“The seed is the Word of God.”
The Glory of God Is the Object and End of All God’s Dealings With Men.
All God’s counsels in respect to His glory are known in Christ and find their display in the various ways His glory is revealed.
In the Church, the office of the Holy Spirit is to take the things of Christ and show them to us. It was the same Holy Spirit who moved holy men of old to write prophecy.
Whatever the Holy Spirit communicates has but one object: the glory of Christ.
Whatever phase of truth the Holy Spirit brings under our notice only derives its importance from its bearing on Christ’s glory, and what concerns Christ’s glory calls forth the affections of those who love Him.
The glory of Christ is the only proper subject to exercise the spiritual intelligence of His own.
All prophecy has for its object the glory of Christ, except so far as it relates to His sufferings.
The Right Understanding of What Is Due to Christ’s Glory Unlocks Prophecy.
God has purposed in Himself for the administration of the fullness of times to head up all things in Christ, heavenly and earthly.
Prophecy has to do with Israel rather than with the Church. The Church is a revelation from God, kept secret while Israel was owned as God’s people. The calling of Israel was with a view of showing forth Christ’s glory on earth.
The calling of the Church was to show forth Christ’s glory in the heavens. Both the Church and Israel are to exhibit divine government coupled with divine affections. Both the Church and Israel have failed utterly to do this hitherto.
The Jews and the Gentiles are subjects of prophecy, but not the object of it. Christ is the object. The various subjects become important as they radiate to or from Him, the center.
The Church is not a subject of prophecy, as we shall see in more detail later.
The Church’s relation to Christ and Israel’s relation to Christ open out different spheres of Christ’s glory. To confound them is to falsify both and to nullify Christ’s glory in each.
Where the affections to Christ are right, the understanding of what is due to Him becomes clear. When the eye is simple, the whole body is full of light.
If we regard Christ as God regards Him, prophecy becomes sanctifying to the soul. If we regard prophecy apart from Christ’s glory, the mind is filled with unwholesome speculation.
Prophecy Is the Revelation of God’s Ways for Accomplishing His Glory in Christ.
Prophecy carries us on to the end, so that what has failed under present conditions may be realized under Christ. There may have been partial accomplishments in governmental dealings, by the way, to guide faith and obedience. Such dealings are most important, interesting and instructive, as they fall into their place and become history. But prophecy is that entire scheme which closes in Christ and finds its development in connection with the manifestation of His glory.
Certain landmarks are important that we may know when prophecy has been accomplished. No present circumstances, though historically instructive and confirmatory of faith, can be the proper accomplishment of prophetic truth. They may be conducive to it under God’s superintending government. They may be a lesson at the time and afterwards. But they are not identified with the manifestation of God’s glory in Christ, nor the immediate objects in which that manifestation takes place.
It is at the close we must look for the accomplishment of prophecy. All the actors of the scene will then be there.
Evil principles (which have been working from the beginning and have been discerned spiritually) will then have fully ripened. Evil principles (which have been judged partially so as to stay their power for the accomplishment of God’s gracious designs) will then show their fruits.
At the end the public acts of God will fully manifest what His judgment is, and He will be justified before all in those judgments.
God will bring in blessing by setting aside, in power, the evil and replacing it by His own reign in good.
There is a vast moral difference between saints of the present or past times and those of the world to come. We have the power of God internally, through grace and by the Spirit, to make good the will and glory of God in the midst of present evil.
In the next age, evil will be put away by power, and goodness will be at ease by the presence of Christ.
A proper subject of prophecy is the earth (not heaven) and God’s government of it.
Only so far as the heavenly company is connected with the government of the earth do they become a collateral subject of prophetic revelation.
Providence is not the subject of prophecy.
Providence Is the Ordering of the Course of All Things by Divine Power so That All Results That Happen in the World Are According to the Divine Purpose and Will.
Providence is often inscrutable to us in its reasons and even in the means it employs. Although it sometimes leaves the government of God obscure, still it is certain to faith.
To faith it remains true that God is not mocked, but what a man sows, this he will also reap (Gal. 6:77Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. (Galatians 6:7)). Faith will recognize the hand of God in many things and believes it in everything, but to the world all of it is hidden.
Certain principles, which are universal with God in their application, are thus verified, as, “Righteousness exalteth a nation” (Prov. 14:3434Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people. (Proverbs 14:34)).
The men of this world see nothing of the bearing of moral causes on the effect. Sometimes, if they see causes, they ascribe the effects to them. Thus God is shut out, for His immediate action and government are excluded.
The subjects of prophecy are the contrary of this. The public products of God, coming in power, are revealed. They are either the “day of the Lord” or the characteristic results that bring it about, that is to say, judgment, which man has to own as of God.
The Lord’s coming into this world has, properly speaking, closed its history; it has become the opposite of that secret course of government which is carried on and from the checks of which the pride of man rises again to pursue his course of evil.
It cannot be denied that certain grand and remarkable interventions of God are called in a subordinate sense “the day of the Lord,” in virtue of their practical analogy with that future time of which it is said, “The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (Isa. 2:11,1711The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. (Isaiah 2:11)
17And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. (Isaiah 2:17)). But even these are in contrast with the course of providential government, which in its very idea does not interrupt but regulates the ordinary course of events.
Some prophecies may seem to some to refer to the course of providence, but these confirm in a remarkable way the distinction. An example may be taken from “the ten horns” and their providential history as often applied by commentators. They make them out to be scourges, which continued some hundred and fifty years from first to last, working the overthrow of the Roman Empire and establishing themselves as conquerors in all its western territory.
We may inquire with profit, if done humbly, why this scourge was permitted. Was it for the public civil evil or for the corruption of the Church? What moral causes led to it? How did it execute the moral judgment of God on the evil? Why was the east spared? How did it lead the way to a more terrible spiritual evil than had yet been seen in the world? But these are questions about providence, not about prophecy.
Consider the prophetic account of “the ten horns.” A beast rises out of the sea with ten horns, all full grown, after which a little horn comes up, and the beast, horns and all, is the subject of God’s judgment, not the executor of it. This is prophecy. (See Daniel 7.)
In this account we have what characterizes the object of prophecy and its judgment and the reason of it. All the providential part, out of which commentators have woven an immense system, is left out.
It is the same with the great image of Daniel 2. The whole object of the prophecy — the image —is seen at once along with the description of God’s judgment of it. The providential course of events, by which one kingdom takes the place of the other, we find nothing of.
In the Revelation, before the end, we find summary judgment executed with progressive severity in the seals, trumpets and vials, before the King comes forth to destroy the beast —judgments inflicted of God, but not, in Scripture, providential history. They are all proper, immediate judgments, although but preparatory and introductory, and are inflicted either on the circumstances or on the persons of the men of this world — on the wicked. The hand of God is seen, but there is no explanation of causes or of a providential course. We find their moral state, exceptionally, in that which they refuse to repent of, in one case; but, in general, it is not the course of events guided by providence to order all things well, but the earth subject to the judicial vengeance of God.
Providence is occupied in the daily discipline of the children of God.
The end of providence is the present ordering of God’s government to bring about His designs.
Prophecy treats of the judgments of God, removing out of His sight those whom He judges and bringing His people into full blessing.
The Revelation consists of judgments inflicted.
Prophecy does not apply to a state in which God’s people, responsible under God’s immediate government, walk well, so that He can bless them as walking under His own eye in testimony of His favor.
Prophecy is for failure. It is a special intervention of God.
When Shiloh was overthrown and the ark taken, Samuel was raised up of God for that time when failure had come in. Hence, Peter says, “All the prophets from Samuel” (Acts 3:2424Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. (Acts 3:24)).
The prophets showed the people their transgressions, but they constantly pointed out the Messiah, the great Deliverer.
Hannah’s song shows the feet of the saints kept, the adversaries of the Lord broken, and strength given to God’s King (Christ) in 1 Samuel 2:911. This is the most interesting epoch in Israel’s history, giving the character of prophecy in a remarkable manner. Historically, Samuel the prophet is raised up on the failure and ruin of Israel, and David, a type of Christ, is introduced.
Thus prophecy judges the people in their responsibility and announces the sovereign purpose of God.
Christ is the Head of creation, which includes angels. But the three great spheres in which Christ’s glory is displayed are the Church, the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Church, properly speaking, is not the subject of prophecy. The New Testament declares in the most absolute and positive way that the Church was a mystery (not a subject of prophecy), hidden in all ages. The New Testament declares with equal positiveness that the Spirit now reveals it to the apostles and New Testament prophets.
The Church belongs to heaven. It is the body of Christ seated there, while He is so seated.
The Church is viewed in relation to earth when it takes part in the government of it. The marriage of the Lamb and the description of the heavenly Jerusalem give the point from which dates the character of this relationship with earth.
The relationship of the Church with Christ causes the Holy Spirit to remain in it and communicate the needed light on its position, while waiting for the Lord.
In the Church there are no formal institutions subsisting, as was the case in Israel where a series of prophets could be raised up to recall to them the fact that they were the people of God and should be consistent with their institutions.
Although the Church is not the subject of prophecy, yet in one respect, while subsisting as owned of God, certain things connected with it are predicted. For instance, its decay and corruption is described as a present moral warning, but this passes into mere apostate wickedness, as a distinct object of judgment.
The Lord gives a picture of the Church as an external body in the world, a state that for the most part He could not own as His heavenly body. In its 1 Timothy state God called it the “house of God”; in 2 Timothy, “the great house.”
God selects, with divine wisdom, seven churches in Asia, which afforded the moral character of the states into which it would successively fall, and He presses His judgment morally on them. But it is not made a subject of prophecy.
Whatever may be our understanding of the subsequent part of the Revelation, which treats of events subsequent to the period of the seven churches, it is certain that it consists of judgments on the world. (There is the simple fact that the beast overcomes certain saints and that he puts to death two witnesses.)
The Church Is Not of the World; It Sits in Heavenly Places Where Prophecy Does Not Reach.
The Church will never be established on earth as the Jews were; it is not its calling. The government of God will never settle it there in peace.
The Church’s blessing is to be taken away from the earth to be with the Lord in the air. We find the Church in heaven at the end, in connection with the earth, when all is united to Christ, but no account of any dealings of God to establish it or a progress toward a result of any kind.
The “false” Church — meaning that which has a name for such in the world but is really the power of evil in it — will come under the judgments of the Revelation, but that does not make the “true” Church the subject of prophecy.
The Church suffers with Christ here and reigns with Him hereafter.
The Church Is the Display of God’s Grace; the World, of His Government.
The Church is the full exhibition of God’s sovereign grace in redemption, which puts her in heavenly places in Christ, that in the ages to come God might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness to her in Christ Jesus.
There is a distinction to be noted here, which is full of interest. Man is not governed in introducing him into the Church. He is taken as a rebellious, lost sinner, a hater of God, a child of wrath, be he Jew or Gentile, and set in the same place as Christ. This is not government, but grace.
The Jews are the center of God’s immediate government, morally displayed according to His revealed will. The Gentiles are brought to recognize God’s power and sovereignty, displayed in His dealings with the Jews. This is as to its revealed or manifested character.
Every sinner individually, in all ages, is saved as a sinner by grace.
Every Christian is under the immediate government of the Father, as of the heavenly family. With the Christian it is to prepare him for heaven. With the Jew it is to display God’s righteousness on the earth.
Christ and the Church suffer for righteousness and reign. The Jews as a people suffer for sin, and the result of their history will be, “Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth” (Psa. 58:1111So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth. (Psalm 58:11)).
Two different characters of prophecy spring from two different positions in which we find the Jews in Scripture. The first position is a people, more or less owned of God, and God acting among them on known principles of government. The second position is the same people disowned of God for a time, the sovereign power in the earth being confided to Gentiles.
God, while He could in any sort own His people, addressed Himself to them directly. Until Nebuchadnezzar’s time God’s throne and presence were in the midst of Israel. Afterward, the sovereign power in the earth ceased to be immediately exercised by God and was confided to those who were not His people, in the person of Nebuchadnezzar. This was a change of immense importance, both in respect of the government of the world and God’s judgment of His people.
Both of these positions of Israel lead the way to the great events of prophecy developed at the close: first, the restoration through tribulation of a rebellious people, and second, the judgment of an unfaithful and apostate Gentile head of power.
But the previous relationship of Israel and of the nations is not left out; hence, it is necessary to observe another important point for the development of this. Israel — as between Israel and Jehovah — had been unfaithful, and Ichabod (meaning, “not My people”) had been written on them. The ark of God — His glory and strength in Israel — had been delivered into the enemies’ hand, enemies left in the land by their unfaithfulness. But God comes in, in sovereign grace, and raises up David — figure of Christ, who descended from him according to the flesh — king of Israel, in grace and deliverance.
When evil arises in David’s descendants, the major part of Israel revolts from the king. Two tribes remain, and to a residue of them brought back from Babylon, Christ is presented and rejected.
Two things give occasion to Israel’s judgment: first, idolatry and rebellion against Jehovah, and second, the rejection of Christ.
Consider the first: rebellion against Jehovah. Israel ought to have been the witness of the blessedness of their relationship with the Lord, an example of Psalm 144:1515Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord. (Psalm 144:15) — “Happy is that people, that is in such a case: yea, happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.” Israel learned the ways of the heathen, yea, became more corrupt than they, and the Lord allowed the surrounding nations to attack and distress them. This had its full development in the ten tribes, while the house of David — raised up in grace — was for the time a stay to Judah.
Though all the nations had their part in these attacks, the principal one was Asshur (Assyria). Accordingly, in the end this power prevails entirely against Israel and overruns Judah, the Lord, only at the close, defending Jerusalem, where the Son of David was a stay in righteousness.
Still, though Israel had deserved all this chastisement, these rods of chastening in their animosity had despised the Lord, His people and His throne. Asshur, especially, had exalted himself “against Him that heweth therewith.” Hence they became the objects of destroying judgment themselves.
All these elements are found at the close, though they had a partial historical fulfillment at that time. The nations will overrun the country (Palestine). The Assyrian, in particular (a power upheld by Gog — Russia), will be the scourge of God as an overflowing flood, and the following events will take place.
First, the people (Judah and Jerusalem) are overwhelmed. Second, when the true Son of David is there and the land will be actually Immanuel’s land, Jerusalem shall be preserved and all these nations judged. There will be two attacks; Jerusalem will be trodden down by the first. At the second, Christ will be there, and judgment on the attackers takes place. Isaiah and Zechariah are clear as to this. When Christ is with them, then Jerusalem shall tread down the nations as sheaves upon the threshing-floor.
These circumstances, under God’s teaching, open out a vast mass of prophecies, of which Isaiah gives the most complete and orderly course, other prophets taking up divers parts of it.
The family of David, as placed responsibly on the throne of the Lord at Jerusalem, was, we know, unfaithful. Further on, the sin of Manasseh made their government insupportable to Jehovah, and Judah was removed out of His sight, as Israel had been. What then remained of the sphere of the direct government of God on a given law? Nothing. His glory left Jerusalem and the earth, for it had previously filled the temple of Jerusalem (Ezek. 110). This judgment, then, was of a far weightier character and import, for it removed the government of God from upon the earth and confided power to the head of the Gentiles.
Israel was laid aside for a time, but Judah, providentially restored in a partial way, has Messiah presented but rejects Him, saying, We have no king but Caesar. Judah thus is placed under the Gentile power, not only as a chastening for their rebellion against Jehovah in the persons of their king and of David’s race, but on the ground of their own rejection of the promised Messiah and of taking the Gentile for their head. Consequently, this also has its accomplishment in judgment in the latter days.
The special Gentile part of it is scarcely alluded to in the prophets who address Israel as being more or less owned of God. This is the subject of the book of Daniel, and in a certain way of the Revelation also, as we will here just allude to in the following remarks.
In prophecy Judah is seen in the latter days under the oppression of the head of Gentile power, deceived by a false Christ and oppressed. God, however, still regards Israel as His, causing it to pass through the deepest tribulation. Those who, through grace, cleave to the Lord, call upon His name and receive the word of the Spirit of Christ, instead of joining idolatry with the Gentiles and their chief, will be delivered. The apostate Gentile power and the false prophet will be judged.
On the rejection of the Jews, as we know, Christianity came in. But alas! man is as unfaithful here as in Judaism. Early in the apostles’ time the mystery of iniquity began to work. The result, as we see it in this our day, is apostasy, and it will be followed by the resuscitation, by Satanic agency, of the Roman Empire.
These ten kings of the Gentile world will make war with the Lamb.
The public apostasy in the sphere of Christian profession brings about the revelation of the man of sin.
The open war of the beast and the kings associated with him against the Lord comes in as an element of latter day events to complete the character and description of the Gentile power, which had taken the place of God’s throne at Jerusalem under Nebuchadnezzar and to whom God had confided authority in the world. This, with its antecedents, is what the Revelation furnishes of the prophetic word.
The destruction of this great Gentile power, as well as that of the Assyrian and other nations, results in the reestablishment of Israel in blessing under Christ upon the earth — the throne of the Lord being thus reestablished in surety at Jerusalem.
The destruction of the great Gentile power does not reach this latter period entirely. Hence Daniel, who treats specially of the Gentile power, never speaks of the millennium. Daniel is made just to reach the deliverance and there stops.
The effect of the destruction of the Gentile power is to reunite the Lord, Jerusalem and Israel. Afterward comes the judgment of the Assyrian and the various enemies who have risen up against the Lord and against His people. This brings in the full reign of peace.
But it may be well at this point to recapitulate the moral effect on Israel at the close. To save themselves from the overflowing scourge (Isaiah 28:1515Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves: (Isaiah 28:15)), Judah, who has rejected Christ, will associate themselves with Antichrist and the apostate Gentiles. But for all this the covenant they have made is broken and the scourge does pass through and they are trodden down by it.
A residue, despised, suffering and rejected, will recoil from this and own Jehovah and gradually grow up into more light, but in the midst of such distress as never was. When all hope is shut out and the enemy is coming up again in pride, the Lord will appear and save them and take them up against all their enemies.
As regards the ten tribes — at least the great body of them — the foregoing will not be their history. However much they may have determined to be mingled among the Gentiles and be like them, God does not allow it. They are not under Antichrist and are not cut off in the land. On the contrary, they are brought, like Israel coming out of Egypt, under God’s rod, and the rebels are cut off so as not to enter Israel. Israel and Judah will thus be under one head, Christ, who will gather from all sides any left in various hands.
Now let us look a little at the Gentile part of mankind. The Gentiles oppose God’s people when externally He owns them as His, and in their own pride and arrogance they oppress His people when He gives power to them. The difference of these two states was great.
Until the time of Nebuchadnezzar various kingdoms and nations were owned as God’s people in the providential government of God, though left entirely to themselves morally — their existence being the fruit of His own judgment in Babel. Israel was the center of this general system, being owned as His people — known alone of all the families of the earth (Amos 3:22You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. (Amos 3:2)).
The Lord, in separating the sons of Adam and dividing to the nations their inheritance, had set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel (Deut. 32:88When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 32:8)). But when Israel failed in this position and the nations, especially Assyria, were guilty of wrong, God judges them all, for He “contemneth the rod of My son.” The following scripture, Ezekiel 21:913 JND, will make this plain: “Thus saith Jehovah: Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished [that is, polished after having lain by]. It is sharpened for sore slaughter, it is furbished that it may glitter. Shall we then make mirth, saying, The scepter of My son contemneth all wood? . . . The trial is made; and what if even the contemning scepter shall be no more?” If the rod itself be thus brought under punishment, how then should the rest subsist?
The whole governmental order is set aside, and with Israel the independence of all the nations is lost. Wherever the children of men dwell, the dominion of Adam is placed in the hands of the head of the Gentiles.
The history and judgment in the latter day of all these nations that existed previous to Nebuchadnezzar (as well as some unnamed people outside their limits and mentioned in Isaiah 18 and the northern Gog of Ezekiel 19) are given in the prophets.
In one way or another these nations are found hostile to Israel and gathered against Jerusalem in the latter day. In general, we find Zechariah 12,14, Isaiah 30, Micah 4 and other passages reveal the gathering of the nations against Jerusalem. But these passages also reveal that Jerusalem is taken once, and then a second time it is not, because the Lord is there and defends it.
The nations themselves are judged, as well as Israel. The haughty pride of the nations is broken, as well as that of Israel who (save the residue) sought help away from God. However the nations may have exalted themselves, they have at last to bow to the sovereignty and power of God and to own that He whom they have despised is in the midst of Israel. Those spared of them will own Jehovah in Zion when He has appeared, for Zion is established in peace by the presence of Jehovah.
Besides the general history of the nations outlined above, the great image of Daniel 2, which begins with Nebuchadnezzar, is a distinct history and distinct prophetic subject. Its history is in connection with Israel being set aside and God confiding power into Gentile hands.
Man used the power confided to him of God to exalt himself against Him, to oppress His people, and to trample down His sanctuary. Nor was that all; the last beast in particular stained his hands (vainly washed before men) in the guiltless blood of the Son of God and thus associated himself with the apostate part of the Jewish people.
Alas! this was not all. The mystery of iniquity working in the midst of the Church brought on apostasy there. Evil men (who crept in) brought out the peculiar character of those to be judged by Christ at His coming in the last day.
This apostasy gives occasion to the rise of the man of sin — the full expression of the wickedness of the human heart under the full power of Satan. Owning no God, setting up to be God and deceiving as false Christ by signs and wonders is the religious end of man left to himself. All this evil is associated with maintaining the public power of Satan on the earth.
Such is the last character of the power of the Gentiles where Christianity had been introduced. It will have at once an atheistic and an apostate Gentile form, growing out of and accompanied by apostate Christian forms.
The last rebellious and self-exalting acts of power at Jerusalem will bring down ruin on the chief and his supporters by the manifestation of the Lord Jesus. Thereon will follow, as we have already outlined, the taking up of royal power in Israel by the Lord Christ and the destruction of all the enemies who have gathered together against Him.
The marriage of the Lamb having taken place with the Church, already gone up on high, the saints come forth with the Lord on the white horse, to the triumphant destruction of the beast and the false prophet. Afterward the Church is seen in her relationship with the earth in blessing as the heavenly Jerusalem. What a contrast with the corrupt and corrupting influence of Babylon with the kings of the earth, which ends in the nations and the beast destroying her!
In the scene of woe, which precedes the destruction of the beast, we find in the prophets a remnant of Jews who in the depth of their distress look and learn to look more and more to Jehovah, being animated by the prophetic spirit of Christ and taught thereby. To this the whole body of psalms apply, giving us, besides Christ’s sympathy with them, the varied expression of that sympathy. Isaiah 6566 dwells upon this remnant of Jews.
Before the execution of judgment there will be a special testimony of God within the circle of evil that is going on and another testimony of God outside of it. These two testimonies must not be confounded.
In the first half of the last week of Daniel there will be a testimony rendered to the God of the earth. The beast rising up in his last form will put an end to this, adding this to his other acts of wickedness in order to please men and in order to pursue his career of evil unchecked. In the last half of the last week of Daniel, the only testimony possible is to refuse to adore the beast, the alternative for refusal being death at the hand of the beast.
The result will be the full establishment of what was shadowed, that is, the full establishment of what was connected with the responsibility of man in the previous condition. As to the Jew, he will be fully blessed, and the throne of the Lord will be established at Jerusalem. As to the Gentile, the Son of Man will have full dominion over the whole world.
As to Satan, he is driven from on high (from whence he has corrupted even the good that God placed in the hands of men) into the earth and from earth into the bottomless pit where he is bound for a thousand years. Old and New Testament prophecies alike declare this. The blessing of the world is uninterrupted during his imprisonment. At the end of the thousand years he is let loose for a little season, but it does not appear that the saints suffer anything by it. They are assembled together apart from those seduced by Satan.
The judgment of the dead follows, after which the new heavens and the new earth appear. The mediatorial kingdom having been closed and delivered up, the family of the last Adam enjoy the full, everlasting blessing acquired for them by their Head.
God’s Glory
God’s glory the object of all prophecy.
Secured by Christ being glorified.
Christ’s glory in His people’s blessing.
Heavenly glory: the Church with Him.
Earthly glory: Israel ruling the nations.
All creation rejoicing in these effects.
The first Adam came short of the glory.
The last Adam more than redeemed it.
Responsibility
Adam let go goodness and so learned evil.
Israel lets go God and gets world-ruled.
Christendom lets go God and is cut off.
Prophecy and Providence
Prophecy treats of the end of the age.
Providence deals with the present.
Providence does not fulfil prophecy.
Prophecy is for earth, not for the Church.
Suffering
The Church is glorified with Christ.
The Church suffers with Christ here.
The Jews as a people suffer for sin.
Israel suffers for idolatry and rebellion.
Israel suffers also for rejecting Christ.
The Gentiles
Nebuchadnezzar replaces Israel.
Had to learn to whom his power belonged.
Falls under a lower power.
The Church
Israel rejects Messiah and is scattered.
Rome rejects the Son of God and receives a deadly wound.
In the interval the true Church formed.
In same interval false church appears.
All the while God seems to keep silence.
Tribulation
First movement, the Church taken.
Then, Israel gathers in unbelief.
The false church gathers to itself.
Satan revives the Roman Empire.
The empire destroys the false church.
The Antichrist lures the apostate Jew.
Opposing forces ravage Jerusalem.
Day of the Lord
A remnant of true saints cries to the Lord.
The Lord hears, answers and pardons.
The Lord on their side, the people saved.
The nations that afflicted are punished.
All the earth hears the everlasting gospel.
Rejecters are rooted out of the land.
Messiah’s Reign
The thousand years of Messiah’s reign.
Followed by Satan’s final overthrow.
The heavens and the earth made anew.