Throughout all three years of His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of what is compactly concentrated in these words, but He finds understanding in few. Even after the Resurrection and Pentecost, this revelation remains one of the most difficult to grasp in all of Christianity. The fact that the Kingdom of God will not come in a visible manner for some reason very often...
Throughout all three years of His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ speaks of what is compactly concentrated in these words, but He finds understanding in few. Even after the Resurrection and Pentecost, this revelation remains one of the most difficult to grasp in all of Christianity. The fact that the Kingdom of God will not come in a visible manner for some reason very often disappoints us, and we try not to think about these words. Probably, the matter is that it follows from them that outside of us, in the world in which we live, we will see not exciting and beautiful manifestations of the Kingdom of God, but sorrow and suffering. Only in our own heart does the Holy Spirit grant us comfort and the experience of the presence of the Kingdom of God. And this is very difficult, and to accept this means to accept the word of Christ that whoever wishes to follow Him must take up the cross.
However, the Lord hardly wanted to disappoint us when He said this. On the contrary, in these words He reveals to us an amazing hope. The coming of the Kingdom of Christ in power and glory is possible only at the end of time, when the judgment of God will sum up history. But, the Lord says, that very coming Kingdom, which is seen by the prophets as the completion and goal of history, is already given to us today not as a promise, but as an accomplished fact. This Kingdom is within, deep in the hearts of people, and often it is unnoticeable not only to those around them, but also to the person themselves (and the Lord also warns His disciples about this). But it already exists, we are already its inhabitants, it is already manifesting itself in our heart and our life.
The Kingdom of God differs from all the earthly states known to us primarily in that all of its subjects obey the King directly. In the Kingdom of God there is no place for what our contemporary language calls a "vertical of power", because it is needed only in an earthly state. This directness of every person's relationship with God is a great gift of the Kingdom, strikingly distinguishing it both from the Old Testament and even more so from everything that pagans could imagine.
Precisely because God reveals His Kingdom within people, in their hearts, it already here and now becomes for us a source of life, what Christ calls a "spring of water welling up to eternal life".
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1:7 The saints - To whom Philemon's house was open, Pmn 1:2.
1:8 I might be bold in Christ - Through the authority he hath given me.
1:9 Yet out of love I rather entreat thee - In how handsome a manner does the apostle just hint, and immediately drop, the consideration of his power to command, and tenderly entreat Philemon to hearken to his friend, his aged friend, and now prisoner for Christ! With what endearment, in the next verse, does he call Onesimus his son, before he names his name! And as soon as he had mentioned it, with what fine address does he just touch on his former faults, and instantly pass on to the happy change that was now made upon him! So disposing Philemon to attend to his request, and the motives wherewith he was going to enforce it.
1:10 Whom I have begotten in my bonds - The son of my age.
1:11 Now profitable - None should be expected to be a good servant before he is a good man. He manifestly alludes to his name, Onesimus, which signifies profitable.
1:12 Receive him, that is, my own bowels - Whom I love as my own soul. Such is the natural affection of a father in Christ toward his spiritual children.
1:13 To serve me in thy stead - To do those services for me which thou, if present, wouldest gladly have done thyself.
1:14 That thy benefit might not be by constraint - For Philemon could not have refused it.
1:15 God might permit him to be separated (a soft word) for a season, that thou mightest have him for ever - Both on earth and in heaven.
1:16 In the flesh - As a dutiful servant. In the Lord - As a fellow - Christian.
1:17 If thou accountest me a partner - So that thy things are mine, and mine are thine.
1:19 I will repay it - If thou requirest it. Not to say, that then owest me thyself - It cannot be expressed, how great our obligation is to those who have gained our souls to Christ.Beside - Receiving Onesimus.
1:20 Refresh my bowels in Christ - Give me the most exquisite and Christian pleasure.