The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Vision of the Kingdom, #11

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The members of the Body of Christ will be able to perform works of righteousness in the social environment in which they are living.

God has purposed to give His saints the power to bear witness of Christ and of the Kingdom of God (Matthew 24:14; Revelation 11:3). Whoever has the most power is the one who rules, the one who accomplishes his will.

The Kingdom witness of Revelation, Chapter 11 will take place before the great tribulation and the reign of Antichrist arrive in their fullness. After the testimony has been given completely, God will allow the witness to be overcome for a brief season in order that sin may attain maturity in the earth. Then Christ will return and call up His kings and priests from the surface of the earth.

There is no other authority and power under God as great as that of the key of David. Christ gives this authority and power to His Church when the members are full of His Divine Presence and Life and are perfectly submissive and responsive to His will in every element and circumstance.

The Kingdom of God is God in Christ in the saints ruling over the nations of saved peoples of the earth. Notice this design in the following passage:

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:21-23)

The Christian Church, the Body of Christ, when it is filled with God in Christ, possesses the authority and power of Christ to forgive sins and to retain sins. This is the government of the Kingdom of God.

In the beginning God breathed into Adam the breath of life. Adam and Eve potentially were members of the Kingdom of God. They possessed material forms and dwelled in Paradise. They had the spiritual capacity to be filled with God in Christ.

But they rebelled against the rule of God and were driven from Paradise. They no longer had access to the tree of life. They lost their fellowship with God. They were forced to labor in a cursed earth. Finally they died physically.

In John 20:21-23 (above) we notice that God is breathing on the new Adams, on the members of the Kingdom, so that the Holy Spirit will enter them and they will have the keys of the Kingdom. Being the firstfruits of the Kingdom of God, the Apostles of the Lamb have been designated as kings and priests of the Kingdom. Their names are in the foundations of the wall of the new Jerusalem.

To be continued.