THE
THOUSAND YEARS IN BOTH TESTAMENTS
By
NATHANIEL
WEST
PART
1
It is a very common opinion, widely spread
throughout Christendom, and in most cases believed to be true, that “the thousand years” of which John speaks in the
Apocalypse, Rev. 20: 1-7, are mentioned
nowhere else in the sacred Scriptures.
The doctrine of a millennial kingdom on earth, introduced by the advent
of Christ in His glory, is a Jewish fable without support from the word of
God. A deeper study of the sacred volume
dissipates this false prejudice and reveals the fact that, not only are “the thousand years” of which John speaks found
everywhere in both Testaments, but that next to the eternal state, the
millennial blessedness of God’s people on earth, and of the nations, is the one
high point in all prophecy, from Moses to John, the bright, broad tableland of
all eschatology. The prejudice against
the study of a theme so sublime and far-reaching, and occupying so much space
in the revelation of God has been pleased to give us, is as remarkable in our
age, as [Page 2] it is inexcusable, although by no means surprising. To use the words of Prof. Van Oosterzee, “We cannot be surprised that the inner discrepancy between
the modern theological philosophy and the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures
should perhaps, on no point come forth so clearly, and
apparently so irreconcilably, as precisely in reference to the doctrine of the
‘Last
Things’ – Eschatology. Here,
especially are the terms, ‘Jewish conception,’ ‘oriental garb,’ ‘poetic imagery,’
‘accommodation to the narrow ideas of the age,’ etc., etc., the order of the
day, and the doctrine of the consummation of the ages is ordinarily regarded as
a moderately insignificant appendix to some philosophico-dogmatic
system. In Scripture, on the contrary,
it is distinctly presented in the foreground, and for the believer it attains,
with every year and every century, increased significance, so that what for a
time seems to be an appendix, becomes eventually the main question!” *[* Person and work of the Redeemer, 450.]
Every faithful student of the Scriptures,
unbiased by false theories of interpretation, will attest these words as
true. What we find in the New Testament
as its outcome in respect to the ages and the kingdom,
has already lain in the bosom of the Old Testament from the beginning. The closing part of the New Testament is but
the full flower of which the opening part of the Old Testament was the precious
seed, the kingdom one and the same, in essence, all the way. Nothing appears in the latter revelation that
was not hid in the earlier, nothing in John that was not in Moses. This is what Augustine meant by his golden
maxim, “Novum Testamentum in Vetrere latet, Vetus in Novo patet.” “In the [page 3] Old Testament
the New is concealed; in the New the Old is revealed.” We shall find “the
thousand years” in many places of God’s word, long before the Rabbis
ever had a being or a name.
We shall be obliged in this investigation
to make use of what men call “technical” terms,
in order to save circumlocution. We
speak of the “Last Things.” The Greek term for this is “Eschata,” and by these are meant what should “come to pass,” not in the “latter,”
as oftentimes King James’ version has it, but in the “last”
days, as Moses, Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Paul and John, preferred
to have it. If we study the eschatology
of the Old Testament, we will find the Eschata there
identical with the Eschata of the New Testament, and the Eschatology of both Testaments the same,
only the New is more developed than the Old.
Such is the organic and genetic character of revelation and of prophecy
that if “the thousand years” are not in Moses,
the Psalms, and the Prophets, they have no right to be in John. To understand the prophets it is necessary,
however, to understand the Apocalypse, and to understand the Apocalypse it is
necessary to understand the prophets.
The one is light to the other, and reciprocally. In order to attain a clear conception of Old
testament prophecy and its fulfilment, we must combine both Advents of Messiah,
remembering that the first only brought the partial fulfilment of the
prophetic word which yet awaits the second in order to secure its plenary
accomplishment.
Joel’s prophecy as to the outpouring of
the Spirit in the last days, and of the great and notable day of the Lord, with
all its terrestrial and celestial phenomena, the final redemption of Israel,
and the transfiguration of the Holy Land, was only incipiently and partly [page 4] fulfilled to a
few, an election out of Israel, at the first coming of Christ, and awaits a far
larger fulfilment at His second appearing.
So the prediction of Amos, in reference to the dispersion and sifting of
Israel the “Sinful Kingdom,” and God’s
visitation of the Gentiles, “after this,” to
take out of them a people for His name, met a partial and precursive
fulfilment in the first calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge of Christ, in
the days of the apostles, as James in the first council at Jerusalem assures
us. We see that by comparing Acts 15: 13-18 with Amos
9: 8-12. But there is to be a
grander fulfilment still in coming days, when, now that a Second Dispersion and
Sifting of Israel has occurred, since James spoke, there shall be a fullness of
the Gentiles “after this,” also, and finally the
fallen Booth of David, or Israel’s proper Kingdom, as the prophets picture it,
will be re-erected with the fullness of Israel converted to God, and the
glorious millennial age heave into view.
So it is with reference to Isaiah’s Redeemer coming to Zion,
and Hosea’s Israel abiding
alone for many days, and Micah’s halting daughter of Zion to whom at length, comes the “former dominion.”
Whatever occurred to Israel
graciously, at the first coming of Christ, was only a preliminary fulfilment to
be exhaustively completed for Israel,
at His second coming. Such is the law of
prophecy and the law of fulfilment, and it will save us from many an error, if
only we are careful to remember it.
THE KINGDOM AND PROPHECY.
From first to last, the kingdom of God on
earth, its inception, progress, conduct, and consummation in glory, is the one
theme of Old Testament prophecy. To this
end were the converts with Christ, Adam, [page 5] Noah, Abraham, Israel
and David. To this end was the choice of
the one national “Israel,” the “choice forever,” as a prophetic, priestly, kingly
nation, a messianic and mediatorial nation, the one
national “Servant of Jehovah,” and national Son
of God, standing between God and mankind, and bringing salvation to a lost
world; a people from whom should come the one personal “Israel,” Prophet, Priest and King, the one Mediator and true Messiah,
Seed of the woman, Seed of Abraham, Seed of David, Son of Man and Son of God,
in whom all nations should bless themselves – Jesus Christ. Identified with Him, individually, and called
by His name, stands Israel
collectively, in His whole Messianic work and kingdom. Neither acts without the other. The Pentateuch prophecies refer chiefly to
the people. The Messianic Psalms
emphasize the King, the Kingdom, and the Priest. Isaiah dwells upon the prophetic character of
Israel;
Ezekiel displays the priestly; Daniel reveals the kingly; Zechariah blends all
in one. Old Testament prophecy knows no
other subjects of discourse than these, Israel, Messiah, and the Nations. As to the kingdom, Israel had it, under the
Old Testament, in its outward form; the Gentiles have it under New Testament,
in its inward form; in the age to come,
Jews and Gentiles together, shall have it, both forms in one, one kingdom of
Messiah, spiritual, visible and glorious, with Israel still the central people,
the prelude of the New Jerusalem and the nations walking in its light forever.
The division of the Davidic kingdom into
two, laid the ground for all the prophecies concerning the “Kingdom of Israel” and the “Kingdom
of Judah,” i.e., the ten-tribed Israel, called “Ephraim,”
and the two-tribed Israel, called “Judah,” as distinguished from “all [page 6] Israel,” or the twelve-tribed
Israel, an election from those children shall one day form the national nucleus
of the millennial kingdom.
The catastrophe that brought destruction
to Jerusalem and captivity to Judah under the Chaldean
King, forms the ground of the common destruction of
the canonical prophets into their present classification. The Babylonian exile is the middle
point. If we study the prophecies that
speak of the Kingdom of Messiah, Israel’s
kingdom, the Millennial Kingdom, and the relation of the nations to each, -
all as parts of the Kingdom
of God on earth, - we
shall take in all the prophets. If we
group these around the several great epochs of Israel’s history, they will fall
into three main divisions, (1), pre-exile prophets (2), exile prophets (3),
post-exile prophets. Or, to be still
more specific, they will fall into five chief divisions: (1) The pre-Assyrian,
viz., Obadiah, Joel, Jonah; i.e., the
prophets of the period prior to the Assyrian invasion and captivity of Israel; (2),
The Assyrian, viz., Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum: (3) The transition
prophets, viz., Zephaniah and Habbakuk; (4) The
prophets of the Chaldean period, viz., Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel; (5) the Persian period, or period of the Restoration down to
the close of prophecy, viz., Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Sixteen in all; all speaking of the Kingdom
of God and its development through Israel in relation to the nations, amidst
conflicts and victories, judgment and mercy, apostasy and recovery, until the
whole world becomes subject to Israel and Israel’s king.
As a further help to our investigation, it
is necessary we should know that the Kingdom of God,
in its development, though one, exists in different forms, and runs through
various ends of ages.
Essentially, it is one. [page 7] Phenomenally, it is many. It is singular and plural, both. It is an everlasting kingdom in its
essence. It is a temporal kingdom in its
forms. It exists forever. The Dispensations pass away. The Kingdom still abides. New forms emerge along the ages until the
endless age arrives, and the final form appears. And yet more. With the outer historic development of
prophecy as well as of history, an inner genetic development runs
parallel. The original prophetic grem, found in the first promise in the garden, true to
scientific law, parts itself into law and gospel, divides, expands, and assumes
more ample and concrete forms. What is
at first most general, becomes particular. What is obscure becomes more
clear. The ages and the ends are
evolved according to the same law of “becoming,” which obtains in the natural
world, viz., by division and integration.
The result from all is that, as prophecy advances, what is folded up
darkly, at first, is opened out in clearer and distincter
statement later on. The ages and the
ends come more definite. The later
predictions explain the earlier ones.
And, along this line of divine evolution, as there is no “spontaneous generation” in the kingdom of God,
so there is no “transmutation of species.” God alone creates. Israel,
the created people of God, abides Israel,
and the
history of Israel
is not a mere frame in which to hang pictures of the New Testament Gentile
church. The kingdom is ever the
kingdom, one sided for Israel alone in time past, one sided for the Gentiles
alone now, outward in the one case, inward in the other, but both sided for both in one, hereafter, Israel evermore the
root, the centre, organic basis, and ground of all. By observation of this, we learn the
characteristic differences between pre-exile prophecy
on the one hand, and exile with post-exile prophecy on [page 8] the other. It is precisely along this line of
development we detect the evolution of the ages in prophecy itself, and are
obliged to hold that Prophecy as well as History as an “organism,” as is
Nature, the kingdom and the Church – the one a parable of the other – “natural
law in the spiritual world;” and “spiritual law in the natural world,” in
short, as Newton showed, a system of universal and identical laws producing
analogous phenomena in different spheres.
Where there is life there is law.
It is precisely along this line of study of the Word of God, we discover
not only a description of the Millennial Kingdom yet to be, but are able to
detect the relative location of the millennial age itself, even in Old
Testament prophecy, and find it exactly as the Apostle John has pictured and
located it – its character, its name, its measure, and the events by which it
is opened and closed. The existence of “the 1,000 years” in the Old Testament is a matter of
scientific demonstration, as truly as the existence of any geological age in
the history of the planet, and is supported by an exegesis, grounded in the
organic unity and continuity of prophecy in both Testaments, that is
unassailable. It is another proof of the
truth of the golden saying of Augustine,
“The New Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old
stands revealed in the New.”
The six pre-exile prophets form a
connected chain ending with Nahum. Of
these, Isaiah is the chief, his radius of vision spanning all horizons, near,
remote, and between and losing itself in the breast of eternal glory. He sees all things, however, in one divine
perspective, one divine light, one divine picture, Messiah the centre of all, Israel around
Him, the Nations around both. The ends and ages are all confounded in the [page 9] first end, and
the age following. All is a composite
photography, the events standing cheek to cheek, which only later prophecy can
separate. On the earlier prophets, the
exile and post-exile prophets rest as on sure ground, the spirit of prophecy
being one. Their office is not to
transcend, but develop, the earlier.
What Isaiah was to the earlier, Daniel was to the later. He bequeaths to them, and to us, the great
problem of the Millennial Age, whose epoch Isaiah, Micah, and Ezekiel, have
fixed, the problem of Israel’s final future and relation to the nations, with
Israel’s history between the return from exile, and Israel’s final redemption
in the glory of the Kingdom at Messiah’s second coming. Its solution is given, also, in the various
visions of the four empires, four beasts, and seventy weeks, whose last week is
rent off from the rest in fulfilment, the Roman times of the Gentiles lying
between – a seventieth week wholly eschatological, the basis of the seals,
trumpets and vials in John’s Apocalypse.
The same problem appears in another form to the night visions of
Zechariah, Haggai’s shaking of the nations, and Malachi’s burning day, whose
close is crowned with healing from the sun of righteousness. The solution of the great problem of Israel’s
future, spring from the breach in David’s Kingdom, is the solution of the
problem of the Millennial Kingdom, and comes with Israel’s future acceptance of
David’s Son as their Lord, the closing up of the ancient breach in David’s
Kingdom, the union of Israel and Judah in one nation, on the mountains of the
fatherland forever; - in short, Israel a converted people and nation,
acknowledged by Christ in person, the nations applauding. With that consummation, after judgments and
mercies unknown before, and the revelation of Christ Himself [page 10] in His glory,
dawns the Millennial Age. Search where
we may, through all the prophets, this is the one theme, the redemption of Israel, after
judgment has fallen on both, Christ the glory of all. It is the time of the “Kingdom restored to Israel.” Search where we may, we shall nowhere find
unveiled the mystery of the New Testament “Church.” See Rom. 16:
25. 1Cor. 2: 7, 8. Wph. 3: 8, 9. Col. 1: 24, 27. Nor does the disclosure of this, in the New
Testament, avail to destroy the prophetic word of the Old in reference to Israel, or abolish the standing contrast in the
Old between Israel and the
Nations, or in the New between Israel,
the Nations, and the Church.
It is among the “Eschata,”
or “Last Things,” the things to “come to pass in the last days,” or “End Time,” that we find the Millennial Age. It lies, as we shall see, between the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the
Lord,” which, in the New Testament, is called “The
Apocalypse of Jesus Christ,” and the endless age of the “New Jerusalem” in the final “New
heaven and earth.” It is bounded
by two distinct judgments, one at the opening, one at the close of the
Millennial Age, the opening judgment being that of the Nations, and of all
powers, terrestrial and super-terrestrial, opposed to Christ and His reign, as
only by a judgment upon Israel
and Jerusalem,
ending in the redemption of both. The “Yom Yehovah” everywhere precedes the Millennial
Age, which is the age of Israel’s
glory in the Kingdom, and comprehends in itself most of the Eschata
of the Old Testament. The judgment that
closes the Millennial Age is represented as a judgment on Gog
and Magog, which extends itself to a “visitation” of
final doom upon all the wicked, after which Israel rests [page 11] eternally secure
in their glorified land, the nations of the saved walking in the light of the
Holy City, the Lord Himself dwelling forever among His people. Such, in general, is the Old Testament
representation.
To understand this, however, it is
necessary to know first, the manner in which the prophets divided the whole
course of time, and the way in which the ages and ends are represented in
prophecy, as also the relation in which the Eschata
stand to these ends and ages, first in pre-exile prophecy, and next in exile
prophecy.
GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF TIME. PRE-EXILE PROPHECY.
And first, as to
the division of time, in pre-exile prophecy. The whole course of time, from the creation
of the heaven and earth to the re-creation of the same, is divided into two
great ages, the bisecting epoch between which is called the “End.”
In this End is placed the “Yom Yehovah,” during which the personal
self-revelation of Jehovah in glory, for the deliverance of Israel, and the destruction of His
and their enemies, is also placed, and for the establishment of His kingdom in
glory on earth. To this “Day of the Lord” belong all the Eschata,
or Last Things, that precede the age of glory on earth, and are connected with
the Advent of Messiah. To this one End
all prophecy constantly looks, in every picture of the future, from Joel to
Malachi. The first of these two ages is
the pre-Messianic age, or Jewish age, with all the time preceding, and is
called the Hebrew theology, “Olam Hazzeh,” “this present
world.” The second of these ages
is the Messianic age, and is called “Olam Habba,” or “the world to
come.” The New Testament employs [page 12] these divisions
of time, and they are ever in the mouth of our Lord and His Apostles, as “Aion ho houtos,”
“this present world,” and “Aion ho mellon,” “the world to come,” i.e., “this age,” and the “coming age.”
These terms have no reference to individual life here, or the life of
the disembodied spirit, after death. The
bisecting point between them is not death, but the End of this first age. They relate wholly to the course of earthly
history, and the development of the kingdom
of God on earth. In pre-exile prophecy in general, there is
but one End, One Day of the Lord, One Judgment, One Advent of Messiah in glory;
an all-comprehensive and undeveloped with but One age succeeding, the Messianic
Age, the age of Israel in the kingdom and the glory, an End that “does not discriminate between the Parousia
in humility and the Parousia in glory, but beholds
the whole work of Messiah as complete,” (Delitzsch.) Therefore does Isaiah’s page shine the more
intensely, for into that one age the whole grace and glory of Messiah’s work is
concentrated.
All the sufferings of the “servant of Jehovah,”
all the splendour of His reward, all
there is for Jew, and all for gentile, focalize themselves in that one End and
radiate out of that one succeeding age.
It is the uniform view of all pre-exile prophecy. In the “Yom Yehovah,” – day of
judgment, day of wonders, - day of wrath and day of mercy, - day of reeling for
earth and shaking for heaven, - of tumult, storm, and fire, - of dissolution
and reconstruction, - the nations are judged, the Gentile powers are smitten,
Antichrist is destroyed, the wicked are swept away, Satan and his hosts are
imprisoned in the pit, and Israel’s faithful
dead are raised. We see it all in [page 13] the “Little Apocalypse of Isaiah,” – Chapters 24-27.
Israel’s
time begin. In the proverb of the
Rabbis, “Esau is the end of Olam Hazzeh, Jacob is the beginning of Olam Habba.” It is the view of the prophetic portions of
the Pentateuch, the Historical books, the Messianic Psalms, and of all the
prophets prior to the exile.
The character of this Messianic age is
painted in colours the most gorgeous and brilliant in the prophets, even as it
is sung in strains the most inspiring, in the Psalms. When the Lord has come and brought salvation
with His own right arm, and Jacob’s tribulation is past, everything puts on a
new appearance. Under the New Covenant,
sin is pardoned through Messiah’s death, the gospel is preached, the Gentiles
are gathered, the Spirit is poured from on high, and streams of knowledge,
holiness and life, perpetually overflow.
Showers of blessing continually fall.
The people are all righteous, and the righteous shine. The City of Jerusalem is transformed, made glorious not
alone by the boundless wealth of the nations then tributary to it, but by the
new-creating presence of the Lord Himself.
The Temple
is rebuilt in glory unsurpassed. The
Land itself is transfigured as an Eden. Jerusalem
is Jehovah’s throne. Zion is His dwelling place. The very desert blooms like Sharon.
Unwonted fruitfulness appears.
All nature is at peace, and man in harmony
therewith. Idolatry and War and Crime,
exist no more. Sin is restrained and
death is checked, because Satan is bound.
The curse is gone, longevity returns, and Israel’s risen saints enjoy a
deathless life, fresh and beauteous, as the flower on which the morning dew
rests, and the morning light still shines.
In a new heaven and earth, [page 14] the Holy City
is crowned with light, and the nations walk in that light. A painless, tearless, sorrowless
state, the reproach taken from the Jew, the veil taken from the nations, and death
swallowed up in victory, the Bridegroom rejoicing over His Bride, Messiah
reigning on David’s throne, a festive jubilee, Jehovah dwelling with His
people, both in perfect fellowship and blessedness, is what we see, Eternal splendours
streaming everywhere. And just because
all future ages are here inclosed in this one age,
therefore, is it, for Isaiah, the “everlasting” [*See note at end. – Ed.] age, and all things are everlasting that belongs to it. Not indeed that it has but one form, and this
one form eternal, but that its facts are so, be they of grace which is glory
begun, or of glory which is grace made perfect.
All is everlasting, with Isaiah; an everlasting Kingdom, an everlasting
Throne, an everlasting Covenant, an everlasting Nation, an everlasting Name, an
everlasting Righteousness, an everlasting Joy, an everlasting Song, an
everlasting Peace, an everlasting Holiness, an everlasting Life, an everlasting
Dwelling, an everlasting Rock, an everlasting Redeemer, an everlasting
Salvation, an everlasting God. All, is olamic, aeonian, eternal,
forever! All eschatologies
are mingled here in one, all ends in one End in which Messiah comes, all ages
in the one Age which follows that one appearing. The Rabbis call it the “Immortal Age,”
and say of the righteous raised from their graves, that they “sit with crowns on
their head and behold the splendour of God:” and that “All the good the prophets have spoken concerning Israel
belongs to “Olam Habba,”
the “world to come.”
If we represent, in schematic form, the
manner [page
15] and
ends as seen, in general, in pre-exile prophecy, the diagram will stand thus:
[Pre-Messianic Age.] <<<>>> [Advent.
/ End.] <<<>>> [Messianic Age.]
That is, two ages and one end between, the
last age the everlasting one, or age that has no end.
EXILE PROPHECY
Let us come now to speak of exile
prophecy. Here we find a marked
difference from all preceding prophecy, in respect to the ages and the ends, and
the disposition of the Eschata. Events that stood together in one picture, in
the earlier prophets, begin to be parted here.
The hints in Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, of such a possible development,
and of which we shall speak later on, receive now their true significance. We learn how the great epochs of Israel’s history
are the great epochs of prophecy, and that the development of both runs
parallel. Our attention is attracted to
the partition of the one end, and the development of the one age following. Two Ends instead of one appear. Two Advents instead of one. Two Judgments instead of
one. Two Resurrections
instead of one. Two Ages
following the ends instead of one., the endless age,
of course, the last. The whole cast and
character of the future seem changed, as if some strange fatality on the part
of the people, still unprepared to receive their promised Messiah at His first
coming, had served to postpone the promised redemption. This much is clear, that national Israel has
not profited as it should by the catastrophe of the exile, for prophecy now
speaks of a second destruction of rebuilt Jerusalem as the result of Israel’s
impenitence, even after the [page 16] return from Babylon; a second dispersion, another
long period of desolation, a curse of rejecting Messiah Himself. And yet it pictures a second coming of
Messiah, and Israel
redeemed at last, triumphant in the promised kingdom and glory.
Something new has occurred. The synthesis of ends and ages in pre-exile
prophecy gives place to their analysis in post-exile prophecy. The one end parts into two, each part closing
itself up again, the space between becoming that an intermediate age, though
still foreshortened, the age that is endless lying behind the last of these
ends. Instead of two ages and one end,
as in pre-exile prophecy, we have three ages and two ends, schematized thus:
[Jewish Age.] >>><<< [1st.
Advent. / End.] >>><<< [Christian Age.] >>><<< [2nd. Advent.
/ End.] >>><<< [Millennial Age.]
At the end of the pre-Messianic or Jewish
Age Messiah comes, but not in glory. He
is “cut off,” and there is “nothing for Him” – no kingdom in the form predicted,
no crown. He is rooted out by a violent
death, and Israel
is, moreover, rejected. The Messianic
Age is now divided into two, during the first of which the risen Messiah, ascended
to Heaven, remains concealed and unseen throughout the whole period of Israel’s
rejection, while the news of His name and His great salvation goes to the
Gentiles. It is the Church-historical
period between the first and second Advents, a period closed up to Daniel, or
at most, only briefly alluded to, even though its termini, the two Advents, are
given. It is the period when Israel’s
national history is a blank before God.
As the end of the intermediate age, which is the end of His concealment
in Heaven, He comes again and appears “in the clouds of
Heaven,” and comes to [page 17] Israel
penitent and believing, in the crisis of Israel’s
last tribulation, and comes to “restore the kingdom to Israel.” At His first coming He was rejected by Israel, and Israel was rejected by Him. At His second coming He is accepted by Israel, and Israel is accepted by Him. Then, there was “nothing
for Him.” Now, there is
everything for Him. Then, also, there
was nothing for Israel
as a nation. Now, there is all. The kingdom and the glory are for both, “under the whole heaven.” Olam Habba, or the world to come, has become two worlds, of
which the first, being an intermediate age, shares the nature of both, and
while being the “world to come,” or Olam Habba,, with
respect to the age preceding, is yet “this present
world,” or Olam Hazzeh, with
respect to the age still following. It
is our Christian Dispensation. The Yom Yehovah,
with its unaccomplished Eschata,
still lies beyond. Such is the picture
Daniel gives us: Two ends, two ages, two advents, for the one end, one age, one
advent, of pre-exile prophecy. Messiah
comes at the beginning of the fourth empire.
He comes also at its close.
But this is not all. Ezekiel develops the ends and ages still more
than Daniel does. He has nothing to say
of the first Advent, as Daniel has, and nothing of the Antichrist. He has nothing to say of the missionary
proclamation of the Gospel, or Israel’s
prophetic calling, as Isaiah has. He
leaves to Isaiah the prophetic, to Daniel the kingly, and presents almost
exclusively the priestly side of Israel in the kingdom. He speaks in his earlier prophecies of the
judgments of God on Jerusalem and the nations,
but, his later visions are of Israel’s
deliverance and the splendour of their land, city and temple, in the day of the
personal manifestation of the “glory” to His
people. He speaks not [page 18] only of Israel’s
spiritual regeneration by means of the “New Covenant,”
which Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah have celebrated, but also of Israel’s final
restoration as a people, their political reunion and national conversion, and
independence, their blessedness and glory in the land promised to their
fathers, God’s sanctuary in their midst, God their God, and David their
Shepherd-Prince forevermore. Instead of
the Valley of Dry Bones with the Collossus
towering over them, what we see is a resurrected people,
standing up as a great army, and instinct with the “Spirit
of Life from God.” It is new-born
Israel
of the end-time, coming to their inheritance and priestly royalty,
re-established in their land forever.
All this we get in what is called “Ezekiel’s
Apocalypse,” embracing chapters 37-48. His vision of the land, the city and the
temple, chapters 40-48, is but a further
expansion of what is foretold in chapter 37,
and presents the priestly side of the same kingdom whose royal greatness Daniel
had predicted. Glorious in holiness it
is to Ezekiel. And, as to Daniel, it
came with the coming of the “Son of Man” in the
clouds of Heaven, in all its kingly grandeur, so, to Ezekiel, does it come in
all its priestly ornament and holy beauty, with the entrance of the “glory” in the temple.
With the personal appearing of the “glory”
the cosmical transfiguration begins, the temple
waters flow.
But the peculiarity of Ezekiel is this,
that even to this coming age of Israel’s
blessedness in the kingdom, he sees an “end;”
not an end to the kingdom but an end to the age.
Another end heaves into sight, the transition point between the
Millennial Age and the Age that is endless; an end beyond the second end
already seen in Daniel; a third end followed by the age [page 19] without end. The event that marks this new end is the
predicted war-march and judgment of Gog and Magog, at the end of Israel’s “many
days” in the kingdom. Just as in
exile prophecy the one pre-exile end is developed into two, so, once again,
these two ends are developed into three.
In Ezekiel, the second end expands itself into two. Just as in Daniel, the judgment on Antichrist
and Israel’s restoration in the kingdom, marks the opening of the age that lies
beyond the second coming, so, in Ezekiel, does the judgment of Gog and Magog, which appears as
the last judgment, mark the close of that age.
With that judgment, which, as we shall see, extends
itself to the resurrection of the wicked and their final doom, in John’s
Apocalypse, Ezekiel’s vision ceases.
What we have now, instead of two ends and three ages, are three ends and
four ages, covering all time, from the exile down to the final new heaven and
new earth of which Isaiah speaks, viz.: The Jewish Age and the end of it, the
Christian Age and the end of it, the Millennial Age and the end of it, and the
Endless Age of the New Jerusalem. If we
schematize the conception the diagram will stand thus:
[Jewish Age.] >>><<< [1st. Advent. / End. ] >>><<< [Christian
Age.] >>><<< [2nd. Advent.
/ End.] >>><<<
[Millennial Age.] >>><<< [White
Throne. / End.]
>>><<< [Endless Age.]
What to us is now the “world to come,” will be to its own inhabitants “the present world,” even as our present age was the
world to come, to pre-christian Judaism. As time wears away, and the future comes to
make the present, then glides into the past. Olam Habba becomes Olam Hazzeh, even on the other side of the second Advent. In
other words, the Messianic or everlasting age, which, in pre-exile prophecy,
was [page
20] but
one age following Messiah’s one Advent, and which in Daniel became two ages, by
reason of the clear separation of the comings, has, in Ezekiel, become three
ages by reason of the new end introduced: so making four in all, if we begin
with the Jewish Age, viz.: (1) The period of Old Testament times; (2) the
Church-historical period; (3) the Millennial Age of Israel in the kingdom; and
(4) the Eternal State or New Jerusalem in the “New
Heaven and Earth.” The end of the
Jewish Age brought resurrection, judgment, and a new age succeeding. The end of our present age will do the
same. The end of the Millennial
age will do the same. In each case the
kingdom receives a re-establishment in new form. There is a re-creation. A personal advent of Messiah marks the close
of each age, save the Millennial. No third
advent at the judgment of Gog and Magog
is intimated in Ezekiel’s nor even in John’s Apocalypse, for the final
resurrection and the judgment of the wicked, into which the judgment of Gog extends itself, for the reason that no second departure
of Christ from His people is revealed.
As in the Old Testament, so in the New, the last judgment is perspectively covered and connected with the judgment at
the second coming of the Son of Man.
Such is the entire development of the ages
and the ends in prophecy, - the Biblical AEonology
and Teleology – from Genesis to Regenesis; the whole
time prior to the first coming being regarded as the pre-Messianic Age. Our own age is a parenthetic one. The age next beyond that of our own is that
of Israel
in the kingdom. The last age is what we
call “Eternity;” time rolling on unto “ages of ages,” in the illimitable future, “world without end.” [page 21]
THE SUB-DISTRIBUTION OF TIME.
The Scriptures give us not
only the ages and the ends, but also a sub-distribution of prophetic and
historic time, from the period of the exile or blotting out of the visible
kingdom of God on earth, down to its re-establishment, i.e., from the time of Israel’s subjection to the Gentile power to
the time of Israel’s redemption from the same: or until the “mystery
of God” concerning Israel’s blindness and rejection, and Israel’s
new sight and recovery, is “finished,” under the sounding of the
seventh trumpet. Beyond that we find no
sub-distribution, save the judgment on Gog already
mentioned, and which, in connection with Isaiah 24:22 and Isaiah
65:17, extends itself to the final resurrection and judgment, and
the New Heaven and Earth. The
sub-distribution we refer to is found first of all, in the vision of the great
metallic image, or Monarchy-Colossus, Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream (B.C.
604) eighteen years before the destruction of Jerusalem (B.C. 586), that image
being a symbol of the Gentile power standing on Israel’s prostrate body; or, if
we combine the visions of Daniel with those of Ezekiel, then the Colossus
stands erect in the midst of Israel’s national graveyard – “Habbikah Melcah Atsamoth” – “the
valley full of bones, and very dry,” – and remains standing,
while national Israel remains dead, until that image is overthrown. In short, that Colossus represents a series
of four Gentile empires, appearing and disappearing in successional
order, - four different forms or phases of the one God-opposed world-power, as
it comes in contact with Israel; from the time of the Babylonian Empire down to
the Cloud-Comer from Heaven to overthrow the world-power, erect His kingdom on
its ruins, and restore the lost sovereignty [page 22] to Israel. The vision of the four-empired
image and its fate was given to humiliate the monarch’s pride and inspire
afresh the sinking hope of Israel. To the same end was the Valley of the Dry
Bones reanimated by the word of prophecy, and the blowing of God’s Spirit in
the last days, given to Ezekiel at the Gola, when the
news reached him of Jerusalem’s
fall (Oct. B.C. 586). The one vision
shows the Colossus falling down, the other Israel rising up; the one, man’s
kingdoms passing away; the other, Messiah’s kingdom come forever, with Israel
in the front.
Again, the same distribution
of the period of Israel’s national sepulture and
corruption, the high Colossus standing as the tombstone, with a “hic jacet Israel,” as it were, upon its breast, is
given to Daniel in a new vision of four beasts (B.C. 541) forty-five years
after Jerusalem’s fall, - a vision parts of which were expanded two years
earlier (B.C. 539) under the symbols of the Ram and Goat. The design of the beast vision was not merely
to show how differently from men God looks upon the phases of the world power,
they regarding the world-kingdoms as the concentration of all material wealth,
splendour, and might. He regarded them
as predacious beasts, but also to allow a further development from the symbol
of the ten horns which would have been unnatural in the ten toes. Careering on through Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman Empires, down to the last
outcome of the Roman power, divided, lost, and yet revived and reappearing in
the “Little Horn,” Gentile power shall wend its way –
Israel still underneath its feet, - until the Mountain-Stone strikes the Image
in its toes, and the Cloud-Comer smites the Horn on its head, the one sent
whirling like the chaff to the wind, the other tossed, living, [page 23] to
the flame, while Israel, resurgent from the grave, appears a mighty host, and
wields the empire of the world. The
radius of prophetic vision reaches to the Second Coming of the Son of Man. Till then Israel,
as a nation, is dead, the people scattered, and the Holy City
trodden under Gentile feet. But then, “at that
time,” Israel,
as a nation, revives. And here we meet a
strange phenomenon. As it is with Israel
and the nations Daniel has to do, and not with the New Testament Church; as his
mission is to prophecy of the world kingdoms and Israel’s relation thereto, and
the fall of these kingdoms when Israel’s “Basileia” comes; so we find that
both in the vision of the Colossus (Chapter 2) and
that of the four beasts (Chapter 7), the whole period between
the rise of the fourth beast and the final ten horns out of which the last
Antichrist comes (Israel’s last oppressor) – the entire period between the
First and Second Comings of Christ – is overlapped. Or, better, the period itself lies hid
without any sign of the First Advent, in the legs and feet of the
Colossus. The terminus a quo is not
given. It has two aspects, viz.: that of
the Church-dispensation, and that of Israel’s national prostration, both
running parallel during the same period.
With the Church Daniel has nothing to do. It is Israel and the Colossus that absorb his attention; and neither in the Colossus, nor in
the Beasts, is the First Advent marked anywhere. The period of the gentile domination runs on
continuous to the end. Only in the 70
Weeks, does the First Advent appear, and the interval between
the two comings begin to be opened out; as we shall see.
Once
more. Still
another sub-distribution of the same stretch of time is given in the celebrated
prophecy of the “Seventy Weeks” (Chapter
9), the last week [page 24] of which is eschatological,
since it follows the interval that follows the Roman or second destruction of
Jerusalem, consequent upon the national rejection of Messiah “cut off” by
the Jews, - a week divided into two equal periods of three and one-half years,
or forty-two months, or 1,260 days each, during which we have the rise, reign
and ruin of the last Antichrist, the “prince that shall come” (Nagid Habba), the “Desolator” (Meshomen), who
perishes beneath the outpoured vials of divine wrath. It is of supreme importance to recognize this
fact. The 70th.
of Daniel’s seventy weeks is not immediately sequent
upon the 69th. week at whose close Messiah
was “cut off.” The Jews
nailed the “King of the Jews” to the cross, and while at
the First Advent the kingdom came in its spiritual inward power on the day of
Pentecost – a “tasting of the powers of the world to come,” –
it was postponed in its outward, visible and glorious part,
as a polity and public sovereignty, until Messiah’s Second Coming; and this
because of Israel’s unbelief. This is
the sun-clear statement of prophecy. The 70th. week stands in
the midst of the Yom Yehovah,
or day of the Lord. It precedes the Second
Advent, the destruction of Antichrist, the Resurrection, and Israel’s glory in the kingdom restored to Israel. The Church Fathers saw this; Irenaeus, Cyprian, Primasius,
Hippolytus, Appolinaris,
and others. Modern eschatologists see it
and victoriously defend it, - Delitzsch, Hofmann, Luthardt, Godet, Koch, Christiani, Rinck, Baur, Weiss, Nagelsbach, Karsten, Ebrard, Van Oosterzee, Kliefoth, and how
many more! More than a hundred living
expositors maintain it. The interval,
however, between the First and Second Advents – our Church-Historical period –
twinkles into light. The same interval
that lies concealed [page 25] in the image and four beasts, between the
rise of the fourth empire proper and the final ten horns, or (what is the same
thing) the final Antichrist, is here revealed as lying between the 69th
and 70th of the “seventy weeks,” the period of the
Roman “times of the Gentiles,” from Caesar onward. At the close of the 69th week
Messiah comes and is “cut off,” and there is “nothing
for Him,” no Messianic kingdom as predicted. He is despised, and rejected, and crucified,
as the “King of the Jews.” For this the nation is despised, rejected,
slaughtered, and entombed by Gentile hands “until He come.” The histories of Israel and Christ are analogous, as
sin-bearers and salvation-bringers. The
70th week resumes God’s gracious dealings with the Jewish people, “as a
people.” The prophetic
formula, including the 70 years’ captivity, viz.: 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus (interval)
plus 1, represents the whole stretch of time measured by the height of the
Colossus, from head to feet, which is also the whole stretch of time measured
by the life of the four beasts, in all reaching to the Second Advent. The termini a quo and ad quem are the same for all. In pre-exile prophecy, the return from exile
retreats into the background, and the entire period from the exile to the final
gathering of Israel
is viewed as one continuous two-day dispersion and
subjection. It is true that the final
redemption of Israel
seems to come, in pre-exile prophecy, with the return from Babylonian exile
itself. But that is due to the law of
prophetic representation. Two horizons,
the near and remote, the time-historical and the eschatological, are blended
into one. The present is thrown into the
future. The future is attracted to the
present. All things are seen in the
light of the “end.”
Hence prophecy is “complex and [page 26] apotelesmatic.” The same law works in exile and post-exile
prophecy, but modified because of the later standpoint, and the progress of
both prophecy and history. It is here
the law of “perspective” comes in. A First Advent is specially marked in Daniel,
and in Zechariah, yet only to emphasize the fact of Israel’s
rejection of Messiah, and rejection by Messiah, then leap at once to paint the
time of Israel’s
final struggle and redemption, at Messiah’s Second Coming. Until then Israel’s history, as a nation, is a
blank before God. All gracious covenant
relations between God and that people, as such, are suspended, on account of Israel’s
apostasy. This strange Phenomenon, as to
the “over-leaping” of the intervals, or what Delizsch calls
the “deep silence” of the prophets in their “concealment
of the mystery of the church,” has its true ground in what Hofmann
calls the “organic structure of Old Testament Prophecy in relation to
Israel.” And herein, Auberlen,
following Baumgarten,
has stated clearly the solution of the riddle.
“Israel, after
having rejected salvation, ceased to be the subject of sacred history, and
became that of profane history alone.
The intervening period between the two Messianic epochs – between the
time the kingdom of God is taken from Israel and given to the Gentiles until
the Second Coming of Christ, i.e.,
between the destruction of Jerusalem and the conversion of ‘All
Israel’ and which forms of the people of the covenant a great
parenthesis – is veiled from Daniel, in much obscurity, on account of his Old
Testament and Israelitish standpoint.” * [* Auberlen Der Prophet Daniel, 141.]
Thus do the visions of the
empires, beasts, and [page 27] seventy weeks, concur harmoniously and,
with their corresponding intervals, span the course of ages from the Babylonian
time down to the second Advent. All, without exception, overleap the interval
of Israel’s national
rejection, and locate the point when Israel’s blessedness begins at
Christ’s second appearing. Here enter
those times of “Return,” “Reviving,” “Refreshing,” “Restitution,” “Regeneration,” “Resurrection” and
“Redemption,” foretold for Israel, and the resultant
blessing, after judgment, for the nations; millennial times described in terms
so glowing and so wonderful. The
pre-condition of them all is the second Advent, itself
pre-conditioned by the witness of the gospel to all nations, and Israel’s
begun repentance and return to Christ.
Nowhere, in all prophecy, is the Millennial Age located in the “Times of
the Gentiles,” the Church-historical Period, the time of Israel’s
national death and resting in the grave.
Impossible! Nowhere is the word
of God guilty of the nameless folly of confounding the “Times of
the Gentiles” with “the 1,000 years.” It would make all prophecy a contradiction of
itself. These never come before the fall
of the Colossus, nor before the overthrow of antichrist, nor before the end of
Gentile power, nor before the resurrection of the faithful dead; none of
which events occur before Messiah’s coming in the clouds of heaven, descending
to alight “on Olivet,” “come to Zion,” and
cause His voice to “roar from Jerusalem.” (Zech.
14: 3; Isa. 59: 20; Dan. 7: 9, 22; 12: 2; Joel 3: 16). No figurative exposition and no
spiritualizing interpretation, such as we find in Hengstenberg, Fairbairn, Keil,
Brown, Milligan, Glasgow, and others of the same school, can avail to break
the oracles of God, or transmute Israel into the New Testament Church, Canaan
into [page
28] Christendom, or the times after Christ’s second
Coming into the times before it. It is impossible upon the grounds of Old Testament
prophecy, or of New, in their common distribution of the ages, to locate the
Millennium between the First and Second Advents, for the simple reason that,
between these Advents, Israel lies nationally dead, and the Millennial Age
begins with Israel’s national resurrection. (Ezek. 27: 1-28); and
also for the simple reason that between these Advents the Gentile Colossus
still remains standing and the Millennial Age begins when the Colossus is
struck and blown away like chaff. (Dan. 2: 35.) And
that this was not a fact at the first Advent, and is not a fact now, is proved
by the further fact that gentile politics and power still rule, and Israel, as
a nation, is still unrisen from the dead.
The contrary view which makes
a “figure” of the Second Advent, would
break down the whole Apocalypse of John which is built up, line for line, on
Old Testament prophecy, and the words of our Lord in His Olivet discourse, and
puts the crown and consummation on Israel’s hope. Impossible – forever impossible – that the prophetic
pictures of Israel’s future, so brilliant and glowing, should belong to that
period of time when, in God’s account, Israel is a blank, their nation
non-existent, the woeful Gentile times; an age in history when Jerusalem lies
trodden in the dust with Gentile chains on her neck, and the proud Colossus
tramples on the bones of Israel still bleaching in the valley, and Israel’s
faithful dead still slumber in the grave; an age when Israel remains outcast,
dispersed, rejected, still enthralled and unredeemed! Impossible! Impossible! As impossible as that the Covenant of God
should break, or the “Strength of Israel” should lie! It cannot be.
To evade, by dogmatic prepossession or [page 29] false hermeneutics, or
ignorant prejudice, or indifference, the clear revelation of God herein, and
insist that the “Jewish people,” “Daniel’s
people,” “Ezekiel’s and Isaiah’s people,” “the
whole house of Israel,” mean “the totality of believers in
all ages of the world,” or “The New Testament Church,” and
that “the land” means Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Great
Britain, the United States, “the Territories of Christendom” (Keil), is to do
more than trifle with God’s Word. “It is
to distort and negate it”. (Delitzcsh). To plead “difficulty of conception” is
to bid for the rejection of every well-established doctrine. By such a method of exposition, all the Eschata of both Testaments are dislocated, fact is
evaporated, development in prophecy ignored, our present age misunderstood, no
time or history beyond the Second Advent allowed, Israel’s future destiny and
mission denied, the unity and continuity of prophecy left unheeded, and our
conceptions substituted for the thought and will of God.
If we sum up, therefore, the
result of our study, the whole subject will shine out with a
clearness equal to the brilliance of the noonday. What we have is the development, in prophecy,
of God’s kingdom on earth, by means of Israel the Messianic people. The history of Israel prior to the Prophetic Age,
it has been necessary to discuss. It is
enough that we begin with the blotting out of God’s visible kingdom on earth,
by means of Israel’s
subjection to Gentile politics and power.
From that time onward, the prophets look to the time of the restoration
of the kingdom to Israel
at Messiah’s coming in the clouds of heaven, and even to the eternal glory
beyond. We get the whole range of their
visions in the expressions “Until,” “Unto,” “After
two days,” which bring us to the Second Coming, even [page 30] as
the sixty-nine weeks bring us to the first Coming. Then we have the “Third
Day” which is a “Multitude of Days,” “Many
Days,” “His Days,” “the one
thousand years,” which bring us down to Gog’s
destruction, the last resurrection and judgment and the final New Heaven and
Earth. We have swept the ages and the
ends, and also the intervals in prophecy: all constructed and revealed with
special reference to Israel;
the Jewish or Mosaic Age down to the rejection of Israel’s Messiah. Then the interval concealed in prophecy,
viz., the Church-Historical Period, covered simply by “and unto,” in Dan.
9: 27. Then comes Israel
to the front again, when the times of the Gentiles are ended at the Second
Coming of Messiah to reclaim His people, and we enter upon the interval of
Gentile subjection to Israel’s
supremacy, the tables being turned in an age of Millennial Glory. Then, after this, Israel and the nations, in
the New Jerusalem under a new heaven and on a new earth, Jew, Gentile, and the
Church of God, all one, their distinctions still remaining their unity eternal,
and God all in all. If we put the whole
Old Testament Chronological Prophecy together, concerning Israel, after David’s
kingdom was broken, we shall get the formula of the combined 70 years’
Captivity, and the Seventy Year-Weeks, including the Great Interval between the
69th and 70th week, thus: 70 years, plus 483 years, or 69
weeks, plus the interval of our present age, plus the closing or seventh week
of years, i.e., seven years; or, in a
briefer form, the formula will be 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus our interval plus 1, a
formula that covers the whole time from the Babylonish
captivity down to the Second Coming of Christ.
If we now annex to this the Yammin Rabbim, or “Many Days” of
Ezekiel, i.e., the Millennial Age [page 31] for
Israel restored, at the close of which is Gog’s
destruction and the new heaven and earth predicted by Isaiah, then the formula
will be 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus our interval plus 1 plus the “many
days,” plus “Gog’s little
season” followed by the final judgment and the new heaven and
earth. We get the total aeonology and theology of both Old and New Testament
prophecy with respect to Israel, the Church and the Nations; and in all we see
how Israel, God’s “choice forever,” stands out in rejection and
in their calling, mission, death and resurrection, as the Bringer, nationally,
of Salvation to mankind. It is God’s
plan, and full, as Paul tells us, of the “unsearchable wisdom of God.” Rom. 11: 33. “Salvation is from the Jews.” John
4: 22.
POST-EXILE PROPHECY.
A word here must suffice. Haggai sees the final glory of the Messianic
kingdom and connects it immediately with the Second Temple
reared by Zerubbabel, and into which the “glory”
comes and fills the house. To him, this
consummation is in the near future.
Once, already, Israel’s
God has overthrown proud Babylon
and brought a practical redemption, though poor, to His people. “Yet once more, it is a little
while!” “How
short a time!” and Israel’s God will not only shake one nation
but “all nations,” and “not only earth, but
heaven also, sea and dry land” together, and all “the
precious things of the nations” shall be made tributary to the structure
of the Temple, and into it the “glory” will
enter personally, and “fill the House” with His splendour. The Temple
shall thus become the constant dwelling of Jehovah, the bond of union, and the
centre of all light to surviving [page 32] nations, in a kingdom that
cannot be shaken. Haggai
2: 6-9, 21-23. While
this oracle was, in part, fulfilled by the personal appearing of Christ in the
Temple, whose Advent was preceded by the overthrow of the Persian and Greek
monarchies and Rome’s Republic, and the subjugation of the world by Roman arms,
we have Paul’s apotelesmatic word for it that it
looks to the Second Coming of Christ, and that the catastrophe it pictures,
more appalling than the scenes at Sinai, at Marathon, or Salamis, or Philippi,
is a universal world-catastrophe, such as we see in John’s Apocalypse under the
sixth seal, and only after which the “Basileia Asaleutos,” or “Immovable Kingdom”
comes. Heb. 12: 26-29. “Marathon”
and “Maranatha” are in the same perspective! This is Haggai’s peculiarity, one Advent, the
Second, and one age following, and yet implying a previous Advent of the “Glory” and
to be connected with the Second
Temple. At any rate, the promised kingdom cannot come
until after the “Day of the Lord” in which heaven, earth, sea,
dry land, and all nations are shaken. So
says Isaiah 2: 10-22; 24: 1-23.
In the clearest manner Zechariah distinguishes
Two Advents, two Ends, and the Millennial Age following the second, but without
Gog and Magog at its
termination. He sees Zion’s king coming
meek and lowly riding on a colt, 9: 9, then
pierced with cruel hands, Jehovah’s Fellow smitten by the sword of justice, 13:7;
12: 10. as a result of this,
he sees the “Suspension of the Covenant of God with Israel,” not
God’s Covenant of Grace, which is eternal, but the “Suspension
of the National Covenant of God with Israel as a People,” (Delitzsch, Hofmann, Kohler, Auberlen,
Luthardt, Godet, Wright, Pember, Anderson, Seiss,) by
the breaking of the two staves of “Beauty and Bands,” Zech.
11: 7-10, [page 33] Israel’s existence as a covenant Nation
forfeited, because of Israel’s rejection of Messiah, until the time of Israel’s
penitence, travail, reunion, and resurrection, Micah 5: 1-3. Ezekiel 37: 1-28. He sees Him again descending on the Mount of
Olives in His Majesty, with all His “holy ones” for Israel’s
deliverance, and the creation of the kingdom in its universal glory. The scene is that of the “Yom Yehovah”
replete with terrestrial and super-terrestrial phenomena, a day unique –
nocturnal day and solar night. It is a
day preceded by the outpouring of the Spirit upon Israel,
attended by the reappearing of their wounded Shepherd to them, their national,
domestic, personal and universal, penitence and tears; beyond the tears “at Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo,”
where young Josiah fell. At first, Judah is seen
in deep apostasy. But, as in the case of
Paul, so here, a sudden change occurs; and Judah
fights with superhuman power to raise the siege against Jerusalem.
Miraculous in Israel’s
deliverance, even by Messiah’s own appearing, 12: 1-14; 13: 1-9,
14: 1-7. Then follows the
Messianic Age of glory, the Millennial day, when Israel’s land is transfigured, Jerusalem inhabited forever, and the Theocrat
becomes a universal empire with Messiah as the universal king. The holiness of Israel is universal also. All nations are obedient to Israel’s
king. Jerusalem has seen a Jewish Christian
Passover, and a Jewish Christian Pentecost, in which some Gentiles shared. She sees a Jewish Christian “Feast of
Tebernacles” now, in which all nations
blend their harvest jubilee. Two Advents,
two Ends, two Ages, the Millennial Age still following the Second Advent as in
all other prophets; this is Zechariah’s painted page, a page among the very
brightest and the richest of all Old Testament prediction. [page
34]
We come to Malachi, the
last of the prophets. As he stands
nearest the First Coming of Christ, and in the midst of deepening apostasy, the
“Glory” retreats into the background, night comes on with the storm
attending, and the picture of Israel’s
near future is dark indeed. The sun has
gone down. Malachi predicts two Advents,
between which Israel is
rejected and the Gentiles do homage to Messiah, yet after which Israel is
redeemed through judgment and returns to the faith of their fathers. The promise that Messiah’s name should be “great
among the gentiles,” etc., 1: 3, is
really a threatening against apostate Israel, foreboding the rejection of
the nation, the passing of the Gospel to the Gentiles, and the substitution of
a spiritual worship for the ancient ritual, “in every place.” This plainly looks into the “times of
the Gentiles,” or Church-Historical period, following the
first Advent and Israel’s
notional rejection. Nevertheless, Israel
shall be saved by means of judgment, in the burning “Day of
the Lord,” and by a return to the spiritual essence of the ancient
faith, under the prophetic testimony of Elias sent to restore them, and to
herald the Advent of the “Angel of the Covenant,” 3:
1-3; 4: 4-6. After purgation by
judgment, and an outpoured Spirit, Israel’s worship shall be pleasant to
Jehovah, their “land become fruitful,” and “all
nations call them blessed,” 3: 1-4, 10-12. After the storm, comes the sunshine. Upon all who fear Jehovah’s name, “the Son
of Righteousness will rise with healing in His beams,” and
Israel,
redeemed, shall gambol in the glory like calves that frisk and play upon the sunlit
pasture when loosened from their stalls, 4:2, 3. [page
35]
PART 2
A. THE
THOUSAND YEARS
It remains now to speak definitely of the different times
given to the Millennial Age in the Old Testament, and point out the passages
where John found his “1,000 years.” In this we shall admire still more the unity
of both Testaments, and learn that John understood the prophets better than
most of his expositors. It will fasten
upon us the conviction that the New Testament “Apocalypse
of Jesus Christ” is but the Old Testament Yom Yehovah, in which the Lord reveals Himself for the redemption
of His people, and that the Eschata
in that Apocalypse are only what we elsewhere find in Old Testament
predictions, in the words of Christ Himself, and in the utterances of His
Apostles; and that in all these Eschata
Israel still holds his place, as in all the prophets, and still waits the
promised glory in the Millennial Kingdom.
While what we have said concerning pre-exile prophecy is
true, there are yet not wanting intimations, or, if we may so call them, “Germs” of the later [page 36] development of the ages and ends we find in exile and
post-exile prophecy. These belong to the
organic nature of prophecy, and in them we find the names of the age which John
describes as “the 1,000 years.” Apoc. 20: 1-7.
There is a text in what is known among scholars as the “little Apocalypse of Isaiah,” a section consisting of
chapters 24-27. It is found in Isaiah
24: 21-23. referring to Yom Yehovah, or Day of the Lord, in
which Messiah comes to hold judgment and restore the kingdom to Israel, the
prophet says, It shall come to pass, in that day, that the Lord shall visit
upon (punish) the Host of the High Ones on high, and the kings of the earth on
the earth. And they shall be gathered
together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in
prison. And after a multitude of days – Rov Yammin – they shall be visited
(released for final judgment). “Then shall the moon be confounded and the sun ashamed, when
the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and the glory shall be in presence
of His ancient ones,” The “Day of the Lord” is, as already seen, that which
closes our present age, the day of the Second Coming of Christ. The judgment predicted in the preceding
context is that of the proud nations, and Israel’s land, to which is added
the desolation of the present cosmic order; 24:
1-20. With this is connected the
judgment upon the terrestrial powers of evil, “the Kings
of the Earth on the Earth,” or the Anti-Christian hosts, and the
judgment at the same time, of the aerial powers of evil, “the Host of the High Ones on High,” i.e., “the principalities and powers and world-rulers of darkness,
the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies,” Eph. 6: 12, “the prince of
the power of the air,” Eph. 2: 2, “the dragon and his angels,” Rev.
12: 7-9; 20: 1-3, - in short, Satan [page 37] and his legions, who are cast down from their height to
be shut up in the abyss, as prisoners are chained in a dungeon, restrained from
public activity, and reserved for future release and final judgment.
The time when this dejection of Satan and his legions
occurs is said to be “in that day,” the time
when Michael stands up to fight for Israel, Dan.
12: 1; Rev. 12: 7, the time when, in the vision of John, “the angel, having the key of the abyss, and a great chain in
his hand, laid hold of the dragon, the Old Serpent, which is the Devil and
Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and
shut and sealed it over him that he should deceive the nations no more, until
the thousand years should be finished, after which he must be loosed for a
little season.” Rev. 20: 1-3.
The time of this casting down of Satan
and his hosts from their aerial mansions to earth, is that mentioned also in Rev. 12: 7, 8, 12, 13, when the dragon, in great
rage, having but “short time” to work upon earth
before he is sent to the abyss, “makes war with the
woman, and with the remnant of her seed who keep
the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus.” That is, it is the time of Israel’s
conversion, Rev. 12: 7-11, the time of the
close of the testimony of the two witnesses, the end of the first three and a
half years (1,260 days) of Daniel’s 70th. week; in short, the
beginning of the great tribulation, Rev. 11: 7, 13:
12, at whose end Satan is imprisoned in the abyss, Rev. 20: 1-3.
And this time of the judgment upon “the Host of
the High Ones on High,” is the time of the judgment of the “kings of the earth on the earth,” or Antichrist and
his armies, who are destroyed at the close of the last three and a half years
(1,260 days) at the Second Coming of Christ from “Heaven
[page 38] opened,”
Rev. 19: 11-21. There is nothing clearer than that the
visions of John, in the text referred to, are the companion pieces of the
prophecy of Isaiah just quoted. The
judgments upon Antichrist and his armies, and upon Satan and his hosts, are
identical in Isaiah and John, and occur “in that day,”
the day of the Second Coming of Christ.
But this is not all.
The imprisonment of Satan and his demonic powers is not their final
judgment. The prophet speaks of a
reckoning “after” this. He fixes the duration of the imprisonment at
whose close the reckoning comes. He
defines the length of that duration as a “multitude of
days,” Rov Yamin. He says that “after”
this long period which follows Antichrist’s overthrow and Satan’s captivity,
the final reckoning shall come. “After a multitude of days they shall be visited,” or
as the verb here properly means, “they shall be looked
after for final retribution.”
This implies, as is admitted, their future unchaining and letting loose
again. “They do
not escape from prison, but are released, or let out, to meet their final award.” In this, all scholars agree. To this, corresponds the account in John’s
Apocalypse, Rev. 20: 1-7, where we read that
“After the thousand years are finished, Satan shall be
loosed out of his prison” to play his old game. As, after his casting down from the
heavenlies, and before his imprisonment in the abyss, the “short time” of 1,260 days was allowed him to assail
the saints, so between his release from prison and his final casting into the
lake of fire, he is allowed “a little time” in
which to muster the nations, and make his last effort against the Kingdom of
God. This we read in the Apocalypse of
John who separates the events Isaiah combines in one general
expression. The demonstration is
inductively [page 39] complete that the definite period
of time called Rov Yamin, by Isaiah,
or the “Multitude of days,” is identical with
the period called Chilia Ete, or “the thousand years” by John. The judgments which precede this period are
the same. The “First
Resurrection” which occurs at the same time, also; the resurrection of
the faithful dead, as is clear from Deut. 32: 39;
Ps. 49: 14; Hos. 13: 14; Isa. 25: 8; 26: 14, 19; Ezek. 37: 12; Dan. 12: 1-3; 1
Cor. 15: 54, 55; Rev. 11: 18; 20: 5.
And the time of these judgments and this resurrection is the Yom Yehovah or “the
Day of the Lord,” in which the “Lord Himself”
visibly reveals His person to effect these events. The succeeding long period of the “Multitude of Days,” or “The
Thousand Years” is the same. And
the judgments at the close of this period are the same. What confirms this all the more is the fact
that unless the “visiting” of the imprisoned
Anti-christian hosts, at the end of the “Multitude of
Days” involves their resurrection – the resurrection of the wicked unto
final judgment – there is no text in the Old Testament that does. Isa. 24: 21, 22,
is the only passage; since Dan. 12: 2,
properly translated, speaks only of the resurrection of the righteous.
But that Isaiah 24: 22
does involve the resurrection of the wicked, at the close of the “Multitude of Days,” is clear from this, that John
interprets Isaiah’s prophecy by his own vision of the resurrection of the
wicked at the close of “the thousand years”
which, as we have seen, are identical with the “Multitude
of Days.” It stands exegetically
fast, that John’s Millennial Age is Isaiah’s “Multitude
of Days,” dating from the Second Advent; that epoch of time which runs
into the age following; the epoch when Israel is redeemed, and nationally
restored; when Jerusalem, [page
40] the “beloved city” becomes the middle point of the
Millennial Kingdom during “the thousand years,” Rev. 20: 9, and “the Lord
of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, even in Jerusalem, and glory shall be in
presence of His ancient ones.” Isa. 24: 23.
It is the time when, as the context in Isaiah shows, the
sleeping saints of God are raised, the veil is taken off the nations, and Israel’s
rebuke and long reproach exist no more. Isa. 25: 8, 9.
It will perhaps, assist our understanding, to see how this
exegesis of the passage in Isaiah, so little understood by many, is supported
by a scholarship than which none better can be found. “The binding of
Satan,” says Auberlen, “is, like the thousand years, peculiar to the Apocalypse,
although, strictly speaking, Isaiah prophecies the same thing in chap. 24: 21-23.” *
[*
Der Prophet Daniel, p. 330.] Better still are the words of Nagelsbach
upon the passage: “The prophet’s eye here sees what
will take place at the end of the world.
The invincible extra-mundane heads of the worldly powers, as well as
their earthly visible organs, will, according to the prophet, be collected as
prisoners in the pit, and shut up in it.
But not merely the binding of these angelic and worldly powers, but
their being let loose for a time, is also announced. Only by a brief obscure word, perhaps not
seen through by the prophet himself, does the prophet intimate this. We would not, perhaps, have understood this
word, if the New Testament revelation, which is nearer the time of the
fulfilment, did not throw light on this dark point. It declares expressly that, after a thousand
years, Satan should be loosed from his prison. Rev.
20: 7.
Isaiah [page
41] uses
here an indefinite announcement of time, ‘After a multitude of days.’ And an indefinite
verb, ‘pakad,’ stands here as in Isa. 23: 17, of a ‘visiting’ which consists in a
looking again after some one who, long time, has remained neglected. Jer. 27: 22.
The word is here taken in the sense of a visitation for judgment, as is
seen in the place in the revelation by John.
“The letting loose of Satan is only the prelude
to his total destruction, Rev. 20: 10. Then
follows the last, highest, and grandest revelation of God. The earth becomes now what it ought
originally to have been, but was hindered from being by the sin of man, the
common dwelling place of God and men.
The heavenly Jerusalem,
the Tabernacle in which God dwells with men, Rev. 21: 3, descends upon the
renovated earth, and here Jehovah reigns as king. This city needs no sun and no moon any more,
for the Lord Himself is its light.” * [* Dr. C. W. E. Nagelsbach, in Lange, on Isa. 24: 11-23.]
And even better still is the comment of Weber on the passage. After showing that the context the prophet
predicts (1) the judgment on the earth, and plagues on men in general, in the
end time, to which the sixth seal in the Apocalypse refers; (2) the judgment on
the world-city or Babylon of the future; (3) the final judgment on Jerusalem
and all who deal treacherously with Israel’s remnant, he continues thus: “The Lord will hold ‘in that
day,’ another judgment. He will ‘visit
the Most High Ones in the height, and the kings of the earth on the earth.’ The earthly and
heavenly powers, who have deceived mankind into apostasy, shall receive their
punishment. They shall both be visited
on that same day. The host of [page 42] the high ones on high
includes the angels of the nations and kingdoms of which Daniel speaks, 10: 13, 21; 12: 1, and John, Rev. 12: 7. They have exercised over the nations a
God-opposing influence, and shall be judged with them. What the punishment of these aerial powers is
we are told. They shall be thrust into a
pit, as prisoners are into a dungeon, and ‘after a multitude of days,’ shall be
visited. A time comes when once more
they shall be released and allowed to begin their earlier practice of
deception. But it shall not continue
long; for, after a brief last conflict, that kingdom of Jehovah
will begin in that full revelation of its glory on earth, before which the light
of the sun and moon shall fade, and the God-opposed spirits of evil sink
eternally in the lake of fire. In that
day Jehovah of Hosts shall rule royally upon Mount
Zion, even in Jerusalem, and in presence of the ancients
shall be glory. The intention of the
prophet here is to unveil the future as it will be at the great turning point
of things in the development of the kingdom on earth when Israel, restored, shall turn the
nations to the obedience of God. This is
achieved through a judgment of the nations, and of the wicked spirits who
deceived them. This judgment is
universal, and fulfils itself in a series of severest plagues wherein God’s
hand must be confessed. Only a remnant
of mankind will survive. As Israel,
through judgment, comes to renovation, so it is with the nations. As the sifting of Israel will not be in vain, so it
will be with the nations. A remnant is
converted and survives the judgment.
Upon the ruins of the world-power a new kingdom shall arise in which the
Lord will reveal Himself to all the earth.
This is the great announcement of the prophet. What a lesson it teaches us in reference to
our own times! How are we compelled [page 43] to confess that the
great breach between Christendom and the laws, and ordinances, and covenant of
god, is a present fact, and that with swift steps we are nearing the
approaching judgment of the end! The age
following this world judgment, and the judgment of aerial evil powers is the
Millennial Age pictured in Isaiah 25: 6-9, in which upon Mount Zion
the Lord will prepare a feast to all peoples, and destroy the veil spread over
the nations, and swallow up death in victory, and take away the reproach of His
people forever. There is so much
likeness, and difference, between the millennial and eternal states of glory
that here we may regard the description of both as one, and yet must again
separate the one from the other, the one a prelude to the other. ‘The mountain’ (Zion) shall
be the middle point of the kingdom
of God on Earth. And this will continue until the wicked
spirits, released once more, gain opportunity to introduce the final judgment,
the transition act between time and eternity.
In that day of Jehovah’s self-manifestation and millennial blessedness, Israel
shall sing, ‘Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him. He will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him, and we will be glad
and rejoice in His salvation.’ ” * [* Dr. J. W. Weber, Der Prophet
Jesaia, pp. 216, 223.] Such the splendid comment of a
loved and devoted man whom Delitzsch
has honoured as “one of the first Hebrew scholars of Europe.” [page 44]
These extracts might suffice to show the meaning of the
prophet, and vindicate the Apostle John from the empty charge made so often,
that he was indebted to the Apocryphal legends and literature of the Rabbis for
his conception of “the thousand years!” But there is a testimony yet more sublime
than all the rest, which ought here to be produced. It is the comment of the childlike, deeply
devout, and gifted man, Dr. Christian
August Crusius, Professor of Theology in Leipsic forty years during the
last century (the successful antagonist of Leibnitz), a man of whom Bahrdt said, “He
is the greatest philosopher and richest thinker of our times,” and of
whom Kant said he felt it an honour
to be allowed to testify that “he is the clearest
philosopher, and second to none in the promotion of philosophy, in our age.” In his work, “Decaelo per Adventum Christi commoto,” A.D. 1757, he says, “With the gradual development of the kingdom of God
on earth, since the incarnation, the great historical events in the spiritual
world run parallel. Not only earth but
heaven also is shaken. The powers of
evil in the height are in commotion.
Under the lead of Satan they oppose every step of the development of the
Kingdom of God.
It was so at the incarnation of Christ.
It was so at His death. It was so
at His resurrection and ascension. The
prince of this world was even then judged and cast out, and yet not so cast out
as that all access to aerial regions was forbidden him. The final shaking of the heavens was not
accomplished, nor will be, until the final “lucta
ecclesiae cum Satana.” It is still
permitted him to be the “Prince of the power of
the air,” and “god
of this world,” to tempt, accuse and plague the
Church of Christ, which like her Head, must pass through suffering to victory. [page 45] Once more, in the
progress of the judgment on Satan, parallel with the progress of the heavenly
kingdom, Satan shall be cast down from heaven to earth, amid the shaking of the
powers of heaven, the earth, and the nations.
Then, as John in his Apocalypse assures us, “No more place will be
found for him or his angels in Heaven.” Rev. 12: 7.
Knowing this, then, that his “time is short,” Rev. 12: 12, he makes use of it to introduce the
Antichrist, Rev. 13:1, after whose destruction he is cast out from the earth itself,
chained and shut up in the abyss, in a weary long captivity of a thousand
years, after which, a short period of liberation being allowed him, - and then
eternal judgment, he closes his career in the lake of fire. Rev. 20: 1-3, 7-10. Both these events, the tossing out of Satan
from heaven to earth, and the overthrow of Antichrist, are accompanied by
powerful shaking of the heavens. Other
shakings had previously occurred, but this one, the mightiest of all, and of
which both Haggai and Paul speak as the final one – the apotelesma – is connected with the Second Coming of the Son of Man
and His appearing in glory. At the sound
of the trumpet, more terrible than at Sinai, the powers of heaven shall be
shaken, and the light of the sun shall be obscured before the splendour of the
throne of Majesty. Then, in place of the
things that are shaken, will come the Basileia
Asaleutos, the kingdom that cannot be shaken. Heb. 12: 26-29.
then Israel, converted to the Lord, shall receive the promise, and
Jerusalem the seat of the first Christian Church from which the gospel – the
Zionite law – went forth, shall be made glorious as the mother church and
mother city of the Kingdom of God; and then all nations shall come and [page 46] worship before the
Lord because His judgments are made manifest.” * [* Rev. 15: 4.
(Quoted by Delitzsch Bibl.
Proph. Theologie, pp. 123-138)]
From the last commentary on Isaiah, we venture to quote
the following admirable words by Prof.
Von Orelli of Basle – words that will be welcomed by all: “Not the angelic host ministering to Jehovah is here intended,” says Orelli, “but the
host of the spirit world accountable to Jehovah, and which like the possessors
of earthly power, is subject to His judgment.
The figure is that of the arrest of State criminals who at first,
without regard to the extent of their demerit, are thrown into prison, then
afterward, at the day of judgment, are dealt with according to the measure of
their guilt.” “The world-judgment here
presented, is pictured as a cosmical catastrophe, like the deluge, which once
swept away mankind, but yet more fruitful of good. The earth shall altogether lose its hold, and
be broken under the weight of its sin.
The judgment shall not merely strike the rulers of the earth, but shall
reach the super-earthly powers, also, who are not blameless before God. Between these, and the sinful world-powers
there is a close connection, as the book of Daniel shows, and which is here
asserted through the fact that they both are judged together. As common criminals, these highest rulers
shall be ignominiously arrested and imprisoned in order that, after
a long time, they may receive their sentence which shall be pronounced
by the Lord enthroned on Mount Zion, and His glorious judgment host there
assembled. Sun and moon shall lose their
splendour in token of His great indignation against the world, while His
people, redeemed on Mount Zion, dwell in the clearest light, [page 47] their elders deemed
worthy to behold the glory of God; so that, according to chapter 4: 5, 6, and far more
gloriously than in Moses’ time, Ex. 24: 9, 10, they shall be permitted to enjoy,
permanently, the protection of the Shekinah-Cloud as the residence of the Lord
who has now taken to Himself the sovereignty of the world.”
“After this world-judgment, in which Antichrist
and his hosts are destroyed, as also Satan and his legions judged, and both
imprisoned in the abyss, and Israel is redeemed and delivered, comes the
blessed time of the “Multitude of days,” the Millennial Age,” on which Orelli
remarks,
“then following this judgment, comes the Triumphlied of the redeemed, chap. 25, as at chap. 12, an exalted echo of
Israel’s song at the Red Sea, Ex. Chap. 15. To all
nations who do homage to the Lord in the end of the days, and undulate like
swelling billows to the holy mountain to worship there, the Lord Himself will
prepare a wondrous feast of joy. It
shall be to them a divine surprise when now He takes away the covering which,
long enough already, has veiled the eyes of the nations. They shall behold Him as the Dispenser of all
life and grace, and taste how good He is to those who bend before His majesty.
“By a second act of almighty love and power,
not less miraculous, He will abolish death with all the woe that wrung from man
uncounted tears, and lift the curse which, from the beginning, has weighed so
heavily upon the human race. Here is,
indeed, the end of the ways of God with men, of which the New Covenant in
Christ, the Risen One, has unveiled the aim.
As the remnant of Israel, so also the remainder of mankind, spared
through the judgment on the nations, shall be destined to unexpected
blessedness by Him the All-Merciful [page 48] One, and this shall be, of itself, the most beautiful apology for
Israel, while the pride of Gentile power, the odious rival of God’s people,
shall be crushed forever.”
And in conclusion, on chapter
26, the last of the “Little Apocalypse of
Isaiah,” he gives us this: “The songs of
victory which first we heard far off in 24:
14, and were next intoned from Zion to the nearing
nations, 5: 15, have now no end. The redeemed
hymn a new song wherein, in glowing words, they justify the ways of God. Zion
is now a city indestructible whose bulwark and defence are God’s
salvation. To all the righteous who
trust in Him, the Rock of Ages, her gates are open. And she extols that righteousness. While the enemies of God fall into death remediless,
5: 14, God’s
people find an increase of their numbers and a widening of their
boundaries. All human birth-pains, for a
better future, have been vain. No living
soul has come from them; no increase has been born, 5: 17, 18. But Jehovah brings such increase, in an
unexpected way, as the sudden exclamation, interrupting Israel’s moan, announces, ‘Thy dead ones shall live!
My dead body (Israel) shall arise! Awake!
Sing! Ye dwellers in the dust, for the dew of lights is thy dew, and the
earth shall bring forth the dead!’ Verse 19. Not only shall Israel’s ranks no more be thinned
by death, but even the faithful who, in bitter tribulation, have succumbed to
death, shall come to life again; God’s dead ones whom we never may forget, nor
be without. These and the living church
shall meet in life again! Here is
something new under the sun! The
unyielding under-world shall, through the power of heavenly dew, be fructified,
and the departed rise and bloom in light and life again. Then, in that
day, the Lord binds [page 49] the Dragon, and Israel takes root, and fills the world with fruit,
27: 1-6.” * [* Orelli,
in Strack-Zockler’s Kurtz Komm, Der Proph. Jesaia, pp. 86, 89-93.]
Such is the exposition of the contents, in
part, of the “Little Apocalypse” of Isaiah, by Orelli
– a picture of the World Judgment at the Second Advent and of the Millennial
Age, the “Multitude
of Days,”
the “long
time”
following that judgment; a period of blessedness opened by the restoration of
Israel, the judgment on Antichrist and Satan, the resurrection of the faithful dead, and the revelation of
the glory of Christ to the nations, the companion piece of John’s Apocalypse, chapters 19 and 20. It is not possible to place the Millennial
Age before the coming of Christ, except by an open contradiction of the Word of
God.
B. EZEKIEL 38.
An exile passage also claims our attention, in
proof that “the thousand years” of John’s Apocalypse are found in the Old Testament
itself. It is the strangely introduced
yet significant prediction concerning “Gog and Magog,” in Ezek. 38: 8.
It comes upon the reader suddenly, as an independent prediction of
judgment due to Gog “after many days,” and stands isolated, as it were, in the text. It seems to be a parenthetic expression. It is a brief oracle, and yet it is the one
word on which John’s whole representation of the order of the Eschata is pivoted, in the twelth
chapter of his Apocalypse. “After many days – Rabbim Yamim – thou shalt be visited.” The verb (tippakedh)
its tense form and import are the same as in Isaiah 24: 22; 29: 6, not merely a testing
by divine judgment, but a destruction. Smend’s rendering “Thou shalt be mustered,” and the rendering “Thou shalt be commissioned,” [page 50] are
insufficient. The verb imports here
judicial visitation for destruction.
What the prophet here predicts is Satan’s last attempt, through Gog and
Magog, in the latter years, against the Kingdom
of Messiah, after Israel has been long time restored,
and dwelling safely in their fatherland as a reunited and converted people, and
the final judgment on Gog and his armies.
This prediction occurs in the Apocalypse of Ezekiel, chapters
37-48,
where we find (1) Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones reanimated, or
the final religious and political rehabilitation of the “whole house of Israel,” in their
fatherland, for “many days,” even “forever;” * one flock under one shepherd, one nation under one king, 37:1-28. (2) Ezekiel’s prophecy of the war-march of
Gog and his conglomerate swarm against Israel long time restored, and the
judgment on Gog, 38: 1-23; 39: 1-29.
(3) Ezekiel’s vision of the glory
of the temple, city, and land, during these “many days,” a further expansion of what is
foretold in 37: 1-28, when the Lord has poured His Spirit out upon the people, revived
their nationality, awakened their faithful
dead, and planted them forever in their own inheritance.
The time of the visitation on Gog is
said to be “after” these “many days,” which belong to “the later years.” (1) The terminus
a quo of these “many years” is Israel’s restoration, conversion to Christ as a people and a
nation, and the repossession of their land; the epoch of the resurrection of
their faithful dead, an event included in the promise made 37: 12, as is proved by Deut. 32: 39; Ps.
17: 15; 49: 14, 15; Hos. 13: 14; Isa. 25: 6-9; 26: 14, 19; Dan. 12: 1-3, all of which
passages refer directly to this same epoch, and fore-announce the literal
resurrection of Israel’s faithful dead, [page 51] and non-resurrection of the wicked “at that time,” and “in that day.” All this we have in chapter 37. It is the terminus
a quo. It is the same epoch, also,
of the judgment upon Antichrist and his armies, and upon Satan and his angels,
that we find in Isaiah 24: 21, 22; Daniel 12: 1; Revelation 12: 7-9; 20: 1-3. (2) The period, or age, that follows this terminus a quo is plainly the Rabbim Yamim or “many days,” whose glory, peace
and blessedness are described in chapters 40-48, which are the expansion of 38: 1-28, and of
what Isaiah has predicted; Isa. 2: 2-5; 11: 6-9; 24: 23 25: 6-9; 40: 1-22; 61:
4-11; 62: 2-12; 65: 17-25; 66: 20-23. They
are the period “after” Israel has been “gathered out from many nations,” “brought back from the
sword,”
is “dwelling
safely, and at rest, in unwalled villages having neither bars nor gates,” – God alone their
protection, - abundant in wealth and all possessions. Exekiel 38: 8-12, 14. They are the period of the new indwelling
glory in New Israel, chapters 40-53; of the New Service following the entrance of the Glory
in the Temple, which He makes the place of His throne and of the soles of His
feet, 44-46; of the life and
healing to the land from the flowing of the temple waters; and of the splendour
to the city whose name is Jehovah Shammah,
“The Lord
is there!” 47-48. (3)
The terminus ad quem of these
“many days” is expressly said to
be the judgment on Gog, precisely as John makes the judgment on Gog to be the
close of “the
thousand years.” Rev. 20: 7. “After many days thou shalt be visited.” The termini
in Isa.
24: 22,
and Ezek.
39: 8,
are, therefore, identical. The passages
are parallel, supplementary, and mutually explanatory. The character of the “visitation” at the end of the “many days” is the same in
both. The parties [page 52] “visited” are different, but
this is due to the fact that Ezekiel’s prophecy is an advance upon Isaiah’s
word, and brings to light new things occurring at the same time with those of
which Isaiah speaks. In Isaiah, the
parties visited after “many days” are Satan and his angels let loose from their imprisonment, and
the Anti-Christian wicked raised from their graves for the last judgment. In Ezekiel, they are the living nations
outlying on the extreme borders of the glorified kingdom
of Israel, whose center is Jerusalem restored and
glorified, and who, as we learn from John, have been deceived again by Satan
let loose. Each prophet is given his own
work to do, and vision to see, “by the same Spirit who divides, severally, to
every man as He will.” 1 Cor. 12: 11. Isaiah says
nothing of Gog. Ezekiel says nothing of
Antichrist. Both say much of Israel’s
final redemption, at the coming and appearing of the “Glory.” Both speak of Israel’s long blessedness after
restoration to their land and conversion to Messiah. Both announce a “visitation” at the end of the “many days” of that
blessedness. What in undeveloped in the
one, is developed in the other. In the
combination of both we find the total picture of the end as seen by the Old
Testament prophets, whose work it was reserved for John, in Patmos, to complete
and crown by the development of prophecy and further revelation, the last and
brightest God has given.
If we turn to John’s Apocalypse we shall find
his Eschata concerning Israel and the Millennial Kingdom
precisely what they are in Old Testament, but only more developed. We learn the organism and the unity, the
structure and the continuity, of all prophecy, its persistence, progress, and
perfection. Interpretation is simply its
own self-revelation, the shining of its own face, self-evident, infallible. [page 53]
Amid the vast variety in the unveiling of the
word and plan of God, the unity remains the same from age to age. The ends and ages are the same in the New as
in the Old Testaments. The Advents there
are the Advents here. Antichrist there
is Antichrist here. Gog there is Gog
here. The judgments there are the
judgments here. The resurrections there are the resurrections here. The power,
the kingdom, and the glory there are the power, the kingdom, and the glory
here. And the times of the Gentiles
first, and the times of Israel
next, in the last unfolding of the kingdom
of God, are the same
there and here. In short, the relation
of Israel to the nations, in
the outcome of the Kingdom of God, is precisely what the prophets, to whom the “mystery” of Israel’s blindness, rejection and
recovery, was revealed, say it shall be; a mystery finished under the sounding
echoes of the seventh trumpet.
In John, we have the period of “the 1,000 years.” Their commencing date, or terminus a quo, is identified with that
in Isa.
24: 22,
and Ezekiel
38: 8. The Eschata
that open “the
1,000 years,”
prove this. We have (1) the gathering,
sealing, conversion, and restoration of Israel to their own land and city,
in the midst of tribulation and judgment.
Rev.
7: 1-8; 10: 7; 11: 1; 12: 1-6; 14: 1-5; 15: 2-4; 20: 9.
Chapters 10, 11, and part of 12, introduce us to
Ezekiel’s Valley
of Dry Bones, just when
the voice begins to thunder, the witnesses to prophecy, the Spirit to come from
the four winds, and the earthquake’s shock to attend the resurrection from the
dead. The whole riddle of Ezekiel’s
Apocalypse, i.e., chapters 37-48, finds its solution
on John’s Apocalypse, chapters 10-20: 7.
(2) We have the personal visible
and [page 54] glorious advent and
appearing of Messiah, for the redemption of His people, destruction of His
enemies, and erection of His Kingdom. Rev. 1: 7; 6: 16,
17; 10: 1; 11: 3, 17; 14: 1; 16: 15; 19: 11-16. We have (3) the judgment and
imprisonment of Satan and his angels. Rev. 12: 7-9; 20:
1-3. We have (4) the judgment of Antichrist and
his armies. Rev. 14: 18-20; 16:
16; 19: 11-21. We have (5) the
resurrection of the faithful dead,
and their reign with Christ in His kingdom of glory on the earth. Rev. 5: 10; 11: 11, 18; 20: 4-6. And these events are precisely what Moses,
David, Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, all say precede the final glory
of Israel,
and stand in front of and attend the “many days.” And
as to the terminus ad quem of “the thousand years,” the Eschata here are (1) the loosing of
Satan and his demonic powers, Rev. 20: 7, 8; (2) the war march of Gog and the nations
deceived by Satanic influence against Israel’s land and city, Rev. 20: 9; (3) the judgment of
Gog by fire, Rev. 20: 9; (4) the resurrection and judgment of the wicked, Rev. 20: 12; (5) the judgment of
Satan, and his final doom, Rev. 20: 11; (6) the final and total destruction of
death, Rev.
20: 13;
(7) the final New Heaven and Earth, 21: 1. And
all these events are precisely what Isaiah and Ezekiel declare and imply shall
occur at the close of, or “after,” the “many days.” To
him who declines to accept that spiritualizing and allegorizing system of
interpretation which negates and destroys so much of the prophetic word itself,
the conclusion is both necessary and irresistible that the Rov Yamin of Isaiah and the Rabbin
Yamim of Ezekiel, are indeed the Chilia
Ete of John; the “multitude of days” and “many days,” the same as the “thousand years.”
In these two Old Testament Apocalypses of Isaiah, [page 55] chapters 24-37, and Ezekiel, chapters 37-48, where the period of Israel’s
blessedness is defined by these two equivalent terms of time just named, the Eschata that bound the opening of this
period on the one side, and those which bound the close of it on the other
side, are the same as those we find, respectively, in John’s Apocalypse, as
bounding the two extremes of the Millennial Age. And, for the opening of this period, the Aposalypse
of Daniel and Zechariah, as the prophecies of the other prophets, Joel, Amos,
Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Haggai, when combined, show the same
events, occurring in the Yom Yehovah,
during which Messiah comes in glory and in judgment, to destroy His enemies,
redeem His people, and erect His kingdom on the ruins of the Gentile powers and
on the overthrow of Satan’s empire; and if, in reference to the closing of this
period, new characters emerge, or what was but obscure before becomes full
formed and clear, it is because of the progress of prophecy itself, which, like
its fulfilment, has a “springing and germinant accomplishment,” its light
increasing more and more unto the perfect day.
And if, in earlier pre-exile prophecy, where but one end, one advent,
and one judgment, with one age following, are found, we find a mother-source,
or general
ground, notably in Joel, for both great judgments, that on
Antichrist and that on Gog; and if again in Isaiah, the ground is laid not only
for these, but for both resurrections as well, with an interval between; and if,
in exile prophecy, in addition to this, we find, notably in Ezekiel, the ground
laid for the still clearer, farther, and closing revelations of John, in whose
Apocalypse the remoter Eschata stand out, in all their
brightness, or their gloom, distinct and [page 56] un-confounded; it is because, from first to last, the word of
prophecy is one continuous genetic movement, struggling ever to evolve
in its conclusion what was first involved in its beginning. The prophets all supplement each other, and
John is the all-embracing consummation of them all. His light illuminates the rest.
From what has been said it must be clear that
the Millennial Kingdom
is the time of blessedness on earth for Israel
restored to God, for Israel
reclaimed to Christ, and lies beyond His Second Coming, beyond the resurrection
from the dead. This cannot be
successfully denied. Even
post-millennialists confess as much, in contradiction of their own theory. “the binding of Satan,” says Schroeder, on Ezekiel, in Lange, “is the necessary
preliminary of the millennial kingdom.
If he is not to deceive the nations during this time but after it, does
so again, then it is clear even from that to which he afterward deceives them,
that his imprisonment means, above all, the cessation of war and violence, and
of violent combating of the church of God, inasmuch as the following vision of
witnesses unto blood seems to point particularly in the same direction,” “Gog and Magog both follow the resurrection (Ezek. 37), as in John’s
revelation (Rev. 20: 4-6), and he who is constrained to recognize, in Ezekiel, chap. 37. Israel’s
re-quickening as a nation, will not, thereby, be hindered from conceding that
it will be followed by the re-quickening from their graves, of “all who are Christ’s,” as Paul expresses
it. Moreover, the repeated “forever” – “Leolam” – (in Ezekiel, chapter 37) – can here be
interpreted by the Chilia Ete there
(in Revelation
20: 1-7.) * [* Schroeder on
Ezekiel, in Lange, 376, 350.] Again: “After many days” denotes the [page 57] expiration of a long
time, and supposed to be the last time, which is not only the consummation of
the Kingdom of God, but of the world generally. The words “Days” and “Years” interchange harmoniously in the verse. “After many days” “in the latter years.” That which appears in the single event as “many days,” is, for the eye of
the Apocalyptic seer that ranges over the whole, the summation of what is still
outstanding in years, or time
generally. Both these phrases denote the
Messianic age.” * [* Ibid 363]
So Schroeder speaks. And we add that, if indeed, as is the fact,
the binding of Satan precedes the judgment on Gog; if it
occurs at the Second Coming of Christ when the resurrection from the dead takes
place; if Israel’s political resurrection precedes this personal one; if “Leolam,” “forever,” is used in its qualified sense as
equivalent to “the thousand years” of John, the “long time” or “outstanding” period, next preceding the consummation of
the kingdom and the world; if all this is conceded, then it is hard to see how
any who accept these conclusions could find relief from their force, by resort
to the allegorical, spiritual, or symbolical theories of interpretation. The relations of the events must, at
least, remain the same, and the “Many Days” must come in between the Second Coming
of Christ and the judgment on Gog. If,
moreover, we allegorize one event, to be consistent we must allegorize
all. This wrecks the whole prediction,
and denies the vast body of literal Scripture elsewhere with which it stands
connected.
Riehm, as an exegete,
though seeking to avoid the literal interpretation of prophecy in reference to Israel’s
[page 58] future, yet finds in
impossible to evade the clear representation of Ezekiel himself. He says, “In Ezekiel, we certainly read of imminent
danger to the Kingdom
of God in the ‘End of the days’ after its
restoration. The victory of Jehovah
divides itself into two acts rather widely separated from each other. The judgments which bring deliverance to Israel,
first of all, fall upon the neighbouring nations already in conflict with the
people of God. ‘After’ Israel’s deliverance,
there is a time of security and peace, Ezek. 38: 8, 11, 12, yet still the distant
nations have not learned to know Jehovah’s power, and at the ‘End of the Days’ they assemble, under
Gog, to fight against Israel, but the Lord destroys them, and consumes their
country with fire, 39: 6. Only after this is the
kingdom assured against further attack, 38: 29.” “Most remarkable indeed, are the words of
Ezekiel in 28:
25, 26. After the first judgments securing Israel
against surrounding nations, the kingdom is established in the Holy Land, and for a long time the people enjoy
undisturbed repose, 38: 8, 11, 12. At the ‘End of the Days,’ Gog and Magog make
their final attack, after whose destruction Israel remains forever secure
against their foes.” “In Micah, the Messianic king
has ascended the throne before the final attack of the
distant nations; and as in the Apocalypse of John, the Kingdom of Christ has
stood a thousand years before Satan is let loose to lead the hosts of Gog and
Magog against it, so also in Ezekiel, Israel enjoys for a long time the
blessing of complete communion with Him before they are finally assured of
their safe possession of the blessing.” * [* Riehm, Messianic Proph. 110, 210.]
Clearly, then, even according to Riehm’s view, the [page 59] “many days” in Ezekiel, are the
period of Israel’s blessedness in the Messianic Kingdom on earth, and are bounded
at their opening, by the “first judgments” which bring deliverance to Israel and the
establishment of Israel in the Messianic kingdom on earth, and at their close
are bounded by the “destruction of Gog.” The period
between these different and separated judgments, which stand apart “rather widely,” is a “long time,” when “a thousand years,” and Micah, Ezekiel
and John, herein agree. The millennium
announced by John is only what the prophets, pre-exile and exile, have
foretold, and the duration of which they measure by the “many days” between Israel’s
introduction, by means of the Messianic judgment, into the kingdom established
in the Holy Land, and the final overthrow of Gog. Micah, as well as Isaiah, forecasts “the thousand years” of John. Not before, but only “after the thousand years,” when Gog is judged,
is the ultimate glory of the kingdom. In
other words, the view of the total End-Time, in the widest and
most comprehensive scope, as seen by the prophets, and embracing the perfect
victory of Messiah for Israel’s complete deliverance and complete establishment
of the kingdom of glory on earth, in the latter days, is represented as that of
two great acts or phases of judgment between which lie the “many days” of Ezekiel which are
“the
thousand years” of John. In other words
again, the “End of the Days” of which Ezekiel and Isaiah speak, in the texts already
referred to, is the end of “the thousand years,” the “end” which Paul has in view, in 1 Cor. 15: 34, when Messiah’s
victory is complete, and, all rule, authority and power being put down, and [page 60] death itself
destroyed, the kingdom is surrendered to the Father, and God is all in all. 1 Cor 15: 24-26. The harmony and unity of Isaiah, Micah,
Ezekiel, Paul and John, herein, are both demonstratable and
indestructible. Their testimony to the
location of the Millennial
Kingdom the other side of
the Second Coming of Christ, is final. Pastor Koch, therefore, in his
admirable work on “The Thousand Years’ Kingdom,” eminent not less for its logic than
for its critical ability and thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, is right
when, discussing Ezekiel’s “Many Days,” says: “This period of Israel’s peace and blessedness can be no
other than ‘the thousand years’ kingdom treated of Rev. 19: 11-21.
Between the overthrow of Antichrist and Gog’s march lies the
period of Rev.
20: 1-6
which is nothing else than ‘The Thousand Years.’ The
march of Gog follows only ‘after the thousand years are finished,’ ” * [* Das
tausendjuhrige Reich, p. 65.]
C.
LEOLAM.
FOREVER.
In the extract from Schroeder, quoted above,
it was said that the term “Leolam,” “forever,” Ezek. 37: 25, 26, 28, applied to the
duration of the times of Israel
in the kingdom, in future days, “can be interpreted by the Chilia Ete, or ‘The Thousand Years,’ in Rev. 20: 1-7.”
This is exegetically true as it is theologically important, and rests
upon the Biblical use of the term itself.
It refutes the vain charge that Chiliasm denies the “everlasting”
character of Messiah’s kingdom, because it asserts its temporal form in a
Millennial Age. [page
61]
A better knowledge of the usus loquendi, and of the term “forever,” would render this, like many other similar
objections, impossible. The kingdom of Messiah is, as the Scriptures everywhere
declare, everlasting in its essence and existence. It has “no end.” Isa. 9: 7; Heb. 1:
8-12. Messiah’s throne is “forever.” Ps. 89: 4, 29, 36; Heb. 1: 8; 72: 77. Throughout its several forms of
dispensations, it is an everlasting kingdom also, but yet to each
of these forms there is an “end.” Matt. 24: 14; Heb.
9: 26; 1 Cor. 15: 24. It is olamic aeonian in both, but in a
different sense; in the first, absolutely so; in the second, relatively so;
unlimited as to its essence, limited as to its forms. As to its essence, no external event can
limit it. As to its form, external
events do limit it. Viewed in its
essence it is eternal only. Viewed in its
essence and form, together, it is both temporal and eternal, yet called eternal
in its relative sense, that is, “age-abiding.” * [*See NOTES at Emd – Ed] Essentially it is
one, and endures forever in an absolute sense.
Circumstantially, or dispensationally, it is many, its forms evanescent,
though each is age-abiding. This rests
upon the nature of the case, and the Biblical expression is accommodated to the
fact. The wise man tells us God has sent
“Olam,” “eternity,” in the heart of
man, and he knows “that whatever God doeth it should be Leolam, forever.” Eccl. 3: 11, 14. No man can find, out the work of God from its
beginning, or in its end, no man can conceive an absolute beginning or an
absolute end, for no man can conceive an absolute beginning or an absolute end,
because “God
has set Olam in the heart of man.”
Eternity transcends human thought, and yet it is the innermost core of
man’s spiritual constitution, writes vanity on all things perishable, and
bespeaks man’s immorality. In spite of
the world’s fading fashion which attracts and [page 62] in the eternal state, will differ as greatly
from its previous form in the millennial state, as that millennial form will
differ from our present form, and as ours again differs from
the old Mosaic, or as that did from the patriarchal tent.
Schroeder is right, therefore, as are
Kliefoth, Oehler, Kuper, and many others, when saying that Ezekiel’s Leolam, Forever, in 37: 25, 26, 28, is the equivalent of
John’s Chilia Ete, or “one thousand years,” in Rev. 20: 1-7. Isaiah’s everlasting age concealed in its
bosom all the relative ages of the great development, and their termini,
even as Joel’s prophecy was “generic” and contained the two judgments of the double end, the
judgment on antichrist and the nations, and the judgment on Gog. And in the whole development, all things are
connected with temporal and terrestrial relations. From first to last, even in the New
Testament, the ages and the kingdom of the heavens are associated with our
planet. Nowhere in the Old Testament, as
nowhere in the New, can our popular idea of “an end to the world,” as the terminus
where Time and Eternity meet, or Time passes into Eternity, and “our planet is no more,” to be found. Such conceptions are unbiblical, Manichean,
Origenistic, Shakesperean and pessimistic.
The “hills of Olam” abide for ever and forever.
Materiality is glorified, not annihilated, in God’s Kingdom. The creation is recreated. A new heaven and earth supplant the old, and
this begins
with the “many
days,” “the one thousand years.”
D. HOSEA 3: 4.
Another expression, similar to those already noted, is
found on Hosea when predicting God’s watchful care over Israel in their
dispersion and lonliness; - [page
65] the time of Lo
Ammi and Lo Ruhamam – “Not my people,” and “Not my
beloved;” the time when harlot Israel, divorced from God, yet separated
from idolatry, is still in desolation and concealment and providentially
preserved for God. Hos. 1: 6, 9, 10; 2: 20-23. The words of punishment and grace are the
alike remarkable. “Thou shalt abide for me many days – Yamin Rabbim. Thou shalt not play
the healot. Thou shalt not be any man’s
wife. So will I also be for thee!” God’s pledge to the sinful Jewish Church, to apostate Israel! To divorced Lo Ammi and Lo Ruhamah! This is grace amazing. It tells the topmost mercy, boundless love,
and bottomless compassion of God. This
is surely immeasurable. “For the children of Israel shall abide (dwell, yeshbhn) many
days, - Yamin Rabbim, - no king and no prince, and no sacrifice, and no obelisk, and
no ephod and terraphim. Afterward
(achar) shall
the children of Israel
return (convert, yashubhu) and seek the Lord their God and David their King, and shall
come with fear to the Lord and His goodness, in the afterness of the days,”
Hosea 3: 3-5. If we ask what are these “many days” of Israel’s loneliness and isolation, and
strangely-pledged preservation for God, we can only answer promptly, with Delitzsch, “The
many days here are the long period of the exile, the condition in which the
Jewish people is, even now; - a people, but not a State with a King; - a still
worshiping congregation, but with no sacrifices, a people so radically
alienated from polytheism that it regards itself as the pillar of monotheism; -
a people who, at length, shall be seized with a repentant desire for Jehovah,
and David its King, that is, as the Targum translates, ‘for Messiah the Son of David,’
the king David of the final period. Jer. 30: 9; [page 66] Ezek. 34: 23-31; 37: 24-28;” and then he adds: “The entire Old
Testament can exhibit no brighter prophecy respecting the conversion of Israel than
this companion piece to Rom. 11: 25, and which received its full spiritual
signification, first of all, in the light of the New.” * [* Messianic
Prophecies, p. 61]. It is a photograph of
the condition of Israel
to-day, and as certain a prediction of what their end will be, as a people, in
a few short years. But this is not
all. There is another aspect of this
period. Contrary to Pusey’s inadequate
comment, the “many days” here are gathered into two great days, two historic days,
covering the whole time of Israel’s national decease and rest, as a nation, in
the grave; the whole time of the existence of the Valley of the Dry Bones; at
the expiration of which returning Israel’s resurrection shall take place, i.e., on the third historic day. “Come and let us return
unto the Lord, for He hath torn and will heal us; He hath smitten and will bind
us up. After two days, - Miyyomayim, - He will requicken
us. On the third day, - Bayom Hashshelishi, - He will raise us up, and
we shall live in His sight,” i.e., “before Him.” Hos. 6: 1, 2.
Then follows the age of perpetual sunshine and spiritual showers, v. 3, the summer for the
just, the resurrection glory.
If we ask what these two historic days are, we
can only say again, with Delitzsch,
“The
prophecy refers to the people, after the second day of whose death a
resurrection day follows.” Rom. 11: 15. “The two days of their death are, in the history
of fulfilment, the Assyrian and Babylonian exile, and the Roman exile, in which
the Jewish people still are.” [*ibid, p. 62.] That
is, the first day of Israel’s national death is the Old Testament [page 67] period of Israel’s
destruction as a nation, the people carried captive, Jerusalem destroyed, the
Temple gone, the land depopulated, and the outward kingdom blotted out; the
second day is the New Testament period, with the like catastrophe repeated, the
first day reaching to the First Coming of Christ, beginning with a new
dispensation, the Roman or second day reaching to the Second Coming, the total
period being the time of Israel, as a nation, in the Valley of Dry Bones, the
Monarchy-Colossus still standing unstruck.
Then comes the “third,” the resurrection day, in whose “morning” Israel arises, the time of Israel’s repentance and
home-coming, the time when the Colossus falls, and the Dry Bones stand up
erect, reanimated, clothed with flesh, a host exceeding great! What we have here is a spiritual resurrection
first, Ezek.
36: 25; a
national and political resurrection next, Ezek. 37: 1-28; a literal corporal resurrection of
the faithful dead of Israel
last, Ps.
49: 14, 15; Isa. 26: 19; Dan. 12: 1-3. The
apostle Paul quotes the words of Hosea 13: 14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death. O death,
where are thy plagues? O grave, where is
thy destruction?” in proof of a literal
destruction of the body, 1 Cor. 15: 55, and, in his letter to the Romans, tells us that this
time of Israel’s conversion and re-establishment will bring no less an event
than “life
out from the dead.” Rom. 11: 15.
What Hosea gives us here, at the beginning of
the third day, is precisely what Moses gives us, Deut. 32: 39; and David gives us, Ps. 49: 14, 15; and Isaiah gives us,
25: 8;
26: 19;
and Daniel gives us, 12: 1-3; and Ezekiel gives us, 37: 1-28; and John’s Apocalypse gives us, 11: 11, 18; 12: 5;
10: 11; 20: 4-6. [page 68] Then after these mighty events that mark the
end of our present age, or end of Israel’s second day of national death, comes
the Millennial Age of Israel’s blessedness, pictured beautifully, as the times
of perennial reviving and refreshing, the age of Israel’s Dew, and Blossoming,
and Lily growth, and deepening roots like the Cedar tree, and spreading
branches like the olive tree; the age of blessing to the Nations, when they,
too, dwelling under Israel’s shadow, shall revive as the corn, and bloom as the
vine, and be fragrant as wine of Lebannon; and Israel, all holy to the Lord,
will have no more to do with idols, but, unwithering, like the fir tree, bear
holy fruit to God. Hosea 14: 4-8.
The demonstration, then, is clear,
inductively. Hosea’s “many days” reach from the Assyrian captivity down to the Second Advent of
Christ. During this whole period Israel
as a nation lies buried in the grave with the Colossus on its breast. Israel’s resurrection as a nation
is on the “morning” of the “third day.” “In the history of Christ the history of Israel
is recapitulated.” (Delitzsch.) “Israel must die as a nation
in order to live. From death to life is
the path for Israel
to the kingdom.” (Orelli.) Equally clear is it that the “Multitude of Days” in Isa. 24: 22, and the “Many Days” in Ezek. 38: 8, are identical with “the Thousand Years” in John, Rev. 20: 1-7, and reach from the
Second Coming of Christ to the destruction of Gog.
These two vast periods, taken together, cover,
therefore, the whole time from the Assyrian captivity to the Last Judgment and
the final New Heaven and Earth. The age
next before us is that of the “Third Day,” the “Sabbatism” of the world. Not
at the First Coming of Christ was Hosea’s prediction fulfilled, as is clear [page 69] from John’s Apocalypse, where, under the
sixth vial, the Euphrates, beyond which the ten tribes roved into concealment
among the nations, is “dried up” to make way for the return of Israel, under the care of the
princes from the sun rising. Rev. 16: 12; 2 Kings
17: 6; Isa. 11: 16; 24: 16; 66: 19, 20; 41: 2, 25; Zeph. 3: 10. It is true that the terms “Afterward” and the “Last Days” are standing
eschatological formulae for the whole Messianic time covered by Isaiah’s
everlasting age, as well as for the time next preceding the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the Lord;” and that, as is
clear from Joel and Peter, they include the first as well as the second
appearing of Messiah. !sa. 2: 2; Joel 2: 28; Acts 2: 17; the outpouring of the Spirit on the
day of Pentecost, as well as the still future outpouring predicted by
Paul. Rom. 11: 27, and parallels; Isa. 59: 21; Ezek.
36: 24, 25;
and both which are wrapped up in Zechariah’s oracle, Zech. 12: 10-14; 13:
1, 6. Compare Rev. 1: 7. But
it is equally true that whatever conversion of Jews occurred on the day of
Pentecost, or of any Israelites since, it is only the initial, not the final,
redemption of that people, since Israel, as a nation, is still cast away, not
gathered, their house desolate, and their land still trodden under Gentile
feet. The “afterness of the days” is the end-time at
the second coming of Christ. It refers
to the epoch of Israel’s
entrance into the kingdom restored, the time when Israel seeks and welcomes Christ
the King. Luke 13: 34, 35; Rev. 15: 3; and also to those
super-natural days of Messiah, called “his days,” in Psalm 72: 7, when Israel’s “handful of corn,” or saved remnant, “shall shake like Lebanon,” and “they of the city shall
flourish like grass of the earth,” 72: 16; the time when those words, so bitter and
sad, “Lo Ammi” [page 70] and “Lo Ruhamah,” shall no more be
spoken. Down to this very hour Israel has remained pure from the sin of “Idolatry” since the day their national
exile began, and, as a people, will so abide, reserved for the Kingdom of Christ at His Coming. The same race, punished for sin, is the race
reclaimed by grace. Nationally, as well
as personally, God deals with the Jewish people.
Israel’s identity abides
through all the ages. From the genesis
of Israel in Abraham to the re-genesis of Israel in Christ, Israel “abides,” Israel,
untarnsmuted, and, from Sennacherib down to the last Antichrist, will so “abide,” kept for that day
when the “Branch
of Jehovah shall become an ornament and glory, and He the Fruit of the Land be
a pride and a boast for the escaped of Israel.” Isa. 4: 2.
So sing the prophetic Blessing of Judah, the Oracles of Balaam, the
Dying Song of Moses, and the Words of David, preluding the fortunes of the
chosen people down to, and into, the “Last Days.” So
sing Hosea and Amos, the two prophets of the ten tribes, in concert with all
the rest. In God’s strange providence Israel
“abides” for Him,
and not another, unobelisked and unteraphimed, and He is “toward them,” and will yet “have mercy on them.” Then, in that day of Israel’s home-coming, the Jewish
Church of the end time will be revived.
The Lord will renew the Covenant of His love with “Lo Ruhamah,” take away any ambiguous “Baali” from her mouth, and put the loving “Ishi” there. He will betroth
her Himself in righteousness and judgment, in loving kindness and in mercies,
even in faithfulness forevermore. In her
final tribulation He will allure her to the wilderness, as John’s Apocalypse
also shows us. Rev. 12: 6, 14; and nourish her, and
tenderly repeat His “Ammi” [page 71] to her heart, and
breathe “Rumamah!” He will accept her penitence and tears, and
give her again “the Valley
of Trouble” for a door of hope,
and make her sing her old Egyptian song.
There will not only be a Wedding Day, but a Day of Victory. When David’s fallen Booth is re-erected, in
more than ancient splendour, Israel and Judah, reunited, as “one nation,” and marching under
“One Head,” shall “come up from the land,” victorious, across
the plain of Megiddo, where Barak fought and Deborah sang, and “Great will be the Day of
Jezreel!” Hos. 1: 11.
E. MOSES.
But Moses demands a hearing. The Prophets have said nothing on this great
matter that even Moses had not already said before them. Let it be enough, just here, to say that
Moses himself defines the time during which Israel
shall be nationally cast away, and at whose close Israel shall be nationally
restored, and made glorious in their fatherland. If we turn to Leviticus 27: 18, 21, 24, 28, we shall hear God
saying what He will do to Israel in case
of their apostasy, “If ye will not hearken
unto me, but will walk contrary to me, then I will add to smite you Seven Times
(Sheba) upon your sins.” When, however, in the Acharith Hayyamin, or Last Days, Israel
repents, accepting the justice of their punishment, nationally, then, says God.
“I will for
their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, my covenant I made with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and I will remember the land.” Lev. 26: 42, 45. Who cannot see that the Sheba or Seven Times
of Israel’s national punishment are the whole stretch of time in Israel’s
chastisement, from the smiting of Israel and Judah, as kingdoms, down to the [page 72] “Last Days” when Israel
nationally repents, i.e., down to the
Second Coming of Christ? They are the
measure of the duration of Israel
in the lion’s den, and furnace of affliction, seven times hot, the whole period
of the “Times
of the Gentiles,” the period of the Colossus standing erect on Israel’s grave; the “Many Days” of Hosea, his “Two Days,” at whose close Israel’s
resurrection and redemption occur, and the Millennial Age begins.
Listen to the “Song of Moses,” Deut. 32: 39-43. It predicts Israel’s apostasy, and final
recovery, as a nation, in the Acharith
Hayyamin or Last Days, the “End of the Days,” still future to us. The faithful of that oracle, in Moses, has
never yet taken place. Its radius of
vision reaches to the Second Advent, as all successive prophecy shows, and all
history confirms. Both Testaments
conspire to prove this. It points, in
clearest terms, to the Great Tribulation, the interposition of Christ, and the
“making
alive” of
Israel’s faithful dead by
Him who “kills” Israel’s adversaries. To spiritualize this into a subjective
redemption of all God’s people, or of the New Testament
Church, is to mock the
Scriptures. He who, in Moses, swares, as
He lifts His hand, “I am He, I kill and I make alive, I live forver,” and vows to “avenge the blood” of His martyred
ones, and calls the nations to “rejoice with His people” (the Jews) in that
crisis, is He who in John, Rev. 10: 7, lifts His hand and swears that, with the
seventh trumpet, the Tribulation shall come to an end, and Antichrist be
destroyed, Israel be delivered, and not only Moses, but Daniel also predicted (Dan. 12: 1-3) and the righteous
dead be restored to life. Such is the
organic unity of all prophecy from Moses to John. Then the “mystery of God” foreshown to the prophets [page 73] “shall be finished” and the kingdom
come. John is only repeating and filling
out Moses and the Prophets! * Look at Deut. 31: 28, 29;
32: 39-43; Rev. 6: 10; 10: 7; 15: 3, 4; 19: 11-21; 20: 1-7. Sunlight is not clearer than that the Age of
Israel’s glory in the kingdom is placed, by Moses, after the Seven Times of
punishment which reach down to the very “End of the Days,” or “Acharith Hayyamin” in their utmost development, that is, after
Hosea’s “two
days.” In other words, Moses puts it precisely where
Hosea’s “third
day”
stands, and John’s 1,000 years belong.
It follows Israel’s
national conversion to Christ. Deut. 30: 1-4. And he who studies Paul, will find him
teaching the same truth when discussing the “Jewish Problem,” as men call it. In Rom. 10: 6-10; 11: 25, 29, he puts Israel’s
conversion, as a people, even as Isaiah does, Isa. 59: 16-21, and Peter does, Acts 3: 19-21, at the Second Coming
of Christ.
[* “ANI-HU” (I AM HE) is the covenant name of
Christ, in the Old Testament, Deut. 32: 39; Isa. 43: 10; 46: 3, 5; 48: 12. It is the name of the Second Person of the
Trinity (1) making Himself equal in Essence with God (HE), while yet asserting
a distinct Personality. It is the
consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, of the Word of God, and is the
ground of John’s Logos doctrine. John 1: 1. He who here speaks, to Moses, is the personal
“Word of
God,” who
appears as the diademed Rider on the White Horse, Rev. 19: 11, and as the Angel of
the Covenant, or Maleach Habberith,
coming, the second time to Israel, to wake His people out of the Valley of Dry
Bones, and appearing with solar-face, rainbow-crown, His shoulders in cloud,
and His feet in pillars of fire, Rev. 10: 1, and swearing the same words to John
that He swore to Moses. It was ANI-HU
who dwelt in the Pillar of Cloud by day, and Fire by night. It was ANI –HU who spoke to Moses in the “Bush.” It was ANI-HU HAMMIDDABBER, I AM HE, the
Speaking One, a motto Stier has taken for his “Words of Jesus.” It was a
name asserting the deity, eternity, personality, majesty, and real presence and
glory of Christ, in Old Testament History.
ANI-HU is the “Alpha and Omega” in the Apocalypse, Isaiah’s “Immanu-EL” or “With-us-God.” The Christ who talked to Moses upon the same
subject, and in reference to the same time.]
F.
THE PSALTER.
Nor is the Psalter silent. All the sweet singers of Israel, from David to Ezra, pre-celebrate the
same future for Israel. They sing in concert with Moses. The “Set Time” to favour Zion, as it stands in the
prophetic outlook, Psalm 102: 13-22, is demonstrably the “End Time” when the Angel of Jehovah, the Lord Himself,
throned on the “Clouds,” comes with His holy “Angels” to “appear in His glory and build up Zion,” to “judge the people, the
world, the earth, in righteousness,” to give the righteous “dominion in the morning,” to cause them to “wake in His likeness,” to “send the rod of His
strength out of Zion,” “rule in the midst of His enemies,” “smite kings in the Day of His wrath,” “redeem Israel,” “make known His Salvation
in the eyes of all nations,” and “fill the earth with His glory.”
It is all eschatological. Those
marvellous Psalms,
102, 97, 18, 96, 49, 110, 72, show this at once.
The expression “His Days” in Psalm 72: 7, denotes plainly the days of Messianic
or Millennial glory on earth, foretold by the prophets, and as following the “Seven Times” of Moses. These “Days” are the “Third Day” of Hosea, the “Many Days” of Isaiah and
Ezekiel, and the “Thousand Years” of John. Moses, the
Psalms, and the Prophets, all sing the same thing concerning Israel and
Messiah, both as to their sufferings and glory, all idealizing critics to the
contrary notwithstanding. A pre-advent
Millennium is unknown to the Psalter.
That bright constellation of five Psalms closing with the 100th
Psalm, is
a chorus of Second Adnent songs. Delitzsch calls them “Apocalyptic Psalms.” Prof.
Binnie of Aberdeen styles them “Songs of the Millennium.” Herder
named them a “Group of Millennial Psalms.” Tholuck adorned [page 75] them with the title “Millennial Anthems.” What is it they celebrate? The Glorious kingdom of the Messiah, the
kingdom restored to Israel,
after the Second Coming, or personal Self- Revelation of Jehovah, to judge the
world. Like so many others, they teach
as the Prophets do, the pre-millennial Advent of Christ, and the “Shower Seasons,” or “Times of Reviving” following, when “He shall come down like
rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth;” the very “times of refreshing” of which Peter
spoke, when the first Christian Pentecost, their pledge, was fully come. Paul tells the Hebrews in his first chapter
that the 97th
Psalm
relates to the Second Advent when the First-Born Heir of all things is publicly
installed in His inheritance amid the homage of all angels. The Old Hundredth Psalm is simply an
anticipation of the Millennial Age when “All the people that on earth do dwell” unite to praise the
Lord. What is the 45th
Psalm but
an “Advent
Hymn” as
the great Crusius called it, “Celebrating the
victories of the Bridegroom-Warrior coming to His kingdom?”
What is the 97th. Psalm but a catalogue of
the nations whose individuals are put on the burgess roll as born citizens of
metropolitan Zion
when God establishes her in universal empire?
That the 37th Psalm refers to the Millennial Age, when “the meek shall inherit
the earth,”
is our Lord’s own teaching. The 68th
Psalm is
a “Great
War-Hymn of the Conqueror of the World-Power.” The 50th
Psalm opens
with the “Advent
of Christ to judgment.” The Hebrew Poets are all
Pre-millennialists, as are the Hebrew Prophets, and the Psalter has to do with
“the 1,000
years” as
plainly as has the Apostle John. [page 76]
G.
SUMMING UP.
If we sum up the results of our investigation,
we shall find that the Spirit of Prophecy has furnished us various
time-designations which span the whole development of the Kingdom of God
on earth from the Assyrian captivity down to the final New Heaven and
Earth. Israel’s fate is the measure of all
prophecy. Of these designations to cover
the whole period from the Assyrian exile down to the Second Coming of Christ,
viz., the “Many
Days” in Hosea 3: 4, 5, during which Israel
“abides,” waiting for
Jehovah, and which in Hosea 6: 2, are summed up in “Two Days” the two great historic periods of national
death for Israel, viz., (1) the Old Testament Day of Assyrian and Babylonian
captivity and dispersion, and (2) the New Testament Day of Roman captivity and
dispersion, these two days reaching down to the time of Israel’s predicted return,
resurrection, and national rehabilitation in their fatherland, at the Second
Coming of Christ or in the morning of Hosea’s “Third Day,” Hosea 6: 2; the history of “Israel” the national
Messiah, and “Israel” the personal Messiah, being modelled on the same divine
plan. What we further find is that the
Messianic Kingdom and Glory on earth, i.e.,
the Millennial age, this side the final Regenesis of all things, is defined, in
the Scriptures, by no less than six different equivalent expressions, viz.:
Rov Yamin. Multitude of Days. Isa. 24: 22.
Rabbin
Yamin. Many days. Ezek. 38: 8.
Yom
Hashshelishi. Third Day. Hos. 3: 4, 5.
His Days. Psa. 72: 7
Leolam. Forever. Ezek. 37: 25, 26, 28.
Chila Ete. Thousand Years. Rev. 20: 1-7.
All descriptive of the same period of time,
bounded [page 77] on each side by the
same events, the period between the Second Advent and the
destruction of Gog, or between the binding and loosing of
Satan. It is important to observe that
the “Many
Days” of
Hosea, are a very different period from the “Many Days” of Ezekiel, and the “Multitude of Days” of Isaiah. The former are the “Times of the Gentiles,” the times of the
Colossus, the Four Beasts, Israel’s
Graveyard, 69 weeks, with at least 1890 years of the Interval following the
period of Israel’s
national Rejection and Death. The latter
are the Millennial Age itself, introduced by the Second Advent, the gathering
and judgment of the nations, the downfall of the Colossus, the destruction of
the Antichrist, the 70th week, and the resurrection of Israel. What we further find is that the 70th
of Daniel’s 70 weeks is divided into twice 1260 days for the Rise, Reign, and
Ruin, of Antichrist, and that the formula, 70 years, plus 7 year-weeks, plus
62 year-weeks, plus our Interval, plus I year-week, all of which make
the “Two
Days” of
Hosea, spans the whole time from the Destruction of the visible kingdom of God
on earth to its setting up again; that the “Many Days” of Hosea, which are his “Third Day,” span “the 1,000 years” of John; and that
all, taken together, exhaust the whole prophetic calendar if we add, hereto,
Gog’’s “little
season,”
at the close of the Millennial Age. The
formula of the total AEonology is 70
years plus 69 year-weeks, plus our Interval, plus
1 year-week, plus the 1,000 years, plus Gog’s little season.
And what we find further, is that no prophet
of the Old Testament gives a complete, but only a partial picture of the
End-Time, even as neither Christ, nor any Apostle does, but that the work of
John, under the guidance of the Spirit of Prophecy, was to combine the [page 78] Eschata of Joel,
Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah; in short, the
Eschata of all the prophets, and arrange them in their temporal order and
succession, supplementing by one prophet the partial picture of the End drawn
by another, until all the Eschata fall into their places, as they shall occur
in history, so furnishing to us one grand tableau of the End Time. This is what the Holy Ghost did with the seer
in the “isle
that is called Patmos.” Nothing is clearer than that “the 1,000 years” of John are found in
the Old Testament prophets, and that Hosea’s “Third Day,” Isaiah’s “Multitude of Days,” Ezekiel’s “Many Days,” bounded by two
resurrections, two conflagrations, and two judgments, each distinguished from
one another, and between which the Millennial Kingdom lies. The New Testament Apocalypse answers herein,
to the Old, as face answers to face in water, and it belongs to the shame and
reproach due to the superficial knowledge of so many in our day, who pretend to
greater things, that they have not recognized this fact, in their study of the
Scriptures, but still keep harping on the old and timeless string that “the Millennium is found
in only
one passage of the Bible, and that in a very obscure book called the
Apocalypse!”
a boast and a blindness which have happened in part of many Gentile
interpreters who inform us that Israel of Old Testament Prophecy, “Daniel’s People” brought out of
Egypt, and to whom a future so glorious is reserved, after a punishment so
great, means believers in Christ, the Old and the New Testament “Church,” from the “first man Adam,” down to the “Second Adam, the Lord
from heaven,”
a grand spiritual company gathered not only from Parthians, Medes,
Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, but from Greeks, Turks, Germans, Saxons,
Romans, Arabs, [page 79] Frenchmen, Esquimaux
and Indians. What a perversion, or as Delitzsch calls it, a “destruction and negatation of the prophecies not effected!” Or what is more humiliating to a scholar than
the allegorizing “Anglo-Israelism” of some of our times! On the Contrary, if we only let God speak for
Himself – allowing Israel to “abide” Israel, till the Lord comes, that “Genea” not passing away, how bright the
unclouded Apocalypses of Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah and
John! How clear the Millennial age following
the Advent! How false the common view entertained by the Church, and blindly
advocated by so many of her teachers!
H
It does seem strange that any student of God’s
word should doubt, for one moment, the truth that blazes everywhere so clearly
in the Old as well as the New Testaments, viz., that the Second Coming of
Christ precedes the Millennium.
And it does seem criminal that such an unreasoning prejudice should
exist in the minds of any against the use of the term as Spiritual as are the
terms “Baptism,” “Baptist,” “Episcopalian,” “Presbyterian;” words which the
objectors themselves have chosen to consecrate as the names of their several
denominations, and in which they glory.
How unreasonable is man’s opposition, even to God’s own word! “Man would,” as Bengel
says, “take
the very words of God out of His own mouth!” We
coin the word “Millennialist,” in Latin, from the words “Mille” and “annos,”
which are simply the Roman equivalents for the Greek “Chilia Ete” of John in Rev. 20: 1-7, the English
translation of which is a “thousand Years.” It
is Scriptural. We coin the word
“Chiliast” from these same inspired words.
It is as Scriptural a term, as is “Baptist,” [page 80] “Presbyterian,” or
“Episcopalian,” or “Christian,” and as “Orthodox” as any of these! It means that he who wears it believes that
the “Day of
the Lord”
in which Christ comes precedes the Millennium. The Advent is before the
Millennium. That is, he is a
“Pre-Millennialist.” It denies what the
Scriptures everywhere deny, viz., the fiction of a pre-advent Millennium. With equal justice, we might coin the word Ravyamist from the Hebrew terms “Rov Yamin” and “Rabbim Yamim,” In Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, there used to denote
the same truth. Every prophet was a Ravyamist. He believed in a period of time, “after” Messiah’s Coming to
judge the Nations, in which Israel, re-gathered, redeemed, restored, renewed, resurrected,
and renationalized, should enjoy the Messianic glory in the kingdom on earth –
a period of time called “Many Days,” or as John has it, a “thousand years,” and prior to the Last Judgment and
the final New Heaven and earth. And
Christ Himself was a “Ravyamist,” or, as Auberlen
somewhere truly says, “Jesus was a Chiliast.”
All the Apostles were the same.
All the early Apologists for Christianity were the same. Can we imagine when we hear such a man as Delitzsch say, “I am a Chiliast,” and “Chiliasm was the faith
of the early Church,” and when also we hear the greatest modern patristic scholar, Harnack, say, “Chiliasm is inseparably
associated with the gospel, and this is its defence,” that these men are
either heretics or foolish? On the
contrary, that great martyr and scholar, “Irenaeus the Great,” like “Justin the most learned
man of his time,” catalogued and held as “Promoters of heresy,” and even of “blasphemy,” all who denied the
Chiliastic faith which, in their day, was the “test of an orthodox church.” It is a proposition no honest critic dare
deny [page 81] that, if the early church, having such teachers as
Irenaeus, Justin, and others of the same apostolic faith and influence, and
knowing what Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, John, our Lord,
and His Apostles, had taught, had not been Chiliastic in her creed,
she ought
to have been so, and her failure to have been so would have convicted
her as recreant to what Moses and the Prophets, and Christ and His Apostles,
had revealed of the course of history, and the outcome of God’s kingdom on
earth. It was impossible, however, that,
standing next to Christ and His Apostles, and with the Psalms and Prophets in
her hand, the Jew nationally cast away yet only for a time, and the Gentile
erect on Israel’s grave, and even persecuting the church itself, she could have
been anything else than she was in her creed, and the proof is perfect, and
increases more and more, with every fresh investigation of the early history of
the church, that, only by means of
apostasy from the Word of God, did she surrender for the sake of opulence and
power, money and prosperity, extension in the empire, and freedom from fagot
and flame, that blessed truth whose defence from Moses and John, God has made the
mark of a faithful, a suffering, and a witnessing church. And, surely, if the pious Hebrew held the
Hope of Christ’s Coming to judge the nations, restore Israel, and set up His
Kingdom on earth, as the only Hope for the world’s redemption, the only way by
which gentile politics and power could be overthrown, the Antichrist destroyed,
and the faithful dead awakened to share the promise of the kingdom, much
more ought it to be our Hope, bound up as it is with our own
deliverance, as well as the deliverance of Israel, and the final glory of the
world. What a stupendous absurdity, in
flat contradiction to [page
82] every
prophet, that the Millennial Age will come prior to the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the Lord,” in which Messiah appears for Israel’s final recovery! Such an idea simply inverts, perverts and
distorts, Moses and the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles. The whole testimony of prophecy, pre-exile,
exile, and post-exile, is against it.
The entire New Testament is against it.
Never, till the Colossus comes
down my means of judgment, and the Bones of Israel awake in the Valley, and the
Antichrist is destroyed, and Satan is bound, and God’s sleeping saints are
raised, and heaven, earth, sea, dry land, and the nations are shaken, can the
kingdom come, as predicted. And that
none of these marvels can occur apart from the Second Coming of Christ, the
merest tyro in Biblical knowledge must recognize as a first principle and truth
in the interpretation of prophecy.
I
A closing word is demanded as to Israel
in the Apocalypse. That wonderful Book
is capable of many “applications,” but only the one organic “interpretation,” based upon the entire unity,
analogy, and identity of prophecy. We
may “apply” its symbols to the
times of early Pagan persecution, and also to later Papal persecutions. This is the figurative “application” based upon the
equation of “Israel” with the “Christian Church.” The Apocalypse was a book of comfort to the
early church. It was a comfort, also, to
the witnesses of Christ in the Middle Age, and during the Reformation. But as surely as Israel
“abides” Israel, and Daniel’s “people” are not the “Church,” so surely is Israel
the key for the true and final interpretation of the closing prophecy of the
New Testament. It sums up in itself all
the unfulfilled predictions respecting that chosen and predestined race. We meet [page 83] Israel
everywhere. The very announcement of the Theme of the book. “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye
shall see him; they also who pierced Him,” Rev. 1: 7, i.e.,
the Jewish nation, as Zechariah assures us.
The text is a combination of two passages, one from Zechariah, the other
from Daniel, both in strict textual connection, in the prophets, with Israel’s
deliverance at the second Advent of Messiah.
We encounter Israel
again in the promise made to the Philadelphian
Church, Rev. 3: 7-11, by Him who is the “Lion of Judah’s
tribe,”
and has “the
Key of David.” Israel shall be converted in the
last time, and in connection with the coming of Christ. Again we find Israel in the sealing of the
144,000 out of all the tribes, Rev. 7: 1-8, just before the Trumpet Judgments occur, and
the tribulation begins. Again, we see Israel in chapters 10, 11, and 12, chapters that place
us in the very midst of Ezekiel’s Valley
of Dry Bones, and show us
the prophet’s word, and the Spirit of Life from God, with attending earthquake,
beginning that work of spiritual, personal and national, conversion and
resurrection foretold by the prophets.
The oath-taking Angel of the Covenant, Solar-faced, and Rainbow-crowned,
whose shoulders are robed in cloud and feet like pillars of fire, reminds us of
the Pillar of Cloud in the Wilderness, and Him who dwelt in it coming to his
people again. The “little book” is the matter of the
testimony of the “two witnesses.” Their 1260 days of
witness is the first half of Daniel’s 70th week. The slaughter of the witnesses is in the
middle of that week, and is the first public persecuting act of the last
Antichrist. The succeeding 1260 days is
the second half of that week, the time of the tribulation. The “Worshippers,” 11: 1, the sun-clothed woman, or [page 84] daughter of Zion, 12: 1, the “Our Brethren,” 12: 10, the “Woman” fled to the
wilderness, are all the same, the Jewish Christian Church of the End-Time, or
70th week of Daniel. The “Remnant of her seed, who
keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus,” and whom Satan,
through the Antichrist, persecutes 1260 days, 12: 17, 13: 1, 5, 7, are either Gentile
believers, or the remainder of Israel returning from the East under the care of
eastern princes, doubtless both, 16: 12. The
144,000 in 14:
1-5 are Israel again, secure with Messiah returned to Zion, after the Trumpet
judgments are over. Again, Israel stands
triumphant, in 15: 3, 4, singing “the Song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb,” blending their
first and last deliveries in one, and declaring that the time for national
Christianity on earth has come, now that Israel is victorious, and is a nation
converted to Christ. What we see in 19: 11-21, is the Armageddon
conflict, closed out, in the valley of Jehashapat, outside Jerusalem, the Lord
Himself descending from “Heaven Opened” to destroy the Antichrist, bind Satan, raise the faithful dead, and begin the “thousand years” blessed kingdom of
glory on earth, Rev. 20: 1-7. And what shines
before us in Rev. 20: 9, is the “Beloved City,” Jerusalem restored, the home of the Daughter
of Zion, which, for a “thousand years” has enjoyed the uninterrupted peace and glory, foretold by the
prophets. He who cannot see “Israel” here, in this book
as distinct from the “Church” and the “Nations,” will see nothing.
Wonderful is the regularity of Israel’s recurrence! After the 6th verse of the 1st
chapter; in the 6th of the seven Epistles to the Churches; between
the 6th and 7th seals; between the 6th and 7th
trumpets; between the 6th and 7th vials; in the
Wilderness [page 85] here; on Mount Zion
there; a worshiping part in the city now; a multitude pressing into the land
from the east; a shelter, a victory, a triumph, a glory, an effect on the
nations, and all at the Second Coming of Christ! He who cannot see this will see nothing! It is the Eschatology of all the
prophets. It is the Eschatology of
Christ. It is the Eschatology of the
Apostles, - one eschatology, from first to last, built and based on the one
eternal plan and purpose of God with respect to Israel, an interpretation
grounded in the unity, continuity, organic structure, and genetic development
of all prophecy, divine, infallible, sure, a light forever.
A glance is enough to confirm this. John has nothing here the prophets have
not. He has nothing Christ has not, for
the Apocalypse was given him of God, and does not mean a literary production,
or book, but the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1: 1), as He comes the second time, in the clouds
of heaven (Rev.
1: 7),
and to His Covenant people, Israel of Old Testament Prophecy, to fulfil the
word of His promise to them, to deliver them, to restore their state, and give
them the kingdom. He comes, indeed, to
judge the professing Church and the world, but He comes to Israel as the “Malakh Habberith” or “Angel of the Covenant” the “Lord Himself;” and “Who may abide the day of
His Coming, or stand when He appeareth?” (Rev. 7: 17; 7: 1-8, Malachi 3: 2-4). John has nothing, the Apostles have not. His Eschatology is the same as that of Peter
and Paul. Peter binds Israel’s national repentance and
the Second Coming of Christ together, Acts 3: 19-21.
He tells of scoffers in the last days, of the World-Judgment, the day of
the Lord, the resurrection and glory, the visible kingdom, and the New Heaven
and Earth. [page 86] He sees judgment at the beginning and at the
End of the Millennium in one, and overleaps the Millennial Age as a “Day,” in order to speak
of the final New Heaven and Earth. The
whole future was before him in one view, and is crouched on one
all-comprehending expression. The
Conflagration blazes in front, the Glory shines beyond. Paul also takes up each eschatological point,
and discusses it separately. In 2 Thess. 2: 8, we have the
Antichrist and Second Coming of the Lord, but nothing is said to Israel. In Romans chapter 11, we have Israel’s
conversion and the Second Coming, but nothing is said about antichrist. In 1 Cor. 15: 12-57, we have him
discussing the first resurrection at the Second Coming, but not a word about
either Israel
or Antichrist. In Romans 8: 17-23, we have him dilating
upon the glorified inheritance on earth, to be received at the redemption of
the body from the grave, when Christ comes, but nothing about any of the other
points.
If we combine all these in one picture, what we shall get as
a result is Antichrist destroyed, Israel redeemed, the [faithful] saints raised, the
Inheritance glorified, all at the Second Coming of Christ, and the Millennial
Interval between that Coming of Christ to assume the kingdom and
the remote End when He shall have surrendered the Kingdom of God, even
the Father, having abolished all rule, and all authority and power, and
annihilated Hades and Death, “that God may be all in all.” 1 Cor. 15: 24-28. In short, we get precisely what John has
given us in the Apocalypse, with this difference, that, whereas Peter and Paul
discuss the points separately, John discusses nothing, but combines all in a
total tableau of the End-Time, glowing under the highest light of the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And so [page 87] will every student of
God’s word find it, if only he comes to that word with an humble heart, free
from prejudice, and false theories of interpretation, and prays that God will
open his eyes to see light in God’s light alone, accounting all other light as
but darkness. Blessed book is the Bible,
the living word of the living God, one word from beginning to end, the work of
one infinite mind, full of the wonders of wisdom, love and power! And from Moses to John, the Eschatology is
one, because God’s plan is one, the “Thousand Years” in John, following
the Second Advent, and preceding the Last Judgment, being the very Interval
Paul himself has acknowledged in 1 Cor. 15: 24, and none other than that period of
time, called by Hosea, the “Third Day,” by Isaiah a “Multitude of Days,” and by Ezekiel “Many Days” – in every case, in
both Old and New Testaments, associated with the Glory of Israel in the
Kingdom, and the redemption of the Nations, accomplished at the Second Coming
of Christ. The holy penmen mutually
supplement each other. The Lord open the eyes of His Church to see
it, love it, and teach it, and to Him be the glory forever.
-------
NOTES
[Selected by the
editor from Nathaniel West’s “Supplementry Discussions.]
1. “Olam,” “Ever.”
The word “Olam,” “Ever,”
does not, of itself, and by fixed necessity, always denote the annihilation of
time, but as frequently, in Hebrew usage, denotes simply unbroken continuance
up to a special epoch in history, or to a certain natural termination. It has a relative as well as an absolute
sense, a finite as well as an infinite length.
It means “Here” as well as “Beyond,” and
applies to a kingdom that comes to “an End,” as
well as to one that has “no End.” For this reason, a great World-Period, or
Age, are called “Olam,”
and in World-Periods, or Ages, are called “Olammim,” and in order to express
infinite time, the reduplication is used, “Ages of Ages,” “Olammim Olammim.” It is therefore a false conclusion to say
that because the term “Le Olam,” “Forever,” is
applied to the Messianic kingdom, therefore the Hebrews contradicted themselves,
when they assigned to it limits at the same time. Messiah’s kingdom is Temporal and also
Eternal, and in both senses, Olamic. The
bondsman’s free covenant to serve his master lasted “forever,” but
that only meant “till Jubilee.” The Levitical
economy was established to be “forever,” but that only meant till “the time
of reformation.” The
Christian Church is “forever,” in its present form, but
that only means “till He comes.” True to this view, the Jewish Teachers ever
held to a Temporal Kingdom of glory on earth, in the “World to
Come,” this side the Eternal
State in the final New
Heaven and Earth. Therefore we read in Fourth Ezra (Second Esdras
in the English Apocrypha) that Messiah’s kingdom is restrained “to 400
years,” * while in the Apocalypse of Baruch – both these productions written
in the time of the Apostle John, - it is said to “stand
forever,” yet only “until the corruptible world is ended.” **
All this instructs us in the flexible, as well as
fixed, character of the tern “forever.”
*4th
Ezra, VII. 48
**Baruch,
XLVIII.
MILLENNIAL, NOT ETERNAL
That
the Millennial Age is not the Final Age is made clear in both
Testaments. The kingdom of 1,000 years
stands in relation to an Age beyond its own limits, the Endless Age. It is a false construction if the word “Until” in
the expression “Until the 1,000 years are
finished,” Rev. 20: 3, 5, 7 to say that the end
of these years is the end of the kingdom of Christ, or of the
blessedness of Israel, or of the Risen Saints’ reign with Christ, or of the
distinction between Israel and the Nations, or between the Holy City and the
outside dwellers. Even after the
Judgment of the “Great White Throne,” and the surrender of
the Messianic Kingdom to the father, the priestly co-regency of Christ and His
saints still exist. There is still a
dominion of Christ and His Bride, “the Holy City,”
over the outside “Nations” and
the “Kings” in the New earth, who
are distinguished from her, and “bring their glory and their
honour into her.” And
there is a condition of things transcending that which we see in the Millennial times. In
the New Jerusalem there is “no temple,” and “no night.” “They need no light of lamp,
neither light of sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and the Lamp
is the Lamb.” Rev.
22: 23. It is plainly said, “They
shall reign for ever and ever,” verse 5. This is the last word on the whole
subject. No more is spoken. “FOREVER!” And it confirms Paul’s word, “FOREVER,” in 1 Thess. 4: 17. Their kingdom is an “everlasting
kingdom,” Dan. 7: 25. Christ’s dominion has “no end,” Isa. 9: 5. “To the Son He saith, Thy throne, O God, is FOREVER,” Ps.
45: 6; Heb. 1: 8. The
Golden Age will disappear, Satan, let loose for a season, will cause to fade
away the beauty of the vision from the eyes of all the nations girding Israel’s home and subdued so long to Israel’s
sway. Unmindful of the centuries when Israel was
trodden down by Gentile pride, they will become restless and averse to all
divine dominion. Then, after a brief final test, come the closing Judgment
and the farthest “End:” – the door that brings the Endless
Age. The last high point of the
Apocalypse is gained, the Absolute End of the ways of God to
men; - a vision of Eternal Glory toward those unveiling all previous revelation
and all History have been the path, and on which the eyes of all prophets have
been strained since the world began.
2. MODE OF LIFE AMONG THE RISEN.
As to the mode of
intercourse between the glorified and un-glorified, there are many vain
speculations. We only “know in part,” and time will bring the answer to our
various askings.
The whole discussion binds itself to our conceptions of the
Resurrection-Body, - what it needs, and what its functions, are. From the very first, the Jewish teachers were
embarrassed here, and much divided in their views. The later Jews are not more
clear. Saadias and Maimonides maintained that “they
who rise in the resurrection, eat, drink and marry, and their bodily
members serve them, for these are not in vain and they die again.”* It was an ancient view, and founded on
the cases of the resurrection of the son of the Shunamite,
and the son of the widow of Zarepta, “both whom,” says Saddis, “ate and drank and doubtless took wives.” On the other hand, Bechai and Abarnanel maintained that “they who rise in the
resurrection neither eat, nor drink, nor marry, for there is no further need
of these, after the resurrection, nor do the risen righteous ones return to
dust again. They have their
bodies, in which the fleshly functions have ceased, as in the case of Moses,
when in the Mount with God.” ** Our Lord corrects both these views when, confuting to the
Sadducees, He replies that “they who
shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (Olam Habba)
and the
resurrection out from the
dead, - [therefore, they cannot return again to
the death state and remain in Hades until the millennium has ended, - Ed.] - neither marry nor are given in marriage, NEITHER CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE; for they
are equal to the angels, - [that is, able to ascend
to heaven or descend upon earth; and therefore able to rule in both
spheres during the Millennium, - Ed.] - and are
sons of God, being sons of the RESURRECTION.” Luke 20: 35, 36. Saadis and Ben Maimon said that the Risen “eat,
drink, marry, die.” Bechai, Abarbanel,
Talmud and Cabbala, aver they “neither marry nor are given in marriage, neither can they
die any more,” but says nothing as the “eating” or “drinking.” What he teaches is that the children of the
resurrection are as the sexless angels.
Beyond the fact that Lazarus ate after his resurrection, John 12: 1, 2, remains the fact that our Lord
Himself, after His resurrection, had
a tangible and visible material body, already free from the limitations of His
former humiliation, and possessed of resurrection-life, and yet “ate” food in Jerusalem and at the shore of Galilee, Luke 24: 30, 41, 42; John 21: 12, and not only promised
to the Twelve to “drink of
the fruit of the vine, new in the Kingdom of God,” Matt. 26: 29, but “appointed” them “a Kingdom,” in which, said He, “ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on 12
thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.” Luke 22: 29, 30. We can grossly carnalize
this, on the one hand, and as ethereally spiritualize it on the other. The fact remains that the Resurrection
kingdom is “ON THE EARTH,” and that the “children
of the resurrection” have material bodies, adapted to spiritual uses, and
free from certain physical functions.
While we must shun an Ebonite Chiliasm on the one hand, we must equally
avoid a Gnostic Chiliasm on the other, and not rob corporeity of its rights in
the resurrection, or dissolve, under the idea of “Glory,”
the resurrection body into a gauzy texture ballooning in the sky. Such a
conception is foreign to the whole word of God. The risen ones shall have a human body, like
their Lord’s, know each other, and be known, and live
in relation to the saints UPON
the earth, and to the Nations. Their
mode of immorality and intercourse are not revealed. It is enough for us to know that not more
difficult is the faith of Christ’s companionship with His disciples during the
40 days next following His
resurrection. It is enough to know that
Death is robbed of his empire, and that, as Professor Milligan himself admits in his able work on the
resurrection, our lord’s body was a true spiritual, glorified body, immediately
upon His rising, and not first after His ascension, and that our bodies are to
take the form and equality of His. Equal
to the “angels” we shall be, in one
respect. Like “Him,”
we shall be, in another. As both, in all. “Flesh and blood” cannot inherit God’s Kingdom,
because “corruption” cannot “inherit incorruption,” 1 Cor. 15: 50. And yet “flesh and bones,”
pervaded by the Spirit, and made incorruptible, is what our Lord’s body was in
His resurrection, Luke 24: 26, a “glorious body,” and “like”
which – not “equal” to which – ours shall be at
His coming. Phil.
3: 21. In such bodies, the Risen Saints shall have fellowship with the unrisen in the Millennial Age. For the rest, our curiosity must be
restrained, and will be, if we listen to the Angel’s voice to Daniel, “Go thy way, Daniel, till the End shall be!” Inquire no more. Be content with what is already spoken. Leave the unrevealed
future to God. Sure we are of one
thing. “We shall
behold God’s face in righteousness,” and “be
satisfied when we awake with His likeness!” Ps. 17: 15. Even so, Lord Jesus!
*Eisenmenger. Eut. Jud. II. 943.
** Ibid 495.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
. . . “The Lord’s
Advent is not to annihilate the existence of the Nations, as such, but to
overthrow their politics and rule, and scatter both like chaff, and then
transfer the sovereignty to Israel. Dan. 2: 44; 7:
27; Rev. 11: 15, 18; 12: 10. The
three Great Parties of the 1000 years, are therefore:-
(1) The Risen
saints – [ That is, the
‘faithful’ dead or the “accounted worthy” from both Testaments, for, “apart from us they (the afore mentioned Old Testament saints – Ed.) - should not be made perfect,” Heb. 11: 40. – Ed.].
(2) New-Born Israel
in the flesh,
(3) The Favoured
Nations in the flesh.
. . . Such is the
clear representation of the whole word of God.
Earth is beginning to realize the “pattern
shown in the Mount,” and prepare for the full accomplishment in the
final “new Heaven and Earth,” at the close of
the 1000 years. The Nations are the
Fore-Court of the Temple; Israel and their Holy Land, are the Holy Place; the
Holy City and the Risen BRIDE are the Holiest of All; no veil existing. To the perfect realization of this, all things
are tending. The invisible is the source
of all Realities, and what has been in history is the Beginning
and Type of what will be, only in greater perfection. David’s kingdom shall be restored, and among
the “sure mercies” to David is the gathering of
Israel, and the resurrection of the faithful [dead] to enjoy that kingdom
together; and therein all Christians [whom our Lord
will ‘account worthy’ – Ed.] shall share, at Messiah’s Second coming. . .
. . . as to the
alleged “incongruity of the glorified among the unglorified,” and “how they
will live,” and “what they will do,” and
“what their condition,” and “daily occupation,” – questions revived by Kliefoth, and
repeated by others, though raised and answered ages ago; and, further, “will there be flies, and bees, and mosquitoes, in the
Millennial Age,” as still others have sportingly asked; and, yet others
again, as to “the habit of nature” – they all
belong to that same unbelieving spirit, and cast of mind, that made a Socinus, some Schoolmen, and later profane wits, inquire “whether our Lord rose from the grave with His digestive
organs?” “Whether,” as Cleopatra
wanted to know, “the Saints will rise with raiment”? and “whence came the raiment our Lord wore when He rose?”
and so, conclude, from all, to a denial of the literal resurrection of the
body. Such inquisition, it becomes us to
repel, with force, and rebuke into silence, holding, in spite of a thousand
questions all men can ask and none can answer, in reference to every doctrine
of Scripture, that it is far more
Christian to believe what God has spoken, and give him the glory, as “Doer of wonderous things,”
than it is to idealize the prophecy, to suit our vain thoughts, and land
ourselves at last into open rejection of the Word of God.
The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are vain. Painful to the last degree is the ever-recurring
style of objection we meet with in certain writers, as “It is unreasonable?” “How remote from reasonable brobability!” It is “Inconceivable,” “incredible,”
and “far
from probable,” and everything the mere natural man can object to the
supernatural. We dismiss it all with the
divine words, “O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” “Should it be a
marvellous thing in my eyes, saith the Lord?” “The zeal of the Lord
of Hosts will perform this.” “The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it!” “It is the utterance
of Jehovah, Doer of these things!”
It must be so, as God has said.
As to the Risen Saints, we know what their perfection is, and how near they
are to Christ. It is the righteous man raised from
the dead, who is the perfect man, ordained to dominion, in the Age to come.”
-------
THOUSAND YEARS IN BOTH TESTAMENTS
By
NATHANIEL WEST
PART 1
It is a very common opinion,
widely spread throughout Christendom, and in most cases believed to be true,
that “the thousand years” of which John speaks in the Apocalypse, Rev. 20: 1-7,
are mentioned nowhere else in the sacred Scriptures. The doctrine of a millennial kingdom on
earth, introduced by the advent of Christ in His glory, is a Jewish fable
without support from the word of God. A
deeper study of the sacred volume dissipates this false prejudice and reveals
the fact that, not only are “the thousand years” of which John speaks found
everywhere in both Testaments, but that next to the eternal state, the
millennial blessedness of God’s people on earth, and of the nations, is the one
high point in all prophecy, from Moses to John, the bright, broad tableland of
all eschatology. The prejudice against
the study of a theme so sublime and far-reaching, and occupying so much space
in the revelation of God has been pleased to give us, is as remarkable in our
age, as [Page
2] it is inexcusable, although by no means surprising. To use the words of Prof. Van Oosterzee, “We cannot be
surprised that the inner discrepancy between the modern theological philosophy
and the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures should perhaps, on no point come
forth so clearly, and apparently so irreconcilably, as
precisely in reference to the doctrine of the ‘Last Things’ – Eschatology. Here, especially are the terms, ‘Jewish
conception,’ ‘oriental garb,’ ‘poetic imagery,’ ‘accommodation to the narrow
ideas of the age,’ etc., etc., the order of the day, and the doctrine of the consummation
of the ages is ordinarily regarded as a moderately insignificant appendix to
some philosophico-dogmatic system. In Scripture, on the contrary, it is
distinctly presented in the foreground, and for the believer it attains, with
every year and every century, increased significance, so that what for a time
seems to be an appendix, becomes eventually the main question!” *[* Person and work of the Redeemer,
450.]
Every faithful student of the
Scriptures, unbiased by false theories of interpretation, will attest these
words as true. What we find in the New
Testament as its outcome in respect to the ages and the kingdom,
has already lain in the bosom of the Old Testament from the beginning. The closing part of the New Testament is but
the full flower of which the opening part of the Old Testament was the precious
seed, the kingdom one and the same, in essence, all the way. Nothing appears in the latter revelation that
was not hid in the earlier, nothing in John that was not in Moses. This is what Augustine meant by his golden
maxim, “Novum Testamentum
in Vetrere latet, Vetus in Novo patet.” “In the [page 3] Old
Testament the New is concealed; in the New the Old is revealed.” We shall find “the thousand years” in many
places of God’s word, long before the Rabbis ever had a being or a name.
We shall be obliged in this
investigation to make use of what men call “technical” terms, in order to save
circumlocution. We speak of the “Last Things.” The Greek term for this is “Eschata,” and by these are meant what should “come to
pass,” not in the “latter,” as oftentimes King James’ version has it, but in
the “last” days, as Moses, Joel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Peter, Paul and John,
preferred to have it. If we study the
eschatology of the Old Testament, we will find the Eschata
there identical with the Eschata of the New
Testament, and the Eschatology of both Testaments the
same, only the New is more developed than the Old. Such is the organic and genetic character of
revelation and of prophecy that if “the thousand years” are not in Moses, the
Psalms, and the Prophets, they have no right to be in John. To understand the prophets it is necessary,
however, to understand the Apocalypse, and to understand the Apocalypse it is
necessary to understand the prophets.
The one is light to the other, and reciprocally. In order to attain a clear conception of Old
testament prophecy and its fulfilment, we must combine both Advents of Messiah,
remembering that the first only brought the partial fulfilment of the
prophetic word which yet awaits the second in order to secure its plenary
accomplishment.
Joel’s prophecy as to the
outpouring of the Spirit in the last days, and of the great and notable day of
the Lord, with all its terrestrial and celestial phenomena, the final
redemption of Israel, and the transfiguration of the Holy Land, was only
incipiently and partly [page 4] fulfilled to a few, an election out of Israel, at
the first coming of Christ, and awaits a far larger fulfilment at His second
appearing. So the prediction of Amos, in
reference to the dispersion and sifting of Israel the “Sinful Kingdom,” and
God’s visitation of the Gentiles, “after this,” to take out of them a people
for His name, met a partial and precursive fulfilment
in the first calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge of Christ, in the days of
the apostles, as James in the first council at Jerusalem assures us. We see that by comparing Acts 15: 13-18 with
Amos 9: 8-12. But there is to be a
grander fulfilment still in coming days, when, now that a Second Dispersion and
Sifting of Israel has occurred, since James spoke, there shall be a fullness of
the Gentiles “after this,” also, and finally the fallen Booth of David, or
Israel’s proper Kingdom, as the prophets picture it, will be re-erected with
the fullness of Israel converted to God, and the glorious millennial age heave
into view. So it is with reference to
Isaiah’s Redeemer coming to Zion, and Hosea’s Israel abiding alone for many days, and Micah’s
halting daughter of Zion
to whom at length, comes the “former dominion.”
Whatever occurred to Israel
graciously, at the first coming of Christ, was only a preliminary fulfilment to
be exhaustively completed for Israel,
at His second coming. Such is the law of
prophecy and the law of fulfilment, and it will save us from many an error, if
only we are careful to remember it.
THE KINGDOM AND PROPHECY.
From first to last, the
kingdom of God on earth, its inception, progress, conduct, and consummation in
glory, is the one theme of Old Testament prophecy. To this end were the converts with Christ,
Adam, [page
5] Noah, Abraham,
Israel and
David. To this end was the choice of the
one national “Israel,” the “choice forever,” as a prophetic, priestly, kingly
nation, a messianic and mediatorial nation, the one
national “Servant of Jehovah,” and national Son of God, standing between God
and mankind, and bringing salvation to a lost world; a people from whom should
come the one personal “Israel,” Prophet, Priest and King, the one Mediator and
true Messiah, Seed of the woman, Seed of Abraham, Seed of David, Son of Man and
Son of God, in whom all nations should bless themselves – Jesus Christ. Identified with Him, individually, and called
by His name, stands Israel
collectively, in His whole Messianic work and kingdom. Neither acts without the other. The Pentateuch prophecies refer chiefly to
the people. The Messianic Psalms
emphasize the King, the Kingdom, and the Priest. Isaiah dwells upon the prophetic character of
Israel;
Ezekiel displays the priestly; Daniel reveals the kingly; Zechariah blends all
in one. Old Testament prophecy knows no
other subjects of discourse than these, Israel, Messiah, and the Nations. As to the kingdom, Israel had it, under the
Old Testament, in its outward form; the Gentiles have it under New Testament,
in its inward form; in the age to come,
Jews and Gentiles together, shall have it, both forms in one, one kingdom of
Messiah, spiritual, visible and glorious, with Israel still the central people,
the prelude of the New Jerusalem and the nations walking in its light forever.
The division of the Davidic
kingdom into two, laid the ground for all the prophecies concerning the
“Kingdom of Israel” and the “Kingdom of Judah,” i.e., the ten-tribed Israel, called
“Ephraim,” and the two-tribed Israel, called “Judah,”
as distinguished from “all [page 6] Israel,” or the twelve-tribed
Israel, an election from those children shall one day form the national nucleus
of the millennial kingdom.
The catastrophe that brought
destruction to Jerusalem and captivity to Judah under the
Chaldean King, forms the
ground of the common destruction of the canonical prophets into their present
classification. The Babylonian exile is
the middle point. If we study the
prophecies that speak of the Kingdom
of Messiah, Israel’s
kingdom, the Millennial Kingdom, and the relation of the nations to each, -
all as parts of the Kingdom
of God on earth, - we
shall take in all the prophets. If we
group these around the several great epochs of Israel’s history, they will fall
into three main divisions, (1), pre-exile prophets (2), exile prophets (3),
post-exile prophets. Or, to be still
more specific, they will fall into five chief divisions: (1) The pre-Assyrian,
viz., Obadiah, Joel, Jonah; i.e., the
prophets of the period prior to the Assyrian invasion and captivity of Israel;
(2), The Assyrian, viz., Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum: (3) The transition
prophets, viz., Zephaniah and Habbakuk; (4) The
prophets of the Chaldean period, viz., Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel; (5) the Persian period, or period of the Restoration down to
the close of prophecy, viz., Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Sixteen in all; all speaking of the Kingdom
of God and its development through Israel in relation to the nations, amidst
conflicts and victories, judgment and mercy, apostasy and recovery, until the
whole world becomes subject to Israel and Israel’s king.
As a further help to our
investigation, it is necessary we should know that the Kingdom of God,
in its development, though one, exists in different forms, and runs through
various ends of ages.
Essentially, it is one. [page 7] Phenomenally, it is many. It is singular and plural, both. It is an everlasting kingdom in its
essence. It is a temporal kingdom in its
forms. It exists forever. The Dispensations pass away. The Kingdom still abides. New forms emerge along the ages until the
endless age arrives, and the final form appears. And yet more. With the outer historic development of
prophecy as well as of history, an inner genetic development runs
parallel. The original prophetic grem, found in the first promise in the garden, true to
scientific law, parts itself into law and gospel, divides, expands, and assumes
more ample and concrete forms. What is
at first most general, becomes particular. What is obscure becomes more
clear. The ages and the ends are
evolved according to the same law of “becoming,” which obtains in the natural
world, viz., by division and integration.
The result from all is that, as prophecy advances, what is folded up
darkly, at first, is opened out in clearer and distincter
statement later on. The ages and the
ends come more definite. The later
predictions explain the earlier ones.
And, along this line of divine evolution, as there is no “spontaneous generation”
in the kingdom of
God, so there is no
“transmutation of species.” God alone
creates. Israel,
the created people of God, abides Israel,
and the
history of Israel
is not a mere frame in which to hang pictures of the New Testament Gentile
church. The kingdom is ever the
kingdom, one sided for Israel alone in time past, one sided for the Gentiles
alone now, outward in the one case, inward in the other, but both sided for both in one, hereafter, Israel evermore the
root, the centre, organic basis, and ground of all. By observation of this, we learn the
characteristic differences between pre-exile prophecy
on the one hand, and exile with post-exile prophecy on [page 8] the
other. It is precisely along this line
of development we detect the evolution of the ages in prophecy itself, and are
obliged to hold that Prophecy as well as History as an “organism,” as is
Nature, the kingdom and the Church – the one a parable of the other – “natural
law in the spiritual world;” and “spiritual law in the natural world,” in
short, as Newton showed, a system of universal and identical laws producing
analogous phenomena in different spheres.
Where there is life there is law.
It is precisely along this line of study of the Word of God, we discover
not only a description of the Millennial Kingdom yet to be, but are able to
detect the relative location of the millennial age itself, even in Old
Testament prophecy, and find it exactly as the Apostle John has pictured and
located it – its character, its name, its measure, and the events by which it
is opened and closed. The existence of
“the 1,000 years” in the Old Testament is a matter of scientific demonstration,
as truly as the existence of any geological age in the history of the planet,
and is supported by an exegesis, grounded in the organic unity and continuity
of prophecy in both Testaments, that is unassailable. It is another proof of the truth of the
golden saying of Augustine, “The New
Testament lies concealed in the Old, the Old stands revealed in the New.”
The six pre-exile prophets
form a connected chain ending with Nahum.
Of these, Isaiah is the chief, his radius of vision spanning all
horizons, near, remote, and between and losing itself in the breast of eternal
glory. He sees all things, however, in
one divine perspective, one divine light, one divine picture, Messiah the
centre of all, Israel
around Him, the Nations around both. The ends and ages are all confounded in the [page 9] first
end, and the age following. All is a
composite photography, the events standing cheek to cheek, which only later
prophecy can separate. On the earlier
prophets, the exile and post-exile prophets rest as on sure ground, the spirit
of prophecy being one. Their office is
not to transcend, but develop, the earlier.
What Isaiah was to the earlier, Daniel was to the later. He bequeaths to them, and to us, the great
problem of the Millennial Age, whose epoch Isaiah, Micah, and Ezekiel, have
fixed, the problem of Israel’s final future and relation to the nations, with
Israel’s history between the return from exile, and Israel’s final redemption
in the glory of the Kingdom at Messiah’s second coming. Its solution is given, also, in the various
visions of the four empires, four beasts, and seventy weeks, whose last week is
rent off from the rest in fulfilment, the Roman times of the Gentiles lying
between – a seventieth week wholly eschatological, the basis of the seals,
trumpets and vials in John’s Apocalypse.
The same problem appears in another form to the night visions of Zechariah,
Haggai’s shaking of the nations, and Malachi’s burning day, whose close is
crowned with healing from the sun of righteousness. The solution of the great problem of Israel’s
future, spring from the breach in David’s Kingdom, is the solution of the
problem of the Millennial Kingdom, and comes with Israel’s future acceptance of
David’s Son as their Lord, the closing up of the ancient breach in David’s
Kingdom, the union of Israel and Judah in one nation, on the mountains of the
fatherland forever; - in short, Israel a converted people and nation,
acknowledged by Christ in person, the nations applauding. With that consummation, after judgments and
mercies unknown before, and the revelation of Christ Himself [page 10] in
His glory, dawns the Millennial Age.
Search where we may, through all the prophets, this is the one theme,
the redemption of Israel,
after judgment has fallen on both, Christ the glory of all. It is the time of the “Kingdom restored to Israel.” Search where we may, we shall nowhere find
unveiled the mystery of the New Testament “Church.” See Rom. 16: 25. 1Cor. 2: 7, 8. Wph. 3: 8, 9. Col. 1: 24, 27.
Nor does the disclosure of this, in the New Testament, avail to destroy
the prophetic word of the Old in reference to Israel,
or abolish the standing contrast in the Old between Israel
and the Nations, or in the New between Israel, the Nations, and the
Church.
It is among the “Eschata,” or “Last Things,” the things to “come to
pass in the last days,” or “End Time,” that we find the Millennial Age. It lies, as we shall see, between the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the Lord,” which, in the New
Testament, is called “The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ,” and the endless age of
the “New Jerusalem” in the final “New heaven and earth.” It is bounded by two distinct judgments, one
at the opening, one at the close of the Millennial Age, the opening judgment
being that of the Nations, and of all powers, terrestrial and
super-terrestrial, opposed to Christ and His reign, as only by a judgment upon Israel and Jerusalem,
ending in the redemption of both. The “Yom Yehovah” everywhere precedes the Millennial
Age, which is the age of Israel’s
glory in the Kingdom, and comprehends in itself most of the Eschata
of the Old Testament. The judgment that
closes the Millennial Age is represented as a judgment on Gog
and Magog, which extends itself to a “visitation” of
final doom upon all the wicked, after which Israel rests [page 11]
eternally secure in their glorified land, the nations of the saved walking in
the light of the Holy City, the Lord Himself dwelling forever among His
people. Such, in general, is the Old
Testament representation.
To understand this, however,
it is necessary to know first, the manner in which the prophets divided the
whole course of time, and the way in which the ages and ends are represented in
prophecy, as also the relation in which the Eschata
stand to these ends and ages, first in pre-exile prophecy, and next in exile
prophecy.
GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF TIME. PRE-EXILE PROPHECY.
And
first, as to the division of time, in pre-exile prophecy. The whole course of time, from the creation
of the heaven and earth to the re-creation of the same, is divided into two
great ages, the bisecting epoch between which is called the “End.” In this End is placed the “Yom Yehovah,” during which the personal self-revelation
of Jehovah in glory, for the deliverance of Israel, and the destruction of His
and their enemies, is also placed, and for the establishment of His kingdom in
glory on earth. To this “Day of the
Lord” belong all the Eschata, or Last Things, that
precede the age of glory on earth, and are connected with the Advent of
Messiah. To this one End all prophecy
constantly looks, in every picture of the future, from Joel to Malachi. The first of these two ages is the
pre-Messianic age, or Jewish age, with all the time preceding, and is called
the Hebrew theology, “Olam Hazzeh,”
“this present world.” The second of
these ages is the Messianic age, and is called “Olam Habba,” or “the world to come.” The New Testament employs [page 12] these
divisions of time, and they are ever in the mouth of our Lord and His Apostles,
as “Aion ho houtos,”
“this present world,” and “Aion ho mellon,” “the world to
come,” i.e., “this age,” and the
“coming age.” These terms have no
reference to individual life here, or the life of the disembodied spirit, after
death. The bisecting point between them
is not death, but the End of this first age.
They relate wholly to the course of earthly history, and the development
of the kingdom of
God on earth. In pre-exile prophecy in general, there is
but one End, One Day of the Lord, One Judgment, One Advent of Messiah in glory;
an all-comprehensive and undeveloped with but One age succeeding, the Messianic
Age, the age of Israel in the kingdom and the glory, an End that “does not
discriminate between the Parousia in humility and the
Parousia in glory, but beholds the whole work of
Messiah as complete,” (Delitzsch.) Therefore does Isaiah’s page shine the more
intensely, for into that one age the whole grace and glory of Messiah’s work is
concentrated.
All the sufferings of the “servant of Jehovah,” all the splendour of His reward, all there is for Jew, and
all for gentile, focalize themselves in that one End and radiate out of that
one succeeding age. It is the uniform
view of all pre-exile prophecy. In the “Yom Yehovah,”
– day of judgment, day of wonders, - day of wrath and day of mercy, - day of
reeling for earth and shaking for heaven, - of tumult, storm, and fire, - of
dissolution and reconstruction, - the nations are judged, the Gentile powers
are smitten, Antichrist is destroyed, the wicked are swept away, Satan and his
hosts are imprisoned in the pit, and Israel’s faithful dead are raised. We
see it all in [page 13] the “Little Apocalypse of Isaiah,” – Chapters
24-27. Israel’s time begin. In the proverb of the Rabbis, “Esau is the
end of Olam Hazzeh, Jacob is the beginning of Olam Habba.”
It is the view of the prophetic portions of the Pentateuch, the
Historical books, the Messianic Psalms, and of all the prophets prior to the
exile.
The character of this
Messianic age is painted in colours the most gorgeous and brilliant in the
prophets, even as it is sung in strains the most inspiring, in the Psalms. When the Lord has come and brought salvation
with His own right arm, and Jacob’s tribulation is past, everything puts on a
new appearance. Under the New Covenant,
sin is pardoned through Messiah’s death, the gospel is preached, the Gentiles
are gathered, the Spirit is poured from on high, and streams of knowledge,
holiness and life, perpetually overflow.
Showers of blessing continually fall.
The people are all righteous, and the righteous shine. The City of Jerusalem is transformed, made glorious not
alone by the boundless wealth of the nations then tributary to it, but by the
new-creating presence of the Lord Himself.
The Temple
is rebuilt in glory unsurpassed. The
Land itself is transfigured as an Eden. Jerusalem
is Jehovah’s throne. Zion is His dwelling place. The very desert blooms like Sharon.
Unwonted fruitfulness appears.
All nature is at peace, and man in harmony
therewith. Idolatry and War and Crime,
exist no more. Sin is restrained and
death is checked, because Satan is bound.
The curse is gone, longevity returns, and Israel’s risen saints enjoy a
deathless life, fresh and beauteous, as the flower on which the morning dew
rests, and the morning light still shines.
In a new heaven and earth, [page 14] the Holy City
is crowned with light, and the nations walk in that light. A painless, tearless, sorrowless
state, the reproach taken from the Jew, the veil taken from the nations, and
death swallowed up in victory, the Bridegroom rejoicing over His Bride, Messiah
reigning on David’s throne, a festive jubilee, Jehovah dwelling with His
people, both in perfect fellowship and blessedness, is what we see, Eternal
splendours streaming everywhere. And
just because all future ages are here inclosed in
this one age, therefore, is it, for Isaiah, the “everlasting” [*See note at end. – Ed.] age, and all things are
everlasting that belongs to it. Not
indeed that it has but one form, and this one form eternal, but that its facts
are so, be they of grace which is glory begun, or of glory which is grace made perfect. All is everlasting, with Isaiah; an
everlasting Kingdom, an everlasting Throne, an everlasting Covenant, an
everlasting Nation, an everlasting Name, an everlasting Righteousness, an
everlasting Joy, an everlasting Song, an everlasting Peace, an everlasting
Holiness, an everlasting Life, an everlasting Dwelling, an everlasting Rock, an
everlasting Redeemer, an everlasting Salvation, an everlasting God. All, is olamic, aeonian, eternal, forever! All eschatologies
are mingled here in one, all ends in one End in which Messiah comes, all ages
in the one Age which follows that one appearing. The Rabbis call it the “Immortal Age,” and say of the righteous raised from their graves,
that they “sit with crowns on their head
and behold the splendour of God:” and that “All the good the prophets have
spoken concerning Israel
belongs to “Olam Habba,”
the “world to come.”
If we represent, in schematic
form, the manner [page 15] and ends as seen, in general, in
pre-exile prophecy, the diagram will stand thus:
[Pre-Messianic Age.] <<<>>>
[Advent. / End.]
<<<>>> [Messianic Age.]
That is, two ages and one end
between, the last age the everlasting one, or age that has no end.
EXILE PROPHECY
Let us come now to speak of
exile prophecy. Here we find a marked difference
from all preceding prophecy, in respect to the ages and the ends, and the
disposition of the Eschata. Events that stood together in one picture, in
the earlier prophets, begin to be parted here.
The hints in Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah, of such a possible development,
and of which we shall speak later on, receive now their true significance. We learn how the great epochs of Israel’s
history are the great epochs of prophecy, and that the development of both runs
parallel. Our attention is attracted to
the partition of the one end, and the development of the one age
following. Two Ends instead of one
appear. Two Advents
instead of one. Two Judgments instead of one. Two Resurrections instead
of one. Two Ages following the
ends instead of one., the endless age, of course, the
last. The whole cast and character of
the future seem changed, as if some strange fatality on the part of the people,
still unprepared to receive their promised Messiah at His first coming, had
served to postpone the promised redemption.
This much is clear, that national Israel has not profited as it should
by the catastrophe of the exile, for prophecy now speaks of a second
destruction of rebuilt Jerusalem as the result of Israel’s impenitence, even
after the [page 16] return from Babylon; a second dispersion, another
long period of desolation, a curse of rejecting Messiah Himself. And yet it pictures a second coming of
Messiah, and Israel
redeemed at last, triumphant in the promised kingdom and glory.
Something new has occurred. The synthesis of ends and ages in pre-exile
prophecy gives place to their analysis in post-exile prophecy. The one end parts into two, each part closing
itself up again, the space between becoming that an intermediate age, though
still foreshortened, the age that is endless lying behind the last of these
ends. Instead of two ages and one end,
as in pre-exile prophecy, we have three ages and two ends, schematized thus:
[Jewish Age.] >>><<< [1st.
Advent. / End.] >>><<<
[Christian Age.] >>><<< [2nd. Advent.
/ End.] >>><<< [Millennial Age.]
At the end of the
pre-Messianic or Jewish Age Messiah comes, but not in glory. He is “cut off,” and there is “nothing for
Him” – no kingdom in the form predicted, no crown. He is rooted out by a violent death, and Israel is,
moreover, rejected. The Messianic Age is
now divided into two, during the first of which the risen Messiah, ascended to
Heaven, remains concealed and unseen throughout the whole period of Israel’s
rejection, while the news of His name and His great salvation goes to the
Gentiles. It is the Church-historical
period between the first and second Advents, a period closed up to Daniel, or
at most, only briefly alluded to, even though its termini, the two Advents, are
given. It is the period when Israel’s
national history is a blank before God.
As the end of the intermediate age, which is the end of His concealment
in Heaven, He comes again and appears “in the clouds of Heaven,” and comes to [page 17] Israel penitent and believing, in the crisis of Israel’s last tribulation, and comes to “restore
the kingdom to Israel.” At His first coming He was rejected by Israel, and Israel was rejected by Him. At His second coming He is accepted by Israel, and Israel is accepted by Him. Then, there was “nothing for Him.” Now, there is everything for Him. Then, also, there was nothing for Israel as a
nation. Now, there is all. The kingdom and the glory are for both,
“under the whole heaven.” Olam Habba, or the
world to come, has become two worlds, of which the first, being an intermediate
age, shares the nature of both, and while being the “world to come,” or Olam Habba,, with
respect to the age preceding, is yet “this present world,” or Olam Hazzeh, with
respect to the age still following. It
is our Christian Dispensation. The Yom Yehovah,
with its unaccomplished Eschata,
still lies beyond. Such is the picture
Daniel gives us: Two ends, two ages, two advents, for the one end, one age, one
advent, of pre-exile prophecy. Messiah
comes at the beginning of the fourth empire.
He comes also at its close.
But this is not all. Ezekiel develops the ends and ages still more
than Daniel does. He has nothing to say
of the first Advent, as Daniel has, and nothing of the Antichrist. He has nothing to say of the missionary
proclamation of the Gospel, or Israel’s
prophetic calling, as Isaiah has. He
leaves to Isaiah the prophetic, to Daniel the kingly, and presents almost
exclusively the priestly side of Israel in the kingdom. He speaks in his earlier prophecies of the
judgments of God on Jerusalem and the nations,
but, his later visions are of Israel’s
deliverance and the splendour of their land, city and temple, in the day of the
personal manifestation of the “glory” to His people. He speaks not [page 18] only of Israel’s
spiritual regeneration by means of the “New Covenant,” which Hosea, Isaiah, and
Jeremiah have celebrated, but also of Israel’s final restoration as a people,
their political reunion and national conversion, and independence, their
blessedness and glory in the land promised to their fathers, God’s sanctuary in
their midst, God their God, and David their Shepherd-Prince forevermore. Instead of the Valley of Dry Bones
with the Collossus towering over them, what we see is a resurrected people, standing up as a great army, and
instinct with the “Spirit of Life from God.”
It is new-born Israel
of the end-time, coming to their inheritance and priestly royalty,
re-established in their land forever.
All this we get in what is called “Ezekiel’s Apocalypse,” embracing
chapters 37-48. His vision of the land,
the city and the temple, chapters 40-48, is but a further expansion of what is
foretold in chapter 37, and presents the priestly side of the same kingdom
whose royal greatness Daniel had predicted.
Glorious in holiness it is to Ezekiel.
And, as to Daniel, it came with the coming of the “Son of Man” in the
clouds of Heaven, in all its kingly grandeur, so, to Ezekiel, does it come in
all its priestly ornament and holy beauty, with the entrance of the “glory” in
the temple. With the personal appearing
of the “glory” the cosmical transfiguration begins,
the temple waters flow.
But the peculiarity of Ezekiel
is this, that even to this coming age of Israel’s blessedness in the
kingdom, he sees an “end;” not an end to the kingdom but an end to the
age. Another end heaves into sight, the transition
point between the Millennial Age and the Age that is endless; an end beyond the
second end already seen in Daniel; a third end followed by the age [page 19]
without end. The event that marks this
new end is the predicted war-march and judgment of Gog
and Magog, at the end of Israel’s “many days” in the
kingdom. Just as in exile prophecy the
one pre-exile end is developed into two, so, once again, these two ends are
developed into three. In Ezekiel, the
second end expands itself into two. Just
as in Daniel, the judgment on Antichrist and Israel’s restoration in the kingdom,
marks the opening of the age that lies beyond the second coming, so, in
Ezekiel, does the judgment of Gog and Magog, which appears as the last judgment, mark the close
of that age. With that judgment, which, as we shall see, extends itself to the resurrection of the
wicked and their final doom, in John’s Apocalypse, Ezekiel’s vision ceases. What we have now, instead of two ends and
three ages, are three ends and four ages, covering all time, from the exile
down to the final new heaven and new earth of which Isaiah speaks, viz.: The
Jewish Age and the end of it, the Christian Age and the end of it, the
Millennial Age and the end of it, and the Endless Age of the New
Jerusalem. If we schematize the
conception the diagram will stand thus:
[Jewish Age.]
>>><<< [1st.
Advent. / End. ]
>>><<< [Christian Age.] >>><<< [2nd. Advent.
/ End.] >>><<<
[Millennial Age.] >>><<<
[White Throne. / End.]
>>><<< [Endless Age.]
What to us is now the “world
to come,” will be to its own inhabitants “the present world,” even as our
present age was the world to come, to pre-christian Judaism. As time
wears away, and the future comes to make the present, then glides into the
past. Olam Habba becomes
Olam Hazzeh, even
on the other side of the second Advent. In other words, the Messianic or everlasting
age, which, in pre-exile prophecy, was [page 20] but one age following
Messiah’s one Advent, and which in Daniel became two ages, by reason of the
clear separation of the comings, has, in Ezekiel, become three ages by reason
of the new end introduced: so making four in all, if we begin with the Jewish
Age, viz.: (1) The period of Old Testament times; (2) the Church-historical
period; (3) the Millennial Age of Israel in the kingdom; and (4) the Eternal
State or New Jerusalem in the “New Heaven and Earth.” The end of the Jewish Age brought
resurrection, judgment, and a new age succeeding. The end of our present age will do the
same. The end of the Millennial
age will do the same. In each case the
kingdom receives a re-establishment in new form. There is a re-creation. A personal advent of Messiah marks the close
of each age, save the Millennial. No
third advent at the judgment of Gog and Magog is intimated in Ezekiel’s nor even in John’s
Apocalypse, for the final resurrection and the judgment of the wicked, into
which the judgment of Gog extends itself, for the
reason that no second departure of Christ from His people is revealed. As in the Old Testament, so in the New, the
last judgment is perspectively covered and connected
with the judgment at the second coming of the Son of Man.
Such is the entire development
of the ages and the ends in prophecy, - the Biblical AEonology
and Teleology – from Genesis to Regenesis; the whole
time prior to the first coming being regarded as the pre-Messianic Age. Our own age is a parenthetic one. The age next beyond that of our own is that
of Israel
in the kingdom. The last age is what we
call “Eternity;” time rolling on unto “ages of ages,” in the illimitable
future, “world without end.” [page 21]
THE SUB-DISTRIBUTION OF TIME.
The Scriptures give us not
only the ages and the ends, but also a sub-distribution of prophetic and
historic time, from the period of the exile or blotting out of the visible
kingdom of God on earth, down to its re-establishment, i.e., from the time of Israel’s subjection to the Gentile power to
the time of Israel’s redemption from the same: or until the “mystery of God”
concerning Israel’s blindness and rejection, and Israel’s new sight and
recovery, is “finished,” under the sounding of the seventh trumpet. Beyond that we find no sub-distribution, save
the judgment on Gog already mentioned, and which, in
connection with Isaiah 24:22 and Isaiah 65:17, extends itself to the final
resurrection and judgment, and the New Heaven and Earth. The sub-distribution we refer to is found
first of all, in the vision of the great metallic image, or Monarchy-Colossus,
Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream (B.C. 604) eighteen years before the
destruction of Jerusalem (B.C. 586), that image being a symbol of the Gentile
power standing on Israel’s prostrate body; or, if we combine the visions of
Daniel with those of Ezekiel, then the Colossus stands erect in the midst of
Israel’s national graveyard – “Habbikah Melcah Atsamoth” – “the
valley full of bones, and very dry,” – and remains standing, while national
Israel remains dead, until that image is overthrown. In short, that Colossus represents a series
of four Gentile empires, appearing and disappearing in successional
order, - four different forms or phases of the one God-opposed world-power, as
it comes in contact with Israel; from the time of the Babylonian Empire down to
the Cloud-Comer from Heaven to overthrow the world-power, erect His kingdom on
its ruins, and restore the lost sovereignty [page 22] to Israel. The vision of the four-empired
image and its fate was given to humiliate the monarch’s pride and inspire
afresh the sinking hope of Israel. To the same end was the Valley of the Dry
Bones reanimated by the word of prophecy, and the blowing of God’s Spirit in
the last days, given to Ezekiel at the Gola, when the
news reached him of Jerusalem’s
fall (Oct. B.C. 586). The one vision
shows the Colossus falling down, the other Israel rising up; the one, man’s
kingdoms passing away; the other, Messiah’s kingdom come forever, with Israel
in the front.
Again, the same distribution
of the period of Israel’s national sepulture and
corruption, the high Colossus standing as the tombstone, with a “hic jacet Israel,” as it were, upon its breast, is
given to Daniel in a new vision of four beasts (B.C. 541) forty-five years
after Jerusalem’s fall, - a vision parts of which were expanded two years
earlier (B.C. 539) under the symbols of the Ram and Goat. The design of the beast vision was not merely
to show how differently from men God looks upon the phases of the world power,
they regarding the world-kingdoms as the concentration of all material wealth,
splendour, and might. He regarded them
as predacious beasts, but also to allow a further development from the symbol
of the ten horns which would have been unnatural in the ten toes. Careering on through Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Greek and Roman Empires, down to the last
outcome of the Roman power, divided, lost, and yet revived and reappearing in
the “Little Horn,” Gentile power shall wend its way – Israel still underneath
its feet, - until the Mountain-Stone strikes the Image in its toes, and the
Cloud-Comer smites the Horn on its head, the one sent whirling like the chaff
to the wind, the other tossed, living, [page 23] to the flame, while Israel,
resurgent from the grave, appears a mighty host, and wields the empire of the
world. The radius of prophetic vision
reaches to the Second Coming of the Son of Man.
Till then Israel, as
a nation, is dead, the people scattered, and the Holy City
trodden under Gentile feet. But then,
“at that time,” Israel,
as a nation, revives. And here we meet a
strange phenomenon. As it is with Israel
and the nations Daniel has to do, and not with the New Testament Church; as his
mission is to prophecy of the world kingdoms and Israel’s relation thereto, and
the fall of these kingdoms when Israel’s “Basileia” comes; so we find that
both in the vision of the Colossus (Chapter 2) and that of the four beasts
(Chapter 7), the whole period between the rise of the fourth beast and the
final ten horns out of which the last Antichrist comes (Israel’s last
oppressor) – the entire period between the First and Second Comings of Christ –
is overlapped. Or, better, the period
itself lies hid without any sign of the First Advent, in the legs and feet of
the Colossus. The terminus a quo is not
given. It has two aspects, viz.: that of
the Church-dispensation, and that of Israel’s national prostration, both
running parallel during the same period.
With the Church Daniel has nothing to do. It is Israel and the Colossus that absorb his attention; and neither in the Colossus, nor in
the Beasts, is the First Advent marked anywhere. The period of the gentile domination runs on
continuous to the end. Only in the 70
Weeks, does the First Advent appear, and the interval between
the two comings begin to be opened out; as we shall see.
Once
more. Still
another sub-distribution of the same stretch of time is given in the celebrated
prophecy of the “Seventy Weeks” (Chapter 9), the last week [page 24] of
which is eschatological, since it follows the interval that follows the Roman
or second destruction of Jerusalem, consequent upon the national rejection of
Messiah “cut off” by the Jews, - a week divided into two equal periods of three
and one-half years, or forty-two months, or 1,260 days each, during which we
have the rise, reign and ruin of the last Antichrist, the “prince that shall
come” (Nagid Habba), the
“Desolator” (Meshomen),
who perishes beneath the outpoured vials of divine wrath. It is of supreme importance to recognize this
fact. The 70th.
of Daniel’s seventy weeks is not immediately sequent
upon the 69th. week at whose close Messiah
was “cut off.” The Jews nailed the “King
of the Jews” to the cross, and while at the First Advent the kingdom came in
its spiritual
inward power on the day of Pentecost – a “tasting of the powers of the
world to come,” – it was postponed in its outward, visible and glorious part,
as a polity and public sovereignty, until Messiah’s Second Coming; and this because
of Israel’s unbelief. This is the
sun-clear statement of prophecy. The 70th. week stands in
the midst of the Yom Yehovah,
or day of the Lord. It precedes the
Second Advent, the destruction of Antichrist, the Resurrection, and Israel’s glory in the kingdom restored to Israel. The Church Fathers saw this; Irenaeus, Cyprian, Primasius,
Hippolytus, Appolinaris,
and others. Modern eschatologists see it
and victoriously defend it, - Delitzsch, Hofmann, Luthardt, Godet, Koch, Christiani, Rinck, Baur, Weiss, Nagelsbach, Karsten, Ebrard, Van Oosterzee, Kliefoth, and how
many more! More than a hundred living
expositors maintain it. The interval,
however, between the First and Second Advents – our Church-Historical period –
twinkles into light. The same interval
that lies concealed [page 25] in the image and four beasts, between the
rise of the fourth empire proper and the final ten horns, or (what is the same
thing) the final Antichrist, is here revealed as lying between the 69th
and 70th of the “seventy weeks,” the period of the Roman “times of
the Gentiles,” from Caesar onward. At
the close of the 69th week Messiah comes and is “cut off,” and there
is “nothing for Him,” no Messianic kingdom as predicted. He is despised, and rejected, and crucified,
as the “King of the Jews.” For this the
nation is despised, rejected, slaughtered, and entombed by Gentile hands “until
He come.” The histories of Israel and
Christ are analogous, as sin-bearers and salvation-bringers. The 70th week resumes God’s
gracious dealings with the Jewish people, “as a people.” The prophetic formula, including the 70
years’ captivity, viz.: 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus (interval) plus 1, represents
the whole stretch of time measured by the height of the Colossus, from head to
feet, which is also the whole stretch of time measured by the life of the four
beasts, in all reaching to the Second Advent.
The termini a quo and ad quem
are the same for all. In pre-exile
prophecy, the return from exile retreats into the background, and the entire
period from the exile to the final gathering of Israel is
viewed as one continuous two-day dispersion and subjection. It is true that the final redemption of Israel seems to
come, in pre-exile prophecy, with the return from Babylonian exile itself. But that is due to the law of prophetic
representation. Two horizons, the near
and remote, the time-historical and the eschatological, are blended into
one. The present is thrown into the
future. The future is attracted to the
present. All things are seen in the
light of the “end.” Hence prophecy is
“complex and [page 26] apotelesmatic.” The same law works in exile and post-exile
prophecy, but modified because of the later standpoint, and the progress of
both prophecy and history. It is here
the law of “perspective” comes in. A
First Advent is specially marked in Daniel, and in Zechariah, yet only to
emphasize the fact of Israel’s
rejection of Messiah, and rejection by Messiah, then leap at once to paint the
time of Israel’s
final struggle and redemption, at Messiah’s Second Coming. Until then Israel’s history, as a nation, is a
blank before God. All gracious covenant
relations between God and that people, as such, are suspended, on account of Israel’s
apostasy. This strange Phenomenon, as to
the “over-leaping” of the intervals, or what Delizsch calls the “deep
silence” of the prophets in their “concealment of the mystery of the church,”
has its true ground in what Hofmann calls the “organic structure of Old
Testament Prophecy in relation to Israel.”
And herein, Auberlen,
following Baumgarten,
has stated clearly the solution of the riddle.
“Israel,
after having rejected salvation, ceased to be the subject of sacred history,
and became that of profane history alone.
The intervening period between the two Messianic epochs – between the
time the kingdom of God is taken from Israel and given to the Gentiles until
the Second Coming of Christ, i.e.,
between the destruction of Jerusalem and the conversion of ‘All Israel’ and
which forms of the people of the covenant a great parenthesis – is veiled from
Daniel, in much obscurity, on account of his Old Testament and Israelitish standpoint.” * [* Auberlen Der Prophet Daniel, 141.]
Thus do the visions of the
empires, beasts, and [page 27] seventy weeks, concur harmoniously and,
with their corresponding intervals, span the course of ages from the Babylonian
time down to the second Advent. All, without exception, overleap the interval
of Israel’s national
rejection, and locate the point when Israel’s blessedness begins at
Christ’s second appearing. Here enter
those times of “Return,” “Reviving,” “Refreshing,” “Restitution,”
“Regeneration,” “Resurrection” and “Redemption,” foretold for Israel, and the
resultant blessing, after judgment, for the nations; millennial times described
in terms so glowing and so wonderful.
The pre-condition of them all is the second
Advent, itself pre-conditioned by the witness of the gospel to all nations, and
Israel’s
begun repentance and return to Christ.
Nowhere, in all prophecy, is the Millennial Age located in the “Times of
the Gentiles,” the Church-historical Period, the time of Israel’s
national death and resting in the grave.
Impossible! Nowhere is the word
of God guilty of the nameless folly of confounding the “Times of the Gentiles”
with “the 1,000 years.” It would make
all prophecy a contradiction of itself.
These never come before the fall of the Colossus, nor before the
overthrow of antichrist, nor before the end of Gentile power, nor before the
resurrection of the faithful dead; none of which events occur before Messiah’s
coming in the clouds of heaven, descending to alight “on Olivet,” “come to
Zion,” and cause His voice to “roar from Jerusalem.” (Zech. 14: 3; Isa. 59: 20; Dan. 7: 9, 22; 12: 2; Joel 3: 16). No figurative exposition and no
spiritualizing interpretation, such as we find in Hengstenberg, Fairbairn, Keil,
Brown, Milligan, Glasgow, and others of the same school, can avail to break
the oracles of God, or transmute Israel into the New Testament Church, Canaan into
[page 28]
Christendom, or the times after Christ’s second Coming into
the times before it. It is
impossible upon the grounds of Old Testament prophecy, or of New, in their
common distribution of the ages, to locate the Millennium between the First and
Second Advents, for the simple reason that, between these Advents, Israel lies
nationally dead, and the Millennial Age begins with Israel’s national
resurrection. (Ezek. 27: 1-28); and also for the simple reason that between
these Advents the Gentile Colossus still remains standing and the Millennial
Age begins when the Colossus is struck and blown away like chaff. (Dan. 2:
35.) And that this was not a fact at the first Advent, and is not a fact
now, is proved by the further fact that gentile politics and power still rule,
and Israel, as a nation, is still unrisen from the
dead.
The contrary view which makes
a “figure” of the Second Advent, would break down the
whole Apocalypse of John which is built up, line for line, on Old Testament
prophecy, and the words of our Lord in His Olivet discourse, and puts the crown
and consummation on Israel’s
hope. Impossible – forever impossible –
that the prophetic pictures of Israel’s future, so brilliant and glowing,
should belong to that period of time when, in God’s account, Israel is a blank,
their nation non-existent, the woeful Gentile times; an age in history when
Jerusalem lies trodden in the dust with Gentile chains on her neck, and the
proud Colossus tramples on the bones of Israel still bleaching in the valley,
and Israel’s faithful dead still slumber in the grave; an age when Israel
remains outcast, dispersed, rejected, still enthralled and unredeemed! Impossible! Impossible! As impossible as that the Covenant of God
should break, or the “Strength of Israel” should lie! It cannot be.
To evade, by dogmatic prepossession or [page 29] false hermeneutics, or
ignorant prejudice, or indifference, the clear revelation of God herein, and
insist that the “Jewish people,” “Daniel’s people,” “Ezekiel’s and Isaiah’s people,”
“the whole house of Israel,” mean “the totality of believers in all ages of the
world,” or “The New Testament Church,” and that “the land” means Spain, Italy,
Germany, France, Great Britain, the United States, “the Territories of
Christendom” (Keil),
is to do more than trifle with God’s Word.
“It is to distort and negate it”. (Delitzcsh). To plead “difficulty of conception” is to bid
for the rejection of every well-established doctrine. By such a method of exposition, all the Eschata of both Testaments are dislocated, fact is
evaporated, development in prophecy ignored, our present age misunderstood, no
time or history beyond the Second Advent allowed, Israel’s future destiny and
mission denied, the unity and continuity of prophecy left unheeded, and our
conceptions substituted for the thought and will of God.
If we sum up, therefore, the
result of our study, the whole subject will shine out with a
clearness equal to the brilliance of the noonday. What we have is the development, in prophecy,
of God’s kingdom on earth, by means of Israel the Messianic people. The history of Israel prior to the Prophetic Age,
it has been necessary to discuss. It is
enough that we begin with the blotting out of God’s visible kingdom on earth,
by means of Israel’s
subjection to Gentile politics and power.
From that time onward, the prophets look to the time of the restoration
of the kingdom to Israel
at Messiah’s coming in the clouds of heaven, and even to the eternal glory
beyond. We get the whole range of their visions
in the expressions “Until,” “Unto,” “After two days,” which bring us to the
Second Coming, even [page 30] as the sixty-nine weeks bring us to the
first Coming. Then we have the “Third
Day” which is a “Multitude of Days,” “Many Days,” “His Days,” “the one thousand
years,” which bring us down to Gog’s destruction, the
last resurrection and judgment and the final New Heaven and Earth. We have swept the ages and the ends, and also
the intervals in prophecy: all constructed and revealed with special reference
to Israel; the Jewish or
Mosaic Age down to the rejection of Israel’s Messiah. Then the interval concealed in prophecy,
viz., the Church-Historical Period, covered simply by “and unto,” in Dan. 9:
27. Then comes Israel to the front again, when the times of the
Gentiles are ended at the Second Coming of Messiah to reclaim His people, and
we enter upon the interval of Gentile subjection to Israel’s supremacy, the tables
being turned in an age of Millennial Glory.
Then, after this, Israel and the nations, in the New Jerusalem under a
new heaven and on a new earth, Jew, Gentile, and the Church of God, all one,
their distinctions still remaining their unity eternal, and God all in
all. If we put the whole Old Testament
Chronological Prophecy together, concerning Israel, after David’s kingdom was
broken, we shall get the formula of the combined 70 years’
Captivity, and the Seventy Year-Weeks, including the Great Interval between the
69th and 70th week, thus: 70 years, plus 483 years, or 69
weeks, plus the interval of our present age, plus the closing or seventh week
of years, i.e., seven years; or, in a
briefer form, the formula will be 70 plus 7 plus 62 plus our interval plus 1, a
formula that covers the whole time from the Babylonish
captivity down to the Second Coming of Christ.
If we now annex to this the Yammin Rabbim, or “Many Days” of Ezekiel, i.e., the Millennial Age [page 31] for Israel restored, at the
close of which is Gog’s destruction and the new
heaven and earth predicted by Isaiah, then the formula will be 70 plus 7 plus
62 plus our interval plus 1 plus the “many days,” plus “Gog’s
little season” followed by the final judgment and the new heaven and
earth. We get the total aeonology and theology of both Old and New Testament
prophecy with respect to Israel, the Church and the Nations; and in all we see
how Israel, God’s “choice forever,” stands out in rejection and in their
calling, mission, death and resurrection, as the Bringer, nationally, of
Salvation to mankind. It is God’s plan,
and full, as Paul tells us, of the “unsearchable wisdom of God.” Rom. 11: 33.
“Salvation is from the Jews.” John 4: 22.
POST-EXILE PROPHECY.
A word here must suffice. Haggai sees the final glory of the Messianic
kingdom and connects it immediately with the Second Temple
reared by Zerubbabel, and into which the “glory”
comes and fills the house. To him, this
consummation is in the near future.
Once, already, Israel’s
God has overthrown proud Babylon
and brought a practical redemption, though poor, to His people. “Yet once more, it is a little while!” “How short a time!” and Israel’s God will not
only shake one nation but “all nations,” and “not only earth, but heaven also,
sea and dry land” together, and all “the precious things of the nations” shall
be made tributary to the structure of the Temple, and into it the “glory” will
enter personally, and “fill the House” with His splendour. The Temple
shall thus become the constant dwelling of Jehovah, the bond of union, and the
centre of all light to surviving [page 32] nations, in a kingdom that
cannot be shaken. Haggai 2: 6-9,
21-23. While this oracle was, in part,
fulfilled by the personal appearing of Christ in the Temple, whose Advent was
preceded by the overthrow of the Persian and Greek monarchies and Rome’s
Republic, and the subjugation of the world by Roman arms, we have Paul’s apotelesmatic word for it that it looks to the Second
Coming of Christ, and that the catastrophe it pictures, more appalling than the
scenes at Sinai, at Marathon, or Salamis, or Philippi, is a universal
world-catastrophe, such as we see in John’s Apocalypse under the sixth seal,
and only after which the “Basileia Asaleutos,” or “Immovable Kingdom” comes. Heb. 12: 26-29. “Marathon”
and “Maranatha” are in the same perspective! This is Haggai’s peculiarity, one Advent, the
Second, and one age following, and yet implying a previous Advent of the
“Glory” and to be connected with the Second
Temple. At any rate, the promised kingdom cannot come
until after the “Day of the Lord” in which heaven, earth, sea, dry land, and
all nations are shaken. So says Isaiah
2: 10-22; 24: 1-23.
In the clearest manner
Zechariah distinguishes Two Advents, two Ends, and the Millennial Age following
the second, but without Gog and Magog
at its termination. He sees Zion’s king
coming meek and lowly riding on a colt, 9: 9, then pierced with cruel hands,
Jehovah’s Fellow smitten by the sword of justice, 13:7; 12: 10. as a result of this, he sees the “Suspension
of the Covenant of God with Israel,” not God’s Covenant of Grace, which
is eternal, but the “Suspension of the National Covenant of God
with Israel as a People,” (Delitzsch, Hofmann,
Kohler, Auberlen, Luthardt,
Godet, Wright, Pember,
Anderson, Seiss,) by the breaking of the two
staves of “Beauty and Bands,” Zech. 11: 7-10, [page 33] Israel’s existence as
a covenant Nation forfeited, because of Israel’s rejection of Messiah, until
the time of Israel’s penitence, travail, reunion, and resurrection, Micah 5:
1-3. Ezekiel 37: 1-28. He sees Him again descending on the Mount of
Olives in His Majesty, with all His “holy ones” for Israel’s deliverance, and the
creation of the kingdom in its universal glory.
The scene is that of the “Yom Yehovah” replete with terrestrial and super-terrestrial
phenomena, a day unique – nocturnal day and solar night. It is a day preceded by the outpouring of the
Spirit upon Israel, attended
by the reappearing of their wounded Shepherd to them, their national, domestic,
personal and universal, penitence and tears; beyond the tears “at Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddo,”
where young Josiah fell. At first, Judah is seen
in deep apostasy. But, as in the case of
Paul, so here, a sudden change occurs; and Judah
fights with superhuman power to raise the siege against Jerusalem.
Miraculous in Israel’s
deliverance, even by Messiah’s own appearing, 12: 1-14; 13: 1-9, 14: 1-7. Then follows the Messianic Age of glory, the Millennial day, when Israel’s
land is transfigured, Jerusalem
inhabited forever, and the Theocrat becomes a universal empire with Messiah as
the universal king. The holiness of Israel is
universal also. All nations are obedient
to Israel’s
king. Jerusalem has seen a Jewish Christian
Passover, and a Jewish Christian Pentecost, in which some Gentiles shared. She sees a Jewish Christian “Feast of Tebernacles” now, in which all nations blend their harvest
jubilee. Two Advents, two Ends, two
Ages, the Millennial Age still following the Second Advent as in all other
prophets; this is Zechariah’s painted page, a page among the very brightest and
the richest of all Old Testament prediction. [page 34]
We come to Malachi, the last
of the prophets. As he stands nearest
the First Coming of Christ, and in the midst of deepening apostasy, the “Glory”
retreats into the background, night comes on with the storm attending, and the
picture of Israel’s
near future is dark indeed. The sun has
gone down. Malachi predicts two Advents,
between which Israel is
rejected and the Gentiles do homage to Messiah, yet after which Israel is
redeemed through judgment and returns to the faith of their fathers. The promise that Messiah’s name should be
“great among the gentiles,” etc., 1: 3, is really a threatening against
apostate Israel,
foreboding the rejection of the nation, the passing of the Gospel to the
Gentiles, and the substitution of a spiritual worship for the ancient ritual,
“in every place.” This plainly looks
into the “times of the Gentiles,” or Church-Historical period, following the first
Advent and Israel’s
notional rejection. Nevertheless, Israel shall be
saved by means of judgment, in the burning “Day of the Lord,” and by a return
to the spiritual essence of the ancient faith, under the prophetic testimony of
Elias sent to restore them, and to herald the Advent of the “Angel of the
Covenant,” 3: 1-3; 4: 4-6. After
purgation by judgment, and an outpoured Spirit, Israel’s worship shall be
pleasant to Jehovah, their “land become fruitful,” and “all nations call them
blessed,” 3: 1-4, 10-12. After the
storm, comes the sunshine. Upon all who
fear Jehovah’s name, “the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in His
beams,” and Israel,
redeemed, shall gambol in the glory like calves that frisk and play upon the
sunlit pasture when loosened from their stalls, 4:2, 3. [page
35]
PART 2
A. THE THOUSAND YEARS
It remains now to speak definitely of the
different times given to the Millennial Age in the Old Testament, and
point out the passages where John found his “1,000 years.” In this we shall admire still more the unity
of both Testaments, and learn that John understood the prophets better than
most of his expositors. It will fasten
upon us the conviction that the New Testament “Apocalypse of Jesus Christ” is
but the Old Testament Yom Yehovah, in
which the Lord reveals Himself for the redemption of His people, and that the Eschata in that Apocalypse are only what
we elsewhere find in Old Testament predictions, in the words of Christ Himself,
and in the utterances of His Apostles; and that in all these Eschata Israel still holds his place, as
in all the prophets, and still waits the promised glory in the Millennial
Kingdom.
While what we have said concerning pre-exile
prophecy is true, there are yet not wanting intimations, or, if we may so call
them, “Germs” of the later [page
36]
development of the ages and ends we find in exile and post-exile prophecy. These belong to the organic nature of
prophecy, and in them we find the names of the age which John describes as “the
1,000 years.” Apoc. 20: 1-7. There is a
text in what is known among scholars as the “little Apocalypse of Isaiah,” a
section consisting of chapters 24-27. It
is found in Isaiah 24: 21-23. referring
to Yom Yehovah, or Day of the Lord,
in which Messiah comes to hold judgment and restore the kingdom to Israel, the
prophet says, It shall come to pass, in that day, that the Lord shall visit
upon (punish) the Host of the High Ones on high, and the kings of the earth on
the earth. And they shall be gathered
together as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in
prison. And after a multitude of days – Rov Yammin – they shall be visited
(released for final judgment). “Then
shall the moon be confounded and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall
reign in Mount Zion, and the glory shall be in presence of His ancient
ones,” The “Day of the Lord” is, as
already seen, that which closes our present age, the day of the Second Coming
of Christ. The judgment predicted in the
preceding context is that of the proud nations, and Israel’s land, to which is added
the desolation of the present cosmic order; 24: 1-20. With this is connected the judgment upon the
terrestrial powers of evil, “the Kings of the Earth on the Earth,” or the
Anti-Christian hosts, and the judgment at the same time, of the aerial powers
of evil, “the Host of the High Ones on High,” i.e., “the principalities and
powers and world-rulers of darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenlies,” Eph. 6: 12, “the prince of the power of the air,” Eph. 2: 2, “the
dragon and his angels,” Rev. 12: 7-9; 20: 1-3, - in short, Satan [page 37] and his legions, who are cast down
from their height to be shut up in the abyss, as prisoners are chained in a
dungeon, restrained from public activity, and reserved for future release and
final judgment.
The time when this dejection of Satan and his
legions occurs is said to be “in that day,” the time when Michael stands up to
fight for Israel, Dan. 12: 1; Rev. 12: 7, the time when, in the vision of John,
“the angel, having the key of the abyss, and a great chain in his hand, laid
hold of the dragon, the Old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound
him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut and sealed it
over him that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years
should be finished, after which he must be loosed for a little season.” Rev.
20: 1-3.
The time of this casting down of Satan
and his hosts from their aerial mansions to earth, is that mentioned also in
Rev. 12: 7, 8, 12, 13, when the dragon, in great rage, having but “short time”
to work upon earth before he is sent to the abyss, “makes war with the woman,
and with the remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God, and have the
testimony of Jesus.” That is, it is the
time of Israel’s conversion, Rev. 12: 7-11, the time of the close of the
testimony of the two witnesses, the end of the first three and a half years
(1,260 days) of Daniel’s 70th. week; in short, the beginning of the
great tribulation, Rev. 11: 7, 13: 12, at whose end Satan is imprisoned in the
abyss, Rev. 20: 1-3. And this time of
the judgment upon “the Host of the High Ones on High,” is the time of the
judgment of the “kings of the earth on the earth,” or Antichrist and his
armies, who are destroyed at the close of the last three and a half years
(1,260 days) at the Second Coming of Christ from “Heaven [page 38] opened,” Rev. 19: 11-21. There is nothing clearer than that the
visions of John, in the text referred to, are the companion pieces of the
prophecy of Isaiah just quoted. The
judgments upon Antichrist and his armies, and upon Satan and his hosts, are
identical in Isaiah and John, and occur “in that day,” the day of the Second
Coming of Christ.
But this is not all. The imprisonment of Satan and his demonic
powers is not their final judgment. The
prophet speaks of a reckoning “after” this.
He fixes the duration of the imprisonment at whose close the reckoning
comes. He defines the length of that
duration as a “multitude of days,” Rov
Yamin. He says that “after” this
long period which follows Antichrist’s overthrow and Satan’s captivity, the
final reckoning shall come. “After a
multitude of days they shall be visited,” or as the verb here properly means,
“they shall be looked after for final retribution.” This implies, as is admitted, their future
unchaining and letting loose again.
“They do not escape from prison, but are released, or let out, to meet
their final award.” In this, all scholars
agree. To this, corresponds the account
in John’s Apocalypse, Rev. 20: 1-7, where we read that “After the thousand
years are finished, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison” to play his old
game. As, after his casting down from
the heavenlies, and before his imprisonment in the abyss, the “short time” of
1,260 days was allowed him to assail the saints, so between his release from
prison and his final casting into the lake of fire, he is allowed “a little
time” in which to muster the nations, and make his last effort against the
Kingdom of God. This we read in the
Apocalypse of John who separates the events Isaiah combines
in one general expression. The
demonstration is inductively [page 39] complete that the definite period of time called Rov Yamin, by Isaiah, or the “Multitude
of days,” is identical with the period called Chilia Ete, or “the thousand years” by John. The judgments which precede this period are
the same. The “First Resurrection” which
occurs at the same time, also; the resurrection of the faithful dead, as is
clear from Deut. 32: 39; Ps. 49: 14; Hos. 13: 14; Isa. 25: 8; 26: 14, 19; Ezek.
37: 12; Dan. 12: 1-3; 1 Cor. 15: 54, 55; Rev. 11: 18; 20: 5. And the time of these judgments and this
resurrection is the Yom Yehovah or
“the Day of the Lord,” in which the “Lord Himself” visibly reveals His person
to effect these events. The succeeding
long period of the “Multitude of Days,” or “The Thousand Years” is the
same. And the judgments at the close of
this period are the same. What confirms
this all the more is the fact that unless the “visiting” of the imprisoned
Anti-christian hosts, at the end of the “Multitude of Days” involves their
resurrection – the resurrection of the wicked unto final judgment – there is no
text in the Old Testament that does.
Isa. 24: 21, 22, is the only passage; since Dan. 12: 2, properly
translated, speaks only of the resurrection of the righteous.
But that Isaiah 24: 22 does involve the
resurrection of the wicked, at the close of the “Multitude of Days,” is clear
from this, that John interprets Isaiah’s prophecy by his own vision of the
resurrection of the wicked at the close of “the thousand years” which,
as we have seen, are identical with the “Multitude of Days.” It stands exegetically fast, that John’s
Millennial Age is Isaiah’s “Multitude of Days,” dating from the Second Advent;
that epoch of time which runs into the age following; the epoch when Israel is
redeemed, and nationally restored; when Jerusalem, [page 40] the “beloved city” becomes the middle
point of the Millennial Kingdom during “the thousand years,” Rev. 20: 9, and
“the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, even in Jerusalem, and glory
shall be in presence of His ancient ones.”
Isa. 24: 23.
It is the time when, as the context in Isaiah
shows, the sleeping saints of God are raised, the veil is taken off the nations,
and Israel’s
rebuke and long reproach exist no more.
Isa. 25: 8, 9.
It will perhaps, assist our understanding, to
see how this exegesis of the passage in Isaiah, so little understood by many,
is supported by a scholarship than which none better can be found. “The binding of Satan,” says Auberlen, “is, like the thousand years,
peculiar to the Apocalypse, although, strictly speaking, Isaiah prophecies the
same thing in chap. 24: 21-23.” * [* Der Prophet Daniel, p. 330.] Better still are the words of Nagelsbach upon the passage: “The
prophet’s eye here sees what will take place at the end of the world. The invincible extra-mundane heads of the
worldly powers, as well as their earthly visible organs, will, according to the
prophet, be collected as prisoners in the pit, and shut up in it. But not merely the binding of these angelic
and worldly powers, but their being let loose for a time, is also
announced. Only by a brief obscure word,
perhaps not seen through by the prophet himself, does the prophet intimate
this. We would not, perhaps, have
understood this word, if the New Testament revelation, which is nearer the time
of the fulfilment, did not throw light on this dark point. It declares expressly that, after a thousand
years, Satan should be loosed from his prison. Rev. 20: 7. Isaiah [page 41] uses here an indefinite announcement of time, ‘After a multitude
of days.’ And an indefinite verb, ‘pakad,’
stands here as in Isa. 23: 17, of a ‘visiting’ which consists in a looking
again after some one who, long time, has remained neglected. Jer. 27: 22.
The word is here taken in the sense of a visitation for judgment, as is
seen in the place in the revelation by John.
“The letting loose of Satan is only the
prelude to his total destruction, Rev. 20: 10.
Then follows the last, highest, and grandest revelation of God. The earth becomes now what it ought
originally to have been, but was hindered from being by the sin of man, the
common dwelling place of God and men.
The heavenly Jerusalem,
the Tabernacle in which God dwells with men, Rev. 21: 3, descends upon the
renovated earth, and here Jehovah reigns as king. This city needs no sun and no moon any more,
for the Lord Himself is its light.” * [* Dr. C. W. E. Nagelsbach, in Lange, on Isa. 24: 11-23.]
And even better still is the comment of Weber on the passage. After showing that the context the prophet
predicts (1) the judgment on the earth, and plagues on men in general, in the
end time, to which the sixth seal in the Apocalypse refers; (2) the judgment on
the world-city or Babylon of the future; (3) the final judgment on Jerusalem
and all who deal treacherously with Israel’s remnant, he continues thus: “The
Lord will hold ‘in that day,’ another judgment.
He will ‘visit the Most High Ones in the height, and the kings of the
earth on the earth.’ The earthly and
heavenly powers, who have deceived mankind into apostasy, shall receive their
punishment. They shall both be visited
on that same day. The host of [page 42] the high ones on high includes the
angels of the nations and kingdoms of which Daniel speaks, 10: 13, 21; 12: 1,
and John, Rev. 12: 7. They have
exercised over the nations a God-opposing influence, and shall be judged with
them. What the punishment of these
aerial powers is we are told. They shall
be thrust into a pit, as prisoners are into a dungeon, and ‘after a multitude
of days,’ shall be visited. A time comes
when once more they shall be released and allowed to begin their earlier
practice of deception. But it shall not
continue long; for, after a brief last conflict, that kingdom of Jehovah
will begin in that full revelation of its glory on earth, before which the
light of the sun and moon shall fade, and the God-opposed spirits of evil sink
eternally in the lake of fire. In that
day Jehovah of Hosts shall rule royally upon Mount
Zion, even in Jerusalem, and in presence of the ancients
shall be glory. The intention of the
prophet here is to unveil the future as it will be at the great turning point
of things in the development of the kingdom on earth when Israel,
restored, shall turn the nations to the obedience of God. This is achieved through a judgment of the
nations, and of the wicked spirits who deceived them. This judgment is universal, and fulfils
itself in a series of severest plagues wherein God’s hand must be
confessed. Only a remnant of mankind
will survive. As Israel, through
judgment, comes to renovation, so it is with the nations. As the sifting of Israel will not be in vain, so it
will be with the nations. A remnant is
converted and survives the judgment.
Upon the ruins of the world-power a new kingdom shall arise in which the
Lord will reveal Himself to all the earth.
This is the great announcement of the prophet. What a lesson it teaches us in reference to
our own times! How are we compelled [page 43] to confess that the great breach
between Christendom and the laws, and ordinances, and covenant of god, is a
present fact, and that with swift steps we are nearing the approaching judgment
of the end! The age following this world
judgment, and the judgment of aerial evil powers is the Millennial Age pictured
in Isaiah 25: 6-9, in which upon Mount
Zion the Lord will
prepare a feast to all peoples, and destroy the veil spread over the nations,
and swallow up death in victory, and take away the reproach of His people
forever. There is so much likeness, and
difference, between the millennial and eternal states of glory that here we may
regard the description of both as one, and yet must again separate the one from
the other, the one a prelude to the other.
‘The mountain’ (Zion) shall be the middle
point of the kingdom
of God on Earth. And this will continue until the wicked
spirits, released once more, gain opportunity to introduce the final judgment,
the transition act between time and eternity.
In that day of Jehovah’s self-manifestation and millennial blessedness, Israel shall
sing, ‘Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him. He will save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for Him, and we will be glad and
rejoice in His salvation.’ ” * [* Dr. J. W. Weber, Der Prophet Jesaia, pp. 216, 223.] Such the splendid comment of a loved and
devoted man whom Delitzsch has
honoured as “one of the first Hebrew scholars of Europe.”
[page 44]
These extracts might suffice to show the
meaning of the prophet, and vindicate the Apostle John from the empty charge
made so often, that he was indebted to the Apocryphal legends and literature of
the Rabbis for his conception of “the thousand years!” But there is a testimony yet more sublime
than all the rest, which ought here to be produced. It is the comment of the childlike, deeply
devout, and gifted man, Dr. Christian
August Crusius, Professor of Theology in Leipsic forty years during the
last century (the successful antagonist of Leibnitz), a man of whom Bahrdt said, “He is the greatest
philosopher and richest thinker of our times,” and of whom Kant said he felt it an honour to be allowed to testify that “he is
the clearest philosopher, and second to none in the promotion of philosophy, in
our age.” In his work, “Decaelo per Adventum Christi commoto,”
A.D. 1757, he says, “With the gradual development of the kingdom of God
on earth, since the incarnation, the great historical events in the spiritual
world run parallel. Not only earth but
heaven also is shaken. The powers of
evil in the height are in commotion.
Under the lead of Satan they oppose every step of the development of the
Kingdom of God.
It was so at the incarnation of Christ.
It was so at His death. It was so
at His resurrection and ascension. The
prince of this world was even then judged and cast out, and yet not so cast out
as that all access to aerial regions was forbidden him. The final shaking of the heavens was not
accomplished, nor will be, until the final “lucta
ecclesiae cum Satana.” It is still
permitted him to be the “Prince of the power of the air,” and “god of this
world,” to tempt, accuse and plague the Church of Christ, which like her Head,
must pass through suffering to victory. [page 45] Once more, in the progress of the judgment on Satan, parallel
with the progress of the heavenly kingdom, Satan shall be cast down from heaven
to earth, amid the shaking of the powers of heaven, the earth, and the
nations. Then, as John in his Apocalypse
assures us, “No more place will be found for him or his angels in Heaven.” Rev.
12: 7. Knowing this, then, that his
“time is short,” Rev. 12: 12, he makes use of it to introduce the Antichrist,
Rev. 13:1, after whose destruction he is cast out from the earth itself,
chained and shut up in the abyss, in a weary long captivity of a thousand
years, after which, a short period of liberation being allowed him, - and then
eternal judgment, he closes his career in the lake of fire. Rev. 20: 1-3, 7-10. Both these events, the tossing out of Satan
from heaven to earth, and the overthrow of Antichrist, are accompanied by
powerful shaking of the heavens. Other
shakings had previously occurred, but this one, the mightiest of all, and of
which both Haggai and Paul speak as the final one – the apotelesma – is connected with the Second Coming of the Son of Man
and His appearing in glory. At the sound
of the trumpet, more terrible than at Sinai, the powers of heaven shall be
shaken, and the light of the sun shall be obscured before the splendour of the
throne of Majesty. Then, in place of the
things that are shaken, will come the Basileia
Asaleutos, the kingdom that cannot be shaken. Heb. 12: 26-29. then Israel, converted to the Lord, shall
receive the promise, and Jerusalem the seat of the first Christian Church from
which the gospel – the Zionite law – went forth, shall be made glorious as the
mother church and mother city of the Kingdom of God; and then all nations shall
come and [page 46] worship before the
Lord because His judgments are made manifest.” * [* Rev. 15: 4.
(Quoted by Delitzsch Bibl.
Proph. Theologie, pp. 123-138)]
From the last commentary on Isaiah, we venture
to quote the following admirable words by Prof.
Von Orelli of Basle – words that will be welcomed by all: “Not the angelic
host ministering to Jehovah is here intended,” says Orelli, “but the host of
the spirit world accountable to Jehovah, and which like the possessors of
earthly power, is subject to His judgment.
The figure is that of the arrest of State criminals who at first,
without regard to the extent of their demerit, are thrown into prison, then
afterward, at the day of judgment, are dealt with according to the measure of
their guilt.” “The world-judgment here
presented, is pictured as a cosmical catastrophe, like the deluge, which once
swept away mankind, but yet more fruitful of good. The earth shall altogether lose its hold, and
be broken under the weight of its sin.
The judgment shall not merely strike the rulers of the earth, but shall
reach the super-earthly powers, also, who are not blameless before God. Between these, and the sinful world-powers
there is a close connection, as the book of Daniel shows, and which is here
asserted through the fact that they both are judged together. As common criminals, these highest rulers
shall be ignominiously arrested and imprisoned in order that, after
a long time, they may receive their sentence which shall be pronounced
by the Lord enthroned on Mount Zion, and His glorious judgment host there assembled. Sun and moon shall lose their splendour in
token of His great indignation against the world, while His people, redeemed on
Mount Zion, dwell in the clearest light, [page 47] their elders deemed worthy to behold the glory of God; so that,
according to chapter 4: 5, 6, and far more gloriously than in Moses’ time, Ex.
24: 9, 10, they shall be permitted to enjoy, permanently, the protection of the
Shekinah-Cloud as the residence of the Lord who has now taken to Himself the
sovereignty of the world.”
“After this world-judgment, in which
Antichrist and his hosts are destroyed, as also Satan and his legions judged,
and both imprisoned in the abyss, and Israel is redeemed and delivered, comes
the blessed time of the “Multitude of days,” the Millennial Age,” on which Orelli remarks, “then following this
judgment, comes the Triumphlied of the redeemed, chap. 25, as at chap. 12, an
exalted echo of Israel’s song at the Red Sea, Ex. Chap. 15. To all nations who do homage to the Lord in
the end of the days, and undulate like swelling billows to the holy mountain to
worship there, the Lord Himself will prepare a wondrous feast of joy. It shall be to them a divine surprise when
now He takes away the covering which, long enough already, has veiled the eyes
of the nations. They shall behold Him as
the Dispenser of all life and grace, and taste how good He is to those who bend
before His majesty.
“By a second act of almighty love and power,
not less miraculous, He will abolish death with all the woe that wrung from man
uncounted tears, and lift the curse which, from the beginning, has weighed so
heavily upon the human race. Here is,
indeed, the end of the ways of God with men, of which the New Covenant in
Christ, the Risen One, has unveiled the aim.
As the remnant of Israel, so also the remainder of mankind, spared
through the judgment on the nations, shall be destined to unexpected
blessedness by Him the All-Merciful [page 48] One, and this shall be, of itself, the most beautiful apology for
Israel, while the pride of Gentile power, the odious rival of God’s people,
shall be crushed forever.”
And in conclusion, on chapter 26, the last of
the “Little Apocalypse of Isaiah,” he gives us this: “The songs of victory
which first we heard far off in 24: 14, and were next intoned from Zion to the nearing
nations, 5: 15, have now no end. The
redeemed hymn a new song wherein, in glowing words, they justify the ways of
God. Zion is now a city indestructible whose
bulwark and defence are God’s salvation.
To all the righteous who trust in Him, the Rock of Ages, her gates are
open. And she extols that
righteousness. While the enemies of God
fall into death remediless, 5: 14, God’s people find an increase of their
numbers and a widening of their boundaries.
All human birth-pains, for a better future, have been vain. No living soul has come from them; no
increase has been born, 5: 17, 18. But
Jehovah brings such increase, in an unexpected way, as the sudden exclamation,
interrupting Israel’s
moan, announces, ‘Thy dead ones shall live!
My dead body (Israel)
shall arise! Awake! Sing! Ye dwellers in
the dust, for the dew of lights is thy dew, and the earth shall bring forth the
dead!’ Verse 19. Not only shall Israel’s ranks
no more be thinned by death, but even the faithful who, in bitter tribulation,
have succumbed to death, shall come to life again; God’s dead ones whom we
never may forget, nor be without. These
and the living church shall meet in life again!
Here is something new under the sun!
The unyielding under-world shall, through the power of heavenly dew, be
fructified, and the departed rise and bloom in light and life again. Then, in that
day, the Lord binds [page 49] the Dragon, and Israel takes root, and fills the world with
fruit, 27: 1-6.” * [*
Orelli, in Strack-Zockler’s Kurtz Komm, Der Proph. Jesaia, pp. 86, 89-93.]
Such is the exposition of the contents, in
part, of the “Little Apocalypse” of Isaiah, by Orelli – a picture of the World Judgment at the Second Advent and
of the Millennial Age, the “Multitude of Days,” the “long time” following that
judgment; a period of blessedness opened by the restoration of Israel, the
judgment on Antichrist and Satan, the resurrection of the faithful dead, and the revelation of the glory of Christ to the
nations, the companion piece of John’s Apocalypse, chapters 19 and 20. It is not possible to place the Millennial
Age before the coming of Christ, except by an open contradiction of the Word of
God.
B. EZEKIEL 38.
An exile passage also claims our attention, in
proof that “the thousand years” of John’s Apocalypse are found in the Old
Testament itself. It is the strangely
introduced yet significant prediction concerning “Gog and Magog,” in Ezek. 38:
8. It comes upon the reader suddenly, as
an independent prediction of judgment due to Gog “after many days,” and stands
isolated, as it were, in the text. It
seems to be a parenthetic expression. It
is a brief oracle, and yet it is the one word on which John’s whole
representation of the order of the Eschata
is pivoted, in the twelth chapter of his Apocalypse. “After many days – Rabbim Yamim – thou shalt be visited.” The verb (tippakedh)
its tense form and import are the same as in Isaiah 24: 22; 29: 6, not merely a
testing by divine judgment, but a destruction.
Smend’s rendering “Thou shalt
be mustered,”
and the rendering “Thou shalt be commissioned,” [page 50] are insufficient. The verb imports here judicial visitation for
destruction. What the prophet here
predicts is Satan’s last attempt, through Gog and Magog, in the latter years,
against the Kingdom of Messiah, after Israel has been long time restored,
and dwelling safely in their fatherland as a reunited and converted people, and
the final judgment on Gog and his armies.
This prediction occurs in the Apocalypse of Ezekiel, chapters 37-48,
where we find (1) Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones reanimated, or
the final religious and political rehabilitation of the “whole house of
Israel,” in their fatherland, for “many days,” even “forever;” * one flock under
one shepherd, one nation under one king, 37:1-28. (2) Ezekiel’s prophecy of the war-march of
Gog and his conglomerate swarm against Israel long time restored, and the
judgment on Gog, 38: 1-23; 39: 1-29.
(3) Ezekiel’s vision of the glory
of the temple, city, and land, during these “many days,” a further expansion of
what is foretold in 37: 1-28, when the Lord has poured His Spirit out upon the
people, revived their nationality, awakened their faithful dead, and planted them forever in their own inheritance.
The time of the visitation on Gog is
said to be “after” these “many days,” which belong to “the later
years.” (1) The terminus a quo of these “many years” is Israel’s restoration,
conversion to Christ as a people and a nation, and the repossession of their
land; the epoch of the resurrection of their faithful dead, an event included
in the promise made 37: 12, as is proved by Deut. 32: 39; Ps. 17: 15; 49: 14,
15; Hos. 13: 14; Isa. 25: 6-9; 26: 14, 19; Dan. 12: 1-3, all of which passages
refer directly to this same epoch, and fore-announce the literal resurrection
of Israel’s faithful dead, [page
51] and
non-resurrection of the wicked “at that time,” and “in that day.” All this we have in chapter 37. It is the terminus
a quo. It is the same epoch, also,
of the judgment upon Antichrist and his armies, and upon Satan and his angels,
that we find in Isaiah 24: 21, 22; Daniel 12: 1; Revelation 12: 7-9; 20:
1-3. (2) The period, or age, that
follows this terminus a quo is
plainly the Rabbim Yamim or “many days,”
whose glory, peace and blessedness are described in chapters 40-48, which are
the expansion of 38: 1-28, and of what Isaiah has predicted; Isa. 2: 2-5; 11:
6-9; 24: 23 25: 6-9; 40: 1-22; 61: 4-11; 62: 2-12; 65: 17-25; 66: 20-23. They are the period “after” Israel has been
“gathered out from many nations,” “brought back from the sword,” is “dwelling
safely, and at rest, in unwalled villages having neither bars nor gates,” – God
alone their protection, - abundant in wealth and all possessions. Exekiel 38: 8-12, 14. They are the period of the new indwelling
glory in New Israel, chapters 40-53; of the New Service following the entrance
of the Glory in the Temple, which He makes the place of His throne and of the soles
of His feet, 44-46; of the life and healing to the land from the flowing of the
temple waters; and of the splendour to the city whose name is Jehovah Shammah, “The Lord is
there!” 47-48. (3) The terminus
ad quem of these “many days” is expressly said to be the judgment on Gog,
precisely as John makes the judgment on Gog to be the close of “the thousand
years.” Rev. 20: 7. “After many days thou shalt be visited.” The termini
in Isa. 24: 22, and Ezek. 39: 8, are, therefore, identical. The passages are parallel, supplementary, and
mutually explanatory. The character of
the “visitation” at the end of the “many days” is the same in both. The parties [page 52] “visited” are different, but this is due to the fact that
Ezekiel’s prophecy is an advance upon Isaiah’s word, and brings to light new
things occurring at the same time with those of which Isaiah speaks. In Isaiah, the parties visited after “many
days” are Satan and his angels let loose from their imprisonment, and the
Anti-Christian wicked raised from their graves for the last judgment. In Ezekiel, they are the living nations
outlying on the extreme borders of the glorified kingdom
of Israel, whose center is Jerusalem restored and
glorified, and who, as we learn from John, have been deceived again by Satan
let loose. Each prophet is given his own
work to do, and vision to see, “by the same Spirit who divides, severally, to
every man as He will.” 1 Cor. 12: 11.
Isaiah says nothing of Gog.
Ezekiel says nothing of Antichrist.
Both say much of Israel’s
final redemption, at the coming and appearing of the “Glory.” Both speak of Israel’s long blessedness after
restoration to their land and conversion to Messiah. Both announce a “visitation” at the end of
the “many days” of that blessedness.
What in undeveloped in the one, is developed in the other. In the combination of both we find the total
picture of the end as seen by the Old Testament prophets, whose work it was
reserved for John, in Patmos, to complete and crown by the development of prophecy
and further revelation, the last and brightest God has given.
If we turn to John’s Apocalypse we shall find
his Eschata concerning Israel and the Millennial Kingdom
precisely what they are in Old Testament, but only more developed. We learn the organism and the unity, the
structure and the continuity, of all prophecy, its persistence, progress, and
perfection. Interpretation is simply its
own self-revelation, the shining of its own face, self-evident, infallible. [page 53]
Amid the vast variety in the unveiling of the
word and plan of God, the unity remains the same from age to age. The ends and ages are the same in the New as
in the Old Testaments. The Advents there
are the Advents here. Antichrist there
is Antichrist here. Gog there is Gog
here. The judgments there are the
judgments here. The resurrections there are the resurrections here. The power,
the kingdom, and the glory there are the power, the kingdom, and the glory
here. And the times of the Gentiles
first, and the times of Israel
next, in the last unfolding of the kingdom
of God, are the same
there and here. In short, the relation
of Israel to the nations, in
the outcome of the Kingdom of God, is precisely what the prophets, to whom the
“mystery” of Israel’s
blindness, rejection and recovery, was revealed, say it shall be; a mystery
finished under the sounding echoes of the seventh trumpet.
In John, we have the period of “the 1,000
years.” Their commencing date, or terminus a quo, is identified with that
in Isa. 24: 22, and Ezekiel 38: 8. The Eschata that open “the 1,000 years,”
prove this. We have (1) the gathering,
sealing, conversion, and restoration of Israel to their own land and city,
in the midst of tribulation and judgment.
Rev. 7: 1-8; 10: 7; 11: 1; 12: 1-6; 14: 1-5; 15: 2-4; 20: 9.
Chapters 10, 11, and part of 12, introduce us
to Ezekiel’s Valley
of Dry Bones, just when
the voice begins to thunder, the witnesses to prophecy, the Spirit to come from
the four winds, and the earthquake’s shock to attend the resurrection from the
dead. The whole riddle of Ezekiel’s
Apocalypse, i.e., chapters 37-48,
finds its solution on John’s Apocalypse, chapters 10-20: 7. (2) We
have the personal visible and [page 54] glorious advent and appearing of Messiah, for the redemption of
His people, destruction of His enemies, and erection of His Kingdom. Rev. 1: 7; 6: 16, 17; 10: 1; 11: 3, 17; 14:
1; 16: 15; 19: 11-16. We have (3) the judgment and imprisonment of Satan and
his angels. Rev. 12: 7-9; 20: 1-3. We have (4) the judgment of Antichrist and
his armies. Rev. 14: 18-20; 16: 16; 19:
11-21. We have (5) the resurrection of
the faithful dead, and their reign
with Christ in His kingdom of glory on
the earth. Rev. 5: 10; 11: 11, 18; 20: 4-6.
And these events are precisely what Moses, David, Hosea, Isaiah,
Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, all say precede the final glory of Israel, and
stand in front of and attend the “many days.”
And as to the terminus ad quem
of “the thousand years,” the Eschata
here are (1) the loosing of Satan and his demonic powers, Rev. 20: 7, 8; (2)
the war march of Gog and the nations deceived by Satanic influence against
Israel’s land and city, Rev. 20: 9; (3) the judgment of Gog by fire, Rev. 20:
9; (4) the resurrection and judgment of the wicked, Rev. 20: 12; (5) the
judgment of Satan, and his final doom, Rev. 20: 11; (6) the final and total
destruction of death, Rev. 20: 13; (7) the final New Heaven and Earth, 21:
1. And all these events are precisely
what Isaiah and Ezekiel declare and imply shall occur at the close of, or “after,”
the “many days.” To him who declines to
accept that spiritualizing and allegorizing system of interpretation which
negates and destroys so much of the prophetic word itself, the conclusion is
both necessary and irresistible that the Rov
Yamin of Isaiah and the Rabbin Yamim
of Ezekiel, are indeed the Chilia Ete
of John; the “multitude of days” and “many days,” the same as the “thousand
years.” In these two Old Testament
Apocalypses of Isaiah, [page
55]
chapters 24-37, and Ezekiel, chapters 37-48, where the period of Israel’s blessedness
is defined by these two equivalent terms of time just named, the Eschata that bound the opening of this
period on the one side, and those which bound the close of it on the other
side, are the same as those we find, respectively, in John’s Apocalypse, as
bounding the two extremes of the Millennial Age. And, for the opening of this period, the
Aposalypse of Daniel and Zechariah, as the prophecies of the other prophets,
Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Haggai, when combined,
show the same events, occurring in the Yom
Yehovah, during which Messiah comes in glory and in judgment, to destroy
His enemies, redeem His people, and erect His kingdom on the ruins of the
Gentile powers and on the overthrow of Satan’s empire; and if, in reference to
the closing of this period, new characters emerge, or what was but obscure
before becomes full formed and clear, it is because of the progress of prophecy
itself, which, like its fulfilment, has a “springing and germinant
accomplishment,” its light increasing more and more unto the perfect day. And if, in earlier pre-exile prophecy, where
but one end, one advent, and one judgment, with one age following, are found,
we find a mother-source, or general ground, notably in Joel, for
both
great judgments, that on Antichrist and that on Gog; and if again in Isaiah,
the ground is laid not only for these, but for both resurrections as
well, with an interval between; and if, in exile prophecy, in addition to this,
we find, notably in Ezekiel, the ground laid for the still clearer, farther,
and closing revelations of John, in whose Apocalypse the remoter Eschata
stand out, in all their brightness, or their gloom, distinct and [page 56] un-confounded; it is because, from
first to last, the word of prophecy is one continuous genetic movement,
struggling ever to evolve in its conclusion what was first involved in its
beginning. The prophets all supplement
each other, and John is the all-embracing consummation of them all. His light illuminates the rest.
From what has been said it must be clear that
the Millennial Kingdom
is the time of blessedness on earth for Israel
restored to God, for Israel
reclaimed to Christ, and lies beyond His Second Coming, beyond the resurrection
from the dead. This cannot be
successfully denied. Even
post-millennialists confess as much, in contradiction of their own theory. “the binding of Satan,” says Schroeder, on Ezekiel, in Lange, “is
the necessary preliminary of the millennial kingdom. If he is not to deceive the nations during this
time but after it, does so again, then it is clear even from that to
which he afterward deceives them, that his imprisonment means, above all, the
cessation of war and violence, and of violent combating of the church of God,
inasmuch as the following vision of witnesses unto blood seems to point
particularly in the same direction,”
“Gog and Magog both follow the resurrection (Ezek. 37),
as in John’s revelation (Rev. 20: 4-6), and he who is constrained to recognize,
in Ezekiel, chap. 37. Israel’s re-quickening as a nation, will not, thereby, be
hindered from conceding that it will be followed by the re-quickening from
their graves, of “all who are Christ’s,” as Paul expresses it. Moreover, the repeated “forever” – “Leolam” – (in Ezekiel, chapter 37) – can
here be interpreted by the Chilia Ete
there (in Revelation 20: 1-7.) * [* Schroeder on Ezekiel, in Lange, 376, 350.] Again: “After many days” denotes the [page 57] expiration of a long time, and
supposed to be the last time, which is not only the consummation of the Kingdom of God, but of the world generally. The words “Days” and “Years” interchange
harmoniously in the verse. “After many
days” “in the latter years.” That which
appears in the single event as “many days,” is, for the eye of the Apocalyptic
seer that ranges over the whole, the summation of what is still outstanding in years, or time
generally. Both these phrases denote the
Messianic age.” * [* Ibid
363]
So Schroeder speaks. And we add that, if indeed, as is the fact,
the binding of Satan precedes the judgment on Gog; if it
occurs at the Second Coming of Christ when the resurrection from the dead takes
place; if Israel’s political resurrection precedes this personal one; if “Leolam,” “forever,” is used in its
qualified sense as equivalent to “the thousand years” of John, the “long time”
or “outstanding” period, next preceding the consummation of the kingdom and the
world; if all this is conceded, then it is hard to see how any who accept these
conclusions could find relief from their force, by resort to the allegorical,
spiritual, or symbolical theories of interpretation. The relations of the events must, at
least, remain the same, and the “Many Days” must come in between the Second Coming
of Christ and the judgment on Gog. If,
moreover, we allegorize one event, to be consistent we must allegorize
all. This wrecks the whole prediction,
and denies the vast body of literal Scripture elsewhere with which it stands
connected.
Riehm, as an exegete,
though seeking to avoid the literal interpretation of prophecy in reference to Israel’s [page 58] future, yet finds in impossible to
evade the clear representation of Ezekiel himself. He says, “In Ezekiel, we certainly read of
imminent danger to the Kingdom
of God in the ‘End of the
days’ after its restoration.
The victory of Jehovah divides itself into two acts rather widely separated from each
other. The judgments which bring
deliverance to Israel,
first of all, fall upon the neighbouring nations already in conflict with the
people of God. ‘After’ Israel’s
deliverance, there is a time of security and peace, Ezek. 38: 8, 11, 12, yet
still the distant nations have not learned to know Jehovah’s power, and at the
‘End of the Days’ they assemble, under Gog, to fight against Israel, but the
Lord destroys them, and consumes their country with fire, 39: 6. Only after this is the kingdom assured
against further attack, 38: 29.” “Most remarkable indeed, are the words of
Ezekiel in 28: 25, 26. After
the first judgments securing Israel against surrounding nations, the kingdom
is established in the Holy Land, and for a
long time the people enjoy undisturbed repose, 38: 8, 11, 12. At the ‘End of the Days,’ Gog and Magog make
their final attack, after whose destruction Israel remains forever secure
against their foes.” “In Micah,
the Messianic king has ascended the throne before the final attack of the
distant nations; and as in the Apocalypse of John, the Kingdom of Christ has
stood a thousand years before Satan is let loose to lead the hosts of Gog and
Magog against it, so also in Ezekiel, Israel enjoys for a long time the
blessing of complete communion with Him before they are finally assured of
their safe possession of the blessing.” * [* Riehm, Messianic Proph. 110, 210.]
Clearly, then, even according to Riehm’s view, the [page 59] “many days” in Ezekiel, are the period
of Israel’s blessedness in the Messianic Kingdom on earth, and are bounded at
their opening, by the “first judgments” which bring deliverance to Israel and
the establishment of Israel in the Messianic kingdom on earth, and at their
close are bounded by the “destruction of Gog.”
The period between these different and separated judgments, which stand
apart “rather widely,” is a “long time,” when “a thousand years,” and Micah,
Ezekiel and John, herein agree. The
millennium announced by John is only what the prophets, pre-exile and exile,
have foretold, and the duration of which they measure by the “many days”
between Israel’s introduction, by means of the Messianic judgment, into the
kingdom established in the Holy Land, and the final overthrow of Gog. Micah, as well as Isaiah, forecasts “the
thousand years” of John. Not before, but
only “after the thousand years,” when Gog is judged, is the ultimate glory of
the kingdom. In other words, the view of
the total
End-Time, in the widest and most comprehensive scope, as seen by the
prophets, and embracing the perfect victory of Messiah for Israel’s complete
deliverance and complete establishment of the kingdom of glory on earth, in the
latter days, is represented as that of two great acts or phases of judgment
between which lie the “many days” of Ezekiel which are “the thousand years” of
John. In other words again, the “End of
the Days” of which Ezekiel and Isaiah speak, in the texts already referred to,
is the end of “the thousand years,” the “end” which Paul has in view, in 1 Cor.
15: 34, when Messiah’s victory is complete, and, all rule, authority and power
being put down, and [page
60] death
itself destroyed, the kingdom is surrendered to the Father, and God is all in
all. 1 Cor 15: 24-26. The harmony and
unity of Isaiah, Micah, Ezekiel, Paul and John, herein, are both demonstratable
and indestructible. Their testimony to
the location of the Millennial
Kingdom the other side of
the Second Coming of Christ, is final. Pastor Koch, therefore, in his
admirable work on “The Thousand Years’ Kingdom,” eminent not less for its logic
than for its critical ability and thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, is
right when, discussing Ezekiel’s “Many Days,” says: “This period of Israel’s
peace and blessedness can be no other than ‘the thousand years’ kingdom treated
of Rev. 19: 11-21. Between the overthrow of
Antichrist and Gog’s march lies the period of Rev. 20: 1-6 which is nothing
else than ‘The Thousand Years.’ The
march of Gog follows only ‘after the thousand years are finished,’ ” * [* Das tausendjuhrige Reich, p. 65.]
C.
LEOLAM.
FOREVER.
In the extract from Schroeder, quoted above,
it was said that the term “Leolam,”
“forever,” Ezek. 37: 25, 26, 28, applied to the duration of the times of Israel in the
kingdom, in future days, “can be interpreted by the Chilia Ete, or ‘The Thousand Years,’ in Rev. 20: 1-7.” This is exegetically true as it is
theologically important, and rests upon the Biblical use of the term
itself. It refutes the vain charge that
Chiliasm denies the “everlasting” character of Messiah’s kingdom, because it
asserts its temporal form in a Millennial Age. [page 61]
A better knowledge of the usus loquendi, and of the term “forever,” would render this, like
many other similar objections, impossible.
The kingdom
of Messiah is, as the
Scriptures everywhere declare, everlasting in its essence and existence. It has “no end.” Isa. 9: 7; Heb. 1: 8-12. Messiah’s throne is “forever.” Ps. 89: 4, 29, 36; Heb. 1: 8; 72: 77. Throughout its several forms of
dispensations, it is an everlasting kingdom also, but yet to each
of these forms there is an “end.” Matt.
24: 14; Heb. 9: 26; 1 Cor. 15: 24. It is
olamic aeonian in both, but in a different
sense; in the first, absolutely so; in the second, relatively so; unlimited as
to its essence, limited as to its forms.
As to its essence, no external event can limit it. As to its form, external events do limit
it. Viewed in its essence it is eternal
only. Viewed in its essence and form,
together, it is both temporal and eternal, yet called eternal in its relative
sense, that is, “age-abiding.” * [*See NOTES at Emd – Ed] Essentially it is one, and endures forever in
an absolute sense. Circumstantially, or
dispensationally, it is many, its forms evanescent, though each is
age-abiding. This rests upon the nature
of the case, and the Biblical expression is accommodated to the fact. The wise man tells us God has sent “Olam,” “eternity,” in the heart of man,
and he knows “that whatever God doeth it should be Leolam, forever.” Eccl. 3:
11, 14. No man can find, out the work of
God from its beginning, or in its end, no man can conceive an absolute
beginning or an absolute end, for no man can conceive an absolute beginning or
an absolute end, because “God has set Olam in the heart of man.” Eternity transcends human thought, and yet it
is the innermost core of man’s spiritual constitution, writes vanity on all things
perishable, and bespeaks man’s immorality.
In spite of the world’s fading fashion which attracts and [page 62] in the eternal state, will differ as
greatly from its previous form in the millennial state, as
that millennial form will differ from our present form, and as ours again
differs from the old Mosaic, or as that did from the patriarchal tent.
Schroeder is right, therefore, as are
Kliefoth, Oehler, Kuper, and many others, when saying that Ezekiel’s Leolam, Forever, in 37: 25, 26, 28, is
the equivalent of John’s Chilia Ete,
or “one thousand years,” in Rev. 20: 1-7.
Isaiah’s everlasting age concealed in its bosom all the relative ages of
the great development, and their termini, even as Joel’s prophecy was
“generic” and contained the two judgments of the double end, the judgment on antichrist
and the nations, and the judgment on Gog.
And in the whole development, all things are connected with temporal and
terrestrial relations. From first to
last, even in the New Testament, the ages and the kingdom of the heavens are
associated with our planet. Nowhere in
the Old Testament, as nowhere in the New, can our popular idea of “an end to
the world,” as the terminus where Time and Eternity meet, or Time passes into
Eternity, and “our planet is no more,” to be found. Such conceptions are unbiblical, Manichean,
Origenistic, Shakesperean and pessimistic.
The “hills of Olam” abide for ever and forever. Materiality is glorified, not annihilated, in
God’s Kingdom. The creation is
recreated. A new heaven and earth
supplant the old, and this begins with the “many days,” “the
one thousand years.”
D. HOSEA 3: 4.
Another expression, similar to those already
noted, is found on Hosea when predicting God’s watchful care over Israel in
their dispersion and lonliness; - [page 65] the time of Lo Ammi and Lo Ruhamam – “Not my people,” and “Not my beloved;” the time when
harlot Israel, divorced from God, yet separated from idolatry, is still in
desolation and concealment and providentially preserved for God. Hos. 1: 6, 9, 10; 2: 20-23. The words of punishment and grace are the
alike remarkable. “Thou shalt abide for
me many days – Yamin Rabbim. Thou shalt not play the healot. Thou shalt not be any man’s wife. So will I also be for thee!” God’s pledge to the sinful Jewish Church, to apostate Israel! To divorced Lo Ammi and Lo Ruhamah! This is grace amazing. It tells the topmost mercy, boundless love,
and bottomless compassion of God. This
is surely immeasurable. “For the
children of Israel
shall abide (dwell, yeshbhn) many
days, - Yamin Rabbim, - no king and
no prince, and no sacrifice, and no obelisk, and no ephod and terraphim. Afterward (achar) shall the children of Israel return (convert, yashubhu) and seek the Lord their God
and David their King, and shall come with fear to the Lord and His goodness, in
the afterness of the days,” Hosea 3: 3-5.
If we ask what are these “many days” of Israel’s loneliness and
isolation, and strangely-pledged preservation for God, we can only answer
promptly, with Delitzsch, “The many
days here are the long period of the exile, the condition in which the Jewish
people is, even now; - a people, but not a State with a King; - a still
worshiping congregation, but with no sacrifices, a people so radically
alienated from polytheism that it regards itself as the pillar of monotheism; -
a people who, at length, shall be seized with a repentant desire for Jehovah,
and David its King, that is, as the Targum translates, ‘for Messiah the Son of
David,’ the king David of the final period.
Jer. 30: 9; [page
66] Ezek.
34: 23-31; 37: 24-28;” and then he adds: “The entire Old Testament can exhibit
no brighter prophecy respecting the conversion of Israel than this companion
piece to Rom. 11: 25, and which received its full spiritual signification,
first of all, in the light of the New.” * [* Messianic Prophecies, p. 61]. It is
a photograph of the condition of Israel to-day, and as certain a
prediction of what their end will be, as a people, in a few short years. But this is not all. There is another aspect of this period. Contrary to Pusey’s inadequate comment, the
“many days” here are gathered into two great days, two historic days,
covering the whole time of Israel’s national decease and rest, as a nation, in
the grave; the whole time of the existence of the Valley of the Dry Bones; at
the expiration of which returning Israel’s resurrection shall take place, i.e., on the third historic day. “Come
and let us return unto the Lord, for He hath torn and will heal us; He hath
smitten and will bind us up. After
two days, - Miyyomayim, - He will requicken us. On the third day, - Bayom Hashshelishi,
- He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight,” i.e., “before Him.” Hos. 6:
1, 2. Then follows the age of perpetual
sunshine and spiritual showers, v. 3, the summer for the just, the resurrection
glory.
If we ask what these two historic days are, we
can only say again, with Delitzsch,
“The prophecy refers to the people, after the second day of whose death a
resurrection day follows.” Rom. 11:
15. “The two days of their death are, in
the history of fulfilment, the Assyrian and Babylonian exile, and the Roman
exile, in which the Jewish people still are.” [*ibid, p. 62.] That
is, the first day of Israel’s national death is the Old Testament [page 67] period of Israel’s destruction as a
nation, the people carried captive, Jerusalem destroyed, the Temple gone, the
land depopulated, and the outward kingdom blotted out; the second day is the
New Testament period, with the like catastrophe repeated, the first day
reaching to the First Coming of Christ, beginning with a new dispensation, the
Roman or second day reaching to the Second Coming, the total period being the
time of Israel, as a nation, in the Valley of Dry Bones, the Monarchy-Colossus
still standing unstruck.
Then comes the “third,” the resurrection day,
in whose “morning” Israel
arises, the time of Israel’s
repentance and home-coming, the time when the Colossus falls, and the Dry Bones
stand up erect, reanimated, clothed with flesh, a host exceeding great! What we have here is a spiritual resurrection
first, Ezek. 36: 25; a national and political resurrection next, Ezek. 37:
1-28; a literal corporal resurrection of the faithful dead of Israel last, Ps. 49: 14, 15; Isa. 26: 19; Dan. 12:
1-3. The apostle Paul quotes the words of
Hosea 13: 14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem
them from death. O death, where are thy
plagues? O grave, where is thy
destruction?” in proof of a literal
destruction of the body, 1 Cor. 15: 55, and, in his letter to the Romans, tells
us that this time of Israel’s conversion and re-establishment will bring no
less an event than “life out from the dead.”
Rom. 11: 15.
What Hosea gives us here, at the beginning of
the third day, is precisely what Moses gives us, Deut. 32: 39; and David gives
us, Ps. 49: 14, 15; and Isaiah gives us, 25: 8; 26: 19; and Daniel gives us,
12: 1-3; and Ezekiel gives us, 37: 1-28; and John’s Apocalypse gives us, 11:
11, 18; 12: 5; 10: 11; 20: 4-6. [page 68] Then after these mighty
events that mark the end of our present age, or end of Israel’s second day of
national death, comes the Millennial Age of Israel’s blessedness, pictured
beautifully, as the times of perennial reviving and refreshing, the age of
Israel’s Dew, and Blossoming, and Lily growth, and deepening roots like the
Cedar tree, and spreading branches like the olive tree; the age of blessing to
the Nations, when they, too, dwelling under Israel’s shadow, shall revive as
the corn, and bloom as the vine, and be fragrant as wine of Lebannon; and
Israel, all holy to the Lord, will have no more to do with idols, but,
unwithering, like the fir tree, bear holy fruit to God. Hosea 14: 4-8.
The demonstration, then, is clear,
inductively. Hosea’s “many days” reach from the Assyrian captivity down to the
Second Advent of Christ. During this
whole period Israel
as a nation lies buried in the grave with the Colossus on its breast. Israel’s resurrection as a nation
is on the “morning” of the “third day.”
“In the history of Christ the history of Israel is recapitulated.” (Delitzsch.) “Israel must die as a nation in
order to live. From death to life is the
path for Israel
to the kingdom.” (Orelli.) Equally clear is it that the “Multitude of
Days” in Isa. 24: 22, and the “Many Days” in Ezek. 38: 8, are identical with
“the Thousand Years” in John, Rev. 20: 1-7, and reach from the Second Coming of
Christ to the destruction of Gog.
These two vast periods, taken together, cover,
therefore, the whole time from the Assyrian captivity to the Last Judgment and
the final New Heaven and Earth. The age
next before us is that of the “Third Day,” the “Sabbatism” of the world. Not at the First Coming of Christ was Hosea’s
prediction fulfilled, as is clear [page 69] from John’s Apocalypse,
where, under the sixth vial, the Euphrates, beyond which the ten tribes roved
into concealment among the nations, is “dried up” to make way for the return of
Israel, under the care of the princes from the sun rising. Rev. 16: 12; 2 Kings 17: 6; Isa. 11: 16; 24:
16; 66: 19, 20; 41: 2, 25; Zeph. 3: 10.
It is true that the terms “Afterward” and the “Last Days” are standing
eschatological formulae for the whole Messianic time covered by Isaiah’s
everlasting age, as well as for the time next preceding the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the Lord;” and
that, as is clear from Joel and Peter, they include the first as well as the
second appearing of Messiah. !sa. 2: 2; Joel 2: 28; Acts 2: 17; the outpouring
of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, as well as the still future outpouring
predicted by Paul. Rom. 11: 27, and
parallels; Isa. 59: 21; Ezek. 36: 24, 25; and both which are wrapped up in
Zechariah’s oracle, Zech. 12: 10-14; 13: 1, 6.
Compare Rev. 1: 7. But it is
equally true that whatever conversion of Jews occurred on the day of Pentecost,
or of any Israelites since, it is only the initial, not the final, redemption
of that people, since Israel, as a nation, is still cast away, not gathered,
their house desolate, and their land still trodden under Gentile feet. The “afterness of the days” is the end-time
at the second coming of Christ. It
refers to the epoch of Israel’s
entrance into the kingdom restored, the time when Israel seeks and welcomes Christ
the King. Luke 13: 34, 35; Rev. 15: 3;
and also to those super-natural days of Messiah, called “his days,” in Psalm
72: 7, when Israel’s “handful of corn,” or saved remnant, “shall shake like
Lebanon,” and “they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth,” 72:
16; the time when those words, so bitter and sad, “Lo Ammi” [page
70] and “Lo Ruhamah,” shall no more be
spoken. Down to this very hour Israel has remained pure from the sin of
“Idolatry” since the day their national exile began, and, as a people, will so
abide, reserved for the Kingdom
of Christ at His
Coming. The same race, punished for sin,
is the race reclaimed by grace.
Nationally, as well as personally, God deals with the Jewish people.
Israel’s identity abides
through all the ages. From the genesis
of Israel in Abraham to the re-genesis of Israel in Christ, Israel “abides,”
Israel, untarnsmuted, and, from Sennacherib down to the last Antichrist, will
so “abide,” kept for that day when the “Branch of Jehovah shall become an
ornament and glory, and He the Fruit of the Land be a pride and a boast for the
escaped of Israel.” Isa. 4: 2. So sing
the prophetic Blessing of Judah, the Oracles of Balaam, the Dying Song of
Moses, and the Words of David, preluding the fortunes of the chosen people down
to, and into, the “Last Days.” So sing
Hosea and Amos, the two prophets of the ten tribes, in concert with all the
rest. In God’s strange providence Israel “abides”
for Him,
and not another, unobelisked and unteraphimed, and He is “toward them,”
and will yet “have mercy on them.” Then,
in that day of Israel’s
home-coming, the Jewish Church of the end time will be revived. The Lord will renew the Covenant of His love
with “Lo Ruhamah,” take away any
ambiguous “Baali” from her mouth, and
put the loving “Ishi” there. He will betroth her Himself in righteousness
and judgment, in loving kindness and in mercies, even in faithfulness
forevermore. In her final tribulation He
will allure her to the wilderness, as John’s Apocalypse also shows us. Rev. 12: 6, 14; and nourish her, and tenderly
repeat His “Ammi” [page 71] to her heart, and breathe “Rumamah!” He will accept her penitence and tears, and
give her again “the Valley
of Trouble” for a door of
hope, and make her sing her old Egyptian song.
There will not only be a Wedding Day, but a Day of Victory. When David’s fallen Booth is re-erected, in
more than ancient splendour, Israel and Judah, reunited, as “one nation,” and
marching under “One Head,” shall “come up from the land,” victorious, across
the plain of Megiddo, where Barak fought and Deborah sang, and “Great will be
the Day of Jezreel!” Hos. 1: 11.
E. MOSES.
But Moses demands a hearing. The Prophets have said nothing on this great
matter that even Moses had not already said before them. Let it be enough, just here, to say that Moses
himself defines the time during which Israel
shall be nationally cast away, and at whose close Israel shall be nationally
restored, and made glorious in their fatherland. If we turn to Leviticus 27: 18, 21, 24, 28,
we shall hear God saying what He will do
to Israel in case of their apostasy,
“If ye will not hearken unto me, but will walk contrary to me, then I
will add to smite you Seven Times (Sheba) upon your sins.” When, however, in the Acharith Hayyamin, or Last Days, Israel repents, accepting the
justice of their punishment, nationally, then, says God. “I will for their
sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, my covenant I made with
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and I will remember the land.” Lev.
26: 42, 45. Who cannot see that the
Sheba or Seven Times of Israel’s national punishment are the whole stretch of
time in Israel’s chastisement, from the smiting of Israel and Judah, as
kingdoms, down to the [page
72] “Last
Days” when Israel nationally repents, i.e.,
down to the Second Coming of Christ?
They are the measure of the duration of Israel
in the lion’s den, and furnace of affliction, seven times hot, the whole period
of the “Times of the Gentiles,” the period of the Colossus standing erect on Israel’s grave; the “Many Days” of Hosea, his
“Two Days,” at whose close Israel’s
resurrection and redemption occur, and the Millennial Age begins.
Listen to the “Song of Moses,” Deut. 32:
39-43. It predicts Israel’s
apostasy, and final recovery, as a nation, in the Acharith Hayyamin or Last Days, the “End of the Days,” still future
to us. The faithful of that oracle, in
Moses, has never yet taken place. Its
radius of vision reaches to the Second Advent, as all successive prophecy
shows, and all history confirms. Both
Testaments conspire to prove this. It
points, in clearest terms, to the Great Tribulation, the interposition of
Christ, and the “making alive” of Israel’s
faithful dead by Him who “kills” Israel’s adversaries. To spiritualize this into a subjective
redemption of all God’s people, or of the New Testament
Church, is to mock the
Scriptures. He who, in Moses, swares, as
He lifts His hand, “I am He, I kill and I make alive, I live forver,” and vows
to “avenge the blood” of His martyred ones, and calls the nations to “rejoice with
His people” (the Jews) in that crisis, is He who in John, Rev. 10: 7, lifts His
hand and swears that, with the seventh trumpet, the Tribulation shall come to
an end, and Antichrist be destroyed, Israel be delivered, and not only Moses,
but Daniel also predicted (Dan. 12: 1-3) and the righteous dead be restored to
life. Such is the organic unity of all
prophecy from Moses to John. Then the
“mystery of God” foreshown to the prophets [page 73] “shall be finished” and the kingdom come. John is only repeating and filling out Moses
and the Prophets! * Look at Deut. 31: 28,
29; 32: 39-43; Rev. 6: 10; 10: 7; 15: 3, 4; 19: 11-21; 20: 1-7. Sunlight is not clearer than that the Age of
Israel’s glory in the kingdom is placed, by Moses, after the Seven Times of
punishment which reach down to the very “End of the Days,” or “Acharith Hayyamin” in their utmost
development, that is, after Hosea’s “two days.” In other words, Moses puts it precisely where
Hosea’s “third day” stands, and John’s 1,000 years belong. It follows Israel’s national conversion to
Christ. Deut. 30: 1-4. And he who studies Paul, will find him
teaching the same truth when discussing the “Jewish Problem,” as men call
it. In Rom. 10: 6-10; 11: 25, 29, he
puts Israel’s conversion, as a people, even as Isaiah does, Isa. 59: 16-21, and
Peter does, Acts 3: 19-21, at the Second Coming of Christ.
[* “ANI-HU” (I AM HE) is the covenant name of
Christ, in the Old Testament, Deut. 32: 39; Isa. 43: 10; 46: 3, 5; 48: 12. It is the name of the Second Person of the
Trinity (1) making Himself equal in Essence with God (HE), while yet asserting
a distinct Personality. It is the
consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, of the Word of God, and is the
ground of John’s Logos doctrine. John 1:
1. He who here speaks, to Moses, is the
personal “Word of God,” who appears as the diademed Rider on the White Horse,
Rev. 19: 11, and as the Angel of the Covenant, or Maleach Habberith, coming, the second time to Israel, to wake His
people out of the Valley of Dry Bones, and appearing with solar-face, rainbow-crown,
His shoulders in cloud, and His feet in pillars of fire, Rev. 10: 1, and
swearing the same words to John that He swore to Moses. It was ANI-HU who dwelt in the Pillar of
Cloud by day, and Fire by night. It was
ANI –HU who spoke to Moses in the “Bush.”
It was ANI-HU HAMMIDDABBER, I AM HE, the Speaking One, a motto
Stier has taken for his “Words of Jesus.” It was a name asserting the deity, eternity,
personality, majesty, and real presence and glory of Christ, in Old Testament
History. ANI-HU is the “Alpha and Omega”
in the Apocalypse, Isaiah’s “Immanu-EL” or “With-us-God.” The Christ who talked to Moses upon the same
subject, and in reference to the same time.]
H.
THE PSALTER.
Nor is the Psalter silent. All the sweet singers of Israel, from David to Ezra, pre-celebrate the
same future for Israel. They sing in concert with Moses. The “Set Time” to favour Zion, as it stands
in the prophetic outlook, Psalm 102: 13-22, is demonstrably the “End Time” when
the Angel of Jehovah, the Lord Himself, throned on the “Clouds,” comes with His
holy “Angels” to “appear in His glory and build up Zion,” to “judge the people,
the world, the earth, in righteousness,” to give the righteous “dominion in the
morning,” to cause them to “wake in His likeness,” to “send the rod of His
strength out of Zion,” “rule in the midst of His enemies,” “smite kings in the
Day of His wrath,” “redeem Israel,” “make known His Salvation in the eyes
of all nations,” and “fill the earth with His glory.” It is all eschatological. Those marvellous Psalms, 102, 97, 18, 96, 49,
110, 72, show this at once. The
expression “His Days” in Psalm 72: 7, denotes plainly the days of Messianic
or Millennial glory on earth, foretold by the prophets, and as following the
“Seven Times” of Moses. These “Days” are
the “Third Day” of Hosea, the “Many Days” of Isaiah and Ezekiel, and the
“Thousand Years” of John. Moses, the
Psalms, and the Prophets, all sing the same thing concerning Israel and
Messiah, both as to their sufferings and glory, all idealizing critics to the
contrary notwithstanding. A pre-advent
Millennium is unknown to the Psalter.
That bright constellation of five Psalms closing with the 100th
Psalm, is a chorus of Second Adnent songs.
Delitzsch calls them
“Apocalyptic Psalms.” Prof. Binnie of Aberdeen styles them
“Songs of the Millennium.” Herder named them a “Group of
Millennial Psalms.” Tholuck adorned [page
75] them
with the title “Millennial Anthems.”
What is it they celebrate? The
Glorious kingdom of the Messiah, the kingdom restored to Israel, after
the Second Coming, or personal Self- Revelation of Jehovah, to judge the
world. Like so many others, they teach
as the Prophets do, the pre-millennial Advent of Christ, and the “Shower
Seasons,” or “Times of Reviving” following, when “He shall come down like rain
upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth;” the very “times of
refreshing” of which Peter spoke, when the first Christian Pentecost, their
pledge, was fully come. Paul tells the
Hebrews in his first chapter that the 97th Psalm relates to the
Second Advent when the First-Born Heir of all things is publicly installed in
His inheritance amid the homage of all angels.
The Old Hundredth Psalm is simply an anticipation of the Millennial Age
when “All the people that on earth do dwell” unite to praise the Lord. What is the 45th Psalm but an
“Advent Hymn” as the great Crusius
called it, “Celebrating the victories of the Bridegroom-Warrior coming to His
kingdom?”
What is the 97th. Psalm but a
catalogue of the nations whose individuals are put on the burgess roll as born
citizens of metropolitan Zion
when God establishes her in universal empire?
That the 37th Psalm refers to the Millennial Age, when “the
meek shall inherit the earth,” is our Lord’s own teaching. The 68th Psalm is a “Great
War-Hymn of the Conqueror of the World-Power.”
The 50th Psalm opens with the “Advent of Christ to
judgment.” The Hebrew Poets are all
Pre-millennialists, as are the Hebrew Prophets, and the Psalter has to do with
“the 1,000 years” as plainly as has the Apostle John. [page 76]
I.
SUMMING UP.
If we sum up the results of our investigation,
we shall find that the Spirit of Prophecy has furnished us various
time-designations which span the whole development of the Kingdom of God
on earth from the Assyrian captivity down to the final New Heaven and
Earth. Israel’s fate is the measure of all
prophecy. Of these designations to cover
the whole period from the Assyrian exile down to the Second Coming of Christ,
viz., the “Many Days” in Hosea 3: 4, 5, during which Israel “abides,” waiting
for Jehovah, and which in Hosea 6: 2, are summed up in “Two Days” the two great
historic periods of national death for Israel, viz., (1) the Old Testament Day
of Assyrian and Babylonian captivity and dispersion, and (2) the New Testament
Day of Roman captivity and dispersion, these two days reaching down to the time
of Israel’s predicted return, resurrection, and national rehabilitation in
their fatherland, at the Second Coming of Christ or in the morning of Hosea’s
“Third Day,” Hosea 6: 2; the history of “Israel” the national Messiah, and
“Israel” the personal Messiah, being modelled on the same divine plan. What we further find is that the Messianic
Kingdom and Glory on earth, i.e., the
Millennial age, this side the final Regenesis of all things, is defined, in the
Scriptures, by no less than six different equivalent expressions, viz.:
Rov
Yamin. Multitude of Days. Isa. 24: 22.
Rabbin
Yamin. Many days. Ezek. 38: 8.
Yom
Hashshelishi. Third Day. Hos. 3: 4, 5.
His Days.
Psa. 72: 7
Leolam. Forever.
Ezek. 37: 25, 26, 28.
Chila
Ete.
Thousand Years. Rev. 20: 1-7.
All descriptive of the same period of time,
bounded [page 77] on each side by the
same events, the period between the Second Advent and the
destruction of Gog, or between the binding and loosing of
Satan. It is important to observe that
the “Many Days” of Hosea, are a very different period from the “Many Days” of
Ezekiel, and the “Multitude of Days” of Isaiah.
The former are the “Times of the Gentiles,” the times of the Colossus,
the Four Beasts, Israel’s
Graveyard, 69 weeks, with at least 1890 years of the Interval following the
period of Israel’s
national Rejection and Death. The latter
are the Millennial Age itself, introduced by the Second Advent, the gathering
and judgment of the nations, the downfall of the Colossus, the destruction of
the Antichrist, the 70th week, and the resurrection of Israel. What we further find is that the 70th
of Daniel’s 70 weeks is divided into twice 1260 days for the Rise, Reign, and
Ruin, of Antichrist, and that the formula, 70 years, plus 7 year-weeks, plus
62 year-weeks, plus our Interval, plus I year-week, all of which make
the “Two Days” of Hosea, spans the whole time from the Destruction of the visible
kingdom of God on earth to its setting up again; that the “Many Days” of Hosea,
which are his “Third Day,” span “the 1,000 years” of John; and that all, taken
together, exhaust the whole prophetic calendar if we add, hereto, Gog’’s
“little season,” at the close of the Millennial Age. The formula of the total AEonology is 70 years plus 69 year-weeks, plus
our Interval, plus 1 year-week, plus the 1,000 years, plus Gog’s
little season.
And what we find further, is that no prophet
of the Old Testament gives a complete, but only a partial picture of the
End-Time, even as neither Christ, nor any Apostle does, but that the work of
John, under the guidance of the Spirit of Prophecy, was to combine the [page 78] Eschata of Joel, Amos, Hosea, Micah,
Isaiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah; in short, the Eschata of all the
prophets, and arrange them in their temporal order and succession, supplementing
by one prophet the partial picture of the End drawn by another, until all the
Eschata fall into their places, as they shall occur in history, so furnishing
to us one grand tableau of the End Time. This is what the Holy Ghost did with the seer
in the “isle that is called Patmos.” Nothing is clearer than that “the 1,000
years” of John are found in the Old Testament prophets, and that Hosea’s “Third
Day,” Isaiah’s “Multitude of Days,” Ezekiel’s “Many Days,” bounded by two
resurrections, two conflagrations, and two judgments, each distinguished from
one another, and between which the Millennial Kingdom lies. The New Testament Apocalypse answers herein,
to the Old, as face answers to face in water, and it belongs to the shame and
reproach due to the superficial knowledge of so many in our day, who pretend to
greater things, that they have not recognized this fact, in their study of the
Scriptures, but still keep harping on the old and timeless string that “the
Millennium is found in only one passage of the Bible, and
that in a very obscure book called the Apocalypse!” a boast and a blindness
which have happened in part of many Gentile interpreters who inform us that
Israel of Old Testament Prophecy, “Daniel’s People” brought out of
Egypt, and to whom a future so glorious is reserved, after a punishment so
great, means believers in Christ, the Old and the New Testament “Church,” from
the “first man Adam,” down to the “Second Adam, the Lord from heaven,” a grand spiritual
company gathered not only from Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and dwellers
in Mesopotamia, but from Greeks, Turks, Germans, Saxons, Romans, Arabs, [page 79] Frenchmen, Esquimaux and Indians. What a perversion, or as Delitzsch calls it, a “destruction
and negatation of the prophecies not effected!” Or what is more humiliating to a scholar than
the allegorizing “Anglo-Israelism” of some of our times! On the Contrary, if we only let God speak for
Himself – allowing Israel to “abide” Israel, till the Lord comes,
that “Genea” not passing away, how
bright the unclouded Apocalypses of Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah
and John! How clear the Millennial age following
the Advent! How false the common view entertained by the Church, and blindly
advocated by so many of her teachers!
H
It does seem strange that any student of God’s
word should doubt, for one moment, the truth that blazes everywhere so clearly
in the Old as well as the New Testaments, viz., that the Second Coming of
Christ precedes the Millennium.
And it does seem criminal that such an unreasoning prejudice should
exist in the minds of any against the use of the term as Spiritual as are the terms
“Baptism,” “Baptist,” “Episcopalian,” “Presbyterian;” words which the objectors
themselves have chosen to consecrate as the names of their several
denominations, and in which they glory.
How unreasonable is man’s opposition, even to God’s own word! “Man would,” as Bengel says, “take the very words of God out of His own
mouth!” We coin the word
“Millennialist,” in Latin, from the words “Mille” and “annos,” which are simply
the Roman equivalents for the Greek “Chilia Ete” of John in Rev. 20: 1-7, the
English translation of which is a “thousand Years.” It is Scriptural. We coin the word “Chiliast” from these same
inspired words. It is as Scriptural a
term, as is “Baptist,” [page
80]
“Presbyterian,” or “Episcopalian,” or “Christian,” and as “Orthodox” as any of
these! It means that he who wears it
believes that the “Day of the Lord” in which Christ comes precedes the
Millennium. The Advent is before
the Millennium. That is, he is a
“Pre-Millennialist.” It denies what the
Scriptures everywhere deny, viz., the fiction of a pre-advent Millennium. With equal justice, we might coin the word Ravyamist from the Hebrew terms “Rov Yamin” and “Rabbim Yamim,” In Hosea, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, there used to denote
the same truth. Every prophet was a Ravyamist. He believed in a period of time, “after”
Messiah’s Coming to judge the Nations, in which Israel, re-gathered, redeemed,
restored, renewed, resurrected, and renationalized, should enjoy the Messianic
glory in the kingdom on earth – a period of time called “Many Days,” or as John
has it, a “thousand years,” and prior to the Last Judgment and the final New
Heaven and earth. And Christ Himself was
a “Ravyamist,” or, as Auberlen somewhere
truly says, “Jesus was a Chiliast.”
All the Apostles were the same.
All the early Apologists for Christianity were the same. Can we imagine when we hear such a man as Delitzsch say, “I am a Chiliast,” and
“Chiliasm was the faith of the early Church,” and when also we hear the
greatest modern patristic scholar, Harnack,
say, “Chiliasm is inseparably associated with the gospel, and this is its
defence,” that these men are either heretics or foolish? On the contrary, that great martyr and
scholar, “Irenaeus the Great,” like
“Justin the most learned man of his time,” catalogued and held as “Promoters of
heresy,” and even of “blasphemy,” all who denied the Chiliastic faith which, in
their day, was the “test of an orthodox church.” It is a proposition no honest critic dare
deny [page 81] that, if the early church, having such teachers as
Irenaeus, Justin, and others of the same apostolic faith and influence, and
knowing what Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, John, our Lord,
and His Apostles, had taught, had not been Chiliastic in her creed,
she ought
to have been so, and her failure to have been so would have convicted
her as recreant to what Moses and the Prophets, and Christ and His Apostles,
had revealed of the course of history, and the outcome of God’s kingdom on
earth. It was impossible, however, that,
standing next to Christ and His Apostles, and with the Psalms and Prophets in
her hand, the Jew nationally cast away yet only for a time, and the Gentile
erect on Israel’s grave, and even persecuting the church itself, she could have
been anything else than she was in her creed, and the proof is perfect, and
increases more and more, with every fresh investigation of the early history of
the church, that, only by means of
apostasy from the Word of God, did she surrender for the sake of opulence and
power, money and prosperity, extension in the empire, and freedom from fagot
and flame, that blessed truth whose defence from Moses and John, God has made
the mark of a faithful, a suffering, and a witnessing church. And, surely, if the pious Hebrew held the
Hope of Christ’s Coming to judge the nations, restore Israel, and set up His
Kingdom on earth, as the only Hope for the world’s redemption, the only way by
which gentile politics and power could be overthrown, the Antichrist destroyed,
and the faithful dead awakened to share the promise of the kingdom, much
more ought it to be our Hope, bound up as it is with our own
deliverance, as well as the deliverance of Israel, and the final glory of the
world. What a stupendous absurdity, in
flat contradiction to [page
82] every
prophet, that the Millennial Age will come prior to the “Yom Yehovah,” or “Day of the Lord,” in which Messiah appears for Israel’s final
recovery! Such an idea simply inverts,
perverts and distorts, Moses and the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles. The whole testimony of prophecy, pre-exile,
exile, and post-exile, is against it.
The entire New Testament is against it.
Never, till the Colossus comes
down my means of judgment, and the Bones of Israel awake in the Valley, and the
Antichrist is destroyed, and Satan is bound, and God’s sleeping saints are
raised, and heaven, earth, sea, dry land, and the nations are shaken, can the
kingdom come, as predicted. And that
none of these marvels can occur apart from the Second Coming of Christ, the
merest tyro in Biblical knowledge must recognize as a first principle and truth
in the interpretation of prophecy.
I
A closing word is demanded as to Israel in the
Apocalypse. That wonderful Book is
capable of many “applications,” but only the one organic “interpretation,”
based upon the entire unity, analogy, and identity of prophecy. We may “apply” its symbols to the times of
early Pagan persecution, and also to later Papal persecutions. This is the figurative “application” based
upon the equation of “Israel”
with the “Christian Church.” The
Apocalypse was a book of comfort to the early church. It was a comfort, also, to the witnesses of
Christ in the Middle Age, and during the Reformation. But as surely as Israel
“abides” Israel, and
Daniel’s “people” are not the “Church,” so surely is Israel the key for the true and
final interpretation of the closing prophecy of the New Testament. It sums up in itself all the unfulfilled
predictions respecting that chosen and predestined race. We meet [page 83] Israel
everywhere. The very announcement of the Theme of the book. “Behold He cometh with clouds, and every eye
shall see him; they also who pierced Him,” Rev. 1: 7, i.e., the Jewish nation, as Zechariah assures us. The text is a combination of two passages,
one from Zechariah, the other from Daniel, both in strict textual connection,
in the prophets, with Israel’s
deliverance at the second Advent of Messiah.
We encounter Israel
again in the promise made to the Philadelphian
Church, Rev. 3: 7-11, by Him who is
the “Lion of Judah’s
tribe,” and has “the Key of David.” Israel shall be
converted in the last time, and in connection with the coming of Christ. Again we find Israel in the sealing of the
144,000 out of all the tribes, Rev. 7: 1-8, just before the Trumpet Judgments
occur, and the tribulation begins.
Again, we see Israel
in chapters 10, 11, and 12, chapters that place us in the very midst of
Ezekiel’s Valley
of Dry Bones, and show us
the prophet’s word, and the Spirit of Life from God, with attending earthquake,
beginning that work of spiritual, personal and national, conversion and
resurrection foretold by the prophets.
The oath-taking Angel of the Covenant, Solar-faced, and Rainbow-crowned,
whose shoulders are robed in cloud and feet like pillars of fire, reminds us of
the Pillar of Cloud in the Wilderness, and Him who dwelt in it coming to his
people again. The “little book” is the
matter of the testimony of the “two witnesses.”
Their 1260 days of witness is the first half of Daniel’s 70th
week. The slaughter of the witnesses is
in the middle of that week, and is the first public persecuting act of the last
Antichrist. The succeeding 1260 days is
the second half of that week, the time of the tribulation. The “Worshippers,” 11: 1, the sun-clothed
woman, or [page 84] daughter of Zion, 12: 1, the “Our
Brethren,” 12: 10, the “Woman” fled to the wilderness, are all the same, the
Jewish Christian Church of the End-Time, or 70th week of
Daniel. The “Remnant of her seed, who
keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus,” and whom Satan,
through the Antichrist, persecutes 1260 days, 12: 17, 13: 1, 5, 7, are either
Gentile believers, or the remainder of Israel returning from the East under the
care of eastern princes, doubtless both, 16: 12. The 144,000 in 14: 1-5 are Israel again, secure with Messiah returned to Zion, after the Trumpet
judgments are over. Again, Israel stands
triumphant, in 15: 3, 4, singing “the Song of Moses the servant of God, and the
song of the Lamb,” blending their first and last deliveries in one, and
declaring that the time for national Christianity on earth has come, now that
Israel is victorious, and is a nation converted to Christ. What we see in 19: 11-21, is the Armageddon
conflict, closed out, in the valley of Jehashapat, outside Jerusalem, the Lord
Himself descending from “Heaven Opened” to destroy the Antichrist, bind Satan,
raise the faithful dead, and begin
the “thousand years” blessed kingdom of glory on earth, Rev. 20: 1-7. And what shines before us in Rev. 20: 9, is
the “Beloved City,”
Jerusalem
restored, the home of the Daughter of Zion, which, for a “thousand years” has
enjoyed the uninterrupted peace and glory, foretold by the prophets. He who cannot see “Israel” here, in this book as
distinct from the “Church” and the “Nations,” will see nothing. Wonderful is the regularity of Israel’s
recurrence! After the 6th
verse of the 1st chapter; in the 6th of the seven
Epistles to the Churches; between the 6th and 7th seals;
between the 6th and 7th trumpets; between the 6th
and 7th vials; in the Wilderness [page 85] here; on Mount Zion there; a worshiping part in the city
now; a multitude pressing into the land from the east; a shelter, a victory, a
triumph, a glory, an effect on the nations, and all at the Second Coming of
Christ! He who cannot see this will see
nothing! It is the Eschatology of all
the prophets. It is the Eschatology of
Christ. It is the Eschatology of the
Apostles, - one eschatology, from first to last, built and based on the one
eternal plan and purpose of God with respect to Israel, an interpretation
grounded in the unity, continuity, organic structure, and genetic development
of all prophecy, divine, infallible, sure, a light forever.
A glance is enough to confirm this. John has nothing here the prophets have
not. He has nothing Christ has not, for
the Apocalypse was given him of God, and does not mean a literary production,
or book, but the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1: 1), as He comes the
second time, in the clouds of heaven (Rev. 1: 7), and to His Covenant people,
Israel of Old Testament Prophecy, to fulfil the word of His promise to them, to
deliver them, to restore their state, and give them the kingdom. He comes, indeed, to judge the professing
Church and the world, but He comes to Israel as the “Malakh Habberith” or “Angel of the Covenant” the “Lord Himself;”
and “Who may abide the day of His Coming, or stand when He appeareth?” (Rev. 7: 17; 7: 1-8, Malachi 3: 2-4). John has nothing, the Apostles have not. His Eschatology is the same as that of Peter
and Paul. Peter binds Israel’s
national repentance and the Second Coming of Christ together, Acts 3:
19-21. He tells of scoffers in the last
days, of the World-Judgment, the day of the Lord, the resurrection and glory,
the visible kingdom, and the New Heaven and Earth. [page 86]
He sees judgment at the beginning and at the End of the Millennium in
one, and overleaps the Millennial Age as a “Day,” in order to speak of the
final New Heaven and Earth. The whole
future was before him in one view, and is crouched on one all-comprehending
expression. The Conflagration blazes in
front, the Glory shines beyond. Paul
also takes up each eschatological point, and discusses it separately. In 2 Thess. 2: 8, we have the Antichrist and
Second Coming of the Lord, but nothing is said to Israel. In Romans chapter 11, we have Israel’s
conversion and the Second Coming, but nothing is said about antichrist. In 1 Cor. 15: 12-57, we have him discussing
the first resurrection at the Second Coming, but not a word about either Israel or
Antichrist. In Romans 8: 17-23, we have
him dilating upon the glorified inheritance on earth, to be received at the
redemption of the body from the grave, when Christ comes, but nothing about any
of the other points.
If we combine all these in one picture, what we shall get as
a result is Antichrist destroyed, Israel redeemed, the [faithful] saints
raised, the Inheritance glorified, all at the Second Coming of Christ, and the
Millennial Interval between that Coming of Christ to assume the kingdom and
the remote End when He shall have surrendered the Kingdom of God, even
the Father, having abolished all rule, and all authority and power, and
annihilated Hades and Death, “that God may be all in all.” 1 Cor. 15: 24-28. In short, we get precisely what John has
given us in the Apocalypse, with this difference, that, whereas Peter and Paul
discuss the points separately, John discusses nothing, but combines all in a
total tableau of the End-Time, glowing under the highest light of the
inspiration of the Holy Ghost. And so [page 87] will every student of God’s word find
it, if only he comes to that word with an humble heart, free from prejudice,
and false theories of interpretation, and prays that God will open his eyes to
see light in God’s light alone, accounting all other light as but
darkness. Blessed book is the Bible, the
living word of the living God, one word from beginning to end, the work of one
infinite mind, full of the wonders of wisdom, love and power! And from Moses to John, the Eschatology is
one, because God’s plan is one, the “Thousand Years” in John, following
the Second Advent, and preceding the Last Judgment, being the very Interval
Paul himself has acknowledged in 1 Cor. 15: 24, and none other than that period
of time, called by Hosea, the “Third Day,” by Isaiah a “Multitude of Days,” and
by Ezekiel “Many Days” – in every case, in both Old and New Testaments,
associated with the Glory of Israel in the Kingdom, and the redemption of the
Nations, accomplished at the Second Coming of Christ. The holy penmen mutually supplement each
other. The Lord open the eyes of His Church to see it, love it, and teach it,
and to Him be the glory forever.
-------
NOTES
[Selected by the
editor from Nathaniel West’s “Supplementry Discussions.]
1. “Olam,” “Ever.”
The word “Olam,” “Ever,” does not, of
itself, and by fixed necessity, always denote the annihilation of time, but as
frequently, in Hebrew usage, denotes simply unbroken continuance up to a
special epoch in history, or to a certain natural termination. It has a relative as well as an absolute
sense, a finite as well as an infinite length.
It means “Here” as well as “Beyond,” and applies to a kingdom that comes
to “an End,” as well as to one that has “no End.” For this reason, a great World-Period, or
Age, are called “Olam,”
and in World-Periods, or Ages, are called “Olammim,” and in order to express
infinite time, the reduplication is used, “Ages of Ages,” “Olammim Olammim.” It is therefore a false conclusion to say
that because the term “Le Olam,” “Forever,” is applied to the Messianic kingdom,
therefore the Hebrews contradicted themselves, when they assigned to it limits
at the same time. Messiah’s kingdom is
Temporal and also Eternal, and in both senses, Olamic. The bondsman’s free covenant to serve his
master lasted “forever,” but that only meant “till Jubilee.” The Levitical
economy was established to be “forever,” but that only meant till “the time of
reformation.” The Christian Church is
“forever,” in its present form, but that only means “till He comes.” True to this view, the Jewish Teachers ever
held to a Temporal Kingdom of glory on earth, in the “World to Come,”
this side the Eternal
State in the final New
Heaven and Earth. Therefore we read in Fourth Ezra (Second Esdras
in the English Apocrypha) that Messiah’s kingdom is restrained “to 400 years,”
* while in the Apocalypse of Baruch
– both these productions written in the time of the Apostle John, - it is said
to “stand forever,” yet only “until the corruptible world is ended.” ** All this instructs
us in the flexible, as well as fixed, character of the tern “forever.”
*4th
Ezra, VII. 48
**Baruch,
XLVIII.
MILLENNIAL, NOT ETERNAL
That
the Millennial Age is not the Final Age is made clear in both
Testaments. The kingdom of 1,000 years
stands in relation to an Age beyond its own limits, the Endless Age. It is a false construction if the word
“Until” in the expression “Until the 1,000 years are finished,”
Rev. 20: 3, 5, 7 to say that the end of these years is the end of the
kingdom
of Christ, or of the blessedness of Israel, or of the Risen Saints’
reign with Christ, or of the distinction between Israel and the Nations, or
between the Holy City and the outside dwellers.
Even after the Judgment of the “Great White Throne,” and the surrender
of the Messianic Kingdom to the father, the priestly co-regency of Christ and
His saints still exist. There is still a
dominion of Christ and His Bride, “the Holy City,”
over the outside “Nations” and the “Kings” in the New
earth, who are distinguished from her, and “bring their glory and their honour
into her.” And there is a condition of
things transcending that which we see in the Millennial
times. In the New Jerusalem there is “no
temple,” and “no night.” “They need no
light of lamp, neither light of sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and the
Lamp
is the Lamb.” Rev. 22: 23. It is plainly said, “They shall reign for
ever and ever,” verse 5. This is the
last word on the whole subject. No more
is spoken. “FOREVER!” And it confirms Paul’s word, “FOREVER,” in 1 Thess. 4: 17. Their
kingdom is an “everlasting kingdom,” Dan. 7: 25. Christ’s dominion has “no end,” Isa. 9: 5. “To the Son He saith,
Thy throne, O God, is FOREVER,” Ps.
45: 6; Heb. 1: 8. The Golden Age will
disappear, Satan, let loose for a season, will cause to fade away the beauty of
the vision from the eyes of all the nations girding Israel’s
home and subdued so long to Israel’s
sway. Unmindful of the centuries when Israel was
trodden down by Gentile pride, they will become restless and averse to all
divine dominion. Then, after a brief final test, come the closing Judgment
and the farthest “End:” – the door that brings the Endless Age. The last high point of the Apocalypse is
gained, the Absolute End of the ways of God to men; - a vision of Eternal
Glory toward those unveiling all previous revelation and all History have been
the path, and on which the eyes of all prophets have been strained since the
world began.
2. MODE OF LIFE AMONG THE RISEN.
As to
the mode of intercourse between the glorified and un-glorified, there are many
vain speculations. We only “know in
part,” and time will bring the answer to our various askings. The whole discussion binds itself to our
conceptions of the Resurrection-Body, - what it needs, and what its functions,
are. From the very first, the Jewish
teachers were embarrassed here, and much divided in their views. The later Jews are not more
clear. Saadias and Maimonides maintained that “they who rise in the resurrection, eat, drink and marry,
and their bodily members serve them, for these are not in vain and they die
again.”* It was
an ancient view, and founded on the cases of the resurrection of the son of the
Shunamite, and the son of the widow of Zarepta, “both whom,” says Saddis, “ate and drank and
doubtless took wives.” On the other
hand, Bechai
and Abarnanel maintained that “they who rise in the
resurrection neither eat, nor drink, nor marry, for there is no further need
of these, after the resurrection, nor do the risen righteous ones return to
dust again. They have their
bodies, in which the fleshly functions have ceased, as in the case of Moses,
when in the Mount with God.” ** Our Lord corrects both these views when,
confuting to the Sadducees, He replies that “they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (Olam Habba) and the resurrection out from the dead, - [therefore, they cannot return again to
the death state and remain in Hades until the millennium has ended, - Ed.] -
neither marry nor are given in marriage, NEITHER
CAN THEY DIE ANY MORE; for they are equal to the angels, - [that is, able
to ascend
to heaven or descend upon earth; and therefore able to rule in both
spheres during the Millennium, - Ed.] - and are sons of God, being sons of the RESURRECTION.” Luke 20: 35, 36. Saadis and Ben Maimon said that the Risen “eat, drink, marry, die.” Bechai, Abarbanel, Talmud and Cabbala, aver they “neither marry nor are given in marriage,
neither can they die any more,” but says nothing as the “eating” or
“drinking.” What he teaches is that the
children of the resurrection are as the sexless angels. Beyond the fact that Lazarus ate after his
resurrection, John 12: 1, 2, remains the fact that our Lord Himself, after His resurrection, had a tangible
and visible material body, already free from the limitations of His former
humiliation, and possessed of resurrection-life, and yet “ate” food in
Jerusalem and at the shore of Galilee, Luke 24: 30, 41, 42; John 21: 12, and
not only promised to the Twelve to “drink of the fruit of the vine, new
in the Kingdom of God,” Matt. 26: 29, but “appointed” them “a Kingdom,” in
which, said He, “ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on 12
thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.”
Luke 22: 29, 30. We can grossly carnalize this, on the one hand, and as ethereally
spiritualize it on the other. The fact
remains that the Resurrection kingdom is “ON
THE EARTH,” and that the “children of the resurrection” have material bodies,
adapted to spiritual uses, and free from certain physical functions. While we must shun an Ebonite Chiliasm on the
one hand, we must equally avoid a Gnostic Chiliasm on the other, and not rob
corporeity of its rights in the resurrection, or dissolve, under the idea of
“Glory,” the resurrection body into a gauzy texture ballooning in the sky. Such a
conception is foreign to the whole word of God. The risen ones shall have a human body, like
their Lord’s, know each other, and be known, and live
in relation to the saints UPON
the earth, and to the Nations. Their
mode of immorality and intercourse are not revealed. It is enough for us to know that not more
difficult is the faith of Christ’s companionship with His disciples during the
40 days next following His
resurrection. It is enough to know that
Death is robbed of his empire, and that, as Professor Milligan himself admits in his able work on the
resurrection, our lord’s body was a true spiritual, glorified body, immediately
upon His rising, and not first after His ascension, and that our bodies are to
take the form and equality of His. Equal
to the “angels” we shall be, in one respect.
Like “Him,” we shall be, in another.
As both, in all. “Flesh and blood” cannot inherit
God’s Kingdom, because “corruption” cannot “inherit incorruption,” 1 Cor. 15: 50. And yet
“flesh
and bones,” pervaded by the Spirit, and made incorruptible, is what our
Lord’s body was in His resurrection, Luke 24: 26, a “glorious body,” and “like”
which – not “equal” to which – ours shall be at His coming. Phil. 3: 21.
In such bodies, the Risen Saints
shall have fellowship with the unrisen in the
Millennial Age. For the rest, our
curiosity must be restrained, and will be, if we listen to the Angel’s voice to
Daniel, “Go thy way, Daniel, till the End shall be!” Inquire no more. Be content with what is already spoken. Leave the unrevealed
future to God. Sure we are of one
thing. “We shall behold God’s face in
righteousness,” and “be satisfied when we awake with His likeness!” Ps. 17: 15.
Even so, Lord Jesus!
*Eisenmenger. Eut. Jud. II. 943.
**
Ibid 495.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
. . .
“The Lord’s Advent is not to annihilate the existence of the Nations, as such,
but to overthrow their politics and rule, and scatter both like chaff, and then
transfer the sovereignty to Israel. Dan. 2: 44; 7: 27; Rev. 11: 15, 18; 12:
10. The three Great Parties of the 1000 years, are therefore:-
(1)
The Risen saints – [ That is, the ‘faithful’ dead or
the “accounted worthy” from both Testaments, for, “apart
from us they (the afore mentioned Old Testament saints – Ed.) -
should not be made perfect,” Heb. 11: 40. – Ed.].
(2)
New-Born Israel in the flesh,
(3)
The Favoured Nations in the flesh.
. . .
Such is the clear representation of the whole word of God. Earth is beginning to realize the “pattern
shown in the Mount,” and prepare for the full accomplishment in the final “new
Heaven and Earth,” at the close of the 1000 years. The Nations are the Fore-Court of the Temple;
Israel and their Holy Land, are the Holy Place; the Holy City and the Risen
BRIDE are the Holiest of All; no veil existing.
To the perfect realization of this, all things are tending. The invisible is the source of all Realities,
and what has been in history is the Beginning and Type of what will
be, only in greater perfection. David’s
kingdom shall be restored, and among the “sure mercies” to David is the
gathering of Israel, and the resurrection of the faithful [dead] to enjoy that
kingdom together; and therein all Christians [whom our Lord will ‘account
worthy’ – Ed.] shall share, at Messiah’s Second coming. . .
. . .
as to the alleged “incongruity of the glorified among the unglorified,”
and “how they will live,” and “what they will do,” and “what their condition,”
and “daily occupation,” – questions revived by Kliefoth, and repeated by
others, though raised and answered ages ago; and, further, “will there be
flies, and bees, and mosquitoes, in the Millennial Age,” as still others have
sportingly asked; and, yet others again, as to “the habit of nature” – they all
belong to that same unbelieving spirit, and cast of mind, that made a Socinus, some Schoolmen, and later profane wits, inquire
“whether our Lord rose from the grave with His digestive organs?” “Whether,” as Cleopatra wanted to know, “the
Saints will rise with raiment”? and “whence came the raiment our Lord wore when He rose?”
and so, conclude, from all, to a denial of the literal resurrection of the
body. Such inquisition, it becomes us to
repel, with force, and rebuke into silence, holding, in spite of a thousand
questions all men can ask and none can answer, in reference to every doctrine
of Scripture, that it is far more
Christian to believe what God has spoken, and give him the glory, as “Doer of wonderous things,” than it is to idealize the prophecy, to
suit our vain thoughts, and land ourselves at last into open rejection of the
Word of God.
The
Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise that they are
vain. Painful
to the last degree is the ever-recurring style of objection we meet with in
certain writers, as “It is unreasonable?” “How remote from reasonable brobability!” It is “Inconceivable,” “incredible,”
and “far
from probable,” and everything the mere natural man can object to the
supernatural. We dismiss it all with the
divine words, “O man, who art thou that repliest
against God?” “Should it be a marvellous
thing in my eyes, saith the Lord?” “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform
this.” “The mouth of the Lord hath
spoken it!” “It is the utterance of
Jehovah, Doer of these things!” It must
be so, as God has said. As to the Risen
Saints, we know what their perfection is, and how near they are to Christ. It is the
righteous man raised from the dead, who is the perfect man, ordained to
dominion, in the Age to come.”
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