THE CORRUPTED ESCHATOLOGY OF THE CHURCH +1 SHORT WRITING

 

 

By MIKE BALLOUN (U.S.A.)

 

 

[* The following is from PART 5 of the author’s writings. Other writings by Mile Balloun to follow in the near future (D.V.)]

 

 

 

Post-Millennialism, A-Millennialism, and Pre-Millennialism are 3 critical distinctions of Biblical Theology and its Eschatology (the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind). The primary Bible Passage around which this great controversy revolves is Revelation 20: 1 - 10...

 

 

And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand - years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. And when the thousaud years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

 

 

We have been setting forth the Truth of Scripture that sheds forth light on the satanically designed disqualifying lies of Post- Millennialist and Amillennialist Theology and Eschatology; light on its origin, its reasons for its doctrinal corruption, and the severe consequences for the deceived redeemed of Christ who blindly follow their pernicious ways. Namely these today are those who have followed 4th Century Augustine Theology and Eschatology, Augustine having laid the doctrinal foundation for the Paganized Post-Apostolic Church which then developed into Roman Catholicism. Some much needed light came upon the evil of the Church hierarchy and their corrupted theological doctrines of Salvation / redemption by works. This was brought about by Luther and others, in protesting the ‘Church’s’ un-Scriptural wicked redemption theology. However, in their fervour, they passed by the Truth and flew over into the other religious ditch of an all-encompassing doctrine of ‘salvation by Grace Only’, which is an equally corrupted and corrupting message, with similar consequences for the redeemed. Augustine’s leavened Eschatology of Predestinationalism was also hardly disturbed in the Reformation, in that it continued in the 16th Century and beyond, with some revisions, in Protestant camps of Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism. That corrupting doctrine continued down unto today’s Laodicean-minded Church ... be it Protestant, Non-Denominational, or Catholic.

 

 

Their corrupted theology and eschatology concludes that the all-encompassing ‘gift’ of God’s Grace (defined now in the acceptance of the leavened singular application of eternal life) means; the undeserved unmerited favour of God (the second application or meaning of the word ‘grace’ being... the divine influence / power of God through the Holy Spirit upon the heart, which is needed to walk in sanctification). Corrupted Theology teaches only the first application of the word ‘grace’. They say this redefined ‘grace’ that abounds is based solely upon the acceptance of the work of the Cross (without understanding and consideration of the continuing intercessory work of Christ in Heaven as High Priest at the right Hand of the Father, Who solely intercedes with the sanctification of the redeemed in view). They don’t realize that Christ’s role as High Priest in Heaven is no less than the work He did on the Cross, as it has to do with sanctification beyond the free gift, unto the salvation of our soul. In teaching only the single application / first definition of ‘grace’, they espouse that the redeemed’s sins are forgiven; past, present and future (that false ear-tickling eschatology centered around a false theology in the meaning of the gift of eternal life that sets forth the false hope of an all-encompassing acceptance by God in worthiness at the time of death, and an immediate welcoming into Heaven). Thus, in teaching that there is no accountability for a person after they’ve been redeemed, they are saying / implying that the redeemed have impunity / exemption from punishment or the injurious consequences of their present or future wilful actions in the flesh. Tares who teach this leaven, in one way or another, teach that Redemption’s Blood’s efficacy extends to the coverage of their licentious behaviour when judged at the Judgement Seat of Christ. In that, they say that when you stand before the Judgement Seat, you will be seen as white as snow and as righteous, which is partially true in regards to justification by the first application of His Atonement (the gift), but at the Bema, we are judged personally as to whether we then walked in sanctification, and our recompense is based on our works done after our receiving of the gift. Or they say that at death the evil works of the redeemed will be judged, but not the man himself. But can a man be judicially judged separate and apart from his deeds? Can a murderer’s deed be judged justly apart from the murderer? Can the murder be judged and condemned and the murderer be justly set free? Pure Antinomianism. Antinomianism means “against the law” and theologically, it is the belief that there are no moral laws God expects a Christian to obey. It is basically a ‘license to sin’. Antinomianism is wholly resisted in Scripture. It will be seen that according to Scriptural eschatology, that the redeemed shall be judged for what he does with the gift. (See Revelation 22: 12 where Christ is speaking to those in the churches... And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward (recompense) is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.”) Additionally, these leavened doctrines of false teachers completely ignore everywhere within New Testament Scripture that points to Israel’s stubborn failure and grave historical judgments as an analogy of unacceptable behaviour in the New Testament redeemed. Which came with even graver consequences justly due those (redeemed) who spurn the Blood of Christ that purchased them. (1st Corinthians 10, Hebrews 3 & 4 &10, Revelation 2 &3, Matthew 25, etc)

 

 

The Jews’ salvation being typical of Christ’s New Testament salvation ... which consisted of redemption (coming out of Egypt), followed by instruction in holiness (instruction in the Wilderness), in the hope of the earthly Kingdom inheritance in the Promised Land. Scripture’s anti-typical declaration of a Christian’s “so great salvation” being redemption, instruction in holiness, and the promised reward of inheritance in the celestial part of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ. (Hebrews 2 & 3, Revelation 20: 4-6, Matthew 5-7)

 

 

The leavened Church confounds Truth of Scripture in order to maintain its hold on its blindly following adherents, in that its misleading doctrines assign all Old Testament Scripture’s blessings of Israel to themselves, while assigning all its curses to Israel. And likewise, their corrupted confounding theology and its eschatology then extends to the New Testament Scriptures that entail any afterlife punishment and then misconstrues it to mean for the unredeemed only, and Scriptures with promises of present and afterlife blessings, it appropriates to the redeemed as a part of God’s gracious gift of eternal life.

 

 

IT MUST FIRST BE UNDERSTOOD THAT A CHIEF TRUTH OF SCRIPTURE in both Testaments is the duality of the Gracious gift of God to the redeemed of eternal life (zoe) 1) in the first degree of God’s Salvation Plan for Man (the first application of the free gift) ... which has to do with the quantity or length of time of life (zoe), purchased by Christ, imparted by imputation to the spirt of each living soul at rebirth. (Man was created as a triad being; in that he is a living soul, and he has a spirit and a body. At rebirth, you receive zoe life into your spirit and your spirit animates you (your soul), and through that, we are either sanctified or not.)

 

 

2) Within that freely imparted zoe life (zoe imparted at rebirth, which is what God animated your spirit with), is the latent seed of the second degree of God’s Salvation Plan for Man... which must be brought forth in the redeemed by the renewal of the mind to the Words of Christ, and then the activation of the free will in obedience being the appropriation of Grace (the divine influence upon the soul) in continuing, under test and trial, in this evil 2000-year old Age, in loving faithful sprit / Spirit-led selfless works in obedient service to the Lord. This being the God-appointed process of sanctification unto holiness to be “worked out in fear and trembling” in the soul, in realizing the hope of life far beyond the gift of life / zoe that equates (in the first degree) to justification from eternal death, to the greater prospect or potentiality contained within the nucleus of that gift of life / zoe ... that of the prize - the REWARD of eternal glorious life (zoe) in the First Resurrection. Zoe / life may be developed in the soul of the redeemed, but due to Biblical leaven, it is undeveloped and aborted. (Think in terms of Christ coming to give life (the gift) and life more abundantly (the prize) - John 10: 10, or Mark 4: 26-29’s first the blade, then the full ear of corn the blade is the zoe gift and the ear is the zoe of eternal glorious life).

 

 

Glorious Life to the soul (at the return of the spirit Ecclesiastes 12: 7, Luke 23: 46, with 1 Corinthians 15) is promised to be manifest in the FIRST RESURRECTION (out from among all the other dead in Hades) at CHRIST’S RETURN, when He comes to judge His enemies and reward His faithful in establishing the Millennial / Age Messianic Kingdom. God’s realized Theocratic Government in this Realm being determined before the foundation of this World.

 

 

From Adam’s seed of a woman’s’ promise extended to Abraham being prophetically declared all the way to Malachi; and then from the Book of Matthew to John’s Book of Revelation. The common thread of Truth is still the Sovereign Rule of the Messiah, the Son of David, after this Mysterious Age, when He Who defeated Satan as the Son of Man on Earth and in the bowels of Hades, was Caught up to Heaven in Resurrection power, the First-Born from among the dead, Who deferred His Reign and Kingdom to enter Heaven’s Holy of Holies, not to be King, but the Great Intercessor, to finish His work among the redeemed until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. Then He proclaims He will Return to this Realm’s heaven, take His investiture as King of Kings, and raise up His worthy saints in glory from among the living and the dead, and remove the incumbent ruler (Satan) from office and Throne, and will establish His Millennial Kingdom with His faithful, and assign them as co-rulers to their thrones and rule in this Realms heaven and earth.

 

 

UNTIL THEN, THERE WILL BE NO REALIZED PEACE FOR MAN OR GOLDEN ERA ON EARTH. THERE WILL BE NOTHING BUT INCREASING DARKNESS IN THE WORLD AND IN THE LONG-STANDING PAGANIZED CHURCH. SATAN REMAINS THE RULER OF THIS REALM THROUGHOUT THIS PRESENT WORSENING EVIL AGE AS THE EVER-PRESENT ADVERSARY OF THE REDEEMED WHO CAN ONLY BE SANCTIFIED IN WORTHINESS TO RULE WITH CHRIST IN THIS REALM BY OVERCOMING SATAN AND HIS WORLD. UNTIL THEN, THE GATES OF HADES WILL PREVAIL OVER ALL MEN WHO PASS THROUGH HER GATES AT DEATH AND ARE THERE SEPARATED INTO PLACES OF COMFORT OR TORMENT. THERE IS NO PRESENT RESCUE FROM THE UNDERWORLD OF NEW OR OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS, NO DYING AND GOING TO HEAVEN, NO PRESENT CO-RULING WITH JESUS WHO IS NOT YET RULING. IT IS ONLY AT HIS PERSONAL COMING TO THIS REALM AT THE BIDDING OF THE FATHER, THAT THE GREAT INTERCESSOR WILL THEN TAKE HIS INVESTITURE AS THE KING OF GLORY AND PUNISH GOD’S ENEMIES AND TAKE THIS REALM BY FORCE FROM SATAN AND RULE IN THIS REALM WITH HIS RESURRECTED WORTHIES FOR A THOUSAND YEARS, UNTIL SATAN’S FINAL FATE IS REALIZED IN THE LAKE OF FIRE. This is the Truth of Scripture rightly portrayed from Genesis through the 10th Verse of Revelation 20. This is Pre-Millennialism.

 

 

And so it is rightly portrayed that in this present 2000-year Age of the Father, God is calling out by redemption life / zoe a people from the Gentiles TO DEVELOP AND BE FOUND WORTHY to rule from this Realm’s heaven over the Earth in that Messianic Kingdom. The Old Testament prophets and saints, by no fault of theirs, did not foresee this present AGE / dispensation. It and its purpose was a mystery hid in the mind and plan of God. The Jews’ vision was set beyond a time they did not envision; to the prophesied pre-eminence of the Nation of Israel in the Earth, promised by God to Abraham and David. And becoming religiously minded, and thereby short-sighted, they were completely absorbed in the thoughts of their glory-filled Earthly Messianic Kingdom, the timeframes and events having been set forth in [divine] prophecy which they did not fully comprehend, even when told personally by their Messiah.

 

 

Conversely, the New Testament Church since the 4th century, has become doctrinally fully leavened and is far-sighted in that they are so deeply absorbed in the gift of ‘Eternal (quantity) Life’ that they have failed to see and comprehend the Words of Christ about the necessity of the redeemed to inherit in His Millennial / Age Kingdom in this Realm (it coming first, chronologically-speaking). In that they must qualify in faithful service and be judged at death as being worthy or unworthy of its inheritance. (They are far-sighted in that all focus is placed on the distant future of life in eternity as opposed to focusing on being counted worthy of co-reigning with Christ in His Millennial Kingdom in the nearer future, which is what determines our place in eternity. Most of Scripture focuses on and points to the Millennial Kingdom. God barely speaks of eternity other than the last 2 Chapters of Revelation, yet the satanic forces keep us far-sighted to serve their purposes so that our focus is not on attaining unto the high Prize of replacing them in the heavens of this Earth’s Realm. The present-day drunken Church refuses to see the deadly poison of the Babylonian Whore’s cup that they have partaken of; the corrupted theological heresy and its Post-Millennialism and Anti- Millenarianism eschatology in the history of Christianity for 1700 years down to today. They are Laodicean and have been for 1700 years, presumptuous, materialistic, and apathetic. They have unwittingly become crosswise with God’s purposes and are [now] in the crosshairs of His judgements, to be realized shockingly at death. (See Luke 16: 22-31. To apply this passage to the Jew or the unredeemed is poor and deceived exegesis of Scripture and eschatology.)

 

 

To somewhat repeat: The Apostles of Christ taught Pre-Millennialism; a literal future Kingdom of a thousand years to be established on this Earth at the Return of Christ at the End of this now 2000-year old Age of Grace and Mercy in God’s calling out of a qualified Bride from His New Testament [redeemed]people to be rewarded for faithfulness in the process of sanctification, as His true witnesses in the Earth. And at His Return, they’ll be resurrected in Millennial glory out from among the dead in Sheol / Hades’, out of the realm of the dead in the underworld of this Earth. Satan, who now rules this World, will then be chained and cast into that place called the Pit in the underworld and imprisoned for that same / concurrent 1000 years. After which he will be released for a little season and he will deceive and lead the Nations of the Earth in one final revolt against the Lord, His Great City, and His then living Jewish contingent pre-eminent on the Earth, and resurrected ruling Saints. Bringing forth this Earth’s last Fiery Judgements from God out of heaven, when Satan, and his, will be cast eternally into the Lake of Fire. That is immediately followed by the 2nd Resurrection of all the remaining dead (which includes the disqualified inglorious redeemed from the Millennial Kingdom), up out of Sheol / the intermediate place of the dead, in the lower regions of the Earth, who are brought forth, with all others to stand in judgement for their deeds; good and evil, now before the Great White Throne’.*

 

[* See Rev. 20: 11-15, R.V.]

 

 

The critical crux of the matter is for today’s redeemed who are being deceived and hold the Truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1: 18... For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness...”), to awaken unto a living in practical righteousness that equates to overcoming, in the comprehending of the great unseen battle for our soul in our gain or loss of Millennial Kingdom inheritance, and sure deserving punishment for loving the World more than Truth. This inheritance is the further appropriation of Grace / the Holy Spirit’s influence on the maturing of the redeemed soul, and that only by being actively engaged in the process of overcoming the flesh, Satan, and the world. To be done in the fear and hope of favourable judgement at the Judgement Seat of Christ (2nd Corinthians 5: 10), unto the realization of the hope of First Resurrection glory. (Colossians 1: 27). To be one of those found worthy of that Millennial Age (Luke 20: 35, Luke 19: 16-19), like Paul who was fully engaged with every fibre of his being for the prize of the out-resurrection from among the dead in Hades and to rule with Christ in His Coming literal Millennial Kingdom. (Philippians 3: 11, 2nd Timothy 4: 7) Has the [today’s apostate] Church any such hope of glory? NO! Is not this hope a Scriptural necessity? (1st John3: 3) YES! Why then does the Church not have such hope? Because that hope has been stolen since the 4th Century by tares and leavened Scripture, in philosophical theology developed in brilliant religious minds whose reasonings were inspired by satanic forces, being without the spirit of wisdom and understanding in the knowledge of God,” unable to rightly divide the Word of Truth.”

 

 

The stakes could not be higher as Man’s great adversaries are not flesh and blood, but the determined unseen ruling evil spirits in this Realm’s heaven, fearfully intent upon thwarting God’s ‘salvation plan’. That part which they are acutely aware of, that of Man attaining unto the ‘second degree’ of God’s Salvation Plan (of glory-infilling) in resurrection worthiness at Christ’s Return. They, by ancient design and modern application, are obstructing by evil chicanery - [i.e., by ‘tricky’ or ‘used to get something they want.’ (Dict. Def.)] - to appeal to man’s cursed nature and draw him away from life unto death, by disqualifying himself from the intent of God for Man to rule in this Realm. They promote a philosophical religious theology originally designed at Babel / Babylon in order that they might continue to be the rulers of this World and avoid any pending judgements of God.

 

 

So it is critical for the Redeemed to personally see that eternal life has a dual application and also that standing and state in Christ are two different things in exegesis of Scripture Truth. Draw a horizontal line... above the line, write redemption standing; we are 100 percent in Christ in that eternal gift of justification life / zoe standing. Below the line write; state of sanctification, with the numbers 10, 20, 30, all the way to 100. This represents our soul’s spiritual condition; a dynamic (ever-changing) state that may vary from 1 to 100.

 

 

Eliminating or obscuring this vital Truth; the revelation of the gift versus the prize from the understanding of the redeemed, was historically and is today the greater intent of the wicked spirits in maintaining the leavening corruption that was placed in 3 portions in the Word of God given to the First Century Church over a period of time, starting and finishing in the 4th Century in the paganizing of the Post-Apostolic Church. Thereby amalgamating the New Testament Church into the World’s religious Babylon’s hierarchy system, and the planting of Worldly-minded theologian tares in redefining the recorded and established New Testament Apostolic Theology and its eschatology. And this obscuring was greatly advanced by redefining the meaning of some of the key Written Words of the Bible. One example being the mistranslation of the word age (which refers to Christ’s Millennial reign) to the word world in Luke 20: 35... “But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [instead of] age (Millennial; the next Scripturally declared age), and the (out) resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage...

 

 

In the Greek, which was the language appointed by the Holy Spirit used to write the New Testament, one critical word that had to be corrupted was the noun aion meaning age with its adjective aionios / age lasting. The essential significance of aionios is to convey the thought of quality ... although time is not absent, but it is secondary. Historically then, what happened was the Latin translators (commissioned by the Latin Roman Catholic Church) translated the word ‘aionios’ to the Latin word ‘aetemus’/ ‘aeternitas’ from which the English words eternal and eternity and everlasting are then translated. That Latin translation from the Greek was named the “Vulgate” Bible.

 

 

Who wrote the Vulgate? The Vulgate is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382 (as a member of the then burgeoning and all encompassing Catholic Church), had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina (old Latin) Gospels (a large number of hand-written Latin translations from the original Greek text of the New Testament) which was being then used by the now fully-leavened and paganized Christian ‘Church’ that had just came into existence and took full control of Christendom earlier in that same Century. It should be understood by today’s Christian that nominal Christian leaders’ accepting of the Roman Emperor Constantine’s hand of fellowship then led the Post-Apostolic ‘Church’ into an amalgamation into Rome’s ancient Babylonian Harlot System that became known as the ‘Catholic Church’.

 

 

So it was that the word aionios was intentionally translated in the New Testament by translators 1700 years ago to wrongly convey the leavened thought of eternity (which is short of Truth in that its secondary meaning refers to time, but its first meaning refers to quality), and to mean ‘eternal’ with its Latinized single application of ‘Life and time’. This was first done in Latin, then perpetuated in English translations down to today’s Versions.

 

 

So historically it can be easily verified that Jerome, raised in Catholicism, took Latin translations of the New Testament Greek texts, not necessarily the Greek texts themselves, and incorporated them into the ‘Vulgate’, thereby formally Latinizing and reshaping the Apostolic Theology and its eschatology necessary in the perpetuating of its corrupted hierarchy by its fully leavened theology and its eschatology. And with revisions, it is still used today by the Catholic Church.

 

 

So then in the closing of the 4th Century, there was the consolidated Latin version of the New Testament and the Greek Version of the Old Testament written before Christ’s First Coming, called the ‘Septuagint’. After the passing of 12 Centuries of corrupted darkness in Roman Catholic religious hierarchy known as the ‘Middle Ages’, which began to close in the Renaissance, came the partial ‘Reformation’ of the 16th.Century with the Protestant (protesting ones) movement, with its notables; Luther and Calvin leading the way. That which led to the early 17th.Century’s King James Authorized Version of his own translation, which is still widely used today.

 

 

Now the translators of the New Testament King James Version (being Protestant / protestors of Catholic theology of ‘salvation by works’) ... and the supposed holders of the fullness of ‘truth’; that of ‘salvation by grace only’ were commissioned by the English Monarch to make an English Version of the Bible. Who, like Jerome before them, did not go back to the New Testament Greek texts, but used the Latin translations of the Greek, so the King James Version, in grave error, like the Vulgate, then translates from the Latin word ‘aeternitas’ to the English words ‘eternal’ and ‘eternity’.

 

 

Had the translators of the King James 1611 Version went back to the Greek, they would have translated the Greek word ‘aionios’ as did other Greek scholars who have since correctly translated its meaning: to “age lasting with a view towards quality”. Much more insight can be gleaned from the Book, “The Dualism of Eternal Life, A Revolution in Eschatology” which was written in 1916 by Stephen Speers Craig...

 

 

Although this is a rather lengthy discourse, the stealth of the enemy does not allow for a brief disclosure. It is hoped that enough Scriptural and historical evidence is set forth to free the blinded religious eyes of the person who sincerely seeks the Truth that can set one free from corrupted Theology and its eschatology. Particularly by showing the reasons for corrupting the Truth as to where the [disembodied] soul goes at death and why it goes there, which is to be addressed further in the next lesson.

 

 

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CHRIST AND ISRAEL

 

 

By ADOLPH SAPHIR (1831-1891)

 

 

Adolph Saphir was a Jewish believer in Jesus who was born-ahain in Pest (now Budapest) through the preaching of a few of McChene’s fellow evangelists. He was a Presbyterian pastor, theologian, and author. He was also a contemporary and friend of Charles Spurgeon.

 

Here is what Saphir said in 1864:

 

 

The Bible is simple and perspicous. I hald the good old doctrine of the Reformers, that theBible is given to all men, and that for its understanding we require not the erudition of the Universities, the tradition of the Fathers, the glosses of the scholastics (however valuble these may be in their proper place); to understand God’s Word, all that is needed is a humble, childlike heart, conscious of its ignorance and blindness, and the teaching and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is profitable for all men, who thus read it, and therefore it must be accessible to the understanding of all.

 

 

People are often deterred from the reading of the propheical portions of Scripture by the assertion that it is difficult for unlearned men to distinguish between what is figurative and literal in prohecy. I do not see the difficulty. I think a child almost can distinguish between the two. When we read that we are to have our loins girded and our lamps burning, even a child knows there is no reference to a literal girdle and lamp; but when the author to the Book of Job narrates the appearing of the angels before God, and the presence of Satan among them, it is evidently meant as a statement of fact. Why doubt for a single moment that when Zechariah speake of the feet of the Lord standing on the Mount of Olives the [Holy] Spirit meant to predict - [through God’s prophet] - a literal event?

 

 

Consider again the prophecies already fulfilled. You argue with a Jew, who does not admit that Jesus is the Messiah; you point out to him the word of Micah concerning Bethlehem, of Isaiah concerning Christ’s miraculous birth, of the 22nd Psalm concerning His crucifixion, the prophecies about the thirty pieces of silver, and the Messiah’s entrance as a meek and lowly king into Jerusalem, etc. But when the Jew refers to a number of passages in which the coming of the Messiah is connected with the ushering in of the period of universal peace and tranquality, justice and knowledge, with the glory of Israel in their own land, and the fulfilment of the promise made unto the fathers, how can you attempt to explain such passages ‘spiritually,’ when you insist on a literal interpretation of the other series of predictions?

 

 

Can anything be more explicit? I ask, When was the covenant of grace made with the Jews? When were they [as a nation] converted [Jer. 31: 31-37]. When was their iniquity forgiven and their sin remembered no more? During the last eighteen centuries has [the nation, and all of] Israel been God’s people, knowing and loving Him whom they crucified? You say, ‘They are to be absorbed into the Church.’ God says, ‘No, they shall never’ cease from being a NATION before Me.” [Jer. 31: 36.] You say, ‘They have forfeited their privileges.’ Ah! where would you be, but for an unconditional covenant of a gracious God, who [now] deals with you in nercy? But the Lord says, for all they they have done He will not cast them off. [Jer. 31: 37.]*

 

[* NOTE: From verse 23 the context to verse 37.]

 

 

...When they behold that Jehovah, the Deliverer, the Hope and Help of Israel is none other than the once rejected and crucified Jesus, then doubtless shame, confusion, terror, and grief shall take hold of them, even as the brothers of Joseph stood amazed and appalled when the great prince on whom their safety depended reveiled himself as their brother, whom they had sold into Egypt. But Joseph had pity and compassion, he spoke to them, nay, embraced them and kissed them, he fell on the neck of his brother Benjamen and wept. Then, we are told, his brethren walked with him. And thus, when Jesus shall reveal to them His love and mercy, His pardoning grace and overflowing tenderness, fear and awe shall give way to deep, unutterable self-loathing and contrition; repentance and faith, renewed and gained for ever by their Lord and God.

 

 

How can anyone say that the Jews would - if all this be true - become proud? Does God’s favour make us proud? When, sitting at the Lord’s Table, you hear the wonderful declaration. This is My body, broken for you, and you are assured that Christ gives you His body, which is meat indeed, and His blood, which is drink indeed; do you then think of your worthiness or your sin, of your greatness and your insignificance, of your merits or of God’s grace? The Jews shall be bowed down to the very dust by the exceeding great weight  of grace and glory bestowed on them. Like the Apostle Paul, they shall say most emphatically, ‘By grace we are what we are. Where is boasting? It is excluded. We are the monuments of His wonderful love. Salvation is of the Lord!’

 

 

God’s Spirit shall be poured out upon them, and they shall be cleansed from all filthiness and backsliding. They shall remain faithful to God throughout the whole period of the [millennial] kingdom, and ‘look back no more.’

 

 

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