The system of the writer has at least the merit of being clearly presented to us.
“Nothing can be more flagrantly inconsistent than to assert that all the prophecies concerning Israel in the Old Testament are to be understood literally, and at the same time to teach that this chapter must be explained away and spiritualized” (p. 190). We are to understand the contents of Rev. 21; 22, literally. To interpret them as spiritual things communicated to us in figure is to explain away.
Is this, then, the principle on which the Book of the Revelation is to be understood? or is it possible to deny that the general scope of it is symbolic? When, then, are we to begin to take it literally? If it be supposed that what is addressed to or spoken of the church must be literal, the writer himself maintains the contrary. For, in speaking of chapters 2, 3, he says, “Every figure in these epistles to the seven churches is Of a Jewish and Old Testament cast and character” (p. 216). There are, then, figures in the book; and when the churches to whom as a whole it is addressed are specifically the matter in hand, every figure is of Jewish and Old Testament cast and character. There is nothing inconsistent, then, as to the form in which the truth is communicated, if the church be still the subject matter in chapters 21, 22., although it be cast in Jewish figures. On the contrary, I think it will be found that nothing could be “more beautifully in harmony with what scripture would lead us to expect.” Nor need the most earnest advocate of the literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecy for the Jews fear that this will be touched, save to confirm it by the use of the realities of their coming earthly glory, as figures of a heavenly glory beyond and above theirs.
I will now ask any simple Christian to read again the description of the glorious city in Rev. 21; 22, and tell me if it conveys to his mind the idea of what is material; and, if he is still in doubt, to turn to page 219 of this paper, and see what materialism involves the writer in. “As to its shape and form, we cannot pretend to any degree of certainty, but, from the description, it would seem to be material, to be in the form of a lofty pyramid, of which the height to the top-stone, &c?ยท The top-stone, the chief corner-stone will crown the pyramidal city, and forming thus the center in which all its lines shall meet, will, with exquisite suitability, form the material representation and glorious monument of the exalted living stone.” A material inhabited city in the shape of a pyramid! And this is Rev. 21 “in its natural sense!” But verse! 16 will settle this point for a mind subject to scripture. “The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are equal:” the city is presented as a cube. What could be more evidently symbol, whatever the thing symbolized? For this we must take the scripture before us, and see if it will not be its own interpreter.
But, first, the structure of this part of the prophecy calls for attention, as evidently forming an important feature in the interpretation of it. What is the reason of the break at the end of verse 8? If there be none, and the course of the prophecy be simply continuous, why is it said at this point, “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the “seven vials full of the seven last plagues"? Has not such introduction of angel messengers been previously marked in the book, and generally connected with some change or first beginning made in the communication of it? (See chaps. 5:2.; 7:12; 8:23; 10:1; 14, 15:1 17:1; 18:1; 21:1.) Is there nothing to arrest the careful reader here?—no break or change indicated? Why, too, one of these particular angels, and the similarity of the circumstances under which John was shown the mystery of the woman and the beast that carried her, in chapter xvii.? Are not these things significant at least, and likely to bear on the right understanding of the passage? All is passed over without notice by the writer.
It is time we should inquire what maybe their import. The historic sequence of the first eight verses of this chapter, with the events described in chapter 20, may be assumed as unquestioned. The “great white throne, and him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them,” introduces naturally “a new heaven and a new earth (chap, 21.), for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” It is the eternal state, the distinguishing characteristics of which are given us in these verses. Let us weigh them well. And first and most marked of all as to God Himself. We know something of the immensity involved in the way in which God is revealed and known. This forms, and contains in itself, the blessing of His people in every age. God speaks of it to Moses: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them.” (Ex. 6:3.) This was reserved as the order of Israel's blessing. Full and rich as were the resources of faith in these early days—found, in God revealed as Almighty, and Jehovah in unchanging faithfulness—it was not enough for Him, in the full knowledge of and nearness to Himself into which He would bring His people. Even “I am that I am” was involved in inexplicable mystery that none could fathom, till He came who alone could tell it out—the Word that was with God, that was God. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.” It was now the only-begotten Son “telling out all that was in the bosom of the Father, to bring us into relationship with Him as His children. And when He had finished the work by which God was perfectly glorified in His own nature, and, as to sin, He could say, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father, to my God, and your God,” and send down the Holy Ghost to be the power in our hearts of a relationship so intimate and blessed. Again, the name involves the blessing, and “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” contains in it all the richest possible, as it is ours thus to know Him forever.
But not so does the Revelation give Him to us; for Christianity, as such, is not the subject of it. nor the revelation of God that forms it. It is the Son of man as judge first, and the time was come that judgment should begin at the house of God. Thus we have, in chapter iv., the glory of God in creatorship and providence, chapter 5 bringing out the title of the Lamb to the inheritance on the ground of redemption; then the judgments that put Him in possession of it, till He comes Himself to take possession in chapter xix. This gives its character to the revelation of God in the millennium, and the blessing of that glorious era. It is the direct government of the throne, the Lamb reigning in manifested glory. See Rev. 5, where His title is celebrated in heavenly praise before the hour of actual triumph is looked at as come. “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever.” So again, when in chapter 7:9-17 we are carried on to the scenes of the millennial joy: “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne shall tabernacle over them,.... the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them,” &c. See also chapters 14:1-4; 19:6-9. Everywhere it is God and the Lamb that marks the blessing of that day. And “he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet: the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”
Accordingly the destruction of death, when the resurrection of judgment has made the separation of body and spirit no longer the existing state of any one, is given us in Rev. 20:14. But now what follows in the passage I have referred to, for the expressed order in which these closing events of time take place? “Then cometh the end, when he delivers up the kingdom to God, even the Father. When he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power.... and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under Him, that God may he all in all.” The dispensation of the fullness of times had come; all things in heaven and earth had been headed up in the once despised Nazarene, everything laid low at His feet. But what is it for? That He should give up the universal sovereignty as man. The Son also Himself became subject unto Him that put all things under Him, in order that God should be all in all. Exactly in accordance with this, in the description of the eternal state given us in the opening verses of our chapter, God is revealed as all in all. “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and he their God.” This is the sum of eternal blessing. “What for us could go beyond God thus known, and dwelling with His people? Is it not the very point to which we are already brought by faith in the Epistle to the Romans, as the climax of our joy? See chapter v. 1-10; and then verse 11, “Not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.” So also in 2 Cor. 5:17, 18, it is similarly realized as the fruit of the new creation ground on which we are brought in Christ— “Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new; and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.” This, then, is the brightest distinguishing feature of the new heavens and the new earth, when “the former things are passed away, and He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.” God is all in all.
But hardly less marked as to man's state is the fact that all the distinctions that came in by sin in time and upon the earth are lost. “We hear no more of nations. In the new creation and therefore already to faith “there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.” (Col. 3:10, 11.)
“The people are one,” as at the first before man's pretension and pride of unity forced God to scatter and divide. One distinction alone remains, “the tabernacle of God is with men.” But this was not the fruit of sin in the flesh in time, but of the counsels of God before the world was. It is the church: not (as it is found only in Paul's epistles) the body of Christ, but in a twofold relationship: to Christ, as the bride adorned for her husband; and to God, as His tabernacle, the eternal dwelling-place of His glory. Both are found in Ephesians the first in connection with Christ's love that is preparing for presentation to Himself in glory all that He can delight in, chapter v. 25-27, and the second in chapter ii. 21, 22, when all the building fitly framed together is growing unto a holy temple in the Lord—the result reached for both in Rev. 21. The kingdom was prepared for the blessed heirs of it “from the foundation of the world,” and when set up will last as long as time lasts (see Psa. 89:4, 27-37); but the church belongs to eternity, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. I shall have to refer again to the subject, of the giving up of the kingdom', but now pass on to other characteristics of the eternal state.
(To be continued.)