[Photograph
above: An evening stroll on Downhill beach,
1
“I KNOW YOU NOT”
By SAMUEL F. HURNARD
THESE words - Matt. 25: 12 - from
the lips of our Saviour are a cause of difficulty and confusion to not a
few. They occur in a well defined
passage of admonition, following a prophetic picture of events leading up to
His second advent. This passage opens
and closes with the arresting words:- “Watch
therefore.” See verses 24: 42
and 25: 12. It contains three parables, viz., the
Householder, the Servants, and the Virgins.
It is important to see clearly
to whom these are addressed. Speaking
generally the whole discourse of chapters 24
and 25 is addressed “privately” (verse
3) to “His
disciples.” This is emphasised in
this passage, for in verse 42 the words “your Lord” are used concerning those
warned. The next parable relates to the
faithfulness, or otherwise, of servants, clearly with regard to the return of
the Master to enquire into their conduct.
While of the Virgins, it is only to be noted that in New Testament usage
the word, including 1 Corinthians 7, always implies saved believers. The word suggests purity and separation.
Moreover the ten virgins of the parable
were all anxious to meet the Bridegroom; they had lamps burning, but with five
their supply of oil was running very low.
All the ten virgins were candidates for “the
kingdom of heaven,” and they were commanded to “Watch.”
Christ never tells unsaved people to watch. Why should He? Clearly the unsaved do not come into view in
these parables. How then are we to
understand His words:- “I know you not”?
The English word “know” occurs eleven times in this discourse. But in the Greek two quite distinct words are
used. One is ginosko, which means to know by effort, or learning. It is objective and occurs five times in 24: 32, 33, 39, 43; and 25: 24. The
other word is oida and occurs six
times in 29: 36,
42, 43;
and 25: 12,
13, 26. It is subjective knowledge, intuitive, or
intimate. Let us notice how differently
the two words are used in these chapters.
The budding of the fig tree is known by observation (verse 32).
The near coming of “the Son of man in
the clouds of heaven” (verse 33)
is to be known from the signs He gives in this chapter. Wicked humanity knew all about the Flood when
it burst upon them (verse 39). “Know
this” (ginosko), in verse 43, would be just the obvious conclusion to
come to, if only the good man of the house “had
known” (oida),but of course he could not possess intuitive knowledge of
the thief’s intention. His only security
would have been constant watchfulness.
The man with one talent (25: 24), may have heard an evil report of his master
and so said “Lord, I
knew thee ... an hard man.”
Turning now to oida
knowledge, in verse 36 it is used because
the day and hour of the Lord’s coming is a secret enshrined in the bosom of the
Father. Therefore, because utterly
unknown, all believers must watch, be alert and ready for the unexpected and
unknown hour. Thus we find it used in verse 42, and of the ignorance of the Householder
in verse 43.
It is also used of the wicked servant in 25:
26 who invented his own perverse opinion of
his master’s character. Regarding verse 12, the Lord disclaims that intimate
knowledge (oida) with the five foolish virgins, which would place them
among His close friends. This use of the
word is well illustrated in Amos 3: 2, as applied to those like the wise virgins, where
the Lord says of Israel,- “You only have I
known of all the families of the earth,” meaning His special
interest in and knowledge of His chosen people.
It emphasises again in verse 13 the
supreme importance of His urgent warning - “Watch
therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the
hour wherein the Son of man cometh.”
In one other passage only, Luke 13: 25, do
we find the Lord saying, “I know you not” (oida). Both these passages relate to a time of
awakening to bitter shame and remorse.
This is described by Him seven times over as “the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” This would appear to be the time when the
first fruits are “waved,” or
translated, while the unready crop is left to endure the fiery trial of the
great tribulation, thus to be ripened for the harvest. How intensely solemn are these facts as the
churches of Christ face a future dark with forebodings: yet brightened for the
eye of faith with promise of a glorious Dawn.
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2
SUFFERING AND REIGNING
BY G. H. LANG
THIS change of legal
status and of spiritual condition brings the now living man into a vast realm,
the
These warnings are addressed to
Christians. They apply in particular to
the matter of sharing the sovereignty of Christ in His kingdom, as it is
written that we are “heirs indeed (men) of God,
but (de) joint heirs with
Christ [Messiah], if so
be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom.
8: 17);
and again, “If we
died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign
with
him: if we shall deny him, he also
will deny us; etc.” (2 Tim. 2: 11-13). Although these “ifs” stand with the indicative of the verbs, it is impossible to
read them as “since” we do this or that, for it
is not true that all believers do in fact die, suffer, and endure with Him, and obviously it is not true that all
deny Him. The conditional
force is not to be avoided. To assert the opposite is to assert that there is no backsliding, and
to make void the warnings of the New Testament to [all regenerate] Christians. This subject I have discussed
at length in Firstfruits and Harvest, Ideals and Realities, Revelation, and Hebrews.
Our passage (1 Thess. 5: 1-11) is concerned distinctly with the future aspect of salvation, not the
“initial” aspect. It deals with the “hope of salvation,” not the entrance thereto. For it is not the intention of God that the
sons of light and day (verse 5) should meet
His wrath at the return of Christ, but that they should then obtain “salvation,” that is, that [future] “salvation which is ready to be
revealed in the last time,” which is the “inheritance” (the
portion of the heir), as yet “reserved in heaven” (1
Pet. 1: 4,
5).
This magnificent and heavenly inheritance is the highest possible
development of salvation to which faith can aspire, and in His very first
recorded mention of it the Lord set it forth as a reward for
suffering on His behalf (Mat. 5: 12: “Blessed
are ye when men shall reproach and persecute you ... great is your reward in heaven”). This is the key to all later references to
the subject.
Of this most noble of prospects
the noblest element is that it assures continuous enjoyment of the personal
company of the Lord. All the saved will
be blessed in His [eternal] kingdom,
but not all [the saved] will be the personal companions of the King [in His millennial Kingdom]. Heb. 3: 14 says that
“we are become companions of Christ [the
Messiah tou Christou] if we hold fast the beginning of our
confidence firm unto the end.” This high privilege is for those who “hate their life” in this age, who serve and follow Him in reality. Of such He says “where I am there shall also my servant be” and
will be honoured by His Father (John 12: 25, 26). This
may be followed throughout the New Testament. To the few
who keep their garments undefiled in this foul world it is promised that “they shall walk with Me in white; for they are worthy. The one overcoming
shall thus be arrayed in
white garments” (Rev. 3: 4, 5). - The Disciple.
-------
Thrones
So also
is it concerning the Kingdom far vaster than
officer, Bernadotte, who has become a Lutheran.” “He did so,” they replied, “for
a crown.” “My motive,” he declared, “Is
the same. Bernadotte and I differ only as to the place. His
object was to obtain the crown of
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3
THE BEATITUDES
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
“And seeing the multitudes, He went up into the mountain: and when He
had sat down, His disciples came unto Him:
and He opened His mouth, and taught them:” (Matt. 5: 1).
IT is disciples, though within
earshot of the multitude, that our Lord, in solemn session, sets Himself to
teach. Luke is equally explicit: “He
lifted up His eyes on His disciples, and said” (Luke 6: 20). The Sermon on the Mount, as Bishop Gore
succinctly puts it, was spoken into the ear of the Church and overheard by the
world.
3. Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is spiritual character upon which our Lord strikes the
first deep, strong note. Blessed is the
man who is before he does. The new creation of the indwelling Spirit enfolds within
itself all potentialities of blessed action.
But consequent acts of love and mercy are the indispensable proofs that
travel down into life’s little things - the robbed cloak and the assaulted
cheek. “I am
trying to build up new countries,” Cecil Rhodes said to General Booth; “you and your father are trying to build up new men; and
you have chosen the better part.” In a ripe maturity of
political experience second to none, Mr. Gladstone said: “The welfare of mankind does not now depend on the State, or
on the world of politics: the real battle is being fought out in the world of
thought; and we Politicians are children playing with toys in comparison to that
great work of restoring belief.”
On the threshold of the Sermon
Christ erects the gate of humility. “And He called to Him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto
you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt.
18: 3). Without a changed nature the malignant evils
of the social order, deeply seated in a diseased heart, would reproduce
themselves for ever, and reduce even God’s Kingdom to chaos. The Celestial Hills can be reached only
through the Vale of the lowly heart.
4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed,
says the Socialist, is a general diffusion of comfort: Blessed, says the
politician, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number: “Blessed,” says Christ, “are they that mourn.” This
radical divergence springs from antagonistic views of the world. The philosopher is content to reform without
regenerating; sin, to him, is a distemper of the skin; the world is disordered,
but not condemned. Christ reveals that
the world, jarred out of all harmony with God, is deeply cankered with
sin. Wickedness predominates, therefore
mourning is blest. The disciple is bowed by the cross he has
lifted. But of righteous
sorrow Christ approves; the mourners shall be comforted when earth is
regenerate, and the Curse departs from every island and
continent like a lifted shadow. Sorrow, in a sinless world, would be sinful.
5. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
An
exquisite proof of the truth of Christ’s words is their amazing unworldliness. It is precisely the meek who are uniformly
excluded from earthly inheritance; high places yield to the assault of wealth,
ambition, and organized power. The meek
waive, rather than prosecute, their claims; sufferers, doing right, with patience;
much forgiven, they are much forgiving. For such the earth, when become Messiah’s in its uttermost parts, is
reserved, as the hundredfold compensation for suffered wrong. The earth is yet to be governed by its
aristocracy of grace. But the possession is reached by the path of
renunciation. “Dost thou wish,” says Augustine, “to possess the earth?
Beware then lest thou be possessed by it.”
6. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled.
Not, Blessed are the righteous;
but blessed are disciples consciously imperfect and sinful, eager to crown [the] imputed
righteousness [of Christ] with [their] active
goodness. The daily recurring
appetite is set on weaving the pure, bright linen of the Bride.* The love of righteousness, a thirst planted in
the soul by God, is for ever baffled in the spheres of labour, politics,
religion: Wealth triumphs in monopoly; Cabinets shape the course of kingdoms by
expediency; the great State Churches dare not uproot powerful corruptions; the
individual writhes under the tyranny of habitual sin. Nevertheless the hunger shall be
satisfied. For the righteousness of
Christ, falling on the shoulders of faith, is a pledge of ultimate
sanctification. The body of resurrection
will harbour no traitor [or hypocrite] within. Divine might shall establish upon [this sin-cursed (Gen. 3: 8, R.V.)] earth a Kingdom of right. But here and now, blessed is the disciple whose
passion is to translate all divine truth into the living facts of his own life.
* Rev. 19: 8; cf. 2 Cor. 5: 3.
7. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
JUSTICE was the foundation
principle of the Law (Deut. 16: 20); MERCY is the soul of the Gospel.
* “Even believers,” says Dr. Tholuck, “may inherit a partial un-blessedness. This is a point,”
he significantly adds, “on which our doctrine requires
further elaboration.” - Sermon on the Mount, p. 39. Before the Bema disciples are to be
arraigned (Rom. 14:
10; 2 Cor. 5: 10), with possible loss of all but eternal life (1 Cor. 3: 15; 9: 27), and a possible infliction of active but
temporary punishment (Luke 12: 46-48; Matt. 25: 14, 30). Gift (Rom.
6: 23) is
retained after prizes (Rev. 3: 11) are lost.
8. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
This is explicit. The beatific vision is for the pure alone;
and for the pure, not in act only, but in heart. Purity of heart is far
rarer than purity of life. But the entry into the sacred presence is, even
among disciples, conditional: God dwells in a privacy of holy light
inaccessible to all but the heart-pure. “Without
sanctification none shall see the
Lord” (Heb. 12: 14). The Resurrection of Life, in which the Father
reveals Himself, belongs to disciples whose righteousness exceeds
the Levitical purity of the flesh.
In the words of Spurgeon: “Make a full
surrender of every motion of thy heart: labour to have but one object, and one
aim. And for this purpose give God the keeping of thine heart, that thy soul,
being preserved and protected by Him may be directed into one channel, and one
only, that thy life may run deep and pure, its only banks being God’s will, its
only channel the love of Christ and a desire to please Him.”
9. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God.
It is characteristic that
obedience to these commands falls within the compass of the lowliest and the
humblest. As quarrels are universal, so are the opportunities of the
peacemaker. Christ’s disciples are not
only to be peaceful, but makers of peace, as oil upon the world’s waters: sons of God in
character, as also, in the Regeneration, in title.*
* “Pity, purity, peace,” comments Dr. Tholuck, “not accidental ethical virtues, but characteristic Christian
graces, the possession of which presupposes the possession of salvation.”
- Sermon
on the Mount, p. 88.
10. Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for
theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.” 11. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you,
and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for My
sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad:
for great is
your reward in
heaven: for so persecuted they
the prophets which were before you.
Antagonism to the world is an essential of discipleship.
The “world” in modern literature has lost
the shadowed, fallen, terrifying sense with which it was burdened on the lips
of Christ. But so fundamental is the
antagonism that He lays it down as a perpetual basis of action. Reproaches, damaged reputation, and the
cruelty of false reports
pursue even the holder of every beatitude, and constitute an ineradicable note
of discipleship. “All that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2
Tim. 3: 12). But it is for His sake, whom we love: that is
enough. There are times when merely to
suffer is the truest service that can be rendered to Christ.
“Have been persecuted.”
Here our Lord strikes a note of profound discord with all Utopian
ideals. No slow process of evolution,
reaching after centuries the full flower of social perfectness, can justify a
God of goodness and love. For what
of the trampled myriads of bygone agonies? What of the servants of God slain? Without a resurrection, a
tender reunion upon an earth regenerated and crowned with an opened heaven, who
could justify the ways of God to men?
But “these all, having had witness borne to them through, their faith, received not the promise: God having
provided some better thing concerning us, that
apart from us they should not be made perfect” (Heb.
11: 39, 40); nor we, apart from them. Half-lights of dawn break through the
midnight of suffering. For painful
service [to Him] God is
pledged to recompense: by it the
disciple is proved in the blessed succession of the righteous.
Royal rank awaits the
sufferer. Throughout the Beatitudes the Kingdom, with its riches - many
names, as Augustine says, but one reward - is
the prize held forth: a Kingdom of the heavens, for its metropolis is the
heaven-born Jerusalem (Rev. 19: 7; 21: 10); an inheritance upon earth, for to the
fallen soil Christ returns (Zech. 14: 4); a
vision of the Father, for it is also His Kingdom (Rev.
11: 15);
a treasured reward in heaven, for it is
no worldly State reformed to perfect conditions, or rebuilt on the ideals of
Socialism.* Christ is yet to
triumph in the arena of the nations.
On earth God’s will is yet to be done.
* The
Kingdom, as Dr. Tholuck observes, was no new idea. To Christ’s hearers it was the Messianic
Kingdom, the lodestar of Israel; and the millennial Kingdom, four times
associated with “the Christ,” is the Messianic (Rev. 11: 15; 12: 10; 20:
1-6). But its heavenly compartment, for
the risen saints, was not understood (Rev. 19: 6-9).
Afterwards, it is the eternal Kingdom, on new heavens and new earth (1 Cor.
15: 24; Rev. 21 and 22). “This view of the Kingdom and
its coming,” says Dr. H. A. W. Meyer, “as the winding up of the world’s
history, a view which was also shared by the principal Fathers (Tertullian, Chrysostum, Augustine, Euth, Zigabenus), is the only one which corresponds with the
historical conception of the [… see
Greek] throughout the whole of the New Testament.” On
Matthew, trans.
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4
THE EARTH IN THE AGE TO COME
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The fact must now be
dawning on many minds that the denial of our Lord’s return and [millennial] reign
by the vast majority of the Church, or at least their complete silence on it,
will be one of the most powerful causes of the
* That it
is no pre-Advent Kingdom of God of man’s erection is obvious from the appalling
words that precede (34: 2):- “The Lord hath
indignation against all the nations, and fury
against all their host: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter. Their slain also
shall be cast out, and the stink of their
carcases shall come up, and the mountains shall
be melted with their blood.”
NATURE
For the
Golden Age that is coming begins with a complete revolution in nature. It is not a heavenly world that is described,
nor a freshly created earth, but the old earth fundamentally changed. “The
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose”. (Isa. 35: 1); “and the glowing sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty grounds springs of water” (ver. 7). All nature
will be transfigured by the act of God.* “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree” (Isa. 55: 13); all curse on the soil is removed by Him who
alone can remove it; and the very earth bursts into song. “It
shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with
joy and singing; the glory of
* “The almost universal habit of spiritualizing this, and all
like prophecies, and allegorizing them into an exclusive application to present
Gospel blessings, has served to hide the chief significance of the passage from
the eyes of the ordinary reader” (G. F. Pentecost, D.D.).
POLITICS
The second change is a complete
revolution in politics. For the next detail is not a prophecy, but
a command, which sums up in itself the political and social activity of the Age
to Come; in conduct so gracious, so kind, that Paul quotes it (Heb. 12: 12) as a comprehensive vade
mecum for the Church
now. “Strengthen
ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.”
All the men then on the carth itself are in the flesh, though regenerate, and so,
exactly as in the Church to-day, there will be characters the strengthening and
perfecting of whom will be the very soul of all political and social effort. “Say to them that are
of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God
* will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; he
will come and save you.” So
Isaiah has already said (11: 4):- “With righteousness
shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his month,
and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the
wicked.” Thus a sympathy and
succour characteristic only of the holiest in the Church to-day will then be
the standard of conduct for the whole earth.
* “‘Behold your God’ as if
already present or in sight” (J. Alexander, D. D.): the Lord Jesus,
Himself personally on the earth, will come, or send His representatives, at the
call of the weak or the oppressed or the wronged.
HEALTH
The third change is a complete
revolution in human physique. When our Lord was formerly on earth, “the blind saw, the lame walked,
the lepers were cleansed, and the deaf heard”: so it is again, though on a
far vaster scale, when He walks the earth a second time, for His miraculous
blessings were but samples and foretastes of a redeemed earth. “Then
the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the
ears of the deaf shall be unstopped: then shall
the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of
the dumb shall sing.” For “sin entered into the world, and death
through sin” (Rom. 5: 12); and therefore disease, which
produces death, will necessarily be an exception on a redeemed earth: “the inhabitant
shall not say, I am sick” (Isa. 33:
24).
It is characteristic of the Divine Utopia, unlike all human utopias, that the principal actor is God; and so
both the healing and the disease in that day will be the act of God. It is written of the instigators of rebellion
against Christ:- “their flesh shall consume away while
they stand upon their feet” (Zech.
14: 12),
in miraculous and instant disease. Thus
for all earth, apart from special judgment, no hospitals, no ambulances, no
lunatic asylums, with all the enormous cost which results from disease and
crime, will encumber a redeemed world.
SECURITY
The fourth change is a complete
revolution in security. This is aptly
proved in that one of the ‘four sore judgments’ of God - wild beasts - is unknown
for a pastoral people. “And a highway shall be there, and
a way: no lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast go up thereon, they shall not be found there.” Danger vanishes, and the security includes
exemption from all the man-power of the world.
“And it shall be called, the Way of Holiness; the unclean” the human
wild beasts - “shall not pass over it” - all
forces hostile to the good are utterly banished: all in the spiritual likeness
of God, though intellectually ungifted, pass on this main highway of the world
in perfect safety; “the wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err
therein.” Security from the
massacre of millions, the bombing out of whole cities, the agony of a falling
civilization is a dream for which the statesmen of the world can now find no
reality. Moral impurity alone, and
neither physical nor intellectual weakness, excludes from a world of perfect
security for the holy. “And in that day I will make a covenant with them for the beasts of the field; and
I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the land [earth], and I will make them
lie down safely” (Hos.
2: 18). The Divine judge, the international court of
appeal, is visibly and openly on earth, and because Grace is over all power is
behind all righteousness: Satan and his hosts are in chains, wicked men dead,
and the ‘child’ who reaches millennial puberty -
one hundred years - suffers the death penalty if he refuses Christ (Isa. 65: 20).
REDEMPTION
The fifth change is a complete revolution
in spiritual standing. The irrigated
JOY
The sixth change is a complete
revolution in destiny. “And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads.” What tremendous force there is in the
description of the joy:- everlasting! They march to a music in
their souls that will never end. “The joy of holy retrospect; the joy of present possession of
glory - the joy of fulfilled hope, perfected manhood, satisfied life; the joy
of prospective advance, intellectually and morally, for ever and ever”
(J. O. KEEN, D.D.).
TEARLESSNESS
The final change is a complete
revolution in experience. “They shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” Sin and sadness are forever wedded, and only a
guilty world can know
regret and grief and shame; and therefore as surely as light expels darkness,
and as surely as day banishes night, so surely everlasting joy will be the
eternal death of sorrow. Grief, not the
power to grieve, is gone: in the exquisite words of the Apocalypse (7: 17) - “God shall” - not, remove the tear-duct from the resurrection
body, or harden against feeling, but - “wipe
away every tear from their eyes.”
Even ‘sighing’, the lightest form that
sorrow can take, will take flight and be unknown for all eternity. The sorrow of bereavement and the death of
loved ones; the sorrow of poverty, of degradation, of dishonour; the sorrow
caused by the sins of others, and a world overwhelmed in danger; the sorrow of
remorse, of dread, of chastisement; the sorrow of disease, and the sorrow of
dying:- all night vanishes forever from the coming ‘morning
without clouds’. It cannot be too
strongly emphasized that this is no description of heaven; or of the
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THAT BLESSED HOPE
“My hope of the world’s salvation lies not in any gradual evangelization
of the World, but in the personal return of our dear Lord and Saviour. I believe that this world is waning fast, and
that at any moment He may appear. This
makes me an optimist. This thrills me
with hope. This makes my ministry (in
ideal) vivid and intense and glad. If
this glorious hope was a real expectation to all His people, it would give
modern preaching the accent it needs; it would put an end to mere ethical
essays in the pulpit. Nothing recovers
evangelical fervour and rekindles missionary passion and gives yearning for
entire sanctification like the realization of the fact that “He comes” - that
He may come at any moment.” - DINSDALE T.
YOUNG.
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5
THE CLOTHES IN THE TOMB
Eight is the number of
Resurrection. Eight resurrections are
recorded in Scripture; Jesus rose on the first or eighth day; the risen
lost are classed in eight divisions (Rev. 21: 8); and the
name ‘Jesus’ makes 888 - “I am resurrection and life” (John 11: 25). By a happily apt coincidence, in August of
this year, within the inner enclosure of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, a little
group of eight, all Christians including the guide, gazed at the empty
slab; and one of the party remarked:- “The whole
Christian Faith is within this little grotto: this empty tomb proves everything
backward, and everything forward, and reveals nothing less than the Son of God.”
The Garden Tomb - the only such
tomb, except another several miles from
* “General Gordon, when satisfied with the site of
Now one master-fact dominates
the situation. Both John and Peter enter
the tomb: both enter quite incredulous - “for is
yet they knew not the Scripture that he must rise again from the dead”: yet something, which they looked at, instantly proved
a miraculous resurrection to John. “He saw and BELIEVED.” Immense stress is laid in
the passage on the two Apostles stared at in utter amazement, and what startled
John - the first man on earth - into instant Christian faith. Facts (as someone has said) are the pointing
fingers of God. - What was it that they saw?
What they
saw, and all that they saw, is recorded: John “beholdeth
the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, that was upon his head, not
lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a
place by itself” - rather, separate, and fallen inward. Thus they saw the grave-clothes, stiffened by
frequent swathes, and encrusted with the gummy spices in their folds, lying
empty upon the rock - whether fallen quite flat, or still inflated, and
supported by their own thickness, the Scripture does not say; the napkin for
the head was ‘folded inward’ - the Greek word
does not mean a folding for neatness’ sake - that is, fallen flat, but still
folded, and lying separately, where the head had lain. So the clothes, lying empty, were an exact
reproduction of the missing corpse.* And
this is all that they saw.
Nicodemus had brought a hundred weight of myrrh and aloes, a gift not
only of great cost, but of large bulk; and these spices, probably in the form
of a coarse powder, would be sprinkled freely through the garments. No spices had been liberated by the disrobing
of the Body. Nothing was visible in the tomb
but the clothes.
* “The napkin was ‘folded inward’; as is the case when we put a handkerchief over the
head, and tie it under the chin. It was
folded ‘separately,’ and yet so as to preserve the united appearance of the
grave-clothes. The unity of appearance
which the clothes had at first, when they encompassed the corpse, was there
still; but the body which gave them that unity was not there”
(Govett). It is of deep interest to note
that this discovery from the Greek, revealed decades ago (so far as we know)
solely in Latham’s Risen Master and Govett’s John, is
now emphasized by the guide in the Garden Tomb as a commonplace of
exposition.
Therefore the revelation of what
had happened at once burst upon John.
For nothing else could explain the simple facts. The knots, and the swathes, and the bandages
were exactly as Joseph and Nicodemus had left them: only the Body was
gone. What did this prove? That the Body had not slipt
[slipped] out of the clothes, laying them on
one side as it did so nor been disrobed, by men or angels, and removed; or been
taken out of the tomb clothed;* in a flash John’s astounded
gaze saw that the Body had passed up through the clothes, leaving them
absolutely intact. So therefore also no
spice was visible. If the body had been
disrobed, either by men or angels, either by friend or foe; or if Christ
Himself had stood erect, discarding the wraps - the ‘death’
being a swoon only; or the resurrection a ‘resuscitation’
only, like that of Lazarus - the masses of spice, shaken loose, would have
fallen to the floor, and littered it; but if the Lord had passed up through the
undisturbed folds, the spice would remain concealed in the bound and knotted
grave-clothes, and in the holy quiet of the sacred grave all that would be
missing would be the Body.** This was exactly
what they saw.
* We
assume the possibility of removal, only to clinch its impossibility; for the
armed guard blocked any theft by friend or foe, and the authority of Imperial
Rome, which locked the grave, yielded only to Angels from another world.
** In apocryphal writings immediately succeeding the time of the
Apostles it is said that enormous multitudes streamed out of
Now this
simple fact exactly defines and expresses the resurrection body. Lazarus was temporarily raised, and died again; and therefore the Saviour
gives the command “Loose him”
- that is, unfold the wrappings - “and let
him go” (John 11: 44). For four thousand years man had had no real resurrection: if anyone had been
raised, it had been by a call from
outside the tomb; each, if buried, had had to be unclothed of the
death-wrappings; and none had come forth clothed in eternal flesh, but had died again. But in the Lordr’s
tomb was something absolutely unique. It
was the same body, for it bore every wound that had been inflicted on the cr oss
- a fact that makes any substitution of a fresh body, or the survival of
Christ’s spirit alone, wholly impossible;
yet it was a changed body,
for it passed through locked doors (John 20: 19), and ascended exactly as it was through the stratosphere into the Heaven of
heavens. This change in the
body the clothes proved. It was exactly such a body as Paul defines a true resurrection body
to be:- “it is sown a natural body” - that is, it dies a body limited sharply
by natural laws; “it is raised a spiritual body” - equally
a body, but a body now fitted for another world: for “there are celestial bodies” -
bodies built for heaven - “and bodies
terrestrial” (1 Cor.
15: 40) -
physical frames suited for an earthly environment: both are bodies of flesh,
but the spiritual body is something we have never seen or known. The one resurrection (as distinct from
resuscitation) throughout all human history lay disclosed in the undisturbed
wrappings lying on the slab of rock.
Thus the
whole Christian Faith starts from, and is founded upon, a fact, not a
dogma; and while any fact, when expressed in words, becomes a dogma - the only
form in which the fact can reach later generations - the Faith remains for ever
founded on the fact. And the fact, in
this case, is inconceivably significant.
If sin had been on Christ He could not have risen; and, had it not been on Christ, He would not
have died: but as sinless, He was free to bear the death penalty for others; and as pronounced still
sinless by the resurrection, the sin He bore has been expiated and
consumed. The God of inflexible justice and awful
holiness has loosed the pangs that were ours, and
accepted our Sacrifice by exalting it: if my sins were not consumed, He would
not be where He is.
“Being therefore, by the right hand of God exalted God hath
made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The clothes, lying in their perfect stillness,
are the silent witnesses of a
world-sacrifice and a world redeemed.
The sceptical thinker imagines
that the intellect stifles the heart, whereas it is the heart that stifles the
intellect. “Ye will not to come” (John 5: 40), our Lord Himself says. “Matthew Arnold,”
says Dr. Hubert Simpson, “is seated next an old friend
of mine, who told me of the incident, on
one occasion on the platform in the Agricultural Hall where D. L. Moody was
preaching; on my friend’s other side sat Gladstone, deeply moved, to whom,
after the great evangelist had finished his address, Matthew Arnold leant
across, and said, ‘I would give everything I
possess to believe that.’”
What the unbeliever rejects is
not dogma but fact; and the only saving faith in the world
necessarily disappears with the fact. As
Professor Edwin Lewis, a Modernist who is calling a halt on Modernism, has just
said:- “The Jesus of history passed for evermore into
the Christ of faith by reason of the Resurrection as actual fact; and if that
be denied, the history of Christianity is the history of a vast delusion.” “IF CIIRIST HATH NOT BEEN RAISED, YOUR FAITH IS VAIN;
YE ARE YET IN
YOUR SINS” (1 Cor. 15:
17).
-------
THE FIRST RESURRECTION
No, I
have not lost focus; the tract above also contains Kingdom teachings for disciples
of Christ today! This we know from
Peter’s words (after Pentecost) when he “taught the
people, and proclaimed in Jesus the RESURRECTION
FROM THE DEAD” (R.V.);
literally “the resurrection OUT OF DEAD ONES” (Acts 3:
12, cf. 4: 2); and Paul
also, who wanted to “know him, and the power of HIS resurrection, and the fellowship of HIS sufferings,
becoming conformed unto HIS death,” desired precisely the same thing - a “resurrection out of the dead ones”! (Lit.
Gk.) That is, a select resurrection of REWARD amongst those “accounted worthy of the AGE to obtain, and of the resurrection out of dead ones:” (Luke 20: 35,
Greek.)
ALONE
Truth has been out of fashion
since man changed his robes, of fadeless light for a garment of faded
leaves. It is natural to compromise
conscience and follow the social and religious fashion for the sake of gain or
pleasure: it is divine to sacrifice both
on the altar of truth and duty. Men
are never faithful in crowds. Our
nearest and dearest can fall us. What is
wanted to-day are men and women, young and old, who will obey their convictions of truth and duty at the cost of
fortune and friends and life itself.
It is to reborn disciples that Jesus says (Matt.
7: 14):- “Narrow is the gate, and
straitened the way, that leadeth unto life,
and few be they that find it.”
Abel was murdered alone. Enoch watched alone. Noah preached alone. Abraham offered his son alone. Jacob wrestled alone. Joseph lay in the pit alone. Moses ascended Sinai alone. Samson repented alone. David fought Goliath alone. Elijah sacrificed on
God’s People in the wilderness
praised Abraham and persecuted Moses. God’s People under the kings praised Moses and persecuted the prophets. God’s People under Caiaphas praised the
prophets and persecuted Jesus. God’s People under the Popes praised the
Saviour and persecuted the saints. And multitudes now, both in the Church and
the world, applaud the courage and fortitude of the patriarchs and prophets,
the apostles and martyrs, but condemn as stubbornness or
foolishness like faithfulness to truth to-day.
Nevertheless the faithful
servant of God is never alone. He never has to repeat
[* Rev. 20:
6. cf. Phil.
3: 11,
R.V.).]
* * *
* * *
*
6
AN OPEN DOOR
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
It is unutterably
wonderful that we have actual Letters from our Lord sent to us long after He
returned to Heaven; Letters (if possible) infinitely more precious because they
are our last communications from Him, and
because He has maintained an unbroken silence ever since. They (with the whole Apocalypse) must be of
crowning and finishing value for our dispensation. And it is still more impressive, and it
brings it closer home to ourselves, that to each of these Letters the Lord
Jesus adds a postscript which transmutes the Seven into an Encyclical addressed
to the Universal Church - “hear what the
Spirit saith TO THE CHURCHES,”
everywhere, in every age; so that here and now - not a whit less than nineteen
centuries ago - the Lord is actually speaking to us. And what is most thrilling of all is that in
each case it is a believer standing alone before his Lord, as each of us must
do before long; that the Lord’s analysis in these seven cases is a forecast of
the investigation of us all, the Apocalypse being the book of Judgment, and
judgment beginning at the House of God (1 Pet. 4: 17); that therefore the Letters are judicial
throughout, ‘grace,’ ‘salvation,’ ‘atonement,’
‘justification,’ being never once named,
for all are assumed;* and so, therefore,
if each of us is Sardian or Philadelphian or Laodicean in character, exactly
such shall be the words, and no other, we shall receive from the Lord on His
Judgment Seat.
* The whole standing of the Churches has already been defined
once and for all (Rev. 1: 5) in the
magnificent doxology on which the Lord erects the entire superstructure of the
Seven Letters.
THE OPENER
Christ
opens every Letter by blocking the vision with Himself; and His presentment of
Himself to
AN OPEN DOOR
In
FIDELITY
Now the Lord reveals His
estimate of the Angel’s character. “I know thy works, that thou
hast a little power, AND DIDST KEEP MY WORD, and
didst not deny my name.” The
central fact is that, against a thousand odds, the Angel obeyed the Scriptures. Jesus
Himself makes clear that to ‘have’ and to ‘keep’ are totally distinct:- “He that hath my commandments, and KEEPETH them, he it is that loveth me” (John
14: 21). Truth we do not live, we lose; and the
supreme quality in the Angel on which Christ seizes is both his
Scriptural creed and its embodiment in his life.
He lived what Christ uttered. Here is our own golden opportunity. Every doctrine to-day has to fight for its
life; and so for the prayerful, the studious, the wide-awake the opportunity is
rich and rare, for all such have been divorced by the modern earthquake from
the merely conventional, and breathe a wider air as they stand on the
precipices of the end; while for somnambulists in the Church the crisis will be
certain shipwreck. All turns on that
which Christ finds in the Philadelphian - integrity of heart - devotion to the Scriptures, and ceaseless
squaring of the life to the Book.
THE SYNAGOGUE
Our Lord now casts His shield
over a persecuted Angel. “Behold, I will make them
[the synagogue of Satan] to know that I have loved thee.”
The Church immediately after the Apostles had no more bitter enemy than
the Jew, and twice in these Letters our Lord uses the terrible expression that ought to pull up
abruptly all who would, under any conditions whatever, amalgamate the synagogue
and the Church. To collaborate with
Satan’s Synagogue is only less sinful than it will be to collaborate with
Antichrist’s
* “It is noteworthy that twenty years later the Philadelphian
Church was more in danger of Judaizing Christians than from Jews” (Dr. Swete). Christ states that what He says, the Spirit
says; so conversely therefore what the Spirit says, He says - and this covers
the whole Bible: but obviously ‘My word’
includes, and specially accentuates, our Lord’s own personal utterances. He thus here reaffirms His Ascension charge (Matt. 28: 20) decades after Paul’s death, and the revelation
of the ‘mystery.’ All teaching therefore, whatever source, which
pronounces our Lord’s words as ‘Jewish,’ or
relegates them to another dispensation, must be resisted with our whole
strength, if ours is to be the Philadelphian’s praise.
ESCAPE
Christ now
gives the only direct personal promise given to an Angel (with the promise in
the verse preceding) in the whole Seven Letters; and in doing so He narrows
down the ‘kept word’ to a section of it, and
bases His promise on that kept section.
It is most striking that no sooner has our Lord commended the most
faithful servant of the seven than His thoughts turn, first to deliverance from
the Great Tribulation, and then to coronation in the Kingdom beyond. “Because
thou didst keep* the word of my patience” - the Lord’s Advent
tarrying - “I also” - I
correspondingly - “will keep thee from the hour of trial,
that hour which is to come upon the whole world.” There can be no question that Jesus here
refers to the Great Tribulation;** and He addresses His Word so
specifically to a church that it is impossible to challenge it as a Church revelation on how alone escape from the
Tribulation is possible for ourselves; and it is equally indisputable that
Christ bases the Philadelphian’s exemption, not on his standing in grace, but
four-square on a specific attitude in his Christian conduct. Nor could the Lord Jesus more closely
interlock the two. If we keep His Advent
word as an intact jewel, as an intact jewel He will keep us out of earth’s last
awful storm.***
This critical utterance of Christ is a sword double-edged (Rev. 2: 16) cutting right and left: on the one hand, it
excludes from deliverance all believers who do not share the Angel’s attitude;
on the other, his deliverance from the ‘hour,’
and not from the ‘trial’ only, makes it
impossible for any such ever to see the Tribulation at all.+ If the
Angel had not escaped by death, he would have escaped by rapture. It is the Divine lex ialionis, which
has been beautifully called here the lex benigna - the
gracious retort, the love-recoil, of fidelity.++
* “[see Greek word …] in the sense of obeyed, watchfully observed” (Dr. Swete). The word of Christ’s patience - the doctrine
concerning a delayed Advent - is “the patient waiting
for Christ, till He, the waited-for so long, shall at length appear”
(Archbishop Trench).
** “The time imported is that prophesied of in Matthew
24: 21, viz. the great time of trouble which shall be before the
Lord’s second coming: it is immediately connected with [See Greek word …], following. To identify the ‘hour’ with various
periods of trial and persecution of the Church is a line of interpretation
carrying its own refutation with it in the very terms used in the text”
(Dean Alford).
*** “Because thou hast kept
my word, therefore in return I will keep thee” (Trench). “As the Philadelphians
had continued stedfast throughout the period of ordinary testing, they were to
be exempted from those extraordinary [See Greek word …] which were to come upon the world” (Dr. E. R. K. Craven). “It is a special reward assured by our Lord to a special
excellence” (Govett).
+ One school of interpreters habitually overlooks a point which,
to say the least, makes their interpretation extremely difficult, if not
impossible. The deliverance promised is
not from a place, but from a time: Jesus does not say that He will keep the
Philadelphian out of the Tribulation, but out of its hour: that is, when the
hour strikes, the Angel - either by death or rapture - will not be on earth at
all. How can a man be kept from a given
hour if, with everybody else, he has to pass through that hour? Equally fatal is it that, as a matter of
fact, the Angel is dead, and so cannot conceivably be kept through the
Tribulation: if that is what the promise meant, it has failed.
++ It Is
extraordinary how the simultaneous rapture of all could be built on these words
yet Mr. William Elly, voicing many, says, - “So the Church
will he kept from the coming hour.”
It ought to be obvious that the whole Church can be so kept only if the whole Church is, without
exception, Philadelphian; and he who imagines this is watching a
desert mirage. “The principal idea is plain, and very striking. The promise is special on the ground that the
virtues in question are special” (Moses
Stuart). “Christ on His part (the Kal of reciprocal action) pledges Himself to keep those
who have kept His word” (Dr. Swete).
CORONATION
Our Lord now passes to
coronation. He separates sharply between
rapture and the Kingdom, revealing that escape from the coming horrors does
not, by itself, ensure coronation at the Coming. “I
come quickly: hold fast that which
thou hast, that no one take thy crown.” …
* * *
* * *
*
7
THE JEWS IN PROPHECY TODAY
Abraham and his seed were
chosen from the inhabitants of the earth for four purposes -
(a) To witness in the midst of universal idolatry. “Ye are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, and my
servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and
believe and understand that I am He. ... I,
even I, am the Lord;
and beside me there is no saviour. I have declared,
and have saved, and have
showed, when there was no strange god among you:
therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, that I am God”
(Isa. 43: 10-12).
(b) To illustrate the blessedness of serving the true God. “Happy art thou,
O Israel; who is like unto
thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and
who is the sword of thy excellency! thine
enemies shall be found liars unto thee; thou
shalt tread upon their high places “ (Deut.
33: 29).
(c) To
receive, preserve, and transmit the Scriptures. Moses
said, “Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord thy God commanded me, that ye should do in the land whither ye go to possess it.
Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight
of the nations, which shall hear all these
statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people” (Deut.
4: 5-6).
(d) From this nation was to proceed the Saviour
of the world. To
Abraham the promise was given, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,
because thou hast
obeyed my voice.” Paul
explains this promise in his letter to the Galatians
(3: 16). He says, “Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He (God) saith not, and to seeds as of many, but as of one; and to thy seed, which is Christ.”
REJECTION
To Israel in the Promised Land,
God says, “If thou wilt not hearken unto the
voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do
all His commandments, all these curses shall
come upon thee ...” Then
follows a long list of judgments which are to fall upon an apostate
people. Chapter
28. of Deuteronomy concludes with a
wonderful prophetic description of the people in rejection, as they are at this
day. “The
Lord shall scatter thee among all people from one end of the earth even to the
other ... And among these nations thou shalt
find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot
have rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a
trembling heart and failing of eyes, and sorrow
of mind, and thy life shall hang in doubt before
thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.”
REGATHERING (partial)
Is there any foundation in the
Bible for believing that the Jews will be partially regathered to
Again, “As they gather silver, and
brass, and iron, and
lead, and tin, into
the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon
it, to melt it, so
will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and
I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow
upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall
be melted in the midst thereof” (Ezek.
22: 20).
Then in Zephaniah
2: 1-2,
the Lord said, “Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; before
the decree bring forth, before the day pass as
the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord
come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s
anger come upon you.”
This, then, is to be a gathering
of the people together in their own strength, allowed by the Lord. As we see in Ezekiel, it is God drawing them
together for refining, though they think, as in official Zionism, it is their own
natural genius which is doing the restoration.
That it is for refining judgment, is borne out by Zech. 13: 8-9, “And it shall come to pass, that
in all the land, two parts shall be cut off and
die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the
third part through the fire, and will refine
them as silver is refined, and I will try them
as gold is tried: they shall call on my name,
and I will hear them: I
will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord
is my God.” Thus we see that there
must be a regathering in unbelief, that a “remnant” may be
saved through great tribulation.
Therefore another period of tribulation is ahead of the Jewish people,
spoken of by the prophet Jeremiah thus (30: 5-7), “Thus saith the Lord: we have
heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
Ask ye now, and
see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see
every man with his hands upon his loins, as a
woman in travail, and all faces are turned into
paleness? Alas! for
that day is great, there is none like it:
it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be
saved out of it.” In
the Book of Daniel we read, “At that time (the time of the end of this
age), shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of thy people, and there shall be a time of trouble such as never was since
there was a nation.”
CONVERSION
We know that individual Jews, in
this and all countries where they are scattered, have believed and accepted
Jesus Christ as their Messiah, but it is not easy to imagine the whole Jewish nation becoming Christian;
yet we are confronted with many prophetic Scriptures which teach, beyond doubt,
that this will be so after their time of terrible tribulation,
at the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus, their Saviour and Messiah. In Hosea we
read that God says, “I will go and return unto my place,
until they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their
affliction they will seek me early” (5:
15.)
The Lord Jesus Christ speaks of
this conversion of the Jewish nation when He uttered those solemn words, “Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate, for I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and
these words will be uttered by the Jews when in the moments of their severest
trial, they will see their Messiah coming as their deliverer.
RESTORATION
Following the conversion of the
Jewish nation to Christ, we come to the prophecies concerning their wholesale
return to this land. God says in Isaiah 11: 10-12, “And in
that day there shall be a root of jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand the second time to recover
the remnant of his people, which shall be left,
from Assyria, and from
In Ezekiel
39: 25-29,
it is written, “Thus saith the Lord God; Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel, and will be jealous for my holy name; after that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against
me, when they dwelt safely in the land, and none made them afraid. When I have brought
them again from the people, and gathered them
out from their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified
in them in the sight of many nations; then shall
they know that I am the Lord their God, which
caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them into their own land, and have left none of them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have
poured out of my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.”
But in all these
prophecies concerning the regathering of the Jews into their land, it
must first be noticed that it is the Lord himself who gathers them, and
secondly, they are a repentant remnant, and accept
Jesus Christ as their Messiah. The National
movement of the present time fulfils neither
of these conditions, and one can seek in vain for any
blessing upon an enterprise which ignores God, [disbelieves
and rejects His Messiah’s promised inheritance (Ps.
2: 8)], and
with no repentance.
We now come to the fulfilment of
that fourfold mission for which
* *
* * *
* *
8
WILL ALL
BELIEVERS SHARE THE
FIRST RESURRECTION
By A. G. TINLEY, B. A.
The parable of Harvest - God’s great
Resurrection Work - runs through nature, through life and through the
Word. For “The
harvest is the end of the age”, and “Whatsoever a man sows, that
shall he also reap; be not deceived” (by
anyone saying it is not true, or not true of Christians, whom the apostle was
addressing). Now harvest, we learn from
the Word (Lev. 23.),
consists of first-fruits; then of the general harvest (which itself is
sectional, being of considerable - even 140 days’- duration); lastly, of the
corners of the field. Hence we read of “all the days of Harvest” (Joshua 3: 15; 5: 10-12; Ruth 1: 22; 2: 21, 23). Without question, therefore, harvest is a
period, a serial process, and it is a time-word. Without question, too, harvest is a picture of resurrection and rapture, the catching up to
the heavenly floor or garner.
Indeed, the very word for “rise” (in
resurrection) is from the same root as the word for “standing corn” (in harvest), and in John 12: 24 our
Lord shows Himself as the Corn of Wheat raised to the top of the stem, and
crowned with the rejoicing “much fruit” of the
many sons He brings from prison-darkness to liberty and glory (Heb. 2: 10; 2 Cor. 1: 14; Phil. 4: 1; 1 Thess. 2: 19).
From the First Fruits comes the
thought, picture and name of the First Resurrection, which is seen thus to be not only a
time-word, but a quality-word, suggesting vigour, ambition, victory and earlier
enjoyment. Christ is the First Fruits
already; therefore the firstfruit resurrection is not a unit, even though it is a unity that
includes the first resurrection of some or many of His saints (Matt. 27: 52-53) raised
1900 [now 2000] years
ago. Christ is (in His, the First
Resurrection) the First Begotten (Heb. 1: 6, 9), the First Born among many brethren (Rom. 8: 29; Col. 1: 18; Rev. 1: 5), and the First Fruits of them that slept (1 Cor. 15: 20, 23). The
selective blessedness and holiness of the First Resurrection - out from among
the dead, leaving dead behind in Hades - (Rev.
14: 3-5; 20: 6) are indicated in Acts
3: 26; Heb.
1: 9, and
Rom. 1: 4, as well as Luke 14:
14; and 1 Cor. 15: 23 teaches us that “in
Christ shall all be made alive”, but every
(= each) man in his own order. Christ the first fruits afterwards they that are Christ’s (not “at His coming” but, during
His Parousia-Presence (as the
Greek shows). That is, each
man (belonging
to Christ) will be raised in his own order - class,
company, batch - at various periods during the Lord’s stay in the air, in the interval between His secret
thief-like coming in the clouds and His glorious appearance like lightning,
during which period (the period of harvesting to the garner or floor, to be
winnowed or purged (Luke 3: 17; Matt. 13: 30; 3: 12) the
judgment of believers (Rom. 14: 10; 2 Cor. 5: 10) will
take place. And the Church will be
judged before either
Resurrection, then, like
reaping, is clearly sectional and serial, for it is not merely wheat that is
reaped, but ripe wheat (Mark 4: 29,
margin; Rev. 14:
18).
Besides, even firstfruits themselves are not all ripe
at the same time in the case of different fruits (barley, wheat or “some other grain”, 1 Cor.
15: 37;
cf. Neh. 10: 35). Only ripe grain is reaped, and it is reaped
in the order of ripeness - as soon as it ripens, not before, and it does
not all ripen at once. Hence it will not
all be reaped at once. In Christ personally and the
saints of Matthew 27: 52-53 the First
Resurrection, therefore, has already begun, with an interval of 1900 [now 2000] years
before the next batch. He is
the Firstfruits without leaven, as His People are the
Firstfruits with leaven in the
wave-offering. (Lev. 6: 17; 7: 13; 23: 10, 17). You
will agree that the firstfruits of barley are reaped before the firstfruits
of wheat (Ruth 2.).
This explains how there can be “a first before a first”, or, if you prefer, “the first of the
firstfruits” (Exod.
23: 19). It is a question of comparison, of
relativity. The north of England is
south of Southern Scotland; the 1st of January is subsequent to the
31st of December in the preceding year, but before the 31st
of December, in the same year.
Merit (or
worthiness), it must be maintained in
the teeth of all denial, is a definite condition and qualification for
the First Resurrection: “They which shall be
accounted
worthy to obtain ... the resurrection
from among the dead”, our Lord says (Luke 20:
35) “cannot
die any more.” Others can. For while it is “appointed unto man once to die,” some will
die a second time; though over others “the
second death hath no power” (Rev.
20: 6). These are overcomers who will “not be hurt of the second death” (Rev. 2: 11).
Priests of God and of Christ, they “shall
reign with him a thousand years” (Rev.
20: 6),
not instead of eternally, but millennially before eternity proper begins. Others - proud, indulgent, cowardly - are
judged unworthy of Christ and of aeonian life.
Now we know from several epistles that some believers
will be excluded from this
For it is both a time-word and a
quality-word. And being a
quality-resurrection it carries with it an extra of time, because renewed time (that
is, life) is resurrection, or, rather, resurrection is restoration of time -
for “in the Resurrection” means
in the “Regeneration” or “Restitution” - by living again on the part
of those who were dead. But “the rest of the dead (saved and unsaved) lived not again until the 1,000 years were
ended” (Rev. 20:
5). Which instructs us that resurrection properly speaking is not only
an act but a state, not
a point of time, but a period, a place, a realm - “IN (i.e. not at but during) the Resurrection” - wicked and slothful
servants being raised merely for the purpose of judgment, and then temporarily
dismissed to darkness and remorse in the Hades they were summoned from; but to
be in the first (class) resurrection means to have the continuous and permanent
enjoyment of life and bliss before others.
Hence, not all are raised at once, nor do all at once enjoy resurrection
life. For even after the 1,000 Years two
groups of dead are raised, one group of unsaved from the department of the
underworld called “death”, another group of
saved from the department of the underworld called “hades”
(mistakenly rendered “hell” in Rev. 20: 13).
Resuscitation (or mere rising of the dead to appear before the Lord) is
not really resurrection at all, any more
than was the case with Samuel at Endor.
For sooner or later, all the dead (good and bad) will be
raised, passively, without exception, but only the holy are qualified to
inherit as first-born sons the blissful prior estate of the First Resurrection.
Not all [regenerate]
believers (it must be admitted) are equal in God’s sight, for He has favoured
ones according to their devotedness to Him, and He rewards them with more of Himself, and with more time with Himself,
by their being brought to Him like Enoch and Elijah before others. Hence
the 144,000 Firstfruits (Rev. 14: 4), ripe
earlier - guileless virgins - are reaped earlier than others, though doubtless
all Christians ideally, as fulfilling God’s purpose of fruit bearing (John 15: 16), should
have been firstfruits of His creatures (Jas.
1: 18). Alas, that the reality falls short of the
ideal!
The First Resurrection is
therefore described in several other terms which make clear its character of
competitiveness and exclusiveness, superiority and priority. As we
have seen, it is (a prize or reward, Phil. 3: 11, 14) for the “blessed
and holy” - who are to begin reigning 1,000 years before those who have
only the gift of eternal life - bare salvation, as we say. For it, believers will have to be qualified
or accounted worthy. It is a selective resurrection “from among the dead”, leaving dead believers behind, as is
proved by the fact that even Paul strove “if by
any means he might attain unto it” (Phil.
3: 11-12). It is a
blessed resurrection of the just (or
righteous or holy) with its
recompense to the unselfseeking and generous (Luke
14: 14). And it is also called a “better” resurrection, costing
torture and life itself (Heb. 11: 35) - a
better resurrection that had to be obtained, or that the martyrs strove to
obtain; it was a resurrection “better” because “prior” by
1,000 years to the general resurrection. It is the First
Resurrection, with its qualifications
and conditions. What is said of it,
therefore, in its various contexts and under its various names is also said of
the Kingdom of Heaven, the prize or reward or wages which we have to earn and
seek first of all (Matt. 6: 33; 5: 20). Hence it is by our Lord bracketed
with the coming Kingdom of glory in the next age, to which, indeed, it introduces. “They that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from among the dead”
(Luke 20: 35).
It is a resurrection of martyrs
chronic and acute, who have died the martyr’s death or lived the martyr’s life
of self-denial and world-renunciation, losing this life and age in order to
find or gain the next in the Regeneration - the “shall find it” (of Matt.
16: 25; 19: 27-30, etc.) being not a direct future tense but an
extra adverb meaning “about to” (live), which thus refer
almost exclusively to ‘the age to come’ [see Heb. 6: 5, R.V.] as
being the next item on the Divine programme (Rom. 8: 13; Gal. 6: 8).
Finally, to end where we began, God is not in a hurry and His methods
are not as simple as we might like. “All the days of harvest” are 40 days, a
characteristically probationary period throughout the Word. One day beneath the microscope of the Lord’s
omniscience is as 1,000 years; and while the saints are changed - the dead “in a moment,” the living “in the twinkling of an eye” (though
not necessarily all in the same moment) - the Resurrection period may well last
40 years, and prove to be the first hour - 1/24th of the 1,000 Years
- of the day of God (John 5: 25, 28). In any case, plurality of rapture (and of
resurrection - for dead and living believers will be “caught
up together” is indicated not only by the universal Scripture
harvest-parable, the one taken first, the other later (Matt.
24: 40-42, linked with the “all” of 2 Cor. 5: 10), by the
gradual returns from the Captivity (“Captivity led captive” being
a notable figure of death and resurrection), and by the Lord’s 10 separate presentings during the 40 Days before His ascension
detailing the “like manner” of Acts 1: 11),
but also by the actual plural resurrections and raptures of the Apocalypse itself.
-------
FROM AMONG THE DEAD
Each of these examples is an ex
anastasis, while in
Philippians (3: 11) it is an exanastasis. The space after the x is the
only difference, and this is not in the original.
Acts 26: 23. If He, the first of a resurrection from among the dead.
Heb. 11: 35. Women obtained their dead by resurrection.
The same sense is conveyed when
the connective ek, OUT, follows the word,
as in these passages: -
Luke 20: 35.
Those deemed worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection
from among the dead.
Acts. 4:
2. Announcing in
Jesus the resurrection from among the
dead.
1 Pet. 1:
3. Through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from
among the dead.
* * *
* * *
*
9
THE FIRSTFRUITS
By Lt. -
World-shaking events, more portentous
than can be gauged, compel - whether we wish it or not - a stern facing of the
problem of the coming removal from earth.
Those who expect all believers to be rapt instantly, totally
irrespective of the grossest worldliness, need not be greatly concerned; those
who assert that all believers - the most wakeful equally with the most careless
- must pass through the worst that is coming can, at the best, only be
resigned; but to those of us who see, or think that we see, that prior rapture
is for the ‘overcomer’ only - an escape that
turns critically on life and attitude - it
is an ever-deepening crisis calling for the highest and holiest and best. Profoundly
convinced that this is the truth, we can only invoke our readers to a most
careful study of the problem in view of its fearful urgency. The
critical fact is that, as the event is not yet actually upon us, there is still
time to shape all life to the highest; and just as the illusion of a known date
for the Advent, exactly so also a cast-iron rapture or no-rapture, robs the
situation of its poignant appeal, and saps the vigilant care that God demands.
- ED.
As regards the suddenness of rapture, Our
Lord tells us “in that night there shall be two in
one bed; the one shall be taken and the other
left. Two
shall be grinding together; the one shall be
taken, and the other left. Two shall be in the
field: the one shall be taken, and the other left,”* showing
plainly the LORD will call
up from among the living disciples - to whom alone this discourse was given for
their edification, and not for the multitudes - those who will form the
Firstfruits, some raptured in the night, at one place; some in the early
morning at another; and lastly others in the field during their daily work, one
here, another there, according to their fitness, out of the vast Harvest field.
* Luke 17: 22, 34-36.
When the Firstfruits are raptured, much
takes place ere the Harvest is ripe, and all of earth is dried out of the wheat
in order that it may be fitted for the Heavenly Garner. Closely following, or just after the rapture
of the Firstfruits, we realize there will be a time of great trials and
temptations “which shall come upon all the world
to try them that dwell upon the earth,” and in consequence
doubtless no one will be permitted to preach the Gospel of Grace; hence an
Angel is sent to proclaim an age-long gospel to all them that dwell on the
Earth, flying between heaven and earth, that all may hear. This Angel is followed by another who
proclaims the destruction of the great mystery
* Chapter 13: 11-17.
“But,”
it may be asked, “will Christians - true believers - be
in the Great Tribulation? Are not all
believers raptured before the Great Tribulation as many affirm?” The
writer has searched the pages of Holy Writ in vain to find any confirmation of
this statement. On the contrary he has
found much that indicates plainly the greater part of the Church living at the
time of the commencement of the Great Tribulation will have to pass through a
part of that awful time of testing. Are
we not commanded by the Lord Himself, as His disciples, to watch and pray at all seasons
that He, as our judge, may be able to count us worthy to escape all those
things that shall come to pass?* What is the meaning of such a command given to disciples, if
disciples are not to pass through any part of the Great Tribulation, of which
the Lord had spoken in the previous verses of the chapter where the Command is
given? Is not a special promise also
made to the Philadelphian portion - and to that portion only - of
the Church that because she had kept the word of His endurance she would be kept
from the hour of trial that was to come upon the whole world to try all those
dwelling upon the earth?** From this special
promise, to one portion only of the Church, we surely must infer it is not a general promise for the Church as
a whole.
* Luke 21: 36. ** Rev. 3: 10.
But do all Christians, all
believers, all His own bondslaves, arise to stand before the Bema or Judgment
Seat of Christ for their rewards? Let us
turn to our LORD’S own
words for answer, as given to us in Matt. 25. and Luke 19. In the parables of the talents and the pounds
we read all the bondslaves were called upon to reckon with their Lord, “that He might know how much every man had gained by trading.” This they did, the good receiving a reward,
but the wicked and slothful bondslave not only lost his reward, he also lost
that which he had received from his LORD,
and was cast “into the outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Is this bondslave eternally lost? The parables seem to show plainly that all
the servants were His Own, bought with His precious Blood, entrusted with His
goods, truly converted; hence they possessed eternal life, and could
not therefore be
eternally lost, “for the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance;”* but the
wicked and slothful servant lost his reward, i.e. the living and reigning with
Christ during the millennial age; for rewards are apportioned according to the
work done after conversion, and the account rendered by the servants. On such the second death - the lake which
burneth with fire and brimstone,** - hath no power “but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.”*** It becomes then a matter of vital importance that all
believers, bondslaves and Christians take most earnest heed to the Lord’s very
solemn warning as given to us who are disciples - not to the world - in Matt. 5: 29, 30, and Mark 9: 43-50.
* Rom. 11: 29. ** Rev. 21: 8. *** Rev. 20:
6.
Paul urges that the greatest
care was to be exercised in building on the one and only Foundation, that which
would stand the fire, which
“shall try every man’s work; ... if ... (it) shall be burned he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.* Are such solemn passages culled from the teaching of our Lord
and His Apostle to be treated as mere platitudes, or discarded as
hyperbole? Nay. Rather may we, as His bondslaves, take the
solemn warnings to heart, that when we come to appear before His Judgment Seat,
we may render a good account of our stewardship, and enter into the joy of our LORD.
Amen.
* 1 Cor. 3:
11-15
(Gk.).
* * *
* * *
*
10
THE TRANSFIGURATION
AND THE KINGDOM
By R. GOVETT
Matt. 16: 25. “For whosoever would (shall wish to) save his life (soul) shall lose it: and whosoever
shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.” In this alternative, the wish of man, which
runs counter to that of God, appears.
Man naturally desires to save his life.* But if
the cause of God demands its surrender, to withhold it is to lose it for the
kingdom. It may be spared as regards the
present time. But such a prolongation of
life would be a sowing to the flesh, which would entail a reaping of corruption
in the day of the Lord. Now that a
better life in resurrection has been revealed in the Son, and the way to it
declared, God and Christ would have our eyes directed to that, as that which is
“really life.”** How
gracious was it, that Peter, though thus severely rebuked, was one of the three
taken to behold the miniature kingdom!
How comforting to find that the apostle, thus weak at first, was
strengthened to endure the most dread death of crucifixion to the glory of God!
“But
whosoever will lose his life (soul) for my sake shall find it.” Our Lord does not insert the word “wish” in
this alternative. Many have been martyrs
for the truth, who trembled at the thoughts of their own weakness, and would
gladly have been spared. They had no
wish to lose their life. But when the
voice of God, expressed in the circumstances in which they were placed,
demanded it, they made the surrender.
Paul, indeed, desired the fellowship of Jesus’ sufferings, even to the being
conformed unto his death, as the pathway
to the first resurrection. But this
is not the high standing of many.
* Two
Greek words are rendered “life” by our
translators. The latter does not
properly signify “life”; and it had been better to
have naturalized the Scripture philosophy of man among us by translating it
always “soul”. … The mischief of this rendering
is apparent in the next verse.
** This is
the true reading in 1 Tim. 6: 19. The rich saints are to give liberally, that
they may lay hold of what is really life.
Jesus’ death and resurrection
show how life lost is found in resurrection. His victory over Hades is
to be theirs who so follow him. The
finding of the soul is seen in Rev. 20: 4. “I saw the souls of
those beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for
the word of God ... and they lived and reigned with the Christ a thousand years.” But this resurrection is [both selective and] peculiar. “The rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years were finished.”
The life of the thousand years
is gain. It is something over and above
what is enjoyed by those who saved life in this world. If we think all our substance well spent to
save life in the present world, much more prudent is it to give up present life
to obtain the life of the thousand years.
How much greater its duration, more certain, and more felicitous!
Here we have the secret of the
joyful suffering of the martyrs of the earliest age of the church. They saw that a peculiar joy was connected with
such endurance. Some rushed into death uncalled,
that they might attain it. It is not in
human nature to desire suffering for its own sake. But this motive overpowered dread. ‘If all are to be
alike in the day of Christ, I should prefer to go through life quietly, without
reproach, and without being called to give up any of the comforts or enjoyments
of life. But if such is not the way to [inherit] the kingdom [of the Christ / Messiah], but the way to lose it, faith [in His
promise (Mark 8: 35,
R.V.)] will enable me to overcome nature.’
So important is the sentiment of
the verse before us, that it is often repeated in the New Testament. “He that loveth his
life (soul) shall
lose it, and he that hateth his life (soul) in this world shall keep
it unto life eternal - [Gk. ‘aionian’ = life during the
coming ‘age’]:” John 12: 25. The
context, in this case also, points us to Jesus’ surrender of life.
Thus we have in this passage -
first, the resurrection generally, as the result of faith in Christ. But then follows the resurrection
of reward, as the
result of conflict or of suffering.
28, “Verily I say unto you, there
are some standing here, who shall not taste of
death till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
There were some before the Lord
who would see a vision of the kingdom without death. In this they were representatives of
disciples, who would in like manner behold the kingdom itself, without
suffering death. For “we shall not all sleep.” “We who are
alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them [the sleepers] in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.”
That the Transfiguration was the
fulfilment of this promise of the Saviour, seems certain. It follows immediately after the promise, in
the three first Gospels. The fourth
gives neither the promise nor the Transfiguration. The ancients so understood it. “Some”
of those alive should see it.
Accordingly, only three of the twelve saw it. All the apostles beheld the
gospel [of the kingdom] fully come, and themselves preached it. But if the Transfiguration fulfilled it, then
our Lord’s “coming in his kingdom” is a personal, and a pre-millennial coming;
for it is in order to [establish and] administer the kingdom that he comes. It is a visible, supernatural appearing in
brightness, wholly unlike any ‘providential and
spiritual coming’, as some speak.
It is to be no proclamation of mercy to sinners; but the
time of enjoyment or loss to requited saints. There was no preaching to the ungodly on the
Mount of Transfiguration: none but saints were there.
17: 1. “And
after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and
Jacob (James), and
John his brother, and bringeth them up into a
lofty mountain apart. 2. And was transfigured before them: and his face shone as the
sun, but his raiment became white as the light.”
The Transfiguration is thus
expressly set forth as an outline of the future
Saints of the Law, of the
prophets, and of the Church will be united in enjoyment of the
10. “And his disciples asked him, saying,
‘Why, then, do the scribes say that Elias must first come?’ 11. But Jesus answered and said to them,
‘Elias [Elijah], indeed, is first coming,
and shall restore all things. 12. But I say unto you, that Elias is already come, and
they recognized him not, but did to him whatever
they pleased: so also the Son of Man is about to
suffer at their hands.’ 13. Then understood the disciples that he spoke to them of John
the Baptist.”
The question of the apostles was
natural, and very important, both to them and to us. The scribes taught that Elijah must precede
the coming of Messiah to reign. Was this
true? What they had seen had made them
think that the expounders of the prophets were mistaken. If it were - and they seemed to have the
authority of Malachi in their favour - how was it consistent with what they had
just seen? If Jesus were the Christ, how
was it that Elijah had only appeared so long after Messiah’s advent? They expected E1ijah to stay and open his
commission. How was it that he had
departed? They fasten this question on
the previous scene, by the very natural word “then”,
or “therefore”.
Or shall we say that it rests upon the Saviour’s previous prohibition? ‘If Elijah’s coming is not to be spoken of, why do the
scribes speak of his preceding Messiah’s advent?’
The
reply of our Lord will repay study. To
those who only wish to know the mind of God, it is plain enough. “Elias, indeed,
is first coming.” Jesus
takes up as attested by the disciples, the scribes’ words, and confirms them as
true. Yes! they were right in teaching
that Jehovah would send Israel Elijah the prophet, before the great and terrible day of the Lord should come. The apostles held that the Elijah seen by the
fathers should come. This confirmed
it. [God’s
prophet] Malachi describes the effect of
his coming to be, his “turning the heart of the fathers to
the children, and the heart of the children to
the fathers”. Jesus speaks of it as
his “restoring all things”. The scribes were right then in their literal
interpretation of the
prophet’s words.
But if so, the apostles’
original difficulty pressed them still in all its force. Jesus hastens to remove it. Elijah had already come, and been put to death by
If any will contend that only
one Elias was meant by our Lord, and that John was the only person that was
intended, we must repel the assertion by John’s own solemn word to the
deputation sent to inquire who he was. “ART THOU ELIAS?
AND HE SAITH,
I AM NOT:” John 1.
Besides, if John the Baptist alone be meant, then must he rise from the dead to “restore all things”, ere [before] Messiah appear.
For Jesus after John’s death declared that Elias had yet to come. But those who contend that John Baptist alone
is Elijah, will as little relish this conclusion, as that the Tishbite should appear.
* * *
* * *
*
11
ONE IS TAKEN
The appalling [apostasy and] fall in the Churches to-day; the all but universal undermining
of belief in the [yet unfulfilled prophetic] Word of
God; the advance in all nations of an ever-growing lawlessness:- these are but
some of the symptoms that remind us of our Lord’s words, - “When these things begin to come to pass, LOOK up, and lift up your heads” (Luke 21: 28). Look up for what? A rending heaven, and a descending
Christ. And the Lord gives what He
reveals as a peculiarly convincing proof of a closing crisis. “When
the [fig tree’s] branch is now tender” - when
[* See Psa. 2: 8. cf.
Psa. 72. & 110
with Luke 1: 32;
2 Pet. 3:
8; Rev. 20: 4, R.V.,
etc.]
Now the Lord gives us a studied simile,
revealing once again that God acts on identical principles in different ages,
so that what He has done is a photograph of what He will
do. “As were
the days of Noah, so shall be the presence of the Son of Man” (Matt. 24: 27). The deliverance
in Noah’s day was double: as a matter of historic fact, and whatever we may
make of the fact, there were two escapes, a heavenly escape and an earthly
escape, from the most awful disaster the world has ever known. “By
faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because
God translated him” (Heb. 11: 5). Here was a complete and miraculous heavenly
disappearance before the world-wide
judgment of the Flood came. But there
was another deliverance in an earthly escape.
“The longsuffering of God waited in
the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing,
wherein few, that is,
eight souls, were saved
through water” (1 Pet. 3: 20). Here was a complete deliverance from the
Flood, but on earth. So, our Lord says,
it will be again. The faithful
of God’s earthly people, Israel,
will escape into the wilderness,
where God guards them throughout the Great Tribulation; and the Enochs of God’s heavenly people, who walk with God, will be rapt out of earth [and into heaven] altogether, ere [i.e., before] ever the Tribulation dawns. And both escapes were conditional on active fellowship with God,
and consequent alert obedience;
which is beautifully exemplified by the fact that Enoch and Noah are the only
two men in the Bible of whom it is explicitly stated that they ‘walked with God’.
So now we confront the
extraordinary act of God, which He is about to repeat, creating a heavenly
escape [i.e., an escape into heaven] before
our judgment Flood begins. “Then shall two men be in a field; one is taken, and one is left:
two women shall be grinding at the mill; one is taken, and one is left.” Obviously, therefore, the removal takes place
before God’s judgments have
devastated earth’s fields and harvests; and while ordinary household
employments are going their normal round.
We are at once startled by the complete passivity of those removed. In counselling [them
living in] Israel how to escape, our Lord says:- “When ye see the abomination of desolation” - that
is, their own eyes will warn them - “then FLEE” - in
active, passionate, muscular flight: “let him
that is in the field not return back to take his cloak” (Matt. 24: 15). But in
this field the labourer simply, silently, utterly disappears. So history repeats itself. Noah both built and launched the
* Does
this portend the scepticism of unrapt believers who no more accept the Second
Advent after the mysterious disappearance than before? On the other hand, that tribulation ripens
and awakens explains the seven raptures hinted at in the Apocalypse: “when the grain is ripe, immediately
he putteth forth the sickle” (Mark 4:
29).
The removal is full of wonderful
instruction. It is extraordinarily
significant that our Lord draws the rapt from the humblest classes - farm
labourers and peasant women. “Hearken, my beloved brethren” - for
it is a vital fact to know - “hath not God chosen
the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?” (Jas. 2: 5). And it is no mass removal: in
this field, a man is gone; in that home, a woman: that is all. And mentally, at the moment, they are
themselves utterly unprepared. Had they
known the day, without doubt they
would have been gathered in assemblies of the saints everywhere for prayer; had
they known the hour, they would have been on their knees in the allotment, or beside
the mill. On the contrary, while the woman is grinding, she is gone. So the act will take us completely by
surprise. It is Elijah over again. “As they
still went on and talked, there appeared a chariot of fire” (2 Kings 2: 11) - his rapture suddenly stopped a
conversation. Luke’s example (17: 34) is
still more significant: “there shall be two on one bed” - a
married couple: asleep, one is gone!
The
lesson our Lord Himself draws therefore becomes overwhelming. “Watch therefore: for ye know not
on what day your Lord cometh”: “your Lord” - that is, both in the field, and
both in the bed, are [regenerate] servants of Christ, needing to be unceasingly watchful. For the removal, obviously, is no act of
sovereign grace, for then knowledge of the hour, and conditional watchfulness, would be totally immaterial; conversion,
not watchfulness, would be ample: on the contrary, our ignorance (it is here
assumed) can be met solely by perpetual readiness. If conversion is the sole
qualification for rapture, the worst backslider is ‘ready’, and has never been anything else. The opposite is the lesson our Lord Himself draws. “Therefore be ye also READY: for
in an hour that ye think not the Son of man cometh.” Obviously what ruled Enoch’s rapture rules
ours: “He was not found, because God translated him: for before
his translation he hath had witness borne to him THAT HE HAD
BEEN WELL PLEASING UN TO GOD” (Heb.
11: 5).
So the conditions of escape are
explicit: for the Jew, instant, obedient flight; for the [regenerate]
Christian, unceasing preparation of heart and life. To put it beyond all doubt our Lord has elsewhere uttered two decisive
words. “Watch
ye, and pray always” -
whether we understand this as a command to pray directly for removal, or not,
in no way alters the truth stated - “that ye
may be ACCOUNTED WORTHY to escape” - that
is, the escape depends on the worthiness,
and the worthiness depends on the
watching and the praying - “all these things
that shall come to pass upon the earth” - therefore
it is a removal from the earth
altogether: that is, it is the
heavenly escape [from earth into heaven] - “and to be set [by
angels] before the Son of man” (Luke 21: 36). Similar ‘worthiness’ brings a parallel reward. “Thou
hast a few names in
Now we face the gravity of the
facts. For what are the facts? The signs around us simply palpitate with the
imminence of the Advent: at any moment the removal may happen: the whole world
is conscious of imminent crisis. And what
is the attitude of the Churches? Of the
larger groups - two only, the Plymouth Brethren and the Pentecostalists -
accept, in their creed, the Second Advent*; in all the other
groups, it is a scattered minority only that expect the Lord; and the immense majority of the Church of God
deny any such return of Christ at all.
A Bishop has expressed it thus:- “I hate the
doctrine; and I hate it on three grounds: first
- it is pessimism; second - it disturbs and divides our people; third - it cuts the nerve of missions.” The Methodist Episcopal Church (says Christianity To-day), revising their ritual for the Lord’s
Table, have omitted three words from
1 Cor. 11: 26 - “till he come”.
And to cloud and darken it all still further, the great majority of
prophetic students, while thoroughly fundamental and evangelical, openly and
studiedly deny that watchfulness has anything to do with rapture; conversion,
they say, is the sole qualification that decides the issue, or else (as
Post-Tribulationists) that there is no escape at all - both thus making our Lord’s own warnings of none effect by their
tradition. And just ahead lies the
most awful ‘tribulation’
eternity will ever know. These are the
almost terrifying facts we are facing.
* Churchmen
themselves would be sharply divided on the question whether the Prayer Book
teaches the literal, physical return of Christ.
But one joyous truth is over
all. One is taken an unspecified one, and therefore any “one”
- can perfectly prepare himself: while we are not responsible for mass
preparation, we can perfectly achieve our own.
Every believer can, if he chooses, obey his Captain’s command:- “Let your loins be girded about, and your lamps burning; and be
ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord. Blessed are those servants whom
the lord when he cometh shall FIND
WATCIIING” (Luke 12: 35). And
lovingly to provoke us to this, our Lord sets exactly between the two escapes, the
earthly and the heavenly, and as the key - bolt to both, one conditioning
reminder:- “Remember
*It is
beautiful to note that since one is taken from field-labour and another from
slumber at night, the rapt are from both sides of the world; that is, they are
drawn from all countries - a simultaneous day and night then known only to
inspiration.
* * *
* * *
*
12
PROPHET - PRIEST - KING
CHRISTMAS AND PROPHECY
In the study of Scripture
pertaining to the birth of our Lord, we have accustomed ourselves to thinking of
only manger scenes and childhood scenes with a devotional slant on the
Scriptures; however, each one of the so-called Christmas stories is deeply
prophetic. For instance, in the second
chapter of Matthew we read of the wise men coming from the east to
What a different concept
Christians would have of our Lord and His ministry if they would but study and
understand just this one passage of Scripture.
Seven things are mentioned by the angel in this prophecy and at once one
has to decide whether he is going to take the Word of the Lord literally or
figuratively. There should be no trouble
at all in taking the entire Bible literally except in those instances where it
is designated by the Lord to be a parable or a figure of speech, symbol or
type. Let us consider these seven phases
of this prophecy and see if we can determine whether it is literal or
figurative.
Here are the seven statements of
the prophecy: (1) “Thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son”; (2) and shalt call His name JESUS; (3) He shall be great; (4) and shall be called
the Son of the Highest; (5) and the Lord shall
give unto Him the throne of His father David; (6) and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; (7) and of His
kingdom there shall be no end.
An elementary and fundamental
rule of interpretation is consistency.
If part of this prophecy is literal then all must be literal. If part is figurative then all must be figurative. The Lord Himself never confused them, but always distinguished the literal and the
figurative interpretation.
Let us consider the first
phase. Was the conception and birth of
Jesus literal? We read in Matthew 1: 18-25 that when Joseph realized that Mary was with
child before they were married, he naturally supposed she had been untrue to
him and was minded to put her away privately.
The law made provision for a public stoning of those guilty of
infidelity, but Joseph was a good man and was not going to make a public
spectacle of the one he loved. The fact
is that Mary’s conception of Jesus was known to all people. One of the many tragedies of our Lord’s life
was that often when He was in a crowd, the Pharisees would ask the insulting
question, “Who is thy father?” insinuating that
He was born out of wedlock. The point is
that Mary actually, literally and physically conceived and brought forth a
Son. In all of the arguments presented by
Satan against Christianity, we have never encountered a denial of the existence
of Mary and of the fact that she gave
birth to a Son named Jesus.
This brings us to the second
point: “And shalt call His name JESUS.” Renan, the French infidel, has written
extensively on the life of Jesus.
Josephus, in his Antiquity of the Jews, speaks of Him and some of His
experiences. The point we are making is
that infidels, atheists, modernists, rationalists, Mohammedans and Buddhists
all acknowledge that there was actually, literally and physically a person
named Jesus of Nazareth. Their denial pertains to His Deity, not to His
humanity. He was called Jesus because He
was to be the Saviour. God Almighty has
set forth one of the most important questions facing man, “What think ye of Jesus? Whose Son is He?” To acknowledge that He is the Son of the
living God means eternal life. To deny it means eternal damnation.
The third statement of the
prophecy is, “He shall be great.” We were interested a number of years ago in
an article appearing in the AMERICAN MAGAZINE entitled “The
Ten Greatest Men Who Ever Lived.”
The author condescended to name Jesus first. He called Him the greatest man that ever
lived. Judaism, modernism, atheism, secularism,
and all realms of thought are at one in saying that Jesus was great - great in
His life, great in His teaching, great in His example. He is acknowledged by one and all to be
great; and the prophecy that He shall be great has been literally and actually fulfilled.
The fourth statement, “He shall be called the Son of the Highest,” was
actually and literally fulfilled at the time of His baptism. “And
Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway
out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon Him And lo,
a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3: 16, 17). And again on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17: 5) we have the Lord God from heaven speaking, “This is my beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased: hear ye Him.” Again, here is a prophecy actually, literally and audibly fulfilled. He was called by the Highest the Son of the
Highest.
Generally speaking we do not
encounter much opposition to these four phases of prophecy being accepted
literally, but when it comes to the remaining three there is a wide divergence
of interpretation; but if the first four are literal, these remaining three
must also be literal. If the latter are
not literal, then the former are not literal.
The
fifth phase of the prophecy is, “The
Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father, David.”
Did David actually and literally have a throne upon which he sat and
from whence he administered the affairs of an earthly kingdom? In 2 Sam. 5: 5, we read: “In
The sixth phase of the prophecy
is, “He shall reign over the house of
Jacob forever.” Many today try to
interpret that as meaning the church, and Christ as reigning over the church,
but Scripture never speaks of Christ as King of the church, nor reigning over
the church. Christ is the Head of the
church. Is there a house of Jacob? In 2 Sam. 7: 14-17 we have the Lord’s prophecy through Nathan that
He is going to make a house of David, who was a descendant of Jacob, and that
over this house, designated in the Scripture as the house of Israel (Jacob’s
name after he met the Lord at the brook Jabok), the
Seed of David, which is Jesus, should reign forever. Scripture
becomes absolutely meaningless unless the Lord Jesus Christ returns and reigns
over the literal house of Jacob.
The
seventh and last phase of the prophecy has to do with the fact that “of His Kingdom
there shall he no end.”
The second chapter of Daniel tells of four world-wide kingdoms that are
to exist here on the earth, and these kingdoms will be destroyed and supplanted
by the Kingdom of our Lord at the time of His return. His Kingdom, described as a rock cut out of a
mountain without hands, grows until it fills the whole earth and having
established His reign over the earth: He
shall then continue to reign over the ‘new earth’
[Rev. 21:
1], and of
this Kingdom [after “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat,
and the earth and the works that are therein shall be
burned up” (2 Pet. 3: 10, R.V.)] - there shall be no end.
13
THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
[From
writings by G. H.
LANG]
Even after the resurrection,
and prior to the gift of the Spirit of truth, the apostles were still
entertaining the idea of an Immediate setting up of the visible kingdom: “Lord, are you at this time
going to restore the kingdom to
Now under the conditions of
travel of those days the going to and coming from a distant country meant of
necessity a long journey, especially with the tedious and momentous matter of a
kingdom to be discussed. The Lord thus taught that, while His return as King Is
a
certainty, His absence would be long. And what an illuminating suggestion
is here as to the business now in hand in Heaven, even the steps necessary for securing the kingdom (presently ruled
over by Satan) to its rightful King. (See Rev.
11: 15, 18.)
Yet it has been asserted, and
widely accepted, that a few weeks after Pentecost, Peter was nevertheless
saying exactly the reverse, and was telling
It is remarkable how acute and
sincere minds could have involved themselves in such an impossible
contradiction. But If the theory puts Peter in an obviously false position,
where does it place the Holy Spirit Himself?
Was He inspiring Peter to contradict Christ? Or was Peter not speaking
by Inspiration at all?
That Peter had the kingdom
before him is clear. In his first address he spoke of “the great and glorious day of the Lord,” and quoted the words, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a
footstool for your feet” (Acts 2:
20, 34, 35. cf. Ps.
2: 8; 110: 1-3, R.V.). But that he did not offer
to Israel the immediate return of Christ
to restore the kingdom to Israel is
plain from the very statement often used [by
regenerate believers] to assert that he did. His words were (Acts
3: 19-2l):
“Repent, then,
and turn to God, so that
your sins may be wiped out, that times of
refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he
may send the Christ, who has been appointed for
you - even Jesus. He must
remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”
These words suggest the absence
of the Lord in the heavens for some period, not at all His instant return
thence to the earth; for had the latter been in the mind of the speaker the phrase,
“He must remain
in heaven until,” would not have occurred to him. And he
indicates sufficiently clearly the circumstances that will attend the close of
that period of absence. The holy prophets had taught that the restoration of
everything will be ushered in by such developments as these: (1) The
readjusting of world-empire into a ten-kingdom confederacy. (2) The subsequent
emergence of another small kingdom. (3) The conquest by the last of these of
the ten kingdoms, with the subsequent rise of its sovereign to world supremacy.
(4) His opposition of the people of God for
three and a half years. (5) Other prophecies are to be fulfilled, such as the
re-peopling of
With these and other
stupendous events to be fulfilled in connection with the [present
sin-cursed earth’s]*
restoration, and yet no sign of one of them as then in sight, how could a
Spirit-taught apostle have suggested the return forthwith of the Deliverer of
Zion?
[* See Gen. 3: 17. cf.
In Scripture we learn without
difficulty what Peter taught - and this is proper, for an inspired teacher will
never have to correct any earlier statements by latter ones.
1. He taught (a) the select
resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead; that His soul was not abandoned in
Hades (Greek); (b) of the intermediate state of the godly dead in
that same place: “David did not ascend to heaven,” (Acts
2: 27, 31,
36).
2. He taught Repentance: “Repent and be baptised, every one of
you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your
sins may be forgiven” (2: 38). His message was precisely that of his Lord: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord,
Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only
he who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven” (Matt. 7: 21; cf.
Matt. 5: 20). This generation is doomed to suffer the
stored-up wrath due to long centuries of wickedness confirmed by present
stubborn sin (as Christ had openly declared: Matt.
23: 35, 36); it remains only that we separate ourselves
from it. Repent!
3. He taught Baptism. “Repent and be baptised, every
one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.”
Die! Be buried! Enter the new circle of obedient disciples of Jesus! And about three
thousand hearers did so.
4. He taught Evidential
Works. He insisted upon good works by the baptised believers,
and was the first in the church to bring just and merited judgment upon
evil-doers within the church, even to the premature death of Ananias and
Sapphira for lying: “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have 1ied
to the Holy Spirit” (Acts
5: 3, 4; cf. 1 Pet. 2: 11, 12, 20, 21; 2 Pet. 1: 5-11).
No true preacher of the gospel
of grace
would say to unregenerate men /women, “If you do these things” you will secure eternal
life, for that is the free gift of God (Rom. 6: 23): “a righteousness from God, apart
from the law” (Rom.
3: 21).
But, when addressing regenerate believers, as in (1 Pet. 1: 1-11), and
referring to the matter of their calling to their Messiah’s coming glory, Peter
distinctly puts the issue upon the
ground of works, saying. “if you do these
things, you will never fall, and you will receive a
rich welcome into the eternal* kingdom of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1: 10, 11).
[* See
Tract No. And compare with Gal. 6: 8; 1 Tim. 6: 12; 1 Pet. 5: 10, etc.]
Similarly Paul, ever most
emphatic upon the acceptance of sinners solely through the imputation to them
by grace
of the righteousness of Christ, is equally definite that obtaining of the glory of God is not
guaranteed certainly, but demands the fulfilment of conditions.
As with Peter so with Paul also,
the calling is not to exemption from eternal life, but to entering the
[* See Heb. 2: 14; Isa. 2: 17-2; 11: 9; and compare 1 Pet.
1: 11ff.
with 1 Pet. 3:
14-17 and
2 Tim. 2:
3-12,
A.V. & R.V.]
Thus the words of Christ as to
being “considered worthy of taking part in that [coming] age” are adopted by Paul - “That God’s judgment is right, and
as a result” [of their faith, perseverance, persecutions
and trials which they were enduring] “you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God”
(Luke 20: 35;
cf.
2 Thess. 1: 5; 1 Thess. 2: 12, R.V.).
The
* * *
* * *
*
14
THE
SERVANT WITH A SINGLE TALENT
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
Our Lord, in the great
forecast of His return, immediately follows the parable of the Virgins with the
parable of the Talents: that is, the command, ‘Watch!’ is
immediately balanced and reinforced by the command, ‘Work!’ And He expresses it by a word - ‘talents’ for investment - which has entered into our language, to
express our powers and faculties and opportunities; so that it does not mean
with us a sum of money, but whatever God has given us that is usable for Him.* Time is
a talent; intellectual power is a talent; moral depth is a talent; influence is
a talent; opportunity is a talent. And, most surprisingly, our Lord
concentrates on a single peril: - namely, the danger of the believer who, being
sharply restricted in outlook and opportunity, is doing simply nothing at all:
one who is a [regenerate] believer, and who acknowledges having been entrusted with his
Lord’s goods; who is guilty of no gross sin whatever; whose life is thoroughly
decent and respectable: yet one who incurs the startling sentence from Christ
Himself - “Thou wicked and slothful servant”.** His emphasis reveals that He regards carelessness, indolence,
sloth in the ordinary member in the pew as one of the greatest dangers in the
Church of God.
* “The talents must represent, first and chiefly spiritual gifts, such as
those first granted on the Day of Pentecost; but, secondarily, the talents must
signify all the good gifts of God - health, time, intellectual powers, earthly
riches, station. Influence.” (B. C. Caffin,
M.A.).
** That a
saved soul can be pronounced ‘wicked’ is proved
by a word of Paul. “Put away from yourselves that
wicked person:” why? “that his spirit
may be SAVED in the day of the Lord
Jesus” (1 Cor.
5: 5, 13 [cf. Num. 14: 24, R.V.]).
SERVANTS
It is critical to our Lord’s
intent in the parable that we ascertain, with vision straight and pure, who are
the servants. The Lord could not make it
clearer. “He called His OWN servants, and delivered unto
them his
goods” (Matt. 25: 14).
Commentators, however they may shrink from the conclusion, state the fact
freely and strongly. So GRESWELL: “His
[see Greek …], that is, His proper and peculiar servants.” STIER:- “The
servants, whom he calls with the evangelical calling into His Kingdom and
service, are thereby already presupposed to be His own servants, i.e., who have become His in faith.” So the Pulpit Commentary:- “The parable
relates primarily to the Apostles, to whom it was spoken; then to the Ministers
of God’s Holy Word; and then to all [regenerate] Christians,
for all belong to Christ, being bought with His blood, and all have work to do
for Him. It is a figure of all Christians, members of Christ, doing Him service
as their Master.” ALFORD:- “Like the parable of the Ten Virgins immediately preceding,
this parable is concerned with Christians, and not the world at large.” In the parallel Parable of the Pounds our
Lord distinguishes sharply between the ‘servants’ and the
‘citizens’ who “would not that I should reign over them” (Luke 19: 27).
HIS OWN SERVANTS
But our Lord’s teaching is so
grave, and so intensely unpopular, that it is well to establish the truth with
additional proof. (1) No ‘servant’ of God or of Christ is known to
the New Testament except the regenerate:
even the Apostles are so described:- “Paul,
a servant of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1: 1); “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ” (Jude 1.); “Peter,
a servant of Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1: 1). It is plain, from their own language, that they
were not servants before their conversion, and that only by their conversion
were they made so. Once ‘servants of sin’ (Rom.
6: 20),
we are now ‘under law to Christ’ (1 Cor. 9: 21). (2) Our Lord, at His ascension, commits
to them His ‘goods’ - the
investment of all that He has of value in earth between the two Advents: it
needs no argument to prove that to no unbeliever is any such trust ever
committed: that is, all three are regenerate men. (3) If the first two servants are regenerate, and the third is not,
the parable knows of no regenerate man who is ever unfaithful to his trust - a reductio ad absurdum contrary to both Scripture and fact; and so far from our Lord’s
aim being attained, there is no warning to a child of God at all. Again (4)
if the third servant is a lost soul, and the ‘outer
darkness’ is eternal destruction, then salvation by works is
established; for his whole condemnation rests on his not having multiplied his
talent, and on that alone. Finally (5)
all three servants are judged together, on one spot and at one time, proving it
to be the judgment Seat of Christ: unbelievers are not judged until the Great
White Throne, a thousand years later.
This judgment is when “the lord of those
servants cometh”. Thus the facts of the
case are patent: so far from there being an ‘empty
professor’, a hypocrite, an unregenerate man among them, all three
servants are entrusted with all that Christ values on earth between the two
Advents - the third servant as really as the second or the first.
THE TALENTS
So now the principle of our
Lord’s commission is revealed. He
commits to us all a work exactly proportioned to our ability, and so exactly
fitted to our accomplishment. “Unto one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one; to each according to his several ability.” No servant is without a talent; every servant has the opportunity to
increase his Lord’s goods; no servant is pressed beyond his powers; each is to
do the precise thing he is sent into the world [by his
Lord] to do. “The
endowment of a Christian is a summons to work for his Lord: Christ bestows on
us His goods, not that they may be buried, wasted, appropriated to self, or
imagined our own, but that we may faithfully trade with them” (Lange). “TRADE YE herewith till I come” (Luke 19: 13). And we can obtain fulness of grace exactly
fitting the work. As Paul says “I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Cor. 15: 10).
THE RECKONING
Now it is in the very nature of
a trust that a reckoning-day must come, when a report on how the trust has been
exercised has to be rendered: our account must correspond to our receipts. “Now after a long time” - one of the rare hints
of the two thousand years between the Advents - “the
lord of those servants cometh, and maketh a
reckoning with them”. Two of the servants advance with joy, each
having doubled his trust; and both - quite irrespective of the amount handled -
receive an identical praise. “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou
hast been faithful over a few things, I will set
thee over many things: enter thou into the joy
of thy lord.” The identical sentence reveals that every servant
will receive it who doubles his trust, even if the trust is only a single
talent. So of the redeemed dead we read
- “And their
works follow with them” (Rev. 14: 13): that
is, their multiplied talents accompany them to the judgment Seat, and ennoble
them. “From slaves the faithful servants become
princes: they achieve the crown (2 Tim. 4: 8); the throne (Rev. 3: 21); the kingdom (Matt. 25: 34).” (J. A.
Macdonald).*
* “The retributive inquiry answers in all respects to the
Scriptural idea of the nature and proceedings of the final judgment of
Christians”(Greswell).
THE THIRD SERVANT
It is extremely significant, and
full of warning, that our Lord devotes the bulk of the parable to the third,
the profitless, servant. Conversion puts
in our hands a commission from Christ; and to be saved, while yet we do no work
for Him, is to bury the talent with which conversion entrusted us: it is still
ours, and still within our reach, but utterly valueless. Having dug in the earth, and hidden his
lord’s money, this third servant concentrates on an attack on the doctrine of a Christian’s responsibility.
He says:- “Lord” - he
acknowledges Christ as his Lord - “I knew
that thou art a hard man” - stern, strict, severe;
exactly as this truth is regarded by tens of thousands of believers - “and I was afraid”. I am perfectly willing to accept grace - that is, something for nothing, but I object to the whole principle of
responsibility - that is, the Lord’s
demand that we double all He entrusts to us. The retort is obvious. You
understood the truth, but resented it: it would have been far wiser if, while
resenting it, you had squared your life to it, for you knew it to be the truth. The
severer you regarded your Lord and His words, the more scrupulous you should
have been in squaring your life to what He said. And the truth the servant deprecates proves
true. While the faithful servants share the full blaze of the coming [millennial] Kingdom, the slothful servant, expelled into the outer
darkness of the Parousia clouds, and gnashing his teeth over lost
opportunities, loses the [promised, (Ps. 2: 8)] Kingdom. “To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth
it not, to him it is SIN” (Jas 4: 17).
INCREASE
Our Lord now characteristically
seizes the opportunity to enunciate a great principle summed up in a single
phrase. “For unto every one that hath shall be
given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not” - he
who buries his talent, instead of using it - “even
that which he hath shall be taken away”. Christ wants not only
His goods doubled, but His workers doubled - doubled in intensity, in
efficiency, in influence. As muscles
expand and develop with use, as a young sapling grows stronger as it grows
older until it becomes a monarch of the forest, so grace and gift invested in
the opportunities of life never remain the same, but expand and grow; and the
servant himself expands - he not only does more, but he does it better. Moreover, he takes on the undone work of
others. “Take ye away the talent, and give it unto him that hath the ten talents.” One
golden fruit of diligent service is the enlargement of our own powers, and
therefore the conferring of a still greater trust. Here is the whole principle
of the Kingdom. The trained servant, grown competent through
prolonged service and a discharged trust, is placed on a throne to administer
the affairs of nations.
ONE TALENT
Therefore let us seize this
truth, and be seized by it, that one talent can lead straight into the coming
Kingdom. “If the readiness is there, it is acceptable according as a man hath, not according as he hath not” (2 Cor. 8: 12). “I am glad,” said Dr.
Talmage, “that the chief
work of the Church is being done by the men of one talent.” The widow,
casting in two mites, gave more than all the wealthy. The one talent can always
be multiplied into two - that is, a gain for Christ of a hundred per cent; it
can produce a percentage equal to the highest. The scale on which we work may
be vastly different; but the quality can all be of the first class whatever the
scale; and there are men of mean
capacities and poor endowments who will be greatest in the
* *
* * *
* *
15
OBEDIENCE TO THE WORD OF GOD
[Scripture
reading: 1 Kings Chapter 13.]
Our Saviour has shown, in
the servant entrusted with only one talent (Matt.
25: 15), how
a child of God can wreck his discipleship by despising the apparent
insignificance of his trust: the balancing truth - namely, how a servant
endowed with the whole five talents can make an equally deadly shipwreck - is
pictured in one of the most dramatic episodes of all history, stamped all over
with miracle. In the morning, a ‘Man of God’ calling down miracles from Heaven - a
convulsed Altar, and a King’s hand withered as he stretched it out to arrest
God’s ambassador: in the evening, a carcase on a lonely road with a lion
standing motionless beside it. The King’s hand is withered and healed; the Man
of God’s body is withered - and buried. The Westminster Larger Catechism states the principle:- “Some sins receive their aggravation from the persons offending;
if they be of riper age, greater experience in grace, eminent for profession,
gifts, place, office, and as such are guides to others, and whose example is
likely to be followed by others.”
The Man of God here fills a
tremendous drama. Unknown and unnamed, with no recorded birth, or education or
family, living in the far background of Judah - as suddenly as lightning he
appears at Bethel, then the centre of the apostasy of Israel; backed by nothing
but the commission of Jehovah, and possessing nothing but the bare Word of God.
But this he had in full. He came from
But now
we come to one of the searching details of life. One minor command had been
given him by God, a command vital in an age of apostasy. “Eat no bread, nor
drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest.” All fellowship
with idolatrous People of God, so long as the idolatry continues, has always
been forbidden; and exactly identical is our command, in words as simple and as
obvious. “If any man that is named a brother be
a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater” - all God’s people in
Now we reach a peril peculiarly
dangerous to the most highly gifted servant of God, a peril that will beset us
in the last days with ever-growing menace. Bethel was the seat and stronghold
of the apostasy; yet, living there was an old prophet: a prophet so
silent that God had to send a messenger from far-off Judah to speak for Heaven; one who is named a prophet by the Scriptures, and who himself imparts a
prophecy from Jehovah: who,
nevertheless, consciously or unconsciously, invites the Man of God to disobey
his Lord; and when the Man of God refuses, says, - “I also am a prophet as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, - Bring him back with thee into thine house that he may eat
bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.” The command had come from the mouth of the
Lord; the seduction comes from the mouth
of the Old Prophet; and a man claiming the supernatural can be the most
plausible and dangerous of all tempters.
Now therefore we reach the
crisis. We see the Man of God’s face weakening: “so
he went
back” - a
backslider - “with him, and did eat bread and drank water.” The physical desire at
last outweighs his fidelity to his Master.
This is borne out all down the
ages. Constant experience proves that in
pressing Scripture, as plain and simple as the Man of God’s, tragically often
we are not arguing with the intellect at all, but with desires, prejudices,
dislikes against which arguments are powerless; and any believer, who wishes to do so, can always find abundant reasons for
disobedience. As the two men sit at
meat, the Old Prophet, under a sudden seizure from God, sees through the
disobedience, and addresses the man before him as a corpse. “Forasmuch as thou
hast been disobedient unto the mouth of the Lord, thy carcase shall not come
unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.” If it had been an
angel that spoke to the Old Prophet, Paul’s word abides for ever:- “Though we [even the apostles], or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any other gospel,
LET HIM BE
ANATHEMA” (Gal. 1: 8). It is a priceless truth. We must suffer neither our own
reasoning or doubts, nor the subtleties or authority or ridicule or denial of
others, no, nor the claim of supernatural authority from God, to challenge for
a moment our belief in, and obedience to, all revealed truth.
Judgment can fall even in the act
of disobedience. While he was eating, the
sentence fell.
Now we reach the dread climax. “A lion met him by the way” - found
him, after search, as the word means and is used elsewhere (1 Kings 13: 14,
28) - “and
slew him” - crushed him: the word is very expressive, for the lion
kills with one blow (Themies). The sanctity of his profession, the dignity of his office, the splendour
of his past service - none of these saved him from the just anger of God:
the lions guarded faithful Daniel in his prison; this lion carries out the
sentence of [divine]
judgment. And the whole scene is so set
that the crowds that had seen the Man of God’s magnificent miracles see this
one also: “his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase; the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass”. It was a studied drama, set by
the hand of God. The ass did not fly
from the face of the lion, nor did the lion molest the ass: both stood, as
God’s sentinels, proved so by their completely non-natural attitude. The Man of
God was given over to the lion for the destruction of the flesh, that his
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
So now the overwhelming lesson
of the narrative seeks to write itself on all our hearts. The higher a man stands, the deeper is his fall, and to whom much is
given, of him much will be required. It is a far deeper problem than that
the Man of God simply failed in obedience.
A man called to the highest possible
mission - to represent Jehovah to an
apostate people of God; having nothing and knowing nothing except the
direct words of Deity with which he was entrusted; endowed with miracles before
all
Marvellous is the over-ruling
power of God. For the validity and
integrity of his mission; for the honour and holiness of the God whose delegate
he was; for the impartiality of a just Deity with whom is no respect of
persons; and, most convincingly of all, for the very fulfilment of his
mission:- the lion struck. All
So therefore we see the golden
summary. As the spirit of disobedience is the root of all practical iniquity,
so instant, utter, minute, and constant
obedience to the Word of God is our sole holiness, and our sole safety.
There are greater commands, and there are lesser; but there is but one thing to
do with them all - and that is to obey.
The terrible mistake that countless millions are making, with large sections of
the Church of Christ amongst them, is that God has changed, and that we are
dealing with a new and different God in the New Testament, and to-day: whereas
the truth is - “I the Lord change not”; He is “the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever”. “The Lord is a jealous God and avengeth; the Lord avengeth and
is full of wrath; the Lord taketh vengeance on his adversaries,
and he reserveth
wrath for his enemies” (Nahum
1: 2). No warnings in the whole Bible,
warnings both to the believer and to the unbeliever, are
so black as our Lord’s.
Nevertheless, there remains the
call of infinite love. A Roman girl, of
high birth and finished culture, once said:- “No one
shall win my hand unless he gives me proof that he would die for me.” Years passed away, and one day passing
through the streets of
-------
CALEB
1. His Counsel. - “Let us go up at
once and possess it.” Num. 13: 30: cp.
Heb. 6: 1., 12: 1.
2. His Confidence.- “We are well able to overcome.” Ch. 13: 30: cp.
Luke 10: 19;
Rom. 8: 37; Phil. 4: 13, etc.
3. His Caution. - “Only rebel not
against the Lord.” Ch. 14: 9.
4. His Courage. - “Fear them not.”
“They are bread for us; their
defence is departed from them.” Ch.
14: 9: cp. Deut.
33: 27.
5. His Comfort. - “The Lord is with us.” Ch. 14: 9: cp. Exo. 33: 8; Judges 6: 16; 2 Chron. 20: 17, 32: 8; Isa.
41: 10; Matt. 28: 20.
6. His Consecration. - “He
… followed ... fully.” Ch. 14: 24: cp. “wholly”,
Joshua 14: 8,
9; cp. Psa. 23:
6; Phil. 3: 12, 13, 14.
7. His Conquest. - “And
Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak.” Joshua 15: 14: cp.
Heb. 11: 33; 1 John 4: 4, 5: 4; Rev. 12: 11.
Others
saw the Giants, Caleb saw the Lord;
They were
sore dishearten’d, he believed God's Word:
If we
are half-hearted, we shall lose God’s best;
They who
follow wholly are the wholly blest.
-------
THE KINGDOM
The “prize” is not heaven, which is ours by the gift of God, but it is the
reward granted to exceptional holiness and earnestness of life. We must distinguish between grace that gives
the title to heaven, and the reward of grace according to our works as
believers. The fact that we reach heaven will be of grace,
but our place in heaven will be proportionate to our faithful use of the grace
given. It is possible to be content with a low standard of Christian living
without growing in grace and holiness. The soul may be saved though the life be
lost. Consequently, the Epistles are full of earnest exhortations and appeals
to Christians to press forward to the highest possible attainments in holiness
and good work. Notice the various “crowns” - “Crown of Righteousness,” “Crown
of Life”, “Crown of Joy”, all implying
the rewards of faithfulness. It was to this that the Apostle undoubtedly
referred in the passage before us. -
-------
THE KINGDOM
If we
distort the truth, or mix it with what is false, the truth becomes - really and
rightly - incredible: so when the
literal Second Advent, with all its attendant prophecies, is denied by vast
sections of the Christian Church, the consequent doctrine - a Gospel which is
to capture the whole world for God - becomes, in face of the facts, as
incredible as it is false. It was
the challenge of Bradlaugh, the great infidel of the
nineteenth century:- “God, a God of truth? Why, He
promised Abraham in the most solemn wirds, He
repented His promise, and He has not kept His word. This Bible which reveals the attributes of
Almighty God, tells us that God condescended to swear to a puny man that He
would establish his kingdom forever, and that his seed should be as numerous as
the sand upon the seashore. That promise was reiterated and sworn to by God,
and I ask, where is that kingdom now? Here? Do not tell me that it is meant
figuratively; do not tell me that it is not literal. God swore it.” By
mere increase of population the world is growing more heathen by 6,000,000 a
year; and in the words of an Anglican Bishop:- “The
earth in this present era is seething with disorder. There are countries where
truth is scorned, freedom destroyed, and international righteousness mocked.”
* *
* * *
* *
16
SEVEN DIVINE STATEMENTS
SEVEN DIRECT UTTERANCES OF GOD CONCERNING
AN ASSURANCE FROM THE FACTS OF HISTORY OR
THE FORCES OF NATURE
By SAMUEL H. WILKINSON
First Statement: God’s attitude towards
Assurance: The immobility of the mountains.
“For the
mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith
the Lord, that hath
mercy upon thee.” - Isaiah 54: 10.
Second Statement: God’s chastisement of
Assurance: The guaranteed immunity from a second
flood.
“For
this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have
sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” - Isaiah
54: 9.
NOTE. - That this statement does not mean that God is never wroth
with
Third Statement: God will never cast off the people
Assurance: The immeasurability of the heavens
above and the impenetrability of the earth beneath.
“Thus
saith Jehovah: If heaven above can be measured,
and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath,
I will also cast off all the seed of
Fourth Statement: God preserves the national existence of
the people of
Assurance: The regularity of planetary motion and
the stilling of the sea.
“Thus
saith Jehovah, which giveth the sun for a light
by day, and the ordinances of the moon, and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of hosts is His Name; if those ordinances depart from before me, saith
the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall
cease from being a nation before me for ever.” - Jeremiah 31: 35, 36.
Fifth Statement: The promises of the future restoration
and salvation of
Assurance: The historical literality of their age-long
suffering.
“And it
shall come to pass, that like as I have watched
over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to
throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will I
watch over them to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.” - Jeremiah
31: 28.
“For
thus saith the Lord, Like as I have brought all
this great evil upon this people, so will I bring
upon them all the good that I have promised them.” - Jeremiah 32: 42.
Sixth Statement: The covenant by which God has guaranteed
the perpetual rule of David’s seed on David’s literal throne is irrefragable.
Assurance: The fixity of the earth’s diurnal
motion.
“Thus
saith the Lord: if ye can break My covenant of
the day and My covenant of the night, and that
there should not be day and night in their season; then may also My covenant be broken with David
My servant that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne
... thus saith the Lord, if My covenant be not with day and night, and
if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; then will I cast away the seed of Jacob and David My servant,
so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers
over the seed of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: for I will cause
their captivity to return and will have mercy upon them.” - Jeremiah 33: 20,
21, 25, 26.
Seventh Statement: God will increase and dignify the
descendants of David and the tribe of Levi.
Assurance: The innumerability of the stars and
sand.
NOTE. - The innumerability of the stars and sand in reference to
the increase of David’s house is not, I think, so much an illustration of
degree as an assurance of certainty.
“As the
host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the
sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the
seed of David My servant and the Levites that minister unto
In these seven great Divine utterances
it will be noticed that God speaks in each case in the first person singular,
and in direct terms, without any symbolism or obscurity; and it is passing
strange that in the presence of such statements, many of God’s [regenerate] children still spiritualize the promises
to Israel and apply them to the Christian Church; confuse the Christian Church
and the coming Kingdom; and treat the whole Jewish question as if it were a fad
instead of a truth of fundamental importance. - Trusting and Toiling.
-------
AFFLICTION AND [MILLENNIAL]* GLORY
[*See Titus 2: 13; 2 Timothy 2:
10-12. cf.
Hebrews 11: 35b;
Revelation 2: 9,
10, A.V. & R.V.]
“Affliction worketh glory:” “our light affliction worketh an exceeding weight of glory;” - “our affliction, which is but
for a moment, worketh an eternal weight of glory.” Every word is a marked and beautiful
antithesis. Strange to say, the Apostle describes the glory by an old earthly
metaphor, nay, by the very metaphor he used to apply to his afflictions; he calls
it a weight. We speak of a weight of care, a weight of sorrow, a weight of
anxiety: but a weight of glory!
surely that is a startling symbol. We do not think of a man as being crushed,
overwhelmed, weighed down by glory. We should have thought that the old
metaphor of care would have been repulsive, that it would have been cast off
like a worn-out garment and remembered no more for ever. Nay, but the old garment is not worn out when the
glory comes, it is only
transfigured; that which made thy weight of care is that which makes thy weight
of glory. Thou needest not a new object but a new light - to see by day
what thou hast only seen in darkness. Thou
who art weighted with some heavy burden, pause ere thou askest its removal; thy
weight of present care may be thy weight of future glory - may be, nay, must be when light shall dawn.
- GEORGE MATHESON, D.D.
* * *
* * *
*
17
THE RITUAL FOR SIN AFTER CONVERSION
1
“He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet” (John 13:10). Baptism is the first and total bathing to
which the Saviour refers: it answers to the total uncleanness of man by
nature. It exhibits in a figure the
great and general forgiveness of past sin which is granted by the Father to all
that believe in Jesus. As though the
Saviour said:- The past is blotted out and forgiven freely. But you have
offended since that day; and fresh sin has stained your conscience. You need
then a second and supplementary washing, that you may be wholly clean. Such is
the washing of your feet. The first washing was total; for sin entirely possessed you by
nature. This second washing is partial, as your sins now are occasional. You sinned
willingly before, with head and hand. You sin involuntarily now, as the bather
coming up from the bath unwillingly gathers on his feet the dust and dirt that
defile them. “That which I do I allow not; for what I would that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”
“Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” “The good that I would I do not, but the
evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7: 15, 17, 19).
Thus, while the total defilement of man as a
sinner is set forth in the total
immersion of the believer once for all; the partial and unwilling uncleanness
of the saint is set forth in
the second
and succeeding washing. It is intended to teach that daily sin
demands a daily cleansing, even after our old sins are purged and put away. The
intercession of Jesus to this end, and His ceaseless washing are continually
needed.*- ROBERT GOVETT.
* It is
sometimes said, with careless boldness, that it was a customary thing for the
master to wash the guests’ feet, in eastern countries. Not one instance of it can be found
in Scripture. The following
are all the passages in which the thing is spoken of. Abraham and
2
Our Lord, having finished
washing their feet, resumes his garments, sits down again, and now addresses
the disciples:- “Know ye what I have done to you?
Ye call me Teacher, and
Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then,
the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, YE ALSO OUGHT TO WASH ONE ANOTHER’S FEET.
For I have given
you AN EXAMPLE THAT YE ALSO SHOULD DO AS I HAVE DONE TO YOU. ... If ye know these things, blessed
are ye if ye do them.”
How we can do them, without
doing them, it is very difficult to say. He has just asked His disciples to do
for one another now, that which He did for His disciples then. For two
centuries Satan failed to succeed in leading away the disciples from this
ordinance. Nineteen hundred years have rolled round since the night of the
supper. The cycle of time to be completed by the Second Advent will soon enable
those who now “wash one another’s feet” for
Jesus’ sake, to link up the circle of the past intervening years with those
Christians of the first centuries, and to stand with them on the same ground to
share in the “part with” Christ.
It is beautiful to see also in
this instance the Old Testament returning its borrowed light to the Scriptures
of the New. In his delineation of the ceremonies in connection with the
consecration of the Priests, the Holy Ghost wrote by the hand of Moses those
commands which the God of Israel gave to
3
So important is the
after-cleansing of the believer that our Lord has enshrined the truth for ever in the loveliest of rites. “He that is bathed,” He says (John 13: 10), “needeth not save to wash his feet, but [if he
do both] is clean every whit.” A bather, totally immersed,
is completely cleansed; but, coming up from river or seashore, his feet get
soiled afresh: so, after our total plunge, our complete immersion, in the
pardon of God, our perfect cleansing in the blood of Christ, we contract
inevitable defilement in our contact with earth, and need the washing of the walk. No apostle was omitted as perfect in walk. “Our
works may be compared to the soul’s feet: the Church will never be so clean
that it will have no need of foot-washing” - (Spurgeon). Coming up from
the great pardon at conversion, and coming up ritually out of the baptismal
flood, we come up fully bathed, spotlessly clean; for “ye were washed” (1 Cor. 6: 2): but now, over even apostles’ feet, our High
Priest has to stoop in tender ablution and absolution of post-baptismal sin. “Justification must be followed by sanctification”
(Lange). So baptism is the first portrayal by ritual; “arise, and be baptized, and wash
away thy sins” (Acts 22: 16): our
Lord now institutes a supplementary rite to portray the covering of
post-conversion sin; “I have washed your feet.”
While extra-Biblical tradition
is no basis whatever for our faith or conduct, evidence that the acceptance of
our Lord’s words as indicating a rite is not an individual idiosyncrasy may
justly be offered, on behalf of an interpretation which, through ignorance of
church history, may seem new-fangled and peculiar. The Greek church has
preserved it, together with immersion in baptism, from the apostolic age. Of
the four so-called ‘doctors of the Church’ two
- Ambrose and Augustine - taught and practised it, and in the sub-apostolic age
“the ceremony (says Bingham’s Christian
Antiquities) was used by some churches, but
rejected by others.” As late as the fifth century Augustine says:- “Brethren perform this action one for another. Among some saints the custom exists not, but
they do it in heart; but much better and more exact is it, beyond controversy,
that it be done by the hand.” Bernard, called ‘the
last of the Fathers’ is equally explicit:- “That
we may not doubt concerning the remission of daily sins, we have its sacrament
- the Washing of Feet.” The Council of Toledo (A.D. 694) fixed an annual
date when the feet of the newly baptized were washed. Luther was not averse to
it. Nor are the Moravians the only modern group to observe the rite. One of the
giant intellects of modern days, foremost in the ranks of science - Faraday -
was (with many an obscure disciple through many ages and in many lands) a
humble follower of this ritual of ablution. “Many
humble Christian societies have
adopted this view, and still we find that some devout people are earnest for it”
(C. Stanford, D.D.).
Peter’s impetuous blunders are used
by the Spirit to set all in a radiant light. He says: “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” He does
not see the cross in the basin, nor the blood in the water. “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Our
Lord’s answer startlingly reveals our need of the pardon of all sin, whether
before conversion or after. “If I wash thee not” - if
pardon does not touch you at all - “thou
hast no part with Me”:
without the great ablution, there is no life eternal; and without the partial
ablution, there is no reward at the Judgment Seat: justification and
sanctification are both essential for a full participation with Christ. Christ does not say that, once washed, no
kind of washing can be needed again; nor does He say that, once soiled, no fresh
washing is possible. Peter, still misunderstanding, now passes to the opposite
extreme:- “Lord, not
my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”* “Peter was thoughtlessly demanding
the repetition of his baptism” (Godet).
Jesus again corrects the error. “He that
is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet.” “The foot needeth to be washed; but the totality of the
cleanness is not lost” (B. W.
Newton). The first cleansing is total and final, involving our whole
nature, and, up to that moment, a perfect bath, unrepeated and unrepeatable
justification is for ever; it is one baptism (Eph. 4: 5) but for sanctification, continual and
progressive, a partial cleansing is required for partial sin. - D. M. PANTON.
* Thus a believer’s cleansing depends wholly on his own consent
to Christ’s action. This negatives B. W. Newton:- “When
they [all believers] enter their Father's
presence, each foot will have been perfectly
washed.” Numerous scriptures (such as Matt.
18: 35, Luke 12: 47, 2 Cor. 5: 10, Col. 3: 24-25, 1 John 2: 28, Rev. 3: 3, 16, etc.)
make sure the shame of some disciples after the resurrection, when a sharper chastisement will
bring a belated repentance, and a cleansing that will be final. Of one sin our
Lord says:- “It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in that which is to come”
(Matt. 12:
32): from which it may justly be inferred
that certain other sins (obviously of believers only) will require and receive
a future forgiveness in the Age that succeeds to this.
* * *
* * *
*
18
CHURCH DISCIPLINE BY THE
HOLY GHOST
Problems many and grave
were solved once for all on the threshold of the
For Ananias and Sapphira, as
among the souls “added to the Church,” because
“saved,” and added not by man, but by “the Lord” (Acts
2: 47), had a conversion that is
unchallengeable. That the Apostles (like
ourselves) had no jurisdiction over unbelievers, the punishment of whose sins
must be left solely to God - “for what have I to
do with judging them that are without? do ye not judge them that are within?” (1 Cor. 5: 12) - further establishes their regeneration; and
explains why, where all Elymas gets a transient blindness and a Simon Magus
goes unscathed, an Ananias - for covetousness,
one of the excommunicating sins: for it was covetousness that prompted his lie
- gets instantaneous “destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor. 5: 5). The
penalty wielded by the Holy Ghost is the penalty commanded for this very sin
occurring inside the
Church. Never once does the Apostle raise the question of their salvation, or
cast a shadow of doubt on their standing in Christ. “Ananias
was a member of the Christian Church; he had, in all probability, with the rest
received the Holy Ghost; and hence he was in the enjoyment of greater
privileges, and under heavier responsibilities, than either Simon or Elymas”
(P. J. Gloag,
D.D.). Nor was his sin a foundation sin at all. “Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept
back part of the price” (Acts 5: 1). In
a great flood-tide of revival, when everyone naturally wishes to appear on the
crest of the wave, there is an inevitable temptation to a profession of
devotion more apparent than real: so Ananias merely keeps back a part of the sum
which he said was the whole. The poor of the Church, gazing at the gift laid
before, the Apostles, would marvel at his munificence, and would regard the
donors as trophies of grace, and splendid proofs of the Holy Spirit can do in
human character and life.
Now the Apostle, gifted with the
‘discerning of spirits,’ at once unveils the
Church as the stage of a constant drama of the other world: his questions rip
open the supernatural struggle going on in every assembly of believers.
“Ananias, why hath Satan”- no sooner is the Paradise of the Church created,
than the Serpent is found in it - “filled thy heart”
- filled it, that is, not with himself, but with an evil conspiracy - “to lie to the Holy Ghost?” Two
great protagonists stand out on the floor of the Church, one descended from
Heaven, one risen from Hell - the Holy Ghost and Satan; and Satan, inside the Church, can lure a [regenerate] believer to his death. The Apostle puts a parallel question to Sapphira:- “How is it that ye have agreed together to lie to the Spirit
of the Lord?” - how dared you experiment, to see whether the Spirit
knows all things, and so your secret? or whether He would care? or whether He
would act? How ghastly the blunder events quickly proved. The Spirit knew the
market price; He knew the exact sum retained; He had far more wonderfully
overheard Satan whispering at the door of the man’s heart; He was present at
the family conclave; He so cared that He did what Christ never did in the whole
of His ministry on earth; and He acts without a moment’s warning.
Peter’s remonstrance is
exceedingly illuminating. “While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power?” - that is to say, both the estate
itself, and the proceeds of the sale, were exclusively Ananias’s:
the Lord’s word to sell all, and give to the poor (Luke
12: 33), is a counsel of perfection,
not a requirement of obligation: therefore Ananias was a perfectly free agent, and
so a perfectly responsible agent. And even after the estate had been sold, with
the object of giving all, God still allows a change of mind; “after it was sold, was it not
in thy
power?” for any part
of our property may be retained, until faith is strong enough to give up all;
or it may be kept, without penal consequences. There was no physical necessity, no church
necessity, no moral necessity, no necessity whatever
- only the exquisite efflorescence of Christian love, or the wise investment of
earthly funds in heavenly stock - why Ananias should part with anything at all.
Now
instantly falls the Divine excommunication. “And
Ananias hearing these words” - God’s mere statement of a sin
can be a death-warrant - “fell down and gave up the ghost.” “It was well that men should be taught once for all, by
sudden death treading swiftly on the heels of detected sin, that the Gospel,
which discovers God’s boundless mercy, has not wiped out the sterner attributes
of the judge” (Oswald Dykes, D.D.).
The reason why this first and sharpest of all Church discipline for two
thousand years has never again been so dramatically repeated is most
significant. If there were no such
case of instant and condign punishment among
the
saved, we must have concluded that, for [regenerate] believers, God’s justice is shackled and
sheathed; on the other hand, if every such sin met with instant judgment, we must have concluded
that this is no dispensation of grace, nor ours a mercy-seat: there is one, as
a sample of judgment coming; but only one, for the Mercy Seat
defers infliction, almost invariably, to a future
Judgment Seat. God sometimes slays now, lest we doubt His
justice: He often defers judgment, lest we doubt His patience. “Divine judgment knows no respect of persons,
but calls believers as well as unbelievers before its bar; yea, it steps even
more quickly among the former, as the servants who know the Lord’s will:
judgment must begin at the house of God” (Lange). The perplexing rarity, yet
coupled with the astounding fact, is expounded in one pregnant word of Paul. “Some men’s sins are evident” - are instantly exposed - “going before unto
judgment” - provoking judgment at once; “and
some men also” - cloaked hypocrisies to the last - “they follow after;” into the other world, and into the Age beyond (1 Tim. 5: 24). The Spirit, who never slew an enemy for the life of the Church, slays two of her own children for her purity. It is
immoral and impossible that Ananias should be struck dead, and all other Ananiases of the Church die in their beds, for ever
unjudged. “It is only a demonstration of the invisible
judgment, which, without any such open manifestation, rests upon every previous
or subsequent Ananias” (Stier).
So vital
is this truth for the whole Church that the Spirit doubles the witness, as well
as records its history. “Behold the feet of them which have
buried thy husband shall carry thee out.” The second death,
following so sharply and so exactly in the track of the first, like a swiftly
doubled peal of thunder, must have caused tenfold terror. So high were the
privileges of Ananias and Sapphira, so magnificent their opportunities in the
heart of the miracle-gifted Church of the Apostles, that they are given no warning;
no time for reflection; no call to repentance; no pardon: in a moment Peter has
used the Keys, and locked the Kingdom - “whose soever
sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20: 23): “be not deceived; neither
thieves, nor covetous, nor extortioners shall inherit the
kingdom of God” (1 Cor.
6: 10).
Thus the doctrine that the
believer’s person is immune from the judgment of God, and
that the judgment Seat takes cognizance of his works only, is here proved untrue;
and the assumption, not rarely made, at least subconsciously, that the
backslider is necessarily restored before death the case of Ananias also proves
to be false.* How profound the awe of this initial lesson on the threshold
of the Church” “ ‘Great
fear came upon all them that heard these things’:
noteworthy words, which clearly show that the possibility that any one of them
might become an Ananias was present to the minds of all the disciples, full of
grace as they were”(Stier).
It is overwhelmingly solemn that modern exponents of privilege seem to have passed into almost total
blindness on responsibility. An ambitious mountain climber, thrilled with
excitement, stood erect at last upon an Alpine peak in an ecstasy of enjoyment,
when his guide shouted,- “On your knees, Sir! You are
not safe here except on your knees!”
* Nevertheless
the death-penalty, either here (1 Cor. 11: 30) or hereafter (Matt.
24: 51),
cannot alter the believer’s standing, nor forfeit his eternal life. Peter utters no warning to Ananias
of eternal [i.e., Gk.
‘aionios’]
death, nor perdition: nay, on the contrary, excommunication, whether enforced
by the Spirit or the Church is a “destruction of the
flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5: 5 [cf. Num. 14: 24, R.V.]).
* * *
* * *
*
19
RAPTURE A REWARD
By REGINALD T. NAISH
IT was
not the “conclusions of men” that led me to the
view I now hold, but a very careful study of the Word. I did not know of the
view held by the saints I quoted till after I had come to the same opinion. I
have since quoted their opinion, thinking it might help first to disarm the
prejudice with which many approach this subject if they knew that many of God’s
choicest saints had come to the same conclusion. It is, therefore, not my “pet theory,” but a view that has been held by
thousands of the Lord’s true children for many years.
I may be
asked whether there will be “divisional”
resurrections of those believers now in their graves, and if so, “in which portions of the Word are they indicated?”
Well, first, our Lord has admittedly risen from the dead, and He is called “the first fruit of them that slept.” May
there not be a first fruit of them that are alive and remain? Then does not Matt. 27: 52, 53 indicate
that there has already been a “divisional”
resurrection of believers sleeping in Christ? “Many
bodies of the saints which slept, arose.” It adds
that they “appeared unto many,” not to
everybody, because, like our Lord, their glorified bodies were unsuited to
ordinary life on earth.
A second question is regarding
the words - “Wherefore comfort one another with
these words” in 1 Thess.
4: 18.
You ask, who are to be comforted? The context makes it clear that the comfort
is for those who may have dear ones who have fallen asleep in Christ. Some
Thessalonian believers thought that these sleeping saints would miss the joy of
Christ’s millennial reign. The Holy Spirit wrote through Paul the preceding
message, to dispel this sad thought. The words are not words to comfort living
backsliders in the belief that they would, in any case, escape death by
translation.
In speaking of 1 Cor. 15: 51, “we shall all be changed, in a
moment,” we are taken to task because we “will not accept the plain declaration of the inspired Book at
face value.” But must we not compare Scripture with Scripture? You would
not take at its “face value” the words of our
Lord in Luke 14: 26,-
“If any man come to Me, and hate not his father and mother and wife and children
... he cannot be My disciple.” Clearly
comparing Scripture with Scripture our Lord did not teach that Christian
husbands should hate their wives! I merely try to show what I think the context
reveals, that the words “in a moment” refer
to the instantaneousness of the “change” when
it comes to a believer, and is not dealing with the point we are discussing as
to who are rapt.
Again, it is said:- “The Rapture does not depend on works, but it is all of
grace. It is the rewards that depend on works.” But may
not the Rapture be one of the rewards? If it be part and parcel of our salvation, and included in
the gift of eternal life, to escape death and be translated without dying, why
have so many believers
been robbed of this portion of
their salvation? Does not Paul speak of it as a reward when he says, “If by any means I might attain
unto the out-resurrection from among the dead,” and
when he adds, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the on-high
calling”?
It is said that “the idea that the Rapture depends on works leads those who
hold it unto self-righteousness.” If that be so, and rewards, as he
says, do “depend on works,” then are not all those
who work for rewards guilty of self-righteousness? All rewards are
fundamentally of grace, for they will be given to those believers who, seeing
the futility of working out their own holiness, let the mighty Holy Spirit of
grace come in to fill their surrendered being, and make the Lord Jesus a
living, bright, joyous Reality in their hearts.
Let us then lovingly go forward,
fighting shoulder to shoulder in the good fight of faith, and believing that as
we near the
-------
CALLED, CHOSEN, FAITHFUL
IN the Apocalypse there bursts on us the first vision we get of
any of the saved after the judgment Seat is over, as they descend with the Lord
on to the surface of the earth.
“And
they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful.” Rev. 19: 14.
Unless we are prepared to say that
all the saved of all ages, without a solitary exception, are “faithful” servants of God - a monstrous untruth of which no living
Christian would be guilty- we must acknowledge that all the saved are not here,
for these are carefully defined as found “faithful.” A
faithful man is one who has fulfilled his responsibilities, consistently
discharged his trust, and remained constant throughout his service to his
leader. “Not all the saved compose the army; it is an
election from the elect of all dispensations. They are ‘called,’ designated by name;
‘chosen,’ out of
many others; ‘faithful,’ as manifested by their life now past” (Govett).
-------
BE THOU FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH
WELL did the Master say “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” If the warfare we had to wage were only with
the undisguisedly wicked, we could enter upon it without misgivings; but the
sharpest pains we suffer, the deepest wounds we bear, are seldom those
inflicted by the open enemies of our Lord and Saviour. It is those we respect,
honour, and love whose thrusts are most deadly and whom in return we are at
times compelled to hurt by doing what we feel to be right. To a sensitive
spirit it is a fearful thing to encounter the coldness, the aloofness, or the
outspoken censure of the circle in which we move, and the temptation is great
to win its approval when we can. No true Christian can go right through life
without sooner or later, on a small scale or a great, finding himself
misunderstood and opposed by fellow-Christians, some of whom may be personally
dear to him. Faithfulness to one’s vision is sure to involve a trial of this
kind, and it is no light one. Sweet friendships are often sundered thereby,
tender affections wounded to the quick; it is a heart-piercing thing to see a
beloved face turned from you, to perceive cordial trust alienated at the very
moment when you are in greatest need of it; it is hard to keep silence on the
subject that is first in your thoughts, because it happens to be just the one
subject that has divided you from your circle or your closest friend. Seldom
are such breaches thoroughly healed in this world. Be vigilant therefore lest you be seduced to betray your soul or be
less than true to what the Spirit of all truth requires of you. Neither by silence nor by speech seek to
win commendation by seeming to agree where you do not agree or to admire what
you conscientiously feel to be wrong. The
temptation may be sore to win an advantage by concealing your true convictions
when the temper of your company is hostile to them, but to yield to it is to be
guilty of the sin of quenching the Spirit, which none can do without harming
others as well as himself.
To speak the truth in love is
often hard, but grace is afforded to him who makes the effort in faith and
humility. It is hard to blame when you long to praise, to point out a
shortcoming or wound a proud man’s self-esteem; but when it has to be done, do
it without fear or falsity as though you stood before the judgment seat of
Christ, and leave the outcome to Him. Be gentle, modest, and strong, and your
Lord will sustain you. Let there be no smallest trace of self-seeking or
self-righteousness in any difficult thing that you have to say or do in the
name of Jesus, and you will have no cause to regret the stand you take whatever
you have to suffer for it. For in the long run it is better to hold the respect
of Jesus than that of fallible man, and even in the sadness of a lonely hour
His whispered word of peace is worth more than all the adulation of the world.
- R. J. CAMPBELL, D.D.
-------
REWARD
“IF any man’s work abide which he
hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he
himself shall be saved.” You see there is a saved soul with a lost
life. That is a possibility - a saved soul, because he came to the
judgment-seat to find pardon through the death of Christ; and a lost life,
because he came to the umpire seat of Christ, and had not used for Him the life
that he saved. That is a solemn possibility; and when the Lord comes to award
to His servants the praise or the blame, they will meet Him with joy or shame.
That will be marked out by the life they have lived, and the service they have
rendered for Him. You find then, that He is going to give rewards for service.
Look at 1 Cor. 15: 58. What
does that mean? That every, may we say, pennyworth of labour spent on the Lord
is going to have a pound for its reward. That is the way He does. He is going
to reward the service of His children, and at the umpire seat He will decide
whether you ran straight or not at all, whether you shirked the race or ran it,
whether you ran fairly or foully; whether you came in so as to earn the prize
or lose the prize. The Lord is going
to decide that, and give to every one according as he has deserved. - HUBERT BROOKE.
* * *
* * *
*
20
THE MIDNIGHT CRY
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
OUR Lord devotes one of the
most wonderful of His parables to stressing the danger of our not squaring our
whole life to the Second Advent. Immediately following this parable, He shows
ten of His servants at the Judgment Seat, accounting for the talents with which
they had been entrusted - our discipleship examined as a whole, in its
activities for God; but, most appropriately preceding this, ten virgins - ten,
in both parables as throughout Scripture, is the number of responsibility -
selected to be bridesmaids are shown in their character rather than their works: they are flaming torches, or else dying
lamps. This parable, unlike the parable of the talents, displays not so much
what we have done in the
years since our conversion, as what we are for personally meeting the
Beloved. All ten virgins are watching for Christ’s return, and are set apart as
bridesmaids for the marriage supper which is to celebrate the Kingdom: all ten
are believers, and all are consciously and truthfully expecting the Advent, and
have accepted the invitation to the marriage feast.*
* The Apostolic Church, and to a
large degree the Early Church that followed it, all looked for the bodily
return of Christ, and all the reborn for nineteen centuries are potential
bridesmaids, for all are summoned - whether they believe in the Advent or not -
to meet the Lord in the air.
The Bride
OUR Lord, who is the
Bridegroom - He Himself said, “The days come when the bridegroom
will be taken away from them” (Matt. 9:
15) - has one Bride in the Epistles, that
is, the Church; but He has another Bride in the Gospels and Apocalypse, that
is, the
Bridesmaids
THE description of the Ten
Bridesmaids is decisive of their spiritual relationship to Christ. They are all
‘virgins’: as Paul says, speaking to “all that call upon the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place” (1 Cor. 1: 2):- “I espoused you to one husband, that I
might present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11: 2). They are thus all summed up as ‘the kingdom of heaven.’ The foolish virgins, equally with
the wise, do not ‘profess’ to be His bridesmaids, and to
be virgins, but are described as such
by our Lord Himself, having been selected by Christ and so made bridesmaids; and the sole
difference between the two groups, as stated by the great Judge Himself, is
that one group is fully prepared for the Advent and the other group is not.* “To be a virgin is the destination of a Christian: he is
called to purity, sanctification, abstinence from spiritual whoredom, idolatry.
Unbelievers, who are without any expectation of the Lord, belong to neither
class of virgins” (Heubner). Nor, had any been unbelievers, could our Lord have
described all ten as composing ‘the kingdom of
heaven.’
* One
physical fact, alone, is decisive that these are all regenerate souls. All ten
virgins are stated by our Lord as meeting together, at one time and in one
place. No student of prophecy doubts that the wise virgins meet Him in the
Pavilion of Cloud, after rapture, and not on the earth: even the
post-Tribulationists believe in the removal of the Church from earth “to meet the Lord in the air” (1
Thess. 4: 17), and not on
Lamps
Now the picture focuses
itself on such Christian living as alone constitutes a full and adequate
preparation for the Advent. “The foolish,
when they took their lamps, took no oil with them: but the
wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.” The oil
is the Holy Ghost, and the grace He imparts. All the ten virgins have lit
lamps:- “ye are the light of the world” (Matt.
5: 14); “ye were once darkness, but are
now light in the Lord” (Eph.
5: 8); ye
“are seen as lights in the world” (Phil. 2: 15). But for meeting our Lord at the Judgment Seat
more is required than conversion. As a motor carries petrol in a separate can,
in addition to the petrol which is actually driving the car, so fresh supplies
of grace, in addition to conversion, are needed for a ready and translated
saint. Justification lit the lamp: only sanctification keeps it blazing.
Midnight
So now the crisis arrives.
“At midnight there is a cry, Behold the bridegroom!” As Lange puts it:- “The midnights in the
history of the
Dying Lights
THE startling cry - “Come ye forth,” out of the tombs, “to meet him!” - rivets the attention of all
the Virgins on their lamps; and as they ‘trimmed’ them -
removing dead ashes that hinder the flame- the foolish virgins discover their
state. They cry, “Our lamps are going out!”* Their error abounds all around us at this moment. They had
based everything on their conversion: they stress grace as everything, and our
being under law to Christ as little or nothing: they fancy that somehow all
will come right, and that there is no real need for such urgent warning and
watching. Onlookers had probably realized the state of their lamps before they
did: the flickering light, the gutting wick, the twilight in the room - growing
darkness infallibly betrays itself to all who see it. Of thousands of churches
today, and probably hundreds of thousands of believers, if not millions, the
cry is true at this moment - “Our lamps are going
out.” In the words of Dean
Alford:-“It is not enough to have burnt, but to be burning when He comes.”**
* “The Greek is more correctly rendered in the margin of our Bibles, ‘are going out’. Had their lamps already ‘gone out,’ they would have needed not merely to trim and
feed them, but must have further asked from their companions permission to
kindle them anew, of which we read nothing”
(Trench).
** Whether
they obtain the additional oil or not is immaterial: in any case they arrive
too late: the door is locked.
Unrecognized
THE judgment on the dying
lamps now falls. The wise virgins enter, the feast begins, the door is shut.
The wonderful honour which the foolish virgins have discovered that they can no
longer claim as a right, they now ask as a favour, casting themselves
passionately on the mercy of Christ:- “Lord,
Lord,” - for He is their Lord - “open unto us!” They have forgotten (or not known)
that the Judgment Seat at the very moment of the midnight cry replaced the
Mercy Seat. Our Lord’s stern words follow:- “Verily
I say unto you, I know you not.” The Lord’s remarkable change of judgment language reveals whom
he is addressing: when in judgment He addresses unbelievers, He says: “Then will I profess unto them, I never
knew you: depart from me, ye that work
iniquity” (Matt. 7: 23). He
addresses no such words to these. He says:- “I do not
acknowledge you” (Lange); or, as
we say, I ‘cut’ you: I do not recognize you as
the bridesmaids who shall lift the bride’s trousseau in the marriage hall: you
have forfeited your right to be known as such.
Our Lord had warned us of such a possible judgment as this:- “Be not afraid of them which kill the body”; for “whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my
Father which is in heaven” (Matt.
10: 28, 33).
Unwatchful
THE punishment of the foolish
virgins is very limited and temporary; and it is an error to expand it into a
larger and graver loss, which is neither named nor implied. “Some authors,” says Archbishop Trench, “connect with all this the
doctrine of the thousand years’ reign of Christ upon earth and a first
resurrection; from the blessedness of which these should be shut out for the unpreparedness in which they were found, whether at the
hour of their death, or of the second coming of their Lord. Their
imperfections, and the much in them remaining unmortified
and unpurified still, will have needed the long and
painful purging of this exclusion, and of the fearful persecutions to which all
thus excluded will be exposed; but the root of the matter being in them, they
do not forfeit everything, nor finally fall short of the heavenly joy” (The Parables, p. 237). So Lange:- “Olshausen, Alford, and others, suppose that the foolish
virgins were only excluded from the Millennium, but not from the ultimate
Watchful
So the wise virgins reveal
the destiny of the ready:- “They that were
ready went in to the marriage feast”: “they
are those to whom is ministered an abundant entrance into the Kingdom” (Trench).
It was the wish of Augustine that
when Christ came He should find him either praying or preaching. George Muller died while prostrate on his
face before God in prayer. Our Lord has expressed it elsewhere. “Let your loins be girded about” - taut,
tense, ready for instant departure - “AND YOUR LAMPS BURNING” - the blaze of a God-lit life, unflickering: “and be ye yourselves
like unto men looking for their Lord” (Luke
12: 35).*
* This
main principle, which is the soul of the parable, remains unchallengeable; but
it is also possible that the oil in the vessels is the ‘baptism’ of the Spirit (Acts 1: 5), subsequent to conversion (Acts 19: 2), conferring
miraculous gifts (Acts 2: 4). This would explain why all ten “grew drowsy
and fell asleep”: no miracle-gifted believers have been alive for perhaps
sixteen centuries; and none will be before the midnight cry - the summons of
the first rapt. For this interpretation see a later article in this issue on
the oil in the vessels. The strongest argument in its favour is that the
slumber, shared by all ten, can hardly be spiritual sleep, for five receive the
fullest possible reward. “There is a sleep which is
common to all, the sleep of death, which is here indicated; and such is the
explanation of nearly all the ancient interpreters” (Trench). On the other hand, the moral
drawn by our Lord Himself - “Watch therefore” - embodies intense mental and spiritual
readiness, not a seeking for inspiration and miracle.
* * *
* * *
*
21
THE TEN VIRGINS
1 - Alford
ALL here are virgins, all
are companions of the Bride, all furnished with brightly burning lamps, all, up
to a certain time, fully ready to meet the Bridegroom - the difference consists
in some having made a provision for feeding the lamps in case of delay, and the
others none; and the moral of the
parable is the blessedness of endurance unto the end. These are souls come
out from the world into the Church, and there waiting for the coming of the
Lord - not hypocrites, but faithful souls bearing their lamps (1 Thess. 4: 4), the
inner spiritual life fed with the oil of God’s Spirit (see Zech. 4: 2-12; Acts 10: 38; Heb. 1: 9). The wise virgins have all diligence to make
their calling and election sure (2 Pet. 1: 10 and 5-8), making
their bodies, souls and spirits (their ‘vessels,’
2 Cor. 4: 7) a means
of supplying spiritual food for the light within, by seeking, in the appointed means of grace, more and
more of God’s Holy Spirit. The others did not this - but, trusting that the
light, once burning, would ever burn, made no provision for the strengthening
of the inner man by watchfulness and prayer.
2 - Olshausen
THIS
parable, which must be considered one of the finest in the Gospel, contrasts
with the parable of the Talents that follows:
whilst the ‘servants’ are
busily at work, and engaged in a variety of concerns, the ‘virgins’ wait to meet the beloved. The fact
that they are all characterized as virgins is a proof that the antithesis of ‘wise’ and ‘foolish’ is not
to be taken in the sense of' ‘good’ and ‘wicked’ for the idea of gross
transgression is incompatible with love to the Lord. The foolish virgins are
merely to be viewed as representing minds who seek that which is pleasing and
sweet in the service of the Lord, instead of following Him in right earnest,
and who neglect to labour after thorough renewal, and to build in the right way
upon the foundation that is laid (1 Cor. 3: 15). When feeling was no longer sufficient, and nothing but thorough self-denial could avail them, the flame of their
love died away. It is clear that the words,
“I know you not” (verse 12), cannot denote eternal condemnation; for, on the contrary, the foolish virgins
are only excluded from the marriage of the Lamb (Rev.
19: 7);
hence they must be viewed as parallel with the persons described (1 Cor. 3: 15) whose
building is destroyed, but who are not thereby deprived of eternal happiness.
These virgins possessed the general condition of happiness, faith (which led
them to cry ‘Lord, Lord!’,
verse 11); but they lacked the requisite
qualification for the [inherited (Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5)]
3 -The Pulpit Commentary
THESE
virgins all alike took their lamps; all alike went forth to meet the
bridegroom; all too had oil in their lamps, although not all had a store of oil
in their vessels also. Then all were something more than nominal Christians,
all had, in some sense, come out of the world, and had gone to meet the
Bridegroom. There are no hypocrites in the parable, no openly wicked and
disobedient men. This consideration gives it a very awful meaning; it is not enough to have been once
awakened, there is need of constant, persevering watchfulness. The parable
embodies and enforces the lesson of the last verse, “Watch therefore, for ye know
not the day nor the hour.” It is not enough to have been ‘once enlightened.’ The foolish had their lamps;
and the lamps were not empty or dark, they were burning, they had oil in them.
Then even the foolish were using the means of grace, they had been made “partakers of the Holy Ghost” (Heb. 6: 4).
But they had no oil with them. They delighted in their past experience,
and trusted in it as if they had all that was needed for their spiritual life.
The wise virgins counted not themselves to have apprehended: they forgot what
was behind, and ever reached forth unto those things which were before; they
sought in persevering prayer and daily self-denials, and the constant faithful
use of the appointed means of grace, for ‘the
supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ’; not quenching the Spirit, as
careless slothful Christians do, but treasuring in their hearts that sacred
Gift, striving always to grow in grace,
to walk in the Spirit, to mind the things of the Spirit, to be filled with the
Spirit, to increase in the Holy Spirit more and more.
The Bridegroom tarried; the time
of waiting was long - longer much than the foolish virgins had thought. The
first excitement passed away, some
had left their first love, the love of most was growing cold. The shades of
difference amongst Christians is innumerable: some are utterly careless; some
rouse themselves from time to time to thought and real effort; some try by the
power of faith and prayer to keep themselves in the love of God, and to love
the appearing of the Saviour. But none realize to the full the tremendous
necessity of watchfulness; none live in that fixed attention, in that full
preparedness, in that daily and hourly anticipation of the Saviour’s coming,
which we should regard as the true Christian frame of mind, to which we should strive to approximate nearer and
nearer, in all humility and self-distrust, not counting ourselves to have
attained, but ever pressing forward.
4 - Greswell
“GIVE to us from your oil; because our lamps are beginning to go out.” The
meaning of these words is, that their lamps had begun to be extinguished, but
were not quite extinct. It was easy for the wise virgins, having a supply of
oil at hand, to pour a little more into them, and to revive the flame as
effectually as ever; which the parable calls “trimming
their lamps.”
All of them previously waiting
for, and expecting the bridegroom in common, all of them previously having the
same personal interest in the event of his coming, and the same personal
inducement to wait for and expect it - the separation, notwithstanding its
effects in discriminating between the personal fortunes of its subjects
respectively at last, is due to the difference of their personal conduct
before; and being no more than the necessary consequence of the different use
of means and opportunities, equally in the power of both, and equally left to
their own discretion, it is after all only the just personal retribution which
prudence or imprudence of conduct, in the same situation, the right or wrong
use of similar means and opportunities, under circumstances equally favourable
for either, are liable at all times, and may be expected in the end, to suffer.
The virgins, as members of the
visible
5 - Govett
THE wise enter simply as
‘the ready,’ not as the true virgins, while the others were only professedly
so; not as having lit torches, while the others’ lights were extinguished; but
as the ready differ from the imprudent and unready. “They,”
says Jerome, “who complain that their lamps are going
out, manifest that they are still partially alight.” The wise enter the
king’s house by ascension, after the resurrection which they enjoy in common
with the foolish.
Viewed in this light, the words,
“Verily I say unto you, I know you not,” carry no sentence of final
exclusion. They import solely - “You are no
acquaintance of mine.” The wise are guests, not simply as virgins, but as
virgin-acquaintances, and that acquaintanceship is discriminated from the
ignorance of the foolish by the oil-vessel, and its counterpart - the brightly
burning torch. The others are refused, not, as not virgins, but as deficient in
intimacy with the bridegroom. The qualification which comes into notice at the
awakening is something more than what is required merely in order to enter the
kingdom. It is some special quality, not answering to simple grace, or the virginity
of the person, but one having relation to the special glory of the bridal
bouquet. This demand the one party can meet, the other cannot. The second
brightness of the torch, after its trimming, on awaking, answers to a second
inward qualification of the prudent, till now concealed - their acquaintance
with the bridegroom.
The foolish, discovering their
waning lights, petition for oil. They set out in quest of it. Now neither the hypocrite
nor the true believer could fall into error so gross as is supposed, if we make
the oil to signify the ‘converting grace’ of
God. Who knows not, that his fellow cannot grant it? Who of the
lost will not awake to the full conviction that his opportunity is gone for
ever, when once he arises* from the dead? “After
death, the judgment.”
[* Is this
correct? or does judgment not take place before the resurrection from “Hades”. Heb. 9: 27. cf. Ps.
139: 8b; Luke 20: 35; Phil. 3: 11, R.V.]
* * *
* * *
*
22
THE OIL IN THE VESSELS
This interpretation by Robert
Govett, which understands by the oil in the vessels (Matt.
25: 4)
not the Spirit indwelling, but the Spirit outpoured, that on-fall of the Holy
Spirit on those already believers which produced inspiration and miracle, is
worthy of most careful consideration- Ed., DAWN.
SUPPOSE it will be granted
that by oil is meant the grace of the Holy Ghost. And this is twofold: either sanctifying
or miraculous. If then I show that the second supply is not sanctifying grace,
it will follow that it is miraculous endowment, or ‘the gift of grace.’
1. That it is not any difference in degree of sanctification
which is in question is clear from this - that then the parable would supply us
with no rule by which to discern between wise and foolish. For if you tell me
only, that the difference lies in degree of sanctification, if you do not point
out the degree, I must be either
terrified or secure. Terrified, if I
think I have not the degree requisite, while none can satisfy me what the
degree required is; or secure, that I have some grace, and why may that not be
enough to set me among the wise?
2. It cannot be any degree of sanctification, for this oil gives no
light to the
world. It is unemployed in good works, or the light of the torch.
3. As being a distinct supply, it follows that the oil in the
torch might be without that in the vessel, or vice versa. But it is not true that any degree of
the grace of sanctification can be distinct from its display in good works.
There cannot be two supplies of it, independent one of the other. But
miraculous gift is distinct from, and may be independent of grace (Matt.
7).
4. If they be all believers, the difference must be one which
is not essential to salvation. And among
things not essential to salvation, what so great as the difference between the
possession or the want of the gifts of the Holy Ghost?
5. It is met and sustained by fact. Between the believers of
modern times and the ancient church, there is, in this particular, just the
difference supposed: the one possessing, the other wanting, the gifts of the
Spirit.
6. A consideration of the order in which the wise and foolish
appear beautifully confirms this. We have the wise presented first, then the
foolish (verse 2). Then again the foolish,
and lastly the wise (verse 3). Thus the wise
come first and last; the foolish occupy the intermediate space. And has it not
been exactly thus with the Spirit’s gifts? They were possessed at first, and
then ceased, and the whole dreary interval of sixteen hundred years has been
taken up by believers destitute of them. We might conclude, therefore, that as
gifted believers began the series, and ungifted ones have followed, so in the
last days gifted believers will arise again, and close the train. But we can
show by Scripture, independently of inference, that such will be the case (Acts 2: 17, 18; Mark 13: 11; Luke 21: 14, 15; Rev. 16: 6; 18: 24; 2 Tim. 3: 8: Jas. 5: 7).
7. On the taking it or not, the greatest stress is laid
throughout the parable. On purpose to
set it in the strongest light possible, the wise and foolish agree together in
every particular but this. And the difference is optional; for in things within our power alone
can wisdom or folly be seen. So are the gifts of the Spirit made to rest upon
our asking for them or not (Luke 11: 13; 1 Cor. 14: 1). In the asking for, and receiving these,
therefore, that vigilance may consist which is the lesson drawn from the
parable by our Lord.
8. They are the “powers of the
coming age” (Heb. 6: 5). And
answerably thereto, this oil is seen to come into play when the new [Messianic and Millennial] age is
begun.
9. They that sleep with the oil vessel, awake with it. And even thus, the ‘gifts’ of God are unrepented of (Rom. 11: 29).
10. The additional oil was the riches of the wise virgins, the
want of it the poverty of the foolish, at the coming of the bridegroom. Now
this is just the place seen to be occupied by the [Holy]
Spirit’s gifts, in connection with the coming of the Lord Jesus. “I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus
Christ, that in everything ye are enriched
by him in all utterance and in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that ye lack no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ; who also shall
confirm you to the end, that ye may be
blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1
Cor. 1: 4-8).
11. Exhortations to seek and to pray for the gifts occur not
unfrequently, in token that the additional oil is not in vain. “Covet earnestly the best gifts” (1 Cor. 12: 31). “Desire spiritual gifts, but
rather that ye may prophesy” (14:
1).
12. “But,” someone may say, who
is satisfied with the argument here propounded, “what
if I fall asleep after praying for the gifts, without obtaining one?” The
answer is easy. Then the responsibility rests not with you, but with God. You
are a wise virgin: you have done what you could to procure the oil. Be assured
the Lord will remember you.
* * *
* * *
*
23
WHO IS THE ANTICHRIST?
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
Mussolini is either a
remarkable understudy of the Seventh Emperor yet to come, or he is the man; and
while probability points to his being an understudy, the fact thrills us to the
soul that we cannot exclude the possibility of his being no less a person than
the Seventh Emperor. For in either case Mussolini is correctly acting the part
in its initial stages. His avowed intention is the revival of the
* It casts
a very sinister light on the modern Jesuit that while the
** M. A.
Sarlatti’s Life of Mussolini,
p. 344.
SEVEN EMPERORS
It thus becomes of urgent
importance that the Church should know what God has revealed. Antichrist is
catalogued among seven emperors, obviously Roman. “The seven heads are” -
regarded territorially - “seven mountains” - the
NERO CAESAR
Now God Himself has provided a
single master-clue for the final identification, an identification which, therefore,
He manifestly desires, and the more so, the nearer the Monster approaches.
“Here is wisdom” - not presumption, or speculation, or curiosity, but wisdom: “he that hath understanding, let him” - by the direct permission and
encouragement of God - “count the number of the beast;* for it is the number of a man” - not of a system, or a plurality
of men: “and his number” - that is, the number made by his name - “is six hundred and sixty and six” (Rev. 13: 18). Bearing in mind that wherever the Holy Ghost
names a Caesar, He includes the patronymic (Luke 2: 1; 3: 1; Acts 11: 28), the clue reveals the man: NERO
CAESAR, in Hebrew, alone among the names of the Five, yields the
number. A manuscript variation
supplies a confirmation extraordinarily subtle and convincing. Some ancient
authorities read 616. Now [the numeric value of] ‘N,’
in Greek, stands for 50: the
Spirit, writing in Greek, gives the Greek
form of the name - Neron;
but the Latin form is Nero, which is 616: doubtless some
Latin copyist, knowing it to be Nero, computed the sum on the Latin form of the
name.** Thus the vilest of
Caesars must rise [out] from
the dead, to fulfil the mighty drama that yet awaits him: “and his
death-stroke was HEALED” (Rev. 13: 3); for “the beast was, and is not,
and is about to come up out of the abyss” (Rev. 17: 8).
*
Napoleon approached, if he did not achieve, this sin. Over his throne during a fete in
** “That is, the number may be calculated, and is intended
to be known” (Dean Alford).
CONFIRMATORY PROOF
Now there are several extremely remarkable
confirmations of an exegesis which may seem to some startling or even
grotesque. The majority of contemporary scholars confirm it. “Reckless criticism alone,” says the leading modern
non-Christian work on Antichrist, “will venture to
deny that the picture of Nero redivivus stands in the foreground of Rev. 13. and 17.”* Still
more remarkably, it was a dominant belief throughout the
* W. Bousset, The Antichrist Legend, p. 184. So many others:
as Lucke, Ewald, Bleek, De Wette, Renan,
Dean Farrar, Moses Stuart, Govett,
etc. “Certainly,” says Dr. Swete, “Nero
Caesar suits the context well.” But all
(except Govett) reject the miracle of his resurrection. On which, only one
word need be said. Whoever doubts foretold miracle, whether Satanic or Divine,
is hopelessly incapacitated for the coming crisis: he will simply be shunted on to a siding, while Satan’s express
thunders past.
A FITTED ANTICHRIST
The choice and plot of Satan now
reveals itself in Nero - proverbially the wickedest man known to history, and
extra, ordinarily adapted for Hell’s substitute Christ.
* That
Nero’s was “the mouth of the lion” out of which Paul
was so narrowly delivered, and that Antichrist is described in the Apocalypse
as the possessor of “the mouth of the lion” (Rev. 13: 2), is another link of identity. It may be only a
curious coincidence, but the very simile of a Wild Beast, and that beast a
lion, Mussolini applies to himself as a
summary of his ambitions. “I am obsessed by this
wild desire - it consumes my whole being. I want to make a mark on my era, like
a lion with its claw.” He
keeps lions as pets, and one is named Italia.
THE COMING DRAMA
But there is one solution of as
difficult an enigma as the Scripture contains which is almost unknown, and
which introduces the ghastly drama the world is yet to see. The Seventh
Emperor, who is probably on the threshold, will restore, either by heredity* or
military seizure or both, the lost succession of the Roman Emperors: he will
not be the real Antichrist, for he will not have come up as a lost spirit from
the Abyss - the Seventh was never one of the Five, as the Eighth is, but,
continuing a short time,** he so lays the electric wires
of world-empire that when the master-hand arrives, every touch thrills the
world. (The removal of the Hinderer - the Holy Spirit and the Hindrance - the
Watchful Saints - while essential before the Eighth, or real Antichrist, who immediately introduces [after he breaks his covenant with Israel] the Great Tribulation (2 Thess. 2: 6, 7), is not
essential before the appearance of the Seventh). Then, suddenly and publicly assassinated, into his freshly
murdered body - the ‘wheels of being’ scarcely stopt - the spirit of Nero, incarnated by the Dragon,
composes “an eighth that is of the seven”***; and lo, the False Christ that enchants the world! It is this
visible resurrection of the Seventh Emperor that enthralls
the earth. “His death-stroke was healed, and the whole world WONDERED
after the beast” (Rev. 13: 3).
* An
identical phrase (Rev. 12: 12) covers
three years and a half.
** “An eighth: the
absence of the article shows that this is not the eighth in a successive
series in which the kings already mentioned form the first seven”
(Principal A. Plummer, D.D.). This explains
the stress laid on reincarnation by Theosophists and the French Spiritualists.
*** It is
supposed that Mussolini, though a
blacksmith’s son (cp. Dan. 11: 21), is
descended from the proud Bolognese Mussolini, as Napoleon was a Florentine:
both may
be Caesars. It is, however,
against Mussolini being the Seventh Emperor that a rumour (which may, nevertheless, be false) states that he has
the mysterious disease which killed Lenin
- a wasting destruction of the brain.
THE GOSPEL OF THE ANTICHRIST
For the deadliest fact in Hell’s
masterpiece lies in that which has ever been Satan’s supreme wisdom - a close
imitation of God. There will be a gospel of the Antichrist. For he
is an incarnation: he will be visibly slain, and visibly resurrected: he thus
offers, as the basis of his gospel, a genuine resurrection, public and beyond
dispute: his appearance will be his second advent on the earth.* So the ‘mark,’ his ritual, will (like circumcision) be a
cutting of the flesh, apparently an imitation (like the Lord’s Supper) of his
own death-wounds, which will thus be, in his gospel, his sacramental sign.
Immortal, he is thus able to murder the two men more miracle-gifted of God than
any mortals have ever been (Rev. 11: 6) - “who is able to war with him?” (Rev. 13: 4); and as dowered by the Dragon with the full
perfection of Satanic miracle (2 Thess. 2: 9), his empire, in imitation of our Lord’s, will
be the world-dominion of a god-emperor.
It is such an “all deceivableness” (2 Thess. 2: 10) as “to lead astray, if possible,
EVEN THE ELECT”
(Matt. 24:
24).
* Alford translates Rev. 17: 8:- “he was, and is not, and shall
come again.”
* * *
* * *
*
24
OUR IDEAL OUTLOOK
The whole world a glorious
Empire of our Lord: between us and it a perishing civilization, and a broad,
black belt of coming judgments: what therefore is to be our outlook? What
should be our ideal attitude of mind? An Apostle embodies it. Paul sits weaving
his tent-skins, so easily rent, so perishable, then he looks at the hands that
weave - themselves such fragile tent-skins of the soul; and then he lifts his
eyes, and sees an indestructible mansion of the spirit, not woven with fingers;
a mansion which no human hands ever built, and which no human hands can ever
destroy. “Being therefore always of good
courage,” he cries; for here is our ideal outlook, the outlook God
would have us enjoy always: because “he that
wrought us for this very thing” - the change from the mortal to
the immortal, from earth to heaven - “is God,
who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit”; the
earnest, that is, the initial pledge, the part payment. Our conversion holds in
it our immortal glory.
So the Apostle first of all sets
us on the foundation of a fact. We faint not, he says; “for we know” - as a certainty resting on God’s
own statements, a golden assurance confined solely to the Christian Faith - “that if the earthly house of our tabernacle” - our
animal body; a ‘tent’, the
most fragile and perishable of all residences - “be
dissolved” - dissolution only, not destruction, awaits our mortal body- “we have a building from God, a house not
made with hands, eternal, in the heavens” (2 Cor. 5: 1). We have it, either on divine assurance, or it is already in the
heavens; from God - not, as this earthly frame, from our mother, but fresh from
God in a new creation; eternal - no fragile, collapsible tent, but (so to speak) a marble mansion; in the
heavens - the new body is nowhere said to be made out of the dust of the earth,
but is an immortal, indissoluble, heaven-born residence of the soul.
Paul twice stresses our present unideal condition. “For verily in this we groan: for indeed we that are in this tabernacle do
groan, being burdened.” We groan, not because we are in
flesh, but because we are in sinful flesh, with the ‘burden’ that sin consequently has
imposed on us - disease; infirmity; temptation; heart-break; death. Paul
himself felt it sharply, He exclaims:-“O
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out
of the body of this death?” (Rom.
7: 24).
But now the bedrock fact he has
stated reveals an intensely and characteristically Christian revelation, and
one more utter proof of the divinity of our Faith. “Verily in this we groan, longing
to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven: not for that we would be unclothed.” We groan, not to get rid of a body, but to get a better; a body
in which prayer will not be a weariness, sin will not be an attraction, disease
will not be a possibility, and death will not be the goal. “Not that we would be unclothed” -
becoming bodiless, homeless, dehumanized ghosts: death is a sentence on sin -
it is not normal to the human that God created: our body, the clothing of the
soul, is the most wonderful and most exquisitely constructed thing on earth,
and we rightly love life and shrink from death. So we observe the double truth
which Christianity alone reveals. Our old body is to be resuscitated, in part;
but a new body is also to descend upon us; and the wonderful new composition is
to be our spirit’s eternal home. As Dean Alford puts it:- “We are not willing to divest ourselves [of our fragile tent], but to
put on [our indestructible dwelling] over it."
So then we get our ideal
outlook. “Longing to be clothed upon” - as by
an outer or over garment- “with our habitation
which is from heaven”: in this body we groan, earnestly
desiring to put on over it our
house which is from heaven (Dean Stanley):
so, in the golden words of Paul, “that
what is mortal may be SWALLOWED up
of life”. Our hope is not to be
buried under the debris of a collapsing tent, but - with the picture of Enoch
and Elijah before us - transmuted at once, by rapture, into the holy and
heavenly. Centuries before Christ the exact process was revealed by God Himself
to Ezekiel (37:
5):- “Thus saith the
Lord God unto these bones: Behold, I will lay sinews upon you, and
will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with
skin.” So Paul reveals its inevitability, since (as he says) God had
created us for this very thing:- “for
this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15: 53). Nature
gives us a wonderful little symbol. Deep
down in the bowels of the earth is a bit of buried charcoal: by a process no
mortal knows, and which, if discovered, would make a chemist inconceivably
wealthy, it turns to diamond: so the
old body, alive or dead, is our charcoal swallowed up of diamond. “Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation” - this body of
our humiliation, not a substitute; but this body with a tremendous addition - “that it may be conformed to the body of his glory” (Phil. 3: 21). It is so stupendous a truth, and so beyond
even our imagination, that the Apostle John says:- “We know not yet what we shall be, but we
know that we shall be LIKE HIM, for
we shall see him as he is” (1
John 3: 2).
But a deeper lesson for our outlook
remains to modify and expand it. Death, natural or violent, may yet intervene
between us and the Lord’s Kingdom; and so Paul exclaims that we are always of
good courage; because, “knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord, we are
willing rather to be absent from the
body, and to be at home with the Lord.” Dean Alford truly says:- “To be at home with the Lord is all that is revealed to us,
and it would seem that it was all that was revealed to Paul, of the disembodied
state of the blessed.” To the only dying believer to whom He ever spoke
Jesus said:- “This day shalt thou be with
me in
JOHN 17: 24
‘With Me’. No more is told
What
more, Lord, couldst Thou tell?
Thou
knewest that would satisfy
The
heart that knows Thee well.
So also
the church has sung for ages
Here in the
body pent,
Absent
from Him I roam,
Yet
nightly pitch my moving tent
A day’s
march nearer home.
So then
we reach the practical outcome of our outlook. “Wherefore
also we make it our aim” - it is our passionate ambition - “whether at home or absent, to
be well pleasing unto him”: our ambition, whether He find
us alive or in the tomb at His Coming, is to meet with His approval in that day
(Alford). All life itself is a
wonderful opportunity of pleasing Christ; and the sole way to please our Lord
is living the Word of God. It is manifest to us all that a heavenly life in the
earthly body is infinitely the best preparation for the heavenly life in the
heavenly body. Melandthon
cried, when dangerously ill, “Let me die!” but Luther replied, “No, we want you, and you are not to be let off yet: you must
stand in the thick of the battle till the fight changes and victory is ours.”
For, finally, there looms up
before the Apostle the controlling factor in our Christian conduct, and the
goal of our entire outlook. “For we must all be
made manifest before the Judgment-seat of Christ: that each one” - that is, one by one - “may
receive” - the technical word for receiving wages (Alford) “the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” That
is, we are now writing our own sentence at the Judgment-Seat. “The expression Bema, is peculiar to these two passages (Rom. 14: 10), being taken from the
tribunal of the Roman magistrate as the most august representation of justice
which the world then exhibited. The Bema was a lofty seat, raised on an
elevated platform, usually at the end of the Basilica, so that the figure of
the judge could be seen towering above the crowd which thronged the nave of the
building” (Dean Stanley). And
this very passage has already contained the characteristic Scriptural warning. “Longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from
heaven, if so be that being clothed we shall NOT BE FOUND NAKED.” The fine linen, with which the Bride
is clothed at the Bridegroom’s coming, “is the
righteous acts of the saints” (Rev. 19: 8); without these ‘righteous
acts’ the Bride is bare of a trousseau, and therefore ashamed before him
at his coming” (1 John 2: 28). So our whole outlook closes on the Bema. Nothing
matters but the Judgment Seat. What
men have thought and said of us will sink into utter
nothingness when we stand, alone,
before the King of kings.
* * *
* * *
*
25
OBEDIENCE TO THE STATE
An angel
of God is the happy background of the Apostles’ outlook on storm. A messenger
from Heaven had swung open the prison gates, and now stands before them,
commanding them into the very heart of the tempest:- “Go ye, and stand and speak in the temple to
the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5: 20): proclaim to mankind “all the words” - the
whole counsel of God “of this life” - spiritual life now, the prize of millennial
life, eternal life to all the saved of all the ages. God’s revelation consists
of ‘words’ that generate, nurture,
develop and perfect man’s true life; and the Angel’s commission is only a
duplicate of Christ’s to us all - “Go ye into all the
world, and make disciples of all nations”
(Matt 28: 19).
And the Apostles are commanded into the most dangerous spot of all - “Go ye and stand in the temple.”
But now
a problem of all the ages confronts the Church.
The Apostles are immediately face to face with the tremendous power of
the State, a power made all the more formidable by the Apostles themselves. For
they themselves have laid it down:- “Let
every soul” - no one is excepted - “be in
subjection to the higher powers: for the powers
that be” - at the moment Paul wrote it was Dictatorship created by the
Army - “are ordained of God” (Rom. 13: 1). Peter himself underlines the obedience, and
brings in the personal sanction of Christ: Paul says, Every soul; Peter says,
Every ordinance: “subject yourselves to every
ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake” (1
Pet. 2: 13).
All government therefore rests ultimately, not on economic helpfulness or
political expedience, but on Divine authority; and the obedience commanded, in
general, is absolute.
Moreover,
the special problem which confronted the Apostles is exactly the complex
problem that has constantly recurred. It was not so much the State, as
State-established Religion, that was seeking to stamp the Christians out. The
Sanhedrim - “all the senate of the children of
*God,
brushing aside the flimsy excuse, brands the Church of Rome herself as “drunken with the blood of the martyrs” (Rev. 17: 6).
Now
therefore the crisis arrives, and with it the momentous decision which has been
the decisive factor for the Church through nineteen centuries. The State-supported
Sanhedrim, addressing the rearrested Apostles, say:- “We
straitly charged you not to teach in this name” (Acts 5: 28): the
prohibition, therefore, is reasserted and explicit. The Apostolic answer is for
all time. The State has a Divine authority which can be resisted only on Divine
authority: therefore, when the clash comes, a clash which is explicit and
certain between the State’s law and God’s law, the Apostles decide: “WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MEN.” It is
a golden rule for all churches, under all circumstances, for all time. To
oppose the State, without the authority of God, is a sin in itself, and
therefore the consequences are not martyrdom, but the penalties of fanaticism;
but when men forbid what God commands, or command what God forbids, and when
that contradiction is explicitly, provable by Scripture, at all costs God alone
is to be obeyed.*
* The
latest State-established persecutors are explicit on the point. At a meeting of
the National Church Movement in
So therefore
Peter puts the principle into immediate action and in the hearing and before
the very eyes of the Sanhedrim, which had strictly forbidden, under threat of
death, the proclamation of the Gospel, proclaims it, whatever might be the
consequences; and in doing so purposely exalts the ‘crown
rights of the Redeemer.’ “Whom ye slew, hanging him upon a tree, him
did God exalt to be a PRINCE and a
Saviour”: He is already, de jure though not yet de facto, King of kings and Lord of lords, and
therefore outdistancing all other monarchs in lawful and final authority. The
principle on which we are to act
thus develops before our eyes. The Christian is a citizen of the country in
which he dwells, so far as subjection and obedience to the Civil Power is
concerned; but in all other realms - the realms of affection, of reason, of
activity, of devotion - “our citizenship
is in heaven” (Phil. 3: 20), and we
are ‘strangers and pilgrims’ in
every country on earth (Heb. 11: 13).
Now there rises on the scene the
incarnation of religious liberty as based on political expediency, in the
person of a man such as God has used again and again to avert persecution.
* Thus the
political grant of religious liberty rests on a basis fundamentally distinct
from the anti-God campaign: the one say - “Lest ye be
found fighting against God”; the other - “Our
fighting is against God, and therefore God’s people must be stamped out.”
In Russian schools 25,000,000 children are taught as their first lesson, - “There is no god,” with the confirmatory response, - “Nor ever shall be.”
A
revelation of extraordinary value closes and crowns the drama. The Apostles “therefore” - because of Gamaliel’s intervention - “departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were
COUNTED WORTHY to suffer dishonour for the Name.” It is a
wonderful disclosure that persecution is a trust which proves to be a
revelation of the persecuted. In the mouth of apostles it cannot be an
unmeaning sentimentality, but hard fact: they knew, by what had happened, that
they had obtained a spiritual rank - a toughness of spiritual fibre - which
made it possible for God to entrust them with sharp suffering. The greater our
load, the greater God’s estimate of our carrying capacity, for He has definitely
undertaken not to impose more than we can bear. The Apostles’ joy thus rests on
a truth for the
* * *
* * *
*
26
IS IT PEACE?
By A. G. TILNEY
MOST people seem to be
writing or talking as if World War Number Three is sooner or later certain,
inevitable. In that case, prayer would be as futile as a peace-conference. But
prayer - of the right kind, and along the right lines (even more than of the right
quantity) - can change things, that is, hearts and circumstances. God rules
over all, rulers’ hearts are in His Hand, and He has told us in outline and in
order what is coming. Indeed, the Scripture here is the most reliable news.
We are told the character of the
supposedly impending war - atomic, bacteriological, etc., global, universal,
destroying civilization if not mankind. Moreover, some Christians point to
Peter’s prophecy as if the Bible foretold such general destruction for the end
of this age. Here, however, there are seemingly two errors: first, this
destruction cannot be till Christ has personally come and reigned one thousand
years upon this earth; second, it is not only the end of this age that Peter
refers to, but the end of this world, prior to the creation of the new earth,
and it is brought about not by men but by God.
All the same men’s hearts are
failing them for fear, as Christ declared would be the case before His coming
in power and glory. Therefore, the man who could avert this peril and
catastrophe would be hailed as hero and revered as saviour of mankind. Let us
now remember that Satan counterfeits God and offers not at once an enemy of
Christ, but an imitation Christ. Christ came in gentleness and mercy - as the
Lamb, but He is coming again in power and judgment as the Lion of the tribe of
Now God has promised a
millennium, a Golden Age in the future like the Golden Age in the past, a
period of rest and glory, of prosperity and peace (based upon judgment and
righteousness). We must therefore expect Satan in his counterfeiting to offer
something similar to what God has promised. Now it is most remarkable that in
one of the end-times (for there are several rehearsals of the final drama) one
of the antichrist’s forerunners and understudies actually offered Israel a
counterfeit of the earthly Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, and
openly called it “a land like your own land”, with descriptive details studiedly
borrowed from those of the Land of Promise: “a land of
corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards,
a land of oil olive and of honey, that ye may live, and not die”
(2 Kings, 18:
31-32; Deut. 8 : 7-8).
Here, then, is clearly a False
Millennium, promised to
While, then, a human atomic war
- world-wide, and pre-millennial, and earth-destroying - is not announced in
Holy Writ, the Bible puts us on our guard against a false peace deluding men
into accepting their destroyer as their deliverer. In Zech.
1: 11, an
ominous lull before impending doom reveals that “all the
earth sitteth still and is at rest .... at ease”. In Rev. 6: 4, we read of the apocalyptic horseman who had
authority “to take peace from the earth”. In 1 Thess.
5: 3, we
hear men boasting just before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord that they
have, without Him, achieved “Peace and Security” (i.e., freedom from war, want and fear).
The boast is vain - apart from
righteousness and the Coming of the Prince of Peace, for there is no real or
lasting peace for the wicked. Yet we may be sure that the boast will be made, “with all deceivableness of unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2: 10). But how
will such spurious peace come about? To remove fear, there must be some sort of
disarming, a calling of a halt in the present wild armaments race. Can it be
that anti-God Rosh will by some material pledge prove the sincerity of his
protestations on behalf of peace? This seems implied in the reversion to more
primitive weapons of warfare before the fleece is thrown off and the Assyrian
again comes down like a wolf on the fold - in the land of unwalled
villages, dwelling safely (Ezek. 38: 8; 39: 9).
Far, therefore, from
despairingly assuming an immediate world-war let us pray for all leaders and
rulers, for continued peace in Jerusalem, and hopefully prepare for the
proclamation of God’s Good News of Christ’s Kingdom “in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24: 14). And let us watch and pray that we may be accounted worthy to escape
the tribulation and, as rulers, to
enter the real and impending millennium (Luke 20:
35; 21: 36), the Realm and Rule of the true Prince of
Peace.
-------
THE CHURCH AND THE SECOND COMING
Clement (96 A.D.), Bishop of Rome, mentioned in Phil. 4: 3 - “Let us every hour
expect the
Polyearp (108 A.D.), Bishop of Smyrna,
the pupil of John the apostle who leaned upon Jesus’ breast - “He will raise us from the dead ... we shall ... reign with Him.”
Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, whom the historian Eusebius says was the
Apostle Peter’s successor - “Consider the times and
expect Him.”
Papias (116 A.D.), Bishop of Hierapolis,
whom Irenaeus said saw and heard John - “There will be
one thousand years ... when the reign of Christ
personally will be established on earth.”
Justin Martyr (150
A.D.) “I and all others who are orthodox Christians,
on all points, know there will be ... a thousand
years in
Irenaeus (175 A.D.),
Bishop of Lyons, companion of Polycarp, John’s pupil, commenting on Jesus’
promise to drink again of the fruit of the vine in His Father’s Kingdom argues
- “That this can only be fulfilled upon our Lord’s
personal return on earth.”
Tertullian (200 A.D.) - “We do indeed confess
that a Kingdom is promised on earth.”
Nepos (262 A.D.), Bishop of Egypt, proclaimed the second coming and
millennial Kingdom. His writings reveal that Dionysius, opposing the
second coming, declared that John never wrote Revelation and that the book
could not be understood. Opponents of second coming truth have continued this
argument until today and still so argue.
Lactantius (300 A.D.) - “The righteous dead
... and reign with them on earth ... for a thousand years.”
In 325 A.D., 318 bishops from
all parts of the earth, gathered at Nicea, declared -
“We expect a new heaven and earth ... at the appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ, and then, as Daniel says, the saints
of the Most High shall take the kingdom.”
Historical writers bear witness
of the early church’s belief in Jesus’ return to and reign upon the earth.
Eusebius admits that most of the ecclesiastics of his day believed in
Christ’s coming before the millennium.
Giesseler, “Church
History,” Vol. 1, p. 166 - “Millenarianism
became the general belief of the time.”
Dr. Bonar in “Prophetic Land-Marks” writes - “Millenarianism prevailed universally during the first three
centuries.”
Luther, commenting on John 10: 19 - “Let us not think
that the coming of Christ is far off.”
Calvin, in the third book
of his “Institutes,” chapter
25 - “Scripture uniformly enjoins us to look
with expectation for the advent of Christ.”
John Knox of Scotland, Latimer, the English reformer, John
Bunyan, Samuel Rutherford, John Milton, all expressed belief in the
pre-millennial second coming of Christ.-
Tabernacle
Tidings.
* * *
* * *
*
27
THE SECRET COMING DEFENDED
By ALBERT
G. TILNEY, B.A.
Mr. Reese (like Mr. Roland
Bingham* still more recently) gives us back Matthew’s parables and
prophecies, as well as the Sermon on the Mount. These are all Christian. They
shake and wake us out of complacency and self-satisfaction. They are searching,
challenging, stimulating, revealing personal responsibility for our condition
and approval at the Judgment-Seat of Christ. Some leaders, concentrating exclusively
on the future glories and graces of the Church, have forgotten present
actualities in the contemplation of the ultimate ideal. They have overlooked
the fact that even ‘Ephesians’ (grand, discriminating and severe) can be summed
up as (not what we are, but) what we SHOULD
BE in the light of what we were and shall be. As a matter of actual
experience, the Church is at present in ruins - very imperfect, disunited,
unready, unwatchful, unbelieving even, though we rejoice to think of so many lovely
individuals and assemblies we personally know. And to say this former thing is
surely far more scriptural and charitable than to call those we will not unite
with mere professors, which is often tantamount to saying that those who differ
from us are not part of the Church at all. We must abandon the term ‘professing Church’. It is false to the Word content
with a threefold division of mankind (1 Cor. 10: 32). It is a Pharisaical invention, a refuge of
lies, robbing God of His holiness, the Church of solemn warnings. We must
abandon too, the erroneous phrase “all of grace”
(ctr.
* “Matthew the Publican: His Gospel”, but he trips at
the same point of the Secret Presence.
The first stage of the Coming (to
the air) will be thief-like, i.e. secret, concealed in clouds. Some Christians
will be ignorant and unaware of it (Rev. 3: 3), and
therefore left behind as unwatchful, though caught up later. For we MUST ALL appear - be made manifest - before
the Bema of Christ. This will be in the clouds, characteristic of the Pavilion
and Throne of God (Ex. 14: 19; Ps. 18: 11; 97: 2; Rev. 1: 7a). The
individual judgment of billions of believers will take a considerable time, as
will also the establishment and development of the reign of Anti-Christ on the
earth. God is not in a hurry. His “quick coming” already has lasted 1,800 years, though
no longer than a life-time for any one of us. God’s microscopically examined
day is equal to 1,000 years with us.
The Lord’s invisible coming to
the air could
begin to-night, but He will almost certainly remain there the 40 days of
harvest. There was a corresponding probationary period between the Ascension in
A.D. 30 and the Jerusalem-Siege Tribulation a generation later. Rev. 10: 7 shows that the last trump will occupy a period:
“days when the seventh angel shall begin to sound”; and the trumpet of the
Lord (1 Thess. 4.) will be heard only by those keeping awake and listening
for it. Some Christians (like Peter during cock-crow) will sleep through it,
i.e. through all but its last sounding, and in any case, no worldling will hear
it. It will be audible but not public.
In clouds concealed, there will
be the private appearances of the Lord to His own alone: this will be the
Epiphany of the Lord IN the
Parousia. The Bema sessions over, the clouds will break, and, like lightning
flashing through the gloom, every eye will see Him (Rev. 1: 7b). The pillar of
secret cloud will have become a pillar of public fire. This will be the
Epiphany OF the Parousia (or
Pavilion-Presence) of the Lord; a manifestation made public to
With Mr. Reese and his critics it
is the story over again of the travellers approaching from opposite directions
- a shield, gold on one side and silver on the other. But they cannot see how
far they are both right and both wrong. Hence the deadlock. A scholar and
theologian could help them if they would but heed - one who follows the Word
closely, fully and solely. This is Robert Govett, of whom Mr. Reese has
unfortunately never heard. He is now more than ever coming into his own, as
Spurgeon said he would. He clearly shows in his Prophecy
on Olivet that Matt. 24: 1-31 is Jewish,
the rest Christian. The ‘elect’ are
Jewish gathered after the Tribulation. The ‘one
taken’ is Christian, taken to glory before the coming Flood.
As a missionary, brave, devoted,
self-sacrificing, Mr. Reese rightly demands courage, love and service of his
fellow-Christians. And these are the qualities the Lord seeks and rewards with
distinction at the approaching advent.
* * *
* * *
*
28
REIGNING WITH CHRIST
AS a king calls to his
cabinet his trusted and valued friends, and appoints to the most responsible
posts those of the most approved fidelity, both for their reward, and for the
benefit of the kingdom, so does Christ with his saints.
This future rulership is really
the secret of our present discipline. We
are being trained in service with a view to the coming kingdom. What an
outlook! Through faith in Christ we shall experience the fullness of an eternal
life in a new and better world. And if we are faithful to him here, we shall reign with him there.
“The
thousand years for Christ’s reign on earth with its judgments and justice make
the great high peak presented in the Scriptures. It is the subject of the greater
part of prophecy. Since it is a time of justice and judgment, and since it is
presided over by One who has been thoroughly tempted and tried; One who has
suffered and died to prove his merit - therefore all who take part in this
thousand years must also be of proven merit, many of them even proven by
martyrdom. Any position held in this regime and reign is upon individual merit
alone. No position in this kingdom is held because of grace alone. Everyone in
this reign with Christ, of course, is a born-again, saved, resurrected
Christian; but, more than that, everyone, besides being a saved individual, is
an overcomer, a Christian, Spirit-filled, and one who has walked in spiritual
victory, a worthy.
Everything that has
to do with this thousand years must meet the most terrific fires of testing.
Only that which can pass through the fire test at the judgment seat of Christ
can be admitted into this thousand years of millennial splendour.” - Dr. Paul Rader.
Edward Greswell, B.D., in an
article entitled “The Millennium and Eternal Life,”
says: - “The interposition of the millenary scheme,
with its peculiar economy of retribution, is necessary to reconcile the
doctrine of Scripture, that we are justified and saved by faith, and by faith
alone, with the promise of Scripture, nevertheless, of a reward proportioned to
works.
It is a necessary
consequence of the doctrine of salvation by faith, that all who are justified,
and saved, on that account, are justified freely, and without any regard to
their personal works, and consequently to their personal deserts. A promise of
rewards, on the other hand, in proportion to works, must be strictly in
proportion to deserts; and therefore, it seems to be implied by the fact of
such a promise that in apportioning the future reward of those who are saved
their personal deserts will be strictly taken into account.
Now these two things,
as thus stated, are evidently at variance. Salvation by faith excludes all
regard to works, and therefore all difference of personal deserts; a reward of
the good and righteous, in proportion to their works, must be in proportion to
their deserts. Nor can I imagine any mode of reconciling them together, but
this - that the doctrine of Scripture, which relates to final acceptance
irrespectively of the differences of personal desert, is in reference to one
state of things; and the doctrine of Scripture, which holds out the expectation
of a reward in proportion of works, and therefore has respect to the
differences of personal desert, is in reference to another.
The former I consider
to be the state of things, which is known by the name of eternal life, or is
the condition of being, through all eternity, in the kingdom of heaven; the
latter to the state of things under the millennium, and during the temporal
reign of Christ on earth.
The matter of fact
involved in each of these statements is in either case equally indisputable. It
is equally certain that all who are saved, as such, are saved by faith in Jesus
Christ; and by faith without respect of works - and consequently, of
differences of desert; and it is also certain that if any are to be rewarded in
another life, for their conduct in the present life, that is for their works,
they must be rewarded in proportion to those works, and therefore in proportion
to their deserts.” - Christian Life.
-------
QUESTION AND ANSWER
QUESTION - Are not all true Christians caught up when Jesus comes? If
not, who will be left behind? Jesus said, “Pray that you might be counted worthy to escape...”
What does that mean?
Answer - “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be
accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to
stand before the Son of man.” Luke
21: 36.
The two preceding verses (Luke 34, 35)
clarify this admonition. The people of
God are cautioned against being careless in their Christian experience. The inference is that conditions will be
such that many will grow careless and drift along with the spirit of the times.
The foolish virgins, and all those who have grown careless in their
Christian experience, are in a declining spiritual condition and will be left
behind. Moffatt
states that those who fail to keep awake and pray, that day will catch them
suddenly as a trap. - The Midnight Cry.
WITNESSES TO PROPHECY IN
Scattered over the hills and
valleys of Palestine live humble but telling witnesses of the Lord’s
displeasure which, invoked upon the land many centuries ago by Israel’s sin,
has ever since rendered it barren. These are the thistles and thorns which
thrive everywhere with amazing vitality. Dr. James G. Heller, prominent
American Jew and Zionist, in visiting
As the
outcome of
What a
long “until” this [Divine] prophecy gives us! God does not, and will not, make His chosen
land to blossom as a rose so long as Israel rejects its Messiah, for the
impartation of His blessing to a Christ-rejecting nation is unthinkable. Repentance and restoration, faith and blessing are wedded in the
prophecies of
* * *
* * *
*
29
THE CHRISTIAN AND POLITICS
By OWEN VOSS
IN the long history of the Church we have a literal and
terrible fulfilment of the prophesied activity of Satan. We are told that he
goes about “as a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour.”
His determination to tear to
pieces the Church of Christ, and destroy the living testimony to the Redeemer
of lost and sinful men, found expression in the diabolical activity of Nero and
the unrestrained cruelty of Diocletian.
The public slaughter of
believers throughout the ages, whether the human instrument be a rope or a
military dictator, and the means employed be a fire or a sword, or the horror
of rotting in a rat-infested dungeon, the fact that all this has happened to
men, women, and even children professing the name of Christ is undeniable
evidence that what Scripture foretold would come to pass has indeed come to
pass. When it has not been expedient to devour openly, then has Satan
transformed himself into an angel of light in order to deceive.
The manner of this deception at
once suggests some form of false teaching; a teaching that, while it contains
some element of truth, is still not in accordance with the written word. In
this connection there is no greater chaos in the channels of human thought than
that which prevails as a result of attempting to Christianize modem society; to
impregnate the existing order with what passes for the Christian Religion, and
by that means build the
We know of
course that Scripture teaches us that until a set time the earth would remain
under the curse, due to the disobedience of our first parents. There has been
no later revelation of any description to tell us that the curse pronounced in
Satan knew that the vanity of men
exults in the fascinating glory of a worldly kingdom. Consequently he took
Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain and shewed Him all the kingdoms of the
world in a moment of time. This temptation is remarkable for the insight we
have given us of the depth of cunning to which Satan can descend. He attracts
in order to deceive. The kingdoms of this world are a very real attraction to a
mind alienated from God.
A civilization enlightened by
its own education and philosophies of life, spurred on by the impetus of its
own inventions, and moving through a series of social revolutions towards some
fancied golden age or new world-order is the mirage in the desert that
captivates the worldly-minded. Its attainment is accepted by the greatest
political thinkers of the day as being merely a matter of time. They make their
speeches, ring with the surety of attaining this goal: but Jesus, who knew the
end from the beginning, in startling contrast to mere man who knows not what a
day brings forth, refused to accept Satan’s offer of world rulership, though
the offer was made at a time when the Son of Man had not where to lay His head.
Hence, politics, which broadly
speaking is the collective activity and expedient administration of earthly
governments, are by their very nature forbidden territory to one who belongs to
the Father. The strife and clash of
opposing opinions among men seeking to rule without God clearly forbid the
interference of one separated by Christ from the wisdom of this world. The political arena is the breeding ground
for the secret diplomacy that periodically hurls one nation at another. It is
an established fact that politics are a career, yet who would dare, nay who is
competent, to say just what particular motive is driving a politician along a
certain line of thought?
It is
generally accepted that the aim of the politician is a healthier state of
society. But the lessons of history, one’s personal experience, and the
decidedly unhealthy and dangerous conditions of the political arena of our own
day do not support that view. The
determination to satisfy personal vanity and the wielding of personal power in
the realm of power-politics seem to be much nearer the truth. The gilded lie was never so much in
evidence as in our own day. Continental political giants have been stripped,
naked and exposed as careerists and cowards, vultures living on the people.
It cannot be too strongly
pointed out that the social righteousness advocated by the politician is a
righteousness without God. At best it is humanism that is wholly detached from
the purity of God’s Righteousness as revealed, in Jesus Christ. Frankly
considered, the case against the [regenerate] believer becoming enmeshed in the political
confusion that so substantially contributes to the prevailing perplexity has
been proved conclusively. This inability to diagnose the cause of the human
tragedy made up as it is of lawlessness and suffering, the latter following the
former as night follows day, is effectively demonstrated by the desperate and
hopeless resort to a new league of nations; a new league of nations fortified
by an international police force, with the addition of the resources of modem
scientific research in the field of high-powered destructives.
It is a fact that, continually
faced with the destructive power of evil, the most cultured and educated
civilization attainable by men is literally forced to protect itself by a more
scientific and a more powerful arm of law. This age-long struggle for supremacy
between good and evil, culminating as it has done in the nearly complete and
continual victory of evil over good, even though temporary, must sooner or
later give birth to the final crisis of the nations. As a result of the earth-shaking
activity of the second world war, powerful nations will move rapidly and
inevitably into the orbit of total defiance towards God.
There is an impassable gulf
between the imaginations of unregenerate men and the purposes of God according
to His foreknowledge. One illustration will suffice. According to men the cause
of all world chaos and individual distress is either unsound politics,
mismanaged industry, biased education, or perverted economics. All this they
say produces a world-crisis resulting in war, which can only be averted in the
future by a truly organised distribution of the resources of the earth. It will
be seen at once that while such a superficial explanation is made a basis for
starting another new order of any kind whatever, the real issue will never be
fought out. It is simply a tinkering with symptoms to the fatal neglect of the
disease. Jesus left no room for doubt that in fully accepting the implications
of the death of the Cross, He was personally dealing with the controversy that
God has with the creature He made. And not only so, but when He said, “It is finished,” that was a plain declaration
that the conflict of the ages had passed its greatest crisis. The righteousness
of God had been revealed in a display of love and power so unique that a
perfect remedy was provided in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the
disease that has cursed humanity, namely, sin. Can it be wondered at that the
ablest and most sincere politician only adds to the confusion and misery when
he seeks a solution of the world’s troubles by deliberately ignoring the fact
of
From
this it is clear that attempt to build a new world order is simply another way
of saying, "We shall not have this Man to reign over us.” It follows that
if the world has rejected Christ, then all its activity is Godless, and doomed
to failure for that very reason. No doubt men are baffled by the presumption of
ministers of religion blessing the schemes and plans for a new world order when
it is remembered that in the vital international council chambers God is never
even named, let alone consulted.
-------
Advent
It is
wonderful how symptoms ripen for the Advent, and how convincing they are to
watchful eyes. Under symptoms far less decisive Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, actually
thus addressed the British Parliament on July 2, 1874:- “The great crisis of the
world is nearer than some suppose. Why is Christendom so menaced? I fear
civilization is about to collapse. Turn wherever we like, there is an
uncomfortable feeling abroad, a distress of nations, men’s hearts failing them
for fear. No man can fail to mark these. Some gigantic outburst must surely
fall. Every Cabinet in
* * *
* * *
*
30
PRAYING FOR THE LORD’S RETURN
By D. M. PANTON
PROBABLY no
generation since our Lord ascended has had such urgent reasons as our own for
praying for our Lord to come back, and as few, exceedingly few, will share in
thus producing the vastest event this old earth will ever know, let us
be among that few. “GOD WORKS
ACCORDING TO THE PRAYERS OF HIS PEOPLE” (Evan Roberts); and the date of the Advent is a loose end which
prayer can affect: since God has made all His actions in this lower world to
depend on faith and prayer, He may be depending on us for the Advent more than
we dream. “The Lord Himself,” in the words of Canon Simpson, “would never have bidden us pray, Thy Kingdom come, if those seasons,
which no man knows, were so irrevocably fixed that our efforts could not
hasten, or our sins retard, the wheels of His chariot.” If the Jewish
disciple, by praying that his flight may not be on the Sabbath or in winter (Matt. 24: 20), can so modify the date of that flight as to
change not only the day of the week but even the season of the year, much more
is it in the power of the Church, and therefore our glorious responsibility, to “HASTEN the coming of the day
of God” (2 Pet. 3: 12, marg.).
The Holy Ghost
First we learn what is the mind
of the Holy Ghost. “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come” (Rev.
22: 17).
It is (as far as I know) the only recorded prayer of the Holy Ghost: He Who
prays “with groanings which cannot be uttered” (Rom. 8: 26), when
they are uttered,
their summary is, COME. The
significance of this is extraordinary. The Spirit has a myriad ways of affecting
the world for good, yet His prayer is, Come: He knows perfectly all evolution,
all progress, all revival, all Gospel advance, yet His prayer is, Come: He
knows the inexhaustible resources, the unrevealed powers, the lost secret plans
of God, yet His prayer is, Come. The Holy Ghost knows no solution to the
problem of the universe except the Second Advent of Christ; and it is His own supreme prayer; thus the
fuller we are of the Spirit of God, the surer we are to pray His prayer.
Our Saviour
Next we learn the mind of our
Lord. He says: “When ye pray, say, Thy kingdom come” (Matt. 6:
10). “This, more
than ever in these last days, ought to be the first and last of the Church’s
prayers; for all that she desires for herself, for the world, and for her Lord Himself, is comprised
in this” (Dr. H. Bonar). We
are apt to see men to the exclusion of mankind; when we pray for the Kingdom, we plead
for thirty generations against one; for God will amputate a single generation -
and that only after countless pleadings in grace and judgment - to save an
entire race. It is the most practical of all possible prayers, for there is no
other way whereby the world’s political and social salvation can be wrought,
and God’s love for the world at last fulfilled. “There
is no remedy,” as Lord Shaftesbury, who wrought more social amelioration for
his generation than any other man, said, “for all this
mass of misery, but in the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why
do we not plead for it every time we hear the clock strike?”
The Apostles
Next we learn the mind of the
Apostles. Jesus says, “Yea, I come quickly.” “Amen,” cries John: I accept the doctrine, I
hold fast the promise, I rejoice in the speed: “Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22: 20). It is the last prayer from an apostle’s lips;
it is the last and crowning prayer of the Bible; it is the last prayer of the
last apostle of the Lamb: the whole canon of inspiration closes with a direct
appeal to Christ to come. “There may be many years of
hard work before the consummation, but the signs are to me so encouraging that
I would not be unbelieving if I saw the wing of the apocalyptic angel spread
for its last triumphant flight in this day’s sunset; or if to-morrow morning
the ocean cables should thrill us with the news that Christ the Lord had
alighted on Mount Olivet to proclaim universal dominion. O you dead Churches, wake up! O
Christ, descend! Scarred temple, take the
crown! Bruised hand, take the sceptre! Wounded foot, step the throne! Thine
is the Kingdom!” (Dr. Talmage). It is John’s last prayer, and happy shall we
be if, falling asleep, it is the last prayer upon our lips also.
The Church
Next we learn the mind of the
* “This word to the hearer will remain in full force even after
the watchful of the Church or the whole Church are borne away. Jesus’ coming
is, to
Ourselves
Next we learn our own need. All
holy and Scriptural desire is, legitimate fuel for prayer; and it is our peril
so to be concerned with the doctrine of the Advent that we forget the prayer. In
twenty-four volumes of the “Quarterly
Journal of Prophecy” (1849 to 1873) there is
not a single article on Prayer for the Coming. Is it nothing to us that our Lord wishes to come back? Why is He coming quickly if it is not the speed of
desire? “Many Christians do not realise that the Lord
is waiting until He is invited by His own to return: we may need to be urged;
He does not” (
* 1 John 3: 3. Be it also remembered
that the rapture, the first act of God’s response, may precipitate life in the
very souls unsaved on whose behalf our anxiety might make us hesitate to pray
the prayer.
The Creation
Finally, we learn the
unconscious mind of the world. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,” waiting
“for the revealing of the sons of God” (Rom. 8: 19). “Can you say, ‘More than they that wait for the morning, my soul waiteth for Thee?’ Does your heart leap when you think that the Christ, ever
present, is drawing near to us? All the signs of the times, intellectual and
social: the rottenness of much of our life; the abounding luxury, the hideous
vice that flaunts unblamed or unabashed before us: all these things cry out to Him, whose ear is not deaf - even if our voice
does not join in the cry - and beseech Him to come” (Dr.
Alexander Maclaren). For all the creation needs can be met only by the [Lord’s] Advent. “In this prayer is summed up all
that the Christian heart can desire - the destruction of the power of Satan;
the deliverance of the creature from the bondage of corruption; the banishment
of sin and sorrow from the individual heart and from the world; the restoration
of all things; the establishment of the kingdom of righteousness; the beholding
by Jesus in fulness of the travail of His soul, the bestowment upon Him in
completeness of His promised reward. Let each member of the Church militant
unite with the Apostle in the longing cry - ‘Amen; Come, Lord Jesus’” (Dr. E. R. Craven). Says Bishop J. C. Ryle: “Come, Lord Jesus, should be our daily prayer.” Shall
we not make a compact together that, so long as breath lasts, we will, without
a single day’s intermission, pray, “EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS”?
-------
LONGING FOR HIS COMING
Beloved,
are we longing for the coming of our Lord, or shall we meet Him with grief and
not with joy? Shall we open to Him immediately, or shall we want more time to
prepare? Is He coming to us as a Judge, or is He coming to us as the Bridegroom
of our hearts and the blessed Hope of all our life?
This is
the special work of the Holy Ghost in preparing His Bride for the coming of the
Bridegroom, and, unless we have this
expectant love for His appearing, it is certain that we are not in the right
state of heart.
As the
Lord’s coming draws nearer, it will doubtless be somehow revealed to the hearts
of His children, who are waiting and watching for Him, in such a way that,
while they will not know the day nor the hour, they will at least be ready, and
something within them will be going out to meet the Bridegroom.
When a
great magnet approaches a lot of little bits of steel and iron filings in a box
of sand, they become agitated, and a quivering movement is seen along the whole
line. They almost seem to be conscious of something in the air attracting them
upward; and when the magnet comes a little nearer, they just leap up to meet it
and cling to it by the subtle attraction of the magnetic fluid. And so, as the
Lord’s coming draws nearer, the hearts of His people will become strangely
conscious that the Bridegroom is at hand, and they will be drawn out to expect
Him and prepare for Him in a manner which they themselves may not understand. “When
these things begin to come to pass,” He said, “then lift up your heads and bend yourselves back,” in the
attitude of preparation for flight, “for
your redemption draweth nigh.”
Sometimes
we have seen on a branch a bird standing, almost ready to fly, with wings just
fluttering, and its whole attitude poised and prepared to spring from the
branch and sweep away into the sky at the call of its distant mate. So should
the Bride of the Lamb be waiting with fluttering wing, uplifted eye, and all
her being poised and ready at the first call to mount on high and be
transported to the Beloved of her heart.
- A. B. SIMPSON, D.D.
* * *
* * *
*
31
BAPTISM ACCORDING TO SCRIPTURE
By ERNEST W. BACON
This letter, which appeared in The
Life of Faith, will, we
trust, help any of our readers who are exercised on the subject, and who wish
to know the mind of God as revealed in Scripture. - ED., DAWN.
WITH regard to household
baptisms in the New Testament, it be inferred that these included children. In Acts 16: 32 it
is distinctly stated that the apostles preached to all that were in the house,
and that the jailor and all his were baptized, “believing
in God with all his house.”
His family or household must therefore have been of intelligence and age
to believe. But how can it be maintained
in any real sense that infants can believe?
The crucial point at issue is
really this: the infant baptizer regards baptism as “the
outward and visible sign of the promise of salvation in Christ”; but
this is an idea quite foreign to the New Testament, which plainly teaches that
baptism is the declaration of personal faith in Christ as Saviour, and a symbol
of the believer’s union with Him in His death and Resurrection (Acts 2: 38; Col. 2: 12). The difference is fundamental and
irreconcilable.
The New Testament tells of the
baptism of believers, and speaks of Churches composed of believers. We read of no
other baptism, no other Churches. There is not a Biblical scholar of any
reputation who denies that in the New Testament baptism is always that of
believers, and that it was by immersion. It simply will not do to say that all
who were baptized were not believers, and that all members of a apostolic
Churches were not sincere. Doubtless there were hypocrites then as now. Even
the apostles were sometimes deceived. But this does not alter the case. All who
were baptized professed to be believers, and were baptized as such. The
profession of faith was held to be essential to baptism and Church fellowship.
None could profess faith who were incapable of understanding the faith. The act
of profession implies knowledge of Christ and His offered salvation, approbation,
conviction, choice. Apart from the genuine personal faith of the baptized
person, the rite is meaningless.
It is clear, from John 4: 1-2, that there is no warrant for the notion that
grace or any spiritual privilege is hereditary. No one can believe in Christ on
behalf of another. There is no salvation by proxy. The Lord requires personal,
responsible decision of heart, mind, will of each individual; the pious hopes
and loving prayers of others, taken by themselves, will not do.
There is, of course, no
connection whatever between Jewish circumcision and Christian baptism.
.Judaism, with its privileges and responsibilities, was hereditary. It is not
so under the new dispensation. Men are not born Christians; they become
Christians when they repent and believe (John 1:
12-13).
When the apostles wrote to Churches, they did not say:- “To you and your children,” or represent the children
as in covenant with God, and therefore entitled to certain rights, and bound to
perform certain duties. They addressed the Churches as spiritual societies of
believers, taken out of all nations, who were “in
Christ Jesus.” It is surely significant also, that when the apostles
gathered in
Infant
baptizers have no hesitation in declaring at the baptismal service that “this child is regenerate”; yet they are forced to
admit that they leave the question as to whether the child is actually
regenerated or not to be decided by its subsequent life. If infants are not
regenerated in baptism, or if there is a doubt about it, surely it is very
wrong to say that they are regenerate. On the other hand if they are
regenerated in baptism, what need is there to preach the Gospel to them when
they come to years of discretion, or to labour for their conversion? The plain
teaching of Scripture is that the new birth, or regeneration, is the definite
work of the Holy Spirit, and is usually effected through the instrumentality of
the Word of God. It nowhere says that baptism is a sign of regeneration, but of
faith in Christ.
It is
with sorrow, and not with hostility, that I am bound to say that most grievous
harm has been done to the cause of truth and Evangelical
religion by these unscriptural views. To-day multitudes of people who do not
read their Bibles to discover the truth for themselves, believe the
superstition that the rite of infant baptism secures for the child a right
relationship to God. This cuts at the
very root of the principle of personal accountability to God, and in no sense whatever can be harmonized with the
doctrine of justification by faith alone. In addition, it is unquestionable
that historically nothing has so blurred the difference between the Church and
the world as infant baptism, or so brought the world into the Church.
In conclusion,
I would ask the infant baptizer if he thinks it likely that Peter, or John, or
Paul would have admitted into the Christian Church any but born-again
believers? Or that they would have sprinkled infants incapable of faith and
called it baptism, when their commission from the Lord was first to make
disciples, and then baptize them?
Much as
it is painful to differ from beloved brethren, we may yet say, “Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus in sincerity.”
* *
*
Here is
a remarkable utterance by a beloved leader of the Church of England in the
nineteenth century, Bishop J. C. Ryle, in his Knots Untied
(p. 111, 29th ed). “As for maintaining that the
ministerial act of baptizing a child did always necessarily convey regeneration,
and that every infant baptized was invariably born again, I believe it never
entered into the thoughts of those who drew up the Prayer-Book. In the judgment
of charity and hope they supposed all to be regenerated in baptism, and used
language accordingly. Whether a particular child was actually and really
regenerated they left to be decided by its life and ways when it grew up. To
say that the assertions of the Prayer-Book Baptismal Service are to be taken
for more than a charitable supposition, will
be found, on close examination, to throw the whole Prayer-Book into
confusion.”
Resurrection
But baptism embodies much more
than a funeral. “Having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him” (Col.
2: 12). But
it is more even than resurrection. “We were
buried therefore with him through baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised from the dead, so we also” - ascending out of an open
grave, and abandoning the moth-eaten garments of a buried life - “should walk” - for
we are corpses no more - “in NEWNESS OF LIFE.” The hard, deep, black trench
which God draws between the Church and the world, is the baptismal grave which
drowns the old life, and smothers and suffocates all the past; and we rise out of
the tomb, typically washed, to walk with God.
The Type
The New Testament ritual is
wonderfully confirmed by its Old Testament type. “Unto
him that loveth us, and washed us
from our sins” - total immersion in the baptismal bath - “and made us to be PRIESTS
unto his God and Father” (Rev. 1: 5). The
ancient priests underwent a similar ritual. At the entrance of the Tabernacle
was the altar of burnt offering: at the far opposite end was the Holy Curtain
behind which was God: lying exactly mid-way between was the Laver, or brazen
sea of water. So when the priests were consecrated, and before they could act
as priests, Moses presented them to the people at the altar of burnt offering -
atonement: then as the first act, when they crossed
the threshold as priests, they washed in the laver of water; and so, emerging,
reached the immediate presence of Diety - to walk with God.*
* The
priests were bathed both in hands and feet (Ex.
30: 19):
so to-day the additional rite of feet-washing (John
13: 15) completes the ritual
cleansing.
* * *
* * *
*
32
IF YOU REMAIN SILENT
By KEN BURNETT
“For if
you remain completely silent at this time, relief and
deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place... Yet who knows
whether you have come to the kingdom for such a
time as this” Esther 4: 14 (NKJV)
The book of Esther tells not
only of the removal of wicked Haman and the salvation of the Jews, but it opens
on the theme of the removal of disobedient Queen Vashti, and the surprising
appointment of a successor... a virtual ‘nobody’
who came from orphan background.
Bearing in mind that all scripture... is profitable (2 Timothy 3: 16)
there are vital parallels herein for our correction and instruction today:
1. Vashti Had Her Own Agenda, and threw her own party,
declining the banquet when the king ‘showed the riches of
his glorious kingdom and the splendour of his excellent majesty...’ (Esther
1: 4, 17,
22.) The seven wise men later counselled
that Vashti be removed because of the effect her behaviour would have on other
women who could become contemptuous of their husbands!
2. The ‘Replacement’
Queen Elect, Esther, did not disclose her Jewish ancestry, obeying her wise
counsellor, Mordecai. (Esther 2: 10.) Let us note also that Esther used none of the
‘cosmetics’ by which the other women
sought to win the king’s favour, but ‘she requested
nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the
custodian of the women (symbolic of the Holy Spirit) advised... And the king loved Esther more than all the other women.’ (Esther
2: 15, 17.)
3. But the Paramountcy of Esther’s appointment lay in
the timing - something
arose in her time which
she herself was called to confront. This was the planned, systematic destruction
of her own people, the Jews. This is not mere mythology or theology, but plain recorded
history. The events concerning Vashti and the appointment of Esther, and the
attempted destruction of the Jews are recorded in the annals of
4. While Much Has Recently Been Said about the silence of the
Church, of Britain and other nations some 60 years ago at the time of the Holocaust -
little or nothing is publicly uttered about the current efforts before our
very eyes to again destroy the Jewish
nation - Israel. So much for the ‘Never Again!’
5. Esther Was Clearly Warned that even though she was Queen,
she and her relatives would perish if she did not speak up for the Jews. ‘If you remain silent...’ She had
obviously been silent up to that point, and was given a choice: ‘IF…’
Mordecai, the uncle warning her, again symbolises the Holy Spirit. Our thoughts
turn to: ‘He that hath an ear, let him hear what the holy Spirit is saying to the churches. To him that overcomes, I will
give...’ Many
churches being spoken to, but only an individual here and there actually hearing
and responding. Rabbinic
interpretation of our opening text above, takes it to mean that, if Esther does
not respond, God Himself will just intervene in some other way. That is
undoubtedly a correct view.
6. If after Many Years of extermination attempts against Israel
(from 1948), the Church as a whole continues
to remain indifferent and silent, with the whole matter of the Messiah’s return
and 2nd Advent pivoting entirely upon Israel’s salvation, (Matthew 23: 39) what is God to do with us, His
body - called to be co-labourers [and
heirs] with Him? God is
not merely wanting PFI prayer groups. He is looking for whole Church
response: prayer on Sunday mornings when the whole church is assembled. This is not PFI, para-church stuff. It is to do with the fulfilment of God’s
[prophetic] word
and His end-time purposes! It parallels the elder brother of the prodigal son:
he just had no idea of
what was in his father’s heart, yearning for His far-off son.
7. Scripture Makes It Clear that God is ‘exceedingly angry’ ... ‘with the nations at ease’ (Zechariah
1: 15.) And the Lord is ‘zealous for
8. While We Pursue Our Daily Rounds, ignoring the huge issues
swivelling on
9. For Esther, Silence Was Irresponsibility. So she
first called for 3 days prayer and fasting (even though prayer is not
specifically mentioned here). She knew what to do and did it, even though she
knew she was putting her life at risk. Many ministers and Bible teachers know
what God’s purposes are for
10. It Was a Grave Risk for Esther to go uninvited into the king’s palace,
but she put on her royal robes and came to stand right opposite the very presence of the leading
monarch of the world at that point in world history! She had gone saying - ‘if I perish, I perish!’ She drew near and touched the top of his
sceptre. What courage! what fortitude! and what a picture of the overcoming
church that God longs to see. What an example of the plea and prayer that God
waits for from our own hearts and lips!
While we could say that, in
Esther’s day the way into the holy place had not yet been disclosed, (Hebrews 9: 8)
today it is far different. Jesus Himself has opened ‘a new and living way’ and we are bidden to ‘come boldly to the Throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of
need.’ (Hebrews 10: 20, 4: 16). Plus ‘if we
ask anything according to His will, He hears us.’ (1 John 5: 14)
11. It Is No Accident that Jesus died (some 500 years later) on
the very day after Haman’s edict had gone forth to destroy the Jews - 13th
of Nisan! (See Esther 3: 12ff) ‘... now you shall keep it
until the fourteenth day of the same month (Nisan). Then the whole assembly of the congregation of
12. Esther (in Hebrew means Hadassah which, in turn) means ‘Myrtle’. The myrtle tree, more than anything else,
symbolises the intercessor. In Zechariah 1, you
find the ‘man on the red horse’ mentioned three times as ‘standing amongst the myrtle trees - hidden in the ravine’. Why? Because the Lord
is particularly with the praying remnant ‑here pictured as myrtle trees.
The myrtle tree is fragrant,
lowly and well-watered. Its sprigs are long-lasting and evergreen. It has
shining leaves and bears starry, white blossoms. From it beautiful garlands are
made. It is a main component of the Lutav, for the
year’s final Feast of the Lord - Succot, the Feast of
Tabernacles, rounding off the main and final harvest.
Will you be a sprig of myrtle for
* * *
* * *
*
33
THE MODEL MARTYRDOM
The first Christian martyrdom
ever to occur, and the only one ever recorded in detail, is put on record with
such a fulness, and such a richness of instruction on how (if called to do so)
we are to offer our life for Christ, as to make it the model martyrdom of all
time. And the very name of the martyr
pours a searchlight on the record. ‘Stephen’ - of
whom we know practically nothing except his martyrdom - means ‘crown’, or ‘crowned’; and
the word means not a crown that is inherited, but a crown that is won: it thus
singularly embodies our Lord’s assurance to every martyr down all the ages:- “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give
thee THE CROWN OF LIFE” (Rev. 2: 10).*
* “Religious persecution began with Christianity. This is a simple fact of history. Strange as it may seem, there is no record in
earlier times, and all the cruelty and reckless disregard of the sacredness of
human life, which sullied the annals of the old world, of suffering and death
deliberately inflicted on account of religious opinions. Martyrdom, in the
strict sense of that word, was an unknown thing when Stephen stood up before
the council” (Bishop Woodford).
At once we are confronted with
the kind of man that makes a martyr. “Stephen,
full of faith and of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 6: 5). “Stones are not thrown”, says the proverb, “except at a fruit-laden tree.” No other man in the
Bible has this particular description - “full of faith”: that
is, a man of passionate conviction;
with so complete a faith in his facts that he can face death fearlessly. “His obligations to the Throne of Mercy are so great, his
deliverance so gracious, his hope so animating, his responsibilities so awful,
that one master-feeling holds his mind - a
desire to walk worthy of God, who hath called him to His Kingdom and glory”
(R. P. Buddicom,
M.A.). So also he is defined as “full of
grace” - God’s favour permeating tone, words, thought, bearing - “and power” - the impress of character on
action; and all is summed up in a phrase twice repeated, “full of the Holy Ghost” - to a degree, alas,
impossible to us, for he “wrought great wonders and signs”.
But a still intenser flash of light shows us exactly on what, and oh
what alone, a martyr’s faith is to rest.
Stephen’s defence before the Sanhedrim, the fullest record of a single
address in the New Testament, is solely Scripture so expounded as to meet the
charges against him; an appeal to documents (in this case) acknowledged as
divine by his opponents; and the documents which, in any case, are the sole
seat of authority. The model martyr is
no fanatic, rushing on death; but a balanced mind, an informed judgment,
passionately Scriptural: the martyr is
a man whose life-interests are bound up with the truth. It is for Scripture
that he dies.
Two fundamentally different
groups of persecutors appear all down the ages, and we do well to master the
fact. The first group is utterly
unprincipled. When the Sword of the
Spirit proves unanswerable, and the truth irrefutable, the defeated disputant
takes up the weapons of force and fraud: “they
seized him, and set up false witnesses”. A
twisted, distorted charge - exactly similar to our Lord’s alleged threat to
destroy the Temple - with just enough of truth to make it easier to believe by
the violently prejudiced crowd, best serves the persecutor; and when even this
is silenced, there comes the final resort to violence. Stephen is charged with a criminal attack on
the Temple, and with apostasy from the Law of Jehovah; and this charge is
grounded, skilfully, on the Christian prophecy of the destruction of the Temple
and the disappearance of the Law of Moses. So Athanasius
was accused of rebellion and murder; the Reformers were accused of lawlessness;
Wesley was accused of Romanism and disloyalty; and Niemoller
is accused of anti-State preaching.
But
there is another group with whom a martyr sometimes has to do. “The witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young
man named Saul; and Saul was consenting unto his
death”. There are deeply
religious men who confound us, sincerely, with the Tares, and, contrary to the
command of Christ, pluck up the Tares in order (as they imagine) to save the
Wheat. A 350-year-old letter has just
come to light and been published for the first time. It is dated August 28, 1572, and addressed to
the Presidents and Chancellors of the King at Lille
and written by Charles de Martigny, Lord of St.
Remy. “My
Lords: Having heard very good news this morning I have felt bound to
communicate it to you by the present letter.
In the evening the King of France in person, accompanied by Messieurs de
Guise and burgesses of Paris attacked the Admiral and other Huguenot lords in
such wise that he put them all to death.
The Admiral’s head was cut off and his body dragged through the city on
a hurdle. His head stuck on the end of
the sword was likewise carried through the
city. The King at once ordered the general massacre of all who held with the
Huguenots and in less than an hour 10,000 men were found killed in the streets
and more than 1,500 Huguenot women. Word was sent to all the country towns to
do the same. It seems to me that such news cannot but bring good times. God be praised for it. - Charles de Martigny.” Not only can an ‘inquisitor’
be sincere, but he may be on the brink of an enormous revelation. How little Stephen dreamed that the man who
was to be the foremost Apostle of all time was not only watching, but assisting
in his murder! What an encouragement to
us! Satan slaughters a Stephen and gives
the Church a Paul.
Now before the martyr has
uttered a word, and before Theophilus, significantly the son-in-law of
Caiaphas, has even challenged the prisoner, an extraordinary fact emerges. After the bribed witnesses have been heard,
and the fictitious charges formulated, all eyes are turned on the prisoner in
the dock; and “all that sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw
his face as it had been the face of an angel.” God’s eagles soar highest in the storm, and
His stars are brightest at midnight. The
perfected saint and an angel are brothers.
But why exactly did his face at this moment shine? The shining face, a face radiant in the act
of dying, is spoken alone of Stephen in the New Testament, presumably because the martyr alone is sure of the
Kingdom. Death, for us ordinary Christians, can have deep shadows, for our
heart trembles over our life’s record: the
martyr, on the contrary, knows that the Prize is within his grasp. “He that
loseth his life for my sake,” our Lord says (Matt. 10: 39), “shall
find it,” that is, in the first
resurrection. “And I saw thrones; and I saw the
souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and they lived [rose from the dead] AND REIGNED WITH CHRIST A THOUSAND
YEARS” (Rev. 20: 4). But the glory does not save the martyr. Men saw the face as of an angel, and crashed
out the glory with the stones. The
world would kill God if it could.
A very
precious revelation follows. In that
vast crowd there was not one friendly face, so God - allowing no burden to be
greater than we can bear - opens Heaven, and shows Stephen the only Face that
matters, in radiant sympathy. “He looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and
Jesus standing on the right hand of God.” The help may not always
be thus miraculous. When John Huss of Bohemia was on his way to the stake, an old
friend stood forth from the throng of onlookers and gave him a powerful grip of
the hand. It was a courageous act, for
it might easily have meant death to befriend the ‘heretic’. Huss turned and
said that only God and himself knew how much that hand-clasp had meant to him
in his supreme hour of trial. Stephen saw Jesus standing. Sixteen
times the Lord Jesus is stated to be at the right hand of God: thirteen times
He is described as seated at the right hand of God: here alone He is standing. So Caiaphas and the murderous Jews are to see
Him sitting on the
right hand of power, as the judge; the martyr sees Him standing, having risen, and pressing forward in
eager sympathy with His martyr child. The Lord
Jesus will be our perfect sufficiency in the, moment of martyrdom.
It is extraordinary proof that
this is the model martyrdom, that on the dying lips are two of the very
utterances that closed Calvary. Our
Lord’s death was so much more than a martyrdom that it could not properly be
our model; but, like all else in our Lord’s life, it is the model, as Stephen’s
dying utterances show. Being stoned, he
cried, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”; then “he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to
their charge”. When death comes,
whither does the spirit travel? what guide escorts it? what gate opens? Therefore how blessed the prayer:- “Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit”. Our Saviour’s hands are the best of all homes
for our soul. Then Stephen prays:- “Lay not this sin to their charge”. The fearless witness, charging home awful
truth - “Ye have become betrayers and
murderers of the Righteous One”, and equally (for “ye do always resist the Holy Ghost”) about
to become murderers of himself*- yet,
in the next breath, and his last, he asks God to clear them of the monstrous
crime, exactly as our Lord did on the Cross.
* Here is
decisive proof that the strongest
language, in controversy, may be in perfect keeping with the mind of God.
-------
AFRAID? OF WHAT?
This poem was written by C. H.
Hamilton, a missionary in Kiangsu, after the
martyrdom of J. W. Vinson in China,
and was the favourite poem of the martyrs John
and Betty Stam.
To feel
the spirit’s glad release?
To pass from
pain to perfect peace,
The
strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid -
of that?
Afraid
to see the Saviour’s face,
To hear
His welcome and to trace
The
glory gleam from wounds of grace?
Afraid?
of what?
A flash,
a crash, a pierced heart,
Darkness,
light, O Heaven’s art!
A wound
of His a counterpart!
Afraid?
Of what?
To do by
death what life could not,
Baptize
with blood a stony plot,
Till
souls shall blossom from the spot?
Afraid -
of that?
IF
How many things one learns - and
how many are unlearned! - in 15 years.
In 1925 we bid you mark, with us, that “if
so be that (we) may lay hold”, that “if by any means (we) may attain.” Mark it well: something to gain - or lose; an inheritance to enjoy - or forfeit; a goal to be
reached - or missed; a prize to be won or lost. That “IF” is spilled over all the
page of Scripture; and the Saviour has been pressing in, so hard, yet so
tenderly, the implication of this “IF” in all its
bearings. Almost the tiniest word - “IF”
involving almost the mightiest issues.
What a
precious thing it is that some things are inviolable! Our “life is
hid with CHRIST IN GOD”, and is
inviolable, depending not upon us, but upon Him. To be “born
from above” is to pass “from death unto
life” and to come into possession of the life of the ages, which “shall never perish”. But we
are called of The LORD “unto His own
Kingdom and Glory”, and this reign with CHRIST is
clearly forfeitable. This privileged service of the coming Age is
something for which He seeks to discipline and train us here, and He shows
clearly that some of His own redeemed ones “shall inherit” and “enter the Kingdom”, while
others “shall not inherit”, being “not fit for the
Kingdom”, in a day which seems to be coming on apace. Of resurrection to meet and live with the LORD he was certain (1 Thess. 4. [cf. Rev. 20: 13, 15, R.V. - for all will be resurrected
eventually!]), but
of the “out-resurrection” [Phil. 3: 11] unto a
priestly-reign with The LORD he
said “not already attained, not yet laid hold” (Phil. 3.). This
goal of the upward calling of GOD in CHRIST JESUS was the purpose for which He
had been laid hold of by CHRIST, and so urgent was it that he “press on - unto the prize”,
the out-resurrection and the [millennial]
Kingdom and glory, that he counted but offal what is everything to most, and
held his body in utter subjection and control, lest having preached to others
he should himself be rejected.
It would serve to much spiritual
enlightenment and quickening if The LORD’S people underlined in their Bibles,
the ‘IF’ and ‘IF NOT’
addressed so often to [all regenerate] believers, and sought the Spirit’s unveiling of the
full import of what they mark. There is an increase of travail
in the Church, to-day, for a company to
be found worthy in the day of His coming, and those whose spirits cry to GOD
for the manifestation, and who wait for the birth, are keenest in their longing
to be found ready, and among the profitable servants. Child of God, will you seek to know your
relation to these things?
- GEORGE BANKS.
* * *
* * *
*
34
EXCOMMUNICATION AND EXCLUSION
BY D. M. PANTON
Our Lord said to the
Church in
Excommunication
But Paul goes much further than
this. A fact of overwhelming
decisiveness now confronts us. Paul
assumes that the identical sin might sweep through the whole assembly. He says:- “Know ye
not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” (1 Cor. 5: 6). What
was the whole lump? Was it a mixture of good and bad dough? or good dough
only? Were all regenerate or not? Paul answers “Purge
out the old leaven,” he says, “that
ye may be a new lump” - fresh, clean dough throughout - “even as ye are unleavened.” That is
to say, the Church Paul is addressing were all pure and clean; it consisted of the regenerate alone; “YE are unleavened”: now, Paul says, keep so; and if any leaven has come back,
purge it out. See the decisive
importance of this. Hypocrites, empty
professors, nominal unregenerate members God is not addressing at all: “ye are unleavened”: all you have got to do is to keep so, and you are sure to enter the
Kingdom of God. Keep what God has
made you - that is the argument. For the
final and overwhelming fact is that fornication- and also the other
immoralities named - might spread, Paul says, through the entire church. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?” So far from Paul saying that the incestuous
brother is no believer, because of his fornication, and that no such sin ever
happens among [regenerate] believers, he says exactly the reverse; that unless drastic
measures purge the Body, immoralities may contaminate the whole. “One sickly sheep
infects the flock”: therefore all the flock can be sick with a foul
life.
The Exclusion
So we now arrive at the
tremendous revelation. It is certain that [genuine] Christians can commit these sins: it is
certain that some in Corinth did commit them: it is certain that all such are to be excommunicated: Paul now reveals that those who are too unclean for the Church
are too unclean for the [Messiah’s coming]
Kingdom:- that the excommunicated will be the excluded. For what
is the catalogue of the excommunicated? “I write
unto you not to keep company, if any man that is
named a brother” - anyone who, rightly or wrongly, poses as a Christian - “be a fornicator,
or covetous,
or an idolater,
or a reviler,
or a drunkard,
or an
extortioner, with such a one no, not to eat” (1 Cor. 5: 11). Now observe. “Ye yourselves do wrong”: very
well, what will be the result? “Know ye not that wrong-doers” - the
same word - “shall not inherit
the Kingdom of God? Be not deceived” - what danger
was there of such a well-instructed church as that of Corinth imagining that unregenerate
adulterers will enter the Kingdom? - “neither fornicators, nor idolaters” - then
four new sins are added, for exclusion
from the [Lord’s Messianic and
Millennial] Kingdom is a wider thing than exclusion from the Church* - “nor covetous,
nor drunkards,
nor revilers,
nor extortioners”
- every excommunicating sin is an excluding sin - “shall inherit the
Kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6: 8). Could
anything be clearer? Two catalogues of
exclusion are given, and the two catalogues are practically identical. The justly excommunicate will be the
infallibly excluded. Is God’s [coming] Kingdom less
pure or less holy than the Church? Here
then is an exact fulfilment of our Lord’s words:- “Whosesoever sins ye forgive, they
are forgiven unto them; whosesoever sins ye retain” - always assuming that it is a
just, righteous, and Scriptural excommunication - “they are retained” (John 20: 23): for “whatsoever
things ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matt.
18: 18). The
white robes in the Church will walk with Him in white; the foul robes will
not. The Excommunicated will be the
Excluded.
* Naturally
there are sins which exclude from the Kingdom which do not exclude from the
Church, for the standard for the Kingdom is higher than the standard for the
Church; since the Kingdom requires fellow-occupants of the Throne of Christ, proved worthy by the height of their
devotion and achievement.
The Peril of the Believer
If proof is still required,
Paul’s concluding words are finally decisive. “Such were some of you” - that
is, in your unconverted days; “but ye were washed” - through blood and water -
“but ye were
sanctified” - set apart for God - “but ye were justified” - made righteous
through the righteousness of Christ.
Whom then is Paul threatening with exclusion? The washed, the sanctified, the
justified; he puts it in that order for he is pressing their former
cleanness at the moment of their conversion:- defiled,
ye were cleansed; profane, ye were hallowed; unrighteous, ye were justified. See how finally decisive this is. Paul finds fornication in the church: he sees
the danger, not only of its spreading, but of the church’s deception as
to its consequences: therefore he threatens them openly with exclusion from
the [Lord’s coming millennial] Kingdom.* Now if
only unbelievers are to be excluded, Paul’s threat is not only pointless, but
unjust. Believers are sinning: unbelievers are threatened, - is that just? Ye do wrong: therefore the world will be
punished! is that justice? Who then are these who are threatened with
exclusion? The washed, the sanctified,
the justified. Are hypocrites - false
brethren who have slipped in past the church examiners - justified, sanctified,
washed? Does God reveal the sins of one
set of men, and then proceed to threaten another set of men for those
sins? Listen. “He that
doeth wrong shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of Persons” (Col. 3: 25): “I fear lest I
should find you not such as I would;
lest, when I come again,
my God should humble me before you, and I should mourn for
many of them that have sinned heretofore, and repented not of the uncleanness and
fornication - and lasciviousness which they committed” (2 Cor. 12: 20). It has been said that the language of chapter 5 is so broken, it is as if Paul wrote with
sobs: even as a mother over a prodigal child, he cried,- “Let my brother be smitten to death, if only his soul be saved!”
* It is not stated specifically where the excluded will be
during the Thousand Years; but it is a singular confirmation that both
departments of the underworld, therefore including
saved souls - are emptied for the
final judgment of the Great White Throne (Rev.
20 : 13). Only the wicked die in the Millennium (Is. 65: 20).
Final Proofs
Finally, let us marshal some of the
Scriptures which explicitly exclude carnal believers from the Kingdom. Our Lord states it to two of the Churches in
the last words we have ever received from Him.
To Thyatira He says:- “He that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end”
- what a [blessed and commendable] condition! - “to
him
will I give authority over the nations; and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev. 2: 26). To Laodicea He says:- “To him that overcometh,
will I give to sit down with me in my throne” (Rev. 3: 21).* So our Lord had stated it on
earth:- “Not every one that saith unto me,
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father” (Matt.
7: 21) -
that is, works, after faith; for no unsaved soul
can do the works of God; and He presses it with extraordinary emphasis,- “The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and men of violence take it by force” (Matt.
11: 12). So the Apostle Paul gives a specially strong
warning: after giving a list of the works of the flesh, he says, - “Of the which I
forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they which practise such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal.
5: 21 [cf. Heb. 12: 17, R.V.]).
* It is extraordinarily
confirmatory that our Lord Himself bases His own Reign not on His personality,
but on His having overcome as a human
servant of God; for He adds,- “Even as I overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.” From that
angle His death was a martyrdom, and therefore with all martyrs He reigns.
“And I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years”
(Rev. 20:
4).
“The
more reward you get at the Judgment Seat, the more glory and honour you will
bring to Him” - F. E. MARSH.
* * *
* * *
*
35
SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD*
By G. H. LANG
* This article is taken
from an admirable pamphlet - The Unequal Yoke.
IT is of the first
importance to our subject to know that the world amidst which the early
Christians lived was honeycombed with organizations, of which the principal
were the religious societies (the “Mysteries”)
and the trade guilds. An instance of the
latter, and an example of the money-loving spirit that mastered them, and made
them, as now, turbulent and arbitrary, is found in the silversmith class
mentioned in Acts 19: 23 and the following verses. The learned Dr. Hatch has shown how
pronounced a feature this was of those days.
He says (The Organization of the Early Christian
Churches, Lecture II):
“Among the many parallels which can be drawn between
the first centuries of the Christian era and our own times, there is probably
none more striking than that of their common tendency towards the formation of
associations. There were then, as now, associations for almost innumerable
purposes in almost all parts of the Empire.
There were trade guilds and dramatic guilds; there were athletic clubs,
and burial clubs, and dining clubs; there were friendly societies, and literary
societies, and financial societies; if we omit those special products of our
own time, natural science and social science, there was scarcely an object for
which men now combine for which they did not combine then. Trade guilds are found among almost every
kind of workman and in almost every town of the Empire of which inscriptions
remain; e.g. among the craftsmen of
Thus the conditions which
believers face to-day are by no means modern, but just such as the Lord knew
His people faced when He called them to a life of separation from the
world. Therefore there can be no
question that the injunction “Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers,” but “come ye out from among them,”
requires Christians to sever their connection with all such organizations,
religious, trade, or otherwise. That a
disciple of Christ should consort with both Paul the apostle and Demetrius the
silversmith was simply not possible. The
consequences of such separation are necessarily very trying. The believer forfeits friendships and
co-operation such as advance worldly interests, and incurs misunderstanding and
direct opposition. He may be
deliberately crowded out of his business by a powerful combination of dealers,
or be driven from employment by a trade union, or be covertly harassed by a
secret society with which he was connected.
And persecution may often be persistent and malignant, since his stand
being for Christ and in obedience to the Word of God, and so against anything
godless or evil, is a rebuke to the ungodly, and this provokes that deep moral
resentment which is ever the spring of the bitterest of hatred. A miner, known to me, when being driven from
employment by the local federation, for separating therefrom upon his
conversion to God, was warned by the colliery manager that he would be left to
the mercy of the world. “By no means,” was his reply; “I shall be left to the mercy of my heavenly Father.”
I write sympathetically,
having been through the mill. I know
just where this shoe pinches, having worn it.
In early manhood a point of
conscience involved the surrender of business position and all prospects. Many weeks were spent in careful
consideration, in prayer, in searching the Word of God to make sure of His
will. But the situation offered no alternative, save that of searing one’s
conscience. God says, “Whatsoever ye do, in word or
in deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3: 17). It was
a question of arranging the fire insurances of licensed premises, and I dared
not go to, say, a low public house in a slum, where men and women were daily
helped in their mad race to perdition, and say to the barman, “In the Name of the Lord Jesus I am come to arrange to
rebuild this place, if it should be burned down, so that this business may go
on.” I could in no wise give
thanks to my holy Father for the privilege of assisting that terrible
trade. So one day I left the office with
a month’s salary in my hand and the promises of God in my heart.
There were three positive
results which shall be mentioned. First,
the signature to my letter of resignation was scarce written when there flooded
and filled my heart that truly “perfect peace” which
God guarantees to the one whose mind is stayed on Himself (Isa. 26:
3). It swept before it every trace of
anxiety. I had not the slightest sense
of care. It is God’s own peace that thus
garrisons the heart that in reality puts all life’s affairs at His disposal (Phil. 4: 5-7). God knows nothing of anxious care, and He
relieves of all worry him who believes. And, why not ! If God can really have
His own way, unobstructed by reluctance and secret reserve in us, then, because
His way is perfect, He will, He must, make our way perfect (Ps. 18: 30, 32). What
can the wise want beyond, or in place of perfection? And this sense of satisfaction, this “rest in the Lord,” He has preserved and deepened all
through the succeeding forty-seven years.
But, in the second place, there
was trial. It is indispensable that faith be tested, for only so is its quality
revealed, tempered, and perfected.
Muscles must be exercised if they are not to weaken. I was permitted to part with my
last penny before God intervened, and then He did so in such a way as to show
that He had been watching, and moving beforehand.
His help was on the way before
the extremity was reached, though none save He knew how I was circumstanced. And
all these years it has continued thus: no reserves, no visible resources: “having nothing, yet possessing
all things,” and especially that wondrous quietness
of spirit, that freedom from anxious thought, which leaves the heart at leisure
to devote all its powers to whatever good works have been “afore prepared of God that we should walk in them” (Eph.
2: 10).
In the third place there was
granted to me a new and strengthening sense of the nearness of God. The statement “The
Lord is at hand,” was known as fact. God
became a “very present help in trouble”: the
promise - “Come out ... and touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you” was fulfilled. It is ever thus. Here is the short but wondrous story in two
acts: “They cast him out ... and Jesus found him” (John 9: 34, 35), and finding him, gave to one who had been
blind a deep acquaintance with Himself.
Thanks be unto God that the Scripture saith not “Let us go forth outside the camp bearing His reproach,” but “Let us go forth UNTO
Him outside the camp”; and there in His own company
it is not hard to bear His reproach.
* * *
* * *
*
36
ATTAINING THE OUT-RESURRECTION
By THOMAS W FINLAY
To follow Christ in self-denying
obedience requires the power of God. As
we experience “the power of his resurrection,” then we
can follow Christ in obedience. Even
Christ Himself did not go to the cross by His own power, but needed empowering
grace from God to go to the cross (Heb. 2: 9).
To “share in his sufferings” is modified by the
phrase “becoming like him in his death.” This
phrase means dying to self to the fullest extent, even as Christ did by
accepting the death of the cross.
Phil. 3: 11 - “if by any means I may attain to the out-resurrection from
among the dead” [a more literal translation] - Now Paul tells us the final
goal of this knowing of Christ. His goal is to attain to the “out-resurrection” - a special word signifying a unique resurrection
status. The first phrase I show here as “if by
any means.” This phrase in Greek is ei pois and is
used only four times in the New Testament (Acts 27:
12; Rom. 1: 10; 11: 14; Phil. 3: 11). It surely expresses uncertainty of outcome,
as is seen in its uses in the N.T. We also see the subjunctive mood of the verb
here, again expressing uncertainty: “I may attain.” In
other words, at the time of this writing Paul was not at all certain that he
would attain to this “out-resurrection.”
Unfortunately, most all Bible
versions simply translate the word “out-resurrection” (Greek,
exananstasis) as “resurrection” (Greek,
anastasis). The text however
is clear - the apostle penned an almost unique word here by adding the
preposition ek to the normal word for resurrection. W. E. Vine, in his
respected lexicon of N.T. words, comments on the phrase here: “ek,
‘from’ or ‘out of,’ and No. 1 [the Greek word for resurrection], Philippians 3:11, followed by ek, lit., ‘the out-resurrection from among the dead.’”* This almost unique word is used only this one time in the
N.T., and only once or twice in other Greek literature (where its usage has
nothing at all to do with a resurrection from the dead).
* W. E.
Vine, M. A. Entry for ‘Resurrection’. Vine’s
Expository Dictionary of NT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/ved/r/resurrection.html.
1940.
This word cannot refer to the
normal resurrection of the saints, which is a certainty (not an uncertainty) for every saint (1 Cor. 15: 22, [23]; 51-52…[cf. Rev. 20: 15, R.V.]). We are helped in our understanding to
realize that verse 11 is connected to verse 10. That is, our knowing Christ in
discipleship is linked to the possibility of attaining to this “out-resurrection.” And, verse
11 is also clearly directly linked to verses
12-14, which speak of pressing onward
as in a race for the prize. All of this should make us aware that the “out-resurrection” speaks
of a reward associated with following Christ in discipleship. Some Greek experts view this
word, due to the prefix of ek, as signifying an intensification
of resurrection. They interpret it as a fullness of life in resurrection. This
interpretation fits well with the idea of a special portion of eternal life to
be realized by the overcomer in the age to come.
This out-resurrection equals the
“better resurrection” of Hebrews 11: 35
(KJV). Note that in Hebrews 11: 35 some endured torture in order to ‘gain a better
resurrection’. The “out-resurrection” is a special reward for the overcoming Christian. In line with the
other verses we have seen, this is a special positive reward, realized in the coming kingdom of 1,000
years.*
* There
seems to be a distinction between the act of resurrection and a state of resurrection. The “out-resurrection” should most likely be seen
as a state of resurrection belonging to the age to come (see Luke 18: 30; 20: 33-35). An important passage describing this state
would be Revelation 20: 4-6. The term “first resurrection” in that passage may be better
rendered as the “best resurrection.” The Greek
word for “first” is protos (Strong’s #4413), which can mean “chief” or “best”
instead of first in a numbered series. An example would be “the best robe” in Luke 15: 22. Compare this with the thought in Hebrews 11: 35.
The attainment to the out-resurrection
is based upon our participation in Christ’s sufferings in verse ten. We can now add a word about suffering
with Christ in order to attain to this millennial kingdom reward. Note Romans 8: 17,
as translated below in a more accurate translation rendered by an expert in the
Greek. This translation brings out the important correlative conjunctions in
the Greek text meaning “on the one hand ... but on the other”:
“And if
children, also heirs; heirs on one hand of God, joint
heirs on the other of Christ, if indeed we
suffer with Him in order that also we may be glorified with Him.”
Rom. 8: 17 is a very
important verse that makes a distinction between “heirs
of God” and “Joint-heirs with Christ.”
According to the construction of the Greek text, there is a definite difference
between the two heirships here. As
children of God, we are automatically in line to inherit some of the blessings
God has for us by placing us in His family. In fact, Romans
8: 29-30
shows some of these blessings that are the portion of every child of God (see
also Galatians 3: 29).
To be a “Joint-heir with Christ,” however, is clearly conditional. Only
those children of God who meet this condition of “suffering
with Him” will be joint-heirs with Christ. Christ’s enduring obedience
included suffering involved with that obedience (Phil.
2: 8; Heb. 5: 8; 12: 3). As a result, He was given the highest position
by God and will rule over all (Phil. 2: 9-10; Heb. 1: 9; 12: 2). Christ
has been made “heir of all things” (Heb. 1: 2). When He returns, He will set up the [promised
Thousand-year-Messianic] kingdom on the [present-sin-cursed (Gen. 3: 17)] earth
and inherit (possess) it, (Lk.
19: 11-12; Heb. 1: 6-9). In that kingdom, Christ will
reign in glory (Is. 24:
23; Matt.
19: 28; 25: 31; Mk. 10: 37 [cf. Hab.
2: 14
with Isa. 11: 1-10, R.V.]).
We have an opportunity to be
fellow heirs, co-possessors of His coming kingdom (ruling together with Him - “glorified with Him”). However, such a possession is
conditional for us. Our sharing of His rule will require obedience and suffering (2 Tim. 2: 12; Rev. 2: 26; 3: 21). The suffering here is “suffering with Him.” This
means we are willing to suffer in order to be obedient to God, as He suffered
by being obedient to the Father’s will (Phil.
3: 8; Heb. 5: 8; 12: 3).
This suffering could include
rejection or persecution for our faith. Yet, all types of human trials and
suffering are useful in preparing us to reign with Christ in glory. This is
because sufferings offer opportunity for us to grow to maturity through faith
and obedience (Acts 14: 22; Rom. 5: 14; 2 Cor. 4: 16-18; Phil. 2: 12-16; Heb. 10: 35-36; Jas. 1: 24; 1 Pet. 1: 5-8; 4: 1-2, 12-13). To “suffer
with Him” means to take up our cross as Christ took up His cross. Our “taking up of our cross” involves a voluntary loss to
our soul’s natural desires and choices (self-denial) in order to follow Christ in
obedience, choosing His will (Matt. 16: 24-26).
It
should now be clear that our participation [in the “out-resurrection,” and] in the
in the coming kingdom with Christ will yield two significant benefits for
victorious Christians. Firstly, there is the wonderful promise that these
victors will enjoy a special portion of
eternal life, experiencing a fullness of union with Christ. Secondly, they will
be awarded crowns and be co-rulers with
Christ in His 1,000 year kingdom….
* * *
* *
* *
37
THE POSSIBILITY OF THE HIGHEST
By D. M: PANTON, B.A.
Two of
the Apostles asked of Christ the highest gift in the whole universe that any
human could ask - two thrones on either
side of His. Can you, He replied, “drink of the cup
that I drink of'?” (Mark 10: 18).
We can, they said. You will, He replied;
but the particular thrones you ask are not Mine to grant. Here is the immense
question for us all:- Can you? In this moment’s violent world-storms, and
with a strain upon us all threatening to tempt us to disheartenment if not
despair, and with identical thrones before us, one golden utterance of our Lord summons us to the highest:- “ALL THINGS ARE
POSSIBLE TO HIM THAT BELIEVETH” (Mark
9: 23).
Faith
OUR first
essential is to master the nature of the faith by which we ‘can.’
Faith is not believing that God will give us what we want, but that He
will give us what He has said. Faith is
simply taking God at His word, and therefore acting on every word of God: the
Lord’s promise is not merely to saving faith, but assumes a trust that responds
to every utterance of the Most High. So the Apostles said to Christ:- “Lord, increase our faith” (Luke 17:
5); and the moment the man, to whom our Lord
spoke, heard the astounding words, “he
cried out and said said, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief” (Mark 9: 24). So Paul says to
the Thessalonian Christians:- “Your faith groweth
exceedingly” (2 Thess. 1: 3). Faith is the live wire along which travels the
shock of life; and the golden achievements of Hebrews
11, the mightiest miracles of the world, all were wrought, not by merely
saving faith, but by the power that grasped and lived the Word of God, all down
their years. Faith is belief in action;
and the action can grow until it covers all
that God has said.
God
THE next essential is to
remind ourselves of the trustworthiness of God. God’s character is in His word;
and exactly what He is, every utterance of His is also. So on four mighty pillars every promise of God is based.
The first is God’s holiness: God’s holiness makes it impossible for Him to
deceive a soul: therefore the promise is meant. The second pillar is God’s kindness:
God’s kindness makes it impossible for Him to forget the promise that He has
made: therefore the promise is never forgotten. The third pillar is God’s
unchangeableness: God’s unchangeableness makes it impossible for Him to alter:
therefore the promise holds good. The fourth pillar is God’s
power: God’s power makes it impossible for God to fall: therefore the promise
is effectual. Faith is
not blind: faith is the highest kind of intelligence in the world: it assumes,
and acts upon, what are already the foundations of the universe - God, and God
expressed in His words.
Perfection
Now we
see the boundless horizon that opens before us. Paul states it:- “All scripture is inspired of God and is profit able for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction which is in righteousness”: and is
given with what object? “that the man of God” - every
child of God can become a Man of God - “may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work” (2
Tim. 3: 17).
The whole Bible is given to create the whole man. The Apostle James expresses
it thus:- “That ye may be perfect and entire” - a perfectly rounded character,
accomplishing a fully orbed achievement - “lacking
in nothing” (Jas. 1: 4). This was the golden aim of the Apostles - “Admonishing every man and teaching every man that we may
present every man” - God’s
design makes no exceptions - “PERFECT IN CHRIST” (Col. 1: 28). There is a peak of one Alp so lofty and difficult
that it is said never to have been trodden by human foot: there is no peak in
God’s
Dynamic
NEXT, Paul reveals the
secret of the power. “In everything and in all things have
I learned the secret: I can do all things THROUGH
CHRIST which strengtheneth ME” (Phil. 4: 12). Our Lord had already stated it negatively:- “Apart from me ye can do nothing” (John 15: 5);
but to the father, in close contact with Himself, He says,- “Nothing shall be impossible to you” (Matt. 17: 20). The Saviour so knows His own reservoirs of
power, He so realizes the limitless possibilities of the God-indwelt soul, that
He says that the ‘all things’ found within the covers of the
Book are constantly and forever possible to every born-again soul, through
contact with Himself. When one of the martyrs under Queen Mary came in sight of
the stake he cried, - “Oh, I cannot! I cannot!” Those who heard him supposed he was about
to recant; but, falling on his knees, he engaged in an agony of prayer, and then,
rising, cried triumphantly, - “I can! I can!” and he did. “I
can do all things through Christ
who
strengthens me.” Ignatius,
with one arm actually in the lion’s mouth, exclaimed:- “Now I begin to be a Christian!”
Unbelief
IT is well
that we should realize sharply the negative of this truth. The faith in each
Scripture is the wire-charged with the omnipotence of God to fulfil that
particular Scripture in my life: if I realise that Scripture - whatever it be,
on whatever subject - the wire falls
dead; and the power to live it which that truth contained falls dead also. Our Lord was so painfully conscious how little
His disciples, and much less mankind as a whole,
would tap these infinite resources, that He utters a word of tragic pathos. To
His disciples He says - “O ye of little faith!” and to
the world at large, - “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how
long shall I bear with you?” It is the solitary cry of the unaccepted and uncomprehended Christ.
It is as if He said:- “Take me home: I want to get
back to where my Father, who is love, is never doubted: where blessing is never blocked: where love meets the
response of a perfect trust.” Our doubt today must drive the same pain
through the tender heart of Christ. “Whatever is not of faith is sin” (Rom. 14: 23).
Infinitude
SO then we remind
ourselves of the promises of God. Here are some of these amazing utterances. “All things, whatsoever ye
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive” (Matt. 21: 22). With the solitary limit of the revealed mind
of God in His Word, infinity of blessing and achievement opens before us. “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11: 24).
We stand aghast at the tremendous sweep of these assertions of Christ; and
there is no profounder exposure of our faithlessness than to lay side by side
these words of infinite promise with what we actually get from the God who
cannot lie. Speaking of the multitude “astonished
with a great astonishment” (Mark
5: 42) a miracle of Christ, George
Muller, that modern master of faith, says:- “Faith
knows nothing, nothing, nothing of astonishment. Take it from an old disciple,
that if, when the next answer to prayer comes, you are astonished, it is a
proof that either you had no faith, or that it had failed in the end. I say it
again, faith knows nothing of astonishment. Faith is like a good coin - sure to
be honoured. Whatever comes, we take it humbly and gratefully from God, and
with no astonishment.” A woman noted for her faith was asked by one who
had come from far to learn the secret of her life, - “Are
you the woman with the great faith?” “No,”
she said; “I am not the woman with the great faith;
I am the woman with a little faith in a great God.”
None of us can say more than that.
Our Cry
So we
share the father’s cry. “Lord” - for
he sees the whole Godhead in the face that has come down from the mountain - “I believe” - though my boy at this moment is utterly unhealed - “help thou” - the cry that never fails to move the heart of Jesus - “mine unbelief” - for faith can grow; and I want mine to grow exceedingly. A
friend once complained to Gotthold, the German, of
his weak faith, and the distress this gave him. Gotthold,
in answer, pointed to a vine, twined around a pole and loaded with heavy
clusters of grapes. “Take,” he sald, “for pole and prop, the cross of the Saviour, and
the Word of God: lean on these with
all the power God shall give.
Weakness continually prostrating itself at the
feet of God is more acceptable to Him than an assumption of faith which falls
into false security and pride.”
* * *
* * *
*
38
A DYING UNIVERSE
By D. M. PANTON
ONE enormous catastrophe
has swept the world: another, far worse, will consume it. “The heavens that now are” - for
the coming ruin embraces the heavens also - “and the
earth, by the same word have been stored up for
fire” (2 Pet. 3: 7) - either
stored for fire, or stored with fire. Three hundred volcanoes vomit flame every
day; and at one of the British Association meetings in Edinburgh it was
seriously advanced that the explosion of a single atom, with the fire stored in
it, igniting others, might blow up the universe, which would roll away in
flaming gas. The fire that fell on
Population
It will help us to know that we
are watching a dying universe if we note a few facts concerning the tiny
fraction of that universe on which we live. Taking the figures of a past
generation (Fortnightly
Review, July, 1920), in 1701 the population of
Food
Next, we take the sharp
boundaries of the food production of the globe. Prof. J. W. Gregory, F.R.S.,
president of its Geographical Section, informed the British Association in
Toronto (August, 1924) that it is calculated that 6,600,000,000 is the maximum
population the world can feed; and that that limit will be reached in 120
years. Even if the food supply - the Professor said - were indefinitely
multiplied by the precipitation of the nitrogen of the atmosphere as a constant
rain of manna, by the year 3,000 living room - apart from the
Science
Again, Science, devoted to
annihilation for war purposes, menaces the world. “There
is nothing,” says Mr. Edison, “to prevent twenty to fifty aeroplanes flying
tomorrow over
Morale
The
world’s moral decay is no less a forecast of death: the deepening iniquity,
above all else, must reach a limit compelling the miraculous intervention of
God. We take the most ‘Christian’ nation in the
world. The murders in the
The Millennium
It is true that our Lord is
about to delay the death of the universe. For the universe’s final years the
evil angels are cast out of heaven; the population of the earth is to some
degree restored; wildernesses are changed into fruitful fields; and by His
marvellous redemption the sin-cursed earth fulfils God’s creative design of a
glorious world. But sin bursts out once more: war on God and His Christ “went up over the breadth of the earth and fire came down out
of heaven, and devoured them” (Rev. 20: 19): no fact could be more dynamic for the
annihilation of the universe. But, thank God, a marvellous future lies beyond -
“new heavens and a new earth, . wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2
Pet. 3: 13).
Mockers
But our threatened world takes not the slightest heed to the threat. “In the last days mockers shall come with mockery, saying, where is the promise
of his coming, for all things continue as they
were” - the unceasing, uninterrupted reign of law - “from the
beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3: 3). “For this they wilfully forget” - they
resolutely put it from their minds, it requires an effort of will to shut it
out - “that the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished”: that
the entire race of men, with the sole exception of a single family, was
miraculously swept out of existence. The words of the infidel Hume sums up the
unbelief:- “A miracle is a violation of a law of
nature; but the universal experience of ourselves, and of the whole human
family, proves that the laws of nature are uniform, without exception.”
To one further catastrophe, immeasurably appalling, which will instantly
shatter all their mockery, the world is blind.
A Warning
But, as so often in Scripture, a
warning is given to us believers also. “Ye
therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand” - the
whole mass of Second Coming truth - “beware
lest, being carried away” - swept
from your bearings - “by the error of the lawless, ye fall from your own steadfastness.” And the
Apostle reveals a chief source of this backsliding. “The ignorant and the unsteadfast wrest
the scriptures unto their own
destruction”: that is, we allow ourselves sins which, by carefully distorted
Scriptures, we come to regard as venial or even permissible. In the words of
Dr. James Hastings:- “If it be true that he who is
faithful in that which is least is faithful in that which is greatest, it is
also true that he who permits himself some private but real disloyalty to
Christ, without immediate self-rebuke or repentance, is allowing forces to
gather within him which will bring about a shear, and it may be an irreparable
fall.”*
* For example, Unitarianism, Christian Science, Mormonism, Christadelphianism,
etc., all abound in quoted Scriptures, but Scriptures warped and expounded ‘lawlessly’.
Godliness
So the Holy Spirit unfolds the
tremendous spiritual consequence for us all. “Seeing
that these things are thus all to be dissolved, what
manner of persons ought ye to be,” as you stand beside the
deathbed of a universe; “in all holy living” - perfected conduct - “and
godliness” - Godlikeness, perfected character; “looking
for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God”. “The world passeth away, and
the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever” (1 John 2:
17). See the marvellous wonder and value of
the little interval between an eternity when there were no worlds and the moment
when there will be no worlds again. Holiness is the only asbestos of God.
Godliness is the life of heaven lived on earth: it is the activity of God
reproduced in a human soul: it is the air of the coming eternity blowing
through a human life. And the suddenness sharpens the preparation: “the day of the Lord will come as a thief.” As no
pleading can postpone it, no flight avoid it, no secrecy escape it, so nothing
but holiness in time can meet it.
Immortal
Many years ago I asked a little
girl of eight years of age why she wanted to be saved. “Because”, she replied, “I want God in my
heart.” If she lives to eighty,
she will never give a better answer. Believers are ‘temples
of the Holy Ghost’ for ever.
* * *
* * *
*
39
IMPERIALISM AND COMMUNISM
By D. M. PANTON
A PHOTOGRAPH of the
political conditions of the closing age, taken
several thousand years ago and never even beginning to be fulfilled until the
last century, is now becoming startlingly clear. “There shall be in it” - the
group of world-nations in the last stage - “of the
strength of the iron*” - the
iron was the
* Iron is
a symbol of force - autocratic power which enforces discipline: so our Lord,
when He comes “to tread the winepress of the fierceness
of the wrath of Almighty God,” He shall rule the nations “with a rod of iron” (Rev.
19: 15).
Nationalism and Democracy
The clay
is defined as being ‘the seed of men,’ that is,
the populace and it is described as ‘miry,’ that
is brittle, easily smashed, unarmed. Democracies are one of the wonders of the
modern world: for example, in 1913
The Cominform
But the
ultimate fruition is already becoming obvious. The Cominform is set on the
destruction of all nationalism, to achieve ‘the dictation of the proletariat’;
and so it evolves at last - as so signally in Russia - in a fresh Imperialism,
a handful of despots in the Kremlin. Lenin - true Communism - ends in Stalin -
pure Imperialism. Exactly so we shall arrive at Antichrist.
Napoleon
In
Napoleon we have already had a portrait of the Antichrist so extraordinarily
like the Lawless One that the coming of Antichrist is shorn of all difficulty
and made historically certain. (1)
Our first fact about Napoleon is that he bore one of the names of Antichrist.
The words … and … ‘Napoleon’ mean a ‘lion’ of the ‘thicket,’
and, speaking of the Antichrist, Jeremiah 4:
7, says:- “A
lion
is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations.”
Apostasy
(2) Again, Napoleon was a birth out of a
definite apostasy. How complete an apostasy was the French Revolution is
revealed by one fact - the Republic, in order to wipe out Christianity, changed
the dating from ‘anno domini’
to the year of the Revolution: so that the year 1792 became the year 1 - the
very thing foretold of Antichrist: “he shall think to change the
times and the law” (Dan. 7: 25). A similar apostasy is to give birth to
Antichrist. “The day of the Lord will not be
except the falling away” - the apostasy - “come first, and the man of sin
be revealed” (2 Thess.
2: 3). The
reason is obvious. Apostasy breeds lawlessness; lawlessness breeds anarchy;
anarchy compels the rise of a great military dictator: the Iron will be
required to master the seething Clay. As Napoleon said in St. Helena, when he
saw
A New God
(3) Again, Napoleon’s attitude to religion is extraordinarily
significant. “The people must have a religion,”
he said: “this religion must be in the hands of the
government. It will be said that I am a
Papist. I am nothing. I was a Mohammedan in
A New Messiah
(4) Perhaps the parallel is nowhere more startling than in
Napoleon’s plans - plans which, in the Antichrist’s hands, will be
achievements. Napoleon said:- “This little
A Roman
(5) One final parallel is curiously significant. Napoleon was not a
Frenchman at all, but a Roman, an Italian; and it is even said - though it has
never been proved - that he was a blood-born descendant of the Caesars.
Napoleon made his little son ‘king of the Romans,’
a title, like the British ‘Prince of Wales,’
belonging to the heir of the
Messiah
So now dawns the golden future.
The apex of iniquity brings in the apex of glory. “A stone was cut out without
hands” - an Empire that had no human origen - “which smote the image upon his feet” - not
on the legs, but on the feet - “that were of iron
and clay” - that is, our own epoch - “and
brake them in pieces” (ver. 34). That the
coming Divine Kingdom actually replaces the four successive Empires of the world
- Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome - proves that this Millennial
Kingdom, the thousand years reign of our Lord, is literally a Kingdom on the [present]
earth. “In the days of those kings” - the
days of desperate amalgamation of imperialism and democracy - “shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed,* nor shall
the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms,
and it shall stand for ever.”*
[* That is, ‘it shall stand’ until
the termination of our Lord’s ‘thousand years’
reign of righteousness and peace - (See Isa. 9: 6-7. cf.
Isa. chs.11. & 12 and compare with Lk. 1: 32, R.V.) - and until its destruction replacement
with “a new heaven and a new
earth: for the first heaven and the first earth
are passed away; and the sea is no more:”
(Compare 2 Pet. 3:
12, 13,
R.V. & Rev. 21:
1 with 1 Cor. 15: 24-25; Rev. 2: 25-27; 3: 21, R.V.).
All Anti-millennialists take
note! Scripture never contradicts
itself: there is nothing taught throughout the New
Testament Scriptures that is not taught throughout the Old Testament
Scriptures! Acts 7: 5.
cf.
Gen. 13: 14-15, R.V.]
-------
World-wide Persecution
The time is coming when true believers
everywhere shall be hated because of their identity with the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. “Then shall they deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake,” said
Jesus (Matt. 24:
9). The present growing hostility against
true Christianity foreshadows the time when anti-Christ forces that are in the
world shall seek to destroy all believers of the “one
Faith.” The Bride of Christ will
escape the snare through [a pre-tribulation] Rapture, but
foolish virgins left on the earth, and others who will refuse to
worship the Beast or his image, shall be killed (Matt.
25: 1-12; Rev. 6: 9; 13: 7). As
awful as it is to suffer torture and martyrdom, its wholesome purifying effect
upon the soul has long been recognized. The revival broken out in parts of the
South has been directly attributed to persecution. Even so, in the coming tribulation, “many shall be
purified and made white and tried” (Dan. 11: 33-35; 12: 10)
because of persecution. How much better
it would be, however, for people to purify themselves now that
they ‘may be counted worthy to
escape all these things that shall come to pass’ [Lk. 21:
36, A.V.],
and thus be raptured into the presence of Christ.
- The Midnight Cry.
* * *
* * *
*
40
THE JUDGMENT OF THE
CHRISTIAN’S WORKS
By G. P. RAUD
GOD
recompenses every man, whether believer or unbeliever. He, recompenses every deed that man has done
or will do. He pays back either good or bad.
“For the son of man shall come in the
glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works” (Matt. 16: 27), “And,
behold, I come quickly;
and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be” (Rev. 22: 12). No one
escapes His judgment, Jew or Gentile, saved or unsaved.
Now we come to the [regenerate] believer. In Romans 6: 23 we
read that the gift of God is eternal life to the one who believes. We don’t work for a gift; we don’t work to
gain eternal life. We believe and we
have it. And this eternal life abides
forever. When a person is converted, he
receives the Holy Spirit who comes to abide in him for ever.*
Salvation is a free and eternal gift. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5: 1).
[* Note the conditional text of Acts 5: 32. cf.
1 Sam. 16:
14; 28: 16 with Psa. 51: 10, 11,
LXX Hence, repentance, restoration, and
watchfulness is required: God willing! Also “The Personal
Indwelling of the Holy Spirit” by G. H. Lang.]
Rewards, however, are determined
by the believer’s works; whatever his vocation or station in life, the works he
performs after conversion settle his reward.
Christians sometimes say carelessly, “Oh, I am all right. I am saved.” And then they act worse than the world, although our lives as
children of God ought to be holy, worthy of the Lord, filled with the Holy
Spirit to His glory.
“What shall We Have?”
“Then
answered Peter and said unto him, Behold,
we have forsaken all, and
followed thee; what shall we have therefore?
And Jesus said unto them, Verily, I say unto you,
that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when - [this
sin-cursed earth is restored (Gen. 3: 17; Rom. 8: 19-21, R.V.,
and]
- the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19: 27, 28).
Our Lord here directs Peter’s eyes
away from the present and turns them to the future glory when the Son of man
will be reigning upon the earth. The
twelve were now apostles, chosen leaders; and they sought to know what would be
their reward because they had forsaken all for Christ. Their reward was not in the present, but
in the future, and it consisted in their reigning in His kingdom.
Will they be sitting just anywhere, as some believers say, “I’ll be satisfied if I only get to heaven”? That
prospect would never have contented Peter.
The apostles will sit on thrones, which are assigned only to persons who
reign, who wield authority over others.
To reign is to hold authority, issue commands, put down rebellions, and
maintain order.
We see that the apostles will
have their reward, but what are we going to have? “And if
children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be
that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8: 17). One of
the hardest words in the Bible is suffer. We don’t like it. The old man rebels against it; and the new
man, also, very often. A special glory awaits, however, all who
suffer with Christ and for Him. This
promise of Romans 8: 17 is not simply the glory of being made like Christ when He
comes; it goes beyond that. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (v. 18).
Most of us do not know what
suffering for Christ’s sake really is. Easy-going Christian service robs us of
reward. If we do not press forward and
suffer for Him, we shall lose our reward.
Few Christians understand that true service is always
accompanied by suffering. We shall suffer too - if we choose God’s best for us. His best is always difficult, although
possible; and our nearest and
dearest may oppose our choice. The enemy
will arouse everything against us in order to turn us away from His best.
Striving for a Crown
“Every
man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to
obtain a corruptible crown but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run,
not as uncertainly so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, lest
after I have preached to others, I myself should
be a castaway” (1 Cor.
9: 25, 27), or should be rejected (R.V.) from being
awarded the crown. These familiar words
ought to challenge us to examine ourselves to learn whether we run uncertainly
or whether we will assuredly receive this incorruptible crown.
“Every
man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day
shall declare it, because it shall be revealed
by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work
of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he
himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire”
(1 Cor. 3: 13-15). The
fire into which the work of the believer will be put is not for purging or
cleansing; it is for testing, to prove what sort his work is. It will manifest the quality of his
work. Some Christians hold that at that day
all their unworthy past will be cleansed away, with not a trace of it
remaining. Not so. Their work will be tested by fire and will
determine their eternal reward.
The child of God may ask, “Why worry about rewards?
We don’t need to know about them.
We shall get to heaven and then everything will be all right.” But the Lord wants us to receive His full
reward, all that He has in store for us.
If at His judgment seat we get anything less, we have come that much
short of glorifying Him. The more reward, the more praise and glory to His
matchless name. It has been said that
to-day’s toil is the measure of to-morrow’s glory. If we do not toil, our loss will he great.
Rulers in the
The
“Behold,
a king shall reign
in righteousness, and princes shall rule in
judgment” (Isa.
32: 1). The Lord Jesus Christ will reign as king of
all the earth, and with Him will be
many reigning princes. Now God seeks and
prepares the future rulers for His kingdom.
When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” let us remember that we shall reign
with Him “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also
glorified together” (Rom. 8: 17); “if we suffer,
we shall also reign
with him” (2 Tim. 2: 12).
The Servant Who Lost Everything
The last
servant mentioned in the parable of Luke 19:
22 didn’t do anything. A lazy, indifferent follower of the Lord, he
earned nothing with his pound. What
happened to him in the judgment? He lost
even his one pound: “And he saith unto him, Out of thine
own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was an austere
man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank,
that at my coming I might have required mine own with
usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and
give it to him that hath ten pounds” (vv.
22-25). We profit much by studying this
parable and learning the lesson that we shall suffer great loss in the judgment
if we do not perform faithfully what he commits to our hands.
“I have
fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth
there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing”; (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8). “Blessed is the man that endureth temptations, for when he is tried, he shall
receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath
promised to them that love him” (Jas.
1: 12).
The Word of God teaches that
great, [millennial and] eternal rewards are available for believers, but that only
those who work hard for them receive them.
God offers us crowns on
conditions stated in the Word, and He will grant them to us only if we meet those conditions. May God give every one of us grace to receive
His full reward at the judgment seat of Christ. - The Prophetic Word.
* * *
* *
* *
41
HIS CROWNS AND OURS
By E. J. CHECKLEY
We may contemplate our
Lord’s coronations with
wondering and adoring hearts.
In Ps.
8: 5 as Son of
Man, the crown of
dominion, lost to Adam, is conferred on the Second Man, who worthily wears its “glory and honour,” having manifested perfect
obedience and perfect dependence in the very scene where the first man failed.
In John
19: 2-5
He is crowned as Saviour. “The soldiers platted a crown of
thorns, and put it on His head. Then came Jesus forth, wearing
the crown of thorns.”
“Crowned with thorns upon the tree,
Silent in Thine agony,
Dying, crushed beneath the load
Of the wrath and curse of God.”
In Heb.
2: 9 He
is crowned as Victor over Satan, sin, the grave - “We
see Jesus ... crowned with glory and honour.”
“With joy and praise Thy people see
The crown of glory worn by Thee.”
Rev. 19: 12 shows
Him as King of kings and Lord of lords. “On His head were many crowns.” Royal
diadems proclaim His right to universal homage.
“Crown Him, crown Him, Lord of all.”
Trace Him through His sufferings
to glory, and be assured we are called to follow in the very path He trod.
The Believer’s Crowns
The Goal is in prospect (Phil. 3: 14), but the redeemed may wear a
present crown. “Who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies” (Ps. 103: 4). The
garland of His “loving-kindness and tender mercies,” gracing
every Christian’s brow, may surely gladden every journeying mile we tread
homewards; but we are told that many, unhappily, forfeit the joy of this
possession: “The crown is fallen from our head
... we have sinned” (Lam. 5: 16). Blessed Lord, graciously recover in the souls
of Thy redeemed the delight such “loving-kindness
and tender mercies” minister to Thy weary heritage
The Crown Incorruptible
(1 Cor. 9: 24-27), for
self-control, is within reach of all (Heb. 12: 1). There should be the denial of self,
subjection, our old man put off (Matt. 16: 24; Eph. 4: 22-24). The believer’s training for eternity should
be welcomed for,
“A crown incorruptible then will be theirs,
A rich compensation for suffering and loss.”
The Crown of Life
(Jas.
1: 12 and
Rev. 2: 10) is for those who “seek glory and honour by patient continuance” (Rom. 2: 7). Life we
already have in Christ; this reward is for those who live Christ. 2 Tim. 2: 12 tells us
that sufferers, endurers, “reign”. In the days of Acts
14: 22; Phil.
1: 29; 2 Cor. 12: 10, the privilege
of winning such a crown as this was courted by loyal hearts, and still should
be until He comes. Gal. 6: 9 encourages us in such a path.
The Crown of Righteousness
is promised in 2 Tim. 4: 8.
Righteousness we have in Christ, and there is no crown for that, but a
righteous course that costs us something to maintain He will crown. The “course,” the “stewardship” kept, this crown is for those who, “loving His appearing,” have, while hastening to the goal, faithfully wrought
righteousness.
The Crown of Rejoicing
of 1 Thess. 2: 19 is the
soul-winner’s garland. Oh, the joy when
the soul-winner and the soul won meet together in the crowning day! Then, too, the Divine Seeker and those He
sought will rejoice together. His
rejoicing will excel, for we read, “Behold,
I and the children,” etc. (Isa. 8: 18; Heb. 2: 10).
The Crown of Glory
is spoken of in 1 Peter 5: 3, 4. Glory is
the portion of every believer in Christ, but the crown of glory is for those who “lay down their lives for the brethren,” who are
“ensamples to the flock,” who “feed the flock,” and share the Chief Shepherd’s
loving interest in each and all who compose the “little
flock”; having “respect unto the
recompense of reward,” they regard all earthly, fading honours as
nothing to be compared with “the crown that
fadeth not away”; prizing the promise of crowning as loving encouragement from
the lips of the glorious Promiser (Heb. 6: 10; Mark 9: 41; Jer. 31: 16). With the promise of His coming He has coupled
“My reward”.
“Such reward to him who serveth,
Far surpasseth earthly fame.”
It has been truly said, “We shall have all eternity to celebrate victories, but we
have only the few hours before sunset to win them.” While salvation is
of grace “freely,”
Crowns Must Be Earned
We have opportunity to win
crowns only here and now. “Striving for masteries” is a present
experience. In view of the coming day of
awards, and knowing that each soul’s biography is being written in heaven, to
be published then, the soul surely should desire to come nearer to God’s
thoughts now, exercise the mind of
Christ, and cleave to the written Word.
The overcomers’ “Well done,” and all
lesser prizes will be dispensed after the Lord has come for His Bride, the
Father’s house entered, the home of love reached, when we all are manifested
before the judgment-seat of Christ in heaven.
Only believers will appear there, those already “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1: 6), subject
to “no condemnation” (Rom. 8: 1), whose names are in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Rev. 21: 27), already glorified (Col.
3: 4), in
Christ’s likeness (1 John 3: 2), a beautiful, brilliant assembly before the Bema, where,
as in Grecian games, the Umpire proclaims successful competitors, and bestows
awards; or, as the judges in Art Galleries, appraise the artists’ works, not persons; or as in flower-shows the
plants and blooms are judged, and not the persons of the exhibitors.
In prospect, “suffer loss” (1 Cor. 3: 15), being “ashamed” (1 John 2: 28),
or seeing works consumed as worthless, should mightily influence our present
purpose to wear the bright gem of His approval now, and to reap in the crowning
day the promised recompense.
Judgment for the Believer
will be
such as to bring to light hidden things, the thoughts of the heart, etc. (1 Cor. 4: 5). With His servants the Lord reckoneth (Matt. 25: 19). The “sort” of works, motives,
and faithfulness He will manifest, only accrediting service which is comparable
to “gold, silver,
precious stones,” such as when put to the
proof stand the fire; while worthless works, which are comparable to “wood, hay, stubble,” will be
consumed (1 Cor. 3: 11-15).
Quality, not quantity, will there be appraised (Matt.
25: 21-23).
Rules Must Be Observed
otherwise there can he no crown
(2 Tim. 2:
5).
Only those who finish well are crowned.
The runners must obey strict requirements, the Divine directions (1 Cor. 9: 24, 25; Heb. 12: 1, 2); be exercised by child-training, by Fatherly
discipline (Heb. 12:
6-9; 1 Pet. 1: 17); be subject to the corrective rule of Christ
as Lord (1 Cor. 11: 31, 32); submit to the cleansing Word (John 15: 3);
profit by the rebuking rod (Heb. 12: 5); exercise gift received as “stewards” entrusted with their Master’s
goods (1 Peter 4 : 10);
conscious that a full reward may be forfeited (2
John 8; Rev. 3:
8-11).
As Divine Incentives
read the Saviour’s “blessed” (Matt. 5: 3-11), and receive Divine encouragement for
Christ-like ways. It will be His joy to
say “Well done”. To gratify Him is surely sufficient
inducement!
To be reapers then, the sowing must be done now. Diligent
quest of Christian virtues brings “abundant
entrance”; and with no barrenness or unfruitfulness (2 Peter 1: 8). Entries “abounding
to the account” (Phil. 4: 17) will
then be summed up. No loving service,
however small, will be unrewarded (Mark 9: 41), and he who serves, “him will My Father honour” (John 12: 26). In view of His coming quickly (Rev. 22: 12), we should trade with talents given and so
reap heavenly profits (Luke 19: 12-19).
The recompense He has promised (Luke 14: 14) is
a blest incentive not to lose His great reward:- “Sit
with Me in My throne” (2 John 8;
Rev. 3: 21).
“Not in
vain” are present “steadfastness” and “abounding works” (1 Cor. 15: 58), to “So run
that ye may obtain,” and keep under the body (1 Cor. 9: 26, 27).
Its blessed effect is “godly fear” (1
Peter 1: 17) and leads to preferring
present training, discipline and chastening to sharing the world’s judgment (1 Cor. 11: 31, 32).
“This one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto those
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the
prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3: 13, 14).
The highest rapture in heaven is
not when the redeemed wear crowns, but when they cast them down before Him (Rev.
4: 10). -
The Prophetic Digest.
* * *
* * *
*
42
THE GREAT WHITE THRONE
By D. M. PANTON
The Great White Throne, the
junction between the old worlds and the new, is revealed in a narrative which
is the apex of sublimity in literature because it is the most awful revelation
ever made. The Sitter on the Throne is
not described: only by the effects do we
learn the appalling majesty of the Godhead:- “from
whose face the earth” - the earth feels the shock first, as
nearest to the Throne, and starts the flight - “and
the heavens fled away” (Rev. 20: 11). The Throne is thus left self-poised in space:
behind it, annihilated worlds; before it, uncreated worlds: with nothing
therefore between, all eyes perforce are held by the lonely, glittering
Throne. It is a great, white Throne:
great, because from it proceed all
destinies, not for a day or an age but for ever, and because before it are
arraigned all devils, all angels, all men; and white, because no bribery, no cruelty,
no ignorance, no injustice are there - it is an unsoiled, untainted, unbiased,
inexorable Throne.
A vast assemblage is gathered
before the Throne. Three days are
supreme in the history of the world:- the
day the world was made; the day the world was redeemed; and the day the world
will be judged: but of these days, on one only - and that for the first and
last time - all men will be assembled in one spot. “I saw THE DEAD, both small and great, standing” -
therefore in [and 1,000 years after the first] resurrection - “before God.”
What a vision! All graves will be
empty at last. Out of the vaults and the
catacombs, out of the mummy-pits and the pyramids, in rolling clouds they come
up; yet each face sharply distinct, each character defined, each memory
crystal-clear, each forehead foredoomed.
The unknown multitudes that perished in the Flood; the countless hordes
of Barbarians that swept across Asia and buried the Roman Empire; the ten
millions - some of them faces we remember - from the War-trenches of
* The mystery as to who are the dead that come up out of the sea
remains unsolved, and probably so until the hereafter. Bodies are not in question, nor do bodies come up out of Death and
Hades, which contain all the human
dead.
The processes of the Court
unfold, and the real thrill of judgment comes, in the opening of the
books. “And
BOOKS,” we
read, “were opened.” There are no witnesses - the Witness is on
the Throne; a second witness is in every breast; a third witness is in every
neighbour’s face: but there is ample
and flawless evidence. After all
phonographs and photographs are gone down with the vanished worlds, perfect records
remain written by the finger of God. It
is an extraordinary fact that Science has discovered that nothing is lost. It is said that remote stars are still
receiving the light which shot up
when Luther cast the Papal Bull into the flames; that Peter’s guilty firelight
is finding its way into remoter worlds; that the dying cry of the forsaken
Christ is being registered on the receiving tablets of space; that all prayers
and all curses, all psalms and all oaths - “all
that is filthy with all that is fair” - are woven into the texture of
things. A bird alights, thousands of
years ago, on soft clay, and the claws’ imprint hardens into the rock for
ever. But these records are still more
serious: they are books, consciously and deliberately written and never written on
earth at all. They are God’s history of
every man’s life, a journal of every sinner’s career: “and they were judged every man” - every man, and appearing singly
and alone, none escaping the final trial - “according
to their works”; in a judgment, therefore exactly graded to
transgression. The Books are opened:- to
inspection, to cross-examination, to conscience, to memory.
The verdict follows, and the
execution of the sentence. Two
fundamental purposes are served by evidence:- namely, the guilt or innocence of
the accused is established; and the strict impartiality (or the reverse) of the
judge is proved, together with the righteousness of his sentence: so,
therefore, “the dead were judged” - not
out of the arbitrary decisions of the Judge, even though the judge is God
Himself, but - “out of the things which were written in the
books, according to THEIR WORKS.” Both the fundamental purposes of justice,
calling for a public trial before the assembled worlds, are thus wholly
satisfied in the last great assize. And
a very startling fact comes out in the Court.
Not a solitary soul of mankind, redeemed or unredeemed, can stand the
judgment of the Books. We know this
because only another Book -
the Book of Life - delivers any soul at all.
So the Gospel had always stated. “What things
soever the law saith, it saith to them that are
under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and ALL THE WORLD BROUGHT IN GUILTY before God” (Rom. 3: 19). All are
condemned by the plural Books, so far as the Books are concerned, their
own actions deciding their destiny. And appalling beyond
conception is the verdict: “he was cast into THE LAKE OF FIRE”: “he was cast” - for no power in the universe can resist the execution of
the sentence: a fiery doom thrice repeated, that the awful words should sink
into our souls for ever. Eye hath not
seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, the things that
God hath prepared for them that hate Him. It is
not even possible to go back into Hades for Death and Hades - two places, a
double compartment for the dead, the old earth - are also cast into the Lake of Fire: it is a second death out of which there is no second resurrection: for
the living, no more death; for the dead, no more life.*
* “Their names do not appear on the
records of pardon. The law must
therefore take its course. They
are cast into the lake of fire. This, being the second death, is followed by no
resurrection. Inasmuch as death, in its
first meaning and with its original power, is no more, there is no way of
relief after a death entirely different in its nature. The sufferings of those who undergo the
second death, cannot be alleviated by expiring; for there is no expiring. Pardon, moreover, is now too late. Besides, inasmuch as their names are not
written in the Lamb’s book of life how shall they become the subjects of
pardon? And what is more than all, the
great work of atonement and reconciliation is now at an end; Christ gives up His mediatorial kingdom,
having no more official duties (if we may so speak) to perform; and how are
they to be ransomed without an acting Mediator?” (Moses Stuart, D.D.).”
Finally, we see the sole body of
the acquitted, and the sole ground of the acquittal. The whole of evangelical theology stands
extraordinarily vindicated in the crucial document of the judgment. “And another
book was opened, which is THE BOOK OF LIFE; and if any was not
found written in the book of life, he was cast
into the lake of fire.” These
contrasted documents sum up the whole Gospel of God. Books of works - for vast must be the library which is to record all
human action; one book of life - for it has nothing in it but names: books of works, bringing damnation; a book of life, for life is a gift to the enrolled by
God; books of works, on matters of fact; a
book of names, a record of grace: the Books, the earned certificate for the Lake; the Book, the sole
passport to the City. The Book of Life is a register of the
redeemed. Twice in the Apocalypse (13: 8, 21: 27) it is
called the Lamb’s Book of Life. There is
not a solitary act recorded in the Book of Life : ALL the deeds are in the other Books. I am [eternally] lost on the Books: I am
[eternally] saved on the Book. It is
most remarkable that the Book of Life is
never said to admit to the
* That alter the Thousand Years
souls stream up out of Hades (or Paradise) as well as out of Death (or Abaddon)
puts it beyond doubt that all the saved do not share the
Millennial Kingdom, but some reap corruption for sowing to the flesh;
and so the Book of Life is brought in to reveal a destiny decided on Calvary
and already proved by their presence in Paradise; and even the co-heirs with
Christ in the Millennial Kingdom, when passing into the City, are franked in by
the Book, not by their Millennial rank or glory. All thus enter Eternal Life on the ground of
sovereign grace alone, having nothing in the Book but a name, put there in
election’s dateless eternity. It is natural,
however, to assume that Millennial rewards will abide, uncancelled and
unlowered, into the Ages beyond.
The day of grace is to prepare
us for the day of judgment. Judgment is
coming to the reckoning of doom. The
thunder is solemn: but what is it to the crash of ten thousand thunders, waking
the dead, and emptying the deepest abysses, to the roar of the disappearing
worlds? The earthquake is solemn, when
cities fall, and kingdoms totter, and islands disappear: but what is it to the
convulsion which shall snap gravitation, disintegrate the universe, and drive a
million worlds back into the nothingness out of which they came? O sinner, you may not fear that Face now: but
when all the worlds recoil from before Him, when there are no mountains to
hide, no rocks to fall, when every soul stands self-poised in air - when no object
remains in all God’s universe save that one glittering white Throne, caught by
every eye, with nothing between - you will fear Him then. For the prosecutor is God; the evidence,
eliciting the facts, is God’s; the jury, deciding the issue, is God; the judge
is God; and the executioner is God. “PREPARE TO MEET THY
GOD” (Amos 4: 12).
* *
* * *
* *
43
COMING MIRACLE
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
EVEN before the
Rapture, and also after it, miracles on a gigantic scale are coming on the
earth, miracles from Heaven and miracles from Hell; and this mere fact of
coming miracles, if allowed to sink and soak into our minds, is an enormous
urge making for holiness and God. Above
all others, our young folk need to realize the tremendous epoch on the
threshold of which they stand, when miraculous events will abound in the world
as never before since the world was created.
Dispensations
The first fact we observe is this:
miracle always appears at the junctions
of dispensations. When God purges
the world at the Flood,- when He wrenches
Prophecies
The second fact is that
Scripture states again and again that
miracles will be one supreme characteristic of the last days; and the Scripture
cannot be broken. God says of
Repetition
This
third fact is that our Lord, in language
quite unmistakable, compares the end of this [evil] Age with miraculous epochs that have gone
before. “As it came
to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it also be in the days of the son of man: the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it
came to pass in the days of
[* That
is, A pre-tribulation removal from earth for those “accounted
worthy to escape all these things that
shall come to pass” (Luke 21: 36, A.V.
Marvels
The fourth fact lies in a
remarkably little known covenant which has never yet been fulfilled - the
Covenant of Marvels. “Behold, I make a covenant:
before all thy people I will do marvels, such as
have not yet been wrought in all the earth” - therefore greater than the
miracles of Moses in Egypt - “nor in any nation: and all the people among which
thou art” - and where is the Jew not scattered? - “shall see the work of the Lord, for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee” (Ex.
34: 10).
Exasperation
The fifth fact lies in this, -
that abnormal wickedness always provokes God to abnormal
retribution.
Satanic Miracle
The sixth fact is the abounding,
at the end, of Satanic miracle in the world.
Our Lord has put this beyond all shadow of doubt:- “There shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall
show great signs and wonders, so as to
lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt.
24: 24). Out of the Trinity of Hell will come forth “three unclean spirits, as it
were frogs; for they are spirits of devils,
WORKING S1GNS; which go forth
unto the kings of the whole world to gather them together unto the war of the
great day of God” (Rev. 16: 13). “Like as
Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these
also withstand the truth; but they shall proceed
no further” than
Jannes and Jambres did (2 Tim. 3: 9); for once
again God’s miracles will be incomparably greater than any Satan can
produce. Boils which Satan cannot heal;
worldwide earthquakes from which Satan cannot deliver; vast resurrections which
Satan cannot prevent; and, lastly, a chain which Satan cannot wrench from off
his own wrists:- when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord
will raise up a standard against him.
The Godhead
The seventh and last fact is the
most tremendous of all, - miracle will be essential to the vindication of the
Godhead. For in the last climax it will
not even be the clash of rival Christs - for there will be many false Christs;
but an awful collision between rival Gods.
Of the Antichrist we read:- “whose coming is
according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and wonders of
falsehood”; “and the dragon gave him his power and his throne”; and “he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth AS
GOD” (2 Thess.
2: 4): “and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him” (Rev. 13: 2, 8). Now this direct challenge to sole Deity,
backed by powerful miracle, forces the Most High to reveal His omnipotence, and
of course omnipotence can only be revealed by miracle. Here is an anti-God in full blast and full
power: nothing short of tremendous miracles of the Almighty - to “slay him with the breath of his mouth, and paralyse him by the lightnings of his Parousia” - can
then save the world. “Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God?” (Ezek.
28: 9).
Pentecost
How immense for us are the
consequences! Before the first rapture -
itself an extraordinary miracle - will come the on-fall of the Holy Ghost in
earth’s last Pentecost, “before the great
and terrible day of the Lord come” (Acts
2: 20). Pentecost will be repeated. Therefore it is for us all
to make ourselves ready for this almost incredible honour by doing as Enoch and
Elijah did, who are to work the most tremendous miracles that are coming - by walking [in obedience (Acts 5: 32)] with God. Only on such will the Holy Ghost
fall. And the appeal to our
young folk is most wonderful. “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your YOUNG MEN shall see visions” (Acts 2: 17). How wonderful:- there are young people reading these words who in not many years from
now may be uttering words from God miraculously - prophets and prophetesses. It is a marvellous summons to us all to
prepare ourselves for the coming Christ.
* * *
* * *
*
44
APPROACHING MIDNIGHT
By A. A. RONSHAUSEN
“Watchman, what of the night? The morning cometh, and also
the night.” This [evil, God-forsaken, and now ever increasing apostate] age is in its death throes. A new [Messianic and Millennial] age dawns.
The old order passes. A new order
is coming. God’s clock of prophecy is
striking. History is being written
with kaleidoscopic swiftness. Earth’s greatest drama is being unfolded. The
Church is in eclipse. Evil is in the
ascendancy [and God’s prophetical declarations concerning this
earth’s future during ‘the age to come”
(Heb. 6: 5, R.V.) are increasingly being misunderstood,
denied and misinterpreted.]* Hell is on the march.
Earth’s momentum hellward continually accelerates its speed.
[* That is,
the
Ever the situation changes for
worse. Civilization is breaking up. Holiness is a jest and a byword. The Mystery of Iniquity blossoms and will
soon reveal the Man of Sin. An
apostate church and a godless world will receive and worship him. Titanic, unseen powers of hell have invaded
the earth, and are creating chaos, religiously, politically, economically and
socially. The great ecclesiasticisms
having sacrificed spiritual power and glory for worldly gain and prestige, are
powerless - and themselves will perish with the present order.
God Will Judge Prayerlessness (Luke 21: 34-36)
The distress of nations with
perplexity, the sea (humanity) and waves roaring (revolution) foretold by
Jesus, has come. The clay (lawlessness)
continually increases, and the iron (law and order) decreases. Lawlessness abounds. Morals are collapsing. The best things are disappearing. Can the world recover itself? Not with human resources. Legislation, philosophy, and reform are
inadequate. Only God can prevent crisis
and disaster.
O that the church would be
sufficient for these awful, yet sublime times.
Our greatest peril is not the power of the enemy, but our own
prayerlessness. A prayerless [and disobedient-Spirit-forsaken
(Acts 5: 32)] church
betrays its God-given trust into the hands of the enemy. The Lord will judge prayerlessness. Failure to pray is disobedience. Had the church remained on its knees, the world’s present decay would have
been impossible.
Our God shall come. Jesus will return. “Even so,
come, Lord Jesus!” His coming is the blessed hope. The dispensation of our Lord, cut off when He
died on the cross, will be renewed at His return. Earth’s corruption and putridity rise as a
stench to heaven. The day of vengeance
of our Lord is nearing. The day of man
will soon pass. The great and notable
day of the Lord will come. We hover on the brink of the kingdom age.
Christ’s second coming is dual
in its aspect: parousia - for the saints, to rapture the bride; apocalypse - to
judge the nations, and to reign. Between
the parousia and the apocalypse will be the great tribulation on earth. Now is only the beginning of sorrows. When anti-Christ rules the world, God will
invade the earth with tribulation judgments, so terribly cataclysmic, that all
that has happened before will be, in comparison, as firecrackers to atom bombs.
Obey His Word
“Watch
ye and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things,
that are coming to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Obey
Jesus and you will escape. Disobey,
be prayerless, careless, heedless, at
ease, and you will not escape.
God gives gifts by faith. God gives rewards for faithfulness. “Behold I
come quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every man, as his work shall
be.” Plainly, this is a judgment of
rewards, according to works, to occur at His return. God rewards only as God can. We have a race to run and a crown to gain.
The race may be lost. The crown
forfeited. To win Christ, Paul suffered
the loss of all things. Can you win
Christ for less?
Be As Men Who Wait For Their Lord
A timely message is the Lord’s
message to the
It is the surrender of
first-love - cooling off from fervency to luke-warmness - profession without possession
- a name to live and art dead - neither hot nor cold in love or works -
mediocre service - indifferent praying - contentment in spiritual barrenness -
complacency in idleness - grudging in giving - reluctance in sacrificing - no
martyr or witnessing spirit - burdenless, passionless, spiritless, deceived
people doomed to judgment instead of rewards of the faithful, believing
themselves rich, in need of nothing, not knowing they are miserable, poor,
blind.
To them Jesus lovingly calls: “Be zealous and repent.
Buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and
white raiment that thou mayest be clothed ... and
anoint thine eyes with eye-salve that thou mayest see.” Are you ready for His coming? Are you wise or foolish? Repent and be zealous. Be filled with the Spirit. Love God supremely. Keep yourselves from idols. Flee Laodicean lukewarmness. Else at His coming He will spue you out of
His mouth, into the awful castigation of the great tribulation.
- Herald of His Coming.
-------
PROPHECY OUR HEADLAMP
From prophecy we may ascertain the
features and characteristics of the last great empire upon earth, and may
perchance be enabled to recognise and avoid those tendencies in our modem
civilisation which are leading mankind towards the establishment of that
empire. More than that, we may learn
that, though the kingdoms of the world will become the Kingdom of the Lord, it
is not by our efforts that this will be accomplished.
Let us imagine (it is easy to do
so) a small state, internally weakened by intrigue, externally hard pressed by the
enemy, fighting bravely for its freedom and existence against a strong and
unscrupulous foe. Let us further imagine
that the government of that state is possessed of information of a most
practical character from a source which in the past has always proved
absolutely reliable, and that this information supplies all necessary
particulars as to the enemy’s line of advance and plan of campaign, and
specifies the quarter from which alone relief will arrive. Let us suppose, moreover, that if this
information is correct ultimate victory is assured. Can we believe that the citizens of that
state will be so foolish as to ignore the information?
We are
told in 2 Thess. 2: 3 that the
apostasy must come and the son of perdition appear before the Rapture begins. I use the word “begins”
because it may be, for all we are told to the contrary, that the Rapture will
not be one single isolated event, but a series of translations occurring at
intervals during the whole period of Anti-
Christ’s
reign.
-------
MILLENNIUMM
General
Smuts expresses (The Times, Sep. 30, 1946) the
uneasiness felt by the statesmen of the world at the fruitless effort to create a human millennium:-
“The greatest drama of history unfolding before our eyes is
still little understood. After the great
war, people generally expected the dawn of a new world. After the armistice President Wilson was
expected to inaugurate a new era. That
it was to come suddenly, like the coming of the Kingdom in which the early
Christians implicitly believed. I do not
see the new spirit or temper in the world on which we can safely build any
assurance of world peace in a more distant future. The
new kingdom has not yet come. A peaceful world order could only be safely
based on a new spirit and outlook widely spread and actively practised among
the nations. Of such an enduring temper
for peace there is no real evidence today.”
* * *
* * *
*
45
THE KINGDOM A REWARD
There are passages of
Scripture which plainly indicate that only those who are fully given up to the
Lord, and are faithful to Him, will share the place of administration with
Christ. We do not agree in every particular
in what Mr. R. Govett has said upon this point, but the following quotation is
of interest.
“Will
all believers, then, reign with Christ?
By no means. The Kingdom of the
thousand years is never said to belong to those who only believe. There are not a few texts addressed to
believers which declare that certain classes of them shall not enter the
kingdom.
1. Those whose
(active) righteousness shall not exceed that of the Pharisees (Matt. 5: 20.
2. Those who, while
professors of Christ’s name, do not the will of His Father (Matt. 7: 21).
3. Those guilty of
strife, envy, and contention. (Luke 9: 46-50; Mark 9: 33-50; Matt. 18: 1-3).
4. Rich disciples (Matt. 19: 23; Luke 6: 24; 18; 24).
5. Those who deny the
Millennium (Luke 18: 17; Mark 10: 15).
6. The unbaptised (John 3: 5).
7. See also 1 Cor. 6: 9, 10; Gal. 5: 19-21; 6: 7, 8; Matt. 10: 32, 39; 16: 26; 18: 17, 18; Luke 9: 26.”
Those who sit on the throne are
evidently crowned ones, for the throne-sitters are always those who are
crowned. We know from many Scriptures that
all the saints will not be crowned, and therefore all will not enjoy the high
places of sitting on the throne.
Christ’s injunction to the Church at
Yet again we listen to what our
Lord said to the disciples, when some of them were desirous of sharing in Christ’s
earthly kingdom, and when, also, Peter called attention to what he had given up
for the sake of the Lord (Matt. 19: 28), “Verily I say unto you, that ye
who have followed Me, in the regeneration when
the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel.”
What an urgent call this is to
go in for all that the Lord has for us, for those who are willing to suffer
with Him now will surely reign with Him in His coming glory.
Again, John says, “I saw,” and this time it was those who
had been beheaded because of the testimony of Jesus, and because of the Word of
God. This body of martyrs is a special
set of people. They are evidently a part
of that company which John had previously seen, and who are described under the
fifth seal as those who had been slain because of the Word of God, and because
of the testimony which they held. “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar
the souls of them that were slain
for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” “And white robes were
given unto them: and it was said unto them,
that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, that
should be killed as they were, should be
fulfilled” (Rev. 6: 9-11).
This special class is further
described as those who had not worshipped the beast nor his image, nor received
his mark on their foreheads or on their hand.
We know there will be a terrible time of slaughter after [a select portion of] the
Church is removed, and during the Great Tribulation, so much so that not a
single believer of those days will escape death. This martyred company will share a peculiar
privilege in a distinct resurrection which is called the First. We must not
confuse the First Resurrection with the pre-resurrection of 1 Thess. 4, when the dead in Christ are raised. Many will
say that we thought the first resurrection included the redeemed of this
dispensation, and they come to this conclusion because of the word “first.” Dr. Bullinger has gone into
this matter of first and second in a very explicit way, and I cannot do better
than quote in extenso what he says:-
“This
is the first resurrection: or this completes the first resurrection. There is an ellipsis of the verb in this
sentence; and we may supply ‘completes,’ having in mind the several
resurrections which shall before then have taken place. It is also a fact that, when two ordinal numbers
are used in such a connection as this, they are used relatively. The one is first in relation to the second,
which follows: and not to what may have occurred before. In like manner, the second stands in relation
to the first. Hence, in English we always
say, in such cases, former and latter, where we have only two things thus
related: and not first and second, unless there are more to follow in the
series. It is the same in chapter 21: 1, where we read of the
new heavens and the new earth: ‘for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.’
“Here again we have two things standing in related contrast,
the ‘first’ and
the ‘new’; i.e.,
the new and the one that immediately precedes it: the former, and not the ‘first’. For the present heavens and earth which are
now (2 Peter 3 : 7)
are not the first. For Scripture tells
us of three, of which the present is the second. In 2 Peter
3: 6, 7, 13, we read of the first - the world that ‘then was’ (Gen. 1: 1); of the second - ‘the heavens and the earth which are now’; and of the third - ‘a new
heavens and a new earth,’ for which we now
look. This (second of three) is what is
called in Rev.
21: 1, the ‘first’ of the latter two.
“Hence
this ‘first resurrection’ is the former of the two mentioned in this verse: and not
the resurrection of the Church (the Body of Christ, revealed in 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. This special
resurrection (1 Thess. 4: 16) must be carefully distinguished from that which is called
the ‘first resurrection’ in Rev. 20: 6. The word ‘first’ in 1 Thess. 4: 16, does not refer to ‘the
first resurrection,’ so called in Rev. 20: 6, but merely records the
order of events, and simply states that ‘the
dead in Christ’ will ‘rise first’; i.e., before the
taking up of either them or the living saints.”
This interpretation is confirmed
by what Paul says in writing to the Church at
All these who share in what the
Spirit calls the First Resurrection are said to be “blessed
and holy,” and shall reign with Christ for a thousand years. They are “blessed”
because of the special honour that will be placed upon them, and they are “holy” because these shall share in this separated and
consecrated place of holy dignity, and their special reward is that they shall
not only be with Christ, but shall reign with Him in manifest glory during that
time which we know as the Millennium. - Prophetic
News.
* *
* * *
* *
46
EXCLUSION FROM THE KINGDOM
GODLY servants of Christ have
under stood the Scriptures to teach the possibility of a believer’s
exclusion. So Mr. Robert Chapman: “Has
any child of God any warrant of Scripture to expect that he will reign with the
Lord during the period of Rev. 20? But, on the
contrary, has not every child of God a promise of reigning with Christ in the
perfect and final state?”
So Mr. G. H. Pember:- “To those who believe on Him, but go no further, the Lord
does, indeed, give eternal life; but the
fruition of it will not begin until the Last Day, until the thousand years of
the Millennial reign are ended. Such
persons will not, therefore, be permitted to enter the Kingdom of the Heavens.” So Dr.
A. T. Pierson: “The greatest of all the revelations
about the future condition of the saints is, that they are to be identified
with Jesus Christ in His reign, -
that is, those who ‘overcome.’ Not all saints are
to be elevated to this position; this is for victorious saints.”* So Mr. Robert Govett: “The native magnitude
of this truth must speedily redeem it from all obscurity. Those who have the single eye will perceive
its amplitude of evidence, and embrace it, in spite of the solemn awe of God which it
produces, and the depth of our own responsibility which it discloses.”**
* Morning Star, Oct., 1902
** The Church, the Churches, and the Mysteries,
p. 46.
2. - It is certain that all crowns
are conditional on works done after faith. 2 Tim.
2: 5.
(1) The crown of incorruption.
“In a race all run, but one receiveth the prize. Even so run, that ye may
attain. And
every man that striveth in the games is temperate in all things. Now they do it to
receive a corruptible crown; but we an
incorruptible” (1 Cor.
9: 24, 25). Can that racer be crowned who
failed in the running? Paul dreaded the loss of the crown for himseif: “lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.”
(2) The crown of
rejoicing. “What is our hope, or joy,
or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at His coming?”
(1 Thess. 2: 19). Dan. 12: 3. Can
he be crowned for turning many to righteousness who never turned one?
(3) The crown of glory. “The elders therefore among you I exhort, Tend the flock of God. ... and when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory” (1 Pet. 5: 1-4). Can a disciple be rewarded for shepherding
the flock of God who never did it?
(4) The crown of righteousness.
“I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me
the crown of righteousness, ... and not only to
me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing” (2 Tim.
4: 7, 8). Can the
crown for watchfulness be given to one who never watched?
(5) The crown of life. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he hath been approved, he shall
receive the crown of life” (Jas. 1: 12). Rev. 2: 10. Can he be crowned for resisting temptation who
succumbed to it?
That a crown may be lost to a believer
is as certain as any truth in Holy Scripture.
“Hold fast that which thou hast,
that no one take thy crown” (Rev.
3: 11). Matt. 7: 21.
3. - Scripture states that the [millennial]
Kingdom is offered to all believers
as the master-prize for service
and suffering.
“He that
overcometh, and he that keepeth My works unto
the end, to him will I give authority
over the nations” (Rev. 2: 26). 2 Tim. 2: 12.
It was a supreme desire of
Paul. He abandoned all, he says, and suffered
all, “if by any means I may attain unto the
[select] resurrection from the dead. Not that I have
already obtained ... but one thing I do, forgetting
the things which are behind, and stretching
forward to the things which are before, I press on
toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded” (Phil. 3:
11-15). For the fall of
4. - Scripture also explicitly
asserts the exclusion of certain believers.
Proud (Matt.
18: 3);
unfaithful (Matt. 24:
48-51);
disobedient (Luke 12: 47, 48);
covetous (Eph. 5:
5); effeminate (1
Cor. 6: 9); slothful (Matt.
11: 12);
strife-loving (Gal. 5:
20) unbaptized (John
3: 5); erroneous (1 Cor. 3: 15); or
luxurious (Luke 6: 24)
disciples are unripe for the duties and harmony of Messiah’s Reign. Most rigorously also will all unclean
disciples be excluded. Eph. 5: 3-8; 1 Thess. 4: 3-7. The Holy
Ghost has given a summary of exclusion. “Now the
works of the flesh are manifest, which are these:
fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry,
sorcery, enmities,
strife, jealousies,
wraths, factions:
divisions, parties,
envyings, drunkenness,
revellings, and such
like: of the which I forewarn you, even as I did
forewarn you, that they which practise such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God”. (Gal. 5: 19-21). 1 Cor. 6: 9, 10. For it
is the Kingdom of the holy, who are holy, not by imputation only, but also by
active righteousness. Heb. 12: 14. 2 Thess. 1: 5. “BLESSED AND HOLY IS
HE THAT HATH PART IN THE FIRST RESURRECTION: THEY SHALL BE PRIESTS OF GOD AND OF CHRIST,
AND SHALL REIGN
WITH HIM A THOUSAND YEARS” (Rev. 20: 6). “O God, I have lost this world: grant that I lose not that which is to come!” (
-------
Hardships and Trials
We are often disheartened with
our hardships and trials, and begin to think it is too hard a thing to be
Christians. Nature is so weak and
depraved; there is such a burden in this incessant toil, and self-denial, and
watchfulness, and prayer; the way is so steep, and so narrow, and difficult; we
are tempted again and again to give up.
But when we think of what the dear Lord has done for us, what glories He
has set before us, what victories are to come to us, what princedoms and
thrones in the great empire of eternity await us, and how sure is all if we
only press on for the prize; we have the profoundest reason to rejoice and give
thanks every day that we live that such opportunities have been vouchsafed to
us, were the sufferings even tenfold severer than they are. - JOSEPH A. SEISS.
Press Toward the Mark
A young Christian student of a
Bible school, learning of the possibility of being left behind when the Lord comes
for His saints and having to go through part of the Great Tribulation (part
only, for every member of the Church must appear before the Bema or judgment
Seat of Christ, which ends with the Tribulation) became terribly fearful and
depressed. A friend pointed out to him
that his fear was a good sign of his spiritual state, and was God-given and
God-commanded - “Let us fear lest a promise being left
us of entering into His rest” (the Millennium or Sabbath rest
of the people of God, as literal, not spiritual, as the rest of Canaan which
the Israelites missed through unbelief, and to which the writer was comparing
it), “any of ye should come short of it.” “Don’t,” said
his friend, “be depressed in doing or being what God
has enjoined you should do or be, but rather follow the example of the apostle Paul who, when he found he had ‘not yet attained to the resurrection from among the dead’ and ‘counted himself not to
have apprehended that for which he had been apprehended of Christ Jesus,’ far from being fearful and depressed, ‘one thing’ he did, ‘forgetting those
things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before
he pressed toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus’.” The young student saw his
mistake, his depression was lifted, and like Noah of old, who “by faith being warned of God of things not seen as yet,
moved with godly fear (R.V.) prepared an ark to the saving of his house,” he now with that same godly fear presses on
towards the goal.*
[* Always keep in mind: “The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”
and “they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength” (Isa. 40: 31, R.V.).]
- W. P.
* * *
* * *
*
47
ETERNAL LIFE AND THE KINGDOM
OF HEAVEN
By CHAS. S. UTTING
ETERNAL life is the free
gift of God (Rom. 6:
23).
It is gratis, to faith. The legal
and righteous ability for God to offer this free gift [is because it] was
produced by the ransom-paying of Jesus Christ who made full compensation for
sin by His blood-shedding and death on Mount Golgotha, after he had woven
through His perfect obedience in life and in death the robe of [His imputed]
Righteousness which clothes all [regenerate] believers in Him. The entrance into Eternal Life is by faith in
this finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, and is utterly apart from
works done by man. Bishop Burnet relates
that when Dr. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who was cruelly condemned to be
beheaded by Henry VIII, came out of the Tower of London and saw the scaffold,
he took out of his pocket a Greek Testament, and looking up to heaven, he
exclaimed, “Now, O Lord, direct me to some passage
which may support me through this awful scene.” He opened the Book, and his eye glanced on
the text, “This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.”
The Bishop instantly closed the
Book, and said, “Praised be the Lord! this is
sufficient both for me and for eternity.” Thus in full assurance of
faith he appropriated the free gift and in peace passed on, and passed through.
The
Now the entrance into this
Beloved, we have but one little
life to live, it is a tragedy what a miscarriage many of us make through not
seeing that it is the vantage-ground from which honours and glory may be won,
in addition to the common salvation the New Birth right of all believers. Hear the finest athlete Christ ever had
perhaps, “Every man that striveth in the games
is temperate in all things. Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run,
as not uncertainly: so
box I, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body, and
bring it into bondage; lest by any means,
after that I have been a herald to others, I myself should be rejected [from ‘the crown’]” (1 Cor. 9: 25-27). (See
also
-------
DIVINE THREATS TO BELIEVERS
For angry words (Matt. 5: 21, 22).
Hand or eye causing stumbling (27-30).
The unforgiving (Matt. 6: 14, 15; 18: 23-35).
Judging (Matt. 7: 1, 2).
Envious and quarrelsome (18: 14).
Unfaithful steward (Matt. 24: 48-51).
Ashamed of Christ (Matt. 8: 38).
Causer of stumbling to little ones (Mark
9: 41-50;
Matt. 18:
6-9).
Disobedient (Luke 12: 47, 48).
Deniers of Christ through fear (Luke
12: 4, 5).
Slothful servant (Matt. 25: 14-30).
Resisters of civil authority (
Teachers of false doctrine, right in fundamentals (1 Cor. 3: 10-15).
Disturbers of churches (1 Cor. 3: 16, 17; Gal. 5: 10).
Defrauders and many other characters (1 Cor. 6: 1-10).
Wrong-doers (Col. 3: 22; 4: 1).
Unclean (1 Thess.
4: 3-7).
Disobedient (Heb. 6: 7-9).
Refusers to listen to Christ (Heb.
12: 25-29).
Adulterers (Rev. 2: 22, 23; Heb. 13: 4).
Unwatchful (Rev. 3: 3; 16: 15).
Corrupters of Revelation (Rev.
22: 18, 19).
Those who abide not in Christ (John
15: 1-6).
-
GOVETT.
-------
THE KINGDOM
THE Lord is now selecting
and training the kings and rulers for the coming new age in His great plan of
redemption. “Unto him that hath loved us and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, and hath made us kings and
priests unto God and his Father” (Rev.
1: 5, 6). “And we shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5: 10). A
warless world to last 1,000 years will some day be a reality, but only those
who have parted company with sin and the world will ever have any place in that
greatly to be desired “New Order.”
“Blessed
and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second
death hath no power, but they shall be priests
of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”
- W. F. BEIRNES.
* *
* * *
* *
48
“WATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHT?”
By D. M. PANTON
ONE
question is pressed on us with the intensity of Scripture. “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” (Is.
21: 12). It is twice repeated. We are watching a changing World, and
studying prophecy, and our judgment is challenged. What is the dense darkness settling down on
the world? “Watchman, what of the night?”
The Morning
The
watchman gives a startling answer. “The watchman said, The morning
cometh.” The dawn of our century was
probably the most remarkable the world has seen for thousands of years. A little more than a hundred years ago
missionary societies - apart from the Jesuit and the Moravian - were unknown, and
there were practically no missionaries: in 1909 there were 19, 875
missionaries, scattered throughout all the heathen world. A little more than a hundred years ago Sunday
Schools were unknown: today there are 260,905, with 2,414,757 teachers, and
23,442,993 scholars. It would be
difficult to say what was the membership of God’s Church when the century
dawned; but it is now computed that the membership of Protestant Evangelical
communions is not less than one hundred and forty millions. It is possible that eternity will reveal to us that the Nineteenth
Century was the richest toward God of any century in the world’s history. Bishop Moule, of Mid-China, says that when he
first landed in that Empire, it held less than fifty Protestant Christians: in
the first decade of the Twentieth Century there have been 16,000 martyrs.
The Bible
Perhaps even more wonderful is the dawn of the Word of
God. A little more than a century and a
half ago there was no Bible Society, and very few translations of the Bible:
the British and Foreign Bible Society - apart from twenty-three other Bible Societies - has issued, in
the 148 years of its existence, over 375,000,000 Scriptures, in more than a
thousand languages. In 1951 it issued
1,470,291 Scriptures. Imagination fails
to picture what a river of salvation has thus been set flowing through all the
world. A century ago the Bible was a
sealed book for four out of every five people in the world: today it lies open
to seven out of every ten.
Dawn
But never was the greatest dawn
the world has ever known so imminent.
The Lord Jesus said, - “I am the light of the
world” (John 8: 12): His return will illuminate the whole earth,
for He is “the light of the world”. Watchman,
what of the night? “THE MORNING COMETH”.
The Night
But the watchman said, “And also the night”. The facts are not more antithetical than are
the words of the Watchman. “Of no time in the history of the world,” says The Times, “are so many signs of general unrest recorded as those which
seem to confront us today”; or, in the words of the Bible Society’s
report, - “The horoscope of the future is written over
with signs of incalculable change.”
The heathen and Mohammedan population of the world counts more by two
hundred millions than it did a hundred years ago, while the converts and their
families number less than three millions; a
sevenfold increase of darkness over light. The
annual increase of Mohammedans alone exceeds the yearly harvest of Christian converts; and the conversions
of Christians to Islam in recent years far exceed the conversions of Islam to
Christ. There are millions more of
heathen souls in
The Church
Unutterably solemn is also the
night descending on the Church. A
novelist, whose works sell in hundreds of thousands, writes:- “All things that Christ prophesied are coming to pass so quickly that I wonder more people do not
realise it: and I especially wonder at
the laxity and apathy of the Churches, except for the fact that this also was
prophesied. Some of us will live to see a time of terror, and that before very long. The blasphemous things which are being done
in the world today cannot go on much longer without punishment. We know by
history that deliberate scorn of God and Divine things has always been met by
retribution of a sudden and terrible nature - and it will be so again.”
Says the Editor of The Freethinker:- “Tom
Paine’s work is now carried on by the descendants of his persecutors; all
he said about the Bible is being said in substance by orthodox divines from
chairs of theology.” When,
towards the close of his life, Ingersoll was asked why he no longer gave his lecture
against the Bible, he replied:- “Because the professors and preachers are doing the work,
much better than I possible can, and their influence is much greater than mine.”
So also in the words of Murdoch Campbell:- “The
gigantic spectre of ‘a new World Church’, in league with the powers of
darkness, is rising out of the mist before our eyes. If this evil thing materialises and matures,
the danger to, even our physical existence is great.”
Prophecy
So now God responds. “If ye
will inquire, inquire ye.” God will
back our investigation of the facts, and supremely our
study of prophecy: what
we see happening is simply what God has foretold. So we study prophecy because the
future that God has purposely revealed is the future we ought to know:
because without a knowledge of prophecy God’s present working is plunged in
hopeless mystery: because prophecy is the searchlight that tells us
the pitfalls that lie in our path: because a knowledge of the
future is of incalculable importance in the shaping of the present. Prophecy is the profoundest optimism, and the
profoundest pessimism: it is a profound optimism of what God is going to do;
and it is a profound pessimism of what a Christ-rejecting world will do.
Watch
So the word of God sums up His
command:- “Turn ye, come.” The
day before the wall of fire rolled down on
Fear
The
profound uneasiness throughout the world must have spiritual consequences. The causes of that profound uneasiness are well
expressed by Word and Work, quoted by Prophecy
Monthly. “The signs are everywhere and in everything, at home and
abroad, nationally and internationally, socially, politically, industrially,
religiously, morally, spiritually. On
every side lawlessness, corruption and
disruption, strife, upheavals, everywhere the signs of the breaking up of
nations and of the existing world-order.
Humanity is manifestly on the threshold of a crisis, world-wide,
radical, catastrophic - such a crisis as man has never known. We are entering upon apocalyptic times. It is as if God had at last risen up out of
His place, and is coming forth to punish the world for its iniquity (Isa. 13: 11; 26: 21). Already it is true
that men’s hearts are failing them for fear of the things that are coning on
the world, for the powers of the heavens are shaken (Luke 21: 26). The atomic bomb and its possibility have
gripped the hearts of men with fear for a season; now a devastation a thousand
times more powerful and terrible is emerging out of the scientific workshops,
and bitter necessity is driving the government to the construction of this most
terrible weapon of destruction, well named the ‘hell-bomb’.”
“But at midnight there is a cry, Behold the bridegroom!
Come ye forth to meet him” (Matt. 25: 6, R.V.).
-------
THE PREPARATION FOR THE THRONE*
[* NOTE: This writing has been edited.]
FOR thrones over the
twelve tribes of Israel God has found the men and has appointed them:- “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all,
and followed thee what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto
them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall
sit in the throne of his glory, ye shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes
of
In this age likewise the Lord
combines the temporal with the eternal when He redeems a man or woman through
the blood of Jesus. One of the most
amazing manifestations of His grace in our salvation is the opportunity given
every believer to gain a place of millennial rulership.* Scripture does not say that every Christian
will attain to such a place, but it does promise that honour to all who endure
for Christ’s sake and suffer for His sake:- “If we endure, we shall also reign with him : if we shall deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Tim. 2: 12, R.V.) “And if children, then heirs;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we
suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Rom. 8: 17).
[* Rev. 2: 26; 3: 21. cf.
Rev. 20: 4, 5, R.V.]
The work and experiences which occupy us now are to train us for millennial
responsibilities. So far as we are
faithful to what He gives us now we are allowing Him to fit us for our
positions later. Many a child of God,
sad to say, does not realize that the
Lord has any work for him to do in this life, not to speak of reigning in the life to come. Yet God has “set
the members every one of them in the body, as it
hath pleased him” (1 Cor.
12: 18),
in order that every member of Christ, that is, every [regenerate] Christian, may function properly in His strength. What an amount of admonition, prayer, and
patience a believer often requires to find his God-appointed place and
work. And what extraordinary singleness
of heart he must needs have to stay
in that place and work. What a lifetime
of never-flagging struggle is demanded of him if he is to fulfil his
ministry. But provided he does
accomplish the work God gave him to do in this life, what reward and future
glory he will receive from His hands at the judgment seat of Christ.
May God open our eyes also, as
we endeavour to lead others to Christ, to see in each one a potential ruler in
His age-lasting [Gk. ‘aionios’]
Kingdom. When we look upon a new convert
may He grant us grace to keep ever in mind that He desires that convert so to live and obey Him as to become a
ruler in His kingdom. For with Him
is patience and tender skill to develop
the babe in Christ for the high honour of reigning with Him.
* * *
* * *
*
49
DENYING THE ADVENT
By W. F. ROADHOUSE
“With the
vast majority of believers of all groups openly denying or else totally
ignoring the Second Advent. our Lord’s warnings become extraordinarily significant,
with the drastic consequences of disobedience.”
- D. M. Panton.
A study of the elements
that make up the essential attitude of our hearts toward the Lord Jesus and His
Return in the New Testament, actually number twelve. By no chance could all this admonition and
example be a casual matter - for there are scores of references with their
contexts to Christ’s Coming for His “faithful” ones.
We cite these.
1. “Wait for” - Heb.
9: 28, “Unto them that wait for Him shall He appear a second time,
apart from sin, unto
salvation.” 1 Cor. 1: 7, “Waiting for the revelation of the Lord.” Also Rom. 8: 19, 23, 25; Gal. 5: 5; Phil. 3: 20; also 1 Thes. 1: 10.
2. “Give diligence” (an overplus
word) - 2 Tim. 2:
15, “Give
diligence to present thyself approved unto God.” Heb. 4: 11.
3. “Work”ing (both ergon and poico, Gr.) - Col. 4: 11, “Fellow-workers unto
the
4. “Awake” - Rom. 3: 11-13, “That now it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation (end-time rapture) nearer ... the night is far spent, the day is at hand.” - Eph. 5: 5ff.
5. “Watch” - Luke
21: 36, “Watch ye therefore ... (thus) accounted worthy to escape” (in [the pre-tribulation]
rapture). Mark
13: 35, Matt.
24: 43; Rev. 16: 15. Used 15
times.
6. “Pray” - Luke 21: 36, “And pray always ... escape.” Escape used 13 times.
7. “Look for” - Titus
2: 13, “Looking
for that blessed hope.” Jude 21,
etc. Used 14 times.
8. “Hasting unto” - 2
Peter 3: 12, “Hasting unto the day of God.” Three times.
9. “Endurance” - Jas.
1: 12, “Blessed is the man that endureth (hupomeno, Gr.) temptation ... approved ... the crown.” Heb. Heb.
12: 1; Matt. 24: 13; Mak.
13: 13. Twelve times, and another great word (makrothumia,
Gr.), 3 times, Jas. 5:
7, 8; Heb. 6: 12, “Be
patient therefore unto the coming.”
10. “Love” - 2
Tim. 4: 8,
“Unto them that have loved His appearing.” Contrast Demas (verse
10; Jas. 4:
4). Matt.
24: 12. The overcomers (Rev.
12: 11) -
“loved not their lives unto the death.” The word is hagios, the deeper word for love.
11. “Ready” - Matt. 24: 44, “Therefore,
be ye also ready ... the
Son of man cometh.” Luke 12:
40. This
word is used fully 10 times re preparedness.
“All things are now ready !” Are we?
12. “Abide” - 1
John 2: 28, “And
now little children, abide in Him; that if He shall be manifested, we may have boldness, and not be ashamed before Him at
His presence?” 1 John 2: 17, “He that doeth the will of God, abideth
forever.” 1 Cor. 3: 14, - “If any man’s work abide ...” Five times.
Summary -Thus there are 122 references to one’s deep, innate attitude
toward our Lord’s Return. The worldling,
the apostate, the agnostic, the cleric minus the evangelical message (1 Cor. 15: 1-4), the all-absorbed world-betterer
without “the blessed hope,” these
and multitudes everywhere of indifferent, self-pleasing believers will be
shortcomers in that day - not “overcomers” as the
foregoing Scriptures reveal these to be.
It is His standard - not ours! Do we “love
His appearing?”
-------
MESSIAH’S MILLENNIAL KINGDOM
“One’s views
concerning the coming kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will determine
his [or her] attitude toward world government
and its politics. If one believes,
contrary to the Scriptures, that the church is to bring in the Millennium, then
he /she believes that of a necessity the
church and the Christians must play a large part in politics. But if, as the Bible states, things are to
wax worse and worse and iniquity is to abound and there will be no peace until
Jesus returns, then Christians have little or no business in politics.
- A.
However,
despite appearances to the contrary, Messiah’s Kingdom of righteousness and
peace will appear. Then shall God’s will
be done “on earth
as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6: 11).
But what
is the throne for overcomers? It is to
share the throne of the Son of God: “To him who
overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me
on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down
with my Father in his throne” (Rev.
3: 21). We can see now why, as we pass through the
closing days of this evil age, there must be such terrible conflict, and why
Satan, the world, and the “flesh” will challenge
every regenerate believer who has a desire to be an overcomer. Now is the time of testing and training of
all who are to share the throne with Christ.
“Co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we
share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8: 17b). This
is foreshadowed in Daniel 7: 22-27, where it
says: “The time came when they [‘the saints of the Most High’
R.V.] possessed the kingdom.” The fact of Christ’s coming [and promised] throne [see Ps. 2: 8; 110: 1-3, R.V.] is to be shared by overcomers, who are
appointed by the Father to be ‘co-heirs’ with
Him, who was “appointed heir of all things,” is
therefore quite clear. Notice the word “if” which Paul uses, “If indeed we
share in His sufferings in order that we
may also share in His glory.” …
We shall
be ‘co-heirs’ with Christ, and be glorified with
Him, when He is given the Millennial throne of visibly ruling over the kingdoms
of this world, if
we are willing to tread the path He trod.
He obtained ‘eternal’ life as a ‘free gift’ [see Rom. 6: 23, R.V.] for all who believe in Him: but for
His new Government over this world, when it has been taken from the hand of the
enemy, He must have [by righteous
judgment and choice (see 2 Thess. 1: 4, 5; Rev.
2: 10. cf.
Col. 3: 23-25, R.V.] those who will have gone through the same ‘made perfect through sufferings’ that gave Him the
throne.
“Go, labour on; ’tis not for naught;
Thy earthly loss is heavenly gain;
Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not;
The Master praises - what are men?
Go, labour on; spend, and be spent,
Thy joy to do the Father’s will;
It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?”
- H. BONAR
* * *
* * *
*
50
THE
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The cloud of nineteen
centuries of doubt and dispute which has settled as an impenetrable fog on what
is meant by the
THE ADVENT
So the first great fact is that
the Kingdom is literal, physical, and on earth.* “And after six days” - a day with the Lord, is as a thousand
years (2 Pet. 3:
8): after six millenniums there follows the
Sabbath Rest (Heb. 4:
9), a sabbatic millennium - “Jesus taketh with Him Peter, and
James, and John, and
bringeth them up” - rapture - “into
a high mountain apart by themselves”; for he must be a soul apart,
and reach the spiritual summits, who would enter the Kingdom: “and he was TRANSFIGURED
before them” (Mark 9: 6). So the
Kingdom is impossible, on earth it is non-existent, without a physically
transfigured Christ: the Kingdom is an outburst of Christ’s glory on earth : it is not the slow upbuilding of the
spiritual labour centuries, but a sudden outburst as of lightning. “For as
the lightning cometh forth from the east, and is
seen even unto the west, so shall be the Parousia of the Son of man” (Matt. 20: 27). It is a purely earthly scene - no angels
are seen in it throughout (Heb. 2: 5); Moses -
the risen dead, Elijah - the rapt living; the three apostles, unglorified, in
the flesh - the living nations; and in the centre, visible, God-anointed,
unutterably glorious - the Son of man.
It is heaven on earth. For the
Transfiguration is an event absolutely and utterly unique in the history of the
world: it was no surface shining of the skin, as with Moses after a long
sojourn with God; it was not the face only, as Stephen’s uplifted to Heaven,
and catching its light for it was midnight (Luke 9:
32) - and therefore no reflected shine, but
an inherent outburst. “His garments” - this
is unprecedented - “became glistening” -
literally, ‘lightening forth’ - “exceeding white; so as no
fuller on earth can whiten them” (Mark
9: 3).
* In
parabolic passage (e.g. Matt. 13) the
THE PAROUSIA
So therefore an exact duplicate
of the Parousia is on the Mount. “And behold” - as the point most closely
germane to ourselves - “there appeared unto them” - in
simultaneous arrival of the dead and the living in the Parousia - “and talked with Him” - for the Kingdom will
be open and visible fellowship with Christ, who is anointed with joy, as with
glory, above His fellows (Heb. 1: 9) - “two men” - two
carefully chosen samples of Christ’s co-heirs - “which were
Moses” - the chosen out of the Law - “and
Elijah” - the representative of the Prophets - “WHO APPEARED IN
GLORY” (Luke 9: 30); that is, accepted and supremely honoured,
they are glorified together with Him: a specially guarded person and a
specially guarded grave, because of specially faithful service. The avoider of death, the survivor of death,
and the Conqueror of death; the Law-giver, the Law-restorer, and the
Law-fulfiller, the three greatest fasters in all history - each for forty days
in the wilderness - importing self-mastery, self-denial, tremendous overcoming
power - these “appeared unto them” - that is, to the Apostles in the flesh
exactly as the saints that broke out of the tombs - “appeared unto many” (Matt. 27: 53). So
also we have the very Parousia itself limned forth. “There came a cloud” - a
cloud of dazzling brightness - “and overshadowed
them, and they feared as they entered the cloud” (Luke 9: 34):
that is, the cloud, containing the Shekinah, enfolds the Lord, the risen, and
the rapt; and excludes the nations in the flesh: it is the Parousia overhanging
earth and the Kingdom. “The light-cloud become the blinding, overshadowing darkness
of the sanctuary: the two have already entered into it, the three are terrified
without” (Steir). It is the nations ruled and awed by the
superincumbent
THE KINGDOM
Now Peter, as ever, voices the
Church’s blunders of two thousand years.
“And it came to pass as they [Moses
and Elijah] were parting from him” - for the great definition of the
kingdom is over; and Calvary and two millenniums of Calvary’s fruition now lie
between - “Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is
good for us to be here”
- a profoundly true, but a completely premature, word; - “let us build” - let
us establish, let us make permanent, the Kingdom, at once.* “The words express
his inward longing after the Kingdom of God, in which the saints and those who
are raised from the dead shall be for ever around the Lord” (Olshausen). It was heaven on earth, and a spot from which
heaven might spread all over earth. Even
more remotely untrue (for it is now to be accomplished by the unregenerate) is
the modern Church’s ideal: “the League of Nations,”
says Dr. J. H. Jowett, “is
for the transformation of the Kingdom of this world into the
* Consciously or unconsciously, Peter, by suggesting the
erection of booths, was forecasting, or even materializing, the Millennium, of
which the supreme type was the Feast of Tabernacles. But the Palm-bearers (Rev. 7: 9) are not yet.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION
For resurrection sharply divides
us off from the Kingdom. A remarkable
atmosphere of resurrection pervades this unique revelation of glory on
earth. Luke says - “it came to pass about eight days after” - eight being the number of resurrection; and
it was when they were in heavy sleep - the death-slumber - that, startled into
wide-awakenness by the Glory as by the switching on of an electric flare, they
woke in the Kingdom; and
there, behold - Moses, the grave conquered; and Elijah, the grave baulked. From this moment these three were lonely ‘initiates’ (2 Pet. 1: 16): the
word ‘eyewitness’
properly means one initiated into secret and holy mysteries (Trench): even Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
its historians, knew nothing of the Transfiguration until after the
Resurrection. And so, as they descend
the Mount, and as our Lord seals their lips until after He Has Himself risen, “they questioned among themselves what the rising
again” - not of the
dead, with which as devout Jews they were perfectly familiar, but - “FROM AMONG the dead should mean” (Mark 9: 10). Then - linking the question with the
Transfiguration, - they posed the Lord with the difficulty of the disappearance of Elijah from the Mount: the Scribes
say Elijah precedes Messiah’s advent in glory; he has so come, but why
has he gone? Could Malachi
have meant that he was to come only for a few hours? But the Lord counters thus: true, Elijah must
so come; but how then do you explain Messiah’s rejection? If this coming of Elijah is final, what room
is left for
* Therefore
we know when the Scriptures threaten disobedient and unholy disciples with
exclusion from the Kingdom (Matt. 7: 21, 1 Cor. 6: 9, Gal. 5: 21, etc.),
exactly what they will be excluded from.
MILLENNIAL KINGS
Through ignorance of the great
truth of reward according to conduct and character, a most startling fact, of
an importance (for us) unsurpassed, has been wholly missed. Who are in this first resurrection? Out of twelve apostles, seventy Evangelists,
five hundred witnesses of the Ascension, Jesus selects only
three. The Lord had just enunciated (Luke 9: 23-26) the great truth ‘no cross, no crown,’ and in the
very breath with which He warned all his own that shame of Him would bring shame for them, “He took
with him” - singled out for companionship: it is the word used for “one is taken, and one is left” (Matt. 24: 40) - no apostles
but three*; “the flower and crown of the
apostolic band, ‘coryphaei’, as Chrysostom calls them” (Trench): the lover, the confessor, and
the martyr. The glory Matthew compares
to sun glare; Mark, to snow; Luke, to lightning: not the inherent glory of
Deity, but the transformation of obedient Humanity. “His
face did shine as the sun” (Matt. 17: 2): so also “shall
the righteous” - the actively obedient - “shine
forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13.). For it is the coming of the Son of Man, and the Kingdom of the exalted Manhood;
and by the Father’s voice on the Mount (making up the sacred seven) Jesus
Himself is now formally appointed the Lord and Ruler of the earth, receiving
from the Father what in the wilderness He had refused from Satan: for not until
the Transfiguration did the Father give him “glory and honour” (2
Pet. 1: 17),
glory and honour as a man, who had won the Kingdom; nay, by a
perfect obedience had won the only perfect power - a lonely obedience and a
lonely power - which a man will ever have.
So, with the Apostles, it is impossible that this exclusive selection
was accidental, or arbitrary, or unintentional: it must have as profound a
significance as any other prominent feature of this studied forecast.** Nor is
it a selection that stands alone. On
three occasions of critical significance these three disciples were isolated
alone with their Lord, and by His own act:- (1) in Gethsemane, or rapture to
Christ before tribulation; (2) at the raising of Jairus’s
daughter, or a first and selective resurrection; and (3) on the Mount, or
exclusive fellow-heirship in the Kingdom.
These three, as the only disciples the Lord ever re-named, manifestly
stand for the group of re-named Overcomers (Rev.
2: 17). For “the
Transfiguration,” as Dr. Lukyn Williams says, was a sample
of the First Resurrection. May we hope for this
distinction (Phil. 3: 8-11)? Let us
strive. In these three men we see a
power of faith, and a power of enthusiastic personal attachment, which suffice
to account for their selection.”
Or in the words of Burgh on
the Apocalypse:- “The First Resurrection is limited to
a portion of the redeemed Church and while eternal life and the inheritance are
of faith and free grace, and common to all believers merely as such, the
millennial crown and the first resurrection are a Reward - the reward of
suffering for and with Christ; a special glory and a special hope, designed to
comfort and support believers under persecution: a need and use which I have
little doubt the Church will before long be called on to experience
collectively, as even now, and at all times, it has been experienced by some of
its members.”
* Both the
taken three, and the left nine are disciples; nay, even apostles the taken, to
honour; the left, to shame (Mark 9: 18).
** When
Jesus took with Him only His three most intimate and congenial friends to
behold His glory upon the holy mount, He did so because none others were
sufficiently advanced in spiritual knowledge and appreciation to be capable of
partaking and profiting by the privilege” (Prof. J. R. Thomsom).
All
through life I see a cross
When
sons of God yield up their breath:
There is
no gain except by loss,
There is
no life except by death.
-------
Up then, and linger not, thou
saint of God,
Fling from thy shoulders each impending
load;
Be brave and wise, shake off
earth’s soil and sin
That with the Bridegroom thou may’st enter in
O watch and pray.
Clear hath the voice been heard,
Behold I come -
The voice that calls thee to thy
glorious home,
That bids thee leave these vales
and take swift wing
To meet the hosts of thy
descending King.
And thou may’st
rise.
Here’s a thick throng of foes,
afar and near;
The grave in front, a hating
world in rear;
Yet flee thou canst not, victory
must be won,
Ere fall the shadow of thy
setting sun.
And thou must fight.
Gird on thy armour, face each weaponed foe,
Deal with the sword of heaven
the deadly blow,
Forward still forward, till the
prize divine
Rewards thy zeal, and victory is
thine.
Win thou the crown.
* * *
* * *
*
Continued
from 51
in “TRACTS on
the MILLENNIUM”