[Page numbers referred to are not the second edition (1904).]
A book which professes to examine another is sufficiently definite in its object not to need much preface. I shall add, therefore, but few words. My judgment distinctly is, that the whole system maintained in the "Thoughts" is untenable and worthless as a system. I do not expect to persuade everybody of this, nor that everybody will be sufficiently willing to be persuaded to read the examination. But such is the testimony I fed bound to give about it.
The reader will be surprised to learn that since the year 1833 or 1834 I have been inclined to believe in the renewed existence of Babylon. Nay, I believe, though this is of very little importance, that I was the first person who thought so. The result, however, of the examination to which I have been led by my present occupation, has left me much more doubtful of it than before. But however this may be, I judge the use made of it here to be wholly without foundation, and most mischievous -- the more mischievous because of the plausibility of some points at first sight. The reader, with the Spirit's help, will judge when he has read. That which I think evil in the book, and of which I am the more convinced by all the discussion there has been, is the setting aside the proper standing, position, and blessing of the church of God. Of this, after the fullest examination, I have not the least doubt. It is possible the author of the "Thoughts" may be quite unconscious of it; but the saints of God are to be thought of in such a case; and therefore the teaching fully judged.
As to the mass of statements, and that of the most extraordinary kind, with which the "Thoughts" abound, without any scripture to warrant them, the "Examination" itself must satisfy the reader.
I will add here in a few words, because it will assist in judging the whole system, that, on a comparison with Matthew 13, the author's system subverts itself. There the wheat is taken up in the end of the then existing age -- "this age." According to Mr. Newton's system, the moment Christ rises up from the Father's throne the new age begins and this dispensation ends It is therefore clear that the wheat is caught up before Christ rises from the throne at all to receive them. But this no one can believe. The whole system therefore is a fallacy. It is in vain to say that it closes in heaven and not on earth. First, it is giving up the whole principle of its closure by the act of Christ's rising up from the throne. Secondly, the whole principle of government in heaven and earth is changed at once on the author's system. Till Christ rises up, God is acting for Him; when He is risen up, He acts in His own immediate government. So that in heaven and earth at once, in an instant, the age and the nature of the government is changed. But, further, the distinction is wholly inapplicable here; because the first result is on earth, or in hades (the wheat being in one or other, though it be taken up to heaven). So that the distinction of its ending in heaven, not on earth, is a mere attempt to get out of the palpable confusion. The first act that takes place on Christ's rising is on earth: -- the wheat is changed and caught up. The system is confusion -- that is the truth. But a very important point is brought into relief by the discussion of this subject: -- the rapture of the church is in this age. The new age will not begin till after this is done. This Matthew 13 positively teaches.
In reprinting this "Examination," I have been comforted at the thought of the earnest opposition made to the views contained in the "Thoughts on the Apocalypse." After more than twenty years, when of course one can judge more coolly than in the warmth of controversy, my judgment of the evil of Mr. N.'s book is far more deep than it was then. And I am surprised that what I believe now to be the truth was so fully matured in my mind then. In some points my mind has naturally made progress. I accepted then, with all students of prophecy, the beast being Antichrist, which now I rather take the second beast to be. But the former being the Roman empire in general is justly insisted on. I have drawn attention to this question in the notes when needed. Further, it is to me more than doubtful that there are two half-weeks referred to in the Apocalypse. But this does not affect the general argument. The question is nothing less than, What is the Christian's place? Is it a heavenly one? And is there, as a distinctive thing, a church of God? In these days especially no question can be more important for Christians. I believe Mr. N.'s views to be antagonistic to all that is vital in this respect.
I do not as yet make any general remarks as to the system contained in the book here examined. It is a very elaborate one, and extends to many points. It is not stated connectedly in the book itself, though every occasion is seized to make good all that appears to sustain it, and undermine all that may have been advanced by any one elsewhere that might overthrow it. But I have felt that the best thing to do was, not to give my judgment on the system, but first to examine the statements here made, which are used to support it, and to enquire how far they are borne out by Scripture consistently with it, or with each other. Various circumstances, and above all my own occupations, induce me to do it in parts, of which this first will be proportionably by far the longest, on account of the many important general topics which the introductory chapters suggested. It will be really an "Examination of the Thoughts," etc., etc. It will be seen that, even when there are contradictions which I have shewn to exist, I have done no more than state them; I have not reasoned as a controversialist thereupon; I leave that to the reader. He will judge the contradiction itself, and its bearing on a system maintained with so much condemnation of everything else. I do not expect that partisans of that system will be content with my statements, or convinced by them: but I do believe that many unprejudiced brethren will be enabled to judge a great many of the assertions made, which they have not the leisure to examine (perhaps not the habit of examining), as they are examined here. In the long run, under the Lord's mercy, the sentiments of such persons have their weight, and it is such that it is really of value to convince, and to whom investigation is due. Their minds, at any rate, arrested by what maybe said, will be free to examine the whole for themselves.
"The Revelation treats mainly of the present dispensation."
The subjects involved in this book are quite as serious as those of which it directly treats: the true meaning of the heavenly calling; the earthly, or unearthly character of the church s position and associations; the true character and form of evil, against which we have to be on our guard; but above all, what the portion and calling of the church is. These are questions that give importance to its statements, and demand that their accuracy should be examined, and their proofs enquired into.
The title of this chapter is of importance. No explanation is given in the chapter itself of what is meant by the present dispensation; but from the previous chapter it seems very evident that it means the church, or, as there expressed, the church dispensation, or Christianity. (See page 8.) The statement in page 13, is merely the writer's view of what characterises the dispensation, the justice of which is exactly the point in question.+ This statement will come before us in its place. For the present I enquire merely what "the present dispensation" means: and, I repeat, it seems clear from the preceding chapter that it is "the church dispensation." The other expressions employed are, "the dispensation to which the New Testament belongs" -- a very ambiguous expression, but one which is meant, I apprehend, to convey a good deal more to the reader than he is aware of at the time he adopts it, and to involve him in most important conclusions before he is aware of what they are. The third expression is "the present period." These, taken together, clearly designate the present church dispensation, of which we form part as Christians. I am thus particular, because, with the very great pretensions to accuracy which this book sets up, it behoves us to know of what we are treating, especially as at bottom much turns on the question contained in this chapter, which the writer has thus very naturally put as a sort of frontispiece to the whole book.
+By means of the vague expression "the present dispensation," and calling it "the church dispensation," in the previous chapter, and giving it the limits and character which are found in page 13, the church, and the kingdom, and the period of government itself, closed by Christ's coming to earth, are identified without any argument, and the reader is involved in the conclusion before it is stated. Hence the need of unravelling these points. This is really the whole point in question: whether the scripture does identify these things. But here they are identified by expressions adapted to the popular state of thought, and the mind shut up in the conclusion, before it is aware of what it is. I believe this identification of the church and the kingdom to be of the very worst moral effect to the saint.
It may be remarked that the writer defines very distinctly his idea of the limits and character of the two dispensations which he has in his mind;+ "that in which Christ is seated at the right hand of God, secretly exercising the power of God's throne"; and, "that in which He will come forth in the exercise of the power of His own peculiar kingdom." The first of these two is to him identical with "the church dispensation."
I must beg the reader's pardon, if I often take notice of statements which appear to me inaccurate, even when they are not very important, because in the questions to which these statements have given rise accuracy of statement and the maintenance of the integrity of scripture are much relied on -- we shall see, as we proceed, whether on good ground.
We are told that when the Lord Jesus returned to the Father, "Jehovah said unto him, Sit thou at my right hand, until I shall have set thy foes a footstool for thy feet." Here we have the ordinary translation changed, without, as it seems to me, any reason;++ but from the way the verse is introduced here, and the importance attached to it, with some object or other, though neither the reasons for the change, nor the interpretation in view, which give it importance, are stated.
+We have here, again, an absolute abstract statement which may be true, or may be false; but which, if once admitted, decides by the statement itself the whole question, without anyone's being aware of it. It supposes that the whole period in question is divided into two parts -- the time during which Christ is seated at the right hand of God; and the time during which He will come forth in the exercise of the power of His own peculiar kingdom. Now, suppose there was an interval between these two. Supposing I were to speak of the time Napoleon was on the throne, and the time he was a prisoner at St. Helena, as all his history from the time he became emperor. All the time at Elba and all the hundred days would be left out. Now the statement made by the writer here supposes the whole period to be exclusively taken up by His being on the Father's throne or in the exercise of the power of His own peculiar kingdom. I repeat, it supposes it assumes that. Now that is exactly the point in question which has to be proved. If Christ rises up from His Father's throne and comes and receives the church to Himself, before He enters on the exercise of the power of His own peculiar kingdom -- then this statement is false as pretending to embrace the whole matter in this division of the period into these two parts. This is a very common sophism -- to involve the conclusion of the matter in question in the statement, before any proof is given.
++I have spoken thus moderately in the text, because it seems to me, that changing the translation without notice and without reasons given, and then building a great deal upon it, is itself a very objectionable proceeding. But I add here, that it seems to me that the translation given is a wrong one. I am not a good Hebraist -- far from it; but, as far as I have been able to examine the books and statements of those who are, I judge the Hebrew will not bear this. The English reader should be aware that there is no such tense in Hebrew as "shall have" It is an interpretation which must rest on the word translated "until;" having the force, as it has sometimes, of "while." But this supposes the verb used to have the force of some continuous action, until the termination of which the "while" lasts. Thus, "sit until I shall have prepared" means "while I am preparing." Hence the author has given the sense of "forming" and "preparing" to what is done with the footstool. But, I think I may say that the word translated "make" has no such meaning, and has not a continuous force. It signifies the act of setting something actually, or morally, in a certain position; and if so, the Hebrew would not even bear the sense attributed. Moreover, I think that when it is so used, it is habitually (I am disposed to believe, from all the passages I have been able to find and examine for myself, always) the perfect, and not the (present or) future that is used; sometimes, perhaps, the participle. I do not allude to negative phrases. Moreover, no translation, English or other, with which I am acquainted, so translates, or supposes such a translation of it -- neither Horsley, nor the Lyra Davidis, nor the new interlinear translation, nor the German, nor French, nor Gesenius; but on the contrary exclude it. In conclusion, I do not think the Hebrew could be justly translated so; at all events, I have no doubt it is a wrong translation. And, as every translation, critical or other, with which most of us are familiar, translates it as the English, it is surely an unwarrantable thing to impose a new one, and build up a system on it, without any reason given; and silently convert "make" into "preparing" or "forming," a sense which the Hebrew word, I think I may safely venture to say, will not possibly bear. The reader conversant with such things will find Gesenius (under the Hebrew word gad, 2) using the passage in the sense of present spiritual subjection, as those ignorant of the millennium do, a long column of reasoning connected with the assertion of its being the "term assigned to a period," and not the "period during which." The truth is, it rests in the nature of the act. "Have," "shall have," or "do" are immaterial if the act be one act which closes the period. "You shall stay in prison till you 'have,' or 'shall have,' paid, or 'till' you pay," is all the same thing in English. On the other hand, "you shall stay in the house 'till your wounds are healed,' or 'shall be healed,' or 'whilst they are healing,'" would be substantially the same thing; because the "till" here is the close of a continuous act, with whose close the period closes. Now I appeal to any one cognisant of Hebrew if sheeth has this force. At any rate, giving a changed translation, contrary to everyone commonly known, and building a vast system upon it, without the least proof that it is correct, is itself sufficient to render the whole suspected.
Still it is pretty clear that one object is to make it appear that Jehovah is acting meanwhile for Christ, and it is expressly stated that the fact is so ("it speaks of the power of the throne as acting in His behalf"). And when this is coupled with the fact, admitted on all hands, that Revelation up to chapter 19, does represent God acting for Christ before His appearing; and that Psalm 110 is stated to be characteristic of this dispensation, and the Revelation is declared to treat mainly of this dispensation -- I say, putting all these statements together, it is clear that the changed version is given with a view of presenting God in it as so acting for Christ during this dispensation, and characteristically of it. But then, so important an interpretation of the psalm ought to have been plainly stated and proved. That is, that what verse I of that psalm means is, that God was acting for Christ, in setting His foes to be His footstool during this dispensation, and that such acting was characteristic of this dispensation. This is what the statements amount to: for it is stated that this verse speaks of the power of the throne acting on Christ's behalf, and that it is characteristic of this dispensation. Now the only acting in the verse is setting foes for a footstool. Hence, the setting of foes for Christ's footstool by God the Father is what characterises all this dispensation; Psalm 110 is the acting of God all through to this effect, not His sovereign word and power putting them at a given time under Christ's feet for Him to subdue; and the Revelation treats mainly of this dispensation, because it speaks of God's so acting.
But I apprehend, if it had been fairly and plainly stated that this verse describes God's actually putting down the foes of Christ all through this dispensation, the church dispensation, such an interpretation would at once have been rejected by every intelligent Christian, who knows well that the foes of Christ only rise up more and more to a head of rebellion until God gives them up, when patience can no longer have any hope, to be trampled upon by Christ.
And this becomes the more important because, according to the author, instead of seeing Christ the royal man, exalted and hid there until a certain period, it is Christ Himself, as God, that thus exercises power -- "the power of the throne of God which He exercises."
And it is stated (page 15) that the book of Revelation "especially refers to the period during which Christ is hidden with God": and these things are spoken of as His present relation to, and as we have seen, exercise of power upon the nations, hidden in the throne. And yet we are told with strange inconsistency that, while (page 37) "our dispensation is still, as it then was, under the throne as it was then seen by John," yet (page 37) "the sixth chapter and all that follows [that is, all that is stated of God's actings in it] are altogether future, even at this present hour."
So that while we are introduced to the Revelation as treating mainly of the present dispensation, of a period during which Christ is sitting in God's throne according to Psalm 110, His present relation to the nations, not one word of the actings which are spoken of have taken place during the eighteen hundred years of the present dispensation. The Revelation treats of no part of the present dispensation which is yet fulfilled, though the things spoken of be distinctively characteristic of it; and that which thus distinctively characterises it is altogether future.
But after all, the truth is, the psalm does not speak of God's actings during this period, but of Christ's position, until God does set His foes to be His footstool; and this, though in very strange language -- language which just betrays the intellectual road travelled -- is admitted by Mr. N. himself.
Pages 12, 13: "The footstool has not yet been formed" -- consequently not set under Christ's feet, which is the only acting of the throne spoken of in the psalm; and the Revelation "treats of events which precede the mission of Christ, and the setting of the footstool." "It leads on" to that: that "forms the conclusion, not the subject, of the book." How then, since this is the only act of God spoken of in Psalm 110, can Psalm 110 be so distinctly characteristic of the dispensation of which the Revelation mainly treats? There is no characteristic of the present period so especially distinctive as this acting of Jehovah's throne spoken of in Psalm 110, and yet the Revelation, which treats of the present dispensation, of the present period, treats of events which precede this acting, which is not the subject of the book! For this setting of the footstool is the only acting of the throne spoken of in Psalm 110. The simple fact is, it was settled that the Revelation should apply to the present dispensation. It was settled that any statements declaring its applying to the government of the earth merely should not affect its application to "the church dispensation"; and therefore Psalm 110 is treated as God's actings on the throne while Christ was sitting there, and thus the Revelation and the psalm are brought in together, and the contradictions which affect the whole substance of the statements are left to be found out by those that have the patience to investigate the soundness of what is stated.
There is another and yet more important object in this translation which is not avowed neither. Christ's sitting till God shall have made His foes His footstool involves the church's remaining here till Antichrist be set to be the footstool of Christ's feet. If Christ's foes are to be made the footstool of Christ before He leaves the throne, and that He leaves God's throne before He receives up the church, it is clear that the church is not received up till His foes are made His footstool, and this by God's actings -- of course, effectual actings. This goes too far, indeed, for it would suppose Antichrist, for example, made by the actings of God's power the footstool of Christ before His rising up from the throne to receive the church.
This may go to prove the unsoundness of the whole system. But I only ask, Is it legitimate, in reasoning on Scripture, to give a translation which silently involves the whole principle which is attempted to be taught, without giving the least proof that the new translation is correct? I do not agree with the sense given to "setting." The contradictions in which it involves the writer have been shewn; but I take it on his own ground now.
The verse states no actings of God's power for Christ at all, much less Christ's own actings as God. He is called to sit on Jehovah's right hand till Jehovah set His enemies for His footstool. It is not secret providential actings which form the subject of the psalm, but ruling in the midst of His enemies, when Jehovah has placed them under His feet. It is receiving the rejected One there, and not acting while He is there, but telling Him to sit there till a given epoch when His enemies shall be put under Him, and He will act upon them. And this is so much the case, that, when the apostle comments on it, he states, not that God is acting, much less that Christ is acting as God, but that He is expecting till something be done (to wit, His enemies be made His footstool).
And indeed setting as a footstool supposes the placing them simply in a certain position under Him, and that He should exercise power over them -- not the prolonged actings of power in His behalf, for Him during a whole dispensation. During that time we have seen He was to sit till this particular act was done. And see the extraordinary statements into which the system of the writer throws him on this point.
"The footstool has not yet been formed."+ ... "But everything is tending thereunto. The preparation of the footstool is the end to which all the superintending power of the throne of God is directed." It is true, it may be said, that God hath made all things for Himself -- the wicked for the day of evil. But is all the superintending power of God's throne directed to the preparing of the wicked to be the footstool of Christ, to forming and preparing these enemies for His power to trample on? Is this the meaning of setting them for a footstool? That it is a regular preparation of this kind, which is meant in these statements, is clear; for it is said "as soon as it is prepared, Christ will quit the throne of the majesty in the heavens, and will return in glory." So that it is not the fact of placing them under His feet, to be judged as an act of authority, but of positive previous preparation of them for this position, in order that He may rise up, and come and take it. This verse is always interpreted in Scripture, not as the divine power in Jesus, but as His exaltation by God.
"Therefore," says Peter, commenting on this verse, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." And Christ puts it Himself as the puzzling question to the Jews who rejected Him, that David's Son was David's Lord, whom Jehovah called to sit on His throne. So, in Hebrews 1: 13, it is said, "unto which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?" And, as He is here addressed as one whom another was setting in a glorious place, so, in Hebrews 10: 13, He is presented as expecting till another does a certain act. He is made Lord and Christ, and He is expecting till the next thing is done (to wit, His enemies made His footstool). We may know, and we do, blessed be God, what qualifies that blessed One for such a place, where none but He could sit. Still it is not this that is spoken of in the passage: and it is as important to see the title to exaltation which He has acquired down here, as the nature which could alone capacitate Him for acquiring the title, or holding the place itself.
+There is not a word about forming or preparing in Hebrew nor in Greek.
It presents Messiah exalted to the right hand of the majesty in the heavens, when He had accomplished redemption and the purging of sins, until Jehovah should give His enemies into His hand to be trampled upon. It is an interval during which Messiah is quiescent and expecting, not an acting of power.
And indeed God's actings in the Revelation are either the patience of chastisement, if so be the wicked should not have to be given up, or an execution of judgment which left no foe to be trampled upon, as Babylon. It has no connection with the Psalm, save the fact that it is only at the end that Christ tramples on His earthly enemies. But there are other most serious objections to the statements of this chapter.
This verse is quoted so often, "because so distinctively characteristic of the dispensation to which the New Testament belongs." I have two remarks to make on this. First, what is the meaning of the "New Testament belongs"? If merely that it has been given to this dispensation, to the church, that is clear. They had it not before. But, if it be meant to involve (silently, yet again), that all in the New Testament applies to this dispensation, then it is positively false. Witness the title of the chapter we are writing on. "The Revelation treats mainly of the present dispensation." The New Testament does not then (save as given to the saints, and all things are theirs) belong entirely to this dispensation. "Mainly," no doubt, it does." The writer may -- put his limits, others theirs; but he cannot assert it qualifiedly in the title to the chapter, and unqualifiedly in the body of it, and expect the assertion to be received of any reasonable man. I should put another most decided limitation to it. Christ died for the nation, as well as to gather the church. This, being God's counsel, followed up by Christ's act, I apprehend is (might not I say, must be?) the subject of the Spirit's testimony. This testimony does not belong properly to the church dispensation, even when synchronic in its presentation. Besides, there is the testimony which preceded in the midst of the nation, which is given historically. These limitations cannot be denied, for I naturally leave out the disputed ground of certain prophetic parts as being in question But it is not legitimate to state ambiguously that the New Testament belongs to this dispensation, in order to prove that these disputed parts do, where it is necessarily admitted that very important parts do not. And while no one denies that the great body of it applies to us (belongs, if you please, to us), we cannot forget that two very important subjects indeed are treated, and others mentioned, which do not belong to our dispensation -- to wit, the testimony to the Jews, and the millennium which comes after it, besides the judgment of the dead, and the post-millennial state. It should be remembered that we may be given to know many things which do not belong to the dispensation to which we belong. This is silently confounded here. Compare Abraham and Lot, and Ephesians 1: 9.
But my second remark is yet more important. This verse of Psalm 110 characterises distinctively the dispensation. There is no characteristic of the present period so essentially distinctive as this." Is then the throne, acting on the wicked to prepare them for Christ's judgment, the essentially distinctive characteristic of the "church dispensation"? It is this statement that is at the root of the questions raised on this subject. All that is most blessed to the church -- her relationship to the Father, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven so that she should be the tabernacle of God through the Spirit, her union with Christ actually exalted as her Head -- none of these things enter even into the field of view when what characterises the dispensation is spoken of by the writer. What essentially characterises it has nothing to do with the church with the Holy Ghost, with the Father, with union or joy of communion, no, not even with Christ, save so far as governing the earth on the throne as God, or Jehovah's acting for Him on it. Would this be believed, if another had stated of the writer or his book, that not one spiritual thought or privilege, not the presence of the Comforter, nor anything that regards the church, is distinctively characteristic of the present church dispensation? But I may be told that this is said "in contrast with the period when Christ will assume the exercise of the authority of His own kingdom." It is stated absolutely that no characteristic is so essentially distinctive. But, admitting what is replied, it is this that is so strong, that nothing but a difference of governmental order is essentially distinctive of the present period.
We have seen that it is not Jehovah's throne acting for Christ, but Christ sitting on it till He does. Were it otherwise, surely a difference in the manner of governing the world is not what distinguishes to a saint this dispensation. This is so clearly the writer's mind, that it is only as a consequence which we might naturally expect that, during this period, Christ's relation to the church, as a kingdom He immediately governs, is brought in; and after all, only in relation to the churches, not to the church. A very serious consequence is connected with this, that Christianity, or the church dispensation, is treated as an age, and the new age as beginning when it ends. "As soon as this verse ceases to apply, i.e., whenever the Lord Jesus quits His present place on the throne of God, our dispensation ends, and the new age begins." (Page 11.)
Moreover, this is only assuming again quietly the whole point in question. First, a new translation is given without proof; then, an interpretation quite contrary to the plain statement of the verse; and then, every spiritual privilege being entirely and totally forgotten, our dispensation is declared to end when that ends, of which the verse does not speak at all, namely, Jehovah acting for Christ on His throne.
The other part of the statement is an assertion, without any attempt at proof; namely, when Christ quits God's throne, the new age begins. An assertion moreover which is clearly not true, because the new age cannot begin while Antichrist is here in power -- in a word, until he is judged. Now, however short the interval may be, this shews that it is not Christ's quitting God's throne which begins the new age. The end of the age is not an instant; it applies moreover to the world here below. And, further, the saints of Christendom are gathered up in the harvest, at the end of the age, by the Son of man's sending forth His angels. So thus our dispensation is ended before ever the new age begins, or that He has quitted the throne; or He has quitted it, and the harvest goes on, which harvest is the end of that age, which consequently has not closed by His quitting it. The length of the interval is not here the question; but the fact of His quitting the throne toes not close the age, called our dispensation, and begin the new age (unless the saints are up+ before He quits it), because the harvest which gathers them is the end of the (former) age. But, besides, the truth is that Christianity is not properly an age at all. "This age" belongs to this world, not to the church. The Lord and the disciples were in the age -- "this age" -- when on earth, before even Christ was on the throne at all. And there is a clear earthly period running on, which it is admitted is not yet accomplished, and in which a gap takes place, to let in the event spoken of in this psalm -- that is, the seventy weeks of Daniel. It is admitted that, at any rate, half a week is yet unfulfilled, which must close before the new age comes in.
+This is clearly not the case, because He comes to receive them. The putting of the two statements of scripture together, indeed (namely, that Christ comes to receive His saints; and, that the harvest in which the wheat is gathered in is at the end of the age), demonstrates that Christ's leaving the Father's throne and receiving the saints precedes the close of the age. It is not finished when He comes to receive the church. The only other way of taking this is, to say that the harvest applies to earthly saints, and not to the church. But that would only make the case stronger still, namely, that even the earthly judgments are before the end of the age, and would put the receiving of the saints as quite a separate thing, clean out of the question of the age. In any case the system of the author is demonstrated to be altogether untrue.
The present age subsisted, in a word, before the state of things spoken of in this psalm, and, moreover, must subsist after the rapture of the church: because, first, the harvest in which they are taken up belongs to the old age; and secondly, the new age cannot begin until after the destruction of Antichrist, since, to give no other reason, Daniel's weeks (which clearly do not belong to the new age) are not closed till he be destroyed. So that neither Christianity, nor the church dispensation, nor Psalm 110, gives any date for the beginning or ending of the age at all. The age, or this age, very clearly relates, in the passages which thus speak of it, to an earthly state of things closed, and another begun. Christianity may find its epoch in the prolonging of the age; but it is not by it that it is begun, nor ended, as a precise date of time: so that "our dispensation ends and the new age begins" is in the face of it a confusion of terms and things too; for it assumes that our dispensation is the old age, which it clearly is not. Nor can this be escaped from by alleging that spiritually the disciples, who spoke of the age, belonged to this dispensation; because the psalm we are treating of specifies the actual sitting of Christ at God's right hand.
It may be asked, How do you take then Psalm 110? Does not, even in the old translation, the psalm suppose that Christ rests on the throne, and consequently the church down here till the enemies are prepared for the trampling of Christ? I answer, No. The question supposes that God is acting through the course of the period: but the psalm has no such sense. Were it indeed so, God would have subdued all Christ's foes before Christ Himself took the kingdom. He would have none left to subdue or trample upon. But Jehovah does nothing in the psalm at all. He places the enemies of Christ under His feet -- gives them up to Him to trample on. Thereon Christ begins to act in power; but what the process is, or how soon He gets to earth to begin a new age in the judgments (or rather after the judgments at Jerusalem), this psalm says nothing of.
Indeed the psalm seems to go to prove that the new age does not begin till after Christ has quitted the Father's throne. The Lord is to send the rod of His power out of Zion. He is to rule among His enemies, so that all things that offend are not cleared out of His kingdom. But that is the end of the former age. He has not the rod of His power in Zion while Antichrist is there, and therefore it is not yet the new age. The truth is, all this is transitional, whether in the heavens or in the earth, just as was Christ's life on earth. It was not the law, yet the law subsisted, and He was under it. It was not the gospel, as we have it; for His death could not be preached. It was a transitional period from John Baptist till the final rejection of Christ by the Jews. So will this be. We can speak of Christ's leaving the throne, then first gathering together the tares; then, the wheat; and after all this, on the writer's own statement, Antichrist is not yet destroyed: so that the end of the age is not yet fully come. In a word, the precise order, and the principle on which it is founded in this chapter, are entirely wrong.
I have said, Christ's leaving the throne, then first gathering the tares, etc.; because, if this be not so, the gathering up of the saints is altogether before the end of the age, according to the writer himself, and, moreover, before Christ's coming to receive them at all. I take it now on his own interpretation of His sitting on Jehovah's throne, and quitting it to begin the new age Still there is a transitional period. On any ground, his statements cannot hang together, because he has got off Scripture, and formed a system; and Scripture (and blessed be God for it!) will not suffer itself to be so moulded. It is drawn from a system deeper than our thoughts, and we must believe and understand what is given to us "in part," and not frame a whole after our wisdom. It will always be false, and put to the rout by Scripture -- by some single text that will not bend (I repeat, blessed be God!) to it.
The last paragraph of this chapter first states, as already noticed, without any proof at all, that there are just exactly the two things: Christ secretly exercising the power of God's throne; or coming forth in the exercise of the power of His own peculiar kingdom, without any transitional state or other condition of things, the one beginning in the instant the other ends. Whereas it is certain that the immensely important fact of the rapture of the church takes place between the two, whatever the interval, and that Christ cannot receive the power of His own peculiar kingdom below, till this has taken place. Nor can this rapture take place till after He has left the throne, from whence it is evident the harvest cannot either (at any rate an important part of it). Then he applies the Revelation exclusively to the first (omitting the chapters at the end which the book conducts to, but which are not its subject), and affirms the characteristics of the Revelation to be the characteristics of our dispensation. This is natural, and necessary to the writer's point of view. But is it the fact? These are the characteristics: "Christ hidden with God, Israel blinded, the Gentiles supreme and glorious, the Church suffering."
The first expression is simply a mistake. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. This is clearly another thing than the mere fact of Christ's absence, and His being hidden with God. It expresses a condition, not an outward fact. And where do we find Christ in the Revelation? As the Son of man walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks. I do not believe this is at all contradictory to His being hidden in God. It is another point of view altogether. And this is what is often overlooked in this book, that one statement (complete to man's mind, and by which he would shut out consequently everything else) opens in God's mind to let in a multitude of things. Christ, according to Scripture, is absent, and hid in God. Yet He is present, and manifests Himself to His people. Both these are true at the same time. As an outward worldly fact, Christ is absent; spiritually, He is present. The littleness of man's mind, occupied about material things, and judging from them, negatives readily one thing from the existence of another, as if all were material; while divine power makes true together what to us is impossible. How can a spiritual body eat, and have flesh and bones? or how can flesh and bones go through a shut door? How then can we close the door on the wildest imaginations and all kinds of notions? Not by drawing conclusions by man's reasoning. We have no door to close or open, but to believe all God has said, and nothing else.
But in the prophetic part of the book is Christ thus hid in God? Is it in this way He is presented? He is seen as a Lamb slain in the throne. He comes forth and receives the book -- is celebrated as worthy to take it; He opens the seals. In a word, whatever the effect may be, He is presented as acting; not, perhaps, as visible on earth, but as a Person worshipped and acting in heaven, and yet previously to His mission and kingdom; for He is opening the seals, which reveal what precedes it, before He comes forth. It is then a misquotation to say hid with God, which entirely alters the sense; and He is not presented as hid in God, but as coming forth from the throne, the object of special attention, to receive the book from God's hand.+
Next we have, "The Gentiles supreme and glorious." Are wars, famines, death, crying out to the rocks to cover them, "the Gentiles supreme and glorious?" They may have been so; but it is not what is characteristic of the book. Nor is there anything in the book which shews it to be characteristic of the period of which it treats. "Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth" is not a presentation of Gentiles supreme and glorious, that I can see -- a time, too, when men are seeking death and cannot find it. The Revelation treats of certain judicial actings of God. The Gentiles, till then supreme and glorious, may be their object. But it can hardly be said that the execution of judgments on any one is characteristic of their supremacy and glory. We are told that they are characteristic of the period. But how are they so? It may be proved, perhaps from elsewhere, that they are so in spite of these chastening judgments; but the period of which the Revelation treats cannot be characterised by things contrary to what is found in the Revelation. The statement is made to prove that our dispensation and the period of which the Revelation treats are the same, not perhaps in limits of time, but in nature. But the proofs of this, as to the period of which the Revelation treats, must be drawn from the Revelation itself. But the fact is, that the Revelation speaks of quite other things, namely, the judgment of God on the Gentiles. This may suppose them supreme and glorious, when the judgment overtakes them, and that the abuse of their supremacy may have been the occasion of these chastisements and their final judgment: but then these chastisements and this judgment can hardly be called the period of their supremacy and glory.
+I say nothing about Israel blinded, because I see nothing particularly about it in the Revelation, save the sealing the one hundred and forty-four thousand. That blindness in part happens to Israel till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, the apostle teaches us; Romans 11. What is done with the believing remnant after that, or how they are made a great nation, the Revelation does not teach us. According to the author, after the withdrawal of Christians, a work goes on, amongst that part of Israel to which the Revelation alludes, independent of Christianity, which does not bring them into the church, but secures the deliverance of those who receive the testimony when Jesus appears. And this is all that is material to observe; because it proves that, supposing the blindness to remain on the mass till Christ executes judgment (which, I suppose, nobody denies), this does not hinder an effectual work, not wrought by the church amongst that people (beloved of God, though enemies in respect of the gospel) of which the Revelation treats, as indeed of no other work amongst them.
It may be alleged that the time of the beast's reign is clearly a time of supremacy and glory, for power is given him over all nations, etc. But then this cannot be said to be characteristic of our dispensation; because, according to the writer, Christianity and Christians, unless a few inattentive ones, are beyond the limits of his power, and a new testimony is set up, namely, the two witnesses. So that this can hardly, I suppose, be called our dispensation; unless the government of the world be so exclusively the subject of it, that our dispensation the church dispensation, has nothing to do with Christianity at all, but that it is just as much ours when a new testimony is raised up on its withdrawal.
And here I would add a remark as to this final power of Antichrist. It is by no means properly a continuation of the Gentile imperial power. That this imperial power is extraordinarily in his hands, I admit; but it is not a continuance of it. It is a resurrection of it. And the difference is very great indeed -- nothing less than this, that the throne of the Gentiles was set up by God (however abused); whereas it is Satan gives this last power, his throne, and great authority. That the kings of the earth give him their authority is quite true, but it is the dragon that has given him his throne. The statement of the chapter thus seems altogether unsustainable and objectionable -- the most objectionable thing of all, to my mind, being, that everything spiritual is totally excluded from what is said to be essentially distinctive as a characteristic of the present period. Nothing properly belonging to the church enters into this at all. It is entirely dropped from the statement of the writer. The government of the world is all that is in his mind.
But I feel that a godly mind may say, though sensible of this, and rejecting the statement of the writer as spiritually evil, Well, but what is this Psalm 110? how do you explain it?
First, I recall the remark that the new translation is unproved, and, as it seems to me, unwarranted. If it were so, it would alter the whole meaning of the passage in the most important way; because God would have subjugated all Christ's foes, in order that they should be His footstool. If God were making them such by the actings of the power of His throne, they would be subdued by the actings of power, before Christ began to act at all. The whole judicial reign of Christ, and the millennial scheme would be false. But making His enemies His footstool is merely by the authority of His power giving them up to be trampled upon by Him. Next, it is connected with the rejection of Messiah on earth, whereon Jehovah calls Him up to sit at the right hand of power, until His enemies should be given up to Him. The chief enemies actually in view in the psalm are His enemies, amongst whom He will rule down here -- "rule thou in the midst of thine enemies" -- earthly enemies, when the rod of His power will be sent out of Zion. This is all that is actually spoken of in this psalm.
But, as in the analogous Psalm 8, where though the subjection of earthly creatures is mentioned, yet from a general (there 8 universal) term, the apostle applies it to everything but God the Father; so here, I apprehend, anything that takes the place of adversary or enemy will be given into His hand. Thus, in a passage which I do not doubt to be an allusion to this, the apostle makes it universal: "He [Christ] must reign, till he hath put all his enemies under his feet": and thus the apostle makes It universal, although the psalm speaks specifically only of His rod of power sent out of Zion. The time at which God puts His enemies thus generally under the hand of Christ, or what passes until He actually takes the rod of His power in Zion, the psalm is totally silent upon. It is not (save the broad general fact, that He is to be at the right hand of power, expecting till that time, and seated as having nothing more to do for His friends+) occupied with what passes until the rod of power is in Zion. We know that all that regards the church will have happened before that moment so that we are sure the silence of the psalm must leave space for it. How much, the psalm will say nothing about; but the statement that there is none is clearly false; for the church is caught up, the marriage of the Lamb takes place, before Antichrist is destroyed; and Antichrist must be destroyed before the rod of His power goes out of Zion. The heavenly part of Christ's actings is omitted in the psalm. These must be sought elsewhere. But there are such actings: and thus the interpretation which confines to the instant of His rising up from the throne the closing of the age, and His assuming His power in the new age, is altogether untenable. It is clear, for example, that the whole of the harvest is before the new age, yet it is the Son of man that sends forth His angels.
+ See the comparison, Hebrews 10: 11, 12.
If it be alleged that all this happens before He leaves His throne, then the whole reasoning and system of the author fails; because the church would be taken away before He left the throne and before Christ came to receive it. Yet it is to meet Him in the air; and, if this be not inconsistent with His sitting on His throne at that time, it is quite clear that the reasoning from the psalm comes to nothing; because its force lies in this, that He is on that throne till His enemies are put under Him, and consequently the church is here, and our dispensation continues: whereas in the other case, the church would be gone before what the writer calls the end of our dispensation on His rising up. If He has risen up before He receives the church, there is some interval passed over in the psalm: so that the argument as to the instantaneous closing is false in that case also. In either case the using it as a proof of exact synchronism is good for nothing.
No: the psalm speaks at length of the Jewish part of the subject, to wit, the rod of power in Zion -- the Messiah part.
It states in general terms Messiah's place till Jehovah does a certain act of authority, but leaves all open as to interval of time, and manner of accomplishment, by which Christ enters upon the earthly part of this power spoken of in the psalm. We know that, whatever be the manner of it, an immensely important fact takes place at least three years and a half before the establishment of Christ's power in Zion, namely, the destruction of Satan's heavenly power, or his casting out of heaven. I know that the writer seeks elsewhere to distinguish between his power in the air and his being in the presence of God: the former continuing after his casting out from the latter. But this is mere gratuitous statement: for in the passage which is interpreted in the latter way, he is cast down to the earth, and his place found no more in heaven.
If this be so, it is clear the Revelation treats of this peculiar time, a time yet future, when God is occupied with bringing in the First-begotten into the world (the habitable world), but before He is so brought in, up to chapter 19 where He is introduced."+ If it be future, as the author states, and an acting of God which He has not yet begun at all, it cannot be our dispensation; because, otherwise, our dispensation would exist without what characterises it. It is not the world to come till after chapter 19, nor Psalm 110 after verse 2 of that psalm. It embraces a peculiar period, then, occupied with transitional events, from the time God is introducing the First-begotten till the time of His giving up the kingdom, including (but only in description, not historically) the time of the reign of the Son. It is the history of judgment, not of grace, though saints may be preserved in it and their security and joy celebrated. The church properly belongs to the time of patient grace, the acceptable time, the day of salvation.
We are here arrived at a most important subject, where, if ever, we may find something of the spiritual and heavenly character of the church of God during this dispensation. But I would draw at once attention to the title -- Christ's relation to the churches. Is that all? Has He no relation to the church? Is there nothing during thus dispensation of what is special in Christ's relationship to the church? This book "especially refers to the period during which Christ is hidden with God" -- "the church being a body chosen out of the nations and separated to God." The church, then, is spoken of as regards this period. "We might expect in a book treating of this period [though all the actings of God spoken of in it are, according to the author, future] that His excellent relation to such a body would be distinctly marked." Now let the reader examine this chapter, and say what this excellent relation is? or see whether he finds nothing about it at all. The very title betrays the fact, and what is in the writer's mind. It is, "Christ in His relation to the churches," not to the church.
+Hence, perhaps, the resurrection is not spoken of in it, save as a recognised fact to enumerate those who have part in it, when the thrones are set, and judgment given to those on them. But, as the act of life-giving power, it is never historically mentioned.
"Accordingly" (page 15), "the very first chapter reveals Christ in His relation to the churches." His excellent relation to the church during the period He is hidden with God is His walking in judgment in the midst of the churches. There it is His excellent relation is "distinctly marked." Nor can there be any doubt of its being the full object of the writer's contemplation; for it is said, "It is a kingdom set to confess Him thus -- to own union with Him in glory, and seek likeness to Him in suffering obedience here." And all His excellent relation to such a body (a kingdom) is that He is walking in the midst of the candlesticks of gold. In respect to "union with Him in glory," this is all which "His excellent relation to such a body" amounts to -- that by which it is "distinctly marked."
Let us come to some particulars, and we shall see the entire confusion of the statements in detail. The Revelation treats, we are told, of the period during which Christ is hidden with God. Hence His relation to the church would be marked. Its chief subject is the relation of the throne of God to the nations, but it has another object in relation to the churches; it reveals the present relation of Christ to them, but the Gentiles supreme and glorious, and the church suffering. This characterises our dispensation, and the period of which the Revelation treats.
But is it merely another object during this period? Why is it concealed that the period is distinguished, as well as the object? And therefore if this account of the churches reveals the present relation of Christ to them -- the prophetic part, which treats of the Gentiles, is after the close of the present relation of Christ to the churches. The apostle is directed to write "the things which he had seen," "the things which are," and "the things which are after these." Now "the things which are" are the seven churches; and then the apostle is caught up to see the things which are "after these." So that "the things that are" are closed before the prophetic part begins; or else the things which come after certain others, whose history has been ended, are at the same time with them. Yet this is what the chapter leaves us to suppose.
Next, it is stated that "He hath made it a kingdom, even a priestly kingdom." It is never said, He has made "it" a kingdom. He has made us a kingdom, supposing the new reading right. And this makes all the difference; because it is then, not a sphere of government, but a term of personal dignity, just as priest is. And though this is sought to be eked out by the terms "a kingdom of priests, and a kingdom of kings," yet it is clearly a sphere of government; for it is added "His, and His only, to govern." And if so, there is no warrant to say "of kings"; because kingdom means a thing governed, not governing, according to the author himself. This is merely saving appearances, in order to avoid the idea of taking away the glory of the saints. In chapter 5 the term kings is applied to Israel. If the church be a kingdom in the midst of kingdoms, and that this is its present relation, surely we do not reign now, even if we be reigned over by Christ. And it is a mere delusion to confound Christ's reigning over us now (and therefore our being a kingdom), and our reigning with Him hereafter, as being expressed by the same word kingdom. It is when Christ's present relation to the churches will have quite closed, that we shall be kings in that sense, as reigning with Him.
Next, to make the church merely a kingdom lowers it altogether from the proper scriptural idea of His excellent relation to such a body. And what is meant here by such a body? "It is a kingdom in the midst of kingdoms." It is not, though the word body is used, His -- Christ's -- body. It is a kingdom which He governs which He orders by His own peculiar laws. It is true the author speaks of giving it life, but this only increases the confusion, and reduces life-giving union to the idea of a governed body. Accordingly (as we have seen) it is accomplished in relation to the churches among which He walks, which churches, we may further remark, exist no longer. "We cannot hear" the Lord's addresses "as churches, for churches have ceased to be." (Page 31.) All idea of the unity of the body of Christ as the state and portion of the church, as sitting in heavenly places in Him, is altogether lost. His excellent relation to such a body is to a kingdom governed upon earth, and that is all. Indeed more than all: for that which is addressed in the Revelation directly exists no more. It is in vain to say, that this is the way it is treated in the Revelation; because what is sought to be proved is, that the Revelation treats of our dispensation -- the church dispensation. If it does not, and that the Revelation does not speak of our dispensation, of the church in its proper relation to Christ, but merely of churches as once existing, but which exist no longer, and of certain prophetic subjects which come after churches have ceased to exist, then the whole system falls which makes it treat of the church dispensation, and places us in its prophetic statements. If it do treat of it, then, I repeat, the writer lowers the distinct marking of Christ's excellent relation to such a body, to churches, and to the government of a kingdom in the midst of kingdoms, setting aside the proper relation of the church to Christ.
But to proceed. It is alleged that candlesticks of gold lead to the candlestick of the tabernacle, and then, that "every thing that typified the person or attributes of Christ, as seen in heaven, was of gold." That the gold may shew that the candlesticks or churches are viewed in a divine or heavenly character, may be very true. But it is not Christ's Person, or attributes, which are seen here, nor is He seen in heaven. The Spirit speaks of churches, and of Christ upon earth walking amongst them. Lights in the holy place was not the proper place of churches, but lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, presenting divine excellency among men. But John turned, and saw seven golden candlesticks. He did not see the sanctuary, nor candlesticks in it. To say he was for a season withdrawn from the sphere of mere human thought and action is merely confounding with words. Of course he was, when he had a vision; but he was in the isle called Patmos, and turned, and saw the candlesticks. Afterwards, "after these things," he is taken out of the sphere of earth, and it is said to him "Come up hither"; but this he saw on earth -- a vision no doubt; but John was not yet for a season out of earthly connection, unless the isle called Patmos be so. There was no hidden and separated sanctuary, no secret holy place. All this statement is merely added and contrary to the statements of the chapter. That he saw them in vision, according to the abstract or divine idea, of what they should be, or were, according to that idea, and not in the ordinary exercise of apostolic care, is quite true; but the vision was not what it is represented here to be. Moreover, Christ is seen with a golden girdle, it is true; but His feet were like fine brass, not of gold, which is stated to be His heavenly character. The author states that He walked among the candlesticks, not the churches; but it is explained by the word itself, that the candlesticks were the churches.
And if He was walking among the candlesticks judging, it was clear it was not the candlesticks as the divine type of what they were in God's mind that He would judge. The candlesticks were God's idea of them. The report is of things that are -- what man had actually made of them here below. Christ judicially brought what the Spirit saw to bear on what man had produced. I would only add that, while the judgment was priestly as well as divine, yet I do not (whatever His capacity to give) find grace in anything characterise His dealings here -- i.e., His activity in priestly grace: for patience in judgment is grace. But the next chapter will give us further matter on what is most important in thus.
They instruct us "respecting the order of the Gentile churches." "When the Lord Jesus was personally on earth, the church was not yet ordered," etc. -- nor (I apprehend) built, nor the foundation laid. That in the purpose of God the disciples were to be of it is true. That they had life as all saints have it true too.+ But to say that the church was not ordered according to the form which He intended it to assume among men -- that He was collecting, not arranging the materials, preparing the living stones, not building them together; is not a scriptural representation of the matter. It puts Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, the breaking down of the middle wall of partition, the presence of the Holy Ghost as the power of unity, the assertion that if He did not die He would abide alone, that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel -- all that is stated in Scripture of the church -- entirely aside. He died to gather together into one the children of God which were scattered abroad. Without His death, and the presence of the Holy Ghost, this could not be. Till His death He would have set aside without warrant God's order in abandoning Israel for another body. The first husband, the law, was not dead, and Christ came in His infinite grace under it. Its curse was not borne yet. Nothing that could set aside Israel, or set up the church, was done -- not the first foundation stone laid. It was not mere ordering. He had not done the work on which it was to be built. Nor was He collecting materials for it, though they were formed into it afterwards. In God's counsels so it was to be; but He could not act publicly about it, till He was rejected and crucified. On what should the church be based? Nor could He teach His death even to His disciples, but as His rejection by His own nation and delivery to the Gentiles.
+There is a very deeply and fundamentally false principle running through all the author's reasonings on this point. I mean this, that, if life be there, inasmuch as it is always of God, or divine life, it is always essentially the same, whatever official distinctions there may be as to dispensation. Now, as to the possession of life by man, it must be holy in the principle of its nature, obedient, and have God for its object. So far, it must be fundamentally the same. But this makes man the end and essential object of all this. Then these things, man having life, may be termed "official" destinations (though, even so, it is most sad to say that those things by which God acts peculiarly on His saints are mere official differences). I do not think a spiritual holy mind that loves Christ can help being shocked at being told that that possession of the Comforter, which made it expedient that Christ should go away -- which guides him into all truth -- gives him communion with the Father and the Son -- which is an unction by which he knows all things, the things freely given to him of God, yea, the deep things of God -- which enables him to cry, Abba, Father -- by which the love of God is shed abroad in his heart, and by which he knows that he is one with Christ, in Him, and He in him -- that all this is a mere official distinction.
But the truth is, this principle shuts God out of the matter, in making the difference as to man the end. These differences of dispensation are the displays of God's glory; and therefore of all importance, and most essential, because a positive part of His glory. The law maintained His majesty, and title to claim obedience, as the gospel displayed His grace, and gave the obedience of a child. To say that the breaking down the middle wall of partition, and the accomplishment of the glorious work by which it was effected produced only an official difference, because man had life, and man was forgiven, or forborne with in view of it, is to say that the display of God's glory was an unessential thing: the display of all His glorious wisdom, power, and love, in that mighty work which stands alone in heaven and earth, the object of angels' research. Was it unessential to them, who found scarce even an official difference, though doubtless it affected their position, to see Him who had created them, nailed to the tree in that mighty and solitary hour which stands aloof from all before and after? Let us only remember that dispensations are the necessary displays of God's glory, and we shall soon feel where we are brought by what makes mere official difference out of them.
Besides, the difference is very great indeed as to man. It is everything as to his present affections, as to his life. Because God puts forth power, power too which works in man through faith, according to the display He makes of Himself. And therefore the whole life, in its working, in its recognition of God, is formed on this dispensational display. And this is the field of responsibility too. Thus, if God reveals Himself to Abraham as Almighty, Abraham is to live and walk in the power of that name. And so of the promises given to him. Israel is to dwell in the land as the redeemed people of the Lord -- their affections, ways, responsibility, and happiness flowing from what God was to them as having placed them there. So to us -- the presence of the Holy Ghost Himself being the great distinguishing fact, with the knowledge He affords. Because all this is what faith ought to act upon, and the life which we live in the flesh we live by faith, for the just shall live by faith. Hence the Lord does not hesitate to say, This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. That could not have been the life of those before. Had they then not life? Nay, but it could not be stated in that way -- their life was not that; and to undo these differences is to make a life without affections, character, responsibility, in a word, without faith. You cannot do it; for to us to believe is to live. The more you succeed in levelling them to one thing, the more you succeed in stifling divine affections, and active human responsibility (destroying, as far as may be, divine communion, and frustrating divine grace), the more the glory and energy of faith is null, and hence God's glory in us.
There is another point connected with this, that I would not leave untouched: -- namely, that making a difference of position in glory is setting aside the value of Christ's blood, and making our place on high depend on something else. Now I meet this difficulty in the face. And I say there is a difference in glory; and that difference does not depend on the precious blood of Christ; and that to say that it does, takes away its value from that blood. Difference there is. The Saviour recognises the setting on His right hand and on His left; and many other passages prove it. Now, if this depend on the blood of Christ, this would attribute a various value to it, making it uncertain and imperfect in the extent of its efficacy. The blood of the Lamb gives to all their sole title to be in the glory, and gives to all an equal and perfect justification from sin; and therefore in its effect, there can be no difference. To suppose a difference is to call in question the completeness of its efficacy. But there is a difference. And this (while the title to be in the glory is for all in the blood) depends therefore on something else. It is, in the accomplishment of the counsels of God the Father, given to those for whom it is prepared; and given (though man is not in the least the judge of that labour, and there are first that shall be last, and last first) according to the working and energy of the Spirit of God, and faithfulness through grace in service. God does what He will with His own. Still we know that in doing so He displays what He is, and is consistent with Himself; and position and reward answer to the sovereignty of God, which has given us a position, and the operation of the Spirit by which we have walked in it. It is the sovereignty of God we know from the Lord's answer to the sons of Zebedee, and the parable in Matthew 20. It is the fruit of labour, as we know from 1 Corinthians 3: 8; the parables (Luke 19 and Matthew 25); 1 Thessalonians 2: 19, 20; 2 John 8. I suppose it will not be questioned that this work is through the efficacious operation of the Spirit of God. Suppose, now, the Lord chose to put the Old Testament saints in the position of the four living creatures, and the New Testament saints in that of the crowned elders, both of whom are said to sing the song of the redeemed together; what is there contrary to principle in this? I am not here at all affirming it is so; but enquiring whether there is anything a priori to condemn it. I see nothing at all It is quite clear that the saints on earth during the millennium are redeemed by blood, and yet as to glory much farther off than the crowned elders. Why in this administration of glory may there not be intermediate positions?
Nor is it ever said that they were quickened with heavenly life: unless we use it in the vague sense, that everything that is from above is heavenly. But it is never said, unless we cite the passage, "Born again," as from above (Greek, anothen), which I do not believe. That the divine life came from above, I do not doubt. That it was properly heavenly is never said in Scripture. Further, it is entirely unscriptural and very evilly ambiguous to speak of "everlasting union with Him who was 'the new thing' in the earth"; because Christ says, "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." Scripture never speaks of union with Christ while on earth. Never. It always speaks of union with an exalted Head.
And it is evident to me, that when Christ breathed on them after His resurrection, He conveyed an accession of living power. The second Adam is a life-giving Spirit; and as God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life, so here Christ breathes upon them -- does not send down the Holy Ghost from heaven so that they should be the habitation of God through the Spirit; but He does what He never did before His resurrection. But I have no doubt that this was life more abundantly. The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus it is that has made us free from the law of sin and death. He quickened Lazarus, but it was not a question of his soul, but victory over death by power, in answer to His cry to the Father, though He L was in living power then the resurrection and the life. But His resurrection was another thing. It was according to the power of an endless life; and this was not Lazarus's case. We are quickened together with Him; and this is so true, that, notwithstanding Lazarus and other persons raised to life during the period recorded in the Old Testament, He is the first-fruits of them that slept. All these cases belonged to, and were brought to pass in, the old thing, through the power of God in it.
If man had not been in the state he really was, totally and fundamentally corrupt, so that atonement was absolutely necessary, there was power, living power in Him (the Father had given Him to have life in Himself -- in Him was life) to restore all. But as Adam was not in fact the head of the race till fallen and in sin; so Christ is not a corporate Head till He has wrought out righteousness, and we can be made it in Him, and then we belong to the new creation. Whereas, divine and perfect as He was, He, supposing He was the new thing, was come into, and dealing with, the old -- God's last dealing, we may say with it (save a peculiar special intervention with Israel), and therefore abode alone till the foundation was laid of the new thing, the new creation, in His death, by which He passed out of and closed the old, and His resurrection, by which He began in power the new, breaking the bands of Satan who had conquered in the old, in his last stronghold -- strong by God's judgment. And hence when, in instructing us what the church is, the apostle speaks of the new creation, He speaks of our being risen and quickened together with Christ, and set in heavenly places in Him, the middle wall of partition being broken down to make both one, making peace, and to present both in one body by the cross: that is, He speaks exactly in the opposite way to the writer of the "Thoughts."
Accordingly, it is a serious thing to make the death of Christ necessary only to the ordering of the church, and not to its founding and existence; and to make Christ, alive in the earth before that solemn, and in the literal sense of the word, all-important act, the centre of union, when the apostle says it could not be till after -- nay, when Christ says that He abode alone till then. It has been urged, and rightly urged, that incarnation was not union. But the Lord affirms further, there could not be union without death. He was to die to gather. We are baptised into one body. That life was communicated I fully recognise; but I do not see that this is necessarily union in the sense of forming the body, which is everything as regards the church. I find it distinguished from heavenly things, in Christ's conversation with Nicodemus. He had spoken of earthly things, when speaking of regeneration. For the Jews, taking earthly things of God, must be regenerate. But with this He contrasts the heavenly things, and, when He mentions these, states to Nicodemus, that the Son of man must be lifted up.
That God forgave from Adam's sin downward in respect of the cross is plain, and stated in Romans 3: 25; and that He communicated life to the old saints I do not doubt -- eternal life. It is too clear to me to reason on it here, for without it none shall see nor enter the kingdom of God. But Christ is never spoken of as the Head of the body, the church united to Him, until He was Himself exalted to the right hand of God, and had accomplished the work which made the church's whole place before God. It was not therefore merely arranging the church's form that was in question; it was doing the work which could give it a place before God, lay the foundation for its existence, and make the peace, reconciling Jew and Gentile into one body unto God by the cross. Is this rightly treated in this passage of the writer? Does he speak of it as the Scriptures speak of it in any one single place? He has quoted none -- not one. It is pure assertion, and assertion entirely different from, and opposite to, Paul's statements in the Ephesians, and indeed in all his epistles.
The next paragraph (page 22) introduces fresh confusion The union of the church with Christ as sitting in heavenly places is totally shut out. We have it gathered, but not ordered, during Christ's life; and visible on earth from Pentecost. But all Paul's statements in his epistles are passed over altogether, and what is spoken of as the church constituted turns out only to be a particular church on earth, with a difference of metropolitan power, but all the churches of God are essentially alike. Thus the church is silently dropped into churches, and the whole idea of union and unity entirely set aside, and the church and churches confounded (the church being after all the church at Jerusalem, which had essential resemblance to all the churches of God -- only that at Jerusalem had singular dignity pertaining to it alone). I know not how Christians will estimate this dealing with the existence and privileges of "the church," the pillar and ground of the truth, the body and fulness of Him who filleth all in all. But they will do well to consider, if they have ever received any comfort or spiritual blessing and power from Paul's epistles on this subject, what becomes of it in these statements. It is very clear that what filled the mind of the apostle, what the Spirit there expatiates on, has no place in them at all. The church may be a visible body on earth, gathered though not ordered before Christ's death, equivalent to churches; but in heavenly places one body, it is not known here. I will add elsewhere a word as to its standing, hopes, and laws; for the present, briefly as to its order. It was metropolitan -- all that could be called the church, for it was constituted at Jerusalem; but "the church at Jerusalem was ... the centre of light and control." And what makes this more remarkable is, that we are told that one candlestick would have fitly represented it, as it actually does in Scripture "represent Jerusalem when she shall nationally assume her metropolitan position in the millennial earth," thus bringing down the church, as far as possibly can be, to the position of Jerusalem on earth in the latter day. "The appropriate emblem" for the one "is the character of the symbol employed to represent" the other.
We are told, accordingly, that "when the church at Antioch was in difficulty, it sends to Jerusalem for direction, and receives an authoritative reply." "This then was a relation that could not be fitly symbolised by two candlesticks unconnected, equal and alike."
"But when Jerusalem had rejected the testimony of the church, Paul was raised up to carry the truth among the Gentiles -- he established a new order among the churches which he gathered. This order was not metropolitan."
Would it be believed, from this statement, that the difficulty at Antioch arose from teachers come from Judea years after the raising up of Paul; and that it was Paul and Barnabas that went up from Antioch, after the metropolitan order had been dropped accordingly in extensive regions; and, moreover, that they went up to the apostles and elders about this question -- that the apostles and elders came together to consider it, though the letter is written in the name of all; and that Paul moreover delivers the decrees in those churches which were not in this metropolitan order at all, but independent one of another? That there was a blessed effort to maintain unity between the scenes of Paul's labours and the Jewish churches, when trouble had broken out at Antioch (where the church had been planted by the scattering of the Jerusalem church, and the starting point of the independent ministry of Paul)? is most true. But the facts and the dates shew that, however strictly it may have been a mother church, this affair, and the distinction of Paul, is all mis-stated. Furthermore, the presence of the apostles was metropolitan, and, so long as earth remained something, Jerusalem did too. But all this was after the scattering of the Jewish church, except the apostles, on Jerusalem's rejecting the testimony. The order was, in a certain sense, metropolitan,+ because of Jerusalem and because of the apostles.
+That is, Jewish in form, having an earthly centre in Jerusalem -- just the statement which has been so animadverted upon as applied to the Pentecostal Church.
But a more serious question connects itself with this -- the new order of the apostle Paul. The evident object here is, to shew that the teaching of Paul was the same; his order not unity, but independency; that unity was the metropolitan system, which ended with Jerusalem's rejection of the testimony of the church there -- only there was a moral unity preserved by Christ Himself walking amongst them, so that "the saint journeying found the same thing in each place, and the world could then take notice of it. They knew that in the several Gentile cities there were those gathered together who, in faith, and doctrine, and manners, were emphatically one. The whole of the Gentile churches, though locally separated, together constituted the one church of the living God, and as such were known and recognised among men." I pray the reader to read this statement over again, and to say, is this really so? Is it Paul's statement of the unity of the church? And the writer is speaking of Paul's work and teaching. It is just nothing more nor less than modern independency setting aside all Paul's doctrine on the whole subject. We will compare them.
Paul "preached the same gospel; but He established a new order among the churches which he gathered. This order was not metropolitan. Seven Gentiles churches are represented by seven candlesticks of gold, separate one from another -- all equal -- all alike; connected by no visible bond, neither revolving round any common centre. They were independent one of another," etc.
It is very evident that this is to meet the statement made by other brethren, that while Paul preached the same gospel as to salvation -- of which no one of course entertains any doubt -- he was at the same time specially employed of the Lord to bring out the unity of the church as sitting in heavenly places in Christ, the seven churches having been considered as the history rather of the decline of the churches, the actual historical state in which John found them, but selected by the Holy Ghost as affording morally a sample of Christ's dealings with "the churches," and by many as an outline of the church's history in general, the prophetic part of the book coming "after these things."
In opposition to the idea of Paul's peculiarly bringing out the heavenly unity of the church, he is stated (the italics are the writer's of the "Thoughts") to have preached the same gospel; and while metropolitan unity existed before on earth, Paul set up independent churches. I have already remarked that heavenly unity is entirely left out here.
The seven churches of the Apocalypse are adduced as proofs of Paul's work. Doubtless he had been the means of founding many of them, though not all; but their then state was no part of Paul's preaching. It is not Paul who presents to us seven distinct churches, all equal, all alike, or any other churches whatever in this state; it is John, and that when they had ceased to be under Paul's care. That local churches existed no one doubts (i.e., local assemblies of God); but there is no teaching of the apostle Paul on the subject. The fact of their existence is on record.
"For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby," etc.
"Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit."
Again, "How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery ... which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel." "And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God ... to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus." Having prayed then to Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, we have, "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling." "He ascended up on high, and gave gifts unto men." "And he gave some, apostles, etc.; till we all come in the unity of the faith, etc ... . but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body, to the edifying of itself in love." And again, "Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it ... for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones."
Again, 1 Corinthians 12: 12, "For as the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free," etc.
Romans 12: 4, "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." Now, I would ask, after these quotations, is not the statement made by the author of Paul's teaching a concealment of that which is peculiarly his, all being reduced to earth -- Jewish metropolitanism, and a new order of independent churches, established by Paul? That Samaria, and afterwards Antioch, and all the Gentile churches planted by Paul, were maintained in unity by the circumstances which occurred we have seen. But is not the object of his special teaching unity, and not independency? That there were assemblies of God in each town is admitted on all hands. That they acted locally, according to need, no one denies. But where is this doctrine of independency alluded to by the apostle? Is not in fact the unity of the whole body, acting by joints and bands, and its several members, the peculiar topic of the apostle s teaching on this subject? Is there no unity but metropolitan unity, or is it a mere unity, as "in faith, and doctrine, and manners, emphatically one"? Does this truly represent what Paul's teaching was? And now note the character of this unity. It was founded on Christ's death; by this the middle wall of partition was broken down, that He should make both one, making in Himself of twain one new man. The existence of the unity of which the apostle speaks was based on this.+
+Note also, in this contrast of Jews and Gentiles, the patriarchal and antediluvian saints do not come into contemplation at all -- only the twain, Jews and Gentiles. It is not an introduction into some old thing (this is treated of in Romans 11; the church condition being finished, chapter 8, and the Jews taken up); it is to make of twain one new man. I take the opportunity here of remarking, what might have been introduced earlier, that the writer much insists on Christ being the new thing in the earth while alive down here. That it was a new thing to have a man without sin in His nature is true, and equally so for the blessed God to be manifest in the flesh. But, as regards us, He was still taking His place with the old thing, made of a woman, made under the law, made like to His brethren in all things; Hebrews 2. As far as man's connection with it went, it was His coming into the midst of the old thing, and not associating man with Him as the head of the new. I suppose that the author refers to the expression in Jeremiah, "For the Lord shall create a new thing in the earth, a woman shall compass a man." But supposing this applied to Christ's birth, Christ would not be the new thing, but His birth of a virgin, which was a new thing. It was the woman's compassing a man which was the new thing created in the earth, not what Christ was; to which the words could not apply. But further, I have never seen the least satisfactory proof that the words apply even to the miraculous birth of Christ: and I doubt if compassing a man has any such a sense, or could have it. At any rate, He is not the new thing here spoken of. Nor is Christ incarnate ever called the new thing. Nor is Christ ever said to be the new creature. I doubt much that it is scriptural, either as an expression, or an idea. Upon this expression of "the new thing" a vast edifice of doctrine is built by the author. He should first shew some scripture for it.
It was now that to the principalities and powers in heavenly places was to be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God; other things had shewn other wisdom, this a new kind. But this wisdom, now made known to principalities and powers by the church was the subject of the eternal purpose of God -- this church now based on the death of Christ, and formed by the Holy Ghost.
This unity, as it was based on the death of Christ, so also was formed by the Holy Ghost. There was one body, and one Spirit. By one Spirit they were baptised into one body -- so much so that from Christ the Head by various joints and bands the whole body fitly joined together, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love." For even as the many members of the human body make one body, so was Christ. So that we, being many, are one body in Christ, having gifts according as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.
"But all these worketh -- that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, etc., so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptised into one body." Is this the doctrine conveyed by the statement that, on the cessation of the unity of metropolitan order because of the rejection of the church by Jerusalem, Paul established churches independent one of another? Or is the unity of the church based on Christ's death and formed by the Spirit (so as to be a witness even to principalities and powers in heavenly places of the manifold wisdom of God, by what now took place) that which the apostle most peculiarly sets forth?
Nor even did union of faith, doctrine, and manners, however emphatic, make this. It was corporate unity, a body. It had its joints and bands and members by the one power of the Holy Ghost working in a whole. To what, or to which of these independent churches, did Paul belong? Or were the other twelve who were in none of Paul's establishing, not of the body? and the prophets -- were they set in a church, or in the church? Or any other gifts? See 1 Corinthians 12: 28-30.
No one who has taken the pains to examine Scripture can doubt that the whole statement of the author, whether we refer to the facts he mentions or to the doctrine he omits, is quite different from Scripture. According to the author, the case of Antioch is a proof of metropolitan order: which passing away, Paul is raised up to establish independent churches. Whereas it is Paul himself who goes up to Jerusalem about the case at Antioch and carries the decrees to all the churches, which he had then established. On the other hand, the great point on which the apostle insists as to this is the unity of the body, formed by the Holy Ghost on the breaking down of the middle wall of partition by the death of Christ, so that principalities and powers might learn a new kind of wisdom of God. The Lord give us at least whom it so much concerns, who are the objects of it, to learn and value this new kind of wisdom!
There are yet a few remarks to make on this part of the subject. In page 26 the author, in insisting on the unity of the church of God, presents the unity of the saints in each city as that of which he has to treat. "This is the only pattern for the Gentile churches. That they have long since ceased to answer to it is plain." And this he holds so strongly that he says, page 31 [2nd. ed., 39], "I scarcely need repeat that it is idle, and indeed sinful, to pretend to a church standing when unity has ceased to exist; and unity has ceased to exist, for it is neither found locally nor generally." Now if this be so, then has Christ's relationship to the church ceased to exist: for that with which He was in relationship, according to this system, does not exist at all: individuals may hear the message but that is all. Nor is this mere inference. We read (pages 14, 15), "But the church, being a body chosen out of the nations, and separated to God, was placed under the immediate government of Christ." "He hath made it a kingdom," etc. "It is set to our union with Him in glory," etc. "We might expect therefore in such a book as the Revelation, which especially refers to the period during which Christ is hidden with God, that His excellent relation to such a body would be distinctly marked. Accordingly the very first chapter reveals Christ in His relation to the churches."
But then His excellent relation to such a body, to the church separated to God out of the nations, is entirely gone, for there are no churches to be in relation to. Just see where this system leads; and that because the very idea given of the church by the apostle is wholly rejected. Paul has set up independent churches; the churches have ceased to exist; and therefore the relationship of Christ to the church, in which it is set to own union with Him, is gone. And yet this is the relationship which belonged to the whole period of Psalm 110, and the body He was able to maintain in its right relation to God. It would be a sin to suppose the existence of that with which the relationship was established: for the relation to the churches is the amount of His relationship to the body. I feel it useless to pursue the consequences of thus rejecting Paul's statements as to the church, as in pages 28, 29. The true church position, the test of true churchship, has no kind of connection with the unity of the body and its members.
I have only to observe as to the church of Ephesus that the remark in the note, and given even in notes of quotation, "among the seven, where it is now standing in my secret sanctuary," is just the imagination of the author. It is an address to the angel of the church at Ephesus (to be sent as a written epistle to that church), threatening to come to it -- a word which certainly does not give the idea of referring to what was in His secret sanctuary. Was it there He was to come? And when He says "thee" to the church, was it addressed at Ephesus or in the sanctuary? The reader may refer to the note (page 30), and see if I have in any way overstated the author's view in this important point. Catholic unity is thus described. "They [the churches] were together separated, had a common calling and service, were alike one to another, were nourished and ordered by the same hand. This was catholic unity." Let this be compared with Ephesians 4; 1 Corinthians 12, or Romans 12, where, note, the apostle is speaking of one body by the operations of the Holy Ghost on earth acting in these members, and increasing and edifying itself in love thereby. It will then soon be seen where, and what, is the fundamental difference between the author and the apostle. I do not enquire as to the consequences of this. The perusal of these chapters will soon lead the reader to see its bearing on gifts, the exercise of them in different localities as by members of the body of Christ, the ministry, and other accessory questions. I enquire into the scriptural justness here, not the consequences.
Some remarks are called for on the notes. I shall be forgiven for expressing here how painful a task I feel it, to pursue the unceasing rashness and recklessness of assertion which characterises this work. But all of these assertions have an object, and bear on some part of the system maintained, or seek to discredit silently what has been advanced by others. Thus the character of servants has been adduced, as shewing that this book stands on a different ground of communication from the Holy Ghost's communications in the church, as to those things which are received and understood by that unction from the Holy One, by which the infants in Christ knew all things -- the Father's communications to the children. This is admitted: indeed the fact cannot be denied. But still the effect must be done away; and we are told that "it is important to observe how continually the name 'Jesus' is used throughout this book. No Jewish confession of Messiah, as about to come; nothing, in short, but the Spirit, giving communion with the Father and His Son, would entitle any to be regarded as servants of Jesus. The place and character of John marks that of those who are considered witnesses to Jesus throughout this book." The object of this is to shew that the testimony throughout this book is a Christian testimony, such as John's own testimony was in his own place and character. This is a pure assumption, and an assertion without any proof whatever. "The place and character of John marks that of those who are considered witnesses to Jesus throughout this book." To this statement we may assent or not according to our own judgment; for no proof is given but one, namely, that the author says so. It would be unwise to reject it for this reason, but equally unwise to receive it. And when he says "considered witnesses" -- considered by whom?
First, no one is called a servant of Jesus in this book but John himself, in the church of Thyatira the saints in general, and the angel who declares himself John's fellow-servant. So that this book would prove nothing, save so far as the angel being called a fellow-servant goes, if it be of Jesus (as is to be supposed, as he is speaking to John, who is called Jesus's servant here); and in that case the author's assertion would be unfounded, for an angel does not answer the description which, according to him, alone entitles any one to be so designated. But, leaving this aside, which would contradict his statement, the statement itself thus becomes immaterial, though so carefully stated in italics. For an apostle and the saints in a church are stated to be Christ's servants, which I suppose no one doubts, who has read the New Testament. But this proves nothing as to no one else being called so. The angel's account of himself goes to disprove it. The aim is to prove that the witnesses must be all of them such, and that therefore the Revelation speaks of the church. But the angel (fellow-servant of John) is sent by Jesus to witness or testify these things in the churches; so that it does not seem an exclusive idea.
But there is a further difficulty. "The Angel," in chapter 11, who will not be denied, I suppose, to be the Lord Jesus (in chapter 10, indeed, the author treats it so, and very justly) -- the Angel endows His two witnesses. But at this time, according to the author (page 124), Christianity is withdrawn from Jerusalem; and a new and different testimony is raised up, which speaks of Jesus as Son of God rejected, and declares it too late for present acceptance, and the joy of faith by the Holy Ghost. So that we see witnesses to Jesus and His witnesses, and those the most fully and prominently spoken of in the book, who are not, according to the author in his remarks in page 124 and elsewhere, what, for general purposes, he says they must be, in page 33.
In result, no one is called in the prophetic part of the book+ (and that is the question) servant of Jesus but an "angel"; and "His [Christ's] witnesses" is applied to those who bear testimony to Him when Christianity is not there at all. By the statement of these facts we find that the assertions of the author are not only unsustained, but totally unfounded. The fallacy of his argument (and I beg the reader to remember that no scriptural proof is attempted; it is a mere abstract assertion) -- the fallacy, I say, is this that, because one placed in a blessed and heavenly situation acts, and is addressed in a lower place, therefore all addressed in that lower place must be in the higher. The same fallacy as if I should say, Every man is an animal; therefore every animal must be a man. Let no one say that servants of Jesus++ must be sons of God. The statement is not true. And none are called servants of Jesus who are subjects of the prophecy. But John is said to bear witness: therefore every witness must be in the same place as John. Why so? We have seen, on the author's own shewing, that they are not. My son becomes my servant: is therefore, necessarily, every one of my servants a son? Christ is the faithful Witness. Is therefore every witness to Christ in the same position, or spoken of on the ground of Christ's position in the throne? There is no scripture statement, and the argument is good for nothing; and it supposes, moreover, a fact (i.e., that some are called servants of Jesus) which is not the case.
But let us enquire what Scripture does afford us on this point. First: Were the disciples during the life-time of Jesus servants of Jesus? It is to be supposed they were, since He says, "Henceforth I call you not servants, I have called you friends." Yet they were not in the condition the author supposes necessary. Remark the things contrasted. Jewish confession of Messiah as about to come -- nothing in short but the Spirit giving communion with the Father and the Son. Now the disciples of Jesus during His life were in neither of these conditions. They had not the Spirit giving communion with the Father and the Son; and they went much farther than a Jewish confession of a Messiah about to come. The same may be applied to the two witnesses. On the author's own shewing they have not the Spirit in this way (page 124); and yet they go far beyond a Jewish confession of Messiah, as about to come. "They will be able to speak of ... the Son of God slain and hanged upon a tree -- of the message of forgiveness through His blood despised, and now withdrawn -- of the day of His glory with all its judgments being nigh, even at the doors." So that the author's division is altogether a false one. He leaves out exactly the point in question. It is contradicted by himself; for he introduces elsewhere a class of confession which is neither one nor other of those he gives here; and hence the argument drawn from it as to the character of the witnesses of or to Jesus in the Revelation is disproved by his own statements.
+None at all but the then Christians (Revelation 1: 1) twice (and chapter 2: 20); though I see no reason whatever to confine it to them.
++In the close of Psalm 102 the millennial Jewish saints are called His servants -- those who are clearly not the church in its present standing.
Further: "The place and character of John marks that of those who are considered witnesses to Jesus throughout this book." In what place and character? -- an apostle? No. He is not considered in this character here. The vessel of the Holy Ghost was to know things in the way of gift by his union with the Head. "It may seem strange," says the author, "We should be instructed through an angel." "If the truth communicated had pertained to the family, as such, it would not so have been." What place and character does John then hold here? "Paul and John were not instructed through angels in feeding and ordering the churches. But, since the subject of the Revelation is God on the throne of His government in His relation to the nations, John, and the church as represented by him, are placed in a comparative distance." Now, how is the church represented by him? He has the place of a prophet. How can he thus represent the church? Where is a word or a thought about his representing the church? or how does one addressing the church represent the church? This is a mere unfounded statement of the author to bring in the church into this condition, in order to prove that the church is found in it in the Revelation But it is, as all these statements are, absolutely without proof, or an appearance of reason for the statement. When the church is seen or speaks in this book, it is always quite in another position. But let that pass. John is not in the apostolic place or character, and the truth communicated does not pertain to the family as such. Which, let the reader remark. "At present the Holy Spirit does not give the power of fellowship with God in the glory of His government." John is placed in a comparative distance.
This then is the place and character of the witnesses in the book: not the proper Christian or church place at all; not with the communion of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Indeed, as I have stated, the church is always seen elsewhere when it is seen in this book. And so we shall find it stated. Not that Christians were not witnesses to Jesus -- clearly they are, or ought to be; but that is not the character of the witness or testimony here. And the book clearly asserts that there is another kind of witness or testimony to Jesus -- the testimony found in this book; which is not by the Holy Ghost sent down for fellowship and communion, or "communications pertaining to the family," but which nevertheless constitutes persons servants. "I am thy [John's] fellow servant," and John was the servant of Jesus, and a witness,+ "and of thy brethren the prophets: for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." This latter is what is called a reciprocal proposition, each member having the article; and therefore we are justified in reading it inversely: The Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Now here we get the declaration that this comparatively distant position, which is not for the communication of truth pertaining to the family as such, is nevertheless a testimony of Jesus. In Peter I get the Spirit of prophecy, while, of course, of just as much authority, contrasted with the gospel or church testimony which pertained to the family. The Spirit of Christ in the 1 prophets was testifying, i.e., witnessing beforehand, and r ministered things which are reported by them who have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Into these things the angels desire to look; of these they are themselves the messengers, because they are not properly of the family, though everything belongs to it. A steward is for the estate: with the family concerns he has nothing to do, though the family have with the estate too. In a word, it is the Spirit of prophecy which characterises the witnesses in this book, and not John's own proper place as an apostle in the family; and therefore he speaks of himself only as in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, and not as an apostle in the church. Christ Himself takes no character beyond what He was, or will be on earth, in His title in the address; namely, faithful Witness, First-begotten from the dead, and Prince of the kings of the earth. And the celebration of the church's association with Christ in heavenly places is in the mouth of others, and that in heaven. The opening response of the saints (chapter 1: 5, 6) and the closing desire of the bride (chapter 22: 17) associate the church down here with it. The character of the witnesses then throughout this book is not a church character, but a prophetic angelic character, which we find (in Peter) contrasted in its nature with the testimony of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
+This view of the character of testimony, i.e., not of the Holy Ghost in the church as such, but of the Spirit of prophecy, is much confirmed if we adopt (as all critical editions do, on, it would appear, the amplest evidence) the reading, "the testimony of Jesus Christ [concerning, or even] all things that he saw" -- that is, omitting "and" before "all things." Revelation 1: 2.
That all this was suited to a state of things when all was out, of course, is most sure. That it has served in a measure of application, so far as it could be said there were no churches on earth and that apostasy had come in, and that it will suit a time of more decided manifestation of their principles, is most true; and so far blessed is he that keeps the sayings of thus book in all this period. But it applies to no church condition, not to the family as such.
When the author says, "The church has not yet the seven Spirits of God" -- where is it ever said it will?
When the author remarks how continually the name of Jesus is used throughout this book, the answer is, It is never used in the prophetic part of it, but in the expression of testimony, or witnesses of Jesus.+ Chapter 12: 17: the dragon makes war with them. Babylon (chapter 17: 6) is drunk with the blood of the martyrs or witnesses of Jesus. Chapter 19: 10: "Thy brethren which have the testimony of Jesus; for the testimony of Jesus," etc. And it is remarkable that, in the introduction and close of the book, before and after the prophetic part where the name of Jesus is mentioned, it is always associated with this testimony; chapter 1: 2, 5, 9. Christ Himself even becomes, so to speak, a prophet revealing what God gave to Him.
+We have seen the prophetic character of this, and hence the assertion (in that otherwise it might have been supposed unconnected with Him and His glory, and serve mere earthly and Jewish manifestation of divine power), "the Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus." Without thus, the church testimony might have been quite separated from the subsequent prophetic testimony, as if the latter were not of Jesus at all.
As to witness to Jesus, it is clear that it does not in itself suppose a church state, or the Holy Ghost as sent down from heaven as the power of the church's unity: because John the baptist is spoken of expressly as bearing witness to Jesus See John 5: 30-39, in particular verse 36.
As to the assertion that this book "has the character and authority of other prophetic and apostolic writings," the authority is admitted clearly; but how the same character, if "the truth communicated did not pertain to the family as such"? Is that the character of the apostolic writings? Or is the character of the prophetic and apostolic writings the same? When the author says, "The command given to the churches+ to observe the things written herein"; the answer is, There is no command given to the churches. I do not doubt that any one that reads and observes the things that are written therein will be blessed. I do not doubt that it is for the church. The whole word is for the church. Everything that was written aforetime was written for our learning. The question is, not whether we are to keep the things which by means of these revelations, may direct the saints (I do not doubt it), but whether the things prophesied of directly concern the church in its present state. Now as regards a great part of the book, it clearly does not: none of the latter chapters do. The very important revelations as to the two witnesses do not. And therefore to say that the command to the churches in this book supposes that the church is in the circumstances prophetically revealed, is not true of the whole, and the use made of the passage therefore is unfounded; for if actually untrue of a part, it may be untrue of all: and the deduction is unfounded which from the existence of the exhortation infers applicability to the church. The fallacy is the same here as elsewhere, as if there could be nothing but the church as such, and Israel's state after the church is gone. It is assuming the whole question; and, I have to repeat here, an assumption denied by the statements of the author as to the two witnesses. I admit that we are interested in the events predicted in a sense different from the Old Testament prophecies; because the Old Testament prophecies predict the consequence of Israel's conduct, and the Revelation, the consequences of the church's or Christendom's conduct, and God's ways in this respect. Thence any one on the stage of Christendom now is very directly interested in all its contents, and that in the most serious and solemn way. But this does not prove that the faithful church will be in the circumstances of which it is thus warned, though the warning be of the deepest interest to it. The warnings and revelations may be just the means of hindering our being there, while they may be a guide and support to them who find themselves in it. This is certain as regards the two witnesses for the last three years and a half; and therefore the use of the passage as made by the author is necessarily false.
+The italics are the author's.
Hence it could not be given, as he alleges it to be, as a command to the churches, because a very considerable part will not be fulfilled in the churches at all. Nay, according to the author, they no longer exist even now. Hence the Spirit of God has stated it in a general way, applicable when the apostle wrote, applicable now when there are no churches, and applicable when a new testimony shall be in the special place of testimony, when Christianity is withdrawn. "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and observe those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand." I have only to add this remark, that the present address and exhortation of John applies itself to those who were not in the circumstances; for he says, "Blessed are those that observe the things written therein"; and yet not as circumstances they were in, but on the contrary, because the time was at hand. That is, they were to anticipate the things revealed in it. I observe morally the things of a prophecy, not when the judgments prophesied are there. It is a revelation of future things to act on my conscience now. I do not mean that there may be no directions for saints when in them; there may be in particular cases. The Lord may say, as He has said elsewhere, "then do this," and "then do that"; but a blessing on the observation of the things in a prophecy while it remains prophecy (and this is the case here) is not conduct looked for in the circumstances prophesied, and therefore cannot prove that we are in them.
The statement of the author is not what is in the Scripture; and the argument founded on it is unsound. The comparison he makes is the oft repeated fallacy, which I have noticed, of stating an alternative which just leaves out the question.
What the author states about Christ is quite true. The passage speaks of Him who has been faithful, is risen, and will be manifestly glorified among men, but it says nothing about His being ascended, nothing of His being the Head of the body, nor as in the position in which He is connected with His body the church.
"Every eye shall see him" is opposed, I apprehend, to His being seen for testimony by chosen witnesses. I do not attach any importance to it, but it seems to me very clear that they also which pierced Him are exclusively the Jews; for I suppose the civilised Gentile nations would come under "every eye"; and, "they also which pierced him" refers to Zechariah 12 I agree that the wailing here must be distinguished from the true sorrow of the spared remnant -- still as of the nation. They had pierced Him.
I do not understand what wailing against a person is. They are confounded at seeing Him, I apprehend; and wail about themselves. As to "this generation" (Matthew 24), it is clearly the Jewish unbelieving race: hence the tribes of the land wail. But what have the heathen to do with this generation in Matthew? But this by the by.
But at the close we have a statement which must detain us for a moment. "One object of the Revelation is to shew that, during the whole period previous to the appearing of the Lord, Israel remains unconverted." Which part of the Revelation treats of this? The author does not furnish the smallest iota of proof; and I humbly suspect his readers would be considerably embarrassed in finding out or naming in what this object of the Revelation appeared. Israel's tribes are once mentioned as being sealed in the perfect number of one hundred and forty-four thousand as servants of God in their foreheads. I do not know whether this will be alleged as a proof that they are not converted. It would be a singular one at any rate.
Now I would humbly suggest, notwithstanding the assertion of the author, that while the Revelation says nothing directly about it -- I urge that it is a very bold thing to say without any proof, that one of its objects is to shew that Israel will not -- yet, that other scriptures clearly shew that there is a remnant turned to God, really converted, before the Lord comes, though those that are left have not received deliverance and salvation. The Lord Jesus expressly says, "Ye shall not see me henceforth, until ye say, Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Here we have a positive assertion of the Lord Jesus, that they will not see Him till they say, Blessed -- till their heart be converted to receive Him. Again, Let any one read Isaiah 56, where Jewish blessings are promised, and yet it is only said "my salvation is near to come." Will it be said that persons of whom God says, that they choose the things that please Him, take hold of His covenant, that join themselves to the Lord to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants -- that God in this describes unconverted people? Again, Isaiah 65, 66, where a remnant is distinguished by the Lord as His servants. See chapter 65: 8-15, and 66: 5, 14, where there is a remnant very expressly distinguished even from others that are spared. And here I would remark in passing (what seems to me the key to all Isaiah) from chapter 40 to the end: it is this word servant. Israel was Jehovah's servant to be His witness. But Israel as in chapter 49 rejecting Jesus, He is the servant; and then the remnant at the close, who hear the Servant's voice, are themselves recognised as the servants to be blessed with Him in His earthly glory. They are thus described in chapter 51, and their progressive condition spoken of (chapter 51 to chapter 53: 12). Then the atoning work of the true Servant is brought out. Again, not to mention a multitude of other Psalms, see Psalm 80, where Israel, God with Israel, and Israel's blessings are spoken of. Yet here it is prayed that the hand of Jehovah may be upon the man of His right hand, upon the Son of man, whom He made so strong for Himself. And, to go no farther, supposing the testimony of "the Son of God rejected" -- stated by the author himself to be given in Jerusalem after Christianity is withdrawn -- to be believed, surely the believers of this are not in an unconverted state, nor unprepared to receive Him. Or will their wailing be the opposite of the wailing of Zechariah 12, when He does come? The supposition is absurd. Again, the wise who understand of Daniel 11, 12, where I think the unprejudiced reader cannot fail to find persons commended of God as those that shall understand, and who will seek to turn the mass to righteousness (for that is the force of chapter 12: 3; it is not who have turned many, but who have been teaching righteousness to the mass -- to the many), a class which may after Christ's days have been added to the church, but who are also found in the end in a Jewish position, and blessed with Jewish blessings, and delivered with a Jewish deliverance. In a word, while there is a most unfounded statement, without an attempt at proof, that such was one object of the Revelation, the thing stated to be the object is contradicted by a multitude of the plainest scriptures.
It seems to me, indeed, a most solemn thing to say that the Spirit of God in the Psalms should become habitually the instrument, not of prophetically revealing the wickedness of the wicked, but of expressing the false piety (for, if unconverted, their piety is false) of unconverted men, and that in the most touching strains of appeal to God,+ some of which rise up to prophecies of Christ Himself, and are all inspired by His Spirit. It is in vain to say they are Christians. Their hopes and prospects, their prayers and praises, and the answer of God's Spirit to them, are all Jewish. And yet if this be not the former, the whole system of the author must fall down together (and that is the worst of making systems). See the promise even at the end of that famous Psalm 69. Take again Psalm 73; so Psalms 65 and 66: I take the first that present themselves. Are the promises in Psalms 31 and 35 not to be accomplished in respect of those whose confidence is expressed in so many other passages? And these shew the connection of their hopes with Christ. And note here the quotation by Peter, and even the prophecy as to Christ, verse 20. But it would be endless to quote them all. The reader may make this remark, that while often insisting on integrity of heart, which the Lord insists on too (see Psalm 24), where the ground of hope is stated or an appeal to God is made, and His mercy and righteousness are introduced, mercy is always first introduced as the ground of their hope; and this is but the answer to the work of grace in their hearts. I cannot pursue this subject at large, but I have said enough to lead one who searches it out to see how very untenable the author's statement is. Yet his system stands or falls with it, because there is clearly in this case another testimony, another work of God outside the church, before the Lord comes, connected with Jewish circumstances and interests, Jewish in its hopes. I have no doubt that the Scriptures give a great deal more light on this subject than I have taken upon me to state here; but I confine myself to the fact itself.
+Appeals too which are to be answered.
I agree with the author as to Lord's day (i.e., his interpretation as to "on the Lord's day"); but I confess it is beyond me what he means by, we "may live only to God on that day." May we do anything else on other days? I admit, and rejoice in, a special blessing on it; but living only to God is surely every day in the week.
In the subsequent note we are plunged back again into the confusion in which we were before. The threefold division is a recognised one. But let us see the application of it. "Chapters 2 and 3 are concerned with the things that are, i.e., present to John, but to us past. Chapters 6, etc., altogether future." The relationship then of Christ to the churches, nay, to the church, see pages 14, 15 (as described in a book which refers to the period in which Christ is hidden with God, i.e., the dispensation to which the New Testament belongs, the present period) is to us past -- His excellent relation to such a body.
The mere fact of these churches being past is not in itself what makes so enormous a position of this; but its being the description of the relationship of Christ with the church: and this because it was to be maintained at all cost that the Revelation applied to this present period -- the church period. It is the system of interpretation which produces these consequences. I apprehend indeed, though that be of comparative small importance, that it would be very difficult to shew that all that is said to the churches is a past matter. I fully admit that there were such churches which were so judged. But not only is the number seven significative, but "he that has an ear" is called upon to hear what is said to the churches. Now this could hardly be the case unless the condition (and it is not merely individual conduct) of these churches might be descriptive, at such or such given time of the state of things in which believers would find themselves, and of which the Lord gives His judgment. The church in general lost its first love as well as Ephesus; and others may, whether in particular circumstances, or in the general state of the church, at a given time, find themselves walking where there was a name to live, and yet death. Nor can I suppose that when the Lord speaks of "the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them which dwell on the earth," and adds, "Behold, I come quickly," that He is speaking of that which is to us past. And how, if it be to us past, can the author say (page 83, referring to the last development of human evil), "the great hour of temptation comes only upon the oikoumenee (the Roman earth); but it is to try or put to the test them that dwell upon the earth?" (Revelation 3: 10.)+ And if this be true of Philadelphia, can it be confined to it? Or would it not prove that the Lord's mind was going beyond the local circumstances and referring to God's further and more general dealings, though it might require a spiritual mind to judge of the application? And why, I would ask, are all the peculiar instructions, and the heavenly and blessed promises, thus passed over with one word -- it is "to us past." I understand this, if the prophetic part referred to a distinct period which might be separately discussed; but all belongs (according to the author) up to chapter 19 to the church period.
+It is the second time referred to in the same way in the "Thoughts."
One topic remains untouched, to which, as occupying the minds of many saints, and of great importance in their eyes, I would here advert. A few words suffice to establish the system, and sanction the widespread condemnation of those who do not hold it: but the explanation of the point will require a somewhat greater space. "Their laws were heavenly; for they were those of the sermon on the mount" (page 22, note). This meeting the popular and just feeling, that the principles of the sermon on the mount ought to govern us, settles the whole question in many a mind that the sermon on the mount was addressed to the church, and that it was for no one else. But hard words will not drive me from what I have been taught of God from the word. Now I fully admit that the directions in the sermon on the mount are a guide to us. On the other hand it surely is very objectionable to say "their laws were heavenly, for they were those of the sermon on the mount," if it be meant that this is the whole directory of the church, or that the church was put under laws. Both of these propositions are entirely false. But the question (though it may seem so to those unaware of the bearing of all this) is not whether the church can take these directions, and use them by the Spirit for her guidance. If they are addressed to others than the church, then a condition is found to have existed to which the testimony of Christ applies, but which is not the church. If it is solely and exclusively the church, then there is no example (here at least) of disciples other than the church; and we are to take the disciples as being, during the lifetime of Jesus, the church; and the proper and peculiar blessedness of that body, in the unity of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, becomes a mere casual difference.
I say then, that the disciples were not then the church, though they afterwards became the first nucleus of it, and that the sermon on the mount is not addressed to the church, nor could be (though the church now has it for its guide in its walk). If I say to one who has never been at court, You cannot join the king's court but in a court dress, it is clear that he will have to wear the court dress when there. For what I say means that that is the dress that suits the court; but the man as yet does not form part of the king's court. But, further, the kingdom of heaven is not the church; and while we enter into it in the way of being the church, others may enter into it in another way, as the Jews and others during the millennium; and this dress prescribed in the sermon on the mount may be as needed for those who are to enter in in that way, as for those who are, by this new form of the manifold wisdom of God, become the church of God in earth. Thus when it is said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," this may be true of those who shall inherit the earth in a millennial way, and I believe will be true and more literally and immediately true than it is of the church; and that to confine it to the church as exclusively true of it, is only ignorance. This shews the bearing of the question.
Then, as to the fact, I say that the disciples were not then the church, and could not be addressed as the church (Christ being not yet dead and risen again, and the Spirit not given). They were addressed in their then condition. And is there any great wonder in that? But farther, could one in the church, a Christian now, as it has been put by one opposed to my view, have sat on the mount with the disciples, and have listened with the disciples to this sermon as addressed to himself as well as to them? I answer at once, No. He would have said, How blessed to my soul are these instructions! what a guide to my feet in this dark world! how my soul delights in them, and in Him who gave them! But he would have felt that they were addressed to them, and not to him. He was in the kingdom, he had the secret of the Lord, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in him. And this one word, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," would at once make him feel, "This is for them, addressed exclusively to them." It is impossible that such language as Ye shall in "no case enter" can be addressed to those who are already within, who are in and of the kingdom. It gives the immediate consciousness that the address is to others, though it may at the same time give the consciousness that the principles addressed belong to those that are within. That they got new instructions, belonging to the remnant, is most true -- such as would not have suited any others. That this remnant became the nucleus of the church and carried these instructions along with them into it, is equally true. But they were not then addressed as the church, nor even as being in the kingdom: nor could they be, for neither was set up. And this sermon is in prospect of the setting up of the kingdom, and shews the qualities and persons suited to it before it was so set up, and in no case even alludes to the church.
For my own part, though a practical direction in principle, I have no doubt that chapter 5: 25 applies to the then position of Christ with the nation, and that the nation is now suffering the consequences of not acting on the principle there stated. I add that, while all the teaching here remains eternally true for every one, yet that, as it stands here, it could be addressed now neither to saint nor sinner. Not to a saint; for it is a question of entering into the kingdom of heaven. Not to sinners; for it is not an address of grace to them at all, nor is redemption once mentioned at all, but doing Christ's sayings as the ground of entry. (See chapter 7: 21.) To say that it will be true as regards heaven for us is avoiding the question. It is running an analogy, and a just one; but it is not what is said or treated in the sermon on the mount.
I affirm then that the sermon on the mount was addressed to the disciples in their then state; and I should think it very natural that it should be so. But their then state was not that of the church, but very far indeed from it. I do not draw any further consequences, though I believe these considerations throw light on many points; but as the subject was started in the note to page 22, I thought it well to state and repeat clearly what I do believe, as to the general principle, to be God's mind about these passages. And I have done it the rather because of all the denunciations which have been sent forth on the subject. They may produce prejudice (where there is not the light of God on the point -- a sorrowful effect), but will neither produce conviction, nor create fear where there is. One may, while confessing one's liability to error, sorrow over those who utter, and those who are led by them; but that is all.
But as we are on the subject, I would touch on one or two points connected with it. It is alleged that, at any rate, prophetic passages cannot be addressed to the disciples, save as representing the church -- passages, that is, which relate to a time subsequent to the Lord's death. Now I apprehend that Matthew 23: 8-12 is of perpetual obligation on disciples. Yet here we have, in the beginning of the address, a passage which most certainly cannot be applied to the church, as such; and yet "you" and "ye" are continued all through the passage as if to the same class (the disciples being then considered as connected with the multitude and a Jewish position). They were to mind the scribes and Pharisees, as sitting in Moses' seat. And it may be remarked that, in this chapter, the apostles and others are spoken of as Jewish teachers sent to the nation, as such, that their scribes and Pharisees might fill up the measure of their fathers. Yet, in the midst of this there are instructions binding upon them, and prophecies of their sufferings, when they were in the place of Christians, after the descent of the Holy Ghost. (See the verses cited above, and 34, 35.) The Spirit of God must teach us to apply these passages aright, and to put each word of God in its place, according to His mind.+
+I may add that, in Matthew 24: 22-28, there are statements connected with the word "Ye" which apply to a time when the author does not suppose the church to be there.
In Matthew 10 again we get directions for the future, which, it cannot be doubted, have had an accomplishment, at least, in the apostles after the Lord's death; and yet clearly the passage does not apply to the church, for they are forbidden to go to the Gentiles. Yet the Spirit speaks in them, and they suffer for Christ's name sake.
I admit that the standing of the Pentecostal church was heavenly. The doctrine of the unity of the church as the body of Christ was not yet brought out. That doctrine was clearly based upon the death of Christ, and the descent of the Holy Ghost.
Christ could not be (and that is the material point) the beginning of the church, until He had wrought redemption, and was risen from the dead. He was not set apart as Son of God with power, but by resurrection. No Christian doubts He was Son of God, or that He was the resurrection and the life. But as we are taught (Colossians 1: 18), "And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he might have the pre-eminence." His headship of creation was based on His creative power; though it has to be reconciled. But the cross and redemption were needed, as well as life, to place any in a church standing -- to begin it. Ephesians 2 teaches the same thing; but more of this hereafter. But, as touched on here, I thought it well to say a word on the doctrine. It is a very important one. The Holy Ghost can recognise nothing as the church on this side death and redemption. The foundation was not laid.
The introductory part of this chapter I offer no remark upon because, though I do not acquiesce in parts of it, I am not aware of any principle involved which is not elsewhere remarked on. In page 40 we have another example of how little anything critical or exegetical can be trusted to in these "Thoughts." "He saw 'a throne set in heaven.' Being 'set,' or firmly established, it stood in contrast with the mutability and failure of everything he had known below." Now it is perfectly clear to anyone who can consult the Greek that there is no semblance of any such idea. It is literally, "a throne lay there"; but in English perhaps best rendered by "there was a throne there." "Set" there (in the familiar sense of setting, i.e., placing a chair) is all very well; but the idea of "firmly established" has no sort of place in the sentence.
The meaning of this difference is this: stability of the throne refers to the whole period in which man failed down here; whereas finding a throne placed, or set there, shews rather the assumption of a particular position or relationship by God. And this is perfectly answerable to the statement made to John by the voice, "Come up hither, and I will shew thee what must happen after these things." Now God may be ever in a general sense on a throne (though He is not considered always in this light, nor is it the highest thought of God -- that is rather the dwelling in the light inaccessible); still He is the blessed and only Potentate. The throne, however, of government is a special relationship, to be known as it is revealed. Thus in Job we see Satan going among the sons of God before it. Here the throne is revealed in relation to things which are to happen after what has been stated as to Christ's relationship to the churches on earth. For it is well to remember that which is stated of one general common period is contradicted by the express word of God in the Revelation. John, after the vision of the churches, is caught up to see the things which should happen thereafter, and then sees the throne+ which was set or was then in heaven. Revelation 4: 2.
As to the jasper and the sardine stone, I have not much to say, nor any particular reason to object to what is said as to it, save that it is all without any foundation. I know not why, because He that sat on the throne was like a jasper and a sardine stone, so said to be by the Holy Ghost, that therefore it should be concluded that He was like the others which the Holy Ghost does not mention at all. It would rather seem that it was a special sort of glory to which these stones answered, or had some analogy: as the building of the wall of the city was of jasper. And the city is thus spoken of; "Having the glory of God, and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal." Here, what had the glory of God is likened particularly to a jasper. In the twelve foundations the sardine stone is not found. I confess I do not know what the light of a precious stone means, nor its not flickering; yet I would not stop to remark on it. But whatever this glory and beauty be, I would ask, What means "accomplished in no little measure when the church of the Firstborn shall inherit that heavenly city ... and when of Jerusalem it shall be said that her righteousness shall go forth as brightness"? Is the church glorified with Christ in an imperfect state of glory? Is it only "in no little measure" that its grace and glory are accomplished? I suppose, then, being like Christ, seeing Him as He is, leaves yet something to be accomplished by some other glory than His. Or why this effort to shew the glory of the bride the Lamb's wife, having the glory of God, as yet imperfect? and to bring in, as analogous and parallel glory, Jerusalem on earth? "The stones of the breastplate were covenant tokens++ of these blessings"; and, "yet the moral excellency and the glory as of the church, so also of Israel, were in this vision seen alike secured in the Person of Him who sat on the throne -- 'in Him that is true, even the true God.'" (page 41).
+I suppose there can be little doubt that the allusion here is to Daniel 7: 9, where the thrones are set; which, being expressed by a word used for "thrown into a place," has been translated "cast down" in the English translation, but by the Septuagint "set" which, I suppose, is clearly the sense, as received by Gesenius and other learned men, and many interpreters, and agrees with the context. If so, the Greek here is natural enough, and would give much critical force to the observations here. But this I leave to the learned. There is no need of reference to the Hebrew word; as the Greek word is regularly used in the sense in which it is found here: as John 19: 29, "There was set a vessel full of vinegar." Reference to a dictionary will give the use and examples; John 2: 6, Matthew 5: 14, may suffice, particularly the former.
++All this is built on the fact of the jasper and sardine stones being assumed to prove that the reference was to the breastplate of the high priest, of which there is no kind of evidence, because no relationship of any kind with anything else is intimated. It is merely that He was like it -- the expression of certain qualities in Him. On this is built, that the stones on the breastplate secured the heavenly as well as earthly glory in unity as covenant blessings. Where is all this in Scripture? And of what covenant? What an edifice is here built, without one scripture being quoted, on these two stones being the likeness of God! And note, that the whole system of the author, proving the imperfection of the church's own glory, and the participation of Israel in it (without saying that it is inferior, so as to leave all vague), is built, without a scripture proof, on this.
"Union with the Person of the Son of God, is the great characteristic blessing of the whole family of the redeemed, whether in earth or heaven," etc. "And therefore we read of the heavenly city the bride," "and of Jerusalem it is said," etc. "Such are the results of His being as the jasper and the sardine stone, who sitteth upon the throne, for He is the Preserver now, even as He will be the Communicator then, of all this exceeding grace and glory." Is then this exceeding grace and glory communicated to Jerusalem on earth, as well as to the bride the Lamb's wife? "The bright excellency of character and glory, which is now found in Him who sitteth on the throne, is, in Him, preserved for us, in whom it is soon to be manifested in like radiancy of beauty. And therefore we read of the heavenly city"; "and of Jerusalem it is said," etc.
Is then Jerusalem on earth to be in like radiancy of beauty with the heavenly type of the divine glory? Is Jerusalem to be clothed with what is said to be preserved for us? "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption." "The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." But here, by a measure of accomplishment only for the church, and the connection of figures used as to Jerusalem with the type of divine glory, all is swamped in one undistinguished mass, based on union with the Son of God. Are the saints prepared to have the promises to the bride the Lamb's wife thus dealt with? Jerusalem may be a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord"; but is that what the bride is in the Revelation, or the New Testament promises? I have little disposition to reason on these statements: if the heart, as taught and animated by the Spirit of God, does not reject them, reasoning would be of very little avail.
And what are these statements based on? An assumption, that because two stones were specially selected as descriptive of Him on the throne in vision, therefore it meant all such as were found on the breastplate of the high priest -- from which, observe, lights and perfections were distinct -- the enumeration as to the heavenly Jerusalem being moreover different. Then the actual state of the church of God in glory is said to be only an imperfect state as to state and glory, inward and outward; and then they are stated to be Israel's risen priests, without a hint of proof being yet given. That is, by a series of statements without the least appearance of proof, or a single text of scripture adduced as warranting them, the whole condition and state of the church in glory is subverted, by giving to Jerusalem in vague terms what Scripture does not, and taking from the church, the object of Christ's dearest affections, what He has ascribed to it.
"Union with the Person of the Son of God is the great characteristic blessing of the whole family of the redeemed." Where in Scripture? That they all have life from Him is undoubtedly true. But where is union spoken of with the Son of God as characterising the saints on earth during the millennium? Union is an ambiguous and not even a scriptural term; and, though blessedly used when spiritually understood, may be used to ensnare the understanding of those who truly desire Christ's glory. Are the saints on earth in the millennium united to Christ in the sense of being then His body? This is what would be implied here, though the author has not ventured to go so far as to state it.
Union with Christ, spoken of in Scripture, conveys the idea of the body with the Head. Now there was no body, and no Head neither, till the exaltation of Christ (Ephesians 1). The Holy Ghost speaks of the exceeding greatness of God's power in raising Christ, and setting Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. That is, it is the exalted Man with whom, as Head, the church is spoken of as one body. Now there was no exalted Man till Christ ascended on high; and thereon He sent down the Holy Ghost to form the body in unity. Giving of life is not here the point. As Son of God He gave life to all the family in every age; but union as a body with a glorified man could not be when the glorified man was not there. Nor are the saints during the millennium said to be in union, nor anything of the kind. Nor are they the glorified body of Christ. The saints filled of the Holy Ghost are spoken of as having gifts according to the unity of this body, till we all come -- that is, Scripture contemplates only all the saints under the operation of these gifts which are the joints of the body. And the use of "in him that is true" is a mere gloss and has nothing to do with its use in Scripture. Here the grace and glory are said to be secured for the church and Israel, in Him that is true: whereas Scripture says, "we are in him that is true."
The truth is, "Union with the Person of the Son of God,"+ is an idea as unscriptural as the words. "We are in him and he is in us." We are also said to dwell in God, and God in us; but we do not speak of union with God. Again, of whom is it said, "We have received of his fulness grace for grace?" Of the Word made flesh, He dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. Before that it had been said, "in him was life"; but now the Word becomes flesh, and we talk of fulness. Again, the same truth is omitted in citing the passage, "in whom all fulness dwells." Is it merely in the Person of the Son of God? Not at all. "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. And we are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power." And again: "He is the head of the body the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead: that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. For all the fulness was pleased to dwell in him. And having made peace through the blood of his cross," etc. That is, it is not the mere life-giving power of the Son of God, but His own taking a position as Man, in which He becomes the Head of the body, the church, which gives occasion to the union.
+The expression has been used most innocently (I dare say I may have used it myself), as the carrying up the mind to the true source of all its blessings. But when a mere human imperfect expression is used as the basis and expression of a doctrine, so as to draw immense consequences from its terms, then the value and accuracy of the terms must be estimated. It is just the way of error to use some inaccurate expression, popular and consecrated to express a great blessing, to sanction the false doctrine contained in the terms employed: Thus it was with "mother of God," used perhaps at the first innocently, as meaning the mother of Him who was God.
Hence the whole of these pages are a perversion as to Israel, the church, union, and Him with whom we are united. And I beg it may be remembered that there is not a word in this chapter commented upon about Israel, nor the priests of Israel, nor the God of Israel; though all seems to be based on it, and the very glory of God to be drawn from the breastplate of their high priest. Nor has the rainbow anything to do with the God of Israel. It was established long before, though God may bless the earth when He restores Israel, and manifests the church in the divine unity of all His counsels.
The author is pleased to say, "Hence the connection of the rainbow with the throne of the Lord God of Israel." But where is it said, "the throne of the Lord God of Israel"? Or what shews that this heavenly throne was that of the Lord God of Israel, unless the fact that there is but one God, and so it must be the same? But such a reason is trifling with Scripture. On the statement as to the church I have not much to remark, but that "knowing as we are known" has nothing whatever to say with "participating in the counsels of the Most High," which Scripture never says, and I believe to be impossible. These counsels may be revealed to them; but God does not take counsel, as if anything were undetermined in His mind. Nor do I see how the fact of the analogy of the twenty-four courses of priests connects them with Israel, so as to prove that Israel is not forgotten.
That the twenty-four elders allude to the twenty-four courses, I believe, and in general all the vision to the state of things in the temple, as is quite clear; but to make out of this figurative allusion that they are therefore really Israel's priesthood in the world to come, without any allusion of Scripture to it, is building without any foundation. The vials were the prayers of the saints -- it is never said of Israel, nor is it said to be during the time of glory. The Lamb is yet in the throne above. As to 1 Chronicles 25, it is Levite service, not priestly at all. There is no scripture quoted or alluded to, on which to ground it; and a figure drawn from facts is surely not a warrant for actual relationship with those from whom the figure is taken: and this is all that is to be had for the large system here presented, which is to unite heaven and earth.
As to the thunder and lightning being not the millennial relation but the present, there is nothing yet which proves it to be either. This book is evidently written for persons long and carefully imbued with the ideas it contains, or it would be impossible to advance so many things without any proof. We have seen this as to Israel's priesthood, stated without a symptom of proof. Here we are told that the glorified are to be manifested on mount Zion: this is assumed and reasoned from. It may be so, but cannot be assumed. I believe it to be a total mistake. At all events there is no proof.+ But as to present relation, if the churches are present relation (which, as to period, they are stated to be), then the throne -- I have to repeat -- cannot be; because this vision is said to be of things after the others.
But we now arrive at statements of the most unaccountable character, which suppose a confusion of mind scarcely possible to conceive in one guided by the Holy Ghost. "The appearance of the jasper and the sardine stone attaching to Him who sat on the throne, has taught us the source of all our excellency and glory. The elders represent one form under which that glory will be exhibited"; "the cherubim symbolise another." What glory? The divine, as a jasper and sardine stone? By itself this might pass; for we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and the city had the glory of God. I draw attention to it merely that we may see on what ground we are entering -- participating in the divine glory as seen in the throne itself.
+We shall see how far this holds good with other statements further on.
But before these we have two other symbols, we are told: "one indicating the nature of a power with which we are to be invested; the other, the essential purity that will attach to our new condition of being. The first of these is represented by the seven lamps of fire, burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God." They represent the Spirit "as subserving the government of the throne of God" -- not as He acts in strict co-equality. Yet "nothing, perhaps, amongst all the attributes of God, is more wonderful than this Omnipresent control; all the merely executive agents of His government being subordinate thereunto," etc. "When we consider ... that the universe, morally as well as physically, is under a superintendence," etc.; "it gives a view of Almighty and Omnipresent power, more wonderful, perhaps, than the original power of creation, or that whereby He continually upholds that which He hath created. This power is at present possessed and exercised by the Lord Jesus; for He hath the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth; but His saints do not possess it yet. At present His divine power is given to us only so far as is necessary for present purposes of life and godliness. But since it is said in the scripture, that we are 'the fulness of him that filleth all in all,'+ and that we are to be made 'like him, and joint-heirs with him,' and since the Lord Jesus has Himself said, 'the glory which thou hast given me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one,' it cannot be doubted that the church will participate in this branch also of His glorious power." And that there is no mistake in this attribution of Almighty Omnipresence to the church, we are told that all the merely executive agents of His government are subordinate thereto: for such we could well suppose the church to be according to this power, as angels are now, or even more exaltedly (though they are said to be equal to the angels, Luke 20: 36). But it is distinguished from this; and in the note we are told the difference, that this power in the whole universe is "in Him essentially and inherently; to us it will only come by communication."
+This is an utter misapplication of the passage. The church is said to be His fulness as the body of the head -- "like Him" in personal glory, having the image of the Second, as we have of the first Adam. "When he appears, we shall be like him." It is what we shall be, not the possession of divine attributes. And when He speaks of glory given, it is given to Him; but He upholds all things by the word of His power; and in or by Him all things consist.
I have given this long quotation, and I shall add little comment. It is not strict co-equality of the Spirit; but it is an "attribute of God" more wonderful than creative power, or that by which He upholds the universe. It is the universality of Omnipresent control, or Almighty and Omnipresent power. The saints do not possess it yet, but they will participate in it. What is co-equality of the Spirit, if it be not in the attributes of Godhead? And are you, saints of God, prepared to accept -- to admit of -- such statements as these? Do you thus interpret "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"? What shall I say? Nay, I leave it to yourselves. For how should we reason on the attribution of Almighty and Omnipresent power, to which all executive agents of His government are subordinate, to the church; and that in a chapter in which it is said that, yet imperfect, her grace and glory can only be said to be "in no little measure" consummated? If anything were needed to complete this confusion it would be the connection of the notes of the preceding chapter, where we are told, that, in the thought of impending conflict, "we may remember the seven Spirits of God, that their power has not ceased to be supreme, and that benediction, as from them, has been pronounced over us." Yet, though supreme, and exercising power greater than creation, it is not co-equality with the Father and the Son. Alas! what is the confusion of man's mind when it deals thus as human mind with Scripture?
Nor is this all. It is brought yet again most definitely out. "But there is yet another character of power, which the church is to exercise, in the glory" (page 51 -- though this follows on partaking of the glorious power of the throne. "Admission into the counsels of God is represented by the throned elders -- Omniscient power of superintendence, by the seven spirits; but the execution of the will of God, and the omnipotent power, necessary to such execution,+ is also committed to the redeemed." I know not what more power should be committed to them than Almighty power, which they had already in the seven Spirits, or what else should be necessary. And indeed I know not (though I really feel almost afraid to reason on such statements, lest the reasoning on them might take the character of the folly of bringing man's mind into such subjects, and I should do what the author has done, though only to refute it -- for there are some things which to refute is as foolish as to state); yet I know not why it should be said, "the will of God," when they participate in the counsels of the Most High (page 45). Let the reader only weigh all this. The author insists on it, "nor," says he, "is it conceivable that the saints should be joint-heirs with Christ, without being invested with this character of power."
Nor is this all. "That the cherubim symbolise the redeemed, is manifest," etc. "The vision of Ezekiel affords the fullest description of that power which the cherubim denote." The author then quotes the description, not of Him seated above, but of the cherubim, and adds, "Nothing can be more significant of the resistless course of Almighty power. These terrible wheels -- combining the movements of four, without losing the unity of one, etc.; nowhere absent, but everywhere present, in the perfectness of undivided action; afford the mysterious, but fitting symbol of the omnipotent agency of Him, before whom all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest thou?" Is this the power which the cherubim, the redeemed, denote? We read (page 53), "Their agency in the earth has for the present ceased," and "we may see the necessity for such a power, and the high calling of the church, in being entrusted with its application." "The various characteristics of this power are denoted by the forms of the four living creatures," etc. A reason is then given for the change of form from Ezekiel, which I leave to any one to explain; and after describing their characteristics, we are told that "as such," they "will apply to the earth and to the universe the wisdom of the elders [!!] and the throne." Is it possible that saints can have read such a passage as this, and not hid the book from them? "Of the elders and the throne!" and the elders are themselves. But no observation ought to be made on such a passage as this. And all this is to be saved by the confession that, though it may seem to exalt the creature almost into co-equality with God (no wonder, when they possess attributes more wonderful than creative power, and that it is their wisdom as well as that of the throne they apply), yet that, for all that, they worship Him that sits there. In possession of wisdom and power, blessed in himself, and a source of divine blessing to others, man will yet render homage to Him from whom all things proceed!
+Were the angels, too, omnipotent -- those ministers of His who did His pleasure? And we are said to be "equal to angels," Luke 20: 36, though exalted above them, through union with Jesus. Cannot Almighty power go with the agents of His will? Does it not do so now, even with poor, feeble saints, where they do it?
Glorious as these cherubim, however, were, the exaltation of the elders was higher. Still they worship. They may be a higher symbol, but it must be remembered that they are the symbol of the same redeemed church: so that, even in this respect, all is confusion here. The church has been taken from its proper blessed glory and joy as the bride of Christ, to reduce it to a vague uncertain position of identity with Zion and Israel; and hence, to satisfy the cravings of the mind (or rather to shew its wanderings), all this exaggerated statement is to be made, outraging every truth, and making every feeling of the soul shrink, not only from this, but from afterwards approaching the question of what these symbols do mean, for fear of being drawn into the vortex.
And now let me ask this question of the reader, Was there reality in the vision of Ezekiel? that is, was there the exercise of judicial power in Jerusalem, of which he saw the symbol in the throne of Jehovah in vision? If there was, then, was it the church of the redeemed that then exercised the divine power? or were there eyes in others who are to be deprived of them? The church was not there. Nor were the cherubim the executors of anything. A man took a coal from between the cherubim, and certain agents of judgment smote those that another had not marked. The cherubim did nothing of all this.
Further: the cherubim did not then (chapter 11) go up to heaven, though this is a common mistake. Nor were they (though that be equally common, and one into which I dare say I may have fallen myself) the throne of God at Jerusalem. See Ezekiel 1: 4. It would seem from that to be providential judgment by the means of Nebuchadnezzar. Compare Jeremiah 1: 13, 15 -- a prophecy referring to the same period in general, though there were several successive invasions. That the church may be the instrument of His power is very likely: but partaking of Almighty omnipresent power is quite another thing.
Another example of the entire uncertainty of exegetical interpretations, introduced to serve the moment's purpose, or deny those of other brethren, is afforded here. Generally the human face in the cherub has been interpreted of intelligence. Here, page 55, we are told "the human face" "represents not, I think, intelligence," -- "but that sympathy with humanity," etc. Of the locusts we are told, page 108, "Their having the faces of men (the same characteristic as we find in the cherubim) marks, I suppose, the wisdom and sagacity with which they carry on their hellish counsels." The reference of the cherubim is the author's own.
It is a remark, I think, of Lord Bacon's that if one were to tell a falsehood to one's self often enough, we should believe it at the year's end: how much more when error comes from those we are accustomed to respect, and falls in with our natural wishes and feelings. "The throne, surrounded by the symbolic glories we have been considering, is intended, through all the deep darkness and sorrow of the present dispensation, to stand before us a sure sustaining object of faith." Abstractedly, no doubt, the throne of God does so, though much more to us a Father's love.+ But this does not hinder its being true that the revelations here made are, according to the author, all entirely future. The throne here displayed has never acted at all up to this time. And, according to the word, all the events were subsequent to what is stated as to the churches, which are Christ's relationship to the excellent body, the church, according to the author. It is future glory too, according to him, that is revealed: so that it is not the throne as acting now. Further, while it shewed the church in its high and distinctive future glories, "our future exaltation,"++ yet the object also was to give us instruction essential to our testimony and service upon earth among men -- precise and definite instruction through John to the churches upon the earth. Now what is the instruction as to service? Or when, save the two witnesses, is there any service of the church, or of any saints at all, spoken of in the Revelation; and that precisely and definitely? For that is what a book, we are told, is the symbol of. Not one word of proof or example is given as bearing out this assertion.
+The throne, I apprehend, is little spoken of in direct known addresses to the church.
++This is really all confusion, because the throne is surrounded with future glories, and yet is the throne of the present dispensation. It presents the church symbolically in glory, and gives Christ the titles which belong to His connection with Israel in a yet unasserted title; and yet it is hence that precise and definite instruction is given to the church for its present testimony and service. This has been in a measure felt by the author, though laboriously sought to be got over: for, after stating that it is not Christ's church title, but a new relationship, he says, "yet it is not difficult to see the reason why He should be here introduced as the Lion of Judah." Having mingled and confused all the relationships of Christ and the throne with the church and Israel, the reasons for that must be given: but the simple scripture does not need these reasons, nor this justification. He who was on earth the Lamb, and was withal the Lion of Judah, was thus identified and recognised in His own Person in the throne on high. Hereafter He will be known as Offspring of David too.
But again, "Hidden in the throne had been one who, now for the first time appeared, and assumed a new relation to Him who sat upon it" -- first appeared, that is, in the heavenly vision; for He had been seen in another way among the churches. But if it was a new relation, it was not a relation to the churches at all. It is in vain to say that this was an anticipation of the millennium;+ because in the same character He opens all the seals, which are "this period," the "church period," and contain precise and definite instruction to the churches upon the earth. But how to the churches on earth, if it was, as indeed it really was, a new relation that the Lord was in; and instructions, moreover, for testimony and service? And when the author speaks of a new relation to the throne; was He in a new relation to the throne without its being new towards the earth and the saints? That cannot be, because it was a new intermediate relation. And it was a new relation It is the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of David No doubt that it was the same person as the Lamb slain, and all-important that we should know it; and no doubt this knowledge was communicated to the churches. For things to come belong in knowledge to the church. It was to Abraham that the knowledge of what was to happen to Lot at Sodom was given, not to Lot, nor because Abraham was there, or to be there, but because he was the friend of God. But this new relationship was not established with the churches, though communicated to them. If people choose to call it the church, it is the church on entirely a new footing, and in a new relation, after the Lord has done with the churches and His excellent relation to the body.
+If so, it was not the throne which was the sustaining object of faith during this dispensation.
Further, it is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David -- that is, Christ's name in relation to the earth and Israel in power.+ So also, on the other hand, it is not yet His millennial relation on earth, because then He takes the additional character of "Offspring of David" -- that is, as actually coming, as may be seen at the close of the last chapter of this book. Judgment and righteousness (page 58) are to be exercised in the earth, and Judah be saved, and Israel dwell safely; but this is not Christ's relation to the churches, nor to the church. So that it is not His relation to the churches, for it is a new relation. It is not His millennial relation, for then He is Offspring of David; and yet the throne in which He is found is the stay of faith during the present dispensation. Nor is even "Lamb slain" properly His relationship with the churches. He is, as such, the foundation of reconciliation with God, and the taker away of sin from before Him; but it is not His relationship with the churches.
I pass on to page 60, where I read, "The book taken from the throne reveals the manner in which God is about to enforce the title of His Son as the Lion of Judah, and to manifest that He is indeed the root of David." Now, is this to be done connectedly with God's relationship to the church? Clearly not, save as being with the Lord in heaven. Is it precise and definite instructions for the church's service? It may be revealed to the churches. But are they the objects of its revelations, when God is enforcing this new relation, and manifesting that Christ is the Root of David? Is that the church period? Yet this, by the author's own statement, describes the contents of this book. It is clear the church's portion and place is when God does not enforce this title, nor manifest that Christ is the Root of David. The church suffers with Him, when His title is not enforced. It is the "contrariety of all things in the earth to this His title,++ and the consequent necessity of enforcing it by Almighty power, that will bring on the coming judgments of the throne." But is it not the plainest first principle on this subject, that if we suffer with Him, from this very contrariety or contradiction of sinners when His title is not enforced by judgments from the throne, we shall reign with Him?
+A title, as the writer himself says (page 59), "yet unasserted."
++After all, this is not the ground of the church's suffering, properly speaking. It is as Saviour and Son of God that the church knows and declares Him, and suffers for Him; though the other be fully owned. But the-writer always brings down the church to the earthly title of Christ. It is characteristic of the book, and that to which the saints have to give heed.
"It was only for a moment that the Lamb assumed this intermediate place between it (the throne) and the creature." What place? "The effectual communicator of the blessings which will flow from the love, and from the glorious power of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth?" Does He assume this place in this chapter 5, or anything like or about it? That He will have it is certain. That there is here and often in this book an anticipation of the results actually to be produced by subsequent events I do not at all deny. But that it is a celebration of a millennial state of things, or that a millennial song is sung, or that Christ, even for a moment, assumed a millennial position, or that there is a word about Israel, is entirely false and contradicted by the statement of the chapter. "The Lamb had" not "taken His place between the throne and the creature, as the connecting link of blessing." Where is there one word about it in the chapter? He will do so. That they may anticipate it from seeing Him may be possible, as I may do in thinking of Him now, and with a nearer approach to it; but He took no such place.
These are the words of Scripture: "And he came, and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat on the throne. And when he had taken the book," etc. "And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God," etc. Now, is that a millennial song, when the thing celebrated is the title to open the book, all the contents of which are to be accomplished before the millennium begins? Is the Lamb seen here as "the effectual communicator of the blessings which flow from the love, and from the glorious power of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth," even in earnest, when the contents of the book, not yet opened, were the actings of God upon the throne for Him before He left it or took His place as such? When the throne from which He received it is one from which proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices? If the preceding+ "chapter" (and it is the same throne) "had been describing the millennial relation of the throne to things below, and not its present relation, we should not have seen this Sinai character of awful majesty attached to it"; nor "if Israel and the earth had been reconciled to God." (Pages 46, 47.) Whereas, when from this very throne, the Lamb takes the book which describes the judgments which are to flow from it, during the very period thus insisted upon as not millennial, "Israel is supposed to be reconciled" (page 61).
+See pages 46, 47.
It is in vain to say, The presence of the Lamb supposes the state of millennial reconciliation, because the "awful names" given Him are to be enforced by the "coming judgments of the throne," and these judgments are what He is here receiving the communication of, in (as the author reminds us in a note) a bitter book. There is nothing about a link of blessing. That every creature owns His glory, when He appears, is quite true; but His relation is not as a link of millennial blessing then; nor is millennial blessing the thing celebrated in the song, but His worthiness to open the book, which is not millennial.
Again, in the note we read, "the prayers of the saints (i.e., Israel)." Why? This has been stated three or four times, and to be believed because it is said, if the reader pleases. No word or hint of proof is given. "Who are reigning": where is Israel said to reign as such? Where is this oft-repeated statement, "The church discharging its priestly functions?" When men are sufficiently imbued with a system, they may receive these notices of it. But those who hold to Scripture must be excused if they do not receive an immense system because it has been repeatedly asserted without proof pretended even to be given. It is very convenient to say "saints, i.e., Israel." But can any reasonable man be expected to receive things stated in this way? I would urge the saints who really believe that Scripture is the only source of truth, to ask themselves in reading the book we are examining, every time they meet with any statement, where the Scripture proof or authority alleged for this is. They will soon see how many have such authority even advanced for them.
I will close the examination of this chapter, by asking, Is it an interpretation which can be received for a single instant, which takes the proof of the actual reigning of Israel, being in view, as anticipated, from a passage thus presented: "Thou art worthy to take the book ... for they [Israel] are reigning"? Yet this is what is presented to us in these "Thoughts." I add (as to the criticism In the note "This is the right reading: Thou hast redeemed us to God -- and hast made THEM" etc.), that the "US" here insisted on, is rejected by Griesbach as absolutely spurious,+ and by Tischendorf, though admitted by Scholz. Mr. Tregelles, who generally approves Tischendorf, admits it, but without giving any authority for it in the margin. The only ancient MS of the three which remain++ (which MSS Mr. T. says are worth all the modern ones) rejecting it. Now I would only ask, When Griesbach and Tischendorf reject, Scholz, without quoting his authorities either, followed by Tregelles doing the same thing, receive, the word "us" (but both the latter giving as against it the best and only ancient MS, of which we have the reading here); what is the warrant, under these circumstances, for this short and conclusive dictum -- "The right reading of this passage is"? It may be all very right; but things cannot be settled in that way. It is a most royal road, to critical certainty. And this word, thus uncertainly supported, is the only proof given (page 51) that the cherubim symbolise the redeemed. They may: I do not here decide; but on what a basis it rests, on the author's statements!
+[So it was marked in Griesbach's manual edition, Leipsic, 1805, and thus it is represented in some reprints; but in his critical edition it stands only as questionable. -- Ed.]
++Unless one is here uncollated: no one cites it. The passage is wanting in the third. I will venture to make this remark on Mr. Tregelles's book. As far as I can judge, the preface is the clearest and most satisfactory statement, as to the materials of an examination of the text of the Revelation which we have. But having generally given the cursive manuscripts in classes, and merely the numbers which agree, no one can form a judgment for himself, unless he assume the system of recension adopted by Mr. T. His judgment may be very good; but the reader is disabled from judging for himself. Another defect, as to convenience of reference, is, that the hiatuses in C (which no one can be well expected to carry in his memory) are not stated in the margin; so that the reader cannot judge whether it be silent or adverse. In the present case Tregelles's note is a transcript of Scholz's, which states the authorities against, but nothing more.
The author insists that the words "Come up hither" do not refer to being seated in heavenly places in Christ, nor to a future translation of the church. That it is not as to John personally one or other is clear; but this is not the question, but whether he is not therein brought prophetically to view events from the position in which the church would view them as so placed. I do not here decide the question; I only state it, because his allusion to John's personal condition and conduct entirely falsifies the question. If John was taken there to be instructed, and these instructions are for the church, is not the church to view the things he speaks of from the same point of view? Or why is he set to instruct the saints from this point of view, if it is not theirs when the things arrive, though always prospectively profitable? I repeat, I do not decide this question: I only disencumber it of the fallacy of his argument.
But the following note really goes too far. "It is immaterial whether the Greek be translated 'hereafter' or 'after these things.'" Is this really to be said, that it is immaterial whether a passage of Scripture be translated right or wrong? Whichever be the right translation, it cannot be immaterial; because it is not immaterial to translate it right. But, moreover, it is so little immaterial here, that the whole structure of the book depends upon it; and if the exact translation be given, the whole system of these "Thoughts" is entirely subverted. The words are "after these," which plainly signify "after these things." There can be no disputing about the plain meaning of the words. They are used in the Revelation continually in this sense, and all through the New Testament; and I find no case in which they are used, without reference to some previously stated fact or time, after which certain things happened. This might be translated very commonly "afterwards." This would be the ordinary English word in a great many cases. In a few "hereafter" may be used, where there is no subsequent limit put to the second period.
Thus, if speaking of present things actually existing, I should say "now," or "already" and "hereafter." Now, or already, you are guilty of such or such things, and hereafter you will do yet worse; because I mean thereby, after these that you are now doing. But then it always supposes an existing state of things, after which the things subsequently stated take place -- never the general English idea of "hereafter," referring to a distant future, with a length of time elapsing before that future arrives. The preposition meta means sometimes things co-existent with+ others, sometimes things immediately consequent upon the cessation of the others++ As Tregelles translates it "hereafter," I thought there might be some special idiom, and I had the LXX and other lexicons also searched by a friend: but there is nothing whatever to modify the usual sense of the words.
+It is then used with the genitive.
++Then (as here) with the accusative.
Further, in this particular case we have a special guide to the employment of these words, because they form a distinct division of the book. The division I allude to is admitted in page 37 of the "Thoughts": indeed, no one can deny it. It is found (chapter 1: 19), "Write the things which thou hast seen" -- contained in chapter 1; "the things which are" -- contained in chapters 2 and 3; "and the things which shall be after these things" -- i.e., which are future to the things which are: the seven churches; at the close of which (related and judged in chapters 2 and 3) John is caught up to see the things which are to happen afterwards.
The form of the Greek in chapter 1 is stronger even than if the words in question were found alone. The things which are, and the things which are going to happen afterwards, after these. But if this be so, and the seven churches be the relation of Christ to the body gathered out of the nations, then the things which happen after are not during the period of that relationship. The system of argument followed in these "Thoughts" depends on the period treated of in the prophetic part of the Revelation being the church period. But if the seven churches give us Christ's relationship to that body, as previously stated by the author, then the words "after these" (afterwards) shew that the prophetic part refers to what is subsequent to that period. In a word, his system is founded on the prophetic period and the church period being the same. The words "after these" are a positive declaration that they are distinct, and that the prophetic period is subsequent to that treated in chapters 2 and 3, and denominated "things that are," the only direct mention of the church, considered as on earth, in the Revelation. In the prophetic part it is only seen as in heaven above. If it be "hereafter," then it is merely that the things there related were after John's time. Is this immaterial? Or can the divisional structure of the whole book, relative to the very point in debate, be immaterial to the argument?
Next as to the throne. We are told it was something then existent, and not future: but inasmuch as the symbols which surrounded it pointed onward to yet future glories, these chapters have a prophetic character indirectly attached to them. If this merely meant that God had an eternal throne, but that its character here was prophetic, this might be all very well. But in the next note we have an application of this which throws all into confusion, the object being, as may be seen in reading the note, to connect the throne with this dispensation. But before I enter into any detail, I would ask, Is it not singular that, to give the vision of the throne of this dispensation, we have first the throne "in itself," as it is "unchanged throughout all dispensations," and surrounded by symbols which do not belong to it in this? The throne by itself belongs to none, or (if you please) is unchanged throughout all. Its relative character must then be determined by the symbols attached to it. But these pointed onward to future glories. It is thus indirectly prophetic when the symbols are separately and abstractedly considered. They were anticipative, and of the next dispensation, as is clear according to the "Thoughts" (see page 61, in the text and note). The symbols themselves then do not belong to this dispensation. Indeed this is clear, for the church (the elders) are in heaven. Nor does the throne belong to it.
But the symbols "will not be attached to it in the same manner" in the next dispensation: which in several respects is quite true. But then, would not the natural conclusion be that, if the symbols do not belong to this dispensation at all, but are prophetic of future glories, and yet that they are not attached to the throne in the same manner as they will be when the next dispensation is established, the throne represents a peculiar state of things, and belongs properly to neither? Is it not (seeing that the symbols are confessedly in themselves not indicative of this dispensation, but prophetic of future glories, and that the throne belongs to none) -- is it not strange from those premises to draw the conclusion? "The vision of the throne, therefore, must be regarded as peculiarly belonging to our present dispensation. It is only indirectly prophetic when the symbols are separately and abstractedly considered." And what if considered as characterising the throne, which in itself is unchanged throughout all dispensations? But it may be added, "the Sinai character of the throne" has to be considered as well as the symbols. Be it so. Is the Sinai character of the throne what characterises our dispensation? Is this its relation to the church? Or is the church really to have no place at all in considering our dispensation? Take the Hebrews. Is Sinai the character given to the throne there as we view it? (See chapters 4 and 12.) It is all very well to say, "a character it may well retain whilst Israel and the earth remain unreconciled by the blood of sprinkling." But what is this but to put the church and church-relationship wholly out of view as characterising the "church period" and "our dispensation"?
The church is seen exclusively in heaven in the prophetic part of the Revelation. It is not seen, save after chapter 19, in its millennial state. The throne has a judicial character, governing and plaguing the earth. What am I to conclude? That it is the church dispensation? or something special?
The statement of the unchangeable throne, however, is full of confusion, because all the titles, the revelation of which distinguished dispensations, are given as the titles of the unchangeable throne, and declared to be the same one as the other. Now, they are just what distinguish the relationship, as the symbolic circumstances and the Sinai character do here the peculiar position which it takes. The eternal throne, we are told, of Jehovah Elohim Shaddai, the covenant God of Israel.
Now, that the one true God was all this is well known: but the revelation of these names was what constituted the difference of dispensation. "I appeared," says God, "to your fathers, by my name God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them." Now He takes this name as the covenant God of Israel. At Sinai the legal covenant connected with it is sealed by blood. As "seen by Isaiah and Ezekiel," it was not a heavenly throne. In Isaiah, "His train filled the temple," which is now no longer owned. In Ezekiel, He is the God of judgment against that temple. For His throne was not there, but came there. And now the throne was found in heaven. The throne was supreme and immutable power in government: but its relationship varied. These variations are what are called here the unchanged throne, throughout all dispensations; and that which is Sinaical in its character, and clothed with a glory confessedly future, is said to be peculiarly belonging to our present dispensation. But when we find this Sinai character connected with the expression "after these things," speaking of the churches, or "things that are," does not the character of the throne become most peculiar and significant?
That the throne was then existent (that is, the throne of God simply as such) nobody doubts at all. But this proves nothing. It is a mere sophism, because the throne will be connected in the mind of the reader with that throne, and thus that throne attached to the present period or dispensation. But let him remember that the existence of the throne is alike true of all dispensations, and before and after all. The question is, Was that throne, i.e., the throne in that state, existent? because otherwise it has nothing to do with dispensations at all. It is "unchanged throughout all."+ It is not revealed by itself. It is clothed with prophetic glories, and we must not consider, in order to judge of dispensations, either the throne by itself, "for it is unchanged through all," nor the symbols by themselves, but the throne clothed with these symbols, and these symbols connected with the heavenly throne -- that is, the church in heavenly glory, the Lamb in the throne, etc., and yet the throne having a judicial Sinai character (i.e., a character which does not belong to the next dispensation, and is not its relationship with the church in this). The church indeed being seen, not as its object at all, but enthroned around it, or in, and in the circle of it, if we so apply the cherubim also. But to judge of the throne by separating the symbols from it, is to separate it from what characterises it here. Nor is anything gained by what is called its Sinai character, i.e., that it is actively judging the world, and enforcing the awful names of Lion of the tribe of Judah, and Root of David, because that certainly is not its character as belonging to the present dispensation. It evidently has its own proper character, such as is nowhere else found; which is not millennial with the world, and is not its relationship with the church.
As to the opposition between government and worship -- that it is a court of government and not of worship -- all that can be said is, while the government part is fully admitted, that it is not the fact; of which any one can satisfy himself by reading the book. That government is the predominant thought, most have long seen. The added thought, that it is not worship too, is clearly entirely false, as these very chapters particularly demonstrate; their chief subject being worship as soon as the throne is manifested. Government, though the throne be set for it in this new peculiar character, not being exercised at all. If in "this dispensation it is otherwise," it is clearly not otherwise here; so that it is not this dispensation that is in question.
+The question clearly is, not about the existence of God's throne, but to what period the vision applied.
When it is stated that the court of regal government will finally be identical with the temple, the answer is, It is not so stated in Scripture. Zion is not the temple, and Zion is the holy hill on which the decree has set the Son. That He is a priest upon His throne is another matter, but that is before the Possessor of heaven and earth. That does not set the throne in the temple.
What the following statement (page 66) may mean, is hard to tell: "The seat of His universal government cannot be symbolised by the temple, until Israel and the earth are reconciled through applied redemption." And what is it symbolised by in this vision? Is not that seat symbolised by the temple?
"The contrast between the court of government and the temple is clearly sustained in the Revelation." That is a strange note to append to Revelation 4 and 5. I can only ask the reader to read the chapters.
"It is whilst in the court [what court?+] that John sees the vision, in which vision the temple, the earth, the sea, are all equally employed as symbols of something external to the place in which he was." In vision he was in heaven. It was said, when the door was opened in heaven, "Come up hither," and the throne was set in heaven. As far as one can speak of a man in vision being anywhere, he was there where he saw these things. Nothing is said of any court where he was. He was in heaven, where all this was, and he saw it. There was no veil to distinguish the holy and holy of holies, nor is this distinction maintained here. The prophet was near enough too to converse with the elders. I hardly know whether the confusion or the unsustained character of the assertions is more remarkable in this note.
I have only to repeat here that "fellowship with divine glory," and the church being "the fulness of him who filleth all in all," are not at all the same thing (the latter being the description of the church as the body of Christ); nor is all fulness dwelling in Him the same as filling all in all. The former relates to His Person; the other refers to the place He has actually filled as mediator, as may be seen in Ephesians 4.
+I suppose the court of government is meant. It was so much more natural, in reading the symbols found in this chapter, to suppose it the court of the temple, if in any, that I did not know what to think.
As to the note on "They sung+ a new song" -- its contents have already been discussed, as to the new song being millennial. It is added now for the first time, "It is plain that Israel is meant by the saints ... because it is said they are reigning, or shall reign," etc. Neither Israel nor the saints were reigning when the book was opened: that is a clear case, if it be a future thing. Are not the saints to reign over the earth? -- the heavenly saints? They are a kingdom and priests, Why is it so plainly Israel to the exclusion of those who need encouragement as being yet under trial in this book? And where is kingship on earth said to be the privilege of Israel? That they will have great privileges, I do not doubt, and be a royal nation: but I do not know where it is said that they are to reign on the earth. The nearest statement is, "Instead of thy fathers, thou shalt have children, whom thou mayest make princes in all lands"; but it is never said anywhere in Scripture that Israel shall reign on the earth. Kings are to be their nursing fathers, but their reigning is never spoken of.
But there is another point here. The author rests on the words "on earth," putting them in italics -- "kingship on earth." "We are kings: but we suffer, instead of reigning on the earth." But here he is simply and entirely wrong. The translation in a general sense might be borne with as it stands, taking the earth as the subjected object of government. But when the word "on" is insisted on as distinctive, the answer at once is, It is not the meaning of the Greek word. Hence Mr. Tregelles has very properly translated it "over" in this passage.++ Yet this, which is simple error, is the basis of the very important interpretation given to the passage. Moreover, the least attention to the system of the author will shew that it is an essential link of it. It has been already stated four or five times (no proof of it being given) in the previous pages we have examined, as necessary to the understanding of the order and relationship of the different parts of what he calls the Israel of God. The church in heaven being Israel's priests, and Israel thus united and brought into the same body, though in an inferior position, and enjoying, through the intercession and priesthood of the church, communion in all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, and so standing "in all the full excellency of the heavenly calling manifested on earth." Now this connection of Israel and the church standing in a priestly place is found to rest on a complete error in the use of a Greek preposition.
+It ought to be, "they sing."
++Any Greek scholar who has paid a little attention to the point, would know that epi, with words of government or rule, used with accusative, genitive, or dative, is connected with the subject of rule, and not the place of rule. I refer to the following passages as illustrating this: Matthew 2: 22; Luke 1: 33; chapter 19: 14, 27; Judges 9: 8, 10, 12-15, 22; 1 Samuel 8: 7, 9, 11 (LXX); Matthew 24: 47; Luke 12: 44. Indeed, with a genitive it has itself the sense of being set over anything, as those set over affairs. The contrast of en reigning in a place, and epi, over a people or land, may be seen in 2 Samuel 5: 5. As to epi, "over," all Samuel, and still more Kings and Chronicles, afford instances without end. Genesis 36: 31, of en. See Volume 13, page 131.
As to the mediate place. It is a very strange assertion, that opening the book was a sign that there was some one worthy to communicate blessing. No doubt opening a book may look like communicating its contents; but how communicating blessing? Is not worthiness to receive and open, a common identical title in the passage? And how to communicate blessing, or (as is said, page 61, of its "understood meaning") "the effectual communication of the blessings which will flow from the love and from the glorious power of the Most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth," when page 7, "the chief subject" of chapter 6, i.e., the opened book, is the infliction of divine chastisements on the earth, until they are consummated by the day of the wrath of the Lamb?" Or how indeed did He appear as communicator, when (pages 74, 75) "the Lamb opened the seals, not to fulfil the events declared under them, but to instruct us prophetically concerning them?" Or, after all, what is a mediate place between receiving and communicating? Or what is there about all. this in the chapter, contradictory as it all is? The taking the book, that was in the right hand of power of Him that sat on the throne, called forth the song of those in heavenly places seen in their glory, because the glory and person of Him who took it to receive and develop the accomplishment of God's counsels were brought before their eyes. That He will be the effectual communicator of blessing no one doubts; but there is nothing about it here. And the reason of His title to receive and open the book is quite another reason, that is, His having accomplished the redemption of those who sing.
As to the vials.+ 2 Chronicles 4: 22 only says, the basons were of pure gold; and where they are mentioned elsewhere, all that is said is "and he made an hundred basons of gold." From the place they are mentioned in, and the materials, it may be supposed that they were somewhere in the holy place; but there is no kind of connection with the altar of incense whatever. It is elsewhere that that is mentioned, and these hundred basons are connected with other things. Nor does the author venture to state why they "answer to the vials." Incense, of which the vials were full, was put in another kind of vessel called censers.
As to the note at the close, stating "they are reigning," it seems to me absurd; because the song celebrates the opening of the book, when most certainly they were not reigning. Griesbach and Scholz both give "they shall reign" (the latter citing the authorities for both readings together, without distinguishing them). As to the evidence of these different readings, it is this. Two of the three ancient MSS are here wanting. One has not this passage: the other, if it has, is not cited. The one uncial MS which remains reads "they reign," with fifteen others, and some versions. Eighteen MSS read "they shall reign." Tischendorf reads "they reign" -- Knapp, "they shall reign." When the writer states that it is not found in any ancient MS, he goes farther than he is warranted. There are but three. One has not this place in it at all, being imperfect, and the other is not cited at all.
+The Greek word phiala is indeed used in 2 Chronicles 4: 22, by the LXX, of the hundred golden basons made by king Solomon. But these bowls are never connected in the Old Testament with incense, nor even with what men used to take fire from the altar with to put the incense on. It is employed for the Hebrew word used in Numbers 7 several times for the silver bowls offered by the princes; Exodus 38: 3. (LXX chapter 38: 34, Ed. Bos.) Bowls of brass connected with the brazen altar; the same in Numbers 4: 14. In Amos 6: 6, when used for a drinking bowl the LXX translation is quite different. In 2 Chronicles 4: 22 (21), the Septuagint seems to give another word; but a little attention will, I think, make it plain. The word labides is placed by the Complutensian edition, after luknoi. Of this there can be very little doubt, seeing it is the term used for a part of the luknoi in the description, Exodus 37. (LXX 38: 20, or Compl. 24.) There is no word for this in 2 Chronicles 4: 22 in Hebrew; the Septuagint adds it. This being so, phialai corresponds with the usual Hebrew word. The general expression of phialai is borrowed possibly from Solomon rather than others. But they had no particular connection with the altar of incense. The censers, or vessels used for that, are translated by the LXX as purcia, as in Exodus 38: 3 (35). The same thing is in Exodus 27: 3 as to both words. They are used to contain the plagues oftener than prayers. See chapters 15-18, chapter 21: 9.
There is one thing, curious enough, as to the exactitude and authority of these criticisms, namely, that in the beginning of this note, the MS "A" has no authority whatever; at the end, it is almost conclusive. The statement of the friend alluded to, we are told, leaves little doubt that the reading "they are reigning" is the correct one. That on which the author rests, leaving all other authorities out, is, that it has the authority of the Alexandrian MSS (read MS), whereas the other reading is not found in any ancient MSS. In the beginning of this short note we are told that there is no doubt that the correct reading is "thou hast redeemed us," etc. The unlearned reader will be surprised to hear that this same Alexandrian MS is against this reading. It is conclusive at the end of the note, under the same circumstances (that is, the silence of the other two); on the other side, it is totally rejected at the beginning, where no authority at all is cited against it; that is, a certain MS called "A" rejects the word "us." But "us" is retained as of undoubted authority, though not found in any ancient MS either. This same MS reads "they are reigning," and then it is conclusive, though a majority of other MSS read "will reign." It can hardly be of no authority, and of all but conclusive authority, in the same note. Yet, as we have seen, a whole edifice of interpretation, a complete system, as to the church's priesthood, and Israel's place, is founded on all this. Do not let the reader complain of my plunging him into criticism: I engage him to keep out of it. But when vast systems of interpretation are based on assertions made about them as of undoubted authority, one may be forced to enquire whether such assertions are well founded, because they have an imposing air with many who have happily no idea of distrusting them.
To the statements in the introductory part (page 69), though they be not quite exact, taken in a general way, I have no objection. Generally speaking, from chapters 6 to 18 inclusive, the prophecy does treat of God acting for Christ; the subsequent part, of what occurs after Christ is sent forth. The period thus noticed is not the whole of our dispensation, nor even here stated to belong to it. The fact merely is stated, that this part of the Revelation treats of God acting for Christ; the other, of events after Christ is sent forth. Indeed the statements would seem to distinguish this as a peculiar period. The author says, "events which are brought to pass during the time that the throne of God is acting for Christ." Now, as the whole period and series of events is future,+ this future period seems designated as the time during which the throne of God is acting for Christ. Such is clearly the case. It is the revealed period in which God is so acting (treated as future in page 37) as characterising the present period in page 11. I could only say, generally speaking, because it is quite clear that the end of chapter 11 closes the whole history, and goes far beyond the period here spoken of; and begins with the marriage of the Lamb, which is not an event after Christ is sent forth. When we come to details, these distinctions will be important; but do not affect the general statement, that the subjects referred to are those of these two parts.
+See "Thoughts," page 37.
But then the statements in page 70 are altogether contradictory and untrue. I supposed at first the author must mean the whole prophetic part, but he is precise, and says, that from chapters 6 to 18 the last forms of evil are described, etc. But how, if this part be only "the throne of God acting for Christ," and Christ "waiting till His foes shall be set as a footstool for His feet," can it be also "then by the mission of His Son"? Again, if it be the second part that gives events after that mission, how are found in the first "the aspects of the blessedness and glory, both in earth and heaven, which will, as soon as the hour of Satan's triumph is over, attach to those who share the resurrection glory of the Lord Jesus"? If these are the subjects of the first part, then it is not merely events brought to pass during the time the throne of God is acting for Christ. Further, the mission of Christ is neither the throne acting for Him, nor events that occur after His mission.
But there is another more material objection to this statement. It involves (as so many others that we have seen) most important, and, I believe, entirely false views, assumed without the reader's being the least aware of what he is adopting. It reveals, we are told, "various aspects of the blessedness and glory, both in earth and heaven, which will, as soon as the hour of Satan's triumph is over, attach to those who share the resurrection glory of the Lord Jesus." Now what does this mean? Who are they that in earth share the resurrection glory of the Lord Jesus? I am aware that it is stated farther on, that Jerusalem on earth is in the full excellency of a heavenly calling. And this, unsaid but quietly assumed here, prepares the mind for such statements. But where, I ask here (from chapters 6 to 18 inclusive), are those spoken of who in earth share the resurrection-glory of the Lord? Or what is the blessedness in earth of those who share it (if this is the turn given to this passage), so stated in these chapters? One hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel are sealed to be spared. But where is blessedness and glory on earth spoken of in these chapters, unless the writer would apply the rest of the great multitude to earth, which he does not? And if on earth, how do they share the resurrection glory of the Lord? All this just goes to efface the proper heavenly distinctive glory of the church; and no one can have read the book attentively, without seeing that this is its constant and unvarying purport. I would draw the reader's attention to this. It is evidently of the last importance. And I would ask him what is the meaning of blessedness and glory in the earth of those who share the resurrection-glory of the Lord Jesus; and where he finds that in Revelation 6 to 18 inclusive.
Next, as regards the order of arrangement. There are several separate visions. This I do not contest at all. But that Christ's mission is referred to (that is, if the author means by the Spirit of God) as then just arrived but not entered upon, I deny altogether. The only passages which can be alleged in proof are, first, the close of chapter 6; and secondly, chapter 11: 15-18. The first is the fear of the wicked in the earthquake, and not the revelation of God at all, nor in any circumstance or prophetic date, whether of narration or fact, possibly to be connected with the actual coming of Christ; because all the circumstances are quite different from the account the Spirit gives of His coming; and the seventh seal is not opened. The second passage which may be referred to is chapter 11: 15-18, where the voices in heaven, on the seventh woe-trumpet sounding, celebrate the earthly kingdom of Christ as come, and all the consequences from that time onward. This does indeed, as has been stated, actually close the mystery of God; but the only thing that is not referred to in it is Christ's mission. And it speaks of our Lord and of His Christ as having the kingdom. The events which follow are declared, but not the mission; and even this not at all in a revelation by vision, but in the celebration, anticipative as to the facts, of the kingdom by voices in heaven. And it is quite evident to me that the connected historico-prophetic narration of God's dealings closes entirely here. That which follows is made up of distinct visions as to special points at the close; but of this more hereafter.
Next: "Blessing is mentioned first," we are told, "prior to the events of evil and of judgment by which it is preceded and introduced." This, which is a very ancient remark on the Apocalypse, I do not contest neither. The use that is made of it, to deny narrative order, I affirm to be entirely unfounded. How does it militate against any orderly narration, if I say, See the happy and blessed order and prosperity of that family; and now I will shew you all the discipline and trial they went through in order to arrive at it; and then give their previous history in orderly narration? It would be a very simple and consistent method. The question is a question of fact. The reasoning to subvert it, a priori, is perfectly futile. That God, who knows the end from the beginning, may encourage the saints by shewing the result before He makes them go through the difficulties of the way, is most possible, and I believe constantly true. He stated that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head. Yet, I suppose, we have an orderly narration of what passed from that day out in Scripture until it be accomplished. Nor does this declaration militate against its historical order. As I have said? there is not the slightest force whatever in this reasoning. Its aim is evident, but it has no force.
Then as to the facts by which it is sought to prove it. Chapter 17, we are told, is earlier than chapter 13. Now let me put this case. I am giving the history of all the revolutionary war. I give a long account of all that passed in France -- Buonaparte's victories in Italy, etc.; I come at last to his subversion of the Romano-Germanic empire by his victories over Austria. In order to make this understood, and its importance appreciated, I give an account of the origin and formation of this system, its place in Europe, and in general history; and, having brought it down, together with perhaps a similar account of the Italian States, to the period at which I had arrived in the general history, I resume the thread of the narrative, and complete what referred to all thus brought under view. Would it be said, because of this, that my narration was not orderly? Is it not the universal practice, when a general history bears on particular subjects? Can it be otherwise, if a history is complete? And, as "we know in part," is it not the way to be expected, though the writer be the Spirit of God Himself? And it is just what is found in the book of Revelation. If it were asserted that the same order of narration continued from chapters 6 to 18 without interruption, then indeed what is remarked of chapters 17 and 13 might have some weight. But who has asserted this? No one but the author himself. And having given to understand that chapter 6 to 18 is one complete whole, he shews that it cannot be a whole of orderly narration. But then the proof given is merely a mistaken assertion of the author assumed to be true.
I surely do not believe that the reward given to prophets and saints precedes the destruction of Babylon and the mission of Christ; but this does not hinder my finding orderly narration. Let us examine the facts.
I have a succession of events: seven seals, one after the other, and seven trumpets in order: and before the last of these, I am told (in connection with a parenthetical little book which is opened, of which the close is clearly marked) that in the days of the seventh angel, who is about to sound, the mystery of God should be finished. The seventh angel does sound, and the time for closing the mystery is come. Hence the voices in heaven celebrate all connected with closing the mystery, and the orderly narration is interrupted -- the general scheme of the history being complete. A vast power+ (as important as all the rest of the history, and whose parasitic roots, as we learn from a Thessalonians 2, had been planted in Christianity from the days of the apostle -- at least what prepared its way) was to be unfolded as that on which the judgments, celebrated in general at the close of chapter 11, were especially to act. Hence the history of this as a distinct power in all its bearings is given, and the historical order of narration of course interrupted.
Chapters 12 to 14 give us this history complete, and the dealings of God in the world connected with it. It is a distinct vision and hence the order of date must be confined to the subject treated, and can at most only be compared with what is in another vision. But it has its own order within itself, closing with the vintage of God. Then we have another sign in heaven, introducing the seven vials, which are the wrath of God on the earth not the history of the beast, though the beast be found there. This was needed to complete the materials of this history. Just as I might relate the state of the provinces of France in the history I have supposed, after giving the public European history of the revolutionary body.
Lastly, chapters 17 and 18 do not profess to be history or narration at all, but description of a particular object of judgment, whose details had not yet been entered into; only the fact of its judgment had been mentioned in its place in the two previous statements of the course of final events. Now the details are entered into, of what it was, its relationship with other objects of judgment, and the circumstances of the judgment itself. Just as I might describe Paris, its circumstances, vanity, objects of art pillaged elsewhere, and its siege, in the history I have supposed. The same thing occurs after the completion of the history of, and subsequent to, Christ's coming: after the marriage of the Lamb, the coming of the King of kings -- the destruction of the beast -- the binding of Satan -- the millennium -- the loosing of Satan -- the judgment of the dead -- and the close of all things. In a word, after the series of events given from chapter 19 to the end of chapter 21: 8 inclusive, a description is given of the heavenly Jerusalem, and its relation with the earth (as before of Babylon, and her relation with the beast, and in the same manner). But all this does not touch the orderly narration, where orderly narration is professed to be given, as it surely is, as description is professed to be given in another part; and to take events out of the descriptive (professedly descriptive) part, in order to compare them with others in the narrative part, to disprove the order of narration, because the chapters of description come after the narrative ones, is simply confusion and nothing else. Yet it is of this the writer says "I wish it to be especially noticed, that these instances prove that the Revelation is not a consecutive history; and therefore any system of interpretation that regards it as a consecutive history, whether of events yet future, or of events past, must be erroneous." And all this confusion is the more unreasonable, because it is based, not upon the statements of others, but upon the author's own assertion that chapters 6 to 18 is one complete part, taken together; and on this he argues to prove that others must be in error.
+This supposes 2 Thessalonians 2 to be the first beast. It is rather to be taken as the second or two-horned beast; but this does not affect the argument.
There is this peculiar to the Revelation, and this only -- that, the subjects being moral, the descriptions and account of judgments are of as great consequence as all the history; and, we may almost say, of even more consequence than the narrative part. But this changes nothing of what I have said. On the contrary, it is very important to have the narration, to give the order, to put each thing in its place, and shew the general relationship of events. This is the division I should make in the book. First, in general, chapter 1; then chapters 2 and 3; then chapter 4 to the end. Then, in detail, chapters 4 and 5; then chapters 6 to 11. There the general history closes,+ but none of the facts of the seventh trumpet are given in prophetic vision. Then chapters 12 to 14; then chapters 15 and 16; then chapters 17 and 18. Thereon the scene changes, but the event is taken up,, and we have chapters 19 to 21: 8. Then chapter 21: 9 to 22: 7; when the closing remarks and testimony commence, and complete the book.
We come, in page 74, to the chapter (6) before us. "Its chief subject is the infliction of divine chastisements on the earth, until they are consummated by the day of the wrath of the Lamb." This is a most inaccurate account.
Four riders on horses go forth: three of whom, at any rate, bring chastisements on the earth. The opening of the fifth seal lifts up the veil to shew us martyred souls who yet must wait for the execution of vengeance, till others are killed as they; of which, note, nothing at all is said. Then there is an earthquake, but nothing at all said of the day of the Lamb's wrath, but by the terror of the kings, etc., of the earth. That it is not the undescribed day of Christ is clear, because the state of the kings of the earth, etc., is described, and it is entirely contrary to the description the Spirit of God has given of their state at that day, at the close of chapter 19, where they make war haughtily and boldly with the Lamb, and are slain, and did not hide themselves from His wrath at all: they had been given over to believe a lie. The effect of fear upon unbelieving man is confounded with a revelation of the Spirit of God. It is, moreover, revealed that these signs come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. It is these signs that alarm them, and not the actual arrival of the day, nor consummation of wrath by it.
+I believe there is consecutive order in chapters 11 and 12 in this way. Chapter 12 takes up from its origin, and pursues in its conduct, what becomes the object of judgments which happen under the seventh trumpet, and so falls into the general narrative. But then it was quite important enough to give it a history apart, as it was of Babylon afterwards; because these evils and judgments at the close, which take place under the seventh trumpet, forming the latter part of the Revelation (beginning with chapter 12), are really the most morally important of the whole book.
And here let me recall what was said, that opening the book was a sign there was some one worthy to communicate blessing. It was surely a strange book to open to prove that.
We again also see the unsuitableness of the song as celebrating the opening the book, and Israel's actual reigning at the same time. But further, "The final triumph is first announced." What final triumph? I admit that God can give anticipative views of blessing before the sorrows that introduce it. But that we have had, according to the author (and I am not combating the general idea), in chapters 4 and 5 already. But after that has been done, and we have seen the resulting glory, and we are come to a systematic succession of events of an active character, numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., of an analogous nature -- to say that the first of these means the result of all, seems utterly unreasonable. The resulting glory we have had: we have now events opened, and active agents in the scene. The first seal is opened, and the first beast says "Come and see," and there is a rider on a horse. The second is opened, and the second beast says "Come and see," and there went out another horse; and so on. This second horse the author would persuade us is the first, and the first the last of all. Is this a reasonable interpretation?+ The fact of the seals being opened in vision changes nothing of their being events to be fulfilled, though not then fulfilling. So that announcing or fulfilling makes no difference: they were announced as to be fulfilled.
+I would here ask in passing, what proof there is that this horse and his rider is Christ at all. I see none whatever. It seems to me much more like some imperial conquest, providentially permitted of God (perhaps of Antichrist himself, before he assumes that character). This question does not apply particularly to Mr. N.'s system.
But this, though it seems to me unreasonable, is comparatively immaterial -- a point in which any might err in interpretation. But what follows (page 77) is surely very serious in its character, and is the settled leading principle of the book. "Neither is He yet surrounded by the risen church, as 'His fellows,' partaking in His glory." That is admitted, of course. "Jerusalem does not as yet stand as the 'Queen at his right hand, arrayed in gold of Ophir,' i.e., in the full excellency of a heavenly calling, maintained and manifested on the earth," etc.
What is then the heavenly calling? It is clear it is not a calling to heaven at all: for this glory is on earth. It is glory terrestrial, at the time all things are gathered together in Christ in heaven and earth. If the earthly Jerusalem (if such a contradiction in terms can be stated) is "in the full excellency of a heavenly calling," how is it heavenly? Because, remark, it is not suffering for it. We have the heavenly calling now; because, though on earth, our hopes, joys, place, when Christ comes in glory, are with Him there. We suffer on earth because we have this heavenly calling. But this will not be the state of things then. It is with Jerusalem and her inhabitants the result on earth of Christ's coming in glory. And how is that a heavenly calling? Can the full excellency of a heavenly calling be maintained and manifested on the earth? and if so, what is a heavenly calling? For, I repeat, it is not now the manifestation of its power in suffering, in following Christ crucified. That may manifest in spirit the power and excellency of a heavenly calling, because all is dross and dung for the sake of it; but that is not the case here. It is the actual result of Christ's triumph and coming on earth, for those who have not suffered with Him by faith in the heavenly calling and glory. And how can that be a "heavenly calling," and its "full excellency"? Is it not destroying the very idea and meaning of it, and bringing all down to earth, and levelling all to that measure and standard? I ask any saint, is the state of Jerusalem on earth the measure for his soul of the full excellency of the heavenly calling? And if not, what is this but to lower and degrade the church to the place and level of what is earthly -- of those who have not suffered with Him in His rejection?
It will be said, perhaps, It is distinguished from sharing His glory as His fellows. No doubt it is not said that the earthly Jerusalem is in heaven with Him: I suppose that would hardly be expected to be received. But their sharing His glory as His fellows, together with what is yet more blessed -- being one with Him in love in the Father's presence, and being His bride when He holds the kingdom -- that is the heavenly calling in its chief parts. And how, if it be distinguished, is Jerusalem on earth said to receive it?
Nor am I aware that the eternal state is ever spoken of as the heavenly calling (supposing now that there is no difference when that eternal state comes, between those who have been in Christ's glory, and those who have been His subjects on earth during the millennium); I am not aware that it is even particularly connected with heaven more than earth. God is all in all, the kingdom being delivered up. The tabernacle of God is with men. But there is nothing ever spoken of as distinctively heavenly. The heavenly calling is an expression used in the Hebrews to contrast it with the earthly promises made to the Jews, which will be accomplished in the Jerusalem glory, which is here stated to be the full excellency of the heavenly calling. The same contrast between the promises to Israel and our portion, I have no doubt, is urged in John 3, when (having referred to the necessity of regeneration for the enjoyment of earthly things with God, as they had been revealed in prophecies which the master in Israel ought to have known) the Lord says, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" and then at once refers to the cross, the lifting up of the Son of man -- taking Him (and us with Him) out of these earthly things.
Thus what is properly and distinctively our calling is entirely effaced and set aside in these statements. The earthly Jerusalem being on earth when enjoying present glory, not suffering for hoped-for glory, in the full excellency of a heavenly calling maintained and manifested on earth. We have already seen the expression -- The blessings on earth of those who share His resurrection-glory -- an expression entirely incorrect, or extraordinarily ambiguous, and entirely destitute of foundation in the chapters from which it is alleged to be drawn, in which there is nothing about blessing on earth at all.
But there can be no doubt as to the general purport of the writer to exalt Jerusalem on earth to the full level of our calling now. Those familiar with the question will well remember the passage often urged to shew this, "We are partakers of their spiritual things." But to insist only on what is found in this book, I shall produce here from other pages in it the statements of the writer, shewing that it is not because of an isolated passage of doubtful meaning, that this view is attributed to him.
Thus page 138: "Our mother is not Babylon, but that divinely ordered system of truth and power, which though now not known as having form or comeliness is yet to be paramount in the earth, and to reign, beautiful in holiness, supreme over all nations. 'I saw a woman clothed with the sun, and having the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.' Such is the vision of her coming glory in the earth [note, he is speaking of "our mother"]; and faith even now recognises her as this. This is our parent -- the system to which we belong, and to which, in the midst of all the brightness of Babylon's rising greatness, we give the homage of our hearts; and will, through God's grace, constantly adhere. Our estimate of its excellency will of course vary, according to the singleness of our hearts, and the integrity of our faith and knowledge: but in proportion as we are able to look on into the future, and consider the period when Christianity shall, in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, be supreme in the earth, we may see the reason for the glory of the symbols wherewith this chapter commences." Is it to glory in the earth that the homage of our hearts is given? or is Christianity supreme in Mount Zion, and Jerusalem here below, our mother? Where then is the heavenly calling? or why such avoiding of the simple and blessed statement of the apostle, that Jerusalem which is above is our mother?
Again (page 142), We need not marvel, therefore, if Christianity "be here presented, as if bearing the name of Zion." (We may remark in passing that it is not at all so represented: the writer is commenting on chapter 12.) "How indeed could it be otherwise? For when that holy blessed system of truth and power, for which we and all saints have from the beginning suffered, and which now we name Christianity, shall at last arise into its destined supremacy in the earth, it shall be identical with Zion, arising in the moral grace and dignity of its high calling in the earth." (This expression is the more remarkable -- "high calling in the earth"; because high calling, as anyone acquainted with the Greek Testament knows, is calling above, up out of the earth, our calling, 'above' -- ano). "Christianity can never have its rightful pre-eminence until the hour comes for the mountain of the Lord's house to be established in the top of the mountains, and to be exalted above the hills (mountains and hills are the emblems of authoritative power); when many people shall go and say, 'Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and he Will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' The mountain to which we by faith are already come," etc. "So that the identification between ourselves and Zion will need no proof." Are the promises to Israel -- of its latter-day glory, the "Come ye, and let us go" -- our hope? the rightful pre-eminence of Christianity -- of that "which we now name [what an expression!] Christianity"? Do "we belong" to Zion on earth?
It will be seen further on, that Zion itself, literal Zion, is said to be the church's place, as holding power on earth; that the saints, in an earthly state, are as "really blessed" as those in the heavenly; and, on the other hand, that "a heavenly as well as an earthly character is given to Zion." But all this in its place. It is merely the general statement that I would place before the reader now. One quotation more will suffice for this purpose.
"There is, however, one blessed point of contrast between the system of God's city, Jerusalem, and this. When Babylon's system is separated from its city, it perishes -- and perishes for ever. But, when Jerusalem's system is separated from its city, as it even now is, it does not perish. It is indeed outcast in the earth -- no eye but the eye of faith recognises its beauty: but it exists, and there are some eyes that see it, and some hearts that love and cleave to it -- and they shall continue to cleave to it, until the hour comes for it to be united to its own city, and to be exalted in the earth." Now what I would ask here is this: Is Jerusalem on earth the "own city" of the system to which my heart cleaves -- to which yours does, reader -- or Jerusalem above? Is it earthly Jerusalem's system to which you belong? If not, where is all this leading you? Certainly not, as to your mind at least, to heaven. Heaven and the heavenly calling cannot be denied, but it is assiduously made "our high calling in the earth." I have given those long quotations to shew that it is not a casual expression, but a regularised system: no matter of inference, but of elaborate statement, and diligent repeated assertion, that Jerusalem on earth is the own city of the system to which we belong -- that our high calling is a calling in the earth.
Having made the matter of fact plain, I do not reason on it much here; I prefer leaving it to the reflections of the reader It will recur again in its effects and bearings on other points I pursue now the chapter.
After stating that some will be slain in the midst of all this abounding iniquity (the connection of which however with this period is given without any proof at all), we are told that the "altar represents the priestly intercession of Christ. It is the place around which the risen priesthood of Israel+ will by and by be gathered, clothed in their garments of glory and beauty," etc. "But here they are under it, in the place of ashes, crying for vengeance." "The holy place is turned into a place of judgment."
Why does the altar represent the place of the priestly intercession of Christ? Christ intercedes within the veil, not at the altar of burnt-offering. The altar of burnt-offering was not the place of intercession at all. If it had been the altar of incense, there might have been some appearance of reason here, though that is not properly Christ's place; but it is not. As the writer observes, their souls were in the place of ashes under the altar. It is indeed an evident allusion to their having been as burnt sacrifices for Christ: their lives are found under His altar. And how are the risen priesthood of Israel to be gathered there in their garments of glory and beauty? Was it at the altar of burnt-offering that the priests offered their incense and sought blessing? Sin-offerings and bloody offerings of every character were offered there; but that was all. We have indeed seen that this priesthood of Israel, so often repeated, rests merely upon a decidedly bad and false translation of the Greek. I must say it is a painful thing to be obliged page after page to take notice of trains of statements so entirely unfounded and palpably wrong. And what of the system built upon them?
+This point is constantly recurring in the author's statements, and is part of an elaborate system, which makes the Aaronic priesthood of Aaron and his family the type of the heavenly priesthood of Christ and the church during the millennium. Where is the proof of this? It is assumed all through this book. I do not discuss it at length here. There is no proof given of it whatever. Now, it is to me more than questionable if it be true. The proper priesthood of Christ is Melchisedec priesthood Now He exercises it for the church after the type of Aaron; but there is no proof that He will do so during the time of millennial glory. It seems to me rather inconsistent, on the contrary, with His position as Melchisedec on earth judging righteously. During the time of Satan's power and our infirmity in conflict we have, if any man sin, an Advocate with the Father. Not to make good our righteousness, but to maintain us in our position before God in our walk. The question is, whether, during the millennium, where there is no temptation, judgment is not the consequence of sin in that day in the earth, instead of intercession, as regards actual present dealings with it: It certainly ought not to be assumed that Christ exercises His priesthood in a Melchisedec manner on His throne, and after an Aaronic pattern in heaven, at the same time, and about the same things.
It is a curious remark, that the white robes were given to them, but not put on them; but I leave it where I find it. Everyone can judge of it according to the weight it has in his mind.
As to the criticism+ "a white robe, and not white robes," I suppose it is correct: but then it is not merely said "to them," which the English reader might suppose, because it is said "to each"; so that, white robes were given to each, or a white robe was given to each, is pretty much alike.
When it is said, "signs which immediately precede the manifestation of the Lord in glory" -- in a general sense it is true: but it is quite clear that the signs in Luke occupy a period -- perhaps a considerable period of time -- a state of things in which men find themselves, which causes them to look forward with anxiety.
But it seems to me that, as the images here used are drawn more or less from passages whose accomplishment takes place clearly at different periods, the image being generally used for great revolutions, we must take its date as employed here from the revelation itself: and, I apprehend, its coming before the seventh seal is opened proves that it is not the closing act of the mystery of God. Passages in which these images are used will be found in Isaiah 14 where it is connected with the fall of Babylon, which is itself called the day of the Lord, ++I take advantage of the word criticism here to state, that the friend referred to in the "Thoughts" has very kindly communicated to me the information, that, though in Griesbach's Leipsic edition of 1805, and many reprints, the reading "us" in Revelation 5: 9 is marked as spurious, this mark is a misprint. That Griesbach really gives it as only a questionable reading. Mr. Tregelles (for his name is now known by the publication of his book) adds, in his communication to me, proofs that "us" is the right reading. I dare say his reasonings are just, though the one ancient MS is against the reading; I have no disposition to dispute it. My objection is not to the reading, which is the commonly received one (the change is in autous), but to building an immense system on it. But as I had been misled by the reprint of Griesbach's edition, I thought it right to correct it. It is no wonder I was, as these reprints, misled by the Leipsic edition, so give it: indeed Mr. T. says, "I used to think he had rejected it." Having corrected the mistake, which I am enabled to do by the kindness of Mr. T., I do not enter further here into the detail of the critical question. No one can deny that the passage is, as to critical readings, in an entangled and unsatisfactory state.
+ and, according to the author, precedes the final judgment of the nations. In Joel they are said to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord; in Isaiah 34 they accompany the judgment of the nations in Idumea. Seeing also that, while the objects used as signs are the same, what happens to them (whether intentionally I do not here say) is quite different; that the particular points here are taken in part from Joel, which says it is before the day, in part from Isaiah 34, where it is the accomplishment of judgment on the nations in Idumea; while clearly (the seventh seal not being opened, nor, I apprehend, even the trumpets blown, though this may be differently judged of, but certainly the seventh seal not opened) the final judgment is not executed: -- considering all these things, it seems hasty to fix the time by a view of these signs taken from other passages, and quite incorrect to suppose that they are used as happening once in a determinate sole time common to all the passages. Nor are the signs given in Luke at all the same as those in this passage. I have already remarked that Joel says they are before the day, and that the state of men's minds here does not answer to their state at the end.
++See verses 6, 9, and 10, when the signs are connected with the day.
Further, the writer should not say "events which follow the manifestation of the Lord," because there is not one word about His manifestation in the passage. It may be remarked that the same expressions as to islands and mountains are used as to the judgment of Babylon, in the Revelation itself (chapter 16: 20), which, according to the author, is before the day of the Lord on the nations, or the manifestation of the Lord (as indeed is clear in that passage chapter 16: 20). The other passages cited from here are Hosea 10: 8, and Isaiah 2: 19.
As to the rest of pages 80 and 81 I say nothing. I believe, as we all do, that these countries will be the scene of marvellous events. The statements made here, which are given as of "doubtless" events, I do not enter on, as they are more prophecy than interpretation. The only effect is to lead the mind to put far off its own expectation of Christ by statements which not one syllable of scripture is brought to support. I read that political events "must infallibly raise," etc.; that other events "will doubtless dispel," etc.; and that European energies "will doubtless be an era" in the world. So that we may safely put off the Lord's coming till another era is passed. But who will answer for the infallibility of all this, or dispel the doubts which may arise as to it? I might bring as strong arguments against it as for it, but as mere speculation I leave it untouched.
Scripture seems to say that Egypt shall not rise into greatness. Nor do I remember there any statement whatever of the glory and greatness of these countries in the latter day. Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles to the end. This may be considered moral perhaps. These countries will be the scene of wars and political jealousies, rumours of wars, nation rising against nation. But it seems to me that Ezekiel 34-37 tends to shew that the land of Israel will not be in prosperity till the Lord restores Israel to it. I should think Hosea 2 tended to shew the same thing; Joel 2 also; and even the accounts given in Daniel. And I would ask, Is there any passage to the contrary? Deuteronomy 32 I would cite as bearing on the same conclusion; and Leviticus 26: 33, 34, 40-42 seems to speak very strongly in the same sense. But I do not pronounce on what the wickedness of man may do: only prophecies of this kind, drawn from political events, without one word of scripture, cannot be of any weight. First, the information of the writer may be very imperfect;+ and political consequences are so uncertain, that one cannot trust them in divine things. One would like to have a little scripture for them. As to Babylon, concerning which I am sure there are many erroneous statements made by the author, I will consider it when we come to that part.
I have only to add, as to the note to this page 81) -- "the principle of each prophetic book being its own interpreter" -- where is this principle to be found? I should judge that the statement of the apostle Peter (2 Peter 1: 20), rightly understood, is the direct denial of this principle. No prophecy of scripture is its own interpreter: you cannot interpret it in taking it by itself. Such is the plain translation: so it is understood by Wahl (though he adds what will interpret it, in which we may not agree with him; but this is his translation). Every one will judge of this for himself.++
+Some of the statements, made in the tracts connected with prophecy, shew the most entire ignorance of the political state of things. Certain acts are attributed to the French, for example, as promoting certain principles, which were done solely to destroy their influence. I do not blame the ignorance at all here, but the pretension to interpret events in this manner.
++I apprehend Luther and De Wette translate it in the same sense.
I know not who ever considered the change under Constantine as the real work of the Spirit of God, save as a providential work is.
In page 82 we have a very important principle, which the reader will do well to weigh. "These nations cannot be raised except in direct contravention of His (God's) declared resolve." Yet here "the unhindered progress of human greatness is to reach the final point of its attainment." Surely this serious statement ought to be well borne out by plain and direct scripture. It is not merely blessing, left to man's responsibility, lost, and men acting contrary to God's revealed will. "These nations are declared, in the word of God, to be under His judgments." Now, that man should attempt to act in contravention of God's will is, alas! surely to be expected. But that he is to succeed in raising up whole countries to such prosperity as never was heard of, in direct contravention of God's declared resolve, so that the unhindered climax of man's progressive greatness should be there, where God declared it should not be, and in places which are under His judgment -- surely this requires some wonderfully strong proof, to be believed. And let the reader remember that this way of putting it is the author's own, not mine; and that he has not adduced nor alluded to one passage of scripture on the subject. There is nothing at all but his speculations on political consequences, and a system he has framed in his own mind.
I have no doubt that the prophetic and specially the Roman earth is the scene of the greatest events and deepest evil principles of the latter day. But when the author says (page 83), "The great hour of temptation comes only upon the Roman earth (oikoumene -- see Luke 2: 1), but it is to try or put to the test them that dwell upon the earth," his use of oikoumene is wholly unwarranted. Augustus representing the imperial power of the beast, the habitable earth (for this is what the word means) was given to him; and the pride of man, ignorant as he might be of God's counsels, was prone enough to assume the title. But to use this in order to confine the word to the limits of the Roman earth actually possessed is entirely unwarranted. Is it only the Roman earth, the assurance of the judgment of which is given to all men by Christ's resurrection? (Acts 17: 31.) Or is this the meaning of verse 6 of the same chapter? Is it only into the Roman earth that the First-begotten is introduced? (Hebrews 1: 6). Or is the sound (Romans 10: 18) gone out only into the Roman earth, translated "the ends of the world"? There it is used for Tebel, the world, in its largest Hebrew sense. So the LXX. (Psalm 9: 8). We may remark that Romans 10: 18, moreover, seems to set "earth" and "world" just in the contrary way to that in which the author puts it. Nor am I aware of any passage which gives ge, earth, a more extended sense than oikoumene. (See Isaiah 24: 4.) The contrary is the case, as in those already cited; that is, ge (Greek) is used for eretz (Hebrew), and oikoumene (Greek) for Tebel (Hebrew). There is clearly no possible authority whatever for the use of oikoumene for Roman earth in Revelation 3: 10, because it is applied to the empire once in a confined sense (that empire then including the civilised world, which indeed had been given up to it by God). As to the rest of pages 83, 84, the topics found there have been already treated -- the candlesticks said to be in the sanctuary, etc.; and (the assertions made in it, though without any proof at all, being partially true) I turn to more important points.
As to the order of the book, I have already given what I believe to be the true one: but I would add some remarks on that given in the notes (page 85). In a certain sense chapter 6 is complete in itself; that is, there is suspense, to bring in the sealed ones and the great multitude before going farther. But it is not complete in the sense of closing the order of things treated of, because the seventh seal was not opened; only chapter 7 comes in in parenthesis.
The next division is as unreasonable as it can well possibly be, that is, chapters 7, 8 and 9; because there is a clear and positive series of trumpets divided into two parts -- preparatory trumpets, and woe trumpets, which last three are named as going to sound, in chapter 8: 13, and are not closed till the end of chapter 11; and the second woe contained in chapter 11 is not said to be ended till chapter 11: 14 There is in the meanwhile the little open book; but its introduction merely gives the place and date of its close, viewed in connection with the order of events under the trumpets, as is evident from chapter 11: 14. Moreover, in chapter 10 it is stated that the mystery of God would be finished in the days of the seventh angel. And accordingly when he sounds, the kingdom is celebrated -- anticipatively, perhaps. Still as a series of trumpets, the detail is closed, though events included under them may be important enough to be detailed elsewhere. So that to put chapters 7, 8, and 11 together, and cut off chapters 10 and 11 from chapter 9 is to subvert the declared order of the passage itself. The object is to identify the witnesses with the period of chapter 13; but with this purpose it is a contempt of the declared order and not a statement of it. In chapter 10 there is no preface of blessing at all, nor any blessing stated. There is a public declaration of right to be accomplished afterwards (to wit, at the seventh trumpet, the sixth being not yet ended), but this is all.
Chapter 12 is evidently quite a new vision. The temple being declared to be opened for the first time. Some of it evidently precedes the last three years and a half, and cannot therefore be called a narrative of the same evil period -- assuming the three years and a half of chapter 11 to be the same+ -- which is very far indeed from being proved or as yet attempted to be proved. At all events, nothing is said in chapter 12 of this period, but as a result of something else, of which the greatest part of the chapter treats (chapter 13 being mainly the account of the beast, who has received his throne from the dragon, whose history we have in chapter 12; while in this last we have very little of the period mentioned in chapter 13). As to chapter 14 being read by itself I make no difficulty; though I believe it to be intimately connected with chapter 13 -- God's dealings in mercy and judgment in relation with the evil. It has not the form of a distinct vision, more than verse 14. However it may be considered apart, and I have no desire to make any difficulty. Chapters 15 and 16 I agree with -- chapter 17, alone, I do not; but then I do not feel any need to enlarge upon it. We shall have the subject before us farther on. Chapter 17 seems the description and relationship with the beast; chapter 18 the judgment, and its effect on others. However, I may pass on.
+My own present conviction is that there is only one period of three years and a half. No doubt the power to come makes a covenant for a week; but it is on his breaking it that the evil day and tribulation begins. Deception was there before, but it was not the time of Jacob's trouble. This is the last three years and a half of which the Apocalypse treats.
On the two following pages I have not much to say. The statement as to Daniel (page 86) certainly confirms strongly the doctrine that there is a Jewish remnant recognised in Jerusalem at the end; because Jerusalem has "a national existence," and it is clear that the remnant spoken of there are identified with her, and her interests. To say (page 87) that the inroads of the barbarous nations were not destructive agencies from the hand of God, is an assertion that must be left to everyone acquainted with history to judge of. It is curious that one of their chiefs became celebrated as being entitled by public and universal consent "the scourge of God." Nor am I aware how Constantine consolidated human greatness. His own genius stayed the ruin for a time; but the departure from Rome, making a balance between the pagan aristocracy of ancient Rome and the Christianity of the emperor and the East, paved the way very plainly for the dissolution of the empire. But these are not subjects I feel it necessary to pursue here.
As to the note on "Hades followed with him," it seems to me quite unfounded, and beside the object, of the verse; but I do not feel it worth discussing. The next note is more important, and will demand a little more attention. I shall not discuss the difference of language in chapter 20, nor the giving of the robe. Seeing the souls seem to me only to mean that he who had power to kill the body had none over the soul: they were alive still. I do not see that the question of resurrection is treated in either case. The resurrection is never (that I am aware of) treated of in the Apocalypse. There is the single expression "This is the first resurrection," speaking of those who have part in it; but no account is ever given of it at all, either in this chapter, or in chapter 20.
And now as to 1 Corinthians 15: 23 -- a passage evidently of the utmost importance as to this, and one quite calculated, as here commented on, to produce difficulties in an honest mind. But then there is not one single statement of the author which is not incorrect. We have, Christ "the firstfruits, then those that are Christ's (they that are Christ's), then" cometh the end, etc., when, as we learn from Revelation 20; the final resurrection occurs of those who are written in the book of life. Consequently those who are not Christ's (i.e., manifestly His+) at His coming, do not rise until the last resurrection. If the words first, second, and third had been used, they could not have fixed the order of the resurrection more definitely than it is fixed by the words 'firstfruits' -- 'then' and 'then'; 1 Corinthians 15: 23, 24. The writer then reasons on the Greek word meaning "coming," or else being used in the sense of "presence," as opposed to absence. If used in the latter sense, he argues, there could be no contrast with the third period at the end. "Besides which, nothing can be more clearly revealed than the inconceivable rapidity of the resurrection."
+This itself is, I judge, a complete misstatement of the text. It is not at all Christ's at His coming, or not Christ's at His coming (i.e., those who are His at that time, or not) as it is used here to make it a part of those that are Christ's who rise at that time -- but, they that are Christ's (rise) at His coming, when from absent He is present. I appeal to any one accustomed to Greek, if it be not so. The Greek words in 1 Corinthians 15: 23, to which the common English translation perfectly answers, "Christ the first-fruits: then they that are Christ's at his coming." The end (as we have seen) is after all resurrections of just and unjust are passed.
Now that these three Greek words mean consecutive order is quite clear, that is, as to what is connected with one of them, in respect of what is connected with the other. For example, they that are Christ's could not be raised before Christ; nor the end be before they that are Christ's be raised The order of the events actually named is definite. But they express only the order which exists among the things stated; and if the author means to the exclusion of other intervening things, he is quite wrong. I have not to make even the most unlearned reader travel far to be convinced of this. Look at 1 Corinthians 15: 6, 7. "That he was seen of Cephas, then [eita] of the twelve: then [epeita] of above five hundred brethren at once ... then [epeita] he was seen of James; then [eita] of all the apostles; last of all of me." Now here we have the very same words, with the absolute certainty that Christ was seen by several other parties, which are not mentioned here: as Mary Magdalene; the two that went to Emmaus; once also by the eleven when Thomas was absent; and another time when he was present -- of which, at any rate, only one is mentioned -- to seven of them, in John 21. This is declared to be the third time to the disciples; and yet He certainly was seen another time, when He ascended; besides the mountain in Galilee, which is perhaps the five hundred spoken of, though only the eleven are mentioned by Matthew. At any rate we have here the absolute certainty, that while eita and epeita give the order of events mentioned, they do not exclude others. Any reasoning founded on this idea is entirely destitute of any force, as the example drawn from this chapter itself proves. Again, we know that many bodies of the saints arose after the resurrection of Christ, whatever became of them afterwards. So that this order does but state the order of the great public acts referred to, but certainly does not exclude others.
Further, when the author says, "Then cometh the end, when, as we learn from Revelation 20," etc. Now, why could not he go on with Corinthians 15? For a very simple reason: because there is nothing about the final resurrection at all, but quite another thing, namely, Christ's giving up the kingdom. Now it is quite clear that this does not refer to the judgment of the dead, mentioned in Revelation 20, because He does not then give up the kingdom. For He is to judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. It is surely wrong to slip over what is stated in the chapter under discussion, and most decidedly misapply another passage, quoted to help the argument out -- further, even, not only misapply, but misstate the sense. For there is not one word about the final resurrection of those in the book of life. All that is said about the book of life in that passage is, that those who were not found there were cast into the lake of fire: but not a single word about those who were. The author's statement is, They who are converted during the millennium rise then. Who told him the saints died during the millennium? Death is not destroyed: but where is it said the saints died? Nowhere. And! think there are very strong passages to make us think they will not. At any rate it is in vain to build a great system on passages which say nothing at all about it, as if they did, and to allege that they do -- leaving out the very passage treated of, to give us its sense from this other, while it actually speaks of another point, to which the other passage cited cannot apply.
Next as to "coming," or "presence," the word avowedly means "presence": but as by coming a person ceases to be absent, it is so used. Thus, as to the coming of Titus, the apostle says, "I found no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother" (i.e., he was absent); then by his coming he was comforted (i.e., by his presence). As to the words "by my coming to you again," it is a strange passage to quote as not applying to a prolonged presence, as he is referring in the preceding verse to his abiding and continuing. The truth is, there is nothing in the word to fix continuance or not. I may present myself and disappear, and it would be my presence or coming. I may do so, and stay, and it would be my presence or coming. Now I have not the least doubt whatever that presence or coming is used in 1 Corinthians 15 in the general abstract way for the occasion and power of the resurrection of the saints; for this only is spoken of, though we know the wicked will be raised. While Christ is absent, they must remain in their graves: when He comes, when He is present, they that are His will leave them: and this is most certainly not contrasted with another resurrection at all, but with another event -- that is, the giving up the kingdom -- which will most positively happen after all resurrection, even of the wicked, is over. And this confirms very strongly indeed the general sense of "presence" or "coming," because the contrast is with another thing (which thing quite changes everything from that idea, and puts an end to what it expresses), that is, with giving up the kingdom.
There is His own resurrection, His presence, and another event which closes and is in contrast with this, or changes the whole state of things brought in by His presence (to wit, His giving up the kingdom). I do not think anyone reading the passage with intelligence can doubt the justness of what I here say. One thing is certain: the whole statement of the author as to it is wrong. The statement is a general one -- that when Christ comes, they that are His will rise. I suppose no Christian doubts it.
In verse 51 the apostle is giving details as to themselves and the dead previous to this act, and does not speak at all of all the dead in Christ, or of the order; but of themselves, of the church, such as he then addressed it -- the general principle or manner of their own resurrection. "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment ... for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Such is the manner of the church's resurrection. But nothing more is said; and the writer himself believes that there will be another resurrection of saints after this: so that it is clear no principle is involved in applying it to those only of whom the apostle is actually speaking, and going no farther -- a most important principle in interpreting scripture.
For my own part, then, I have not the smallest doubt that we have (verse 23, 24) the general principle and order -- every man in Christ. First, Christ the firstfruits; then His presence comes (for He is now absent), and they that are His are to rise, when He is thus present. Afterwards He is to deliver up the kingdom. Secondly, we have the manner of the church's resurrection, wherein, from many passages, I have no doubt that the saints of the Old Testament will be found. I do not cite them, because I suppose no one doubts it.
There is another very important principle involved here. "There is no redemption apart from union to the person of the Son of God." This sounds well; but while, as a general expression, it might have passed unnoticed as a commonly received truth, that life is in the Son, and of Him we have it, and in Him we have it -- still, taken as the accurate basis of an immense system, it is well to estimate justly its value. There is no such thing spoken of in Scripture, that I am aware of, as union with the Son of God. He is our life: and we are said to dwell in Him, and He in us; which is known to us by the Holy Ghost.
But I apprehend unity is spoken of the body -- of the head and members. He is the Head of the body. But this is not redemption; nor is possession of life ever said to be this union as His body. For the millennial saints are most certainly not in this, seeing it is His fulness as Head over all things -- glorified together with Him when He reigns (to be glorified together with Him being the consequence and reward of suffering with Him, which the millennial saints most clearly will not). That they are redeemed and quickened is most sure; but they are not glorified with Him: those that suffer with Him are. We are His body, His body the church -- of His flesh and of His bones -- that is, the bride, the Lamb's wife, whom He presents glorious to Himself -- "the whole body" (Ephesians 4), which makes increase of itself in love, through the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, "till we all come," etc. In the ages to come He is going to shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness to us, whom He has made to sit in heavenly places in Him. We who have first trusted or pre-trusted are to the praise of His glory. And there is one body. Headship in Adam and headship in Christ may be spoken of in another way. All Adam's children had Adam's life, and the consequences of it; but all Adam's children were not Adam's wife Eve. No one can live before God, but by the life of the Son of God. But it does not follow that all are His body, His bride. I go no farther than to say here, it does not follow. As in the Adam all die, so in the Christ shall all be made alive. They are the two heads -- of a sorrowful, and of a blessed system. This happens in one, that in the other. I do not doubt that all saints will rise in virtue of the life-giving power of the Second Adam. That there is universality in this is quite clear to me; but I do not see why this makes union in the sense of the bride. That they will have all spiritual bodies I do not doubt. This cannot be forced to prove that pages 51 and 52 apply to all, because the writer's view is that there is another resurrection at the end. So that either these latter do not partake of the spiritual body, or else the apostle turns in these verses from the general principle to the special mystery of the church's participation in it.
As to the order of the resurrection of all who are quickened+ in the second Adam being given in 1 Corinthians 15, the answer is, there is not one word about it. There is the general statement -- they that are Christ's at His presence or coming; and that is all. We have already seen that the author is obliged to resort from 1 Corinthians 15 to Revelation 20 which says nothing about it, save the fact, that it will be in the time of His presence or coming. The confusion between the doctrine++ of the Epistle to the Ephesians and 1 Corinthians 15 is perfectly unwarranted, and very important too.
There is another point I would refer to here, that is, the force of the word "in Christ." It is not at all to deny that participation in His life may be included in this word; but it is not its meaning nor force. Thus, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" (or, there is a new creation) is affirming that about a Person in Christ, while the expression "in Christ" has its own ordinary meaning.
+There is the assertion that every man will rise in his own order; but there is nothing at all about the order of all who are quickened. There are two classes named, of which Christ Himself is one; they that are His another: but there is not a word of order amongst these latter.
++That is, between the communication of life, and the union of the body of Christ.
The following passages will shew that, while it is most certain that there must be the life of Christ communicated to be really in Christ, as a saint, and that this implies now being actually a member of His body, the words "in Christ" have not in themselves this force.
Ephesians 1: 10, 11: He should gather together in one all things in Christ. Here it is clearly not life, nor union. Colossians 1: 17: By Him, (en auto, in Him) all things subsist. 1 Corinthians 11: 11: But neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord. Romans 8: 9: But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. It is clearly not union with the Spirit, though the Spirit be life. Philippians 1: 14: Many of the brethren in the Lord. Galatians 5: 6: For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision. Philippians 4: 1: So stand fast in the Lord. Philippians 4: 2: To be of the same mind in the Lord. Philippians 4: 7: Shall keep your hearts and minds in (through) Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 19: Glory in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 21: Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. 1 John 2: 24: Ye shall abide in the Son and in the Father. 1 John 2: 27, 28: Abide in Him.
The following passages prove that in, and dwelling in, do not necessarily imply union: --
Romans 8: 1: No condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 15: 8: They that have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 1 John 1: 4: He that is in the world. 1 John 4: 16: He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 John 5: 19: Lieth in the wicked one. 1 John 5: 20: And we are in the true one, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 3: 6: He that abideth in Him.
The consideration of these passages will shew that being in, dwelling in, are not expressions which necessarily mean union; for they are used where union would be entirely out of place. That these two things go together in our own case, when we are really in Him, is fully admitted. Indeed the very expression "as in the Adam all die, so in the Christ," etc. proves that it is not union; because, though involved in Adam's fall, we are not in union with him, as the church is with Christ; we are not members of his body.
As to the following note, in what is quoted from Jeremiah 4: 23-27, if parallel, the Lord declares He will not make a full end. So that the symbols most clearly do not mean what they are alleged to mean. And if it is the time that He will shake, etc., how do they hide themselves in caves, etc., seeing once more is the removing of things that can be shaken? Jeremiah and Haggai cannot both apply; because Haggai 2: 21 the apostle tells us, means the end; and in Jeremiah, the Lord tells us, He does not.
We have here to deal with some very important points. Some important in themselves, others through the questions raised on them, though of themselves comparatively of little moment.
The general ideas of the way the Gentiles have despised the promises to Abraham, etc., are common to all who hold the personal reign "since the revival of prophetic light." It is the use of them which is here to be enquired into.
The very word "despise," taken with what follows, has a very equivocal force, though it would not have struck me perhaps else. It is not reject, or refuse to admit, but "despise," as something which might be worth our having. And as we read on, the full force of this little word becomes evident, falling in with the earthly character to which Christianity is really reduced always in this book. We are not called upon to own Israel's ancient promises as belonging to Israel, but to blend them into harmony with the new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles. These ancient promises to Israel being forgotten, the consequence was that Gentiles Christianity became useless for God's purposes of practical testimony on the earth. And, in fact, before the apostles died, they were boasting themselves against the natural branches of the very tree to which they owed all their own fatness -- such is the author's view.
God makes everything work together for good to those who love Him. It was the attempt to lower our Christian privileges to an earthly measure (so constantly and assiduously made in the system of which this book is the fullest expression, and from which the Spirit of God made one instinctively recoil) -- it was this attempt, I say, which led my mind to dwell on the highest and blessed source from which our privileges do flow.
Now, I would ask, do the apostles blend into harmony the ancient promises to Israel with the new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles? Or, while maintaining these hopes, did they confound them with the heavenly glory which belonged to the church? Nay, did Jesus minister these hopes, or did He say that He had many things to tell them, but they could not bear them now, but that when the Spirit of truth was come, He would guide them into all truth, and shew them things to come, glorifying Christ and taking of His things (and all the Father's were His) and shewing them to them? And as Jesus declares, in direct contradiction of the author's assertion, that He could not administer these hopes to them then because of their state, but that the Spirit could (because, being in them, He was a capacity of reception as well as power of revelation) -- so the apostle declares that it was the Spirit that did so reveal them. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." "So the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things freely given to us of God." And this (to go no farther in quoting passages on this very important point) was so truly the case, that, precious and blessed as the presence and care of Jesus was, such was the immense difference with the coming of the Holy Ghost, and that to dwell in the disciples, made, that it was expedient for Jesus Himself to leave them.
All this is kept out of sight, and new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles brought in together, as if there were no difference. Is this honouring Jesus? Would men think it needful to bring Jesus up to the level of the apostles? They may spare themselves the trouble. His lowliness and humiliation were His glory, His highest and new glory. It is, on the contrary, but despising His own lowly and tender words in that place of humiliation which no living man but Himself could have taken. The Son of God making Himself of no reputation is the eternal wonder of heaven and earth. That Israel's earthly hopes and glory will be accomplished when the church's heavenly hopes are, and that thus there will be harmony, is true. All things in heaven and earth will be gathered together in one in Christ. But they will never be blended. Flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption. If an eternal state be spoken of, then these are not Israel's ancient promises What is peculiar to and prophetic of Israel, will then be done with.
The ancient promises made to Israel were of earthly blessings (as God's people no doubt): but the promises to Israel were of an earthly inheritance, made to them as a people separated from Gentiles. I am not now speaking of individual saints, looking beyond those promises to better things. These were not promises to Israel, but heavenly hopes. And that the hopes ministered by the apostles were different from those promises is clear; for the author calls them new hopes. The question is, how far they are blended. That there may be common things is very possible. No doubt there are. They must be born again. They must be forgiven. And they will have life. But what is the blending of the heavenly and earthly hopes? The olive tree would be referred to; and here it is said that the Gentiles owe all their fatness to it. Now this is merely the sad principle which runs all through this book -- namely, reducing the church to the lowest privileges of which it is partaker. Let us consider a little this teaching of the olive tree. The apostle had concluded all under sin without difference, the Jew having only added transgressions under the law: and he had closed the account of the privileges of the saints in Romans 8. Not, it is true, on the ground of the elevation of Christ to be Head of the body (this is the subject of the Ephesians), but on a principle of a headship of Christ going beyond Abraham and David, and extending to a position which answered to that of Adam, the figure of Him that was to come -- the new resurrection man. This blotted out the idea of Israel as to distinctive position before God. Lifted up from the earth, He was to draw all men in a new way. God was the God of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews. The free gift had all men for its object. The consequent blessings are then enquired into, the presence of the Holy Ghost; they were called, justified, and glorified, and never to be separated from God's love in Christ Jesus. This closes chapter 8.
But then naturally arises the question -- If Jews and Gentiles are indiscriminately admitted by faith, what comes of the promises made to Israel as God's people? This question the apostle answers in chapters 9 to 11, shewing that God had foretold that they would be a disobedient and gainsaying people, as they had in fact stumbled at the stumbling stone. The question, then, here discussed is not church privileges, but how to reconcile their being indiscriminate with the distinctive promises to Israel. And therefore (chapter 11) the apostle asks, Hath God cast away His people? And here he comes entirely on earthly ground: for Israel never were, and never will be, and were never promised to be, a heavenly people: whereas the church, in its higher and distinctive and proper privileges, was a heavenly people, and had Christ's suffering portion for them upon earth. They were sitting in heavenly places in Him. But they were to have a place actually on earth; and here they replaced for a time Israel. But this did not at all set aside the promises to Israel as such: there was no blending of them. A Jew, or circumcision, was nothing now. One displaced the other on earth. In heaven the distinction was unknown. Christ was the Head of the body in heaven, but He was no Messiah of the Gentiles upon earth, though the Gentiles were to trust in Him, so that the apostle could justify himself by the Old Testament.
But then how reconcile these things? God had not cast away His people. First, He had reserved an elect remnant. Secondly, it was to provoke, as He had declared He would, to jealousy, His ancient people; therefore not to cast them off. Thirdly, Israel would be saved as a whole by Christ's coming again and going forth from Zion.
But this last, instead of blending, was preceded by the threat of utterly cutting off the Gentile branches. Now it is quite clear that this cannot refer to the heavenly body of Christ (for it cannot be so cut off), but to God's dealings with them on earth. And this is yet more evident, because the Israelites are said to be graffed into "their own" olive tree, which clearly has nothing to do with the church as a heavenly body, because that is not their olive tree any more than a Gentile's. All were alike here, children of wrath. There was no difference. It was one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. But there was an administration of promises, and immutable promises, which did naturally belong to them. The Gentiles came in here, inasmuch as, being united to Christ the true Seed of Abraham they come into the promises and blessing of Abraham. But on repentance, Israel down here on earth will be graffed into their own olive tree, where we are now contrary to nature.
But all this naturally, and contrary to nature, has no place in our proper church position: all is beyond nature and contrary to nature there. Yea, though we had known Christ after the flesh (and He was seed of David according to the flesh, and Abraham was the Jew's father after the flesh) -- but, though we had known Christ after the flesh, we were now to know Him no more, though we recognise His title. "The glory of the Messiah of Israel" will be established, but not on the principles, though both be received by grace, on which the church is set in heaven; because there can be no Israel known there. They have their own olive tree down here, and the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. But in Christ as known to the church there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all. The church of heavenly places has put on Christ and knows nothing else.
And it is because the church at Jerusalem did yet as to earth refer to this special place of Jews, according to the mind of God Himself (and not as if it did not enter into the full heavenly privileges itself), according to the sermon of Acts 3 (where the unbelieving Jews are still treated as the children of the covenant which God made with Abraham) that the Pentecostal church has been spoken of as having a Jewish character. It is not that those who composed it did not form part of the heavenly church and body of Christ; but that God (till Jerusalem had rejected the testimony of the Holy Ghost about a glorified Christ, as she had rejected a humble Christ) did not finally cast her off as having no more hope. She had deserved it, indeed; but God answered the intercession of Christ for that nation upon the cross, by the Spirit in the mouth of Peter in Acts 3 (as indeed as a nation He will hereafter, only in a remnant saved by grace) telling them that now, if they repented, He would send Jesus, and the times of refreshing would come. But when He called, there was still "none to answer"; and judgment, though with long patience, took its course. And Paul appears (Colossians 1), as minister of the church, to fulfil the word of God, and of the gospel to every creature under heaven; and the full heavenly indiscriminate character of the one body is brought out. Nobody ever dreamed that the Jewish saints were not of it; but they justly discerned the blessed patient dealings of God with His ancient and beloved people -- the nation for which Christ died, and for which He interceded -- and the full bringing out of the doctrine of that heavenly body which knew no difference of Jew within itself at all, nor Christ Himself after the flesh, while it recognised the truth of all the rest.+
+And I am fully persuaded that the more spiritual discernment there is, the more it will be perceived that (while there was the same life, and grace, and salvation for all believers, and all were in the church) Paul held a place in ministry proper to himself -- a dispensation or administration of the grace of God committed unto him, in which he was quite alone, and none at all like him. He recognised all the rest; but he stood, called independently into an independent place, for a special and distinct service, and peculiar and distinctive sufferings. None other speaks the least like him in his relationship to the saints and churches; while, there is no doubt, he preached the same gospel of salvation. None were the head of a system entrusted to them in the same manner. The special doctrine was Christ among the Gentiles the hope of glory, and the unity of the body the church, with the gathering of all things into one in Christ, and the glory and principles connected with this. It was his gospel.
And further: the doom of the Gentile nations and beasts, though long foretold, will not have its accomplishment till the Gentile church has lost its own place. "Gentile Christianity" as such -- as Gentile -- became mighty when Peter's testimony was useless at Jerusalem; that is, when the blending down here of Jewish promises and Christian hopes closed Jerusalem's rejection of the gospel, as to practical testimony on the earth. It was as effacing the distinction of Jew and Gentile, and shewing that Israel was cast away for a time from all its hopes, that the testimony of Gentile Christianity was mighty upon earth -- not by blending them. That the denial of Israel's earthly hopes has helped on the ruin of Gentile Christianity is most true: because the church thereon looks for earthly place and position, which is only and contrastedly Israel's. It was the attempt to blend them+ that did the mischief, and I firmly believe is the grand mischief of this book. Deny Israel's place and glory with Messiah, and the church will become earthly, rise in its own conceits, and finally, as a system down here, cut off. But it was the distinct and unequivocal maintenance of the church's proper and separate place, as sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, which maintained its position for Israel; and not blending them in harmony, when God had temporally replaced on earth one by the other, as He will the latter by the restoration of Israel on a new ground, but as a distinct people on its own promises. And if this be not kept clear, the church actually and practically loses its own place and character, and will not long give its testimony in the earth. It cannot blend itself with Israel's promises, and continue so to do. It is true that the church has taken up the dropped inheritance of the promises down here; but it has taken them up as possessor of a higher and new glorious title, which was no subject of promise -- living union with the Lord Jesus as His body, which was no subject of promise -- and in accomplishment of a mystery hidden from ages and generations. Israel was judicially blinded to let in the church; as the apostasy and excision will come, and the faithful be in heaven, that Israel may be graffed in again. Is this blending them? The Gentile Christians do not owe all their fatness to the tree. They partake of its fatness, i.e., of the Abrahamic promises. But they owe their highest blessings to their union with Christ -- being His own body -- a thing never promised to Abraham at all, whatever portion he may be judged to have in it, in his own person.
+The setting aside the metropolitan order of Jerusalem which had been, as far as it went, the blending of the two systems, and which the author compares with Jerusalem's place in the millennium when this blending will be accomplished, certainly was not what destroyed the power of Gentile Christianity, but, as he himself has stated, set it a going in the person of Paul. The denying the future hopes of Israel, and so blending the earth and heaven in a new popish metropolitan, is quite a different thing from distinguishing the nature of these hopes, and so not blending them. The author has assumed, that not to blend the church's hopes and Israel's, is to deny Israel's; but it is quite the contrary. It maintains them. Whereas, blending them denies what is proper to the church, which is lost when you blend it with Israel: and so does it Israel's too; for each is what it is.
That Paul recognises the old things and the new we all believe; but, as we here find, the writer does not go beyond old things and new of the kingdom. The church, as the body of Christ, does not enter into the new or old in his statement. I do not the least wish to deny the importance of this question; I implore brethren to weigh anxiously this point: they may be assured it is of the greatest practical importance -- I mean the distinctness of the church's hopes or their blending with the ancient promises to Israel. The life and spiritual energy of a saint depends on his faith in what is proper to his own dispensation. This is so true, that, if he only believed what belonged to the last, it would not be life to him; it has ceased to be the test of faith to him. To Abraham, faith in Almighty God was living faith: is this (though living faith surely owns it) what living faith consists in now? A Jew, not owning Jehovah, would have failed from the covenant. And it is true of power too. If the Holy Ghost be not fully owned, if the proper heavenly place of the church be not fully owned, no general idea of salvation, however true, will give the power, nor form and guide for Christ's glory those who neglect the former. What is special to the dispensation is the power and testimony of the dispensation, and not what is said to be common to all.
We will now turn to Christianity in Jerusalem. It is well for the reader to remember that all that used to be said as to the church being in the tribulation, the blessedness of our being forewarned and prepared for it, the doctrine of Christ's appearing before the church's going up to meet Him in the air (to prove which the "rest with us" when He shall appear was quoted) -- all this, I say, which was so much insisted upon, is entirely given up. Many of the disciples of the school still hold it; but the author of these "Thoughts" has entirely relinquished it. A few scattered Christians (and disobedient ones too) may be caught in the storm: but all intelligent and obedient ones will escape it altogether. It is a new testimony, when Christianity is withdrawn, that will be exposed to the malice of Antichrist. This is evidently an important point. The saints well know how much it was insisted on, that they would be there and must be prepared for it. It was urged as one grand delusion to fancy the church would be out of it, whereas God was specially preparing their hearts for it by forewarning them. The mistake (it appears now) was in those who insisted upon it. In page 124 of the "Thoughts" the reader may see that Christianity is withdrawn from Jerusalem. The dragon drives it away into the refuge God has prepared for it out of the limits of the civilised earth (pages 148, 149). The harvest also is reaped in Christendom, and has no reference at all to the regions of the Roman earth, where Christ appears suddenly to destroy Antichrist.
But let us examine these statements. The reader will understand that the answer must be somewhat longer than the statement; because, when a statement is made without any proof -- when it is said, that such is manifest from Matthew 24, it does not suffice to say, "It is not manifest," and increase the phrases only by the word "not." It would be quite as valid, but very useless.
That Christianity will again exist in Jerusalem is not denied, for it does exist there. But, according to the statement of the author, already referred to (page 124), it will not exist there during the tribulation, or period of the beast's power. So that what he means by His disciples being destined to witness in that city the great hour of Antichristian triumph, it would be hard to tell: on the first sign of that triumph, they are to leave the country. All is mixed up together here, to say the least, in the most confused manner. He (Christ in Matthew 24) "foretells," we are told, "the period of unequalled tribulation." "The Revelation also again and again refers to those who hold fast the testimony to Jesus, and the faith of Jesus, in the midst of similar circumstances to those which Matthew 24 describes." Now would it be supposed that the author held that there would be no Christianity in Jerusalem during the last three years and a half (that is, during the whole period of anti-Christian triumph, or "period of unequalled tribulation")? So that all that in the Revelation refers to the beast's reign, as far as "hopes and testimony of Christianity in Jerusalem" go, must be entirely excluded from all that is said here. The obedient ones, seeing the sign, will be far away. And it- is not to be passed over, that the only definite reference to testimony to Jesus, and faith in Jesus, in the prophetic part of the Revelation, refers to the period of the beast's reign.
And, further, I will assume+ with the writer that it is Christians and Christianity that receive the direction to flee from Jerusalem when the abomination of desolation is set up; because then there would be unequalled tribulation, and that "ye" means in Matthew 24 this same body, the church, all through its "last representatives." Does he mean to say that they are directed to flee from Jerusalem because the tribulation is setting in, to be in the very same tribulation elsewhere? Is there any sense in that? And if not, what "evil hour" does he refer to as "that evil hour"? He had spoken of "the great hour of Antichristian triumph." But in Jerusalem they will not suffer from it. They are to flee -- not, I suppose, into the identical persecutions elsewhere. So that they will not be in the great tribulation at all. In speaking, therefore, of similar circumstances to Matthew 24, the author must refer to what precedes the day of the beast's power. So that his doings against the saints in Revelation do not apply to those instructed in Matthew: they are fled "into the bosom of uncivilised darkness." Very possibly; but they are not in his power. We may remark that the patience of those who "have the faith of Jesus" is referred only to not worshipping the beast. It is an expression used only once. The expression "faith of the saints" is used in reference to the same thing. And so is "testimony of Jesus" in the only place in which it is connected with any persons specifically. Only here it is the dragon who makes war with them.
+In point of fact, I believe the church will be gone up on high.
We may set aside, then, the beast's reign as referring to Matthew 24 in connection with the suffering of the saints, on the authority of the author himself. I should have had merely to cite the statement of page 124, that Christianity will be withdrawn from Jerusalem, and the statement here, "Christianity in Jerusalem," if there had not been the greatest ambiguity of statement. First, you would suppose that witnessing in that city did not mean exactly fleeing so as to be secure, on a signal divinely predicted -- that when (after taking all those addressed in Matthew as one body, because of "ye") it is stated "the Revelation also again and again refers to some," etc., you would suppose that the statements of Revelation were connected with the same period of Antichristian triumph, and the trial of the same persons. But not at all. Christians are not to be there. It is there said in italics, similar circumstances to Matthew: I suppose to avoid saying the same; because at Jerusalem Christianity will not be to be persecuted. But are they the same persons? Can this be supposed? Does the reader believe that the Lord desires to flee because of tribulation, that these identical persons may be in the same persecution elsewhere? I say same, because similar circumstances can only mean a like persecution -- elsewhere, perhaps, but the same thing. But if it be not the same body, why is it introduced here, giving to suppose that it is the same? or why connect them with Matthew 24, where those that listen to Christ's voice evidently get away from under the beast's power? If the statements in the Revelation have anything to do with Matthew 24, how can the faithful ones of the earth at that evil hour (who keep the commandments of God, and have the faith of Jesus, and hold fast the testimony to Jesus, and who are in the Revelation described as suffering in patience of faith under the beast's power) be the same as those whose obedience, if they had listened to the voice of Jesus, would have taken them out of his power? It is true the writer does not say here that they suffer in the evil hour, because the contradiction with Matthew 24 would have been flagrant; but if the passages in Revelation are consulted, it is plain. Elsewhere (page 148) he leaves a general idea of suffering because driven out. Be it so; but that is not patience under the beast's reign, who is overcoming them.
The truth is, the whole system is so unsound that you cannot put the different parts of it in juxtaposition without its discrepancies being manifest. The expression of them may be avoided; but they are not the less flagrant to those who take the pains to examine them.
One thing is certain, that we have no need to examine the beast's doings in Jerusalem at "that evil hour"; because the Christianity at Jerusalem, of which he speaks here, will not then exist. If any Christians remain, they are clearly (according to the author) disobedient ones, not the faithful ones. Indeed they would spoil all; because the new witnesses would be declaring it was too late for present forgiveness; and these Christians, disobedient though they were, would prove that it was not. And here I would ask in passing (for we must speak of it farther on) how the witnesses in Jerusalem (page 124) can testify of the message of forgiveness through His blood despised and now withdrawn, when elsewhere in Christendom this forgiveness subsists still, and is not withdrawn at all? Nay, when it has been stated that in Antichrist's world, though Christianity be driven out, some scattered saints remain? Is it withdrawn and subsisting at the same time? Can an individual have peace in Russia and its dependencies, perhaps up to the Euphrates, and the testimony of God the other side be, that he cannot? Yet such is the system which denounces as heresy whatever does not submit to its statements. And let us remember that we are here upon the very ground of that assertion -- the interpretation of Matthew 24.
However, we may now leave aside the application of Revelation to Matthew 24, as referring to the time when Christianity is not in Jerusalem, and speak of the previous period, when it is alleged to be there. Only we shall do well to remember also, that it is the Revelation we are examining, and that this part of Matthew 24+ applying solely to Jerusalem in that evil hour, the Christianity spoken of as referred to in the Revelation, has no place here at all; because it will not exist at Jerusalem during the evil hour.
+Namely, verses 15-28.
Now first, as to the word "Ye": it is urged as a conclusive proof that all the chapter refers to Christians.
Now, if Christianity be entirely withdrawn from the scene, and that "ye" and "you" mean Christianity, how is it that the words "ye" and "you" are found after the tribulation is come in, and refer to their being involved in its difficulties? "For then shall be great tribulation. Then, if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or lo, there. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert," etc. That is, the "ye" and "you" are continued after Christianity is withdrawn. For it will hardly be denied, that these false Christs, etc., appear in the scene of the tribulation from which the Christian disciples have entirely withdrawn, on the sign given in the chapter, verse 15. And if Christianity be withdrawn, who, on the author's system, are the elect?
But, further, not only is the "you" continued to them in the scene of tribulation, after Christianity is withdrawn, but the character of the warnings is very strange, if it be Christians that are warned. When I say, "Christians," I heed the word very little: it is a human name; and if men please to call Christians the confessors of that time, I do not oppose. On the author's statement of what it is, I do not see how he could refuse it, though he does. But what is material is the church as such now. Does Matthew 24 speak of that as such? Now, what is the warning? It is -- not to believe (though, as we have seen, it is hard to understand how they are there, if Christianity be withdrawn) the statement of Christ's being in the desert, or the secret chamber. But how can the church believe that, when it is to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air? It must first believe that Christ has falsified His word, and have fallen from the faith. But I shall be told that that would be true: but that we know how Christians have forgotten the proper hope of the church, and therefore may need these warnings. Let it be remembered, then, that these instructions in Matthew apply only to those who have entirely forgotten the proper hope of the church: which it is impossible to reconcile with what is here said. This is a good deal to say of the faithful of the earth, who "stand like the last representatives of the firstborn on earth, just as Stephen and the pentecostal saints represented it in its early history" -- so that the visions of glory in the Revelation seem almost exclusively to belong to them.
But let the fact be remembered, that the Lord's warnings here are entirely inconsistent with the church's own hope given elsewhere.
But the truth is, even this resource is taken away here; because what the author is treating of is the revival of clear light on these very subjects, blending in harmony the ancient promises and the new hopes. And whatever the revival of prophetic light amongst us western Christians may do, it is certain that when Antichristianism has brought back the nations of the prophetic earth into their former place, and Christianity is again found amidst Israel and Jerusalem, the expectation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel, and of the judgments that will accompany His return, will again form part of the hopes and testimony of Christianity in Jerusalem. But will this clearer light, this more than revival of prophetic light (described in its prophetic character, page 92, as the blending into harmony the ancient promises with the new hopes, which does revive the expectation of Jesus as Messiah of Israel) exclude the church's expectation? If so, surely it is not Christianity. If it does bring this clear blending in, as the apostles and Paul had it (and we are told the disciples, who were the apostles, were so addressed here), then this warning can have no place here; because it is clearly inconsistent with the church's hope. If, on the contrary, it is a revival of Israel's hope of Messiah, and an exclusion of the church's, then the case supposed is one of a believing Jewish remnant, and not the church. I am obliged to put it in this alternative, because the author, in speaking of the revival of prophetic light, and, further, of Christianity at Jerusalem, has not said a word of the church's hope. I may therefore suppose that he takes for granted its power, according to what he approves in page 92. If not that, it is excluded. But in page 96, we are freed from this uncertainty. It is asserted that "they" (i.e., those who are here addressed) "will be freed from the darkness which now broods over Gentile Christianity, and will again combine the new things of the kingdom with the promises made unto the fathers." It is therefore impossible that, thus clearly discerning Israel's hope and the new things of the kingdom, they would be liable to be ensnared by being told that Christ is in the secret chamber; because, with a clear and certain light, they will know that they themselves are to be with the Lord in the air. All reasoning from "the darkness that now broods over Gentile Christianity," which might make a true saint liable to such a mistake, is quite taken away. The truth is, the whole system is a mass of confusion, arising from man's mind dealing with the mighty word of God.
Nor is it merely the state of men's mind we are to consider. The Lord, we are told, is dealing with the disciples as the church. Would the Lord, in explaining all to the church, give them warnings which implied the denial or total absence of the church's hope in their minds? Would He sanction that, by not even alluding to it? For the Son of man's appearing is only spoken of as acting on the tribes of the earth, or land. I will not enter into the discussion of the whole chapter here, having now applied myself to the use the author makes of it in this place. I will only add one or two questions. Of what age do the disciples speak, when they enquire about its end? Does the Lord correct the evident Jewish character of the disciples' questions, or answer them on their own ground, which was clearly Jewish in its character? Of what is Daniel treating, when he speaks of the abomination of desolation? Is it of Jews or Christians? Is God's testimony there occupied about the Jewish people, as such, or Christianity? Daniel's people, it is clear. (See chapter 10: 14.)
One thing yet remains in this testimony of Matthew 24 and in Revelation. According to the author, Gentile Christians will not be entrusted with this closing testimony in and round Jerusalem. Yet it was people from every nation, etc., contrasted with Jews, who, in Revelation 7, were come out of the great tribulation. Matthew 24 does clearly not speak of Gentile Christians, but Revelation 7 as clearly does, contrasted with Jews, if this be the great tribulation, as the author says.
I have only to remark further on page 97, that I am not aware of any who are spoken of "who shall testify therein,"+ unless it be on the chasing the woman into the wilderness But let us note here, that, according to the author, testimony in Jerusalem is over, viewed as testimony of the disciples of Jesus at that time: so that all said of that in the Revelation does not apply to what is directly the beast's reign there.++
+In Jerusalem. The witnesses are not in question here. The author speaks of them as coming after this testimony.
++If, as the writer supposes in the note, page go, the scene from chapters 7 to 13, is Jerusalem, then I need not add "there," because then all the actings of the beast against the saints are confined to Jerusalem. All that is said of the faith of Jesus, or testimony to Jesus, is confined to this; except Babylon being drunk with their blood, which is quite general -- the blood of all saints being found there. The only other case of testimony spoken of is general, chapter 6: 9.
But it does not apply to a testimony previous to that reign in Jerusalem, for the patience and faith of the saints in the Revelation is during his reign. And when it is said "escape its plagues," the writer must not think of God's judgments: they escape the tribulation of Antichrist.
But there is another point here. We may travel out of Jerusalem. Now these are the faithful ones of the earth at that evil hour, the enlightened ones, with old promises and new hopes, and so on. But "they see, like their Master before them, the sphere of their earthly service hopelessly closed, and wait in suffering and in trial for the hour now fast approaching of their final deliverance into their heavenly rest." But lo, when I turn to Matthew 24 I find a most active testimony going on at this time. The gospel of the kingdom is to be preached in all the world (if any one choose to translate it "prophetic earth," the argument is only stronger), for a witness to all nations, and then the end is to come. Now, if the sphere of earthly service is hopelessly closed to the faithful ones in that evil hour who had the testimony to Jesus, what is all this preaching in that evil hour? For it is the evil hour; for it is to the end. If the gospel of the kingdom be what we have to preach -- the gospel of salvation such as the church has it -- how is the sphere of earthly service closed of the faithful ones, the last representatives of the church on earth, just as Stephen and the Pentecostal church? If it be not the gospel the church has to preach to the world, our present gospel, then what are we to say to the subject of Matthew 24?
There is another curious statement in page 96. Gentile Christians being wise in their own conceits, the testimony to Jesus in the scenes (though we have seen that it is not in the scenes, because the word is used of the period of the beast's reign and even of Jerusalem, according to the author with one exception, and Christianity is not there) therein described is not entrusted to them. Now, the branches are to be broken off because of this state. So that we find here the Gentile church, or Christians, in that state which precludes the testimony to be raised up being given to them, and, I add from Romans 11, going to be cut off and a new and other set of witnesses (not the two) raised up out of Israel, who are not to be in this state at all. Thus, the church gets into the state for which it is to be cut off, so that testimony is not given to it, and a new church is raised up out of Israel, after this total decline and disappearance (as far as testimony goes) of the Gentiles -- which yet is the church, and is quite out of the state of darkness which broods over us. And yet, as we have seen, they have to be warned against fancying Christ is in the secret chamber, their earthly service being closed; and they wait in suffering and trial the hour of their deliverance. And yet all the while (though coming from nobody knows where) there is an active gospel preaching all over the world, for a testimony to all nations.
After the departure of the disciples of Jesus to wait for three years and a half, while another testimony goes on (itself rather a strange position for the faithful ones in that evil hour), that other testimony, the two witnesses, is raised up. Of these we will speak in their proper place. I only add, that I do not believe the hundred and forty-four thousand of the sealed remnant are the remnant -- the "but a little remnant" -- brought to repentance by the two witnesses in Jerusalem. I make no complaint at all of this statement; merely, I do not agree with it. It certainly seems to me that Revelation 7 speaks of a more general remnant spared of the whole nation, without any reference at all to Jerusalem, or the two witnesses. I see none in the chapter. It seems purposely designed to embrace the whole nation, who are not then there, and to secure beforehand God's elect remnant out of the whole nation, before any wind blew on the earth, or sea, or tree. Whatever came any where, this remnant would be safe. However, I leave this to the judgment of the reader. They are, as the author says, "the preserved of Israel on earth." But then it is clear that a very great part of Israel is not at Jerusalem: Ezekiel 20 proves this; because the rebels of all that band will not enter into the land at all, and there are yet others (Isaiah 66) brought home after Antichrist is destroyed. So, I suppose, Isaiah 27: 12. It is reasonable, and I think scriptural (see John 5: 43), to suppose that the Jews who rejected Christ, and do so, come under Antichrist: while others who have suffered for their rebellion, but not been in that guilt (i.e., the mass of the ten tribes under Joseph's stick) may be differently dealt with in this particular. Compare Isaiah 28: 14, 15. However, I leave this point.
As to the church of the firstborn in heavenly glory, "What is remarkable is, that they are all described as having come out of the great tribulation."
The author had said, "No one, I suppose, will doubt that this is the song of all the church of the firstborn." For my own part I do doubt it very much, unless [the] great tribulation be taken as the whole church period. But I will not discuss this here. Taking it as the great tribulation, we are told, "Individually, of course, the greater part of them could not have been there. Yet as represented by their brethren they were there; for the church is one." This is, I must say, a most comfortable way of being in tribulation: to be represented there, and yet get all the blessings resulting from it. That there is sympathy with those in tribulation is true. But to find them celebrated as in it, who had such darkness brooding on them, and were so wise in their own conceits as to be unfit to be there, is a little strong.
But then there is another grave difficulty. None of them were there. On the sign being set up, which was to shew that it would take place, they all escape to avoid it. This "is a commandment too definite and too express to be disobeyed by any who value the authority of Him who gave it." So that no obedient disciple of Jesus was in it. I suppose it will not be argued that Jesus said, Flee, for there will be great tribulation; while He meant that they should be in the tribulation, whether they fled or not. If not, not one was there in it; and yet all the church were there. Well, I confess, this "is remarkable." And not only so, but "the church as a whole will be known as having come out of that dispensation which gains its distinguishing characteristic from the evil hour with which it closes." Yet not one single one of the church will be there. It is an odd expression, "come out of that dispensation." Is it not then after all this dispensation, "the church period"? the church dispensation? And, if so, is this power of Antichrist and the dragon the distinguishing characteristic of the church dispensation -- when the church will be giving no testimony at all, the sphere of its earthly service being hopelessly closed? Can that be the distinguishing characteristic of the church dispensation in which the church is not found at all, in which it can given no testimony, and from which it is desired to flee? This will make the reader see why I enquired into these terms at the beginning, and the important effect of identifying the kingdom and the church, and this age or dispensation. It entirely destroys the true character of each.
I have not much to remark on here, not admitting that all the flock of Jesus are those who are come out of the great tribulation. It seems to me somewhat strange for the church to have a conversation about themselves, and describe themselves as a class of persons, explaining who they were. That very different symbols may represent; or that a symbol and that an historical statement may both be used of, the same persons, I fully admit; or that the Lord should present a man's history to himself in a parable: all this I conceive easily. But if the elders are the church (which I do not combat), and the great multitude is the whole church, too is it not somewhat extraordinary that they should thus, as one looking on, ask the seer, Who are these? when they were themselves? and then, when the latter referred it back to him as knowing, should give a special description of them, and what was to happen to them?
If they were a special and exceptional class, I could understand it, when those who as a body made up the twenty-four courses of priests, were already brought in in blessing. It would have to be explained, who they were, and whence they came; and their salvation, and no more, being ascribed to God on the throne and the Lamb, would answer to the character of those who would be delivered under the circumstances of this book -- at any rate, of the greater part of them. And they sing no more than their own salvation and deliverance -- nothing of the special blessedness and title of Christ, as the previous song did: and their blessing is all in contrast with previous trial and sorrow.
I am not prepared to recognise a cry, not unheeded without intercession, and answered when intercession comes. "If we know that he hear us, we know that we have the petitions." And it seems to militate against the force of "I say not that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you." If then saints below were the church, and this book takes the ground of the church, this statement can hardly be true.
The note, also, I believe to be a mistake as to the "right translation." I think it will be found that didomi is used in the Revelation in a peculiar manner, signifying 'give efficacy to something already subsisting.' Thus, in chapter 11: 3, which is exactly the same form, 'I will give [power, or efficacy] to my two witnesses.' So here, 'that He might give [efficacy] to the prayers of the saints.' However, this is not of much moment.
To the rest of the statements I demur also. First, there is nothing particular stated, as to Israel, in the first trumpets. There is more reason for it in the woe trumpets -- at any rate in the first, so that there I leave the remark uncommented upon. But smiting earth, seas, fountains, rivers, heavens, if taken really and literally, as is supposed here by the author, must surely be more than Israel, and not Israel particularly. Besides, Tyre and Babylon are not Israel; so that page 104 and the first note do not agree.
The author says these several parts of nature will be literally smitten+ (page 112): but it is rather a loose way of getting over it to say "when the sea shall cease to supply its riches," when it is said "the third part became blood"; and of what sea, if literal? And how does a great star fall literally from heaven, its name being Wormwood, so that a third part of the waters became (literally?) wormwood? And think of the key of the bottomless pit being literally given to a star falling down upon the earth! And what then is the description of the locusts that came out of the bottomless pit? -- is this literal too? And if not, why suddenly draw a line, because the absurdity becomes too palpable? And why, if a third part of the sun was literally smitten, should the day not shine for a third part of it? It is easy just to pass over all this by talking of "waters changing their refreshment into bitterness, and the heavens in their revolution beginning to minister darkness instead of light." But then for a literal explanation, we should have something more precise. Nor am I aware why it should apply to Israel.
+If all this judgment goes on, how comes it that all is so resplendent and full of comfort during the reign of Antichrist, as is alleged?
It is a still stranger comment to say that these locust powers of darkness wore chaplets the same as on the head of the Lord Jesus: "for the commission of Apollyon is equally from God." How is a chaplet the sign of a commission from God? and what shewed it in the rider of the white horse? And are those who come out of the bottomless pit crowned the same as Christ, because they have equally a commission? I have already noticed in its place the inconsistency of explaining the men's faces here ("the same characteristic we find in the cherubim") as marking "wisdom and sagacity" -- when, in explaining it in the cherubim, it was declared not to mean it (page 55). And why woman's hair signifies joy would be hard to tell. That a woman's shaving her head may signify grief (being a shame, and her ornament gone) I understand; but why a man putting on woman's hair should be joy, is, I confess, beyond me. I am not prepared to combat it, because I am not clear about the point myself.
Nor do I admit the two witnesses to be during the last three years and a half.+ But how if they are (and they are introduced during the sixth trumpet, or second woe, which closes after the end of their history) does the author bring the first five trumpets into the three years and a half, which three years and a half are occupied in his system with the witnesses who are found in the sixth, and not till then? I put this not as an objection, but as a difficulty that requires solution.
As to the note (page 112) on the Jews, it is a thought long since promulgated -- the gradual breaking down of the Jews, and their sanctifying by the gradual progress of morally unbearable evil. But if "humbled," "thoroughly broken (conscious of the truth respecting the past, and correctly anticipating the future" and that by the testimony of God), surely they are converted. And it cannot be said that they were like John's disciples, and that there was no testimony of Jesus when Christianity was withdrawn; because John's was decidedly a testimony of Jesus. And if they were conscious of the truth respecting the past, what was that about? Was there no Jesus in that past? Were they not believers that Jesus was the Christ, and yet not in a church standing? And, if they are servants of God in Isaiah, they love His name and take hold of His covenant; and say in Psalm 80, "Let thy hand be on the son of man," etc. (See Isaiah 56 and Psalm 80.) "John's disciples before they were brought to Jesus" avoids the question. Was there no testimony to Jesus by John? These persons are converted and know that Jesus is the Christ, and are waiting for His appearing: and they are not the church. Let the reader note this.
+My present thought [1868] is that there is only one half-week in the defined periods of the Revelation. I confess I have been surprised at the clearness of these pages; and have a deeper sense of the evil of the author's system than ever I had before. The guarded enquiry here has comforted me, as not going beyond assured ground at the time [1844-5].
I suppose the repentance of a person thoroughly broken through the testimony of God proves him converted; and this testimony was of Jesus rejected and coming. And is it not a strange thing to say that the Spirit of God has provided them with inspired expressions for their self-righteousness? That He prepares the utterance of the complaints of God's people, is true. That He prophetically declares by the Spirit what the wicked will do, putting it as a complaint in the mouth of Christ, as in Psalm 22 and 69 ("They wag their heads, and say," etc. "They gave me gall," etc.), or sometimes in that of a godly remnant, is true also. But can the Spirit of God prepare an abundance of touching appeals to God for self-righteousness, and sanction them by inspiring them beforehand? Is it not a monstrous supposition? Yet this is the theory of the writer, in order to make good his prophetic system and reconcile the Psalms with his theory of Israel's state. And if not, it all falls: for otherwise there is a remnant of Israel after the church is gone, converted and turned to God; and yet fed by Jewish hopes, and sustained by testimonies of the Spirit adapted to them. And there is recognised as of God on the earth what is not the church.
I have not much to say on the numbers: I think them mistaken, but immaterial. Seven and twelve are alone important. Seven is clearly wrong. Are seven devils rest? or seven heads on the dragon? or even seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth? or seven vials? or seven trumpets? It seems to me seven is used for completeness in spiritual things, twelve in human associations. But others can judge of this. Surely agency towards others in blessing is not specially the character of the heavenly city. I do trust we may get a little "rest" there; yet I do not remember any sevens in the city. There is agency, it is true; but is dwelling with God and the Lamb, where there is no temple, an inferior part of the blessing? The twelve loaves of show-bread, what agency had they? Twelve stones set up by Joshua as a memorial? The twelve tribes of Israel, even, what agency had they?
Is it not rather a singular thing (if seven means rest, and twelve agency) that all that part of the Revelation which describes the actings, whether of Satan in mischief or of God in judgment, is identified with the number seven, and the result in the city of glory with the number twelve?
I believe the one hundred and forty-four thousand of chapter 7 are distinct from the one hundred and forty-four thousand of chapter 14; but I do not believe the second a heavenly company.
And why in the next note does the fact of a multitude coming out of all nations, and the elders and cherubim also coming out of them (assuming them so to do) prove they are the same body? And what proof is there that the one hundred and forty-four thousand of chapter 14 come out of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues? There is absolutely none.
As to the instruments of action: why, if all be literal, is blood a symbol? All this description of agents assumes the statements of the chapter which we have considered (and which seem to me quite untenable), or they are mere fancy. But I do not feel they involve any principle so as to discuss them at length. But as to the stars (page 115), "the third of these divisions" (where is all this found?) -- "they are continually employed to represent the saints in their resurrection glory." Where? This is all a preparation (as we shall find) for statements elsewhere founded on it as if it were a truth; but would it not be better to adduce one passage as a proof than to say "they are continually employed"? Believing stars to be inferior authorities, I admit they may clearly be employed to denote the millennial state of the saints; and of course it win be unearthly and superhuman then. But I demur altogether to the general statement. Here too we have a most easy way of getting out of the difficulty of interpreting the terms used in the trumpets: "I doubt not that the waters, and all that they symbolise, will be found bitter." This saves all difficulty certainly; and you can hardly be wrong, at any rate, but by excess. But then how is it consistent with the note in page 112, which seems to shut totally out "all that they symbolise"? There they are literally smitten, and do not mean spiritual blessings. "The gifts of God in creation, and the artificial constructions of man," are the things judged.PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
INTRODUCTION
EXAMINATION
"CHRIST IN HIS RELATION TO THE CHURCHES"
"SEVEN CANDLESTICKS OF GOLD"
THOUGHTS ON CHAPTERS 4 AND 5
"THOUGHTS ON THE FIFTH CHAPTER"
NOTES ON CHAPTER 4 AND 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CONTINUATION OF CHAPTER 7
CHAPTERS 8 AND 9