God’s intention is to work on man in order that man can be on the throne. Have you ever realized that this is His intention? We might be satisfied to go to heaven. This might satisfy us, but it would never satisfy God. God will not be satisfied until we are on the throne.
In Revelation 3:21 the Lord Jesus says, “He who overcomes, to him I will give to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat with My Father on His throne.” The Lord Jesus seemed to be saying that He became a man, and as a man He went to the throne. God’s intention is to take us to the throne. His desire is to make us people of the throne. God’s kingdom cannot come in full until we are on the throne. Furthermore, God’s enemy will not be subdued until we are on the throne. God’s goal, therefore, is not merely to deliver us out of hell but to bring us to the throne.
We need to consider our present condition in light of God’s intention. In many things we are careless and loose. The Lord will bring us to the throne, but if we are still careless and loose, we are not ready to be on the throne. No one can sit on the throne in a way that is undignified or improper. I do not agree with the forms in formal Christianity, but neither do I agree with the looseness that is so widespread today. If you mean business with the Lord as a Christian and as a disciple of the Lord Jesus, you cannot be loose, careless, and undisciplined. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was not careless in anything. Many believers today, on the contrary, do not seem to have the proper concept and feeling about how to be a proper human being. Such a person cannot be on the throne.
God has chosen us. He has called us to the throne. A strong proof that God has called us is that we call on the name of the Lord. God’s calling is to bring us to the throne.
Why does God want to bring us to the throne? God desires to bring us to the throne because of the rebellion of Satan against God’s throne (Isa. 14). If we read the Bible carefully, we will see that the greatest difficulty God faces in the universe is that His throne has been opposed and attacked by rebel forces. God’s throne is absolute, but one of His creatures has rebelled and seeks to exalt his throne to be equal with that of God. In his rebellion against God’s throne, Satan intended to exalt his throne to the heavens and thereby to intrude upon God’s authority. Isaiah 14:12-14 says, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!...For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” From the time of Satan’s rebellion until now, there has been a dispute in the universe regarding authority. Much of what is happening on earth is an expression of Satan’s resistance to God’s throne. The crucial question is this: Who is actually reigning on earth—God or Satan?
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was absolutely submissive to God’s authority. To obey the Lord is to be a person under the throne. Because the Lord Jesus obeyed God the Father and submitted to God’s authority in an absolute way, after He was resurrected from the dead, God gave Him all authority in heaven and on earth (Matt. 28:18) and exalted Him to the throne. Now the One sitting on the throne is not only God but also man, for this One is the mingling of God and man. Therefore, after the ascension of the Lord Jesus, there has been a man on the throne.
God’s mind is on man (Heb. 2:6), and He wants man to express Him and to exercise His authority. Man has God’s image and God’s dominion with His authority. God desires to manifest Himself through man, and He desires to reign, to administrate, through man.
God’s intention is to cast Satan down and to redeem many of those taken captive by Satan and bring them to His throne. God cannot receive the full glory until we are brought to the throne. One day we will be brought to the throne, and then God will be able to boast to Satan. He will triumphantly declare that His chosen ones, who had been taken captive by Satan, have been brought to the throne.
However, we need to realize that in our present condition we are not qualified to be on the throne. Do you look like a king? If you were weighed on the heavenly scales to determine your spiritual weight, how much would you weigh? I am concerned that many of us would weigh hardly anything at all. This is a very serious matter. We have been called to be sons of God, and we are destined to be kings, but we need God to work in us and on us to qualify us for kingship.