28. 5. FUTURE EVENTS: THE DIFFERENT ADVENTS

nation (Matt. ii. 1). He "came unto" Jerusalem six days before His crucifixion (Matt. xxi. 1-10).

Had the Jews carefully read and received these words of God as they were known and understood by many at the time (Matt. ii. 4-6) they would not have stumbled at His birth in humiliation.

All the events connected with those thirty-three years we speak of as having taken place at His first coming.

In like manner, all the events that will take place between Christ's "coming forth" into the air and His "coming unto" Jerusalem in the Day of the Lord go to make up what we speak of as His second coming.

But those events are all perfectly distinct, and are to be rightly divided off the one from the other, and are not to be confused or confounded.

All the events which will occur between the coming forth or the Descension of the Lord into the air, for our "gathering together unto Him" there, and His coming unto the earth, in power and great glory to execute judgment, must be rightly divided in order to be rightly understood.

We cannot, of course, speak positively as to the exact duration of that interval between the "coming forth" and the "coming unto."

Those who do not divide the Word at all make no interval, but jumble all the Scriptures up in confusion.

Others, who do make some attempt to divide it, make the mistake, we believe, of limiting that interval to "seven years," as being the "last week of Daniel."

True, there is such a period of "seven years" (Dan. ix. 27): but there is no need thus to limit that interval. They may be the last seven of a larger number of years: for many events have to take place and many things have to be done during that interval.

Moreover, there is the συντέλεα (sunteleia), the consummation of the ages; and there is the τέλος (telos), the crisis or end of the age.

If the whole sunteleia should be forty years, and the telos should be the last seven years, then we should

For the former see Matt. xiii. 39, 40, 49; xxiv. 3; and for the latter compare Matt. xxiv. 6, 13, 14.

L 2 have both periods of the thirty-three years and the seven years.

(b) The Resurrections.—Several resurrections are spoken of in the New Testament.

These have all to be rightly divided if we would learn the truth of the Word.

Like the Coming of Christ, Resurrection was always the hope of God's people.¹

And this Resurrection was twofold, and its hope consisted of a first resurrection as distinct from a second.² These were distinguished as that of the "just" and "unjust" (Acts xxiv. 15), "life" and "condemnation" (John v. 29).

And they were distinguished also as to the times at which they shall take place.

Both are connected with the Advent: the one being immediately before the thousand years, and the other at the end of the thousand years (Rev. xx. 4–6, 13).

These are referred to by our Lord: and the times and their order are very definitely stated in 1 Cor. xv. 20–28.

Christ the firstfruits already raised.

Then there will be those who will be raised in their own ranks, or order: "they that are Christ's" at "the first resurrection" of Rev. xx. 5, 6.

Then there will come "the end" or last rank, at the end of the thousand years (1 Cor. xv. 23, 24); when, after the judgment of the great white throne, Christ will deliver up the kingdom to the Father.

But in 1 Thess. iv. we have a special revelation as to another resurrection at the time of the Rapture. We must not confuse it with the "first" and "second" Resurrections of Rev. xx. These are both connected with the Advent, the one, as we have seen, immediately before the thousand years, and the other immediately after. Both were the subject of Old Testament prophecy; while the Resurrection of 1 Thess. iv. 16 was a secret, then, for

¹ Job xix. 26. Ps. xvi. 10; xlix. 15. Isa. xxvi. 19. Dan. xii. 2. Hos. xiii. 14. It was announced at the Bush (Exod. iii. 6), where Christ says God spake "touching the resurrection of the dead" (Matt. xxii. 31, 32), "for God is not the God of the dead but of the living." Therefore (the argument is), Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob must rise again. This was their hope (Heb. xi. 8–16).

² See Ps. xlix. 15. Dan. xii. 2.