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Scripture Reading: Mark 4:3, 11, 14, 26-29
I. The New Testament reveals that the Triune God has been incarnated in order to be sown into His chosen people and then to develop within them into a kingdom; this is the intrinsic element of the entire teaching of the New Testament — John 1:14; Col. 2:9; Mark 4:26-29; Rev. 11:15; 21:2.
II. God’s economy concerning His kingdom was a hidden mystery, which has been unveiled to the Lord’s disciples — Mark 4:11:
А. Since the nature and character of the kingdom of God are wholly divine, and the elements through which it is brought forth are the divine life and the divine light, the kingdom of God, especially in its reality as the genuine church in this age, is still entirely a mystery to the natural man — vv. 3, 21, 26; 1 Cor. 2:14.
B. Divine revelation is required to understand the kingdom of God — Eph. 1:17-18; 3:3; Rom. 16:25-26.
III. The kingdom of God is not merely a material realm in which God rules over His people and exercises His authority to carry out His governmental administration so that they may enter into this realm to enjoy eternal blessing; the kingdom of God is actually God Himself — Mark 1:15; Matt. 6:33; John 3:3:
А. God Himself is everything as the content of His kingdom — 1 Cor. 4:20; 15:28.
B. God is life, having the nature, ability, and shape of the divine life, which forms the realm of God’s ruling — John 3:15; cf. Eph. 4:18.
C. The life of God is the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is the realm of the divine life for this life to move, to work, to rule, and to govern so that life may accomplish its purpose — John 3:3.
D. Those who live in the kingdom of God have God as their life; God lives in them, through them, and out of them, and thus they express God — Phil. 1:21a.
IV. The kingdom of God is Christ Himself as the seed of life sown into us, growing in us, spreading in us, and maturing in us until there is a full harvest — the manifestation of the kingdom — Mark 4:26-29; Matt. 13:43:
А. This is revealed in the parable of the seed in Mark 4:26-29:
1. The man in verse 26 is the Son of God as the Sower who came to sow Himself as the seed of life in His word (v. 14) into men’s hearts so that He might grow and live in them and be expressed from within them.
2. The seed is the seed of the divine life sown into the Lord’s believers — 1 John 3:9; 1 Pet. 1:23.
3. The casting of the seed on the earth indicates that the kingdom of God, which is the issue and goal of the Lord’s gospel, and the church in this age (Rom. 14:17) are a matter of the life of God, which sprouts, grows, bears fruit, matures, and produces a harvest — Mark 4:26.
4. Christ establishes the kingdom by sowing Himself as the seed of life into believing people so that the kingdom may grow; this is absolutely a matter of the growth in life, not of our work — 1 Pet. 1:23; 1 John 3:9; Matt. 13:8.
5. Regeneration is the entrance into the kingdom of God, and the growth of the divine life within the believers is the development of the kingdom of God — John 3:3, 5; 2 Pet. 1:3-11.
6. The kingdom of God is the reality of the church brought forth by the resurrection life of Christ through the gospel — Rom. 14:17; 1 Cor. 4:15.
7. The seed of the kingdom is Jesus, and the development of the seed in the aggregate of the believers is the kingdom; this aggregate is the church — Rom. 14:17.
B. The kingdom of God is actually the God-man, the Lord Jesus, sown as a seed into the believers and developing into a realm over which God can rule as His kingdom in His divine life — Luke 17:20-21; Mark 4:3, 26-29:
1. The kingdom of God is a wonderful person — the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God — Matt. 16:16.
2. The Lord Jesus, who is the embodiment of the Triune God, came to be the kingdom of God by sowing Himself as the seed of the kingdom into God’s chosen people — Col. 2:9; Luke 17:20-21; Matt. 13:3-23:
a. The Lord is both the Sower and the seed sown; as the Sower, the Lord sows Himself as the seed of life through His word — Mark 4:3, 14.
b. God’s life, which is Christ Himself, is the seed of the realm of the divine life that develops into the kingdom for His ruling — vv. 3, 26-29.
c. The One who has been sown into us as a seed is the kingdom gene; the full development of this kingdom gene will be God’s eternal kingdom in the new heaven and new earth — Rev. 21:1-2.
3. After this seed has been sown into the believers, it will grow and develop within them into the kingdom of God, which is for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose and also for their blessing and enjoyment — Col. 1:13.
4. The development of the kingdom within us is our entering into the kingdom of God — 2 Pet. 1:3-11:
a. To enter into the kingdom of God is not a matter of entering into a material realm outwardly but of growing Christ inwardly — Gal. 4:19.
b. In order to enter into the kingdom of God, we must humble ourselves and empty ourselves so that our entire inner being is available for Christ to grow in us — Mark 10:13-16; Eph. 3:16-17a.
c. Apparently, it is we who enter into the kingdom of God; actually, the entrance into the kingdom of God is supplied to us richly by the Lord through our growth in life and through the development of the divine life within us — 2 Pet. 1:3-11.
d. We should be diligent to pursue the growth and development of the divine life within us until we are richly and bountifully supplied the entrance into “the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” — vv. 5, 11.
