Roman
11:11ff
1.The Progressive advance of the Kingdom of God in history is a major theme of the Old and New Testaments.
2.The Means of the Kingdom’s advance are at this moment available to the Church.
a. The faithfulness of God’s people to the Word of God, Deuteronomy 28:1f.
b. The preaching of the Word of God, Isaiah 2:1f, 11:4f, 44:24-27, Matthew 28:18f, Revelation 12:11
i. “The scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, clearly reveal that the Gospel is to exercise and influence over all the branches of the human family, immeasurably more extensive and more thoroughly transforming than any it has realized in time past. This end is to gradually attained through the spiritual presence of Christ in the ordinary dispensation of Providence, and ministrations of his Church-A.A. Hodge.”
ii. Surely, we shall wish to measure the saving work of God by what has already been accomplished in these unripe days in which our lot is cast. The sands of time have not yet run out. And before us stretch, not the merely the reaches of the ages, but the infinitely resourceful reaches of the promise of God. Are not the saints to inherit the earth? Is not the recreated earth theirs? Are not the Kingdoms of the world to become the Kingdom of God? Is not the knowledge of the glory of God to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea? O raise your eyes, I beseech you, to far horizon: Let them rest nowhere short of the extreme limit of the divine purpose of grace. And of the love of God which loves , not one here and there only in the world, but the world in it’s organic completeness; and gave his Son, not to judge the world, but that the world through him should be saved -B.B. Warfield.”
iii. The power of Christian love and goodness, Romans 12:21.
1.The Progressive advance of the Kingdom of God in history is a major theme of the Old and New Testaments.
- The Progressive occupation of Canaan is the norm for God’s way of dealing with the enemies of his people, Deuteronomy 7:22.
- The ever-increasing government of the Messiah is to be expected when he makes his appearance in human history, Isaiah 9:6,7.
- The enlargement of the stone that crushed the statue in the book of Daniel speaks of the expansion of God’s Kingdom and the extension of the triumph over enemies in the Church, that commenced with the entrance of Christ into the world through a virgin’s womb, Daniel 2:31-35, 44-45.
- The rising of the leaven, which eventually affects the whole loaf is symbolic of the way the Kingdom of God will gradually affect the entire life of the world, Matthew 13:33.
- The growth and maturation of the mustard seed until it becomes the largest tree in the forest is symbolic of the steady maturation of the Kingdom of God until it becomes the most powerful force in human society, Matthew 13:31f. Related to this the beautiful picture in Isaiah 2f.
- The maturation of the “corn” is a parable that makes the same point of the progressive advance and development of God’s Kingdom, Mark 4:26-29.
- It must be remembered that the basis for such a development of the Kingdom on earth is the magnificent covenant promise of God, Genesis 12:1f, 17:1, which is also the basis for Deuteronomy 28:1f.
2.The Means of the Kingdom’s advance are at this moment available to the Church.
a. The faithfulness of God’s people to the Word of God, Deuteronomy 28:1f.
b. The preaching of the Word of God, Isaiah 2:1f, 11:4f, 44:24-27, Matthew 28:18f, Revelation 12:11
i. “The scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, clearly reveal that the Gospel is to exercise and influence over all the branches of the human family, immeasurably more extensive and more thoroughly transforming than any it has realized in time past. This end is to gradually attained through the spiritual presence of Christ in the ordinary dispensation of Providence, and ministrations of his Church-A.A. Hodge.”
ii. Surely, we shall wish to measure the saving work of God by what has already been accomplished in these unripe days in which our lot is cast. The sands of time have not yet run out. And before us stretch, not the merely the reaches of the ages, but the infinitely resourceful reaches of the promise of God. Are not the saints to inherit the earth? Is not the recreated earth theirs? Are not the Kingdoms of the world to become the Kingdom of God? Is not the knowledge of the glory of God to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea? O raise your eyes, I beseech you, to far horizon: Let them rest nowhere short of the extreme limit of the divine purpose of grace. And of the love of God which loves , not one here and there only in the world, but the world in it’s organic completeness; and gave his Son, not to judge the world, but that the world through him should be saved -B.B. Warfield.”
iii. The power of Christian love and goodness, Romans 12:21.
