The Kingdom Realm of Joy

"For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." — Rom. xiv. 17

But great as is the blessedness of peace, Paul intimates that the kingdom of God affords a richer banquet. We have three degrees of beatitude set before us, rising like a climax: righteousness is good, peace is better and joy in the Holy Ghost is best of all, the crowning grace which God has to bestow on believers in his adorable Son. It is the link which unites us with God. It is the first installment of heaven paid on earth in advance.

This is more than the joy which is the natural sequence of right doing. The approval of conscience is the lowest degree of the joy of righteousness. If the act be not merely right but beneficent, if we have by sacrifice benefited some person, the joy rises in quality and intensity. Hence the generous deeds of the unregenerate are to them a source of felicity. This arises from the very constitution of human nature. Happiness and virtue are not divergent but parallel lines. We are as moral beings so constituted that joy must follow the exercise of benevolence. This joy is natural. But the joy of the Holy Ghost is supernatural. It is handed down direct from the Giver of all good gifts through the agency of the Holy Spirit. It flows not in the channels of nature, but is a fruit of the Spirit. Paul intends to discriminate between the natural joy of rectitude and this heavenly joy in Christian experience by styling it the joy of the Holy Ghost. It attends his residence in the soul. For there is a mystery next to the three-fold personality in the unity of the divine nature, the two-fold personality of the believer, the human interpenetrated by the divine personality inhabiting it as his temple. This miracle of the fulness of the Spirit was first manifested in Adam in Eden when the breath of God conveyed not merely animal and intellectual life, but spiritual life resulting from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Sin dissolved this mysterious union and the heavenly personage withdrew from his polluted sanctuary. From being filled with joy pervading every capacity, Adam became desolate indeed. The supremely blessed became supremely wretched. To be sundered from God, the fountain of bliss, is hell. When sin entered the soul of Adam that deep celestial spring ceased to send up its refreshing waters, and he became the subject of intense thirst. His posterity born in his fallen image share also his tormenting thirst. They all flew from spring to spring of sensual pleasure, but still they thirsted till Jesus stood up in this spiritual Sahara and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink." The satisfying nature and the inexhaustible abundance of the water of life are intimated in the fact that out of the believer shall flow, not drops as from a spile, not brooks which dry up "in the summer's heat, but rivers, Amazons and Mississippis of living water. Then John, in a blessed parenthesis, for which I mean to thank him when I shake hands with him in heaven, strips off the imagery and tells us in plain words that Jesus is describing the joy of the Holy Spirit, who was not yet given in Pentecostal fulness. To this fountain Jesus sets a perpetual finger-point in his last words in the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come . . . and take the water of life freely."

— Jesus Exultant, Chapter 7.

The Kingdom Realm of Peace

We may compare the kingdom of God to a three-storied temple founded on Christ, the corner stone. The first story is a basement partly underground, the region of shadow and darkness, the cellar-kitchen of this palace, where servants toil in fear and hirelings work for wages.

But a broad staircase leads up into the apartment of peace; while the Lord of this castle is constantly inviting those below to ascend, to exchange the place of servants for that of sons. For he is willing to adopt the whole crowd into his family, but only now and then one has the good sense to believe in the sincerity of the offer and to accept it, to doff the servants' livery and to don the many-colored robe of sonship and heirship. This room is spacious and sunny and resonant with songs. Yet its occupants do more work than the servants downstairs. But they do not work for wages, but from love to their adopted Father. They are sons; they belong to the royal family; the whole estate is theirs. This gives a new character to their labor, lifting it infinitely above the drudgery of wage-service. When the hired man marries the daughter of his employer he doesn't play the gentleman at leisure and cease working, but he works all the harder because he now is a member of the firm. This takes all the irksomeness out of his toil and bedecks it with roses. "And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." The filial feeling is suddenly breathed into the soul. Fear of a servile kind which brings torment is removed. Fear of death disappears and the fear of future ill. Child-like trust in the newly-found Father mostly banishes fear and enthrones peace. The habit of faith becomes fixed, love lubricates all acts of obedience and stern duty is dissolved in love. Service ceases to be a task and love knows no burdens. The beneficent law of habit now comes in to afford an additional safeguard to the gift of peace.

The Kingdom Realm of Righteousness

We may compare the kingdom of God to a three-storied temple founded on Christ, the corner stone.

The first story is a basement partly underground, the region of shadow and darkness, the cellar-kitchen of this palace, where servants toil in fear and hirelings work for wages. As servants, they are faithful, conscientious and true to their Master's interests. They are not drones, nor gluttons, nor drunkards, nor stewards wasting their Master's goods. Their service is voluntary. They have chosen it in preference to any other. Yet they are not joyful, but rather fearful that they shall fail to please their Master and so lose their wages. For they toil with an eye to the reward, and every day after twelve o'clock they often look over their shoulders to see whether the sun is not setting, so that they may quit for the day and draw their pay. While they believe that they are serving the best of masters, they sigh when they contrast their condition with that of his acknowledged sons and daughters in the parlors above. They are tempted to be sad and envious, not cheerful and songful. In this state of mind there is danger of discouragement and abandonment of the service. For it is natural for to escape from an irksome employment. The predominant motive of their service is fear, not love, and there is no magnetism in fear to attract and hold them steadfast.

Righteousness Among Those Ignorant of Christ

That righteousness may exist without conscious assurance of acceptance and peace and without even a knowledge of the historical Christ, is no new and strange doctrine, as may be seen in the introduction of Peter's sermon at Cæsarea: "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with him." Cornelius was in a state of acceptance as a servant, in doubt and fear without the Spirit of adoption, because he was ignorant of the giver, Jesus Christ. Says Paul: "When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness."

On this ground the pagans need no probation after death. They who by living up to their best light have put on the elements of Christ's character have the essential Christ, though ignorant of the historical Christ.

God Has Three Kingdoms

There is a sense in which God has three kingdoms. The first two constitute the platform or pedestal on which the third is erected. 

First, God reigns over the material world by the mechanical necessity of physical laws. In this kingdom there is no freedom. The subjects, whether floating atoms or blazing suns, bow to the law of necessity. To this kingdom our bodies belong. The laws of gravitation and of vital chemistry are ceaselessly at work in them, whether we will or not, whether we wake or sleep. 

In the second place, God presides over a moral government requiring obedience to the universal law of moral obligation. God did not give us the privilege of choosing whether or not we would be in this kingdom. We are in it by no vote or consent of ours. The moral law is imbedded in our very constitution. We can escape it only by escaping two beings, God and ourselves. We may disobey and suffer penalty; we may obey and enjoy the reward. 

But on the basis of these two kingdoms stands another. No one is in it of necessity, but everyone enters freely. The law of this kingdom is love of righteousness. All who love righteousness love God, its perfect embodiment, and belong to this kingdom, hence it is purely spiritual with an ethical basis. It was founded by the Father. When some method of making the wicked righteous was needed, he devised the scheme of the atonement. Hence he is no impersonation of mercilessness holding an iron scepter, as some falsely assert, but a tender Father devising the ransom of his banished ones. "God so loved the world," says the divine record. The atonement is a river of love rising in the heart of the Father, flowing through the self-sacrifice of the Son and emptying itself on the earth in the gift of the Holy Ghost to restore to human souls the lost image of God, righteousness and true holiness. The Son of God is the administrator of this kingdom. He is head over all things to his church. "My kingdom is not of this world." From the residence of a majority of its subjects it is called the kingdom of heaven. The census of that kingdom would be so great that the number on the earth are to the number in heaven as a handful of sand is to a continent, or as the planets of our system are to the milky way powdered with stars. 

— edited and adapted from Jesus Exultant, Chapter 7.

The Cross of Christ and Human Sin

"For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." — 1 Cor. ii. 2

Who is he who hangs thereon bowing his head in death? It is none other than the Son of God, who dwelt in his bosom and shared his glory before the world was. By him, "the image of the invisible God, were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions; all things were created by him and for him" (Col. 1. 16). Equal in power and glory with the Father, he says, "I and my Father are one." "He who hath seen me hath seen the Father." This person of infinite dignity is nailed to the cross, voluntarily laying down his life as a ransom for many. The cost of redemption is the measure of the turpitude of sin. Jesus died to antagonize sin, to neutralize its baneful effects and to arrest its consequences in such a manner as to afford no encouragement to sin, but rather to raise up the strongest safeguard against it. If Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man, it proves that in every man there is some fatal plague spot which must be removed, which nothing short of the death of the Son of God could effect. I need not tell you that this plague is sin which embitters and blights every human soul, casting an eternal eclipse upon its future existence.

The Anointing Teaches

"The anointing which ye recieve of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you: but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things . . . abide ye in him"  — 1 John 2:27. R. V., marg.

Here χρῖσμα (chrisma) of the Spirit is twice used with emphasis on his teaching office... and his conditional abiding. He will abide in us so long as we heed the injunction, "Abide in him." When the Paraclete takes up his abode in the heart, he intends to stay forever, if the conditions are favorable. Neglect will obscure his brightness, weaving a veil of increasing thickness over his face; and unrepented willful sin will cause him to leave in grief, to return no more forever. "The sixth chapter to the Hebrews may affright us all," says Rutherford, "when we hear that men may take of the gifts and common graces of the Holy Spirit, and a taste of the powers of the world to come, to hell with them." There is no state of grace this side of glory from which the soul may not finally fall. Yet permanency is the peculiarity of the anointing in the case of the persevering believer. The presence of the Comforter in the sanctuary of the heart. filling it with light, love, and joy, strongly inclines the person to persevere. so that he may freely determine to persist in faith and obedience. Of those who truly receive this anointing, in the fullness of its illumination, strength, and bliss, few ever realize its entire withdrawal. We teach no antinomian anointing when we say this.

The Anointing and Orthodoxy

"And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and because no lie is of the truth Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, [even] he that denieth the Father and the Son Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also." 1 John 1:20-23 RV

In connection with the word χρῖσμα (chrisma), St. John explains the origin of antichrist. All who have the chrism, or anointing, know and honor the Christ, the anointed. "As long," says Dr. Whedon, "as we possess the holy chrism we will adhere to holy Christ." All who do not receive and retain the sanctifying chrism reject or abandon the Christ, and become antichrists, because of the absence of the enlightening chrism. "No man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema; and no man can say Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." (1 Cor. 12:3, R. V.)

The doctrine of the supreme divinity of Christ, revealed to the soul only by the anointing, protects all the other doctrines of the evangelical system. Hence the Holy Ghost is the only conservator of orthodoxy. The thumbscrew, as a substitute, is a stupendous failure, as is proven by the ghastly history of the Inquisition. The soft doctrines of liberalism creep into churches which do not honor the Third Person of the adorable Trinity, except with their lips, while their hearts are without his indwelling. Departures from him, whether new or old, are always departures from the evangelical standard.

— Half Hours With St. Paul and Other Bible Readings Chapter 21.

The Believer's Anointing

"Now he that stablisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God who also sealed us, and gave [us] the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." 2 Corinthians 1:21, 22 RV

Anointing in the holy Scriptures is either material, with oil, or spiritual, with the Holy Spirit.

At his baptism Jesus was baptized with the Spirit, the first person in human history to receive this highest honor possible for men to receive or for heaven to bestow. For in the Old Testament, anointing was the official inauguration into three of the highest offices of the Hebrew nation — king and prophet (1 Kings 19:16), high priest (Lev. 16:32), and king (1 Sam. 9:16). These three offices were typical of a great personality to come in the latter days, called the Messiah, the Christ, or the Anointed One (Psa. 2:2; Dan. 9:25, 26; Luke 4:18). The nature of this anointing is foretold as spiritual: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me: because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek." Jesus of Nazareth appropriated this prophecy when he said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." This spiritual anointing being one of his chief credentials, the fact is recorded in John 1:32, 33; Acts 4:27; 10:38.

Catching Corinthians by Guile?

QUESTION: Did St. Paul do right when he "caught the Corinthians by guile, being crafty"? See II Cor. 12:16.

ANSWER: His enemies slanderously said that he preached for money, not asking for it directly, but making Titus a cat's-paw to procure money for him craftily, while he was pretending to preach without burdening the people with the contribution box. Paul repeats their charge in order to refute it. All obscurity would have been avoided if he had written "They say," "I caught you," etc., as in 10:10.

— Steele's Answers, p. 169.