(29) And I appoint unto you a kingdom.--As being the verb from which is formed the noun for "covenant," or "testament," the Greek for "appoint," has a force which we lose in the English. This was part of the New Covenant with them. They were to be sharers in His glory, as they had been in His afflictions. The latter clause, "as the Father hath appointed unto Me," conveys the thought that His throne also was bestowed on the fulfilment of like conditions. The "sufferings" came first, and then the glory (1Peter 1:11). He was to endure the cross before He entered into joy (Hebrews 12:2). The Name that is above every name was the crowning reward of obedient humility (Philippians 2:8-9).

Verse 29. - And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me. This promise refers to earth and this life. They and their successors in his Church would bear sway over men's hearts, His kingdom would be administered by them. With strangely literal accuracy has this promise been fulfilled. From the hour when the despised Master, already doomed to a shameful death, uttered this seemingly improbable prediction, his kingdom over men's hearts has been extending. Then at most the kingdom numbered a few hundreds; nine it can only be reckoned by millions. For centuries the story of the civilized world has been the story of this kingdom.

22:21-38 How unbecoming is the worldly ambition of being the greatest, to the character of a follower of Jesus, who took upon him the form of a servant, and humbled himself to the death of the cross! In the way to eternal happiness, we must expect to be assaulted and sifted by Satan. If he cannot destroy, he will try to disgrace or distress us. Nothing more certainly forebodes a fall, in a professed follower of Christ, than self-confidence, with disregard to warnings, and contempt of danger. Unless we watch and pray always, we may be drawn in the course of the day into those sins which we were in the morning most resolved against. If believers were left to themselves, they would fall; but they are kept by the power of God, and the prayer of Christ. Our Lord gave notice of a very great change of circumstances now approaching. The disciples must not expect that their friends would be kind to them as they had been. Therefore, he that has a purse, let him take it, for he may need it. They must now expect that their enemies would be more fierce than they had been, and they would need weapons. At the time the apostles understood Christ to mean real weapons, but he spake only of the weapons of the spiritual warfare. The sword of the Spirit is the sword with which the disciples of Christ must furnish themselves.And I appoint unto you a kingdom,.... Not a temporal one, but a spiritual one; and either intends that they should have in the government of the church, peculiar to them, as apostles, they being set in the first, and highest place, and office, in the church; and have the keys of the kingdom of heaven, or the Gospel dispensation, and church state, committed to them, whereby they should open the door of faith to men, both to Jews and Gentiles; and have the power of binding and loosing, or of pronouncing things to be lawful or unlawful to be retained and used, and even of remitting sins in a ministerial and declarative way; and not only of rebuking and reproving for sin with authority, but even of inflicting corporeal punishment on delinquents, and that in a very severe way, as in the cases of Ananias and Sapphira, Elymas the sorcerer, the incestuous person at Corinth, and Hymenaeus and Philetus: or the kingdom of grace, which they had in common with all the saints, which lies not in outward things, but in righteousness, peace, and joy, and which can never be moved, or taken away; by virtue of which Christ reigns in the hearts of his people, and they are kings, and priests to God, and have power, as princes, with God and men, and overcome, and reign over their own lusts, and the world and Satan: or that kingdom, and dominion, and greatness of the kingdom, which shall be given to the saints of the Most High, Daniel 7:27 in the latter day glory and kingdom state of Christ on earth, when the saints shall reign with him; or the kingdom of glory prepared from the foundation of the world; a gift of our heavenly Father's, which the saints are called unto, made meet for, and have a right unto, in Christ, and are heirs of, and into which he will introduce them at the last day: and indeed, all these senses may be taken into the account of this text:

as my Father hath appointed unto me; a kingdom, not of nature and providence, which he has in right of nature, being of the same essence, and having the same perfections with his Father; and in right of creation, all being made by him; for this is not given, or appointed to him; nor is he accountable for it to any, since he receives it not from any: but his mediatorial kingdom, which is given him, and which he will deliver up the account of to his Father another day; see Daniel 7:14 which took place here on earth in the days of his flesh; though it was not of this world, nor came with observation, or with worldly pomp and splendour; and became more visible upon his resurrection from the dead, his exaltation at the right hand of God, the effusion of the Spirit, the great conversions among men, and the destruction of the Jewish nation. This kingdom takes in the whole Gospel dispensation, reaching from the times of Christ being in the flesh, to his second coming; and comprehends all the elect of God, who are a kingdom of priests, or a royal priesthood, in whose hearts Christ reigns by his Spirit, and grace; it includes the whole visible Gospel church state on earth, which is God's holy hill of Sion, over which he has set Christ, as king, and which he governs by laws of his own enacting, and by governors appointed under him, among whom he will reign; first more spiritually in the latter day, when the Gospel shall be spread all over the world, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and next personally with all his saints together, for the space of a thousand years; and last of all triumphantly to all eternity, in the ultimate glory and kingdom of his Father.