Читать книгу Pastor Pastorum; Or, The Schooling of the Apostles by Our Lord - Henry Latham - Страница 9

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They shew not only how close this Kingdom is to us but they also convey visible lessons, to help men to conceive it aright.

We learn from our Lord's own lips that one purpose for which He wrought Signs was to make men sure that the Kingdom of Heaven was come [pg 083] upon them. When He was charged with casting out devils through Beelzebub, He says, after disposing of the accusation,

“But if I by the finger of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.”28

Whether Our Lord preached in the villages Himself, or the Apostles or the Seventy, going two by two, did so in His name the burden of their preaching was always the same. They call on men to change to a better mind, and declare that the Kingdom of God is come nigh. The seventy are bid to say to those who rejected them, “Howbeit know this that the Kingdom of God is come nigh.”29 Whether men chose to own it or not, God's Kingdom was near them even at their doors. St. Mark, at the outset of his history of our Lord's Ministry, tells us30

“Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

“And saying, the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”

Christ declared that God was working underneath the ordinary agencies, which seemed to men to be working of themselves. God had been so working all along from the very beginning, but now Christ had come to reveal God—that is to say [pg 084] to make men sensible of the Divine presence and Divine agency in all that went on both within them and without. This revelation He would effect in the ways best adapted to make men understand it. And as the unlearned are most readily taught by what is set before their eyes; and as the teacher is much helped by having something to shew; so Christ declares the Kingdom and its nature, not only in parables and discourses, but by practical instances and illustrations as well; namely by the Signs He wrought. It was as though He had said, “I have told you that God's power was lying close about you: Behold it operating here.” The combination of the word and the Sign, as the two essential elements of the teaching, is expressly put before us in one passage: we read,

“And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.”31