1.—THE ANTICHRIST PROPERLY SO CALLED.
I AM still inquiring as to Antichrist, but I had not overlooked the difficulties. It has been taken for granted among those who expect a personal Antichrist, that he is the civil head of the Roman empire. This I question. Without doubting in the least that there will be such a blasphemous Gentile power, it seems to me that the Antichrist is another power, of which the Scriptures are even more full; the vessel of evil, religious energy, rather than that of evil public government. At least, two such manifestations' of power we find in Rev. 13., for the second is a beast, as well as the first; that is, there is a second temporal power co-existent with the public imperial power, which has the throne of Satan. The first beast had risen, like previous beasts, out of the sea, i.e. out of the tumultuous floating mass of population—the Gentile world. But the second beast came out of the earth, i.e. out of the formed arrangement of God's moral providence—the sphere whore the dragon and the beast were worshipped, and all heavenly association was blasphemed. In form of power, this second beast was like the Lamb; but his speech was like the dragon, or great hostile power of Satan: a religious, though blasphemous, character of evil at work within the sphere where Satan rules. Such a relationship will be found to be Jewish. It is the religion of the earth, not of the dwellers in heaven, and is Jewish in character—a power in the earth ostensibly connected with divine things, falsely, and verified in the sight of men by the exhibition of judicial power as of God. Rev. 19. speaks of the second beast, as the false prophet.
The Antichrist is not spoken of by name, save in the epistles of John, where his character is religious, not secular—apostate and heretical activity against the person and glory of Christ and the essential doctrines of Christianity. He denies the Father and the Son. He does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh. He denies that Jesus is the Christ, which seems rather Jewish in its connection and evil, rather than the denial of the revelation which constitutes Christianity. Antichrist, in a word, is characterized by religious energies of evil in connection with Christianity and Judaism.
In 2 Thess. 2 it is a wicked religious, and not a more secular power which is spoken of—its impious, then its seductive, character. Verse 4 is moral opposition and insult to God, rather than the object of deference, who was publicly on Satan's throne. It is the active personage, with Judas' title, who opposes all divine authority—the man of sin showing himself as though he were God the contrast of Christ, who was God, and yet was the man of obedience. His presence, too, is according to the energy of Satan; and as Christ, in truth of righteousness to such as should be saved; so he, in deceit of unrighteousness to such as should be lost.
In Dan. 11:36, &c., is the king, and he shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god, &c.; that is, we have the same qualities and acts, and yet he honors the God of forces, and honors and increases with glory a strange god. So that it would seem that the haughty rejection of the true God and self-exaltation is not inconsistent with being servant of a false one, really slave to the enemy—an old lesson learnt all through human nature, and never learnt. Self-exaltation is not supremacy. I apprehend, or am inclined to think, that this self-exaltation will be, specially in result, in Judea against God; but my difficulty just lies there, because in Dan. vii. the little horn seeks to change times and laws (i.e. I apprehend the Jewish order), and this looks like the power of the Antichrist, while the little horn there is uncommonly like the first beast (i.e. its last head). The difficulty is in apportioning the parts where both work together. The process seems natural, painful to say. The apostasy denying the Father and the Son, and that Jesus is the Christ. This throws them on Judaism (which was always the mystery of iniquity in principle), and thus on Antichrist, who at last throws off all in self-exaltation, and makes them, during the last half-week, worship a strange God, and the tribulation takes place. It seems to me that the deepest troubles in the Psalms (I do not speak of the cross) come from what has a Jewish character, not an open enemy, but a companion or familiar friend, ungodliness and strife in the city. The self-exaltation is moral character, not public power, unless in his own sphere. This self-exaltation would be his own apostate setting up in Judea; but finding it convenient for himself, and it being the work of Satan, he forces all to recognize the Roman emperor, which for Jews is apostasy. It would be the old Josephus question, save that saints who flee or bow take the place of sicarii. It is a kind of suzeraincte. This false Christ in the east making head in the interest of the western emperor against all, and deceiving the Jews by Satanic power in the east, he wields all the power of the empire; he joins the recognition of the western emperor to the Satanic deception of the Jews, his own people probably. The little horn of Dan. 7. certainly seems the more general power, which, while local (like Bonaparte, a France), governs the whole beast.
2.—the Force of "the Last Day" in John 6.
As regards John 6., the Lord is, to me, evidently substituting a blessing in resurrection to any royal Jewish blessing. Owned the prophet, and refusing to be king carnally, He goes up alone on high, and the disciples are sent away alone, toiling on the sea (a Jewish remnant strictly), and arrive as soon as He rejoins them but He is fed upon in humiliation and death, in the interval, and hence to such the blessing comes in resurrection: he (i.e. the believer) will be raised up in the last day. Jesus, will not bless him as come down here before giving him his portion where He is gone up in the power of everlasting life. The last day is in contrast with their present blessing as king. The last day is never the day of the Lord, save in the vague sense that it embraces all the closing period, which is its true force. He does not come and set up the Jews, but the Father draws, and a man comes to Him, and the way He blesses him is in the power of eternal life, raising him up when the close of all this busy and rebellious scene arrives; that shall be his portion in that day—not Messianic security now.
3.—the Allusion in "the Last Trump."—1 Cor, 15:52.
After all the grave and wise speculations on the last trump, I strongly suspect it is merely an allusion to military matters. Somewhere in Josephus' war, and perhaps in other books, we have the order of the breaking up of the Roman camp, and at the last trump they all break up and march forward. Now, I acknowledge that Scripture interpretation is not to be borrowed from without; but I have seen only tortured linking’s with other passages within. I am content to take the general idea of the last public call of God relating to the Church, and leave it there; but what suggested the image, I suspect, was what I say: just as κέλευσμα, in 1 Thess. 4., beyond controversy, is a similar military term used to a similar purpose. Matt. 24:31 (" And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet"), I have not the smallest shadow of a doubt, applies to the assembling of the Jews (elect, as Isa. 65.) after Christ is come.
4.—the Kingdom of Heaven.
For myself, I have learnt much in searching the Word, with regard to the kingdom of heaven..... I find that the true idea presented by this expression is the reign of the heavens in the person of the Son of man. John Baptist proposes it in testimony, as drawing nigh; the Lord does the same; but still as a prophet. All this being rejected, the violent alone took it by force, so that it was not established, and the Lord could say while yet there: “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." Consequent upon the manifestation of this rejection, and of the judgment pronounced by the Lord on Israel at the end of the twelfth chapter of Matthew, this kingdom is preached as a mystery. Then it is established in mystery, but administered by Peter, who had the keys of it, when the King ascended to heaven; and, finally, it will be accomplished according to the power of the King, when Satan is cast out of heaven, and Christ receives the kingdom, and establishes blessing on earth by this means.
Such is that which I present to my brethren as the résumé of that which I have found, evidently without any view to controversy. The Church, such as it is presented by Paul, does not at all enter here into account; it is viewed in his writings as the body, as the bride, of Christ, identified with Him in His life such as He is in heaven, in its nature, its position, and its glory. It is a quite different thought from the administration of the kingdom. He may speak of the gathering of the saints here below as a body, as a bride, &c, because such was the extent of their privilege: we will say a word about it elsewhere; but the thought which he links with the Church is its identification with Christ. At the death of Stephen, the administration, by the Holy Spirit, of this kingdom of which Peter had the keys, was rejected at Jerusalem, as the announcement of this kingdom had been already rejected in the testimony of John Baptist, and in that of the Son of man. From that time He ceased to be presented to the Jews as a people. Up to that time, the Holy Spirit acted upon the intercession of Jesus on the cross in their favor (compare Luke 23:34, and Acts 3:17), and as if the ten thousand talents due by the death of Jesus had been remitted. The love of God still delayed in withdrawing, and it is only in Acts 28. that He renounces His efforts toward this people, over the least remnant of which He ceased not to bend down. Nevertheless, always opposing the truth preached by Paul, and forbidding to preach to the Gentiles, according to the grace of God, the Jews filled up their sins, and the wrath is come upon them to the end; they have been sold, with all that they had, until the payment be made. From thence history regards the Gentiles. The Gentiles figure on the stage, either as rejecting, from love to their idols, or as receiving the testimony of grace which was proposed to them. Jerusalem, trampled under their feet, disappears entirely from the scene, and the iniquity and the conduct of the Gentiles, whatever they may be, become the object of the judgment and ways of God, the Jews being as it were buried (see Isa. 26. and Ezek. 36.), though guarded, as the Gentiles before had been, so to speak, non-existent. It is evident that the Gentiles, professing Christians, and the Gentiles of the four monarchies subject to the beast, are the special objects of the ways of God in His government (not, however, the only ones); but it is at the time of the destruction and judgment of those in particular, that the Son of man will establish His kingdom in power, although He may subject and judge all the others afterwards. It is this of which the prophecies of the Old and the New Testament speak to us clearly.
5.—the Church.
The question of the Church is bound up with these two truths: the return of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church. For the Holy Spirit is come down here below, and it is that which gives to the Church its unity and its bond as a whole on earth. With the Church it is as with the body of a man, of which, it is said, all the elements are entirely renewed in a very short time; but it is always the same man: the spirit of a man which is in him is vitally linked together, and appropriates to itself new heterogeneous elements, and unity and person do not change.
There are three great truths which are linked with Christ, the center of all truth, or three different positions, if you please, in which He is seen: dead and risen; then in heaven (to which corresponds, as proof, the presence of the Holy Spirit on earth, John 16.); and, lastly, returning here below. Dead and risen, there is the Church, His body, justified and risen with Him; this is the doctrine of justification, and though evidently true for all the Church, viewed as a body, it is in its employment, for each day and for each conscience, an individual affair. The Holy Spirit, seal of this doctrine, dwells in the body of the individual as in a temple. Afterwards in heaven, Jesus is hidden in God, but crowned with glory and honor; the doctrine, which flows from it, is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church on earth, in His body; of the Holy Spirit, who gives to this body its unity, and which renders applicable the terms: body of Christ, bride of Christ, Church of Christ,—to those who, on earth, are united to Him who is in heaven, and thus form an unity on earth; the dead in Christ being for the moment out of sight. If this is understood (for one may be converted without understanding it), we desire, as the bride of Christ, the return of the Bridegroom. Justification is tied to His death and resurrection: for we know that His death has been accepted on high. The unity of the Church, and its waiting for Christ as becomes a faithful spouse, are what is bound up with the glory of Christ on high and the presence of the Holy Ghost here below. These are the two great truths which have been specially put forward, which God Himself, I believe, has put forward in these times, and which have produced so much uneasiness in those who desire to abide outside their force..... That people may not know these things, is intelligible; that others may oppose them, is very sad; but to say that they are secondary truths, is to be seriously deceived. To make little account of the glory of Christ manifested in the unity of the Church here below, is a proof, in effect, that the glory and love of Christ for His Church are not near the heart, and therefore there is hardly the occasion of speaking to conscience. If after having insisted before a son upon what he ought to be toward an affectionate and tender father, and having shown him what a filial spirit is, he demands that one should track out his duty with exactness, one may abstain from it: he wants the spirit to understand his position; it would be the spirit of a servant, of a hireling. The feeling must be awakened for conscience to act; but woe, woe to him in whom it is wanting! It is just so with the responsibility of the Church; the grace of the relationship must be recognized, and it is the heart taught of the Holy Spirit which will understand it. I doubt not that there is enough to condemn, by conscience itself, him who wants it; but such is neither my task nor my desire. If the heart can be awakened so as to feel the force of this relationship, of this obligation, this will be the most precious prize of the battle one has to join. Israel might have been condemned by the law, but is not the call of God far stronger, and Israel more hardened not to respond to it, when it was said, and in vain: " Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel "? For us the first principle is love. If that is wanting, all is wanting.
I admit, and have admitted, that one can understand the love which saves without knowing that the Church is bride of Christ; but, in present circumstances, this is what the Holy Spirit recalls particularly: “The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come." Such is the normal position, the first testimony, which the Church bears. After that, it can turn to others and say: “Let him that is athirst come," for the living waters already flow there, and “whosoever will," &c.; but for
Christians, there is what the Spirit has bequeathed to the Church, as its true position. Its feelings are founded upon its relationships with Christ, and the Spirit demands that those who hear join this desire of His heart. Is it ill done to enlist those who have heard the voice of the good Shepherd, to take the position of the bride and join this cry, Como?
But the doctrine of the presence of the Holy Ghost in the Church here below, and of Christ's return, are identified with its unity on earth, with its position of bride (or rather of betrothed here below, in order to be presented as a chaste virgin to Christ), and with this desire of His coming which detaches us from all that is not of Him, and attaches us entirely, exclusively to Him.
6.—Luke 21. Compared With Matthew 24.
As to Luke 21. it is much more historical, because it opens out, as revealing the Son of man, the period in which Israel is set aside and not counted in its history, or what concerns the Gentiles. Hence the Spirit records no enquiry of "the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age," but the general history in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem. Thus, from verse 9 to verse 19 inclusive, we have the state of things from after the Lord's death until the encircling of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, and no mention made of the abomination of desolation, and the twentieth verse gives the reply to the question of verse 7, founded on verse 6. The statement accordingly says nothing of the tribulation such as never was; but that vengeance then comes on the people and city, that all may be accomplished. This still continues, and will continue, Jerusalem being trodden down, till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, in the close of the Gentile dominion begun in Nebuchadnezzar. Then the fact is revealed of the state of things at the close of the dominion of Gentile power-signs in sun, moon, and stars; on earth, distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring (the last expression showing, I think, that the words are employed figuratively, though there may be possibly portents also); men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth; for the powers of heaven (the sources of the earthly state of things) shall be shaken. And then shall they (not "ye," but they, these proud, rebellious Gentiles) see the Son of man coming in a cloud.
Such is the prophetical revelation, which presents, it seems to me, little difficulty. The exhortation which follows may suggest more; at the same time, it offers some remarkable helps as to the use of expressions. For example, "this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled” (verse 32), proves necessarily, either that “generation " must be taken in an extended sense, as in Dent. 32:5, 20, and as in other passages, or, that "all" could only apply to the establishment of the state of things at the setting aside judicially of the Jewish people, because we have the treading down of Jerusalem for a long continuous period revealed. Hence we have to seek the guidance of the Spirit for the application of the passage, there being an incipient accomplishment at the destruction or treading down of Jerusalem, its desolation, vengeance, &c., which subsists still, and a far fuller one at the close preceding the coming of the Son of man. Hence the Holy Ghost records here an expression which may apply to both: "Know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand." I do not doubt that this had a certain accomplishment in the absolute suppression of the Jewish order, but no fulfillment; and that the kingdom of God will be established by the coming of the Son of man after the signs of verses 25, 26. Note also that this passage precludes the possibility of the application of "the coming of the Son of man" to the destruction of Jerusalem, because we have already had the long treading down consequent on the encompassing with armies. The full natural application of verses 28-31, then, is to the close when, those signs having taken place, the full deliverance of the Jewish faithful will take place. So verse 35 has a limited application to Judea or Palestine; but it is evident to me that there is the larger application of the coming of the day of the Lord on the whole earth. It is the day that is spoken of. Verse 36 seems to me also to refer absolutely to the character of a Jewish remnant (though in a still better sense, it will be true of the Church); but in its proper application it is the escape of judgments then, and standing before the Son of man when He takes the kingdom.
In Matt. 24. the Lord passes over all the times of the Gentiles unnoticed, and speaks only of Jerusalem, as though under judgment recognized of God, so far as to be the object of His thoughts and dealings. Verse 14 only takes the broad fact that the Gospel of the kingdom should be preached to all nations (a thing not yet accomplished to the letter), and then the end should come. I judge, then, that while the whole reply will have an accomplishment at the close, there was sufficient in the early part to guide the saints between the Lord's ascension and the destruction of Jerusalem; but that its fulfillment will yet take place, to the end of verse 14 being general, and from verse 15 being absolutely and exclusively the last half-week of Jewish tribulation. There is a point which I think has not been duly borne in mind; it is that the unfaithful servant will, for the judgment, pass over into the time of the Son of man's judgment, so that what is called the Church may go on, in whatever apostasy of condition, into the state of things which takes place when the Church of the faithful is gone. Laodicea is threatened with being vomited out of the Lord's mouth, but when it is vomited, is not said, if it be taken for literal judgment. I am disposed to think Judaism will play an active part in connection with the apostate Church, and that there will be an astonishing amalgam; though, besides that, the Church form may continue until destroyed by the horns and the beast.—(Extracts from letters, ac., of a brother laboring in France.)