«　WEEK 12　DAY 3　»

　　Mark 4:26-29 And He said, So is the kingdom of God: as if a man cast seed on the earth, and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and lengthens—how, he does not know. The earth bears fruit by itself: first a blade, then an ear, then full grain in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends forth the sickle, because the harvest has come.

　　The seed of the divine life (1 John 3:9; 1 Pet. 1:23) sown into the Slave-Savior’s believers indicates that the kingdom of God, which is the issue and goal of the Slave-Savior’s gospel, and the church in this age (Rom. 14:17) are a matter of life, the life of God, which sprouts, grows, bears fruit, matures, and produces a harvest. (Mark 4:26, footnote 3)

　　The kingdom of God is actually God Himself sown into human beings and developing in them into a kingdom. We need to be impressed with the fact that the kingdom of God is not a matter of teaching, activity, or organization. On the contrary, the kingdom of God is the Triune God in His incarnation sown into His chosen people to grow and develop in them into a kingdom. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 133-134)

　　The intrinsic element of the entire teaching of the New Testament... [is] that the Triune God has been incarnated in order to be sown into His chosen people and then develop within them into a kingdom. The four Gospels reveal the Triune God incarnated. This God-man eventually came forth to sow Himself into God’s chosen people by preaching and teaching. When those who had been chosen by God heard His word and received it, they received the seed, the gene, of the kingdom. This seed, this gene, is the incarnated God, the Triune God in humanity. In the Gospels we have the sowing of this seed of the kingdom.

　　In the Acts we have the propagation and spreading of this sowing... In Acts hundreds and even thousands of sowers were raised up. All these sowers were those who received the seed, the gene. By receiving the seed they became those who could then sow it into others. In this way we have the propagation of the sowing and of the seed. In the Epistles we see the growing of the seed, the gene, of the kingdom... In 1 Corinthians 3:9b Paul says, “You are God’s cultivated land.” Elsewhere in the same chapter Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth” (v. 6). Here in this chapter we have the growth, the development, of the seed.

　　The harvest of this seed is found in the last book of the New Testament, the book of Revelation. According to Revelation 14, we first have the firstfruits and then the harvest. Revelation 14:4 speaks of those who “were purchased from among men as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.” Then in verse 15 we see that the “harvest of the earth is ripe.” Those who are the firstfruits spoken of in Revelation 14 will be among those who will be co-kings with Christ in the millennium. The millennium, the thousand years, will be the full development of the gene of the kingdom. During the millennium many of those who have received the kingdom gene will be co-kings with Christ. In the new heaven and the new earth God will have an eternal kingdom with the New Jerusalem as the capital. The New Jerusalem will be a composition of kings, and these kings will rule over the fully restored nations. Then God will have an eternal kingdom as the full development of the gene sown in the Gospels by Jesus the Nazarene, who was the Triune God in humanity.

　　How wonderful is the kingdom gene that was sown in the Gospels! Eventually this gene will develop into the millennial kingdom spoken of in Revelation 20 and into God’s eternal kingdom in Revelation 21 and 22. Praise the Lord for this picture of the kingdom gene and its development! (Life-study of Mark, pp. 134-137)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Mark, msgs. 14-16