We begin now a very distinct section of our prophet, that is not occupied so much as before with Israel, though, of course, we find Israel therein; but still they are not the immediate object of the prophecy, but rather the nations and their judgment, running down from circumstances that were then immediately imminent to the very “end of the age.”
As to the expression just used, which occurs so often in the Gospel of Matthew, its application is to that condition of things during which Israel are found under the law and without their Messiah. The new age, on the contrary, will be characterized by their being under the new covenant. Their Messiah will then reign over them in glory. The Old Testament gives us, not only these ages, but the times before them, as the New Testament unveils the eternity that is to follow them. Practically, the New like the Old speaks of these two ages as connected with Israel: the age that was going on when Christ came and was rejected, and that which is to come when He returns in glory. “In this age” there is a mixture of good and evil, to be closed by an awful conflict in which the beast and the false prophet will fall. The age to come is when Satan is bound, and the Lord Jesus governs the earth in displayed power and glory.
Thus the difference of the ages is of incalculable importance. If you do not distinguish the present from the age to come, all must, be confusion, not for thought only, but for practice also. For now it is a question of grace and faith, evil being allowed outwardly to triumph, as we see in the cross. In the world to come the evil will be externally judged and kept down, and the good will be exalted over all the earth, and fill the whole world with the knowledge of Jehovah and His glory. The end of the age, therefore, is evidently future; and so Scripture speaks. Thus, for us it is “this present evil age,” from which Christ's death has delivered us; the new age will be good, not evil, as surely as it is a future thing. Again, if we think not of the Church, but of Israel, I suppose that the age began with their being under the law in the absence of the Messiah. The new age will be when Israel have their Messiah not only come, but come again and reigning; for the presence of the Messiah in humiliation did not interrupt the age; and still less did their rejection of Him bring in the new age. Only there is now another mighty work of God in process, based on the heavenly glory of Christ and the personal presence of the Holy Ghost, and marked here below by the Church of God. During this, mercy is flowing out to the Gentiles; so that we may call it the Gentile parenthesis of mercy. Before, and quite distinct from this, were the times of the Gentiles, when God in His providence gave Gentiles to take the government of the world, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar, the golden head of the great image; this one may call the Gentile parenthesis of judgment. They are both of them within the limits of “this age,” and are going on still. The new age will be brought in by the Lord's coming in the clouds of heaven.
Now this at once introduces a very important change, namely, that repentant Israel will be delivered, and the nations come up for the judgment of the quick when the Son of man shall have entered on His kingdom. (Comp. Matt. 25; Rev. 11; 20) The first part of Isaiah we saw to be the judgment of Israel and then their final blessing. This is always a principle of the dealings of God: when He judges, He begins at His own house. Hence Peter says, “The time is come that judgment must begin with the house of God,” and then he shows that if “the righteous scarcely (or with difficulty) are saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” But God has undertaken to save the righteous, although it be with difficulty and in face of an amazing mass of contradiction and trial, and their own utter weakness. All these things make it hard, indeed; but what is insuperable to us is an opening for the glory of God; and He has got over the great difficulty, and that was our sins. Is sin—any, all sin—any longer a difficulty for Christ? Has He not for the believer put sins away by the cross? But if there is no difficulty to God, there are many to us; and the word, “the righteous scarcely are saved,” is in relation to our dangers by the way. Now if that be so, what will be the end of the ungodly? The Apostle Peter applies it to the Christian and looks at the world as coming under judgment when the Lord shall appear. In the Old Testament, it is not the Church but Israel that are in question; but God invariably begins with that which is nearest to Him. Accordingly all the first twelve chapters have been occupied with Israel as the foreground of the picture, whatever incidental notice there may be of others.
But from this portion onward, through a dozen chapters more, we have the Gentiles prominent, though Jerusalem too is judged in their midst, ending with the dissolution of the earth and with the higher ones punished on high. He had shown us the judgment of His own house; now He deals with the nations in relationship with His people, one after another.
First of all, Babylon comes up, because it was the great Gentile power that was allowed to take possession of Jerusalem; and God shows that, while He may use the stranger to chastise His people, He will turn round ere long and deal with their oppressive cruelty, because their mind was to destroy, while God employed them only to chasten. And inasmuch as there was pride of power, without conscience toward God, yea also, the main source of idolatry, so Babylon cannot escape, but is the first among the Gentiles summoned to judgment. Thus, what we are now entering upon is not the divine scrutiny of His house in Israel, but the judgment of the world and of the nations, and hence right early of Babylon. Observe, however, that if the Spirit of God takes notice of what was then befalling the Jews, (expressly noticing the ruin of this land and people that was imminent, when they should be taken captive to Babylon,) for all that, He never confines Himself to any blows, however grave, that were then struck. This, indeed, is just the difference between what is of God and what is of man. If man speaks, there are necessary limits to the application of his words. In what God says, there is invariably a germinant sense, deepening farther on, evidencing what God has in view, to show what He is and glorify Christ. This, I think, is the meaning of the scriptural canon in 2 Peter 1:20: “No prophecy is of any private interpretation.” Apply it but to some particular event, and you destroy the purpose of God; while it may, doubtless, include such an event, all prophecy looks onward to the counsels of God in reference to the glory of His Son.
And such is the aim of the Spirit's testimony. Indeed, this is true of all Scripture; for Christ is the object of God in giving Scripture at all; He is not merely thinking of man, or of his salvation, blessed as it is; nor of Israel, nor of the Church.
God thinks of Christ, who is more precious to Himself than all besides. It is in virtue of Christ that there can be a purpose brought to issue in or out of such a world as this. For it is not possible that the creature itself could have any intrinsic value in the sight of God. That which merely flows out of the sovereign will, and almighty hand of God, can cease to be. He that made can destroy; but when you come to Christ, you have that which nothing can, we may reverently say, destroy; and all the efforts of man or Satan to destroy and dishonor Him have been only turned, in the mighty and gracious wisdom of God, into a display of all-surpassing glory. Thus we arrive at the great truth for our every-day walk. We have to do with One now, whose love nothing can exhaust, whose ways too are perfect; we have to do with Him day by day, to wait on Him, to expect from Him, to trust Him, to make sure of His admirable care for us. Christ is worthy that our hearts should confide in Him, and He cannot be confided in without blessing flowing out. Thus God proves Himself greater than all that can be against us. Apart from Christ, there is nothing even that He Himself made but what, connected with man on earth, soon has a cloud over it. Nay, it is wider still. Angels left their first estate. Look at any creature-height, or beauty apart from Christ, and what is the security? Is not the earth, once so fair, a wilderness? Is not man a moral wreck? Israel were brought out into the wilderness to keep a feast to the Lord; but they made and worshipped a golden calf, to His deep dishonor. In the Church of God, called to the unity of the Spirit and the reflection of Christ's heavenly glory here below, what breaches, divisions, sects, heresies, confusions, and every evil work! What guilty ignorance of the Father, what bold denial of the Son, what flagrant sin against the Holy Ghost; and all this going on at an aggravated, accelerating ratio, as the apostasy draws near and the manifestation of the man of sin in its final form.
We look as it were on the closing history of Christendom, upon the eve of that judgment that slumbers not; but, thank God, we await first of all our Savior from heaven—a blessed hope which may be forgotten by worldliness and unbelief, but will never fade because it is not founded on anything short of the Lord Jesus. He is coming; and as surely as He does, we have the turning-point of all blessing reached for our bodies and all things, even as now by faith for our souls. What a discovery it has been to some of us, that prophecy has the selfsame center that the rest of Scripture has, and that its center in Christ is so much the more conspicuous as it cannot content itself with past accomplishment, but ever looks onward to the grand fulfillment in the future! No matter what it may be, all acquires importance because God is thinking of His beloved Son. And His Son is to strike the last strokes of judgment; He will deal with man, first, by providential means, then in person.
From the chapter now before us we may gather these two things plainly enough—a preparatory application to the times of the prophet or near them, but the only adequate fulfillment reserved for the great day, which is still future. For instance, in verses 6-10, one can see there are greater signs than have ever been verified. These things cannot fairly be said to have literally taken place; yet the Spirit of God does not hesitate to connect them with Babylon's fall. To talk of hyperbole or exaggeration is to prove utter ignorance of Scripture and of the power of God. I could understand an infidel talking such language as this; but the moment you begin to suppose that the Spirit of God could willingly set Himself to exaggerate, the authority of the whole word is shaken. If He magnifies a temporal judgment, beyond the facts, how do I know that He does not exaggerate grace and eternal redemption? And where is the ground in this case for solid peace with God? Is it, or is it not, a fixed principle, that the Holy Ghost always speaks the truth? Then, along with this, we must take care that we understand its application. Thus, to restrain this scene to the past judgment of Babylon is to limit the word of God and make the Spirit seem to exaggerate. But this is merely our misunderstanding and error. How momentous, then, it is that we should be in malice children, in understanding men! We may well shrink with horror from a pathway that leads to an end so dishonoring to the word of God. On the other hand, that the Holy Ghost did really speak inclusively of a past accomplishment I hold to be just as certain as that He was looking onward to far more than that.
In verses 15-17 it is a temporal judgment that is spoken of; a description not of what will be when the Lord judges, but of the lawless way in which man wreaks his wrath upon his fellow.
Verses 18, 19 present a total destruction. Babylon has been judged. An almost unprecedented disaster and destruction fell on that proud city; and this, we know, was under God effected by the junction of the Medes and Persians, with Cyrus for their leader.
But plainly the Lord here uses the strongest language to show that it is His day. In reading the New Testament as well as the Old, it is of the utmost moment to understand “the day of the Lord” in its real character and import. It is not the same thing as the Lord's “coming” to receive us. When He comes, the dead saints are raised and the living ones are changed, which is not “the day of the Lord,” nor ever so called in Scripture. There is one chapter (2 Peter 3) where there might seem to be some difficulty; bat the difficulty is really from this very confusion; for when you distinguish the two phrases and thoughts here as elsewhere, all is plain. What the scoffers of the last days say, is, “where is the promise of His coming,” &c. What the Spirit of God replies is, that the day of the Lord shall come, and come like a thief in the night to judge wickedness upon the earth. They make light of the Christians who are looking for this bright hope, their Master's coming; but the Holy Ghost threatens them with the terrible day of the Lord. The Lord is never represented as coming like a thief in the night except when judgment is distinctly spoken of, as in Sardis. (Rev. 3) In 1 Thess. 5 the Spirit brings in the comparison of the thief when He speaks of the day of the Lord coming upon the world, not in relation to the saints who wait for Christ.
The real truth is that the expression “coming of the Lord” may apply to His presence before He is manifested to every eye, but “day of the Lord” pertains to that part and aspect of His action which inflicts just vengeance upon the world, and then presents Him judging in righteousness. Here it is the day of the Lord; and, therefore, of darkness and destruction to sinners; there is not a word about the righteous dead being raised, or the living changed; all that which is proper to the New Testament, you find there and there only. In the Old Testament you have the dealing of the Lord with Israel, judging what was wrong, but finally blessing, and patient long-suffering with the Gentiles where He took notice of them at all till the day of visitation come. This accounts for the language of Isa. 13. The Spirit of God has in His view the Lord's judgment of the whole world; and, therefore, it is called “the day of Jehovah.” It will be the termination of all the space allowed to man's will and self-exaltation. It will be the manifestation of God's moral ways when all that is high shall be abased, and the Lord and the lowly that He loves shall be exalted forever. But while the Spirit of God goes onward to that day, there was enough to mark Babylon devoted to destruction by a direct intervention of God near at hand. The truth of the prophecy was thus witnessed by a special accomplishment in those days. Babylon then became first like Sodom and Gomorrha. If it was physically not so manifestly a divine judgment, it was morally a stupendous event which changed the whole course of the world's history. The downfall of Persia was in no way a type of the final judgment of the world, neither was the fall of Greece of any striking significance in this respect. The judgment of Rome will be so, of course; but this is yet future. It has been, as it were, shaken repeatedly and brought low; but then it has revived. The day is coming when Rome will rise again into splendor and amazing power, when it will be the center of a revived empire. But it will then rise to meet its final doom from the hands of God. The past ruin of Babylon is a type of this destruction of Rome. When Babylon fell, the children of Israel were delivered; there was nothing of the sort when Persia yielded to Greece, or Greece to Rome.
Thus the fall of the first great power of the Gentiles is a type of the doom of the last, when Israel will have been finally set free, a converted people, and delivered spiritually as much as nationally, thenceforward made to express the glory of Jehovah upon the earth.
So in the next chapter (14.) the Spirit of God goes forward to Israel's deliverance. The connection is plain. The overthrow of Babylon involves the emancipation of Israel. It has thus much greater importance than the history of any ordinary power; and the past Babylon is simply a type of the fall of that vast power, its final heir, which is to the last the enslaver of the Jews and the master of the holy city. Israel are yet to have as their servants the very persons who formerly enslaved them themselves. Expecting this glory for Israel, and this mighty deliverance for the people of the Jews, one can understand how they shall “take up this proverb against the king of Babylon.” For he sets forth no other than the last head of the beast, just as Nebuchadnezzar was the first. Although the king of Babylon typifies the person who will finally have the Jews as his captives, it would be a great mistake to suppose that it is to be a king of the Babylon of Shinar. I refer to this now, merely to show that it rests upon a false principle. Many have the thought that there will be a re-establishment of oriental Babylon in the last days. They suppose there will be a literal city in the plain of Shinar. This I believe to be fundamentally false. The New Testament shows us by evident remarks what the future one will be, and contrasts the Apocalyptic Babylon with that of the Chaldees. The Babylon of the old world was built upon a plain, the future Babylon is characterized by the seven mountains it sits on. Thus every one of common information would understand the locality of the future Babylon. There is but one city that has had proverbially this title attached to it among Gentiles, Jews, and Christians. Everywhere it has acquired a designation from the circumstance; so that if you speak of the seven-hilled city, there is hardly an educated child but would answer, “It must be the famous city of Rome.” This is the city which is to occupy in the last days the same kind of importance that Babylon had in the beginning of the age. It began with Babylon and ends with the person that is called, in the Book of Revelation, “the Beast.” There were four beasts in Daniel, but one is called “the Beast,” as indeed but the last existed; and if it became extinct, it was to rise again and be present once more before its judgment. Now God makes the old enemy to be a type of the new one that menaces them. The final holder of the power of Babylon thus becomes a type of him who will wield the same power against the people of God in the last days. In Rev. 17 the general principle is exceeding clear, without the violent supposition of a literal metropolis in Chaldea; where man would have not merely to build the city, but, first of all, to create seven hills. Another thing the Spirit of God speaks of is, the reigning of the city over the kings of the earth, and not of the control exercised over the empire, under the symbol of the woman riding the beast.
Finally, the Apocalyptic Babylon will shift from a heathenish character to an anti-Christian one. What we have in Isaiah furnishes the groundwork for that which meets us in the Revelation. Thus the strong language that is used in verses 12-14, could scarcely be said to have been exhausted in Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar. There was pride and self-exaltation in the one, and most degrading and profane luxury in the other; but what we have here will be fully verified in the last days and not before. After taking this place of power, the lofty one is to be abased as no Babylonish monarch ever was. (See ver. 15)
I do not enter into the rest of the chapter further than to point out another declaration in Verses 24, 25. Some suppose that the king of Babylon and the Assyrian are one and the same person; it is a common mistake, and particularly among men of learning. But it is clear that the later statement is something added to the fall of him of Babylon who has been already judged. Then the Assyrian follows, who is dealt with summarily in the Lord's land. This agrees perfectly with what may be gathered from other parts of God's word.
Now, if you look at the past history of Israel, the Assyrian came up first, his army destroyed, and himself sent back into his own land, there to be slain by his rebellious sons in the house of his god. The astonishing destruction of his hosts was typical of the fall of “the Assyrian” in the last days, but only a type of it. This was considerably before Babylon was allowed of God to become supreme. It was after the disappearance of Nineveh that Babylon sprang up into the first place. The Assyrian never gained the supremacy of the world, but Babylon did, as a sovereign grant from God, after the royal house of David had become the helper on of idolatry, following the people of God in their love—the abomination of the heathen. God told, as it were, the king of Babylon to take the whole world to himself. Babylon was always most conspicuous for its many idols; but as the chosen witness had become idolatrous, the worst might as well have supremacy as the best. Babylon was thus exalted to the empire of the world. Its active enmity and idolatry could hardly be thought a claim on the true God: on the other hand, it was not allowed to hinder its rise in God's sovereignty into the place of the government of the world. This was, in fact, subsequent to the destruction of the Assyrian which we have seen before in other chapters 8-10. Here, on the contrary, Babylon is judged first; then the Assyrian comes up and is smitten in the land of God's people. Why is this? Because the Spirit of God is here taking the circumstances of the Assyrian as well as the king of Babylon, not as a history of the past, but as looking onward to the last days; and in the last days the king represented by Babylon will be destroyed first, and then the power of the Assyrian will be broken last of all. This perfectly agrees with the scene as a typical or prophetic picture of the last days. Whereas, if you confine it to the past, it would not tally, and there could be no right understanding of it. While the Spirit of God speaks of the Assyrian subsequently to Babylon, it is certain that in past history the Assyrian fell first in order and Babylon afterward. By and by Babylon will be smitten in the last holder of the Beast's power, and this in connection with the Jews; while the power that answers to the king of Assyria will come up after that, when God is occupying Himself with the ten tribes of Israel.
The Lord grant that we may be enabled to profit by all Scripture, using it for instruction and warning, as well as refreshment and joy. All plans for worldly ease and honor will end only in destruction and bitter disappointment. Our business is to be working out what God gives us to do. He is saving souls to be the companions of Christ in heaven. Our responsibility is to be carrying out His thoughts of mercy towards sinners, and His love towards those that cleave to the name of His Son.