THE THEOCRATIC KINGDOM *
By
GEORGE N. H. PETERS, D.D.
[* VOLUME TWO (pp. 439-447.)]
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[Page 439]
PROPOSITION 142. The Kingdom being related to the
earth (extending
over it), and involving the [‘first’] resurrection of the saints (in order
to inherit it), is sustained by the promise to the saints
of their inheriting the earth.
It has been shown that the land is
covenanted to the Patriarchs personally (Proposition 49), and that a resurrection - [‘out of dead ones’ (see Lit. Greek)] - is indispensable to its fulfilment; that (Rom. 8: 13) “the promise”
to Abraham involved, “that he should be the heir of
the world,” and that all believers - [‘accounted worthy’
(see Luke 20: 35
cf.
Phil. 3: 11; Rev. 20: 4, 5, R.V.)] - being identified with him as his seed - the same promise with him. This,
of course, includes their resurrection also,* for it promises them to inherit the land or earth. Having shown the [select] resurrection, let us notice those
special promises as a confirmation of our doctrinal position.
[* Note: 2 Tim. 2: 18 cf.
Matt. 16: 18; Luke 16: 22, 23; John 14: 3; 20: 17; Acts 2: 34; Heb. 12: 17; Rev. 2: 25; 6: 9-11, etc.]
OBSERVATION 1. The re-establishment of the Davidic throne and Kingdom here on earth, as Covenant, Prophets, pious Jews,
Rabbis, disciples, Apostolic Fathers, etc., teach, and as presented in previous
Propositions,
demands, if God reveals at all the destination of saints, a specific mention of their receiving the earth as an
inheritance. This has indeed already been established
(see e.g. Proposition
49 on covenants and Propositions 116 and 122), but God has accumulated
proof, as if purposely to rebuke and render inexcusable the prevailing unbelief in this particular.
It would be uncandid to consider this Proposition isolated from its
connection with others. The student will observe that this inheriting is
founded in the Covenant (Proposition 49), in the Theocratic ordering (Propositions 50,
51,
etc.), in the nature of the Kingdom given to “the Son
of man” (Propositions
81-89),
in its establishment here on earth (Proposition 116), and in the inheritance
belonging to David’s Son (Proposition 122). These and other particulars have been discussed. But in connection
with these, in order to obtain a comprehensive view, must be noticed Proposition 168
on the place of manifested royalty, Proposition 117 on the visible Theocracy, Proposition 118
on the barren woman, Proposition 121 on the Pre-Millennial Advent, Proposition 131
and 132
on the reign and judgeship of Jesus, Proposition 133 on the judgment day, Proposition 137
on “the world to come,” Proposition 138 and 139)
on “the day of the Lord Jesus,” Proposition 148
on “the Rest,” Proposition
140 on “the end of the age,” Proposition 141
on the perpetuity of the earth. Proposition 158 on the
transfiguration, Proposition 170 on “the Father’s house,” Proposition 169
on the New Jerusalem, and Proposition 154 on the reign of the saints.
These and others contain an abundance of confirmatory matter. Indeed, the
present Proposition
seems only introductory to what follows.
OBSERVATION 2. The declaration of Jesus. Matt. 5: 5, that the meek shall inherit
the earth, ought to be decisive.
But men under the influence of a plastic system of
interpretation, urged on by a preconceived notion, leave the plain meaning of
the promise and explain it away. One gravely tells us that it is “a proverbial expression,” not seeing that, as
employed by the Jews, it favours our view. Another informs us “that the Jews considered
* Oftener, if we take the Vulgate, AEthiopic, and Arabic versions (Dr. Clarke Com. loci) in their rendering of verse 3, etc.
It is observable that even Sir John Maundeville (Travels), in his Prologue, asserts that Palestine
“is the same land that our Lord promised us in heritage;” and not observing that
this promise is in other passages linked with the Second Advent, founds upon
this fact an argument why Christians should claim the heritage and drive out
the unbelievers. The reader need scarcely be reminded
how this plea was used during the Crusades, and in support of Papal claims. The
critical student will not forget to consider how such
promises were understood by the early Church for several centuries, so
that even in the Nicene forms of Eccl. Doctrine (recorded by Gelasius Cyzicenus in His, Act. Com. Nic.), Matt.
5: 3; Dan. 7: 18; Isa. 26: 6, are
united with the resurrection and Second Advent. Thus:
“We expect new heavens and a new earth, according to
the Holy Scriptures, at the appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus
Christ. And as Daniel says: ‘The saints of the Most High shall take the Kingdom.’ And there shall be a
pure and holy land, the land
of the living and not of the dead; which David, foreseeing with the eye of
faith, exclaims: ‘I believe to see the goodness
of the Lord in the land of the living’ - the
land of the meek and humble. ‘Blessed,’ saith Christ, ‘are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth.’ And the prophet saith: ‘the feet of the meek and
humble [Page 441] shall tread upon it,’” (See this quoted
by Mede, Homes, Brooks, Bickersteth, etc., comp.) The writings
of the Apostolic and Primitive Fathers, as well as the Apocryphal and Jewish,
inculcate this inheriting of the land, and, as we give, in various places,
numerous extracts, they need not be repeated or enlarged.
OBSERVATION 2. To avoid repetition, we leave direct arguments bearing
on this point under following Propositions, and only give some allusions to
this future possession of the earth by
the righteous.* Thus e.g. Proverbs 11: 31,
“Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth;”
Proverbs 12:
7, “The wicked are overthrown and are
not, but the house of the righteous shall stand;”
Proverbs 10:
30, “The righteous shall
never be removed, but the wicked
shall not inhabit the earth,” evidently refer to the time Psalm 96: 9,
when God shall cast the wicked, “the stout-hearted,” into a “sleep,” when He shall be “terrible to the kings of the earth” (comp. Revelation 19, etc.), and shall “cut off the spirit of princes,” and “when God arose to save all the meek of th earth.”
Under this period too fall the many promises to the righteous, that they “shall be blessed on
the earth,” confirming
the importance of our seeking true wisdom, “For (Proverbs 2: 21,
22) the upright shall
dwell in the land, and the perfect
shall remain in it, but the wicked
shall be cut off from the earth, and the
transgressors shall be rooted out of it.”* Hence in this Millennial
period, when, as our argument indicates, this is to be realised, the promise is
reiterated. Thus e.g. in the sublime description of Isa.
60, it is added: “they (the righteous) shall inherit the land forever;” and in Isa. 54, “this is the
inheritance of the servants of the Lord,” so that, Isa. 57: 13,
it will be verified that “he that putteth his
trust in the Me shall possess the land, and shall
inherit My holy mountain.” If we take the translation given by some (Clarke’s Com. loci) to the clause “for His mercy
endureth forever;” and in Ps. 136, viz., “For His tender mercy is to the coming age,” or if we
keep in view the idea of perpetuity or futurity in the phrase, and apply the
same to vs. 21, 22, then the land is for “a heritage unto
Israel” in the
time yet to come. In Ps. 115 this doctrine is evolved, for, declaring the people of
[* Note: This is not a reference to Messiah’s
imputed righteousness - which every ‘disciple’
of His presently has! See Matt. 5: 20, “For I say unto you,
(My ‘disciples’ 5:
1) that except your righteousness shall exceed…”
R.V.! Here is a
condition stated by our Lord, and an undisclosed standard of a disciple’s personal righteousness required.]
* Clement (A.D. 97, First
Epis.) quotes Prov. 2: 21, as
follows: “The kind-hearted shall inhabit the land, and the guiltless shall be left upon it, but transgressors shall be destroyed from off the face of it.”
Then shall be fulfilled such sayings as Prov.
11: 31, “behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth:
much more the wicked and the the sinner,” as
illustrated e,g. Mal.
4, Comp. 2
Esdras 7: 67 and 9: 13.
** Even such promises its are contained
in Eph. 6:
2, 3
would not be verified in a multitude of cases (for many who have honoured
father and mother have not lived long in the land), unless in and under them
was implied - as God’s Purpose teaches - a future inheriting of the earth. If
the student will turn to Proposition 82, he will find additional
reasons for this inheriting, of the earth, and of such it conclusive nature -
involved in the Divine Plan of Redemption - that many of our opponents (as e.g.
Fairbairn and others, quoted under
it) fully admit of such it future inheriting.
OBSERVATION 3. Attention is again
called to the confirmation our doctrine receives from the alleged omission
of any but earthly blessings promised to
believers in the Mosaic record, and long after. Bh. Warburton and others contend that we find nothing but what relates to this earth; some, as Edwards and others, that heavenly blessings are inferred,
others, as Dr. Graves, that it can
be found in it state of very gradual development, others again, as Horne, think that heavenly rewards,
etc., are presupposed as an adopted article of religion. These, and opinions
similar, reveal a darkness on the subject which the Jews and
The simple fact is self-evident, that just so soon as the
OBSERVATION 4. Surely those who write so confidently that “the land (the earth)
is of little worth to such as hare have tasted of the higher bliss of a
heavenly state;” that it would be “an alarming
retrograde of being from a heavenly state back to an earthly one;” that
the saints themselves, on account of their heavenly experience, would be “unfit for any degree of blessedness this side of heaven
itself,” besides a
host of similar expressions, should
well ponder lest they be found underrating, and sitting in judgment over the
inheritance itself and its desirableness. This all may appear very foolish to man, but
after all. it may prove to be “the wisdom of God.” All such criticisms arise from
making more of the
intermediate state than the Bible warrants. If the pious dead are rewarded, crowned, inherit (Proposition 136), Popery and some Protestantism make it, then there would lie some
propriety in the objection. But until this is first established, the criticisms have no force. Again, they
overlook what has been repeatedly stated by us, that
this very possession of the earth is part of the Divine Plan in the Redemption
of the race of man, and promotive of the greatest glory. The facts that we have
urged, the passages presented, together with the belief of so many of God’s
children in different ages, ought in themselves to be sufficient to prevent such disparaging remarks.
Frazer (Key to Proph.)
asks: “Shall we esteem it an
additional happiness to quit the presence of the Lord for the society of men?
Is it desirable for those who have arrived at their heavenly Father’s house to
return again to the land of their sojourning?” Such questions, to be
pertinent, ought first to ask whether we advocate a leaving the presence of the
Lord when the Lord Himself comes; and whether the
Father’s house (Proposition
170) is really where Frazer locates it. To reply to, or notice such,
criticisms would be a thankless and endless employment. Do such ever really consider what is the
covenanted inheritance of Jesus as David’s Son (Proposition 122), and
that believers are - [to become, for its conditional! (see
Rom. 8: 17, R.V.) His] - co-heirs with Him in the same inheritance? Is all the Scripture bearing on this point to be
ignored or arbitrarily [Page 444] set aside by spiritualizing it? Fairbairn (Typology, vol, 1, p. 311), after
having forcefully described the redemption of the earth as man’s glorious
inheritance, says: “No, when rightly considered, it is
not a
low and degrading view of the
inheritance, which is reserved for the heirs of salvation, to place it in
possession of this very earth, whish we now inhabit, after it shall have been redeemed and glorified. I feel it for myself to be rather an ennobling and comforting
thought; and were I left to choose, out of all creation’s bounds, the place where my redeemed nature is to
find its local habitation, enjoy its Redeemer’s presence, and to reap the
fruits of His costly purchase, I would prefer none to this. For if destined
to so high a purpose, I know it will be made in all respects what it should be
- the Paradise of delight, the very heaven of glory, and blessing, which I
desire and need. And, then, the connection between
what it now is, and what it shall become, must impart to it an interest which
can belong to no other region in
the universe. If any thing could enhance our exaltation to the lordship of a
glorious and blessed inheritance, it would surely be the feeling of possessing
it in the very place where
we were once miserable bondsmen of sin and corruption.” (See specially Proposition 203
for a statement.)
OBSERVATION 5. Truth demands the correction of esteemed writers, such as Jones, Shimeall, Butler and
others, who make this inheritance to extend to the possession of other worlds,
or the third heaven, or the Universe, in brief, “all things.” Leaving this theory
for examination, especially as held by Shimeall,
under the Proposition pertaining to the New
Heavens and New Earth, and not objecting to the view that the saints in their
glorified condition have access to other worlds, etc., we object to the theory
on the ground that it makes the
inheritance something very different from the one alone promised to the patriarchs and to David’s Son,
and under which promise the saints only inherit. That inheritance is the earth and not the third heaven or the Universe. The
proofs assigned by Judge Jones (Notes in Scrip.,
p. 560) are purely inferential and opposed by direct covenant promises. The texts given
against our view are the following: 1
Cor. 3:
21, 23
(which says nothing contrary, merely specifying “things to come”), Rom.
8: 38, 39 (which only asserts that nothing can
separate us from the love of God); 2
Tim. 2:
12 (that only declares the reign with
Christ); Rev. 22: 5 (which asserts a perpetual reign); John 20: 17 (which has no reference
to the subject). Indeed, we might ourselves select stronger passages
than these, but over against any and every such selection
can be placed the impregnable covenant, and the multitude
of explicit promises based on, and
derived from, it.
Millennarianism, to be consistent, must ever keep in view its
foundation in the covenant, and
this necessitates the positive rejection of the Universe theory, however
plausibly and eloquently expressed, This will be shown
at length hereafter. So it rejects the monkish theory
that the Second Advent, instead of bringing blessing and happiness to this
earth, is “the end of all sublunary things,” as
hostile to the entire tenor and spirit of the Scriptures. It also repudiates
the anti-scriptural notion (so Pres.
Edwards, His.
Redemp.) that this earth is to be constituted “the hell” of the wicked, thus giving the victory to
Satan. In brief, it - if logically correct - refuses, credence to every hypothesis which ignores the covenanted land and
inheritance, and which makes
the restitution to Edenic forfeited blessings incomplete. Hence, we must
totally reject Barbour’s views (The Three Worlds,
p. 36 and 46), who accuses us of
holding to “an agricultural heaven,” where the
glorified saints build,
plant, dig, etc. In The Herald of the Morning, Sep. 15. 1877, he thus, under the plea of a higher spiritual discernment (which ignores
the plain grammatical sense of covenant and promise), takes our view to task: “While the apostle affirms ‘our
inheritance, is
reserved in heaven,’ they claim the earth - promised only to the Jews and other nations
in the flesh - as theirs; ‘While Christ affirms, “I go to prepare mansions for you,”’ they claim, Isa. 65: 2 (a promise only for Jews in the flesh), as their own, and
expect to plant vineyards and build
houses; while Paul affirms of the dead in Christ, that they are to be raised ‘spiritual bodies,’ they claim
that the same literal earthy, fleshly body is to be raised, and an immortal
soul or an immortal [Page 445] spirit of some kind is to take possession of it and permeate
its fleshly substance.” This
is an utterly unfair and
prejudiced caricature
of our real views. No one of us teaches that the future body raised and
glorified is a fleshly body, or that saints, who are
kings and priests, plant and build. It is easy to establish a
preconceived theory by quoting just as much of a passage as suits,
and leave the rest, which is contradictory - as e.g. the revealing of the
inheritance reserved at the Second Advent (see 1
Pet. 1: 5,
7, 13,
and Propositions on same); the scriptural conception of the
Father’s House and its connection with the Coming again; the manner in which
Peter claims the realisation of Isa. 65: 2 in behalf
of believers (comp. Propositions 148, 151, 170, etc.), etc. Barbour’s theory is a
rejection of covenant (both
Abrahamic and Davidic) promises, and cannot rise to the conception that in this
restored Theocratic Kingdom the saints as rulers and co-heirs with Christ enjoy a higher
plane than the nations of the
earth; that with an earthly inheritance
(which restores one of the forfeited blessings of the Fall and completes
Redemption) they also inherit a
kingdom, higher spiritual and eternal good, with a New Jerusalem Position,
etc.; that to ridicule “the inheritance of the land”
is to
scorn the inheritance of the
Messiah and His co-heirs; that to inherit a Kingdom, a Theocracy, here on
earth, must necessarily bring the inheritors into earthly relationship with their subjects, etc.
A close adherence to the plain grammatical sense of the covenants, and the
promises based thereupon, effectually disposes of all these mystical
and spiritualistic theories which are so numerous. We say, in reference to the Obs. itself, with Dr. Tyng (see Hill’s Saints’ Inheritance,
p. 271): “In the great view of the Saviour’s personal
reign on a regenerated earth, as the final and everlasting abode of His redeemed, I rest with confidence and delight.”
OBSERVATION 6. We append a few statements, out of many that could be adduced, in behalf of our position. Fairbairn (whose
testimony is the more valuable, being an an opponent to Chiliasm) justly refers
(Typology,
vol. 1, p. 314, 15) this inheriting to the renewed earth after the Second
Advent, and observes that Christ could not have called a prosperous life in the
present world as constituted “blessed,”
but would rather (as He did) warn against the deceitfulness of riches and the
abundance of honours; because “to be blessed in the
earth as an inheritance, must import that the earth has become to them a real and proper good, such as it shall be when it has been transformed into a
fit abode for redeemed natures.” He approvingly
quotes (p. 316) Usteri (as given by Tholuck on Rom.
8: 19) as
saying that the “conception of a transference of the
perfected Kingdom of God into the heavens, is, properly speaking, modern, seeing that according to Paul and the Apocalypse (and he
might also have added Peter and Christ Himself), the seat of the Kingdom of God is the earth, inasmuch as that
likewise partakes in the general renovation.” Such, he informs
us, was the view “adopted by the greatest number, and the most ancient, of the
Expositors,” such as Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, Luther, etc. He quotes as indorsing this view Jerome (on Isa. 65), Justin
Martyr (Semisch’s Life and Times of
Justin, Bib. Cab., vol. 42, p. 336), Calvin (Rom. 8: 21), Haldane (Rom.
8: 21), Fuller (The Gospel its Own Witness, ch. 5), Thiersh
(His.,
vol. 1, p. 20), and Olshausen (on Matt. 8). How e xtended this list can be made
is readily seen in the Propositions on the history of our doctrine. Fairhairn (Typology, vol. 1, p. 292) argues
that the possession of Zion of Canaan by the Jewish nation was “an earnest of the whole inheritance, and, as the world then stood, an
effectual step toward its realisation. Abraham, as the heir of
Bengel (Gnomon) makes Matt.
5: 5
parallel with Rev. 5:
10; Meyer
(Com. loci.)
also makes it to refer to the future
Messianic Kingdom; Nast (Com. loci) says: “The
full import, however, of the promise seems to be the possession of the new
earth, which God will create with the new heaven (Isa. 66: 22), and which is the realisation
of the original destiny of Adam.” Fausset
(Com.
Isa. 65: 17) says: “As Caleb
inherited the same land which his feet trod on (Deut. 1: 36 Josh. 14: 9), so Messiah and His
saints shall inherit the renovated earth which once they trod while defiled by
the enemy (Isa. 34:
4, and 51: 16, and 66: 22; Ezek. 21: 27; Ps. 2: 8, and 37: 11; 2 Pet. 3: 13; Heb. 12: 26-28; Rev. 21: 1);” and in his comment on Ps. 25: 13, and 37: 9, etc., he makes the phrase “inherit the earth” to he an “alluding
to the promise of Canaan, expressing all the blessings included in that
promise, temporal as well as spiritual.” Such testimonies could
be multiplied, which declare with
Luthardt (Lehre
Von Letzen Dingen) that “the earth, not heaven, is the abode of the glorified Church” (comp. also p. 35, where he has “the glorified Church” reigning over “the unglorified humanity,” etc.). Men of the greatest
learning and biblical research find this doctrine clearly expressed, and
joyfully and hopefully cling to it.
On the other hand, we give a few
illustrations of the perversion of the passage. Brown (Com. Matt.
5: 5)
makes this a figure drawn from the possession of Canaan, and its secure
possession, of “the evidence and manifestation of
God’s favour resting on them and the ideal of all true and abiding blessedness,”
but he does not tell us how the possession of a land “for a little while,’” from which the native was
driven, etc., can appropriately be used as “the ideal
of all true and abiding blessedness.” The Ch. Union, Ap. 23, 1879, answers an
inquirer respecting the meaning of inheriting the earth, thus: “The enjoyment of earthly blessings belong
not to the grasping but to those who hold them lightly. ‘Selfish men,’ says
John Woolman, ‘may possess the earth, it is the meek
alone who inherit it from the
Father free from all defilements and perplexities of unrighteousness.’”
So, then, there is an inheriting without having possession. Dr. Rutter (Life of Christ, p. 176) renders it: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land,” and interprets “land” as an
equivalent to “heaven,” for, he adds, if the
meek are “ill-treated and driven from their
possessions by the ambition and rapacity of others, heaven, upon that title,
becomes their due, as their own land and inheritance.” This needs no
comment. In the same work, he (like Edwards’s, see. preceding Proposition thus (pp. 423-5) disposes of the
earth: he has the reprobate, at the Second Advent, left “on the earth to receive their eternal doom,” and the
execution of a Judicial sentence thus described: “Yes,
the reprobate shall be consigned to everlasting burnings: the abyss of hell
shall open under their feet, and they shall be precipitated into it, surrounded
by those raging flames which shall have consumed the whole material world,”
i.e. hell replaces the earth. We turn with relief from such outrageous
perversions of Scripture promise to others, who inculcate the perpetuity and
inheriting of the earth. To indicate how covenanted promises (Proposition 419)
were clung to by the early Church, we refer e.g. to Justin Martyr (Dial. Trypho, ch. 139) who, instancing
OBSERVATION 7. This doctrine teaches us how to regard
the various theories of inheritance, such as the third heaven idea, the central
universe notion, the metaphysical heaven (of Good’s, etc.), which gives no place of existence, the
spiritualist’s visible unfolding of the invisible, “the
Son our Heaven,” (so Mortimore,
Wittie, etc.), and the infidel’s no
future inheritance. By overlooking the plainest promises and oath-bound
covenants, or by spiritualising them, men manufacture inheritances of their own. No matter that
the inheriting of the earth was a favourite Jewish doctrine based on the
Messianic prophecies and the predicted supremacy; when Jesus uttered this
promise it must be modernised and accommodated to the supposed advanced theological opinions of the age,
moulded by the influence of some favourite philosophy. No
matter that the Patriarchs are personally promised such an inheriting; that the
Messiah is personally to receive the land as an inheritance; that the saints,
as part of a perfected Redemption, are to realise it; that a thousand
predictions direct attention to it, the leaven of the old Gnostic spirit against matter and the claimed
higher spirituality, deliberately refuses the plain grammatical sense, and
substitutes another sense at the will of the interpreter.
The objections usually made are met under Propositions 107, 122, 143, 146, etc. Thus e.g. Pressence (The Early Days of Chris., p. 249),
taking 1 Pet. 1:
4, isolated and overlooking its context, says: “The hope of the Church
reaches far beyond the horizon of the Theocracy. It is fixed no longer on an
earthly inheritance, like the
land of
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To be continued, D.V.