How wonderful is the word of the Lord, when we hear Him speaking to us! In these verses He speaks, then, two things. Let us hearken to Him. They are His words by the Spirit in the midst of the circumstances of these last days. The evil is fully described, then the
word is, "But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." Yes, the Lord says, " Continue thou." Satan would say continuance is all over now, evil so abounds there is nothing left, and thus fill our hearts with gloom and unbelief. The Lord speaks at such a time, at this time, " Continue thou."
If Timothy had learned the things in which he was to continue by the Spirit's teaching from Paul, have we not learned the same truths by the same Spirit in the word? Are they the theories of men, or have we not been gathered to the Person of the Lord Jesus, by the Holy Ghost? Have we not been separated from every organization of men to own the authority and presence of the Lord Jesus in the assembly? Have we not been assured of this? Do we not know who has taught us what the church, His body, is to Him?
Well do I remember the morning when the Lord opened my eyes to see by faith, and own HIMSELF in the midst of the few gathered to His name. And as so many years have passed on, years of failure on my part, since that day, yet I can say His presence in the midst of His saints has been more and more precious to my soul. And are we to give all this up, all the precious things we have learned and enjoyed for forty or fifty years? No I No! Sweet to our souls are the words, " Continue thou in the things which thou hast learned." Yes, the word from our Lord is, " Continue." And that word is spoken to us in the midst of all the evil of these last days. That word from the Lord is enough for us. Nothing must be given up that we have learned from Him. He says, " Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."
Let us remember that long after these last days evils had been described, and told in these two Epistles of Timothy, the Holy Ghost left on record that wonderful chapter, John 17 Words spoken before He departed, but how they do reveal the desires of the Lord for those the Father hath given to Him! Surely the tender desires of Christ for us repeat the word "Continue." Yes, the more we know the changeless love of His dear heart, the more shall we also desire to " continue in the things which thou hast learned." Do these desires of Christ give us the thought, now that evil and failure have come in, that we should sink into individuality, and cease to manifest to the world even our oneness with Him, and with each other? Individual faithfulness there must be: and also individual responsibility there is in the very midst of the evil to " continue in the things which we have learned."
Now let us mark the beautiful order of these verses in 2 Timothy. First, the instruction to " continue," and then,—secondly, the charge to do the work of the evangelist-to preach the word, &c. WE must not reverse this order. Poor and feeble though we be, the Lord has given us a great responsibility to the whole church of God. What a time for faith. Oh, to rise above all the present efforts of Satan! Yes, to rise up to the gulf-stream of the love of Christ to the whole church. And the love of God to flow through us also in the gospel to the whole world.
Continuance in the things that we have learned: not a jot of the precious testimony given up; and then, dear brethren, a wider range of preaching the word, and the work of an evangelist. Should we not in principle go into a town or village as Timothy? What is there in that town for us? The church of God, and the world. How little we rise up to this. We have seen in John 17 how the Lord's heart takes in all the Father hath given to Him! And this after all the evil had come in to the professing church. Should not we also then in the love of Christ take in all that are His? He will skew us how, whilst purging ourselves from vessels of dishonor, at the same time to serve all in love that are His. But the one word I heard the Lord as it were speaking to us all, in the midst of the present confusion and effort of the enemy, is " Continue. May that word long-yea, ever-abide in our hearts.
C. S.
THE LESSONS OF THE AGES. INTRODUCTORY.
IT has become a fact more familiar to many through certain recent discussions of momentous importance, that scripture is full of a doctrine of the " ages." The phrase is in our common version, more often obscured than not by being translated "world," or " worlds," or hidden under the stereotyped form, "forever," or "forever and ever." This last expression is always in the New Testament, if literally rendered, " for the ages of ages." It never implies less than full eternity, as it is the measure of God's own life: " He that liveth for the ages of ages:” is His title. (Rev. 4:99And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, (Revelation 4:9).) Christ, too, presents Himself as "alive for the ages of ages" (chap. 1:18); and there are ascribed " blessing, and honor, and glory, and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for the ages of ages." (Chapter 5:13.) These same " ages of ages " measure also the duration of the punishment-which is no less, then, than eternal-whether of the devil and his angels in the lake of fire (chap. 20. 10), or of the beast-worshippers who drink of the wine of the wrath of God. (Chapter 14:11.) There is no hope of finding an escape from eternity under an admitted phraseology of this kind in scripture.
The term " forever" is again sometimes " for the ages," while much more often the singular of this word is used, which some would render, in a way very equivocal to our habits of thought, "for the age," but where " age" must refer to the " age of ages" (the expression used in Eph. 3:2121Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen. (Ephesians 3:21)), inasmuch as it also stands for true eternity, for which it is the common word; while (save in three passages) the adjective derived from it is rendered " everlasting," or " eternal," everywhere in the New Testament; and rightly and necessarily so..
There may be thus an "age" (a period rounded off from the rest of time, and having distinctive characters of its own), as well as in scripture language, " the age," sum of all ages, which knows no limit and no end. In the adjective also, may be found these different significations, for while in its ordinary use, as I have already said, it means eternal, there are just three passages, with which we have now more to do, in which it refers to an age, or ages, rather than the age.
The Revised Version, even in Rom. 16:2525Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (Romans 16:25); 2 Timothy 1:99Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, (2 Timothy 1:9); and Titus 1:2,2In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; (Titus 1:2) keeps to the word " eternal;" but it—is hard to realize what " eternal times " can be. The Authorized Version has "before," or "since the world began;" but this is again a paraphrase rather than a translation. The true force is " in," or " before the age-times"-times marked out as " ages," distinctive, rounded off periods. In Timothy and Titus it is God's grace, or the promise of eternal life which is said to have been given us (in the divine counsels) before these age-times were; in Romans it is that in certain ages God had kept secret a mystery, now in Christianity revealed.
Thus there are ages past as well as ages to come-ages which lose themselves to our sight in that eternity which stretches in measureless infinity before us. The ages that are past, moreover, are distinguished from those to come as a series which, in a certain sense at least, has come to an end, and which is characterized as a series of steps toward the fulfillment of a purpose now accomplished, and from the accomplishment of which important results accrue to us. So, speaking of the things that are recorded as happening of old to Israel, the apostle says (2 Cor. 10:1111Let such an one think this, that, such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also in deed when we are present. (2 Corinthians 10:11)), " Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples [or, as in the margin, " types"] and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages [not " world "] are come." Since these ages have ended then, the types of a past dispensation have begun to speak as never before. Which corresponds to what, in another place, the apostle says (2 Cor. 3), that the veil—• which was over the Old Testament is now " done away in Christ."
Again, in Heb. 9:26,26For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26) we are told precisely that it was "at the end of the ages" (as we should read it) Christ "appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." That sacrifice closed, then, if not in every sense, the ages; and thus the New Testament, written on this side of the dividing-line, gives the true key to the Old. In Christ come, all that the past pointed to was fulfilled; the substance was reached of all its shadows, the heart of God was opened out to man, and in free and unrestrained speech declared itself.
But why not before? it is natural to ask. If, as now seen, this grace was in Him from the beginning, why was it so long before He openly manifested it? Was it necessary that through so many centuries of deferred hope, or of darkness without true hope, the coming of the Deliverer and the gospel of deliverance should be delayed? The New Testament affirms this absolutely when it speaks of a " due time " in which Christ died. (Rom. 5:77For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. (Romans 5:7).) How, then, was this " due time " marked? First, " when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." And again, "when in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (1 Cor. 1:2121For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. (1 Corinthians 1:21).)
The wisdom of the world had thus to be proved at fault, and the world itself helpless and hopeless in its moral ruin, before the due time of man's deliverance could come. He must get the blessing on true ground: as grace, not something that man's hand had wrought at. " When we were yet without strength"-" yet," after repeated trial. Again, " when in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God;" it must be granted time and opportunity to prove this, therefore. The delay in the coming of the Deliverer was the result of time required to certify the need of the deliverance: the ages previous to Christ's death were ages of a special trial of man, which the cross ended, for, indeed, there was his heart fully proved to be at "enmity to God," while, as to true and divine wisdom, it was what "none of the princes of this world knew; for, had they known it. the would not have crucified the Lord of glory." (1 Cor. 2:88Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:8).)
But if, then, it was so necessary that these probationary ages should have their course-if the coming of Christ on this very account waited 4000 years-how important must it be for us to get hold of the meaning of these age-times! As the world is but the multiple of the individual man, so it will be found that we pass in general, in order to find our blessing in Christ's death, through the stages of these different dispensations. Certainly it is when yet ungodly and without strength, we find what that death has wrought. And what law is, though God never put the Gentile under it, we know as putting ourselves under it, as indeed the Gentile Christians have done in a body.
Scripture, too, will be cleared for us as we consider these ages past; our own portion in it will be freed from admixture and appraised more truly. God's ways will speak more distinctly their perfect character, and many a precious lesson as to these shall we learn or be, confirmed in. The history of the world itself will have a new significance, if perchance it thus may fill fewer pages. In short, every way we may find most real profit, if only the blessed Spirit of God lead us Himself down the track of a past-gone indeed, but not yet done with-a past which is the seed of the present and the future, and of which the judgment-seat at last will give us, for eternity, the full moral. For now " we know in part and we prophesy in part;" and yet this partial knowledge may be most helpful.
Let us glance at the course over which, if the Lord will, we hope to travel. We have-
1. The trial of innocent man in Eden; brief indeed-the history of a day rather than an age-yet all-important in its results for every step of the journey afterward.
2. The trial of natural conscience simply, in the time before the flood.
3. The trial of human government (the political trial, as we may call it) from Noah's time, virtually over at Babel, although, of course, as a divine institution, it remains to the present time.
4. After an important interval, which has its own significance with reference to these age-times, and in which Abraham and his seed appear upon the scene, we have next the great trial • of man under the law. This had two parts of very unequal duration.
The trial of pure law lasted at the most forty days, ending under the Mount itself with the breaking of the tables of the covenant, and judgment executed on the people for their breach of it, in the worship of the golden calf. Then followed, for nine hundred years, a system of mingled love and mercy, the tables of law being now written by the hand of the mediator; and here man was as much convicted of his impotence for self-recovery as he was of his ungodliness before. This ended when Hosea's " Lo-Ammi " was recorded against the people, and the kingdom of Judah came to an end by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar.
5. From this time onward the question was not, Could they keep the law? but would they submit to the sentence, and receive the Deliverer? The remnant returned from the Babylonish captivity, with their temple empty, and under the heel of the Gentile, were witnesses of a ruin which John's baptism of repentance called to (and should have sealed) their confession of. Thus, and thus only, could they have been prepared for the Savior, and found remission. Here, alas! Satan's wit had combined with human pride to build up Pharisaism, and the cross proved not merely that man could not keep the law, but that the mind of the flesh was " enmity against God." This was the " end of the ages " of Hebrews—9. 26.
Yet in fact the ages go on after this, nay, the Jewish " age " does. We learn this from Daniel, whose seventieth prophetic " week " is detached from the sixty-nine at the end of which Messiah the prince comes, and is cast off by an interval of desolation for the city and sanctuary, whose final blessing he announces. From the New Testament alone we learn what fills this interval, and that the " harvest " of judgment upon Christian profession coincides with the " end " of this Jewish " age."
The gap is thus a very large one, of more than 1800 years, and in this Christianity comes in, not properly as an age, but as a break in the ages, in which a wholly different thing is presented to such probationary trial as the " ages " present. God's revelation of Himself is what characterizes Christianity. Man remains the same as ever, indeed, and shows himself as incompetent to hold the blessings of the gospel, as he was to stand the probation of law; still these are essentially different; and Christianity is but an interruption of the course of the world-ages, the end of which (for us) is come, and which yet go. on after Christianity, to their full consummation in Messiah's kingdom-the " age to come."
Christianity past, the true saints, living or dead, being taken up to heaven, the " end of the age " is marked on the one hand by a new work of grace in a remnant of Israel and of the Gentiles; and on the other hand by the apostasy of professing Christendom and the mass of the Jews, who, having rejected Christ, receive Antichrist. The full ripe result of iniquity is reached and judged by the Lord at His personal appearing.
6. Then follows the " world to come"-a day in which, Satan being bound and evil kept down with a strong hand, man is brought face to face with eternal realities. It is a dispensation of sight rather than of faith, under which, alas! man, as ever, shows what he is, in once more (Satan being again let loose) rising up against God in open insurrection. The judgment of the dead follows: the wicked cast into hell, the earth and heavens fleeing away before the face of Him who sits upon the great white throne.
7. All enemies are now subdued; the kingdom of the rod of iron is given up; new heavens and new earth succeed the old; God is all in all; and the ages of ages (probationary ages no more) commence their eternal course.
The Lord give us ability to gather up in some measure the lessons of these wondrous ages-lessons not for time alone, but for all eternity.
F. W. G.