e that we have put it in italics: "_As Christ
shall ultimately give up his kingdom to the Father_ (1 Cor. 15: 24-28),
_so the Holy Ghost shall give up his administration to the Son, when he
comes in glory and all his holy angels with him_."[1] The church and
the kingdom are not identical terms, if we mean by the kingdom the
visible reign and government of Jesus Christ on earth. In another
sense they are identical. As the King, so the kingdom. The King is
present now in the world, only invisibly and by the Holy Spirit; so the
kingdom is now present invisibly and spiritually in the hearts of
believers. The King is to come again visibly and gloriously; so shall
the kingdom appear visibly and gloriously. In other words, the kingdom
is already here in mystery; it is to be here in manifestation. Now the
spiritual kingdom is administered by the Holy Ghost, and it extends
from Pentecost to _Parousia_. At the _Parousia_--the appearing of the
Son of Man in glory--when he shall take unto himself his great power
and reign (Rev. 11: 17), when he who has {208} now gone into a far
country, to be invested with a kingdom, shall return and enter upon his
government (Luke 19: 15), then the invisible shall give way to the
visible; the kingdom in mystery shall emerge into the kingdom in
manifestation, and the Holy Spirit's administration shall yield to that
of Christ.

Here our discussion properly ends, since the age-ministry of the Holy
Spirit terminates with the return of Jesus Christ in glory. But there
is an "age to come" (Heb. 6: 5), succeeding "the present evil age"
(Gal. 1: 4), and we may, in closing, take a glimpse at that for the
light which it may throw upon the present dispensation.

What significance has the phrase, "_the first-fruits of the Spirit_,"
which several times occurs in the New Testament? The first-fruits is
but a handful compared with the whole harvest; and this is what we have
in the gift of "the Holy Spirit of promise, _which is the earnest of
our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession_"
(Eph. 1: 13, 14). The harvest, to which all the first-fruits look
forward, is at the appearing of the Lord. Christ, by his rising from
the dead, became "_the first-fruits of them that slept_" (1 Cor. 15:
20). The full harvest, of course, is at the advent, when "they that
are Christ's at his coming" shall be raised up (1 Cor. 15: 23). So of
the Holy Ghost. We have all the Spirit, but _not all of