Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love." A characteristic mark of "the kingdom" is that man, as he is seen on earth today, disappears in it. This seems to be a little overlooked. I will explain what I mean. The thought of the kingdom with regard to man is new birth, and evidently man has no hand in this. This is God's work. (See John 3:3.) But at the end GOD is all in all!
The beginning is God's work - "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" - and the end is the delivering up of the kingdom, when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, for He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. (1 Cor. 15.)
That which tends to bring man into prominence in any way cannot be therefore in the line of "the kingdom"!
The King is gone out, rejected of this present world. As He went He said, "Now is 'My kingdom not from hence." While in it "the world knew Him not," but we also are in it, and we say, "The world knoweth us not because it knew Him not!" The King is gone out, but the kingdom is here - "the kingdom of the Son of His love."
Obtrusiveness is the very opposite of the work of God. Yet how common it is today! The great proof that I am in any way in the good of "the kingdom" is that I am disappearing as to what men see if they look at me with the natural eye, "as unknown, and yet well known." I am disappearing from all that is not "of the Father" but is "of the world." It is of the world because it commends itself to the natural senses.
The kingdom, I think, is not to be recognised by any but the spiritual eye. It is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. "Can those who know nothing of these know anything of the kingdom?" It is God's work, and is there anything real or lasting but what God does? I should think not. H. C. Anstey.