Prophecy is occupied, not with heaven, but with the earth, and consequently with Israel and the nations. This is evident to any familiar with its general scope or its details. Principles which apply in the highest degree to the Christian, the gospel, or the church, may and do appear therein. But the more closely the prophets are scrutinized, the more evident it becomes that Christianity and the church as such lie outside its purview, and that a wholly different condition is contemplated: the government of the world, or divine dealings there to introduce it, not the action of heavenly grace by the power and presence of the Spirit, uniting those who believe, freed or justified from sin, to Christ their Head on high.
Hence it is, as the attentive reader of scripture will not fail to discern, that times and seasons and external signs, as they are not for heaven, so belong not to heavenly men while on earth, save as they may read and understand them concerning others. They are given in profusion about God's earthly people, whether for their own help directly, or to signify God's hand on their enemies. Where the Jew is concerned, alike in the New Testament as in the old, there do we find those suited landmarks. The hope of the Christian and of the church stands wholly on the Lord's sure promise of love. “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am [there] ye may be also” (John 14:2, 3). It is His word, expressly and wholly independent of earthly events.
As their faith, so is their hope. Pharaoh was not in question, nor Balak, nor Sihon, nor Og, nor the many hostile kings of Canaan. Satan did resist to blood by human instruments; but an infinitely greater must be met in death and judgment of sin. And so it was in the life of Christ, if we read it, as we ought, in the light of heaven and eternity. There sin is seen leveling all distinctions, and no difference before God between Jew and Gentile is proclaimed; for all are lost. But grace through faith saves all equally and forever, and constitutes a new man of which Christ is head above, wherein is neither Jew nor Gentile, but all are one in Him. This is the church, the fruit of sovereign favor, the heavenly Eve of the last Adam. It has nothing to do now with the government of the world, or with the execution of earthly judgments. God in love gave His Only-begotten Son, not only to become man for us men, but even to be made sin for us sinners, that we might become God's righteousness in Him, yea, and be raised up together with Him and seated together in heavenly places indeed, in the glory of His grace: for His own counsels in Christ alone account for it all. We are accordingly called to a walk quite different from that which was imposed by the law on the ancient people of God; created, as the apostle says, “for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them,” the details of which fill the New Testament in general. Our worship too is confessedly distinctive, as is our service or ministry. Christ is the center and object and expression of all, as the Holy Ghost is the power acting by the word of God. And the heavenly hope is the crown: His own coming, we are sure of soon, we know not when, to receive us to Himself and present us with Himself in the Father's house on high.
Prophecy, strictly so called, is quite distinct, and bears directly on the future tribulation, whether that which is called “the great one,” out of which God-fearing Gentiles come from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, or the unparalleled hour of Jacob's trouble, out of which he will be saved. In either we never hear of the church; and no wonder. For the Lord, apart from those predicted sorrows, will have called us to meet Him in the air; so that we follow Him from heaven when He appears to deliver the Jews and Israel, who are ready to be swallowed up by their adversaries. On all this the lamp of prophecy sheds its light, deeply needed for the squalid place of the world. But we can say believingly, and without presumption, that we are not of the world, for Himself has told us so. We therefore find a better hope spread before us in His word, though many lose it by confounding it with the just expectation of the Jewish remnant, who look for deliverance by His appearing to take vengeance on their foes. Our hope has no such connection, as it is by our being caught up to meet Him. It is the translation of heavenly grace. For “that day” we come along with Him from heaven. Hence when Christ, our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory. “The day” is a time of displayed divine power, when “every eye” shall see, and Jehovah be exalted in that day. On this all prophecy converges.
“The land,” and the earth too as a whole, will then become a direct object of divine blessing; and the reader of Old Testament scripture is inexcusable, who overlooks the many obvious places in which God pledges Himself to this end. Doubtless His people and the nations are nearer to His heart; but the long groaning earth, the creation travailing in pain together until now, shall be set free from the bondage of corruption into the liberty (not of grace, which is for souls by the Spirit now, but) of the glory of the children of God at Christ's appearing. Does this surprise or offend any? It was here the Son of God, who created all, became man, and lived, and died, by the grace of God. It was here was manifested the wonder of a divine person, humbling Himself in obedience unto death—yea, death of the cross. It was here God was glorified in the Holy One made sin; and here that Satan was vanquished forever by Him who had accomplished redemption by His blood, and was raised in power according to the Spirit of holiness. If heaven and God's throne be the worthy reward, this earth shall be delivered and reconciled. It may be a little spot compared with the universe, but it is the little spot where He wrought in divine love a work matchless in value, to which not man only is indebted for blessing, but God for His retrieved moral glory, and in virtue of which blessing the man who believes is made God's righteousness. If sin of the first Adam subjected all to vanity, how meet it is that the Second man should more than restore all things! How blessed that Satan should be banished, not only grace as now reigning to eternal life in Christ; and that Christ, no longer hidden, should establish the rejoicing earth with His power and blessing, yet still to the glory of God the Father!
Undoubtedly our best portion is in Christ and with Christ where He is, to share His love and see His glory: better even than being manifested in the glory which the Father has given Him and He has given us, when we shall be perfected in one, that the world may know that the Father sent Christ and loved them as He loved Him. For they appear together in the same heavenly glory, as we see in Rev. 17:14; 19:14; 21:9, etc. But every spiritual mind will feel that it is far better to have Christ's desire fulfilled, for which He asks the Father as to that which He has given Him—that where He is they also may be with Him, that they may behold His glory which the Father has given Him, for He loved the Son before the world's foundation. There shall we be in the richest grace; nothing else could explain it, as it all depends on the Father and the Son, and is outside all prophecy, save so far as the very exceptional glimpses of Rev. 21:22 may suppose, if not reveal it, We can account readily for this exception; because at that time those who are heavenly enter with Christ on the reign over the earth; and it is exactly the province of prophecy to speak of God’s government of the world, which cannot be in the full sense till Christ has taken His great power and reigns, and we shall reign with Him.
There is thus a two-fold error to avoid. Many, if not all, the post-apostolic fathers of early date were chiliasts (without noting heterodox men); and their tendency doubtless was to see little, if at all, more than the earth glorious and the glorified saints with Christ: an unworthy view which not only gave up heaven, but shut out Israel from the Messiah and the new covenant, to say nothing of the Gentiles, blessed distinctively on the earth. Revolting from the thought of nothing higher than the millennial earth, Origen, Jerome, Augustine, &c., thought only of heaven for those that are Christ’s, and saw no prospect for Israel and the nations, beyond coming into Christianity by the gospel as now preached, which they conceived to constitute Christ’s everlasting dominion, where all nations should serve Him in perpetuity. Moderns etherealized yet more, so that the soul practically became all for heaven at death, and resurrection faded away save in name. Revival of prophetic study and testimony recovered many from views so vague. But rarely have the children of God taken in the full truth of placing all things, both those in heaven and those on earth, under Christ as Head and the heavenly saints, heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, thus comprehending the universe as His, both heavenly and earthly, to the glory of God the Father. This alone maintains the promised earthly blessings of the Old Testament not set aside but sealed in the New Testament, leaves room for all that divine mercy has in store for Israel and the nations and creation generally, and without confusion conciliates with the accomplishment of the prophets the resurrection glory of the departed saints from the beginning, and above all, the incomparable results of the mystery of Christ and the church, now revealed in the New Testament, then to be displayed in the heavens and over the earth.
Thus also is the progressive character of the divine dealings made evident. For under Christ’s reign in this fulness of glory, Israel will advance from the old to the new covenant, and their Messiah glorified, as the church from her present anomalous ruin to be the glorious bride of Christ; and all nations be delivered from their infidelity, superstitions, and other abominations, to flourish in righteousness and peace; the whole earth be filled with His glory, and the heavens no longer severed through the first man’s sin, but maintained in the power of the Second man from heaven. Not only is there nothing retrograde in any sphere, but there is blessed progress everywhere for heaven and earth. It is only from looking at part of the coming glory that Christians have failed to seize the truth of an advance so marked and universal.
Prophecy then treats of the earthly people, or rather the righteous remnant (Isaiah 1, 4, 6, 10, etc.), saved by the Lord’s appearing for the destruction of their enemies, not by translation to heaven, as the heavenly saints will know like Christ Himself, without any dealing in vengeance on the world. The difference is simple and complete. Hence it connects itself with daylight dawning and the day-star rising in the heart, as compared with the prophetic lamp. Our hope rests on the assurance of His love, that He will come and take us to heaven; prophecy tells of blessing and glory for Israel and the nations too on earth by the judgment He will execute on its evil. Hence a Christian might and ought to be waiting for Christ with all his heart, who knew little of prophecy, however good to be known in its place; as on the other hand, souls might be familiar with prophecy, on whose heart that heavenly hope has scanty power, if it have dawned there at all. The apostle Peter was solicitous that the believers he addressed, besides heeding prophecy, should enjoy a brighter light and the hope that belongs to it.
Thus, to say nothing of “burdens” on the various nations that assailed or oppressed Israel, it is striking to observe that the blessed result of prophecy is, in every case where it is predicted, associated not with the energy of divine grace as now in the gospel, but with the unmistakable execution of God's judgments at the close of the age. Who does not hail with joy the assurance that “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9). It is certain, however, that the prophet declares that the Lord shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips (cf. Isaiah 30:27, 33) slay the wicked (11:4), as introducing this blessedness here below. The apostle cites this in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, and binds it up with the manifestation of the Lord Jesus. Moses had referred to the same thing in Numbers 14:21. Judgment there too, not preaching the gospel, is connected with filling all the earth with the glory of Jehovah. Habakkuk 2:12-14 is yet more explicit; for after pronouncing woe on violence and iniquity, the prophet asks if it is not of Jehovah, that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.” What the peoples toil at is but for the fire to consume; their weariness for vanity (cf. Jeramiah 51:58) the judgments of the Lord will demonstrate, but will do more and better. They will cause the earth to be filled with the knowledge of His glory. Then only will the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness, whatever be the vain hopes of Gentile conceit. Not the gospel in man's mouth, but judgment in the Lord's hand, will inaugurate the earth's deliverance, blessing, and glory (compare Daniel 2:35, 44, 45; 7:11-14). The gospel is now calling and forming souls, apart from the world, for heaven.