THE
OLIVET PROPHECY,
MAINLY FROM LUKE 21.
By G.H. LANG.
1. Luke’s Gospel not Jewish.
The
Gospel by Luke and the Acts are distinguished from all other inspired writings
by the unique feature of having been written by a Gentile, not by a Jew. The "beloved
physician" being with Paul during his long imprisonment in Judea,
and finding himself amidst the scenes of the Lord’s life and ministry,* devoted his cultured mind to a strict
investigation (Luke 1: 3) of the facts of
that life. Then, under the supernatural
guidance of the Holy Spirit, he wrote his narrative giving the facts as they
had impressed a non-Jewish inquirer.
Moreover, he had before him as the addressee another Gentile convert,
through whom, as it transpired, the Lord was instructing the multitude of
Gentile disciples to whom, as He knew, the letter to Theophilus
would duly pass.
[* Note the "us" of Acts 20: 5,
frequently repeated to the end of the book; 28: 16.]
In this twenty first chapter we have, therefore, the record of
those elements of our Lord’s Olivet discourse as to things future which
fastened upon a Gentile heart, and which the Spirit saw good to transmit
through him to other Gentile disciples.
Of such there were now many, for over a quarter of a century had lapsed
since Christ ascended to the Father, and the good news had been carried far and
was bearing fruit in all the world (Col. 1: 6).
To this result Paul’s labours had contributed more than those of all the
other apostles (1 Cor.
15: 11); and it was fitting and wise that a valued Gentile companion of
the great apostle should be used of the Spirit to write a history that should
extend the knowledge and establish the faith of these Gentile believers.
2. The End Distant.
The
first point of Christ’s remarks, one to which each of the narrators draws
attention, is that the period termed "the
consummation of the age", ending in the return to the earth of the
Son of Man, was not to be expected immediately: "the end is not yet" (Matt. 24: 6); "the
end is not yet" (Mark 13: 7);
"the end is not immediately" (Luke 21: 9).
This,
therefore, each Evangelist, one of them, Matthew, being, moreover an apostle,
was still impressing upon the Church from twenty to thirty five years after the
Lord’s departure. Yet in spite of this
it has been diligently taught by some that the apostles from the first, and the
early Church by their instruction, held that Christ might return at any hour in
their day! and that Peter asserted this possibility
only a few weeks or months after the Ascension! (Ac.
3: 20).
But
teachers inspired by the one Spirit will give only consistent testimony, and
what Peter declared was that the sending again of the Messiah must await "the times of the restoration of all things whereof God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets who have
been since the world began".
So that until there are seen the coming to pass of the many and great
events which the prophets have declared must usher in the restoration of all
things Peter is witness that the coming of the Lord is "not yet," but that the heavens must still retain
Him.
Further,
the assertion in question ignores (a) that the earthly Church knew that the
Gospel had first to be spread to “the uttermost parts
of the earth” (Acts 1: 8), and (b)
that the Apostles knew, from an express statement of the Lord Jesus, that Peter
was to die a violent death, and this not till he was an old man (John 21: 18).
Christ having given to Peter this definite intimation, how could the
Spirit of Christ shortly after instruct Peter that perchance he might not die
at all, because the Lord might immediately fulfil the word "I come again, and will receive you unto myself" (John 14: 3)?
Or how could Peter have any right to think that he might not die since Christ
had said that he would die?
The
Lord’s remark to Peter concerning John, "If I will
that he tarry till I come" (John 21: 23), led the rest of the brethren to say
that that Apostle should not die. On the
occasion in question there were seven disciples present (verse 2), so that these intimations were not
private to Peter and John; and this John makes clear by the statement that the
saying that he should not die "went forth among",
that is, spread to the knowledge of all, "the
brethren." That the notion had become very widely spread is to be
inferred from the fact that John thought it needful specifically to correct it
at the late date when he wrote the Gospel.
His making the correction shows that he knew of no ground for the
expectation; and the very facts that it needed such a word from Christ Himself
to create any such idea, and that in any case the thought was limited to "that disciple", show that the possibility of all
disciples of that day not dying was not entertained.
But
if some of late have forgotten these things, Peter did not forget; and so we find that he, and Paul also, made
provision for the maintenance and extension of the faith after their departure
(2 Pet. 1: 13-15; 2 Tim. 2: 2). Paul contemplated at least two generations
following, saying to Timothy that he should teach faithful men, that they in
turn might teach others also; and so far was he from thinking that Christ might
at any time descend, that he distinctly informed the Ephesian
elders that a time of declension would follow his own removal from the scene (Acts 20: 29, 30).
His language is emphatic : "I know that after my
departure," etc. He who
being a prophet knows thus positively what shall take place after his death,
cannot entertain a notion that perchance he may not die at all.
Of
Paul’s case Acts 23: 11, affords a crucial
test. Two days after the riot in the
temple and his arrest, "the Lord stood by him, and
said, Be of good cheer; for as thou has testified concerning Me
at
The
assertion that at the time Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, early in his
European ministry, he did expect and teach a speedy return of Christ, but that
later he learned better, involves that the Lord, Who knew it would not be so,
at first led His Apostle to think and say that it would be so, and presently
gave him true light upon the point, or, in the alternative, utterly invalidates
any notion of Paul being a God-inspired teacher. Moreover, this assertion is wholly at
variance with his excellent exhortation to those Thessalonians that on no
account were they to be misled into thinking that the day of the Lord, with
which he connects the Parousia and our
gathering together unto the Lord, was then present, since certain developments
of evil must first take place (2 Thess. 2.).
The
fact that Paul wrote, "We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord"
(1 Thess. 4: 15) cannot
be pressed to mean that he thereby intended himself and those
Thessalonians. To Titus he says : "we also were aforetime
foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in
malice and envy, hateful, hating one another" (3: 3). But
is it not evident that he did not mean that he personally had gratified divers lusts and pleasures or lived in malice and envy? Of himself he could say boldly, before
enemies with whom he was formerly friendly and intimate, "I have lived before God in all good conscience until this day"
(Acts 23: 1). He could aver that "as touching the righteousness which is in the law (I
was) found blameless" (Phil. 3: 6); and even his persecuting zeal arose,
not from malice, but from a conviction that he "ought
to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" (Acts 26: 9).
These assertions seem incompatible with such a life as he describes to
Titus. "There
is here scarcely any particular suitable to Paul when a Jew, whereas all of
them are very similar to those by which the Apostle describes the heathens at Rom. 1 and elsewhere"
(
It
is scarcely a question of whether the Apostle "knew more on the subject
than he taught", but rather of whether what he taught had been revealed to
him by the Lord. He himself asserts that it was thus that he received it : "This we say unto you by
the word of the Lord, that we that are alive ...". But if the "we"
meant himself and the Thessalonians the simple fact is that time quickly
falsified the statement. Those that
believe that Paul was a divinely inspired apostle do well to pause ere
needlessly forcing this alternative.
Surely it suffices to take the "we"
to mean, Those of our Christian fellowship who shall be living at the coming of the
Lord.
At
the close of his life Christ definitely denied, and sought to remove from the
minds of the disciples, the supposition they then entertained, that "the
All
the disciples heard the former statement at Jerico; Peter
was one of the four to whom shortly the Olivet discourse was given: how then
could they or he, only a few weeks later, have been expecting the very
opposite, and this immediately after the Spirit of truth had been poured upon
them to remind them of what Christ had said, and to lead them into all the
truth, particularly the things to come? (John 16:
13).
When
it was said that truly they did not expect the return of the Lord to the earth
in visible glory to restore the kingdom to
In
this last connection it is also to be remembered that Christ had pictured His
people as being during His absence a "widow"
engaged in a protracted law suit against a cruel adversary; and that though by
persistent prayer the elect should ultimately gain their case, yet, for wise
reasons, God, the Judge, would be "long-suffering over them" (Luke 18:
1-8) Commenting upon the term
"shortly" (entachei)
in Rev. 1: 1: "the
things which must shortly come to pass". Alford
shows that the phrase "the things which must
shortly come to pass," means not ‘which
must soon begin to come to pass’, but, in the well-known
sense of the aorist, which, in their entirety, must soon ‘come to pass.’ "This
expression," as De Wette well remarks, "must
not be urged to signify that the events of apocalyptic prophecy were to be
close at hand: for we have a key to its meaning in Luke 18: 7, 8, where long
delay is evidently implied", the same term (en tachei) being employed.
In
the light of these patent facts and considerations it was only consistent that
at the close of that first generation, and on into the next, the evangelical
writers were all still reminding the saints of Christ’s intimation that "the end is not immediately". Neither wars, rumours of wars, tumults, nor
the rising up of false Messiahs, were to be thought sufficient evidence that
the end was at hand. They were expressly
warned against being deceived upon this matter; and though the interval was
intentionally left undefined, it was certain to be lengthy.
If
it be said that our Lord exhorted disciples to be watching for His own return,
and that this attitude cannot be maintained if it is known that other events
must first take place, it is to be replied that the Scripture usage of terms is
contrary to this assertion. Christ
indeed said, "Let your loins be girded about, and
your lamps burning; and be ye yourselves like unto men looking for their lord,
when he shall return from the marriage feast; that, when he cometh and
knocketh, they may straightway open unto him" (Lk. 12: 35, 36). Leaving the interesting question as to just
what class of His "servants" will be
on earth when the Lord shall "return from the
marriage feast", and confining attention to the force of the term
"looking for", we observe that the
servants of the parable could not have expected their Lord to return
immediately after he had departed, for they knew that three things must first
transpire: (1) his journey to the house of the bride’s father; (2) the
customary marriage ceremonies and functions there: (3) the return journey. Yet inasmuch as they did not know precisely
how long these things might take, their safety and duty lay in constant
readiness; not lest the bridegroom might come "at
any moment" - this is a human gloss; but lest when he did come, he
should "find them sleeping" - Christ’s
own words (Mk. 13: 36); for if they slept at
all they might oversleep his absence.
The Oriental settles into a profound slumber, from which it is difficult
to awaken him as we have found more than once when returning home in the East
late in the evening. The "coming suddenly," then, means, not directly he
had left, that is, without interval, but without the servants receiving the
notice which the bustle of the return of a festive eastern procession would
always give to the watchful.
The
marriage ceremonies of this parable are parallel to and additional to the
business of "receiving a kingdom" upon
which the nobleman went into the far country (Lk. 19: 12). The latter picture suggests even more
powerfully a protracted absence, as will be recognized by those at all
acquainted with the oriental and ancient type of diplomacy. In the reality, the
"receiving a kingdom" includes no less
a matter than the ousting of Satan from his present office and power as the
divinely acknowledged "prince of the world,"
and in turn will involve the entire rearranging of the present elaborate
administration of the universe by angels.
For "not unto angels hath God subjected the
inhabited earth to come" (Heb. 2: 5). Christ is then to be the Sovereign, and the
heavenly, glorified saints, His royal executive (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3; Rev. 2: 26, 27; 3: 21; 22: 5). Thus
both the heavenly affairs and the gathering out of the Church are stupendous;
and the latter body is to include persons of "every
tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Rev. 5: 9): how then could any but a considerable period of
time suffice for the accomplishment of those purposes?
The
above view is entirely supported by the usage of the word which Christ
employed. "Looking
for" (prosdechomai) is elsewhere
used (a) of expecting "the mercy of our Lord Jesus
Christ unto eternal life" (Jude 21), that is, the "looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and
Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2: 13). The assertion that "the blessed hope" is one event, namely, the
catching up of the church, and the ‘appearing’ a
subsequent event, namely, the later descent of the Lord to earth, is
erroneous. It is not
"looking for the blessed hope and the appearing":
it reads simply "hope and appearing";
the effect of which is that "hope and appearing
belong together" (Alford);
and so
(b)
The term is used of the coming of the
Now
it is admitted that these events, for which Scripture calls us to be looking,
are to be preceded by the last days,
with the advent, rise and rule of the Antichrist, and one of them (c ) by the Millennial Reign.
Similarly
another form of the same word (ekdechomai) is
used of expecting events definitely known to lie in a more or less remote
future: as John 5: 7, expecting the moving
of the water, which event might be all but twelve months later: and James 5: 7, expecting the harvest season - which
also might be distant the more part of a year, with seasons to come and go and
much work to be first done: and so Hebrews 10: 13,
of Christ expecting the time when His enemies should be subdued under Him;
concerning which He surely never entertained false hopes of its immediateness
after His ascension: and again in Hebrews 11: 10,
of Old Testament patriarchs expecting the final consummation in the heavenly
city.
In Luke 12: 46, following directly the parable
before considered of the servants looking for the bridegroom, a cognate word of
the same force (prosdokai) is used by Christ
of the same servants expecting the return of their lord, and it is also
employed of Jews awaiting the Messiah (Matt. 11: 13), and of our expecting events - the establishing of
the new heavens and earth - which are to be after the Millennium itself, (2 Pet. 3: 12, 13, 14 ; and comp. Rev. 21: 1).
It
is therefore evident that such a looking for Christ as the Word of God enjoins
can be maintained though it be known that events must intervene. The joy and power of the hope of the gospel
are in no degree dependent upon a belief that the Lord might
come at any moment, nor are diminished by knowing that predicted
conditions and events must precede. This
is matter of apostolic and modern experience, as well as of Scripture
testimony. Paul lived in the power of
the Hope through knowing he must see Rome, and Peter though assured that he
must die; and great saints and scholars in our day have so lived though not expecting the return of the Lord
till after the Great Tribulation.*
[*
As George Muller, Robert Chapman, B. W.
Newton, Dr. Tregelles, James Wright, Frank N. White,
A. T. Pierson.]
3. Signs of the End.
Having
thus intimated that the end was not in the then near future, but that there
must elapse an interval generally marked by wars and
tumults, the Lord proceeded to mention the features that would indicate that
the period of consummation had been reached.
"Then" - that is, having made
clear that it was in a more or less distant future that the end would come -
"He said unto them, (1) Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be (2) great
earthquakes, and (3) in divers places famines
and pestilences: and there shall be (4) terrors
and great signs from heaven".
The
age would be marked by wars - armies against armies; whilst the peoples from
which those armies came might as a whole be little affected; but the
consummation of the age by entire nations and kingdoms being forced into the
horrors of sufferings of conflict. A
leading actor in the first world-war is reported to have sought to justify the
wanton and persistent destruction of non-combatants by the very plea that this,
unlike former strife, was not a war of armies but of nations. The thoughtful cannot but inquire whether the
events of these times may not be highly significant; yet that the end-time has
come will not be unquestionable until the other features named are added to
this, and there are known, in conjunction with international commotion, signs
(2): (3) and (4).
It
is particularly to be noted that in the records
by Matthew and Mark the three former of these series of sorrows are described
as being the "beginning of travail" (Matt. 24: 8; Mark 13: 8), following upon which are
given details of the Abomination of Desolation being set up in Jerusalem, with
the consequent persecution of the faithful in the Great Tribulation; and only
then do these evangelists mention (4) the terrors and great signs from heaven.
Now
the use of the figure "birth-throes"
fixes the point in the discourse at which the Speaker passes on to the short
space of the End. For though the
preparatory period be indeed lengthy and distressing - and this age has from
its beginning shown the mystery of iniquity developing, and throughout its
course tribulation in varying degree has been common - yet the onset of birth-pangs
intimates that the end is come, and all will be quickly over. Therefore signs (1), (2), and (3) mark the
commencement of that awful crisis period of unparalleled world anguish, the
duration of which God, in mercy to His chosen ones, has strictly limited (Matt. 24: 22); whilst sign (4) indicates the close
of that tribulation; for it will be "immediately after
the tribulation of those days that the sun shall be darkened" and
the other "terrors and great signs from heaven"
shall appal the godless (Matt. 24: 29; Mark 13: 24). So that in Luke’s narrative (ch. 21) verses 12-24
form a parenthesis in verse 11, coming after
signs, (2) and (3) and before sign (4), the terrors from heaven, and
elaborating that interval and then verse 25
resumes the sequence by expanding the last clause of verse
11, detailing those signs from heaven at the subsequent events, so
leading on to (5) the appearing to the world of the Son of Man (verse 27).
The passage therefore will stand thus:- "Then said He unto them, (1) Nation
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: (2) and there shall be great pestilences; (here read verse 12 to 24),
and (4) there shall be
terrors and great signs from heaven": (here go on to verse 25) "and then
(5) they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud
with power and great glory" -
4. Early Persecution of Christians.
But
a further detail must be noticed. In Matthew and Mark the
predicted persecution of Christ’s disciples follows the national conflicts and
the earthquakes, famines and pestilences.
But Luke adds the important statement
that "before all these things they shall lay
their hands on you, and shall persecute you." (21: 12).
Reading the narratives together it would appear that the very earliest intimation
that the close of the age is at hand will be a general hostility to true
Christians. This will be followed by the
afore-noted signs that the "end" has
set in, those national wars and other troubles which are "the beginning of travail". But throughout all the ensuing period of the
last days the persecution of the godly will continue, at last intensifying
under Antichrist into the Great Tribulation of Matt.
24: 21, "the hour of trial" of Rev. 3: 10, and "the
tribulation, the great" of Rev. 7: 14.
For
it is clearly intimated (a) that it is, during the progress of this persecution
that the Beast will arise - the narrative reads straight on to the words,
"when ye see the Abomination of Desolation ... standing in
the holy place ... then ... flee ... for then shall be great
tribulation" (Matt. 24. Mark 13.
Luke 21.); and (b) it is thus plain that it is the same company
against whom the hostility is shown "before all
these things", that is, before the end times properly so called
commence, that must "endure unto the end"
if they are to be "saved". The Lord’s intimations upon this persecution
read on without interruption, and without any
intimation that the sort of godly persons first in view presently give place to
godly men of another order. It is no
question of pious but non-Christian Jews, the Remnant, for the hatred is displayed before the "end"
has arrived, or that Remnant is recognizable, and also it is against disciples
for Christ’s name’s sake. (Matthew 24: 9; Mark. 13: 13; Luke 21: 17). Indeed, can it be shown that Jews as such
are, in the end times, to be the objects of any particular persecution prior to
the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week, when the Antichrist will break his
covenant with them and demand that idolatrous worship of himself which the
godly will refuse to give. Up to that point will not the nation rather
be under the protection of the kings and the Beast by reason of the covenant?
The
whole question of this persecution is important as showing that, whereas the
Great Tribulation will burst suddenly upon
Nor
do we lack other intimations of this extended persecution. In Revelation 12:
1, a "woman" is seen who is at once in heaven, adorned with the heavenly glories, and on
earth in acute anguish, the special object of the Dragon’s malice (1-4).
This is prior to the casting down of Satan from heaven and to his then
bringing up the Beast on the earth; and thus we are brought to exactly the same
epoch as is referred to in the words in Luke "before
all these things". The Woman
is said to be "travailing in birth",
even as the Lord had before said "these things are
the beginning of travail".
Then, after the birth of her son, the "man
child", Satan, being greatly enraged by his ejectment
from heaven and his being limited to the earth as his sphere, determines to do
his worst in the short time that is left to him (12,
13), and proceeds to persecute the Woman. Upon her being supernaturally empowered to
escape from his presence (6, 12, 13, 14) he
launches a further attack (15); and though
she is delivered from that sudden and complete destruction which he then
attempts (16),
she is yet put to the necessity and toil of a hasty flight, and this though in
the weakened condition consequent upon the pains of travail, and for a long
season she must endure the hardships of desert life. It is only at this point that
the Devil brings the Beast on the scene to carry on a detail and ruthless war
of extermination against all her family (Rev. 12:
17; and ch. 13).
In
Ephesians 1: 3, and 2:
6, the saints are spoken of as blessed in and seated with Christ in the
heavenly places, whilst their actual experience is that of ch. 6: 12,
even wrestling with Satan’s hosts. This
simultaneous heavenly position and earthly conflict is peculiar to the church
of God of this age, and reveals the identity of the Woman of Rev. 12; and the rest of this chapter and ch. 13 show the conflict intensifying into the
persecution which will extend throughout the days of the end and culminate in
the war of the Beast against the "saints"
(13: 7).
The
description of the "rest of the Woman’s seed"
is significant: they "keep the commandments of God
and hold the testimony of Jesus"
(12: 17).
Thus they are Christians, not
pious Jews not yet knowing Christ. The term "the
saints" was the appellation commonly used by the early Christians
for one another (Rom. 1: 7; 1 Cor.1: 2; 2 Cor. 1: 1; Eph. 1: 1; Phil. 1: 1; Col. 1: 2; Heb. 6: 10;
Ac. 9: 13, 32, 41; 26: 10; Jude 3; Matt. 27: 52), and therefore in
the apostolic writing it should be taken in its usual apostolic sense as
understood at the time by writer and readers.
It is "saints" whom the
beast attacks (Rev.
13: 7),
and these are described later as "they that keep the commandments of God and the faith
of Jesus" (14: 12). So that the four terms before us are all
synonymous, applying to the same company; and of this company John the Apostle
declares himself an early member by describing himself as he "who bare witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony of
Jesus Christ" (Rev. 1: 2). Still more distinctly does he include all
Christians with himself under this double description by the words of ch. 1: 9, where he classes himself with them as
being their brother and co-partner in tribulation on account of "the word of God and the testimony of Jesus". This again is endorsed by the angel’s words
to John: "thee, and thy brethren that
hold the testimony of Jesus" (19;
10).
This
comparison of our Lord’s utterances with the Revelation
thus establishes (a) that the church
will be subjected to keen travail just prior to the end days; (b) that this
persecution will continue until it culminates in the war waged against the
Woman’s seed by the Beast; (c ) that the "saints" then in question belong to that company
of which John was a member, the Church
of this age.
To
the consideration of the figure "the man child"
we hope to return, but now let us turn to Rev. 17
for further information as to this preliminary persecution at the end. Here also is seen a "woman", but how great the contrast to her of ch. 12! The
latter is heavenly; this other is of
Here
then is the agency employed by Satan for harassing the saints, the witness of
Jesus, prior to the hour when the Beast shall himself stand forth as supreme,
shall first destroy this bloodthirsty, gaudy Harlot (verses
16, 17), and then himself proceed to persecute the "rest of the Woman’s seed"
(c. 13).
That
the Harlot is the system we still know as the Church of Rome is clear from vv. 9 and 18,
descriptions true in John’s day of no other city than
It
therefore appears that persecution will be a general and continuous feature of
the end times; both before that period properly so called sets in, and
throughout its course. In the earliest
stage Satan’s object will, it would seem, be the destruction of the "man child".
Failing in this, he will persecute the "woman",
the system out of which that child was produced; and hurl against her a fierce
and sudden attack - "a flood out of his mouth". This also failing of its first and full
intention, he will wage war against every individual witness of Jesus, the
Beast being his principal and final agent.
To
the Christian "travail" is inevitable:
it is still the case that "through many
tribulations we must enter into the
The
particulars of this persecution should be noticed. (1) Jews and Gentiles will co-operate in its
infliction, as before observed. (2) The
populace will be universally infected with hatred against disciples - "ye shall be hated of all men". (3) It will be anti-Christian - "hated for My name’s sake". (4) Prosecutions at law will be common. To be
a Christian will be a crime. Thus
councils, synagogues, governors, and kings will aid in the oppression. (5) Consequent upon this universality of
persecution there will necessarily be drawn forth a universal testimony to
Christ - "the gospel [of the kingdom] must first be preached unto
all the nations" (Mk. 13: 10). And because by these very events saints will
then know that the end is at hand, and will be filled with the joyful
expectation of the kingdom of God, and with absorbing longing therefore, their
message will naturally take the form of
testimony to that kingdom. Cured at
last of the vain notion that the world-kingdoms can be bettered, even
Christianized, the apostolic hope and gospel will be restored in theme and
tone; the witness will again be concerning "another
King, one Jesus", and His servants go about "preaching the kingdom of God" (Acts 17: 7; 20: 25; 28: 31), and encouraging men
to embrace the opportunity of qualifying for that kingdom into which God is calling them by the gospel of His
grace (1 Thess. 2: 12; 2 Thess. 1: 4, 5, 11; 1 Pet. 5: 10). (6) The sharp antithesis in this message
between Christ and Satan, the
But
over against these dread experiences there are set adequate, yea superabundant
encouragements. (1) There is promised a definite and immediate inspiration by
the Holy Spirit as to the answers that should be given when the believer is put
on trial. So sufficient shall this be that the saint need give no anxious
thought or premeditation, "but whatsoever shall be
given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the
Holy Spirit" (Mk. 13: 11). Any who have had experience of courts know
how extremely harassing may be the weeks and days and hours that precede the
hearing of the case, and such will appreciate the marvel and the relief here
guaranteed. And what a remarkable
testimony to the grace of Christ in His people will be the serenity of
demeanour thus produced and the not-to-be-refuted arguments which they will offer:
"I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your
adversaries shall not be able to withstand or to gainsay" (Lk. 21: 14, 15).
(2)
As a result of this witness they will win the conflict in which they will seem
to be crushed. For then, as now, Satan’s objective will be the silencing of
their testimony, even more than the injuring of their persons, the latter being
with a view to the former. To stop this
witness, so that he alone, in the Beast his embodiment, shall be worshipped,
will be his first concern. But in this he will be defeated: "they overcame him because of the word of their testimony,"
in maintaining which "they loved not their life
even unto death" (Rev. 12: 11). Like Paul, these, his brethren, each could
say, "I hold not my life of any account, as dear
unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I
received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God"
(Acts 20: 24).
(3)
It is guaranteed by the Lord that "not a hair of
your head shall perish", not even of those who shall be killed (Lk. 21: 16-18).
For concerning these saints John says, "I
heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the
Lord henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours;
for their works follow with them" (Rev. 14: 13); and yet later he sees these of this
time, with others, sharing the first resurrection and reigning with Christ (Rev. 20: 4).
Their light affliction, which was but for a moment, has thus worked for
them more and more exceeding an eternal weight of glory; for they looked not at
the dark and dreary things that were seen, the lash, the prison, the sword, but
at the eternal things that were not seen, the Lord, the crown, the
kingdom. (2 Cor.
4: 16-18).
(4)
Thus "in their patience they won their lives", by sharing the first
resurrection, if they had died, or by the gathering together unto the Lord at
His descent to the air, if they were of those who "endured unto the end" of those days and were "saved" by the rapture, and were thus "rescued out of this present evil age" (1 Thess. 4: 16, 17; 2 Thess. 2: 1; Gal. 1: 4). For in either case their "life" was not misspent on other interests than
Christ’s, and so lost; but having been seemingly lost for Him it was really saved,
since for it, and its sufferings for His name, they will be fully recompensed
by sharing His heavenly kingdom and glory.
"They
climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil, and pain".
We
all have sung it often : are we each seeking that path?
This is the royal road which the King Himself trod, and there is none other to
the place which He reached.
4. Seals 1 to 4.
From
this general view of the experiences of the godly we pass to the condition of
the world as outlined by the Lord.
Whilst
men are engaged in venting their desire upon
those disciples who will refuse to join in the united schemes which will be a
dominant feature of the times, a period of wide and terrible unrest and
violence will set in: "Nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdoms against kingdom : and there shall
be great earthquakes, and in divers places famines and pestilences". It is not necessary to suppose that these
features must be consecutive, for it is to be noted that in Matthew the order is
wars, famines, and earthquakes, but in Mark it is wars, earthquakes, and
famines, to which Luke adds pestilences.
The period throughout will be marked by all these events, in varying
measures in different places and times.
We
understand that the first four seals of the revelation, picture this same
period.
In
chapter four of that Book the eternal God is seen sitting upon His throne, with
four and twenty rulers sitting upon thrones around Him. A book of judgments is
in His hand, and shortly the Lamb, our Lord Jesus Christ, comes before the
Father, takes the book, and proceeds to act as the Executor of the purposes of
the Almighty.
The
parallel with the vision of Daniel, ch. 7, is too plain to be missed. The prophet, describing the rise and doings
of the fourth wild beast, says that he saw thrones placed in position, ready,
as was explained to him, for the holding of an assize.* He describes the appearance and majesty of
the Ancient of days, but it was left to John to show the sitters upon the other
thrones. He then seems to hint how
astonished he was to see in that heavenly world and glory "one like unto the son of man", who, being brought
near to the Ancient of days, was invested with the universal and everlasting
dominion, glory, and kingship.
[* Not as A.V.
"cast down,” as if overthrown, but set in
position and officail state, as R.V.]
Now
the angel when explaining this vision expressly says that it is a court of
judgment held for the particular purpose of dealing with that last of earthly
potentates, the "little horn" which
grew out of the head of the last wild beast, and for the establishing of
Messiah’s kingdom in the place of his.
This makes clear that the corresponding vision of John has to do with
the times of the end, and the Antichrist in particular. The main subject of the Apocalypse, then, is
the career and judgment of the Beast, and the bringing in of everlasting
righteousness with the advent of the Word of God (Dan. 9: 24; Rev. 19: 11, 13).
1.
Hence it is impossible to regard the rider on the first seal (Rev. 6: 1, 2) as picturing the going forth of the
gospel throughout this age on a career of peaceful conquest. The meaning is as incongruous to this figure
as it is to that other figure, long wrongly taken in the same sense, the boulder
from the mountain-side crashing suddenly upon the great image and crushing it
to dust (Dan. 2). Both are visions of violence and destruction,
and both refer to the end of this age, not to its commencement or
continuance. The stone falls on the toes
of the image, its last stage, and, as we have seen, the first seal looks on to
the same epoch. But these two are
symbols of very different events: the falling of the stone pictures the open
intervention of Christ to destroy Antichrist, as in
Rev. 19; the first seal pictures the first going forth of antichrist on
his career. The latter precedes the
former by several years, as many as may be required by the events of chs. 6 to 19 of the Apocalypse.
This
first rider cannot refer to Christ, for one sufficient reason, even where there
no others. The Lamb is shown as standing
in heaven opening the seals: He cannot at the same time be on earth actively
and personally acting there, as is this rider.
Moreover, the latter supposition involves that Christ will come to the
earth at the commencement of the end times, which is at complete variance with
all other scriptures.
(1)
The rider is a sovereign: a crown was given to him. It says not by whom this was given, but we
know from ch. 13: 2, that the Dragon gives him his own throne;
but this is by the permission of heaven, as the seal shows. (2) He goes out on a career of conquest -
"conquering" (nikown,
the present participle). Thus also the
Antichrist, as shown in Daniel 7, opens his
activities by attacking and conquering three of the ten kingdoms. (3) He will reach complete supremacy: he is
"to conquer" :
kai hina nikese, and that he should conquer. In the
times of the end there is to be only one such Personage. (4) His weapon is the bow, which in the Greek-speaking
world - and it was to Christians in that sphere that the Revelation was sent -
had a well-known significance. The Greeks customarily spoke of Eastern
monarchs as "the drawers of the bow",
in contrast to themselves who relied chiefly on "the
might of the spear".* The
Antichrist will be the king of Assyria, with Babylon as his centre (Isa. 10: 5, 12; 14: 4, 25; Jer.
51. 52, 53; etc). (5) He rides a
white horse, thus forestalling Christ (Rev. 19: 11)
over against Whom he purposes to set himself in the affairs of earth and the
worship of men.**
[* See Lid. & S., Lex., s. v. Toxon, Rhllma]
**
The present explanation of the seals I reached by independent reflection, and
long since. More recently I have been
glad to see this note by Mr. Darby: "what proof is there that this horse and his rider is Christ
at all. I see none whatever. It seems to me much more like some imperial
conquest, providentially permitted of God perhaps of Antichrist himself before
he assumes that character.” Coll. Writ. iii. 135.]
2.
The sudden onslaught of this at first insignificant king (he rises as a "little horn"), by which he quickly is found
master of his own and three already established kingdoms, will be a violent
interruption to the confederacy of the ten kingdoms. This menace in the near-east will call into
action the western Mediterranean powers, for the purpose of relieving the
situation so precipitated. This is the
second seal: for the word used of the weapon which the second rider receives is
that which described the straight sword of the Roman armies of John’s day (machaira).
3. But they will find that this newly risen
Warrior is not to be frustrated; and the desolating wars which will thus rage
will bring on the wide-spread and awful famines which are the subject of seal
three. At that time prices will not merely double or treble or quadruple, but
the necessaries of life will reach no less than eight times the normal price,
and so will be entirely out of reach of the masses in the countries ravaged.
4. Modern world movements are in their tendency
centripetal, and they are issuing in a vast unifying of mankind, as contrasted
with former national isolation.
Consequently these fierce conflicts between the West and the near-East
will so acutely affect all the earth that presently the great nations of the
East will be sucked into the maelstrom.
The word for sword in seal 4 is romphaia,
which refers to the long blade specially distinctive
of the East. And with these numberless
hordes joining in the fray, cruel with pagan callousness and perfectly reckless
of human life, the slaughter will be so frightful that these armies are
pictured as led by the dread angel of Death in person, with the grim Angel of
the world of the dead attending, to carry the horrid harvest to his gloomy
garners.
One
whole fourth part of the earth will thus be desolated; wild beasts will
multiply unhindered and ravage at will; whilst pestilence will be the most
dread weapon that this invisible, irresistible Rider will wield.
Thus
there are mentioned under these four seals three of the features mentioned by
our Lord - wars, famines, and pestilences ; and the reason why earthquakes are
not detailed is probably that these seals deal not with that class of events,
but are concerned with the doings of living agents, and their results, rather
than with accompanying convulsions of nature. Earthquakes are mentioned under
seal 6 and in later visions.
Above
all this tumult of wild waters God sits upon the throne. His love and long-suffering
having been spurned by mankind, judgment, His strange work, must at length take
its course. Above all the din and smoke
of battles the Lamb stands on high, directing and limiting the spirit agents
who are the prime movers in these dread events.
He who on earth willingly suffered the keenest pains of death that He
might become the cause of eternal salvation to all them that would obey Him (Heb. 5: 9), has been rejected finally by the
world, and now He acts as the just Ruler.
It
is through all this welter and devastation that the Beast ruthlessly presses
his way to universal supremacy ; and at last the ten kingdom confederacy
recognizes in him the long-desired Superman; for God puts it in their hearts,
all unknown to themselves, "to do His mind, and to
come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the Beast", and in
his days the words of God through all the holy prophets shall be accomplished,
and the consummation and conclusion of this sad and lawless age shall be
reached (Rev. 17: 17).
5. The Great Tribulation
Leaving
the great multitude of details to be supplied by His hearers from the Old
Testament scriptures, or to be learned from those later revelations which He
knew they would receive when the Holy Spirit should declare unto them things
that were to come, the Lord carries forward their thoughts to the crisis hour
of that crisis epoch.
The
Wild Beast is supreme. Using the
combined weight and force of the ten-kingdom empire, he has constrained to acuiescense the remoter nations not actually members of
that league; and dazzling and deceiving by the wonder of his arrival from death (Rev. 13: 3; 17: 8),
he has secured the worship of the whole earth.
But
there is a fly in the ointment - a Mordecai who has the effrontery to remain
seated when all bow obsequiously before this Satan-exalted Human. This is intolerable; and those who persist in
worshipping the true God and in keeping His laws, and
those who, in addition to this, confess Jesus to be the true Lord of heaven and
earth, these all must be exterminated.
The
scheme for effecting this is simple, and fatally
effective. Nebuchadnezzar shewed the way
the last universal Emperor will perfect the method of the first. Let there be
made an image of the Emperor, and let every person be required to worship
it. Is he not the fit person to be
honoured with divine worship? He is the
embodiment of humanity, and is not humanity the full and final exhibition of
the all-inclusive deity?*
Also, he is the head and concentration of the State, and there is
nothing higher than the state : "the life of the
state is the law of the state" is a saying as ruthless as it is
ancient and pagan! Again, he is the
supreme incarnation of Satan, the god and prince of this world! On every account he ought to be worshipped! So the edict is issued that henceforth, not
for thirty days only but for evermore, no worship or prayer shall be offered to
any god save to the Beast only.
[*
A work that cannot be too highly recommended is S.J. Andrews’ "Christianity and
Anti-Christianity in their Final Conflict."
(The Bible Institute Colportage Association, Chicago)]
And
if any of these pestilential Jews or Christians will not render this homage
they shall be immediately subjected to an universal
commercial boycott, and it shall be illegal to buy from or sell to them; and
also they shall fall under sentence of death.
Nor shall there be any evading of these measures; for as soon as one has
performed the required act of worship he shall be branded upon the right hand
or the forehead with a mark distinctive of the beast, and whoever does not
exhibit the sign, and will not receive it, shall thereby stand condemned (Rev. ch.13).
But
hold! there is an obstacle to this measure. The Beast, for purposes of his own, had made
with the Jewish people a solemn treaty for seven years, and but half the period
has expired (Dan. 9: 27; Isa.
27: 14-22) Pashaw Popes have broken them with
impunity, why should not emperors do so?
Moreover, there is abundant and ancient precedent to show that faith
need not be kept with heretics. Enforce
the decree; set up the image; and let it be placed in the court of the
But
hark! What is this majestic voice that
rings around the whole earth, drowning the voices of the heralds that in every
city are simultaneously proclaiming the deity of the Emperor? It is an angel flying in mid heaven, "saying with a great voice, If any man worshippeth
the Beast and his image, and receiveth a mark upon his forehead or upon his
hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared
unmixed in the cup of His anger ; and he shall be tormented with fire and
brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
and the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever
and ever; and they have no rest day and night, they that worship the Beast and
his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his name" (Rev. 14: 9-11).
Thus, as godlessness reaches its climax, God once more warns His foes,
if perhaps some may repent. And
perchance there are those who do so; for some who never openly professed faith
in Christ, yet befriend His brethren during the ensuing reign of terror, and
are accepted of Him at His return (Matt. 25: 24-36). But almost all submit to the Beast, join him
in persecuting the saints, and incur the threatened eternal doom.
Thus
the abomination that maketh desolate, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, is
standing where it ought not, even in the Holy Place, and like as the net is
suddenly thrown over the unsuspecting bird, so has come upon men as a snare
that day of "great tribulation such as hath not
been from the beginning if the world until now, no, nor ever shall be"
(Matt 24: 1-22; Lk, 21:
14-20).
The
evangelist Luke records an important detail.
Perhaps fearing violent resistance from the Jews, or to overawe them
into submission, or to be prepared to take advantage of any pretext that may
justify an early massacre, the Beast has begun beforehand to concentrate troops
around Jerusalem. To such as remember
and believe the words of Christ, the commencement of this encirclement will be
the definite sign that the worst of the trouble is imminent: "when ye shall see Jerusalem being encircled [kukloumenen, the present participle] with armies, then know that her desolation is at hand"
(Lk. 21: 20).
This will be the signal for instant flight at the utmost speed, and
without regard to sacrifice of goods or even clothing; and sorry will be the
plight of any unable to hasten (Matt. 24: 17-19;
Mk. 13: 14-17). How terrible will
be the lot of those entrapped in the city, upon their refusing to adore the
Beast, may be inferred from the fact that life on the bare mountains,
unrelieved by customary comforts and full of uncertainty as to its necessaries,
is yet greatly to be preferred.
In
this awful emergency the hated fugitives have but one resource - PRAYER:
the Lord adds, "PRAY YE". And an altogether striking hint of both the
limit and the power of prayer is here given. Prayer cannot avail to avert this fearful
era: the end of the age must come, and cannot but be of this character, for a
consumption [of the lawless] is strictly decided upon, overflowing with
righteousness: “for a consummation, and the strict
decision, shall the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, make in the midst of all the earth"
(Isa. 10: 22, 23 see R.V., with Variorum Bible). But prayer has such unique influence that it
can affect the matter of whether the flight must be in the inclement winter
season, when rains make the mountains almost impossible as a refuge, or at a
lesser rigorous time of the year; and prayer can avail to secure that the
escape shall not have to be on a sabbath, when only a very short journey would
be feasible in a land where no provisions could be purchased by the way, nor
transport or help be hired, nor other hindrances be wanting, by reason of the
bulk of the inhabitants scrupulously observing the sabbath. Well will it be if saints, before that
emergency bursts, are practised in the use of this mighty weapon All-prayer,
and, in view of the predicted crisis, have controlled these particular
circumstances by believing intercession.
Note
on Thes. 2: 4: "The Man of
Sin sitteth in the
Objection
has been taken to the application of this scripture to the literal future
1.
It has been asserted that the term "temple"
here used, namely, Sanctuary, naos, cannot be
properly applied to any shrine erected by man.
But it is so used in Matt. 23: 16
(twice), 17, 21, 35; 26: 61 ; 27: 5, 40, 51; Mk.
15: 29, 38; Lk. 1: 9, 21, 22; 23: 45; John 2: 20;
Rev. 11: 1, 2: in all eighteen times.
Obviously there is nothing to forbid Paul so using it when the subject
required, though naturally enough he more often employed it in its spiritual
sense since the spiritual
2.
That there will be a temple at
1. Dan. 9: 27, The Desolator of
2. The
prophecy of Joel unmistakeably applies to
the day of the Beast. It is declared that "the day
of the Lord is at hand" (1: 15.)
and that the day is mentioned again in 2: 11. The restoring of temporal prosperity to the
land and people is pictured in 2: 18-27, the
last verse showing that the Lord is now in the midst of Israel, and affirming
that henceforth His "people shall never be ashamed",
which marks this as the permanent, final restoration of Israel. Then follows
the blessing of "all flesh" (2: 28, 29).
Ch. 3 amplifies the details of the
judgments that the Lord will inflict at that era upon enemies of His people,
and again He is described (verse 17) as now
"dwelling in
3.
That the "abomination that maketh desolate"
had a foreshadowing in the acts of Antiochus Epiphanes,
B.C. 110, did not hinder the Lord from declaring (Matt. 24: 15; Mk. 13: 14) that the fulfilment of
that prophecy lay in the future; and the setting up of that abomination is to
be accompanied by the enforced cessation of sacrifice, by the profanation of a
"sanctuary", a "holy place" (Dan. 9:
27; 11: 31), all implying a temple then standing.
4.
As we have before seen, Rev. 11: 2, refers to the treading down of
the
3. But
it is asked: if it be allowed that a temple will be erected, is it conceivable
that the Holy One of Israel should acknowledge it as his sanctuary seeing (a)
that it will be built by an unbelieving people, and (b) that this is the age of
But
let it be observed (a) that the temple of Christ’s day was built by a most
monstrously wicked man, Herod the Great, and he moreover an alien by race, and
that it was ruled by rationalists and hypocrites and profaned by
officially-recognized merchant robbers ; and yet the Lord spoke of it as "My Father’s house". As to (b) it should be noted that the end of
the age will be the very close of the Lo ammi period
(Hos. 1: 9), and a transition epoch. God will then be definitely dealing with the
nation to turn them to Himself, and as a result there will be a perceptible
turning of heart to Him on the part of many.
It is only the majority of Israel, not the whole nation, that will
covenant with the Beast : "he shall make a firm covenant with the many" =
the majority (Dan.
9: 27); and it is ever God’s way to regard mercifully a godly minority (Gen. 18: 32; Jer. 5: 1);
and so this minority at that time we read: "they
shall call on My name, and I will hear them" (Zech. 13: 9).
4. But
it is objected that the Lord Jesus upon leaving the temple for the last time,
formally rejected the place, saying, "Behold, your
house is left unto you desolate", and that so no temple can be
properly called the temple of God until the people accept Jesus as the Messiah,
crying, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of
the Lord" (Matt. 23: 38, 39).
To
this we answer (a) that God does most distinctly term that temple which, as
above shown, is to be built "the house of Jehovah"
and "the house of God" (Joel 1: 14, 16),
even as He speaks of Jerusalem at that period as "My
holy mountain" (Joel 2: 1) and
the "holy city" (Rev. 11: 2), for it is
sacred, and this perpetually, not because Israel dwells there, but because
Jehovah has chosen it, and set it apart, as His centre on earth.
(b)
Moreover, what is the true force of the word "desolate"
which Christ applied to the house? The
answer is given by the next words: "your house is
left unto you desolate, FOR ye shall not see Me
henceforth". This
necessarily means; My personal, bodily presence shall
once again be seen in this house; for there was not, nor had there ever been,
any other divine presence in that temple.
Scripture speaks of five temples at
5. There
seems not to be any proper sense in which the Man of Sin can be said to seat
himself in the
As
no Christian ecclesiastical edifice is ever contemplated in the New Testament,
no such sense can be in view, and the term "
It
remains only to take the term as we have before done, and after all, such an
act of blasphemy as this enthronization in the sanctuary of God is no more than
a natural and to be accepted climax in the career of one as bold and proud and
ambitious. It will befit the era and the person, as well as the scheme of
Satan.
6.
It
is said that the year 70, when Titus approached
It is therefore evident that this passage deals with that last
attempt to destroy
But
though for Abraham’s sake they be preserved as a race,
yet as individuals each must either be sanctified or be destroyed from among
his people. The wicked must be purged
out of the holy land; "and it shall come to pass,
saith the Lord, that in all the land two parts therein shall be cut off and die ; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the
fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is
tried: they shall call upon My name, and I will hear them: I will say it is My
people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God" (Zech. 5: 1-4; 13: 8, 9). And therefore, said the Lord, "there shall be great distress upon the land, and wrath unto
this people" (Lk. 21: 23).
It
is to be observed that the words "unto this people"*
distinguish between the disciples addressed and the Jewish people. Throughout the discourse there is a uniform
contrast between the disciples and others. The former are addressed by the direct terms
"you", "ye",
"your", "yourselves":
others are described indirectly as "this people",
"they"; or, "Gentiles", "men",
"tribes of the earth". This negatives the notion that the Apostles
were to be deemed representative of a Jewish company.
[* For this use of houtes forming a contrast between the speaker and
hearer, on one hand, and the subjects of the remarks on the other, please see John 7: 48, 49.]
Thus
the whirlpool which will surge around the whole world will have its vortex in
For
this attack by the armies of Antichrist will succeed. There will be slaughter - "they shall fall by the edge of the sword":
there will be dispersion - "they shall be led
captive into all nations" (Lk. 21: 24).
Zachariah’s prophecy just before quoted (14: 1) continues in the same strain, and shows the
same connection, as this of Christ: "Behold, a day
of the Lord cometh" - so that this era is "a day when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee"
- there will be a sack of the city. "For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem
to battle" - which was not fulfilled when Titus led a Roman
army against Jerusalem: "and the city shall be
taken" - that is, there will be some defence offered, but it will
not avail: "and the houses (shall be) rifled, and the women ravished" - the amenities
of "civilized" warfare will be a
thing of the past, for the sufficient reason that Christian sentiment is the
only softening influence, and this will have been deliberately crushed: "and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the
residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city".
The
last clause appears to show that this is not the final stage of the intended
destruction, for the sparing of some of the inhabitants is foretold, and time must needs be taken in sending the others into captivity. Perhaps the eleventh
chapter of Daniel throws light upon
the doings of the Beast just at this point, and the reasons for a temporary
cessation of the destruction at
In
battle with the king of the South the Beast is wholly victorious (vv. 42, 43); but whilst he is engaged in reaping
the fruits of this campaign, and in tightening his grip on further regions (
This
drama Joel vividly delineates. The already existing desolation of the land is
described in ch. 1, and in ch. 2
the final and irresistible attack on the city is portrayed with intense vigour
and animation. With the city captured (2: 9), with nature joining to terrify by itself
trembling, rocking, and darkening, what shall the "very small remnant", that alone are now left, do? The answer is in ch. 2: 15-17:
let them assemble in the temple, and weep, and cry unto Jehovah.
Thus,
at the end of the days, "
Hence,
this word points not to any peaceful occupation of
But
as if to show beyond doubt to what event the Lord pointed, a voice from heaven,
speaking to John, employs this very word which he had heard Christ use to
declare that "the holy city shall the nations
tread under foot forty and two months" (Rev.
11: 2). This is the only other
use of the word in the New Testament, and its context shows that the treading
down is to be by the Beast during the period of the Great Tribulation.
But
at length those months, which to the oppressed must seem each as years, run
their course. For His elect’s sake God
has determined that the period shall be brief; and once again God’s care for
His own indirectly benefits the world, even when at its worst, for had that era
been left to drag on "no flesh would have been
saved" (Matt. 24: 22). So terrible shall be the prevailing mutual
hate and rage that the race would have succeeded in self-extermination.
At
the commencement of the Beast’s sovereignty, when a war-worn world sees in
power one seemingly competent for universal rule, men will again breathe
freely, and will cry, peace, peace, at last! But when the Tyrant fully unfolds, and the
gorgeous flower develops into the ripened fruit, it shall be found that it is
but a bitter and deadly crop. And
shortly every evil passion of God-forsaken men shall burst forth with devil-driven
and unexampled madness; the wild beast of human empire shall be found a wild
beast to the end; and the last hours of man’s day, which lately shone with such
golden but deceptive glory, shall die out into blood and fire and pillars of
smoke. A God-less world is a doomed world , and verily
when the Devil drives the pace is killing.
7. Seal 5.
It
is as the Great Tribulation nears its close that there takes place in the other
world the event described in the fifth seal, "I
saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the
word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great
voice, saying, How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and
avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given them to each one a white
robe ; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little time,
until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, which should be killed
even as they were, should be fulfilled"
(Rev. 6: 9-11).
(1)
The vision bears decisively against the assertion that disembodied saints are
necessarily unconscious, for these are not so at the time in question. (2) From the fact that they are still not resurrected they know that the earth drama is
not yet completed, that vengeance has not yet been executed. (3) Saints so circumstanced are capable of
appealing to God, and of receiving communications from Him. (4) Adjudication upon their cases has been
made in heaven, and they have been approved, for to each one a white robe is
given. This connects them in status with
the great multitude that come out of the Great
Tribulation (7: 9-14). (5) There is no such thing as a portion of
deceased saints being glorified in the first resurrection before other such. These must rest as they are until the whole number that are to be killed as they were has been
completed. Apart from these last those who earlier departed this life cannot be perfected
(Heb. 11: 40); hence the resurrection of the
just has not yet taken place. (6) In
but a "little time" the noble army of
martyrs will be complete, for their fellow-servants are "about to be killed" (Darby), so the end of all
tribulation for the saints is very near.
It
is urged that these cannot be Christian disciples because they cry for
avengement, contrary to Christ’s precepts for his disciples today. It is indeed true that the Christian is
prohibited from avenging himself, and this for the reason that the executing of
judgment is the prerogative of God, and is to be left till such time as He
shall appoint (Rom.
12: 19-21). Further, it is the
privilege of the saint to follow our Lord in rather seeking forgiveness for the
one who wrongs him, as did Stephen (Luke 23: 34; Ac. 7: 60). It is often overlooked that the ground of the
Saviour’s appeal was the ignorance of the guilty: "they know not what they do": and the verse is significantly
placed between sentences both of which apply only to the Roman, pagan soldiers
actually engaged in the execution. Its
extension to all there present appears not to be warranted. Similarly Paul could assert of himself as the
persecutor of Stephen and others that he did it "ignorantly
in unbelief", and he saw in this a reason for the mercy of God
being shown to him (1 Tim. 1: 13).
It
is also to be noted that our Lord, picturing the elect as a widow, which
implies this present period of His absence, describes them as appealing to the
Judge for vengeance against the oppressor: "She
came oft unto him, saying, Avenge me of my adversary" (Lk. 18: 1-8). It is the same word as in Rev. 6 and Rom. 12,
and it means, "Do me justice", i.e.,
Let the law take its course. Not
revenge, but avengement is the thought. Thus
though the believer may under no circumstances avenge himself, he may cry to
God to execute justice. But it is of the
essence of the matter to observe that Satan is the "adversary" of the parable, who resists the saints
in the court of God (Rev. 12: 10). Peter applies to him this very term: "your adversary the devil" (1 Pet. 5: 8); nor is it used of any other person
in particular, for in the two remaining passages where it is found it is used generally
(Matt. 5: 25; Lk. 12: 58).
Now it is the solemn fact concerning
Satan that he is irreclaimable, and so outside the scope of grace: hence it were futile to ask mercy for him, and contrary to the
attitude of God toward him. But for his
human agents in the injuring of the people of God there is grace available; and
so long as this remains so, the child of God will in love ask for its extension
to his enemies, as did Stephen. And now let it be considered that the men against
whom the martyrs ask vengeance have reached the state of Satan and have become
irreclaimable as he; for they have received the mark of the Beast, have thus
forfeited hope of mercy, and do not repent, however terrible the divine
judgments (Rev. 14: 9-11). Therefore against them also God’s attitude has
changed from grace to unmingled wrath, and against them it is that the Lord
Jesus will almost immediately thereafter appear "rendering
vengeance", (the same word being here used 2
Thess. 1: 8).
Hence
the objection with which we are dealing is ill-founded: it takes not account of
salient facts. (1) These saints are no longer in the flesh, called to
act as messengers of grace. Precepts
given for guidance in this world, under its conditions, have no necessary
application to that world, and its diverse conditions. (2) The
moral condition of the subjects of the appeal has made impossible a request for
pardon. (3) Christ, their Leader and
Exemplar, has now altered His attitude from mercy to
judgment, and is superintending the execution thereof against these
sinners. The change in the saints
follows His, they being moreover not in the flesh on earth, even as He is not. When in due time the rest of the saints shall
reach the heavenly world and conditions, they all will adopt this attitude to
the wicked: "know ye not that the saints shall
judge the world (and) angels?" (1 Cor. 6: 2, 3). (4) In any case, the argument against these
being Christians will prove too much, for it will equally prove that they
cannot be Jews, since the Jew was equally forbidden to execute vengeance. The same standard had been set for him as
Christ set for His followers. In this
particular He did but call us to live up to the
requirement of the Law. The prohibition
was absolute: "Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor
bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself; I am the Lord" (Lev. 19: 18).
The lex talionis, the law of strict retribution, was to be enforced
only by the judges (Ex.10:
21; 22; Lv. 24; 22; Dt.. 19: 17, 18). These saints are of the company to which John
the apostle, and the brethren of his own time, belonged is shown by the terms
applied to them: they "had been slain for the word
of God, and the testimony which they held".
By this double term John twice describes
himself: "he bare witness of the word of God, and
the testimony of Jesus Christ"; he was "in the isle that is called
The
end of the great Tribulation is at hand: the first resurrection is near.
8. Deceiving Prophets.
That
the Parousia has not yet commenced,
that is, that the Lord is not yet "present"
but still absent, is the next point of His remarks, and He took very special care
to emphasize this. He gives warning (Matt. 24: 23-28; Mk. 13: 21-23) that during the
Great Tribulation many false Messiahs and false prophets will arise, having as
their especial object Satan’s perpetual object, the leading astray, if it be
possible, of even the elect.
These
sufferers will be longing intensely for the promised deliverance, and upon this
the deceiver will seek to play, inciting the godly to seek Christ in secret
places, or to sally forth to the wilderness. Diverted thus from the Scriptural hope, they
would follow a mirage, and, ever disappointed, would soon be in danger of not
any longer holding fast the true hope, and so of losing their anchorage with
Him Who is so far still within the vail. Then, drifting hither and thither, they would
be in danger of succumbing to their severe lot and ceasing their testimony, for
it is by hope only that we are saved from despair. Thus should the enemy secure by craft what
violence had failed to accomplish.
"But take heed", solemnly says the Lord, "behold, I have told you all things beforehand".
Nor need there be, nor will there be,
any danger of their being deceived if they but remember this one fact
concerning His Parousia, that when it takes
place it will be as visible, and as universally visible, as in a flash of
lightning: "for as the lightning cometh forth
from the east and is seen even unto the west ; so
shall be the Parousia of the Son of Man".
He did not say, So
shall be His Epiphany or Apocalypse, but "so shall be the Parousia". Therefore the Parousia has not
taken place prior to the stage of events of which this part of the discourse
speaks, namely the epoch of the Great Tribulation.
And
further where will be no need for His own to go seeking Him; for as certainly
as the far-sighted vultures swiftly swoop together to their point of
attraction, so the elect, "in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye", will be instantly gathered to their centre as
soon as He is present.
To
thus understanding this last figure it has been objected that it is incongruous
to suppose that Christ compared himself to a carcase and the saints to unclean
birds. But this He does not do. The point of comparison is simply the unity
and swiftness of the concentration of the birds. Travellers in the east will readily feel the
force and accuracy of the simile. But in
any case the figure is no more unseemly than is that for example, in Hosea 5: 14, where God boldly compares Himself to
a fierce ravening lion, seizing, tearing, and dragging off its prey, which
figure is applied elsewhere to Satan (1 Pet. 5: 8).
9. Seal 6.
Momentum
diminishes into rest, effort tends to weariness, fury induces exhaustion, the
great conflagration burns itself out; and when the purging fire shall have done
its work the Assayer will put out the blaze, and remove the now pure and
precious gold.
The
terrible Man of the earth (Psm. 10: 18) has done his worst; and as soon as there
comes a lull in the storm of his anger, God’s thunders roar and his lightenings blaze against the Persecutor: "there shall be signs in the sun and moon and stars ... for the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Lk. 21: 25).
The
events which follow the opening of the sixth seal (Rev.
6: 12-17) correspond closely to those which the Lord declared should be
"immediately after the tribulation of those days"
(Matt. 24: 29).
The Gospels Seal 6
1. The sun darkened. The sun becomes black.
2. The moon not giving light. The moon becomes as blood.
3. The stars fall from heaven. The stars fall from heaven.
4. The powers that are in the heavens. Heaven removed as a scroll.shaken.
5. Roaring of sea and billows. Earthquake moving mountains and islands.
6. Distress of nations. All classes distracted and hiding.
7. Men fainting for fear and from an awful dread of divine expectation of coming events. “Wrath, now recognized to be imminent.
As
regards item 6, the earthquake so great is to overturn every mountain and
remove every island would naturally cause the alarming tumult and roaring of
the sea and billows.
It
is difficult to conceive of so noticeable a correspondence not being intentionable, and intended to carry the mind to the same
epoch. Surely as John witnessed and
described this concatenation of portents, he could not but have connected them
with the words which the Lord had uttered in his hearing.
Nor
does there seem to be suggested in prophecy more than one occasion for so
universal an overturning and dislocating of the heavens and this world as has
now been reached in our Lord’s prophecy, and as scarcely can be repeated. Never again shall Evil wield such power; no
such intense persecution shall again afflict the godly. Wickedness has reached
its height, and topples from the dizzy pinnacle to deepest perdition. No such juncture shall ever again arise. Now the times of Gentile governmental
supremacy shall cease; earth rule shall revert to the Jew in Christ Jesus, and
the authority in heaven also be transferred from angels to the Lamb and His
co-sovereigns of human nature. (Heb. 2: 5-9; Dan.
7: 22, 27; Rev. 11: 15-18; 20: 4-6).
10. The Appearing of the Glory.
While
heaven removes and earth reels under the terrific strokes of the Almighty, a
still more terrifying sight bursts upon the godless, as appalled they are made
to see, in a blaze of dazzling light, that throne high and glorious which is
set in the heavens, with the awful Majesty Who sits thereupon, and the Lamb at
His right hand; and then they behold the Lamb leave that station, as, with the
suddenness and vividness of the tropical lightning flash, He descends from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with a trump of God. Thus the Parousia
has commenced.
It
has been suggested that in the narration of the sixth seal the Scripture of
truth simply intimates that men merely supposed that the great day of the wrath
had come, but that this was a mistake on their part! But for ourselves we do not understand the
Apocalypse to be a revelation of the mistaken notions of men but of the
purposed actings of God and the Lamb, and of the
effects of the same upon men.
(1)
The picture presented is of all man universally, suddenly, and unitedly
becoming aware of the facts of the invisible world; of the throne above, of Him
who sits upon it, and of the Lamb. How
is this knowledge of things of which they have hitherto been ignorant thus
instantly gained by the whole demon-blinded race of idolatrous earth-dwellers? Does each and
everyone of them suddenly possess himself of a Bible, and instantly come to one
true understanding of the sixth seal? The
passage as good as states that they have seen the face of Him that sits upon
the throne, for it is from that Face that they cry to be hid.
(2)
Prophetic scripture definitely predicts this scene. Isaiah, speaking of this very occasion, when
the Lord shall rise to shake terribly the earth, and when men shall flee to the
caves and the rocks ; and he three times declares that they shall thus flee
"from before the terror of Jehovah and the glory
of His majesty" (Isa. 2: 10-22).
(3)
Our Lord, as reported in each gospel (Matt. 24: 29, 30; Mk. 13: 24-26; Lk.
21: 27), establishes the same connection of events. "But immediately, after the tribulation of those days, the sun
shall be darkened, etc ... and then shall appear
the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the
earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory".
The
term "the sign of the Son of man" we
take in the same sense as such a term as "the sign
of the Golden Eagle", that is, "the
sign which is the Golden Eagle". So here we understand, "then shall appear the sign which is the Son of man in heaven",
even as it is immediately added, "they shall see
the Son of man coming". So
Jesus, on a later occasion, said, "Ye shall see
the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of
heaven" (Matt. 26: 64).
It
is of moment that we observe that this last statement of the Lord asserts that
men who were His enemies shall see two distinct facts concerning Himself;
first, His position at the right hand of God, and then His descent thence upon
the clouds of heaven. These positions
are necessarily distinct, for the throne of God remains in the heavens, and the
Lord leaves it to descend from heaven to the region of the earth : "the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven ... and ... we ... shall ... be caught up ... to meet the Lord in the air": and since at this
advanced stage of affairs the hour when His foes shall see Him, the Lord is
seen as still at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, it would seem
evident that He had not earlier descended to the air, and that the Parousia does not commence prior to this time.
(4)
Finally, the cry wrung from men at the sixth seal, and their actions,
correspond precisely with the above quoted predictions of Isaiah and Christ. Their fear and their flight exactly suit the
event, and without it have no proper explanation: they suddenly find themselves
confronted by Him that sits on the throne, for they cry to be hid from His
face, and they dread the wrath of the Lamb, for they immediately see Him "coming in a cloud with power and great glory" (Lk. 21: 27).
"Every
eye shall then behold Him,
Robed in dreadful
majesty;
Those who set at
naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed
Him to the tree,
Shall the true Messiah see."
As
we have seen, Paul taught that the "blessed hope"
of the Christian, for which he should be looking, is "the epiphany [outshining] of the glory of the great God our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Tit. 2: 13). Peter exhorted the elect thus
: "set your hope perfectly upon the favour
that is being brought unto you at the apocalypse [unveiling:
the rendering visible what has been concealed] of Jesus
Christ" (1 Pet. 1: 13). We see not that either apostle ever suggested
that the Hope is some secret event to take place at a time prior to the epiphany
and apocalypse: and as regards the third great term, parousia,
it is Christ Himself Who asserts, as we have seen, that it will be universally
visible, by saying that "as the lightening ... is seen [phaino, the
verb which is the root of epiphany] so shall be
the Parousia of the Son of man". Thus is the Parousia, as to its
commencement, shown to be one and the same event with the Epiphany and the Apocalypse.
11. Certainty, Uncertainty, Speed.
Whilst
the appalling judgments of those times cast over the godless an ever deepening
gloom and oppression, to the believer they will be cause of solemn joy: "When these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up
your heads ; because your redemption draweth nigh".
As certainly as the softening and
shooting forth of the trees indicates the nearness of the genial summer, so
surely will the occurring of the events before considered declare that the kingdom of God is nigh, yea, that
the Lord Himself is near, even at the doors.
"Now
redemption, long expected.
See, in solemn pomp,
appear;
All his saints, by
man rejected,
Now shall meet Him in
the air:
Hallelujah!
See the day of God appear."
Into
the detail and the consequences of that redemption we do not now enter. Time and words would fail to depict the
gladness and the glory of that hour. 1 Thessalonians 4 speaks of the glad reunion of
loved ones whom death had parted, and this forever, and in the presence of the
Lord. 1
Corinthians 15 dilates upon the nature and grandeur of the resurrection
body of the glorified, and Revelation 21 and
22 enlarge upon the eternal felicity and
sovereignty of the Wife of the Lamb. But
upon these sweet themes the Lord did not then enter, and we will leave them to
observe the points which He saw good next to emphasize.
1.
He declared the absolute certainty of the things He had mentioned: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My
words shall not pass away" (Matt.
24: 35; Mk. 13: 31; Lk. 21: 33). Therefore they who believe Him will be looking
for these things, not for the realizing of the delusive
imaginings of men concerning a world regenerated by human schemes and efforts.
2.
But though the events are certain, the time is uncertain. The Lord declared that of that day and hour
when He shall descend no man can know, for the times and seasons the Father has
reserved within His own authority (Acts 1: 7). Observing
of predicted signs is Scriptural: calculating epochs and years is dangerous. For example, in Gratton Guiness’s well-known work* there was reserved a judiciously large margin of one
hundred and sixty years within which the learned author’s epochs could conclude;
but even so the mathematics went to show that 1934 A.D. was the last possible
year within which the age must close. Therefore
when 1933 A.D. had run its course, the calculations had then fixed the year
1934 as that when Christ must return. The
event showed that the computations were incorrect!
[*
"Light for the Last Days" ]
3.
This also is certain, that the generation of men who see the commencement of
the end times will witness the conclusion thereof: all the events of the
consummation of the age will take place within the life of a generation
: "This generation* [of which I speak ; not, in which I now live on
earth] shall not pass away till all these things be
accomplished".
[* He genea haute ; the generation itself. Cf. Ezek.
12: 25, 28]
This
last statement has important bearing upon the book of the Revelation. We have noted that the correspondence between chapters 4 and 5
thereof and the seventh chapter of Daniel shows that the former refer to the theme of
the latter, the judgment session held for the purpose of destroying the Beast
and establishing on earth the
[*
G. H. Pember, M.A., The Great Prophecies
concerning the Church, 442,3. So Alford: "which,
in their entirety, must soon come to pass".]
12. The Gathering Together unto Him.
The
records of Matthew and Mark make plain that it is when the Son of man appears
in heaven, when all the tribes of the earth see him coming upon the clouds with
power and great glory and they mourn, that then "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, from the uttermost part of the earth to the
uttermost part of heaven".
That
this concerns disciples of Christ, and is not
applicable to pious Jews, seems capable of ready proof.
1.
There is no foretold gathering of
2.
The angels are not the agents for the gathering of
3.
At the moment of this gathering by angels the Lord is not yet on earth.
He has come to the clouds, and it is
thence that He sends forth the angels. Hence this is not a gathering to
4.
It should be considered with care to whom the term "elect"* is applied in the New Testament. It is not to the purpose merely to recite that
[* Note On Term Elect.
The term "elect"
is applied to angels (1 Tim. 5: 21) and to
Christ (Lk. 23: 35; 1 Pet. 2: 4, 6). "Election"
is used of God’s purpose concerning Jacob (Rom 9:
11): the cognate verb "to chose" is used of Jehovah’s choice
of
The
only use of the word "elect" prior to
and on the day of the Olivet discourse being of Christians, surely Luke and Theophilus would have so understood it, seeing that this
was the uniform usage of the Apostles. Both Peter, Paul, and John, so employ it. Even in Romans 11,
where the election of the remnant of
It
is profitable to observe how closely the teaching of Paul concerning the gathering
together of the saints corresponds to this foundation saying of the Lord. (1) Christ said that He himself would come -
for whatever else the triple title (Son of man
may involve, it emphasizes the thought of the Person who would come (Matt. 24: 27, 30, 31). Paul repeats this emphasis, saying that "the Lord Himself shall descend". (2) Christ directed attention to the heavens
as the principal sphere of interest at that epoch: "the stars shall fall from heaven": "the powers of the heavens shall be shaken":
"the sign of the Sin of man in heaven":
Paul follows with the statement, "the Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven". (3) Jesus spoke of "coming with the clouds": Paul says the saints
will be "caught up in clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air". (4) Christ said
that angels will be the agents of the gathering: Paul speaks of an accompanying
"voice of an archangel". (5) The Lord said that there would be a "great sound of a trumpet": Paul three times
mentions this, speaking of "a trump of God",
saying that "a trumpet shall sound",
and mentioning that this will be the "last trump"
(1 Thess. 4: 16, 17; 1 Cor. 15: 52).
Such
correspondence in items and in words upon one theme can scarcely be less than
designed by the Holy Spirit, if not a conscious and deliberate intention of
Paul. A competent scholar has recorded
his "deepening conviction of the dependence of
That
the sayings of our Lord are the seed-thoughts of the doctrines afterwards
amplified by His Spirit through the inspired writers of the epistles is a fact
as worthy of fullest consideration as it is susceptible of ample illustration. Of this, the above agreement, in thoughts and
expressions, between Christ and His Apostle as regards the circumstances of the
Parousia is a good example. And the inference from this minute agreement
is obvious, even that the event of which Paul spoke is the event to which the
Lord had referred, the same in time and other details.
There is no suggestion in either 1 Cor. 15 or 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, that the event there predicted must
precede the rise of Antichrist; whereas the close correspondence now noted
teaches that the descent of the Lord there intimated is the Parousia
of which Himself spoke, and which He placed after the signs which are to follow
the Tribulation. The only alternative is
that the stupendous Event, in all these details, should occur twice!
But
concerning Paul’s statements in 1 Thess. 4, it is asserted as follows by those who
maintain him to refer to a pre-tribulation event. "What the
Apostle is about to write to them is a freshly given revelation":
"The communication in 1 Thess. 4 is a fresh revelation entirely". Upon this basis it is urged that the passage
is not to be interpreted in conjunction with our Lord’s prophetic teachings,
but independently thereof, since it deals with a matter, the translation of the
Church, not before revealed, whereas Christ was speaking of Jewish affairs
only.
This
assertion being too wide becomes misleading. In the Apostle’s words there is a truth which
we do not know to have been before published. The evidence for this, however, is only
negative: his own statement does not assert that it
was only then first made known. This
truth is that when the Parousia arrives
it will affect the dead first, in order that the translation of the dead and
the living to the presence of the Lord may take place at the same moment. This thought of the joint reunion of saints is
that which met the sorrow the living were feeling as to the future of those who
had died in Christ. But that there was
to come a resurrection of the godly and worthy dead, which should usher then
into the kingdom age, had long been revealed, as by Isaiah
(26: 19), by the angel to Daniel (12: 1-3),
and distinctly by our Lord in the words "they that
are accounted worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead"
(Luke 20: 35). Moreover, by adding the words, "neither can they die any more", Christ intimated
that thus the raised would receive immortality and incorruptibility; and by the
further statement "for they are equal unto the
angels" He not obscurely foreshadowed their transference to the
heavens, the angelic regions, since it were natural to expect that beings of
the bodily nature and status of angels would reside in the angelic realm. Thus the details given in 1 Corinthians 15 are expanded from a statement by
the Lord, and the words of verse 51 of that
chapter, "Behold I tell you a secret",
must not be pressed to mean that the truth to be mentioned had only then been
revealed for the first time.
The
Ephesian letter (3: 4, 5) shows the sense in which Paul himself
thought and spoke upon this matter. He
declares that "by revelation was made known unto
me the mystery [secret] of the Christ; which in
other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been
revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit". The truth of the union of Christ and the Body
was kept secret from earlier generations of men. The contrast is between other ages and the
apostolic age, not between Paul and other apostles and prophets. His own statement clearly repudiates this
latter notion in relation to the knowledge of the "mystery of the Christ"; and this implicitly covers the
knowledge of the rapture and the resurrection, for this is but the event which
constitutes the final perfecting of the "mystery
of the Christ".
Thus
such a term as "Behold I tell you a secret"
imports no more than that the truth was new to the apostolic era. That Paul
received it by direct revelation is clear, for he says so; but not exclusively,
for this also he says;and certainly it was not first
given to him as he was writing to the Corinthians, for the letter to the
Thessalonians deals with the theme and had been written five years earlier. Nor does the phrase in the latter epistle, "this we say unto you by
the word of the Lord", properly go further. It does not assert that Paul alone knew the
truth stated, nor that it had not been revealed before that time. It says simply that the truth had been
communicated by the Lord, and carried all the certainty of a word from Him. How Paul learned it was not there indicated,
nor when. Nor can it be inferred that he
had not known or taught it to the Thessalonians when with them or else they
would not have been without the comfort thereof; for at Corinth some were
denying that any resurrection of the dead at all was to be expected, yet who
would infer from this that in eighteen months ministry there Paul had not
taught this expectation? For hearers obsessed and befogged for a lifetime by
pagan philosophy and mythology this doctrine was nothing less than
revolutionary, and that they had failed to grasp and retain such to them wholly
new and tremendous conceptions is not in the least surprising, and it created the
need for these teachings to be distinctly restated in the epistles. New to them the teaching was; new in itself at
the hour that Paul wrote the Thessalonian letter it
was not, and Paul does not say that it was, nor that
it was peculiar to him among the Apostles. Did disciples converted through other
preachers, in regions that Paul never touched, not need the blessed hope? Was this enlightening and comforting truth
withheld from them because Paul never influenced them? and
were they thus left with an incomplete gospel? To ask such questions is to answer them, and
to show that not to Paul only were these essential truths committed. The writings of Peter, John, James and Jude
show that they too taught concerning "the favour
that is being brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Pet. 1: 13), and the visible and glorious change
which the sight of him as He is will effect in us (1
John 3: 1-3). Nor is there any
more ground for the notion that they learned these things from Paul than that
he learned them from them; indeed, Peter’s remark "even as our beloved brother Paul ALSO, according to the wisdom
given unto him, wrote unto you" (2 Pet.
3: 15) evidently implies that Paul was only one of the channels of
communication of future things which agrees with Paul’s statement that the
mystery had been revealed to other apostles and Prophets. (Eph.
3; 5).
Moreover,
not only as regards resurrection and rapture is this the case, but that there
was to come a moment when, to quote the Thessalonian
letter, "The Lord himself shall descend from
heaven, with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with a trump of God",
was no new revelation at that time. It
had been stated by Christ in the manner before shown, as well as being implied
in the words he had uttered shortly thereafter, "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, that where I am there ye also may be"
(John 14: 2, 3): and the central fact, the
return of the Person, and this under external circumstances similar to those of
His departure, had been further emphasized by the declaration of the angels,
made to the disciples at the moment of the Lord’s ascension, that "this Jesus, Who was received up from you into heaven, shall
so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven" (Acts 1: 11).
When
therefore it is said that the paragraph in the Thessalonian
letter was a "freshly given revelation"
we feel that the statement has no foundation in what the writer says; and upon
the whole passage we conclude by remarking that the comfort of saints living in
the first century in the thought of reunion with their departed did not in the
least depend upon that reunion taking place before, and not after, an event -
the reign of Antichrist - which time has shown to be no less than nineteen
centuries distant from their day.
Thus
our Lord carried forward our thoughts to the mighty moment of His apocalypse; thus do we see by
what means "he that endureth unto the end"
of those days shall be saved; thus
do we learn of the perfecting and upgathering of His
elect; "thus [by this event, not by any
other means] always with the Lord we shall be"
(1 Thess. 4: 17,
and cp. John 14: 3) ; and thus it is that He
Who, out of His unparalleled affection, "gave
Himself for our sins", will reach the goal, as regards us, of that
immeasurable sacrifice, and will "rescue us out of
this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father : to whom be
the glory for ever and ever. Amen." (Gal.
1: 4).
The solemn closing warning and exhortation by our Lord,
recorded in Luke 21: 34-36, must receive
separate treatment.
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