THE TWO KINGDOMS by R. C. P.

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 16, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 23.

THE TWO KINGDOMS

By R. C. P.

THE KINGDOM OF GLORY AND THE KINGDOM OF GRACE

The Kingdom of Glory First and Universal—The Kingdom of Grace Saved Man at the Fall—A Similar Transaction at Sinai

THIS is the first of four very closely related articles by Mr. Porter, on the connection between the kingdom of God's glory and the kingdom of His grace. Any one of the articles will be well worth reading by itself, and we are sure that all who read this one will desire to get the ones that follow. Many people become confused over the question of the “theocracy” of ancient Israel, which has been so much discussed. These articles will help to make clear what the kingdom of God really stands for. EDITOR.

God has always had one plan of redemption. That plan has always embraced His entire family throughout all ages. It has been adapted to conditions at various times, but the plan has always remained the same.

THE TWO KINGDOMS

God has had but two universal kingdoms in the universe. The first, represented in the Edenic kingdom, has always been the kingdom of glory; the second, or the kingdom of pardon, has always been the kingdom of grace. The kingdom of glory has always presented the standard of the kingdom of God in its laws, which require perfect holiness. It has ever demanded obedience or death.

KINGDOM OF GRACE OFFERS PARDON

The kingdom of grace has always offered pardon to sinners, by offering a voluntary Substitute to restore righteousness and bear the death sentence of transgression in the sinner's stead. In Eden the kingdom of glory, with its laws requiring holiness, was established first. When man failed to obey, and his death sentence was to be inflicted that day (Gen. 2: 17), the kingdom of grace, which was provided in the plan of God to meet conditions of disobedience, by offering pardon, restoring holiness, and staying the execution of the death sentence, was revealed and established the day sin entered. Gen. 3: 15. At Sinai both covenants were regiven, and both kingdoms reestablished in the order in which they had been originally established in the beginning.

REASONS FOR REESTABLISHING THE EDENIC KINGDOM

Israel had been for over two hundred years in Egypt. God had visited them, and redeemed them from bondage, that they might serve Him. Ex. 8: 1. During their servitude in Egypt, they had lost sight of both kingdoms. God began the restoration of Israel to holiness by establishing first the old covenant kingdom with them, as it was originally established in Eden, with its law requiring holiness or death.

ISRAEL CONSULTED

That it was not God's design to force any to enter, or to make in any sense a theocracy to enforce His worship or service, is evident in that at every step in the proceedings for its establishment the whole people were consulted. God did not in the slightest degree use any force to secure their concurrence in making the covenant. Their act was purely voluntary. “And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.” Ex. 19: 7, 8. The preliminary agreement had now been made between God and the people. God might have been justified in proceeding at once to ratify the covenant according to the agreement, but He is just, and would not ratify the covenant until all the people fully understood and concurred in every detail of His plan, so far as it pertained to that stage of the development of the kingdom. He gave them three opportunities to exercise the right of choice before ratifying the covenant.

GOD PROCLAIMED THE LAW OF HIS KINGDOM

Since God was reestablishing the Edenic kingdom, or the kingdom of glory, with Israel, the first thing we should logically expect would be a manifestation of His majesty in the proclamation of His law. After consulting with the people, and securing their voluntary promise of obedience, He gave them notice that three days later He would meet with them again.

On the third day, God proclaimed the law of His kingdom amid scenes of grandeur such as had not been witnessed on earth since the Edenic kingdom was established by the mighty work of creation. Accompanied by ten thousand angels, He descended upon Mount Sinai in awful majesty. Lightnings like beams of glory from the divine throne flashed from the clouds of darkness that veiled Him from view. Mighty thunderings were heard, and the sin-cursed earth quaked greatly, as the King of glory came down upon it to declare the law of His kingdom to Israel. “And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.” Ex. 19: 16-18. For the time, Mount Sinai was transformed into the throne of God. The sublime spectacle of God's descent to proclaim His law to Israel, suggests the majestic scene of the second coming of Christ in glorious triumph, when the kingdom lost by the first Adam shall be restored by the second Adam. The law of the kingdom of God proclaimed as His standard of holiness to Israel, was the Ten Commandments. Ex. 20: 1-17. It was the complete law of moral obligations in the kingdom of God. “And He added no more.” Deut. 5: 22. It was holy (Rom. 7: 12), perfect (Ps. 19: 7). ## THE OLD COVENANT RATIFIED Before the old covenant was ratified, the Lord proclaimed with His own voice, in the hearing of the people, the law of the Edenic kingdom, or the kingdom of glory. Ex. 20: 1-17. The condition of their entering this covenant relation was perfect obedience. Ex. 19: 5. Pardon for transgression was not provided in the kingdom of glory. Ex. 23: 20, 21. This was explained before the old covenant, which reestablished the kingdom of glory with Israel, was ratified. But Israel, having come so recently from their long sojourn in the midst of heathenism, had little conception of the character of the kingdom of glory. God had given them only a mere glimpse of its awful grandeur, when they said, “Let not God speak with us, lest we die.” Under such conditions of ignorance, God accepted them, and undertook to develop them into a “holy nation,” through whom He would make known His name in all the earth. ## IMPOSSIBLE THROUGH THE KINGDOM OF GLORY ALONE Before He could get them to see their need of a Saviour, He must convince them that since the fall, obedience is impossible through the provisions of the kingdom of glory alone. After three times consulting them, showing them the utmost freedom of choice as to voluntarily entering the old covenant compact, and after every one, from least to greatest, had concurred in the agreement, He instructed Moses to ratify the covenant with blood, which was its seal of death to transgressors. “And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” Ex. 24: 8. The blood by which the old covenant was ratified was also typical of life through the death of Christ, but this they were not yet prepared to see. The law proclaimed from Sinai was not the old covenant. The old covenant was the agreement between God and the people “concerning” obedience to the law, under the penalty of death, and God's pledge that they should be a “holy nation” on condition of perfect obedience. The old covenant was no more the commanded covenant (Ex. 34: 28; Deut. 4: 13), the Ten Commandments, proclaimed from Sinai, than a lease is the farm “concerning” which it is drawn. An instance of one covenant's being made the basis of another covenant is recorded in 2 Kings 23: 1-3. The law of God, or the commanded covenant, was the basis of the old covenant. The old covenant was the agreement which Israel made concerning obeying it. Ex. 24: 1-8. They having voluntarily entered that covenant relation, the law of the Edenic kingdom was reestablished with Israel as the law of the old covenant kingdom. After the old covenant was ratified, the Lord called Moses up into the mount, and gave him a copy of the law spoken from Sinai, written with His own hand, on tables of stone. Ex. 24: 12.

ISRAEL'S APOSTASY

Israel now stood under the old covenant, related to the kingdom of glory as Adam was in Eden, except that Adam was perfect, and living under perfect conditions, while Israel was imperfect, and living for the time under a covenant that was unaccompanied by the kingdom of grace, and thus adapted only to perfect conditions. As Adam fell in Eden, so before Moses had been in the mount with God forty days, Israel as a body fell to worshiping a golden calf. Ex. 32: 1-6. In this act, they broke the covenant on their part; and as in the days of Adam, according to the demands of the law of the kingdom of glory, which had been reestablished with them, and under which they had agreed to live perfectly obedient lives, they forfeited their lives. According to the demands of the old covenant kingdom, the day of their transgression was the day of their execution. God proposed to Moses to consume them that day, and to make of him a great nation. Verses 7-10.

THE KINGDOM OF GRACE REESTABLISHED WITH ISRAEL

As the Lord had made provision in advance, through the kingdom of grace, to meet the needs of Adam for pardon, which the Lord offered and he accepted on the day of his transgression, so during the forty days that Moses was with Him in the mount, the Lord had instructed him in His complete system of pardon and atonement for sin, and its final removal from the universe. Moses pleaded that through this new covenant kingdom of grace, pardon might that day be offered to Israel, as to Adam in Eden. Verses 11-35. The Lord granted this request, and the kingdom of grace originally established the day of Adam's fall, was reestablished in the nation of Israel the day of their transgression at Sinai. Through the kingdom of grace, pardon was offered to all Israel that day. Verse 26.

THREE THOUSAND REFUSED AND DIED

Three thousand refused the offer, and as they did not accept Christ as their substitute in death, the death penalty was inflicted upon them that day, according to the requirements of the kingdom of glory, which demanded obedience or death. It was through the atonement of the new covenant kingdom of grace, that those accepting proffered pardon through Christ were saved. Verse 30. Through it the law was at that time and forward reestablished in the hearts of believing Israel. “And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart.” Deut. 6: 6.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EXHIBITION

God had now completed the covenant agreement with Israel to place before the world “a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” He could not do this until both kingdoms were reestablished with them. The old covenant compact was not, therefore, to establish a civil government, neither was it to establish a civil government theocracy for the enforcement of religion. It was to be a demonstration that, through the kingdom of grace, represented by a priesthood kingdom which the Lord had proposed and now established with Israel, it was possible to place before the world a “holy nation.” After God had spoken the law of holiness, Moses said, “God is come to prove you, and that His fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.” Ex. 20: 20. The law of the kingdom of glory first established with Israel, dealt with sin. That nation becoming, through grace, a “holy nation,” God was endeavoring to show to the world that sinful men could be developed into sinless subjects of the kingdom of glory. Other nations dealt with crimes and civil affairs. Their kings were liable to err. Israel's king, lawgiver, and judge was the God of infallible wisdom and justice. “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; He will save us.” Isa. 33: 22. R. C. P.