Many christians, on commencing the study of prophecy, and seeing something of the judgments which attend the Lord’s coming at the close of the present dispensation, feel much difficulty as to who are to form the population of the millennial earth. If, say they, the living saints are changed, the departed saints raised, and all caught up to be with the Lord, and if the wicked are destroyed, who are they that are left to inhabit the earth during the millennium?
In 1 Corinthians 10: 32, we find a distinction, the consideration of which will assist to clear away the difficulty in question. In that passage, the apostle recognizes three different classes of persons. “Give none offense, neither to the Jews, nor to the GENTILES, nor to the CHURCH OF GOD.” Now, here we have the three classes of which mankind are composed: Jews—Gentiles—Church of God. And to trace through, Scripture, from first to last, God’s purpose concerning the Jews, God’s purpose concerning the Gentiles, and God’s purpose respecting the Church, is the surest way to ascertain the order of God’s dispensations, and the harmony of all portions of prophetic testimony with each other. Let us, as the Lord may assist and our space allow, humbly and reverently attempt this. Some scripture evidence of these things we shall now lay before our readers.
(1.) To begin with “the Jews.” God’s purpose respecting them we have in Genesis 12: 2, 3, where God says to Abram: “ I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” Of this purpose, we have a further development in Genesis 13: 14, &c. “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place w ere thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.” In Genesis 15: 18, &c., we have the boundaries of this land, promised to Abraham and his seed, defined; and we have the earthly nature of the inheritance God designed for them still further exemplified in Deuteronomy 28. There we have the blessings promised them in case of obedience, the curses denounced against them in case of disobedience. What were those blessings? “Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store and the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee...And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and do them.” Such are the blessings promised to Israel in case of obedience; and the curses denounced against them in case of disobedience were all of the same earthly character. “Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee... Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, &c. Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind,” &c. Such were the curses denounced against these highly favored people in case of disobedience. And how strictly and literally have they been fulfilled! The Jews roved themselves a disobedient and stiff-necked race. God exercised great forbearance towards them but after they had rejected and stoned the prophets, his servants whom he sent unto them, he sent his Son, the Heir of all things. Him they crucified and slew, and thus filled up the measure of their iniquities and sealed their doom. On this account, wrath came upon them to the uttermost; their city and temple were destroyed; their country pillaged, its population put to the sword, or else carried away captive; and for nearly two thousand years they have been monuments of God’s displeasure against sin, suffering the aggravated and complicated woes denounced against them.
(2.) The instruments in inflicting all these woes on this guilty and unhappy race, have been “the Gentiles.” From the time that Abraham was called to be the father of God’s peculiar people, God did not deal directly with any nation upon the earth save the Jews. He did indeed occasionally use one or another of the nations to chastise his people, but still they remained under the awful sentence which we find in Romans 1: 28.... “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient.” About the time when the Jews were carried away captive into Babylon, however, a distinct grant of power was made to the Gentiles by the Almighty. In Daniel, we have the account of a great image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, and, in the explanation of his dream, Daniel says: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the, field, and the fowls of the heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.” Here begin the times of the Gentiles. The power which was thus bestowed on the Babylonish king, descended to the Medes and Persians; from thence it passed into the hands of the Grecians, and the Grecian empire yielded to the power of Rome, the last kingdom, represented by the legs and feet of the image. The Roman empire was broken up into a number of separate kingdoms, but its power continued in these kingdoms, and will continue to exist till the coming of the Lord. It is by this power that the Jews have been so fearfully wasted and so heavily oppressed. It was by Nebuchadnezzar that Jerusalem was destroyed at first, and the inhabitants carried away captive to Babylon. It is true that a portion of the Jews returned to Jerusalem at the end of seventy years; but they were mere tributaries of the Persian king; they never afterward had ally independent government of their own. Their sufferings under the Grecian power in the hands of Antiochus Epiphanes, were most tremendous. They were under the Roman yoke when Christ appeared amongst them, and they had to procure the consent of the Roman governor before they could put Christ to death. It was by the Romans that Jerusalem was a second time destroyed; and it has been chiefly by the nations into which the Roman empire was divided that they have been oppressed and persecuted until now. They are still under the yoke of the various Gentile powers, and the Savior himself declared that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled (Luke 21: 24). The times of Gentile power began with the oppression of the Jews; and the Gentiles continue to oppress the Jews as long as the times of Gentile dominion last.
(3.) But these times will not last forever. God bath not cast off his people whom he foreknew. His purposes respecting them are purposes of mercy, and he still intends to fulfill to the very letter, the covenant that he made with Abraham their father. He still intends them to be a great nation; to be at the head of all other nations; to possess all the earthly blessings which have been promised to them, and to be the center from which these blessings shall flow to all the other nations of the earth. The order of the events by which this wonderful change in their position is to be brought about, is very exactly laid down in the prophetic writings; and as an attentive study of those writings will prove, it is somewhat as follows.
The Jews are to be under a sentence of judicial blindness till a certain time. “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? and he answered, —Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed man far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land” (Isaiah 6: 10, &c.).
After all this desolation in the land of Judea, the children of Israel are to return to it. “ Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and, I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers” (Jeremiah 16: 14, &c.). “For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it” (Jeremiah 30: 3). “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwelling places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof” (Ver. 18). “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36: 24). On this subject, these passages are sufficiently explained, Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant and I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against me; I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 20: 33-38).) come to pass that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them; I will say, it is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.” To such extremities are the poor afflicted Jews, or, at least, that portion of them who are first restored to their own land, to be reduceded Jews, or, at least, that portion of them who are first restored to their own land, to be reduced. e Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant and I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against me; I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 20: 33-38).) grain (nothing but the chaff) fall upon the earth. All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword, which say, The evil shall not overtake nor prevent us” (Amos 9: 9, 10). “As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you; and I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries where in ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant and I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against me; I will bring them out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 20:33-3833As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: 34And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 35And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. 36Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God. 37And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: 38And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 20:33‑38)).)
We need scarcely remind the reader that “the Gentiles” are those who reduce them to such extremities. Gentile power, which began at the very first to be exercised in oppressing the Jews—which has ever since trodden them down and afflicted them—will then, in one great general confederacy of the nations, be employed in a resolute, determined effort to crush them, and blot out the very remembrance of them from the earth. And they will be permitted, as we have seen, so far to succeed in their plans, as to cut off two-thirds of the Jews who have returned to their land, and even so far as to environ Jerusalem, capture it, and lead half of its inhabitants, half of the remaining third, into captivity.
(d) It is when “thaws,” pressed by “the Gentiles,” are in this extremity of distress, that the Lord comes, and the scene changes immediately. The desponding remnant of “the Jews” are delivered, and “the Gentiles” are visited with tremendous judgments from the Lord. Then-when two-thirds of the Jews in the land are cut off and dead—when half of the remaining third are gone into captivity, and the other half see nothing but destruction before them,— “THEN shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the East,” &c.... “And the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee” (Zechariah 14: 3, &c.). “Alas I for that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him” (or thee). “Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey” (Jeremiah 30: 7-16). “Therefore hear now this, thou afflicted and drunken, but not with wine: Thus saith thy Lord the Lord, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again: but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy body as the ground, and as the street to them that went over “ (Isaiah 51: 21, &c.).
(e) It is upon the Gentiles,” therefore, that those terrible visitations of divine vengeance fall, which are uniformly represented as attending the coming of the Lord. First, upon those actually gathered together against the Lord at Jerusalem, and then upon the nations to which they belong. Space will not allow of quotations in proof of this; but the reader can refer to Is. 24, 34,& 66: 15, 16; Jeremiah 25: 15-33; Ezekiel 38: 18-23; also 39: 1-21; Daniel 2: 34, 35, 44; 7: 11; Joel 3: 14-16; Ephesians 8; Zechariah 12: 2-4; Malachi 4: 1-3; Matthew 21: 44, the latter clause. Luke 21: 25, 26; 1 Thessalonians 5: 2, 3; 2 Thessalonians 1: 6, 9; Revelation 14: 10; 19: 15-21; with many others.
We must not suppose, however, that the whole of the Gentiles, literally, are cut off by these judgments. One plain passage will be sufficient to show the contrary. “It shall come, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations of Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles” (Isaiah 66: 18, 19). Thus we have clearly a remnant spared from the general destruction, and employed after these judgments in two important enterprises. 1. “They declare God’s glory among the Gentiles.” 2. “They shall bring all your brethren (that portion of Israel which had not been restored to their own land before the coming of the Lord) for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an Offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord” (Isaiah 66: 21)
When all the children of Israel are thus restored to their own land, the promises of temporal blessing, which are their peculiar portion, will all be fulfilled to them. The Lord shall make them the head indeed, and not the tail; they shall be above only, and they shall not be beneath. Read the sixtiethaflai1) in connection with the two last verses of the fifty-ninth, and you will find that when the Redeemer has come to Zion, and to them that turn from transgression in Jacob, all these promises will be accomplished. “The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.... Thy sons shall come from far, and thy, daughters shall be nursed at thy side.... The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord...And the sons of strangers shall build up the walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee.... The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel,” &c. Let the whole chapter be read, as also the sixty-first, sixty-second, sixty -sixth, from verse 17 to the end, and these, with a multitude of other passages, will abundantly show that, after the Lords return, the remnant of the Jews will be placed at the head of the nations, and prosper as no nation ever prospered besides; and that the remnant of the Gentiles and their posterity will submit to God’s appointment in this respect, and pour riches and honors on the once despised, and desolate, and afflicted Jews. This is what is presented, to us in various aspects, in almost every passage in the Old Testament which refers to the millennial state.
(4.)—But where is “the Church” during this blissful period? Have we not lost sight of that? No, dear reader, no. We were wishful to present you with as full an exhibition as possible of God’s purpose respecting “the Jews” and “the Gentiles;” for they will be the remnants of these two great branches of society who will constitute the population of the earth during the millennium. But it is really with the destiny of “the Church” that we have most to do. “The Church” is something altogether distinct from both. Jew and Gentile. Christ came to the Jews-his own people; but his own people received him not. They, though at that time under Gentile power, carried their hatred to Jesus so far as to resolve upon his death: they procured the assistance of a Gentile ruler and Gentile soldiers in the perpetration of this dreadful deed. Thus Jews and Gentiles united in the commission of the blackest crime that ever man committed. But this act of highest wickedness, by which the condemnation of both Jew and Gentile was sealed, was, at the same time, overruled by God, so as to exhibit the richest display of his sovereign grace. Jesus, rejected by the earth, crucified by both Jew and Gentile, was raised from the dead, and placed-by his Father at the right hand of power, where he now waits till his enemies are made his footstool. As long as he sits waiting there, repentance and remission of sins are to be preached through his name in all nations. Whoever receives this message of mercy from the rejected One on earth, but the glorified One at God’s right hand, instantly becomes associated with him—associated with him in all the reproach and “suffering which he endured on earth; associated with him in all the glory which he has at present at God’s right hand, an all the glory in which he shall be revealed when he returns to earth. Yes, the Jew receives this message of mercy, and he ceases to be a Jew; the Gentile receives it, and he ceases to be a Gentile. All who receive it, whether Jew or Gentile, are to all their former liabilities, and to all their former cherished hopes: they have no prospect of an earthly inheritance like the Jews; they have, or ought to have, no share in the earthly power which, for a while, is lodged in Gentile hands. They are the bride of Jesus; and that world which rejected the Bridegroom may be expected to reject the bride as well. At all events, if the bride be true to her absent Lord, she is sure to dread and shun the smiles and the caresses of that world which rejected and slew her Lord. This world has no place for the true Church. ITs members have no home on earth. They are but strangers and pilgrims here. But just as they share their Lord’s humiliation on the earth, will they share his glory when he returns: he is not represented as reigning over them; they are set forth by the -Den of prophecy as reigning WITH HIM. Truly, fiat shall be first which-Blast, and that shall be last which is first. The Gentile is now above the Jew, and treads him down. But the Jew shall be superior to the Gentile in the millennial state. —The Church is, at present, inferior both to Jews and Gentiles in respect to earthly things; for it has a place on earth at all: its only calling on earth is to be counted like sheep for the slaughter all the day long. But in the state which succeeds the present, as far as the Jew will be above the Gentile, so far, and farther, will the Church be above them both. Before the judgments are inflicted on the guilty nations of the earth-before one drop from that cup which is filled with the wine of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God, descends—the Church is caught up to meet the Lord in the air. “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the, shall not prevent them—which are asleep. or the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord” — (1 Thessalonians 4). It is after this event—after the saints have thus met their long-expected Lord, and the marriage of the Lamb has taken place—it is after this that the saints are united with Jesus in his first act of kingly power, when he comes with all his saints to deliver Israel, and scatter and destroy their adversaries. And after this, when Satan is bound-when creation, released from the bondage of corruption, ceases from its long-continued groans-when the remnant of Jews, and Giles, happy in the enjoyment of all the blessings that earth can furnish, submit to the peaceful sway of Jesus-it is then that the saints live and reign with Christ a thousand years. Jews and Gentiles on the earth, under the reign of Christ—the Church not under his reign, but REIGNING WITH HIM AS A MONARCH’S BRIDE, IS PARTNER OF HIS THRONE.
Let us briefly review the subject. Earthly blessing and prosperity were promised “the Jews.” On account of their wickedness, we see them, at present, under a sentence of judicial blindness, and enduring innumerable hardships, privations, and indignities. They are to be restored; not all at once, but partially at first. In the course of this partial restoration, they are to endure tremendous afflictions, until there is but a very small remnant left. That remnant is to be delivered by the coming of the Lord; and they, and their offspring, are to inherit all the earthly blessedness promised to Israel from the first. “The Gentiles” became such when God gave them up to folly; and called Israel out from among the nations. They received power at God’s hands, when that power was withdrawn from Israel. They have always used it in persecuting and oppressing Israel, and will do so to the end. It is by a confederacy of the Gentiles that the Jews are to endure their last tremendous affliction. The coming, of the Lord, which delivers Israel, discomfits and scatters the Gentiles, and a remnant of them only survive. That remnant and their posterity ministers to the Jews, and willingly serve those whom their forefathers had so long and terribly oppressed. These two, “the Jews” and “the Gentiles,” form the population of the earth during the millennium. But at present there is a third class or persons in the world. There is “the Church of God.” Its members were once, all of them, either Jews or Gentile They are neither now. They are “the Church,” the bride of Christ. The world knew him not-it knows them not. The world rejected him—it rejects them likewise. But when earth rejected Jesus-heaven received him; and they also are raised together with Christ to sit with him in heavenly places.
“When Christ, our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3: 4).