AT a time like the present, so full of events crowding themselves together in the history of this present age—an age which ends with consequences so deep and solemn to the world, and so full of blessing to the Christian, and to the Church of God—it is a blessing from the Lord to have our minds directed towards the prophetic word, and to the ways of God. It is said of the prophetic word, that unto it “ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.” It is desired as briefly as is consistent with the end in view, and as the Lord may graciously afford guidance and blessing to our need; to bring before the mind of the people of God the general scope of the great dispensational dealings of God, which it has pleased Him, in His infinite grace, to make known to us in His word, so as to display those dealings in government, grace, and glory. In this way some may be enabled to follow those dealings in their consecutive order, as nearly as such may be followed, so as to grasp the purposes of God thus revealed.
Truly we may say, we only “know in part;” but the Lord is very gracious, and waits on our slowness to learn.
It is not pretended to give a complete view of the details of these things, but such as may lead the mind to a closer searching after the more minute details, details in the word of God, and a more perfect apprehension of His purposes and ways.
In carrying out such a desire, many truths, well known of late amongst the Lord's people, will be before us—needfully so—that the more important parts may not be forgotten or omitted, in the consecutive order of God's ways. And should it be found that it is necessary to depart from this order, it will be but to link together more fully and clearly the events, that the mind may be enabled to pass along the chain without leaving a link behind.
The purpose of these papers is to put the truth plainly and simply before the mind from Scripture, for “godly edifying which is in faith;” not to combat with error, however useful and necessary such may by in its season. For it is strongly felt that, when the truth with its clear and perfect light shines into the soul, it dispels the darkness around, and finds a resting place in the heart that desires to be subject to the word of God. May the consideration of these truths prove a blessing from Him, who alone can bless; and may He enable us to live in the power of the things which are unseen and eternal, and abundantly bless His own word!
In searching into these subjects, a very large scope of Scripture will be before us, besides the prophetic scriptures, which embrace five great distinct subjects, viz.—first, the corruption or ruin of Israel; secondly, judgment following the ruin; thirdly, the times of the Gentiles; fourthly, the crisis of the world's history; fifthly, the glory or kingdom. I would premise one remark upon 2 Peter 1:20: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” There have been certain partial fulfillments of prophecy in times past, which, no doubt, bore largely upon them the features of the occurrences to which, when fulfilled, in a primary application, they referred; but if we were to say that their scope ended there, we should miss the mind of the Spirit in the subject of the scripture, and make it of private interpretation. Prophecy begins in the mind and counsels of God, and only ends in His own glory to be revealed and perfected and displayed in His Son; it links together two things, the counsels of God and their accomplishment in Christ. We cannot, therefore, begin at a subsequent point, or stop at any one prior to the end, without losing its great aim. No matter how exact may have been the apparent fulfillment of certain prophecies, when we come to examine the details, we are sure to find features which clearly show that, when God was pleased to use the circumstances that were coming, or that were then before Him, He has always shown that He had other thoughts in view reaching on to the accomplishment of His full purposes and glory, of which the matter before Him served as a type. Prophecy, too, is occupied about earthly events, not about heavenly. “There is one glory of the celestial and another glory of the terrestrial” truly; but prophecy is silent as to “the mystery which, from the beginning of the world, had been hid in God.” “The mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest.” “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”
I.—The General Scope of the Dealings of God.
With reference to this subject, we will refer to three scriptures as follow: “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” (Gal. 4:4.) “In the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in him; in whom we also have obtained an inheritance.” (Eph. 1:10, 11.) “And the angel sware by him that liveth forever and ever that there should be time (delay) no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” (Rev. 10:6, &c.) These three portions of Scripture mark out three great leading events or epochs of God's dealings towards the world: the first of them is past, and the two others manifestly future; the difference in the two last lying in this, that the one ends when the other begins. We shall now endeavor to ascertain from Scripture, to what past dealings and ways of God the expression in Galatians refers, “When the fullness of time was come.” We must, consequently, take a general glance at the past history of the world as revealed to us.
We turn to Gen. 1; 2, and there we find that God, having created the man and woman, bestows upon them the “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” A universal dominion bestowed upon them over all created things. We pass on to Gen. 3, and there we find that Satan had come in and succeeded in obtaining this headship through man who had fallen, and through his lusts, when estranged from God. To Adam alive and innocent had been given a law upon the observing of which the retention of the blessings and dominion depended, and which would, as a creature, have kept him in his proper place of subjection to God. Adam thus fallen hears a promise, that the woman's seed (which he was not) should, in due time, bruise the head of Satan, who had thus obtained the headship by his deceit; and thus he passes out from the presence of God. “So he drove out the man.” Then begins the probation of man in this condition, which lasted about four thousand years, till “the fullness of the time was come.”
For about sixteen or seventeen hundred years of this time of trial men are left to themselves (God never leaving Himself without a witness) till the flood, when the earth was “corrupt before God, and was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt: for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world” having been” clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead,” leaving them “without excuse.” And so God said, “The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them: and behold I will destroy them with the earth.” “And so he brought in the flood upon the world of the ungodly... and the world that then was being overflowed with water perished,” and thus ended the trial of man left to himself.
Noah and his family are saved through this judgment, and we find him on the earth thus cleansed. Into his hand is given the “sword;” government is entrusted to him— “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man.” Noah thus entrusted, began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of wine, and was drunken; thus losing, morally, the position in which he had been placed by God.
The worship of devils began. Men, when they knew God, “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imagination, and their foolish heart was darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God.”
Self-will thus fills the heart of men—self-will that would prove a center in itself, having lost the link which linked it to God, the only center of good: men unite to make a center of unity apart from God. “Let us build a city and a tower, whose top may reach to heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered about upon the face of the whole earth.” Man would call this unity, God calls it confusion, (Babel,) and He goes down and scatters men abroad, giving them the restraint of tongues, “an iron band round men.”
When the world had thus gone into idolatry, “and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever;” God separated to Himself one man, Abraham, and in him a family, a nation, that He might (amongst other counsels) place man under another test, on new ground. In course of time He separates this nation of Israel from the world (Egypt) to Himself, giving them thus separated, Himself dwelling amongst them, His law. This law represented to man the rule of his responsibility as a sinner, and also represented the authority of God. Ignorant of themselves, they accept it as the condition of their relationship with God; the law-giver goes to receive it, and before the conditions are named, those who accept the conditions, set up a golden calf and worship it as their God, and fail! God then puts the law into the hands of a mediator and adds the conditions of longsuffering and mercy to its claims. The history of the nation of Israel, thus set on new ground, gives us the result of this fresh trial of man. It lasted till the captivity in Babylon. During that time of trial we listen to the pleading voice of the prophets and messengers of God, striving to win back the rebellious people to the observation of the conditions of their relationship with Him, and to keep the law that defined them. “But they,” says the prophet, “like Adam, have transgressed the covenant; they have dealt treacherously against me.” (Hos. 5:7.) They broke the covenant upon which the blessings depended, as Adam had done.
Man now gets another trial. Supreme power is put into his hand. Universal dominion is given into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon: “Thou, O king, art a king of kings; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory; and wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all.” (Dan. 2:37, 38.) How then will he use it? Will it be to the glory and honor of Him from whom he had received it? The result is known. Lifted up in pride of heart, he makes of himself a center, and for a religious and idolatrous unity apart from God persecutes His people. Lifted up in pride he says, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty.” (Dan. 4:30.) He loses his moral reason and becomes a beast!
And now into this wilderness of the world, into the spot where God had put His vineyard and planted His vine, that it might bring forth fruit for Him—the vineyard that He had fenced and gathered out the stones, and planted with His choicest vine, and of which He could say, “What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?” and when He looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes, with all His care and culture, “the degenerate plant of a strange vine:” —into the moral wilderness of this world, and into that little spot on which He had bestowed such care, came His last trial of man!
“I have one Son, it may be they will reverence him when they see him.” The tale is soon told: they gave Him a cross when He came to seek His crown! They gave Him spitting when He came to seek for fruit! And thus ended the probation of four thousand years under every form of trial; the fullness of time was come! Man cannot now say that one single way was left untried of God; he is left without excuse. The fullness of time was come, and God sent forth His son. The Son came to seek and to save that which was lost! He took the twofold position: “made of a woman,” through whom sin had entered; “made under the law,” through which men were under condemnation, “to redeem them that were under the law,” that we might receive the adoption of sons; that God might display the exceeding riches of His grace to those who were poor and miserable through sin. The result to those that believe is, “We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
To such His purpose is revealed: “That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him; in whom also we have obtained an inheritance.” And when these fullness of times shall have run their course, the strong angel shall sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, that there shall be no longer delay, and that when the seventh angel should sound, the “mystery of God” should be finished. (Rev. 10) “And 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 forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15.)
Let us now look at these “times” that are running on to their “fullness.” “The fullness of time” is evidently past; the “dispensation of the fullness of times” plainly future.
1. It is now the time of the testimony of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, and the gathering together of the joint-heirs for Him, in whom we have obtained an inheritance; the time when God's secret work is progressing, fitting the spiritual stones to His spiritual house.
2. The time of the Church suffering in brokenness and weakness here below, in the kingdom and patience of Jesus.
3. The time of confusion and misrule, when judgment is so far separated from righteousness, that when the only righteous One stood before the judgment-seat, owning that the power which was there was given of God: “Thou couldst have no power at all, unless it were given thee from above” —it condemned the Guiltless!
4. The time of the blindness of the beloved people, the vail being over their face, the fullness of the Gentiles being gathered in.
5. The time of the Gentile domination, when the great image of Daniel has not yet received the blow upon his feet from the stone cut out without hands.
6. The time when the whole creation groans and travails in pain, waiting for the manifestation of the sons and heirs of God.
7. The time when Satan goes about, a roaring lion unbound, seeking whom he may devour; whose voice we hear in the evil spirits, “torment us not before the time.”
8. The time of the “mystery of God,” when He bears with much longsuffering the evil, without judging it; when wickedness is in high places, and goodness trampled under foot; when falsehood triumphs, and truth is fallen in the streets.
9. And the time when Jesus, rejected by the world, sits at God's right hand, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool.
But we must now retrace our steps. We saw that man had lost the headship and dominion given to him in Gen. 1; 2 We turn to Psa. 8 and find that there is a “Son of man” on whom this dominion is bestowed. “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea.” Who is this “Son of man?” and when is this dominion to be exercised and enjoyed? Heb. 2 answers us: “Unto angels hath he not put in subjection the habitable earth to come, (οικουμενη,) whereof we speak; but one in a certain place testified saying, What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honor, thou didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.... We see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus. crowned with glory and honor.” it is in the age to come this dominion is to be exercised and enjoyed by Him who is also the “Son of man,” now “crowned with glory and honor.”
We turn to Eph. 1:19-23, and find the apostle again quoting the same Psalm. He speaks of the exceeding greatness of the power which was wrought in Christ “when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” We learn from this and other portions of chapters 1-4, that, while He is exalted thus, a body is being formed for Him from Jew and Gentile; and that the same power that was put forth to raise Christ and exalt Him as man to God's right hand (He was always the eternal Son, the Word that was with God) is put forth to quicken, raise up, and unite to Him the joint heirs, which form His body the Church.
Again, in 1 Cor. 15:27, the apostle quotes this psalm. Thence we learn that this dominion is accomplished in resurrection, the resurrection of the saints from among the dead, of which the chapter treats; that when that day comes, some shall not have been laid asleep by Jesus, but all (living and dead) shall be changed. It is at that period that the dispensation of the fullness of times shall have course, and God shall have gathered together all things in heaven and earth in Christ: and when the saying shall be brought to pass, “death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians ay. 54; Isa. 25:8.) Then He shall proceed, as we find by the kindred passages of Isaiah, to bring in the blessing of the earthlies; and then the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, “when the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.”
We find this in Isa. 24-26 The world and its systems brought under judgment, when it will reel to and fro like a drunkard under the judgment of God. When He will punish the host of the high ones that are on high Satan and his hosts shall then be cast out of the heavenlies (Rev. 12), after having so long obscured and hindered the blessing from God. The kings of the earth shall be punished on the earth, when they are gathered together against the King of kings and Lord of lords. (Rev. 19) This universal judgment makes way for the establishment of His throne in Zion. “in that mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all nations a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. He will remove the vail that is spread ever all nations. He will take away the rebuke of His people Israel, the remnant of the nation that have waited for Him, who was “the strength to the poor, and the strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, and a shadow from the heat, when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” He will bring the branch of the terrible ones low, and cause “the feet of the poor, and the steps of the needy” remnant of His people to “tread it down,” and teach them in that day of their deliverance and restoration to sing this song in the land of Judah, “We have a strong city, salvation will God appoint for walls and bulwarks.” The whole three chapters are of exceeding beauty, showing what the Lord will do at the day when the saying is brought to pass, “Death is swallowed up in victory,” when all that has been marred and destroyed in the hands of the first Adam, shall be made good in the last Adam,” and when He shall exercise the headship of Psa. 8 taken as Redeemer-Heir—the joint-heirs united to Him, when the name of the Lord shall be excellent in all the earth; and His glory, not only as King in Zion, but that which He has set above the heavens shall be displayed in the heavens and the earth, at “the times of the restitution of all things.”
In fine we see that man has destroyed himself; every fresh trial only proving how complete has been his ruin and failure. He has sinned away his blessings as soon as he has received them. We see that God will make good in a far higher sense, and to His own glory, everything that man has ruined, and under which he has failed, in the Son of man—the second Adam—in Christ! What we have considered embraces only the period of probation up to the cross and rejection of God Himself in the person of Christ. We shall see, in considering over other subjects, this humiliating, yet necessary, discovery, more clearly brought out. True it is that man—the first Adam—was as really lost and ruined at the day of Gen. 3 as in his rejection of Christ; but it was this which brought out definitely the enmity of his heart to God and good. Before the cross there was no distinct proof of this. He had failed in many a patient trial from God; but his ruin was fully proved, when God, gentle, humane, loving, full of grace and truth, came into his midst and was rejected in the person of Jesus Christ!