Matthew 24; 25
I have taken this portion of the word of God to set forth “The Christian calling and hope,” as distinct from a Jew or a Gentile. There may be some here, there are certainly not a few elsewhere, who might be supposed to demur to this. They are not convinced that it is a question of Christians, for example, in the parable of the Virgins.
There are those, on the one hand, who have been disposed to exaggerate, maintaining that even the foolish virgins are really Christians. There are some, on the other hand, who deny that the parable speaks of Christians at all. These will have it that not only the foolish virgins are not Christians—which I believe to be quite true—but that the wise are not either, but what is commonly called the Jewish remnant. Now, I am of opinion that they are both mistaken; that in this Scripture we have positive evidence, of a clear and cogent kind, which ought to remove the doubts of any dispassionate mind, and to give with certainty the conviction that the Lord had real Christians in view in the wise virgins, and professing Christians in the foolish virgins. In order to demonstrate this more clearly, I will first draw your attention to the context, and then to the contents of the parable.
It is plain that from these two sources must be drawn the main evidence that the Lord Jesus has given by which we may form a sound judgment. That is to say, the Lord has given, in the surroundings of the parable, not a little to help us to understand its bearing and application. Then, again, what the general evidence of the context would lead to we shall find, I trust, entirely borne out by the specific contents of the parable. The language, the drift, the circumstances, and design all converge on Christendom; all point to the calling and hopes of the Christian; for alas! not only the parable instructs us, but it is a fact that we see now around us many who bear the Christian name with no reality.
First of all, then, we have the Lord's discourse, founded on the disciples pointing out, with not a little complacency, the grand buildings of the Temple. “And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them: 'See ye not all these things? Verily, I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.'“ The Jewish system was tottering to its ruin; the temple, where the glory of God had once been, was itself about to be destroyed.
“And, as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us when shall these things be?” They were disturbed and distressed by such a thought. Was not He the Messiah? Was not He going to establish Israel? Was not He about to restore the tribes—which had been so long wanting—to the nationality of God's chosen people? Was not He about to make the temple the center not only for Israel but for all the world? What, then, would be the meaning of such solemn words as that all was to be razed to the ground? Jesus meets the questions when these things should be, and what should be the sign of His coming and of the end of the age—not of the world.
The Jews were not so ignorant on this head as many who have less excuse in the present day; they did not confound the end of the age with the end of the world. They knew well that God means to bless this earth—to bless it as a whole, not merely His children passing through it, but the nations and the earth itself; to overthrow Satan's usurped dominion, and to deliver from the thralldom of the curse the whole creation. The disciples, who as Jews held all the hopes of their nation founded on prophetic testimony, were therefore anxious to know what should be the sign of his coming or presence, and of the end of the intervening time of sorrow and distress; for they were aware that it is only when He comes in power and glory that there can be an end of desolation. So the Lord explains that the time was not yet come; that they would be liable to be deceived about the time when the restoration of their people, and all this introduction of divine power to bless the earth, was nigh at hand.
“Take heed,” said He, “that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” “And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” It is the reverse of the glowing picture of Isaiah 2. When the age of the Messiah's reign comes, “He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” But the new age is not yet come, nor can it while the Lord Jesus is away. Whatever may be the promises and hopes of men, all their scheming will not avail; all their expectations must be falsified. “Nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom"; that is to say, a state quite contrary to what is held out for the kingdom. The prophets glowed as they looked forward in the Spirit to the time when “the mountain of Jehovah's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow into it. And out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem,” But the Lord intimates that the time is not yet at hand. There must still be the sorrows that belong to this age.
The new age would be characterized, not by the destruction of the earth, but by its renovation; not by the great White Throne, where the dead will be judged, but by the Lord coming to reign and govern the living. For he shall come “to judge the quick and the dead,” not the quick and the dead at the same time, but the quick first, the dead afterward. The judgment of the quick traverses over a considerable tract of time; the judgment of the dead is at the close of all, before the eternal scene where all judgment will be ended, when nothing will remain but the blessing of those that are of God, such as are of the enemy having been judged forever. The Lord explains that there must be an earthly time of manifold sorrow during this age before the blessed time begins for the earth in the new age. Whether it be the present era of sorrow, or the future dispensation of blessedness for the world, the end of “the world,” as popularly held, is a false notion; the end of “the age” is the true thought. The end of the earth will never be, in the sense of annihilation; the end of man's having his own way must certainly come. Man's day will close with the end of this age.
The new age will be under the government of the Lord Jesus. The fact that power will be exercised in rule supposes flesh and liability to disobedience. Evil will be put down; it may be kept thoroughly in check; but it needs the reign of the Lord to effect it. The eternal state essentially differs from this age. It will have no evil to be kept in check, but will display the peaceful dwelling of good in the presence of God, when evil has been judged, removed and punished.
The Lord then pursues His sketch of what the disciples must expect. “Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.”
“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.'' This, again, is beyond controversy the close of what is going on now; not the end of the world in a physical sense, but of the period or dispensation which terminates with the appearing of the Lord Jesus in power and glory. His return to reign will open the new age.
Then the Lord proceeds to give some indications of the closing scene of the age a little more definitely. “When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.” Nothing can be more distinct than this. The Lord Jesus is not here giving us the calling and hope of the Christian, but addressing the disciples in their then state and circumstances.
Now this is an immense help for the understanding of the prophecy. For many persons now as of old have taken the whole discourse as if it were addressed to Christians as such; they understand that it all describes the position of Christians at one time or another. But this is a fallacious idea. The Lord begins with the Jewish disciples, before Christianity, properly speaking, was revealed. For Christianity supposes the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord: these are the pillars of Christianity. Without them you have the Lord Jesus still connected with Israel. The essential features of Christianity display themselves on the basis of redemption, and in the gift of the Holy Ghost consequent upon it.
Now, in all we have heard thus far, there is nothing that is essentially Christian. We have disciples; I doubt not believers, but believers looking for the Lord's return to reign over Israel. They are disciples whose expectations are in connection with the land of Palestine and the Temple; whose hopes embrace Israelitish ascendency, whose fears are buried with the troubles or tribulation predicted for Israel by the prophets. Hence we see the Lord Himself deigns to refer to the prophecy of Daniel the prophet. Does not this show that He was speaking of the same time, place, people and circumstances as Daniel? Nothing can be clearer than that He is not describing Christians as such. What have Christians to do with Jerusalem or Juda? What have Christians to do with the Temple? They have no interest in those stones; they have no special connection with the grandeur of those buildings. The destruction of the Temple leaves Christianity unaffected, and where it was, in point of fact. We quite understand on the one hand that God saw fit that during Christianity the Jewish people and their Temple should be in ruins soon, if not immediately; as we know, it was important, on the other hand, that Christianity should derive its force from God while the Temple had still an outward appearance.
It was no mere concurrence of circumstances which gave birth to Christianity. It might have been said that Christianity grew up as a natural development after Judaism had actually disappeared; that there had been an old religion in Jerusalem, and when this perished, then Christianity sprung up. But God took care that the Temple and the Jewish people should still continue for a season. It is true they were spiritually defunct. It was merely while Judaism had sentence not only pronounced but executed upon it in the cross of Christ. For then it remained to the eyes of men alive, but really before God it was dead: only the Lord kept it a decent time for burial. Then when the Romans came, they took off as it were the dead corpse of Judaism to its grave.
But the Lord then shows us clearly that He is speaking of disciples, with Jewish position, circumstances, hopes and fears. He, therefore, warns certain persons who should be analogous to the disciples of that day; Jews who should be found at the end of the age, disciples in Jerusalem once more when there would be a Temple once more. For it is remarkable that Christ in speaking of the Temple gives it unity: the Temple may be built and destroyed, again built and destroyed, yet it is all counted the Temple, for God deals with things according to the place they take. He views all that is done in His name as having a kind of moral unity. Hence we find this carried out with regard to antichrist. The Temple, too, has been destroyed, and may be again, but it is still the Temple of God. In days yet future we know that it will be put to the most fearful uses to which any building has been applied since the world, began; still it is called the Temple of God.
Then there will be disciples—Jewish believers—keeping to the words of the Lord Jesus in the latter days of this age, for the Lord is clearly carrying on His thought to that time, just diverging more widely before the close of the age, as you can see: this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to all the nations, and then shall the end come. We know the end has not come yet. We are aware that this gospel of the kingdom needs to be preached still as a witness in all the world to all the nations. But how far it will take effect is not said: there may be few believers, but there will be witnesses of the gospel of the kingdom sent out, like the disciples when He was here. It is not telling the people that He died and rose and went to heaven. They preached the kingdom of heaven was at hand before the end of the age.
[W.K.]
(To be continued)