In this portion we again get another subject for our thoughts, as disciples of the Great Teacher, Who was ordering all for our edification. "The kingdom of God" is here treated by the Lord, in answer to an inquiry from the Pharisees. We do not learn the circumstances of this scene where it was, or when it was; such notices are beside the purpose of the Spirit in our evangelist, as I have said; but we have largely our Lord's teaching upon the matter itself.
* Luke 18: 1 ought rather to be, "to the end that they ought always;" etc., etc.; thus linking this parable with the previous discourse.
His manner here illustrates what I have already said on His answering questions. See page 257. He addresses the conscience, giving a word suited to the moral state of the inquirer, rather than to his question.
With this view He here rightly divides the word between different hearers; for, in verse 22, He turns from the Pharisees to the disciples, giving different views of the kingdom of God to each: that given to the Pharisee being faithful to his condition of soul; and that given to the disciples being seasonable food for the renewed mind, according to its growing capacity. As He says in another place, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now." And so, in the wisdom of the Spirit of Christ, when Paul was met by the inquisitive Athenians, he did not answer them according to their inquisitiveness, but declared to them the serious things of God, of judgment, and of repentance.
The subject of this short discourse is "the kingdom of God." That expression indicates a dispensation in which divine power is brought in. As the apostle says, "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." It is, I judge, as another has said, "the exercise or exhibition of the ruling power of God under any circumstances."
It has different exhibitions; and it is this truth which our Lord opens to us in this place. He teaches us that this kingdom of God is "not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost"--but, by-and-by, it is to be "the days of the Son of man," or manifest, glorious power. In John also the Lord speaks of these two forms of the kingdom, only under different expressions from those which we have here. I mean in His confession to Pilate, where He owns Himself "King of the Jews," but lets the Roman know also, that that character of His power could not then be manifested; but that, for the present, it was to take another form under Him as the "witness unto the truth." John 18. So here; it is now the kingdom "within;" and, by-and-by, it will be the kingdom of "the days of the Son of man." The glories belong to the same Jesus, but they are diverse. It is hidden glory now--glory within, in the Holy Ghost, the glory of a sanctuary known only to God and the worshippers. It will be displayed glory by-and-by, or glory in the world, known from one end of the heaven to the other.
Having thus testified these two forms of the kingdom, the Lord goes on to teach what was to take place ere it could pass into its second form. He tells the disciples that He Himself was to "suffer many things;" that they were to be in "desire;" to always pray and not faint; and to dwell in the separated places, the house-top and the field, the places of prayer and desire, as Isaac and Peter witness. Gen. 24, Acts 10. And then, as to all beside, He further tells them, that just on the eve of the kingdom's taking its manifested form, or when "the days of the Son of man" should begin, the world would be found in all the surfeit and intoxication of the times of Noah or Lot; and that, consequently, those "days of the Son of man" would break in upon them with the surprise of lightning, but with a just discerning also between man and man--between those who are in the appointed desire and prayer, and those who have found in planting and building, in buying and selling, the spoil of their hand, and are satisfied.
Isaiah appears to see those two in the bed, at the mill, and in the field, in this day of the Lord. Isa. 3: 10, 11; Isa. 33: 14-16. Malachi, also, looks at them in the day of discerning, when the same Sun, which rises with healing in His wings on the one, will burn as an oven for the other. Mal. 3, 4. For this day of the Lord will act with discerning, or in judgment. One shall be taken, and the other left.
There was, however, a third object. In the history of the times of Lot there was not only Lot himself, and the people of Sodom, but also Lot's wife. She perished not in Sodom, but between Sodom and Zoar. To her the departure from Sodom was exile, not deliverance. Many of the camp in the wilderness treated separation from Egypt with the same mind. And this yields a solemn, practical question for us. How do our souls entertain the thought of separation from the world? In the esteem of our hearts is it exile or redemption? Are we singing over that thought, like Israel at the Red Sea; or, like Israel afterwards, are we remembering the fish of Egypt, its onions, its leeks, and its cucumbers? Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. She sighed as an exile from Sodom. Do we sing, as the ransomed of the Lord, out of it?
"Remember Lot's wife," was the Saviour's weighty word in the midst of this discourse on the kingdom of God. And it is a weighty and serious word to lie on our hearts.
And the Lord further teaches us that, in neither form, is this kingdom of God subject to the "Lo, here" or the "Lo, there" of man. It makes itself known. It is the property of power to do so. Whether the kingdom be within, or abroad in the world, it will make itself known. As the Lord says of the Comforter within, "But ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." And I may instance Paul as being thus conscious of its presence. As soon as it filled his soul, as soon as he had the Son revealed in him (and that was the kingdom within) it had power at once to separate him to God. With this new and wondrous joy in him, he could go forth, like Abraham, from home and kindred. He did not want man's seal to be set on his title, nor man's supplies to be opened for his happiness. He neither conferred with flesh and blood, nor did he go up to Jerusalem, to them that were apostles before him, as though he needed their countenance. He went down to Arabia, where sands and solitude awaited him, instead of to the pillars in the Church, and to the city of solemnities. For the Son was revealed within--his title was sealed, and his resources were opened there, by the hand of God Himself--and he was independent of man's sanction and man's supplies. God was both his Witness and his Portion. Gal. 1.
But this may well humble us, beloved. For how little have we learnt this divine independency of the creature! Even to look to Arabia with our back upon Jerusalem, would it not be something too much for us? Have we such a kingdom within, such light and strength and joy in God, that "flesh and blood" are no longer our resources? What would our hearts feel if only sands and deserts were before us? But the first joy of adoption in Paul gave every place on earth the same character to him, and that first joy should be ours to the end.
The parable of the Importunate Widow closes this discourse. It may raise the question with us, Whence comes this cry, this day-and-night cry, of the elect? The saints now being gathered are to rejoice in the delay of the Lord as salvation to others. 2 Peter 3. But the Jewish election of the latter day are often presented as crying on the Lord, the righteous Judge, to show Himself. And the Lord appears to have them, the rather, in His view, as He uses this parable. Notwithstanding, there is a cry from the saints, in some sense, unceasingly heard of God. There was a cry from Abel's blood. There was, we also learn, a cry from Sodom. Gen. 4, 18. There is a cry from the unpaid wages of the hireling. James 5. Even stones may have a voice in the ear of the Lord. Hab. 2: 11; Luke 19: 40.
But after the Lord had given His elect this high place with God, this place of interest and prevalency, He closes with words fitted to put a holy reserve upon their hearts, and to make them look to themselves rather than to their privileges and powers. "Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" Surely this was the way of a perfect Master, mingling the chastened and the brilliant lights together, giving a character of holiness to our dignities, and, in respect to the exercise of our highest functions and powers, imparting a modest estimate of ourselves.
