A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 2 - Present Activity in Relation to the Kingdom

"For not unto angels did He subject the inhabited earth to come, whereof we speak" (Heb. 2:5).

"But we behold Him who has been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour" (Heb. 2:9).

"And... tasted the powers of the age to come" (Heb. 6:5).

"Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." (Heb. 12:28).

In our previous meditation, we were seeing that these three fragments indicate in a comprehensive way God's intention as to this world from eternity - that it should be a kingdom, and that that kingdom should take its character from His Son who is set forth at the commencement of this letter as all-comprehending and all-inclusive, and that the work of redemption is only a bringing back to God's thought. The Lord Jesus is not just an emergency provision, but in Himself, before ever there was an emergency, that thought of God was fully complete and eternally established. Although in time there has been a breakdown, first in Adam, and then in Israel, yet Christ stands above, over all, unalterably the pattern, the inclusiveness of God's intention. And from God's side where His Son is concerned, there never has been any breakdown and there never can be. The Rock is eternal and unalterable. Christ is that.

This letter was given by the Holy Spirit in order to get people away from the breakdown, and all that does break down, because it is planted in this earth and not in heaven. It is written therefore, to get people detached from earth and attached to heaven, delivered from the temporal (which is always unsafe and uncertain) and bound up with the spiritual, the eternal, the heavenly. That is the object of the letter, and in that way it comprehends and outbounds all time, and seeks to show that the true people of God are not time people at all. By reason of a true relationship with the Lord Jesus, they date back before time and on when time shall be no more.

In our previous meditation, we spent most of our time in trying to see how Christ is God's eternal pattern, and that that pattern is a Person and not a thing and not a system at all so far as this earth is concerned - it is a Person. We went on to say something about the inclusiveness of Christ. Before we speak more specifically about that inclusiveness, I think I might just go a little further with the general presentation of what is here.

A Spiritual Kingdom Being Received Now

We have seen what the age to come will be like, how Christ will give character to that age in every respect and detail. Now just a little word about the present aspect in relation to the age to come, and firstly we must be reminded that we are now receiving the kingdom which cannot be shaken.

As we emphasised in our previous meditation, the statement is - "Wherefore being now in course or process of receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken" - it is not something just future, it is something which we are now receiving. We are in process of receiving now - which must mean, cannot mean other than that the present aspect is essentially spiritual. It is a spiritual kingdom that we are receiving now.

Whatever the age to come may be in a more literal way, at present that age is expressed in spiritual terms, that is, everything now is of a spiritual nature because everything is by the Spirit. In this present phase of things eternal, everything is essentially of the Spirit and is therefore spiritual. This letter is a solid argument for that. The whole argument here is against the temporal aspect of the things of God. In the past age of Israel, there was a temporal aspect of the things of God. It completely broke down and failed. As we said before, even if it had not broken down and failed, Christ would have been necessary to perfect it and to crown it. But it did utterly fail, and God is not taking it up again, either to remedy, patch up, or put it on crutches to try and get it going again; He has finished with it. He has for the present suspended every temporal aspect of His heavenly things.

Every system of things which is a temporal system representing Divine things, does not belong to this time, and that is a very drastic and a very comprehensive fact and statement. The whole tendency of Christian people is to live in another age, an age which is not this age, and is very largely a past age; to resuscitate or preserve, re-institute, the old outward forms of the things of God as to places, as to rites, as to ritual - all that whole realm of things, things seen, things grasped which could be grasped by the soul rather than by the spirit.

As you know, this letter brings in very positively that sword, that two-edged sword, which makes a clean division between those two things, and it does so right at that point where the argument relates to Israel's failure to go through to God's full thought in the land and they are perishing in the wilderness. And the implication is that in the wilderness they persisted in living in the soul realm; that is, in a realm where everything was appraised by the eyes, by the physical and soul senses, the natural life - reason and feeling and sight and so on. They would live on that level, on that basis, and because they did, they were never sure, everything was constantly changing, they were people of continuous variableness, never established, and they never inherited. At that point the two-edged sword is brought in which divides between soul and spirit, and it is only when things are truly spiritual that you get on to the real, the abiding, the sure, the unchanging, the eternal, the heavenly. And to know Life in the Spirit is to be delivered from all that variableness of the temporal and the earthly which is the soul realm of things.

I am not going to go far with that, but I indicate it because it does get right to the heart of this whole matter of the present age. And right through this age people are constantly trying to get back on to that old level, that old realm of a soul apprehension of Divine things - that is, the bringing of heavenly things down to a natural level of life and so having externalities and forms. Even spiritual people are caught in this tendency to set up something which is an order, and before long becomes a very legalistic order and brings into bondage. In as far as that is true, we have left the realm of the Spirit.

Where the Spirit is Lord there is no bondage, there is liberty, and we can take it for sure that that liberty of the Spirit will never be spiritual license, it will always be safety. I do not want to get away from the main line of this letter or of the revelation which the Lord has given us. The present aspect of the kingdom is essentially spiritual, it is all by the Spirit. That works out in a threefold way according to the Word, and especially the emphasis in this letter.

The Securing of the Citizens of the Kingdom

First of all, it is the securing of, shall we say, the potential citizens of the kingdom which is coming, the securing of the sons in the Son. One of the aspects of the present age is the securing out from the nations of the citizens to govern the inhabited earth to come, this kingdom which we are receiving, spiritual children of God who know from the very initiation of a new existence what it means to be spiritual and born of the Spirit from above, becoming spiritual by an entirely new existence. That is indicated in another connection which we note next, but we take it here in anticipation.

In chapter 12 the writer refers to God as the "Father of our spirits". "Shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of our spirits" - indicating that there is something born of God. Now, it is not necessary here for me to speak to you about new birth, but I do want to say that it is a very, very important aspect of this present time, that we should be occupied with the securing of these potential citizens. It belongs to this age to get them, to see men and women born of the Spirit, coming into an entirely new kingdom, a different kingdom where right at the very heart of their being there is something which is eternal, heavenly, which is not of this world; the planting in them of that which will gravitate to eternity and gravitate back to its source in God; a mighty power of a life which will, given obedience to its laws, fulfil all the Divine purpose within them.

Oh, it is so important that we should not only see the necessity for people to be saved, but that we should make sure that there is a definite, positive work of the Spirit in them by which they receive this Life of God, this Life of the ages, this Life which no one has by nature. It is so important we should make sure that the thing has happened, that that has come out of eternity right into them now, to constitute them at the centre of their being, eternal and heavenly. That is elementary, I know, but I do not think the emphasis is out of place, it is a phase of the kingdom which we are receiving now, it is the Life of that kingdom coming into these potential citizens, these children of God.

Now, why am I saying that to you? For this reason: that there is a need, a very real need, of adjustment upon this point. You do not need to be adjusted and put right on the matter of people being saved, leading people to the Lord. That is not what I am after. So far as you are concerned, I would probably be wasting my time, you are all there. But there is a need for adjustment here, that we do not just see the matter of people being saved as something in itself. We have got to see it with this background of the whole purpose of God. It is something within a great realm of Divine thought. It is a matter of this age to come, or, shall we say, it is a matter of that which God has had in view from all eternity. What is it? Not just to have people saved, not just to get conversions - that can be something in itself, it can become just a business in itself, an interest in itself, a pursuit in itself - but to see it in the light of the whole purpose of God that, not that in the age to come everybody shall be saved, no; but that in the age to come everything shall be a living expression of God's Son. That is the point.

It is to get Christ inside, with all the potentialities of Christ, so that (do not misunderstand me if l put it like this) in that glorious age it shall be universal Christ that exists. It is not just saved people, it is Christ manifested. That is the object of God now.

We concentrate upon the necessity for people being saved and that is quite right, but let us get God's background to that. Why? "Oh, that they shall not be lost!" That is not good enough. God's whole view and object and concern is in His Son. He has summed up all things in Christ, Christ is the vision of the Father. He is all-comprehending, He is to fill all things, and so everyone born of God becomes a potential vessel of the manifestation of Christ, and we have got to have Christ always in view - not just the salvation of that soul, but that that one becomes a measure of Christ in this universe.

We are out, not to people the universe with converted souls, but to people it with Christ corporately expressed! Oh, our passion must be Christ, not souls as in themselves. You will not misunderstand that. This one must be for Christ in this sense that Christ finds in His satisfaction the answer to the Father's promise to Him that He will give Him the nations of the uttermost parts of the earth - not just to have people - but in which He, the Son, shall be revealed.

So the object of evangelisation, of salvation, is just Christ; and again, that is why the first chapter of this letter is what it is. "God... has at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son". It is the inclusiveness of Christ standing over everything. Well, it is the gathering of the people who are to govern the inhabited earth to come, and what they are, what their character is - that is, they are in expression Christ.

The Training of the Citizens

The second aspect of this present phase of the coming kingdom is the training of the citizens. This letter has quite a bit to say about the training - I use the word literally - chastening, child-training; chapter 12 is much occupied with that. It is the child-training of these sons and what is the training? It is spiritual again. Just as the children are spiritual children, their training is spiritual training.

So we come back to that fragment - "It is for chastening that ye endure; God dealt with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father chastened not... We had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?" (Heb. 12:7-9). "The Father of (our) spirits". In what realm is our training? It is essentially spiritual training. Unto what end? We are brought into the realm of sonship; through childhood into the realm of sonship. What is sonship? We know it is something more than childhood; according to the New Testament it is to come to the place where we can be absolutely relied upon, take responsibility, be 'placed' is the actual word, placed as sons, put in the place where we can be trusted with a representation of the Father and the upholding of His rights and His honour. Well, what a tremendous amount of training has to be done in our spirits to get us there.

I think we will all confess that we are not too trustworthy, we are not too reliable spiritually, we are not too sure, the Lord cannot put very much responsibility upon us. Now let us be quite frank about this, it is true. The fact is that immediately the Lord begins to put responsibility upon us, we begin to get up on our hind legs and become something. For this natural life, the most dangerous thing is blessing, the most perilous thing is prosperity. Blessing carries with it infinite perils because of what we are. As soon as things begin to increase, grow, enlarge, we begin to strut about like peacocks, all our feathers out. It is true of this nature.

We know quite well that we are not trustworthy, and therefore a great deal of discipline has to be wrought in us to get us to a place where we can carry responsibility in absolute humility and meekness, without any self-assertiveness, without any pride. The Lord knows quite well, whether we know or not about ourselves, that the root sin in this universe is pride. It began there - "till pride was found in thee" - and that is the fountain-head of that poison which has been injected into the race through Adam, and it runs through the very life-stream of this whole creation - pride, and its forms of expression are countless. We do not often recognise that, after all, certain things are only our pride. Quite a lot of people are proud of their humility. Yes, we need not try, we should altogether fail if we attempted to box the compass of pride's expression, but it is there, and the realm in which it shows itself where God's people are concerned is the realm of spiritual blessing.

A very deep work of emptying and breaking and disciplining has to be done to bring us to the place of responsibility where we can be placed as sons. I am going to say more about that in another connection, but here is the fact - God, the Father of our spirits, is dealing with us as with sons, and it is a matter of spiritual development and spiritual development is over our own souls, for that thing which is so wrong is seated in our souls. Let us seek to grasp this, to believe it, to hold it - God is dealing with us for spiritual training, and He knows the best way in which to do it in every one of us. He does not standardise His training. Every one of us is dealt with in a different way.

What would be discipline to me would be no discipline at all to another, but He knows, and He is dealing with you and me in the way in which His infinite wisdom knows is the best way to reach His end. Do we believe it? Not always, it is not a pleasant truth, but there is the fact. Either the Word of God is true or it is not true, and here it is - "God dealt with you as with sons". He is the Father of our spirits and He is getting down to spiritual matters, spiritual life, spiritual measure. He is transforming us through the medium of our spirits. All suffering does not have that effect because we are not spiritual enough, we are not taking it in the realm of things spiritual, we are regarding it naturally, we may be revolting against it, not regarding it as bearing upon our spiritual life. It is only when we adjust to this something which has in it spiritual purposes, that the thing does us any good. It does not do us any good until we take the spiritual into account. Suffering itself may be of no value, may do more harm than good; when it is taken hold of by spiritual people for spiritual ends, it immediately begins to make a difference.

The Issue of the Training

Then, as the issue of that, the third thing is full-growth, spiritual full-growth. We are children, spiritual children, potential sons. We are being dealt with spiritually as in the light of sonship, and the end in view is spiritual full-growth. You know that the letter has quite a bit about that matter, Hebrews 5:12 brings it very strongly and clearly into view. "For when by reason of the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food". Then into chapter 6, "Wherefore leaving the doctrine of the first principles of Christ, let us press on to full-growth" and the terrible argument gathered round Israel failing in the wilderness, the terrible warnings. This is the present aspect of the kingdom. As we have said, every fresh degree of spiritual life and spiritual growth, every fresh triumph spiritually is the kingdom coming. We are receiving the kingdom in a spiritual way as we grow spiritually, as we move toward full-growth. In that connection, there are all these exhortations and admonitions - "Let us fear therefore..." (Heb. 4:1); "let us hold fast..." (Heb. 3:6); "let us go on..." (Heb. 6:1); a constant repetition: let us, let us, let us - all occupied with this matter of full-growth.

A Crisic Shaking

Then we come, in this general survey, to the third aspect of this. There is the prospect, there is the present activity, and then there is the crisis shaking. We are led at the conclusion of the letter to this - "Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven" (Heb. 12:26) - the great crisis shaking by which the kingdom will be brought in fully, and that shaking has two aspects, two sides. There is a spiritual shaking; everything after all which, although thought to represent God, but which nevertheless is just tied up with this earth, will find itself shaken to its very foundations and will crash. A terrific spiritual shaking is going to take place, I am not sure that it has not started. In quiet, deep ways, there is a spiritual shaking going on just now, and a lot of things are coming into the realm of question which were thought to be things of God: they are not able to stand up to the test. Yes, it is going on. Of course, there is a sense in which that is always going on, but the thing is going to intensify toward a crisis. Things are all going to come into the realm of spiritual judgment and a spiritual shaking is going to take place, that the things which cannot be shaken shall remain. It must be.

Now then, that means, of course, that if there is going to be an abiding, it must be spiritual, it must be heavenly, it must be eternal, it must not have its roots in this earth, its life in this world.

A Literal Cosmic Shaking

But there is the other aspect. There is going to be a literal cosmic shaking. "Also the heaven". You remember that Peter has something to say about this. "The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat" (2 Pet. 3:12). I think such words as those have become very much more intelligible lately, the very elements on fire, fervent heat, cosmic heat, and all these things shall be dissolved, says Peter. We understand something more about that, how possible that is now. Well, something like that is going to happen. Fire, literal fire, is going to purge this earth, this world, and all these things shall be dissolved, but there is that which cannot be dissolved.

We are thrown back to Melchizedek, without father, without mother, nothing rooted in this earth, "made like unto the Son of God... in the power of an indissoluble life" (Heb. 7:1-3,16). "All these things shall be dissolved... in the power of an indissoluble life". Sonship is that, it abides the fervent heat, it abides the shaking, it does not belong to what passes and can be destroyed, it is from eternity to eternity, and in the age to come it will be that which has the Life - which is timeless Life - in it.

"All these things shall be dissolved". We see how fast the world is hastening toward that. How easy it is to understand how that can be done. Why, if man can do it on the scale in which he can do it, what about God? This is no new discovery to God, He has the whole of that power in His hand, and in a moment it can fulfil a worldwide command. Well, there are lots of things which at one time seemed mysterious which today are actualities, and here is this statement - "Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven", and here is the Scripture which points to a crisis in this world's course when the very elements being on fire shall melt with fervent heat. We are moving toward that crisis; the cosmic disturbances of our time seem to point to it.

Again, the letter has a very proper place in our day. "Oh," says this letter, "get away from all these mere representations, types, figures, earthly things; get to the eternal reality - Christ the Son".

Sonship under Test

I am coming back for a moment or two to this inclusiveness of Christ, just to touch upon this matter of sonship. Sonship stands over everything, governs everything, and it is as though, gathered up into a simple statement, this letter, and much more than this letter, says God's thought is to bring into the meaning of sonship as represented by His Son, to bring into the meaning of that. And in that meaning all the thought of God is realised in man. So the first chapter stands governing everything.

Now do you see what is included in that matter of sonship? Let us go back to the gospels. The Lord Jesus was no sooner anointed of the Holy Spirit to take up His Divine work in relation to God's eternal thought and intention, than He was confronted by the prince of this world personally. A voice from heaven had recently been heard saying, "This is My beloved Son" (Matt. 3:17). The prince of this world was an unseen onlooker at the Jordan, and heard what that voice said, and we may say he said, "All right, we will see!" And so, immediately driven of the Spirit into the wilderness, the prince of this world comes and takes up that matter, "If Thou be the Son... if Thou be the Son...". Without going into all the familiar details of the three temptations, let us get behind them.

This sonship is the point of challenge, the point of question, everything is bound up with that. This One is a representative one, an inclusive one; in Him all the age to come is bound up, is centred, and the prince of this world knows quite well that he has no place in that. The only thing for him, the only hope for him and his kingdom is to do something about this sonship. That is his side. The other side is this: the Divine side, that sonship has got to be established through probation, through testing, which means that that absolute dominion of the age to come has to be established through testing, through trial, and trial on the basis of sonship. Sonship means that, sonship carries with it dominion ultimately. It involves dominion ultimately, therefore to defeat the dominion he must do something about this sonship. Sonship is now on probation, under test, how will it go through?

The Focal Point of the Test

The focal point of the test is faith, faith in God, God as Father - because it is 'Son'. The prince of this world leads this thing right up, at last he divulges what he is after, he lets it out. Our translation is not always most helpful here. "He... showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto Him, To Thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them" (Matt. 24:5-6). 'Authority' was the word he used. "If Thou therefore wilt worship before me, it shall all be Thine". What authority? The kingdoms of this world. Dominion is inherent in sonship, bound up with sonship.

If you can be swung off the line of faith in the Father, you do something of injury to the very Spirit of sonship, and the end of God - dominion - is brought into arrest. That is exactly what comes out in this letter to the Hebrews. "Thou makest him to have dominion" (Psa.8:6; Heb. 2:7). He was put on probation but failed. Here is this One made a little lower than the angels because of the suffering of death, on probation, tested by the prince of this world on the question of faith in the Father with the object that faith in the Father should be shaken, disturbed, tainted, touched, and so sonship lose its essential meaning and forfeit its ultimate inheritance of dominion, and Satan's kingdom be established. This letter takes it up. Here is the Son; He has passed through His probation of suffering and death. "We behold Him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour". He has passed through.

What about us? The whole of the rest of the letter brings us in - the sons to be brought to glory. But how? By faith - Hebrews 11 - unto dominion, unto the kingdom unto the age to come, unto all that He means by sonship in Christ and with Christ. We are on test. We are given the illustration of Israel in the wilderness on probation, on test, but they failed, they never went over. Do not be like that. "Today if ye shall hear His voice, harden not your hearts" (Heb. 3:7). That is said not to the unsaved, but to the saved, to the people of God. We preach that to the unsaved: 'Harden not your hearts against the gospel'. No, this is not a gospel text, it is a message to believers. You are under severe test, beware of your heart becoming hard and bitter; and whether you do become bitter because of trial depends entirely upon your aspect. Do you take the attitude - "This has spiritual purposes in view, God is after some spiritual increase and enlargement by the difficult, dark, trying way through which He is leading me, He is after spiritual gain"? Or do we take the other view - "The Lord is against us, the Lord does not love us, the Lord has no interest in us, the Lord has forgotten to be gracious..." nursing that spirit is just going to tie the very vitals of God's intention in probation and in trial. "My son, despise not thou the discipline, the training, the chastening of the Lord". It has great possibilities, great "recompense of reward". "Afterward" - what God is after is that afterward. It is easy to say these things, it is not so easy to face up to them when we are in it.

Laying Aside Weights and Unbelief

So the final appeal is here - "Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us" (Heb. 12:1). Two things - "lay aside every weight", what is that? Well, what hinders us from accepting what we are saying now? We have some interests here in this life, interests on this earth, we have some natural interests; we may not be realising our ambitions we may not be having given to us by the Lord the things that we want, and because things are not just going as we want them, or think they should go, feel we have a right for them to go and other people get what we do not get; we are deprived of certain things. These things are weights, they keep us from going on; weights of natural interest, of worldly concern, not gross worldliness, but just our life on this earth, what a big thing it is, what it means to us in so many ways, they are the weights. Lay them aside.

"And the sin which doth so easily beset us". How mistaken people have been in talking about 'besetting sins' as an exposition of that passage. It does not refer to your besetting sin. The sin which does so easily beset is doubt, unbelief; so easily besetting, especially in trial, in the furnace of affliction. The enemy is always at our elbow to suggest that God has forgotten us, turned against us. He will do anything to get us overcome with that easily besetting sin - questioning, doubting, disbelieving. That is why (there are no chapter divisions really) chapter 12 follows immediately on chapter 11, the chapter of faith. Let us lay aside the easily besetting sin of unbelief, "and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising shame". "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord"; "despising shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God".

Well, that is the message. We are in the course of something very great, it is the whole thought of God; we are called unto that. The Lord's dealings with us now are related to that, and this present phase is a very vital part of the eternal intention of the Lord.