The Nature of God’s Kingdom: Not in Words Only

by A.W. Tozer

From his book “Reclaiming Christianity: A Call to Authentic Faith”

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

1 Corinthians 4:1-21

Paul embraced his authority as the chief apostle from the Lord for several reasons, the main one being to receive and shape church truth. Paul had received the revelation directly from God in the way that Jesus told His disciples. Jesus said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come” (John 16: 12-13).

When Ananias prayed for Paul, he was filled with that same Holy Spirit (see Acts 9: 17). Then he was appointed by the Lord to set up a system and quality of standards for the church. Perhaps most important of all, Paul was to show, by example the Christian way. Paul said, “I sent you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ” (1 Corinthians 4: 17).

Now the apostle Paul was having his authority challenged by schismatic men who came in teaching that Paul was not a real apostle, alleging that he never saw the Lord. Their argument was that the other apostles walked with Jesus, but this man Paul had never walked with Him; he came after Jesus had died and risen. They overlooked the vision Paul had of Jesus as “of one born out of due time” (1 Corinthians 15: 8). These schismatic men who were dividers of the church had to repudiate Paul’s authority in order to establish their own. As far as Paul was personally concerned, it did not matter. He said, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self” (1 Corinthians 4: 3).

Paul went on to say, “I do not even judge my own self. I’m in the hands of God” (see verses 3-4). But he knew that if he was going to have any influence, he had to establish his authority. So he sent Timothy to straighten them out, and finally warned them, “I told you before, and foretell you, as if I were present, the second time; and being absent now I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all other, that, if I come again, I will not spare” (2 Corinthians 13: 2). Paul refused to listen to these schismatics, these puffed-up fellows. Isn’t it strange that there is nothing new under the sun?

So many of us imagine that we are originals, but there is nobody original except Adam. And if you find “puffers uppers” and men who are puffed up now, Paul wrote, “Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you. But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord will, and will know, not the speech of them which are puffed up, but the power.” (1 Corinthians 4: 18-19).

The Form is Not the Essence

Here is what I particularly want to emphasize: The kingdom of God does not lie in words. I am among the few who are trying to tell the Church that today. There are a few that see it, but not very many. We see the word by the form of truth. Words are only the outward image of truth and can never be the inward essence. Words are incidental.

If I were to say, “Everybody who can speak Swedish, bring your New Testament next Sunday to church; and everybody who speaks German, bring yours. And Norwegian, bring yours.” And so we would have half a dozen different languages. I would say, “Now read the fourth chapter of 1 Corinthians.” It would be quite a revelation to hear that the words were only incidental, that is was the meaning that mattered. Somewhere in the middle of this difference in words there is a spiritual meaning. Six different people would embody that meaning in six different sets of words, and those were not alike or only occasionally alike. We ought to remember that.

The kingdom of God is not in words. Words are only incidental and can never be fundamental. When evangelicalism ceased to emphasize fundamental meanings and began emphasizing  fundamental words, and shifted from meanings to words and from power to words, they began to go downhill.

There is an essence of truth, and it may follow the form of words as the kernel in an English walnut follows the conformation and configuration of the shell. But the shell is not the kernel and the kernel is not the shell; and so while the truth follows the form of words, it sometimes deserts it. There is great heresy in holding the form to be essence and putting the kingdom of God in words so that if you have the words right you have the whole thing, and if you can get a better set of words, you have more truth. this is not necessarily true.

Words deceive even good honest Christian people. We feel that there is certain safety in mumbling words. Some believe there is power to frighten off Satan by mumbling certain words. Would you tell me, please, why the devil should be afraid of words? The devil, who is the very essence of ancient, created wisdom and had the perfection of beauty and the fullness of wisdom, and whose power lay in his shrewdness and intellectual prowess – can you tell me how that devil should suddenly become so foolish as to be afraid of a word or a motion or a symbol?

To keep the devil away, I put a chain around my neck or make a motion with my fingers in front of my face. I wonder what a man without any arms would do – what would an amputee do if the devil came after him and he could not make a sign of the cross? But the devil is not afraid of words or symbols. You can surround yourself with symbols, religious symbols, Protestant or Catholic or Jewish, but you have not helped yourself in the slightest, because the devil is not afraid of a symbol. He knows better.

Did you ever see a little child that is afraid of a false face? Put a mask on and the child runs and yells. If the child did that at 16, you would be ashamed of him. As soon as we grow up, we know that false faces do not mean anything and words do not mean anything as words We imagine that if we say certain words, we will have power to bring good. If we say certain other words, they have power to fend off the devil, and there is safety in mumbling those words. If we fail to mumble the words, we are in for it, and if we remember to mumble the words, we are all right. That is just paganism under another form. It’s just a religious veneer at best.

The Greeks loved oratory; they loved fine language and produced a lot of fine literature. Paul said, “You Greeks love fine words,” but he said, “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God” (1 Corinthians 2: 2-5).

We ought to throw this off as being superstitious and not Christian at all. A person may feel a little bit mentally naked when he throws all this off. When you strip superstition away from a man, he feels terribly naked for a moment; but until we strip off our superstition, the Lord cannot put on us a cloak of truth.

To be continued…

Part II – The Power Behind the Words