The word disputes the profane babblings, with greater impiety in the vista, the heterodoxy of some who said that the resurrection had taken place already, the great house becoming more and more characterized by vessels to dishonor, which made separation from them imperative, the foolish and uninstructed questionings which begat contentions, and whatever betrayed the snare of the devil, gave occasion to the solemn announcement with which our chapter iii, opens— “But this know, that in [the] last days grievous times shall be there” (ver. 1). Let us weigh a little at length its import and bearing, as well as the general testimony of the N. T.; for as, on the one hand, no statement, can well be more at issue with the prevalent judgment of mankind, and even with the cherished expectations of God's children in our days, so, on the other hand, next to fundamental truth individual and corporate, the just and true estimate of what is going on, and how it is to end—whether in progress toward triumphant blessing, or in course of the most humiliating and guilty declension from God to meet His unsparing judgment—is most momentous. Nor does scripture leave the least solid ground for doubt on the question. The difference morally is complete; for it affects the habitual aim of our labor and testimony, as well as the character of our intercourse with God, whether in or out of communion with His mind. Faith in our Lord and His work is no doubt the essential thing; but a mistaken expectation damages the soul indefinitely in proportion to its influence. It is the hope of a man which mainly determines his practical life. He is what His heart is set on.
Now the scripture before us is most explicit. Difficult or grievous times were to set in not “perilous” merely, as in the Authorized and all the older English versions, as well as the Rhemish (faithful to the Vulgate). They are so characterized because of iniquity abounding under a fair Christian show, “a form of godliness,” with a real denial of its power. Can one conceive of a state more repugnant to Him who dwells in the assembly? or more pregnant with difficulty for a godly man to judge and act aright? He hates presumption, he seeks humility, he loves his brethren, he is bound to be faithful to Christ, and he cannot go on with evil, individual or collective. It is a strait of times truly for heart and conscience.
And this trying condition for the Christian is declared to ensue “in [the] last days.” Winer (Gr. Gr. N. T. xix.) attempted to account for the omission of the article as, usual, by setting it down as one of a most miscellaneous class of words which dispense with its insertion. One is surprised to see how easily men like Dean Alford and Bp. Ellicott are satisfied with an evasion so irrational and transparent. For that long list of words comes under the invariable principles of the language; and insertions of the article in each instance can be shown no less than omission; so that the statement of the case is not only partial, but misleading. The true solution is that Greek regularly, far more than English, exhibits the anarthrous form when the design is to designate a characteristic state rather than a positive fact, place, condition, person, or date. The article here would have made the period too restricted; its absence enlarges the sphere, as the Holy Spirit intended, who knew the end from the beginning. We in our tongue can hardly avoid saying, “The last days;” but the Greek could express himself more accurately than those who are compelled to use the same expression for what may be less or more definite.
The phrase plainly covers the closing days of the Christian economy, however long God might be pleased to protract them; the time generally which precedes the coming of the Lord, when an end will be put to the present ways of God, and the kingdom will come in displayed power and glory. Waterland's suggestion of “at the end of the Jewish state” is as he puts it a mistake; for it is at the approaching end of the Christian profession, as well as of the Jewish. If the Jews believe not yet, Christians ought to be expecting the return of the kingdom to Israel in God's due time, when our Lord appears to receive the homage and blessing of the godly remnant, about to become thenceforth a strong as well as holy notion, His first-born son elect here below. But as there were incipient workings of the evil already apparent to Him who inspired Paul to write thus to Timothy, we can the better feel how much more correct is the anarthrous construction employed, than if the insertion had fixed it exclusively to the days immediately preceding our Lord's future advent.
In the preceding epistle (4:1-3) a prophetic warning had been given, but of evil quite distinct in time, character, and extent, from what we have here. Instead of “last days,” the Spirit spoke expressly of later, or after, times, i.e., times subsequent to the apostle's writing. Instead of a widespread condition of “men” in Christendom, he spoke of “some” only. The language suits and supposes but few comparatively; which only controversial zeal could have overlooked or converted into a prediction of the vast if not worse inroad of Romanism. It is a description of certain ones to depart from the faith into fleshly asceticism, paying heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons, in the hypocrisy of liars branded in their own conscience, forbidding to marry, [bidding] to abstain from meats which God created, &c. This was a high-flown abuse of grace to deny the creature, and to dislocate the God of grace from the God of creation and law; but the followers are carefully discriminated from the more daring and corrupt misleaders. Gnosticism is the real evil aimed at, even then beginning to work as we may gather from ch. 6:20, in the same communication to Timothy. But limited as it stands in the word, and as it became in fact, it discloses how the Spirit of God guards us, if we heed scripture, from anticipating victory for the gospel, how he rather prepares us for defection to God's dishonor.
But in 2 Tim. 3:11This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. (2 Timothy 3:1) it is a larger field, not of course to the exclusion of faithful and godly souls, where the eye traverses a general state of decadence from the power of grace and truth, where, as we shall see when we come to the scrutiny of details, those that bear the name of the Lord, and are therefore responsible to walk as dead unto sin and alive unto God in Christ Jesus our Lord, return as a general description to what the Gentiles were before they heard and professed to believe the gospel. It is the counterpart of the great house in ch. 2, wherein are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also wooden and earthenware, and some to honor, and some to dishonor. Here we have, not a symbolic figure, but a plain matter-of-fact account of a return to heathenism practically. Even the Corinthians, low as they had sunk, are reproached by the apostle with carnality and walking “as men, instead of as children of God in the power of the Spirit who dwelt in them. Here those spoken of are “men,” with the guilt of indifference to, and repudiation of, all the savor of Christianity, while still retaining its form. From such, however little developed then, Timothy was called to turn away: how much more, when all is out in the full display of evil, should a faithful man turn away now?
Yet 2 Thess. 2 gives us to descry very far worse at hand. We ought not to be deceived in any manner, whatever the success of false teachers with some of the Thessalonian saints so young in the faith as they were. We know that the Lord is coming Who will gather us together, sleeping or alive, unto Himself, and therefore need not be quickly shaken in mind, not, yet troubled by any power or means, to the effect that the day of the Lord is present. We know that it cannot be unless there have come “the apostasy” first—not a falling away, as substantially all the well-known English Versions as well as the Authorized. It is not “discencioun” (Wiclif), nor “a departynge” (Tyndale), as Cranmer's Bible repeats in 1539, and the Geneva in 1557, nor “a revolt,” as in the Rhemish of 1582. It is “the apostasy,” and nothing else: worse there cannot be, unless the person who is its final head in direct antagonism to God and His anointed, the man of sin, the son of perdition, whom the Lord Jesus will consume with the Spirit of His mouth and destroy with the manifestation of His presence. “The apostasy” is a general state, though one is far from denying that there will be even then godly ones, some to suffer unto death, and acquire a heavenly degree, and others to escape for ulterior purposes of divine blessing and glory here below. But the apostasy means Christianity abandoned, and witness for God put down all but universally, in the sphere of Christian profession. Now this is the state, issuing in the boldest claim, ever to be made on earth, of Messianic place and divine glory, which immediately precedes the shining forth of the Lord Jesus from heaven, allotting vengeance to those who know not God (Gentiles), and to those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus (Jews).
Here we carry on the clear, harmonious, and ever accumulating proof that the Holy Spirit thus far bears witness, not of increasing good and ultimate earthly triumph for the gospel and the church here below, but (whatever the gracious and active work of God ordinarily, and especially at certain great epochs of blessing) of evil growing and irremediable generally; till at last it sinks so low that the mass abandon even the name and form of Christian profession in the apostasy; and the Antichrist, the last head of towering hostility to God, rises so high, that the Lord appears from heaven with the angels of His power, and in flaming fire—to exact as penalty everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His might. The expectation of good prevailing over the world, as the result of human means before the Lord appears, is not only a dream of vanity, but that which reverses the awful picture which scripture presents of things becoming worse beyond example and imperatively calling for divine judgment; after which only is the knowledge of Jehovah to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
The Lord indeed had already decided the question both parabolically and prophetically. For what is the instruction as to this of the Wheat Field in Matt. 13? While men slept, the enemy of him who sowed good seed in his field sowed darnel there; and the mischief done from early days was irremediable by man: only divine judgment can deal with it aright. Now the field is the world, under the kingdom of the heavens, the Son of Man being exalted, and the devil his enemy, who insinuates fatal mischief, legality, ritualism, gnosticism, asceticism, heresy, antichrists, Romanism or Babylon, &c., through his sons; all which causes of stumbling or offense cannot be got rid of till the Son of Man shall send His angels in the completion of the age (not “the end of the world,” which altogether misleads, for “the age” closes more than 1000 years before “the world"). Hence it irresistibly follows, that the Lord predicts the continuance of hopelessly, prevalent evil within the sphere of Christian profession till He employ His angels, in the consummation of the age, to execute judgment on the quick, and diabolical and all other evils are thus cleared out of His kingdom, while the righteous shine forth in the kingdom of their Father. For all things are to be headed or summed up in Christ the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth—in Him in Whom also we obtained an inheritance, being heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ (not His mere inheritance like Israel here below). The notion of good reigning in the world at any time under the gospel or the church is as false as that righteousness shall not reign when He takes the kingdom in manifest glory over the earth, and the new age begins long before eternity in the full sense of a new heaven and a new earth. No wonder therefore that we read of grievous times in the last days which precede wrath from heaven.
And what again did the Lord intimate of the moral state before the Son of man comes in His day, to speak only of His prophecy in Luke 17:22-3722And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. 23And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. 24For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. 25But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation. 26And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. 28Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; 29But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. 30Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. 31In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back. 32Remember Lot's wife. 33Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it. 34I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left. 35Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 36Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. 37And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together. (Luke 17:22‑37)? “And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but in the day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all: after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.” It is clear that the Lord compares the state of men (careless, selfish, godless, guilty, dead also to what He, the rejected Messiah, had suffered for their sake) to that which brought on the two most solemn judgments which Genesis records, at the deluge, and at the destruction of Sodom by fire. Will the revelation of the Son of man in His day be less righteously called for? No; the last days of the Christian era are to be times of excessive, abounding, and audacious lawlessness as well as impiety, when longer patience on God's part is impossible, and the time is arrived in His counsels for displacing the first man of sin, weakness, and shame, by the Second exalted over all creation in visible power and glory on His own throne, as He is now in heaven on the Father's throne.
It is notorious that theologians are not found wanting—indeed their name is Legion—to parry the sword in their hands by misapplying our Savior's words, some to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, others to the end of the world, when the Lord sits on the great white throne. One representative man, who need not be named, as remarkable for the splendor of his oratory as alas! for the deadly error against Christ's person into which he was betrayed, sought to comprehend with these two events the Lord's appearing in the judgment of the quick. But scripture is not thus limber and indefinite, as falsehood loves to make it, but living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It cuts on one side and guards on the other, as is evident in this instance, where the nice discrimination between the two men (34) and the two women (35) respectively is incompatible with either the ruthless slaughter of the Romans, or the universal standing of all the dead to be judged at the end, The judgment of the quick at the Lord's appearing will be in truth as sudden and vivid “as the lightning, when it lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven.” This applies in no way to Titus' invasion, which notoriously allowed the believing—Jews to escape, as even Luke 21:20-2420And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. 21Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto. 22For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. 23But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. 24And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. (Luke 21:20‑24) distinguishes it carefully from the Son of man coming on a cloud afterward with power and great glory. To confound the latter, like Luke 17, with Titus' sack, is no true exegesis, but abject and unmistakable confusion; and so it is with the wholly contrasted circumstances of Rev. 20:11-1511And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. 12And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. 14And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:11‑15), when there will be no question. of returning to home or field, no difference at the bed or the mill. The Lord refers here exclusively to the day of His appearing to judge living man on the earth, and the Jews especially; and His words leave no room for progress in good but in evil before that day.
The personal followers and inspired servants of our Lord speak not differently. Because of prevalent evil, corruption and violence, James exhorts, Have patience therefore, brethren, till the coming of the Lord. “Behold, the Judge standeth before the door” (Chapter 5:7, 9). They were therefore to take, as an example of suffering and having patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. It was not to be a time of triumph for right outwardly till the Lord come. The days were evil, the last days grievous times. Those we call blessed who endured. It is the very reverse of righteousness at ease and in present honor.
Peter, in his Second Epistle especially, is still more explicit. “There arose false prophets also among the people, as there shall be also among you false teachers, who shall privily bring in heresies of destruction, denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” The evil characteristics, with solemn warning, are set forth at length throughout chapter and in 3, 4, he adds that “in the last of the days, mockers Shall come with mockery, walking according to their own lusts; and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Even now, materialism and mockery prevail among men of the world surprisingly: still more according to the apostle will they be stamped just before the day of the Lord. There is wondrous long-suffering of God in saving even such; but the day will surely come with condign vengeance on Christendom, thus drinking itself drunk on the basest dregs of positivism and impious raillery. Grievous times then in the last days!
Jude, brother of James, depicts the evil in colors darker, if possible than Peter; for he in the Spirit fastens his eyes, not merely on the unrighteousness to prevail as the time of the world's judgment draws near, but on thankless apostasy from the highest privileges of divine goodness, “turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness, and denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.” Nothing can be more tremendous than this short Epistle as a whole; nothing plainer thane his identifying those before the eyes of the saints as just the class of whom Enoch prophesied as objects of the Lord's judgment. “But ye, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they said to you, that at the end of the time there should be mockers walking according to their own lusts of, ungodliness.” Can anything be more certain than that this holy witness warns of grievous times in the last days? To be set with exultation blameless before the divine glory at Christ's coming is the hope, not the church or the gospel triumphing on the earth previously.
There remains but one more to cite; and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” writes with at least equal plainness of speech. “Little children, it is the last hour, and as ye heard that antichrist cometh, even now have come many antichrists, whence we know that it is the last hour.” This is assuredly incontrovertible. The antichrist will be the chief object of the Lord's consuming and annulling judgment when He shines forth in His day; but the many, antichrists even then doing their destructive and malignant work proceed without a break, till the judgment He will execute clears the scene for the reign of righteousness and peace. It is not that grace meanwhile does not save and associate with Christ on high. For “as is the Heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly.” The cross morally closed the hope and history of the earth in relation to God, the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven giving a final appeal: this rejected, all henceforth is bound up with Christ in and for heaven, to which the gospel calls all who now believe. And the world, and especially the world-church Babylon, becomes the object of God's judgment to be executed by the Lord when He appears, as we have shown by overflowing but not yet exhausted testimony. It is when the iniquity is fall that the blow falls. The times are grievous now; how much more so before that day?