I have already shown the hope and calling of the Christian in the parable of the Virgins. We shall now see what the word of God reveals as to those not born of God, who may bear the Christian name for the present, but will abandon it, as we learn from the very portion of Scripture just read. No doubt the world comprehends more than those who outwardly profess the name of the Lord. Besides Christendom, it embraces the Gentiles or heathen, and the Jews. Scripture is silent about none of these; and the light of God is as bright on the future as on the past.
This is an immense principle to hold fast in reading the written word. Men are apt to judge of God by themselves. To speak with certainty, of the future being to us impossible, man forthwith imagines that, if God speaks about it, even then it must be somewhat uncertain. If we only reflect a moment, we cannot but see that this is the principle of infidelity. What difference does it make to God whether He is speaking about the past, the present, or the future? He assuredly does not think in the sense of having to reflect, nor does He merely give an opinion. On the contrary, He knows all things. The only question is whether God communicates what He knows, or how far He has been pleased to do so. Does not the prophetic word profess this? Is it a true profession? If God has communicated His mind about the future, as evidently the Scriptures assume and even assert, it is simply faith to accept it; and the moment our faith rests upon His word, the light shines. What seemed confusion, when we did not believe, turns to order before our minds when we do. The light was really there always. It was our unbelief that made confusion.
The word of God is the perfect revelation of His mind, no matter what He speaks, or when; and God has been pleased to speak about the future. It is the special mark of His confidence. He tells Abraham what He was going to do, what concerned not merely himself, but others, even the cities of the plain. Abraham had nothing directly to do with them, though Lot had; yet it was not Lot but Abraham who was told of the imminent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot only learned it just in time to be saved, as he was, by fire. But Abraham knew in peace beforehand, and interceded with God. Our portion ought to be that of Abraham rather than of Lot. There are those who will be save, just in time to escape destruction. There are those yet to be in the sphere of judgment, who will pass through in a measure, who will only be preserved. Some will be destroyed. Remember Lot's wife. Others will be rescued, as the angels rescued Lot 'and his daughters. But theirs was not the happier portion.
God has provided some better thing for us in every respect. He has given us the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Accordingly, says Paula writing, not to the Ephesians or the Philippians, but even to the Corinthians, “We have the mind of Christ,” the intelligence of Christ, the capacity of spiritual understanding. Not, of course, that we have the same measure as the Lord, who had and was Himself the wisdom of God, and this absolutely. We have nothing save in and by Him, and hence only in dependence on Him. However, we have not the mere mind of man only but of Christ, as Christians having the Holy Ghost. The intelligence of Christ is ours; and this shows why what was true in principle of Abraham is increasingly—so to speak—true of the Christian, for it could not be said, in the full force of the terms, that Abraham had the mind of Christ. The Holy Ghost had not yet come, for Jesus was not yet glorified. Now that the Lord Jesus has accomplished the redemption, and has gone up on high, He has sent down the Holy Spirit to dwell in His saints, to make them the temple of God, and even the body of each believer the temple of the Holy Ghost, just as His own body was, He on earth having His body perfectly holy, and ever fit for the Spirit without redemption, we only in virtue of His blood. Hence, never till the blood of Christ was shed could any other here below be the temple of the Holy Ghost. Jesus was the temple of the Spirit; we, I repeat, are only so because our sin is judged in His cross, our guilt blotted out by His blood. Therefore the Spirit of God comes down to dwell in us, putting honor on the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; but because of this we have a divine power opening into all that God communicates.
This, though a digression, is of immense importance on the subject which we are examining to-night, for there is nothing that more proves divine intelligence than the communication of the future. The Old Testament makes, in the main, this challenge to the false gods, a challenge which—and we need not wonder at it—could only strike them with dumbness, even if they had pretended ever so loudly before to give out oracles. As long as it was merely a question of baffling inquirers, they might deceive by equivocal answers; but Isaiah, in the most trenchant and severe style, shows their utter impotence to disclose the future. Now a very large part of the Old Testament consists of revelations of the future, and not only of what was future then, but of what is future still. The Old Testament prophets expand largely, and in the most blessed terms, on the bright future that yet awaits this world. Isaiah depicts the day of Jehovah, when all that now obstructs the light of glory shall be removed; when all that rises up against the honor of the only true God shall fall; when Satan will lose his delusive power; when the nations of the earth, long groaning under oppression, shall be set free; and when the Jews themselves, who truly ought to have been the leaders of all that is good and true, but alas! abound with teachers of the infidelity that now poisons the world, shall be delivered from every bitter thralldom, and will come forth to the place that God's promise assigns them as the head and priest of the world. They are destined to fill the foremost place when the earth itself is raised out of its actual and long degradation. The Lord has spoken it, and His hand will accomplish all in due time. These are parts of the prospects of the world on which the Old Testament prophets descant at great length, and with graphic minuteness. When the Lord Jesus came, on whom the accomplishment of prophecy depends for the realization of the kingdom of God—for in truth He was the king who brought in the kingdom personally, and presented it with final responsibility to Israel—He was rejected. Then came a mighty change of all consequence to the world, when every bright hope seemed blasted, when all expectation of glory for Israel set in clouds and a deeper darkness than before. God made use of that moment of fallen hopes for the earth and the earthly people, and the nations of the world, for “some better thing.” He used the cross of Christ to bring in a wholly new state, when Israel vanished for a season—a state distinct from that which prophets prepared the minds of men of old to expect. The reason is simple, and the ground plain. The rejected Christ is raised from the dead, and, having ascended to heaven, takes His seat there to bring in a new and heavenly order of blessing. He is seated there until a moment unknown and undisclosed, during which God brings in altogether new things. This is Christianity, which is therefore essentially of heaven. The prophets did not speak of heaven, save incidentally. Prophecy refers to the earth. No doubt there are here and there allusions to heaven; but by no prophet and in no prophecy is there an opening out of what the Lord Jesus is doing now at the right hand of God.
It was not the object of prophecy to do so. Prophecy, the prophetic word, is a lamp, and very useful, to which those who heed the Lord will do well to pay attention, for that lamp shines in a dark of squalid place. Such is the revealed use of prophecy for Christianity. But then there is a brighter light, even, the light of day, as the apostle says, “Till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.” What does he mean by this? The accomplishment of prophecy? Not at all. Till the day of Jehovah comes for the world? In no wise. He speaks of day dawning, and the star arising in the heart, not of that day arising upon the world. This would be the accomplishment of prophecy; but he is intimating what the Spirit of God can bring into the heart of the Christian now. The Jewish believer was encouraged still to value his prophetic lamp. The word of prophecy derived confirmation from what was seen on the Holy Mount. Yet there was to be a far clearer light—the light of day, the brightness of heaven, not of the lamp. Further, the person of our Lord Jesus is our hope, the day-star, not merely the general light of heaven, but the daystar arising in the heart. This is, as I understand it, the dawning of heavenly hope in the heart.
The actual arrival of the day of the Lord is another matter, and this will be in its own time. It is, however, a good thing to hold fast the prophetic lamp until we get a better light. There are far brighter associations into which the Christian is introduced now through Christ Jesus; but of these things prophecy does not treat. The prophetic word does not contemplate the arising of the day-star in the heart. There it is the very reverse of Christ. The day-star of prophecy is the name of the Lord's enemy, as you may see in Isaiah 14. The day-star that the Christian knows is Christ, while He is outside of the world in heaven, before He comes to earth. Day dawns, and the day-star arises in the Christian's heart while he is here. In consequence of this present privilege we stand in a wondrous position. Believing in the Lord Jesus, we have a Savior who is already come, and has accomplished the redemption of our souls, and given us remission of sins. We have life eternal, and the knowledge of our absolute cleansing in the sight of God through the Holy Ghost. Yet the condition of the world is no better, but rather worse. The world has been led on by its prince to reject its only true King—I mean the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Supreme. We are in the secret of it; we know that the King of kings has been refused; and our hearts are with Him. We can afford to wait for the great day; but meanwhile we have the light of day before the day comes. The light cannot yet shine on the world, but in our hearts; so that it is evident we have more than the lamp of prophecy, even the light of day. We are children of the light and of the day ourselves. Hence therefore it is the part of the Christian to be able to read all that is passing around, as well as the communications of God as to the future. According to God it is a part of our proper heritage. We ought to be able to understand the signs of the times. We ought to be able to read not only what is before us according to God, but also to speak of the future because we believe the word of God. With all that God has communicated we may interest ourselves. We have the family interests; for, if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; and it would be a poor thing that the heirs should not make themselves acquainted with the inheritance; and how strange if Christians should not understand by the Spirit of God! For this reason then, if we only knew our own privileges, we are led into an immense field of blessedness entirely outside the natural ken of man. This is what I shall endeavor a little to expound and apply, in looking at a few of the principal passages that bear upon the prospects of the world according to the Scriptures.
[W.K.]
(To be continued)