2 Thess. 2:1-8. An effort is made to parry this witness, which the late M. Faber, followed by Dr. B., regard, as in their judgment, “the only apparent evidence for the pre-millennial advent.” The statement of the case is very inexact. It is not true that what excited and unsettled the Thessalonians was the time of Christ's second personal advent, but the false representation that the day of the Lord was come ένἐστηκεν. Nor is the express subject of discourse the second personal “coming” of our Lord, but a disproof of the error about the “day” which had alarmed them.
The apostle beseeches them, by a motive drawn from their bright hope of Christ's presence and their gathering to Him, not to be shaken by the rumor about the day of the Lord. Then he proceeds to show the impossibility of that day arriving before the well-known apostasy was developed, and the manifestation of the man of sin, which evils are to be judged in the day of the Lord. The παρουσία and the ἡμέρα of the Lord are not only not identified as by Dr. B., but they are in contra-distinction; for the former is used as a comfort to the Thessalonians, as well as a disproof of the rumor that the terrible day of the Lord was then present. The Thessalonians were persuaded by some (and the authority of a letter of the apostle was falsely alleged in support of it), that the day of the Lord was (not at hand or imminent, but) arrived, as pointed out in an early part of this book. They, teachers and taught, must have meant some such figurative sense as Dr. B. contends for; and there is no doubt that the Old Testament not infrequently uses the phrase in this way, as for Babylon, Egypt, &c., an earnest, it would seem, of its full force at the end of the age.
Now the apostle meets the error by showing them in chap. 1, that the day is not figurative but a real personal revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His mighty angels, taking vengeance in flaming fire on them that know not God, and on them that obey not the gospel. It is not His party triumphing by the gospel, nor a political overthrow of their adversaries, but a solemn retribution—to the troubled saints “rest with us,” and to the troublers tribulation. Then he assumes their remembrance of his first epistle, in which he had taught them both about the presence of the Lord to translate the saints to Himself on high, and about the day of the Lord with its sudden blow on the careless world. Hence he beseeches them by that joyful hope, not to be troubled by the pretended revelation that the day of the Lord was there; for this (not the presence of the Lord) could not be till the ripening of the predicted horrors which that day is to avenge. When the Lord does appear, the saints appear with Him, instead of being then caught up to Him. Hence the apostle discriminates, and as he was inspired to connect our gathering together to the Lord with His presence, so he links the judgment of the man of sin with the manifestation of His presence. Compare 2 Thess. 2:1 with verse 8. The result is, then, that while all agree that the presence of the Lord in verse 1 is personal, verse 8, far from being some previous and preparatory figure, is a subsequent stage of His advent, and means, not merely His presence in order to gather to Himself above those who look for Him, but the appearing or epiphany of His presence, when He destroys the lawless enemy or Antichrist of the last days of this age. Nowhere does Daniel attribute his destruction to the church, nor does any Scripture attribute it to the truth, as Dr. B. alleges without the smallest reason.
Matt. 24:29-31. The assertion is, that the direct and primary sense of the prophecy is Christ's coming in judgment against Jerusalem; and that this is decided by verse 34. I ask Dr. B. to compare with this Luke 21, where he will see that the Lord, as there represented, brings in the times of the Gentiles not yet run out after the destruction by the Romans, and His own, advent after those times, and not till then says, This generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. Will any man stand to such a sense of the prophecy, and to claim for it our Lord's decision? Joel 2 refers to the same great event, but, though accomplished in part, it is not fulfilled yet any more than Mal. 4.
Rev. 19:11-21 (pp. 442-446). Dr. B. thinks the “detail” is the very thing which proves! it not to be the personal coming of Christ, and contrasts the passage with Matt. 16:27; Heb. 9:28; 2 Thess. 1; Col. 3; Titus 2; and even Rev. 1. Can reasoning be less solid? Doctrinal use or allusion in a few words proves that a prophetic book cannot mean the greatest event of prophecy, because this gives details, the other texts not Where could detail be revealed with such propriety as in Revelation, and surely in the visions rather than in the mere preface of the book It is in vain, I would add, to found an argument on ἡροσώπου (Rev. 20:11), as if it involved the idea of Christ's presence then. The word which would warrant such an inference would be παρουσία. “From whose face” applies wherever Christ may be, whether He come again to the earth or the earth and the heaven flee away from before Him as is expressly said in this very clause. It remains then that post-millennialism is a dream, and that Christ's appearing is blotted out from Rev. 19, where God reveals it, and put in where the nature of the case (Rev. 20:11) excludes it. Can there be more palpable insubjection to scripture or love of a tradition that makes void the word of God? Matt. 20 v. 31-36, with which the close of Rev. 20 is identified, is exclusively a judgment of the living nations when He comes again; Rev. 20:11-15 is the final judgment of the dead who did not rise to reign with Christ. Can contrast be more definite and certain?
Rev. 5:10. Dr. B. understands the future reign on (or over) the earth as relating to the ultimate triumphs of Christ's cause upon earth during the present state (the vicious thought that everywhere pervades his book), more than to the glorified condition of the saints (pp. 446-447). Is refutation called for? The passage proves that not even the redeemed in heaven are yet (at the point of the Apocalypse referred to) reigning over the earth. They are to reign with Christ, as all scripture shows; and this, as the book elsewhere proves, is the result of His coming when they are risen, and He has received the kingdom. A triumph of the church on earth during the present state is contrary to scripture. The apostasy, not a reign of Christendom, and then the man of sin revealed, precede His presence in judgment or the day of the Lord.
Matt. 19:28. No wonder Dr. B. does not object to vague and incorrect statements of the case which confound the millennium with the eternal state of which Rev. 21:5 treats. But a little consideration suffices to demonstrate that the fulfillment of the Lord's assurance to the apostles is in “the kingdom,” in the millennial age, and neither before nor after it. For “the regeneration” is expressly said to be when the Son of man shall sit on His throne of glory. Now assuredly this is when He comes, not before the second advent, nor when heaven and earth flee away before His face as He sits on a wholly different throne, the great white throne for judging the dead (not the twelve tribes of Israel). There are none said to be assessors with Christ in that eternal judgment of the dead. Not even Dr. B. contends that “the regeneration” is a picture applicable during the present state, when Christ is not come but seated on His Father's throne (Rev. 3:21): will he argue that during the eternal state there can be an apostolic royal judgment of the twelve tribes of Israel? If it be neither, the millennium is the sole alternative that remains; and if it be so, in what condition but a glorified one can the apostles thus judge Israel? Or are the judges and the judged to be both explained away?
Heb. 4:9, the sabbath-keeping of glory is the last objection Dr. B. discusses at length. I have no care to interpose on behalf of the seventh millennary as the sabbatism of the apostle; but the notion of Calvin, which Dr. B. endorses, that it is a question of the present rest, which is the portion of believers in Jesus, seems to me clean contrary to the scope of the chapter. We are called to fear and to labor now; we are in the wilderness still, and are only on our way to the rest of God. We who have believed enter, but we are not yet entered into the rest. We have already entered into rest in Jesus, as to which we do not fear, nor do we labor. But we do fear settling down when we ought to be marching on, lest, a promise being left of entering into God's rest (i.e. in glory), any of us should seem to have come short of it. It is not time yet for the believer to rest from his works, but to use diligence to enter into that blessed rest, which is not arrived but remains for the people of God. Post-millennialism, here as everywhere hinders intelligence of the scriptures.
My task is closed. I believe I have answered fairly and conclusively, if scripture be really our standard, the arguments of Dr. Brown. How far the answer is satisfactory to him or to those who share the popular view of a post-millennial advent of Christ must rest with their consciences now. The day hastens which will declare the truth to all who have not already ascertained it with certainty from the word of God. May He bless by the power of His spirit His own revelation to the praise of the name of Jesus.