What happens with any natural object according to the different points from which we view it, happens also to any particular stage of advancement in our moral characters.  There is a goodness which appears very exalted or very ordinary, according as it is much above or much below our own level.  And this is the case with the expression of our Lord in the text, “Thou art not far from the kingdom of God.”  Does this seem a great thing or a little thing to be said to us?  Does it give us a notion of a height which we should think it happiness to have readied; or of a state so little advanced, that it would be misery to be forced to go back to it?  For, according as it seems to us the one or the other, so we may judge of the greater or less progress which we have made in ascending the holy mountain of our God.

But while I say this, it is necessary to distinguish between two several senses, in which we may be said to be near to the kingdom of God, or actually in it.  These two are in respect of knowledge, and in respect of feeling and practice.  And our Lord’s words seem to refer particularly to knowledge.  The scribe to whom he used them, had expressed so just a sense of the true way of pleasing God, had so risen above the common false notions of his age and country, that his understanding seemed to be ripe for the truths of that kingdom of God, which was to make the worship of God to consist in spirit and in truth.  Now as far as the knowledge of the kingdom of God is concerned, although, undoubtedly, there are many amongst us who are deficient in it, yet it is true also, that a great many of us are in possession of it; we are familiar enough with the truths of the kingdom of God, and our understandings fully approve them.  But we may be near to or far from the kingdom of God, in respect also of feeling and practice; and this is the great matter that concerns us.  It is here, then, that we should ask ourselves what we think of our Lord’s words in the text; and whether he to whom they were spoken appears to us an object of envy or of compassion; one whom we envy for having advanced so far, or pity for not being advanced further.

“Not far from the kingdom of God.”  Again, if we take the words Kingdom of God in their highest sense, then the expression contains all that we could desire to have said of us in this life; hope itself on this side of the grave can go no higher.  For as, in this sense, the kingdom of God cannot be actually entered before our death; so the best thing that can be said of us here, is, that we are not far from it; but we are in the land of Beulah, so happily imagined in the Pilgrim’s Progress; all of our pilgrimage completed, save the last act of crossing the river; with the city of God full in sight, and with hearts ready to enter into it.  In this sense, even St. Paul himself, when he wrote his last epistle from Rome, could say no more, could hope for, could desire no more, than to be not far from the kingdom of God.