Before examining the alleged paradoxes and improbable consequents of taking the millennial reign literally, and putting to the test Bishop H.'s “fair, safe, and orthodox constructions,” let us take a general survey of scriptural truth.
Besides life and incorruption brought to light through the gospel, two great subjects are prominent in the written word, the kingdom of God, and the church of God: the latter, which, established in N. T. times, closes (as far as itself is concerned) all distinction of Jews and Gentiles, and hence gives a mysterious form to the kingdom (Matt. 13.) when concurrent with it; and the former, which was the central fact of the Old T., as it will be displayed in power and glory, after the Lord's appearing to judge the living and dead (2 Tim. 4:11I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; (2 Timothy 4:1)).
Theology has confounded these two totally different matters to the incalculable injury of revealed truth; and so hindered both the Lord's glory and the blessing of souls. Hence the importance of bringing to a clear issue a question of the greatest gravity for all that hold the doctrine of Christ, maintain the foundations intact, and desire sure growth in the truth. The author put to the test is inferior to none in godliness, acquirements, and general reliability; and if he acquiesced in prevalent views, it was with singular freedom from personal fads.
There is another truth overlooked in its capital importance, the real root of all failure in spiritual intelligence. Neither Israel nor even the church is the prime object of God, but His glory in Christ. Every Christian ought to feel this when presented seriously to him; but in practice, nay in doctrine also, it is apt to be obscured and forgotten to the mind's inevitable darkening. Yet what can be more certain? All His counsels, all His ways, center in Christ, as He alone is personally and absolutely worthy, the One in Whom His soul delighted, Who emptied and humbled Himself to the uttermost to glorify Him in a world of evil, in order that He might righteously and in love give effect to His grace and display His glory, even before the eternal rest, when nothing but good abides, and all evil is done away in solemn endless judgment, and God is all in all.
Christ, then, the Son, the Word made flesh, is the One Who alone explains all revelation, as He alone is the accomplisher and accomplishment of all divine purpose, in Whom His nature and character, His gracious designs, and His righteous ways, find their moral justification in His sight and their manifest glorification before the universe. Incarnation gives us His person glorifying His Father obediently in the midst of the old creation. His infinite work on the cross was the basis of redemption; His resurrection and ascension were God's placing Him at His right hand, as head of the new creation. But as yet the new creation applies solely here below to those that are in Christ, who have also the Holy Spirit given them, seal of their acceptance and earnest of the coming inheritance; for we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. But as He is head of the body, the church, even so are we His members, baptized by One Spirit into one body, God's habitation also by the Spirit. And this is what God is doing while Christ is glorified on high-calling out and gathering together His sons and heirs, who therefore await Christ's coming as their heavenly hope, and who love His appearing which will put down every evil and establish God's kingdom indisputably in power and glory to the joy of all the earth.
Even this implies Christ's various glory; and the Christian who can see no more in the written word than the church's blessedness in Him falls into an error akin to the Israelite who left room only for Jehovah's association with the chosen nation. The effect of the error is even worse for the Christian than the Jew. For the latter (however inexcusable in his unbelief of Jesus) is quite right in looking for the restoration of the people, Judah and Ephraim no longer alienated but united in their land, under Messiah's reign and the new covenant; and a kingdom therefore, not figurative but proper though spiritual also and everlasting while the earth endures. Then too the Gentiles, however blessed, are subordinate and willingly own the first dominion given by Jehovah to the daughter of Zion; and all the earth sings praises to Him that judges the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. The Christian who tortures the prophets by hearing only of a spiritual Israel, and makes Zion and Jerusalem, Judah and Ephraim, to be nothing but the church, loses the sense of his own distinctively heavenly privileges as made known in the N. T., and defrauds the nation of their grand and peculiar hopes, in the incomparable mercy of God (faithful in spite of their unfaithfulness), but ere long to be the blessed and beloved of Jehovah at the feet of their once crucified but then adored Messiah, never more to be rooted out of the land.
Does this seem marvelous in men's eyes? The real marvel is that any who heed the word of God can be ignorant of it. Isaiah, to take the first in order and the richest of all the O.T prophets, overflows with this hope for Israel from his earliest chapter to his latest. So chap. 1., after laying bare the sins of the people and their reduction to a little remnant, declares that Jehovah will deal with His adversaries, purge away the dross of His people, and restore their judges as at the first and their counselors as at the beginning. Has this ever been verified for the returned remnant? As none can say so with truth, it is equally clear that it is wholly distinct from the blessings of the church or the gospel, which were not introduced as Israel's will be by a downpour of judgments.
Isa. 2 is just as clear for Israel by-and-by, as distinct from what the bishop calls “the evangelical church.” For us Christ is the heavenly center, and the gospel goes forth to all nations. Is it only Popery that falsely claims an earthly center for all the nations to flow to its spurious Zion, whence goes forth the canon-law, not the gospel? But whether it be Protestant confusion or Papal pretension, the word of the Lord in Matt. 24. is the disproof of both; inasmuch as He sets the world's state till He come again in evident contrast with the prophet's picture of universal peace after His world-kingdom is come, as predicted in Rev. 11:15, 1715And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15)
17Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. (Revelation 11:17), and elsewhere.
Equally plain is Isa. 4. that the Lord will not wash away the filth of Zion or the blood of Jerusalem, save “by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning,” in contradistinction from the grace of God which has now appeared presenting salvation to all, founded on the characteristically different starting point of Christ bearing the divine judgment of sin on the cross, not the day of Jehovah in the valley of decision for all the nations, Then and thus only will deliverance come for the ancient people of God, as indeed for all nations and the earth. The gospel and the church are alike based on the atoning death of Christ, His resurrection, and His ascension to heaven, whence He sent forth not judgments but the Spirit of grace, as both gospel and church are its fruit and witness. The contrast is no less certain than momentous; and the confusion of theology most mischievous.
Thus might we pass through the fertile field of prophecy, with no other result than the fuller confirmation of the all-important distinction already traced. For scripture is harmonious and cannot be broken. Ascertain the mind of God in a single authority of His word, and all else must surely be consistent and will corroborate it; as on the other hand, when an error is assumed, every witness cited will be found to expose it, as we have seen in the bishop's misuse of Zech. 2. and Isa. 65. Nor this only; for the positive truth shines out, that the displayed kingdom of Jehovah is the main testimony on which the O. T. prophets converge; and all tell more or less of the stupendous judgments which usher it in, when Israel shall take them captive whose captives they were, and shall rule over their oppressors (Isa. 14.). “And it shall come to pass in that day that Jehovah will punish the hosts of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth on the earth. And they shall be brought together, an assemblage of prisoners for the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited. And the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed; for Jehovah shall reign on mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients [shall be] glory (24).” This (and it is but a sample, however brilliant, of those living oracles) speaks of a state of things different wholly from either the post-exilic Jews, or “the evangelical church.” Further, it is not at all what scripture shows of the church glorified in heaven, any more than on earth sharing Christ's rejection and suffering. It is precisely and exclusively, what the prophet professes it to be, the Jewish people no longer a prey to evil and enemies, but brought, through terrific judgments on the wicked among themselves and all nations, to trust in Jehovah forever, and to acknowledge Him Whom they erst despised as their king coming with power and glory in Jehovah's name, the Righteous Servant in Whose hand Jehovah's pleasure shall prosper.
The apostle in Rom. 11. particularly warns believers now against that very snare into which theology has fallen. “Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then God's goodness and severity: toward them that fell severity; but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in [his] goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off... For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that obdurateness in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, as is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant unto them when I shall take away their sins” (vers. 20-27). Can any language be plainer or more solemn for all who refuse the siren voice of tradition and cleave only to God's word? Can any saint venture to say that the Gentile profession continued in God's goodness, more than the Jewish or natural branches of the olive tree? What mean Popery, superstition, infidelity, worldliness of every kind, within Christendom? and even believers playing fast and loose with these horrible evils, as if the ever present Holy Ghost tolerated them? Yet the inevitable sentence is, “Thou also shalt be cut off": no promise of restoration, but the positive assurance of excision. The judgment of Christendom is sure, and the moral signs of its approach manifest. It is a fond “conceit” that its end on earth will be spiritual beauty and glory, enlargement universally, or the overthrow of its enemies. Babylon will be judged finally and unsparingly; Jerusalem will be restored to such blessing and glory as it never had under David or Solomon, to such as only the One greater than either can and will effect. Of this glorious consummation the prophets sing in full chorus.
Ours is quite another destiny. The body of Christ on earth, as united to our Head in heaven, we shall be His bride, the heavenly Eve of the Last Adam. King is His relation to Israel, as He will be of all the nations. Never is He so spoken of in relation to the Christian or the church: we are one with Him, and shall reign with Him. Hence He is said to be given as Head to the church over all things. The traditional confusion, of which this pious bishop was the exponent, as many others are to-day, loses sight of our peculiar relationship, its present privileges and future hopes; as it denies to Israel its distinctive and pledged promises, is a deep wound to God's predictions, and descends for the church from heaven to earth. And what havoc and perversion for God's word, Old and New!