The bearing of chapter 24 on the end of the age is entirely confirmed by that which follows and is now before us, where we have the prophet personifying the people raising their hearts to the Lord in praise. They are celebrating God for His wonderful doings, and own that His counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. “O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defensed city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall. Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud: the branch of the terrible ones shall be brought low.” (Ver. 1-5.) The execution of His judgment takes effect on the strong and their city. It is the habitable earth which comes under the Lord's hand, as certainly as the end of the chapter before was His dealing with the heavens and the earth. The eternal state does not enter into account. On the other hand, there is no ground for making it bear on present circumstances. It is a new state of things, that does not exist now; for if there is one place in the earth where, less than another, the Lord has the appearance of reigning, it is in that very Jerusalem and Mount Zion. The chosen land of Israel is in the possession of the Turk; it has been in his hands for hundreds of years, and before that it was the object of contention for the kings of the earth and equally so for the followers of Mahomet; it has been the great battle-ground between the east and the west; and up to the present time God has permitted that the devotees of Mecca should appear to have gained the victory there. Ever since the cross of the Lord, God is no longer maintaining the glory of His Son in connection with Mount Zion. The Son of God has been rejected and has died upon the cross. Since then all connection with the world is broken, every link with the Jew is gone, and no man has ever seen the Lord of glory, except the believer.
He was witnessed by the world before, seen of men—not merely of angels. He was displayed before human eyes, God manifest in the flesh. But, when man cast Him out, all acknowledgment of the world as such was terminated. He was no more seen after His resurrection by any unbeliever; none but chosen witnesses were permitted to behold Him. Taken soon after up to heaven, He sits at the right hand of God; and thence He will come to judge the quick and the dead. A great mistake it is to confound the judgment of the quick with the judgment of the dead. Scripture shows that there is a long interval of most remarkable character, which separates the one from the other. Indeed, there may be, in a certain sense, a judgment of the quick going on all through the interval of 1000 years. There will be an execution of judgment before the Lord begins to reign, and, when His reign terminates, the judgment of the dead follows.
While the judgment of the dead remains perfectly certain, while it is a truth of God that there is a resurrection both of the just and of time unjust, the other truth has not been so generally seen, namely, that the Lord of glory is about to revisit this world and stop the whole course of human affairs and interpose with judgments upon the guilt of man (not yet upon the dead, which will come afterward). Before the judgment of the dead, divine judgment will fall upon living men from the highest to the lowest. To this our Lord referred, when He warned His disciples of the days that were coming. Thus Matt. 24; 25 and Luke 17; 21 refer, save a part of the last chapter, exclusively to this time and to these circumstances. Some scriptures speak only of the judgment of the dead, others both unfold the portion of the risen saints to enjoy heavenly glory with Christ and tell how the dead are to be judged according to their works. The believer is saved according to the worth of Christ's work; he who is judged according to his own works is lost forever. No child of God, if judged as he deserved, could be saved. For, if judged at all, God must judge after His own justice with no less standard than Christ. We must be as spotless as His Son in order to be fit companions for Him. But on that ground there is an end of all hope: all now turns on this, that Jesus was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification, not our judgment. What is the value in God's sight of the work He has done? Is it only a partial salvation? or for some believers? If it be not a full salvation for sinners, yea, for the worst of those who believe, it is not what God commends to us, nor a due and righteous answer to the cross of Christ. And there is the very comfort of the salvation that Christ has effected. It is a perfect salvation, it delivers from all sins, it places the chief of sinners upon a new ground as Christians, kings, priests, and children of God. Thenceforward our business is to trust and obey Him, laboring for and suffering with Christ and for Christ, as we await His return from heaven, even our Deliverer, Jesus, who will judge His adversaries, It is plain that there are two classes of men who will appear risen from the dead: I do not say risen at the same time. No scripture says this. It is said that “the hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment." All this is quite true, but not a word about their coming forth at the same time. Other scriptures show that the two resurrections, here shown to be distinct in principle and issue, will not take place at the same time. Hence, while both might be said to be the rising of the dead, that of the righteous alone is or could be called a rising from the dead, the rest being left as yet in their graves. From Rev. 20, again, it is plain that a thousand years at least will transpire between the resurrection of the just and that of the unjust. Any one reading the Revelation without prejudice could not fail to gather that the righteous dead are raised first to reign with Christ; and then, after the earthly reign, that the rest of the dead are raised, who are judged according to their works, and of them it is said that whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. There is not a hint of any who were found written. When God judges according to works, nothing can follow but destruction. Their evil works abound in the books; and the book of life has none of their names in it.
This strongly links itself with what is before us. Here you have the Lord, not hidden in heaven, but appearing from heaven to reign. He is not reigning on the earth now. It is only among idle, speculative men (of learning perhaps), where you find any dream so foolish. You are aware that if there was a period, in the history of Christendom, which was particularly dreary as to outward light, it is from Constantine to the Reformation, the dark ages as they are called. Yet learned men are not wanting who maintain that this is the very time when Christ was reigning; that it began at the year 320 and ended 1320! that is, the most unrelieved reign of darkness that Christendom has yet seen! Augustine made this reign begin with Christ and extend all through Christianity. This was bad; the other is worse, though maintained by H. Grotius. Both exercised an enormous influence in the world. The great Dutchman, if consulted in a matter of erudition, would have probably given no inconsiderable help to most men; but when he came to the word of God, he was as much at sea there as Peter or John would have been in that which was his favorite province. In divine things learning is of no value, except as a drudge, to men of spiritual judgment, and lowly withal, for it is the meek that God has promised to guide in judgment. The assumption that, because a man is a profound scholar, even if a Christian also, he is a safe expositor of Scripture, is a gross mistake.
Let my reader, if he know it not already, search and see whether there be not a time coming when that Lord who is now in heaven at the right hand of God, will leave it to introduce His reign over the earth with the chosen city as His earthly metropolis. Do you ask why there should be such an attraction to that spot? Certainly it has been the sin, and sorrow, and shame, and rivalry between the east and west, and the deepest humiliation of God's ancient people. But let me ask you, even on your own ground, where there is a spot on earth so full of grand associations, so connected with all that is dear to the believer? There the Lord of glory came. There He died. It is His city, the city of the Great King. Why should He not then come and take it for Himself? Is it not worthy of Him to pardon, and bless, and sanctify, and magnify Jerusalem before the world, overcoming her evil with His good? Most plain is the Scripture that the Lord is to come there, and to establish it as the capital of His earthly kingdom. I do not say that the Lord will dwell literally on the earth, but be King over it. Yet Scripture says He will plant His foot upon the Mount of Olives. It is only necessary for the truth of His future kingdom to maintain that fie will visibly come and smite the earth and establish His kingdom there, and fill the world with the blessed effects of His glory. Scripture shows, that He will be present and display Himself; but for how long, to what extent, and how often during that reign, it is not for me, at least, to pretend to say; for I am not aware that Scripture answers those questions. And as there is a special place, so there is a people He will favor most—Jerusalem and the Jewish people.
But what is to become of Christians? Are they and the Jews to be huddled in Jerusalem together, as the old Chiliasts affirmed? Is this the Christian hope? Such an idea is ignorance and monstrous. The Christian is even now in title blessed in the heavenly places. Thence he will reign over the earth. The Jews then gathered and converted will be in their own promised land and city, on which the eyes of the Lord rest continually, for it is the truth of God, that He never withdraws a gift, and never repents of a promise. He might repent of creating man, that was not a promise; it was simply an exertion of His will. But if God chose Israel or the Church, He repented of neither, though both have been unfaithful; for He means to bless, He does bless, and, no matter what the difficulty, He will bless forever. This we have to bold fast; the purpose of God shall stand. Changes in man and the earth may be, but the counsel of God must yet be accomplished. Gifts and calling of God are without repentance. He gave the land of Israel to their fathers. He gave the promise to make their seed a blessing. He connected His own Son with Israel after the flesh, that, spite of their sin in the cross, in virtue of His grace in the cross, an immovable basis of blessing might be laid, when they shall be raised to such a pinnacle of greatness on the earth as is reserved for no other people here below. When the Lord will come to reign, He will have removed to the Father's house the heavenly people. He will have raised the dead from their grave and changed the living into the likeness of His own glory. For this all Christians should be looking, as their expectation. When they are caught up thus, then the earth is clear for the Holy Ghost to work among the Jews. The Spirit of God does not operate to two different ends—a heavenly and an earthly—at the same time. But here we find Him at work among the Jews who are not caught up to heaven, as we expect, but to be blessed under the Messiah on the earth.
Our Lord, then, having first come and removed the Christians, dead and living, to be with Himself above, will then begin to act upon the Jews and prepare them as His people when He reigns. This is what is in question here. The earthly center of His reign is Mount Zion and Jerusalem. This it is which gives to the reign of David such emphasis in the word of God. He was the chosen type of the Lord, not merely in his humiliation, but also in his glory. He had also to war and put down his enemies, and therefore was called a “man of blood.” Our Lord will be first an executor of judgment, though not, as David, allowing anything of his own spirit and will to interfere, and spoil the work, but, in the holy authority of God Himself, in the pouring out of divine wrath and indignation, all will be perfect and dealt with righteousness. In that day the Lord will convulse the whole universe, punishing “the host of the high ones on high” i.e., in the scene that they have defiled, “and the kings of the earth on the earth.” The believing Jews of that day will utter this song in evident reference to their experience of the faithfulness of God.
They do not address God as Father in the Spirit of adoption, for they are not Christians; they will be believers, but believing Jews. It is gross ignorance to talk of Abel, Enoch, Abraham, David, or Daniel as Christians. They were all saints, but not Christians. Not merely was it after Christ came that the disciples were first called Christians, but the place into which believers were then brought by the work of Christ and the gift of the Spirit differs essentially. There is hardly a worse error for a believer now; for it alike tells upon the present and the future, and the past merging all the various displays of God's mind in confusion, which blunts the edge of the word, hinders the full blessing and testimony of the Church, and mars the glory of God as much as man can.
Now, no doubt, in presence of the cross, and the Holy Ghost being personally on earth, the old distinctions of Jew and Gentile fade before their common ruin in sin and death morally. But when the Lord comes, He will prepare the Jewish people to receive Him according to the prophets; and they will be made the witnesses of His mercies no less than of His glory here below; as now they are the most obstinate enemies of the gospel and of His grace to the Gentiles.
In this song they speak the proper language of Jews. If a Christian were to address God as Jehovah, it is of course in itself true, but it is a very unintelligent mode for a Christian. To us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ.
Jehovah is the name of God looked at as a governor that maintains His kingdom; whereas Father is that name which first came out in connection with His beloved Son, and now, by virtue of redemption, is true of us who believe in Him. Hence, as often noticed, the moment that Christ was raised from the dead, He says, “Go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17).) Christ by His death and resurrection has brought us into the same place with Himself. This the Lord always had in view when He was here, so that He never addressed God as Jehovah, because the New Testament presents Him in view of Christianity. But the Old Testament shows that the Lord will have a people, and that they will know Him and the Father as Jehovah. This suffices to indicate the difference; and I have made these remarks to show that another class of people are here spoken of, not Christians but Jews, who recognize God in that title which God gave Himself in relation to Israel of old. When God chose Moses, He bade him go and make Himself known to them as Jehovah, telling them that He was not so known before. Thus was it chosen at the commencement of the public dealings of God with His people, and throughout their national history it was as Jehovah He appeared. It was not that the name did not previously exist, but He never took it before for His recognized title as the God of Israel. It is the prophet who speaks in behalf of Israel; he breaks into the language of praise and individualizes it in behalf of the people in verse 1. What are the wonderful things? The death and resurrection of Christ? Not a word about it. These are the themes we should speak about. Thus, on the Lord's-day morning, when we come together, what occupies our hearts is the burden of His praise. We have the still more wonderful works of God in Christ and the new creation, and the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
Here Israel are supposed to be occupied with the wonderful things God has wrought for the deliverance of their nation. (Ver. 2, 3.) For God will have interposed and put forth His power to deliver His ancient people in the judgment of their mightiest enemies. They speak of the ruin God has inflicted on all around them. As long as the Jews are unbroken for their sins and indifferent to the truth of God, only bent on making money and serving as the world's bankers, people will be content to use them and let them alone. But from the moment that God calls the Jew out of his present spiritual, moral degradation, when the dry bones are gathered together, when their hearts turn to the rejected Messiah, all nations will turn against them, and once more rend them, as truly as ever. How do we know this? The Bible delivers the believer from guess-work. People who do not study the prophetic word can only speculate about the future. There can be no certainty for them; to pretend to it would be presumptuous. But when you bow to and believe the Bible, you are entitled through the teaching of God's Spirit to have the certain light of God. It is entirely our own unbelief if we do not enjoy it.
“And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.” (Ver. 6-8.) The Spirit of God refers to resurrection. So the apostle, in 1 Cor. 15:5454So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. (1 Corinthians 15:54), applies the beginning of verse 8: “When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” The resurrection synchronizes with the deliverance of Israel, which itself will be “life to the dead” for the world. (Rom. 11:1515For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)) Thus the first great stroke at death will be at this very time. Then man's career will cease, and the Lord Jesus will receive His ancient people, coming with His risen saints, and will swallow up the vail that is spread over all nations. For there is no deliverance wrought in the earth up to that time.
“The Lord hath spoken it.” Why does He say so here? Is it not because He foresaw man would be incredulous? The special mark of the Lord's voice is here, the proud heart of man being well known to Him, and all the delusions of wise and unwise, deceiving and being deceived. He knew how people would say, when they came to predicted judgments, these are for the Jews; and if to blessings, those are for themselves. They have all the good things for the Church; they have left the dark things for Israel; but even there they destroy conscience by the lie which views them as past and obsolete. “And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation. For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. And he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim: and he shall bring down their pride together with the spoils of their hands. And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.” (Ver. 9-12.)
We must examine of whom God speaks; there are judgments upon Israel and upon Christendom, and blessings for Israel and for the Church. That this is for Israel has been already shown; the language used is only suited to them. They speak of themselves, not as we do, as the children of God, but as His people, and of judgments, as introducing their blessing. Were all the earth to be dissolved, it would neither lessen nor increase our blessing. When Christ comes, He will simply remove us to Himself, changed into His likeness, out of the scene of weakness, and sin, and sorrow, into His own heavenly home. Whereas here, “It shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Ver. 9.) They are not saved yet. Such is not our case now, save as to the body. Search the New Testament and you will see that as regards the soul, we must be saved now, and if we believe, we are. It is plain that here is another class, Jews who have waited in shame for Jehovah, and who when He comes in glory, say, “This is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us.” (Ver. 10.) Not for us but for them “shall the hand of Jehovah” rest in “this mountain.” Our portion is in heaven. “This mountain” is the lofty center of the earthly glory. And accordingly the name of a proud national foe of Israel follows, as doomed to humiliation. Is the Christian looking for Moab to be trodden down? The wholesale christening of the Jewish prophets tends to make Scripture ridiculous, and many a man has become hardened in his infidelity by such wild applications to the Christian church. There are general truths and principles that apply to us; for all prophets are intended for the use of the Christian, as the law also. All Scripture is inspired and profitable; but it is absurd thence to infer that all is about ourselves. “The law is lawful,” says Paul, “if a man use it lawfully;” and so are the prophets; but we must hear them, not as if we were Jews, but Christians.
Here then, is a plain proof that not Christians, not the Church of God, are before us, but Israel. What have we to do with Moab as an enemy? and an enemy which is to be trodden down? Do we look to tread down our enemies, if it were even the Roman papacy? It is Scripture, but it is not a scripture prophecy about us; it is what we ought to profit by and to bless God for; but it concerns not ourselves, but Israel. They on the earth will see their former enemies trodden under them, and Moab is one of them.