THE REIGN OF CHRIST ON EARTH
By D. M. PANTON, B.A.
The sudden defection of so able and godly a teacher
as Mr. Phillip Mauro from
Millenarian truth - an abandonment, after decades of conviction, of belief in our
Lords thousand summers on earth, and on the grave ground that it is
anti-Scriptural*- is a sharp challenge to all who hold it. For if a coming Kingdom of God breaking in
miraculously upon the present order is a myth, and a downward plunge of the
world to Armageddon an illusion - as far the larger section of the Church,
though not Mr. Mauro, contend; and the denial of an earthly Reign and the
refusal of a physical Advent are two views which naturally and usually coalesce
- the paralysis of all political and
social action which such an error must engender, when every nerve should be
strained so to Christianize the world as to make the Church triumphant, can be
nothing short of an immeasurable disaster, and an error profoundly displeasing
to God. It is a challenge
extraordinarly practical and of the first magnitude.
[*
For so we understand Mr. Mauro. As regards the period given as a thousand years, he
says, we should seek the spiritual and symbolical
meaning of the term (Patmos Visions, P. 502). In the new
dispensationalism which contradicts the Word of God, he places, as a
leading tenet, that all mankind will enjoy
uninterrupted peace, plenty, and every earthly gratification for a thousand
years (The Gospel of the Kingdom, P. 215). Earth is destroyed in the moment of the
Advent (Ib. P. 207). The Great Tribulation is past,
THE KINGDOM
Now to Daniel it was given
supremely to see and foretell the crumpling up of all earthly empire in the
inauguration of the
EARTHLY EMPIRE
Now the origin and nature of this Kingdom, as
revealed by Daniel, could not be more sharply defined. Our Lord said:- My
kingdom is not from hence (John 18: 36):
so here, a Kingdom in the form of a descending Stone, hewn by no earthly hands,
is launched like a torpedo from an aeroplane.
It is the revelation of the Lord Jesus from
heaven with the angels of his
power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance (2 Thess.
1: 7).* It is exclusively a
kingdom from on high: its abrupt collision with world-powers is no gradual
permeation, but sharp military overthrow: the vacuum it creates, it fills -
therefore the Kingdom is as literal and earthly as the kingdoms which it
supplants: it is earths final royalty imperishable, unchanging, divine. It reigns in the sense they reigned. Mineral replaces mineral. Imagery is a falsehood, and language is
meaningless, if the Smashing Stone is not a catastropic Advent, followed by a
literal Empire. Behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto the son of man;
and there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, THAT ALL THE PEOPLES, NATIONS, AND LANGUAGES
SHOULD SERVE HIM (Dan. 7: 13).
[*
Protestant controversialists on the Temporal Power constantly misquote our
Lord. Jesus said:- My kingdom is not from (ek) this world: He never said:- My kingdom is not of this world. The Stone descends from heaven, but it is
earth which it fills.]
THE NATIONS
So our Lord shows us the
actual descent of the Stone:- When the Son of Man
shall come in his glory - that is, as He has already once been on
earth, on the Mount of Transfiguration and all the angels
with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be
gathered all the nations (Matt. 25: 31).
It is manifest from the thronging Angels that it is the descent of the
Lord at the Second Advent, which the Saviour had just indicated:- then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and
they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and
with great glory (Matt. 24: 30). It is a judgment of nations
- therefore not of the dead, among whom there are no nations; as the final
judgment is of the dead alone (Rev. 20: 2),
so this judgment is of the living alone; resurrection is never once named; and
it is pre-millennial, for the Judge says,-Come ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom (Matt. 25: 34).
Finally conclusive are our Saviours word to the Apostles:- I appoint unto you a kingdom; and ye shall sit on thrones JUDGING
THE TWELVE TRIBES OF
RESURRECTION
So now we arrive at the
Kingdom itself as revealed in a passage the peculiar value of which lies in its
unique revelation of the Kingdoms duration.
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and
they lived-
that is, came to life, they ceased to be the dead - and
REIGNED with Christ - whose
literal return to earth has been recorded in the preceding chapter A THOUSAND YEARS: this is the first resurrection (Rev. 20: 4).
It has been universally presumed, with almost unbroken unanimity, that
the dead who stand, at the close of the Thousand Years, before the Great White
Throne (Rev.20: 11) are a resurrection: the
conclusion therefore is inexorable that the first resurrection, preceding it, and ushering in the Thousand Years, is
no less literal. The thousand years are mentioned not less than six times:
this intentional, emphatic repetition shows that real importance is attached to
the number (Hengstenberg). The Kingdom, as Dr. Lange says, is an aeon, and
specifically the transition-aeon between this present world and the world to
come. It is peculiarly and
exclusively the Kingdom of the Messiah, and so it is four times named in the
Apocalypse as the Kingdom of the Christ. For he that
overcometh, Jesus promises, I will give to him
to sit down with me in My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my
Father in his throne (Rev. 3: 21):
two distinct thrones; the Lord being now seated on His Fathers, but then on His own: while the Throne of Eternity, beyond, is the joint throne of God and the Lamb.* And most startlingly is
the nature of the Kingdom depicted, not as a permeating leaven, or a mystical
rule, but as a smashing enforcement of righteousness; for he that overcometh, to him will I give authority over the
nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are BROKEN TO SHIVERS (Rev. 2: 26).
[*
Since no man can share the present Throne of God, and equally no man can share the eternal Throne of God and the Lamb, the Throne
to which Christ invites fellow-occupants, and which He makes dependent on
overcoming grace, can only be the Millennial.]
FALSE PROPHECY
For the grave truth is that golden predictions of earths future, apart from the physical Advent,
are not merely a denial of Gods forecasts, but, actually constituting false
prophecy, reveal an attitude of acute danger. For if the world is to be conquered for
Christ by the Church, the spending of all our energies on the Gospel alone when
God meant those energies to reform the world is a wrenching of Niagara from its
bed in a gigantic miscarriage; but, on the other hand, if earths iniquity is
heading it for Armageddon, and only the catastrophic miracle of the Advent can
save the world, the situation is exactly reversed. It must be one or the other. For what would a
cheerful optimism in mans future have betrayed while the
[*
It is of the utmost gravity that far the major portion of the truly regenerate
are thus denying the Kingdom as revealed by the Scriptures. The [regenerate] believer who shares in a measure of the
worlds unbeliel must share in an exactly commensurate measure of the worlds
judgment. All of
THE PRIZE OF OUR CALLING
So the closer that the great
event approaches, the more urgent and crucial becomes the problem of the
co-kings of the Christ. Dr. E. R. Craven gives the conflicting
solutions of the problem that are offered:- Some hold
that they are all the saints; others that they are only the martyrs; others
still, that they are the specially faithful, including the martyrs. With such scholars as Lange and Stier; such
students of prophecy as Govett and Pember; such saintly souls as Fletcher of Madeley, and Robert Chapman; such God-used
missionaries as Hudson Taylor, and
evangelists as Paul Rader:- we share
the profound conviction that in the third solution all Scriptures fit as cogs
into a wheel. It is extremely suggestive
that the main objections to a literal Thousand Years Dr. Barnes finds in the assumption that all the saints reign with
Christ. He says:- (1) Every other description of the resurrection and glory of the
saints as such catholic in its character, while this is limited: (2) none but
the wicked would remain to be judged in the last
judgment, which is inconsistent with the implication of the opening of the Book
of Life: (3) to tell us that saints risen from
the dead, and reigning in glorified bodies with Christ, are holy,
seems to me very superfluous.
These difficulties die at once under the third solution. The overwhelming predominance of the martyrs
- they compose three out of the four classes named - makes it virtually
impossible to suppose that the Kingdom is shared by all believers, irrespective
of suffering or fidelity, and obviously
implies that it is the epoch of recompense for fiery trial; while the
beatitude- blessed and ho ly is he that hath part in the first resurrection carefully
indualizes the reward, and isolates the victor in a peculiar sanctity, and devotes
him to an appropriate joy.
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