IN the next section 2. (6-14) the Bishop proposes “to consider the reasons pleaded in behalf of Millenarian opinions,” but really offers his own reasons against them. 1. He is like others under the delusion that the doctrine rests on one single passage of scripture, Rev. 20. If it were so, God's word once spoken is amply sufficient for faith, as a thousand times would not suffice for unbelief. But that kingdom is revealed in many scriptures of both Old T. and New; and, once received, it is seen to fill a very large part of the Bible indirectly as well as directly in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, in the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Revelation. Not to have seen this implies sad prejudice and lack of intelligence.
John 14:2 and Luke 20:36, as well as John 12:32, Acts 1:11; 3:21, John 5:28, 29; 6:39; 12:48, 1 Cor. 15:52, 1 Thess. 4:15, 2 Thess. 1:7, Matt. 16:27; 25:31, 32, Luke 9:26, 2 Tim. 4:1, and Dan. 12:2 are the texts culled to prove that a Millennium is repugnant to scripture. On the contrary every one of these falls in with the doctrine; some even demonstrate its truth, besides the bulk of distinct testimony which is left out.
Thus the Christian's hope of Christ's coming to present us in the Father's house above is as consistent with the Millennium as is our risen equality with angels. Other scriptures prove the blessing of Israel and the nations on the earth at that very time under Christ's reign, as Matt. 19:28, Rev. 21:24-26, and in the O.T. Isa. 11:10-13, 24:21-23, and Zech. 14:5-9.
Theologians in general quite overlook Eph. 1:10, God's purpose in Christ for an administration of the fullness of the times; which is to head or sum up all things in Him, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth—in Him in Whom we too were made to have lot or inheritance; for we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Here we learn in the dogmatic teaching of the great apostle, and not only in parable or prophecy, that God will put the entire universe heavenly and earthly under Christ; and that we shall share it with the Heir of all things in that day of glory. This is neither the present time of gathering the heirs, nor the eternal state, when it will be no longer a question of His government; but having put down all enemies He gives up the kingdom to Him Who is God and Father, that God may be all in all. Hence, as a ground-work for it, we hear in the companion Epistle to the Colossians that all the fullness was pleased in Him to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things to itself, having made peace by the blood of His cross—by Him the things on the earth and the things in the heavens (1:19, 20). For it is to be on the basis, not of His creative rights only, or of His incarnation, but of the reconciling work in His death.
To leave out of our faith and hope the counsels of God is to have no intelligent communion with the future display of Christ's glory. It is also to ignore the mystery of Christ and the church; and this is just where believers are for the most part, since they betook themselves to the weak and beggarly elements against which the apostle strove so strenuously and solemnly in early days. He knew, and took care that we should hear, that after his departure grievous wolves should enter in among the Christian confessors, and among their own selves should men arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. And so it came to pass that Christendom lost largely the sense of God's grace and almost wholly the understanding of His glory as purposed for Christ “in that day.” Through the influence of such as Origen and Eusebius, or of the more sober and orthodox Augustine and Jerome, the hopes of Israel were denied; and consequently the church, ignorant of her heavenly glory with Christ, was held to have succeeded to the earthly inheritance. This is what the apostle dreaded for the Gentile, as we may see in Rom. 11, lest he should be wise in his own conceit; and, instead of fearing, become boastful to his ruin and eventual cutting off.
Why the Bp. referred to John 12:32 is strange; for it refers to the attractive power of Him crucified, and has no bearing on the question. But Acts 3:21, especially 19-21, refutes his own view; for it proves that the Lord Jesus is to be sent from heaven for the restoration of all things according to the testimony of the holy prophets since time began. This is the Millennium, not the White Throne judgment; and Acts 1:11 agrees with it, for He will come to restore the kingdom to Israel as well as for other glorious designs of God. Among these, and of the deepest moment, is His raising bodies, as He is now quickening souls (see John 5:25-29). But it is an error of the first magnitude to think of one simultaneous resurrection. Our Lord here speaks of two, in open contrast of character, “of life,” and “of judgment,” or as elsewhere called “of just and unjust.” These Rev. 20 declares, as might be expected from the great Christian prophecy, severed by more than 1,000 years for a momentous purpose, the special reign of Christ and His own over (not “on”) the earth, where they once were holy sufferers, and distinct from reigning in life throughout eternity, wherein even the millennial saints that never suffered will in due time share.
“The Last Day” is the general expression in John 6, 11. 12. for that time which begins by our Lord raising the believers and ends with judging the faithless, answering to the two resurrections, and opposed to the Jewish hope of present exaltation under a living and reigning Messiah as things are. There is no difficulty in the “hour” of John 5:28 covering 1,000 years and more, since the “hour” of ver. 25 covers admittedly a still longer space. It is therefore unfounded and indeed plain contradiction of scripture to say “there will be no Millennial interval between the Resurrection of the saints and the Universal Judgment.” It is an absurdity to talk of both taking place on one and the same day, unless the last day be understood as already explained: why imagine an ordinary day?
For not only do 1 Cor. 15:52 and 1 Thess. 4:16 fall within its capacious limits, but 2 Thess. 1:7, Heb. 9:27, Matt. 16:27, Luke 9:26, 2 Tim. 4:1, Matt. 25:31, 32, Isa. 2, 4. 11. 12. 24. 25, 26. 27., Jer. 30-33, Ezek. 12, &c., and Dan. 12:2, varied as they are in scope and character. But why need particulars be cited, when prophecy as a whole bears on it? It is the day when the Lord takes in hand His execution of God's purpose in good and evil from raising the saints to judging the wicked, as distinguished from the first man where all ends in failure and ruin through sin.
As to all this the Bp.'s views, through heeding human tradition, were vague and confused, defective and even false. With Christendom generally he was a Ptolemaist, not a Copernican; he made the church his center, not Christ; and thus, bending all scripture to his own relations, he left no room for the various glories of Christ for earth as well as in heaven, and for His reign over Israel and all nations, and indeed for His displayed supremacy over all creation, which we shall share with Him. Hence, too, his ignorance of the judgment the Lord will execute on the habitable earth (τὴν οἰκουμένην) in righteousness at His appearing, as well as earthly rejoicing and the multitude of the isles glad at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth, when idolatry will with shame vanish forever and the desert blossom as the rose.
No doubt the ancient Chiliasts were in error who only saw the earth restored and the glorified reigning with Christ on it; but so were the theologians who transferred all thoughts to heaven and the souls in bliss eventual if not present with Christ, among moderns even to losing sight of, if not denying, the resurrection. But even Gen. 14 might have taught these short-sighted men on both sides a better lesson of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, as will be made manifest by our Lord in His day when the enemies are delivered into His hand, and the friends are refreshed after the victory is won over all the opposing might. The great foe will then be restrained by power, as he never has been, the pledge of his final and everlasting punishment. The true or at least antitypical Melchisedec shall sit and rule, a priest on His throne, no longer hidden, but every eye shall see Him, not only after that “order” as He is now, but then also in the exercise of His royal priesthood, blessing man from God and blessing God the Most High from man, when hateful rivals, mere nonentities with demons behind, are gone forever. Oh, what a blank where all this, and much more accompanying it and hanging on it, to Christ's glory, are unperceived and unbelieved, though clearly revealed in God's word!
(To be continued, D.V.).