ONE THRONE AND ONE KINGDOM

ONE THRONE AND ONE KINGDOM

Thus Jesus chose to move towards the establishment of ONE THRONE AND ONE KINGDOM. The contrast should ever be kept in mind. The devil showed the Master the king­doms, tribes, divisions, containing the elements of conflict and of break-up. Jesus refused them. He did not desire the kingdom(s). He had come for THE KINGDOM. He re­fused the tarnished glory of a wrecked ideal, and chose the radiant splendor of a fulfilled purpose, even though the pathway to the goal was the pathway of the Cross.

It must also be kept in mind that the great word in Revelation "the kingdom of the world," does not refer in the first place to the nations, but to the actual kingdom of the Cosmos. All the splendor of material things shall, under the perfect reign of God, be beautified and perfected. In the final victory, the whole creation which today groans and travails in pain (Rom. 8:22) will be redeemed; and being restored to their proper place in the Divine economy, material things, subservient to spiritual things, shall—also abide. The vision Jesus had of the issues of the Cross were far more magnificent than that which the devil gave Him of the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. It was because He saw the higher that He refused the lower. Escape from the pathway of pain could at best only have resulted in the possession of the lower. Not for one single moment did God's perfect Man hesitate. He did not pause to compare the proposal of Satan, and the purpose of God. The glorious consciousness of coming victory was the joy that was set before Him (Heb. 12:2), and that joy made hell's offer paltry, mean, blasphemous, and impertinent; and with stern and magnificent authority He commanded Satan to depart, and announced the fact of His abiding in the will of God, to Whom alone He would render WOR­SHIP, and Whom alone He was prepared to SERVE.

Thus His victory was won, not only in the realm of His personality, but also in the sphere of His official position; and the devil was routed in his attack at every point.

The triumph of Jesus was perfect in the realm of HIS PHYSICAL LIFE, in that of HIS SPIRITUAL NATURE, and in that of HIS APPOINTED WORK. Let it never be forgotten that in all human nature the work is the final thing. Man was cre­ated for work. God made him that he might act in co­operation with Himself, for the fulfillment of Divine pur­poses. That is true in every individual. The being thus created for work consists of body and spirit. The mind is the consciousness, which is the outcome of this dual per­sonality. Where there is right relationship and perfect harmony between the physical and spiritual, man is equal to the work appointed. Where the instrument is injured, the work is made impossible of achievement. The enemy first attacked this second Man in an attempt to ruin Him by appealing to a necessity of His physical nature. He was utterly unsuccessful, for Jesus recognized that the essential fact of human nature is spirit, and wherever there comes the necessity for conflict between the need of the material and that of the spiritual, the former being sub­servient, must minister to the latter, which is essential.

Defeated at this point the enemy then flung the force of his terrible subtleness against the spiritual nature, attempting the ruin of the entire Man, by suggesting that He should make unwarranted venture upon the basis of His trust in God. Here again he was driven back by the quiet and splendid heroism, which refused that which had all the ap­pearance of heroic action, but which would have been proof of fear, and lack of confidence.

Then the enemy, driven from his earthworks, stood in the open, and manifested himself in all the diabolic daring of his actual desire. He asked for the homage of Perfection. Then in the open he received his final defeat, as the perfect and unharmed Man chose still only to WORSHIP and SERVE Jehovah, and in the might of that choosing, authorita­tively commanded the enemy to depart. The second Man, perfectly balanced in body and spirit, and resolutely abiding in the attitude of unswerving loyalty to God, was invulner­able against all the forces of evil. At every point where man had failed He was victorious. In every weakness of man's life He was strong, and in the great Crisis of tempta­tion He overcame with majestic might, and so completely broke the power of the enemy, that forevermore Satan is the conquered foe of the race. The battle is FOUGHT and FINISHED.