The Cross, The Church, and The Kingdom # 31

The Power and Challenge of The Kingdom of God (continued)

The Kingdom Recaptured for God Through the Cross 

So to the Cross, along the line of repudiating a kingdom after that order, and there, in the Cross, He went behind the framework, behind all the form and the system, and dealt with the prince of this world, and cast him out. How He cast him out we have been seeking to see in these meditations; He cast him out morally. "The prince of this world cometh: and he hath nothing in Me" (John 14:30), so he is morally put out. And, casting out the prince of this world there in the Cross, He captured - let us rather say, recaptured - the Kingdom which had been betrayed by Adam into that usurper's hands; recaptured it as the last Adam, the second man, the Lord from heaven; and, having recaptured it in and by His Cross (a matter about which we have yet to say more) He rose, and His theme was the kingdom of God - the fulfillment of His emphatic statement, "There are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." They saw it on the day of Pentecost, the recaptured Kingdom in the hands of this victorious Christ Who knew how to refuse quick returns - a thing which we know very little about morally; and because He was able to let go, He secured all.

That is a law of tremendous value in spiritual life - being expert in laying hold "I will, I will, I will." There again we shall have more to say. But now in the hands of this One, the Kingdom recaptured is brought in on the day of Pentecost in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit The Life and Power of the Kingdom

But note, the point for us is that it is a reformed kingdom, that is, its constitution is altogether different from and other than that which was in the minds of the Apostles and was offered to Him by satan. It is another king of kingdom, essentially spiritual. It comes in by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is in charge of the Kingdom. He precipitates this thing and He keeps the reins in His hands in the projecting and the developing, the expanding and the establishing, of this kingdom. Everything is spiritual, and we find therefore that the Kingdom is, from first to last, essentially an inward thing. The Lord's words about the kingdom of the heavens being within you were very, very truly proved on the day of Pentecost and afterward - it was the Spirit within that was the nature, the power, the life, the energy and the everything of this kingdom.

~T. Austin-Sparks~

(continued with # 32 - (The Spontaneous Challenge of the Kingdom of God Through the Church)