Question. If Christ has a right to the world He made, how do you account for the fact of His prolonged absence from it, and why does God tolerate this state of things? (ED.)
Answer. Certainly Christ has a right to the earth. He not only created all things, but He has reconciled all things. Adam forfeited his right to the earth and, by tempting the woman, Satan obtained temporary ascendency. Whomsoever we obey, his servants we are. Satan could offer the world, its power and glory, as he says, “for that is delivered unto me.” But Christ has the real right. Even as a Man on the earth He was greater than Satan, so that the unclean spirit cried out, “I know thee who Thou art, the Holy One of God.”
If you read the gospels carefully you will see that there was a Man on the earth who could remove from man all the power of evil here. But this was not all. Christ, born of a woman, came to bruise the serpent’s head. He entered into death—Satan’s power— “that He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” So we read, “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD IS JUDGED, and Christ has bought the world for His “treasure” which is in it Finally, He prolongs His absence from no want of power. The keys of death and hades are His. “The long-suffering of our God is salvation.” Various ends have to be worked out according “to the good pleasure of His will,” and His absence must be prolonged until “His body” be completed. The world could not contain the books that should be written of Him, but the Church, which is His body, will be “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.”
Question. If the prince of this world has apparently defeated the rightful heir, so that He was “cut off” and had “nothing,” how do you account for the fact that, in spite of the usurper, those who belong to Christ have been left here in the place of His rejection for over eighteen centuries? In other words, How do you account for Satan’s toleration of the “joint heirs”? (ED.)
Answer. The standing proof of Christ’s supremacy is, that His church is here—His own building. “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Satan apparently succeeded in cutting off the Christ from the earth, but wickedness is never wisdom, and this Satan proved to his cost.
In all his course he never failed so signally as in this his most daring act. It was a fatal blow he struck, but only fatal to himself. He expected, in putting the Christ to death, that, like the Jews, he could say in a universal sense, “This is the heir; come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Our blessed Lord entered into death “that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.” But not this only. Christ being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy, Ghost, He hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. (Acts 2:33). The Holy Ghost has come. He is here in two ways— “with you and in you” (John 14:14), and though Christ is not here bodily, yet there are, through grace, scattered over the earth thousands in whom Christ is formed, so that He can say at any time during the last eighteen centuries, “Why persecutest thou Me?” Satan’s violent dealing has thus come down on his own pate, and in spite of his animosity, Christ’s body, the Church, is and has been all these years the greatest check to his power. When the Church is taken away he will be cast down to the earth (See Rev. 12), and then, in his last terrible struggle to obtain full possession of the earth, he will meet his certain doom.
The believer who is conscious of Christ’s absence appreciates the presence of the Holy Ghost, and as he walks here by the Spirit he will be opposed by Satan; but “greater is He that is in [him] than he that is in the world.” Satan is as intolerant of Christ today as ever he was; but having tried persecution, and having found that it did not exterminate the power of Christ, he has resorted to Balaam’s artifice, even to draw the Christian into association with the world so that there is apparent toleration.
J. B. S.