflict with the governments of this world, when the King comes in His glory to plant His physical kingdom it will break in pieces and destroy all others, and fill the whole earth. Dan. 2:31-35, 44, 45.

7. The physical kingdom of Christ will be established in the new earth, after this earth shall have been transformed and purified by fire. 2 Peter 3:9-13.

8. The spiritual kingdom, the true church of Christ—not any special organization—comprises the subjects of the kingdom of glory gathered out of this sinful world by the proclamation of the Gospel. "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; 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, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. 25:31-34.

9. The earth is the recruiting ground for subjects of the everlasting kingdom, and the Gospel is the means for inducing men to become citizens of that kingdom, while the true church—the spiritual kingdom—is the rendezvous of the soldiers of Christ until He come.