THERE is a striking, and to my own soul a solemn, coincidence between the close of the three several periods terminating in the call of Abraham, the rejection of Christ by Israel, and the judgments which will attend the speedy return of our blessed Lord. And seeing how near this last named event must be (without at all pretending to fix dates or to know the day and the hour), it becomes an exceedingly solemn subject of consideration for all who have ears to hear. Let us turn to the instruction of God's Word respecting it.
We are not simply Gentiles. We are Gentiles, of course, as distinguished from the Jews; but there are responsibilities flowing from the testimony of God to us and among us which distinguish us from the nations which have scarcely, or not at all, heard the Gospel; and those responsibilities must never be lost sight of in contemplating the righteous dealings of God in judgment on the nations.
Every serious reader of Scripture must have noticed the care of God to have, in every age, a testimony to Himself; and while the reception of that testimony has been life and salvation to any whose hearts have been opened to receive it in truth, the rejection or the abuse of it has been the ground of condemnation to all the rest. Thus did God deal with the whole race of mankind, from Noah to the call of Abraham; with Israel, from the beginning of their history to the rejection of Christ, and the judgments which fell upon them in consequence; and now with Christendom, by which is meant the sphere within which the gospel is preached and Christianity nominally recognized.
In the first case, we have the judgment which came upon the nations and the grounds of it in the first chapter of Romans. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up to vile affections 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." Thus we see it was not simply ignorance of God which characterized the persons here spoken of. “That which may be known of God was manifest to them (see margin); for God had shewed it to them." It could not be said that the sons of Noah, and their immediate offspring, were ignorant of God in the sense in which heathen nations are now ignorant of Him. No; they had the display of Him in creation, the proofs there of "His eternal power and Godhead," just as all have now. But besides that, they had the knowledge of who it is whose eternal power and Godhead are thus displayed. "They knew God." It is not, of course, that they knew Him savingly, any more than the thousands of Sunday-school children in this land know Christ savingly now. But just as these know all the external facts of Christianity from their teachers and parents, so those knew God through the instructions and traditions of their forefathers. But they did not like what they knew. It was a restraint upon their lusts and a check to their proud imaginings, and they desired to be without it. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." “When they knew God, they glorified Him not as God." Instead of falling in worship and adoration before Him, they sought to subject Him to the reasonings of their own minds; and the result was, "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools." "They changed the truth of God into a lie." They did not deny that there was a God; they were not atheists; but their vain speculations and imaginings about God issued in changing the truth of God into a lie, and rendering to the creature the homage which was alone the Creator's due. The root of the evil was in their hearts. The light shone round about them, but they preferred darkness. They inherited the truth from those with whom it had been deposited, but they rested not till they had taken off all its edge, and turned it into a lie. They knew God, but they did not like to retain Him in their knowledge; and so God gave them up to fulfill their own heart's lusts, and all the thick darkness and horrible enormities of Paganism were what ensued.
It is familiar to most how the same thing occurred in Israel. One crisis after another in their history demonstrates this; but it was in the last great crisis that it was most of all apparent. It was not at all that they were without the truth, that they were destitute of the light. They had Moses and the prophets, and Moses and the prophets were read in the synagogues every Sabbath day. There was the form of godliness to an unusual extent, and a high reputation for sanctity was the passport to universal commendation and esteem. And yet everything was perverted. The law, which had been given on purpose to convince of sin, they used to justify themselves. The ordinances, which had been given as intimations of grace, shadows of good things to come, they made use of to eke out a righteousness of their own. “We be Moses' disciples," was their boast; and yet they made Moses their pretence for rejecting Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. What a serious word that is in Acts 13.: " For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they had fulfilled them in condemning Him." And they were given up to blindness. It is most evident that it was not the absence of the truth which had been deposited with the nation, nor was it the formal denial of it which brought on this judicial blindness. No; it was the perversion of it, the changing it into a lie, the abusing God's truth to sanction their rejection of God's Christ; this was what brought on the judgment. "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." (Acts 18:25-28.)
It was this transfer of the testimony to the Gentiles (the Jews being left to the blindness they had chosen) that was referred to at the beginning of this paper, as having imposed responsibilities on Christendom which distinguish it from mere pagan tribes. God is not now winking at the times of ignorance, but commanding all men everywhere to repent. God is not now dealing with one favored nation, while the rest are left to their own ways (though even when He did this He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good and sent them rain and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness). His voice now speaks to 'men from heaven, proclaiming pardon and peace through the blood of Jesus, who was crucified on earth, but is exalted now to the highest place in heaven! while it surely testifies that "Him hath God appointed to be the Judge of quick and dead." Life, salvation, sonship, heavenly glory in union with Jesus, it publishes as the certain portion of any who, through grace, believe in Him; judgment, condemnation, already resting on a guilty world, and shortly to be executed on all who know not God and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ;—this is the testimony which, for eighteen hundred years, has been sent to the Gentiles, and which has been in Christendom nominally recognized. And what do we find foretold as to Christendom at the close? Why, just that as the nations, when they knew God, did not like to retain Him in their knowledge, but made gods according to their hearts' lusts, and were given up to the darkness which they had chosen; that as the Jews, when they had the testimony of Moses and the prophets to the Messiah which they expected, made the word of God of none effect by their traditions, and chose a Messiah according to their own thoughts and wishes, and rejected the Christ of God, God then in righteous anger choosing their delusions; so Christendom, favored with immeasurably greater light than either, will in the end follow the same course, and be like both the others, given up to strong delusion. We read of one "whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." (2 Thess. 2:9, 10.) It is not because they are destitute of the truth, or because they have not nominally received it; but because they received not the love of the truth. "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." (Verses 11 and 12.) This is the fearful secret in every case: a heart that has pleasure in unrighteousness, and loves to practice it under shelter of religious forms and pretensions, and so perverts the truth of God to this end. As the nations would have a god (or gods) according to their hearts, and the Jews a Messiah, so now and hereafter men will have a Christianity according to their own thoughts, and the desires of their proud, and deceitful, and wicked hearts, and God will let it be so. He will send delusion to those who love to be deluded! The Lord give us in holy self-distrust to tremble at His word.
One thing very important flows from all this, viz. that in a day like the present, it is no test of whether a man has true and living faith to inquire whether he holds the general truths of Christianity. It would have been no test of a godly true-hearted Israelite in our Lord's days to ask Him whether He was a disciple of Moses. All were that nominally. The difference was, that those who were only in name the disciples of Moses, used his name and his authority to sanction their rejection of Christ; while those who had really heard God speak by Moses and the prophets, discerned in Christ the One to whom they testified. There are two passages deeply significant as to this point; the one is Rom. 2:17-20, and is addressed to the Jew in the apostle's day; the other is 2 Tim. 3:1-5, and is a prediction of the last days of the present dispensation. “Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God; and knowest His will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness: an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes: which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law," &c. We have the fair exterior and high profession of those who in the apostle's days were under sentence of judgment, and ripe for its execution. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." The word translated form (μόρφωσιν) is the same in both passages: and these are the only passages in which this word occurs. Surely, we may learn from this that what occurred at the close of the last dispensation, the perfect form of a Jew outwardly, being found in those who were not Jews inwardly, and who were given up to blindness and to judgment, will occur again at the close of the present dispensation. The perfect form of Christianity, separated from its power, and used like Judaism in the other case, as a cloak for all that is most repugnant to the Spirit of Christ and hateful in God's eyes.
How precious in such a day to have this word: "Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His!” May true saints bear this in mind for their comfort; and may we all remember for our warning and admonition the accompanying word: "Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity!"