The Second Advent: 3

Concluded from page 173
But Dr. E. makes up for such shortcomings by his open admission (pp. 71, 72) that the figurative interpretation of Rev. 20:1-10, for which Dr. Brown and Prof. Beet contend keenly as a question of life or death, “completely breaks down.” Nay more, he “frankly accepts the interpretation that finds in the passage the doctrine of two resurrections, and that a long period, symbolically designated a thousand years, comes between the resurrection of the saints and that of the rest of the dead.” What is there to contend about after such an admission? the plain Christian may ask in surprise. That the millennium is a governmental system, and for a time only, in Christ's hands, is the point. It is not the perfection of the new heaven and earth, when rule is over. “This passage,” adds Dr. E., “contains no hint that Christ comes before the thousand years begin “But St. Paul plainly tells us that the saints are raised at Christ's coming (1 Cor. 15:23). In this respect, that is, in reference to the resurrection of the saints, I infer that the advent is pre-millennial. Beyond this I cannot see that the passage supports the millennial theory.”
It appears to me that a pre-millennialist must be hard to please who cannot see in this admission Dr. E.'s surrender of the post-millennial view; nor can I doubt that his two negative coadjutors must have been scandalized by a confession so distinct and positive, if not complete. To hold that Christ comes from heaven to raise the saints a thousand years and more (symbolically or literally) before He raises the rest of the dead, and yet that He does not then reign, and does not bring in times of restoring all things, though so full of prophetic testimony and therefore of such interest to God and His children, and that the world is not to know the wonders of God's love to Christ and those that were His in days of suffering, and that there is to be no accomplishment of God's purpose for administration of the fullness of times, no heading up of all things in Christ, both heavenly and earthly, in which we are to share the inheritance with Him—to hold what Dr. E. allows, and to deny, as he does, these glorious consequences of Christ's coming, is to present as remarkable a group of inconsistencies as one can expect to see in a man of ability. In this judgment Prof. Beet and Dr. Brown would agree against Dr. E., unless I am greatly mistaken. One can but deplore the violence done thereby to the texture of scripture, and the impotence to which even the truth confessed is thus reduced.
The fact is, however, that our negative brethren are singularly at war with each other on vital questions. Thus Prof. Beet will have it, as the teaching of “very many statements, by various sacred writers,” “that the coming of Christ will forever end the conflict of good and evil” (p. 140). Such is his main position. This is directly at issue with Dr. Edwards, who holds that Christ comes to raise the saints for heaven where they will reign with Him, before the millennium (or a thousand years symbolical before the rest of the dead are raised, Satan being meanwhile bound and cast into the bottomless pit). Yet he also holds that the thousand years, far from being a time of holy peace, are “a continuation of the conflict between good and evil, but under changed conditions.” “Heaven and hell withdraw from the field to leave it to the inherent power of principles, as manifested in human life on earth” (p. 73). Thus all is avowedly reduced to a human level and order, beyond any dealing of God in the past! “The conflict assumes apparently a more human character!” and this, after confessing Christ come, the saints raised, and Satan bound! Of course Dr. B., as well as Prof. B., wholly reject all these features of Dr. E.'s wonderful millennium. “A more human character” is only true, if the all-important place of the risen Head and the risen saints is owned, not “withdrawn” but from heaven controlling the earth for good, as never before, and ruling the nations with a rod of iron, in contrast with the gospel. The loosing of Satan after the thousand years, and his successful seduction of men far and wide on earth (for he never gains the place of accuser in heaven, as we know him), will only the more bring out that all flesh is grass; for it might have been thought an “inherent improbability” for such as judged from the unbroken peace, righteous government, and visible glory, of that unparalleled period. But flesh ensnared even then by Satan is devoured by fire coming down out of heaven; and heaven and earth are dissolved and vanish away for Christ's judgment of the dead, who are cast into the lake of fire; and new heavens and a new earth appear wherein righteousness dwells, and God (not the exalted Man) is all in all.
For Dr. B. here, and more fully in his S.A., contends for a millennium which only differs from this age by an increase of the good now at work, and a diminution of the evil, with scarce one thing adequately answering to the visions of the kingdom as set forth in both Old and New Testaments alike. Dr. B. indeed does not argue like Prof. Beet, as if the passage in Rev. 20:1-9 stood alone and at issue with every other in the N. T. The chief thing peculiar to that passage in fact is defining the length of the kingdom; and where in the N. T. could that measure be given so fittingly as in its one great prophecy? The kingdom itself is most fully described in the Old Testament, as well as less so in the New. Dr. B. does not question, as Prof. B. seems to do, the sphere of the reign with Christ (pp. 30, 146). They do indeed join arms in throwing doubt over its being a resurrection of the saints. One of them calls it an unproved assertion that the prophet speaks (in ver. 4) of three classes, i.e., of the saints in general, besides the twofold Apocalyptic martyrs; another assumes that they are only martyrs.
In truth Prof. B. leaves it doubtful as far as appears (and I should abhor misjudging him or any other), whether he believes in a millennium at all, save possibly “a fresh departure greater and better even than the Reformation” (pp. 34, 35)! And he widely differs in the hasty assertion that “the visions of Daniel refer always to the eternal glory” (p. 33). Dr. B. on the contrary, with no less confidence, maintains the opposite error that the first vision (and the same principle applies no less to the last) is not even a new dispensation, but only a final step of the same unbroken dispensation as the present (pp. 119-121)! Thus both ignore “the age to come” in flat opposition to scripture. Again, Dr. B., in his aversion to the natural interpretation of Rev. 20:4-6, which Dr. E. admits it is impossible to evade, dwells on the symbolical and difficult nature of the Revelation, with almost every possible interpretation advanced, and the varieties of understanding this very passage among its literal interpreters (pp. 107, 108). Now what matters all this cloud of dust, if he is sure it is inspired, and that the Holy Spirit enables him to understand its genuine meaning? When people are so full of others' uncertainties, can one trust their own assurance? Prof. Beet goes farther still, and does what he can to take up the old skepticism which those who shrunk from Rev. 20:1-10 fell into respecting even its genuineness (pp. 137, 138). But no man ever quarreled with the Apocalypse, unless the Apocalypse gave no quarter to his own idols. There is no book of scripture more self-evidently of God.
As far as appears, Dr. E. symbolizes with the late Prof. Moses Stuart, who believed in a first resurrection literally, and yet adhered to the, traditional view of a general resurrection before the great white throne. But this amalgam is incoherent, and the exegesis unsatisfactory, even to the Andover expositor himself; as every comment must be which is not based on two distinct resurrections, of the just, and of the unjust. A general resurrection, or a universal judgment, is opposed to God's word, and fraught with perplexity and error.
Dr. Brown, after some prefatory words of no concern here, begins with 2 Peter 3:10-13. His fundamental mistake is the assumption that the day of the Lord is the equivalent of the Second Advent. Now any careful reader of the O. T. may see that “that day” includes a vast variety of divine dealings, and is a period, not an epoch. It begins (not with the Lord's presence or coming at all, which is positively and plainly contra-distinguished from it in 2 Thess. 2:1-2, as we have already shown, but) with His judicial dealings on earth; which judgments, in one form or another, occupy the kingdom for more than 1000 years, till it is delivered up at the end. This is the simple truth of the day of the Lord, apart from controversy; and it thus completely disposes of the difficulty. The dissolution of the universe is near the close of that day, but still within it, which is just what the apostle states. Dr. B. perplexes himself by taking for granted that it is at the beginning. His argument in pp. 91-93 is wholly invalid.
The earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up; the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat; but all that the apostle Peter determines is, that it is “in” that day (ver. 10) and by reason of it (ver. 12). It was not to be before, nor yet after, but within, and because of the presence of, the day of God. The Apocalypse of John adds, where alone we ought to expect distinct details in their relative order, that this same destruction of heaven and earth is to be only just before the end. No wonder therefore that those who cling to the post-millennial theory decry the inspired book which demolishes it. The burning up and sweeping away are just before the day ends, which had been running its course for more than a thousand years, an ample period for all that scripture predicts or premillenialists say. Nor is it true that the warning to the scoffers is pointless. If they ask, “Where is the promise of His coming?” the apostle answers with “the day of the Lord” and its overwhelming terrors, which will destroy the ungodly at the beginning, but will not end before the heavens and earth that now are pass away: the fitting and full reply of God to the scornful skepticism which took its stand against His word on the stability of the visible creation. The day will come as a thief, nor will it terminate till every word is accomplished. Dr. B.'s argument cannot survive the touch of scripture.
Just as vain is his reasoning on John 6, and the kindred texts in pp. 94-96. The Lord will assuredly raise up all the dead saints, and change the living ones, to be caught up together in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; but this leaves all open as to any who may be born of God afterward during the day of the Lord, when Messiah's praise shall be of God “in the great congregation,” and “all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kingdoms of the nations shall worship before Thee.” It is absurd to ignore the harvest of the millennial earth, necessarily distinct from the saints who compose the first resurrection. They that are Christ's are to be raised at His coming; but how unreasonable, as well as unscriptural, to fancy that Christ has none to bless in the day of His power and joy! Texts which speak of saints past or present do not shut out the “generation” to come. Psalms and Prophets speak distinctly of saints in that day on the earth. That they die not proves they will not be raised; that they do not suffer with, Christ indicates that they are not to reign with Him in that day, for they will be reigned over; but as nothing forbids the gracious quickening of the Spirit in that day, so they will have their blessed portion in the eternal state. A premillenialists must be a simpleton to be perplexed by a conclusion as unsound as the premise is negligent of scripture.
In pp. 97, 98 follows a string of texts (Matt. 10:32-33; John 5:28-29; Rom. 2:6-10; Rom. 16: 2 Cor. 5:10) which are cited for simultaneous presentation and judgment of righteous and wicked at Christ's second coming. Not one of them utters a word to that effect. All teach award; none defines the time or way, still less simultaneity. Other scriptures prove that they are wholly apart; one at least defines the long interval. Dr. B. connects verse 16 of Rom. 2 with verse 10 and preceding; whereas it really links with verse 12. Again, Acts 17:31 speaks solely of Christ's judging the habitable earth, and not the dead. It is therefore nothing to Dr. B.'s purpose, but proves a different judgment, which the post-millennial scheme ignores. John 5 is so far from indicating a simultaneous judgment, that it proves the believer's portion to be life, in contrast with judgment which awaits the wicked only; so that there are two contrasted resurrections also. Hence in 2 Cor. 5:10 we read that we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that each may receive the things done through the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad; but not a hint that it will be for just and unjust at the same time, which is elsewhere shown to be unfounded, yea, contradictory of God's word. Dr. B. is loose and unhappy in his citations.
But what then of Rev. 20:11-15, which is supposed to express clearly the absolute universality of the Last Judgment? (p. 99.) Can reasoning be feebler? As in Rev. 11:18, and Rev. 19:5, “the small and the great” include none beyond those that are named, the God-fearing, so in the passage questioned “the great and the small,” do not go beyond the dead that now stand before the throne for judgment, after the blessed and holy we saw raised 1000 years before to reign with Christ. Dr. B.'s argument really upsets his own conclusion. “The great and the small,” as well as the mention of the sea, death, and hades, do solemnly mark the universality of the dead left by the first resurrection; but to seek, as is sought, to include those already raised in “the dead,” who now so long after stand before the throne to be judged, seems as opposed to all just interpretation of the chapter and to all scripture, as it is to all sound reasoning. It can only be accounted for by the darkening influence of error, a πρῶτον ψεῦδος.
Everyone must be manifested before Christ's Bema, saints and sinners at their respective and due times: the saints already glorified to give account and receive according to their deeds; sinners, as they have violated conscience, transgressed God's law, or rejected His gospel, to come into judgment, whence none of them can be saved, for they have not life. Hence here it is said (ver. 12) that “the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works.” If so, it was and could only be everlasting ruin, as inspired David expresses it (Psa. 143:2); and so in the N. T. judgment is contrasted both with life (John 5:24-29) and with salvation (Heb. 9:27-28).
Yet my excellent friend Dr. B., after citing the affecting repetition in verse 13 (“and they were judged every man according to their works”), appeals to “the almost identical language of the Gospels and Epistles already quoted,” which do not treat the judgment of the righteous and wicked as one whole. He asks, Are we to believe that Life's book was opened for no other purpose than to show that not one of those then raised and then judged was to be found in it? The answer is, that the text expressly declares that the dead, not some but all, οἱ υεκροὶ, were not merely “made manifest” as all saints are to be, but “judged” also, as no believer is or can be, if we accept the words of our Lord, “out of the things that were written in the books.” This is inevitable perdition, as every believer saved by grace through the faith of Christ ought to know.
For what then was or could that “other book” be opened, save to make plain that if God's wrath, long revealed and despised, must take its course righteously, God's sovereignty was neither disappointed nor conflicting? The names of the condemned were not there. Therefore it is not “baldly,” but with awful emphasis, added, “And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.” Not a hint of one who was found written there. The book of life tallied perfectly with the books of deeds. Their works called for God's final punishment; to grace they had been indifferent or actively opposed. I regret that a dear Christian should count it “bald” to believe the divine expression of a most weighty truth—the consistency of sovereign grace with everlasting judgment. And the folly of traditional theology is the more evident; for if the righteous were “nakedly expressed” here or anywhere as sharing the judgment with the wicked, it would contradict the Ο. Τ. as well as the New, the Lord no less than the apostle. The error strikes not only at “the most mysterious book of the N. T.,” but at fundamental revelation in general. To say that the believer comes into judgment is at issue with the truth of the gospel itself, and is the mere fruit of reasoning from the assumptions of the natural mind.
It is not true, then, that “the one answer to all this” (p. 101) is the “first resurrection,” though it be irreconcilable with the anti-scriptural dream of a last simultaneous judgment of all. For we have seen thus far that there is not an atom of truth in one argument alleged. Now Dr. B, betakes himself to another venerable and widespread error, that “the persons raised in this first resurrection are the martyrs exclusively” (p. 102). Two classes, he says correctly enough, are here very definitely specified; but how come he and his friends to overlook the general description which precedes, leaving room for all saints beyond those martyrs? “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them,” —exactly fulfilling what the apostle brought before the unspiritual and forgetful Corinthians (1 Coρ 6). Does not Dr. B. know that the saints (not the martyrs exclusively) shall judge the world? Here is the vision of its accomplishment.
We know from 1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4; 2 Thess. 2:1, and many other scriptures, that the saints at large, of O. T. and N. T. alike, are to meet the Lord at His coming, and to be with Him in the Father's house on high. This the Revelation, as being characteristically a judicial book, does not describe on any scheme whatever; but it does disclose the glorified saints above ere this, notably the marriage of the Lamb come and His wife (the church assuredly) as having made herself ready in chap. 19. Others are there entering into the joy of heaven, not in that most intimate relation, yet blessed indeed—they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb (ver. 9), not the bride but the guests. It is not faith nor wisdom to slight, or confound, these distinctions of God's word. And it is but a shuffle to evade them under the pretense that it is a question only of interpretation. Not so. The text is plain, too plain for prejudice; and therefore it must be explained away by misusing Rev 21:2. The bride is not invited to her own wedding; nor are those invited to it the bride. So in Heb. 12:22-24 (where the different objects are marked by καὶ, “and,” but neglected in both the Authorized and the Revised Versions), “the church of the first-born,” who are enrolled in heaven, are clearly distinguished from the “spirits of just men made perfect.” It is a false system which merges all saints in one throng; and if the O.T. saints are thus distinguished from the assembly of first-born ones, how much more the saints in the wholly changed conditions of the age to come! Not seeing this, and bent on denying it, Dr. B. (in his S. A. p. 84) has been betrayed into the stupendous blunder that Heb. 11:40 (“God having provided some better thing concerning us [of the N. T.], that apart from us they [the Ο. Τ. saints] should not be made perfect,") means “They without as could not be made perfect, that is, without Christ and the Spirit! whose proper economy ours certainly is.” Such is the result of his desperate effort to escape the plain distinction drawn by inspiration between the saints of the Ο. Τ. and those of the New.
Now both compose the general mass of saints, which our brethren overlook, as seen by St. John already occupying thrones in Rev. 20:4, as before seen following Christ out of heaven in Rev. 19:11-14. Compare also Rev. 19:14. When Daniel (Dan. 7:9) beheld the thrones, not “cast down,” but “set up,” he speaks of no sitter but one, the Ancient of days; when John saw thrones, they were filled by sitters on them, and judgment was given to them. The phrase is purposely general, the better to comprise the undefined body of changed saints just issued out of heaven with Christ in order to reign with Him. But as not a few had suffered unto death in the earlier and later persecutions described in the Apocalypse (chaps. 6: 9-11, 13:7, 15), these, who had been slain subsequently to the rest and were not yet raised, are carefully specified as now alive from the dead, both classes of them, to join the general group already enthroned. No doubt this goes far to put out of court the historicalist notion of the Pagan and the Papal periods; but this is a secondary question of application which may be left to the speculative. Our business now is the true exposition of the text before us; and there is no intelligible ground in its plain terms for doubting that there is first, in the opening clause of verse 4, the general body of those who have part in the first resurrection; then the earlier class of Apocalyptic martyrs; and lastly the later company, for which the earlier were to wait. The last sufferers having been killed even as those before, the two specified classes are now raised in time to join the great bulk of the glorified who had already been seen on the thrones, so that they all might reign with Christ a thousand years. Who can fail to see that this is the clear and sure meaning when attention is once fairly drawn to the passage? It was unnecessary to define who filled the thrones (p. 146); for it could not but be the saints answering to the bride and the guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb, who had followed Him out of heaven for His judgment and reign over the earth.
These form the first and general class; to which both groups of Apocalyptic sufferers were added when raised, as the prophet was given to see. Dr. B. at least expressly admits the two “very definitely specified” classes of martyrs, though he, like many others, has not taken account of the already enthroned saints. It is idle to dispute that the verse reveals the general body, with two classes added of special interest in the Apocalypse. It is negligence or prejudice which accounts for the strange oversight of the general clause. What does it matter if the Fathers saw not the wood of that clause in their hasty pre-occupation with the trees in the subjoined clauses? What avails parading moderns, whose exegesis was not “strict,” but really fanciful in the extreme, or vague and lifeless? There the word of God stands, the test of all interpretation. Disprove what is here given, if mistaken. Let objectors give the exact sense without ignoring its most important introduction.
Dr. E. is right, Dr. B. quite wrong, as to Rev. 20:4-6, which, only if taken literally, corresponds with Rev. 1:6; Rev. 2:10, 11, 26 & 27; Rev. 3:21; Rev. 5:10; as it is the sole adequate recompence for such suffering as we see in Rev. 6:9-11, &c. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him;” not His “cause” merely having the upper hand in other persons without Him, but ourselves reigning gloriously with Him.
And here let us observe how unjust is the slight put on the Revelation, as not having equal authority with other books of scripture. Is it to be justly blamed because its expositors have so differed one from another? There can be no sliding scale among inspired writings. If it be, as the apostle John declares, what the Lord Jesus gave him from God, woe be to the man who contemns it in comparison with other books. As with St. Paul's letters, there are things in the Apocalypse hard to be understood; but the amount is excessively overrated. The first five chapters are as plain as most parts of the N. T. So are chaps. 7, 10, and even 12-15; chaps. 17-22 are so for the most part. Only chaps. 6, 8, 9, 11, 16, present serious difficulty in some respects; yet even in these will be found unquestionably edifying matter for souls.
In fact, then, Rev. 20:4 is a comprehensive sketch of the saints risen to reign with Christ. Its peculiarity is, not only that it defines the duration of that reign over the earth before “the end,” but that it specifies two added classes of sufferers slain in the crisis which precedes the day of the Lord. Without this vision it could be but dimly seen how those specified would fare; though one might be sure on first principles that all must be well with them. For they were not put to death till after those symbolized by the twenty-four crowned elders were in heavenly glory; and their slaughter did not cease while the Beast and the False Prophet lived to kill them. Thus they did not survive to enjoy the blessings of Christ's reign over the earth. But by dying for His sake, even so late, they gained immensely, instead of losing; for they too, as the vision declares, live and reign with Christ, no less than all that were His raised previously and already seated on thrones. To gainsay this, and on the score of “legitimate principles of interpretation” (pp. 108, 109), where the main entry is omitted, and only the two added items are taken into reckoning, is carelessness and self-deception as gross, at least, as if one, in describing the British Empire; dwelt only on Scotland and Ireland, and forgot there was such a part of it as England and Wales.
It is well-known that the post-apostolic Fathers till Origen were millenarians. The remains of some, and the writings of others, bear ample testimony to the early and prevalent conviction of a literal resurrection of the saints, and their reign with Christ for a thousand years. But these ante-Nicene views were but partially true at best, to say nothing of Talmudical reveries that crept in here or there. They looked for a reign and living of the glorified on the earth. They never rose to the height of God's purpose for Christ's glory in the universe. They entered not into the N. T. light in 1 Cor. 15, Eph. 1, and Heb. 2, cast on Psa. 8: the risen Son of man at the head of all creation, not Palestine only nor yet the earth, but “all things that are in the heavens and on the earth;” and the saints till then changed into His glorious likeness at His coming, and associated with Him, the heavenly bride of the Bridegroom. Like their adversaries that followed, they mixed up the hope with the prophetic word; so that dreaded times or expected seasons intercepted the heart's waiting for Christ, and lowered their eyes from heaven to earth.
Then the ruin of the church's testimony grew apace. Origen spread widely his allegorizing system, Dionysius of Alexandria his dialectic, Eusebius of Caesarea his flattery of the powers that then were. At length the influence of Augustine established all but universally in Christendom the so-called spiritual theory, that the first resurrection means regeneration in virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, and that the baptized, if at least God's elect, are reigning with Christ ever since He ascended to heaven!! This truly “wild” interpretation not only prevailed before the Reformation, but keeps its ground since among Romanists, as among many of the Protestants who still hold it, save where the yet lower ecclesiastical theory of Grotius proved acceptable, till the Arian Dr. Whitby broached, early in the eighteenth century, his discovery—to spread like wild fire—of a future reign of Christ's cause on earth, gradually brought about by divine blessing on Christian agencies, but helped on by providential dealings also.
Of the Whitbyite hypothesis Vitringa, though striving to trace a foreign source, was the learned advocate, as Dr. B. is the chief popularizer and warm special pleader in our day. More plausible in one respect than the Augustinian fancy, it undermines and supplants the revealed hope even more fatally, falls in readily with the delusion of human progress, and thus corrupts the faith with an expectation essentially worldly and carnal. In particular, the Grotian idea of an ecclesiastical reign since Constantine left men free to conceive, as did the late Bp. Waldegrave and many other brethren, that the millennium is past, and the little space ebbing out; so that they could look for Christ's coming without one revealed event between. For all these speculators had alike fallen into the error of identifying His advent with “the end” or the judgment of the Great White Throne. So men like the admirable S. Rutherford or Bp. Hall might be dark indeed as to prophecy; but the hope for them was not so paralyzed, as it became half a century or more afterward by Whitbyism, which suits perfectly the unbounded self-confidence of the revolutionary liberal movement, the characteristic of the last hundred years. Scripture, on the contrary, assures of declension and apostasy, the mystery of lawlessness, and the lawless one revealed, whom the Lord Jesus destroys at His appearing—the distinct reversal of the Whitbyite expectation, which glorifies present instrumentalities and robs Christ personally of His honor, as it leaves Satan in possession, however reduced.
Take a sample or two of its effects manifest in the essays before us, as everywhere else in this school. They all object to what is said to be revealed but once: an irreverent unbelieving notion worthy of all detestation as applied to God's word, nay, unworthy even of honorable men. “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater,” says the beloved. disciple. “Know ye not,” says the Apostle Paul, “that we shall judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:3.) Now this follows the question in ver. 2, “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” —the same truth, which reappears explicitly in Rev. 20:4-6, as it had with less detail appeared in Dan. 7:18. But if it had been true that the reign of the saints with Christ had been revealed only once, is our judging angels the less credible or important, because we here have it in this single passage Christ's surrender of the kingdom to the Father is notified only in 1 Cor. 15:24. Is it therefore of dubious import or of insignificant value? Is it not a truth of the utmost consequence, because it draws the line (un-divulged in the O. T.) between the millennial reign and eternity? Without it one could not decide, as Prof. Beet and Principal Brown do not yet, the just force of the O. T. prophecies in general, and of not a few in the N. T. Hence it is idle on this ground to object to the stoppage of Satan's temptations for a thousand years, or to the revolt he stirs up in the little space that follows. Their argument at bottom is blind unbelief, sure only to err, and lead astray all who lean on that broken reed of Egypt.
Again, it is argued in this hazy system that the beginning of the millennium may be as uncertain as the starting-point of the seventy weeks. Now where is the analogy? On the one hand it is a question mainly between the seventh or the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and two commandments not a little resembling. On the other hand, the most tremendous judgments will fall first on the western powers in confederation with the Jews and their king, followed by the destruction of the eastern under their great northern chief, with carnage beyond example in both cases: events which close this age, and open the age to come, or millennial reign. Is it wise to set the easily understood vagueness of one ancient imperial mandate, out of two not unlike, against a crisis of unexampled solemnity and horror, to say nothing of Christ's appearing, or of the universal peace and blessing that ensues without an enemy or an evil occurrent? The effort to find gradual and successive steps in Dan. 2:44; 7:26, and 2 Thess. 2:8 is unworthy of sound philology, and contradicts the plain objects of the three texts, which describe nothing else or less than a sudden and complete extinction. Consuming in a slow sort and by evangelical means is precluded by the least approach to exact criticism as well as by a spiritual judgment.
But it is pleaded that the Whitbyite view is strengthened by the frank concession that the thing seen in the vision of Rev. 20:4 was a literal resurrection (pp. 109-111); and that Rev. 11:3-12, as well as Ezek. 37, &c., help the figurative force (pp. 112-115). I must reject Dr. B.'s historical application of the Two Witnesses as the full adequate sense for the crisis when every word is to be fulfilled. Probably Prof. B. and Dr. E. accept it no more than I do. Then the prodigal son in Luke was dead spiritually, and so made alive. Dr. B. himself admits that this is not the force of our text. So again in Rom. 11, If Israel's casting away be the world's reconciliation, what shall be their reception but life from the dead? Resurrection is the figure, not the explanation as in Rev. 20. Further, Dr. B. admits the reference to Rev. 6:9-11, where undeniably literal death is meant. How then can he escape the inevitable conclusion that here those literally slain are literally raised to life? Surely in all this argument logic and exegesis are equally at fault.
As the Two Witnesses are too questionable to afford a sure test, let us try the Jewish prophecy. Ezekiel was given to see a multitude of dry bones come together, acquiring flesh and sinew and breath, so that they stood on their feet an exceeding great army. This revival is the figure, of which the explanation follows, “These bones are the whole house of Israel,” who were to be placed in their own land (Ezek. 37:11-14). John saw thrones with persons seated on them; and then two classes of disembodied souls who had been slain for Christ, or in refusal of the beast, and were now caused to live that they too might reign with Christ. This is the Apocalyptic vision, of which the explanation is, “This is the first resurrection” (Rev. 20:5). Plainly therefore, in all accuracy of exegesis, the cases are in contrast; for in the Jewish prophet resurrection is the vision, in the Christian prophet resurrection is the declared meaning of the vision. Figures are in no way denied, nor yet symbols. The question is as to the meaning of the vision here, and the revealed answer is, This is the first resurrection.
The context demands the literal sense. Dr. E. confesses it here. Dr. B. resists it in vers. 4-6, while a little lower (vers. 12, 13) he cannot but allow it. Is this spiritual? or reasonable? or consistent? In the same short context two resurrections are predicted, with nothing but blessedness affixed to the first, with nothing but judgment and the lake of fire attached to the second. Yet, according to this shifty invention of Dr. Whitby (as poor a commentator as he was a contemptible critic, to say nothing of his fundamental heterodoxy), the first is to be figurative, the second beyond doubt literal notwithstanding the design and character of this ambiguous and debateable book! Such principles of criticism, such exegetical practice, who can consider but as illegitimate in the extreme? For surely in two visions of the same context, successively balanced against each other with the respective key-words, This is the first resurrection, and, This is the second death, they should be, in all consistency, either both literal or both figurative. As even the allegorist is obliged to admit that the second is literal, we insist that so ought to be the first: else the chapter is not fairly dealt with. No book could be intelligibly interpreted on a plan so arbitrary. It is not the book which is censurable, but its interpreters, of whom the Whitby school is perhaps the lowest.
To obviate the pressure Dr. B. asks for the literal sense of ver. 5, “The rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years should be finished.” But, instead of waiting for an answer from a neighbor capable of searching him, he insinuates a reply which simply proves his own bewilderment: “Is it a set of men rising literally from the dead? Why, in the place of this, we find them to be a cloud of mortal men in the flesh, enemies of Christ and His cause,” &c. (p. 115). Now the true answer is, that the prophet saw that the rest of the dead did live, and that the most incredulous of believers admit that so it is, in vers. 12, 13. The insurrection of vers. 7-10 is never called a resurrection. In vain is it objected that there was “a little time” more in the account. For the “till” in no way negatives an added space after the thousand years; it denies the rising of the rest of the dead before that. The attempt to substitute the insurrection of Gog and Magog for the resurrection which the prophet only saw afterward (the sole possible reference that is not fraudulent), is a too evident diversion to prop up the tottering mythical interpretation of vers. 4-6. This may be truly designated as “distortion” wholesale (p. 116); whereas not a word is distorted in either vision, when both are interpreted literally. The one is a resurrection of life, as the other is of judgment; and thus the Revelation perfectly harmonizes with the Gospel of John. If we believe the Lord in both, a “catholic” or simultaneous resurrection is a mere figment, which scripture discountenances and dispels.
Dr. B. does not put forward here, but he does strongly maintain, in a useful book devoted to it, the restoration of the Jews, once more and forever blessed nationally in the Holy Land. His error is in assuming that it will be under the gospel, instead of for the kingdom in the new age. For it is a matter of apostolic doctrine, with which the O. T. of course agrees, that “as touching the gospel they (the Jews) are enemies for our (Gentiles') sake; but as touching the election they are beloved for the fathers' sake” (Rom. 11:28). They stumbled at the Stumbling-stone—a humbled, rejected, suffering, and crucified Messiah. Therefore are they, scorning the gospel, themselves rejected. During their eclipse Gentiles are called by the gospel, and the believers (Jew or Gentile) are united to Christ the heavenly Head by the Holy Spirit sent down. When this new dealing of God is complete (wherein Jewish and Gentile distinctions vanish, and Christ is all), and we go to meet Christ in the air, divine mercy begins afresh to work in Israel, fitting them to be His earthly people, the leader of the nations under the Lord's reign. Thus are God's gifts and calling shown to be unrepented of. Now blindness in part has befallen Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. By-and-by all Israel shall be saved, but this only when there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, Who shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. It is the kingdom, not the gospel as now.
It is deeply interesting to compare in Rom. 3 the quotations of Psa. 53, and of Isa. 59, not only with the connection in these chapters, but with the citation of Isa. 59 in Rom. 11. Nor does it bear slightly on the question before us. It proves a total change between God's ways under the gospel as now, and under Messiah at His coming again.
In Rom. 3 the apostle quotes the psalm and the prophet to prove the Jew shut up under sin, no less than the Gentile about whom the Jew at least had no doubt. But, says the apostle, the law, of which you boast as yours only, speaks of you Jews, and condemns you explicitly and utterly; so those two witnesses (which might have been multiplied) conclusively declare it, “that every mouth may be stopped and all the world be under God's judgment.” What follows meanwhile? The gospel of God's grace, whilst Christ is away, glorified in heaven, consequent on His death on the cross. This accordingly is pursued, instead of the conclusion of the psalm, or of the prophecy; which say not a word about the grace which now flows out without respect of persons to Jew and Gentle. They point only to the future when the salvation of Israel is to come out of Zion, God bringing back the captivity of His people, and the Redeemer Himself coming to Zion. The apostle in Rom. 3, says nothing of Israel's hope, because this is not the gospel; it dwells only on the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, Whom God set forth a propitiatory or mercy-seat through faith in His blood.
But in Rom. 11 he is proving that the present rejection of the Jew, which makes room for the indiscriminate grace of the gospel, is not to last always. For the Gentile, if he continue not in God's goodness, will surely be cut off; as the ancient people, if they continue not in their unbelief, will as surely be grafted in. And this he proceeds to show as a prediction from the same Isa. 59 All Israel (not Jews only) shall be saved. But it is, on the one hand, when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in; and on the other, when there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer: two facts most momentous, which indicate the present age at an end, and the new one come. It will be the kingdom when Israel are to be saved; as it is the gospel which gathers out the Gentiles in a mercy which ignores the national and peculiar privileges of Israel. God's covenant to take away Israel's sins only takes effect when Christ, comes to and out of Zion.
Dr. B.'s contention is really with the Apostle Paul. Is not this an immense change in God's methods? A heavenly people cannot consist with an earthly one, both owned here below at the same time. The national restoration of Israel is incompatible concurrently with the indiscriminate grace of the gospel which blots out all natural differences in those who compose Christ's body for heaven. The coming of Christ closes the heavenly purpose, and introduces in due time the earthly plans of God, Christ being the center of both. The Father's name is developed in the former, as in the latter the name of Jehovah, the Almighty God; the Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth. These blessed counsels and ways. of God in Christ for His glory are blurred or effaced by the post-millennial scheme.
Of the appeal to missionary feeling in pp. 116-120, and the closing words, little more is needed, as it has been sufficiently met already. It is sweet to find in a single verse of Rev. 22 the adequate safeguard. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come: he that will, let him take life's water freely.” Here we have the heavenly hope absolutely apart from, and thus unfettered by, the visions of coming judgments, providential or personal. St. John at the close is as fresh in living hope, as Paul at the beginning. They at least were God-informed followers of Christ, if the Thessalonians were alarmed by the false cry that the day of the Lord—in some figurative sense probably—was come. There is no mistake in any part of scripture. The Lord bade His servants stand, as it were, behind the door, that when He came and knocked, they might open to Him immediately. Watching for Him is higher and nearer His heart than working, though blessed are both; and best of all, when watching for Christ imprints ever a heavenly character on serving Him.
It was no question of less or better informed followers. The church was to say, Come; ay, and not the church only (for even she might, and did, err), but “the Spirit and the bride say, Come.” It was the body of Christ, warranted, guided, and sustained, at the last point to which revelation leads us. The enemy would strive to divert them from the constant waiting for Christ's presence; he might seek to shake by dread of the day, or by the great tribulation; or he might seek to interpose the improvement of the world or a millennium of Christ's cause. But no! “The Spirit and the bride say, Come.” And so was the individual to say who had only heard Christ's voice, ill-informed perhaps about prophecy, the church, or aught else. Still this is the individual hope too: “He that heareth, let him say, Come.”
Then do we find the other side. Our first and best affections are, and ought to be, for Christ our hope. But Christ gives us while waiting for Him to share divine love toward perishing souls; and therefore we can turn round to a lost world and take up the good news, “He that is athirst, let him come:” yea, more, “He that will, let him take life's water freely.” This is the gospel in all its free grace, and in its due place; but it is subordinate to Christ and the hope of Christ, if indeed we are subject to God's word.
(Concluded from page 173.)