We come now to the relation of the kingdom to the glory of God. God’s kingdom always goes with His glory.
In 1 Thessalonians 2:12 Paul indicates that we enter into the kingdom of God and into the glory of God simultaneously. “That you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.” God’s kingdom and glory are the goal of His calling. Contrary to what many Christians think, God has not called us to a heavenly mansion but to His kingdom and glory.
The kingdom of God is God being manifested through us. Whenever we express God in our daily walk, that is the kingdom. The expression of God from within us is the kingdom. When we live worthily of God, living a life in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is with us a particular kind of atmosphere, and this atmosphere is God’s kingdom. Furthermore, where the kingdom of God is, there the glory of God is also.
In the coming age, the entering into the kingdom of God and the entering into the glory of God will take place simultaneously. When we live by the divine life, the life of God, we surely will express God, and the expressed God is the divine glory. Since we live such a life, we are in the divine glory. Then spontaneously we are in the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God is just God’s manifestation in His glory with His authority for His divine administration. Hence, to enter into the kingdom of God and to enter into the expressed glory of God transpire at the same time as one thing.
Matthew 6:13 says, “Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.” This indicates that God’s glory goes with His kingdom and is expressed in the realm of His kingdom. The kingdom is the realm for God to exercise His power that He may express His glory.
Hebrews 12:28 reveals that God’s kingdom is unshakable as God Himself is. The kingdom is unshakable in its substance, foundation, structure, constituents, and expression.
The kingdom is unshakable in its substance, which is God. In the existing substance of the kingdom, actually it is God Himself exercised and expressed in His power with His glory for His divine administration.
The kingdom is also unshakable in its foundation, which is Christ. The earth and the heavens are shakable. Only the Lord and the things which come out of Him will remain forever (Heb. 12:27; 1:11; 13:8). This means that the kingdom which we are receiving has come out of the Lord Himself.
The kingdom is actually the Lord Himself as the kingship within us. Daniel 2:34 and 35 will help us to understand this matter. “Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.” The stone cut without hands is the heavenly Christ, who was cut on the cross without human hands. Daniel 2:44, referring to the toes of the image, says, “In the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” Verse 45 also speaks of the stone, saying, “The stone was cut out of the mountain without hands” and “it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold.” These verses indicate that the stone, which is Christ, will eventually become a great mountain filling the whole earth. This great mountain is the coming kingdom. Hence, the unshakable kingdom which we are receiving is Christ with His enlargement.
The kingdom is unshakable in its structure, which is the church. The church is the enlargement of Christ constituted of the riches of what Christ is, and today such a church is the reality of the kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17). Hence, the structure of this divine kingdom is unshakable, as the unshakable divine life of Christ is.
God’s kingdom is unshakable in its constituents. These constituents are all the riches of the processed and consummated Triune God. Since the structure of the kingdom is the divine structure of the church, which is the enlargement of Christ, the embodiment of the processed Triune God, its constituents are also the constituents of the church, which is the expression of the unshakable Christ.
Finally, the kingdom is unshakable in its expression, which is the glory of the Triune God, the very God Himself expressed in His glory. Such an expression nothing can shake, and it will remain and stand as the very God expressed forever.