In our ageing dilemma, when life’s burdens seem endless, the prayer “Thy kingdom come” has many and wide implications. Can we conceive anything more universally impressive and more divinely beautiful, than our Lord teaching his disciples to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done upon earth as it is in heaven”? What a sublime thought.
That is what will be upon earth in the human sphere “as it is in heaven” – as the angels of God forever. We think of the kingdom in the past when the throne of the Lord was in Jerusalem, and the kingdom of David and Solomon flourished and it is never to be lost sight of. That the future kingdom is in God’s purpose rooted in His working with Israel in history, is a vital truth. As the purpose with the body is that it shall be clothed with immortality so that it shall become fitted for eternal life, so the purpose with the earth is that it shall abide for ever as the dwelling place of beings, whose whole existence shall be a praise.
How then do we attain to this life? We read in 1 John 5:11-12 – “this is the record, that God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son.” It is not in us but in a sense we may be said to have it, for the apostle says, “He that hath the son has life”. What does it mean to have “the son”?
Is it not to believe his Gospel and to be baptized into him and to abide in him by faith and obedience – unquestionably it is this. It is the gift of God. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 6:23).
Yes, “by grace are we saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). For in Christ “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of God’s grace” (Eph 1:7).
This is the way of eternal life. “Christ as the life” is unseen as yet, but shortly he will appear and those words “Thy kingdom come” will be fulfilled, and as the adopted sons and daughters of God, we will be forgiven, reconciled to God, by His grace, through faith and repentance and baptism into Christ.
Our prayer then is, “Thy kingdom come” that God’s will might be done.