A Kingdom That Cannot Be Shaken

by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 3 - The Sure Foundation of the Kingdom

"I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be restrained" (Job 17:2).

"Of the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; and the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom" (Heb. 1:8).

"...Who hath been made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life" (Heb. 7:16).

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

We go back to the words in Job. "I know that Thou canst do all things, and that no purpose of Thine can be restrained". The second part of the verse would be more accurately translated, "and Thou canst be hindered in no purpose of Thine". These words come right at the end of the book of Job. That fact carries with it its own very valuable significance. The whole book, as we know, has been a meeting of a challenge; the challenge had to do with righteousness. God was meeting that challenge in the life of His servant Job. When all was said (and quite a lot was said) the book is largely occupied with what was said in connection with that very matter of righteousness - and when all was done (and Satan had done a lot) God's verdict upon His servant was that he had spoken the thing which was right concerning Him (Job 42:7). "He has made Me right", he has justified God; he has, not in word alone but in his heart, in his spirit, said, "Let God be true and every man a liar" (Rom. 3:4), and as the result, Job's life was preserved and increased, or, in other words, he came up from a great depth as by the power of resurrection, and was set in a large place.

These are all the elements and features, in figure, in type, of what resurrection means. It is enlargement, emancipation from limitation, increase, fulness. Job came into that, and Job's verdict (God had passed His verdict) Job's verdict was, "Thou canst be hindered in no purpose of Thine". Satan had spent himself, exhausted himself, gone to the farthest limit of Divine permission; the verdict - "Thou canst do all things, and Thou canst be hindered in no purpose of Thine".

The Basis of the Kingdom

Now, in spiritual truth and principle, that is what the letter to the Hebrews is all about - indeed, very much more than the letter to the Hebrews, it is what it is all about with you and with me. It is all about what Paul calls or terms "life because of righteousness" (Rom. 8:10). The letter opens with the declaration: "Thy throne" (the throne of the Son) "Thy throne... is forever and ever, and the sceptre of uprightness" (if you like, 'of righteousness') "is the sceptre of Thy kingdom". The book closes with "receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken". As we emphasised in a previous meditation, it is 'now in the process of receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken'.

What kind of kingdom is His kingdom, the kingdom which is being received by us through faith? It is the kingdom which combines these two things - life because of righteousness.

And you can see that that is the setting of the whole Bible. The book of Genesis opens with that background, with that staging. The issue is that of life, there is no doubt about it. The very first thing that is contended, the first thing that becomes the object of all the disputing, the arguing, the reasoning, and all satanic effort where man is concerned, is this matter of uncreated or indissoluble Life. It is all about that. The only way to put that back, to prevent attainment unto that, is to corrupt, for "corruption cannot inherit incorruption" (1 Cor. 15:50), sinful life cannot inherit sinless Life, life which has in it the seeds of death because of corruption cannot inherit that life which is deathless. So it is all a matter of life because of righteousness.

Adam was given a kingdom; that kingdom was, after probation, intended to be established forever, an unshakable kingdom based upon an indissoluble life because of a triumphant righteousness; but that kingdom was shaken, and it collapsed through corruption and the Life was never possessed. Israel was given a kingdom with all that indicated how and upon what basis that kingdom could be established forever, as long as the sun. This letter to the Hebrews contains all that symbolism and typology which indicated the basis of an eternal kingdom - Life because of righteousness. Because of corruption, that kingdom was shaken and fell.

Righteousness and Indissoluble Life

Now here comes this kingdom. "Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom because Thy sceptre is the sceptre of uprightness." "Wherefore receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken..." Why? Because in the first place it is established upon a righteousness which is absolute, which is final, to which nothing has to be added; a righteousness which is of God. And then secondly, Life, indissoluble Life. Those are two simple pillars of the faith.

This letter, as you know, is one tremendous effort to persuade, to encourage, that the people of God should get their feet fully established upon this twofold basis - not the righteousness of works, of ritual, of ordinances, of forms, and of all those things which had proved so futile and unavailing - because, as Paul argues in his Roman letter, of the weakness of the flesh; if any kingdom rests upon what man is, it will be shaken, it will collapse. But if the kingdom rests upon what that Man is, it is all right, it is forever and ever. Righteousness is the foundation of His kingdom which is an everlasting kingdom and the kingdom which we, through faith, are receiving. Of course, that is very simple and elementary, but that is not all.

The Realm of the Will of God

We pointed out, or indicated in a previous meditation, that in this letter to the Hebrews we are taken altogether outside of time and outside of this world. We are placed in that which is eternal and heavenly, and shown that it is there, and only there, that our security is; it is only there that we really have a Rock under our feet. Anything, even things which are of God planted on this earth, will be shaken and will fall.

In this matter of which we are speaking - righteousness and Life incorruptible and indissoluble - we get outside of time and we get into the realm of that will of God. I think that you and I have yet much to learn about the will of God. Get away from all the little details of our lives and our desiring and our struggling for the will of God. It is a very much bigger thing than that. When the will of God is spoken about in its complete sense in the New Testament, you always get back of time into eternity, and you at once become linked up with God's eternal counsels concerning His Son. I am not able to stay just now to turn to passages, but you will recognise that I am keeping very closely to the text. Right in the heart of this letter we come to this - "Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body didst Thou prepare for Me; in whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hadst no pleasure: then said I, Lo, I am come (in the roll of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God" (Heb. 10:5-7).

Now, what was the will of God that He came to do? Was it to go to the cross? That was in the will of God as a method, as a means. What was the will of God? You have to comprehend the Divine thought from all eternity. What is the Divine thought from all eternity? The kingdom of righteousness incorruptible and of a Life indissoluble; that is the will of God, that is the purpose of God. It was that that Christ came to accomplish - a kingdom of righteousness absolute, God's own righteousness; a kingdom of Life, indissoluble, timeless, age-abiding. That is God's will, something settled in eternity.

It is a tremendous thing to notice the things that are said about that will by Paul in his Ephesians letter. In Ephesians 1:5 - "according to the good pleasure of His will" - "making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His will" (Eph. 1:9-11). The good pleasure of His will; the mystery of His will; the counsel of His will - this will of God has all that behind it.

This tremendous will of God is the thing which is in view, and when it is realised fully and finally, what will it mean? A universe established in incorruptible righteousness where no taint of sin or unholiness can come or be found, a universe marked by Life which cannot be dissolved. "I give unto (My sheep) eternal life; and they shall never perish" (John 10:28) - an indissoluble Life. That is the will of God which Christ came to accomplish, and that is something set in eternity: the counsel, the good pleasure of His will. You notice the setting of Ephesians; One is back there, before lives eternal, foreordained, predestined. The good pleasure of His will, the mystery of His will, the counsel of His will; it is right back there.

Faith the Link with God's Eternal Righteousness

Now then, this is a righteousness which has nothing to do with things in time, it is something altogether outside of time. The only connection between this righteousness of God and time is that faith links us with it, faith takes us out of time and links us with that timeless righteousness. Did I say we have something more to apprehend about this good and perfect and acceptable will of God? What I meant is just this: that we are so much governed, so much influenced and affected by what we find here in time in ourselves. That becomes the ground of all our distress and trouble - what we find that has come in in time. But all that has come in in time, the whole world of iniquity, of unrighteousness and sin, has not touched that righteousness one little bit, has not affected it one iota.

It makes absolutely no difference how much unrighteousness there is in this universe, to the righteousness of God. That stands, and faith is just that we step out of what has come in in time, into what is there as timeless of God's righteousness. Faith wipes out what we are in time and all that is here - writes it off, renders it nil - faith in the righteousness of God. And this justifying by faith simply means that we are made as though we never had sinned, as though nothing had ever come in. In God's sight, in His acceptance, it is as though there had never been a fall. We stand with God in His own timeless, incorruptible righteousness which has never been affected by anything that has come in.

Do we recognise that all this history of sin has never touched the righteousness of God at all? That righteousness of God is as though nothing had ever happened here at all, and faith (which is the argument of this letter and of much more in the New Testament) is that which lifts us out of time into eternity, out of what has happened into what has never been touched at all by what has happened. It is the eternal Rock; not a time rock but an eternal Rock of our salvation. The eternity of His righteousness - how tremendous it is, and what a tremendous thing faith is as to righteousness! What a thing it does!

Now do you not recognise that the whole effort of Satan as from the beginning, is to bring us down into time? To make us accept what has happened in time, to get us mixed up with what has come in; in some way even to get us trying to get over it, to overcome it, to grapple with it, to fight it, to suppress it. The lives of many children of God are just miserable existences by reason of their conflict with the unrighteousness in themselves, the struggle with their own sinful nature. There is no way through there at all.

In ourselves, what we are by nature, we shall be to the end. What we are by grace and by faith is quite another thing. "Well," you say, "that is abstract and not very practical; wherein lies the practical value of that attitude, that position?" It is a position which the Holy Spirit demands before He will do anything with us at all. The Holy Spirit demands a position of faith, absolute faith in the righteousness of God before He will get to work at all. We suspend all the activities of the Holy Spirit immediately we try to do the work of God in our own justification and our own cleaning up. The Holy Spirit works through the avenue of faith to make good in us that eternal righteousness, and it is only as we look off from ourselves by nature, from what we find here as the impossible condition of things in the creation, it is only as we look off unto Jesus that we find rest coming into our hearts and any way of deliverance at all from that which obsesses and crushes and defeats. It is faith's looking off unto Jesus, and then Life becomes active.

It is Life - not because of our righteousness - we think it is, it is not because of our righteousness at all. It is Life because of His righteousness which is entered into by faith. Then we become established and only so shall we be established.

If this word seems to you to be elementary, I am quite sure it will be a help to some; at any rate, it is a help to me. There are a lot of Christians who are not just established so that you find them reliable, dependable. They are variables, they are up and down; one day they are very bright and cheerful, everything is going well, but tomorrow they are right out in blank, dark despair, and that goes on for weeks, months, years of their lives. They are not rooted and grounded, they are not settled and established. And why is it? It is all this matter of righteousness, it is all this matter of time, what has come in in time, and it is all this matter of failure to apprehend by faith that the righteousness of God lifts us out of that big chasm which was created when Adam sinned, and goes on to the end of this creation until that kingdom is fully and finally established which is a kingdom of righteousness.

All that lies in that great chasm, from Adam's sin to the glory, is simply non-existent where the righteousness of God is concerned. You are put out of it. That belongs to time, it does not exist where God's righteousness and Life are concerned. Faith lifts us out of the chasm. It does not tell us to wallow in the chasm and try to overcome and be good and be better. It says, "You are out of that by faith", and as you really take that position, the Holy Spirit begins to witness rest to our hearts and Life in our spirits. It is Life because of His righteousness, not ours. His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, that is, it is an ageless kingdom, a timeless kingdom because His sceptre is the sceptre of uprightness; it is after the power of an indissoluble Life.

Adam's kingdom was shaken and fell because unrighteousness entered in. Adam's life was dissolved, it was a life capable of being dissolved, and it was dissolved because of corruption. We inherit that naturally from Adam, but there is another Adam from whom we inherit an incorruptible Life, indissoluble Life, and in relation to the Lord Jesus we are completely lifted out of our relationship to Adam. "Wherefore receiving a kingdom..." How? By faith we receive His righteousness and we keep on receiving His righteousness.

Yes, there is a crisis, there is a beginning in which we are justified before Him from all things and are brought into a position or relationship with God in righteousness. But do we not find that we have continually by faith to appropriate that righteousness, to meet every accusation of the evil one, every attempt of his to undo us, on the ground of faith in His righteousness? Immediately we begin to listen to his arguments and accept his accusations, we are down wallowing in the mire of that cesspool again. While we maintain our position of faith in the righteousness which is not ours but another One's, and only ours because it is His for us, it is our inheritance, we are receiving a kingdom, the kingdom is coming.

And what is true of the righteousness is true of the Life. How is this kingdom which is everlasting being received? We have every day of our lives by faith to receive His Life, continually receive His Life, continually take His Life. What will our life avail? Can our life stand up to the situation? Have we got that vital force that will meet these spiritual conditions? Can we, in the power of any energy of our own, really get through? We know we cannot! We know that we are defeated along that line always and we are brought again and again and yet again to the place where, so far as our own vital resources are concerned, we cannot go on, we cannot meet the demand. That is just as it should be, there is nothing wrong about that, God has taken full account of that, and then He says, "You are receiving a Kingdom, you are day by day to receive a Life which can stand up to everything!" It is this Life which has already overcome death at the flood, the testimony has been planted right in the very bed of the river when Jordan overflowed all its banks and has gone through triumphant: the testimony of Jesus. He lives, He has a Life which no other has. Receiving Him, the Life, from day to day is receiving the everlasting kingdom, receiving through faith.

Well, you know these things, but "if you know them, happy are ye if you do them". It is a matter of continually and persistently refusing to accept what has come in and what we find here in the conditions resulting from Adam's sin, whether of unrighteousness or of death, lifelessness. It is receiving that which is the very kingdom of our Lord Jesus, an unassailable righteousness, an indissoluble Life. "Wherefore receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken". His life cannot be shaken; it is above all powers to shake. His righteousness cannot be shaken; it transcends all powers in this universe.

That is the simple word just now. Look again; here is Job right at the end of the story. He has gone through it all and he says, "I know that Thou canst do all things, and Thou canst be hindered in no purpose of Thine". What a thing for a motto! "Thou canst be hindered in no purpose of Thine". Well, put that in its eternal setting, the eternal purpose. "Thou canst not be hindered". All that comes in in Adam makes no difference, does not affect it at all. It will be, it stands forever and leaps over this mighty and awful gap. "No purpose of Thine can be hindered", and when God makes up His mind and has a will, and a will like this, Satan can do all that he is allowed to do - it is a lot - and men can say all that they are allowed to say, but the sure foundation of God stands. It makes no difference. In the end, the will of God will be found fully accomplished, and we, through faith, will be found righteous at the end, and through faith we shall live by that deathless Life.