01.000. Introduction
FIRSTFRUITS AND HARVEST
A Study in Resurrection and Rapture
BY G. H. LANG
Second Edition Of The Author
“Wretford,” Oakley Road, Wimborne,
Dorset
1946 FIRSTFRUITS AND HARVEST A Study in Resurrection and Rapture
INTRODUCTION.
“We must not adhere to those systems of doctrine that never can bear an infringement of a view that is held popularly. For instance, perhaps we have all been brought up in the notion that all the children of God, in all ages, compose the church of God. Now it will be found on closer research that this is not supported by the Word of God.” *(William Kelly, Occasional Lectures, vii, 19.)
[* We must learn to distinguish between the “Church” and “the Church of the Firstborn”. All regenerate believers are incorporated (through faith in Christ) into ‘the Church,’ – it composes of all the saved of all ages, Old Testament saints as well as New, (Acts 7:38): but not all (regenerate believers), thought initially given opportunity during this life to ‘attain’ (or ‘gain by effort’) firstborn status (Genesis 25:32), will make it into ‘the Church of the Firstborn.’ (Hebrews 12:23; Genesis 25:32, Genesis 25:34). The latter are selected out from the former, and ‘accounted worthy’ (by the Lord) to receive firstborn status and blessings. That is, they will obtain a double inheritance: (1) they inherit ‘eternal life’ through faith – “the free gift of God,” (Romans 6:23, R.V.); and (2) ‘a just recompense of reward’ for their faithfulness and fidelity - an inheritance in Christ’s Millennial Kingdom in the “Age” to come (Luke 20:35; Matthew 5:20). – Ed.] The world system that occupies the earth is aged and decrepit. Like some vast, worn‑out machine it creaks and groans as at the breaking‑point. The age is as weary as wicked, and the only solid comfort is that its consummation seems to be nearing. The death‑throes of this vast body corporate will be desperate and painful; yet they will be also the birth‑throes of a better age. The chief need of the world is competent government. Even the best disposed and ablest rulers prove signally unequal to relieving the woes of the nations, but for this urgent need the mercy of God has made full provision. He has in readiness a perfect Sovereign for heaven and earth, His own Son, Jesus Christ the Lord, and His coming to earth to assume the government is a chief theme of the Word of God. (Psalms 96:9-11, Psalms 97:1 : etc.)* [* Quotations are usually from the Revised Version.] In this expectation the apostles of Christ as devout Jews were trained; but their Lord when about to leave them intimated that there were circumstances connected with that expectation which yet awaited disclosure, and that the Spirit [page 8 - Christ’s Germinal Teachings] of God, Who had visited and inspired the prophets, should come to them also, to abide with them, and to guide them into all the truth, and to disclose unto them those things to come (John 16:13).
One of these yet undisclosed particulars Christ had just hinted in the words of John 14:2-3 : “In my Father’s house are many abiding places; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” This intimation was probably as yet obscure to the apostles, It suggested:1. That for them the Lord had in mind an abode away from the earth in the heavenly regions; 2. That that place was not yet ready, but that He was about to go thither and prepare it for their use; 3. That He would come again from heaven; 4. That at His coming He would take them away from the earth to that prepared region; 5. That this was in order that they might be in His company in His heavenly abode.
Here then is the introduction of the subject of the removal of some of mankind from the earth to dwell in the heavens. In his Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (24), Bernard has well said, and shown, “that there is no part of the later and larger doctrine [of the New Testament] which has not its germs and principles in the words which Christ spake with His own lips in the days of His flesh. It is provided that all which is to be spoken after shall find support and proof from His own pregnant and forecasting sayings.” This is a fact, and it is of the first importance for a right interpreting of the New Testament. The four Gospels open the truths expanded in the epistles; the latter must be construed with the former and cannot be rightly explained in separation from them. The doctrine of the rapture is an instance. It is rooted in this germinal saying of our Lord, even as that of the first resurrection is rooted in His words in Luke 20:34-36 : “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage: but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that age [the age to follow this age, the age of the kingdom], and the resurrection which is out from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage: for neither can they die any more [as those individuals raised [page 9 – “Going To Heaven] from the dead before that resurrection had done and could yet do]: for they are equal to angels; and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” The doctrine of the Rapture is thus rooted in this germinal saying of our Lord in John 14:2-3. The idea itself was not wholly new. Enoch and Elijah while living had been removed bodily from the earth to the heavenly world; but that a similar honour was open to themselves was probably a new idea to the apostles; nor did Christ here make clear whether the subjects of this favour would be found living at the moment or be raised from the dead. These and other particulars were afterwards revealed by the Spirit, and our present purpose is to set forth briefly some main elements of the New Testament teaching upon this theme.