A COMPARATIVE view of the preaching at Thessalonica first, and then of the Epistles to that Church afterward, is very interesting. The Apostle first, in his preaching, testified to the Jews that their Messiah or Christ was to have been a sufferer, just such as Jesus was (Acts 17:33Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. (Acts 17:3)). This was a prime matter, and before which nothing could really be done. Having established this, he also asserted, that this suffering Christ or Jesus was also a King (Acts 17:77Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. (Acts 17:7)). The Jewish scriptures called for this, as well as for the other; but by these two testimonies, the whole Jewish expectation of Messiah, as founded upon the Prophets, would have been answered.
But another thing which had remained hidden from ages, was now to be manifested, and that is the interval between the suffering and the kingdom of the Messiah. The Jewish Prophets had not looked at that interval, or told us how it was to be filled up, but this we get in. the Epistles. The preaching at Thessalonica had asserted,
1st, The suffering of Christ;-and 2ndly, The Kingdom of Christ.
In the Epistles we get the interval between these things supplied, for here we are told that after the sufferings, the Christ returned to heaven, and the saints are to wait
on earth till He come back again from heaven. These three distinct actions will take place.
3rdly. Afterward they will return to the earth with the Lord as children of the day (1 Thess. 5:55Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:5)). The result of these three actions will be the kingdom in which Christ
will be glorified in His saints (2 Thess. 1:1010When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day. (2 Thessalonians 1:10)), of which the Prophet spake, and which Paul preached at Thessalonica. Thus the preaching and the writing together give us a blessed view of the Christ of God, and His heavenly saints. The place of Israel in the kingdom is not filled out here, for his writing as an Apostle of the Church, and not as a prophet of Israel, did not call for such details. Israel's place in the kingdom we have in such Scriptures as Isa. 60
Having accomplished this, He will then present us to the Father. Now this presentation is the most blessed of all, and is that of which John's Gospel especially treats. It treats of it in the way of promise (chap. 14. 1), and in the way of sample or pledge (chap. 21. 19). That Gospel leaves us in the Father's Rouse, telling us of Mansions there, and only in a faint and distant manner looks forward to the glory of the Son in the kingdom over the earth. But the glory of the kingdom is for us as well as the joys of home. The Book of Revelation (in its turn) tells of that,-tells us of the day of the Lord,-of the coming forth from the presence of the Father where the saints had been presented unblemished, to return with the Lord to the earth, in the day of the Lord.
That action (the coming of the Lord) will commence in judgment, and close in the glory of the kingdom. The breaking of the day will surprise the sleepers and the drunkards,-the people of the world-who have fellowship with the night and its darkness (1 Thess. 5:3-73For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. 4But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. 5Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. 6Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. 7For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. (1 Thessalonians 5:3‑7)). It will overtake and lay hold on them as a thief in the night. The great object upon which it will rush (the carcass of the eagle) will be the man of sin, and those who have pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess. 2:8,128And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: (2 Thessalonians 2:8)
12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:12)). But the saints will be of the day. They will form the atmosphere (as one has expressed it) that will surround
the rising sun, the very rays or wings (as Malachi speaks) of the Sun of righteousness in that morning. They will be in the sphere out of which this rising sun is to rise (1 Thess. 5:55Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. (1 Thessalonians 5:5)).
There will, it is true, be a remnant of Israel on whom that sun is to arise in blessing, while it rises on the nation in wrath, because that day will discern between the righteous and the wicked, and be a burning sun to the one, and a healing sun to the other (Mal. 3: 4.).
The saints will have previously met the Lord in the air, so as to form with him the atmosphere, or the power of the coming day. They will have been previously presented without spot, and will then come forth as assessors with the Lord in the judgment of evil and darkness. It is of this action the Book of Revelation treats. It does not exhibit the presenting of the Church to the Father. The Gospel of John had promised that and shown it in a sweet action at the close, but the Book of Revelation takes no notice of it. The rapture into the air takes place I believe, between the 3rd and 4th chapters of Revelation; that is, after the Lord's government of the Churches had been shown (1. To 3.), and before He prepares to return to the earth (4. to the 22. Rev.).
You see the Church in heaven in chapters 4. And 5. but it is not altogether in the repose of the Father's House that you see the saints in these chapters, but in such an attitude and with such words on their lips as indicate that preparation was making for the great action which is to vindicate Christ's title to the kingdom, and the consequent revelation of His saints in the glory of their royal Priesthood on earth. According to this foreshewing or introduction, you get in the book a series of judgments and a display of action (whatever it may be in detail) that clearly has this in view. The preparing and setting up of the Lord's glory, or the revelation of Golden City. All this shows two things:-The Father's House, and the Golden City; or, in the language of the Apostle to the Thessalonians, " the coining " and the day" of the Lord. When the Lord went up from the grave He made two stages: He stopped on earth, and then after forty days ascended into heaven. He will come also into the air, and there meeting his saints present them to the Father, and then after an interval (the measure of which is not defined) He will come down to the earth.
The first of these movements is called " the coming," the second is called " the day" of the Lord, in these 41. Epistles. We read of children, then heirs. How suitable is it then, that our adoption (which we have now in spirit) should be fully and formally owned, by our being presented to the Father before we come to take the inheritance. The coming of the Lord, according to this, is to usher us into the presence of the Father. The day of the Lord is to prepare for us the inheritance of His children; we are children first, and then heirs, and the Golden City is the place of heirs, the place of the glory where the power that is to rule the kingdom is lodged. We travel from the Father's House to the Golden City, not that we lose the comfort of home when we take our place in the City, but this is the formal distinction. We may bring with us all the bliss, the personal satisfaction of the many mansions in the Father's House, but still the Golden City is the place more formally of heirs of the inheritance, of the power of the kingdom, than of the children of the Father.
The Gospel by John is the Gospel of the family-the Revelation by John the Gospel of the inheritance. The Gospel tells us of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and of our blessed standing as children in the knowledge of the Father, and the Son, through the Holy Ghost, and it trains us for fellowship with them in the gladness and confidence of children. It leads us in spirit up to the Father's House; that is our personal satisfaction-the bliss of our hearts.
The Revelation tells us of the glory and the kingdom, displaying the solemn judgment of the world, which must precede it, and then the brightness of the day that shall know no cloud; that is our official dignity, the honors that are to hang around us.
And both are ours, the hidden bliss of the heart, and the manifested insignia of honor and praise; that we may know how divine love can withhold nothing from the sinner that will trust it.
I might add from all this, that it is the order of the events which lead to the glory that we have especially in these Epistles, while it is the character of the glory we have in the Epistle to the. Ephesians; that is, therefore, a writing of still deeper import, though these Epistles fill a place of all but equal interest and value to the Church.
FRAGMENTS.
The Scriptures present to us God's mind. In our reading them, God is, in a sense, speaking to us. This is in itself a higher order of things than our speaking to God, which is prayer.
How, after a long stream of prayer, have I sometimes longed for the Word as a descending current, pure as the source whence it comes down. For I have felt exhausted and too much in my own circumstances, like a silk-worm from which the silken thread was drawn, drawn, drawn out, until I was left but a chrysalis enveloped in a ball of my own silk.
- Says his thoughts of prayer are pictured by the scent and mist, which in summer time, rise from the sun-parched earth after a heavy rain;-earth, allegiant, giving back to heaven the moisture of day rain or of night dew.
If some have an ardor and a devotedness which I could covet, it may be that the seriousness and greater coldness of my mind may be used for good to detect what the ardor of others may pass by unobserved.
We are not given sorrow for sorrow's sake; but if it is sorrow for the sake of association with Christ is not that blessed? Is it not an honor?
"Murmur not as some murmured." Discontent is alien from God. Murmurs, discontent, temper-are of the fumes of the bottomless pit.