IMPORTANT TEXTS
AND MORE
[* EDITOR’S PREFACE]
I was asked,
from a knowledgeable and enthusiastic believer, the following question:-
“If this
isn’t too much trouble and you happen to have time ... if you were to pick five lessons / teachings from your website that you recommend as
the best / most impactful to you as a place to start of all the compilation, 5
of written, five of audio (I drive a lot). What would those
be?”
First of all let me
make this statement to all readers of ‘writings of others’ on ‘the website’ - for it’s not my website, as I see
it: it’s a Christian website for ALL
(saved and unsaved persons alike), and to encourage our Lord’s redeemed
followers to place their all
- come what may - in the hands of that only Person for both present
and future “Salvation”! (See Acts 4: 11, 12; 1 Pet. 1: 5, 9, R.V.).
After regeneration and initial ‘salvation’ I wanted to do so
much for my Lord, but I allowed myself to get discouraged by the behaviour of other
believers! I was not prepared to WAIT for His
calling and TIME to commence the
work He called me to do! See Acts 1:
3b
- 5,
R.V.
I now know in some
measure, how important it is to learn two basic truths, (1) how loving, forgiving,
long-suffering, and merciful a Saviour our Lord Jesus
really is; and (2) that He
will always
chose the right time and the right circumstances in a
Christian’s life, to humble and instruct even the worst
backslider; and how to encourage him / her
to
continue
their work for His glory - after repentance, restoration and forgiveness. (See Lk.
13: 3, 5; Acts 11: 18; cf. 2 Tim. 2: 24, 25; Heb. 6: 4-6, R.V.)
This is why I find it difficult
to ‘pick
five lessons’ from some of God’s
most knowledgeable, faithful and obedient servants, whose writings have had
such a tremendous impact upon my life as a Christian.
Each of these disciples were gifted by God in various ways, and their writings were
greatly used for His glory:-
(1) G.
H. Lang, (2) Robert Govett, (3) D. M. Panton, (4) G. H.
Pember, (5) Philip Mauro, and many others, who are now ‘absent from the
body’ and ‘present with the
Lord’ - (in ‘Sheol’ / ‘Hades’ {see Matt. 16: 18; Lk. 16: 23,ff; Acts2: 27 &
Psa. 16: 10; Acts 7:
5;
2 Tim. 2: 28; Heb. 12: 14-27,
R.V. & A.S.V.} They are all waiting today (Heb. 11: 13), for His Judgement, their future ‘salvation’ (1 Pet. 1: 5, 9),
and ‘a
better Resurrection’ (Heb. 11: 35, R.V.)
God’s conditional promises and accountability
truths are now widely known and used by the Holy Spirit from the writings of
these holy men of God:- they were disbelieved, rejected
and ostracised by the vast majority of the Lord’s redeemed
people!
Writings and teachings by (1) Mike Balloon, (U.S.A.), (2) Charlie
Dines, (U.S.A.), (3) J. D.
Faust, (
‘Five of audio’ for use in your car I
cannot supply because the messages are on Cassette
Tape and C.D.
Bible teachers like (1) Mike Balloon (U.S.A) - on the Internet; (2) Peter Howarth - in
N. Ireland; (3) A. L. Chitwood, (4) A.
The following expositions of ‘Important Texts’ are from Mr. G. H. Lang’s “The
Disciple” - a book describing the author’s life-style, and how
his essential needs were supplied, when on his Master’s service throughout the
world.
The following is a selected quotation
from his writing:-
“In both Old and New Testament Scriptures we re told of a
time, yet future, when Jesus Christ will rule over all nations upon this earth
(Psa. 2: 8, 9). ‘Creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of
corruption into the liberty of the Children of God’ (Rom.
8:
21,
Isaiah 11:
6-10).
“A king must needs have a body of superior officers to serve
him in administering his Kingdom. King David had administrators and priests,
men who had served and suffered with him in the long years of his rejection (2 Sam. 8: 15-18) but Jonathan, though
he loved David as his own soul and willingly resigned to him the throne,
seeking to be second only in the Kingdom though himself the heir apparent (1 Sam. 23: 17), did not even enter David’s Kingdom, for he did not
share his rejection. This is the moral warning the narrative seems to
give. Through filial loyalty he
supported the king and the system God had rejected, and lost his life in its
collapse. It was the natural course not the spiritual; the latter, the path of faith, would have been judged
unnatural. Jesus has said: ‘He that loveth father ... more
than Me, is not worthy of Me’ (Matt. 10: 37.) ‘Ye are they who have continued with Me IN MY TRIALS; and I appoint unto
you a Kingdom: that you may eat and drink at Me table in My Kingdom;
and ye shall sit
on thrones judging...’ (Luke 22: 28-30). This special grant was on account of these men having gone
through with Christ to the end of His rejection. He would forgive
their failings, even the severe
failure of that night. He would have regard to the
dominant fact that they had stuck to His Person and cause through thick and
thin and would do so unto the end of life.”
Some years ago, Jack Green supplied me with several
letters written by the Mr. G. H.
Lang; and also an unpublished
exposition of his, for the website, and described as: “... his Magnum Opus,
left in manuscript form, ‘PREVAINING TO
ESCAPE’ being a definitive treatment of the Partial Rapture doctrine from
the author’s standpoint.” See his PREFACE in “The Disciple”.
-------
[PART ONE]
IMPORTANT TEXTS
By G. H.
LANG.
-------
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (1)
WAKE OR SLEEP
For God appointed us not
unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or
sleep, we should live
together with him. 1 Thess. 5: 10.
THE
words “wake or sleep” are understood differently. “Gocceius
includes (1) the alternate states of the body in this life; (2) life and
death; (3) and principally, spiritual slumber and its opposite. Whitby’s restriction of the words to the
first of these senses (natural sleeping or waking) was preferred also by Musculus, Aretius,
Cajetan as cited by Estius, and has been allowed by Calvin, Bengel, Gill, Pelt.
I agree with Alford in regarding this sense as ‘trifling,’ but not in thinking
the third sense as any better worth mentioning even as a possibility” (John Lillie, D.D., Lectures on the Epistles to the Thessalonians,
309).
Yet the third sense is strongly maintained by some, as part of
the argument in support of the view that rising in the first resurrection, and
sharing with the Lord the sovereignty of the Millennial kingdom, is not at all
dependent upon the moral condition of the believer but is wholly a gift of
unconditional Divine grace. The words are held to mean that this high privilege
is assured to every believer of this age whether he live in spiritual
wakefulness or spiritual sleep. The following is a careful and temperate
statement of this view.
The discussion turns chiefly upon the meaning of gregoreo.
I maintain that it means in verse to
what it means throughout the rest of that chapter and throughout the rest of the
N.T., viz. to be “spiritually wakeful” and not
to be “physically alive.” Many scholars, such
as A.T. Robertson, Abbot-Smith, Lightfoot, and Alford hold that it means to be
“physically alive.” My reasons for believing gregoreo in 1 Thess. 5: 10 means to be spiritually wakeful are these:
1. In the other twenty-two instances of
the use of gregoreo in the N.T.
it never once means “to be alive”; but in the
majority of instances “to be spiritually wakeful,”
and in the few others “to be or keep literally awake”
in contrast to literal, physical sleep.
2. In verse 6 of 1 Thess. 5 gregoreo unquestionably means “to be spiritually wakeful.” To translate there “to be alive” would be to make nonsense of the whole
passage. And therefore it is extremely unlikely that Paul in almost the very
same breath would use the word in a sense not only different from verse 6,
but from the whole of the rest of the N.T.; and so risk the Thessalonians
understanding the word in its normal sense, when according to you and others he
wished them suddenly to understand it quite differently.
3. The unlikelihood is further much
increased when we observe that the word Paul uses for sleep, as the opposite to
gregoreo,
is not the word he uses in the
previous chapter for sleep in the sense of death. It is katheudo not koimaomai.
4.
Koimaomai in the N.T. is never
used of spiritual sleep: always of death or literal physical sleep. Katheudo, however, is ever the word used to
convey the idea of spiritual sleep: it is sometimes used of literal physical
sleep, but never of death, unless we allow the very doubtful case of Jairus’
daughter, where the Lord said of her ouk apethane (she is not dead).
5. In the immediate context of 1 Thess.
5:
10
katheudo is used three times in verses 6,
7;
each time of slothfulness, literal or spiritual, without the faintest
possibility of meaning death. Therefore to translate katheudo in verse 10 by “death,”
or so to interpret it, is linguistically exceedingly arbitrary.
6. Alford in his commentary owns the
difficulty of interpreting verse 10 in the sense of life and death. He
offers no N.T. linguistic evidence for departing in verse 10 from the normal meaning
of the words in question. His theology however forces him so to depart. The
other scholars I have mentioned baldly state that the words in verse 10
are there to be interpreted in the sense of life and death. They offer not a
scrap of N.T. authority based on N.T. linguistic usage. Presumably again their
theology forces them to these linguistically arbitrary assertions.
7. Yet if one is prepared to allow the
words to mean in verse 10 what they mean in the immediate
context and consistently throughout the N.T., the meaning of verse 10 is then consistent with the doctrine of the whole of the N.T., which
teaches that our salvation, initial or final, depends not on our works but is “by grace
through faith.” “We believe that by the grace of
the Lord we shall be saved” (Acts 15: 11). Hence there is no need to depart in verse 10 from the usual meaning
of gregoreo.
8. Now the point at issue in 1 Thess. 5:
10 is strictly not the translation of gregoreo or katheudo. To be faithful to the
Greek we must translate “whether we are wakeful or asleep, whether we wake or sleep.” The question is the interpretation of
the meaning of these words. Now all
of us are, I judge, at liberty in the fear of God to state what we feel to be
the right interpretation, provided that we allow our hearers or readers to
perceive that it is but our interpretation. But if to secure our interpretation
we categorically state that the word gregoreo in 1 Thess. 5: 10 means “to be alive,” then we are not only arbitrarily
imposing on gregoreo a meaning which it nowhere else in the N.T. bears, but
in stating our interpretation as if it were the linguistic meaning of the word
we are taking a license which done in the cause of truth is regrettable,
indeed.
-------
Taking separately the reasons here given it is to be observed:
1. As regards the uses of gregoreo
and katheudo
in the rest of the New Testament, this could have been no guide or help to the
Thessalonians, for the New Testament did not exist. This letter was probably
the first part of the New Testament to have been written. Yet they were
expected to understand the statement, and for this were dependent upon their
knowledge of the senses in which the words could be used in their native
language, guided by the Spirit of truth as to which meaning was intended in
each place. This means that they were cast principally upon the moral,
spiritual, and doctrinal considerations involved to settle which meaning of a
word was intended.
The use of a word in the New Testament is, of course, a very
important matter, but it cannot be necessary or decisive for us in this
instance; it may be helpful, but it cannot be conclusive, especially if a word
is known to have other meanings than those found in the New Testament.
2. Was it, then, possible for gregoreo to be used in the sense of being alive on earth? It is the
fact that it is not so used elsewhere in the New Testament. The same is the
case in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is there
used eight times and its cognate gregoresis twice, always in the
sense of watchfulness. But this does not establish that the word could not mean
to be alive. It is derived from egeiro, the first meaning of which
is to arise from sitting or lying, to awake from sleep; but it then takes other
senses, as to raise up children to a man, and it acquires what is its most
important sense in the New Testament, that of rising bodily from the dead to
new life. This became the dominant sense of its other derivative exegeiro.
The Lexicons give Aeschylus and Euripides as so employing it. It is found in 1 Cor.
6:
14,
where it is equivalent to its root egeiro: “God both raised (egeiro)
the Lord, and will raise
up (exegeiro) us.” Rom.
9:
17
is its other place in the
New Testament.
As the root and the cognate of gregoreo were thus used of resuming bodily life it is difficult to see
why the same sense must be ruled out of the question, so as to forbid that
meaning in our verse. Four scholars have been named who do so take it. Others
may be mentioned, as Cremer, Ellicott on this place, the Speaker’s Commentary in
loco., and J. N. Darby, who
says (Synopsis, vol. v, 95), “that whether we wake or sleep (have died before His coming
or be then alive).” Were all these competent Greek scholars mistaken and
unjustified in holding this meaning of the word? There would appear to be no
sound linguistic reason against our passage having this sense, even though it
be the only known instance. A well-known living scholar writes to me: “There is no reason in the words gregoreo and katheudo themselves why they should not be used
figuratively for ‘live’ and ‘die’ respectively” (F. F. Bruce).
3. But it is urged that Paul himself
had only just before used the word in the sense of moral watchfulness, so that
it must be thought improbable that he would so quickly employ it differently.
Yet such sudden employment of a word in a changed sense is common in everyday
speech. For example:
One was recently heard to greet a friend with the words, “Well! I hope you’re well.”
In only six words “well” is used in quite unrelated senses. Or again:
“I shall presume that all present
have experienced the new birth; and I hope that
this presumption is not presumption, but accords with the fact.” Here in
immediate contact, “presumption” is used with
two quite distinct meanings. Look now at the New Testament.
1 John 2: 19: “They went out
from us (ex
hemon) but they were
not of us (ex
hemon): for if they had
been of us (ex
hemon) they would have continued
with us: but they went out, that they
might be made manifest how that they all are not of us (ex hemon).” Here ex hemon is first used of bodily, personal removal
from a local company, and then, at once, three times of an inward spiritual
union. Only the inner judgment of the reader can see and feel the diverse
meanings.
Luke 20: 37. Observe our Lord’s use of nekros (dead) in two incompatible senses in one verse. “But that the
dead (nekros) are raised, even Moses showed
... when he called the Lord the God of Abraham. Now he is not the God of the dead (nekros) but of the
living: for all live unto him.” Here “dead”
is first used in its common meaning of physically dead, as was the case with
the Patriarchs; but then it is at once used in the sense that the Sadducees held,
of non-existence, the argument against them being that God cannot be the God of
the non-existent and therefore the continued existence of the dead is certain
and their coming resurrection to be inferred.
1 Cor. 15. Consider Paul’s usage of apothnesko in this chapter.
In verses 3, 22, 36 it means ordinary physical death: “Christ died
... in Adam all die ... is
not quickened except it die.” In verse 31 it is used metaphorically: “I die daily,” i.e. I am daily in danger of death.
In verse 32
it is used of annihilation, parallel to Christ’s usage of nekros just mentioned,
these being the only places I have noticed in Scripture where “death” is allowed this meaning, it being
used controversially in the sense given to it by the opponents being answered: “let us eat
and drink for tomorrow we die” and are done with, there being no resurrection.
In view of this last instance we may accept Dr. Lillie’s remark (at the place
before cited): “That a word is employed with different
meanings in the same context need not offend any one familiar with Paul’s style.”
4. The difficulty advanced as to katheudo not meaning
death, but moral sloth, is equally met by the argument just given. The word
does usually mean sleep, physical or moral; but it can mean death, and therefore Paul could rightly so employ
it. In the Septuagint it plainly means death at Psalm. 88: 5: “the dead asleep in
the tomb,” and at Daniel 12: 2,
“them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake
to everlasting life.” Nor does the case of Jairus’ daughter mentioned seem “very doubtful” or doubtful at all. Matthew 9: 24:
Mark 5:
39: Luke 8: 52. Before the Lord had reached the
house the message had come to the ruler “Thy daughter
is dead,” as all in the house knew (Luke 8: 49, 53). The Lord’s words “she is not dead but sleepeth” could not be a denial of what was
obviously the fact, the physical death of the child. To force that idea robs
the incident entirely of its miraculous character. Anybody could have roused
her from natural sleep; only Jesus could raise her to life. Godet’s words are
very just: “Jesus means that, in the order of things
over which He presides, death is death no longer, but assumes the character of
a temporary slumber” (Luke
1. 394;
3rd ed., Clark). Therefore in this place apethane and katheudo are descriptions of the same state of existence viewed
differently. Therefore in our passage the latter word can have the meaning of death, even though
a little before it has its moral force.
This is the more demanded seeing that in the immediately
preceding verses moral sleep is emphatically reprobated as being utterly
unworthy of the sons of light because it characterizes the non-Christian and - [the
spiritually blinded regenerate Christian] - his dark night.
5. To argue that it is unlikely that
Paul here used katheudo in the sense of death because elsewhere he used the
more usual word koimaomai is really to
deny to a versatile and educated writer the right to vary his vocabulary, or to
choose an unusual word which may properly express his thought. Since katheudo
can mean bodily death the
apostle cannot be denied liberty so to use it.
6. The true crux of the question is stated
in paragraph 7 above as follows:
Yet if one is prepared to allow the words to mean in verse 10 what they mean in the immediate context and consistently throughout the
New Testament, the meaning of verse 10 is then consistent with the doctrine
of the whole of the New Testament, which teaches that our salvation, initial or
final, depends not on our works but is “by grace through faith.” “We believe that by the grace of the Lord we shall be saved”
(Acts 15:
11). Hence there is no need to depart from
the usual meaning of gregoreo in verse 10.
As regards what is here called “final”
salvation this assertion is simply to be denied. We take the writer’s “initial” salvation to mean the justification of the
guilty and the gift of eternal life. These two acts of God are the minimum
indispensable to [eternal] salvation in any degree. The sinner cannot acquire these by merit or work,
because he cannot remove his guilt or bring himself from spiritual death to
life; therefore they are what they must be, free gifts by grace to faith, and
both are so described most distinctly: “being justified freely (dorean, unconditionally) by his grace” (Rom. 3: 24), and “the free gift of God (charisma) is
eternal life” (Rom.
6:
23).
This change of legal status and of spiritual condition brings
the now living man into a vast realm, the [millennial]
These warnings are addressed to [regenerate and redeemed] Christians.
They apply in particular to the matter of sharing the sovereignty of Christ in His - [promised - (see Psalm 2: 8; cf. Psalm 37, 72, and 110) - millennial] -
kingdom, as it is written that we are “heirs indeed ([redeemed] 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 [regenerate] 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 - [or apostates], and to make void the warnings of
the New Testament to - [all those already justified by God’s GRACE] - Christians.* This subject I have discussed at
length in Firstfruits and Harvest, Ideals and Realities, Revelation,
and Hebrews.
[* NOTE: There is
another justification by God mentioned in Scripture! - that of being “justified by our WORKS”! See (James 2:
20-23, R.V.): - by the works of redeemed people AFTER being justification by His GRACE.]
Our passage (1 Thess. 5: 1-11) is concerned distinctly with
the future aspect of salvation,
not the “initial” - [first] - aspect. It deals with the “hope of salvation,” not
the [first] 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 “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 (Matthew 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 - [who have suffered with Him] - will [at that time] be blessed in His kingdom, but not all will be the personal companions
of the King. 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. 2: 4, 5).
Now it is distinctly of this - [future aspect of] - salvation that Paul speaks in our verse: “that whether
we wake or sleep we should live together with Him,” and all relevant
passages likewise show that this privilege is contingent
upon the sons of light not sleeping as do the rest of men, but being watchful, sober, having on the armour of light and fighting
the good fight of faith. This Christ stated impressively when Peter
objected to Him washing his feet. The act was symbolic of the need the saint
has of daily cleansing from the defilement caused by contact with this defiled
world. This cleansing the Lord is ready to effect by the laver of His word and
Spirit (Eph.
5:
25-27);
and to one who refuses
this daily sanctification the solemn word applies “If I wash thee not thou hast no part with Me.”
The 1946 Revisers of the American Standard Version make this
read, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” This would cut off the unsanctified believer from salvation entire. It is a flagrant and culpable
mis-translation. But what Christ
said to Peter did not put in jeopardy his justification [by faith] or eternal life, but it did make the enjoyment of
the personal company of the Lord - [during His coming Kingdom] - to depend upon daily
sanctification,
as does the whole New Testament, and
as the believer finds by present experience.
Therefore in place of accepting the above view, that to take “wake or sleep” to mean watchfulness or slothfulness,
puts the passage into harmony with the doctrine of the whole New Testament, we
then rather see it as forcing the verse into open conflict with the whole New
Testament upon the matter Paul states, that of living with Him. If we are right
in this, the point is settled that the words in question cannot here have this
moral sense.
7. This leads to the final
consideration, which also by itself really determines the matter. When the words
in question are taken to mean moral watchfulness or slothfulness the plain
effect is that the carnally-minded believer is as sure to be a personal
companion of the King in His glory as is the heavenly-minded saint; for says
this view, God appointed that, whether we are watchful or slothful, we shall
live together with Christ. What a premium is thus put upon slothfulness, and by
the predetermination of God Himself! Demas
forsook Paul, the aged prisoner, having learned again to love this present age;
yet he is as absolutely certain as the faithful apostle to reign with Christ in
the heavenly glory. This was put bluntly by a teacher of this view, when he
said at a public meeting, “No matter how you live as a Christian, you
are certain to be part of the bride of Christ and to reign with Him.”
He emphasized the words in italics, it being the express point he was urging.
On this view it matters not a straw that Demas, because he
loved this world, did thereby “constitute himself (kathistatai) an
enemy of God,” being spiritually an adulteress (James 4: 4). The “adulteress”
shall nevertheless be part of the Bride of the Lamb! And even Paul is made to
teach this rank antinomianism, Paul who solemnly and regularly warned his children in the faith that unrighteous
persons shall not have inheritance in the
8. It was suggested above that it was
the theological views of the scholars
named which forced them to hold that the passage speaks of bodily death or life
at the coming of the Lord. There is always danger that one’s opinions may
affect the judgment upon a particular point or passage, but this applies
equally to those who wish to hold the moral sense of the words, it being a
great support to the view that reigning with Christ is guaranteed irrespective
of conduct. But the objection cannot apply to J. N. Darby, at least, for he
held the opinion just stated yet took the opposite view of our verse, nor were
the other scholars named of any one school of theology so as all to be biased
in one direction. It would be fairer to allow that, apart from linguistic
reasons, it was a just sense of morality that made them reject the meaning desired by some and
which dulls the sense of moral urgency everywhere inculcated by the Word of
God.
The view in question amounts to this - that in verses 6 and 7 Paul urges that to sleep in the night
is natural enough for the sons of darkness but most unbecoming in the sons of
light and day, who ought to be ever watchful, armed, and sober, like soldiers
on duty. Yet nevertheless, says this view, in verse 10 he cancels this by assuring them
that, even if the Christian does not watch, but goes to sleep while on duty, it
won’t seriously affect his heavenly prospects, because the soldier of Christ
may sleep through the battle but be sure of sharing the triumph banquet! Is it
not unjustifiable to force upon the apostle this moral contradiction? Is it not
obvious that Paul must have used katheudo in different senses?
From the foregoing it appears:
1.That there is
adequate linguistic ground to allow “wake or sleep” to mean “alive or dead.”
2. That the objection
that the writer would not in close contact use a word in two different senses
is unfounded.
3. That it is
contrary to the consistent teaching of the New Testament to regard the high and
heavenly prospects of the saints as free of moral conditions.
4. That the view
here rebutted is calculated to diminish fidelity and morality.
5. That therefore
the words must be taken to mean that whether those who live godly in Christ
Jesus are alive when He shall come, or shall have died, they shall live with Christ in His kingdom.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (2)
(Romans 8: 17)
-------
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 with Him.
Long
years ago G. F. Hogg pointed out to
me that the second clause of this verse contains in Greek the untranslated
particles men ... de,
and should be rendered “heirs indeed of God, but joint-heirs with Christ, if so
be that we suffer with Him.” Upon these particles that excellent classic W.
H. Isaacs says that it is “a construction which in normal Greek has no purpose but to
express an antithesis” (The Epistle to the
Hebrews 73). All children indeed inherit from the father -
his life, love, care, training; but not all share the larger portion of the
first-born son.
Forty years ago there circulated in the West of England a
small magazine entitled Counties Quarterly. Being asked to contribute an article I
sent a paper on John 9: 4, “We must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day,” which
stressed various things which must be done in this life or not at all, such as,
to trust Christ for salvation, be baptized, remember the Lord in the breaking
of bread, witness for Him, win souls, and finally, suffer with Him if we would be glorified with Him. The above
passage was cited in the translation and sense just mentioned.
It transpired that the magazine was owned by the Editors of Echoes of Service and the matter proposed for insertion was submitted to them. Mr.
W. E. Vine wrote to the Editor a courteous note that, as this use of the
passage was matter of dispute, perhaps it were better to omit the sentence. He
added that the Greek construction in this place (eiper “if” with the indicative of the verb) does not create a condition but means “since
we suffer with Him we shall be glorified with Him.”
The difference is momentous. The latter sense
implies that all the children of God will share the glory of Christ, the former that this honour is contingent upon sharing His sufferings.
The sense adopted here will govern our understanding of many other passages.
I readily altered my paper but said to myself, “Mr. Vine is a
Greek scholar, which I am not; but I will look into this.” There was then
living in
I mentioned to him this passage and what Mr. Vine had said as
to the force of “if” with the indicative of the verb. He
replied; “that is what we were always taught on the
blackboard at
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:
If we are faithless,
He abideth faithful;
for He cannot deny Himself.
Now, I said, here are four parallel poetic clauses, and having
all the same grammatical construction they must all be construed alike, and it is the same construction as
in Rom. 8: 17. It is impossible to take the “if” here as meaning “since,” for it were contrary to fact to say “since we deny Him ... since
we are faithless,” for not all [regenerate] believers deny Him or are faithless to Him. So that
the same writer, writing later on the same subject, uses the same construction to express a condition upon which depends
the realization of the hope stated, and this must govern his earlier
statement in Rom.
8:
17
or he will be made to contradict himself.
For a while Mr. Reynolds looked
steadily at his Greek Testament, and said, “You are
certainly right.” I added: Is not
this an example of what scholars now know, that the New Testament was not written in classical Greek, but in the everyday speech of the people? To which he assented.
The sense “since
we suffer we shall therefore be glorified” robs the eiper “if” of any real weight. The particle is rendered by scholars in
this place, and in verse 9 preceding, “if indeed,”
“if at least” “provided
that” (Darby, Alford). E. H.
Gifford (Speaker’s Commentary) says: “eiper ... represents the ‘fellowship of His sufferings’ (Phil. 3: 10) as an indispensable condition
of sharing His glory.” Obviously this is the plain and simple force of the English Versions “if so be.” On these verses 9 and 17 Fritz
Reinicker says: “eiper, if in reality (wenn
wirklich) - expresses an
expectation Schlussel zum Griechischen N.T. 412).
Further, the unconditional sense
nullifies the final clause “if so be that we suffer that
we may be also glorified,” where hina with the subjunctive of the verb cannot but have
the conditional force “in order that we may be glorified.” “If so be ... in order that” cannot have the meaning “since ... therefore.”
NOTE - Upon eiper comp. 1 Cor. 15: 15: “Whom He raised
not up, if indeed [eiper ara] dead men are
not raised”: and Moulton and Milligan (Vocab. of Gk. Test. 182): “For the emphatic eiper ‘if indeed,’ cf. ‘please return
to the city, unless indeed [eiper
me] something most pressing
occupies you’.”
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (3)
THE CONDITIONAL FORCE OF 1 JOHN 1:
7
-------
If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
-------
Ean is a conditional particle, from ei,
if,
and an which emphasizes
the conditional element. This force of the three particles continues in modern
Greek. The conditional force is the more distinct with the subjunctive of the
verb, as here. In this second paragraph John uses this construction seven
times:
Chapter 1: 6, if we say: verse 7, if we walk: verse 8, if we say: verse 9, if we confess: verse 10, if we say: chapter 2: 1, if any one sin: verse 5, but whoever may keep (hos d’an
tere).
In all these instances the strict sense is “suppose we should say, walk, etc.” Darby, New
Translation, in note “c” to these
verses in ch. 1., says: “In all
these cases the verb is in the subjunctive, and puts the case of so doing. I
should have translated them ‘if we should say’ etc. but that it is the case in verse 9 also, where it cannot be done.” But he offers no reason why it cannot be done in verse 9, nor does there seem to be any reason. To all these places his German
version gives the note “Gesetzt den Fall, dass,”
which means, Let us suppose that, and no exception is mentioned. In the 1939
edition of his English Translation the exception is no longer found.
Young’s Literal gives:
“If
we may say”;
Darby’s earlier exception involves
forgetfulness of the difference between justification and forgiveness. Upon
faith in Christ the sinner is given a new standing in grace and before the law
of God, and he becomes a child of God. This status is irreversible; being a
child of God he can never be otherwise than His child. This is forensic
justification. But obviously a child that does wrong needs forgiveness, and
this can only be rightly and helpfully extended by the father upon the child
being sorry and confessing the fault. To continue in disobedience to
God is to go into the darkness of forfeited communion, for God cannot come out into the darkness with the disobedient child
and give him His fellowship there. The child must return to the
light, the prodigal son must come home, if he is to be forgiven. “He that
covereth his transgressions shall not prosper:
but who so confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy” (Prov. 28: 13). Thus does
Does not Lev. 16., the Day of atonement, lie behind this
passage in John? On that day the High Priest, as the religious representative of
the whole nation made a general confession of and offered a plenary atonement
for “all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even
all their sins” (vs. 21, 22). This removed ceremonially the guilt of all their unrecognised
sins, which however God recognized and which would have restrained His grace. But if an Israelite had sinned consciously he had to repent, desist, confess, and offer the appointed personal sacrifice: then he was forgiven. He could
not say in his heart, Next week is the great atonement when all our sins are
put away, so I need not fear or offer my own sacrifice. That general atonement
was for all the offences unrecognized by men but known to God. If a man was not walking in what light he had as to the law of God, but in the darkness of self-will, that Day availed him nothing. But while he walked in what
light he had all other transgressions were held covered and did not debar
fellowship with God or the godly. In our passage also the emphasis is on the
word “all,” and covers not only those sins of which the believer is aware and of which
he has repented, but all other failures and sins of which he does not know, but
which are known to God and which would debar fellowship but for the plenary
virtue of the blood of Christ.
In this connection the force of ean with the subjunctive is seen clearly in Matt. 6:
14,
15:
“If ye forgive ... your
Father will forgive you. If ye do not forgive
... neither will your Father forgive.” Here also it is not a matter of
justification but of forgiveness. And it must be thus. God’s holiness demands it.
An unforgiving spirit is itself sin, being utterly contrary to God, and He cannot condone sin in
His [regenerate] children, nor forgive them until they repent and return to the light.
In his Grammar of the
Greek New Testament (1005
f.) A. T. Robertson points out that
in John 13:
17
two uses of ei and ean are distinguished: “If ye know” (ei with the indicative) assumes that
they do know as a fact; “happy are ye if ye
should do” (ean with the subjunctive) leaves the
fulfilment uncertain and therefore conditional. It is this last construction that is found in the passage in John here
considered.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (4)
There remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the
people of God. (Heb. 4: 9.)
What
rest is this? Its noblest feature is that God calls it “My rest.” Therefore it cannot be that rest of conscience
received by the sinner upon faith in Christ, nor that rest of heart which the
saint gains when he casts all his anxieties upon God Who cares for him. These
are our rest in God, but
this is God’s own rest, which cannot be that of a purged conscience or of peace
of mind after turmoil.
Nor can it be that unbroken tranquility which is the eternal
condition of God, for here it is a rest
after work; wherefore it is termed a sabbatism,
for sabbath rest is cessation of work.
God’s first work was the act of creating “the heavens
are the work of Thy hands” (Psa. 102: 25). The result of that work was disturbed by pre-historic
rebellion, which brought judgment and chaos. In due time God wrought again and
in six days refitted the earth for man to inhabit and restored the stellar
world for man’s benefit. This finished, God “rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had made” and
declared that day holy (Gen. 2: 1-3).
Then sin disturbed this fair realm also and brought disorder
and ruin. But God is indefatigable. Again He set to work to reduce this world
to order, to further which work the Son of God came here, and said “My Father
worketh even until now, and I work” (John 5:
17). This work being still in progress
(for the past intervention of the Son of God did not complete it), God is not
yet resting, and therefore what He calls “His rest” cannot be a present experience. His servants are called and
privileged to share His work. “We are God’s fellow-workers ... working together with Him” (1 Cor. 3: 9; 2 Cor. 6: 1); and therefore this is not the period of our rest, as
here meant, but of our toil and suffering until the time shall come when God
will again rest. Thus it is written by the apostle, “to you that
are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of
the Lord Jesus from heaven” (2 Thes. 1: 7). And therefore it is said here that “there remaineth a sabbath rest for the people of God.”
The English Versions obscure this by inserting without warrant
the tiny word “do,” “we who have believed do
enter.” Delitzsch gives the sense aright as
being that, we who at the time for entering in shall be found to have believed
will enter.
It is further clear that not peace of conscience or rest from
care is meant because these are gained by ceasing from work, whereas this rest has to be gained by all diligence,
and may be missed by unbelief and disobedience, even as
Of what, then, was
Moreover,
But as God’s rest here in view is neither present nor eternal,
it can be only that ‘age’ which is to intervene
between the close of this [evil
and apostate] age, at the coming of the Lord in glory, and the
eternal ages to commence after the final judgment and the creating of new
heavens and earth. That Millennial age is frequently set forth in Scripture as a prize to be won by diligence, patience, endurance, and as being
forfeitable by negligence or misconduct. As William Kelly said on this passage: “We
are called now to the work of faith and labour of love, while we patiently wait
for rest in glory at Christ’s coming” (Exposition
of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
73).
At His second coming the Lord will speak peace to His people,
and to His saints (Psa. 85: 8), and He Himself will enter His rest, “He will rest
in His love” (Zeph. 3: 17). “Let us fear
therefore, lest haply, a promise
being left of entering into His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short
of it ... Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no man fall after the same example of disobedience” as was seen in Israel of old (Heb.
4:
10,
11).
For a full discussion see my Epistle
to the Hebrews, 75-83.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (5)
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
1 Cor. 15:
51.
-------
IT is
often urged that this passage declares that though “we shall not all sleep,” but some be alive at the descent of
the Lord, yet “we shall all be changed,” and surely, says the objector with emphasis, all means all.
Truly; but in ver. 22, “For as in Adam
all die, so also in the Christ shall all be made
alive,” “all” means all of mankind, for every child
of Adam will at some time be raised by Christ (John 5: 28, 29). But not all at the first
resurrection (Rev. 20: 5). Therefore in this very chapter “all” means different things, and in verse 51
requires limiting, since it refers to a smaller company than in verse 22.
The last and immediate context is in verses 48, 49, which speak of those who are to “bear the
image of the heavenly,” that is, are to share with the Lord
in His heavenly form, glory, and sovereignty. Now the more
difficult, and therefore the more
probable reading here is as in the R.V. margin:
“As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” It is evident
that one copying a document is not likely to insert by mistake a more difficult
word or idea than is in the manuscript before him; so that, as a general rule,
the more difficult reading is likely to have been the original reading.
Moreover, in this case “let us also bear” is so well attested by the
manuscripts as to have been adopted as the true reading by Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, and Westcott and
Hort, and is given as the text in the latest editions of the Greek Testament,
those of Nestle and Von Soden. Ellicott prefers the common reading, but on subjective and internal
grounds only, and his remark on the external authority is emphatic : “It is impossible to deny that the subjunctive phoresdmen is
supported by very greatly preponderating authority.” Alford (on Romans 9: 5) well says, “that no conjecture [i.e., as to the true Greek text] arising from doctrinal difficulty is ever to be admitted in
the face of the consensus of MSS. and versions.”
By this exhortation the apostle places upon [regenerate] Christians some responsibility to
see that they secure that image of the heavenly which is indispensable to “inheriting
the kingdom of God” (verse 50). In this Paul is supported by Peter, who also writes of that “inheritance which is reserved in heaven” (1 Pet. 1: 4),
which he describes by the later statement that “the God
of all grace called you unto His eternal glory in Christ” (5: 10). But Peter goes on to urge the called to “give the more diligence to
make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet. 1: 10), thus showing that this
calling to share the glory of God has to be made sure. He is not at all
discussing justification by faith or suggesting that it must be made sure by works done after
conversion. Justification and eternal life are not in the
least his subject. He writes expressly to those “who have [already] obtained like precious faith
with us in the righteousness of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Pet. 1: 1). The calling of grace is to
share in God’s own eternal glory, or, as Paul expresses it, to share God’s “own kingdom and glory,” and he tells us that he exhorted,
encouraged, yea, and testified, to the end that his [redeemed] children in faith should “walk worthily of God” Who had called them to such supreme
dignity (1 Thess. 2:
11-12).
Since therefore this most honourable calling must be “made sure” by “walking worthily,” in order that we may be “counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also
suffer” (2 Thess. 1: 5), the reading “let us also
bear the image of the heavenly” becomes consistent and important. Thus 1 Cor. 15:
41,
52 is addressed to those who are assumed
(whether it be so or not) to have responded
to the exhortation, and it will mean
that “we [who shall be accounted worthy to bear that heavenly image] shall not all sleep,
but we shall all
be changed.” Of that [obedient] company it is strictly true that all means all.
Further, the primary antecedent to verse 52
is in verse
23:
“But each [shall be made alive] in his own
order: Christ the first-fruits; then they
that are Christ’s in His Parousia: then the end ...” Does not the whole sentence, in the light of other
passages, carry the force: But each shall be made alive, not all at the same hour,
but each in his own class or company (tagma); first-fruit, Messiah; then, next, those of the Messiah, i.e., in
His character as first‑fruit, at
His Parousia; then, later, [at] the end of all dispensations, involving
the resurrection of all, saved and
unsaved, not before raised? Here is additional reason for R. C. Chapman’s view that the first
resurrection is one of “first-fruits,” and not of all who will be finally
raised in the “harvest” of eternal life.
It has been accepted above that “all” means “all,” but what does “all” mean? It is not always used - [in Holy Scripture] - absolutely,
in its universal sense. Thus the Lord, speaking of the last days of this age, said, “ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake” (Matt.
10:
22;
Lk. 21: 17); yet later, speaking of the same period,
He showed that there will be then some, the “sheep,” who will befriend His
persecuted followers (Matt. 25: 33-40). The explanation is found in the other
report of His words: “ye shall be hated of all the
nations” (Matt. 24: 10); that is, this hatred will affect all the
peoples everywhere on earth, though not every individual as the other use of “all”
might by itself suggest.
Again ; of the trial of Christ before the Council of the Jews
it is said that “all the chief priests and the elders of
the people took counsel (sumboulion) against Jesus” (Matt. 27: 1); yet Lk. 23: 50 tells that one of that
Council, Joseph of Arimathea (a bouletees),
had not assented to their counsel (boulee); and John 19: 39 shows that Nicodemus
dissociated himself from their act; and he also was one of the Council (John 7:
50-52).
Acts 1:
1
speaks of Luke’s Gospel having narrated “all that Jesus began both
to do and to teach,” yet we know that the world could
not contain the books that would be required for such a full account (John 21:
25).
These instances suffice to warn against rashly taking “all” in its fullest sense. They call for
careful consideration of each use of the word. The [Holy] Spirit took up the natural habits of human
speech! No one is misled when he hears one say that “all the world was there.”
Passages which deal with a matter from the point of view of
God’s plan and willingness use general, wide terms to cover and to disclose His
whole provision. But these must be ever considered
in connection with any other
[Scriptural] statements upon the same subject which reveal what God foresees of the human element which, by His own creation of responsible
creatures, He permits to interact
with His working. Out of these elements, through self-will in the
[regenerate] believer, arises the possibility of individuals not reaching unto
the whole of what the grace of God had offered in Christ. For fuller
discussions see my First-fruits and Harvest and Ideals
and Realities.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (6)
THE ELECT
MATTHEW 24: 31
THE Lord
was dealing with the question “What shall be the sign of Thy parousia and
consummation of the age?” (verse 13). It is almost completely overlooked that this question was concerned
with one double event not with two separated events. This is clear in the Greek
though not in the English Versions, for the latter render it “the sign of
Thy coming, and of the end of the world?” The comma, with the words “of the,” dissociate the “coming” from the “consummation
of the age,”
leaving it possible that there may be an undefined interval between them, but
they are without warrant. The phrase “the end of the world” is simply false and misleading, for it
carries the mind on to the final event of heaven and earth passing away, to be substituted by new heavens
and earth. But tou aionos means “of the age,” and sunteleia means the consummation of this age, the point when this
period of God’s dealings touches and leads into the next period, the millennial
kingdom to be ushered in by the parousia of Christ.
Among other events to lead up to that consummation the Lord
mentioned (15-28) the rise of the Desolator foretold by
Daniel, bringing on a tribulation surpassing all previous troubles on earth and
never afterward to be equalled. He then declared that it would be immediately
after that tribulation that His coming in power and glory would be seen (29, 30), to which He added our passage: “And He shall
send forth His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other.”
The view that the parousia and the removal of the church will be before that tribulation has (1) to ignore the fact that the question
of the disciples was concerning two events so closely connected that they could
be indicated by one and the same sign; and (2) it has to affirm that the “elect” of our present verse are not
Christians but godly Jews. It is part of the theory that the Synoptic Gospels
are “Jewish” in character, not Christian, which
theory will stand or fall with this particular passage. The following
considerations must have weight.
1. This gathering of the elect takes place
while the Son of man is still in the clouds. Thence He “sends forth” His angels, having not yet come as
far as the earth. Comp. Rev. 14: 14-16 and 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17. But the saved of
2. No gathering of Jews to
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (7)
PHILIPPIANS
3: 11.
If by any means I may attain
unto the resurrection from among the dead.
DEALING with the first and select resurrection the Lord spoke of those
that are accounted worthy to
attain to that age and the resurrection from among the dead (Luke 20: 34-36) “That age” (singular) is not a Bible term for
eternity, which is not one age but many, “the ages of the ages” (thirteen times in the Revelation). “That age” is set by Christ in direct contrast to “this age,” and so means the age of the [millennial] kingdom to follow this - [evil and apostate] - age. A general resurrection the Jews expected (John 11:
24:
Acts 24:
15),
but here Christ speaks of “the resurrection which is out from among the dead” (tees anastaseos tees ek nekron). This is the
first clear intimation of such a limited, select resurrection (this
doctrine being rooted in a germinal saying of Christ), and its terms are the key to and must control all subsequent
instructions upon the subject. And
it is made very clear that this [select] resurrection is a privilege to which one must “attain” - [i.e., ‘gain
by effort’] - and be “accounted
worthy” thereof. The
notion that a share in the first resurrection is a certainty, irrespective of attainment and worthiness, can only be held in direct disregard of
this primary declaration by the [only]* One who will effect the
resurrection and determine who shall participate therein, the Son of God.
[* John 11:
25:
“I am the
resurrection...” Cf. Luke 14: 14; John 5: 17a, & 20, R.V.)]
It was through Paul that the
Holy Spirit saw fit to give in permanent written form fuller particulars as to
this theme (1 Cor. 15. & 1 Thess. 4.), and it is - [the inspired and divinely chosen Apostle] - Paul who elsewhere repeats the words of our Lord Jesus
just considered, declaring that, whereas justifying righteousness is verily
received through faith in Christ, not by our
own works, yet, in marked contrast, “the resurrection which is from among the dead” (teen
exanastasin teen ek nekron) is a privilege at which one must arrive (katanteeso)
by a given course of life, even the experimental knowledge of Christ,
of the power of His resurrection, and of
the fellowship of His sufferings, thereby becoming conformed unto His death
(Phil.
3:
7-21).
Surely the present participle (summorphizomenos becoming conformed) is significant, and decisive in
favour of the view that it is a process,
a course of - [a regenerate believer’s] - life that is contemplated.
It has been suggested that Paul here speaks of a present moral
resurrection as he does in Romans 6. But in that chapter it is simply a
reckoning of faith that is proposed, not a course of personal sufferings. The
subject discussed is whether the [regenerate] believer is to continue
in slavery to sin (douleuein), as in his unregenerate days, or is the
mastery (kurieuo)
of sin to be immediately and wholly
broken? It should be remembered that when writing to the Philippians Paul
was near the close of his life and service. Could a life so holy and powerful
as his be lived without first knowing experimentally the truth taught in Romans 6.? Did the Holy Spirit at any time use the apostles to urge others to seek
experiences other than the writer had first known, and to which therefore he
could be a [personal] witness? And again, if by
the close of that long and wonderful career Paul was still only longing and
striving to attain to death to the “old man” and victory over sin, when did he ever attain thereto? Such
reflections upon the apostle are unworthy; and, as has been indicated, the
experience set forth in Romans 6. is not to be reached, or to be
sought, by suffering, by attaining, by laying hold, by pressing on, or any
other such effort as is urged upon the Philippians, but by the simple acceptance by faith of what God says He did for us * in Christ in relation to the “old man.”
[* NOTE: So much unbalanced
preaching of the Gospel (good news) today, is about what God ‘did for
us’, with very little - sometimes
no mention - of what God expects from us, and what
we should be doing today to please Him after having received eternal salvation
and regeneration!]
Thus this suggested exposition is neither sound experimental
theology nor fair exegesis. Paul
indicates as plainly as language can do that the first resurrection may be missed. His words are: “If by any means I
may arrive at the resurrection which is out from among
the dead.” “If by any means” (ei
pos) “I may” - “if” with the subjunctive of the verb - cannot but declare a condition; and so on this
particle in this place Alford says,
“It is used when an
end is proposed, but failure is
presumed to be possible:” and so Lightfoot: “The apostle states not a positive assurance, but
a modest hope:” and Grimm-Thayer
(Lexicon) give its meaning as, “If in any way, if by any means, if possible;” and Ellicott
to the same effect says, “the idea of an attempt is conveyed, which may or may not be successful.”
Both Alford and Lightfoot regard the passage as dealing with the resurrection of the
godly from death, and Ellicott’s note is worth giving in full. “‘The resurrection from the
dead;’ i.e.,
as the context suggests, the first
resurrection (Rev. 20: 5), when, at the Lord’s
coming the dead in Him shall rise first (1 Thess. 4: 16), and the quick be caught
up to meet Him in the clouds (1 Thess. 4: 17); comp. Luke 20: 35. The first resurrection will include only true believers, and
will apparently precede the second, that of non-believers, and disbelievers, in point
of time. Any reference here to a merely ethical resurrection (Cocceius) is
wholly out of the question.” With the addition that the second - [i.e., the Post-Great Tribulation (see Revelation 20: 7, 12, R.V.)] - resurrection will include [regenerate] believers not accounted worthy of
the first, this note is excellent.
The sense and force of the phrase “if by any
means I may arrive” are surely fixed beyond controversy by the use of the same words in Acts 27: 12:
“the more part advised to put to sea from thence,
if by any means they could reach [arrive at] Phoenix, and winter
there” (ei pos dunainto katanteesantes), which goal they did not reach.
Further, speaking upon the very subject of the resurrection
and the kingdom promised afore by
God, Paul used the same verb, again preceded by conditional terms, saying (Acts 26: 6-8), “unto which
promise our twelve tribes, earnestly serving God
night and day, hope to attain.” Here the force
of elpizei katanteesai “unto which they hope to attain” is the same as his words in Philippians ei pos kantanteeso, “if by any means I may attain.” This hope of the Israelite of sharing
in Messiah’s - [soon coming, and His Father’s promised
(Psa.
2:
8)] - kingdom is plainly conditional (Dan.
12:
2,
3). It is assured to such an Israelite
indeed as Daniel (12: 13), and to such a faithful servant of
God in a period of great difficulty as Zerubbabel
(Hag. 2: 23). It was also offered to Joshua
the high priest, but upon conditions
of obedience and conduct. Joshua had been relieved of his filthy
garments and arrayed in noble attire (Zech. 3: 1-5), but immediately his symbolic justification before Jeliovah
had been thus completed, and his standing
in the presence of God assured, the divine message to him is couched
in conditional language: “And the Angel of Jehovah protested
unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, If thou wilt walk in My ways, and if thou wilt
keep My charge, then thou also shalt judge My house, and shalt also
keep My courts, and I will give thee places to
walk among these that stand by” (ver. 6, 7).
It is at this point that the “ifs” of the Word of God come in, and are so solemn and
significant. Whenever the matter is that of the pardon of sin, the justifying of
the guilty, the gift of eternal life, Scripture ever speaks positively and
unconditionally. The sinner is “justified freely
by God’s grace,” and “the free gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 3: 24; 6: 23), in which places the word “free” means free of conditions, not only of payment. Eternal life
therefore is what is called in law an absolute gift, in contrast to a conditional
gift. The latter may be forfeited if the
condition be not fulfilled; the
former is irrevocable. But as soon
as the sinner has by faith entered into this standing before God, then the Word begins at once to speak to
him with “Ifs.” From this point and forward every privilege is conditional.
* *
*
IMPORTANT TEXTS (8)
2 Cor. 5: 1-10; Phil. 1: 23
To be read in the R.V. with their contexts.
-------
1. The Present. (a)
“Our outward man decays” (ch. 4: 16) - a perpetual process, which even our
strenuous labour in the work of the Lord accelerates. Consequently while in
this body “we groan being burdened” (vs. 3, 4).
(b) Yet “we faint not” (4: 16), for “our inward man is renewed
continuously,” and
“the
spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity” (Prov. 18: 14). This renewing operates while faith
animates the heart; for faith makes real a world which the senses cannot discern
(5: 7), a heavenly realm free from all weakness and burdens, a
system of life which is eternal, not, as this, temporary, insufficient.
The present physical house in which man dwells is “of the earth,” suited to the business of living on earth,
but not to the higher life of the realm above: “flesh and blood [even had it remained sinless] is not capable of inheriting
the
2.
The State after Death. Man by constitution
is a soul clothed with a material body which is kept in life by the [animating] spirit (Gen. 2: 7). At [the time of] death God recalls this spirit-element, thereupon the
body turns to dust (Eccl. 12: 7), and the soul, the man, without the external body, is “unclothed,
naked.” This incomplete condition is not to be desired (vs. 3, 4). It entirely forbids that the
person should in that naked state reach the final and supreme goal of being
presented before the presence of God’s glory in heaven, as surely as
no naked man would be presented before a king in his throne room.
Nevertheless the
intermediate state - [in ‘Sheol’
/ ‘Hades’ (see Gen. 35b; cf. Lk. 16: 23ff. Psa.
16:
10;
Acts 2:
27,
31,
34,
R.V.)]
- has this unique advantage
over this earth life, that freed from the limitations that the body of flesh
puts upon our faculties, the saint can enjoy the presence
of the Lord more acutely. Therefore “to depart and to be with Christ”
would have been “very far better” for Paul personally than to be chained day and
night to a pagan ruffian (Phil. 1: 21-26). He was torn between the two possibilities, that of his
personal advantage of departing to be with Christ, and that of further serving
Christ by helping His people on earth. He chose the latter.
Being “with Christ” in the sense Paul had in view did not imply
ascent to the heavens where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Not even the Lord ascended there, far above all heavens, while in the
death state. Even on the morning of
His resurrection He had not yet gone thither to the Father (John 20: 17). At death He had gone to
Therefore He is (a) on earth with His servants
personally (John 14: 21, 23; Acts 22: 6-10; 23: 11; 2 Tim. 4: 16, 17). He is (b) with them when
assembled (Matt. 18: 19, 20) He is (c) with them and they with Him in
the realm of the dead (Phil. 1: 23; Rev. 6: 9-11); and they will (d) be with Him when rapt to meet Him
in the clouds and by resurrection (1 Thess. 4: 17); and (e) those who conquered in His battles in
this life shall walk with Him in white and shall sit down with Him on His
throne in His glory (Rev. 2: 4, 5, 21). It was in sense (c) that Paul thought of being “with Christ” should he die. But while living and
active in the noble service of the gospel his wish was not to be unclothed, disembodied (2 Cor. 5: 4). The difference in his
circumstances, now while free for his active, blessed ministry, later when
chained and restricted, explains his different outlook and desire,
3.
The
If believers go to the glory of God at death, they have
already reached the summit, the goal, and there is no need of resurrection or
rapture. But, as just stated, the Lord showed distinctly that only by His
return can we reach the Father’s house, our “home”:
“In
My Father’s house are many abiding places ... I
go to prepare a place for you ... And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I come
again, and will receive you unto Myself; in order that where I am, there
ye may be also” (John 14: 2, 3; 1 Thess. 4: 16, 17).
As flesh and blood cannot rise to that realm there must needs
be given a body capable of life there (1 Cor. 15: 50-58). Thus had Paul shortly before
written to these Corinthians. Now (2 Cor. 5: 1) he tells them that this body will be permanent, a “building,” not a tent, a “house;” and that it will be a direct
creation of God, not something which lesser beings had made out of heavenly
materials. Gnostics were already inculcating their false philosophy of
creation, that the supreme God had left to lesser beings the work of
manipulating the created matter or its basis. This is tacitly rebuked by the
assertion that the coming body of glory, immortality,
and incorruption will not be made “with hands,” but will be God’s own handiwork.
As to duration, it will be eternal; as to location, it will be
“in the heavens;” not of the earth for the earth, but
of heavenly substance suitable to life in the heavens. The present body
exhibits the activities of man’s soul; it is a
psychical or soulish vehicle: the heavenly, body will, be the vehicle of the
movements of his spirit; a pneumatical or spiritual body (1 Cor. 15: 44-46).
Changing the figure from a house to a garment, the apostle now
(ver. 4) speaks of this heavenly body as a robe to be put on, either
to cover and conceal our nakedness wrought by death, or to take the place of
the corrupted body of those to be changed by rapture. For the intermediate
state he was not now longing: “not that we would be unclothed” (ver. 4); but for this final great change he
was most desirous. He will gladly be disrobed of the frail earthly robe, to be
worn only till death or till the Lord shall descend, which garment shows that
the wearer is “absent from the Lord” as regards visible presence; and he longs to be
clothed upon with that heavenly body which will enable him to be “at home with
the Lord” in the
full felicity of the Father’s house.
4. The Occasion of this
momentous event is shown distinctly. Writing in the former letter the apostle
said that this change will take place “at the last trump” (15: 52).
1 Thes. 4: 16 tells that this will be at the
descent of the Lord from heaven to the clouds of this earth. Paul adds that
this putting on by the mortal of immortality will be the fulfilment of the
ancient prophesy (Isa. 25: 8) that “Death is swallowed up in victory.” He now repeats (ver. 4) that the putting on of the eternal heavenly garment is in
order “that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.” Obviously these two statements refer
to the one event, at the coming of Christ. This forbids two erroneous errors:
(a) That it is the
hour of a believer’s death of which he speaks, or
(b) That he has in mind some supposed conferment of a temporary
heavenly “house,” or robe, to cover in measure the
believer’s nakedness during the intermediary condition between death and
resurrection. For such a covering there is in fact no need. There is already an
outer form, answering to the material form dropped at death but much less
substantial, rare not coarse, yet real. Thus Samuel when called back to speak
with Saul had on a robe (1 Sam. 28: 14), and Dives and Abraham could recognize each other in Hades (Luke 16: 23). See also Isa.
14:
15,
16. But by comparison with the earthly
body this covering is so attenuated that the soul feels uncovered, naked.
It is to the coming of the Lord - [at the end of the Great Tribulation] - that Paul points and the supreme
and permanent change to be wrought then.
5. The Moral Effects. The believer is liable to become
weary and discouraged by the burdens that make him groan; but the steadfast
contemplation of those grand eternal verities will give a ceaseless
invigoration of' the inner man. He will not faint, but will experience daily
inward renewing; his present burden will seem but light and momentary, as
compared with the weight of eternal glory. As Paul wrote to the Romans (8: 18), the sufferings of the present will
be counted insignificant in comparison with the eternal glory. The term “light” is the word of the Lord used when He
said, “My burden is light” (Matt. 11: 30). It is not found elsewhere in the New
Testament. This so heavily burdened disciple and pilgrim assures us that
Christ’s word is true in experience.
Therefore the apostle says twice “we are always
of good courage” (vs. 6, 7). When God wrought in us His good work of the new birth, He had
in view this final glorious development; to this end He directs all His ways
and discipline. As assurance that all this prospect is real, not visionary, He
has granted us the Spirit of life that animates that heavenly world. In
heavenly emotions and energies, which the [Holy] Spirit already imparts, we have in advance the “earnest” of that coming inheritance.
But this demands that we live in correspondence with the
heavenly realm to which we now belong and toward which we urge our way. Only
what is drawn from Christ, the Lord from heaven, by the [Holy] Spirit, will pass the scrutiny of His
judgment seat. We shall receive back then exactly what we do here
by the use of our present body, whether good or bad (ver. 10). The light and
energy of these weighty considerations induces “the fear of the Lord.” This urges the believer to “persuade men” to embrace this noble prospect and
walk humbly with God, as men who have died with the crucified Redeemer and now
live as new-born creatures devoted to Him risen from the dead (vs. 11 -
6:
10).
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (9)
Romans 8: 28-30
And we know, that to them that
love God, all things work
together for good, even to them that
are called according to His purpose. For whom
He foreknew, He also
foreordained to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren: and whom He foreordained, them
also He called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom
He justified, them He also
glorified.
-------
This passage is an instance of how profound doctrine is
introduced with practical purpose. The assertion that “all things
work together for good” is bold and startling, being apparently contradicted by innumerable
experiences of the godly. Only a little earlier the apostle has reminded us of
present sufferings and the groanings they cause. How can he, and we, be so
confident that all things, without exception, work together for good?
The ground of his assurance and comfort lies in the facts
covered by his word “For.” He points to a sequence of factors in the plan and working of God: He
foreknew - foreordained - called - justified - glorified certain persons. How
can it be otherwise than that He shall cause all conditions and circumstances
to co-operate to the fulfilling of His purpose concerning them? He cannot
suffer any external agency to frustrate His sublime intention.
There was an ancient philosophy that regarded all the universe
as wholly unregulated, all is the plaything of chance. Solomon glanced at this
misreading of history when he said “time and chance happeneth to them all”
(Eccl.
9:
11). A distinguished modern scholar and
historian has given this as his view of history.*
* H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe, Preface, v, one vol. ed.
Another philosophy conceived of certain unapproachable
godesses, the Fates, issuing purely arbitrary and unchangeable decrees, which
not even the supreme deity, Zeus, could vary or escape. This conception rules
hundreds of millions today. It dominates, for example, Islamic, Hindu, and
Bhuddistic thought, and is the root of moral corruption. The Moslem excuses his vices by pleading that it is his kismet,
fate.
Seven centuries before Christ, God expressly condemned both these notions, “Fortune” and “Destiny,”
and pointed to their origin as being a result of refusing to heed His call
because men loved evil (Isa. 65: 11, 12. Comp.
Close scrutiny of the words of our passage will confirm this
view of God and His ways.
1. A
Purpose is that which one sets before one’s heart
to see accomplished. God does not work casually. There is a purpose that He
pursues through all the ages of time (Eph. 3: 11). This purpose was not formed on the basis of man’s sinful
works, but on the principle of showing favour to the undeserving. Nor was it an
after-thought to meet human need, but it was formed before the ages of time
began, and its ground design was to associate us with Christ Jesus (2 Tim. 1:
9).
In furthering this purpose God acts as He sees fit and
according to His own choice (Rom. 9: 11). But it is wrong to conceive His actions as being purely
arbitrary, a mere fiat, an act of the will but not governed by reason; for
though it is His own will that directs, yet it is “according to
the counsel
of His will” that He acts in all things (Eph. 1: 11). This is seen in His first step manward: “And God said,
Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let
them have dominion” (Gen. 1: 26). The creation of man was not a mere fiat, but the persons of
the Godhead took counsel together as to this step towards the purpose God had
in view.
2.
Called. But how shall
man, darkened in his understanding, alienated, and at enmity with God, get to
know of God’s purpose and be drawn into its orbit of grace? As soon as Adam and
Eve had sinned and wandered “Jehovah God called unto the man” (Gen. 3: 9). The purpose and grace of God concerning the man turned on whether he would respond to that
gracious call.
There was no fatalistic element involved. The last time that
Christ is said to have referred to the call of God (Matt. 22: 14) it was to warn aspirants
to a place at His wedding
feast that “many are called but few chosen.” And the last
time but one that God’s call is mentioned in the New Testament (Rev.
17:
14)
shows that those who attain to heavenly fellowship with the Lord are not only
called but are also “chosen and faithful.”
This “call” is directed first that sinners shall repent (Matt. 9: 13); but that there is no compulsion is seen in the fact that
the majority who hear the call do not repent. The call then extends to inviting
men to a feast, but here again many make light of it and are accounted unworthy
(Matt. 22: 8). Sharing a wedding feast is not
equivalent to a criminal escaping the gallows, but is
something far beyond it. This
privilege also may be forfeited, as Christ showed in the parable.
God’s severe complaint against man is “I have called, and ye refused”
(Prov.
1:
24).
3. Foreknew. The call of God
was so far from being arbitrary that it was guided by somewhat that He
foreknew. What He foreknew is
not told here, but the fact shows that His purpose and call follow knowledge on
His part.
Some light on the matter is given in connexion with that
covenant with Abraham through which all grace flows to Abraham’s spiritual
descendants (Gen. ch. 15; Rom. 4: 16-18; Gal. ch. 3). It is most material that God did
not make this covenant with Abraham with a view to him being justified, as Gen.
15:
6 shows. It was with him as justified that the
covenant was made. When God renewed His covenant with Isaac He said expressly
that He would fulfil its promises “because that
Abraham obeyed My voice, and kept My charge,
My commandments, My
statutes, and My laws” (Gen.
26:
2-5). This shows something that God had foreknown that Abraham would do and which would justify God in
covenanting to bless him.
Scripture knows of no covenant made with the unjustified and
unregenerate or with a view to their justification. Nor does Scripture use the
term “covenant of grace,” as if it had been possible,
consistently with morality, that God could enter into covenant to bless Abraham
irrespective of His foreknowledge and irrespective of the fact that Abraham
would keep His commandments. It was truly of grace that He called an idolator
into fellowship with Himself, but that grace had to reign through
righteousness, not in disregard of whether Abraham would
or would not walk righteously.
4.
Foreordain (pro-horizo). The root of this word meant chiefly to
settle a boundary, as of an estate or a country. Obviously no such boundary was
ever unalterable. The word comes in the statement in Acts 17: 26 that God has “determined the appointed seasons of the nations and the bounds of their
habitation.” This
settling of the times and areas of nations was
not by unchangeable decree, for it
allows of the extension of the period of national prosperity if a people repents of sin and
its curtailment if they persist in evil. This was declared by God
explicitly at the time of mighty international changes forced by the conquests
of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Jer. 18: 7-10, and consider
The word takes on a firmer meaning when applied to other acts
of God: “the Son of man indeed goeth, as
it hath been determined” (Luke 22: 22); but even the stupendous matter of the sacrifice of the Son
of God as Redeemer did not result from some
arbitrary compact between the Father and the Son, but it was by “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” that Christ was delivered up.
The same thought is shown in the first place where the
compound word used in Romans 8 is found: “to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel foreordained to come to pass” (Acts 4:
28).
In all the six places where prohorizo comes the R.V. has properly used foreordain. The word predestinate has a harder
sound and sense than the Greek word warrants, and there was no justification
for it being used in the A.V. If the
Translators had considered the passage cited from Isaiah, where God distinctly condemns the
notion of destiny, they would have avoided the word and have retained the
dominant usage of the earlier English
Versions.
In Romans 8: 28, Wyclif had “before
ordained,” and Tyndale “ordained before,” followed by Cranmer and the Geneva
Versions. In verse 29 Tyndale read “before appointed,” followed by Cramner and
In these places it was the Catholic Version, the Rheims,
following the Latin Vulgate, which continued the use of , “predestinate,” and it is regrettable that A.V.
turned from the earlier English to follow the Vulgate.
In Eph. 1: 5 Wyclif, Tyndale, and Cranmer read “having foreordained us
unto adoption as sons.” In verse
11 Wyclif had “foreordained according
to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His will,” but inconsistently and regrettably
Tyndale turned to the word “predestinate” and was followed by Cranmer,
It is against Scripture and morality to say that God had
determined irreversibly the eternal destiny of any being. He does not cancel but rather respects
the grant He made of freedom of will. But He has foreordained the
feature that some of the saved should share with Christ in His heavenly [millennial] kingdom and glory. This, not the
question of exemption from deserved perdition, is the matter affected by
foreordination. Now a thing which is ordained may be ordained subject to conditions which God, according to His foreknowledge, foresaw would arise and be right. Whereas that which has been fixed as
a destiny,
and which must therefore
come to pass, cannot be affected by any possibility or condition.
In this latter case God would have fixed unalterably that certain of the saved
shall share the glory of His Son even though in practice they should be
beguiled by the Tempter and walk in sin. Thus
is the grace that creates the noble prospect made the minister of sin in its
subjects. God forbid! Grace must not be turned into lasciviousness.
That which God’s foreknowledge foresaw and which foreordination
purposed, is that saints should be “conformed to the image of His Son.” An image is an external resemblance
of some other visible form. Certain of the saved are to live on a new earth (Rev. 21: 1-4, 24, 25), which is lower than being removed to
God’s immediate and upper realm. To be outwardly like the glorified body of the
Son of God in heaven is far higher than being saved from hell beneath. This
supreme dignity the Lord mentioned when He said to the Father, “the glory
which Thou hast given Me I have given unto them” (John 17: 22). Paul refers to it in 1 Cor.
2:
7
above mentioned, and in Col. 3: 4; 1 Thess. 2: 12; 2 Thes. 2: 14; 2 Tim. 2: 10; 4: 18. Peter speaks of it in Eph. 5: 10, and John in Eph. 3: 2. The climax is shown in Rev. 21: 10, 11, where the Bride,
the wife of the Lamb, has the glory of
God.
This unique honour looks beyond the ennobling of the saints to
the still higher purpose that “the Son shall be the Firstborn among many brethren,” as it says at Heb.
2:
10 that God “is bringing
many sons unto glory.”
Nothing more blinding and hurtful can be supposed than the
false, yet almost universal teaching that “being saved” and “going to heaven” are equivalent terms; for thus the
unique privileges of “the church of the
firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven”
(Heb.
12:
23), have been offered as the common,
universal, and unforfeitable possessions of all believers, even though they
should live as worldlings or lapse into wicked ways.
Those who in His foreknowledge God thus foreordained unto such
a heavenly status and glory in His universal kingdom, He in due time called by the gospel.
On this see 2 above, and upon these responding to the call in repentance and
faith He thereupon
5.
Justified them. Their
guilt and defilement blocked the way to the realization of God’s purpose, but
this obstacle He in grace removed by the atoning death of His Son, so that the
righteousness of God thus displayed could be reckoned their property upon
faith. And finally, in steadfast pursuance of His royal purpose, those called
and justified, He
6. Glorified,
that is, by the purpose that they shall share the glory of His exalted Son.
It is to be heavily stressed that each of the chief words of
this declaration is in the Greek aorist tense, which regards the whole transaction as accomplished.
And accomplished it is in the purpose and willingness of God. From His
standpoint He sees it as already done. But this does not warrant
the assertion that therefore each and every person involved must inevitably be
at last glorified with Christ in heaven. Other Scriptural
considerations must have weight.
In the closely preceding context (ver. 17) the apostle has just stated a condition that attaches to being thus a sharer of the
glory of Christ: “But if children, then heirs,
heirs indeed (men) of God, but
(de) joint-heirs
with Christ, if so be (eiper) that we suffer together
that we may be also glorified together.” Years later, in his last Epistle (2 Tim. 2:
11-13), he emphasized the same condition, and made his
statement the more impressive by saying
“Faithful is the word:
For if we died together [with Christ Jesus],
we shall also live together;
If we endure,
we shall also reign together;
If we shall deny Him,
He also will deny us;
If we are faithless,
He abideth faithful:
For He cannot deny Himself.”
All Scripture agrees, of course, with these unequivocal
assertions. So far is this Divine calling from being absolutely guaranteed that
Peter, in turn, balances his
statement quoted, that “the God of all grace has called us unto His eternal glory in
Christ,” by the
exhortation (II Eph. 1: 10, 11), “Wherefore,
brethren, give the more
diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the
entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Here the calling is viewed from our
side, and what is definite enough on God’s side, has to be made
secure on ours,
and be made sure by our own works and diligence. Evidently
this cannot be applied to justification [by faith], for from this our works are most peremptorily and completely excluded
(Rom. 3: 27, 28; Titus 3: 4-6: etc., etc.).
Further, the Lord from heaven, speaking to His people now on
earth, refers to the prospect of being His companions in His - [millennial time
and manifested] - glory, and shows that the same conditions
obtain: “But thou hast a few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments: and they shall walk
[about, i.e. habitually] with Me in
white; for they are worthy. The one overcoming shall thus be arrayed in white garments ... and
I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels,” in fulfilment of His promises to this
effect (Matt. 10: 32, 33; Luke 12: 8, 9). He cannot go back on His word, whether it be to own us or
to deny us, and it is our own conduct toward Him that
must determine His attitude and action toward us.
And when at last we are shown in vision the Bride on the bridal day, we are
told that, for this supreme occasion, she “hath made herself ready. And it was
given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright, pure: for the fine linen is
the righteous acts of the saints”
(Rev.
19:
7,
8).
“It was given to her,” for all is of grace to the defiled, according to the foreknowledge and
foreordination of God; but that foreordination included
that she should on her part exercise the grace granted to walk with undefiled garments, not to be careless as to this.
The crossing of the Red Sea by Israel, their journey through
the desert, their settlement in the land of promise, are used powerfully to
instruct and warn [regenerate] Christians,
as in 1 Cor. 10, and Heb. 3, 4, and 6. In the song they sang on the
resurrection shore of the Sea their future entrance upon their inheritance was
celebrated in advance as if it had already taken place (Ex. 15: 13-18). There is used a series of past
tenses, in exact conformity with the past tenses in Rom. 8: 28, 29, the former instructing us how to understand the latter.
Thou in Thy mercy hast led the people which Thou hast redeemed:
Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to Thy holy habitation.
The peoples have heard,
they tremble:
Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of
Then were the dukes of
The mighty men of
All the inhabitants of
Terror and dread falleth upon them:
By the greatness of Thine arm they are as
still as a stone:
Till Thy people pass over, O Jehovah
[i.e. over
Till Thy people pass over which Thou hast gotten.
Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of Thine inheritance,
The place, O Jehovah, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
The sanctuary, O Jehovah, which Thy hands have established.
Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever.*
* The passage must be read as above from the R.V. The A.V., as
often, renders the various tenses irregularly.
In the fact the people had not yet taken a step from the Sea,
the inhabitants of
This is the solemn reality pressed upon us in the New Testament
passages mentioned. It is of men redeemed by blood and set free by their
baptism in the Sea that the history speaks: it is upon [regenerate] Christians redeemed and baptized into Christ that the warning
is pressed.
There is here an example of the feature that, when a purpose
of God is viewed from His side, it is declared in terms definite and certain;
but when viewed from man’s side the uncertain element comes into view. The
foreknowledge of God took account of this latter feature and He foreordained accordingly. Fatalism
there is none, and the term “predestinate” goes beyond the truth.
God is “able to guard you from stumbling and to set you before the
presence of His glory without blemish in exceeding joy” (Jude 24); but they only shall not stumble who “give the more diligence to make our calling and election sure”
(2 Pet.
1:
10).
Finally, it should be noted how they are described in whose
case all things work together for good. The changed order of the sentence in
the R.V. follows the Greek and gives the emphasis intended by the [Holy] Spirit: “We know that
to them that love God all things
work together for good.”
Henry Drummond’s celebrated paper The
Greatest Thing in the World
(i.e. love) taught the fatal error
that salvation depends upon our love, whereas Scripture attaches it to faith. But
justification and eternal life having been secured by faith, the subsequent
privileges of the person thus “saved” depend largely upon love. The Kingdom is promised
to them that love God (Jas. 2: 5). Daily enjoyment of the presence and love of the Father and
Son is the recompense of obedient love (John 14: 21-24), for our love to God consists in and is proved by keeping His commandments (1 John 5: 3).
The believer who can daily face this practical and searching
test may rejoice in the assurance that what God in grace has purposed and
foreordained will be accomplished and that justification will end in the honour
of being conformed in outward glory to the body of Christ’s glory. For obedient
love conforms the inner life to the character of Christ in this life, and upon
Christ in His servant the glory of Christ shall be put in that day of glory.
Christ alone is worthy of glory, and therefore Christ must be developed in us in
order to give us the hope of being glorified, even as it is written “Christ in you
the hope of glory” (Col.
1:
27).
Note. - In the first article in this issue there is
mentioned the distinction between “children” and “sons” of God. It is purposed to examine
this more fully.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (11), Mark 13:
32.*
* This paper was a contribution to a
controversy of over thirty years ago. It has been now curtailed by the omission
of a number of quotations.
But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels
in heaven,
neither the Son, but the Father only. (Matt. 24: 36).
QUOTATIONS FROM DIVINES
It is
the glory of God that He subdues evil to promote good: “Ye meant evil;
but God meant it for good” (Gen. 50: 20). Controversy regarding the
omniscience of Christ has constrained many to deeper thought and better
understanding concerning His Person as the God-man. This is for good; and if
thereby any be excited to a more thorough study of the deeper teachings of the
Faith in general, further great gain will accrue. Urgent need exists that
younger brethren should qualify as teachers, as true doctors of divinity. There
is much shallow talking, evidencing a want of careful research; often a
dogmatic asserting that texts mean this or that which students know they cannot
mean. A late teacher once said to me that the inexact treatment of Holy
Scripture he sometimes heard reminded him of the schoolboy’s answer to the
Inspector’s question: “Who was the most merciful man?”
- “Please, sir, Og, King of Bashan: for his mercy
endureth for ever”! (Ps. 136: 20).
In time, and yet more in the eternal kingdom, profound study
of the truth will repay a young man a thousandfold, even if he must for this
forgo special secular studies, degrees, and monetary prospects in this fleeting
world. He will acquire wealthy store of the true riches, will enrich others,
and will count for much in the
But not all can have many books. Hence, for aiding the earnest
in a study of Mark
13: 32,
I have collected the following (among other) statements by competent divines,
all of whom, it will be seen, are upholders of the true doctrine of the proper
Godhead and proper humanity of Christ. These will show what various opinions
upon the matter of His knowledge in the days of His flesh have been held, and
rightly tolerated, all through the Christian centuries.
The explanations offered may be thus classified:-
(1) That our Lord
really knew the time of His return, but as the teacher He said He did not know,
because it was not then the occasion to tell the disciples. (See Wordsworth,
Extract 1). Dean Alford describes this not too strongly as an evasion. It comes
not far short of imputing to our Lord prevarication.
(2) That in the
fact our Lord, in the background of His mind, in the reserves of His knowledge,
did know, but that He chose not to bring the information into His conscious
mental vision at the moment, and so said He did not know. (See Lange, Extract
2). Stier and others rightly reject this view also. It does not fit Christ’s
plain words, and is too much like Nelson at Copenhagen putting (as is said) his
telescope to his blind eye and saying he could not see the senior admiral’s
flag order to retire.
(3) The third
opinion is that as God Christ knew, but as Man He did not know. This view
commands able and ancient support; see Extracts 3 to 5, especially the last by
Liddon. Its difficulties are mainly two: (1) As to the text, our Lord did not
say that the Son of Man did not know, but simply “the Son,” including Himself with men and
angels in the contrast with the Father as the only One who knew. (2) Theologically, the explanation (in
spite of Liddon’s efforts) runs near the ancient and fatal error of dividing
the personality of Christ into two, of separating the Deity from the Humanity
in such degree that He ceases to be one Individual, though with two conjoined
natures. Compare Lord Congleton Extract 17.
(4) The only remaining
method is to accept the simple sense of Christ’s statement that, without
reservation, He, the Son, did not know that day or hour. This implies a then
existing limitation of our Lord’s knowledge as to that one matter at least. The
remainder of the Extracts adopt this view in essence. See, e.g., Moule, Extract
6. Some suggest explanations; some, like Tregelles (Extract 21), leave
untouched the question “How?” while unreservedly accepting the fact.
The Extracts with an asterisk (*) prefixed I have taken from
books and have not myself checked.
EXTRACTS
1.
Bishop Wordsworth, Commentary,
ed. 6, 1868, pp. 89, 146. Various Latin quotations omitted.
Matt. 24: 36. The Father only knows that day; an assertion
which does not exclude the Son of God from that knowledge, as the Agnoeiae imagined. Christ does not know it as
Man, and it is not His office to declare it, as Son of God. See on Mark 13: 32.
By saying that the Angels do not know it, He checked the
disciples from desiring to know it. He knew that they would be inquisitive
concerning it, and restrains their curiosity. The times and seasons are in the
Father’s own power, and they are not therefore for the Son to “reveal.”
It is in this sense only that He says they are not known by Him (Chrys. citing Luke 10: 22).
The Arians say, that the Son cannot be equal with the Father,
if the Son does not know what the Father knows. To whom we reply that by the
Son all things were made (John 1: 3); and therefore all times are made by Him, and all things are
delivered to Him of the Father (Matt. 11: 27), and all the treasures of wisdom are hid in Him (Col.
2:
3). And when He says that it is not for
His Apostles to know the times and seasons which the Father has put in His own
power (Acts 1: 7), He intimates that He Himself knows them; but it is not
expedient for the Apostles to know them, in order that, being always uncertain
when the judge will come, we may so live every day as if we were to be judged
on that day (Jerome, see 5: 42).
Mark 13: 32, nor yet the Son. A sentence perverted by the Arians and
Agnoetae, affirming that Christ’s knowledge, not only as Son of Man (cf. Luke 2: 52), but as Son of God, was limited.
The sense appears to be, - The Son, Who is the Eternal Logos,
or Word, the “Dei Legatus,” and so the only
Minister and Messenger of Divine Revelation to man, does not know it so as to
reveal it to you; it is no part of His Prophetical office to do so.
2. J. P.
Lange, D.D., Commentary,
vol. iii., 441. (T. & T.
Clarke, 1880).
Neither the Son. Athanasius says, Jesus did not know as
a human being ; Augustine, He did not know it to impart it to His disciples ...
We admit that the Son, as God-man, knew not that day in His present daily
consciousness, because He willed not to pass beyond the horizon of His daily
task to reflect upon that day; because He preferred, accordingly, the
encircling horizon of His holy, energetic observation and knowledge, which
widened from day to day, to a discursive, pedantic polyhistory, or supernatural
pretention of knowing everything, the sombre opposite of dynamic omniscience.
Self-limitation in the knowledge of all chronological, geographical, and
similar matters is quite different from “limitation”
of Jesus’ omniscience, arising from the union of His divine and human natures.
Vol. ii., 370: Knoweth no man but the
Father only. “This excludes the Son also” (Mark 13: 32) whose not knowing
“Lange regards as a sacred willing not to know”
(Meyer). Sartorius has rightly understood and explained this. The Son would not
prematurely reflect upon that point as a chronological point of time, and the
Church in that should imitate Him.
3. Bishop Harold Browne, Exposition of the
Thirty-nine Articles, III.
It has been seen that in His human nature our Lord was capable of knowledge and
ignorance. He was perfect Man as well as perfect God, and He grew in Wisdom as
well as in stature (Luke 2: 52). In that nature, then, in which He was
capable of ignorance, He, when He was on earth, knew not the coming of the day
of God. Though He is Himself to come; yet as Man He knew not the day of His
coming. This is indeed a great mystery, that that Manhood, which is taken into
one Person with the Godhead of the Son, should be capable of not knowing
everything, seeing that God the Son is omniscient. But it is scarcely more
inexplicable than that God the Son in His Manhood should be weak, passible, and
mortal, who in His Godhead is omnipotent, impassible, and immortal. If we
believe the one we can admit the other.
4. Blomfield, Commentary on Matt. 24: 36.
That the Son should not know the precise time of the
destruction of Jerusalem, or of the end of the world, ought not to be drawn as
an argument to prove the mere humanity of Christ; the expression having
reference solely to His human nature, since, though, as Son of God, He was
omniscient, as Son of Man He was not so. See Calvin, and Smith’s Scrip. Test., iii., 331, et seq.
5. Canon Liddon, The Divinity of our
Lord, 4,58, et seq.
But it may be pleaded that our Lord, in declaring His
ignorance of the day of the last judgment, does positively assign a specified
limit to the knowledge actually possessed by His human soul during His
ministry. “Of that day,” He says, “and that hour
knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”
“If these words,” you urge, “do not refer to His ignorance as God, they must refer to His
ignorance in the only other possible sense, that is, to say, to His ignorance
as
Of what nature, then, is the “ignorance”
to which our Lord alludes in this much-controverted text? Is it a real
matter-of-fact ignorance, or is it an ignorance which is only ideal and
hypothetical? Is it an ignorance to which man, as man, is naturally subject,
but to which the soul of Christ, the Perfect Man, was not subject, since His
human intelligence was always illuminated by an infused omniscience? or is it
an economical as distinct from a real ignorance? Is it the ignorance of the
teacher, who withholds from his disciples a knowledge which he actually
possesses, but which it is not for their advantage to acquire? or is it the
ignorance which is compatible with implicit knowledge? Does Christ implicitly
know the date of the day of judgment, yet, that He may rebuke the forwardness
of His disciples, does He refrain from contemplating
that which is potentially within the range of His mental vision? Is He
deliberately turning away His gaze from the secrets which are open to it, and
which a coarse, earthly curiosity could have greedily and quickly investigated?
With our eye upon the literal meaning of our Lord’s words,
must we not hesitate to accept any of these explanations? It is indeed true
that to many very thoughtful and saintly minds, the words, “neither the Son,” have not appeared to imply any “ignorance” in the Son, even as
“At any rate,” you rejoin, “if our Lord’s words are to be taken literally, if they are
held to mean that the knowledge of His human soul is in any degree limited, are
we not in danger of Nestorian error.* Does not
this conjunction of ‘knowledge’ and ‘ignorance’ in one Person, and with respect
to a single subject, dissolve the unity of the God-man? Is not this
intellectual dualism inconsistent with any conception we can form of a single
personality?”...
* Nestorius (early century 4) taught that Christ
had two separate personalities, the divine and the human, with a single
consciousness, instead of the orthodox doctrine of one Person with two natures.
The question to be considered, my brethren, is whether such an
objection has not a wider scope than you intend. Is it not equally valid
against other and undisputed contrasts between the Divine and Human natures of
the Incarnate Son? For example, as God, Christ is omnipresent; as Man, He is
present at a particular point in space. Do you say that this, however
mysterious, is more conceivable than the co-existence of ignorance and
knowledge with respect to a single subject in a single personality? Let me then
ask whether this co-existence of ignorance and knowledge is more mysterious
than the co-existence of absolute blessedness and intense suffering? ... If
Jesus, as Man, did not enjoy the Divine attribute of perfect blessedness, yet
without prejudice to His full possession of it, as God; why could He not, in
like manner, as Man, be without the Divine attribute of perfect knowledge? If
as He knelt in Gethsemane, He was in one sphere of existence All-blessed, and
in another “sore amazed, very heavy, sorrowful even
unto death;” might He not in equal truth be in one Omniscient, and in
the other subject to limitations of knowledge?...
No such limitation, we may be sure, can interfere with the
completeness of His redemptive office. It cannot be supposed to involve any ignorance
of that which the Teacher and Saviour of mankind should know; while yet it
suffices to place Him as Man with a perfect sympathy with the actual conditions
of the mental life of His brethren.
If then this limitation of our Lord’s human knowledge be
admitted, to what does the admission lead? It leads, properly speaking, to
nothing beyond itself. It amounts to this: that at the particular time of His
speaking the Human Soul of Christ was restricted as to Its range of knowledge
in one particular direction.
For it is certain from Scripture that our Lord was constantly
giving proofs, during His earthly life, of an altogether superhuman range of
knowledge...
If that statement [respecting the day of judgment] be
construed literally, it manifestly describes, not the normal condition of His
Human Intelligence, but an exceptional restriction. For the Gospel history
implies that the knowledge infused into the human soul of Jesus was ordinarily
and practically equivalent to omniscience...
If then His Human Intellect, flooded as it was by the infusion
of boundless light streaming from His Deity, was denied, at a particular time,
knowledge of the date of a particular future event, this may well be compared
with that deprivation of the consolations of Deity, to which His Human
Affections and Will were exposed when He hung dying on the Cross...
We may not attempt rashly to specify the exact motive which
may have determined our Lord to deny to His human soul at one particular date
the point of knowledge here in question; although we may presume generally that
it was a part of that condescending love which led Him to become “in all things like unto His
brethren.” That He was
ever completely ignorant of ought else, or that He was ignorant on this point
at any other time, are inferences for which we have no warrant, and which we
make at our peril.
Note to P. 469: If a human teacher were to
decline to speak on a given subject, by saying that he did not know enough
about it, this would not be a reason for disbelieving him when he proceeded to
speak confidently on a totally distinct subject, thereby at least implying that
he did know enough to warrant his speaking. On the contrary, his silence in the
one case would be a reason for trusting his statements in the other.
6.
Bishop Handley Moule,
Outlines of Christian Doctrine, The Doctrine of the Son, 63.
(8) We read in the
phenomena of the Gospels the truth that our Incarnate Lord, whatever the
conditions of His humiliation, still was always God as truly as Man, and Man as
truly as God. Real temptations, real hunger, thirst, and surprise, leave Him
still able to offer rest to all the weary of mankind; to assert His own eternity and
His eternal being in heaven (John 3: 13); to exercise omniscience as far as He wills.* In Him full
Godhead and full Manhood were always present, in harmony.
* Mark 13: 32 is quoted as invalidating His perfect
knowledge. It no doubt limits His knowledge on that one point. But the very
phrase from His lips looks like an implicit claim to knowledge otherwise
complete. And the doctrine of the Eternal Sonship, in the Gospels, makes it
surely inconceivable that even that limitation of conscious knowledge should be
imposed on the Son because of limitation of capacity. It was for unknown
purposes of dispensation; and it was the one thing of the kind. The Christian
who deals eclectically with any positive statement of His, about fact as well
as about principle, is on very dangerous ground indeed.
As regards Luke 2: 52, the “increase in wisdom” no more implies stages of defective wisdom than the “increase in
favour with God”
implies stages of defective favour. What is implied is developed application to
developed subject matter. Compare by all means Liddon, Bampton
Lectures, Lect. viii.
7. Dean Alford, Commentary, vol. i., ed. 6.
P. 245, on Matt. 24: 36: The very important addition to this verse
in Mark,
and in some ancient MSS. here, neither the Son, is indeed included in but My Father only, but could hardly have been inferred
from it, had it not been expressly stated: Ch. 20: 23. All attempts to soften or explain away this weighty truth
must be resisted; it will not do to say with some Commentators, “nescit ea nobis” [that is, His knowledge is not our concern], which, however well meant,
is a mere evasion:- in the course of humiliation undertaken by the Son, in
which He increased in wisdom (Luke 2: 52), learned obedience (Heb. 5: 8), uttered desires in prayer (Luke 6: 12, etc.) - this matter was hidden
from Him: and as I have already remarked, this is carefully to be
borne in mind, in explaining the prophecy before us.
P. 409, on Mark 13: 32: This is, one of those things which the Father hath put in
His own power (Acts 1: 7), and with which the Son, in His mediatorial office, is not acquainted: see on Matt.
We must not deal unfaithfullv with a plain and solemn assertion of our Lord
(and what can be more so than neither the Son, in which by the neither He is not below but above the
angels?) by such evasions as “He does not know it
so as to reveal it to us”
(Wordsworth) ... Of such a sense there is not a hint in the context; nay, it is
altogether alien from it. The account given by the orthodox Lutherans, as
represented by Meyer, that our Lord knew this kata kteesin [that is, as regards right of
possession], but not kata chreesin [that is, as a matter of use], is right enough if at the same time
it is carefully remembered that it was this ...
kteesis of which He emptied
Himself when He became Man for us, and which it belongs to the very essence of
His mediatorial kingdom to hold in subjection to the Father.
8. Calvin, Commentary, iii., 153 (ed. Calv. Transn. Socy.,
1846).
I have no doubt that He refers to His office appointed to Him
by the Father, as in a former instance, when He said that it did not belong to
Him to place this or that person at His right or left hand (Matt. 20:
23;
Mark 10:
40).
For (as I explained under that passage) He did not absolutely say that this
was not in His power, but the meaning was that He had not been sent by the
Father with this commission, so long as He lived among mortals. So now I
understand that, so far as He had come down to us to be mediator, until He had
fully discharged His office, that information was not given to Him which He
received after His resurrection ; for then He expressly declared that power
over all things had been given to Him (Matt. 28: 18).
9. Neander, Life of Christ,
406 (ed. Bohn, 1869).
Christ Himself says (Matt. 24: 36; Mark 13: 32) that the day and
hour of the final decision are known only to the counsels of the Father, and,
as it would be trifling to refer this to the precise “day
and hour,” rather than to the time in general, it could not have been
His purpose to give definite information on the subject. To know the time pre-supposed a knowledge of the hidden
causes of events, of the actions and reactions of free beings, a prescience
which none but the Father could have; unless we suppose, what Christ expressly
denies, that He had received it by a special Divine revelation. Not that He
could err, but that His knowledge was conscious of its limits; although He knew
the progress of events, and saw the slow course of their development, as no
mortal could.
10. J. A. Bengel, Gnomon,
1, 562, 563, (ed. Clarke, 1877).
Mark 13: 32, neither the Son ... Moreover, both in the twelfth year of His
age and subsequently, “Jesus increased in wisdom” (Luke 2: 52) : and the accessions of wisdom which He then gained, He had not had
before. Since this was not unworthy of Him, it was also not even necessary for
Him in teaching to know already at that time the one secret reserved to the
Father.
11.
Rudolf Stier, Dr.
Theol., The Words of the Lord Jesus,
111., 295-297 (Clarke, 1856).
Matt. 24. 36: Christ
having come thus far, now in the first place again connects together the
last day of His coming with that announced at ver. 30, comprising them in
the one that day,
and assures us that His people shall indeed perceive the being near at the
doors, but that the exact determination of the time (for this is what is meant
by and hour) is and remains what the Father alone reserves for Himself. Not even “the decree of
the watchers” in
heaven (Dan. 4: 10, 17), who know of many a time and hour, knows this day, but the
Father alone, in the reserved, eternal decree: what a word against all such
apocalyptic curiosity as degenerates into special reckonings of time! ... The
Son also knew not - He said of so important a thing as this: I also know it
not...
He does not say: This I have not to tell you, I know it not
for you - but the Son knows it not, thus He speaks of Himself simply as of the
Father and the angels. Here again to have recourse to the artificial
distinction that as man He knew it not, although as God He knew it - such
knowing and not knowing at the same time, severs the unity of the God-human
person, and is impossible in the Son of Man, who is the Son indeed, but emptied
of His glory.
12.* Dean Plumptre, Ellicott’s
Commentary. The Four
Gospels, 226, in loco.
The passage indicates the self-imposed limitation of the
divine attributes which had belonged to our Lord, as the eternal Son, and the
acquiescence in a power and knowledge which, like that of the human nature
which He assumed, was derived and therefore finite. Such a limitation is
implied by
13.
Bishop Pearson, Exposition of the Creed. (
... Jesus increased in wisdom and stature (Luke 2: 52) one in respect of His body, the other of His soul. Wisdom
belongeth not to the flesh, nor can the knowledge of God, which is infinite,
increase: he then whose knowledge did improve together with his years, must
have a subject proper for it, which was no other than a human soul. This was
the seat of his finite understanding and directed will ... (Vol. i, page 285).
14. Dr.
A. T. Pierson, Many Infallible Proofs.
God is omnipresent; yet here is God submitting to the laws and
limits of a human body, which can occupy but one space at any one time, and
must, by the law of locomotion, take time for a transfer from place to place.
God is omniscient; yet here is a being claiming equality with Jehovah, yet
affirming there are some things which as man, and even as Messiah, He knows
not. God is omnipotent, yet the God-man says He “can do nothing of himself,” and that it is God dwelling in Him
that “doeth the
works” (P. 236).
“He emptied Himself”
of His divine glory, and laid His divine attributes, omnipotence, omniscience,
omniresence, under temporary, voluntary limitations; it was part of His humiliation
that He condescended to human infirmities, to accept as His lot human want and
woe, so far as consistent for a sinless man (P. 246).
15. *Canon
Nolloth, Person of our Lord (Macmillan & Co.), 1908.
If we find that our Lord does not know something, it is not
for us to suggest that, in a sense, He does know it, because the theory which
we have adopted regarding His knowledge seems to require some such " “Vermittlungs-hypothese” [mediating (or accommodating)
hypothesis]. Any view of His Person which can only be consistently maintained
by the omission or neglect of something which is authentically reported of Him,
stands self-condemned. It is not the Gospel view.
Two facts come out clearly in the Synoptic narrative.
Our Lord’s knowledge is infallible, unerring. But it is
limited. There is no contradiction in these two statements. To be infallible
and incapable of error is not the same thing as to be omniscient...
But a knowledge which requires no correction within its own
province, which is perfect so far as it goes, is not necessarily
encyclopaedic...
His knowledge was, in certain departments, acquired which
means that it was not at one time what it afterwards became. St. Luke expressly
and repeatedly mentions this in his Gospel of the Childhood: “Jesus
increased in wisdom and stature.” Therefore, at one period of His life our Lord’s knowledge was
inferior to what it was at a later period. To that extent He was at one time ignorant.
Then there is our Lord’s own statement of a limitation of His
knowledge: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are
in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Here our Lord states that, on a matter of first importance,
the date of the judgment at which He Himself will act as judge, He Himself was
in ignorance. “The Son” is used in
its absolute sense, as in St. Matthew 11: 27, and is set over against “the Father.” It would therefore be untrue to the
meaning of the passage to say that our Lord is here speaking simply of His
human consciousness - that as Man, He does not know that of which, as the
Eternal Son, He is cognisant: for it is as “the Son” that this particular piece of
knowledge is withheld from Him (pp. 179-180.
16.* C. J.
Ellicott, Commentary
(Cassell & Co.), on Matt. 24 and Mark 13.
It is obviously doing violence to the plain meaning of the
words to dilute them into the statement that the Son of Man did not communicate
the knowledge which He possessed as Son of God ... the Eternal Word in becoming
flesh “emptied Himself” of the infinity which belongs to the divine attributes, and
took upon Him the limitations necessarily incidental to man’s nature, etc.,
etc. (P. 150).
Also on Luke 2 : The soul of Jesus was human, i.e.,
subject to the conditions and limitations of human knowledge, and learnt as
others learn (p. 257) ... with Him as with others, wisdom widened with the
years, and came into His human soul ... as into the souls of others (P. 259).
17.*Lord Congleton,
in letters to H. W. Soltau in 1864.
All knowledge belonged to Him as God.
But He testified of Himself that He did not know of that day and that hour,
etc. (Mark
13:
32). Thus it appears that He had emptied Himself of His knowledge.
All power belonged to Him as the Son Almighty, even as to the
Father, Who is almighty. But He says concerning His miraculous works, “The Father
that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works”
(John 14:
10). Thus it would appear that He had
emptied Himself of His almighty power as well as of His freedom from weakness
and suffering ...
It is also true that, whilst He had thus emptied Himself, He
was mightily filled by God’s Spirit, and that God wrought mightily by Him (Acts 10:
38;
2:
22).
This only confirms the fact that in taking the form of a Servant He had emptied
Himself. Indeed, so true is the fact of His emptying Himself, that it stands
good even when He is risen from the dead ... We are told that “God hath made
that same Jesus Whom ye crucified both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:
36); also that God hath highly exalted
Him (Phil.
2:
9),
and He testifies that “all power is given unto Him in heaven and on earth” (Matt.
28:
18). But that is not all; we are told “Then shall
the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him”
(1 Cor.
15:
28). Thus even at that time He will be
manifested as One that has emptied Himself ...
We both reject that mode of explaining those passages whereby
it is said that this was true of Him in His human nature and that in His divine
... Except Jesus was a real Man, leading the life of dependence here, thus
distinguished from other men ... He was no example to His dependent disciples.
And except the Risen Jesus, Who has ascended to His God, is a real Man and a
dependent Man, possessed indeed of Lordship (for He has been made Lord),
possessed also of all power in heaven and on earth (for the same have been
given Him)...
Now, if anybody should say to me “Don’t
you know that He was God as well as Man, and therefore, though it is true He
was crucified through weakness, and felt weakness, He at the same time was
strong and felt strong,” I can only say it is a contradiction and I
don’t believe it; no more does anybody else, for nobody can believe
contradictions.
18. * H. W. Soltau in letter to Congleton, 1864.
I believe He is emphatically God; and that He is emphatically
Man. But I equally believe that He is a person, who always acts as a person,
and never acts in a separate nature...
So that I cannot say that He acted or thought as God, or that
He acted or thought as
I hold the perfect subjection of the Son to the Father, and
His perfect dependence on Him. Neither do I believe that He ever put forth His
own power as God, but in subjection to, and in dependence on His Father; and
that He wrought His miracles and spoke His words by the power of the Holy
Ghost...
19.
W. Kelly, in Bible
Treasury, June 1865,
P. 284; afterwards re-published by him in Lectures on Philippians.
No matter who or what it was, you have in the Lord Jesus this
perfect subjection and self-abnegation, and this, too, in the only person that
never had a will to sin, whose will cared not for its own way in anything. He
was the only man that never used His own will; His will as man was unreservedly
in subjection to God. But we find another thing. He emptied Himself of His
deity when He took the form of a servant.
* William Kelly, Lectures
Introductory to the Gospels,
229.
The reason of this peculiar, and at first sight perplexing
expression seems to me to be, that Christ so thoroughly takes the place of One
Who confines Himself to what God gave to Him, of One so perfectly a minister -
not a master, in this point of view - that, even in relation to the future, He
knows and gives out to others only what God gives Him for the purpose. As God
says nothing about the day and the hour, He knows no more.
20 *. J. N. Darby, Words of Faith and of Good Doctrine.
No. 13. The Deity of Jesus Christ. ... As a Person He “emptied Himself.” He could not have done so save as
God. A creature who leaves his first estate sins therein. The Sovereign Lord
can descend in grace. In Him it is Love. Then, as in that position, He receives
all. All the words He has are given to Him. He is, though unchangeable in
nature as God, yet in His path a dependent man. He lives by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God - is sealed by the Father; the glory He had
before the world is now given Him of the Father. Now in this state of obedient
servant, with a revelation which God gave to Him, the day and hour of His
judicial action was not revealed (Mark 13: 32) (P. 52).
21. S. P.
Tregelles, LL.D., Three Letters, 55, 56.
As to verse 67 [of Psalm 119: “Before I
was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept
thy word”], the
difficulty [as to applying it to Christ] was removed when I saw how Jerome had
rendered the passage 1,400 years ago; his knowledge of Hebrew was respectable,
and he did not differ from the Old Latin version of the Psalms (still retained
in the Vulgate) without
having a reason for so doing. He renders the verse: “Antiquam audirem ego ignoravi:
nunc autem eloquium tuum custodivi”
“I was ignorant,” or “uninstructed,”
instead of “I went astray.” This appears philogically to be the meaning of the verb; all
thought of wandering seems to be secondary. No one who believes in the humanity
of our Lord can feel difficulty in this: He had a “finite
mind and directed will” (Bishop Pearson); He was instructed by God. How
He could be the omniscient God, and at the same time the one who could say, “Of that hour knoweth not the
Son,” I neither wish nor
attempt to explain; I only bow to the testimony of the [Holy] Spirit concerning Him Who is very
God, equal with the Father, and very man even as we are men. He was instructed;
He prayed to the Father, and He was guided; “grew in wisdom”; the New Testament reveals all this, and much more,
to us.
22.
Professor James Orr, D.D., Sidelights on Christian Doctrine, 117-122.
Every view of Jesus which detracts from the entire reality of
His humanity - whether by pronouncing it a semblance (thus the Gnostics), or by
saying that the Divine Logos took the place of the rational soul in Jesus
(Apollinaris), or by denying the reality of Christ’s human development, and His
voluntary assumption of human limitations - is shown by the facts of the Gospel
history to be in error...
He, the Son of God, took upon Him “the form of a servant,” and voluntarily renouncing all
pre-prerogatives of Godhead, submitted to poverty, suffering, rejection,
ignominious death. In this, surely, there is “kenosis”
enough to satisfy the most exacting ...
Let it be granted that, in His earthly state, Jesus submitted
to such limitations as a true manhood imposed upon Him. He neither claimed nor
exercised, as a man, an absolute omniscience in matters of natural or of even
divine knowledge. No one imagines that Jesus carried with Him through life,
from manger to cross, in His human consciousness (nothing is said here of His
divine), a knowledge, e.g., of all modern sciences - astronomy, geology,
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and the like. Such things were foreign to His
calling; He had no need of them, else they would have been given Him. On divine
things, such, e.g., as the time of the Advent, He distinguishes between His own
knowledge and that of the Father, who had set the times and the seasons within
His own authority (Acts 1: 7), and says expressly; “Of that day
or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father” (Mark
13: 32).
It is, however, a very
wide and unwarrantable inference to draw from this that on the things on which
Christ did pronounce, His mind was in error. The conclusion to be deduced is
rather the opposite. If Jesus had not the knowledge of the day and hour of the
end, He said so, and gave no utterance on the subject. He was conscious of what
He knew, and of what it was not given Him to know. Within His knowledge He
spoke; on what lay beyond He was silent. In what He did say His utterances were
authoritative ...
It means that Christ’s consciousness moved in a sphere of
revelation as in its natural environment. There are other sayings that might be
recalled, as, “He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: For He giveth not the Spirit by measure [unto Him]. The Father loveth the Son, and hath
given all things into His hand” (John 3: 34, 35). Does this leave room at any point for error in Christ’s
consciousness? Finally, it is never to be forgotten that, while the Son submits
to the conditions of humanity, it is still the Son of God who so submits, and behind
all human conditionings are still present the undiminished resources of the
Godhead. Omniscience, omnipotence, all other divine attributes, are there,
though not drawn upon, save as the Father willed them to be.
23. W. E. Vine, M.A. (The Witness, July, 1925).
He could and did restrict the use of His Divine attributes. He
allowed His captors to bind Him after the display of His Divine power in
prostrating them with His word. He subjected Himself to human violence and
indignity. He permitted those who had charge of His crucifixion to carry out
their deed. “He was crucified through weakness” (2 Cor.
13:
4), not through helplessness, nor
through weakness caused by maltreatment, but by the voluntary suspension of His
essential power as the Son of God. ...
The restrictions He imposed on Himself are consistent with His
true Manhood. ... His death could not have been the death of a mere man. It is
useless to argue that God cannot die and therefore Christ was not God. He who
was God could become also Man in order to die, and this He did. His death was
the supernatural death of One who was both Man and God.
As with His Divine power, so with His Divine knowledge,
referring to His Second Advent, He said, “But of that day or that hour knoweth
no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the
Father” (Mark
13: 32)...
The Scriptures plainly teach, then, both that the Lord
divinely imposed limitations upon Himself, and that He sat as a scholar in the
Father’s school and learned from Him His daily will. It was of Christ that
Isaiah wrote: “The Lord God
hath given me the tongue of them that are taught ... He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as they that are taught”
(Isa.
50:
4,
5). ...
All such instances, while evidences of the true humanity of
our Lord, are at the same time to be regarded in the light of His essential
Deity. Not that the attributes of the Divine were communicated to the human
nature; the Lord’s acts were those of One Who was in possession of both
natures. He never acted at one time as man and at another time as God. The two
natures were, and are, perfectly and inseparately combined in Him. The
restrictions He imposed upon Himself illustrate then the Apostle’s statement that
Christ “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant.”
They reveal the essential reality of His Servant character, and only so can
they be rightly considered. They are not matters of mere Christology.
The whole subject may be summarized in the following
statements of a renowned orthodox German divine of the last century:
24.
F. W. Krummacher, D.D., The Suffering
Saviour, 103,
The self-renunciation of the Eternal Son consisted essentially
in this, that during His sojourn on earth, He divested Himself of the unlimited
use of all His divine attributes, and [in] leaving that eternity, which is
above time and space, in order that He might tread the path of the obedience of
faith, like ourselves, and perfect Himself in it as our Head, High Priest, and
Mediator. As the “Servant of Jehovah,” which title is applied to Him in the Old Testament, it
was His part to serve, not to command; to learn subjection, not to rule; to
struggle and strive, but not to reign in proud repose above the reach of conflict.
How could this have been possible for one who was God’s equal, without this
limitation of Himself? All His conflicts and trials would then have been only
imaginary and not real. He did not for a moment cease to be really God, and in
the full possession of every divine perfection: but He abstained from the
exercise of them, so far as it was not permitted by His heavenly Father.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (12)
Of the men therefore who have companied with us all
the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the
baptism of John, unto the day that
He was received up from us, of these must one
become a witness with us of His resurrection (Acts
1: 21,
22).
Since it
must ever remain matter of mere opinion it is to little profit to discuss
whether Peter had the mind of the Lord in proposing the election of a new
apostle. It is much more to the purpose to ponder the rich practical
instruction his remarks contain. Here is an instance of how valuable teaching
was given incidentally to the main matter in hand.
1. The dominant note of apostolic
testimony was to the fact of the resurrection of Christ “a witness
with us of His resurrection.” His life as a man was material to the testimony; His atoning
death was essential; but the fact that God had raised Him from the dead and
given Him glory dominated the Christian message. Without this act of the Father
all preceding earthly experiences of the Son would have been to no purpose, as
regards our salvation and also the plans of God.
This assertion of the resurrection of a man, and his ascension
to heaven, was so stupendous, so unprecedented, that it demanded the conjoint
testimony of many witnesses to compel, yea to justify, men in accepting it: the
new witness must unite “with us” in asserting the fact. This united testimony Paul stressed in
1 Cor. 15: 4-8.
2. The
qualification, therefore, of such a witness was that lie had moved personally
in the circle of those who had surrounded the Lord on earth: “he companied
with us all the time” of Christ’s public life. It implied a capacity for steady intercourse with
others in the path of discipleship. One task to which the Lord had ever and
anon to return was to keep the peace among His followers. It was needful that
they present to the world an united front and united witness: “By this shall
all men know that ye are disciples to Me, if ye have love one
to another” (John 13: 35). Men could be disciples of
other Teachers without the necessity of
loving one another.
3. The limit of time of that
intercourse with the Lord was strictly defined. It commenced with the baptismal
ministry of John the Baptist and extended to the ascension of Christ. Of the
Lord’s life prior to His baptism the inspired histories tell nothing beyond one
incident in His boyhood, with the general feature that He was obedient to His
parents (Luke 2: 40-52). Like all the silences of Scripture this is instructive. It
throws full emphasis upon His public career, and this commenced with the work
of John, as fore-runner, drawing the attention of the crowds to Jesus as the
Lamb of God who should take away sin and baptize His people in the Spirit of
fire and power. As to those many hidden years it was enough that, as the Son
emerged from their obscurity into the glare of publicity, the Father had
declared from heaven by an audible voice that He was well-pleased with Him.
It had been well indeed if expounders of Scripture had
observed this divine emphasis upon the ministry of John the Baptist. Not
Paul emphasized the distinction between the law and the gospel
by assuring men that through Jesus they could, by faith, obtain complete
justification from all offences, whereas under the law of Moses only partial
justification was provided, there being a great number of major offences for
which the law allowed no atonement or pardon. Now this sending by God of a
Saviour Paul associated with John’s ministry, saying “John had first preached before the face of
His entering in [that is,
immediately before His public appearance] the baptism of repentance” (Acts 13: 38, 39, 23-25).
This good news for all men Mark describes as the “beginning of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God”
(Mark 1:
1). Plainly this is the Christian
message, for the fact that Christ is the Son of God is the rock on which the church is built (Matt. 16:
16-18). What, now, is the “beginning” of this gospel? Mark at once adds
that, in fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah, “John came preaching in the wilderness the
baptism of repentance unto [with a view to] the remission of sins” (Mark 1: 1-4).
Speaking to a company of Gentiles concerning the “good tidings of peace by
Jesus Christ,” Peter told
them that this message followed directly upon “the baptism which John
preached” (Acts 10: 36 ff.).
It is the same in the Gospel of John. Having spoken of the
Word who was God, the Creator, the life, the light that was to shine in this
dark world of mankind, John at once adds that “There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John,” sent to bear witness to that heavenly
Light (John 1: 1-8).
Therefore Peter stated, what all apostolic preachers
supported, that the message the apostolic witnesses were to spread had John’s
ministry as its starting point and the ascension of Christ as its culmination.
Dispensational doctrine which differs from this is, in this difference, not
apostolic.
4. The facts that Christ was raised
from the dead and “received up” in glory are of necessity the permanent essence of the saving
Christian message. But how was this witness to be perpetuated seeing that those
early personal witnesses soon passed off the scene? It is momentous that those
first preachers did more than point out that the Old Testament had foretold the
resurrection of Messiah. They did this with emphasis (Acts 2: 22-31; 13: 34-37). But this fact did not by itself
justify their Christian message. They had to show by personal testimony that
this prophetic announcement had been fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth, who
therefore was the aforesaid Messiah. In like manner we of to-day must point out
to men that the Old Testament foretold that Christ would suffer and then, by
resurrection and ascension, enter into His glory (Luke 24: 25, 26); and we can add that the New Testament gives the testimony
of eye-witnesses that this was fulfilled in Jesus. But this is only to declare
that the Book asserts it, and is not the same as a personal testimony to the
fact. How, then, can I to-day give this personal witness to the fact that
Christ is alive, so that the Book declares verifiable fact?
For this I, like the apostles, must have the Lord Jesus going
in and going out with me in daily affairs, made to my heart a personal reality
by the ministry of the [Holy] Spirit. Not all who believed on Him in those days of His flesh were
prepared to take Him as their Leader and heavenly Companion. It meant the renunciation of everything unsuitable
to Him.
Those to-day who are sincerely ready for His daily presence
and control will be given plain tokens that He is alive and is all that
Scripture offers to the disciple. Thus these can give a personal witness to His
resurrection and His fidelity to His promises. They can tell from experience
that He is with them, they can narrate how He answers their requests and
controls their affairs; they can thus testify that the records of the Book are
being verified in their experience. Others may believe on Him, or may even tell
others what Scripture says about Him; but this is not the same as to be a witness to His
resurrection, for it is the essence of a witness that he must talk of that
which is within his personal knowledge. It was an apostolic witness who said, “we cannot but
speak the things which we saw and heard” (Acts 4: 20).
5. By a very striking expression Peter reveals the chief and
essential condition of this constant intercourse with the Lord in every day
life. He said that “the Lord Jesus went in and went out [not “among” us, as the
English versions] but “over us,” as R.V. margin following the
Greek (eph hemas. Luke 1: 33;
Rom.
5:
14;
Heb.
3:
6;
Rev.
9:
11). The Gospels show the Lord as
regularly taking the initiative in the movements and activities of His
disciples. He was the Good Shepherd going before His sheep (John 10: 4). He was the Leader, and they the followers. As long as this
relation was maintained all went well for the sheep, for the disciples. But the
narratives silently indicate occasions when the disciples took the initiative,
and every time they did so
they blundered. For example:
Mark 8: 32, 33: “Peter took Him
and began to rebuke Him ... He rebuked Peter.”
Mark 9: 38,
39:
“We forbad him ... but
Jesus said, Forbid him not.”
Luke 9: 54, 55: “Wilt thou that we
bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume
them? But he turned and rebuked them.”
Let us search and try our ways. How often we form our own
plans, and then ask the Lord to grant His favour. The place we choose to live;
the calling we decide to follow; how and for what ends we train our children;
where we will spend our holiday; to what church we will belong; what branch of
Christian work we will undertake, if any - these are merely illustrations of
the many matters as to which too often we do not wait quietly for the Lord to
order but in which we take the initiative. Or again, the church thinks well to
have a “mission.” It decides the time, and the
duration; chooses the missioner; makes needful arrangements; and then holds a
prayer meeting or two to ask God to endorse these their own plans. Or a chapel
needs a “minister.” It invites various
preachers to visit them on trial, and presently selects the one they like best.
Or the travelling preacher books his visits as far ahead as he gets
invitations, without distinct indications from his Master upon the disposal of
his time. The invitation gives a date or dates, his diary shows he is free, and
he books the engagement.
Let the individual, let the church, reverently give to the
Lord His one true place, as Head, as LORD; let them wait
for Him to move first, to indicate
His plan and will; to allow Him to be Lord over all, and it will be found that He is indeed and in
truth “over all, God blessed for ever”
(Rom.
9:
5). For His Spirit is [presently] on earth expressly to glorify Christ
and enable us to be witnesses to Him, making effective our witness by His
co-witness, on the very ground that we have been with Him, have habitually
companied with Him as obedient followers
(John 15: 26, 27). Such fellowship with the Holy
One demands clean feet (John 13: 8: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me”). Such
purity of walk now assures companionship with Him in His [coming millennial] glory: “Thou hast a few names in
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (13)
“PREVAIL TO ESCAPE”
(Luke 21: 34-36): But take heed to yourselves, lest
haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and
cares of this life, and that day come
on you suddenly as a snare: for so shall it
come upon all them that dwell on the face of all the earth. But watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye
may PREVAIL TO ESCAPE all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.
1. “These
things that shall come to pass.” The parallel report of this utterance
of our Lord found in Matt. 24: 3 shows that He was answering the question by four apostles, “What shall be
the sign of Thy presence and consummation of the age?” He had just announced to
He had just spoken of the demolition of the grand temple upon
which they were then looking and they supposed that that overthrow would be
directly before His parousia. He guarded against this notion by saying that “the end is
not yet, not immediately” (Matt.
24.
6;
Luke 21:
9). Many false prophets would attempt to
mislead them upon this point, which has had fulfilment all through this age.
This distinct warning ought to have forbidden the idea that the apostles
expected a speedy return of Christ. Only a few weeks later they were told that
Peter (one of the four now questioning the Lord, Mark 13: 3), would live to be an old man and then die by violence (John 21: 18-23).
Wars would occur but would not by themselves indicate His
return. There would have to be seen a conjunction of wars, earthquakes, pestilences, and also preternatural
terrors and great signs from heaven. Only this conjunction of such
events would announce His return, and bring the hour when He would be seen
coming in a cloud with power and great glory, assuring them that their
deliverance had at last drawn nigh (25-28). Prior to this there would immediately precede two principal
matters: (1) universal persecution
of His followers (12-19), and (2)
That this desolation did not point to A.D. 70 and the destruction by Titus (as did verse 6) is clear.
(a) Zechariah 12-14 tells of the capture of the city, its being sacked, and
half of the inhabitants being carried thence into captivity. These details
Jesus repeated (20-24). The prophet put these events forward to a specific time
when Jehovah should descend to Olivet, deliver
Therefore Christ said that by the events in question “all things
which are written shall be fulfilled.” This did not become so in A.D. 70 nor since. Much
foretold concerning
(b) The Lord put
these things at a time which would see the close of “the times of the
Gentiles.” Those times, those allotted periods, set in when
(c) During the
period of this desolation of
the holy city it shall be “trodden down of the Gentiles,” which shall continue without break
until that conclusion of Gentile times and rulers: “
Therefore the “things that shall come to pass” are to occur at the time when “the
That short period the Lord described as utterly unexampled for
horror: there will have been nothing like it, there shall be nothing thereafter
like it (Matt. 24: 20-23). He was repeating the angelic announcement to Daniel as to
that time of trouble (Dan. 12: 1), which placed it at the era of the deliverance of
There is no good ground for the common opinion that the church
that would be at
2.
The Escape. From the
foregoing considerations it follows that disciples of Christ will be on earth
at the epoch in question, exposed to the perils and terrors of that final
crisis of this age and of all the ages. But the Lord announced that escape
would be possible from “all these things” of which He had been speaking: “that ye may
prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass” ([Lk. Ch. 21] ver.
36). Here divergent views exist as to the
method of this escape. Some say that fulfilment will require the bodily removal
from earth of those who are to escape: others, that the meaning is that they
will be granted such inward grace as to resist the spiritual perils and endure
faithfully to the coming of the Lord. Much depends upon the true meaning of the
word “escape” (ekpheugo), which we shall now examine.
(1) Common
Greek. The root of the word is pheugo, the meaning of which is simply
to flee, as from servitude, justice, or to abandon one’s native land. So Matt. 3:
7:
“who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Mark 16:
8:
The women “fled from the
tomb.” This flight
may be moral: 1 Cor. 6:
18:
“flee fornication;” 2 Tim. 2: 22: “Flee
youthful lusts;” that is, run away from temptation;
not, parley and battle with it. Change of locality is implied by this word: Mark 5: 14:
“the keepers of the swine” fled John 10: 12 “the hireling
leaveth the sheep and fleeth:” Rev. 12: 6 “the woman fled into
the wilderness.” Pheugo equals Latin fugio,
and English “fugitive.”
In the compound ek-pheugo, ek intensifies this thought of change of location, its
meaning being “out of, away from.”
(2) In
the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament current
among the Jews for a century or more before Christ, and in His time), ekpheugo is found at Judg.
6:
11:
Gideon was threshing wheat in the winepress in order “to escape
from the face of Midian,” that is, to escape the wheat being seized by the Midianites. Prov. 10.
19:
“Out of a multitude of words thou shalt not escape sin,” that is, not avoid sinning. As late as
century 4 A.D. in a Christian letter this passage is cited loosely in this
sense (Vocab. of Greek Testament, 200). Prov. 12: 13: “A sinner falls
into snares, but a righteous man escapes from
them.” Job
15: 30: Eliphaz said of the godless, “neither shall
he in any wise escape the darkness.” Isaiah 66: 7 compares the future sudden deliverance of
(3) In
the Apocrypha (likewise current in our Lord’s time) it is said in the
Epistle of Jeremy (ver. 68) that the
beasts of the fields are better than a man “for they
can flee [escape] into a covert and help
themselves.” Wisdom (15: 19) says of
idolators that “they went without [escaped] the praise of God and His blessings.” Ecclesiasticus 6:
35 says “Be willing to
hear every godly discourse; and let not the parables of understanding escape
thee.” 11: 10
says to the meddlesome man, “thou shall not obtain,
neither shalt thou escape by fleeing.” In 16:
15 it is said to God, “It is not possible to
escape Thy hand.” 27: 20 says that a neighbour whose love has been lost
will not be recovered as a friend, for “he is as a roe
that has escaped out of the snare.” 40: 6 compares the restless, dreamful sleeper to one who
has “escaped out of a battle.” In Susannah 22 that chaste woman says to her tempters, “If I do it not, I cannot escape your hands.” In 2 Maccabees 6: 26 we
learn that the aged scribe Eleazar
was offered life if he would obey Antiochus
Epiphanes and eat swine’s flesh contrary to the law of God, but he replied,
“For though for the present time I should be delivered
from the punishment of men, yet should I
not escape the hand of the Almighty, neither
alive, nor dead.” And in 7: 35 a young Jew being tortured warns Antiochus
thus: “thou hast not
yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God, who seeth all things.” In 9: 22 Antiochus
himself hopes that he will “escape this sickness” from which he was
suffering. In 3 Maccabees 6: 29 the Jews in
These six places in the Septuagint
and twelve in the Apocrypha are all
that I have traced as using epkheugo. Not one of them carries
the idea of one being able to endure testing without soul injury. They all
speak of escaping, not of
enduring. In this the translators and writers simply followed the customary
meaning of this word. It is against the background of this uniform usage, with
which they were well acquainted, that the Lord and His apostles employed the
word.
(4) The
New Testament. The thought in the above passage in Esther
is closely followed by Paul in Rom. 2: 3. The former speaks of the godless who “suppose that they
shall escape the judgment of God;” of the hard of heart and impenitent Paul inquires if “he reckons
that he shall escape the judgment of God?” In Heb. 2: 3 the question is pressed, “How shall we
escape, having neglected so great salvation?”
Acts 16:
27: the jailor at
Apart from Luke 21 before us these are the only places where
ekpheugo is
found in the New Testament. Here again it is plain that no thought enters
of patiently enduring through a trial and being benefited by it. The thought is
always that of being entirely exempted, of escaping completely, as from a
house, or city, or prison, or evil men, or the judgment of God. It is clear
that the uniform usage of the word, ancient and later, secular and religious
and Biblical, gives no warrant for taking it in any other sense in our passage.
This is the only natural force of the words “escape all these things which shall come to pass,” for it does not say “escape the hurtful influences of these things,” but
escape the things (events) themselves.
the Lexicons are uniform as to this meaning. Grimm-Thayer: “to
flee out of, flee away, seek safety in flight.” Abbot-Smith: “to flee away, escape.”
A. Souter: “I
flee out, away, I escape.” The prefix ek compels this force of removal from one
place to another. The other compounds of pheugo have the same force. Their only occurrences in the New Testament are apopheugo, 2 Pet. 1: 4; 2: 18, 20: diapheugo, Acts 27: 42: katapheugo, Acts 14: 6; Heb. 6: 18. So unvarying is this meaning that, after two thousand years,
the Modern Greek terms (ekpheugo,
diapheugo, ekpheuge) retain exactly the same sense “to escape, run away.”
3. Conclusion. Three deeply
important conclusions follow from above.
1. That disciples of Christ of the
company of the apostles will continue on earth down to the last days of this
age and will be in danger of being overtaken by the snare of that time. They
will be in peril of being suddenly caught as a bird in the net of the fowler. It is a plain denial of the Lord’s solemn warning to tell Christians
that they are certain to be taken from the earth by rapture before that period
breaks on mankind.
That the Lord addressed the apostles as
representing Jews of that end time is mere unwarranted supposition.
2. On the other hand, Christ makes equally plain that escape will be possible. The
statement is definite, even were there no other promise to this effect. But other scriptures say the same, such as Revelation 3. 10, with 12: 5 and 14: 1-5.
3. It
is equally emphatic that this escape will depend upon the believer
being of a pure heart and life, watchful, prayerful, a conqueror in the
conflict of faith, and so “prevailing to escape all these
things that shall come to pass.” Teaching cannot be according to truth which assures him that he will
escape though worldly in heart and ways. Truth always sanctifies. But
neither is it in harmony with our Lord's
words to say that there will be no escape at that time even for the sanctified.
-------
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (13, part 2).
PREVAIL TO ESCAPE, Luke
21: 34-36.
1. Two Promises
of Escape.
We take up now the second conclusion reached in the former
paper, namely, that escape is possible from the dread End events of which the
Lord had been speaking: “that ye may prevail
to escape all these things that shall come to pass.”
The opening event is mentioned in verse 12: “Before all these things they shall lay their
hands on you, and shall persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons,
bringing you
before kings and governors for My name’s sake ... (17) and ye shall be
hated of all men for My name’s sake;” or, as in Matt. 24: 8, 9: “All these things are the beginning of travail
[pangs]. Then
shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you and ye shall be hated of all
the nations for My name's sake;”and see Mark 13: 8-13.
1. This persecution will rage
against persons who bear the name of Christ; nor will they bear it vainly, for
they will be prepared to suffer even unto death rather than deny that Name.
Therefore they are - [regenerate, and also Holy Spirit filled believers
(see Acts
6: 5. Cf. Heb. 12: 3, 4,
R.V.)] - Christians.
Jews as such will not own Jesus as Lord until they see Him in glory at His
descent to destroy Antichrist (Zech. 12: 9, 10).
2. The persecution will be universal,
and it will be at a time when
The concluding event of “all these things” in view will be that they shall “see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great
glory” (ver. 27).
It seems that there will be an earlier persecution instigated
by the Harlot Babylon (Rev.
17:
6), prior to the Beast reaching
supremacy, but this does not seem to be included in the Olivet prophecy or to
be covered by the promised escape. The assurance given by Christ is
that escape can be secured from all these events He mentioned; therefore this escape must be effected before that second
persecution which ushers in these events.
As we saw in the former paper, this word “escape” describes complete exemption from the events; but inasmuch as
the rule of the Beast and the persecution will be strictly universal, affecting
“all the nations,” must not the escape be by removal from the earth? How else can it
be effected? This is made plain in other scriptures.
Rev. 3. 10. The letter to
Because thou
didst keep the word of My patience, I also will keep thee from
the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole inhabited earth,
to try them that
dwell on the earth.
Here again is a strictly universal affair, for it affects the
whole inhabited earth: how then shall any be “kept out of it” but by removal from the earth? The promise is not that they
shall be given moral strength to endure that time of testing, but that they
shall be kept out of it, not be kept in or through it. “Inhabited earth” (oikoumene)
cannot here have the limited Roman meaning of the territory of that empire, for
its connected equivalent here is simply “the earth,” and moreover, there will be Christians dwelling outside the
ancient Roman territory.
The same verb (tereo) and preposition (ek) come together in John 17: 15, where the Son said to the Father: “I do not request that Thou shouldst take them out of the
world, but that Thou shouldest keep them (tereo)
out of
(ek) the evil one.” The earth is the physical sphere of the believer: to be taken
out of it would imply physical removal from it. The Evil One is the moral sphere which envelopes the unbeliever: “the whole world lieth in
the Evil One” (1 John 5: 19). They are in him and he is in them, “the spirit
that now worketh in the sons of disobedience” (Eph.
2:
2). He is the moral atmosphere that
inspires the wicked. From this environment the disciple can be entirely
preserved. (On John
17: 15
see Westcott). The Evil One is to
him an outside foe to be fought, but is not the sphere or atmosphere in which the inner man lives and against the poisonous
atmosphere of which he must seek to survive, if possible. Therefore John
directly adds: “we are of God
... and we are in
Him that is true, in His Son Jesus
Christ” (1 John 5: 19, 20).
[* NOTE: the Word “wicked”
is used throughout both Old and New Testaments to describe redeemed and
regenerate believers! “And Moses rose up and
went unto Dathan and Abiram; and the elders of
In Paul’s first letter “... unto the church of God which is at Corinth,
even them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints,
with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ in every place, their Lord and
ours:”(1: 2): and in 5: 19, 20 Paul said unto the ‘Church’: “For what have I to do with judging them that
are without? Do not ye judge them
that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth? Put away the
wicked man from among
yourselves,” R.V.]
Thus to be kept out of the time of testing does not mean to
survive its poisonous influences, but not to encounter them, by having been removed
from the earth which is the physical realm of the Evil One and of the
persecution he will again inspire.
Surely this is the first and natural force of these two
promises of the Lord, in both English and Greek.
2. Two
Pictures of Escape.
These two verbal promises are confirmed by two symbolic
prophecies.
Rev. 12. In this vision there are four persons or
groups of persons - a woman, a male child, a dragon, and a company described as
“the rest of the woman’s seed.” (ver.
17).
The dragon is identified as the Devil and Satan. He is shown
at first as acting in heaven, but is presently cast out to the earth. This is
part of the events that John had been told were to take place later than when
he was shown the vision (ch. 4: 1: “I will show thee
the things which must come to pass hereafter”). Eph. 6 had already shown that Satan’s forces were active in
the heavenly regions thirty years after the ascension of Christ. Rev.
12 shows that this situation was
continuing another thirty years later again. Every spiritual Christian knows
that this is still the case.
Therefore the circumstances of this woman and her family do
not refer back to Mary and the early years of her son Jesus, but picture events
still future. Jesus was not caught away to God’s throne directly upon His
birth. He did not escape the fury of the Devil, but was attacked again and
again and finally hounded to death.
This woman’s condition answers to that of the people of Christ
at the End times. John had heard the Lord describe the onset of those times as “the beginning of travail pains” (Matt.
24:
8: now he notes that this woman is in
the last stage of travail pains and that this man child is then brought forth.
The woman is seen in heaven, arrayed with the glories of
heaven, at the same time that she is on earth in travail and hard beset by the
dragon. It is only the
The identity of this male child is disclosed by the feature
that he “is to rule all the
nations with a rod of iron.” This is a dignity promised to the conquerors of this Christian age (Rev. 2: 26, 27) and to none others of the saved. That he is caught away to God and to
His throne shows that this
is not the rapture of saints mentioned in 1 Thess. 4, for these will be taken to meet the Lord Jesus and this in the air, not in the
upper heavens. Christ will then have left the throne and descended to the air.
Upon this male child being translated to the throne Satan and
his angels are cast out of heaven. Since this has not even yet taken place the
events must be yet future. Upon Satan being ejected from the realms above, and
restricted to the earth, he is filled with fury and at once attacks the woman
and then the rest of her family (12: 13; 13: 1). For this last purpose he brings up the
Beast to be his agent in chief. The chapter division is to be ignored, and the
statement is to be read as in R.V. Thus there sets in that period of frightful
persecution of the disciples of Christ which He foretold as to be the worst
days that earth has ever known or ever will know.
Plainly the male child and the rest of
the woman’s seed are one [redeemed] family, but the former “escape all these things that shall come to pass,” for he is removed to the throne of God just before Satan is cast
out of heaven and the events of the End begin.
The promise of Christ is that those who escape “shall stand before the Son of man.” Until the end of that period the Son
of man remains at the right hand of God, superintending the affairs of that
period (Rev. 4 and 5 on to the events of ch. 19). It is to that high realm that the
male child is taken. The Lord does not descend to the clouds to fetch him, but
he is taken to the throne where the Lord will still be.
Rev. 14. This vision, with its six
scenes, reveals the same identical sequence of events as in ch. 12.
The period of the Beast and of his persecution of the saints
is seen in scene 4 (ver.
9-13).
The “saints” are [regenerate] Christians for they “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” This corresponds to the course of life
of the Philadelphian disciples who had kept Christ’s word and had not denied
His name (Rev.
3:
8).
Scene 3,
directly preceding the era of the Beast, announces the fall of
Directly before that destruction of the Harlot Babylon is scene 2 (ver.
6,
7), in which an angel announces that the
hour of God’s judgment is come. This indicates precisely that the final stage
of this age has been reached, the End time is at hand.
Before this crisis, scene
1 (ver. 1-5) describes a heavenly vision. Certain persons, who had been “purchased out of the earth” and from “among men,” come into view and are described as “firstfruits unto God and unto the Lamb.” If a purchaser should say, “I bought these things out of the market, from among the many articles that were
there,” it would be plain that he was not still in the market but
had taken his purchases elsewhere. Thus these redeemed first-fruits are shown as on “Mount Zion” and “before the throne.” In every place in Revelation “before the throne” refers to the heavenly world.
This scene corresponds to the “church of the firstborn ones” who “have come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God,
the heavenly
Jerusalem” (Heb. 12: 22); and it corresponds also to the male
child being caught up to God and to His throne just before Satan is cast out of
heaven and brings the Beast on the scene on earth.
It answers also to the promise of Christ in Luke 21 that those who escape the End events shall “stand before the Son of man,” because these firstfruits in Rev.
14 are “with the Lamb” on
In scene 5 (ver. 14-16), the next after that of the Beast, the Son of man is seen on
a white cloud reaping the now fully ripe harvest of the earth; and in
Scene 6 (ver. 17-20) He is pictured as treading the winepress
of the wrath of God outside the city (
These six scenes are based on an agricultural figure -
firstfruits, harvest, and vintage, scenes
1, 5 and 6. In early summer the Jew was to gather from the cornfields a
sheaf of cars that might be ripe early. This was taken away to the temple at
Similarly the Lord is shown in three situations. First at the
throne on
3. The
Escape Conditional.
Thus there are two promises of escape from the dread events of
the End and two pictures of that escape. Seeing that it will be only a comparatively small number of believers
that will be affected, and at only one point of time in the course of
perhaps two thousands of years of the history of the church of God, these four
scriptures may be regarded as ample testimony on the subject. And the heaviest possible emphasis is placed upon the moral
conditions required for the escape.
Luke 21 stresses the great care needed lest
the heart be choked with earthly cares or indulgencies, inducing watchlessness,
and so being caught unawares by that day of Satanic attack and deception.
Ceaseless watchfulness will be indispensable and constant prayerfulness. These
conditions will enable the Christian to “prevail” to escape.
The older Greek text read kataxiotheete, to be accounted worthy. That reading
stressed that the [regenerate] believer could not take for granted that he would
escape: he had to be found worthy to do so. The reading now accepted is as
R.V., katischuseete, prevail. In Jeremiah 15:
18
the Septuagint reads: “Why do they that
grieve me prevail against me?” In Ezekiel 3: 8 God assured the prophet that “I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy victory to
prevail against their victory.” (LXX) The word is used very frequently in this sense of overcoming in conflict. In the New
Testament it is found in the comforting assurance that the gates of Hades
shall not prevail to hold the godly dead in captivity, that is, when the hour for their
resurrection shall have come. Its only other use is to picture
vividly a raging mob clamouring to Pilate for the crucifixion of Christ and
beating down his reluctance; “and their
voices prevailed” (Luke 23: 23).
It is only by such divinely given
resolution and strength that the - [obedient, determined, and Holy Spirit filled] - believer can triumph against
the powers of darkness:
is only thus that any will prevail to escape the End days. This same attitude and victory are stressed as the condition upon
which the Philadelphian saints will be kept out of that hour of universal
testing: “Because thou didst keep the word of my patience I also will
keep thee out of that hour of trial.” The male child is all but seized by the angry dragon,
but he is born amidst - [the
apostasy within the
It is certainly true believers that are thus warned and
encouraged, for such a life of purity and devotion is not possible to others. Plainly the moral power of these promises is great. Such a prospect cannot but promote in those who heed it the utmost care
to be holy as their Lord is holy. On
the contrary, to reject such
searching demands will necessarily induce indolence of soul, carelessness of conduct, and prevent the believer from being
without blemish. Being then caught
in the snare of the Fowler, the
possible escape from the last dread days will be missed, and only the great heat of the great
Tribulation will ripen such for the garner. Thus the enduring of the wrath of the Beast - [the coming of the Antichrist (Rev. 13: 1-8; cf. 2 Thess 1: 3-12, R.V.] - will prepare the
believer for removal from the earth to the cloud before
the wrath of God bursts forth against His foes at the descent of the Word of God to destroy the Beast and his
followers. But they might have escaped this ordeal had they
been ripened by the earlier trials that will lead up to the days of the
End.
“Since I must fight if I would reign,
Increase my courage Lord:
I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,
Supported by Thy word.”
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (14).
For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait
for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus
Christ: who shall fashion
anew the body of our humiliation, that it
may be conformed to the body of His glory,
according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto
Himself. Phil.
3:
20,
21.
The
apostle is greatly concerned that Christians shall so live as to be “sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ”
(1:
10), that is, with the view to be found
suitable for that day, even as a virtuous maiden lives for the wedding day, and ever deports herself with that day in view. This is the keynote
of the epistle to which our present passage is attuned. Many - [regenerate
believers] - do not walk in life after Paul’s style, for his mind was set on the
things that are above (Col.
3:
1-4), whereas these “mind earthly things” (ver. 19). Our verses give reasons against this
earthly-mindedness and in favour of that eager pursuit after things heavenly,
even that consuming passion for Christ which marked Paul (vv. 7-16).
1.
Our Status. The first reason
is that “our citizenship is
in heaven.”
The verb is more than “is” and means “actually and already exists” (huparchei).
Those who had the honour of citizenship in
Where the sovereign resides there is the capital city, the
centre of the commonwealth: therefore our political centre is in heaven. Darby translates politeuma by “commonwealth,” but adds the discriminating note: “‘Commonwealth’ does not at all satisfy me, but ‘citizenship’
is a somewhat different word. ‘Conversation’ is wrong, though it be a practical
consequence. It is ‘associations of life,’ as ‘I am born an Englishman.’”
The follower of Christ should search his heart and ask himself
if it is his conscious state of mind that he feels himself on earth as an
Englishman feels in a foreign land, an
alien on earth because, by spiritual
birth, now associated with Christ in
heaven.
2.
Our Hope. The earthly-minded have their portion in this life (Psalm 17: 14); they
have received their good things here in full (Luke 16: 25), and have nothing to
expect hereafter, save the due
reward of their sins. Being without God they are without hope (Eph. 2: 12). The heavenly-minded, on the
contrary, are content with food and coverings (1 Tim. 6: 8), as all sensible pilgrims are, but their prospects - [during the ‘age’
which is yet to come] - are glorious. As loyal subjects in a rebel area they expect difficulties, but they await eagerly (apekdechomai) the
promised intervention of their Sovereign. He will leave His capital and move swiftly for their deliverance: “from heaven
we wait for a Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ.”
The follower of
Christ should ask himself if this is really the conscious attitude of
his heart, toward both the world and
toward the second coming of Christ. Does he feel like
one in need and
peril, expecting eagerly a Saviour as
his only resource and hope? Or is he jogging along comfortably, with no felt need of his Lord’s intervention? Will His advent be rather [for
him] an interruption?
3. Our Redemption. Redemption
refers to the release of some
article from custody, as of a house from mortgage or a prisoner from captivity.
Its two parts are, first, the payment that
effects the release, and then the
release itself. The life-blood
of the Lamb of God shed on the cross is the price [He has paid] of our redemption (1 Pet.
1:
18,
19). Upon our acceptance of this
transaction, the [regenerate] believer finds the heart released from the accusations
of conscience, from dread of God and of wrath, from the bondage of sin, from
fear of the world - all this progressively according
to the measure of life and of faith.
Yet however far this happy and normal experience develops,
however rich the release experienced, the Christian remains restricted by the
body. The body of man is not “vile,” but it is a humiliation that a being
made in the image of God must, on account of sin, carry about a body marked by
weakness and liable to corruption.
At the coming of the Lord this [body] shall be changed - [from mortality to immortality] - by rapture or resurrection, and redemption shall reach its full result. This latter aspect of redemption is
the chief force of the word in the New Testament, though in preaching in
general the stress is put rather upon the price paid (Rom. 8: 16-25; 2 Cor. 4: 16 - 5: 10: 1 John 3: 1-3). The glory of God is
concentrated in the body of the Saviour we expect (Col.
2:
9);
and the body of the saint who is counted worthy is to be conformed to that heavenly form and standard (Dan.
12:
3).
The Christian should consider whether he is giving due heed to
the exhortation: “Wherefore girding
up the loins of your mind, be sober, and set your hope perfectly [constantly and undividedly] on the favour that is being brought unto you at the revelation
of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet.
1:
13).
4. The Adequate Power. The natural mind regards such a
proposal as incredible, even fantastic; but right reason reflects that Jesus,
before His death, foretold His resurrection at a given time, and that there
would be restored to Him the glory which He had with the Father before the
universe was created (Matt.
16:
21;
John 17:
5). This astounding assertion was
fulfilled (Acts 26:
12-15). He further promised to effect
likewise the resurrection of those who believe on Him and to share with them
His glory (John 6:
39,
40; 17: 22). As He fulfilled the prediction in His own person it is reasonable to believe that He can and will do so for those who shall be accounted worthy to attain to that millennial
age and the resurrection from [out of,
ek] the dead (Luke 21: 34-36). As glorified, He has universal
authority (Matt.
28:
18), and to raise the dead is but one
exercise of the energy of His power to
subject to Himself all things (ta panta, the entire universe).
Where this noblest of prospects not merely interests the
intellect but moves the affections, the practical effect is profound and
sanctifying.
In 1830 A. N. Groves was living in
I never felt
more powerfully than now, the joy of having nothing to do with these things; so that let men govern as they will, I feel my path is to live in subjection to the powers that be, and to exhort others to the same, even though it be such oppressive
despotism as this. We have to show
them by this, that our kingdom is
not of this world, and that these
are not things about which we contend.
But our life being hid where no storms can assail, “with Christ in God” - and our wealth being
where no moth or rust doth corrupt, we leave
those who are of this world to manage its concerns as they list, and we submit to them in everything as far
as a good conscience will admit. (Anthony Norris Groves, 198).
For many Christians a chief hindrance to enjoying this peace
and joy under trials is the fact that their wealth is not placed where no moth or rust can
corrupt.
In 1870, the year of
the Franco-Prussian war, J. N.
Darby wrote to a French Christian as follows:
What pains me is the manner in which the idea of
one’s country has taken possession of the hearts of some brethren. I quite
understand that the sentiment of patriotism may be strong in the heart of man.
I do not think that the heart is capable of affection towards the whole world. At bottom
human affection must have a centre, which is “I.” can say “My country,” and it is not that of a stranger ... But God delivers us
from the “I”; He makes of God, and of God in Christ, the
centre of all; and the Christian, if consistent, declares plainly that he seeks
a heavenly country. His affections, his ties, his citizenship are above. He
withdraws into the shade in this world ... As a man I would have fought
obstinately for my country, and would never have given way, God knows; but as a
Christian I believe and feel myself to be outside all; these things move me no
more ... (Letters,
ii, 130).
At that period these truths, concerning the Son of God as
rejected by man and glorified by God, and as outside this world’s life until He
shall again intervene at His coming, had gripped the hearts of many Christians
and moulded their lives. It was usual that such
withdrew from politics and many resigned position and prospects as officers in
the armed forces. One such was Julius
von Posek, a Prussian noble, who
submitted to imprisonment and banishment rather than bear arms. Another was
J. G. Deck, of the British navy.
Happy is the Christian who with unaffected simplicity can say with him:
Called from above, a
heavenly man by birth
(Who once was but a citizen
of earth),
A pilgrim here, I seek a
heavenly home
And portion in the ages yet
to come.
I am a stranger here; I do
not crave
A home on earth, that gave
Thee but a grave;
I wish not now its jewels
to adorn
My brows, which gave Thee
but a crown of thorn.
Thy cross has severed ties
that bound me here, -
Thyself my treasure in a
heavenly sphere.
(Hymns and Sacred Poems, 168).
Freed thus from the trammels of worldly affairs such
Christians were at liberty to devote all their energies, time, and means, in
home, business, or elsewhere, to the
kingdom of God, and they were used
mightily to the salvation of the lost and the strengthening of the cause of
Christ in His church. The reflex social benefit was itself far greater than
by direct co-operation in public concerns.
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT (15)
Have ye understood all these things? They say
unto Him, Yea. And He said unto
them, Therefore every scribe who hath
been made a disciple to the kingdom of the heavens is like unto a man that is a
householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (Matt. 13: 51, 52).
In every
kingdom it has been found necessary to have a class of men learned in the constitution
and laws and able to expound these and apply them for public and private
welfare. In the East of old such men were few because it was needful that they
should learn to read and write, which not many did with proficiency. Hence they
were called scribes, writers. Their public value gave them much importance and
gained much respect.
It is thus in the kingdom of the heavens, over which God is
universal Sovereign. At present this kingdom, though real and powerful, is not
recognizable by the natural man, but only by the spiritual mind (1 Cor. 2: 14, 15). And among even these the
majority do not busy themselves to become learned as to its affairs.
The Lord, in wisdom and grace, calls some to be “scribes,” to devote themselves seriously to mastering the constitution.
laws, principles, and course of development of this kingdom. These are
“discipled,” brought under special instruction by the [Holy] Spirit, disciplined, and devoted to
divine interests on earth.
The apostles were such scribes, nor has the Lord ever suffered
the succession wholly to fail. They are compared to a householder, and their
accumulated knowledge to his treasures.
This means, not simply that they have information, but that
the instruction and enlightenment they receive becomes their own property,
wrought deeply into their very mind and heart.
These treasures they “bring forth,” that is, they impart their God-given knowledge of affairs
heavenly. They are not inventors of things divine: all they have is in their “treasury,” which, for all practical purposes, means for us in the Word
of God. No fresh truth has been revealed since the era when the promise was
fulfilled that the [Holy] Spirit
should guide the apostles into “all the
truth,”
including the things future (John 16:
13). But the scribe has to assimilate
truth revealed so that it becomes a treasury within himself, his very own
possession, vital and ruling in his own practice. It is not enough that he can
say that such and such things are taught in the Bible; a studious un-believer
can say this: it must be his, cherished in his own heart as a treasure.
Moreover, he must know where to find
this or that treasure of truth which he sees suits the person or case before
him, and be skilled in exhibiting
and applying it.
This heavenly treasure is divided by the Lord into two
classes, the new and the old; and it is momentous that He places the new before the old as that which the instructed scribe
will bring forth. This was a marked characteristic of Christ’s own
ministry. His inner man was filled with divine truth, a veritable
treasure-house of heavenly knowledge. This treasure He had gathered largely
from the Word of God, the Old Testament, of which Book He was truly a Master. He believed it implicitly, obeyed it unhesitatingly, and His public ministry took the line of
reading and explaining it (Luke 4: 16-30). He accepted all that was there found, including what was “old” to His hearers, that is, already known and believed. In addition
He received communications direct from God the Father (John 8: 28,
38
, 15:
15 , etc.).
But had He stayed at the point of repeating the old, why did
His teaching create such a furore and provoke such determined resentment?
If He had been content, like the rabbis and scribes, merely to
repeat and retail the old, the generally accepted, the popular, He would have
been esteemed like they were and honoured. No, it was the new that startled, arrested, and either
blessed or rebuked the hearer.
For example:
1. Nicodemus was one of these publicly
acknowledged “teachers” in
This was so “new” to the rabbi that he queried if it
were possible. It meant that the most approved externalism, such as all pious
Jews honoured and trusted, was inadequate. Christ did not annul the “old,” as based on Moses, but He obtruded the “new” as
altogether necessary. Yet its newness lay only in the dullness of men; it was
already in the treasury, the Scriptures, as Nicodemus, a teacher of
In this conversation, built on things old, it was the new that was vital and arresting.
2. Jewish theology had taken the old
truth of the supreme holiness and infinite majesty of God and so mishandled it
as to make it wrong even to pronounce His sacred name, Jehovah. The natural
effect for the masses was to create a feeling that God is remote, almost inaccessible:
a Deistic conception, that God is to be revered, but cannot be really known. By
this means worship became external, formal, service that only a few, the
priests, could render effectually.
Now there suddenly stands forth this young teacher, untrained
in the recognized schools of theology, and one of His early and supreme
stresses is that God is the father of such as seek Him in sincerity, a father nigh at
hand, accessible, intimately concerned with every detail of human life, eating,
drinking, clothing, and delighted to bestow His best care upon the affairs of
the humble (Matt 5.
- 7.).
Here again it was the new element that was attractive and
comforting, and encouraged men to seek personal intercourse with God, even
while it claimed from them utter devotion to His demand that men must be holy even as He is holy.
Yet here also the newness arose because of the ignorance of the hearers. That
God is ready to be father to the humble is in the treasury (Isa.
63:
16; etc.).
3. It was a new use of ancient
Scripture by which the Lord confuted the Sadducees and their error that the
dead do not rise again. God cannot be the God of anything that does not exist;
but He said Himself that He is “the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3: 6), though speaking centuries after
their death. Therefore they had not ceased to exist at death. Such new,
pungent, convincing use of the “old” in Scripture, confounded the learned
materialist, humbled him before the people, irritated, exasperated him.
4. Take again this very instruction
given in the parables in Matt. 13. Its arresting force lay in it giving a new aspect to the
5. This is very clearly seen in the
ministry of Paul. It consisted in “preaching the
6. It was the same among Gentiles. The
heathen philosophers listened with interest while Paul spoke upon the nature of
deity, the creation of the universe, and such like perennial topics of
discussion. But resentment arose in many the moment he advanced as fact the “new” feature that Jesus had risen [out] from the dead. This cut at the root of
their human speculations, and challenged their whole outlook and practice (Acts 17: 32).
Abundant further instances can be found of the prominence and
influence of the “new” in the cases of Christ and the
apostles. It must needs be that it is the new that arouses interest and claims
attention. Without this element the mind of man becomes, through custom,
lethargic, and the old, even if true, can lose its former stimulating power. So
that while no truth is in itself new, yet it is that which comes to the hearer
as new that seizes upon and stirs his inner man. History constantly offers
instances of this.
After the formulation, in early centuries, of the great Creeds
(the Apostles, the Athanasian, and others), Christians soon settled down into a
formal acknowledgment of the “old” doctrines and general spiritual
inertia spread everywhere. How shall such deadly contentment with the old be
disturbed except by something “new”?
In century 17 the Spanish priest and mystic Miguel de Molinos (1640-1697) gave an
example within the Church of Rome. He taught in
But the Jesuits soon saw that this possibility of direct
private intercourse with God implied that Church, priesthood, sacrifices,
ceremonies were not necessary. In 1687 they secured Molinos’ condemnation to
the terrible ordeal of solitary imprisonment for life, which he endured for ten
years till his death in 1697. A Dominican father accompanied him to the cell
where he was to know no fellowship but God and his own heart. At the door he
said: “Farewell father, We shall meet again at the
judgment day, and then it will be seen whether you were right or I was.”
Or take the Reformation
in century sixteen. Its startling, terrific impact arose from the feature that Luther had discovered something new,
the truth that the sinner is declared righteous by God upon faith, apart from
works, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
As long as that new element remained fresh in the hearts of
men that mighty work of grace continued. But in due time justification by faith
settled down to being an orthodox common-place; something to be embodied in
creeds and defended strenuously, even by the sword, but becoming “old” it failed of inspiration. That stage was reached which John
Robinson in century seventeen deplored, even that neither Lutherans nor
Calvinists would go a step beyond those great leaders, and so general
stagnation was prevalent.
Indeed, so resolute did the chief Reformers become against
anything “new” that they persecuted relentlessly and
unto death the many who shortly rose up and propounded something “new” to the Reformation, though as old as Christ and the apostles,
even that priests, and salvation of infants by baptism, and State Churches were
not of God.
This process has marked all the Reformed bodies. They began by
men finding something new, baptism of believers, independent local churches,
rule of the house of God by elders, for example. But soon they crystallized
their doctrines and church formulas into creeds, and nothing further, nothing
new, can be tolerated. It may be brought out of the Treasury, the Word of God;
it may be attested by the householder, the scribe, as his veritable experience,
part of his personal spiritual treasure and enrichment, but no matter, it is “new” and must be rejected. The inevitable result is stagnation,
inertia, pride of knowledge, spiritual death.
Nor is this seen only in the Reformed and Nonconformist
Churches, it is painfully evident in such a community as the Brethren. I speak
of “Open” Brethren. This movement commenced 130
years ago and was at first spiritually mighty. It attracted clergy, ministers,
prominent Christian laymen of every type, and, by drawing into itself the cream
of spiritual men, was a threat to all organized church systems. The explanation
of such startling success was nothing other than that the Spirit of truth by
them brought forth things that were “new,” such as the following
1. That the
2. That no organized system of churches
is of God.
3. That clerisy in every form is
contrary to Christ, all believers, according to the gift granted, having
liberty to exercise that gift in the house of God. For this no human ordination
is needed or to be tolerated.
4. That the kingdom of God consists of
the godly of all ages, and is divided, as to the earth, into three sections,
the people of Israel, the Gentile nations, the church of God (1 Cor. 10:
32; etc.). Each of these companies has
its own place in the plans of God:
5. That members of the church are
offered a still higher destiny than
6. The teachers of this movement
rejected the general Protestant opinion that
7. In opposition to this they returned
to the primitive belief of the first three centuries, attested by the universal
assent of the “fathers” of that period, that a personal
Antichrist will arise and persecute the godly, that he will be destroyed by the
personal descent of Christ to the earth, that the church of God will be raised
from the dead and removed to heaven; that the godly of Israel of that time will
form a new kingdom centred at Jerusalem; with the spared of the Gentiles in
submission to them; and that the Lord will reign at Jerusalem over all the
earth for a thousand years. Then will follow the general resurrection of the
dead, with the last judgment at the great white throne, to be followed by the
creation of new heavens and a new earth wherein righteousness will dwell for
ever.
There were naturally differences as to the details of so vast
a programme, but such was the general character of the teaching of the Brethren
at the commencement. Now this programme, as such, was something “new.” Phases of it had been before discerned by sundry Bible
searchers, but as a programme it was “new” to the great majority, and hence it arrested attention,
captivated the assent of great numbers, and established a fresh outlook among
evangelical Christians; for it was so plainly not the invention of the men who
taught these things, but they brought it forth out of their Treasury. It was
Scriptural.
But both its ecclesiastical and its prophetical elements were
antagonistic to the “old” views and customs of Protestantism.
Hence determined opposition was offered, and those who accepted the “new” were forced into separation from the adherents of the “old.” Thus there arose large numbers of groups of believers, marked
by holiness, zeal, and spiritual vitality.
But there was a great defect in this movement. It was in
general Calvinistic in outlook and spirit, and it rightly maintained the
eternal security of each and all born of the Spirit unto eternal life. But they
proceeded to apply this everlasting security of the saved to the benefits,
privileges, and possibilities that attach to salvation, as well as to salvation
itself. Hence, by making all privileges unforfeitable, there was nothing to
hold the balance and prevent believers from settling into carnal lethargy and
sinful ways, and soon this sphere of heavenly life and love was defiled and
defaced by bitter strife, which ruined the early testimony to the oneness of
all saints in Christ.
But a few saw and declared the balancing truth. A. N. Groves, Lady Powerscourt, P. H.
Gosse the naturalist, R. C. Chapman,
were of those who acknowledged
the warnings and penalties which the New Testament addresses to the people of
God. They gave place to
the scores of “Ifs” which
mingle in passages plainly addressed to real Christians. They taught that sharing in that first
resurrection, and in the reign of
the Lamb to follow, were high
dignities that might be forfeited by carnal conduct.
This, in its turn, was - [and still is today] - something “new” to the general Brethren programme, and it was
rejected and only what was “old” allowed. A century ago Robert Govett of
The general and inevitable result is, that Brethren ministry
today is a mere repetition of the “old,” lacking
in that freshness, grip, attractiveness, and vital energy which comes, and can
only come, through something “new” being super-added to the “old.”
Profitable lessons arise.
What is true of a community is true of the individual. As surely as a believer becomes unwilling to face something “new” to him, unwilling to
receive it even though it comes out of the Treasury and to readjust life and
practice to include the new, so
surely at that point he must needs cease to learn, and will become stagnant and barren. It is a new element,
salt, from a new cruse, that can heal unhealthy water (2 Kings 2: 19-22). It was not more gourds, such as were
already in the pot, but something different, a new element, meal, that healed
the pottage (2 Kings 4:
38-41).
It is thus with a local church, a Denomination, a
While the early Brethren remained thus little children they
became mighty men of God who moved multitudes and were pioneers in Bible
exposition. But it is most sorrowful fact that for a century neither those first teachers, nor their diminutive successors, have added anything noteworthy or quickening to the knowledge of
divine truth: they have been content to repeat
and repeat the old, and only the old, until the great number are only peddlers of other men’s wares, instead of householders with fresh, new, vitalizing messages for the meeting of present need.
The disease being
manifest, the remedy is evident. The Lord’s beloved people must be as eager to receive the new as is the
little child, so long as that “new” is brought out of the Treasury of Holy Scripture, as to which matter they must keep an
honest, open mind, whether as to the doctrine of Selective
Rapture and Resurrection or any other line of teaching that is new to them and their school of thought.
This does not mean that the Christian is to be an Athenian
spending “time in nothing else, but either to tell or
to hear some new thing” (Acts 18: 21). It calls only that he pay attention to such as are plainly
scribes instructed as to the kingdom of heaven. Some profess to be this who are
not, Edward Russell, founder of Jehovah Witnesses, for example. He
could not abide the two tests involved. First, he was not a disciplined scribe
as to his conduct, but was morally undisciplined, and secondly, he did not set forth the “old” treasures; he set aside the deity of Christ, His atoning death,
justification by faith without works,
and other fundamental truths. The “new” ideas such propound are not really new but are ancient philosophic errors re-dressed. These are to be abhorred.
The Lord give today to His church such disciplined scribes as
can say with Jeremiah, “Thy words were
found, and I did eat them, and Thy words were unto me a joy, and the rejoicing
of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O Jehovah, God of hosts” (Jer. 15: 16). God’s word had been long lost: now
it was suddenly discovered (2 Chron. 34: 14). Its message was new having been long
hidden. Jeremiah devoured, assimilated, enjoyed it. It became his personal
treasure, and therefore out of it he brought forth vast riches to lay before
others. The minority preferred the old in which their minds lay
dormant and content. They persecuted the prophet. But a few rejoiced with Jeremiah, and became God’s nucleus for the future.
Thus it has ever been, thus it will
ever be. The Lord give to many grace
and determination to be such a scribe unto the furtherance of the kingdom of
the heavens in our day. Only so can
the present situation be met.
The principles the Lord here lays down admit of no exception.
Whether he be clergyman, minister, lay preacher, or ministering brother, if his
ministry be only a repeating and repeating of the “old,” even if it be God’s truth, he is not
one of the scribes whom Christ here describes, taught, disciplined, adapted to
the affairs of the kingdom of the heavens; for “every” such scribe brings out of his
treasure things new as well as things old: he confirms the old, but he also
displays the new. Being ever a little
child he is ever learning something new and ever talking about the wonder he
has discovered. Am I such a one?
Is my reader?
* *
*
AN IMPORTANT TEXT
Where two or three are
gathered together in My name of there am I in the midst of them. (Matt. 18: 20)
THOMAS NEATBY, M.D. (1835-1911)
(Taken
by permission from Thomas Neatby, a Memorial,
71-77)
Issued by Pickering & Inglis,
Ltd.,
GATHERING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS
-------
More
than fifty years ago, whilst quite a young servant of Christ, I became much
exercised about the condition of the church at that time. Then the Keswick
motto, “All one in Christ,” was almost unknown, both in principle and in practice. Clerical pretension
had not received the rude shock that it suffered some years later at the time
of the Irish revival. And worldliness, that constant snare of the children of
God, held terrible sway. Sectarianism, clerisy, and worldliness in the church formed for me
a real burden.
About this time I became acquainted with some devoted
Christians, who met together in an exceedingly simple and, as it seemed to me,
scriptural way for worship and communion, breaking bread every “first day of the week,” welcoming all whom they had reason
to believe were really children of God, sound in faith and godly in walk. They
were without a separate class of ministers, though thankful for any whom the
Lord might fit for, and use in “the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” I had found what I sought. I was
known as a disciple and, according to my measure, a preacher of the gospel, and
was at once welcomed as a brother in Christ.
I found I had much to learn. These happy people with little
pretension were living upon truths of which I knew little or nothing. A full
salvation in a risen Christ, with whom they were one by the Holy Ghost, who dwelt in
them; the distinct and special calling of the church as the body and bride
of Christ; the present daily hope of His coming again: the sovereignly important place of Israel in
the Word and ways of God: these and many allied truths were their daily
food and their daily joy. Of these joys I was glad to partake with them and to
find my heart more closely knit to Christ Jesus my Lord. What I then learned
from God I hold more firmly today. It would indeed be a cloudy and dark day
that saw me without one truth that then gladdened my heart.
Years passed away, and amid much weakness and failure my
convictions as to these truths were strengthened and my enjoyment of them was
increased. But little by little I found that sectarianism had pursued me
where I thought myself safe from it, and
that it had in some degree taken possession of me. The devil is subtle, and
we, alas! are prone to be fleshly and to “walk as men,” an easy prey then to the enemy of
Christ, who makes us think we are serving Him in refusing or depreciating those
that “follow not with us”
(Luke 9: 49). John no doubt thought himself jealous
for his Master, whereas his fleshly zeal had the “us” for its object. Even after the whole truth as to “Christ and the church” had been revealed, there were those
who made Christ the head of a rival school to those of Paul and Apollos. Subtle
indeed were both cases. For John might have rightly said, “He ought to follow Christ with us his chosen apostles.”
And the school at
Let me here give two examples of the use of this denominational title: (1) I have seen repeatedly of late years printed copies of an
outline “letter of commendation” to be filled in
as required. It runs thus: “The saints gathered to the
name of the Lord Jesus at ....... commend,” etc., and is addressed to “the saints gathered to the name of the Lord Jesus at .........”
(2) A periodical, giving reports of
the evangelization of south-eastern counties, is said to be “on behalf of assemblies of Christians gathered unto the name
of the Lord Jesus.”
There are, then, “Christians gathered
unto the Name of the Lord Jesus” distinguished from Christians not so
gathered. This is their denominational title. They are formed into “assemblies”
bearing this distinctive denomination. They are no longer “gatherings” of Christians who refuse all names or
titles to distinguish them from other saints. (This was once our glory.) They
have found a name to pit against all the names of Paul, Apollos, and Cephas.
They are “Christians gathered unto the Name of the
Lord Jesus,” the Corinthian
school of “Christ.” My brethren, this is carnality. For myself “the old is better.” The school of “Christ”
the “assemblies gathered unto the Name of the Lord
Jesus” I cannot endure. Rather let me be one with all that in every place call upon “the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and
ours!”
I may be asked, “Are you not gathered
to the Name of Christ?” Answer: “Not always,
not distinctively.” I am not “gathered”
whilst writing these lines. Always a sheep of Christ’s one
flock; sometimes gathered with others for
worship and fellowship, and then
always, thank God, in the Name! Let me beg the reader to consider
well Matt. 18: 20 with its context, without reading into it what is not there.
Let us now suppose a score of earnest Christians (Presbyterians and Episcopalians,
Baptists and Methodists, Friends, and
those who refuse all separating titles)
who feel that the “Education Bill” tends to rob them of the liberty
they have so long enjoyed, and is the thin wedge which opens the
passage to the woman on the scarlet beast. These men, we may
suppose, are not at liberty to join in passive resistance, or to interfere with
the government of the world, but they feel that if ever their prayers “for all men” were called for it is
now. They are “gathered together” and “agree” in supplicating the throne of the heavenly
grace. In whose name are they gathered? There is but one answer,
as there is but one Name available
before that throne. It is that Name that
Elijah invoked for an undivided
The present use of this distinguishing title of a section of
the church is comparatively recent. Is the “gathering”
also recent? In modern times Christians were not accustomed to meet in the way
referred to before the second quarter of last century. Was there no gathering
in Christ’s Name between the early centuries of our era, and, say, 1826? Surely
no Christian could be found who would affirm it. The church early
lost her hope -
the return of her heavenly Bridegroom
- and with it her separation from the
world. She soon proved unfaithful to
her crucified Lord, and was ruined
as to her testimony and in her responsibility. Did the Lord leave
Himself all these hundreds of years without even “two or three” gathered in His Name? Saints were gathered in the dark ages,
but in whose Name? Some of them “wandered about in sheep’s skins and goat-skins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” Did these, when driven into dens and
caves, ever pray together? And in what Name? If in the name of Jupiter, or
Astarte, or Mary, they might have gone out free. But confessors and
martyrs for the Name which excludes all others,
theirs was the fellowship of His
sufferings. Rejoicing to share His
rejection, their prayers, offered stealthily, and often interrupted
by fire and sword, rose as sweet incense in the Name, and presented by the priestly hand, of Him who was dead and is alive again.
Priceless privilege this gathering in My Name! Much too
precious to be accorded exclusively to any of the fragments into which a testimony
has been broken, which was truly the work of Him who is “wonderful in
counsel and excellent in working.” To us belong shame and confusion of face for the way in which
we have cared for His work. Tell me, does gathering in Christ’s Name belong to those
of so-called “open” or “close” fellowship? Do not
the leaders of each party claim it for themselves and refuse it to others? Must it be yielded to
any one of the numerous
bodies into which, alas! the once lovely witness raised of God to the glory of Christ
and the privileges of the church which
is His body has been divided? If
the theory underlying this denominational title be true, only one of those bodies can have the right to
adopt it. And which? A reductio ad absurdum truly!
My brethren and whosoever among you feareth God, let us seek
grace to cast our vain pretensions at the foot of the cross, and to take our
place in humble confession before God. Our pride has grieved and stumbled many
dear to God. It has turned aside many of them and of their children who might
otherwise have been walking now amongst us in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. It
is written in eternal truth, “God
resisteth the proud” woe to the man or the company whom God resists!
If half the energy which has been wasted on hatching and
maintaining high ecclesiastical claims had been devoted to the Lord in making
straight paths for our feet, in walking humbly, faithfully, and fruitfully with
God, in seeking earnestly the blessing of the
whole household of faith, and in winning souls for Christ, what a
harvest of blessing we should have been reaping today !
It is to be feared that many have entered upon a path, which
is really one of faith, without the brokenness of spirit which is essential to such a path. What should we say of a
drunkard or a dishonest man who said he was convinced of his folly and was
determined to turn over a new leaf - to lead a new life? Should we not be
saddened by his self-righteousness? No repentance toward God! No need for the
atoning blood or the life-giving [Holy] Spirit! What shall we say then of a Christian who is
convinced that his path has not been according to the Word of God, and
therefore not pleasing to Him, who in like manner turned over a new leaf, and
is determined to walk according to what
he finds in Scripture? No bitter
herbs! No confession! Is not
this the very essence of self-righteousness? The first step is one of pride.
And the subsequent course ...? Does not this account for much of the pride and self-satisfaction seen
among us? “Those
that walk in pride He is able to abase.”
* *
* * *
* *
[PART TWO]
SELECTED EXPOSITIONS
By G. H. LANG
-------
1
THE DANGER OF THE SUBJECTIVE TEST
By G.
H. LANG
[PART ONE]
Objectivism is “the tendency to lay
stress upon what is objective or external to the mind.” Subjectivism is
“the quality or condition of resting upon subjective
facts or mental representation.” (Shorter
Meeting a stranger one may immediately form an impression of
him, favourable or unfavourable. Every fair-minded person allows that this
subjective opinion requires to be checked by external facts afterward to be
learned: for experience shows two things, either that such an impression may be
well-founded and valuable, or it may be wrong and misleading.
It is the same in matters spiritual and doctrinal. The
spiritual man has a power of spiritual discernment in spiritual things (1 Cor.
2:
10-16).
On first hearing or reading some line of teaching he may form instinctively a
judgment that it is of God or that it is false. But experience teaches that
this needs to be confirmed, amended, or rejected by careful objective study of
the Word of God; for, as a bishop said to his clergy: “none
of you is infallible, not even the youngest of you.”
The danger of being misled by subjective views or feelings is
constant and severe. The Christian can propose for himself some purely
subjective test of truth which may be without basis in fact and prove
disastrous.
1.
ERASMUS. This greatest scholar of the sixteenth century earnestly wished to
see the Roman Church reformed in many particulars, but he clung tenaciously to
certain of its doctrines and ceremonies. His account of why he retained the
Mass, and transformation of the bread and wine into the veritable body and
blood of Christ, is an instructive example of the danger in view. He wrote :
I never dreamed of abolishing Mass. Concerning the
Eucharist, I see no end to discussion; yet I cannot be and never shall be
persuaded that Christ, who is the Truth, who is Love, should have suffered His
beloved spouse, the Church, to cling so long to hateful error, as to worship
wheaten bread instead of Himself.
Here are two purely subjective tests of the truth of doctrine
or practice. First, that it can claim sufficient antiquity: note the words “so long”: second, that it cannot be supposed that
Christ will or will not do a certain thing.
The former test implies that in the Christian sphere age
guarantees truth: therefore the more hoary the error the more certainly it is
truth!
The conjoined test is that in one’s opinion Christ will not do
or allow this or that. Erasmus’ opinion as to the Lord was purely subjective,
being not only without basis in objective fact but directly contrary to fact.
The Lord by His inspired apostle gave plain warning against believing every
spirit because many false prophets are in the world, and He laid down a two-fold
test to be applied; first, the fact as to the true humanity of Himself, Jesus
Christ, and second, the attitude of a person to apostolic testimony (1 John 4:
1-6).
It is simple and sorry fact that can be daily verified that many of Christ’s
redeemed, whom He loves, are inveigled into false cults because they fail to
apply these tests, but are swayed by some subjective feeling, such as that this
man at the door, or his book, impresses me as sincere and trustworthy.
The objective fact as to Christ is that, though He is indeed
truth and love, He does not prevent us being misled if we shut our eyes and
follow any and every guide, even as He does not prevent the blind walking into
a ditch if he follows a blind leader.
2.
LUTHER. Luther’s
attitude to the authority of Holy Scripture was uncompromising. He
accepted it as the supreme court of appeal in all matters of
faith ... He finds truth in the Bible and in the Bible alone. The Word of God
is the supreme reason which dominates all reasons, the proof which supersedes
all proofs. The attestation of the Word is the Holy Ghost, Who bears witness to
its truth and authority. The Bible in Luther’s view does not come from the
Church. History yields information on the growth of the Canon: it does no more.
In the last resort the Bible attests its own inspiration. The Holy Ghost
testifies as to its Divine character and the absolute authority of the truth
contained in it. Five times in a single page he tells us, “The Holy Spirit has written,” and he believes “not a single letter has been written in vain.”
“The Holy Spirit is neither foolish nor drunk to utter a tittle, much less a
letter in vain.”
Here is a noble declaration of the verbal inspiration of Holy
Scripture. But there arises the question as to what is Holy Scripture? How
shall the canon be determined? Which of the sixty-six books in the Bible belong
properly to the Word of God written? Luther rightly insisted upon the
attestation of the Book by the Holy Spirit Who makes its statements a living
voice to the heart. But what is the safe criterion to distinguish between that
Divine attestation and ideas as to the Book which may form in the reader’s own
mind or be insinuated by a false spirit?
Luther’s criterion of the sacred record was, he thought,
plain. “The right test,” he laid down, “by which to judge its books is whether they preach Christ.
Whatever does not preach Christ is not apostolic, even though it had been
written by St. Peter or
The situation thus raised includes an important distinction.
The attestation to Scripture by the Spirit is indeed subjective, in that it
takes place in the mind of the hearer or reader; but it is also an experience, a fact, which the man can isolate from himself and contemplate as if
exterior to himself. Falling in love is a like case. It is interior,
subjective, and yet it can be regarded as something conscious, real, and can be
considered objectively. Thus the witness of the Spirit to the Bible is a known
fact, of which explanation can be sought and gained, and thus it is not purely
subjective.
But the test of the canon proposed by Luther is purely
subjective and has no facts in support. It is true that all the prophets
testified of Christ, and that to do so is the Spirit that animates true
prophets (Rev.
19:
10);
but it is equally not true, it is not
the fact that true prophets spake of nothing
but Christ. Nothing about Him
could be learned from Obadiah’s prophecy concerning the destruction of
The position may be reversed. If preaching Christ is the test
of the canon of Scripture, ought not
a vast mass of later literature be included, such as the sermons of C. H.
Spurgeon? Christ is their constant theme.
Luther’s test was purely subjective, a creation of his own
fertile mind, but supported by no objective statement of the Bible as to
itself, and contrary to fact. The danger of the proceeding is seen in the
results of the test reached by Luther himself. To the words quoted he added:
But this James only preaches the law and obedience
to the law, and mixes one with the other in a confusing fashion. Therefore I
will not admit him in my Bible among the number of true canonical writers.
Surely on the same ground he should have excluded Moses from his
Bible, for does not he teach law and obedience to the law? With so self-devised
and unreliable a test of what is or is not Scripture it is not surprising that
The modern way in which he [Luther] looked at the Bible,
especially the Old Testament, continually astonishes one. To him it matters
little if Moses himself did not write the five books that bear his name. It may
well be, he thought, that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Hosea contain additions, and
have reached their present forms from later writers. He has the insight to see
that the book of Job is not a history, but a poem or drama.
Such are the loose views that may follow a purely subjective
test. Objective fact, taken from the Bible, corrects such lax ideas. Our Lord
accepted Moses as the writer of the books that bear his name (John 5:
45-47; 7: 19-23).
God Himself twice joined Job with Noah and Daniel as equally historical (Ezek.
14:
14,
20),
and James treats him in the same way (5: 11). That there are later additions in the
prophets named is pure assumption, a mere subjective literary opinion.*
* The
quotations in sections one and two are from Dr. R. H. Murray’s compendious
study Erasmus and Luther pp. 298, 145-147, where the sources are given.
3.
THE BIBLE IS INSPIRED. There is discussed today a notion that Holy Scripture is not in itself the
Word of God but becomes this to any individual when the Holy Spirit applies it
to him personally. This again is a purely subjective idea contrary to the facts
which Scripture gives as to itself.
It is true that until the Spirit of truth speaks by Scripture
the reader or hearer may not appreciate or acknowledge that the Bible is from
God, but this proves only the deadness of the hearer but nothing as to what the
Bible is in itself. Peter says (2nd
Ep. 1:
20,
21)
that
no prophecy of scripture is of private
interpretation. For no prophecy ever came by the will of man, but men spake from God, being
moved by the Holy Spirit.
This means that no prophet released from his mind by his own
will the prophecy he launched on the world. No prophecy was ever thus
originated, but the prophet was lifted above himself by the Holy Spirit, as an
article is taken up by the wind and borne along without effort of its own.
This type of inspiration was well known in the heathen world
by their prophets being seized by an outside spirit and caused to utter an
oracle. It is known today in the spiritistic séance. An instance of the Divine afflatus [i.e., “inspiration, as of a
poet or orator.” (The New
Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language, p.15)] - thus using a prophet is found in 2 Chron. 20:14-17: “Then upon
Jahaziel ... came the Spirit of Jehovah in the
midst of the congregation; and he said
... thus saith Jehovah.” It is evident that what
the prophet then said was a word from God in itself, whether the people would
attend to it or not. God Himself plainly declared this to Ezekiel (2: 4, 5, 7):
“Thou shalt say unto them, thus saith the Lord Jehovah.
And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear (for they are a rebellious house), yet shall
know that there hath been a prophet among them ... And thou shalt speak My words unto them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear: for they are most rebellious.” Here the most resolute
rejection of the message is contemplated, yet the words spoken were the words
of God.
Similarly, Paul stated that the words in which he spoke the
divine message were taught by the Spirit of God not by human wisdom (1 Cor.
2:
13),
and Peter declared that it was “in [the power
of] the Holy Spirit” that he and others preached
the gospel (1
Pet. 1:
12).
He adds (ver.
23)
that “the word of God liveth and abideth”; that
is, it does not suddenly become living when the Spirit applies it to a person,
but it is in itself a living and incorruptible seed, containing inherent
vitality, which being divine can never wither.
Referring to the Old Testament Paul reminded Timothy that from
a babe he had known certain “sacred writings,”
and that because they are
inbreathed by God therefore they are
profitable (2
Tim. 3:
15,
16).
This is very other than the idea that they become a message from God when from
time to time the Spirit uses the words. They are in themselves inspired and
sacred. It is to be noted that this is said of the whole Old Testament, the “sacred writings” in question, so that the inherent
quality, the sacredness, the inspiration attached to history, law, poetry, as
well as to the more distinctly “prophetic”
utterances; all was indited by the Spirit, though not everything declares the
mind of God.
David being a prophet, and being given foresight (Acts 2:
30,
31),
described the prophetic utterances in the same terms: “The Spirit of Jehovah
spake by me, And His word was upon my tongue. The God of Israel said, The Rock
of Israel spake to me” (2 Sam. 23: 2, 3). So far were David’s prophetic utterances
from being self-originated, that in fact God first spoke to David and His
Spirit caused David to re-utter what was said. So far was it from being that
the Spirit put ideas into the prophet’s mind and left him to express them as
best he could, that in fact his very tongue was under Divine control. It is in
keeping with this that Peter points out that sometimes the prophets did not
comprehend their message but searched into its meaning. This could not have
been the case had they originated their utterances out of their own minds (1 Pet.
1:
10,
12).
It is thus an objective fact, plainly declared in Scripture as
to itself, that it is inherently and continually the words of God.
Holding firmly to this objective fact, it is important to
remember that it is the Spirit of truth Who alone makes this inspired scripture
to become a living, conquering, life-giving message to a hearer or reader. The
importance lies in this, that (1) It is therefore urgent that the human agent He is to employ should be
one walking in communion with Him, so as to be a
suitable servant to Him, speaking in
dependence upon His energy (1 Cor. 2: 4, 5).
(2) This human
messenger is thereby emboldened to declare the message with the confidence
that, being God’s word, it will prosper
in the thing whereto He sends it (Isa. 55: 8-11). “Your labour is
not vain [being] in the Lord” (1 Cor.
15:
58).
(3) By the voice of
the Spirit in the word the hearer comes
under obligation to believe and obey. This is not so by listening to a
fellow-man. My neighbour is not bound to believe miraculous events merely
because a fellow-mortal tells him, for example, that a man named Jesus rose
from the dead and departed bodily into the skies. But when he has heard the voice of the Spirit of God giving divine, inward demonstration of the facts and truths of the gospel, then he is under obligation to believe and
obey.
(4) It is this
conjoint divine inspiration of the Book and the preaching that will involve the rejector of the message in
a corresponding divine judgment. Therefore the Spirit-filled Prophet
solemnly said, what is equally true of every Spirit-given message, “He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My sayings, hath one that
judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day”
(John 12:
48).
In conclusion. A notice headed, “By
the Queen. A Proclamation” carries inherent royal authority whether the
reader be loyal or a rebel. Thus God’s message in Holy Scripture
is a Divine command, irrespective of how man treats
it. (Acts
17: 30,
31;
2 Pet.
2:
21;
3:
2).
4. HIGHER CRITICISM. The higher criticism denies the
foregoing objective feature of inherent, continuous inspiration and authority
of the Bible and assails it upon subjective grounds. Bishop Colenso was one of the first thus to act in the
English-speaking world in the last century. We shall let him state this feature
as to the great German critics of his time. On page 23. of the Preface to his The Pentateuch (1862) we read:
writers of the liberal school in Germany take so
completely for granted - either on mere critical grounds, or because they assume from the first the utter
impossibility of miracles or supernatural revelations - the unhistorical
character and non-Mosaic origin of the greater portion at least, if not the
whole, of the Pentateuch
...
They “take for granted ... they assume” - that is, their whole position is
merely subjective, a process of their own mind. One illustration will suffice.
It was asserted again and again that Moses could not have written the
Pentateuch because at the time that he was supposed to have done so, the early
period the books picture, writing had not been invented. There were no facts to
warrant this assertion, and, of course, archaeology has long since shown it to
be false. Yet it is still repeated. Quite lately (1955) the headmistress of a
large school so taught her pupils. Happily for them, if not for her, shortly an
archaeologist of standing lectured at the school and informed them that there
were five languages in which Moses might have written his books, and he
exhibited original specimens of those languages.
5. DEISM is the
philosophy that admits a Creator but suggests that, having created the
universe, He retired into the background and left it to the outworking of
irreversible and inescapable laws He had imposed.
Such an absentee God were no God at all, for God to be GOD must be omnipresent and sovereign,
not withdrawn and inactive. Therefore there being no such God as is imagined
deism is virtually atheism, being without a Deity.
This purely subjective imagination is contrary to the facts of
human and earthly experience that the Almighty definitely intervenes in affairs
public and private. For the deist necessarily prayer is futile, there being no
God ready to answer. They are in the sorry case of a small boy I knew who
wandered from home and fell on a heap of stones, which was painful. Asked if he
cried he answered, “No, there weren’t nobody to hear!”
Now as the Bible is full of reports of Divine interventions,
therefore for the deist the Bible is wholly unreliable. This is the real, if
unconfessed objective of the philosophy. God being absent and never
interfering, man has no need to reckon with Him or to fear a day of judgment,
or to expect any other reward or penalty than will come from the unavoidable
outworking of cosmic laws. This, of course, is the essence of Buddhistic and
other pantheistic and fatalistic conceptions of the universe. In contrast,
Scripture tells us that “all things are naked and laid
open before the eyes of Him with whom we
have to reckon” (Heb. 4: 13).
Were deism true the Creator it theoretically postulates would
be the responsible Author of all the vice and misery that grips and desolates
creation through the outworking of the all-controlling yet uncontrolled laws
under which He placed it and leaves it. This is the logical outcome of all
fatalistic reasoning, as much in
hyper-Calvinism as in heathen thought.
The apostle Peter forewarned of a time when men would thus
argue for an imaginary invariable working of natural law. Their object would be
to cancel all fear of the coming [Divine] Judgment of the world by a personal intervention of God, by the return to earth of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to execute judgment. Of this mighty
event the ancient prophets had spoken, Christ Himself had enlarged upon the
theme, and His apostles pressed it upon men as a demand for repentance. But these opposers, said Peter, would
present the challenge
Where is the promise of His coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation (2 Pet. 2: 3, 4).
This is pure deism. A creation of the world is admitted,
contrary to the opposite subjective notion that matter is eternal. But
admitting a creative beginning of things it is urged that nature has worked
uniformly and without interruption: therefore, no cataclysmic interruption is
to be expected. The very idea is “unphilosophical.”
Thus have modern deists argued. Supernatural happenings, miraculous
interventions cannot be, for they would be contrary to the uniform laws that
control all creation: therefore the Book that alleges that miracles have
occurred must be mere fiction, mere legend.
The Scripture, in the words of Peter, meets this with an
overwhelming refutation, founded on fact, and which includes a charge of moral
turpitude against the deists.
For this they wilfully forget, that there
were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted
out of water and amidst water, by the word of
God; by which means the world that then was,
being overflowed with water, perished (2 Pet. 3: 5, 6).
Men of old knew perfectly well, what the learned today know
equally well, that there was a Flood that desolated the earth. Traditions of
many widely scattered races combine to assert it, and modern excavations in
On what grounds? Let Colenso
tell us how he came to accept the assertion that no such universal Deluge had
ever occurred. He wrote (Pentateuch viii):
I refer especially to the circumstance, well known to all
geologists (see Lyell’s Elementary Geology, p. 197, 198), that
volcanic hills exist of immense extent in Auvergne and Languedoc, which must
have been formed ages before the Noachian Deluge, and which are covered with
light and loose substances, pumice-stone, etc., that must have been swept away
by a Flood, but do not exhibit the slightest sign of having ever been
disturbed.
So Sir Charles Lyell had climbed some hills in
I read of this some sixty years ago,
when a young man, in a book by Andrew Lang, and thought it amazing conceit. As
an old man I still think it so, and equally amazing that other men will give
decisive weight to a merely subjective opinion upon such a matter as to rocks
and pumice-stone. It is saner and safer to believe Moses rather than Lyell, not
the least because the Son of God accepted Moses’ account as true history and as an earnest of judgment to come at His
return to earth (Luke 17: 26, 27; Matt. 24: 37-39).
6. EVOLUTION. Lyell was a chief early supporter of
His theory of natural selection to account for changes in
natural life was never anything but a theory. It was not based on fact, but was
merely a theory proposed as a supposed explanation of facts. That it remains
unproved, and is considered by leading scientists as beyond proof, is well
known, though the rank and file, ready enough to embrace an opinion contrary to
the Bible, are slow to follow their leaders in abandoning their favourite
theory.
Thus the whole destructive infidel propaganda of evolution has
been the outcome of a purely subjective conception unrelated to objective
realities.
7. UNIVERSALISM and ANNIHILATION. That numerous passages of Scripture
have, as their first and clear meaning, the doctrine of the eternal conscious
punishment of the impenitent rejector of Christ is generally admitted, if by
some reluctantly. In the endeavour to prove, however, that such is not the real
meaning of these passages attempt is made to show that yet other passages
foretell either the restoration to God of all fallen beings, angelic, demonic,
and human, or that the finally rebellious will be put out of existence.
These two conceptions are mutually contradictory, but the
advocates of both rely alike on one principal argument, even that the character
of God makes it impossible that any of His Creatures should remain for ever
estranged from Him and be in torment. To
reach this conception the love,
mercy, grace, and tenderness of God are heavily
emphasized, while His holiness, justice, and wrath are
minimized. Scripture ever presents [all] these various characteristics as
a combination forming the perfect nature of God. Man is called upon to behold both His
goodness and His severity (Rom. 11: 22). To isolate or exaggerate either aspect is
to create a merely mental, subjective Deity who really has no existence. To
subject one’s beliefs or opinions, even if unconsciously, to such an
ill-conceived deity is virtually to worship a false god, who exists only as a
subjective idea in one’s own mind.
8. ANGLO-ISRAELISM is the theory that the ten northern
tribes of
The theory insists on a distinction that in Scripture the name
That the ten tribes were “lost” is not shown in Scripture. Late in Paul’s history, and nearly seven
centuries after their captivity, he refers to the twelve tribes as still an
entity (Acts
26: 7),
as does James (1:
1);
and Peter speaks of the Dispersion (a term which applied to all the race), and
gives their location as Asia Minor (1 Pet. 1: 1).
The supposed migrations far eastward have only a precarious
historical basis, depending largely on unphilosophical manipulations of proper
names. After only four centuries of being “lost” the ten tribes are supposed to emerge from total obscurity as Saxons. The
characteristic dark Jewish complexion has vanished and the people have become
fair-skinned, golden-haired, and blue-eyed. They have not the least
recollection of their distinguished ancestry, nor signs of the Hebrew language,
customs, or exalted religious monotheism. They are degraded barbarians,
polytheistic and savage. Such a metamorphosis is without parallel and is mere
supposition.
The theory includes such purely imaginary “history” as that Jeremiah saved the sacred
vessels of the temple from Nebuchadnezzar and hid them in a cave cast of
Jordan; also that he transported from Palestine to Ireland the heavy stone
which, about a thousand years before, as is alleged, had been Jacob’s pillow,
and which later got to Scotland and England, over which the sovereigns of
Britain are crowned in Westminster Abbey. Moreover, on this un-chronicled
journey Jeremiah took to Ireland the daughters of Zedekiah, the last king of
Judah, one of whom married an Irish prince, from whom the house of Hanover are
descended and reign over Britain.
Critically considered the alleged historical basis of this
theory is without authentic support, as also in philology and Scripture. It is
faced with historical difficulties not to be surmounted. It is without
objective warrant, opposed by insuperable objective obstacles ; it is purely
subjective, the invention of men, albeit godly men. Yet it is held tenaciously
by a vast number of Christians, who honestly believe it. They are strong
upholders of evangelical truths, such as the Deity of Christ, His atoning blood
as the only means of salvation, and the certain triumph of His kingdom. With
some of them in different lands I have enjoyed hearty fellowship in gospel
service. Yet they are persuaded of such a fallacy as that the British and
American peoples are in covenant relation with God and enjoying the spiritual
blessings promised to the sons of
How this power of the subjective to override the objective is
to be explained we shall consider later.
9. PROPHETIC
INTERPRETATION. (a) For a century and a quarter the
minds of innumerable Christians have been dominated by a scheme of
interpretation which includes among other items two chief ideas; first, that
John the Baptist and Jesus early offered to the Jews that, if they would then
and there accept Jesus as the Messiah, He would then and there establish the
kingdom of glory promised in the prophets; and second, that as regards the
departure of Christ to heaven and His return thence to earth, this latter event
was to be expected during that first generation of believers and therefore it
might ever since have taken place “at any moment.”
The facts of Scripture stand in invincible opposition to these
two ideas.
(1) On the road to
Emmaus the Lord explained from Moses and all the prophets that it behoved the
Messiah to suffer and afterward to enter into His glory (Luke 24: 26, 27). Peter later enforced this
as being the message of the Spirit of Christ through the prophets (1 Pet.
1:
10,
11).
Atoning suffering must precede reigning in glory.
In harmony with this united voice of Scripture John the
Baptist pointed to Jesus as being the Lamb of God Who should take away the sin
of the world, and Who therefore must be sacrificed in death as the atoning
lamb. And in the very earliest example of our Lord’s teaching that has been
preserved to us we hear Him tell Nicodemus that the Son of man “must be lifted up” in order to provide eternal life
for sinners (John
1: 29, 36; 3: 14, 15).
It is therefore certain that neither John nor Jesus
entertained or spread the notion that He might reign without having first died.
It would have involved a cancelling of the united voice of the Scripture which
He had come to fulfil.
(2) It was a fact
known to all the apostles that the Lord had expressly told Peter that he must
live till he was old and would then die by violence (John 21: 18, 19, 23). When the fulfilment was at
hand Peter showed that he had lived in anticipation of dying, and therefore not
in anticipation of the soon return of the Lord (2 Pet. 1: 13, 14).
The same applied to Paul. At a certain point in his career the
Lord specially appeared to encourage him, and told him that he “must bear witness also at
This second point was examined at length in Preliminary
Dissertation 2 of my commentary on the Revelation, now out of print. A reprint of this
discussion may be obtained from me, price sixpence by post.
These two notions were suggested by a great scholar and
elaborated by another great scholar, both true lovers of the Lord and His
truth. Yet when tested by the facts shown in Scripture they are seen to be
purely subjective products of their minds.
(b) Speaking of
“attaining unto the out-resurrection from the dead,” and of “pressing on toward the goal unto the prize,” Paul
said: “Not that I have already obtained or am already
made perfect” (Phil. 3: 10-14). Clearly this implies that
Paul was not taking for granted that he was certain to share in that
out-resurrection,
the first resurrection of Rev. 20: 4-6.
To this thought many raise the purely subjective objection, “Then if Paul was not certain to attain, what hope is there
for me?” That Paul meant what he said is thus challenged on a subjective
ground. Suppose that Caleb had said: “Since Aaron has
failed, and died in the desert, how can I hope to reach the goodly land?”
or that Joshua had argued: “Since Moses may not cross
(c) The same result
is reached by testing similarly the common Protestant theory that the Papacy is
the fulfilment of Scripture regarding Antichrist, the Beast of Revelation. The facts stated about this coming monarch will
not allow the theory, however learnedly and plausibly it be argued. But space
will not permit this to be now demonstrated.
10. FALSE CULTS. The same disastrous principle can be seen in modern religious
movements.
Christian Science regards everything as illusion. Matter
does not exist. As a boy I was walking backward along the road where I lived
and I turned round at the exact moment to bump into a lamp-post. It remains a
vivid memory, but, according to Christian Science, it was all illusion. I was
not a reality, nor was the street lamp. I did not bump my head, for there was
no head to be bumped. This is neither Christian nor science. Being utterly
contrary to Scripture and to objective fact it is purely a subjective delusion.
Its effect is to destroy moral responsibility and fear of judgment of God to
come, for that judgment will be concerned with deeds we have done by the
instrumentality of the body (2 Cor. 5: 10), which forecast must be false if the body
be not a reality.
Russellism (Jehovah’s Witnesses) asserts that before He became man Jesus was of only
angelic nature and rank, though because of His fidelity on earth He has been
elevated to “divinity.” For the first statement
there is no trace of evidence: it is flatly contrary to the facts presented in
Scripture, and is purely a subjective idea of Russell’s mind, as it was of
ancient Gnostics.
Unitarian views of our Lord are of the same character. It is fact
that He stated of Himself that He had been in glory with the Father before the
creation of the universe (the cosmos) (John 17: 5). Therefore He existed before ought was
created, is Himself uncreated, and was eternally with the Father sharing the
uncreated glory. Colossians 1: 17 declares that “He
is before all things” and that “all things were
created through Him.” Consequently all views to the contrary are
subjective, with no basis of fact, indeed contrary to fact.
The Millennial Kingdom. The rejection of the hope of a millennial kingdom on earth, under the personal rule of our Lord Jesus Christ, affords further
examples of the danger of subjective tests. We hope to deal with this in a later
issue.
This discussion raises a vast and deep question. How has it
come about that the subjective element in thought has obtained such
preponderant and universal influence throughout all human history, and that by
it millions of men and women are swept along on the current of error? The Bible
gives light on this as on all needful matters. God tells us of the Anointed
Cherub that covered the spot where the glory of God is displayed in heaven,
even as later the earthly copy, the cherubim in the tabernacle, spread their
wings over the ray of Divine glory above the mercy seat. It is narrated that he
was perfect in his ways from the day that he was created until a time when
unrighteousness was found in him. Thus sin at its beginning was inward, subjective. It is added
that his heart was lifted up, that is, the inward, subjective element
of his being took a wrong direction, there was self-exaltation (Ezek.
28:
1-17).
In Isa. 14: 12-14 this inward movement of the
Day Star, the Son of the Morning, is analyzed and exposed. He said in his
heart, that is to himself subjectively, “I will ascend
... I will exalt my throne ... I will be like the Most High.” This subjective working
of his own heart Satan proceeded to make objective, to carry it out into act
and fact. It was thus subjective sin out of which flowed all the evil in heaven
and earth.
To have weighed certain objective facts might have preserved
the great Cherub from his fatal folly. He should have pondered the fact that
the Almighty is omniscient and aware of the working of each heart before any
action is taken. He should have reflected that God is omnipotent and could most
certainly overthrow rebellion, and could neither be taken by surprise nor
successfully resisted. He should have remembered the benevolence of his Creator
that had so richly endowed him with position and splendour. The objective might
have regulated the subjective.
This dreadful history was repeated on earth. For when Adam and
Eve were placed in the garden they too were for a time perfect in their ways
until Satan caused unrighteous thoughts and feelings to arise in the heart of
the woman. He inquired: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not
eat of any tree of the garden? (or ‘of every tree of the garden’).” He therefore knew that
God had spoken upon this matter, and that He had not said what his
question implied. Thus there was injected into Eve’s mind a false subjective
idea.
She too could have been preserved had she at once tested this
idea by strict attention to objective fact, the fact of what God had actually
said. This she failed to do, but, on the contrary, she falsified what God had
said in all three of the ways by which a statement can be perverted. She added something which God is not recorded to
have said: “neither shall ye touch” the tree,
thus making the restriction more severe and extensive. She omitted something God had said, even that they might eat
of every tree save one, and eat freely,
thus minimizing the bounty of God and their own liberty. She changed and weakened what God had said, turning
“ye shall surely die” into “lest ye die.” All this subjective unrighteousness
arose in Eve’s heart, and was not checked and balanced by objective facts.
Satan at once proceeded to deny the downward effect of eating of the tree in
question, and assured her that by eating of it she should ascend and become like God. Thus did he start
her heart on the same iniquitous and ruinous course he himself had followed.
And from that day onward it is out of the heart of man, the subjective realm of
his being, that all evils have flowed (Matt. 15: 18-20; 12: 34, 35).
Has, then, the subjective faculty no value? is it only
dangerous? By no means. Imagination is a valuable power. It enables us to
visualise, to make mental images (as the very word implies, imagination). Thus ideas cease to be
indistinct become vivid, attractive, impelling. Similarly meditation is a priceless faculty, indispensable
to advance in knowledge and to soul culture. Finite man is not able to see
immediately into the profound inner meaning of Scripture or to pierce at a
glance to the heart of an event or a person. He must take note of the facts of
a document or an affair and ponder them. But the vital point is that his mind
must work on objective facts, on realities, otherwise imagination and
meditation are only baseless supposition, mere speculation, and necessarily
illusive and delusive.
The histories of Satan and of man here briefly noticed are the
solid warrant for the solemn statement of Scripture that “the god of this age hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving,
that the light of the
good news of the glory of Christ, who is the
image of God, should not dawn upon them”
(2 Cor.
4:
4 [R.V.]).
By his subtlety Satan blinded Eve’s mind as to the true
character and purposes of God, inducing in her heart complete and fatal
misconception as to God and His world of affairs, and blocking all advance in
knowledge of Him and His plans. To dispel this darkness God, in grace, began at
once to talk about a Person who should appear on earth and crush Satan (Gen.
3:
15).
As time passed this light as to the glory of Christ intensified by the messages
of God through His prophets, until, in the fulness of the season for its full
display, the Light Himself appeared to enlighten men, that through Him they
might get to know the Father, of Whom Christ is the image, the visible
representation. To receive this light is to become illuminated in heart as to
God and His will, and thus to be delivered from the authority of darkness and
translated into the kingdom of the Son Whom supremely the Father loves (Col.
1:
12,
13).
Eve passed under Satan’s power by believing his lies as to God; we can escape
from him only by believing the truth that God states concerning His Son. To
prevent such belief is Satan’s necessary endeavour so as to retain us in his
power.
This light can be enjoyed by those individuals only who believe
what God has said about His Son. Adam
and Eve could have no hope for the future except by seizing upon what God said
as to the coming Conqueror of the serpent. Abram must have remained an
idolater, dark in mind and evil in life, had he not accepted the revelation and
direction which the God of glory granted to him. It has been thus ever since,
and it must needs be so.
Thus the psychological process of salvation is that the
subjective power of our nature must turn from itself and take hold of
objective, exterior factors presented to it. It must believe what God says, the
imagination giving defined inward form to the conceptions presented by His
statements, and subsequent meditation amplifying understanding of the matter.
This applies of necessity throughout our after course as
believers. To be delivered from the danger of the subjective the mind must be
fastened upon God’s statements and must believe them. Those who listened to the spoken words of the prophets could
gain the benefit of God’s promises only by such a belief of them as bowed the
heart in confidence and obedience. Those saving messages God caused to
be made permanent in the written record of them in Holy Scripture. It is for us
to believe this written message, nor can its power and benefit be obtained
otherwise.
God has said of Himself that “He is nigh unto all them that
call upon Him” and that He “worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will” (Psa.
145:
18;
Eph.
1:
11).
Let the deist, who talks of an absentee God Who does not interfere in the
created world, look these statements straight in the face and bow his heart to
believe them. Then he will escape from darkness into God’s marvellous light.
Jesus said of Himself: “I came out from the Father, and am come into the world: again,
I leave the world, and
go unto the Father” (John 16: 28). He thus asserted His pre-incarnate relation to the Father,
the reality of His humanity, and the resumption of His presence with the
Father. Let the Unitarian of any type grasp the meaning of this statement of
facts, and humble his mind to believe.
I knew a dogged Unitarian in the days of his resolute
antagonism to the truth of Christ’s deity. Later he told me that he had faced
the Lord’s words “I am the living bread which came down
out of heaven” (John 6: 51). He reasoned thus: “I always allowed that Jesus was a good man; but if He was a
good man I ought to believe what He says, for good men do not tell lies. So as
He says that He came down out of heaven I ought to believe Him.” He did
believe: as he put it, “I ate of that bread.”
He thus gained a new life energy, the eternal life promised by Christ; and his
formerly oppressed wife testified that he was a tiger changed into a lamb.
God says that “
It is the minds of “the unbelieving”
that Satan can blind, and then keep
them occupied and satisfied with their own subjective notions. They are like
men who have been blinded and taken to a strange land. It were vain for them to
exercise their imagination as to the features of the unknown region. How could
Zedekiah of Judah form right ideas of
God draws near to man in his blindness
and would lift his mind away from itself. He says to him, “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isa.
55:
8).
The situation was summed up in two statements by a Jew with an exceptionally
powerful mind. The earlier part of his life Paul described thus: “I verily thought with myself” (Acts 26: 9). His own subjective views
governed him. Of his converted life he said: “Not that
we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves ...
casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of
God, and bringing every thought into captivity
to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 3: 5; 10: 5, 6). That
is, the subjective powers of the mind must be cast down from the supremacy by
which they are a barrier to gaining knowledge of God and must be brought into
subjection to a Person objective to themselves.
The issue faces us perpetually. George Fox taught each man to
look within himself, to seek Christ there, asserting that the
divine light is in every man by natural condition. This is the recognized
Quaker doctrine. It is subjectivism. But the Bible says: “ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord” (Eph. 5: 8). Christ said: “the
light is come into the world”
(John 3:
19),
not that it has ever been in the world in the heart of every man. The Lord’s
commission to Paul was that he should turn men “from
darkness to light” (Acts 26: 18), by taking to them the knowledge of
Himself. This is objectivism.
Humanism is the
deifying of the subjective: it elevates man’s reason to the place of
sufficiency and supremacy. Revelation is the denial of that self-sufficiency,
the assertion that man must rely upon objective facts external to himself,
facts connected with God and His Son.
The subjective must be co-ordinate with the objective. Then is
the believer truly free and safe.
* *
*
THE DANGER OF THE SUBJECTIVE TEST
THE NON-MILLENARIAN DOCTRINE
1. THE THOUSAND YEARS
[PART TWO]
The
danger of subjective ideas misleading the mind is forcibly
illustrated in the doctrine that blots the millennial kingdom out of God’s
programme and conceives that the gospel age will continue until there arrives a single general wind-up of earth’s
affairs going over into eternity, a fulfilment of 2 Pet. 3: 8-13. This scripture will
certainly be fulfilled, but the cancellation of the Millennium is plainly only
a subjective idea, for not even one clear statement of Scripture affirms it,
whereas the plain testimony of the Word of God is forced to yield to it.
The personal, visible coming of Christ in power and great glory,
and the establishment by Him of a kingdom of righteousness and peace on earth,
is the unequivocal meaning of both Old and New Testaments. Every passage which
bears on the subject is to this effect, as is shown in detail in my essay Israel’s National Future.
In Rev. 20: 1-7 the Spirit of God six times mentions distinctly a period
given as a “thousand
years.” Whether the
number is to be taken literally or as meaning a vast period of time, in either case
it is placed between a first and a second resurrection. In the former,
resurrected saints are said to “live” and to reign with Christ the thousand years. By pure “spiritualizing,” an eminently subjective process, “they lived” is declared to be the new birth, and
reigning with Christ is regarded as sharing directly after death in a supposed
present reign by Him at the right hand of God. This again involves several
subjective suppositions.
(1) That the first
resurrection equals the new birth. But it is set in this scripture at the close
of the rule of and at the destruction of a then future Antichrist, the Beast,
whereas John and thousands more had long before already experienced the new
birth, as millions have done since, though nothing has been yet seen of the
Antichrist, the binding of Satan, and the absence of external temptation to
sin. Non-millenarians would make our Lord’s victory over Satan by His cross and
resurrection to be this binding of Satan. They confuse the personal victory of
Christ and the full carrying out of its results in heaven and earth. According
to Rev. 12: 7ff., fifty years after the Lord’s ascension Satan was still
active in heaven: he had not yet been even restricted to the earth, let alone
imprisoned in the abyss. It has been pithily remarked that if in this age Satan
has been bound, it must be with a very long chain!
(2) The common
supposition is accepted that believers go at death to heaven. This is not taught in Scripture. They go where
their Leader went at death, to Hades, and will leave it, and ascend to heaven, only
as He did, by bodily resurrection.
(3) It is further
assumed that Christ commenced His reign at His ascension. But this is true to
only a degree strictly defined in Scripture. All things have been put in subjection
to Him so that He may be “head over all things to the church, which is His
body” (Eph.
1:
19-23). It is the “exceeding greatness of His
power to usward who believe” that is in question in this passage; but as regards the actual
suppression of His foes and the entering in active sovereignty upon the
dominion universal that is His in title, this remains in abeyance, even as it
was said to Him by God long since, “Sit thou at My right hand, until
I make Thine enemies Thy footstool” (Psa. 110: 1).” This is
confirmed in Heb.
10:
13,
which shows that many years after the ascension the Lord, at the right hand of
God was still and “henceforth expecting till His enemies be made the footstool of His feet.” That epistle reveals that in the
interval from the ascension to that expected hour Christ fills His office as
Priest, acting on behalf of His people still in a world where the devil
operates and of which he is prince, but from whose spiritual tyranny Christ in
resurrection frees His own people.
Clearly there may be an interval between the hour when a king
has the crown set on his head and the day when he may summon his forces and go
forth to reassert his authority in rebel territory. Rev. 4 and 5 shows Christ’s actual and public
investiture with executive authority as being still future when John saw the
visions, even as ch. 4: 1 gives the words of the angel to John, “I will shew
thee the things which must come to pass hereafter,” and this was, say, half a century
after the ascension of the Lord. Daniel 7 was an earlier vision of the same
investiture, and places it at the close of the fourth world empire with the
destruction of its final king (Antichrist). Not till then will the kingdom be
actually given to the Son of man and to the saints of the Most High (vv. 26, 27). Only then will He and they receive in fact what is already
theirs in title, even the actual sovereignty over heaven and earth, men and
angels.
2. A REVIEW OF
EARLY AND LATER CHRISTIAN TEACHING
1. During the first
two centuries after the apostles the dominant expectation of Christians was
that this Christian age will close with the rise and rule of a personal
Antichrist. He will be overthrown by Christ at His personal return to the
earth, Who will thereupon establish His visible kingdom and rule for one
thousand years. So Barnabas, Papias, Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolyttis, Cyprian, Victorinus, Lactantius, Justin Martyr
set this forth as the general belief of orthodox Christians. (Dialogue with Trypho: about A.D. 150).
2. In the latter part of the second
century there set in at
this is the resurrection the first. This
must not be construed in a spiritual sense and taken to mean a death to sin and
a new birth unto righteousness. The earliest expounders of the Apocalypse, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Victorinus, quite rightly take the words in a literal sense of an
actual reign of Christ with the glorified martyrs on earth. The spiritualizing
method which emanated from
Clement of Alexandria, the principal teacher there, was
saturated with pagan philosophical thought and modes of reasoning.
3. This process greatly prepared for
that abandonment of the hope of the personal return of Christ, and the events
to flow from it, which became the general outlook when Christianity was made
the State religion. Augustine
greatly furthered this changed outlook. The Papacy presents the notion that the
church has the task in this age to subdue all mankind to itself and so
establish on earth the authority of God. Even where this political aspect is
not held there is too commonly the idea that the gospel is to convert the race,
and that only thereupon will Christ intervene and wind up affairs by a general
Judgment.
4. Much essential basic truth was
recovered by the Reformers but not that
of the Biblical expectation of a personal Antichrist, the visible return of Christ,
and the millennial kingdom. Their horizon was filled by their near and
giant enemy the Roman Catholic Church, which was to them a corporate
Antichrist, the Papacy being both Antichrist, Beast, and Scarlet Woman.
5. Thus the common Protestant outlook
did not envisage that the end of this age will see a restoration of Israel as a
people to the chief earthly place in the kingdom of God on earth, or their
prior oppression by Antichrist in the “tribulation the great” during the latter half of Daniel’s
seventieth week of years, or the personal advent of Christ at that epoch, or
the establishment of a millennial kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital, and
the setting up of divine worship in a restored temple, with priesthood and
sacrifice. Though this whole programme is the subject of innumerable passages
of Scripture it is simply blotted out by the non-millenarian view that things
will go on as now until at some indefinitely remote time the great white throne
judgment will close earth’s history. This outlook has no room
whatever for two resurrections with the thousand years between, though this is declared categorically in Rev. 20.
6. In century seventeen Biblical
students in
It is natural and healthful that a reaction has come against
these mistaken assertions. It is to the good that such features as these of the
Notes of the Scofield Bible should be challenged. But it is regrettable that
many opponents have failed to see that these details are not essential to the
millennial hope as set forth in Scripture and can be dismissed without loss.
These critics have too often thrown over the broad purposes of God while
rejecting the accretions of men. For example: the rise and doings of Antichrist
do not depend on whether the church is to be removed before or after his reign.
The plain statement of Scripture that there are to be two resurrections, one
before the millennium and the other after, is not jeopardized by whether Old
Testament saints will share in the first or only in the second resurrection.
3. PRIMITIVE
CHRISTIAN BELIEF AS TO
THE MILLENNIUM AND ANTICHRIST
In 1849 Dr. Charles
Maltland issued The Apostles’ School of Prophetic Interpretation. In ch. 2 he quoted and reviewed all
but one of the known statements upon prophecy by Christian writers down to the
time of
Before dismissing the primitive writers, we should notice
accurately the amount of agreement prevailing among them in reference to, 1st,
the thousand years of
Those who have recorded their opinion for or against the
Millennium may be thus classed:-
FOR
St. Barnabas
Papias
Justin
Irenaeus
Tertullian
Hippolytus
Nepos
AGAINST
Origen
FOR
Cyprian
AGAINST
Dionysius
FOR
Victorinus
Lactantius
But on which side shall we range
The two writers who appear in opposition to the doctrine, are
not altogether unexceptional. The system by which Origen contrived to get rid of the millennium was soon branded with
the name Origenism, having been found to interfere with the belief in the
literal resurrection of the flesh. Nor can Dionysius
be justified in his method of dealing with the Apocalypse: for not daring to
revile it in his own name, he repeats with satisfaction the saying of “certain persons” that the book itself is devoid of
sense and reason: also, that its title is utterly false, since it is neither
written by St. John, nor does it, covered as it is with a thick and dense veil
of ignorance, deserve the title of a Revelation.
Regarding the latter half of the seventieth week (of Daniel),
the primitive writers were not entirely agreed.
It was applied by
Irenaeus to Antichrist, Tertullian
to Vespasian, Judas to Antichrist, Clement of Alexanderia to Vespasian, Hippolyttis to Antichrist,
Origen to Antichrist, Victorinus
to Antichrist. The majority,
therefore, make that half week identical with the three years and a half of
Antichrist. In their favour may be urged:-
First, The precise agreement of the time; the weeks being land
weeks, or weeks of years.
Secondly, The identity of the events assigned to each for
everything said of the half week is repeated in the prophecies relating to
Antichrist. These things are, the cessation of the daily sacrifice, the setting
up of the abomination, the desolation thereby occasioned, the consummation of
God’s mystery, and the pouring out of the vials upon the Desolator.
Thirdly, The events of the half week are continued till the
consummation: apparently the sounding of the seventh trumpet, when the mystery
of God shall be finished.
According to the primitive scheme, the sense of the whole
passage amounts to this:-
Seventy sevens of years are fixed in the history of the Jews
and of
Between the edict to rebuild
Afterwards the Romans under Vespasian will destroy both city
and temple; and until the end of God’s warfare with His people (or after the
end of the Roman war: so the Vulgate, “post finem belli,
statuta desolation”), it is
determined that the desolation of the city and of the temple shall continue.
But God will renew His covenant with many of His chosen people,
during a certain seven of years, the remaining week of the seventy; (probably
by means of Elias, who will come and restore all things). But throughout the
latter half of this week, that is, for three years and a half, the daily
sacrifice will be taken away; and on account of the abomination set up by
Antichrist, the temple will be made desolate: to remain so, till the
consummation of the mystery, and till the end of the plagues that will be
poured out upon Antichrist the Desolator.
Certain consequences plainly flow from these beliefs of
Christian teachers who directly followed the apostles.
First. The deferring of Daniel’s seventieth
week to the close of this Christian age; including that a personal Antichrist
will then arise; that he will be destroyed by the descent of Christ from
heaven; that the Lord will then reign visibly at Jerusalem for a thousand years
- these are still four most prominent features of the Futurist interpretation
of prophetic scripture.
Second. Therefore
the allegation that this scheme was first suggested by the Jesuit Ribera in century sixteen is utterly unfounded, and must
have been the result of ignorance or controversial malice. Ribera’s purpose, as
to these matters, was to counter the assertion of the Reformers that the Papacy
was the fulfilment of the prophecies concerning Antichrist. For this purpose he
revived the primitive belief that the Antichrist will be a person not a system,
and therefore could not be the Papacy. The common Protestant belief is
clearly contrary to primitive belief, and with it
falls the attempt of the “historical”
school to identify the events of the Christian era with the visions of the
Apocalypse.
Third. It is equally plain that in the
sub-apostolic period the majority of Christian teachers did not hold the
non-millenarian view which sweeps away the programme for the End days of this
age, including the millennial kingdom, the restoration of Israel as a nation to
the favour of God, and all that is
associated with these expectations.
We do not seek to show here that the dominant primitive
belief, as to the main matters in question, was drawn from the Word of God, but
only what in general that belief was. Post-apostolic views must be tested by
Scripture; but it may well be asked how those who directly followed the New
Testament days could have held almost unitedly the futurist outlook had it been
the case that the apostles had taught that Daniel’s seventieth week had
followed immediately after the sixty ninth without any break in the sequence,
and so was already past; or that Antichrist would be a long-protracted system
and not an individual; or that neither Israel nor the Gentile nations had any
national future, but would all be merged in the church of God; or that the [Holy] Spirit meant nothing distinct when He
moved John to speak distinctly concerning a reign of Christ for a thousand
years.
When Maitland wrote,
one of the very earliest post-apostolic documents had not been recovered, The Teaching of the Apostles (the Didache).
As to the date of this book Lightfoot
wrote: “The work is obviously of very early date, as
is shown by the internal evidence of language and subject-matter ... These indications point to the first or the beginning of the
second century as the date of the work in its present form” (The Apostolic Fathers, 215, 216). The closing section (16) shews the prophetic
expectations of a Christian writer of that date, so near to the days of the
last apostle, John. That he makes no attempt to commend his views suggests that
his readers would readily accept them as being generally held. His remarks are
worthy of much attention. The translation is Lightfoot’s. The italics are words
which he regarded as quotations from the New Testament.
Be watchful for your life; let your lamps not be
quenched and your loins not ungirded, but be ye ready; for ye know not the hour in which our Lord cometh. And ye shall gather yourselves together frequently, seeking
what is fitting for your souls; for the whole time of your faith shall not
profit you, if ye be not perfected at the last season. For in the last days the
false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be
turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate. For as lawlessness
increaseth, they shall
hate one another and shall persecute and betray. And then the world-deceiver shall appear as a son of God; and shall work signs and wonders, and the earth shall be delivered into his hands; and he shall
do unholy things, which have never been since the world began. Then all created
mankind shall come to the fire of testing, and many shall be offended and
perish; but they that
endure in their faith shall be
saved by the Curse Himself.* And then shall the
signs of the truth appear; first a sign
of a rift in the heaven, then a sign of a voice of a trumpet, and thirdly a
resurrection of the dead ;YET NOT OF ALL,
but as it was said: The Lord shall come and
all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming
upon the clouds of heaven.
* Another
rendering is, “shall
be saved under the curse itself” (Romestin).
There is here much of deep interest as showing how literally
the predictions in the Gospels were accepted so very near to the apostolic
days; but for our main purpose it suffices to note from the words in capitals
how definitely the writer expected more than one resurrection, thus harmonizing
with our Lord’s words: “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but they that are accounted worthy to attain to that age, and
the resurrection which is from among the dead, etc.” (Luke 20: 34, 35). Here are set against each other a present age and a following
age, the latter to be reached by a resurrection [out] from among the dead (tees ek nekron). The singular “age” forbids the notion of “that age” meaning eternity following directly
after this present age, for in Scripture, and by necessity, eternity is “the ages of
the ages,” equals “ages upon
ages,” not a single
age.
Paul used Christ’s words when he said, “if by any
means I may attain unto the resurrection which is [out] from among the dead”
(Phil.
3:
11, teen
exanastasin teen ek nekron).
These statements agree with Rev. 20 by placing a first resurrection before an age of time,
implying that there will be another and later resurrection after that interval
of an age. The force of such statements is inescapable: they preclude the
notion of only one resurrection to close this age and be immediately followed
by eternity, and the words of our Lord and Paul show that the conception of an
era between two resurrections was not first stated by John, though declared by
him with particular exactness.
There are not wanting modern English theologians of front rank who agree with the earliest
teachers. Thus Ellicott, on Phil. 3:
11, writes of
‘the resurrection from the dead;’
i.e., as the context suggests, the first resurrection (Rev.
20:
5), when at the Lord’s coming the dead in Him shall rise
first (1
Thes. 4: 16), and the quick
[alive] be caught up to meet Him in the clouds (1 Thess.
4:
17)
; cp. Luke 20: 35. The
first resurrection will include only true believers, and will apparently precede the second, that of non-believers
and disbelievers, in point of time ... Any reference here to a merely ethical resurrection (Cocceius) is wholly
out of the question.
Lightfoot on the same passage accepts the same
distinction between the resurrection from the dead and the general resurrection.
Alford’s comments on Rev.
20:
5 are as clear and strong as language
can command against the “spiritualizing”
treatment of this passage. They read:
It will have been long ago anticipated by the
readers of this Commentary, that I cannot consent to distort words from their
plain sense and chronological place in the prophecy, on account of any
considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the
millennium may bring with it. Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the
whole Church for 300 years, understood them in the plain literal sense; and it
is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who are among the first in
reverence of antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent instance of
consensus which primitive antiquity presents. As regards the text itself, no
legitimate treatment of it will extort what is known as the spiritual
interpretation now in fashion. If, in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain psuchai
ezesan [souls lived]
at the first, and the rest of the nekroi ezesan [dead lived] only at the end of a
specified period after the first, - if in such a passage the first resurrection
may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the
grave; - then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is
wiped out as a definite testimony to any thing. If the first resurrection is
spiritual, then so is the second, which I suppose none will be hardy enough to
maintain: but if the second is literal, then so is the first, which in common
with the whole primitive Church and many of the best modern expositors, I do
maintain, and receive as an article of faith and hope.
4.. THE EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS
Several chief objections to the doctrine of the Millennium are
examined with fairness and care in Erich
Sauer’s able book From Eternity to
Eternity, Part 3. It
is striking how many of these objections are subjective ideas not based on the
facts of Bible statements. A statement by God in the Bible is a double fact:
first, that God has made the statement, and second, that He has recorded it in
the Bible. But many of the objections in view are subjective, as for example -
That the expectation of a literal kingdom on earth is contrary to sound
Christian hope or, it is contrary to the spiritual calling of the church or,
that the name Israel is to be taken “spiritually;”
or, that the New Testament is silent as to a coming visible kingdom of God on
earth.
This last assertion is so wholly subjective as to be, not only
without factual basis, but to be actually contrary to fact; as witness our
Lord’s own statement that He will come in His glory, sit on the throne of His glory,
and all nations shall be gathered before Him to be judged (Matt. 25:
31ff.). He shall come whence? Obviously
from the heavens whither He had just said He was going. Come where? Clearly to
the place where He was then speaking,
For another passage which speaks of a return of Christ to the
earth see Rev. 19: 11-21, and note that the Word of God descends from heaven and that
the armies of the Beast are mobilized to resist Him. In ch. 14: 13, 14 this is distinctly stated to be on
the inhabited earth (R.V. mgn. 16) where they are destroyed. This is
followed in ch. 20. by reference to the
Sometimes it is urged that this doctrine of the Millennium is
recent, whereas the opposed doctrine goes back through the centuries to the
Reformation. In the last chapter it has been shown that in fact the expectation
of the millennial kingdom was the dominant hope of the early church. But were
it not so, the argument used is a repetition of that of Erasmus before cited, that the Mass is true because held for so
long. The only true question is whether the doctrine is Scriptural.
But the chief objection to the hope of a millennial kingdom on
earth is based on the opinion that the doctrine of the Epistle to the Hebrews
forbids the idea of a revived temple worship with priesthood and sacrifices of
animals, which being a central part of the picture of this literal kingdom,
involves that Hebrews forbids this last also. This is probably the only
really weighty objection. Without it the whole body of objections would be
negligible.
Let the facts be first
examined. Theology can easily forsake the true approach to any subject, the
collation first of relevant facts.
The following seventeen (at least) passages of the Old
Testament are involved:
(1) Psalm 65. (2) Psalm 66. (3) Psalm 67. (4) Psalm 68. (5) Psalm 96. (6) Isa. 19: 21. (7) Isa.
27:
13. (8)
Isa. 66: 18-24. (9) Jer. 33: 14-18. (10) Ezek. 37:
26-28. (11) Ezek. 40-48. (12)
Dan. 8: 11-14. (13) Mic.
4:
1-4. (14)
Hag. 2: 6-9. (15) Zech. 6:
12-15. (16) Zech. 14:
16-21. (17) Mal.
3:
1-4.
Psalm 65 pictures a time when “all flesh” seek God at
This vast, consentient, weighty, explicit forecast is the only
prospect that Scripture opens upon this subject. No hint is to be found of
anything other than this, which is the fact as
to Hebrews also. There is no reference in that epistle,
direct or indirect, to the question of a future temple and sacrifice, and
therefore no denial of the forecast. Any such supposed reference has to be supposed,
and is therefore subjective.
Yet the writer, so learned in Old Testament history and prophecy
and in its spiritual meaning, could not but have known the
mass of scripture statements mentioned above. If he was
undermining them, making them of no
effect, he must have known well what
he was about. But he gives no hint of such effect of his teaching,
though he is clear enough as to its effect upon the Mosaic institutions. If
his statements mean what non-millenarians say they mean, he must have
recognized (or if he did not, we must recognize) that he was proclaiming a direct, head-on conflict with all Scripture on this subject, involving the annulling of the whole Old
Testament as to the coming kingdom of Jehovah, of which the city, the
temple, and the worship at Jerusalem
was a central, vital feature.
But let the facts
of his statement be observed narrowly.
1. He affirms that a covenant has been
cancelled. What covenant? He
states most explicitly that it was the covenant made between God and
It is vital to remember that when a statute or a covenant is
declared cancelled that only is cancelled which is specified to be so. Any
earlier and unmentioned statute or covenant remains in force. Now God had made
with men prior covenants to that at Sinai, such as those with Noah and Abraham.
It is clear that the covenant with Noah, guaranteeing exemption from another
such flood, is unaffected by the cancellation of the covenant made at Sinai.
That covenant with Noah was God’s response to burnt offerings of clean beasts
and fowls!
It is thus also with the covenant with Abraham and his
descendants. This covenant remains
in force, and in divine law is the basis of all fellowship with God to-day and
for ever. This is shown clearly by Rom. 4: 16-25 and Gal. 3: 6-4, and that it applies to all men, Jew
and Gentile, who believe God. Now the basis of this covenant also was typical
sacrifice, as was pictured most impressively at the time it was made (Gen.
15.). This practice of sacrifice was
continued by Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, before the covenant was made at Sinai. Also there were priests and sacrifices in
But there are further facts to be noted as to the argument in Hebrews.
When God created the universe it was
created with a two-fold major division, heavens and earth (Gen. 1: 1). When God’s plans for the universe have come to completion
this division will still obtain, there will be new heavens and a new earth (2 Pet.
2:
13;
Rev.
21:
1). The heavenly things are the pattern
from which the earthly are copied (Heb. 8: 5), and even as these coexist now, so they can and will coexist
for ever in the new heavens and the new earth. There is therefore a heavenly
Israel of God and an earthly, a heavenly
Now Heb. 11: 9-16 tells us that part of
the promises made to Abraham was that he should attain to a place and glory in
that nobler world above; whereas
other promises were a guarantee that some of his descendants, as well as all the families of the earth, should receive their blessings on earth,
and his racial descendants in particular
in the land of promise, Canaan. Nothing in the non-millennial outlook
is more injurious than that it obliterates this great distinction between
heaven and earth, and between Abraham’s heavenly and earthly seeds, and merges
them all into one general condition for all the saved, which is miscalled “the church.”
It is evident that for those to whom belongs the heavenly sphere
and portion, when they at last reach that heavenly realm above the earthly and
physical things will have passed away; an earthly temple, priesthood, and
sacrifices cannot obtain in that heavenly realm. There will be the
realities of which things here were copies. Now it is precisely as having obtained a
share in that heavenly world that the Writer of Hebrews regards and addresses his readers,
even as “holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling” (3: 1). For such Sinai is cancelled, but
Abraham remains, and the very stress of the exhortation is that they should on
no account forfeit their prospects in the heavenly things by clinging to the
earthly. He does no more than glance at the earthly side of the covenant with
Abraham, and he gives not the slightest hint that the prospects of his earthly
seed, as given in the prophets, will never be fulfilled. This last is the
subjective notion which men insert into the Scriptures, without any basis in Hebrews and in defiance
of the mass of scriptures to the exact contrary.
2. But there is something still more
positive. The Writer of Hebrews plainly declares that
It is truly sad, indeed solemn, that godly men, including the
great Reformers, should so miss the line of God’s thought and purpose as to
assert that the very many scriptures which thus declare the intentions of God will
never find any sort of actual fulfilment, and should so mislead themselves by
purely subjective reasonings of their own minds.
When the Writer of Hebrews specifically quoted this prophecy of Jeremiah he
repeated from it the names “
These and all relevant scriptures are examined more fully in
my discussion named. The point here is that the literal fulfilment of them will
not, as is asserted, contradict Hebrews. The assertion is not based on any statement in that
Epistle and has no factual basis: it is only a subjective idea, an idea
certainly held by many with all sincerity but not securely based on any facts
presented in Scripture, but rather contrary to the facts. I earnestly invite my
honoured brethren who differ to ponder more deeply the fact that there is to be
a new earth, with saved nations dwelling on it (Rev, 21: 24, 26), with all that is
necessarily involved in this. It forbids the idea that finally all the saved
are to form one undifferentiated company, “the church.” The New Testament employs the term “church” for a smaller section of the redeemed
who are to be more closely related to the Sovereign than the bulk of His
subjects, even as his “body” or his “bride” are more intimately associated with a king than are the mass of his
people.
5. CHARACTER OF MILLENNIAL SACRIFICES
1. Further observing the facts of
Scripture it is to be noted carefully that not one of the many passages above
listed represents an individual as bringing a sin offering to seek individual
pardon for sin. This is in definite contrast to the purpose and facts of the
Mosaic sacrifices, which were distinctly and principally for securing pardon.
See, for example Lev. 4: 20, 31, 35; 5: 10, 13, 16, 18; 6: 7: etc. But the passages which deal with those future
sacrifices speak of worship, of men
presenting burnt offerings, thank offerings, and payments of vows. *
* The
one seeming exception is that the consecrated priest may become ceremonially
defiled by allowable contact with the corpse of a deceased intimate relative.
To annul this defilement he must bring a sin-offering (Ezek. 44: 25-27). But this was purely
ceremonial, not a seeking pardon or a moral offence; and it was that he might
resume his service to the worshippers.
In Psalm 66: 13-16, the speaker, promising to offer burnt offerings and to pay vows,
adds the sacrifice of “bullocks with goats;” but the fact that he uses the plural, “bullocks with goats,” shows that he is not speaking as a
culprit seeking pardon of specific sin, or one bullock or goat would be all the
sacrifice needed: he has in mind the requirement that a sin offering must
accompany other offerings to make them pure and acceptable. Thus in the context
also he speaks in the plural of paying vows and presenting burnt offerings as a
regular practice, all speaking of devotion and worship.
2. In Ezek. 43: 18-27 and 45: 13-25, the passages which prescribe the offerings in that
millennial temple, the facts are:
(a)
That it is the prince who offers the sacrifices on behalf of his whole people.
They are collective, not personal, and therefore not for atonement for specific
sins. In the matter of the passover, the festival named, this is in contrast to
the ancient practice, when each family or group offered its own lamb. This
collective aspect pervades ch. 46 also, culminating in its final sentence in the singular “the sacrifice
of the people,”
not their sacrifices as individuals.
(b) These sacrifices by the prince are for
the purpose of sanctifying the altar (ch. 43), and the house itself (45: 8-20), rather than the worshippers.
By this the worshippers will be taught that in our yet
imperfect state (which will characterize the millennial age as it marks us
now), there is sin in the believer, which in God’s holy sight defiles all that
is connected with him. It is that aspect of the atonement of Christ by which
places and things are cleansed, both the heavens and the earth (Heb. 9: 23). This also is not the same as an individual applying for
forgiveness for known transgression and a personal sacrifice securing this
pardon. It is not this latter aspect which is in view.
3. In other words the position as
presented in the prophets and psalms corresponds exactly to that shown in Hebrews as the
fulfilment of the new covenant promised in Jer. 33: let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually (Heb. 13: 15). The persons to be in
question in that future day are regarded as on the same footing as believers of
the present day; that is, as having been already justified and cleansed from
their guilty past, as having actually received a new heart and new spirit, with
the consequent new standing before God and a real inward knowledge of Him and
His holy will. Therefore that whole sacrificial system
foretold by God, as seen by Him and as presented in His prophetic word, is not
for the purpose of effecting redemption and leading to justification of the
guilty, but it proceeds on the basis that these have been effected and that the
offerers are worshippers, who, having been once cleansed, have
no further conscience of sins (Heb.
10:
2).
4. It results that those sacrifices
will serve a similar purpose to the Lord’s Supper to-day. This ordinance
likewise does not effect the forgiveness of sins (as some falsely teach), but it
offers visible and affecting reminder of that holy body and blood the sacrifice
of which on the cross provided the remission of which the worshipper takes
grateful advantage when he may have failed. In principle there can be no more
objection to such a reminder in that coming day than there is to the Supper
now. In this age believers are comparatively few, have no universal public
centre, and must often worship in secret. So simple a reminder as the Supper
suits these external conditions, but this will continue only “till He come.” When, on the contrary, an universal
kingdom is present in glory, then a public centre of worship, with more
elaborate features, will suit the grander conditions.
6.
There is yet another feature at which it may be helpful to
glance as it is not much noticed.
Gal. 3: 23- 4: 3 describes
Scripture shows that this spiritual state will prevail in the
days to precede the advent of Messiah. Zephaniah
3 predicts a time
when Jehovah shall be in the midst of
But at that time of darkness it will be said to
With the Gentiles it will be still worse morally; their
darkness will be “gross.” A hint of this is seen in the Lord’s parable of the sheep and
goats (Matt.
25:
37-39, 44).
Neither class will have thought of Christ when befriending His persecuted
brethren. Antichrist will all but succeed in blotting out the knowledge of the
true God. Christ has Himself raised the question of whether there will be [the] faith on the earth when He comes (Matt.
18:
8).
A further hint of the then ignorance of
Since such darkness will recur, and be deeper, and men be
again infants as to knowledge of God, it will be but a repetition of the former
grace and wisdom of God that pictorial instruction be repeated.
7. THE RIGHT METHOD OF STUDY
Another influential factor may be mentioned, which has indeed
wide application beyond the present theme.
Non-millenarian writers are greatly occupied with discussing
objections to and difficulties in certain dispensational views connected with
the expectation of the Millennial kingdom, and very much less with weighing the
positive testimony of Scripture to the coming of such a kingdom. This is a
subjective and psychological process which greatly disables the human mind from
feeling the weight and force of positive testimony to any subject.
The fair and just process of investigation is that followed in
the law courts. The whole of the evidence and arguments for the plaintiff are
heard first and alone; the counter evidence and arguments, the objections and
difficulties, of the other party not being admitted until the positive case for
the plaintiff has been fully investigated and weighed. Unless the mind be thus
kept resolutely free and open no fair estimate of the positive evidence and
arguments will ever be formed.
No truth is free from difficulties, for the finite mind cannot
grasp fully any spiritual subject. The doctrines of the Trinity, creation,
incarnation, and redemption all have problems we cannot explain. Yet the
Christian believes these truths because he is satisfied with the positive
testimony to them found in the Word of God. This he accepts, not rejecting it
because of difficulties that remain, and which he expects will be resolved in due season. In such matters we all accept
Let this be applied to the question of the - [coming Messiah’s promised (Psa. 2: 8)] - millennial kingdom and belief in it will be all but inevitable, for the testimony of the Word
of God is explicit and adequate. But if during the investigation of this evidence the mind be
busied with detecting or inventing difficulties, it will be almost impossible
to form a sound and balanced judgment or to find solution of the self-created
problems. In this case also the subjective queries will override the objective
facts as presented in Scripture.
8. ATTITUDE TO THE WORD OF GOD
Sundry other arguments in this matter are discussed in my
paper Israel’s National Future. The present discussion must close by
considering briefly the attitude involved to the Word of God.
In its lack of factual basis “spiritualizing”
resembles the line of reasoning of deism and higher criticism dealt with
earlier. The results of those philosophies are heartily repudiated by the godly
“spiritualizers” now in view; but they reason
on the same principle in allowing the subjective to override the objective. The
position is that the mighty array of Scripture testimony agrees with one voice
as to a future temple, priesthood, and sacrifices. It would be wise and
reverent for an objector to say that, as far as he sees, Hebrews does not allow
the expectation of a literal fulfilment of Old Testament Scripture, but he will
wait further light or the event in its season. But it is not reverent to set one’s subjective
opinion as to one scripture in direct conflict with what all the rest of
Scripture categorically asserts, and to build one’s whole scheme as to the
future of
Involved in this is the momentous question of one’s real
attitude to Holy Scripture as the revealed Word of God. It is not enough to
declare, however honestly, that the Word of God is wholly from Him and wholly
to be accepted, and yet cancel the plain sense of the greater part of its
statements as to the future. It is often urged that only one passage of
Scripture mentions the Millennium (Rev. 20). It has been pointed out above that earlier scriptures lead
to and involve the conception; but even if this were not so, does one who
presses this point really acknowledge that the Bible is from God? Is not one single
statement by Him ample to establish a matter? Is it not essential impiety to
demand that the God of truth must state a thing more than once or it cannot be deemed credible? This objection
also is wholly subjective and exhibits the profound peril of such reasoning.
There are many other matters mentioned only once in Scripture,
as for instance - What God wrought in each of the six days of the
reconstruction of the earth: the details of the crossing of the Red Sea and of
the Jordan and of the capture of Jericho: that the sun stood still at the word
of Joshua: the numerous miracles of Elijah and Elisha: the accounts of the
fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, Belshazzar’s feast, and the den of
lions. There are also those miracles and sayings of our Lord recorded in only
one Gospel, and that He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive;” also the voyage and shipwreck of
Paul. Are all these and other statements to be challenged because recorded only
once? Any who would do this do not really believe that the Bible is God’s book;
but it is involved implicitly in rejecting the period of one thousand years
because it is mentioned specifically in only one passage.
At the beginning of this century I was walking in
May the Lord graciously grant to us a fuller measure of the
new spirit, heart, and understanding which are our possession under the new
covenant; in order that, becoming more and more as a little child toward God our Father, we may penetrate ever
further into the kingdom of heaven, understand its mysteries, and further the
plans of our God. I beg this for myself
and my brethren.
* *
*
2
Studies in Prophecy (1)
The
Yet, for a long time, one prominent general feature of those
prophecies, showed no sign of fulfilment, namely, that there would be a time
when the
Perhaps it was Napoleon who gave to this movement its most
definite impetus. I cannot now trace the book, but I have read that that
Satanically far-seeing man said that whoever held
It may be presumed that it was with
From Napoleon’s time the powers of Europe have taken
ever-increasing interest in the
The oracle
concerning Egypt.
Behold Jehovah rideth upon a swift cloud, and cometh
into
The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish: the counsel
of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish ... they have caused
And the
In that day shall be five cities in the
In that day shall there be a highway out
of
In that day shall
1. The accurate description of these
three lands as “in the midst of the earth” is to be observed. This they are, geographically
and politically.
2. It is significant that this series
of predictions has not had fulfilment, The proof is:
(a)
There has never been a time when the
(b) Nor have five
cities in
(c) Nor has there
been a continuous highway from Mesopotamia into
(d)
Nor have the peoples of these two lands unitedly (or at all) worshipped the God
of Israel, Jehovah (ver.
23).
(e) Certainly these three peoples have
never been a conjoint blessing to the earth, though often a source of misery (vs. 24, 25).
In the time of Isaiah,
All three have been set on their feet as sovereign powers, and
4. There is thus rational ground for
expecting that the rest of Isaiah’s
predictions as to these lands will be fulfilled, possibly in the
not too distant future. And the final and happy issue will be that
they will be “a blessing in the midst of the earth” (ver.
24), centres from which will radiate to
the nations the mercies of Almighty God. This is a consummation devoutly to be
desired. The prophets give much detail as to this restoration, even as they did
to earlier desolations. The precise fulfilment of the latter guarantees exact
fulfilment of the former.
There are indeed writers on these themes who deny to the
Jewish race any national future, and aver that Old Testament prophecies
concerning them are being fulfilled in the present bringing of Jews and
Gentiles to faith in Christ. These writers teach that the
Let such writers face the exact terms of
the divine announcement before us. Israel is expressly conjoined as “a third with
Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of
the earth; for that Jehovah of hosts hath
blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people,
and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel
mine inheritance.” If “
They who thus expunge
5. But the prophecy predicts a dark
night to precede the radiant morn. The main features of this period of distress
are deeply significant for all nations, for the general proceedings of the law
and judgments of God are alike in all cases.
In a former generation a judge of Assize was informing a
suitor that he had come to the wrong court. He mentioned several kinds of legal
proceedings that were available, and added that, should the suitor say that he could not afford such costly litigation, he
must inform him that this is not a land in which there is one law for the rich
and another for the poor! Sardonic as to the then law of
(1)
“Behold, Jehovah rideth
upon a swift cloud and cometh unto
(a)
Genesis 11.
Two thousand or more years B. C, when the human family was still one society
with one language, they resolved to build a city and a tower which should be a
permanent glory and a centre round which they should cohere. Thus they would
defy the command of God to replenish and subdue the whole earth. To deal with
this rebellious scheme “Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower” (ver.
5): and again, after perhaps returning
to confer with His Council of heavenly rulers, He said “Go to, let us go down and
there confound their language” (ver. 7).
(b) Some
centuries later, when the recommendation was put forward that Sodom and
Gomorrah should be blotted off the earth, the supreme Judge said, “I will go
down now and see” (Gen.
18:
20,
21).
(c)
Four centuries later again when the time had come to bring the descendants of
Abraham, enslaved in Egypt, into possession of the land granted to their
ancestors, God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and said, “I have surely
seen the affliction of My people ... and I am
come down to deliver them”
(Ex.
3:
7,
8). One detail of the ensuing
proceedings should be noted: “against all the gods of
In ch. 19 of his prophecy, here in view, Isaiah foretells that at the
close of the present age
“It is a fearful thing to fall into
the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10: 31), as
(2) When God thus intervenes in wrath one
of His first objectives is any false religion that He finds deluding and debasing the people: “the idols of
According to the Bible prophecies of the End Days, idolatry
will then prevail in
A primary objective of Satan and his kingdom is to rob the
Most High of the devotion and worship which are His sole right and to attract
it to themselves. In the idol, as a visible symbol, there lurks and works a
fallen spirit. Intelligent heathen understand this very well. In
This is the regular explanation of idolatry given in the
Bible, and given by men familiar with the matter. Fourteen centuries B.C. Moses
said: “They sacrificed unto demons, which
were no god” (Deut. 32: 17). Some centuries later a psalmist wrote: “They served
their idols ... yea, they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto demons”
(Psa. 106:
36,
37). Fifteen centuries after Moses, Paul
said: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice unto
demons, and not to God” (1 Cor. 10: 20).
This explanation of idolatry is common to all races and all
periods. And it is rational. It requires some singularly powerful inducement to
constrain parents to murder their own children. To honour a block of wood were
insufficient for this, but to propitiate a demon that is feared for its
malignity, or to obtain its urgently-needed help, is a more reasonable motive
and spur to the atrocity.
The Roman Catholic offers essentially the same explanation
when he avers that he does not direct his prayer to the picture or image, but
through these to “Mary” or “Gabriel” or “Peter.” Nor is there any other explanation of the powerful,
all-pervasive influence of the system upon untold millions of men, including
persons of high intelligence. No heathen of old supposed that the oracular
advice or orders given at
Therefore when Jehovah said that He would execute judgment
upon the gods of
It is to this condign punishment of angel princes that God refers
when expostulating with other angel rulers long after. For their injustice as
judges He threatens them thus, unless they amend their ways :
I said, Ye are gods,
And all of you sons of the
Most High.
Nevertheless ye shall die
like Adam,
And fall like
one of the princes.
That is, like one of those former
angel princes (Psa.
82:
6,
7).
Thus shall it be with the demon gods of
For in human affairs there are two chief stabilizing and
consolidating factors, the family and religion. To defend these men have always
gone to the extreme of effort and sacrifice. In his Lay of
Horatius Macauley
showed well how these two influences interest and inspire men.
Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
“To every man
upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his
fathers,
And the temples of his
gods,
And for the tender mother
That dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false
Sextus
That wrought the deed of
shame.”
Father, mother, wife, baby are the family: temples, gods,
consecrated maidens, the eternal flame are the religion. With consummate art
the poet interwove these two realms
of interest as combining to impel the Captain to unreserved self-sacrifice.
When the northern barbarians broke up the
When in 1917 Almighty God visited
It had been so a century earlier when God in righteous wrath
visited
Thus it will be in
(3) Ver. 2. Another measure which God takes in judgment is to incite
family, social, and civil strife: brothers, neighbours, cities, and kingdoms
within an empire find themselves at variance. Antagonisms and contentions,
native to the selfishness of mankind, assert themselves when the co-ordinating
and restraining influence of a common religion is destroyed, as just before
noted.
(4) A further measure God takes is to
destroy the natural resources of a land. In the case of
The immediate and disastrous effects of this failure of the
river will be want of fish; destruction and prevention of crops; lack of reeds
and flags for roofing, baskets, fuel, and weaving of clothes; with consequent
breakdown of industry, unemployment, and famine. A disastrous situation indeed.
Why did
It is more difficult than some think
to decide whether this or that disturbance of the seasons is a judgment by God.
But if the 1947 frosts and floods in
(5) But not only the common people, such
as the tradesmen and artizans, are afflicted; the great men also are visited.
The masses may be foolish and times may be hard, but wise statesmen have
frequently steered public affairs through storms into calms. But when the
people become quarrelsome and demoralized and then the princes prove foolish,
what hope of steadiness and recovery is left?
And God here says that the princes, the wisest counsellors of
state, those who should be the corner stone of national affairs, the foundation
upon which the security of the public structure depends, shall become “brutish,” that is, ignorant, stupid, obstinate, and brutal as a brute beast (Psa. 49: 10; 73: 22; 92: 6; Prov. 12: 1; 30: 2; Jer. 10: 8, 14, 21; 51: 17; Ezek.
21: 31). Becoming fools and
being deceived, they in turn lead the people astray in every work, devising
useless measures, until the situation is as distressing and disgusting as when
a drunken man staggers about in his own vomit (vs. 11-14).
(6) This miserable helpless state is brought
about by Jehovah mingling a spirit of perverseness in the people (ver. 14). As mingled strong drink induces the giddiness of
intoxication, so does a perverse spirit disturb and impair the judgment.
Perception is blurred, the sense of distance and proportion is destroyed;
events that are certain and near are thought improbable or remote; and the wise
fool refuses counsel, stubbornly hastens on where angels might fear to tread,
and so rushes to his doom and drags many to ruin.
This perverseness was seen in Hitler, and its tragic
consequences for
Moreover, it is seen that masses of men will take this rough
and senseless course about questions with which they have no direct concern,
such as disputes occurring hundreds of miles away, and which men of sense would
leave alone. Nor are they deterred by such sharp experience as Solomon
described in the words: “He that passeth by and vexeth himself with strife belonging
not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the
ears” (Prov.
26:
17).
Only a fool would seize
an oriental cur by the ears.
Now, the most sinister feature of this most unreasonable and
unrighteous conduct is that it seizes vast numbers, even tens of thousands, of
men at one time, and suddenly, and in areas remote from one another. What
sufficient explanation can be offered other than that of unseen spirit beings
spread over wide regions, directed by a common plan, acting secretly and
urgently upon the minds of myriads at once? It is a movement similar to that
incident when, by the permission of the Son of God, a legion of demons entered
suddenly into two thousand swine and drove them over a precipice into the sea (Luke 8: 33).
(7) This leads on to the further blow
that God will inflict upon
Tyrants seize power by craft and force: this is the human and
outward side. But God uses them as instruments of His holy wrath; He so
manipulates affairs that a wicked people is inescapably shut up into the power
of a godless and violent ruler: this is the divine and secret side. The direct
purpose for which God has ordained human authority is the support of virtue and
the restraint of vice (
This process has had, and is having, large fulfilment in
modern history.
In century eighteen
Let the reader look into the eyes that glare from any portrait
of Hitler, and notice also the knit brow and thin lips, and he will see that
modern
But before Hitler rose to view
Lenin and Trotsky are gone to render account to the God and
Judge Whom they blasphemed. So has Stalin. His atheism was a definite rejection
of Christian witness, for his own mother “fearlessly
and faithfully confessed her Christian faith even as she died.” The Times
(Nov. 30th, 1928) wrote of “his brutal and
uncompromising desire for autocratic power.”
This is the man that was praised by the obsequious new Acting Patriarch
of all
This was the tyrant with whom, and with his like-minded
associates, Western statesmen were
unwise enough to make compacts and to support with vast material supplies.
Better it would have been for the West and for the world had the two anti-God
powers,
Would that of late years England had been ruled by men who
themselves were ruled by the fear of God and inspired with real confidence in
Him: then could they and this people have faced German aggression with quietude
and courage, without turning to God-hating men for help; then the Almighty
could have interposed more notably; then the after-war complications with these
godless and treacherous “allies,” who are really
enemies (as was Syria to Israel), could have been avoided. But “without faith it is
impossible to be well-pleasing unto God, for he that cometh to God must
believe that He exists, and that He is a
rewarder of them that seek after Him” (Heb. 11: 6). They who do not seek Him are left to their own poor
resources and devices. England is finding out that Russia is to her what Egypt
was to Israel of old, “a bruised reed, whereon if a
man lean it will go into his hand and pierce it” (Isa. 36: 6).
How vivid are these oriental similies; how living are these
ancient histories! Happy are they that heed them!
Other Scriptures confirm the above forecast as to
Psa. 68: 30, 31 speaks of a time when God shall have “scattered the
peoples that delight in war.” It is sadly obvious that this is still future. At that time “Princes shall
come out of
Psa. 87: 4 looks on to when glorious things shall be spoken of
Isa. 11: 11-15 had already foretold certain events that would show the
Egyptians that God was working for
Two things are here indicated. (1) They who see no national future for
In Isa. 45 this prophet adds to his earlier predictions concerning
Now this noble prophecy passes quickly from that epoch to a
time when the heavens shall drop down and pour forth righteousness and the earth
shall open in response and cause righteousness to spring up (ver. 8). The figure is beautiful, and is seen
vividly in the hot lands, where the earth, during the intense summer heat,
dries solid and brings forth nothing, but with astonishing rapidity opens and bears
when the latter rains flood the soil.
No such general, rich, and luxuriant moral change took place
when the small minority of
But Malachi, writing some three centuries later than Isaiah,
takes up his glowing picture, and, looking on to “that day” of restoration which Jehovah would
make later, the promise is given that, when the people shall be faithful with
their God, He will “pour out such a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” That this is yet future is clear
from the feature that at that time all nations shall call Israel happy, whereas
up till now all, or almost all nations curse them (Mal. 3: 10-12). Once again we
deplore the baneful notion that wipes this ravishing scene from the divine map
by blotting
Now at that time says Isaiah (45: 14), “the labour of
This prospect seemed then, and still seems wholly improbable,
and the prophet exclaims, “verily thou are a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour”
(ver.
15). But
It is to be observed that in this last-mentioned prophecy of
Isaiah there was conjoined a forecast of a comparatively near future with that
of a remotely distant future. It is a frequent and characteristic feature of
the divine prophecies, arising from the outlook of the Eternal who is the End
as well as the Beginning.
When that gracious period arrives
No, no, says common Protestant theology; it can never be!
A century or more follows Isaiah. The judgments he predicted
on
It’s king had passed north to fight with the king of
Jeremiah links the destruction of
Jeremiah’s contempory Ezekiel (chs. 29-32) was used by the Spirit of Jehovah to fill up the former’s
canvas with much detail as to the destruction of
As to the people of Israel that were taken there by the
captains after the murder of Gedeliah, presumably they all perished during the
devastation of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, as announced to them by Jeremiah,
except a very few who got back to Judaea (Jer. 44: 14, 26-28). Josephus (Antiq. X. 9, 7) says that Nebuchadnezzar took to
But at this point our brethren of the British-Israel
persuasion offer some interesting information gained privately apart from
authentic history. It is that Jeremiah escaped the destruction, and sailed away
to
But Ezekiel gave a double forecast, which true to the past, is
true today, and which contains predictions as to the future of
1. Upon being regathered to their land,
at the close of the forty years of dispersion, the Egyptians should (a) be a national entity, a kingdom: (b) but the basest of kingdoms,
diminished in numbers, and never again able to rule over other nations, as in
ancient times; and (c) “they shall be
no more the confidence of the house of Israel” (Ezek. 29: 12-16).
This informs us that no ruler of Egypt will succeed in
becoming dominant in the Middle East; and also that the bitter hostility of the
Egyptians to the Jews is part of God’s plan to prevent Israel repeating the sin
and folly of their fathers in relying upon Egypt for political help, to their
undoing by apostasy from their God. Knowing these things beforehand the
believer can have a quiet heart though the peoples rage, for they do but
meditate vain things.
By the defeat of
The essence of those predictions is that four world empires would
follow each other, each at its zenith ruling from
Since the king of the south is always represented as an
antagonist of the king of the north it must be acknowledged that
That when
Various grounds move the justice of God in His dealings with
nations. One that will bring His overwhelming judgments upon
The last but one of the Old Testament prophets, Zechariah,
repeats and confirms his predecessors. The restoration of
In the final reference in the Old Testament to Egypt (Zech. 14: 16-19) a time is announced when the feast of tabernacles shall be
reinstituted in Palestine, and all the nations shall be required to honour the
God of Israel by attending it at Jerusalem. That coming age of glory and peace
shall be an age when law prevails and preserves order on earth. If any people
avoid this annual pilgrimage, it will be a sign of that latent rebellion of
heart against God and His Messiah which will finally burst into rebellion at
the close of the thousand years of Christ’s reign on earth (Rev. 20: 7-10).
Such disaffection will be visited by the withdrawing of rain from
that area: and inasmuch as this would not affect
Meditation on the testimony of Scripture here reviewed will
disclose to the instructed Christian all that we need to know of the part
1. That
2. That the animosity of the
surrounding peoples to
3. Nevertheless the utmost and worst
the nations shall attempt shall never blot
The covenant of God with Abraham included an inheritance in
the heavenly world (Heb.
11:
13-16), and this will be shared by such of
his descendants who have had faith like his to embrace that prospect and to
walk with him as pilgrims on earth, aliens in heart, citizens of that heavenly
country and city they ardently seek. Then his spiritual children, whether Jews
or Gentiles by natural birth, will form the society known in Scripture as the
But Abraham was promised the earth also, for the blessing of
all its families (Gen.
12:
1-3). And those of Israel and of the other
nations who do not attain unto that superior and heavenly portion will by faith
share the favour of God in Christ on a renewed earth, and finally in the
eternal earth.
In both of these realms, the heavenly portion and the earthly,
it stands for ever true, necessarily true, that the gifts and calling of God
know no change of mind on His part (Rom. 11: 20, 29). In His own good time, and to His own great joy, He shall say
Blessed be
(Isa.
19: 25)
* *
*
Studies in Prophecy (2)
REV.
17 and
18
THE BEAST
The Revised Version is used.
Matter in square brackets is mine. G.H.L.
Verse 8 of Rev. 14 mentions an angel who
announced, “Fallen, fallen is
What
THE BEAST
(1) His identity. It
is easy to identify the Beast with the one of ch. 13, for (1) both have
ten horns and seven heads (13: 1). (2) Blasphemy
characterizes both (13: 1, 6). (3)
The Dragon energizes the one (13: 2), and in 17: 3 the colour scarlet connects this Beast with the great red
dragon of 12: 3, who also had seven heads and ten horns. (4) Both war against the Lamb and His
people (13:
7,
8;
17:
14).
(5) Both receive the wonder and
worship of all on earth whose names are not in the book of life.
(2) The Period. That the ten horns are already there
when John sees the Woman indicates the period at which the vision will find
fulfilment. They identify the Beast with the beast of Dan.
7 with ten horns, amidst which horns
the “little horn,” Antichrist,
arises, and who lives at the time when the saints are about to receive the
kingdom (Dan.
7:
23-28). These horns are the toes of the
image of Dan. 2, the final stage of Gentile empire, upon which toes the Stone falls and destroys the image.
Thus the vision is of the final stage of the Woman, not of any
lengthy preceding career she may conceivably have had. As the angel told Daniel
that his vision of the four wild beasts (ch. 7) had to do with the closing stage of Gentile dominion, even that a
court of judgment should sit in heaven for the taking away and destruction of
the dominion of the beast (Dan. 7: 26), so John is told by the angel that he is about to see “the judgment of the great harlot.” It was not a protracted history
of the fourth Gentile power that Daniel then saw, but its overthrow: it is
not a history of the whole course of the Woman that John sees, but only a hint of her origin, in Babylon, and a forecast of her overthrow at the end of this [evil and apostate] age.
As the vision opens the Beast is carrying the Woman; as it
closes she has been destroyed by him and the ten kings, and he is supreme. Thus
it discloses one final phase of world affairs, that which issues in his
ambition to rule as sole sovereign of the earth being realized.
(3) The Seven Heads. It is explained that these have a double significance,
which serves to show that symbols may have more than one meaning.
In the first place, they are seven mountains where the Woman
had her seat in the days when the angel was speaking to John. To him and his
first readers this could scarcely have any meaning other than the city of
But the seven heads signified also seven kings. Of these five
had fallen from that high estate. It does not say five had died,
but had fallen. “To fall” may, of course, mean to die (1 Cor. 10: 8; Heb. 3: 17); but a king may die in honour and know no fall;
or he may fall, and not at that time die. This should
weigh with those who will speculate as to who the five were. But why speculate?
John was not told how long prior to his day these five had reigned, nor what
intervals of time had separated them, nor any other identifiable particulars,
save that each had lost
sovereignty by a “fall.” It may be best to leave the matter there, since the detail of
their identity seems not material to the interpreting of the future aspect of
the vision.
But one of this succession of seven was then reigning* and the
seventh was to rule thereafter, but for a short while only; but again how long
thereafter was not specified.
* Namely
Domitian, if the generally accepted
dating of the Revelation
be adopted.
Note on epesan
As the basis for identifying the five
Roman emperors it is asserted that “to fall”
means here to have been murdered or to have committed suicide. But pipto does not involve
this meaning. There seems no instance in secular Greek
literature of its application to suicide or assassination. The
nearest such use is of death in war. Reliance is placed, however, upon the Septuagint, and the cases cited are
those of Ehud (Judg. 3, 25), Sisera (Judg. 5: 27), both assassinated; and Saul (2 Sam. 1: 19, 25, 27), a suicide. To these may be
added Abner (2 Sam. 3: 34, 38), murdered; the sons of
Rizpah (2
Sam. 21:
9),
executed; and Sennacherib (Isa.
37:
7,
38),
assassinated.
1. These six instances are all that can
be adduced, though the verb is used in the LXX some 335 times. In any case,
therefore, the usage would be exceptional.
2. But it seems that the term in these
instances means chiefly the posture or collapse of the body: “their lord was fallen to the ground”: “he fell at
her feet” “he fell upon his sword”: “they fell
[on
the gallows] all together”: “he shall fall
by the
sword” In the case of Saul, David applied the term equally to
Jonathan, who was killed in the ordinary course of battle (“how are the mighty fallen”), so that it had here no special reference
to suicide.
3. Further, if the histories did not
show that these persons had committed suicide, or had been murdered, this could
not be known from the use of the verb
to
fall. And this last is how Rev. 17: 10 reads; it says
simply, “the
five are fallen.” No
indication of the manner or effects
of their fall being given, the
passage is not parallel with those cited.
Grimm’s Lexicon, on the word in this verse, says, “to be removed from power by death.” But even this
goes beyond what is stated by the simple use of fallen. Cremer goes as far as is justified by
placing this verse under the heading, “to come to
ruin, to fail” [?fall], leaving the manner of the fall unstated.
The verb is employed in the very sense I have adopted in Esther 6:
13
(LXX where Haman’s friends say to him, “thou shalt
certainly fall before” Mordecai, meaning
simply to fall from position and
authority, since they could not foretell his speedy death, and least of all the manner of it.
Thus pipto here gives no means of identifying the five kings from the form of death of certain Roman emperors, nor does it of necessity imply the death of
the five at the time each fell.
(4) The Eighth Head. The material matter is that one of these seven is to be the eighth of this series of monarchs and
the final head of Gentile world rule: the final ruler,
because he shall war against the Lamb at
His coming, be overthrown, and be cast direct into perdition (19: 19-21).
The particulars given of the eighth king are:
1. He is one of the seven (11).
From earliest times this has been rightly taken in the natural force of the
words that the eighth is to be one of
the seven revived to act again on this earth.
2. He “was,” that is, had lived on earth at some time prior to the period
when he is seen carrying the Woman. Some, however, take this “was” to mean that he had
lived prior to the time when John saw the vision and had it explained. In
this case the eighth head must be one of the first five kings of the series. On
the other hand, the angel did not say, “he is one of the five,” but “one of the seven” (11), and
there seems no reason for bringing in the sixth and seventh unless the eighth
may be one of these.
3. He “is not,” that is, at the exact time in the end days when the Woman will first ride the Beast.
When we consider presently who the Woman is it will be evident that in this our
day she is not yet so riding the Beast.
Indeed, the Beast in question is not yet
here to be ridden. No political
system answering to this vision is in existence. There is no ten-kingdom
confederacy. But when this Confederacy shall have come, the Woman will gain dominant influence in it, and will do this before
the eighth head shall have arisen. It is at that particular point of affairs that the words “he is not” will apply.
It is important to see that the term “beast” is used in prophecy now of an empire and now of its
head, the emperor. Upon this Pember, dealing with Daniel 7, has well said:
In the first answer (of the angel, ver.
17), the Beasts are
described as Emperors (“these great beasts
... are four kings”), while the
second regards them as Empires. For, although it mentions only the Fourth, yet
by the words, “The Fourth Beast shall be a Fourth Empire upon the earth,” it manifestly implies that the other three were such before it....
... the Beasts may stand either for the Empires or for their
most characteristic Emperors. And this double use of the symbol is by no
means peculiar to our prophecy, but occurs in other passages also, and may be
shown to rest upon a sound logical basis. The best instance of it, perhaps, is
that which is found in the seventeenth chapter of the Apocalypse. For the Beast there depicted is a more detailed revelation
of the Fourth Beast of Daniel, and, so long as he represents an
Empire, the Eighth Emperor is one of
the seven heads revived. But the
Beast himself is also said to be the Eighth Emperor, doubtless because that
monarch, although properly set forth as one of the Heads, will be so perfect a representative of the Fourth Beast that he may be
regarded as its embodiment.
A sufficient proof of the correctness of this view may be deduced
from the vision which we are considering. For, in the eleventh verse, we read that because of the great words which the Horn
spake, the Beast was slain, and his body destroyed and given to the burning
flame. That is, the Emperor will be so exact an exponent of the spirit of the
people that the whole body politic will be held responsible, and be punished,
for the blasphemous utterances of their leader. (The
Great Prophecies, ed. 1941. 108, 109.)
4. He “is about to come up out of the abyss” (8).
The A.V. - [i.e., the King
James 1611 Version] - “bottomless pit,” if it gives any idea that can be distinctly apprehended, is
erroneous. It led the acute mind of the boy Spurgeon to puzzle his ministerial grand-father with the question, If
the pit has no bottom, where do the people go when they fall out at the other
end? That the abyss is not a “pit” at all is
seen from the feature that, in the imagery of the Apocalypse (as in the classic
poets), it is reached by means of a pit, that is, a shaft (9: 1). In two places the A.V. renders by “deep,” which is as indefinite as the other
is misleading.
The idea of the word is a vast, profound, unexplored region,
and so in the Septuagint the common
reference is to the then unexplored ocean depths. In the New
Testament this region is located within the earth, and is the sphere of the
dead: “Who shall
descend into the abyss? (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead”) (Rom.
10:
7). Where Christ was - [as a disembodied ‘soul’] - when dead is shown in Ephesians 4: 8-10:
“Now this, He ascended,
what is it but
that He also descended into the lower parts of the earth.” It is a region which demons fear: “they entreated that He would not command them to depart into
the abyss” (Luke 8: 31). Hence the alarmed
cry of others of them: “Art Thou come
hither to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8: 29).
That such enemies of mankind are there confined may give a hint as to what
the “locusts” are that issue thence when the pit leading from the abyss is
opened, and these hordes rush forth to torment men, as in Rev.
9:
1-11. Verse 11 says that the abyss has an angel
ruler, and also a Destroyer, who will be in command of these demons when they
are let out on this dread errand of judgment. They know by experience what
torment is, and how to inflict it. The passage suggests the solemn reflection
that the torments of Hades have not altered or softened their natures.
Readers of the classics will know that these features of that
hidden world were the ideas commonly held in [the Apostle] John’s day. They would cause no
wonderment or question to his readers, who would take the statements in their
natural sense, as describing ideas generally accepted.
Our passage is an amplifying of the earlier statement in ch. 11: 7, that the Beast who will kill the Two
Witnesses at
All the places where the word occurs have been mentioned, and
from them it is clear that the abyss is a locality, the region inter alia of the dead, and it is within the earth. This forbids the common suggestion that the “beast,” as about to ascend from the abyss,
means an empire, the Roman, and it is to be “revived.” No empire is in the abyss or can emerge thence. The individual men that ever formed that
empire are there, but as individuals. One of these can be brought thence,
if God shall permit; but when it is said that the empire shall be revived to fulfil this passage, it must be asked
which of the many myriads of persons that belonged to it, through many
generations in the long centuries past, are thus to form it in its resurrected
existence? And when it will be replied that this is not asserted, but only that
the Roman empire will be re-formed at the end, composed of men then living, the
answer is that this is not what the text states, that it merely avoids the plain sense of the term “come up out of the
abyss,” and sets aside the
fact that the abyss is a place, a
place quite well known to Scripture and to the general thought of man-kind by
this name, and located in the heart of the earth.
It is here suggested that the angel ruler of this region is he who
restrains the Lawless One of 2 Thess. 2, the “Beast” of the present passage, hindering him issuing thence before the
time permitted by God. This conception goes back to early Sumerian days, soon after the Flood. It
was the prevailing belief in the ancient world.
That a person should return from the place of the dead to act
again in the affairs of the living, was no new idea in John’s day, but one known to Scripture and by men in
general. It is latent in the very conception of necromancy, the consulting of
the dead; and while most of what professes to be this is doubtless demonic
fraud, yet the Old Testament had the instance of the coming up of the veritable
[prophet] Samuel to denounce the
judgment of God to - [disobedient and unfaithful King] - Saul (1 Sam.
28:
15).
It is our Lord who shows that Dives took
for granted that Lazarus could be sent up to warn living men, an idea the divine Teacher could scarcely
have spread uncontradicted had He known it to be erroneous (Luke
16).
And both Old and New Testaments unite to
say that Messiah is a Man - [“the people”... “announce[d] in the Jesus the resurrection out of dead ones” (see Acts
4: 2,
Lit Greek). That is, out from amongst
those presently being held in ‘Sheol’/
‘Hades’ (Matt. 12: 40; cf. Acts 2: 31, R.V.)] - from the dead to rule the earth.
The common views of mankind had always agreed with this. This
by itself would not establish the truth of the notion; but when Scripture
adopts without question an idea prevalent among men, that idea must be regarded as true, for the Word of God cannot endorse error.
From the most ancient times the Egyptians had conceived of the
“victorious”
dead being granted by the gods liberty to come and go in their former earth
spheres. Thus in ch. 11 of The Book of the
Dead (trans. Budge)
it is said of the dead Ani: “Osiris Ani shall come
forth by day to do whatsoever he pleaseth upon the earth among the living ones.”
This notion of the departed having unrestricted liberty to return and act among
the living we consider devoid of warrant in Scripture, for the case of Samuel
was an exception; but our only concern is to establish that the idea in the
words “come up out of the
abyss” would
be easily accepted in John’s day. Egyptian conceptions were then widely spread,
including in the Greek-speaking lands, and were in harmony with similar
conceptions in the whole ancient world.
In keeping with this was the expectation, then held by many,
that Nero was to return to the earth and rule again. This was adopted by many
Christians as to be the fulfilment of our passage, which shows that they took
the passage in its natural sense of the return of a dead man. That this idea
gained rapid and wide credence, among pagans and Christians, is to be explained
by the fact that it was but the application to a particular person (Nero) of a possibility owned generally.
Upon this Prof. F. F. Bruce kindly
wrote as follows for this discussion:
Could any myths of pre-New Testament
times have prepared men’s minds for the
thought of Antichrist returning from the
abyss to reign over the earth ?
The origin of the belief in Nero redivivus was a refusal of the people of the
(Compare the German belief about Friedtich Barbarossa [died A.D. 1190].
Der alte Barbarossa, der Kaiser
Friederich,
Im unterird’schen Schlosse halt er
verzaubert sich.
Er ist niemals gestorben, er lebt
darin noch jetzt;
Er hat im Schloss verborgen zum Schlaf
sich hingesetzt.
Er hat hinab genommen des Reiches
Herrlichkeit,
Und wird einst wiederkommen mit ihr zu
seiner Zeit.
[The ancient Barbarossa, the Kaiser
Frederick, dwells
In a subterranean castle, self-bound
by mighty spells.
He did not die as others, he lives
there even yet;
In the castle he is hidden, to sleep
himself has set.
The glory of the empire he took down
with him there,
And, in his time, returning, that
glory he will bear.]
(It has been suggested in
So in the earlier Sibylline Oracles [perhaps A.D. 80-85],
where Nero and Antichrist are identified, Nero is described as still alive; in
the later [perhaps A.D. 180] he is dead, and must be raised to life again as
Antichrist.
There were several myths in the
The myths go back at least to Sumerian days [a very early
period of history in
“They fashioned a tomb for thee, O
holy and high one - the Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons! But thou
hast not died; thou art risen and alive for ever; for in thee we live and move
and have our being.” (Cf. Tit.
1:
12;
Acts 17:
28).
Of the resurrection of human beings there are few traces. The
only clear case I can think of is Alcestis,
referred to by
“Methought I
saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestis
from the grave,
Whom Jove’s great son* to
her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by
force, though pale and faint.”
There was also Eurydice,
whom Orpheus almost succeeded in bringing back from Hades, but who was snatched back when he looked round to see if she were
still following. The Athenians, fighting at Marathon in 490 B.C., believed they
saw their city’s ancient king Theseus
fighting for them (cf. the angels of
Upon this last sentence it is to be remarked that the New
Testament does not specify positively the form in which the eighth head will appear, whether in a properly human nature, with
a mortal body, or otherwise. These factors may be considered.
1. He receives a sword wound which
ordinarily would have proved fatal, but which is healed (13: 3, 14). If the stroke killed him, this
would imply an ordinary mortal body. But it would then not be an ordinary
expression to say that the stroke was “healed,” meaning thereby resurrection from the dead. To be healed is
to be preserved alive by the wound not proving fatal.
2. When seized alive by the Lamb (19: 19-21) he and the false prophet are not
killed* (in which particular they are expressly contrasted with their
followers: “the rest were
killed”), but
they are “cast alive into the
lake of fire,” where they still are a thousand years later. Now no mortal body could thus
endure that fire, which suggests a non-mortal bodily nature.
* The
R.V. at 2
Thess. 2: 8 says that the Lord Jesus shall “slay”
the Lawless One. The verb is analisko, and in N.T. is found in this place and Luke 9: 54 and Gal. 5: 15 only. In the two latter
places the R.V. renders by “consume.” The variation throws the passage into
conflict with Rev.
19:
20.
The word does not mean to kill, but to consume, and so in Greek was commonly
employed of using up one’s money. The
Beast will be consumed, destroyed, without being killed physically.
3. When Samuel came up he had a form and garment which Saul, from the
description given by the witch, readily recognized as being that of Samuel. This
suggests that the soul retains in the death state a psychical covering closely
resembling the material body lost at death. May not Antichrist appear in such a
form, like to his former mortal body? Also the normal resurrection body of our
Lord bore visibly the marks of His wounds, and was recognizable by those who
had known Him in the flesh. In resurrection the wicked dead may be similarly
clothed, with one or other of these coverings.
In view of these considerations, whatever may prove the fact
as to Antichrist, it is not required that we believe him to be properly re-incarnated, no
plain suggestion being made of a body of flesh or being necessary to the
case.
In such a psychical form
it would be easy for the
Satan-deceived earth-dwellers to
regard the Beast as having become a demi-god, such as the heathen commonly
regarded deified heroes, and thus he would be readily accepted when he sits in
the temple of God at Jerusalem setting himself forth as God (2 Thess. 2:
4).
4. The duration of his supremacy is
forty-two months, three years and a half (Rev. 13: 5), a time, times, and half a time. This seems
here to be marked as “one hour,” meaning only a very short period in
comparison to the ages of Satan’s kingdom that culminate in this brief dazzle
and eclipse. But the Beast’s whole career, during which he fights his way to
supremacy, will be much longer.
5. The ten kings who will exalt him to
be their overlord (17) had formed their league before his
rise, for it is among the ten horns that he first appears, as an eleventh and
little horn (Dan.
7:
8).
It does not say that they had not reigned before they exalt the Beast, but that
they had not come to their kingdom at John’s date. Verse 17 says, on the contrary, that “they give their kingdom unto the Beast,” which therefore they must have held
or they could not surrender it to him.
There will come an effective league of nations, and of nations
that have descended from the fourth great kingdom of prophecy. This is certain;
for it is in the mind of God that the Beast shall rise thus to world
domination. It is part of the divine over-ruling of the wicked unto the
accomplishing of the words of God.
6. The
Beast and his kings shall
enter deliberately upon a war against the Lamb. There will [initially] be avowed hostility to Him - [i.e, the Beast] - in this character of the Lamb. Already nations are deriding and decrying Him because
of this nature, as the One who displayed gentleness and silent self-surrender,
permitting that He be led as a lamb to the slaughter. This is the very antithesis to that fierce, relentless, conscienceless
spirit of ambition - [the Beast will later exercise] - advocated by
such as Nietzsche, and developed
logically from the doctrine of Evolution that the weak ought to be crushed
out for the betterment of the race. It was in
Christ teaches the exact contrary to this cruel and false, yea, satanic doctrine. He says
that all real improvement is reached
by self-sacrifice, not by
self-assertion. This has been widely
and openly and violently repudiated by very many leaders and followers in
different countries, which is a
distinct muttering of the storm which the Wild-Beast - [after breaking his covenant with
the
[* See Rev. 3: 10; cf. Luke 21: 34-36.]
It is a notable spectacle this of a lamb faced by
a huge wild beast,
and of a ‘little’ flock of sheep in the midst of a pack of wolves. But the Lamb will conquer; the Wild Beast will fail. And in ‘that day’ they shall share the triumph of the Lamb who are “with Him,” who are on His side in the fight, are His followers; who fight now by facing the wolf in
the spirit of the lamb, suffering
even unto death, as the Lamb of God
did here. It is ‘the meek’ that ‘shall inherit the earth’ for which the wild beasts
contend. To this suffering and this glory they were “called” (1 Pet. 2. 19-23; 5: 10);
and from among the many of the called these were “chosen” (Matt. 22: 14), were picked men, selected
as those on whom the Lamb, their
Leader, knew He could depend
in the war that seemed often a defeat.
They were “faithful,” proved such by patience in
suffering, in being unwearied in
well-doing, in holding fast His
word when the many disregarded it, in
confessing His name when the vast majority scorned or hated it. These, and these only, have
the promise of conquering with Him in His final and complete victory over the
Beast and the Dragon.
Thus far the Beast. Every picture of him in Scripture leads to
the same end, his collapse, disgrace, and doom, for “the words of God shall be accomplished” (17). And they who follow him must share his judgment, as certainly as they who follow the Lamb shall share His glory.
* *
*
Studies in Prophecy (3).
REV. 17 and 18
PART 2
THE WOMAN
-------
1. THE FIGURE EMPLOYED.
In Revelation the four Women stand for systems that in nature are
religious, but also exercise dominance.
(1) “The woman Jezebel”
(2:
20) was “teaching” and thereby “seducing,” and she had gained so firm a seat
that the church was submitting (“thou sufferest”). Thus had the actual Jezebel, whose name
is given to her, been the determined propagator of heathen religion in
(2) “The woman arrayed
with the sun” (ch. 12) represents the church of God, a spiritual system finally
glorified and regnant; and of her
(3) there is a second picture, “the wife of the Lamb,” who is “to reign for ever and ever” (19: 7; 21: 9; 22: 5).
(4) Similarly, this Woman of ch. 17 is a religious system, as will appear shortly, and she rides
the political system and has a kingdom over kings.
2.
HER LOCATION is
threefold.
(1) Geographically she sat in
John’s day at
(2) Politically she sits “by many waters” (1), that is, draws her riches from, and
distributes her influence to, “many peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues” (15),
as does a city placed at a confluence of rivers and seas. In Biblical times there
were only two such cities:
(3) Morally she sits in a wilderness. This must be taken morally or
it would conflict with her association with multitudes just mentioned. The
moral condition is emphasized: She is herself a “great harlot” (1), a drunkard (6), and she seduces kings to commit
fornication and makes them also drunk. The picture is taken from a brothel,
splendid but filthy. Of such a fallen woman the influence is necessarily and
wholly demoralizing; morality withers under her foul breath, and every life she
touches she sears and scorches to a dry and thirsty land, where the water of
life is unknown.
3.
HER CHARACTER AND CONDUCT, therefore
are that of a HARLOT. A woman may
fall from virtue so far as to fornicate with one man, yet may remain faithful
to him; but the harlot is the woman of the streets, eager to seduce to her side
any and every man she can entice.
It is important that this Woman is not styled an adulteress. A
harlot may not be this. She may never have been married, nor, in the
possibility, have attracted a married man. The force of this is, that this
Woman, this system of religion, is not regarded as having ever been “joined unto the Lord” and as having become unfaithful to
Him. It is to be observed that “Jezebel” is not the church,
but is only viewed as in the church. So here, this Harlot is not “Christianity,” but a system itself wholly distinct
from the
The true church of God, the real believers, the spiritually
regenerate, are regarded as separate from this vile system that masquerades as “Christian.” Even though from want of light some of
them have been found in the system, yet, speaking broadly, the
This is abundantly clear from the fact that the Harlot is
positively intoxicated, has lost her senses, by drinking the blood of “the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.” The picture suggests the horrid
practice of cannibals drinking the blood of slaughtered foes or victims. Hence
the Woman is not the church she so savagely destroys, but some other system.
There is a repetition to be noted. She is drunken “with the blood of
the saints and with the blood of the
witnesses of Jesus.” If these two terms “saints” and “witnesses” mean only one class (as commentators assume) the repetition
were without force and the clause should have read “the saints and (or, even) the witnesses of Jesus.” There seems to be created a distinction
between the two classes. Now in the present dispensation every witness of Jesus
is a saint, in the New Testament sense; so it would seem that the saints here
contrasted must be the godly of former ages, before Jesus had come and
confession of His name could be the test applied by persecutors. This implies
that the Woman existed before New Testament times, a material factor.
Or course, a married woman may lapse into adultery and fall
thence into the deeper degeneration of harlotry. This was the case of
But
But a part of these unholy alliances was that
Likewise does this great Harlot of our chapter coquette with
the kings of the earth, and make them drunk with the wine of her fornication.
She both relies on them for power and she exercises authority over them: they
in turn are seduced by her splendid but foul attractiveness and indulge in her vile worship of idols. It is shown plainly in
various prophecies that actual idolatry will prevail among the nations in the
End time. In that Day of Jehovah, when He “will arise to shake mightily the earth,” then “the idols shall utterly pass away,” for “In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver and his
idols of gold, which they made for him to worship, to the moles and to
the bats” (Isa. 2). This whole passage is most illuminating. See also Psa.
135:
14,
15; the former verse showing that the
time in view is that of Deut. 32: 36, which it quotes, namely, that of Israel’s final deliverance
as a people. Isa. 19: 3, shows idolatry in
4.
IDOLATRY WILL BE GENERAL ON EARTH, and the apostates of
(1) that this will
be by the agency of this Harlot, and (2)
by royal authority in the lands ruled by the kings she seduces, intoxicates,
and dominates.
This sad prospect should not seem unlikely. Great nations are
being openly prepared for it.
In the whole English-speaking world the vast majority have lapsed from
religion, are de-Christianized. It is a short step thence to be paganized: for
pagan philosophy has already infected multitudes, and pagan morals and worship
could be readily adopted here also should a day come when strong leaders urge
it on the ground that empire well-being will be furthered by it. Only a mighty
reassertion of the power of the Spirit of God through the gospel can ultimately
avert it, and of this there is no guarantee, though may God in mercy grant it. Only
God’s good news ever overthrew paganism; only the same can ever prevent a
reverting to paganism. Let the godly girt up his loins like a man, let him arm
himself with the mind of Christ to suffer in the flesh, and strengthen himself
in the grace that is in Him; and let him do this while liberty is his, or ever
the Harlot shall mount the Beast.
5.
HER ORIGIN AND CENTRE.
For too many Protestant eyes the whole landscape has been
filled by the Roman Catholic Church. Blurred vision resulted. Seeing only Her,
she became to such expositors both Harlot and Beast, and
That this Church reveals the form and features of the Harlot
more than does any other system of to-day is true, and there is reason for it.
As shown above (Sect. 1, 3)
What took place in the age of Constantine the Great and his
successors was that this pagan system of philosophy, worship, spirit, morals,
and organization was imposed upon and accepted by that system of religion which
in century four falsely arrogated to itself the name of the
Thus matters have continued to the present time, and the Roman
Catholic Church in turn has displayed the form and features of the Harlot, with
her pride, splendour, harlotry with kings, vice, demoralizing influence, and
persecuting cruelty. But to see in the Woman no more than that Church is to be
short-sighted, and our chapter itself forbids it. For
(1) The Woman was already in existence when John saw the vision,
even as the angel explained: “The Woman
... hath a kingdom” and “sitteth on seven
mountains” (17: 9, 18).
(2) She is the “mother” of the harlots and abominations of the earth, that is, the originator
of all false religions and idolatries. This the Roman Catholic Church is not, for they existed before she did.
(3) She has a connexion in a “mystery,” that is, a secret connexion with
This connexion is established by the symbol “having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and [even] the unclean
things of her fornication,” for the same
symbol had been applied to the city Babylon over 600 years earlier by Jeremiah (51: 7): “Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah’s hand that made
all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the
nations are mad.” In Jeremiah’s day the origin and spread of idolatry was comparatively
modern history. All that archaeology and philology have revealed of late and no
doubt much more, was then common knowledge, even the fact that idolatry (as
outlined in Romans 1) had its origin in
The system introduced was a satanically crafty adaptation of
the plans of God for the salvation and government of the human race. Far more
as to those plans was known after the Flood than seems commonly supposed. The
contemporary book of Job is proof of this. Satan instituted in advance his own
depraved counterpart. He offered to men a human priest-king, a human
priesthood, with sacrifices for propitiating demon deities, but substituting
works for faith and efforts for grace as the way of salvation.
For the intellectual he provided philosophical speculations
that blurred truth by commingling error with it, and so made philosophy a thief
(Col. 2: 8) to rob man of true knowledge. For the aesthetic temperament there
was an elaborate, sensuous, gorgeous ritual, so that worship in spirit and in
truth died out. For the vulgar masses it was sufficient to offer priestly
promises as to the hereafter, with freedom to live lustfully in this life. And
all was skilfully arranged so that wealth, knowledge, power should be
restricted as much as possible to the priestly caste, of which the sovereign
was the Head, the king-priest.
Of this priestly order a
Long before this, however, Roman paganism had come from
For the proofs of this descent, here only outlined, the reader
must refer to Hislop and Pember. Our task is to examine into the
final outcome at the close of the age, as forecast in the vision before us.
6. THE
WOMAN’S FUTURE.
1. Under Sect. 1, 2, above it has been shown that this vision is not a
forecast of the history of the Woman, but of her judgment, that is, of the
final stage of her history. The final stage of Gentile empire also is in view,
for the ten kings are present from the start of the vision, and these are
crushed when the Stone falls on the
feet of the image (Dan. 2). Therefore the time is shortly before the
return of the Lord to rule the earth. It is therefore to be expected -
2. That the Harlot will dominate politics within the area of the ten
kings. The latter will be again fascinated by her wealth, splendour, influence;
will adopt her abominations, that is, idolatries; and will thereby be made
drunk, that is, will become blinded to the true God and His faith and worship,
as well as to the future as set forth in His Word. Thus will they be prepared
to believe, a little later, “the lie,” and this “because they received not the love of the truth” while it was available (2 Thess.
2:
10,
11);
and thus will they be led on by the Deceiver of the whole inhabited earth
until, under Antichrist, they fulfil Psalm 2 and break asunder God’s bands in open
revolt.
3. Using the secular arm, thus again come
fully under her control, the Harlot will persecute fiercely the witnesses of
Jesus. She will intoxicate herself with their blood. The lust of persecution,
or of any slaughter, has this effect. The raging beast loses all judgment and
restraint and thus exposes itself to the attack of the hunter. It may be that
the cruelties that the Harlot will inflict will disgust princes and people and
be one impulse that will incite them shortly to destroy her, and to turn to the
Beast in the hope of better days. Tacitus
says that the cruelties Nero inflicted on the Christians caused public opinion
to relent in their favour. History may repeat itself for a brief time.
4. Her destruction thus results from
her carnal policy of coquetting with, deluding, and dominating the secular
power. It will be a concluding and conclusive proof of the evil of the alliance
of Church and State in the realm of fallen man. Unity of the two is the ideal;
but it can be realized only to profit when society is perfected under its
perfect Priest-king, Christ the Lord, and His perfected government of
priest-kings, the glorified saints.
The picture of the Woman’s destruction is ghastly: the ten
kings “shall hate the
Harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her
flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire” (16). A group of cannibals have been
drinking themselves drunk with a woman with whom they have been gratifying
their lust: then they turn upon her with a loathing such as seized the vicious Amnon against Tamar his victim (2 Sam.
13:
15); they rush her to a lonely spot
beyond help (“make
her desolate”), strip her naked, eat her flesh, and fling her bones
and remnants into the fire round which they devour her.
It is thus the Bolsheviks
treated one branch of this great idolatrous Babylonian system, the Greek Orthodox Church in Russia; nor
can one be surprised who knows aught of the wickedness and cruelty of that
vicious, degraded Church. It was its high priests who incited the later Czars to persecute evangelical
believers, and to banish to the rigours of
For the Anglican Church to have sought alliance with that
apostate Church, as of late years, may have seemed a clever counter to the
haughty attitude adopted toward them by the Roman Church; but such carnal
policy can issue only in the present further depraving of Anglicanism, and for
its preparation for absorption into the Harlot, with the consequent sharing of
her last odious works and her final dreadful doom. Let the godly in the Anglican and other State Churches take note of
whither they are drifting, and abandon the ship before it reaches the whirlpool.
Otherwise they will partake of the sins and must receive of the plagues of the
system. And let godly Nonconformists ponder the goal of affiliation with a
How dismal is the prospect of fallen humanity! But sin ever
worketh death, which is as true of things corporate as of individuals. Yet
those who fear God have the comforting assurance that the worst of men in the
worst of times are made to serve His holy ends of justice. Yes, there will come
a league of nations that will be effective; and they will unite unconsciously
to work out two judgments that God sees to be unavoidable: First, the
destruction of this foul and cruel and idolatrous system of Babylon, that has
given birth to all the daughter systems that have partaken of her nature and
works, and so is actually the “Mother of
the harlots and abominations of the earth.” And secondly, these kings will give
their authority unto the Beast, the Antichrist, so that the body politic, like
the body religious, may be fully
ripened for the long‑deserved and long‑announced wrath of God.
Doing their own carnal will, they will nevertheless carry out what God will put
in their minds of His divine will, and when the wrath of man shall have thus
praised Him, He will restrain its further activity.
* *
*
Studies in Prophecy
SUBORDINATE QUESTIONS
PART 3
Thus far the positive teaching of the Vision. But some
subordinate, yet interesting, questions arise for investigation, and the
answers to these, whatever they be, will afford some guide to the watchful as
the days develop.
1. The Babylonian system of idolatry
maintained its openly pagan style from its beginning, about B.C. 2300, through
some twenty-seven centuries. Its Western branch, formed in the time of
The great areas outside the primary dominions of the ten
kings, as
For 400 years the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic lands have been the
spheres where anti-Roman influences have prevailed. Now this is so only very
nominally; and economically and politically they have to-day so impoverished
and enfeebled each other that they count less heavily in world affairs than formerly.
This suits the Roman Church well, for it will leave the Catholic-pagan religion
a freer hand to reassert its fell influence in at any rate the Mediterranean
lands and perhaps more widely. Relieved of the former political-Protestant
opposition, its rulers may feel no strong inducement to retain even a nominal
Christian character in dogma or form. Such ecclesiastics as that mediaeval Pope (Leo X) who styled Christianity a “profitable farce,” would feel no
scruples about dropping the farce and avowing the pagan reality that has ever
been inherent in the Roman system. The leaders of the Church have never
hesitated to adopt any measure that might increase their political power. Disraeli, when writing of “the oldest, most powerful and the most occult of
the secret societies of
To the passages cited above in section 2 may be added Rev.
9:
20,
21:
“And the rest of
mankind, who were not killed with these plagues, repented not of the
works of their hands that they should not worship demons, and the idols of
gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood; which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk; and they repented not ot their murders,
nor of their
sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” This makes clear that, as the end of
this age nears, men will be irreclaimably devoted to the worship of demons and
idols, and to the immoralities ever associated therewith.
On the other hand, the Vision itself offers no hint that the
Harlot would ever become nominally Christian. This emphasizes how little the
long centuries of this age have to do with the vision, and seems to regard the
period of her “Christian” phase as a
merely transitory matter. Her name is “Mystery Babylon the Great,” which depicts her as being as
Babylonian at the time of her judgment as when John knew her at
After the foregoing inquiry was penned the following
confirmation was found in Pember’s “The Church, The
Churches, and the Mysteries”
(500 ff. and “Mystery Babylon” 123). It shows how easy is
the transition from Romanism to Paganism, and that this has been long
contemplated by Catholic teachers. Pember
wrote in 1901:
It would be scarcely possible to select a more striking
instance of unmistakable, though disguised, leaning towards Polytheistic
Paganism than that which may be found in Dr. St. George Mivart’s article on “The Continuity of Catholicism,” which appeared in the
Nineteenth
Century for January, 1900. Dr. Mivart wrote:
“I have heard a man devoted to the cause of Catholicity express himself as
follows, when seeking the advice of a learned and austere priest:
“ ‘Monotheism, in the highest sense
of that term, is, of course, an indisputable truth, but can it be entirely defended
as popularly understood? Newman has
thrown some doubts on this matter. ... God’s attributes, while distinct, are
each of them equally God, and therefore substantial. ... But does not this
really amount to Polytheism? And, indeed, we may well ask why may we not, in
this way, attribute plurality to God? There are certainly some aspects and
attributes of the Deity which may not be unfitly represented by such Pagan Gods
- by Zeus, Athene, Ares, Aphrodite, Nemesis, Eros, Demeter, and Pan. In a
sense, the Paganism of Greece and
“‘ There are, to my knowledge, good
Catholics who feel drawn to worship God directly ... who would prefer to worship
God under one of His attributes, symbolized by representations more resembling
Athene or Apollo, and who have especially felt the want in Christianity of a
female symbol of Divinity; for, of course, God is as much female as He is male.
I have heard there are persons who go to the Brompton Oratory there to worship
the Madonna, as the only available representative of Venus; and we have lately
read of the recent worship (in Paris) of Isis,
by persons who regarded the goddess, whose veil no man has drawn aside, as no
inapt symbol of the inscrutable power that everywhere meets, yet everywhere
escapes, our gaze as we seek to probe the mysteries of Nature.
“‘In conclusion, I would ask whether
it would be lawful for me, as a Catholic, to worship God as Zeus or Athene, if
I am in truth devoutly moved so to adore Him.’
“The answer,” says Dr. Mivart,
“given, in my hearing, by the learned and devout
priest in question was as follows:
“‘Most certainly it is lawful for you to do so,
provided you find it helps you to advance in virtue and religion. But you must
only do it privately: it would not at present be right for you to carry on a
public worship of that kind.’
“ I myself subsequently asked the
same question of three other learned and experienced priests, and received a
similar reply from them all”
From this is to be learned that (1) there is a distinct tendency among Catholic laymen to worship
God under the guise of Pagan deities; (2)
that four learned and experienced priests allowed this as proper; (3) that a Cardinal is cited in support;
but (4) sixty years ago the time was
not fitting for it to be done openly.
Pember commented thus:
That good Catholics are often repelled by the images and
symbols set before them for worship, we can well understand: that they should
wish to exchange those objectionable objects for the images of Athene and
Apollo emphasizes the fact that Catholicism, the religion of the senses, is the
road that leads back to Paganism....
To feel the want in Christianity of a female symbol of
Divinity is to repudiate Christianity altogether, for the reason that it does
not pander to the lusts and desires of the flesh. ... Scripture forbids any
such carnal idea as that of a female element in the Deity.
That many Catholics worship the Madonna as the only available
representative of Venus has long been known to those who are interested in such
matters ... it appears that a good Catholic may lawfully personify God’s
attributes, or what he chooses to regard as God’s attributes, and worship them,
severally, under the names of Pagan deities, provided only he does so in
private; for “at present” he must not
recklessly cast off the veil in public.
But why this qualification “at
present”? Is a time coming when it will be right to resume the worship
of Zeus and Athene in public? And are there even now Pagan “Marranos” in the Catholic Churches? Is it to such a
goal that Romanism is leading us with its goddesses and saints, which, indeed,
are all Pagan deities under false names?
(“Marranos” - a person who
professes one religion while in heart believing another).
2. A second questions is, What may be
the area ruled by the ten kings at the time the Harlot dominates them, and up
to the time when they give their kingdom to the Beast? In my work on Daniel,
Appendix A, I have given reasons for thinking that the Antichrist will, at
his height, rule the whole world; but the territories which he will acquire by
early wars and by the ten kings exalting him will be local, though this will
give to him sufficient power to extend his rule universally. We have seen
to-day how other influences than conquest lead smaller nations to submit to the
yoke of greater.
In ch. 2 of that work I have argued that the territory of the
fourth part of the image of ch. 2 of Daniel, at the close of its career, cannot be
now known by what it has been in the past; that it will not be limited to what
Rome ruled of old; and will not include part of what she did formerly hold.
Treating, as I have done, all the four beasts of ch. 7 as
yet to arise from the
(1) The first, the lion-eagle beast, has its wings plucked.
May not this be well fulfilled by that power being deprived of its fleet and
air force, so crippling it from rapid movement? May not the way that
(2) The second beast, the bear, has seized three countries
just before it enters the scene, for the three ribs are still between its
teeth.
(3) The third beast, the leopard, has already four heads when
it emerges, that is, four powers have combined before this beast joins in the
strife, the tempest pictured as then raging in the Mediterranean. As there is
no suggestion of conquest, probably the four have allied themselves mutually
for protection and war.
(4) Neither of the two last absorbs its predecessors, for when
the fourth beast arises it tramples upon the three, and when itself is
destroyed the three are still there and outlast it (Dan. 7: 7, 12).
It were premature to express an opinion that the late turmoil
in the
There will next emerge a ponderous, slower acting power, like
to a bear, which will ravage three lands, and will proceed to destroy much
flesh. The bear seems an inappropriate figure for the hot-blooded,
quick-thinking Latin races, and presumably they are not meant.
This will be followed by a four-kingdom confederacy, marked by
the swiftness and cruelty of the leopard; and then will come the final
development of a ten-kingdom union, which will show a ferocity and terribleness
previously unseen in all the dreadful periods of man’s dread history.
This is the programme outlined by the vision of Daniel 7, whether its beginnings are with us or not; and our immediate inquiry is
as to the area and extent of the territory of this fourth beast at its start.
It is clear that this will not at first include the
territories of the three former beasts, for it acquires these by conquest after
it has risen from the Sea. When it has done so, then, next, the “little horn,” the Antichrist, will arise within their area (“among them,” Dan. 7: 8). He will reduce three of the ten by war, and in due time will
become the chosen emperor of the ten, according to Rev. 17: 17. In Appendix C to Daniel I have suggested the possibility that his rise will be in
Still looking to the question of area, it is to be observed
that Scripture contemplates both Abyssinia and Libya as coming under the direct
authority of Antichrist at the time that he conquers the land of Egypt (Dan. 11: 43; “The Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps”). I drew the attention of friends to
this at the time that
It is further to be learned from Daniel 11: 27, that, at the time there in view,
Again, if the premises stated are correct, and Antichrist, who
is to arise within the area of the ten, does so in Asia Minor, Syria, or Armenia (I put the case widely, though
thinking it will be in Armenia), then the region of the ten kings will be the
north-eastern area of the Mediterranean lands, and the three previous beasts,
that the fourth will tread down, will be further west in the Mediterranean.
By the above process of thought the central area of the ten
kings becomes somewhat evident; nor is anything said that need hinder them from
drawing upon territories and resources to the north of the eastern
Mediterranean, supposing that any power or powers of that region, not as yet
having a footing on that sea, may by the time in view have gained this, and
join in this federation of ten. This subject I have treated in a note to ch. 7 of
Daniel,
ed. 3.
From five to seven centuries B.C. the prophets of
The fact that these three states are, at the last, to be able
of themselves to make treaties and wars, suggests that by the time in view,
western over-lordship will have ceased. If this should mean that by then
It is not, however, to be expected that these outer lands will
be “Christian”
at that period, for “darkness shall
cover the earth, and gross darkness the
peoples” (Isa. 60: 2). Thus those “sheep” who befriend the persecuted disciples
of Christ will not be doing this consciously as to Him, but will say to Him, “When saw we Thee afflicted?” But He will receive them as having
done it to Himself in the persons of His brethren, and such will enter into His
kingdom of peace.
Any loss by a people of central and supreme authority on earth
will at that time be seen to have been a blessing; whereas those nations which
will have won in the mad struggle for world-supremacy will have gained it only
at fearful cost of cruelty and misery, and to their complete destruction at the
coming of the Lord of the whole earth, the Stone from heaven which will crush the
image to powder (Dan.
2:
35,
44).
How different is the expectation, and how changed the desire,
of the heart instructed by the prescient Word of God to that of the natural
mind. But the former will see its God-wrought hopes fulfilled, while the latter
will know only final disillusionment and disappointment. “Blessed are
all they that wait for Him.”
3. A third subordinate, but pregnant,
inquiry is, Where will be the last centre of the Beast and the Woman? In
treating of the next chapter (18) of the Revelation we hope to show that it means the actual city
But will it be this to the ten kings prior to the rise of
Antichrist, or only upon this becoming fact? We think the latter, and that, though the city may have been built, it will not become that proud emporium
described in ch. 18
until Antichrist makes it his capital. If so, the Harlot must at first have
her scat on the beast corporate at some other place, and only finally at
Then the angel
that talked with me went forth, and
said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, What is it? And he said, This is the ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their appearance in all the land (and ‘behold, there was lifted
up a talent [a round piece] of lead); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah. And he said, This is Wickedness
[Lawlessness]: and he cast her
down into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth
thereof. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and behold there
came forth two women, and the wind was in their wings; now they had wings
like the wings of a stork; and they lifted up the ephah between earth and heaven. Then said I to the
angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear
the ephah? And he said unto me, To build her a
house in the
(1) The ephah, being the largest Hebrew
dry measure, seems a fitting symbol of
commerce.
(2) The woman is named Wickedness, and
has been taken to symbolize corruption
in commerce. But for this meaning, would not the figure of a merchant in the ephah
have been more appropriate? In general, and in the East especially, women are
not usually found at the centre of the business world inspiring it with
depravity.
In our vision of Rev. 17 we have seen the figure “a woman” to represent a system
dominantly religious. Only a short while before Zechariah’s day both
Jeremiah (ch. 3) and Ezekiel (ch. 16) had so spoken of
Thus has “Mystery
Babylon” been
able always to array herself in royal apparel of purple and scarlet and to deck
herself with gold and precious stone and pearls (ver. 4). This will doubtless help her final ruin by provoking the
greed of the ten kings and the Beast, themselves probably impoverished by the
preceding wars.
Thus, too, is wholly obscured the blessed fact that God deals
with the spiritual needs of men upon the principle of grace and that eternal
life is a “free gift”.
(Rom.
6:
23, [R.V.]).
At the time for the fulfilment of this
vision the Woman will be divinely confirmed and fixed in this vicious moral
state, practised willingly since national and religious life commenced at
(3) This Woman is stated plainly to
belong to
The prophet sees two women come on the scene, having the wind
in their wings, the latter being those of a stork. These women take up the
ephah, with the first Woman therein, and carry her to
(4) But to come to the chief present
matter. The stand-point of Zechariah’s visions is his own country,
The city of
This brings us to consider that city as depicted in Rev.
18. But before passing to this subject
it should be added that the matter of the headquarters of the Papacy shifting
from
The writer in The Catholic Herald, Mr.
Stanley B. James, added that it bears on this that the Italian Cardinals are
now only a minority in the rule of the Church, and “In
dealing with the times of Benedict XV [Pope A.D. 1740], Dr. Gwynn remarked that the Pope, observing the wreckage
of European civilization, ‘had to face a
situation in which even the central direction, of the Church might have to be
transferred urgently elsewhere.’ Since that sentence was written, the
dangers of the situation have increased.”
That Catholic writers, and a Catholic magazine, openly discuss
and advocate such removal of the Papacy from
If this trend of opinion prove warranted by events it will be
seen how unwarranted has been that line of exposition of prophecy which has
made the city of
We proceed to ch. 18.
* *
*
Studies in Prophecy (4)
PART 4
THE CITY
Does
this chapter point to a literal city
Examining eighteen commentaries it is to find that three
regard it as symbolic of Commercialism. “It represents
the world, of course ... Business ... a spiritual
Two writers treat it as symbolic of world-religion and
world-politics in combination But nine are certain that
A foreigner, struggling with the terrible irregularities of
English pronunciation, wrote home: “They write
Most mercifully, however, if we venture to believe that the
passage does mean what it says, even the veritable Babylon the great, we shall
not be wholly alone, for at least four respectable writers, formerly of some
note in prophetic study, will keep us in countenance, namely, B W. Newton, R. Govett, J. A. Seiss,
and G. H. Pember.
Let us, then, examine for ourselves, seeking ever the aid of
the Spirit of truth.
SECTION 1.
FOUR DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN THE CHAPTERS.
1. If the two chapters (17
and 18)
refer to but one thing or system, why did not the same angel who showed and
explained the former continue the subject to its close? Why did a different
angel mediate the second half of the announcement, if it was all one? Also, why
is the second vision stated distinctly to be a subsequent vision? And why was
the new messenger one of exceptional authority and splendour? “After these things (those of ch. 17) I saw another (allos) angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority and the earth was lightened with his
glory.
Thus the opening statement particularizes four distinctions
between this scene and that of ch. 17.
(a) In the latter the angel was already at hand to the earth, having
just poured out on it his bowl of judgment : in the eighteenth chapter the
angel comes direct from heaven for this announcement.
(b) He is a different messenger, which suggests a different
message and subject.
(c) His superior authority and glory suggest a yet more
momentous and terrific judgment, distinguishing it from that just before
described.
(d) The theme is disconnected from what went before by being
given “after these” former things. In the two earlier
places in this book where the phrase “after these things I saw” is found, a new subject is
introduced, not the former subject amplified ([Rev.] 4: 1, 7: 1).
2. Upon the fall of this
3. The former system was
Thus is her name
4. The vast array of details from ver.
11 to ver. 23, so extensive and minute, apply simply and obviously to the
life of a literal city. It would require both the ability and leisure of an
interpreting angel to give them even the semblance of application to a “system” of any sort. But no angel would attempt the task or, at
least, no angel has attempted it. It demands the unique qualities of a
commentator.
Not till these seven considerations are eliminated can the
theme of the two chapters be the same.
SECTION 2. FOUR CONTRASTS BETWEEN THE
CHAPTERS.
1. Ch. 14: 8 announced a fall of
But ch. 16 describes him as already in power, his image being worshipped
(2), his throne standing and his kingdom existing (10),
and the last great battle against God as passed (17, “It is done,” completed). And then is announced a
further judgment upon
Thus one
2. In 17: 16 the ten kings hate and destroy the Woman; in 18: 9 the same kings of the earth bewail
the destruction of the city. The two terms describe the same persons, for in 19: 19 the kings confederate with the Beast
at Har Magedon are again styled “the kings of the earth,” which term must therefore at least
include the ten kings. Isa. 24: 21, referring to the same judgment, uses of them the same title: “Jehovah will punish ... the kings of the earth upon the earth.”
3. When the kings have killed the Woman
they then “eat her flesh” that is, enrich themselves from her: but when the city is suddenly and
utterly overthrown, as a stone cast into the sea (18: 21) nothing is left for anyone to seize, which is what causes the
merchants to wail (18: 15-19).
4. The
Woman is destroyed by a process: she is hated, isolated, stripped,
devoured, burned. Considering the extensive area, power, and resources of the
system in view, this process cannot be completed in a brief space of time. It
took the Bolsheviks an appreciable period to liquidate the Greek Orthodox
Church, even incompletely; and that Church is only a small part of the Woman as
she will yet be.
But the City is to be annihilated suddenly
in one day (8); yea, “in one hour” (19), yea, as suddenly as when a stone is flung into water “thus shall
Not till these four contrasts are obliterated can the two
chapters have the same subject.
SECTION 3. THE RELATION OF THE CHAPTER
TO OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
There is manifest and intimate connexion between this chapter
and the Old Testament prophecies concerning
1. It is to take place in “the day of Jehovah” (13: 6, 9).
2. It is at the time that there will be
a mighty disturbance of the sun, moon, and stars (13: 10, 13). This is referred to by
Christ (Matt.
24:
29,
30) as to follow the final tribulation of
this present age and immediately to precede His return. In Rev.
6:
12-17 it is again set at that coming period,
even in the great day of the wrath of God and the Lamb. As shown in II. 1
above, the New Testament also foretells a destruction of
3. This is confirmed by Isaiah in that he puts the judgment
announced at the time when Jehovah shall finally restore
4. Obviously no sort of a fulfilment of
these predictions took place when Cyrus captured
5. There is a further detail, perhaps
seldom noticed. Just previously in the prophecy (Isa. 10: 5, 12) the Assyrian has been mentioned as that final assailant of
It would seem therefore that, as of old, Nabonidus was
emperor, and had Belshazzar as deputy king at the capital, and as later Cyrus
ruled the whole Persian empire, and appointed Darius over the newly acquired
Babylonian kingdom (Dan.
5:
30;
6:
1), so will the last world-emperor have
a deputy sovereign at the capital. The Emperor will perish in
6. Yet again: it is stated repeatedly
that the destruction of the city is
to be effected by the kings of the Medes: “Behold I will
stir up the Medes against them” (Isa. 13: 17): “Jehovah hath stirred up the spirit of the kings
of the Medes; because His
purpose is against
7. The overthrow of
8. The overthrow predicted is to be
sudden, as that of
It appears probable that there will be a capture and sack of
the city by the Medes and associated peoples (Jer. 51: 27) while the Emperor is on a campaign against Egypt (Dan. 11: 44; “tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble
him”: 19 and that a little later the full and
final judgment of the city will take place by earthquake. Thus will she receive
at the hands of man exactly the same miseries that her armies had often
inflicted upon other cities, and then the hand of God will complete His wrath
and retribution by instant and complete engulfment. So shall be “rendered unto
her even as she rendered, and doubled unto her the double according to her
works” (Rev.
18:
6).
It is evident that Jeremiah’s prediction was still awaiting
fulfilment in the days of John, and certainly no such sudden and final
catastrophe has ever overtaken
9. This introduces the further
prediction that the overthrow shall prove final and irrecoverable: “It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to
generation.” (Isa. 13: 20). Jeremiah solemnly enforced this by telling the messenger,
Seraiah, to address these words to God himself: “O Jehovah, thou hast spoken concerning this place to cut it off,
that none shall
dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever”
(Jer.
51:
62).
Concerning most of the lands around
So far is this prediction concerning
No such calamity overtook it at the capture by Cyrus. It
suffered no injury, but he rather beautified it and made it his capital. See Budge, Babylonian
Life and History, 55-57, quoting the cylinder of
In B.C. 516 Darius Hystaspes, suppressing a revolt,
injured the outer walls and pulled down the gates, but otherwise consulted for
the welfare of the city.
B.C. 478 Xerxes plundered the great
B.C. 331 Alexander the Great was welcomed into
the city, and proposed to rebuild the temple, but his death prevented.
B.C. 293 Seleucus built
Strabo, who died A.D. 25, is cited in proof that by his time no
city was left, and that so the prediction before us had reached its fulfilment.
This is an instance of how easily lax quotation or assertion may falsify both
an author and an issue, which, being once done, other writers too easily follow
suit. What Strabo says is: "And now indeed (
About the middle of the fifth century Theodoret speaks of the city as being then inhabited only by a few
Jews. Perhaps he somewhat exaggerated its desolation, for “the Rabbis of that period knew it as a city. Mention is made
of baskets taken to
In A.D. 917 Ibn Haukal
mentions
About A.D. 1100 it seems to have again grown into a town of some
importance, for it was then known as the Two Mosques. And shortly afterwards it
was enlarged and fortified, and received the name of Hillah, or rest, which it retains to the present day.
In A.D. 1585 Bishop
Otto of Freisingen published a history and said: “That
portion of ancient
That Hillah has remained until this day is well known.
Therefore the prediction of complete and everlasting solitude
still awaits fulfilment.
10. So also does the detail that the Arabian
shall never pitch his tent there (Isa. 14: 20), for many travellers have testified to the contrary. About,
probably, the year 1915 I read in
11. This further prediction also has not
had fulfilment, that “they shall not take
of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith Jehovah”
(Jer.
51:
26). For many towns and villages have been
built out of the remains of
12. Nor has it become true [today] that
“neither doth
any son of man pass thereby” (Jer. 51: 43), for the ruins have been frequently
visited by travellers and explorers down to this time.
13. In connexion with this destruction
there is to be overthrow of a monarch who has some distinctly superhuman
features (Isa.
14:
3-25). He has some connexion with “the day star, son of the morning” who had “fallen from heaven” (12), and he has a boundless and impious
ambition himself to ascend to, and rule in, heaven, the equal of the Most High
(13). No former king of
14. Yet again, the return to
15. A result of this destruction of
From these fifteen considerations it is a plain consequence
that the divine predictions concerning the city Babylon have
never had fulfilment, and that therefore the city
must revive at the end of this [evil and apostate] age, for not one jot or tittle of the
words of God can fail. The
alternatives are to ignore the details, or to fritter them away into a nebulous
indistinctness when they can be made to mean anything or nothing. Both courses are irreverent.
It is of the greatest value to confidence and to guidance at
the present time to recognize, from Holy Scripture, the trend of the present
concentration of affairs in the
SECTION 4.
THE GROUNDS OF THIS JUDGMENT ARE:
1. The cruel treatment by Babylon of
Israel and
2. The world-wide tyranny and ruin that
has spread formerly, and will spread again from this city. Under Nimrod it was
the first centre of rule by violence. Under Antichrist it will be the last. Gen. 10: 8-12; Isa. 14: 4-10, 45-53. It may be noted incidentally that Cyrus did let prisoner
peoples return to their own lands,
3. The universal corrupting influence
of
It was in
4. The gross luxuriousness of the city
will cry for vengeance.
Oh, the deadly dangers to the soul attendant upon riches and
luxury! “The iniquity of
5. Another cause of retribution is the age-long
persecution of the people of God: “Rejoice over her thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets;
for God hath
judged your judgment on her ... and in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,
and of all that
have been slain upon the earth” (18: 20, 24). The priesthoods of every
system of idolatry, pagan or nominally Christian, have been ever the wolves to
harass the little flock that has followed the true Shepherd. The bloody effort
commenced in
6. It was in
When at last Babylon shall have become again the world-centre
of vice and cruelty, and have resumed her ancient policy, then shall she be
justly held responsible for its whole course and consequence: in her shall be “found the blood of
all that have been slain on the earth” (18: 24), and she shall receive “double for all her sins” (18: 6). It is only by paying regard to the whole cycle of the
city’s career, from its ancient commencement to its final revival and its re-adoption
of its ancient wickedness, that it is seen to be just to hold it responsible
for all the consequences that have accrued from the principles it set in
motion. Fearful as has been its career, this cannot be rightly said of the
Roman Catholic Church; it is not
responsible for all the blood shed on the earth.
The late titanic struggle included conflict for possession of
But men of this world will be blind to the warnings of
Scripture. Yet let those who believe God heed well the repeated call to abandon
It was Babylonia (
It was the outward splendour of
It was from
It was pride at being courted by the king of
The gravity of the good king’s error lay largely in this, that
he already knew the mind of God about
Yet in spite of this knowledge he welcomed the Babylonian
ambassadors, [Hezekiah] made much of them, and in vanity displayed to them
all his treasures. But we do not
read that he made much of his God,
the only true God, before them. The knowledge that such vast wealth lay in
All this has its spiritual counterpart in the history of the
But all too quickly the outward splendours and carnal delights
of Babylonianism seduced the servants of God to commit fornication with “Jezebel,” and the powerful pleadings of Paul (1 Cor. 8), of John (1 Jo. 5: 21), and
even of the Lord himself (Rev. 2 and 3), to
guard themselves from idols were disregarded. Presently the king of “
Every revival that true Christianity has since known has come
by an handful of Babylon’s captives leaving that spiritual realm and returning
to set up again the true worship of the true God, even if in weakness and very
incompletely. It is this that imparts such rich spiritual value to the
histories of Ezra and Nehemiah. Both now and to end of the age, the
call of God is emphatic: “Come forth, My people, out of her.” and His warning is solemn and urgent “That ye have no
fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev.
18:
4).
But in spite of all this history and command, many real children of God persist in
adherence to church systems which,
in outward splendour and symbolic ritual, are plainly Babylonian. Yet other believers share in governmental and worldly
enterprises plainly to do with the kingdoms of this world and not with that
In the light of all this how serious to-day appears
teaching at all calculated to break the call of God, and emasculate His warnings,
by assuring His - [redeemed and regenerate] - people that most certainly they
will all have been removed from the earth before the perils of
the last years of this age set in. God does not tacitly encourage His
people to remain in the foul vessel of Babylonianism by offering a miraculous
deliverance just before she is to founder in the gale of His wrath. He
urges them to abandon the ship at once, lest the tempest burst in which
To us who do not dwell there literally the command means that
we refuse utterly the slightest association with the philosophy, worship,
politics, principles, practice, and spirit that are Babylonian in character.
These are found in measure in all national life, and in every humanly organized
system of religion. Man’s whole world is infected; all nations have drunk of
the wine. Let us take deeply to heart this comforting but searching word: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus
Christ, Who gave Himself for our sins, that He might rescue us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father; to Whom be the
glory unto the ages of the ages” (Gal. 1: 3-5). Can my soul add sincerely with Paul, “Amen”?
Note - In connection with this and the preceding chapters the
serious reader is recommended to study A.
Hislop’s The Two Babylons, G. H.
Pember’s Earth’s
Earliest Ages, The Great
Prophecies, and Mystery,
* *
*
3
BAPTISM
By G.
H. LANG
A GREEK was asked the meaning of the Greek
word baptizo (baptize). He pointed to a ship and said: “If that ship should sink completely under the water we
should say it had been baptized.” Asked further if that would be said were some drops of water to be sprinkled on
the ship, he replied: “No, for that we should use the word rhantizo.”
This last verb is used in Heb.
9: 13,
19, 21, and 10: 22, and its noun rhantismos at Heb. 12: 24 and 1 Pet.
1:
2. They are correctly
rendered by “sprinkled” and “sprinkling.”
This present-day usage of baptizo is the invariable
meaning in the New Testament. The word signifies to dip, to immerse; as in Luke 16: 24,
“that he may dip the tip of his finger in water”: John 13: 26, “I
shall give the sop when I have dipped it” (in the
dish): Mark 7: 4, “The washing [dipping]
of cups and
pots and brazen vessels” (“couches”
is to be omitted; see R.V. ). It is plain that such
articles could not be cleansed by the mere sprinkling of a few drops of water.
Therefore of baptism John the Baptist
said, “I indeed baptize you in water” (Mat. 3: 11); and we read “they were baptized by him in the river Jordan”
(Mark 1:
5): and thus it is said of Philip and
the eunuch (Acts
8:
38),
“they both went down into the water and he baptized [dipped]
him ... and when they
were come up out of the water.” To what purpose the descent into the stream
or pool had the need been only of a few drops for sprinkling? One of the
eunuch’s servants could have brought a cupful. The mediaeval pictures of John
standing in
The matter is, indeed, so clear that Bishop Handley Moule in his Commentary on Rom.
6:
5 speaks of the baptismal “plunge” and “emergence”
and owns that at first baptism was by “entire
immersion.” And thus also Dean Stanley says that “baptism was not
only a bath but a plunge, an entire submersion in the deep water” (Christian Institutions 8). In the ruins of the great church at
Sprinkling is not dipping, and therefore it is not baptism,
though called so by men. It is an unwarranted and misleading use of the word.
The Anglicized word baptize is not a translation of the Greek
word, but is simply an unworthy hiding in English of the meaning of the Greek word. To have translated the word the
translators must have used dip or immerse, but that would have opened the eyes
of the general reader to what scholars already knew, even that the ceremony of
sprinkling is not the New Testament ordinance of baptism.
Only by means of the true form of the ordinance can its true doctrine be expressed. For baptism is a
burial: “We were buried [entombed, Moule] therefore with Him through
baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, so we also might walk in newness
of life.” Who
would deem a corpse to have been buried if a few grains of earth were sprinkled
thereon and it were left on the surface uncovered?
Burial is effected according to the words of Abraham: “that I may
bury my dead out of my sight” (Gen. 23: 4).
There is a principle of law, Divine and human, that the act of
an agent is the act of a principal whom he represents. The greatest example is
that the death of Christ is deemed to be the
death of the believer in Him. In His burial the believer is
considered to have been put out of the way; in His resurrection the believer is
reckoned to have been raised a new creature to live in a new realm. Before God
Christ is the Representative or Agent of man. What He did, suffered,
experienced we are held to have done.
He died on account of my sin: then I
died on account of it, and through Him paid its last penalty and am free.
He died out of all relationship to my sins, responsibility for
which He had in grace assumed. In Him, then, I too died out of all relationship
to my sins, and hence the challenge: “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?”
One cannot at the
same time be both dead and alive.
Christ rose again in a life beyond the power of death. Death,
as to its nature, is that the spirit, the principle which animates man’s composite being, is recalled by God who gave it and it
returns to Him (Eccl.
12:
7:
Luke 23:
46;
Acts 7:
59). But the spirit is not the man
himself. Man is a soul (Gen.
2:
7,
“man became a living soul”). This man, soul, person dwells in a
body of flesh, which body can be useful to him only as long as it is energized
by the spirit. When the latter is withdrawn the body corrupts and falls to
pieces, whereupon the soul, the man, ceases to be a living soul and becomes dead - still existing and conscious (Luke 16: 23; Rev. 6: 9-11), but not living, in God’s sense of
the term. (See my Firstfruits and Harvest, 46-58.) Thus the human [animating] spirit of Christ
returned at death to God (Luke 23:
46;
“Father, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit.”). He himself, the [disembodied] soul, went to Hades, the realm of the dead in the lower parts of the earth (Psa.
16: 10; Acts 2: 27; Eph. 4: 9). His body was buried in the tomb.
This break up of man’s threefold
being, death, the penalty of sin, we call dissolution, because the former
partnership of these three elements is dissolved. But glorious
is the fact that “Christ being raised [out] from the dead dieth no more,
death no more hath dominion over Him” (Rom.
6:
9). Having paid the full penalty of the
sin He had made His own, our sin, the Father released Him therefrom,
immediately, entirely, eternally. Resurrection is the reuniting of spirit, soul, and body, and
henceforth Christ “liveth
in the power of an indissoluble life”
(Heb.
7:
16).
Into a share in this life, beyond the region where sin blights and death
blasts, the believer is introduced by vital union with
Christ, his Representative. Of this union with Christ in His
death, burial, and emergence, with its
escape from the former sin-ruined,
death-ruled state, baptism is the Divinely
appointed symbolic expression.
It is the office of the Holy Spirit to make all this morally
effective in the inner experience and outer practice of the man of faith, which
He does according to the measure and constancy of faith. Where
faith, instructed by the Word, takes hold of the thought of God, claims daily
its fulfilment, dedicates itself wholly to God to do only and fully His will,
then and so far the union between the man of faith and Christ is made
operative, and the believer knows experimentally God’s thought as to baptism,
even that we have been “buried with Christ in baptism, wherein also ye
were raised with Him, through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from
the dead” (Col. 2: 12). This wide range of vital
experimental truth, so admirably expressed by immersion, is completely
concealed by sprinkling, to the great impoverishment of the soul even if the
person be a believer.
Now no person ought to be buried
until he has died. No one should be baptized until, by personal faith in Christ, he
has associated himself with the death of Christ as his own death to sin, law, and judgment. The mental grasp of these truths will at
first be imperfect, but the faith must be real, and any ceremony before faith
is not baptism according to God, though men may call it this. We are not Anabaptists,
for we do not demand the second baptism of one baptized; but we do take the
inflexible position that a rite performed upon one not having personally
exercised faith is not Scriptural baptism at all, even though it be by
immersion.
The great champion of the truth that salvation is by faith,
Martin Luther, could not but acknowledge the requirement of Scripture that
faith ought to precede baptism. To justify still the baptizing of infants he
went to the extreme of asserting that the infant must be supposed to have a
capacity for faith. But many who will not adopt this desperate expedient,
invent another way of meeting their dilemma, and assert that the faith, or
supposed faith, of sponsors will stand instead of the faith of the infant. But
Scripture knows nothing of this vicarious faith unto salvation. It is a
theological fiction, carrying no experimental power, but serving effectually to
hide from many souls the necessity that they must personally trust Christ.
A truly godly clergyman confided to me that, forty years
before, he went straight from his ordination as a “priest”
to the parish in the east end of London where he was to serve. That afternoon
there were infants brought to be baptized. He told me that as he looked into
the faces of the parents and godparents, and saw there the evidence that they
were heavy drinkers, yet were about to take solemn vows to rear the children in
the fear of God though themselves having none of His holy fear upon their
hearts, it rushed over his soul what a hypocrisy the whole ceremony was, and he
felt that he must go straight away and resign his orders. But,
he added sadly, I did not do so, and so here I still am. Thus
may a godly man miss the way of God, and know through a long life that he
failed to reach God’s real will for him.
But while only the dead should be buried,
all the dead ought to be - every [regenerate] believer in Christ should be baptized.
This He commanded. The apostles would have had no more right to omit the
baptism of a disciple than to fail to
teach him to observe all the Lord’s other commandments (Matt. 28: 19, 20). And therefore
Peter commanded the baptism of Cornelius and his friends
though these had already received the baptism in the Holy Spirit (Acts 10: 45, 48). Peter’s action
stands squarely against the notion that it is the spiritual that alone matters
and he who has received the spiritual need not observe the external symbol. For Peter the baptism in the [Holy] Spirit was reason and ground for the baptism in water, not
reason for omitting it.
Others make void the command of the Lord and the example of
His apostles by the device that the period of the Acts was an “interim
dispensation,” that the period of the church had not yet set in, and
that baptism and the Supper of the Lord do not apply now that this last age has
come. The fact that baptism and the Supper were unvarying ordinances immediately after the days of the apostles
shows that this idea was unknown to the church which
the apostles taught. It is modern dispensational invention.
How important and urgent was the question of Ananias to the newly-converted Saul: “And now, what art thou going to do? Arising,
get thyself immersed” (
According to Scripture blood was sprinkled, washing was always with water. All speaking and singing of washing with
blood confuses the typology and conceals the truth (Rev.
1:
5 reads “loosed” not “washed”). For Saul, baptism in the name of
Jesus was the public confession that his whole public life had been utterly
wrong, especially in its opposition to Christ, and thereby symbolically he
washed it all away from before men and commenced a new life, which life was
through Christ, in Christ, for Christ. It was somewhat as when a schoolboy
washes his slate clean because he finds that the sum has been quite wrongly
worked and he must begin all over again. Compare 1 Peter 3: 21.
And now believing but unimmersed reader, what
are you going to do? It is high time that you followed Saul - arise, and get
thyself baptized.
The words of Ananias, “baptize thyself” (baptisai, mid. voice), may suggest that the person dipped himself
under the water rather than being dipped by another. There is a post-apostolic
reference to this practice, but I cannot just now trace the passage.
There remains to be noticed the relationship between baptism
and reception into the house of God, the church.
Baptism as a confession that one was dying out of a former
circle of life and entering a new and different sphere of associations,
was well known in both the Jewish and pagan worlds of New Testament times. The
Gentile when professing to become a Jew, religiously speaking, was immersed. And when a candidate was initiated into one of the heathen
religious orders, the “Mysteries,” he was
immersed. The meaning in either case was that he held himself to have died to
the former sphere in which he had moved, to have been buried in symbol as one
dead, and thereupon to have entered a new association, to the Head of which he
was thenceforth utterly surrendered, and to the interests of which order he was
to be utterly devoted.
In any land or time where this is understood-
as among Hindus, Jews, or Moslems - immersion should be insisted upon as a
condition precedent to one being acknowledged as a Christian or admitted to the
privileges of the house of God. Upon those who are used to bring a soul to
faith in Christ as Saviour and Lord lies the responsibility to see to it that
their converts are at once instructed in the meaning and duty of baptism and
are required to give this proof of acceptance of Christ as the Lord to be
obeyed. For in one aspect baptism is a token act, a sample of the rule that is
to regulate all the future, even obedience to Christ as Lord.
But there are spheres where, by reason of
false instruction, many evidently regenerate
persons, whose lives are markedly consecrated to Christ, sincerely believe that
they have been baptized according to the Word of God, though they have not been
immersed after conversion. They honestly think this latter act unnecessary
because they were christened in early days. Direction as to how to deal with
these devoted but unenlightened souls cannot be found in Acts 2: 37-47, and similar passages, for these
contemplate not this class but the former, those who do know the true nature of
baptism, and are opposers of Christ. And because in those first days all did
understand the real force of baptism the New Testament gives no ground for
thinking that any person was considered a member of the house of God until he
had been baptized.
But instructions as to how to treat
the unenlightened persons in view may be found in Romans 14: 1 to 15: 7, “Him that is weak
in faith receive ye, yet not for decisions of
doubts,” not even
though that doubt be as to the place and force of a divine ordinance
(circumcision; Gal. 6: 15, 16; 1 Cor. 7: 18, 19). “Wherefore receive ye one
another, even as Christ also received you, to the glory of God.”
Here are
(1) The right angle
of approach - to see how many may be received, not how many ought to be excluded.
(2) Those who are already of the Fellowship ought to be received - “receive ye one
another.” The sole test is the person’s attitude to Christ as LORD, manifested by obedience to what is known of His will, especially baptism, if there is light
on that command. But if there is not that light, but there is other evidence of
obedience to all the light yet gained, then we should receive one another, and
not penalize a true disciple for want of light on that ordinance. Since we are
all in measure blind, no one seeing all truth, want of light would shut us all
out of the house of God. But fellowship with God, and therefore with one
another, is dependent upon walking in the light, that is, in that measure of
light one has - more than this cannot in love be demanded; and then the blood
of Jesus is held to atone for involuntary ignorance (1 John 1: 7).
(3) The pattern of
reception is, “as Christ received you”; and this He graciously did as soon as ever our heart truly bowed to Him as Lord, without waiting to remove all our ignorance
upon His perfect will.
(4) The principle
that should guide is the securing
the glory of God, which is not done by shutting out of His house any whom He
has already welcomed, but rather by our receiving them and helping them to walk
with Him in holy fellowship with His people.
But let each believer remember that
the grandest promises of God, as to spiritual blessing in this age and glory
hereafter, are given to “the church of God”; so that he who by refusing baptism, or otherwise, neglects
to associate himself with this company, or later dissociates therefrom, he
being no longer of the church militant has no right to expect to have part in
the church triumphant. One cannot be both in and not in the fellowship of saints, both of and not
of this heavenly society. One is not a member of a community until he has
united with it. It was by baptism that believers were added to the apostolic
company, and thereafter it was for them to continue steadfastly in this circle.
Finally: it is clear that, as only those who
have already been justified by faith in Christ should be baptized, therefore - [initial
and eternal] - salvation precedes baptism. The
latter therefore cannot effect or affect the former. The doctrine of
baptismal regeneration is therefore a colossal lie, false to Scripture and to
fact, a fatal deception assuring the blindness and ruin of souls innumerable.
And further: because salvation from hell is not
dependent upon baptism but upon faith in the Redeemer and His atoning blood, therefore
the doctrine that infants dying unbaptized are lost eternally is wholly a non
sequitur, another monstrous
falsehood serving only to make the sinner dependent upon the “Church” and its ministers who administer its so-called
“sacraments.” The salvation of persons
incapable of faith depends upon the knowledge which God, the righteous judge,
has that redemption was effected for their benefit by the plenary,
substitutionary, atoning sacrifice which Christ offered for the whole world (John 3: 16; 1 Tim. 2: 3-6; 1 John 2: 2).
To confuse men as to the true meaning of baptism, and thus to
break down the line of separation between those born of God and those not so
born again, was almost the earliest endeavour of Satan in his attack upon the
church of God and its message. He succeeded all too well and widely. But this is the greater reason why the ordinance should be
maintained and practised according to the Word of God. To spoil what is of God
and to introduce what is not of God was his double wile. Let us watch and fight
against both forms of his attack, so
that in doctrine and practice we may abide in Christ and in
His word. Then will He say, “thou didst keep My word and didst not deny My name” (Rev. 3: 8).
* *
*
4
THE LORD’S SUPPER.
By G. H. LANG
IN the time of Christ
the military oath taken by the Roman soldier was termed the sacramentum. Now
our Lord had distinctly forbidden His followers to take such an oath (Matt. 5: 33-37; Jas. 5: 12),
from which we may feel sure that He did not appoint for them any sacrament. The
term as applied to the ordinances
appointed by Christ is objectionable by importing ideas not intended by the Lord.
The Roman Catholic
church and some others - [other denominations of Christian sects] - have seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, penance, the mass, clerical orders, marriage, and extreme unction, of which only baptism and marriage are of
Divine authority, and these are ordinances
(things ordained), not
sacraments. The mass has no true relation to the holy supper
as instituted by Christ, but is of heathen derivation and nature, and the other
four sacraments - confirmation, penance, orders, and extreme unction - are
unknown to Holy Scripture.
Thus there are but two Christian ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper; marriage, though truly of Divine authority, being
pre-Christian and for all mankind, not only for
disciples of Christ. With baptism we dealt in a former paper.
These two ordinances were intended by Christ for perpetual observance by
Christians throughout the period of His absence until His return. It
was on the occasion when He instituted the Supper that He said: “I come again, and will
receive you unto myself” (John 14: 3), and Paul adds that by this ordinance we “proclaim the Lord's death till He
come” (1 Cor. 11: 26). The apostles, including Paul, practised both ordinances.
Fairly early in His ministry the Lord had spoken publicly of
the necessity that men should eat His flesh and drink His blood if they would
have eternal life (John 6:
51-58). This
had no reference to the Supper, for
(a) The eating and
drinking in question were necessary for
the sinful men to whom Christ was then speaking: the Supper was instituted much later, in
private, for disciples - [i.e., His regenerate
followers]. As the eating and drinking was
needful at the time Christ was speaking it could not be dependent on the Supper, for this was not yet instituted and
of it no one knew anything.
(b) In any case, that
eating and drinking was not of Christ’s actual flesh and blood, or of anything
else material. His hearers wrongly supposed the Lord to refer to some eating of
His physical flesh, saying, “How can
this man give us His flesh to eat?” (John 6: 52). But Christ
replied that even could they do this it would be useless, for, said He, “the flesh profiteth
nothing” (ver. 63). Now the only flesh of which He or His
hearers had spoken was His own physical
flesh, so that His words declared that even
the eating thereof would profit nothing.
It is falsely asserted that by
priestly consecration the bread and the wine are changed into the veritable
flesh and blood, soul and divinity of the Lord. But
were this miracle a possibility it would be valueless, according to the above
explicit statement of the Lord Himself. For the imparting of spiritual life to
the spirit of man is a spiritual process, and can be effected only by a
spiritual Agent and means, not by anything material: “It is the spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I have spoken unto you
are spirit and life.”
And so Peter said by the Holy Spirit that
believers are “begotten again
... through the word of God” (1 Pet.
1:
23).
For preservation from the dangerous errors connected with the
mass, that “fond
thing vainly invented,” it is important thus to know that John 6. does not refer to the Supper of the Lord, but to
a purely spiritual reception by faith of
Christ to be our spiritual life, by
sincerely believing His words.
The Supper has two chief ends. It is a remembrance and a partaking.
It is a remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as He said
at the institution, “this do in remembrance of Me” (Luke
22: 19). Things present and visible press
ceaselessly upon us and create a perpetual danger that we forget the past and
the unseen. Hence Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ” (2 Tim.
2:
8). The Supper is a powerful external aid
to this remembering of the Lord. On this account its frequent observance is a
benefit, seeing that the influences occasioning forgetfulness operate
constantly.
There is, however, no bondage as to the frequency of
repetition or the day or hour for observance. At first believers broke bread every day (Acts 2:
46):
“And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread
at home, they did take their food with gladness
and singleness of heart, praising God.” Acts 20: 7, reads: “Upon the
first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed [dialogued] with them.” It is only an assumption that those at
The first passage cited justifies the ordinance on every day
of the week, and therefore on any one of the days. The other passage encouraged
its observance on the first of the week.
It was, however, not instituted on the first day
of the week, and therefore in the absence of express precept believers are not
limited to that day.
It was instituted in
the evening and is accordingly termed a
supper, and it ever seems most appropriate and congenial when observed in the evening. It was evening when saints gathered at
But Acts 2: 46 quoted speaks of observance “day by day,” not specifying any part of the day; and in point of fact, on the occasion of Troas the actual
breaking of the bread did not take
place on the first day of the week or in the evening, but in the early hours of Monday; for Paul had discoursed till
midnight, then came the death and resuscitation
of Eutychus, and only thereafter was
the ordinance observed.
These details imply liberty as to day and hour; which is in
harmony with the non-legal genius of this age of spiritual liberty given to
grown-up sons of God, as argued in the Galatian epistle. And
it is of practical moment that this liberty should be preserved, for in periods of persecution such as the
Acts 2: 46 shows further that the holy ordinance was
observed in private houses,
for they were in the habit of “breaking bread
at home,” as
well as daily. We know a region in Europe where the police had prohibited
meetings of believers and they had not broken bread for about a year. Yet any “two or three” might have done so in their homes, with this scripture as
warrant, and so have enjoyed the benefit of the ordinance. How wise, simple,
and gracious are the Lord’s measures for meeting the needs of His people.
The same passage shows that the first believers broke bread in connection with the ordinary family
meals: “breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness.” The two phrases standing together are thereby distinguished,
which shows that the former refers to the holy ordinance.
It was during the social meal connected with the passover feast that the Lord had introduced the new
association of that bread and cup with His own person and work. Likewise does 1 Cor. 11. show that the believers at Corinth observed the Supper in
connection with a social meal of the whole company. This was known as the agape or feast of
love, and though it had led to abuses at
It is thus clear that fasting as an indispensable preliminary to
communion has no warrant from the Word of God.
It is healthful that this picture rise before the mind. An
ordinary house the place; a customary meal the occasion; the Supper quietly and
easily conjoined therewith. No ecclesiastical building, no priest or functionary, no altar or
sacrifice, no vestments or ornaments, as lights, incense, or crucifixes, no formality. The Supper
observed in simplicity; the home dignified thereby, the ordinary meal
sanctified and solemnized.
We have formerly written as follows:
“If in the observance of the Lord’s Supper
there be preserved the essential features of an eastern social meal, the guests
gathered round the board, and the bread and the cup passing familiarly from
hand to hand, it is all but impossible that the office of the
Mass, with its dogma of transubstantiation, should be attached to the
ordinance. For in such simple, artless, yet withal solemn,
observance there is obviously no room for an elevated altar with
worshippers kneeling before it, and a consecrating celebrant with gorgeous and
symbolic vestments. The external simplicity
protects the internal essence” (Church
Federation, A Study in Church Life and Order, 24).
It has been taught of late, and in a quarter where one least expected
and most regrets it, that because the Supper is a remembrance of Christ His
absence is implied, not His presence. Those so teaching hold also that only
such brethren as have attained spiritually to priestly capacity ought either to
minister the word or administer the ordinance in Christian gatherings; but that
after one of these has broken the bread and blessed the cup then Christ becomes
spiritually present.
Spirituality of mind, priestly energy of a spiritual kind, is
indeed greatly to be desired in all who serve God
publicly in His church. Without it the service can be
of little glory to Him or profit to His people. But
the teaching above mentioned is scarcely distinguishable from the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation. This doctrine denies,
indeed, that the bread and wine have by consecration ceased to be what they
appear still to be, bread and wine, and have become what they do not appear to
be, the person of Christ, which latter view is termed transubstantiation. But
consubstantiation means that when a [ordained] priest has consecrated
the elements of the sacrament, then Christ is
personally present in the elements of bread and wine, and the believing partaker does receive the literal, though invisible, body and blood of Christ, as
well as the bread and wine.
Transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and the first view
before mentioned have in common: (a) that the Lord is not present prior to
the blessing of the elements; (b)
that upon consecration He becomes present in some sense that before was not the
case; (c) that only a limited class
of men of a priestly standing can effect this wondrous
difference.
But against this is to be put the
plain statement of the Lord that when any two or three disciples meet in His
Name “there am I in the
midst! (Matt. 18: 19, 20).
This is so completely independent of the breaking of bread that the promise stands in connection with
prayer on any subject. Suppose therefore that disciples are
met to pray concerning any matters, and that before parting they are moved in
love to exercise their right and privilege to bread break in remembrance of
Christ, it is clear that He cannot be brought into their midst by means of the
ordinance, for He has been with them all
the time according to this His promise.
There are godly souls here and there who feel it impossible to
share in the Supper if leavened bread
and fermented wine are used, and some will not receive to the Supper any
who would use such elements elsewhere. They feel that, as in
Personally we should be happy to have unleavened bread and
glad to have unfermented wine. The latter is clearly within our Lord's
descriptive term " this fruit of the vine." But we can by no means
deem it of the Lord to force this as an indispensable condition of communion.
It does not seem certain that the principle of fermentation in liquors
is scripturally the same as that of leaven in bread. We understand that
authorities are not agreed as to whether in New Testament times passover wine was or
was not of necessity unfermented. It
is possible that the wine at the Lord's Supper in
With all respect for the conscience of others
we feel (a) that the insistence on
this detail is at variance with that freedom from legal restrictions and
details which characterizes the gospel age as contrasted with the age of law.
This freedom is necessary under the conditions of the church of God. In the
case in point it can be easily seen that unfermented grape juice is not, and never
can be, available in many remote regions of the earth, in many severe climates,
to many extremely poor people. To insist upon such wine would simply deprive
multitudes of the Supper. This the gospel does not do: it would be contrary to
its essential spirit of love.
(b) We feel also
that fellowship of heart, divinely generated by the Spirit of love, is too
powerful and too precious to be set aside as to its outward manifestation by such
a secondary consideration as the invisible quality of the elements.
(c) Seeing that the Lord graciously and blessedly grants
His presence at the Supper where fermented elements are used,
who are we, His poor servants, to absent ourselves or to refuse others on such
a ground? Are we wiser or holier than He?
Yet for ourselves we approve the use of unfermented grape juice, though on practical grounds.
Seeing that in many regions the abuse of intoxicants is so dreadful (as in
England), we ourselves completely abstain from them so as to be able with
sincerity and a good conscience to exhort and to encourage those who are
injured thereby. It seems to us regrettable that many young
people should first taste these
temptations to sin at the feast that tells of redemption from sin and demands
abstinence from sin.
We knew as a fact of a Sunday School Superintendent, formerly
a drunkard, whose passion for liquor was revived at the Sunday evening
communion service of his church, so that he went direct therefrom, drank to
excess, and was found at a street crossing in a slum we knew well wanting to
fight all and sundry.
We knew personally an esteemed and much used worker who was converted from a life of drunkenness. Shortly thereafter
he attended the Supper of the Lord at a hall we know. As soon as the cup
reached the end of the seat, he, at the other end, caught the smell, and the
demon passion instantly rose in him in fury. He knew, as he told us, that were
he to have put that cup to his lips he would have drunk it all and have rushed
thence to get more. Falling upon his knees he cried inwardly for salvation
until the cup passed him. We regret deeply to add that the brother in charge of
the cup, learning afterwards how the case had been, said, “Oh, you are one of those teetotal fanatics.” The babe
in Christ gave the sweet but severe answer: “Dear
brother, do not call me that: call me the ‘weak brother,’ and I will tell you
how our Lord says you should treat me.”
Were it not far better to remove the risk
of such most deplorable happenings, even if they are happily infrequent.
When one brother refuses to break bread with those who would
use fermented wine, and when another, at the opposite extreme, refuses to
commune if the wine is unfermented, one can only deplore the state of soul that
ranks such a detail higher than public fellowship with saints in the power of
heavenly love. We are assured by happy experience through sixty years that the
Lord makes Himself known to loving hearts whichever sort of bread and wine is
used. Bitterness and contention for either one or the other is not of Him.
“Let us follow after things which make for peace, and things whereby
we may build up one another.” “But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again,
why dost thou set
at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of
God. It
is good not to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor to do anything whereby thy brother
stumbleth” (Rom. 14: 19, 10, 21).
Others again agitate for individual cups instead of all
drinking from one. It seems to us greatly to reduce the sense of fellowship, of
joint participation. We read that at the institution of the ordinance Jesus “took a cup,
and having given thanks gave to them: and they all drank out of it,” where the last clause gives emphasis
to the fact that they all drank out of one and the same cup (Mark 14: 23). In 1 Cor. 10: 14-22, where communion is the leading truth pressed, it is as much
and as clearly one cup that is set forward as one loaf and one table. Consistency
might demand many tables and many loaves.
It is a supposed gain in hygiene that is
urged by introducers of this novelty. In the West this factor is
negligible. But we have been at the Supper in lands where lepers partook, and sufferers
from even worse diseases inherited from former evil living. In such cases older
brethren lovingly request the sufferers to sit where they will be the last to
partake. If there is a contentious person who still wishes to force this matter
of individual cups upon a church, is not the suggestion of a leading medical
man wise and simple, that the one demanding it should be
provided with a separate cup for his own use!
The sixth chapter of John, as before noticed, does
not refer to the Supper, and all eucharistic teaching
and practice based upon the contrary supposition are false and mischievous. Yet
the Supper when instituted later set forth in symbol the same essential truth
as Christ had taught in words on that former occasion under the notion of
eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
The truth in question is, that there
must be by faith a true and actual inward appropriation of the Son of God for
the purpose that He shall be the nourishment and strength of the inward spiritual
life.
In finite beings activity involves
wear and tear, and tends to exhaustion of energy. It has pleased the Creator to
store in bread energy such as man needs for recuperation. When he makes bread
his own inwardly by eating it, it becomes part of himself, whereupon the stored
energy is liberated and becomes his energy, by which he lives and labours
afresh.
It is thus in the spirit realm also of man’s
being. Through trespasses and sins this nature in man
is devoid of divine life, for these separate between God and man, and the sinner is thereby dead toward God.
Christ, by death for our sins and by resurrection life, is to
the spiritual nature the bread of God come down from
heaven to give life unto the world. To eat His flesh and to drink His blood
means that one appropriates to one’s own case and need the atoning sacrifice
which Christ offered for the putting away of sin. He “bare our sins in His
body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2: 24): He shed His life-blood, He poured out His soul unto death,
to discharge the appointed penalty of our sins.
To accept this sacrifice for one’s personal salvation from sin
and judgment is, as the figurative language expresses it, to eat His flesh and
to drink His blood. This we do by believing His words on the subject, so
appropriating them personally and receiving as our life Him of Whom the words
speak.
We knew in
Until one has thus received the Son of God he has no life in
himself (John 6:
53); but, on the other hand, the Lord
said: “he that eateth Me shall live because of Me” (ver.
57), that is, because of what I will
become to him as the inward vital energy of his nature. For according to the
quality of the bread so is the energy of the eater. Because Christ is nothing
less than that eternal life itself, which was with the Father, and was
presently manifested in this world, therefore it is the energy of that divine,
eternal life which is liberated to work actively in the one who by faith
receives Christ to be his indwelling life.
This exalted and encouraging truth is set forth symbolically
in the Supper. For we not only look upon the bread and the cup - that would
suffice to remind us that the Son of God loves us and gave Himself up to
justice for us; and were no more than remembrance intended by the ordinance
nothing more were needful than to look and to ponder. But
we are to eat the bread, as well as to look upon it, which signifies that faith
is to appropriate inwardly, for our inward invigoration, all that Christ is as
the true life of the believer.
The frequent repetition of the
ordinance reminds us that faith must be continually appropriating Christ, that
He may be ever renewing our spirit for the ceaseless battle and service of the
Christian course. He said not: He that once ate of Me
shall live because of Me; but “he that eateth Me shall live because of Me.”
The actual conscious experience of this renewing may be most
blessedly known by the heart through faith as the bread is eaten and the cup drunk;
for these actions are symbolic of the interior activity of faith in
appropriating Christ afresh to meet the constantly recurring strain that life
puts upon the spirit. When thus enjoyed, how very far is the feast from being a
formality: then truly does the soul sit at the table of the Lord and feast upon
Himself as its heavenly food.
Further. The eating of the bread is external and symbolic: the
internal reality is the appropriating of the words of God by or concerning His
Son. Hence it is harmonious with the ordinance, and helpful to faith, that
ministry of the Word should accompany the observance.
This, took place in connexion with the
passover feast, to which the Supper was presently appended. It was presumed
that the children would inquire the meaning of the solemnities, and the father
was to give the necessary instruction (Ex. 12: 26, 27; 13: 8, 14, 15). So also when the family of God meet at the heavenly
festival, there are babes in Christ, and it is well that their fathers in God
should instruct them. How otherwise shall they partake intelligently and with
spiritual profit?
It took place at the time of the institution of the ordinance.
John 13.-16. is the record of the deep and full
instruction the Lord gave to His followers as they were with Him at the table
and immediately thereafter. He is still and evermore present to enlighten,
reprove, encourage.
There was ministry at
It was so at
All three instances show that
consideration of the Word should be
the most important feature of a gathering of saints, as being most honouring to
God by giving the first place to hearing His voice, and being most profitable to
us by building us up on our holy faith. Singing
held very small place in the meetings of the early church. The Lord and the
apostles sang a hymn that night, it being almost certainly the passover psalm (No. 118). Paul remarks that at
When given in the power of the Spirit
of truth, and received into the heart with faith and obedience, such ministry as
occupies the heart with Christ will enable the soul most profitably to eat of
the bread and drink of the cup, for it will aid that spiritual feeding upon
Christ which is the reality that vitalizes the symbolic eating in the
ordinance. And all
opening of the Scripture does this, for Christ is the ultimate subject of all
truth.
The broken bread and the poured out cup draw particular
attention to the body and blood of Christ sacrificed for our sins. Yet Christ
in His death is not the whole Christ presented to our hearts by God in His
Word, nor does it meet our whole need. Therefore at
that institution of the Supper the Lord gave instruction upon many other
aspects of Himself and His work, as upon prayer, the person and coming ministry
of His Spirit, and His own return and
glory. Nor can it be supposed that the cross and passion of the Lord was
the only topic that long night at Troas. To confine the mind to one theme alone
is to impoverish the soul. The [Holy] Spirit presents all truth as He sees needful.
There are those who formally reject the Supper of the Lord as
being a mere external ceremony, not necessary or useful to the spiritually
advanced. There are also such as neglect the ordinance, and still others who
partake in a formal manner out of custom. These
attitudes are all to be deplored and avoided, together with the false, superstitious, magical conceptions of the Romanist or other ritualist.
To the humble, reverent, believing soul
there is a reality and virtue in the ordinance not to be foregone. There is
also a corresponding solemnity not to be forgotten or abused.
Though there is no magical change of
the elements into the person of Christ, as
declared in transubstantiation, nor mystical conjoining of the two as in
consubstantiation, yet, as God sees and declares, there is a real spiritual
association of the two, so intimate and practical that he who eats and drinks of the symbols in a sinful state of heart and
life is guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord (1 Cor. 11:
27). It is as if he laid violent hands on
that holy Person and wantonly shed His sacred blood.
One who partakes in this unholy spirit does not discern that
by partaking of this bread he is approaching to the body of the Lord and
dealing therewith. He does not discern that body as connected with the bread.
To his dulled apprehension this bread is no more than
any other piece of bread.
Such partaking is not merely profitless but positively
dangerous, as many in the church at
As was well known to the Corinthian Christians, the heathen
world was interpenetrated with numerous secret
religious societies, known as the Mysteries,
because their proceedings were kept profoundly secret. Each society was
presided over and devoted to one of the principal demon gods.
Upon a candidate being admitted to
initiation into one of these orders he was immersed in water, as a token that
he held himself cut off as by death to his old outside associations and now
deemed the society his real sphere of life. Thereafter, should a conflict arise
between the interests of his business, his home, his political, or other
spheres, and the interests of the Order, his duty was to the Society at the
expense of other claims.
Later in the initiatory rites he was
caused to eat of food that had been dedicated to the god of the order, the
bread of the god: and if after this act of communion with the god he proved
false to his duties and the rights of the order he became liable to condign and
perhaps extreme penalties, which were enforced severely.
The solemn declarations of Paul in this chapter (1 Cor. 11) were calculated to make these former
heathen to feel that the true and living God was similarly jealous for His just
demand for holiness and faithfulness in His people.
That great and holy God had in wondrous love given up to death
His own beloved Son for the salvation of sinners, that He might become to them
through faith the Bread of Life, the means of holiness and of communion with
God. They who had been baptized into a life of association with that Son risen
again from the dead, and who had thereupon eaten of that bread of God, must act
consistently with this profession and high privilege, and to desecrate the
sacred symbols of these holy realities, to prove false to their profession of
fellowship with their holy Redeemer, was not to be tolerated by their God and
Father.
By so much as the divine reality is honourable is the symbol
thereof sacred. A national flag stands forth as the symbol of the empire, and
to insult it is to outrage the empire. He who partakes with faith of the true
Bread is profited by the symbol thereof: he who reaches not the reality finds
the symbol empty: he who by evil ways dishonours the Lord whose name he bears desecrates the symbol of His body, if he dare
to handle it while in that moral condition.
Wherefore “let a man
prove himself, and so [in this state of self-examination and purging], let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor.
11:
28). Oh, how does this word rebuke the careless, unprepared state of heart in which some come to the Feast. Giving no real care to be present in good time to begin the hour of
worship; suffering the mind to roam
over needless or even vain topics of talk as they come; indifferent as to whether a brother or
sister has rightly somewhat against them - is it any wonder if these enjoy
not the Supper or even are injured by
partaking?
But it says not of an individual: “Let his brethren examine him and so let him not eat,” but let each examine
himself so as to become fit to eat. It is only in extreme and known cases
of moral wickedness that the church is commanded to “put away the wicked man from among” themselves (1 Cor.
5:
13). Nor is it then merely a question of “putting away from the table,” as the phrase runs,
though this is included. Such exclusion is to be from all association, private
as well as public.
The self-proving is to be personal, and with a view to
partaking. The heart of Christ still desires earnestly to commune with our
hearts. He is the same as when He said: “With [intense] desire I have
desired to eat this passover with you” (Luke 22: 15). But our
heart can only go forth to His heart, and know His nearness and preciousness, as far as it is holy as His heart is holy.
To the heart that is set on holiness
He can reveal His heart, and at His Supper is one place where this is blessedly
possible. The very symbols of His person aid us in the remembrance of Himself
and His sacrifice of love, so provoking our faith and love to fuller, more
satisfying, inward appropriation of Himself as our life.
Let us give heed as He says “This do in
remembrance of Me,” and in that spirit of unreserved dedication to Him
which we once set forth in our baptism in His name, let us fulfil this His
dying request. That He appointed only two ordinances is the more reason that
His followers should hold both to be sacred, joyful obligations.
It will be sorrowful to meet Him at last and to have to own
that we refused, or neglected, or delayed to do His will. Well may we then “shrink in shame from Him at His presence” (1 John 2:
28; see Darby, Alford, etc.). But it will be to the joy of His heart and ours, both now
and then, to carry out faithfully all His good, well-pleasing, and perfect
will.
The fact that all gathered eat of one bread and drink of one
cup is a confession by each that he is in communion with all the rest: “we, who are many, are one bread,
one body: for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor.
10:
17). A believer who in heart is at
variance with and estranged from any other must of necessity act hypocritically
if he eat. By the symbol he testifies to unity with that other, whereas
spiritual unity has been interrupted. Oh, that each such would heed his Lord’s
words in Matthew 5: 23, 24: “If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar,
and there
rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy
gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and
offer thy gift.” It were wiser, very far better, to refrain from
eating the bread until all bitterness and variance were purged from the heart.
We have the most vivid recollections of a gathering in south-eastern
One thought more. It is written for our admonition that “when the hour was
come, He sat down,
and the apostles
with Him” (Luke 22: 14). No one of them was late! Neither would any saint today be
late unavoidably were the Lord expected in visible presence. Now to faith He is as really
present as if He were visibly so. Therefore in
this matter of punctuality, and of all behaviour at the Supper, let us be as reverent as if He were to be visibly
before our eyes, remembering that we
at least are visible to His eye. Being in this spirit
we shall find that in His presence there is indeed fulness of joy, and the
joyful heart will praise Him with joyful lips, and thus will be served the high
and holy, and all-inclusive end of all worship, of all life.
Lines written by Miss Paget when her sisters and friends
wished her to
leave Barnstaple, November 1857, to reside in
I cannot now return to thee,
I cannot leave my rest;
For here God’s children comfort me,
And here I find I’m blest.
We worship not ‘neath fretted dome,
Or organ’s feeling sound,
Nor where the dim light streams athwart
The long aisle’s
sculptured round;
But simply, as of old they came,
According to the Word
They met in Jesus’ sacred Name,
And called upon the Lord.
No priests adorned with priestly
pride,
No altar railed around,
No multitude of mixed race
Are meeting on the ground;
But worshippers sincere are there,
And there the wine and bread,
Mysterious emblems of their Lord
Who for them groaned and bled.
Mysterious! for by faith
we look
Beyond the outward sign
To Him, who now will come again
In glory all divine; To Him, Who said,
Take this and eat, Drink and remember Me -
We do it, Lord, for thy dear sake,
And long thy face to see:
We do it in sweet fellowship,
Communion with each other;
Not as a stranger alien host,
But brother now with brother.
Then, loved one, call me not away
From this dear chosen band;
I’ve much to learn, here let me stay,
That I may understand
More perfectly the will of God,
The love of God to me,
That love which changed to sunny calm
Life’s dark and troubled sea;
That love which drew me nearer Him,
My portion and my stay,
My port in storms, My
light in clouds,
My Lord, my life, my way!
* *
*
5
GEORGE MULLER
AND
R. C. CHAPMAN
Did they Change their Mind as to the
Coming
of the Lord being After the Tribulation?
By G. H. LANG
It is
testimony to the spiritual stature and weight of these men of God that their
opinion upon such a matter is still discussed over
half a century after their death. After a lapse of perhaps fifteen years this question has been again agitated, and some who
affirm that the Advent will be before the End days have sought to support their
view by reviving an allegation that, at the very close of their life, these
famous saints reversed their life-long opinion to the contrary.
For reasons that will appear it is perhaps the case that I am
the only man left from that earlier generation who can discuss this matter with
some personal warrant, and without bias since I agree with both
views in part and differ from both in part.
George Muller died on 10th.March, 1898. 1 had then
been living in Bristol for five years less five weeks. It was my privilege to
hear him give, two years before his death, one of his last great public
addresses.
I remember Mr. Chapman also. On Thursday
evenings 10th. and 17th. August, 1899, I was privileged to attend his Bible Readings
at New Buildings,
Both of these men of God imparted to me spiritual profit, so
that I had personal interest in them and their beliefs and cherished the pretty abundant information concerning them that reached me.
The allegation that they altered their opinion as to the
church passing through the great Tribulation depends in each case upon the
testimony of one single person. This is an extremely noteworthy feature of the
matter. That two such outstanding
men, known all over the world, and known as holding an unpopular opinion,
should have publicly declared a complete reversal of judgment, and that in each
case only a solitary individual should have made it known, itself raises grave
doubts as to the allegation. It might have been rightly expected that in at
least their home centres, Bristol and Barnstaple, the assertion would have
spread like wildfire and have been at once common knowledge and theme of
general discussion.
Further, it might well have been expected
from such fine men of God that they would not have been content with a single
unexpected statement but would have laboured to undo their former influence in
mis-instructing Christians. On the contrary, the allegation rests in each case
upon one brief remark attributed to each.
In the case of George Muller the solitary testimony was given by my friend J. A. Vicary of
* On page 1 of his booklet he says he is writing of events of it “40 years ago,”
that is, of meetings at
Thus J. A. Vicary’s statement as to George
Muller comes to us only through J. H. Burridge’s statement as to J. A. Vicary.
As to R. C. Chapman,
the solitary witness is John Knox McEwen,
whose words we shall consider later.
When a matter of some importance depends entirely upon one
witness a major point that at once arises is the reliability of that witness.
Everyone acquainted with the human mind knows how easy it is for an entirely
honest person to think that he heard something stated when in fact he did not
hear it, save in a voice in his own heart saying to itself something that was
his own opinion and which he thought the speaker said.
There was a striking similar incident just before the 1914
war. A British official had a tense discussion with a German Minister. In his
report to London he said that the Minister had passed a certain remark. It was
an objectionable statement and was used as British propaganda. Yet the Official afterward
admitted that the discussion was long and heated, was partly in German and
partly in English, and that he did not feel certain that the words had been
used.
Now these three dear men, Vicary, Burridge, and McEwen, I knew
personally, and acknowledging gladly their merits, and especially their
Christian integrity, I feel sure no one could regard them as possessing that
strictness and exactness of mind necessary for hearing accurately and reporting
accurately some quite unexpected and startling statement. The inference from
this is that the statements in question are not to be accepted as necessarily
correct, but must be scrutinized and weighed against all relevant facts.
The above estimate of the brethren Vicary and Burridge can be illustrated. The invitation to those annual meetings
at Nicholas Road bore the names of several prominent brethren in the Bristol
assemblies. It was drafted by J. A. Vicary; but so little confidence did he or
they place upon him in this matter that the draft was always sent to my friend
and neighbour J. L. Stanley, a man of culture, to put in proper form. On one occasion Mr. Stanley mentioned to me that he had just done
this and had said to J. A. Vicary
that as the scripture quoted was from neither the A.V. nor the R.V. he supposed
it must be from the J.A.V.!
The booklet named, by which J. H. Burridge at length gave to
the public Mr. Vicary’s statement, covers 24 envelope-sized pages. It shows how
loosely the mind of the writer worked. It gives no date of issue. He mentions
that he gave a month of addresses at Stokes Croft Chapel, Bristol. The context
leaves the impression that the one topic was prophecy. In fact, only six
addresses were on that subject. The year in
question is not mentioned. It was 1893. He tells that
at his request James Wright gave an address following his own series. The fact
was that in April of that year James Wright gave two addresses in reply and G.
F. Bergin two. He claims that on the evening of his
(Mr. B’s) last address Mr. Wright expressed agreement with ninety-nine out of a
hundred of the points in his addresses, and that Mr. Wright almost fully
assented to his views. But he fails to say that the four addresses mentioned
were for the specific purpose of emphasizing that one point of disagreement,
and to show that the Lord will not return at any moment, but will remove the
church to heaven at the close of the reign of Antichrist.
Mr. Burridge further narrates that two or three years later he wrote a book on the coming of the Lord, but
exhibits his carelessness as to detail by omitting its title. The book having
been published George Muller and James Wright are said to have spent an hour
over it for several mornings, and Mr. Burridge says that he “had every reason to believe that Mr. G. Muller changed his
views on the subject” (P. 17). It would have been much to the point if
he had here given the warrant for this belief, but he gives none. It was not
Mr. Vicary’s statement, for that he did not hear till
at least seventeen years later. It was about 1895 or 1896 that Mr. Burridge
issued his book, for he says it was two or three years after the lectures at
Stokes Croft Chapel (p. 14). If by the study of that book Mr. Muller’s views
were radically changed he had two or three years in which to have made this
known, yet this he did not do, but only, as is alleged, at the very end of
those years just before his death.
All the inattention to detail here mentioned exhibits that Mr.
Burridge’s mind was not marked by preciseness of
thought or statement, and calls for careful scrutiny of his assertions. Another
detail confirms this. When his paper first came to me
I wrote to him. In his reply, dated 22nd February,
1940, he expressed regret at a remark regarding J. A. Vicary, which remark I had
not made! But this letter gave this detail to be noted. He was in his
85th year in 1940, and therefore in his 78th year when he
published his booklet in 1933. Now he states that Mr. Vicary “brought before”
him his notes concerning Mr. Muller’s statement, but he does not say that the
notes were handed to him, or even copied by him. If
then a man of 77 Years, of no exactness of mind, was perchance writing from
memory of something he had seen but once seventeen years before, this
introduces a further element of uncertainty as to the words used.
Thus in the case as presented by Mr. Burridge there are
various dubious points. (1) Did J.
A. Vicary really hear what he thought he heard George Muller say? At the time
he was himself well on in life. (2)
Did he note down with accuracy what he heard, or thought he heard? (3) Did Mr. Burridge in old age repeat
accurately what he was shown by Mr. Vicary? No
certainty on these points can now be reached, for
neither the persons nor the document can be examined.
I sent to Mr. Burridge a lengthy critique of his booklet and
should have valued his criticisms. But he returned it unread, excusing himself
on the ground of age and eyesight. But this disability did not hinder him from
indulging in a lengthy dissertation on his own prophetic opinions. One of these
was that “the
sure and certain signs” showed that the “glorious event is drawing very near.”
Yet another twenty-one years have already elapsed.
As far as J. A. Vicary’s statement can now be tested the result is adverse.
1. Mr. Burridge twice asserts (pp. 20,
21) that the facts “are nearly all public property ... this paper
presents nothing but simple facts which are public property. To which many in
“The Believer’s Magazine” has
always strenuously advocated the doctrine of the
pre-Tribulation Advent. It was much to their satisfaction to be told that George Muller had accepted that view. Yet so
completely unknown was the change that they seem not to have heard of it till Mr. Burridge wrote to them as late as the Close of
1937. See their issue of January 1938, P. 21.
In his letter to me Mr. Burridge
stated that a Mr. Jay and a Mr. Pitt of
During the eleven years that I remained in
Thus whichever of J. H. Burridge’s
statements is tested there is the same lack of corroboration, though abundance
ought to have been available.
The late Mr. H. Veasey of Birmingham informed me that he had
begged Mr. Burridge not to publish his booklet, because “the evidence of Mr. Vicary (the
late), being a
weak and ill man, was not sufficient evidence; and again, Mr. Muller having passed off the scene
could not reply.” After the booklet was issued Mr. Veasey wrote on
15th October, 1934, to Mr. Green, then Director of the New Orphan
Homes, Bristol, and asked if they knew there of the alleged change by Mr.
Muller. The Associate Director, Mr. T. Tilsley, replied to the contrary, that “As far as we know Mr. Muller believed to the end what he stated in
his Second Coming of Christ.”
Five years later, in 1939, I repeated this inquiry to Mr.
Tilsley. He was born in
I have inquired lately of another veteran survivor of those
years in
2. If anyone
should have known of a change of judgment by Mr. Muller it was James Wright. Had he known
that his father-in-law and Co-director of the Orphan Homes had just before his
death adopted the view that the Lord might come at any moment could he have
honestly stated the contrary when speaking about him just after his death? He
gave at Bethesda Chapel a Memorial Address, published with the title “He Being Dead Yet Speaketh.” On page 19
it is recorded that he said:
Dear Mr. Muller did not believe in what is
called “The
Secret Rapture,” but he never made it
a matter of unprofitable controversy. He believed that Scripture declared that
certain events will take place first, and that these events are to be watched
for by the believer.”
This is the negation of the “at any moment” theory as to the Coming;
and James Wright was far too godly to have declared publicly that George Muller
so believed had he known that he had recently avowed the contrary. That James
Wright did not know of such change in George Muller creates an almost
conclusive presumption that it had never been made.
That the later Directors of The Scriptural Knowledge Institution never heard of the change is shown by the fact that in 1918, twenty years after Mr.
Muller’s death, they re-issued his paper of 1881 entitled The
Second Coming of Christ. In
this (p. 20) he stated concerning 2 Thess. 2:
3 that
From this portion of the inspired Word of God
we learn that the Lord Jesus will not come until after the manifestation of the
apostasy ... (P. 24). Do our hearts truly yearn after Him, and long for His
glorious appearing? Are we also doing our part to hasten on His coming? And is it habitually our prayer that the Lord will be pleased to hasten
the fulfilment of the events yet to be fulfilled before that day comes?
Apart from the statement attributed to Mr. Vicary
there is not the slightest proof of the idea that George Muller ever varied
from that opinion. Mr. Burridge was quite right in saying that no teaching as
to the second coming of Christ can be established by quoting great men of God,
for equally good and great men are ranged on opposite sides of this subject. As
he justly said, belief must be based on the Word of God direct. And it is to be
regretted that, on such very insufficient ground, he publicly attributed to
this man of God a change of view in favour of that which he himself held.
The assertion concerning Robert
Chapman is beset by much the same uncertainties
and objections. It too depends upon a statement of but one witness, J. K.
McEwen. In a letter dated 4th November,
1937, published in The Believers Magazine for January 1938, he said:
I was at a Conference in
After fifteen years this was repeated
in their issue of December, 1953.
1. The esteem I had for my good friend
John Knox McEwen I showed by giving to him a chapter in my book God at Work on His Own Lines. But will
anyone who knew him attribute to him a strictly exact and accurate habit of
mind or of utterance? What if taken by surprise, as he admits, he also did not gather precisely what was said? In his case we are not told
that he even noted down the words, and it was anything from 35 to 40 years
after the event that he wrote his letter in 1937, for Mr. Chapman died in 1902.
That the dear man was not given to
searching into a matter too carefully is shown in his letter. For he went on to
suggest that “Perhaps
the verse from the hymn, ‘My soul amidst this stormy world’
My heart is
with Him on the throne
And ill can
brook delay,
Each moment listening for
His voice,
Rise up and
come away.
was written by our beloved
brother at this time.”
Whether he quoted from memory, or copied from the collection
of Mr. Chapman’s hymns, in either case he made three errors in the text, with
two changes in punctuation, and the omission of inverted commas from the last
line of the verse. Moreover, so far from suggesting that the hymn might have
been written quite at the close of the Writer’s life he could have learned that
it had been published thirty-one years before Robert Chapman died, the book Hymns and Meditations bearing date 1871.
2. But even assuming that he did hear the
words correctly, and did, after 35 years, repeat accurately what he had heard,
the further question arises whether Mr. Tapson repeated accurately what Robert
Chapman had asked him to say. Here again it cannot but be asked whether so good
a scholar and Christian, if he had changed his mind on so important a point,
would have been content to announce this in so incidental, almost casual, a
manner as a verbal message and in no other way?
3. Again we are faced with the same
problem as in the case of George Muller, that a
statement of a startling nature was made, as is said, at a public Conference
but only one person appears to have noted or repeated it. Yet
brethren went to the Leominster Conference
from all over England, and one would have expected that news of a change of
mind of one so revered would have been widely noised abroad and have become
public property, especially as the more part of the hearers would have been
happy about the change and only too eager to make it known everywhere.
But it was fresh news so late as 1937 when Mr. McEwen first made it known
publicly. The information was very welcome to J. H. Burridge, but not even he,
though he travelled widely, had heard of it before J. K. McEwen’s statement in
1937. See The Believers’ Magazine, January 1938, P. 2.
If it is beyond explanation that the change on the part of
George Muller was unknown in
Further, my late friend William Marriott of Sheringham,
Again; I have recently inquired of a Christian who was born in
the Barnstaple district ten years before Robert Chapman died, has lived in that
area ever since, has moved continually among all the assemblies of the district
including Barnstaple, and is a leader in one of them. On receiving my letter,
informing him of Mr. McEwen’s statement as to the change of mind of Mr.
Chapman, my friend said to himself “And where have I been all my life that I never heard that
before?” He mentions some significant facts. In the year 1907 the
late Henry Payne, of Barcelona, who was a native of that district in Devon,
discussed at a certain farm the question in hand in order to show from
Scripture that the church will pass through the Tribulation. Two leading
brethren of Barnstaple, Mr. Saunders and Mr. Thomas Pearce, felt it needful
that the opposite view should be set forth, which was done at another farm in
the district. They stipulated that at that gathering no names of elder brethren
should be brought into the discussion. Would they have so decided had they
known that they could have quoted R. C. Chapman as having at the last come over
to their view? It is proof presumptive that they did not know of the supposed
change, though members of the same assembly that Mr. Chapman had built up and
taught. And that was within five years after his death.
It has been already
mentioned that E. S. Pearce lived with Mr. Chapman all the later years of
his life. No one in all that period was so well acquainted with him and his
beliefs. It was he who took down from Mr. Chapman the
lengthy statements afterwards issued in the book Suggestive
Questions. Now my friend tells me that about the year 1925, twenty-three years after Mr. Chapman’s
death, Mr. Pearce visited him and narrated the incident before given when Mr
Chapman said that the teaching that the Lord might come at any moment was not
in the Bible. It is out of the question that E. S. Pearce would have given that as Mr. Chapman’s view
had he known that at the close of his life R.C.C. had gone over to the other
side. And it seems equally out of the question that, if Mr. Chapman had sent
such a message to a public conference, E. S. Pearce should not have known of
his change of belief.
Yet again; W. H. Bennet, who wrote the life of Mr. Chapman,
published in the very year of his death, apparently did not know of the
supposed change of judgment or he could scarcely have given the following as
his views as to the coming of Christ:
The following words were spoken at a
private meeting in 1887:
There are two ways of looking at the coming of the Lord. If I be in the constant spirit of worship within the veil,
according to Hebrews, I shall see the future as does Christ. Over 1800 years
ago He said, “I
come quickly.” And whereas, in point of desire, I
put nothing whatever between that object and my soul, because Christ puts
nothing; yet, on the other hand, if you ask whether the fervency of my love to
the Lord and the brightness of that hope are diminished, because I see that He
must take time to make that coming worthy of Himself, I say, No: He waits
patiently and so do I.*
* Robert
Cleaver Chapman of
4. In the verse by R.C.C. quoted above
are his lines
“Each moment
list’ning for the voice,
Rise up and come away.”
The words attributed to him by Mr. Tapson as recorded by J. K.
McEwen were:
“I am waiting for the Lord to come at any moment.”
What if the real message to have been given, and
perhaps actually given, was, “Each moment I am waiting for the Lord to come?” It would have been the easiest thing possible for a hearer to have
taken that to mean what was in his own mind as his own view, even that the Lord
might come at any moment; whereas actually the words suggested would have been
in strict harmony with the hymn and with the testimony its Writer had always
borne: “Each
moment waiting, listening, longing;” as he said above, “in point of desire
I put nothing between that object and my soul.” This is the
language of love, as of the heart of a virgin ever yearning for the return of
her long-absent and far-off lover. What, I repeat, if
that was what Mr. Tapson actually said, but which J. K. McEwen, by that subtle
mental process suggested with regard to Mr. Vicary, unconsciously varied in
harmony with his own settled opinion? This would explain why no one else at the
Conference spread the matter abroad, seeing that what, on this supposition, was
stated was only what it was generally known that R. C. Chapman taught and which
would occasion no surprise.
And we may finally ask, and stress, why
it was, if one of the Barnstaple leaders, Mr. Tapson, knew and declared
publicly that Mr. Chapman had thus altered his life-long opinion, that no one
else in
If there are other facts and considerations not known to me
they must be taken into account, but, as far as I have learned, the allegations
of a change of mind in these two servants of God rest entirely in each case
upon a statement by one solitary person, neither a particularly reliable
hearer, however conscientious. In neither case does there seem to be the
slightest corroboration, though abundance could reasonably be expected. And
they are faced with the insuperable objection that those who, from closest
association with these men of God, ought to have known of any such change of
conviction did not know of it. It can only be regretted that allegations so
wholly uncorroborated and highly improbable have been accepted and repeated as
if certainly accurate. It were only just that any who have done this should now
announce that the accuracy of the assertions is, to say the least, extremely
doubtful.
* *
*
6
THE SABBATH
1 THE SABBATH INSTITUTED
By G. H. LANG
And the heavens and the earth were
finished, and all the host of them. And on the
seventh day God finished His work
which He had made; and He rested on the
seventh day from all His work which
He had made. And God blessed
the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from
all His work which God had
created and made. (Gen. 2: 1-3).
How
beautifully Moses wrote! “The heavens
and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” What a simple statement of so
colossal a work. In the total and in the detail all was complete. “And God rested.”
What a profound and question-provoking assertion concerning One
who cannot weary. “And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it;
because that in
it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” So the
seventh day is blessed and hallowed, and for a reason that can never lose its
force, nor can that reason ever apply to any other day of the week. The fact abides that God rested on that seventh day, nor can it ever
be fact that He rested on any other day from this work of creating and making.
II. THE REASON FOR THE SABBATH
The day was not, however, hallowed on
account of any necessity for or advantage of a weekly rest-day to God.
It is nowhere suggested that God thereafter regularly rested, or rests, on the sabbath. The Creator Himself when on earth
gave His own explanation why this day was hallowed. He said:
“The sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:
27): it was that man and beast may be
refreshed (Ex. 23: 12). Even as it is not possible for man
to make a machine that can run ceaselessly without injury, so it would seem to
be inherent in the less-than-divine nature of creation that its parts must be
renewed if they are not to wear out. Nothing finite is able to contain within
it an infinite reserve of energy so as not to need renewal. That is a feature
belonging of necessity only to the Eternal. Philosophy would seem to have sound
reason for thinking that even a sun must at last exhaust itself by ceaselessly
shining, though the Christian will add the proviso, Unless
the Creator recharges it with energy.
So man needs a recurring rest; and his
beneficent Creator provided for this need. instituted
the day of rest, and Himself graciously set an initial example for His creature
to follow.
III. THE
SABBATH UNIVERSAL AND PERMANENT
Thus the day of rest is for man, not for
Jews only. All men need it. It was instituted at the
creation of man, not at the formation of the nation of
The sabbath, and the union of one man
with one woman, are facts and laws commencing with the creation of man. They
are therefore of application to all beings that derive existence from that
creation of man. They show God’s thought and purpose for man universally as dwelling
on earth. That both of these institutions - the sabbath and monogamy - [i.e. ‘the practice of
being married to only one person at a time’ (O.E.D.] -
have been forsaken and destroyed by man does not alter the purpose of God in
them; it only loads man with guilt and misery through his odious
and foolish infringement of his Creator’s will.
IV. THE SABBATH IMPOSED ON
Mankind, as part of its rebellious,
treasonable rejection of God, from the first corrupted marriage and neglected
the day of rest. But this did not lessen the
obligation to keep these laws. Hence when God chose one of the nations of the
earth (
The duty had been enjoined before in
connection with not seeking the manna on the seventh day Ex. 16: 21-30), so at Sinai the
call is to remember the day.
Remember what others have forgotten; practice what the rest of mankind neglect;
and observe that all men, high or low,
male or female, Jew or foreigner are to rest this day.
The reason given is as before: that on this day God rested from the work of creation and was refreshed (Ex. 21: 17). But the reason is not given as that
God was still so resting on the seventh day. Again we note that the statement
is that He did so rest on that day long past.
And the
penalty of disobedience was death, and an instance of the execution thereof is recorded (Ex.
31:
12- 17; 35: 2; Num.
15:
32-36).
V. THE LAW OF THE
SABBATH UNIQUE
There is an essential difference between the law of the sabbath, the fourth command of the Decalogue, and the other
nine commandments. To have any other object of worship than God
(command 1);
to make or worship idols (2); to blaspheme (3); to dishonour one’s parents (5);
to murder (6);
as also adultery (7); theft (8); bearing false witness (9)
and the desire to do wrong (10) - these all are inherently
wrong, wrong in themselves,
in their very nature, and can never be permissible. These all involve invariably an infringement of the essential rights of
God or my neighbour. The principle of theft is included in each of the
other prohibitions, even the depriving of God or man of something due.
To illustrate and prove that these laws are eternal in nature we
will take an extreme and impossible case, and say that theft is necessarily
wrong from all eternity. It would have been wrong for any one of the three
persons of the Godhead to have deprived Another of the
honour due to Him, and wrong even to have desired to do so. But as to keeping a
sabbath day as to its outward form, that is not eternal, for it did not
commence till the creation of man, and it is not essentially right or wrong in its nature. It is not essentially
wicked to do on that day what one does on other days. It is wrong simply
because God has forbidden it; but the ground of the prohibition lies not in any
inherent nature of the act, as in the other cases, but because it is for the
advantage of man himself not to work continuously.
From this it follows that this commandment, is not, as are the
rest, inflexible, nor is it insusceptible of variation as to the time and
manner of observance. It will be seen that there are
recognized variations as to observance, and even suspension of the law.
VI. THE MANNER AND
DEGREE OF OBSERVANCE
The general command was, “Thou shalt not do any work.” Not even the pressure of ploughing
time or harvest was an excuse for working (Ex. 34: 21). Trading was to cease (Neh. 10: 31; 13: 15; Jer. 17: 21). God complained severely that
It still requires faith for a child of God to refrain from business in lands where no sabbath is observed. Obedience to God was, and is always, “obedience
of faith,” as
it is termed in Rom. 16: 26.
This is important; for it is useless
to endeavour to enforce obedience legally upon one without confidence in God,
nor were such obedience acceptable to Him, being not rendered from the heart.
The law of Moses indeed commanded obedience under
penalty; the result, however, was disobedience through unbelief and hardness of
heart. But the gospel, by the [Holy] Spirit, first engenders a true
working faith in God, and then faith can and does bring forth obedience out of
love to God. This is service acceptable to Him, and none other is so (Heb. 11: 6; 1 Cor. 13: 1-3).
Here lies the mistake and futility of, for example, the notion
that obedience to the Sermon on the Mount is to be forced upon nations,
or of enforcing the duty of observing the sabbath
upon [regenerate] Christians without light upon or
faith for such observance. It has been well said: ‘Never run before
your faith, and never lag behind your conscience’. And it may be added: Do
not force upon others as an obligation that to which yourself may have attained
as a privilege; for that is law not grace, and it is only by grace that the
heart is established and enabled to please God (Heb. 13: 9).
At a public dinner a sucking pig was
served with its savoury accompaniments. A rabbi whispered to his neighbour (C.
H. Spurgeon):
“Moses very
hard! Moses very hard!” He kept the letter of the
law outwardly, but broke it in his heart by the desire to eat, which state of
heart nullified the outward obedience. He received the suitable reply: “Yes; ‘there is a yoke upon your necks that neither ye, nor your fathers are
able to bear’” (Acts 15: 10).
It is contrary to the very genius of the gospel, to the spirit
of grace, and to apostolic precept and practice, to make a general legal
obligation of what must be free individual service if it is to please God. It
can produce in many only the unacceptable service of slaves or
hypocrites. And here enters the profound importance of the difference before observed
in the moral nature of the fourth
commandment in contrast with the other nine commands. They cannot be
neglected without actual moral evil; therefore the
enforcement of them is rigid: this command of the sabbath differs in this
respect, that its enforcement is variable on occasion, as we shall see.
Two other sabbath days were the first
and the seventh days of the feast of unleavened bread, connected with the
Passover (Ex. 12: 16). Here the command was “no manner of work shall be done,” which is stricter than the later
general law at Sinai, “thou shalt not do
any work” (Ex. 20: 10). Yet even so an exception is at once
stated: “save that which
every man may eat, that only may be done of you.” It was therefore expressly allowed
that necessary food might be prepared; and as this merciful provision obtained
when the command was more strict, surely it did so
when the command was more general.
Another sabbath day was the tenth day
of the seventh month, the day of annual atonement. It was to be a “sabbath of solemn rest,” and on this occasion also the
restriction on work was expressed in the
stricter form, “ye shall do no
(manner of) work;” [Darby: “ye shall do
no work at all”]: and as the solemnity of this day was greater they were “to afflict their
souls” (Lev. 16: 29-31). This would imply that the weekly sabbath
was not to be a day of affliction of soul, but rather of rest and refreshment,
according to its expressed intention: and as on that special day it was laid
down distinctly that “no manner
of work at all” was
allowed, it is similarly implied that on ordinary sabbaths some forms of
work were permissible, for if the severer rule had applied to all sabbaths it
would not have been needful to express it for any particular sabbaths.
VII. CHRIST AND THE SABBATH
It is always helpful to those who are required to obey a law that
the authority enacting should explain in detail how it is to be
obeyed.
Jehovah who instituted the sabbath at creation, and enacted it
as statute at Sinai, graciously condescended Himself to come under the
provision as man, and to show by example and to explain by words how He meant
it to be observed. Christ, the Son of God, was “born under law” (Gal. 4: 4).
Man is so perverse that he will readily make the observance of
law more difficult than God meant it to be if he thinks that
he can thus better work out his own righteousness, or if thereby he can acquire
power over his fellows by increasing their obligations and difficulties. For
these reasons the Pharisees and rabbis had overladen the Mosaic laws with their
own interpretations and additions, and had made a heavy burden of what was intended to be a blessing.
A similar tendency may arise in persons who have a sincere
desire to please God, but whose obedience is still the legal duty of the slave or the subject, rather
than the evangelical free service of a son. Such persons through scrupulousness
may overload the Divine command with traditions, their own or of others.
The evangelists wrote for the generation of disciples that
immediately followed our Lord’s days on earth, and, guided by the [Holy] Spirit, they took pains to make known
the mind and ways of their Master upon this matter of the sabbath.
It is significant that Luke also, writing to a Gentile disciple was careful to
include this part of our Lord’s teaching and practice. Jewish believers were
still in a good deal of bondage (Acts 11: 2; Gal. 2: 11-13),
and strenuous attempts had not been wanting to
entangle Gentile converts in this snare (Acts 15). The writers of the Gospels guarded
against this by displaying the mind and ways of Christ (Matt. 12: 1-14; Mark 2: 23; Luke 6: 1-11).
It was Christ who declared the central idea of the sabbath, even that it was made for man, not man for the
sabbath. Man was not created that he might at all costs, at all times, under all
circumstances, keep a sabbath. Nay, on the contrary,
it was appointed for his good and for that of the creatures
which serve him; so that as Son of man Christ was lord of the sabbath.
Now it is a vital principle of all statute law that it should
be directed to the general good of the people. From this
it follows that, if at any time, or under special circumstances, the
enforcement of a law would not serve but frustrate this purpose, at such times
authority does not enforce the law, or modifies the enforcement to meet the
circumstances. Enforcement, suspension, or modification should
be all directed to the true intent of the law, the good of the subject.
This is a necessary outcome of the supreme fact that God, the fountain of all
existence and all law, is LOVE, and
therefore has ever before Him, in law or exception, the good of His creatures.
Christ walked on the sabbath day
through the cornfields. To walk amidst the quiet and beauties of nature is
refreshing to mind and body. The incident fell, therefore, within the intent of
the sabbath, “that ye may be refreshed” (Ex. 23: 12), and to this not even the Pharisees
objected.
But the disciples plucked the ears of
corn, which in principle was reaping; and they rubbed the grain out of the
husks by their hands, which was threshing. To this the
Pharisees took strong exception as being contrary to the law. The reply to this
might well have been that the law expressly allowed the preparation of
necessary food, but our Lord, with perfect insight into the whole law of God,
dealt with the deepest elements involved by citing a case under another law,
and lifting into relief a principle of the administration of Divine law. This
appeal to another of the laws of religion to settle a point under the law of
the sabbath shows that the latter is of the same class
as the former, and not in a class by itself among religious laws. Important
consequences follow from this, and the point should be pondered by those who
deal with the law of the sabbath as different from all
other religious laws, and who seek to reimpose one law, but not the whole law.
Of the distinction of the sabbath law from moral law
we have before spoken.
The shewbread in the Tabernacle was
specially consecrated to God; it was “most holy,” and only Aaron and his sons, the priests, might eat of it,
and they only in a holy place (Lev. 24: 5-9). This law had been
completely disregarded by the then high priest himself, as well as by
David and his men, when these, being hard-pressed and hungry, ate the holy
food. And in the process David had transgressed yet
another rule of law by entering into the house of God, which only priests might
do. Yet all the parties concerned had been treated by God
as guiltless.
The simple question was: Whether of
the two was more vital, that some of God’s people, driven by hard necessity to
a state of hunger, should starve, or should a law touching holy food be for
once violated in wholly exceptional circumstances? The answer was a just
application of a saying that is indeed capable of great abuse, Necessity knows
no law; and the principle before stated was involved, that when the strict
enforcement of a law would work injuriously to man it would defeat the purpose of the law to enforce it.
The principle of the administration of law here illustrated is
that there are recognized exceptions
possible, in order that a law may not work injuriously in individual cases.
A considerable number of instances illustrate in Scripture this principle. We
will notice two more of similar nature to the rules regarding the sabbath.
The law of the Passover, as laid down repeatedly and
distinctly, was that it should be observed on the
fourteenth day of the first month. But an exception
was afterward sanctioned. If a man was at that time ceremonially unclean, or
was on a journey, he could observe the feast a month later (Num. 9: 9-11). There was very good reason for keeping it
on the appointed day, that being the day of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt,
just as there is good reason for the sabbath being on the seventh day of the
week, that being the day when the work of creation was finished; yet after all,
the more important matter was that the Passover should be kept, not that it
should be kept on a particular day, and for this reason the exception was
allowed.
Again, the laws as to ceremonial cleansing were detail and
strict (Lev. 11 and Num. 19) The death penalty attached to wilful violation, as in the
case of the Passover, and thus gave to these laws precisely the same legal
sanction as to the law of the sabbath, since the greatest penalty possible
applied to all. Yet in 2 Chron. 30: 18-20 we read that “a multitude of the people had not cleansed themselves, yet did they eat the passover otherwise than it is written. For Hezekiah had prayed for them saying, The
good Jehovah pardon every one that setteth his heart to seek God, though he be not
cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary. And Jehovah hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people.”
These instances make clear that such of the laws of God as are
not concerned with matters of essential right
and wrong but of variation as to observance, or even of entire are susceptible suspension,
as in the last instance, because as regards the Passover of that year the
people in question never could fulfil the prescribed preparatory cleansing.
These principles the Lord used to justify the disciples from
the charge of having broken the sabbath law. He would
not admit that their action was even a technical offence, but declared that
they were guiltless. The expressed design of a day of rest and refreshment
would be defeated if men on that day must go hungry and weak rather than
prepare food in the simple manner in question.
But Christ pressed His critics further.
He pointed out that every sabbath the whole year round, and on all the sabbaths in
the past, the priests did on the sabbath their customary work of the
other days, and did it in the very
Therefore said the Lord to the Pharisees, You do not recognize
the higher law out of which the law of the sabbath
itself arose: “If ye had known
what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have
condemned the guiltless.” It was mercy, seeking the good of man, that instituted the sabbath; it must therefore be with mercy that the law is
construed and applied, or its very end will be defeated.
The result is that whatever is necessary for man’s
welfare may be done on the sabbath, and whatever mercy directs is also
to be done. And accordingly the Lord habitually did on
the sabbath His wondrous works of healing. What sabbatarian, however rigid,
would assert that ambulance and hospital service must be suspended on the sabbath? Yet in Christ’s day there
were sorry folk, rigid, overscrupulous, legalistic men, who did complain that
the Saviour thus worked on the sabbath. Christ denounced this openly as sheer
hypocrisy (Lk. 13: 15-17), and pointed out that these very men
would themselves obey the law of mercy and necessity by leading their beasts
from the stable to the fountain that they might drink, or by lifting them out
of a pit on the sabbath (Luke 14:
5).
Thus the worship of God and all service
properly connected therewith, also spiritual efforts for the spiritual good of
men, and also all works of mercy necessary for man and beast, are distinctly
declared by the Lord of the sabbath to be within His mind as to its observance.
On a different occasion when meeting a
complaint against His work of healing on the sabbath, the Lord pointed out
another example of the suspension of one law in order that another, deemed more
imperative, might be kept, namely, that children were circumcised on the
sabbath “that the law of
Moses may not be broken” that the boy must be circumcised on the eighth day (John 7: 22-24).
And at the time of healing in question (John 5) the Lord had justified His working thus on the highest possible ground,
namely, that He was co-working with God His Father. He said: “My Father worketh even until now, and I work”
(John 5:
17). It has been twice remarked above
that the Old Testament passages do not say that God rests regularly on the sabbath, but assert no more than that He so rested on that first sabbath. Here
is now direct proof that He does not keep a sabbath
regularly, for the Son of God justifies Himself for working on that day on the
ground that His Father does so. The expression heos arti implies continuity of action down to the time in
question. The sabbath was made for man, not for God,
for the earth, not the heavens. It is not needed there, nor
by Him, and no needless laws are imposed by the all-wise, all-perfect Ruler. God carries on in unbroken continuity the
whole of His proper and indispensable work of maintaining and governing His
vast universe, with all the
innumerable activities of providence and administration involved. * It is unthinkable that God should cease on the sabbath day to employ His energy in the operations of
nature. Nature would cease to function and even to exist.
[* NOTE: Nothing
can happen outside of the will of God! He is always in complete
control of ALL things,- whether thy be evil or good! and
all the actions of fallen man / woman, are now working for His ultimate glory!]
Seeing that the devil ceases not to accuse us on the sabbath (Rev. 12: 10), we may be thankful that our
Advocate intercedes for us on that day; and as Satan’s attacks continue on the
sabbath we may praise God that His holy
angels do not cease their protective service on that day.
All this teaches that, blessed and
obligatory as the sabbath was, (1)
its scope was limited to man and his realm; and (2) its administration was flexible, not rigid, to be tempered and
regulated by mercy, not enforced with severity; and therefore (3) variations, exceptions, and even
suspensions of this, as of other laws of this class, may be required to meet
particular times and cases.
But Christ equally guarded against unjustifiable latitude,
against an abuse in practice of this flexibility. The three Synoptic Gospels ALL add to the incident in the cornfields
that of the healing in the synagogue on the sabbath of
the withered hand of a man. This incident both enforces and balances the
teaching of the former incident.
For although the law of mercy demanded
that the man should be healed on the sabbath, since it would have been lacking
in mercy to have allowed him to remain crippled even to the next day, yet as to
the manner of his being healed, for this no more was required of him than what
every other man had done that same day, to stretch forth his arm. That is, he was to do the least that was necessary.
We may walk in the fields, but that does not justify pleasure
outings such as are now common. No one can say that these are necessary. Nor does a walk
on the sabbath involve that others labour at their
usual tasks for my convenience - a very important consideration. In the period
when letters were delivered on Sunday, the English day of rest - the writer saw
no necessity for it, and for
many years it was his custom not to post letters at a
time that they would be delivered on the Lord’s day. This was also mercy to the
men in question. He sought also that his letters should not be brought to his
house, but the postmen themselves assured him that the
special sorting thus involved would actually be more trouble to them than
delivery. So on the same principles that he would not
cause delivery he yielded his preference and allowed delivery. He could not
control the Post Office, and he followed in both directions the principles of
the least amount of work being done, out of mercy to
the persons involved. But had the question involved a
matter in its essence morally wrong he would not have been justified in
yielding.
To enforce a rigid application in such matters is contrary to
Christ’s teaching and the Scriptures. The sabbatarian may be able to see these
principles in another connection. In consistency with a preference to pay cash
for all things, it was the writer’s wish to pay daily for milk, but the dealer
informed him that it entailed more work and took more time than a weekly
account, and also that it made it more difficult to check the honesty of the
milkman. Of course there being here also no question
of essential right or wrong, he yielded. The principle of mercy required that
he should make things as easy and as safe for his neighbours as possible.
Again, whereas it is lawful to prepare needful food, this does
not justify that feasting that spoils the day of rest for many. I knew a
Christian whose wife could never be at the Sunday morning meeting because he
selfishly insisted upon having a heavy, cooked mid-day meal. In
due time he paid the deserved penalty of having his old age made miserable by chronic dyspepsia.*
[* That is, “a
scientific term for indigestion.” See also ‘Dyphagia’
- “difficulty in swallowing.” (Comp.Dict. Of Eng. Lang. p. 291). See
also another divine law which can take affect! Gal.
6:
5-7ff.
R.V.]
Christ’s practice and principles upon this question are models
of accuracy and balance in relation to the law. In healing a blind man on the sabbath (John 9) He bade him to go to the pool of Siloam
and wash. Both of these actions, walking and washing, were permissible on the sabbath, and of course all men performed them both. But the making of a small amount of clay by spittle and
smearing it on his eyes was apparently not an absolute necessity, for the Lord
healed other blind folk without this. What then could have been His object if
not to provoke a direct challenge to the excessive and burdensome
scrupulousness with which the rabbis had overladen the observance of the sabbath, and made of it an intolerable burden instead of a
day of refreshment? It did provoke such a conflict, and gave Christ occasion to
tell His opponents that it was because they were spiritually blind that they
deemed such an act to be contrary to the meaning and intention of the fourth
commandment (John 9: 39-41). His action justifies the preparing
on the sabbath of healing ointment.
On an earlier occasion the Lord
directed a cripple of thirty-eight years to take up his bed (mattress) and
walk. The Jews remonstrated with him upon carrying about his bed on the sabbath, declaring it unlawful. Yet what were the
alternatives? (1) That he should not
have been healed till the next day, which would not
have been according to mercy. (2)
That being healed, and walking away, he should leave
his bed to be stolen, a moral certainty in a land of Jewish beggars. (3) The other alternative was that,
being healed, he should remain by his bed till the
next day. The law of the sabbath as applied by the
Lawgiver did not demand any of these courses. Most Christians today find it
difficult to conceive how such scruples could enter the minds of men, but there
are not wanting still good Christian people whose
minds are more or less held in such needless bondage as held scribes and rabbis
among the Jews.
VIII. APOSTOLIC PRACTICE
It is a fundamental principle of law that a statute remains in
force until it has been formally annulled by the competent
authority. When enacted by the supreme authority it cannot
be abrogated by a lower authority. God has never repealed the law of the
sabbath as instituted at creation: it is therefore
still in force, and should be observed by all to whom it applies, in the manner
He has indicated.
Among the earliest declarations of Christ concerning the
kingdom of which He is Sovereign is this (Matt. 5: 18): “Verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one
tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law till all things be accomplished.” It may be presumed
that when heaven and earth pass away, and the new heaven and earth take their
place, seeing that the conditions will then be perfect the laws suitable to the
present less than perfect and preparatory conditions will also pass away. But till then every law remains in force until it has
accomplished the purpose for which it was enacted.
This principle, thus formally announced by Authority,
simplifies greatly the question as to what ancient laws are still binding.
There were certain rules regulating the life of
But the law of the sabbath has not yet
fulfilled its purpose. Man still needs the prescribed rest. The law therefore
remains in force. This is the general position.
(1) The first fact
as regards apostolic practice is that the first generation of Jewish Christians
continued zealously to observe the law of Moses,
including of necessity the sabbath. Nor was any attempt made to divert this
zeal for the law (Acts 21:
20-26). Paul himself, though the great
champion of Christian freedom, was ready to accommodate himself to their practice
when he was among them. Thus he circumcised Timothy “because of the Jews that were in those parts” (Acts 16:
3), and at Jerusalem later he fell in
with the suggestions of the other apostles that he should disabuse the minds of
the brethren of the notion that he taught Jewish Christians to forsake Moses (Acts 21: 21). To him personally circumcision or uncircumcision was a
matter of no spiritual importance (Gal. 6: 15): but what was of very great importance was not to be a cause of
stumbling to Jew, or Greek, or Christian, but to seek their profit, not his
own, that they might be saved (1 Cor. 10: 32-11: 1). And whoever gains any adequate
sense of the awfulness of eternal damnation and the greatness of eternal
salvation will agree heartily with Paul that it is not to be put in jeopardy
for any man for the sake of ceremonies or scruples. Paul therefore readily
became a Jew to Jews, submitting willingly to law, though knowing himself in
Christ to be not under law, save to Christ (1 Cor. 9: 19-22).
His call that we should imitate him as
he imitated Christ means that when we come among children of God who feel
themselves under the law and bound, for example, to observe the seventh day, or
to pay tithes, or to practice the rite of feet-washing, it is our privilege to
accommodate ourselves to their practice, rather than stumble them by our own
liberty. In view
of the situation and practice above indicated, in no case can it be apostolic
to refuse such our fellowship. I have met such believers.
(2) A second fact
to be noticed is that there is nothing in Scripture to
show that converts from Judaism later than that first generation continued so
to observe the law. It must be presumed that the
result to be expected was seen, and that the fuller Christian liberty, as
represented by Paul, prevailed. But it would have been
less likely to have done so had any attempt been made to force that first
generation to abandon legal observances before their hearts and their faith
were ready to do this. It is good to set forth the truth of liberty in Christ, and to illustrate it by happy and loving practice;
yet must the fundamental principle of individual freedom of conscience be fully
respected.
(3) The third fact
of apostolic practice is that no attempt was made by apostolic authority to
enforce the law of Moses upon Gentile converts. This
included the law of the sabbath.
An attempt was made - though with no
authority from the apostles - to enforce upon them the whole law by demanding fulfilment
of its first provision, circumcision (Acts 15: 1; Gal. 5: 3). The question was so fundamental that it was
referred to the apostles. The unanimous judgment reached by them, by
their fellow-elders at
Yet while preserving this freedom it was deemed necessary to
impose upon Gentile Christians three positive restrictions, namely, separation
from idolatry, from fornication, and from eating blood, whether as blood or in
the flesh of an unbled animal.
Now it is to be observed carefully that these three
restrictions, though included in the law of Moses and
so binding upon Israelites, were actually of obligation before that law was
promulgated. They were original duties of man universally (Gen. 9: 4; 35: 22 and 49: 4; 20: 3: etc.).
(1) It never had
been right, it never could be right, for any man in any time to give to the
creature the glory and worship due only and absolutely to the Creator. It stood
in the forefront of human guilt after the Flood that men did this (Rom. 1: 22, 23).
(2) The original
institution of marriage - one man united to one woman so intimately as to
become one flesh - prohibited all fornication, whatever form it might take. It
is the second count in the terrible indictment of the race after the Flood that
this law of marriage was utterly flouted (Rom. 1: 24-28).
(3)
Before the Flood God had not given to man liberty to eat flesh, nor therefore
blood. Permission
to eat flesh was given directly after the Flood, but
with the strict injunction that the flesh with the life in it, that is, the blood, was not to be eaten (Gen. 9: 4). The ground of this prohibition was afterwards explained more
fully to
Two results follow: (a)
The law as to eating flesh was permissive, not
compulsory. They who prefer not to eat flesh need not do so. But
the Jew could not be a vegetarian, for he was obliged by the law of Moses to eat the passover lamb,
and parts of other victims sacrificed. (b) The permission being from God, to compel abstinence from flesh
food is ungodly, whether imposed for certain days or periods
by ecclesiastical systems, or by demons as in spiritism.
It is interesting here to observe that the original law as
binding on all men remains so, but the additions made by the Mosaic code were
never binding on any but Jews, for on them alone that code was
imposed. Instances are the compulsory eating of flesh in the sacrifices,
and the limiting of kinds of flesh that might be eaten.
It is no doubt true that all men might be the better in health by observing the
hygenic laws of Moses, especially if they live in the hot lands for which Moses
legislated, but this does not make the Mosaic code obligatory upon them.
Englishmen may wisely profit by laws passed in other lands, but they are not
bound by these laws, save while in those lands.
(c) The drinking of
blood, practised in some forms of idolatry, is strictly
prohibited, but equally so is the eating of blood in the undrained or
insufficiently drained flesh of an animal. They who claim liberty to eat blood
because they are not under the law of Moses cannot
make good their claim by reason of the fact that the law against eating blood
was imposed upon all mankind after the Flood, nine hundred years before Moses.
Moreover, the reason for the abstinence commanded applies equally to Gentiles
as to Jews; and the apostolic, year the Divine re-application of the law to men
who had recently emerged from heathenism, where the eating of blood was common,
shows clearly that no man is exempted from this law by
becoming a Christian. Paul himself so fully endorsed the decision that he
spread the decree throughout the Gentile churches which
he himself had founded (Acts 16:
4).
But now as regards the sabbath, this also was
a pre-Mosaic law of universal application, but it is not mentioned by the Holy
Spirit or the apostles as binding upon Gentile Christians, and there must be
sufficient ground for the omission. If those who today assert
it to be a bounden duty to observe the seventh day sabbath will put themselves
in the place of those who acted at Jerusalem they must surely feel that, upon
their present principles, they would have included, and emphasized, that the
sabbath must be observed even more than the other three duties mentioned in Acts
15: 29; but the apostles did
not so include it. What, then, is it that does not weigh with the modern
sabbatarian, which did weigh with the apostles, and weighed so much as to cause
the omission ?
IX. THE PRINCIPLE
OF THE SUSPENSION OF LAW
Two things have been
before shown: first, that the law of the sabbath not having been abrogated by
God who gave it, and not having fulfilled its purpose and become unnecessary
for man, it remains in force; but second, that there are seasons and
circumstances when its enforcement would defeat its end, by working injury to
man and not good, and so the law is not enforced.
So long as the Christian must live in this world he cannot
wholly escape from the general conditions of life which Satan and sin have
created. Morally he can escape, through union by faith with Christ in His death
and resurrection; as to outward circumstances he cannot always escape, for often these are beyond his control.
In the early churches there were very many of the slave class.
It was wholly out of the question for these to say to their heathen masters, we
decline to do our ordinary work on the seventh day. It would have meant usually
terrible and perpetual ill-treatment and often death. Slaves, in non-Jewish
law, had no legal existence as persons and therefore had no redress. Hence to have imposed upon these the observance of the sabbath would
have been useless and disastrous, and moreover would have brought the
conscience into a cruel and inescapable bondage by demanding a duty towards God
which in no way could have been discharged. Thus their
peace and their communion with God would have been destroyed and their
Christian experience and testimony would have been ruined.
Again, the Christian with an unconverted heathen wife, of the
usual type of heathen woman, would have found it all but impossible to secure
the observance of the sabbath in his home. Anyone at
all acquainted with heathen home life will know how seldom the most sterling Christian man could bring it about. This was
another very common situation, and still is so. Special counsel to meet it was
given by Paul (1 Cor.
7).
Or the reverse would often happen, and a
Christian wife would have a heathen husband. Here again it would result in an
impossible situation if the wife insisted upon disorganizing the family life by
a due observance of the sabbath. Almost certainly she
would have been ill-treated or divorced or killed. It
still so works, and in circumstances not so difficult. I met in
With more or less severity in its working
this remains a very usual and practical situation. For example, in a land where
by general public opinion, and perhaps by law, the first day of the week is the
day of the common suspension of business it is usually impracticable, and often
impossible, for a Christian to abstain from business on the seventh day. How
can a servant in a home insist upon keeping the seventh day if the family keep
the first day? How can a young man in an office say that he will not come on
Saturday, but will work on Sunday? He
cannot carry on the business by himself on Sunday, nor can he with fairness to
others refuse to be there on Saturday. Especially would this apply to apprentices. The attribute of mercy, so resplendent and so
constant in God, has taken note of the difficulty and allowed for the
suspension of the law when in given circumstances
it cannot be strictly
observed. Hence no
mention was made of it in the
There are other instances of this principle of suspension.
Polygamy is contrary to the original institution of marriage,
namely, monogamy. Yet in how many instances, and over how lengthy a period, was
it tolerated by God, even in men who walked with Him, such as Abraham and
David. But by the time of Christ it seems to have died
out in
Thus also it was with the early Christian
church. Converts from heathenism must often have had more than one wife,
polygamy being a common feature among the other corruptions of the pagan world.
Yet there was no injunction against it. It was tolerated, and the matter was either left to individual action or to be cured by time: for
of course no unmarried Christian was allowed to take two wives, nor the married
man with one wife to take a second.
By friendly consent a man might
separate from all but one wife; but arbitrarily to have sent them away would
have been unfair to the women; and it would have grossly and needlessly
outraged and alienated their relatives and public opinion. Also
it would in most instances have led to the women being regarded as public
property, bringing worse moral degradation than for them to remain with the
husband. The question of the children also was serious; if the mother took them they lost the care of the father; if he kept them they
lost that of their mother.
Yet the institution was quietly but
distinctly stigmatized as unchristian by the provision that a man with more
than one wife might not be an elder or a deacon in the church, which is the
unquestionable force of the order of the Greek sentence that these must be “of one wife the husband” (1 Tim. 3: 2, 12; Tit. 1: 6). Not that they must be married, or
Paul and Timothy could not have ruled in the churches, but that being married
it must be to only one wife.
Here again is a situation not infrequent
in the church in non-Christian lands, and so the principle of toleration
remains in force throughout this long time.
The principle may be seen also in the
more dreadful matter of slavery. This also is contrary to the original natural
rights of man. But Moses did not summarily suppress
it. The disorganization of the whole social system
would have been too severe, and such radical action was not attempted. The laws
passed were calculated to ameliorate from the first the lot of the slaves, and
in process of time this evil also disappeared in
The apostles followed this Divinely
set example. No rules against slavery were passed.
They were rather exhorted to godly behaviour as
slaves. Paul even constrained a converted slave to go back to his Christian
master (Philemon), which was actually contrary in principle to the law of
Moses, “Thou shalt not
deliver unto his master a servant that is escaped from his master unto thee”
(Dent.
23:
15,
16). This is much to be
observed as an indication of how completely Paul felt Christians to be
relieved from all this class of Mosaic regulations, and to be at liberty to act
contrary thereto when true advantage was to be gained thereby. But he wrote to the master in such wise that the lot of the
slave would become at least equal to that of the free servant, indeed much
better, for he was to be regarded as a brother of the master.
All this is very noteworthy. It reveals the
true Christian spirit and principles in application to very difficult and
general social personal conditions, a spirit of freedom from bondage to the
letter of God’s law, yet the more powerful spirit of love gradually producing a
fulfilment of the law, even as it is written that “the righteous
requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh
but after the spirit” (Rom. 8: 4). This end is not reached by
attempts to make the law binding by rules and penalties, for these tend, now as
of old, to produce a constrained obedience, which not being an offering of pure
love to God is of no value and brings only bondage of soul rather than
blessing.
X. THE LAW IS ONLY SUSPENDFD - NOT CANCELLED
That the law of the Sabbath is only in suspense, when and where
required, and is not annulled, may be
seen in those prophecies which simply presume its continuance in the coming
Millennial age (Isa. 56: 2-8; 58: 13; 66: 23;
Ezek. 46: 4, 12). There is no suggestion of
re-enactment, for there has been no cancellation of the law. It cannot be
pleaded that its observance lapsed because it was Jewish and will revive when
the Jews come again into fellowship with God, because (a) the law applies to all men, not Jews only, for the
non-Israelites are named as observing it in that coming age. And (b) at that time Israel will not come
into fellowship with God under the covenant of Sinai but under the new
covenant, that of Abraham, yet under this new covenant the Sabbath will
continue. This is no slight proof that it is in force now for us who in advance
have entered the
The term necessary work should be construed
strictly, in favour of observance not exemption, so as to
limit work, not to justify extension thereof. If some further instances are given this is not as if legislating for others, but only
to illuminate what is here advocated.
If the boiler fires of a factory were allowed to go out over
the week-end, then all the work-people would lose time
on Monday while they were restarted and steam generated. There would result a
serious loss of output, and of wages. The alternative is that the few stokers
work a short time on the day of rest. But this would
not justify the whole factory being kept running seven days a week.
In a great city we often invited tram
conductors to a Bible class or to the gospel service. The common reply was that
three Sundays out of four they had to take other people to classes and
services. I ceased travelling in public vehicles on the Lord’s
day so as to be able to reply that I was not one who caused my
neighbour’s labour to be in demand. This secured at once a hearing of the
gospel, and also the reception of a gospel booklet.
For fifty-five years I have failed to
see necessity for preachers using trains, or hiring other means, for holding
meetings. Younger men could often go away for the week-end;
others could walk or cycle or use their own car, as many do. But
the Divine remedy is that the Holy Spirit is able and ready to raise up
adequate and spiritually efficient ministry in each local group of believers;
so that it is really not a necessity that Sunday labour should be employed for this purpose. This
solution is in operation in places where public conveyances are unknown, as I
myself have seen in various lands.
Before my heart had become exercised as to the will of God in
these matters I went on one occasion by train from
If it be said, But the train will run
in any case, so why not use it ? the
argument is the same in principle as saying, if 1 don't steal this article (or
do some other wrong) somebody else will, so why should not I ?
It is not a necessity for a Christian to go to his office or warehouse on the Lord’s day merely because the employer demands it. Pressed
upon a point of Christian duty one said to Spurgeon, “But
a man must live!” The reply was, do not admit the necessity. A man must
please God Dr. A. T. Pierson related
the case of a young Christian who served in an American store which was open
seven days a week. Becoming troubled in conscience he explained his difficulty
to the head of the firm, and said that he was willing to work late each week-night in order to keep the work in hand, but he would
be glad to be relieved of Sunday work. He was told
that if he could not fall in with the ways of the business he must leave, and
he left immediately.
The next morning he received a letter from another large firm
in the same trade saying that they understood that he was seeking employment
and inviting him to call. They appointed him at a better salary than he had
been receiving, and there was no Sunday work. Later, when he had become a
partner he asked the head of the firm to tell him how he came to send for him
at the first. “Oh,” was the reply, “that is quite simple. When Mr. A. had dismissed you he came straight round to me, told me what had happened, and said that of course he could not have a
young man talking to him like that,
but if I wanted a thoroughly reliable man I had better secure you before any
one else did so!”
As Dr. Pierson then
said: “The Almighty has not yet vacated His throne!”
Or as the apostle Peter says: “The Lord knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of trial” (2 Pet. 2: 9); and if He does not
always do so as promptly as in this case it is not because He is not able, but
because a continuance of the test of faith is for our good, and our final glory *
(1 Pet. 1: 6, 7).
[* NOTE: There is
very good logic here, by those who believe there will be a Mid-tribulation and select
rapture before the Antichrist’s persecution of Christians commence. In other words, the first 3˝ years of his
{Antichrist’s} persecutions, God will use as a testing and proving time
for
regenerate believers who will subsequently be “accounted
worthy to escape”! (See Luke 21: 36; cf. Rev. 3: 10; 2 Tim. 2: 8-13.)]
When days come when the law does not allow a day of rest, they
who had employed others to work thereon, as on trains or trams, at the phone or
radio, will not be able to plead a conscientious objection when compelled themselves to work on that day.
XI. THE PRINCIPLE OF PERSONAL
But who is to decide what is a necessity or what is
properly allowable on the sabbath? Both the law and the gospel show that in
many cases it must be the individual himself.
The law did indeed prescribe as to some matters, as that on
the day of atonement “no manner of work” was permitted. Gathering fuel (Num. 15: 32) and lighting a fire were prohibited (Ex. 35: 3). But as to just how much was
allowable in the preparation of food on ordinary sabbaths no rule could
possibly be formulated. In a larger family more work must have been involved,
as also when sickness might be in the house. There was no direction by Moses as
to how long the walk in the cornfields might or might not be. Rabbis prescribed
that later.
In the observance of other laws it
was of necessity the same. It was ordained that all the men should go to
It is therefore only to be expected
that under the gospel this liberty should be vastly enlarged and emphasized. How very few were the items upon which the apostolic decree at
Thus in giving money to the work of God no proportion was fixed. “As he may prosper” was the indication (1 Cor. 16: 2), but the individual had to determine how much he had been
prospered. Had there been a rule that each Christian must give a tenth that must in this place have been stated. As against the very
principle of communism, Peter distinctly allowed the fullest right of private
ownership, saying to Ananias, “Whilst [the land] remained [unsold] did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold was it not in thy power?”
(Acts 5: 4). Ananias was not obliged to give any part of it to the common fund. Peter
could not have so spoken had it been compulsory to give a tenth. And this was in the case of one who, being a Jew, had been
compelled formerly to begin by giving a tenth.
The Scripture commands positively that a church must put out
of its circle [regenerate] persons persisting in certain offences (1 Cor. 5: 11 -13). These are all acts essentially
immoral, and are
gross. A church has no right from its Head to put out or to keep
out believers on other grounds. If a church extends its list of
excommunicable matters it does so without [God’s] warrant or guidance. Hence the sabbath, or tithing, or such questions
cannot be made tests for fellowship according to Scripture.
Other communities of Christians make tests of such questions
as the use of alcohol or tobacco. Through eighty years of life the writer has never
used either; partly to be able to help and to exhort those who are enslaved
thereby, and partly because it is certain that these and similar fleshly
indulgences cannot make the body, the temple and the tool of the Holy Spirit,
more clean for His presence and efficient for His use. We greatly wish that,
for the Lord’s sake, and their testimony, all our fellow-believers would so
abstain. But in such matters no legislative right is
given to the
It is on this principle of individual liberty that the
Scripture reasons in similar matters that in their time were burning
questions, and still are so in places (Rom. 14: 1 - 15: 7).
Is it lawful to eat flesh? Is it allowable to drink wine? Is
it necessary to keep one day more honourable than another day, or are all days
alike? The Spirit of God did not guide Paul to lay down a rule, or even to give
a direct answer to such questions. He said: (1) No Christian is to set at nought or to judge his brother in such
matters, ver. 3. (2) No one has a
right to judge the servant of another; he is responsible to the Master only, ver.
4. (3)
Each man is to be fully persuaded in his own mind, but
is not to impose his mind upon his neighbour, ver. 5. (4) God alone is
judge, and no one has to give account of his brother’s conduct, but only of his
own, ver. 10-12.
(5) The guiding principle is love, and love gladly refrains, at personal cost, from
stumbling another, ver. 13-15. (6) He
who pleases himself and stumbles his brother is
fighting against Christ and God, ver.
15,
20.
(7) The
When these principles are understood
and practised liberty prevents bondage, while love prevents licence.
The statement: “One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth
every day alike,” cannot fairly be held not to include the sabbath.
In the church at Rome there were Jewish as well as Gentile
believers (16: 3, 7, 11),
and if any of these continued to regard the seventh day as more honourable
than the rest, plainly he would come under this word as esteeming one day above
another, nor could the others have denied to him its protection as allowing his
practice. Indeed, it is difficult to think to what other case it could
apply, for genuine converts from heathenism would hardly continue to deem the
old vile heathen festivals as sacred days, and, on the other hand, no Jew would
deem other Jewish festivals as to be
observed but the sabbath not to be. With God-given
wisdom the apostle makes the statement wide to cover any other possible case,
but it seems clear that the sabbath was the most likely question to arise, and
in any event cannot be excluded.
At the Reformation the claim to
personal liberty in conscience and religion was a vital matter, and the
Reformers won it against the Papal claim to enslave men. But
the Reformers shortly denied such
liberty to believers who could not in conscience join the Protestant State
Churches or admit infant baptism,
and they severely persecuted such. This
disastrous tendency to deny to others the right of personal freedom constantly
reappears amongst Protestants.
XII. THE LORD’S DAY IS NOT THE SABBATH
There is no ground for the idea that the apostles or the early
church regarded the first day of the week as taking the place of the seventh
day sabbath. Nothing in the New Testament suggests it, nor in the first
post-apostolic writers. What has been before said upon Gentile liberty as to the
sabbath negatives the suggestion.
The early Christians used the first day of the week for
Christian worship, though not that day exclusively. At the very first they
worshipped daily in the temple and also held daily in
their homes the Christian feast of the breaking of bread (Acts 2: 46). But it was on the first day of the week that their Lord had risen from the dead; on that day He had manifested Himself to them as risen; and it was on the next following first day
that He had again appeared to them (John 20: 1, 19, 26). The event was so stupendous, as a fact and in its import, that on that day of the week they met to remember
Him as He had appointed (Acts 20: 7). But there is no suggestion that in
their minds they regarded this as a substitute
for the seventh day sabbath.
That in the time of
Of course, the reasoning of extreme Seventh Day Adventists upon this matter is wholly unreasonable. It
runs thus: The Pope is the Antichrist, the Beast of Revelation
13. The Pope changed
the sabbath to the first of the week. This is the
dominant sin of the Papacy and therefore is. “the mark of the Beast” (Rev. 13: 16, 17). Whoever keeps the first of the week
as sacred, thereby accepts the mark of the Beast and is damned (Rev. 14: 9-12).
But that the Papacy is the Beast is
not according to Scripture. The Beast will avowedly suppress all worship of
every god save himself (2 Thess. 2: 3, 4; Rev. 13: 8, 15-17). In particular he will deny the God
of the Christian, the Father and the Son (1 John 2: 22). The Papacy is indeed an awful institution and will reach an
awful end (Rev.
17), but so far is it from denying the Father
and the Son that it officially avows the orthodox Christian belief as to the
Trinity and worships the Father and the Son. Moreover, it is merely an opinion
that keeping the first day is the most characteristic sin of the Papal system
and therefore is the “mark of the Beast.” Most Christians do not agree.
To assert that the appointment of the Sunday as a public
holiday and day of worship is the chief offence of the Papacy, and that
tolerance thereof secures eternal damnation, betrays an obsession as to the sabbath; and all obsessions distort vision and judgment upon
the particular matter in question.
If the Christian feels bound in conscience to observe a sabbath he should keep
the seventh day, subject to what has been before shown as to exceptions, to
suspension of the law, and as to the spirit and detail of observance.
XIII. THE SABBATH AND SALVATION
The extreme Adventist position just mentioned is a thorough
perversion of the gospel, for it makes the keeping of the sabbath
according to the law of Moses a condition of salvation. Against this principle
of intertwining the law with the work of redemption wrought by the Redeemer, Galatians and Hebrews are expressly
directed, and
indeed, the whole Word of God unitedly protests, negatively or positively.
[Eternal] Salvation thus ceases to be a gift of grace received by faith
and is made conditional upon a work of law. To adopt
this position is to be “severed from Christ” and to “fall from grace” (Gal. 5: 4), and he who so teaches puts himself under the awful and
repeated anathema, “if any man
preacheth unto you any gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let
him be anathema” (Gal. 1: 8, 9).
So long as sabbatarians contend only
for a duty, as they believe, to observe the seventh day, the Scripture, as
before shown, plainly directs that this is to be allowed; but whenever they go
further by asserting that damnation is the penalty of non-observance, they
forfeit their right to liberty by denying liberty to others, and they put
themselves in a fundamentally false position as to the gospel. This attitude must
be as strenuously opposed as the former should be readily conceded, and
those who so pervert the gospel - [of God’s ‘grace’] - cannot rightly claim to be regarded
as [regenerate] Christians.
XIV. THE POSITION
AND PRIVILEGES OF THE SONS OF GOD
There remains one aspect of this and
all similar questions which is higher, final, and
determining. It was introduced by the Son of God in the
days of His flesh and was expanded and applied by His Spirit through Paul in
his letter to the Galatian believers. It is thus an example of a feature vital
to right exposition of the New Testament, namely, that all the matters treated in the Epistles are
rooted in germinal sayings by Christ. This binds together
indissolubly the Gospels and all the Epistles, including those written by Paul.
Matthew had been a tax collector, and he narrates an incident
in connexion with tribute (Matt. 17: 24-27). Peter
was asked by tax collectors whether the Rabbi whom he followed paid a certain tax or claimed exemption. He, knowing the facts, answered that Christ paid it.
Now this again was not a question of Mosaic law
merely. The duty and right of some men to execute justice
among their fellows was imposed by God directly after the Flood (Gen. 9: 6): “Whoso sheddeth
man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.” As the race multiplied, and the
administration of justice became ever more and more complicated and detailed, there grew up of necessity an ever more
elaborate system of government.
Whatever abuses may have come thereinto by the frailty or wickedness of rulers,
and they are great, the fact of
government is in itself of God, and
in spite of all the terrible abuse of
power throughout the ages, it still is better, for the public and private weal, - [i.e. “state of being well:
a sound or prosperous state: welfare.” (New Cmp. Dict.
Of The
God can
at any hour remove a ruler, or destroy any given government, or overturn the whole
present system and substitute another. This last He will do at the coming of the Lord Jesus to reign over
the earth and the heavens. It is therefore evident that “there is no authority but of God; the actual existing
authorities are of God,” though not, of course, all their acts (
Now the maintenance of this administration of justice of
necessity involves expense; and it is equitable, and is the express command of
God, that this expense should be met by the contributions of all those who, in
the intention of God in appointing rulers, benefit by the order and safety thus
provided. So that from the Flood and onward paying tribute has been a moral duty and a
God-imposed duty.
The tax which was here particularly in
question had also a religious sanction. It was imposed
by the proper authority in the matter and it appears to have been used
for the support of the temple worship in
But the Lord had something very
exceptional to say upon this subject, something of deep and wide application to
all questions of authority, legal duties, and tributes. He emphasized what He
would say by revealing to Peter that He knew of the conversation with the tax
collectors without Peter having mentioned it. “When Peter came into the house Jesus spake first to him,
saying,
What thinkest thou, Simon? the kings of the earth,
from whom do
they receive toll or tribute? from their sons, or from strangers [persons not of
the royal family]? And when he said, From strangers,
Jesus said unto
him, Therefore the sons are free!” (Matt.
27:
25,
26).
In the human sphere this is well
understood. Tax collectors do not call upon princes of the royal blood. In the
As to the Lord Himself personally, He being uniquely the Son
of God it is easy to admit the position. Had He suddenly and visibly irradiated
His humanity with the glory of His deity, as He did for a brief time on the
mount of transfiguration, no tax officer would have thought of claiming a tax
from Him, no Pharisee would have challenged His right to do on the sabbath whatever He thought proper. As Son of God,
therefore, He was plainly free from taxation and all that system of law of
which taxation is a crucial example and test, for one who may rightly refuse
taxes is evidently above the whole legal system of
which taxes are a chief acknowledgement.
But Christ neither claimed to be nor
acted as being the solitary instance of this position. He spoke in the plural: “Therefore the sons are
free ... take and give unto them for me and thee” (Matt. 17: 26, 27). Here is hinted the highest display
of the grace of God that ever will be possible to all eternity. It is the
purpose of that grace not simply to have a multitude of sons and daughters
possessing eternal life, but to bring many of these, as firstborn sons (Heb.
12: 23), unto glory (Heb.
2:
10).
How often are words read thoughtlessly which reveal most
astounding matters! “The glory which
thou hast given me I have given unto them ... I desire that they may be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory” (John 17: 22, 24). The Lord desires that the honour that the
three had on the holy mount may be shared by many, yea, be transcended, in that
they shall not only behold His glory, and on earth, but partake of it, - [during
Messiah’s coming millennial reign (Isa. 9: 6, 7; cf. Rev. 2: 25; 3: 21, R.V.] - and in the heavenly part
of the universe, the native realm of that glory, themselves being made radiant
in heavenly splendour, “conformed to the body of Christ’s glory”
(Phil.
3:
21).
For the city that shall come down from heaven, that is, the saints who shall be accounted worthy to share the joy
and honour of being the wife of the Lamb, wears no created glory but has the very glory of God (Rev.
21:
11).
This will be the highest development of that fact which is
common - [and promised initially] - to all [regenerate] believers termed in general “salvation.” But not all the saved will rise so high in the kingdom of God.
In that universal realm there are the lesser and the greater (Matt. 5: 19); “one star differeth from another star in glory” (1 Cor.
15:
41).
The Son of God disrobed Himself of that glory which He had
with the Father before the creation (John 17: 5), and thenceforth being man He had no claim thereto, for not even
a perfect man has a claim to share the glory of Deity. But that very glory which He surrendered has been restored to Him in - [His select] - resurrection, by the gift of His Father, as recompense for His fidelity and sufferings as man on earth (Phil.
2:
5-11,
“wherefore”:
Isa.
53:
12,
“therefore”:
Heb.
2:
9,
“because of”:
Rev.
5:
9,
“worthy
... for” ).
This recovered glory He desires in
wondrous grace to share with others of
the human race, to which He still belongs: but of necessity it is to be obtained by them upon the same
terms upon which He regained it: and so it is written that “if we died with Him,
we shall also live with Him,” which is not the same as the truth Since He died for us we have life in Him. The latter is the fact for every [regenerate] believer, the former is an advance upon it:
and so it is added, “if we endure we shall also reign with Him” (2 Tim.
2:
11,
12). And again, while all children are
indeed heirs of God their Father, and receive His love, His care as to food and
clothing and education, and other common benefits, yet we, shall be also “joint-heirs with
Messiah [the King] if so be that we suffer
with Him, that we may be also
glorified with Him” (Rom, 8: 17).
It is these who shall at last live, not upon the new earth
under the favour and love of the one God and Father of all, but in the heavens
above, sharing the glory of the Son, and so in the highest conceivable degree
and display being sons of God. It was to these that the Lord spoke when He set His most difficult
lessons, such as, “Love your enemies, and pray for them
that persecute you, that ye may become (genesthe) sons [not merely children, for they were such already] of
your Father who is in the heavens” (Matt.
5:
44,
45):
and again, “Love your enemies ... and ye
shall be [future] sons of the Most High” (Luke 6: 35): and yet again, “Blessed are [those who are characterized
as] the peacemakers; for they shall be
called sons of God” (Matt. 5: 9).
In these places Christ was not
telling sinners how to obtain forgiveness, or the dead how to be born again
into a new, eternal life: He was telling such as were already children of God, by faith in Himself, how they
might become sons of God, by the working of His Spirit in them in
power. And the outcome of so living in fellowship with Him, and of sharing His sufferings as so living in this
evil world, He revealed when He said that “they that are
accounted worthy to attain to that [Millennial] age, and the resurrection out from among the dead ... are sons of God, being sons of the
resurrection” (Luke 20: 35, 36). For such as are so accounted worthy to attain to that first
resurrection will reign with Christ, and so share in His glory (Rev.
20:
4,
6).
Thus to be a son of God in
this fullest sense is
(a) to partake of
the nature of a mature son, knowing God as father consciously
and intelligently. Many fear God as their Creator, praise Him as Preserver, own
Him as Judge, acknowledge Him as their Saviour through the work of Christ, and
are even thankful to be His children, without being in the enjoyment of the
relationship of son. For it is possible to be a [regenerate] believer and not to have received the
spirit of sonship. It was thus with the disciples before Pentecost; it is
evidently thus with many today. For example, believers who remain in fellowship
with unbelievers, or return thereto, do not know in power the promise, “Come ye out ... be separate, and I will receive you and will be to you a father ... saith the Lord
Almighty” (2 Cor. 6: 17, 18). How much peace under trial, comfort in sorrow, joy in tribulation is thus foregone; for how could one be anxious and cast down who knows his father to be
almighty?
(b) The sons of God in Christ have in Him
a position in the heavens. As God sees them they are
even now “seated with Him in
the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2: 6). They are a part of that woman who,
though actually in travail on earth, persecuted by the dragon, is seen by God,
and by the eye of faith, as already in heaven, arrayed with the glories of
heaven (Rev.
12).
(c) In consequence they are no more
citizens of the earth, but aliens, foreigners among the nations; sojourners,
not residents, seeking their own country: and therefore, while doing by the way
all the good they can to all men, they have neither right not heart to
interfere in the affairs of the countries through which they pass.
(d) Nevertheless,
because the Supreme Ruler has given to His Son possession of all the universe, and because these are sons of God in the Son, He and they are properly and
actually the lords, the sovereigns of the earth, as it is written: “All things are yours ... the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come,
all are yours:
and ye are
Christ’s: and Christ is God’s” (1 Cor. 3: 21-23). And included in the
“things to come”
which are theirs is the dignity of being sovereigns and judges of men and angels
(1 Cor. 6: 2, 3; Rev. 2: 26-28; 3: 21): and therefore when Christ, who is
already their real life, shall be manifested to mankind, then shall they also
with Him be manifested in glory, His glory (Col.
3:
4).
Hence it is obvious that these, as ruling
princes, are by natural right properly free from taxation and from the
administrative system of which taxation is an integral, essential part. And it is exactly thus that the argument in Galatians 3 and 4 proceeds. In former ages believers in
God were children under age, needing rules for their correction and training, “thou shalt ... thou shalt not,” they were under stewards and
governors, though by title of relationship lords of all. Thus
the law of Moses was a tutor, a pedagogue, that is a head servant entrusted
with the high responsibility of training the children to grow to be sons. “But now that faith is come, we are no longer under a tutor. For
we are all sons of God, through faith,
in Christ Jesus”
(Gal.
3:
25,
26). “So we also,
when we were
children, were held in bondage under the rudiments of the world:
but when the
fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under law,
that He might
redeem them that were under law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye
are sons God sent forth the Spirit of
His Son into our hearts,
crying, Abba, Father. So
that thou art no longer a bond-servant, but a son; and if a son then an heir through God”
(Gal.
4:
3-7).
“But now that ye
have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly
rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again? Ye observe days,
and months,
and seasons and
years” (Gal. 4: 9, 10).
Is it not evident that many true children of God have not
received this spirit of sonship, or having received it have
turned back from its instincts and privileges? For there are those today who
observe “days,” including sabbath days, and other legal
ordinances, because they feel in their souls they are bound to do so, and
their conscience therefore drives them thereto.
And this brings forward the crux and
conclusion of the whole matter.
Christ was bound by moral law. His sonship gave Him no freedom to steal or to kill or to blaspheme. Thus
it is with all the sons of God.
But Christ as the Son of God, and
Peter as a son of God, were not bound to pay tribute: yet the Son of God paid it: and by His
order Peter paid it: and taught by His Spirit Peter and Paul directed all the
sons of God to pay it, and therefore to submit in civil matters to all other
righteous administrative rules of the various governments imposing tribute (1 Pet. 2: 11-17; Rom. 13: 1-10).
The reason which moved the Son of God to pay a tax for which before
God He was not liable is a noble illustration of that royal law of love by
which God Himself and all His sons are eternally bound, and which law of itself
secures the fulfilment of all other duties.
Had Christ declared to the tax gatherers that He would not
pay, nor permit His followers to pay, because He and they enjoyed such a
special relationship to God as princes do to the king their father, it would
have seemed to those men incomprehensible, a mere evasion of a legal duty. It
would have been to them a stumbling block, a hindrance
to trusting Christ at all, and therefore a hindrance to them in the matter of
their own salvation by faith in Christ. And He would
have forthwith been suspect before the authorities as a teacher of dangerous
doctrine subversive of public order, and His enemies would have had fair ground
of complaint against Him before the Roman rulers.
In truth, Christ’s whole mission was at stake, which indicates
that great care and divine wisdom are needed for
dealing with any passing incident. The principles involved should
be considered, and invariably the law of love will be found to be an
infallible guide. The Son of God was entitled to do as He liked, but “Christ pleased not Himself” (Rom. 15: 3), and by acting out of love to others He was preserved
from the pitfalls of that hour. Love readily foregoes its rights rather than stumble
another by asserting them.
Therefore said Christ, to Peter, For their sake we will pay the tax, “lest we should cause them to stumble;” and He deeply impressed upon Peter
this course by working a special miracle to provide the money needful.
Moreover, a prince travelling in his father’s dominions, and
especially if travelling incognito as a private person, will
give due honour to all officials appointed by his father, and will submit cheerfully to all proper regulations
made by such officials, even though made for subjects, not for princes. To act
otherwise would be to challenge his father’s kingly authority and to set a bad
example to his subjects. Thus did Pilate’s Lord submit to His servant Pilate,
as having authority from above (John 19:
11), and similarly Paul submitted to
Festus (Acts 25:
11), though in each case life itself was
at stake. And therefore Paul wrote: “he that resisteth the power withstandeth the ordinance of God
... wherefore ye
must needs be in subjection for conscience sake” (
The situation may now be summarized
as follows
There are four classes of laws.
1. Moral law, of
ceaseless authority.
2. Laws for preserving welfare and
happiness for man, even when sinless, such as the sabbath
and marriage.
3. Laws for preventing and punishing
evil: “law is not made for
the righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly” (1 Tim.
1:
9,
10).
4. Religious and
ceremonial laws for promoting and regulating man’s dealings with God, such as
those relating to atonement and worship. In this sphere, it may be remarked,
the civil authority has no rights given it by God.
Now it is evident that the last three classes can and do apply
to the earth only, and to man in connection with the earth. 1. In the heavenly world there is
neither marriage nor a weekly sabbath. 2. There, because the inclusive law of
love has perfect sway, preventive and repressive laws have no place, for no law
forbids the manifestation of love (Gal. 5: 18, 23). 3.
In the world of holy spirits worship is also spiritual, the spontaneous
outpouring of loving adoration, which rules and forms can never help, but
rather hinder. “God is spirit,
and they that
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth ... for such doth the
Father seek to be His worshippers” (John 4: 21-24). And therefore
So long as the children of God by
faith in Christ Jesus have no higher sense of their standing in Christ than to
feel themselves Jews, Englishmen, Chinese, or as the case may be, in short as
men who still belong to the earth, they will deem themselves as still under
law, and bound by whatever laws
they consider to apply to their case. It is to such that the foregoing exposition of Scripture that
precedes this present chapter applies.
But this is not the position of the sons of God according
to the mind of God. The Son of God came forth in grace from the heavenly world
to live awhile on earth, and then to return whence He had come. Yet not that He
should abide for ever the only one of the human race
in that upper world, but rather that He should bring many sons of God unto that
heavenly glory. Such of the children of God as understand, and from the heart
respond to, this “high calling of God
in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3: 14), know why one of this fellowship wrote that God in Christ
becomes “the centre of all; and the Christian, if
consistent, declares plainly that he seeks a heavenly country. His affections,
his ties, his citizenship are above.” And as to
the affairs of this world he added “as a Christian I
believe and feel myself to be outside all these things move me no more.”
It has been expressed thus
“Called from
above, and men of heavenly birth,
Who once were but the
citizens of earth,
We seek above our new, our
heavenly place,
Where now we dwell before
the Father’s face.”
Strikingly did the aristocratic Viscountess Powerscourt say that a Christian is not a man who looks
up to heaven from earth, but a man who looks down upon earth from heaven.
When the heart, by faith and in the elevating energy of the Holy
Spirit, does in very deed dwell daily with the Father in that heavenly place,
naturally it “knows and feels itself outside of”
this earth’s affairs. The consciousness of being a prince royal of heaven
forbids that one should deem oneself, or one’s fellows in this heavenly rank,
to be bound by rules, even
Divinely appointed rules, made for the earth, except such as are of the moral
order as expressed chiefly in the nine commands of the Decalogue before
noticed.
Yet as being, as it were, a visitor on
earth by the will of God, involved temporarily in various earthly contacts and
relationships, such a son of God follows thankfully the example left by the Son
of God in the days of His flesh, and “subjects himself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake”
(1 Pet.
2:
13), and also in the hope that thus he
may save some men of the earth from the doom of sin and may lead them to Him
who can bring them also to that heavenly glory.
With so great an object in view he will naturally avoid being a
stumbling-block to any, thus defeating the noble end in view, and will readily
sacrifice his rights and preferences if thereby he can save men and glorify his
God and Father. Thus did the Son of God live here, for He had come “to seek and to save that which was lost.” Thus did He teach Paul to live, “if by any means he might save some” (1 Cor.
9:
19-23). And all of
this holy, heavenly fellowship will say,
“ God, may grace to us be given
To follow
in their train!”
Such an one is free in heart from
bondage to any law, save the law of love, but in the enabling power of that law
he is free to submit to any law when love constrains. To serve the supreme end
he will bring himself into bondage to all men; he will become a Jew to win a
Jew and conform to their customs, a Gentile to Gentiles, he will be all things
morally allowable to all men. He will respect the sabbath day, the seventh day
among such as respect it, or another day, if by so doing he can best serve the
Divine end, knowing all the time that as a son of God he is not bound in such a matter, as if he were a citizen of earth.
Free in his spirit from laws for this lower world, yet he will support on earth
his heavenly Father’s rights over His subjects on earth, by both conforming to
the will of God and teaching others to do so (Matt. 5: 19). This is the full freedom wherewith Christ makes free the
sons of God, and “if the Son shall
make you free ye shall be free indeed” (John 8: 36). “Stand fast therefore, and be not
entangled again in a yoke of bondage ... but through love be servants one of another ...
For he that
herein serveth Christ is well-pleasing to God and approved of men” (Gal.
5:
1,
13;
Rom.
14:
18).
“In service
that Thy love appoints
There are no bonds for me:
My secret heart is taught the truth
That sets Thy people free:
And a life of
self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.”
(A. L. Waring.)
Therefore in the same spirit, on the same
grounds, and to the same extent that Christ paid taxes and observed the day of
rest so will and should His followers do likewise. It is not for sons of God,
by precept or example, to encourage their Divine Father's subjects to disregard His
good laws. The latter are under obligation to those laws: the former should
encourage obedience thereto, as Christ did when here.
* *
*
7
TWO SELECTED HYMNS
1
LIVE FOR JESUS
A Translation of a Finnish hymn, taken
from an article on
Live for Jesus! All the
pleasure
That can come from earthly
things
Equals not one hour’s
enjoyment
Which His blessed service
brings.
Live for Jesus! For this
only
Does our life deserve the name;
To thy heart, before all
others,
Jesus has a perfect claim.
Live for Jesus! Round His
banner
Gather souls while life
does last;
To His cross
invite poor sinners;
Soon the work-day
will be past.
Thousands of such wanderers
round thee,
After peace and comfort
sigh;
Tell them of the Friend Who
only
Can their longings satisfy.
Tell them simply of
salvation
Thou thyself in Him hast
found;
Of the grace and loving
kindness
Wherewith He thy life has crowned.
Live for Jesus! Life’s
young springtide
Give Him, and thy
summer’s prime;
Live for Him when fading
autumn
Speaks to thee of
shortening time.
Give thyself to Him;
Thus He gave Himself for thee,
When He lived on earth
despised,
When He died on
Give up all for Him, well
knowing
Thus to lose is all to gain.
Live for Jesus, till with
Jesus
Thou forever rest and reign.
-------
2
A FAMOUS HYMN
Let us ponder Heber’s
Warrior hymn. The general picture corresponds to Psalm 45.:
I speak the things which I have made
touching the King...
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O Mighty one,
Thy glory and thy majesty.
And in thy majesty ride on prosperously,
And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things ...
Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever:
A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
-------
The Son of God goes forth
to war,
Since you became a Christian have you turned your back on the common life of spiritual pleasure, comfort, and
case and gone forth to war ?
A kingly crown to gain;
Have you settled once and for all that the way, the only way,
to gain a kingly crown in the
His blood red banner streams afar:
It is His own blood that dyes that banner. Are you prepared to spill any blood in His
cause?
Who follows in His train ?
Are you in His
warrior train? or are you content to be a domestic
servant, or an office boy, or fill some other useful and comfy post in His
service?
Who best can drink His cup of woe,
Are you able and
ready to drink of His cup, or do you prefer a cup of wine?
Triumphant over pain,
How do you bear the
wounds and bruises of the Christian life, especially those inflicted by
fellow-believers? Do you triumph or succumb?
Who patient bears his cross
below,
The cross is the cruel instrument by which the self-life is ended. Have you accepted the cross of Christ as the death
of self? and
are you patient under the daily mortifications of pride and self?
He follows in His train.
Be honest now, if never before as to this matter:- Are you in His train, or are you not?
A noble army, men and boys,
The matron and the maid,
The army is recruited from all
classes and ages. If you really do think them a noble army, why have you not joined them in the ranks of war?
Around the Saviour’s throne rejoice,
They are not there yet, but it is their assured prospect at
the coming triumph of their Lord. Do you imagine that you will rejoice before
that throne if you shirk the battles of the King who won that throne in war?
In robes of light arrayed.
The King has said plainly that it is those who keep their
garments clean in this foul world who shall walk with
Him in white in His world (Rev. 3: 4, 5). What hope of this have you if your garments are spotted by
the mud of this world?
They climbed the steep
ascent of heaven
To be brought up out of the pit of
corruption and destruction is not a matter of climbing by our own effort: we
are lifted thence by the energy of divine grace, and set upon a rock. But rising to the mountain top of the world above, “getting to heaven,”
is different. Do you really believe that the path to heaven, the only path, is just
like this, an ascent, and a steep ascent, and that you will gain the summit only by climbing? If
you do really think this, then you will brace yourself to be a lifelong
climber, even though it must be
Through peril, toil, and
pain:
And you will offer from your heart the
cry
O God, to us may grace be
given;
To follow in
their train.
Did you ever yet sing this hymn thoughtfully and sincerely, or
only lustily in the crowd? If not, face the issue honestly. The appeal of the
last two lines will most certainly be answered if
offered from a sincere heart. It is divine strength that
lifts from the pit to the rock; it is by divine strength that the
mountain is climbed.
What do you truly think? Does Heber here state God’s truth,
according to Scripture? If so, is it not high time that you
awoke from your pleasant dreams, arose from among the dead, and commenced to
follow diligently and enthusiastically in your Lord’s train, sharing in His
wars in hope of sharing in His victory and glory?
Let no one deceive you with empty words as to this prospect. You
will not be “carried to the
skies On flowery beds of ease;” so spring out of bed, buckle on the
whole armour of God (Eph.
6), and throw yourself headlong into the
battle of the King on behalf of truth,
and meekness, and righteousness. No one ever won a battle sitting on the fence.
THE END