That it is our duty to expect whatever the Scripture commands us to
expect, is a truth too obvious to be questioned by any who reverence
the Word of God. The hope of the Church is the return of her Lord. That
hope He has set before us in those well-known words, "I will come
again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also". Until then, we are appointed to remain militant in the earth,
conflicting with many dangers, and many sorrows. If, in respect of the
future, the Church had been instructed only with reference to its hope;
if nothing respecting its own history or the world’s history
during the present period had been revealed; if the time of our
sorrowful militancy had been left blank and undelineated, then, it
would have been sinful presumption to affirm that any one event must
occur in the interval between the departure and return of the Lord. But
if the Scripture has not been silent respecting the time of our
militancy—if, on the contrary, it has prophesied very abundantly
respecting the whole period of the Lord’s absence, and more
especially respecting the events that are immediately to precede His
return, then, it becomes our duty to mark well what the Scripture has
said, and to expect everything that it has commanded us to expect until
the night of evil close. Otherwise, we despise the "light that shineth
in a dark place"; we refuse to make it "a lamp to our feet".
Pre-Millennialism
When the doctrine of the Lord’s premillennial return was, about
thirty years ago, revived in the Church, those who taught it were, for
the most part, accustomed to say, that no event previous to His return
was to be expected. This was taught, not because it was believed that
the early Churches were forbidden to look for events that were to
precede the coming of the Lord, but because we were supposed to be
differently circumstanced. They, it was argued, had the whole course of
the dispensation before them prophetically delineated in the Scripture,
and consequently, by them, many events must necessarily have been
expected; whereas we, it was said, were living at the very close of the
dispensation, when every predicted event had been accomplished, and
therefore, nothing any longer remained for which to wait.
But when the Scripture was searched more carefully, it was found that
we had erred in supposing that all the prophecies that pertained to the
present dispensation had been accomplished. It was found that Zechariah
12 and 14, and Matthew 24:15, revealed events yet to be accomplished in
the Land of Israel before Israel is forgiven—that the Head of the
Roman Apostasy is not The Antichrist who is to blaspheme God in
Jerusalem, and to reign over all the kingdoms included within the whole
Roman World—that the whole Roman World, Eastern and Western, has
not yet been divided into the Ten Kingdoms that are to close its evil
history—that the 1,260 days of Antichrist’s blasphemy,
instead of being accomplished, have not yet commenced—and that
the predictions of the book of Revelation yet remain to be fulfilled.
Thus we again found ourselves placed in circumstances closely
resembling those of the early Churches, having a path before us
prophetically marked by events intended as signs of the great
approaching end.
Yet great reluctance has been exhibited by many in consenting to fall
back into the place into which Truth constrains. Some, earnestly
desiring the return of the Lord, are impatient of anything that implies
delay. "Hope delayed maketh the heart sick." Others again, more weak in
faith and timorous, and perhaps little acquainted with the Word of God,
shrink from saying that there are to be events antecedent to the
Lord’s return, because they feel it to be a solemn thing to
venture an assertion, which, to their conscience, appears almost
equivalent to saying with the evil servant, "My Lord delayeth His
coming".
Truth is of First Importance
But although I would desire to respect the feelings that severally
characterize each of these classes, we must, nevertheless, remember
that everything inconsistent with Truth must be of the flesh and not of
the Spirit. It was not the Spirit, but nature, slow to receive what the
Prophets had spoken, that brought the women with spices to the
sepulchre. It was feeling unguided by Truth; for they knew not the
Scriptures, and therefore understood not the thoughts and intentions of
God. So in the present case: error and danger to the Church must
result, if feelings or prepossessions be acted on that will not abide
the test of the Word of God.
It has then been very extensively stated and extensively received, that
it is spiritually injurious to the souls of God’s people to
believe that any event is to occur between the present moment and the
Advent of the Lord: for that it is necessary to a right habit of soul
to be in momentary expectation of His return.
If it were merely said that the one great object of the Church’s
hope and faith is the coming of the Lord, and that the Holy Spirit
would seek to carry our thoughts over all intervening circumstances, so
as not to rest in anything short of the return of the Lord—such a
statement might unhesitatingly be received. But this is not the
statement. What is meant is this—that it is contrary to the mind
of the Lord that the Church should have the knowledge of any event as
certainly to occur previous to His return.
But surely the pattern of our instruction is the Scripture. There, if
anywhere, we learn the manner in which God adapts His communication to
the spiritual necessities of the heart of man, for "He knoweth what is
in man". If there were something necessarily injurious to the soul in
becoming acquainted with events which are appointed to occur previous
to the Lord’s return, we should not have found the early Churches
instructed as they were: for they were instructed as to the occurrence
of events which rendered the daily and instant expectation of the
Lord’s return, in their case, impossible. Peter, for example, had
his own death foretold to him, previously even, to the commencement of
his ministry, and yet no one would, on that account, affirm that Peter
had not the proper expectancy of the Lord’s return. If it had
been the mind of the Spirit that he should have kept back the knowledge
of this fact from the Church, he might, of course, have buried it in
his own bosom. But Peter did not think it necessary to the right
spiritual condition of the saints that they should be ignorant of the
occurrence of this event. On the contrary, in a Catholic Epistle (an
Epistle which he wrote not of himself, but as inspired by the Holy
Ghost) and in a passage in which he had been earnestly exhorting the
Church to more vigorous service and watchfulness, he adds, "Yea I think
it right, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting
you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my
tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover, I
will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these
things always in remembrance" (2 Pet. 1:13-15). Here the Churches are
plainly taught by Peter, not only that he himself was to die, but also
that they would continue after his decease, and would need the
exhortation that he was then giving, as well as the light of Prophecy,
that should continue to shine as "a light in a dark place until the day
should dawn." Indeed, the whole Epistle speaks of the saints as about
to continue, for some while, in the place of danger as well as
darkness, for he goes on to warn them of the false teachers that should
arise among them in the last days; and on this he grounds his
exhortation to be "mindful" of the commandments of himself and the
other Apostles, for that there should come in the last days, scoffers,
etc. Surely the Holy Spirit would not have caused John to record (John
21:18), and Peter to refer to, the Lord’s prophetic intimation of
Peter’s death, if it had been necessary to the right spiritual
condition of the saints that they should expect the return of the Lord
without the expectation of any intervening event.
Events to Come in the Church
Again, in the case of Paul, in his second Epistle to Timothy, he tells
him what would ultimately come to pass in the professing Church. "The
time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after
their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching
ears," etc. Yet even corruption affords fresh occasion for service, and
vigor of action, to those who hold fast the faith. On the very ground
then of this corruption being about to be, he rests his exhortation to
Timothy to watch and make full proof of his ministry: for he adds, "I
am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand".
The reason of his thus speaking of his near departure, is to throw on
Timothy increased responsibility in the future care of the Churches;
yet at the same time telling him that, notwithstanding every effort,
failure and departure from the Truth would certainly ensue. Here,
therefore, again, as in the case of Peter before, we find not only the
intimation of his own decease, but also a foretelling of those things
that were to occur after that decease, and in which Timothy and others
would live and act. So likewise in the address to the elders of Ephesus
(Acts 20) we find him saying, "Take heed to the flock, . . . for I know
this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you,
not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise,
speaking perverse things", etc. The evil thus predicted required at
least some time for its development.
On the ground then of these and similar
passages, I would again repeat, that to speak of events antecedent to
the coming of the Lord, is not contrary to, but in accordance with, the
teaching of the Apostles. Thus they taught the Churches, that so the
people of God might know beforehand the character of the path in which
they would be called to walk. Thus too, as I shall presently show, the
Lord Jesus taught. Surely then it behooves us to be very jealous of the
introduction of a principle which condemns the practice of the Apostles
and of the Lord Himself. But not only so—not only does it impugn
the mode of teaching which the Scripture uniformly adopts, but it also
deprives the Church of that place of love and confidence in which it
stands by the side of Him who said: "I have called you friends, for
whatsoever I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you". For
if it be wrong for the Church to have the knowledge of any events
between the present moment and the Lord’s return, it necessarily
follows that the Lord could not have treated it in the confidence of
love, but must have refused to teach it any thing connected with its
own prospects and history in the earth. The Church could not have been
entrusted with the knowledge of one event connected with its own
history.
The Time of Waiting Determined
Although it was the intention of the Lord that His Church should tarry
on the earth for more than eighteen hundred years of sorrowful
militancy, yet it must have been left in utter ignorance of all the
circumstances of its way. It must have been kept in darkness as to
everything that was to occur either in it or around it; because as soon
as one event had been foretold, then there would have existed the
knowledge of something which must necessarily precede the Coming of the
Lord. He could not even have said to the Church in Smyrna, "Ye shall
have tribulation ten days"; much less could He have communicated all
that the Apocalypse unfolds. He must have said, "I cannot treat you
with confidence, for ye are unworthy. If I instruct you as to anything
that is to come to pass, ye will use the knowledge amiss; your evil
will find in it an occasion for saying that I delay My coming. Ye will
not use the knowledge in grace, and therefore I will foretell you
nothing". Such is the place in which, virtually the Church is set by
those who say that the knowledge of any intervening event is
necessarily evil and contrary to the mind of Christ. But such is not
the place assigned to us by the Lord. In the confidence of love He
treats us as those to whom He could say, "I have called you friends".
He desires to treat us as those in whose love He can confide. Thus when
He spoke of His approaching departure He added, "Because I have said
these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, it
is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto
you" (John 6:6, 7). Here, then, was an intervening event of unspeakable
importance.
The Mission of the Comforter
That Comforter by whose authority and power the whole course of their
testimony to Israel and to the Gentiles was to be ordered—a
testimony that was to exceed the limits of the Apostles’ lives,
as it is plain from the connected words, "they shall put you out of the
synagogues; yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think
that he doeth God service"; a plain intimation that they would not live
to witness their Lord’s return. Indeed, all the concluding
discourses of the Lord recorded in John, abound with allusions to
events that were to intervene between His departure and return. The
Church is not instructed on the supposition of being faithless,
careless, and rejoicing at the departure of the Lord, but as those
whose hearts sorrow had filled. The knowledge, therefore, of
intervening events is not with held from them. They are regarded as,
through grace, loving Him who also has confidence in them; and thus
whilst consolation and encouragement is ministered by seeing in the
fact of the communication the abiding evidence of our Master’s
love, it also supplies the occasion for discipline of soul in patience,
and therefore we read of "the patience of the kingdom of Jesus Christ".
A Common Principle in Human Affairs
Nor is this principle against which I am contending, at all in
accordance with what experience teaches us in the ordinary conduct of
human life. Men are daily accustomed in the ordering of their affairs
to expect the occurrence of intervening circumstances without being
thereby diverted from the great final object of their expectation. The
return of beloved friends from a distant land, is waited for not less
earnestly because a letter is first expected to intimate their
approach. The result of some long cherished plan, or favorite
enterprise, is expected not less eagerly, because there may be some
circumstances first to happen, necessary perhaps, as means to the end.
The summer is not less certainly anticipated because the fig tree must
first put forth its leaves. And if it be so in things that cannot be
regarded as certain (for uncertainty must always mingle with the most
assured of human prospects)—if even in such things the
expectation of intervening circumstances is found to quicken, rather
than deaden, liveliness of anticipation, how much more must it be so,
when every event that happens is the sure and covenanted pledge of that
which it is sent to indicate? Nor are we speaking of ordinary human
expectancy, but of the earnestness of love (for the Church is addressed
as loving Him); and that must be a strange character of love, which,
because a token is expected from a returning friend, should so fix its
thoughts on the token as to forget the friend.
If, then, it be true that the principle of which I have been speaking
is contradicted by the teaching of the Lord Jesus and the Apostles, by
the character of the Church’s calling in love, and by what nature
itself teaches, is it possible that it should be adopted without
producing the most disastrous results?
Perils or the Perversion of Truth
Indeed such results have already abundantly appeared: for when it has
been once assumed that no events antecedent to the Lord’s return
have been notified to the Church—in other words, that the Church
has no instruction respecting its own history in the earth, then it
necessarily follows that some method must be found for destroying the
application to ourselves of those parts of the Scripture which, until
lately, have been uniformly regarded by the whole Church of God as
their especial portion, and as revealing facts peculiarly connected
with themselves.
For, when I read in Matthew 24, such words as these: "Now learn a
parable of the fig tree: when his branch is yet tender and putteth
forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh; so likewise ye, when ye
shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the
doors"—and, again in Luke 21, "Behold the fig tree, and all the
trees; when they now shoot forth, ye see and know of your own selves
that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these
things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand.
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be
fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not
pass away. And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be
overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life,
and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare it shall come on
all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore,
and pray always, that ye may be strengthened, to escape all these
things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of
man"—when I read these solemn words, it becomes obvious that the
persons addressed are commanded to wait and earnestly to watch for the
signs of their Lord’s return, and upon their obedience to this
command their preparedness for receiving Him depends. It becomes,
therefore, a question of no little moment, whether these words were
intended for us, as being, like the Apostles, believers in Him who
spake them: or whether they are designed, not for us, but for others.
This is the important question—important, not because of any
difficulty in returning the reply, but because these passages and other
like passages, have, of late, been rejected as having no proper bearing
on ourselves, on the ground of the Apostles being Jews, and therefore
(as it is said) not representatives of the Church: and thus these
passages, and therefore all the Gospels (for they cannot be separated),
must cease to be regarded as addressed to Christians: for if the
Apostles be not properly our representatives in Luke 21 and Matthew 24,
there is less reason why they should be so in the doctrinal and
practical instructions which they received: For doctrines and precepts
which have a present reference to those to whom they are spoken, are
more likely to be limited in their application, than those which, being
prophetic, are necessarily future— perhaps remote in their
fulfillment, and possibly designed not so much for those personally
addressed as for others represented by them. The same principle that
takes away from us Luke 21 and Matthew 24, will certainly deprive us of
the Sermon on the Mount and the promises and instructions in John 16
("they shall put you out of the synagogues", etc.), for in these
passages the persons who were addressed were Jews, and Jewish allusions
abound: and the principle is, that where there is anything
characteristically Jewish in place or circumstance, there is that which
is not properly Christian—a principle so utterly false, that
nothing but a determination to affirm that no events antecedent to the
Lord’s return are made known to the Church, could account for its
adoption by any reflective mind. If it be once admitted that the
Apostles did not receive the instructions of the Lord as Christians and
for Christians, the foundations of Christian truth are gone. When the
foundations of the walls of that heavenly City which is the Bride of
the Lamb, were beheld by John in vision, on those foundations were seen
the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb. If we are to be excluded
from the truths which the twelve Apostles taught, surely we must be
excluded from the Heavenly City.
Rejection of Truth Causes Alarm
There is, therefore, no little reason to be alarmed at the
introduction, and now, wide dissemination of a principle, which, if
established, would prevent our souls from being brought under the power
of those very parts of the Word of God which are specially and
peculiarly our own. Many parts of the Old Testament belong to
dispensations that have passed away: others to dispensations yet to
come. Such passages, though they may supply certain principles capable
of being applied to believers now, yet cannot be primarily interpreted
of them; for we are not under the law as Israel was, nor in millennial
rest as, in the next dispensation, Israel will be. So, likewise, in the
Gospels, many instructions were addressed to the disciples in their
then present circumstances—circumstances that ceased to exist
after the death and resurrection of their Lord; and all such
instructions were, of necessity, limited to the time then present. Thus
it is not now said to us, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and
into any villages of the Samaritans enter ye not"; nor are we commanded
to observe the bidding of those "who sit in Moses’ seat", for
with the death of Jesus the claims of the Mosaic economy terminated.
But it is otherwise with those passages which were intended to guide
their service during the time of His personal absence from them. With
respect to such passages, we have a right to expect a clear,
unhesitating answer from all who teach in the Church: for it has been
well said that "ambiguities are to be avoided in the Church of God".
For whom then were the prophetic or prospective instructions of the
Lord as recorded in the Gospels intended? They were exclusively
intended for those who, as united with Him risen, and as recipients of
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, were appointed to bear witness to
Him, and to suffer for Him during the time of His personal absence, and
during the time of Israel’s national unbelief. Wherever we find
these characteristics, there we find those who belong to the Church of
the Firstborn. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But
as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of
God", etc. All who received Him became in the same sense sons of God.
It was equally true of John and of Cornelius—of Peter the Apostle
of the circumcision, and of Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles. Whether,
therefore, we read as in John, "They shall put you out of the
synagogues, yea, the time cometh when whosoever killeth you shall think
that he doeth God service"; or as in Matthew, "Ye shall be hated of all
nations for My name’s sake": those words, although addressed to
those who were Jews by nature, yet did not pertain to them as Jews, but
as those who, through faith in Jesus, had been brought into that one
body in which there is "neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian,
bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all". They had all alike become
"heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ’’.
The Disciples Were Christians
If we say that the prospective instructions addressed to the disciples
in the twenty-fourth of Matthew, and the thirteenth of Mark, and the
twenty-first of Luke, were not addressed to them as
Christians—that is, as persons who were brought into all the
fulness of the redemption prepared by God in Christ, then it is obvious
that all the instructions respecting the observance of the Supper of
the Lord, and Baptism, and all the prospective instructions of the
Sermon on the Mount, could not have been addressed to them as
Christians. Nor could the prayer which their departing Lord prayed over
them in the seventeenth of John, have been prayed over them as
Christians; for the company gathered around Him on Olivet in Matthew
24—and those to whom He gave the bread and the wine at the last
supper—and those over whom He prayed in John—and those to
whom He said in Galilee, "Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations,
baptizing them"—were all one and the same company, instructed by
Him and prayed for by Him with respect to circumstances that should
surround them after His departure, and after they should have received
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
If sad experience did not teach us that there is no aberration too
great for the waywardness of the human mind, we might deem it
impossible that any who receive the Scripture should assert that the
Apostles at Pentecost, and those who on that day were with them
baptized by the power of the Holy Ghost, had not attained the position
proper to the Church of God. How marvelously strange that any should
labour to exalt the Apostle Paul and his Gentile converts into a
preeminence denied to Peter, and John, and those whom their ministry
gathered into that Pentecostal body on which so great grace rested! How
strange that they accord to Paul and his converts, but deny to the
twelve and their Pentecostal converts the name and standing of the
Church of God! Paul did not this, when he emphatically spoke of the
greatness of his sin consisting in this, that he had persecuted "the
Church of God" (1 Cor. 15:9). Would he have called the saints who
preceded him the Church of God, if they had not been the Church of God?
So far from Paul dissociating himself from the Apostles who preceded
him, and seeking to exalt himself into a distinct and higher sphere of
ministry, he does the very reverse. He labours in the fifteenth of 1st
Corinthians to show that although born late and as a weakling into the
family of faith, yet that he was by grace strengthened to bear the same
testimony as they, and to labour in the diffusion thereof even more
abundantly. "So then whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye
believed". Can any words imply consociation of labour more strongly
than these? And in the second of the Ephesians, does he there seek to
separate off his Gentile converts into a separateness and distinctness
of privilege apart from those who had previously been gathered in from
Israel? On the contrary, his effort is to show that the Gentiles who
believed, though gathered in later, were yet, through God’s
marvelous grace, allowed to enter into coequal fellowship with all the
Jewish believers who had preceded, so as in Christ to form one body.
The thought of the exclusion of Jewish believers from that body,
whether those believers had believed previous to the Advent of Christ,
or during the ministration of Christ, or at Pentecost, is a thought so
extravagant, so utterly at variance with all that God has revealed as
to the methods of His grace, that it is not even mentioned, much less
discussed, in the Scripture. Nor was the thought of his being separated
unto a special and peculiar Gospel in the mind of the Apostle, when he
wrote of that "great salvation which began to be spoken by the Lord,
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him" (Heb. 2:3). Is it
possible to devise any form of words that could more unambiguously
declare that the Gospel preached by the Lord, and by the twelve, and by
Paul, was emphatically the same?
The "Any Moment" Coming Untenable
Nor does this novel doctrine which asserts that the Pentecostal
Christians were not properly gathered into the Church and the
Church’s blessings, at all answer the end which they who advocate
it propose. They hope by this doctrine to sustain their theory
respecting the Lord’s prophetic instructions in Matthew and the
other Gospels not being addressed to, or intended for, the Church. But
suppose we were to admit the supposition that the Pentecostal
Christians were not properly Christian, and that the calling of "the
Church" commenced with Paul, yet, even then, how can we exclude Paul
and his Gentile converts from Matthew 24 and Luke 21? When I read, "Ye
shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake; they shall lay
hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and
into prisons", etc., will any affirm that Paul and Gentile converts are
not as much contemplated in these passages as any whom the Pentecostal
Apostles converted from Israel? Surely we cannot exclude Gentile
believers from such passages. They too were hated—they were
brought before kings and rulers for Christ’s name sake. Unless
then we are to exclude Gentile believers as well as Jewish from the
Church of God, and so have no Church of God at all, we must admit that
the Church is addressed in Matthew 24 and Luke 21; and if the Church is
addressed, then the Church is instructed as to certain things that were
to happen to it previous to the return of the Lord, and is commanded to
watch for the appointed signs. Thus the whole theory and all its
consequences fall to the ground.
Israel Versus the Church
The prophecy of the Lord Jesus in Matthew 24 was delivered after His
ministry towards Israel had closed. In the immediately preceding
chapter we find Him presenting Himself to Jerusalem and to the rulers
of Israel for the last time. They continued to reject Him, and He left
them. He quitted the city and went without the gate, and retired to the
Mount of Olives, saying as He left the city "Verily I say unto you, ye
shall not see Me henceforth till YE shall say, Blessed is He that
cometh in the name of the Lord". Such were His last words to Israel.
The "ye" of this verse belongs to them. They were left within the gates
of Jerusalem, rejecters of the Lord, and rejected by Him. The "ye" of
the twenty-third chapter is Jewish.
But now compare with the "ye" of the twenty-third chapter the "ye" of
the twenty-fourth. The "ye" of the twenty-fourth pertains to those who
had not rejected, but who had believed on the Lord Jesus. They remained
not within the gates of Jerusalem attached either to the halls of
Caiaphas or of Pilate. They went without the gate, bearing His
reproach. God from heaven looked down upon them and viewed them in
everlasting association with all the grace and all the power of
redemption that was in Christ. The prayer which their Lord, a short
time afterward, prayed over them, in the seventeenth of John, was but
the expression of the thoughts that He had had respecting them, from
the moment they first confessed His saving name. Who then more blessed
than the disciples who stood around their rejected Lord on Olivet? They
stood there, not as associated with rebellious and rejected Jerusalem,
but as associated with the Son of the living God—sharing His
sorrows, but heirs also of His glory. As such they are instructed in
the twenty-fourth of Matthew. The Lord prophetically sketches the path
which they, and others like them, would have to tread during the time
of His absence, and their own sorrowful militancy. The "ye " of this
chapter denotes not merely the four Apostles to whom it was primarily
applied. It was a corporate "ye", applied to them as the
representatives of others. It denoted all who were then the
acknowledged disciples of Jesus, and all who should become the
acknowledged disciples of Jesus up to the moment when His glory shall
be made manifest. Up to the time of the conversion of Cornelius, the
"ye" of this chapter was restricted to believing Jews, but after his
admission into the Church, it was extended to believing Gentiles also.
And as time rolled on, and darkness settled in on Israel, and as those
thence gathered into the fold of faith became fewer and fewer, this
"ye" of discipleship became, by force of circumstances, almost
restricted to believers from among the Gentiles. It is the lot of
Gentile believers, more especially, to see iniquity abounding, and love
waxing cold, during the time that the Gospel is being preached for a
witness to all nations. Nevertheless, when the hour of final crisis
approaches, and the time of unequalled tribulation on Jerusalem draws
near, the "ye" of this chapter will again include many a believing Jew.
Gentile believers and Jewish believers—all made one body in
Christ—all brought into the Church of the living God—are
therefore included in this "ye". It pertains to them, and to them alone.
Intervening Events
What then are they directed to expect? Are they taught to expect no
intervening event between the departure and return of their Lord? Is
not the very object of the prophecy to mark a succession, and a long
succession, of intervening events? Were they not cautioned against
believing that the wars and commotions which were to follow His
departure were signs of the end? "All these things must come to pass,
but the end is not yet." Did not the Lord then accurately delineate
that path which His Church has, for the last eighteen hundred years,
been treading, and which is even now not ended? Still iniquity abounds,
still love waxes cold, still the Gospel is being preached as a witness.
Nor shall we, until we shall see the idolatry of Antichrist established
in Jerusalem, and the unequalled, though shortened, season of
tribulation, come and approach its close, be able to say these are the
things respecting which our Master has said, "When ye shall see these
things come to pass, know ye that it is nigh, even at the doors". As
the budding of the fig tree indicates the near approach of spring, so
surely shall these things indicate His glorious coming; and for these
things He commands us to wait and watch. Would the Lord have commanded
us to watch for these events if such watching produced a bad spiritual
effect on the soul, and tended to make it say, "My Lord delayeth His
coming", therefore I will eat and drink with the drunken? Will any
indeed say that the teaching of intervening events produces this
effect, when they must acknowledge that in this chapter the Lord Jesus
has not only spoken of intervening events, but commanded us to expect
them, and made such expectation essential to a right condition of
watchfulness? To say, then, that the prophetic
and prospective instructions addressed to the twelve Apostles were not
addressed to them as our representatives, is virtually to reject the
Scripture as our guide. We are as much bound to expect every event that
Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 predict, as we are to observe the
commandment of the Lord respecting Baptism and the Supper. The promises
too—"Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the age", and "I
will come again and receive you unto Myself", are addressed to the very
same persons as those who are commanded to watch for the signs
predicted in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. If the reasons were valid for
rejecting the latter, they would equally prove that we were not
concerned with the former.
Precious Promises
And what words can be more plain than the words I have just
quoted—"Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age". How
could the Lord
promise to be with His suffering disciples "until the end of the age",
if they were to be taken away from the earth before "the end of the
age"? Nor is "the end of the age" an uncertain or ambiguous expression.
In the parable of "the wheat and tares" in Matthew, it is expressly
defined to be "the harvest"—"the harvest is the end of the age";
and the harvest is marked as being the period when the holy angels
shall be sent forth finally to separate those who have truly, and those
who have nominally, professed the name of Jesus: the former being
gathered to the heavenly garner, the latter "cast into the furnace of
fire". "He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; the field is
the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares
are the children of the wicked one; the enemy that sowed them is the
devil; the harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the
angels. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so
shall it be in the end of this age. The Son of man shall send forth His
angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that
offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace
of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the
righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who
hath ears to hear, let him hear." In explaining the parable of the net,
the Lord again uses the same expression. "So shall it be at the end of
the age: THE ANGELS shall come forth and shall separate the wicked from
among the righteous". Whenever,
by this
mission of the holy angels, the final separation between false and true
professors of the name of Jesus takes place, the Day of the Lord will
have come. Until then the wheat and the tares "grow together".
The wheat and tare field represents Christendom (Christ’s
kingdom) that is, those who have been baptized into the profession of
the name of Christ. At the time of the Lord’s return, there will
be multitudes in the earth who will not form a part of Christendom, and
therefore will not fall within the scope of this parable. For example,
the whole Roman World (h oicoumenh) which will then have become divided
into ten kingdoms, will have apostatized into infidelity and avowedly
rejected the name of Christ, and worshipped Antichrist. No part of it,
therefore, will at that time belong to Christendom. It will have a
history of its own. The Jews, too, and Mohammedans, and the Heathen,
are to be excluded from this parable; for they form no part of
Christendom. They are neither tares nor wheat.
Long before the Apostles died, the fair field of wheat which at
Pentecost seemed to promise so much, became marred by the
interminglement of tares; and since then, tares and wheat have grown on
in the world together. Are we then told anything respecting the period
when this growing together is to cease? Is the wheat to be removed
before the tares? Is it to be reaped secretly and gathered secretly
into the heavenly garner? and are the tares to remain and flourish in
the earth after the wheat has been thus removed? No: they are "to grow
together until the harvest". And what is the harvest? The "end of the
age"—the end of man’s day of evil. And by what is it
marked? By sending forth the holy angels to gather first the tares,
then the wheat. And what does "gathering" as used in this parable,
imply? It implies in the case both of the wheat and of the tares,
removal from the earth—in other words the cessation of natural
existence here. The saints, as represented by the wheat, are to be
removed from the earthly into the heavenly branch of the Kingdom of
God, whilst the tares will be taken altogether out of the Kingdom to
which they only nominally belong, and will be cast into the furnace of
fire. This is the harvest, or end of the age: for observe, the harvest
is not said to be in the end of the age, but "the harvest is the end of
the age". Until then, the wheat and the tares grow together. If then
the wheat and the tares grow together till the end of the age, the
wheat cannot be removed before the end of the age. Nothing can be more
demonstratively conclusive than this parable; yet not more conclusive
than the words, "Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the age".
Vain Arguments
Some who have wished to avoid the force of this parable, have suggested
that the gathering of the tares may possibly mean a slow, progressive
gathering (such as has long ago commenced) of false professors around
various centers of evil such as Popery, neology, and the like; and that
the angels may represent, not holy angels, but evil principles, or
perhaps evil spirits by whom men are attracted to the aforesaid centers
of falsehood. But to say that "angels" do not mean "angels", but
principles, would be in itself neology. Nor is it possible that "His
angels", that is, Christ’s angels ("the Son of man shall send
forth His angels") can mean anything else than holy angels: nor would
it be possible for evil angels to gather Christ’s saints into the
heavenly garner, and the saints are to be gathered by the same
agency—the same "reapers" that gather the tares. Moreover, the
gathering as we have seen, involves removal from the earth, and
therefore implies that the period of their earthly existence is brought
to a close for ever. The gathering of the tares is immediately followed
by their being cast into the furnace of fire. Other arguments might be
added; but I should despair of convincing any who are not convinced by
what has been already said.
Others have suggested that the parable of the wheat and tares has no
reference to the present period: that the wheat represents not the
saints of the present, but the saints of the next dispensation. But the
next dispensation is the millennial. The period of the Church’s
sorrowful militancy ends as soon as this present dispensation ends. How
could the parable of the wheat and tares apply to the next
dispensation? The very point in which the coming dispensation is
contrasted with the present is, that Satan will be bound, and therefore
will no longer be able to sow tares among the wheat. Of converted
Israel (and to them the testimonies of Truth in the next dispensation
are to be committed) it is said, "they shall be all righteous". The
wheat field will be spoiled by no intermingled tares, nor will the
banner of Truth when committed to their hands, be again dragged
dishonored in the dust as it has been by the professing Church of the
present dispensation.
Nor would the history of Christianity in the next dispensation be a
subject that would properly fall within the scope of the Gospel of
Matthew. The specific subject of the prophetic parables of Matthew is
the history of the period during which Jerusalem and Israel are left in
unbelief and desolation, and a body of professed believers, including
some Jews and many Gentiles, becomes the witness for Christ during His
personal absence. The rejection therefore of the Son of Abraham and of
David by Israel corporately, and His nominal and (in some cases) true,
reception by others, principally gathered from among the Gentiles, is
the especial subject of Matthew throughout: so that Matthew may, in a
peculiar sense, be considered the Gentile Gospel, inasmuch as it treats
of Christianity throughout the period during which, scorned by the
house of Israel, it sojourns in Gentile and Galilean places. All the
prophetic parables of Matthew have this character strongly marked on
them, as may be easily seen by an examination of those recorded in the
thirteenth chapter.
I must repeat then, that the one declaration that the wheat and the
tares are to grow together until the holy angels at the end of the age
are sent forth to separate them, is of itself sufficient to prove that
the saints of the present dispensation are not to be removed from the
earth until the day of man terminates for ever. What presumption could
be greater than to affirm that the wheat are taken away from the earth
before the tares, when this parable so distinctly declares that they
are "to grow together until the harvest"? Again, the prophecy of
Matthew 24 (unless indeed we reject it) throws on us the responsibility
of watching for the predicted signs. If we refuse to observe those
signs, we virtually refuse to watch in the only way in which we can
watch rightly according to God’s Word. And although such watching
will not enable us to know the day or the hour of the revelation of the
Lord, yet it will enable us to know when it is nigh, even at the doors.
"Now learn a parable of the fig tree: when his branch is yet tender and
putteth forth leaves ye know that summer is nigh. So, likewise ye, when
ye shall see all these things (the predicted signs) come to pass, know
that it is near, even at the doors." * B. W. Newton was a Plymouth
Bretheren leader and contemporary of John Nelson Darby, the 'father' of
dispensationalism and the pretrib rapture theory. Newton split with
Darby over eschatology and other doctrines that he considered new,
novel, and radical.
Article originally published by The Sovereign Grace Advent
Testimony, Essex, England.