BELIEVERS are familiar with the truth that they are to live and reign with Christ for a thousand years in the coming kingdom. Then shall Christ possess all royal rights and power on earth, while His people shall share them with Him.
Another like truth, though not such a familiar one, is that “They which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” No limit is assigned to this reign in life, so, I conceive, it will extend beyond the thousand years, and have no termination.
In the Epistle to the Hebrews we are told that the Son of God is the appointed heir of all things. And I ask, Will He, in the coming day, take the inheritance alone? Indeed, He will not. Was Adam to have the Garden of Eden, with all its bounties and benefactions, alone? Indeed, he was not. His happiness and joy were not complete until Eve was presented to him. So will it be when Christ enters upon the inheritance. He will have His joint-heirs with Him. And such are we. “If children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”
But in the passage at the head of this paper we have the truth disclosed to us that believers now are kings—through Christ’s death, I need not add. It may be asked, How can I understand this, seeing the kingdom has not begun?
Just in the same way as we understand any truth in Scripture, viz., by faith. When the kingdom comes the fact that we are kings will be self evident; yet is the fact looked upon as subsisting at the present time. And this is nothing strange in Scripture.
Let me refer to a word in another connection by way of illustration of this: “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified” (Rom. 8:2929For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. (Romans 8:29)). Does it stop there? No, it goes on to say, “And whom He justified, them He also glorified.” It may be said, But we are not glorified yet. Nevertheless, the Spirit of God speaks as if we were, and faith accepts the statement without raising any question about it.
Again, is it making a greater demand upon the principle of faith to believe I am now a king, than to believe I am now a child of God? Indeed, it is not. Surely is it a nearer and greater thing to be a child of God than to be a king “unto God.”
Jesus Christ,” it is said,” hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father.”
It is true our feet are not yet treading the courts of the King. We are still in the usurper’s world, yet in it, so to say, as kings in disguise. Poor, obscure, and despised we may be now, yet satisfied to wait “in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.”
But while on the road which leads to the reign, faith holds the great secret that royalty is attached to us. David knew well that he was the anointed king, although an outcast, and persecuted by Saul. But no Cave of Adullam, nor any like place of reproach, could efface the work of the anointing oil. Sovereign grace gave royal rights to David, and set him at last on the throne at Jerusalem. The same grace has given like rights to us, nor will it relinquish its cherished work until we occupy the thrones seen by the apostle John, and written about in Revelation 20.: “I saw thrones, and they sat upon them.”
And did not the apostle Paul in his day carry with him the secret of his share in the coming reign? When writing his last epistle he turns his gaze in faith towards it, and writes to Timothy, “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.” If it is suffering here, it will be reigning there.
Here I would stop for a moment to notice that this divine secret, and many more besides, lay in the heart of God ere they were disclosed in the Book of God. The secrets of the divine mind were not to be confined there always, and so, when the time came to divulge them, all publicity must needs be given to them. But it is faith in the believer that discovers these rich and wondrous mysteries. And long they lay in the Bible, I need not say, before we learned any one of them.
In the meanwhile, though not wearing the royal apparel, are we not to be bearing ourselves in kingly ways, and with a sense of the dignities befitting us? Knowing, too, that the first expected stage in the journey to the kingdom will be when the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven, with the conqueror’s shout, and conduct His people to the Father’s house. But of this let us be assured, no kingly ways will be ours now without the power of the Spirit of God, and lowly obedience to the Word of God.
“Unto Him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father: to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” W. J. M.