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Scripture Reading: Mark 1:14-18; 4:26; 9:1-8; 10:23-25; Rom. 14:17
In the two preceding messages we considered four important matters: the background of the Lord’s ministry, the Lord as the Sower sowing Himself into God’s people, the condition of the disciples as “soil,” and the Lord’s healing of this soil through His death and resurrection. We saw that through this healing the one hundred twenty became the good ground for the Lord’s sowing. However, we saw that in Acts 10 and 21 and Galatians 2 there are strong indications that the “weeds” of things that replace Christ had begun to grow again.
We concluded the last message with a word concerning the kingdom of God. We pointed out that, according to the New Testament, the kingdom of God is a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, sown into us in order to be developed. In His ministry, the Lord came to sow Himself as the seed of the kingdom into God’s chosen people so that this seed might develop into God’s kingdom.
We see another aspect of the kingdom in 9:1-8. In 9:1 the Lord Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, there are some of those standing here who shall by no means taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power.” This verse is immediately followed by the record of the Lord’s transfiguration on the mount. Verses 2 and 3 go on to say, “And after six days Jesus takes with Him Peter and James and John, and brings them up into a high mountain by themselves alone. And He was transformed before them; and His garments became brilliant, exceedingly white, such as no fuller on earth could whiten them.”
When we put these verses together, we see that the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus was the coming of the kingdom. This proves that the kingdom is not a material realm. Rather, these verses indicate that the kingdom is a Person transfigured. When the Lord Jesus was transfigured, that was the coming of the kingdom. What, then, is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is the Lord Jesus Himself transfigured.
We need to consider this understanding of the kingdom as the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus in the light of our experience. When you believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him, you received a Jesus who was not transfigured. Just as the seed received by the soil is a seed that has not yet been transfigured, so in our experience the Christ we received was a Christ not transfigured. The transfiguration of a seed requires the growth of that seed into a mature plant and the blossoming of that plant. Therefore, we may say that the transfiguration of a seed requires growth and blossoming. In a similar way, the Lord Jesus we received needs to grow in us until He blossoms from within us.
We are the soil, and the Lord Jesus is the seed of the kingdom. When we received Him into us, we received Him as the One who had not yet been transfigured in our experience. Have you received the Lord Jesus, and is He now in you? We all can testify strongly that we have received the Lord and that He is in us. But has the Lord been transfigured in you? If the Lord who is in you has not yet been transfigured, others will not be able to see the kingdom of God in you. Since we have not yet experienced this kind of transfiguration, we need the Lord to grow in us until He blossoms. That blossoming will be the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus in us in a practical way. Such a transfiguration is the kingdom of God.
The transfiguration of the Lord Jesus within us becomes not only our enjoyment but also God’s ruling. When the Lord Jesus is transfigured in us in a practical way in our daily living, that transfiguration becomes the kingdom of God ruling everything in our life. This kingdom rules us and also gives us the full enjoyment of God.
For years I was familiar with the story of the Lord’s transfiguration without realizing that this transfiguration should be something experiential and practical to us in our daily living. We all have the Lord Jesus within us, but He has not yet been transfigured in us. Hence, we need Him to grow in us until by transfiguration He blossoms into the expression of the kingdom of God in our experience.
In 1:15 the Lord Jesus said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has drawn near.” Then in the parable of the seed the Lord said, “So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed on the earth” (4:26). Later, in 9:1, the Lord told His disciples that some standing there would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God come in power. Immediately after speaking this word concerning the kingdom, the Lord Jesus was transfigured on the mountaintop before Peter, James, and John. His transfiguration was the coming of the kingdom of God in power. This is a strong indication that the kingdom of God is actually the transfiguration of the Lord Jesus.
In chapter four of Mark we have the seed of the kingdom. Now in chapter nine this seed is transfigured, and this transfiguration of the seed is the coming of the kingdom of God.
Do you know why among many genuine Christians there is the lack of the kingdom of God today? The reason is that among these Christians there is the lack of the transfiguration of Christ. The Christ who lives in so many believers is still a seed; He has not yet been transfigured. This may also be our situation. Yes, we have the Lord Jesus living within us, but we may not have given Him the opportunity to be transfigured in us. Therefore, with us there may be only the seed of the kingdom, but not the appearing of the kingdom.
On the day of the Lord’s transfiguration on the mountaintop there was the coming, the appearing, of the kingdom. From this we see that in order to have the appearing of the kingdom from within us, we need to experience the Lord’s being transfigured within us.
Mark 9:1-3 proves that the kingdom of God is not a material realm. We have emphasized the fact that the kingdom of God is the transfiguration of the Person of the Lord Jesus. Today such a transfiguration produces the church life, which is the kingdom of God.
This understanding of the church as the kingdom corresponds to Paul’s word in Romans 14:17: “The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” According to the context, the kingdom of God in this verse refers to the church life.
We all need to see that God’s eternal plan, which is His New Testament economy, is to dispense Himself as the Triune God into His chosen people. In order to accomplish His plan, He was incarnated, becoming a man named Jesus. When this man came out to preach, He began to sow Himself into God’s chosen people. However, as the soil for the Lord’s sowing, His chosen people had become fallen, damaged, and corrupt. Therefore, the Lord Jesus brought this soil to the cross and crucified it. Then He brought God’s chosen people as the soil with Him into His resurrection. Through His death and resurrection, the Lord not only healed the soil, but also became the replacement for God’s people. By replacing them with Himself, He made them His reproduction; that is, He made them the same as He.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He lived a life of God for the kingdom of God. He did not live a life of culture, religion, or ethics. Now His followers should live the same kind of life. This means that His followers should live a life of God for the development of God’s kingdom.
It is crucial for us to see that as God’s people, as those who have been replaced by Christ and with Christ, we need to live a life that is absolutely of God. We should not live a life that is of something other than the Triune God.
Day by day we need to put this vision into practice. This means that instead of living a life of culture, religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, improvement of character, and of trying to be spiritual, scriptural, holy, and victorious, we need to live a life that is absolutely of God and for the kingdom of God.
For example, a married brother should not try in himself to love his wife. Neither should he endeavor to be a pattern to others of what a good husband should be. To have this thought is to miss the mark of God’s New Testament economy. Furthermore, it is to miss the vision of God’s economy.
According to the vision of God’s economy presented in the New Testament, as God’s chosen people, those who have been replaced by and with Christ, we should live only a life of God. This means that if a married brother has the thought of trying to be a good husband, he should drop that thought and simply live a life of God. Such a brother needs to realize that he has been chosen by God and replaced by Christ, not that he should try in himself to be a good husband, but that he should live a life of God. He has not been destined to live a life of loving his wife; rather, he has been destined to live a life of God. Therefore, he should not live a life of culture, religion, or ethics. Instead of seeing these things, he should see Jesus only. Eventually, he will live in a way that is much higher than culture, religion, ethics, or morality. He will have a love for his wife that is much higher than his natural human love.
We should not be occupied even with good things such as ethics and improvement of character or be frustrated by these things. Instead, we should be occupied, thoroughly filled, with the Triune God. The One who lived a life fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy, the One who has replaced us with Himself, is now the Spirit living through us. We should not allow anything other than this One to fill us and occupy us.
The incident concerning the rich man in Mark 10 is an illustration of our need to be free from being occupied by anything except God Himself. After the rich man went away sorrowing, the Lord said to His disciples, “With what difficulty shall those who hold on to riches enter into the kingdom of God!” (10:23). Some who read this may say, “God isn’t fair. Why can a poor man enter the kingdom of God, but not a rich man?”
We need to see why the rich man in Mark 10 could not enter into the kingdom of God. He could not enter because his being was occupied by things other than God. There was no room in him for Christ to grow into a kingdom. Once again we need to see that the kingdom of God is not a material realm. The kingdom of God is the Lord Jesus growing and developing within us.
When some read about the rich man in Mark 10, they may rejoice over the fact that they are poor and not at all like the rich man. However, you may be quite rich in things other than material wealth. Even the young ones among us may be rich in the ten matters that are replacements for Christ, rich in culture, religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, improvement of character, and the effort to be spiritual, scriptural, holy, and victorious.
Do you know what it means to be rich? To be rich means to be occupied by something other than the Triune God. In my years of serving the Lord, I have met hundreds of Christians who were rich in things other than the Triune God. They were rich in such things as Bible knowledge, traditional theology, and the effort to be spiritual. Because they were rich in this way, there was no room for the Lord Jesus to grow within them.
I am not giving a word in this message that I have not first applied to myself. Before giving this message, I asked myself, “Are you occupied by anything other than Christ? Perhaps you are occupied by some concept you have concerning the Bible.” I am deeply concerned that I may still be occupied by certain good things that are not Christ Himself.
We all need to be emptied of anything other than Christ that occupies us. Our being needs to be unloaded for the Lord Jesus. We need to empty ourselves. According to the Bible, to humble ourselves is to empty ourselves. We need to empty ourselves so that all of the space within us will be available for the growth of the Lord Jesus in us.
To empty ourselves and give the Lord Jesus all the room within us is to enter into the kingdom of God. We should not regard the kingdom as a material realm that we shall enter one day after certain terms have been fulfilled. That is a traditional concept of the kingdom of God, not the teaching concerning the kingdom in the New Testament.
We need to be impressed with the fact that to enter into the kingdom of God is to empty ourselves, to unload ourselves of everything other than Christ so that our entire being may be available for Him to grow in us in full. I have the full assurance that this is the proper understanding of what it means to enter into the kingdom of God. If you do not agree with this understanding today, eventually you will agree that it is according to the New Testament revelation.
To enter the kingdom of God is not a matter of entering a material realm outside of us. Rather, to enter the kingdom of God is to grow Christ inwardly. The developing of the kingdom within us is our entering into the kingdom.
How can the kingdom develop within us? If we would have the kingdom develop in us, we need to humble ourselves, empty ourselves, unload ourselves. We should not be occupied with culture, religion, ethics, morality, philosophy, improvement of character, or the effort to be spiritual, scriptural, holy, and victorious. We should care only for Christ and for the growth of Christ within us. All the ground within us should be made available for Him to grow in us.
I would encourage you to take this understanding of the kingdom and read Matthew 13 and Mark 4 in light of it. In these chapters we see the Lord Jesus as the Sower coming to sow Himself into us as the soil. He expects that we shall empty ourselves, unload ourselves, and give Him the ground to grow in us.
The growing of Christ within us is our entering into the kingdom. The reason the growth of Christ in us is our entrance into the kingdom is that this growing is the developing of the kingdom. Furthermore, as we develop the kingdom, we enter into it. Therefore, the kingdom is not a material realm. On the contrary, the kingdom is a matter of Christ growing in our being.
God has chosen us in Christ, and He has provided Christ as the universal replacement. Now we need to cooperate with the Lord by unloading ourselves so that He may grow freely in our being. If we do this, we shall be in the kingdom. We shall be in the manifestation of the kingdom in the coming age, and we shall be in the reality of the kingdom today. This is a life that lives according to God’s New Testament economy.
May we all see such a view of the New Testament economy of God. If we see the vision of a life fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy, our entire Christian life will be revolutionized.
In 2 Peter 1:3-11 we have a further indication that the development of the kingdom within us is actually our entrance into the kingdom. In verses 3 and 4 Peter speaks of the divine power granting to us all things which relate to life and godliness and of becoming partakers of the divine nature. Then in verses 5 through 11 we have the development through growth in life unto the rich entrance into the eternal kingdom.
In verses 5 through 7 Peter says, “And for this very reason also, adding all diligence, supply bountifully in your faith virtue, and in virtue knowledge, and in knowledge self-control, and in self-control endurance, and in endurance godliness, and in godliness brotherly love, and in brotherly love love.” Here we see the development of the divine life in us through a number of steps. Then in verse 11 Peter concludes, “For so shall be richly and bountifully supplied to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” This verse is a strong confirmation of what we have been saying concerning entering into the kingdom of God.
The entrance into the kingdom is a matter of the development of the divine life within us. If we have a rich development of this life, this development will become our rich entrance into God’s kingdom. In 2 Peter 1:3-11 we see how an entrance into the kingdom is supplied to us richly and bountifully. We would emphasize the fact that this entrance is supplied through the development of the divine life within us. Apparently it is we who enter into the kingdom of God. Actually the entrance into the kingdom is supplied to us by the Lord through our growth in His life and through the development of this life within us.
