I use the term prophecy here in its widest and most popular sense, as being equivalent to prediction given by God-or the communication by God to man of the knowledge of events long before they take place.
My statement is plain and distinct; and if it seem hardy, yet it is correct: no prediction-no salvation; no interest in divine prediction-no salvation for an individual.
My statement is two-fold:-1St. That the salvation provided by God is inseparable from prediction; take away the prediction and itself is gone; 2ndly. That individual participation by this or that person in the salvation is inseparable from the interest of the same individual in the prediction; to have no interest in the prediction is to have no interest in the salvation. A most important difference, however, as we shall see, exists between salvation as proclaimed for earth, and salvation as preached for a heavenly people.
If this position is tenable, it gives a wholesale value to prophecy which is immeasurably more weighty, more important, and more calculated to arrest the soul's attention than the proofs in detail from Scripture,-justly interesting and all-important in their place as these are-which spew us that all the details of practical conformity in life and walk of both the former people of God, and of the disciple to His master, are, in one place or the other, connected with hope and with promises. These may not, cannot be neglected-they speak most clearly the faithful love of our Lord on high, who in His word has applied to our hearts, minds, and consciences, things yet to come in detail; but that which gives even to this truth its fullest weight and importance, is its connection with the other: that is, that Christ, by His Spirit, applies in detail from the Word, items of what has been a grand principle of God in His own plan of redemption.
When sin had entered, and man was under its power, and estranged from God in heart and mind, God declared to Satan, "The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head." This was not a promise given to man; it was a prediction as to Immanuel, the light of which, as so given, fell on things as they were around the scene then present, and so was prophecy in the stringent sense of the word: yet, as we know from the light of 1 Cor. 15, Col. 1, Rev. 19 and 20, it had to do with One who had other scenes and other places to cleanse than those of earth alone. "The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head"-we have here a prediction most explicit-a sure word of God, who cannot lie, and who is able to make good His word-and this word was the sole basis for faith to fallen man. Has God said, that the seed of her who was beguiled and was first in error shall destroy the head of her betrayer?-then to God sinful man may yet look up. Self-betrayed and ruined, man need not be the prey of Satan; a Deliverer is predicted; in Him that has predicted, Man may rest; and if he rests, there he must hope. This first ray of redeeming love, this first dawning of the compassion and mercy of God in Christ was so given as to guard every point that needed guarding. It was an open declaration of war by God against Satan; it declared how, through Divine power and wisdom, the wicked one should eat of the fruit of his own doings, and have his power annulled by the seed of his captive; it made good the claim, in word at least, that the world thus betrayed to Satan belonged to another; it condemned man's sin, while it showed out his position, and silently put forth the truth, just despised, that a creature's' blessing is inseparable from obedience to the Word of the Creator. Man's tenure of Eden was in obedience in not touching a tree; to fallen man what ray of light, repose, or hope, save in this declaration; he that received it as the true and sure word of God would find it more mighty than the woe and ruin of sin and the power of him whose head was to be crushed by the seed of the woman. This avowed intention of God for the future, was his mode of giving both repose and hope to the sinner. If Adam rejected this intention of God for the future, he had no rest, no hope; if he received it, he virtually took the place of a fallen creature, but of a fallen creature who, having despised his Creator's word, when subjection, easy enough, was the security for continuance of enjoyment, had now, amid ruin, to receive that which every testimony around and within seemed to declare to be impossible, and which, moreover, involved in it the declaration that there were higher and deeper glories in God than those displayed in creation, or which he could find out. Implicit, blind reception of, and submission to, the divine word, with a " Let God be true and all else liars," was fallen man's sole ground of blessing; • and it put man into his proper place; it made him not the end, center, or object of the blessing; but another, even Christ, and man, got rest, 'repose, and hope by-the-bye. God's display of Himself in the annulling of the power of Satan by the seed of the woman involved, indirectly, what a humbled heart, and it alone, could rest upon.
I call attention to the fact, that God kept fully His place of God; and that the counsel and plan were His and His alone; why he chose to let the rays of the light of redemption in, in one way more than another, is madness and folly to ask, if the question proceed from sense and reason in an unreconciled sinner: if from humble inquiry, as of one that has tasted that the Lord is gracious, it is a question well put by a worshipful spirit and heart, and has its answer most abundantly in many parts of the Word. But the fact that such was the way chosen-which is admitted and established by the question being put (in any spirit, good or bad)-and not the answer to the question is my theme. The declaration, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent" was a testimony of some one to come, not as yet revealed there; the essence of whose virtue was not present in root even in the woman, as we well know. Analyze the declaration, and you will find it contains the description of that, of which there was not one element present in Eve; the germ, nor the power to germinate, was not in her, but in another; the range of whose power, as there looked at, was, for the scene there pre- sent-earth: and it was prophecy. The Word of God may try man as well as bless him: if it does so, it shows that there is nothing in him but sin; it finds nothing in him that it can approve save the need in the midst of which, however great, it can display its creative power-the fullness which is in God and of God. This trying of man was one great object of the law in the Old Testament; it proposed to man fallen a blessing, upon condition of an obedience which supposed him to be unfallen; and it thus discovered and made manifest the self-ignorance and pride of man's heart; for man, instead of crying " Woe is me!" when he thinks of the law, finds in it (not his own condemnation before God but) a means for him to condemn others-a distinctive privilege of light when used out of God's presence. The sinner can condemn another sinner for the sin he himself commits, and even, as did the Jews, condemn him who had not sinned, lint kept the law, because, in his zeal for Him that gave the law, he showed mercy on the Sabbath, and so disturbed the self-gratulatory conceit of the Jew, who would bind down " rest," to cessation from all that was not needful for every-day profit in a world of sin. And yet, while the heart of a Gentile (to whom law was never given of God, and who, if under law, is self placed there), can glory in Law and self-righteousness out of God's presence-nor Jew nor Gentile, so exercising themselves, ever thought of what Paul says, that all such glorying is outside of God's presence. For when man, in receiving the Law, found himself in that presence, even Moses said, " I do exceedingly fear and tremble;" and Israel begged that God might not come near to them after that manner again.
But so far as God's mode of acting and displaying truth is concerned, man has been tried and been measured: under the Law's reign, the only One that kept it was murdered-murdered by Jews, who vaunting themselves in the Law, were too proud to have any association with the dogs of the Gentiles, save to murder the Prince of Life-murdered by the Gentiles, who (despising both Law and Lawgiver), in the pride of their darkened hearts, lent their power to the rebel Jew against the Son of Him who, because the Jew had rebelled, had transferred to the Gentiles the power of government in the world, taking it away from the Jew. Man had measured himself herein; and, more than that, had produced, in the Cross and death of Christ, a measure of what man was, altogether new in kind, and as perfect in the application of details as it was infinite in principle; because it applied itself not as the Law to things done merely, but to spirit, and thought, and affection in man; and because it brought the infinite God, and that too in the character of a merciful and compassionate though despised Savior, close to man, to man fallen and ruined yet a rebel against mercy and love.
There is but one Name given under heaven among men wherein is salvation-but one Savior. Yet, since His coming into the world, since that God has been manifest in the flesh and rejected, there are differences to be noticed in the statements of grace from those which went before. Then an earth was to be blessed; and the testimony flowed forth of what He that was to come would
be and do; the Law, in the meanwhile, while it was a Law given to measure, as to Israel, the Blesser that was to come in His character as man and Jew, necessarily passed every other Jew through the crucible, and found him wanting. When it had found Him whom it described-Himself (who had fuller virtues and glories than it could paint) took His own place-and it was of Him that God gave witness once and again:-" This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased;" and not only did God thus testify to Him before man, but in the stream of mercies addressed to man in ruin, under the wages of sin, He gave a testimony which left man's selfishness without excuse, if not won by it. The sightless eye that regained its power of using light-the deaf ear that opened afresh the channel to the inner man-the sick-the hungry and needy-the dead-the devil possessed-which were as brands plucked from amid the destroying influences of sin, were all, and that in fallen man's circumstances, testimonies from God to the heart of man, as to the person of His Son. But, as there was no room for Him in the inn when born, but the ox's or the ass's manger was His crib; so was there no place for Him in man's heart-no place on earth fit for Him, according to man (the Jews being empaneled jury, and the Gentiles being judge), save the Cross. The most that love could give Him was seen in John at the Cross; and, after that, in the costly tomb and burial of Joseph of Arimathea, where the world lost sight of Him; but shewed, alas! afterward, that it willed to lose sight of Him. God having presented the One who was the subject of His testimony, the Center, as the Beginner and Ender of all His ways, does not now speak of Him; He cannot speak of Him (He being in heaven on the throne where the Father is), as One that is to come; neither, when He proclaimed our gospel, could it be said that in the scene there present there was no element, no root, no germ, no power of germinating existing there. All, and more than all, this is in Him, the Lamb that has been slain, but is alive again for evermore; in Jesus our Lord and our God-all is there; and what is more, the blessing proclaimed in our hearing (if it has fruits and a harvesting yet to come), is present and positive-eternal life in the Son-that in Him is the fountain of life; and that it forms, and fills, and feeds the church. One Spirit with the Lord. " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" The testimony is about the seed still, as at first; but it is the declaration with delight of what the Father finds present with Himself in heaven on His throne, for Himself as Father and the God of heaven. I in the Father and He in me-Christ Head of His body the church.
In this view, the gospel, our gospel, is neither prophecy nor even prediction; it is the declaration of a certain counsel of God, and of certain thoughts of His mind, which are not to come, but are realized; for Christ is in heaven, and we know Him-are in Him; God, even the Father, has placed Him at His right hand; and the Holy Ghost has come down and made efficacious the testimony of the divine thoughts, not only as to the resurrection, but also as to the glorification of the Son of Man upon the Father's throne. And be it remarked, that the Son of Man upon the Father's throne is altogether extra-dispensational. It was a secret hidden from ages, even as He is also personally hidden there, and the church is hidden in Him. Being there, He is not the Blesser of Israel, or of the prophetic earth, or of the nations that lie outside; to all these He is as a certain Jesus that was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive. Neither does He fill the heavenlies: the place where our developed glory is to be. No; He is most anomalously placed-where He alone of man ever can be; where alone He can exercise actively none of the offices which pertain to the earth (though all are in Him and recognized as in Him, for all power in heaven and on earth has been recognized as His); a place where He makes good all for the heavenlies and the earthlies; a place where He prepares now a people for the heavenlies, and is personally all to them in the wilderness, a place He must quit ere He can enter into possession of the heavenly place, which will be His abode when He begins to act for the earth. When the Lord left the grave ere He formally and normally took His place on high in the glory which, as Son of God, He had with the Father before the world was, two things are to be noticed:-1St. He tarried here long enough in the earthly places to look around upon Jerusalem and the scenes given for a time into the enemy's hand; and this while in love He lingered forty days, and was seen among His own from time to time: and, 2ndly. He passed through the heavenlies (Heb. 4:14,14Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. (Hebrews 4:14) διεληλυθότα τοὺς οὐρανοῦς), and saw the places now scenes of conflict to them that have faith, and of Satan's presence, but where He will display His glory for the church when He quits the Father's throne. Our blessing is to be displayed in the heavenlies; but it is too full to be measured by them; and the existence of it and its display are separable. The church is in Him, who is Head of His body, the church, and those to whom He and the Father's thoughts are revealed are in Him-they are blessed, and they have the blessing.
In saying this, it may seem that I abandon in measure, my position taken at the commencement of this paper; but not so. They that think so have not, perhaps, weighed fully the distinctive peculiarity of our blessing; or the difference between being and having. Our blessing is this, we are blessed in and with the Blesser. It would be false to say that Christ is not now as fully blessed, and as sensibly blessed, in separation from all trouble and in possession of as positive blessing as He ever will be. Well, we are in Him; as He is, so are we though in this world; and in Him we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heaven in Him. That the savor of His joy is Now more manifested in connection with His Father's presence as such, and pleasure, as HEREAFTER it will be characterized and designated rather by His being manifested as the living link between the Lord God Almighty in government, worship, and blessing, and all in heaven and earth, through His church, is true. But what we are in Him, we are, as much as we ever shall be; and, more than this, it is the higher and better portion. What would all the glory to come be to me if I could have it without Christ, and without being in Christ? Naught; but if one say, " What is it to be one with Christ and in Christ, if I have not the glory?" My answer is, It is everything. The goods get all their savor from the company, and as expression of the communion; but the communion, the fellowship, is the ONE all-important expression of the Father's love, of the Son's joy-of a Bridegroom's heart, of his bride's response. But not only so: for as thus partakers of the divine nature, the heart, satisfied with divine grace and love, all shines; the desert where we are, all things are of Him who hath reconciled us to Himself; and the anticipation of glory is. unselfishly tasted as the expression of His unselfish love, which will have the church to be seen loved as He is loved and displayed in the glory given unto Him. But, further, while we are already blessed in Him, and while our gospel is rather the revelation of the secret delight of the Father in the Son, and of what He sees in Him as Son of Man, Head of His body, the church, the reception of the blessing by faith is absolutely and entirely inseparable from the reception of the Spirit, who is the seal and earnest, not of our getting a blessing hereafter in Him, as though we had none yet, but of the inheritance of which He will take possession when He leaves the bright place of His present rest, to take up the position of King of kings and Lord of lords for the earth; and of the Lamb, united openly with the Lord God Almighty in the throne, in worship, in light, and in active blessing; when the people now blessed shall be shown in glory. If in our gospel the blessing is all in Him where He is; and it is participation with the Blesser, and fellowship in Him in the delight which is in God over His purity and perfect righteousness (in the liberty of which His every office and even position as Son of Man is sustained), this is ours already in Him; but it is ours, not according to the flesh or world around us, but as exclusively according to the Spirit of life and the Holy Spirit, as these things are exclusively in heaven and not at all upon earth. And until the Spirit ceases to be the seal and earnest of the inheritance, or until faith in the Lord and the presence of the Spirit can be separated, he that has faith as necessarily looks forward in hope for glory to be revealed in the heavens, and then in the earth, as he knows certainly that the blessing of being one with Christ is his already, and is immeasurably beyond the having in possession the glory to come.
As to prophecy for the earth-the salvation was connected, and still is, with One that is to come to deliver it from its thralldom. As to us the blessing is found; it is in the Deliverer; but placed where He is, no one ever knew Him, as being known of Him, save through faith and by the Spirit: who, if he be a witness to Jesus, as a Giver of life, is here-and makes it known to those in whom he works, that He is here-until the glory is ready for Him to whom and for those in whom He testifies.
However feeble my statement be, I present it; let them that are Spiritual discern as to it, as well as to all else in the presence of the Lord, and according to the sure word of His written standard.
By the Law, God measured man; in the Gospel, He presented the measure of Himself in grace. In the former, the trial was twofold: of man fallen and of the Son of Man, as under the law perfect, before Jew and Gentile, as man perfect; the fruit of whose perfection will fill the scene of His then trial with every blessing it can contain, which He will divide, yea, to the rebellious also. In the latter, have we not also two things, as it were, measured? 1St. The Father's estimate of the Son of Man, as placed upon His throne; and 2ndly. Of the Son in all glory in the majesty of the highest, as in Hebrews. According to which He will fill:-first, the Father's house with an adopted family; and, secondly, the heavenly places with a new glory, the glory of the court, whence He will fill earth with divine blessing fitted for it, while Himself has there the bride of His love-and is the central living link to unite all in blessing.