IV. —THE WORLD WITHOUT THE CHURCH
Resuming now the instruction which the chapter affords us, notice that it deals with a “beginning of sorrows” and the “time of the end.” Wars and disasters are “the beginning of sorrows,” “but the end is not yet” (vers. 6-8). Lower down, the Lord announces that the time of the end will commence at the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom in all the world. “The end” is not the end of the church-period set forth in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18 when the Lord comes for the church, but the end of the age when the Lord comes and appears to the world. This it may be well to elucidate, though to some the subject may be familiar. Christ's coming or appearing to the world is as the coming of the lightning out of the cast, and its shining unto the west (ver. 27). “Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him” (Revelation 1:7). “They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30).
Now another Scripture says, when He “shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). If therefore the saints of the present time appear with Christ when He appears, it follows that they must. have been taken to be with Him before; and this indeed is what is specifically announced in 1 Thessalonians 4. Are there then two comings, one for the church, the other afterward, public to the world? No; there is only one coming. But Scripture shows that the saints of the present period meet the Lord in the air, prior to His manifestation to the world. To take an illustration. When the Governor holds a levee, His Excellency receives privately in a drawing-room a short time before the public reception, persons of rank and distinction who have the privilege of entree, such as judges, executive councilors, and high officers of state. Then, attended by this distinguished cortege, the Governor proceeds to the public room. It is one levee, but when the Governor appears to the public he does so attended by the persons of high position who have been received in private a little while before. This is in exact analogy with the Lord's coming, and is consistent with the whole of Scripture-testimony on the subject. The saints of the present period meet the Lord privately as it were, at His coming, before He appears in public to the world.
There is no reason to suppose, and there is no Scripture to show, that this resurrection of the dead in Christ, and their being caught away into heaven together with those who are alive on earth at the moment, will be visible to mortal eyes. Indeed, the Lord's ascension is, in the first chapter of the Acts, specifically stated to be a model of His return. It is said (ver. 11), “This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” Here is announced, not merely His coming again, but the manner of the coming; and Christ's ascension, mighty an event as it was, was not public to the world. He left Jerusalem and led His disciples out as far as Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, and thence from among the privileged disciples, He ascended to the Father. It was a sight enjoyed by His own privately; and so with the descent of Christ into the air, and our rising to meet Him. It will not be viewed by the world, for when Christ appears, we appear with Him in glory. And again, as a cloud received the Lord, so we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air. Further, we have a type of the church's rapture in that of Elijah, which was not viewed by the world any more than was the ascent of the Lord Jesus. It was beheld only by Elisha and a company of the sons of the prophets (2 Kings 2).
Perhaps the reader feels that the rapture of the church to heaven while the world goes on as before, is an event very strange, if not difficult of credence. But already in the world's history it has had typical foreshadowings; for Enoch and Elijah were both caught away to heaven without dying. The former, Enoch, is a remarkable type, for while he was translated before the judgment of the flood fell on the world—in this a figure of the church—Noah, type of the Jewish remnant, was left behind to preach righteousness and pass through the judgment.
There are Scriptures too, on this subject, like others previously explained in these pages, around which misunderstandings have clustered. But it is the misunderstandings of the scriptures, not the scriptures themselves, which hinder a clear view of the rapture of the church. One of those difficulties is connected with the expression “at the last trump” in 1 Corinthians 15, viz., “Behold, I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (vers. 51, 52). Many have supposed that the expression “the last trump” must refer to the solemn closing up of all human affairs, when the wicked dead will be raised to stand before the “great white throne” (Revelation 20). But this is quite a mistake. The phrase embodies a figure drawn from a usage of the Roman army, and we all know Paul's liking for military figures. The last trump was the signal to march. The first trumpet was for the lowering of the tents in the camp; on the second, the army took marching order; then, on the last trump, they all started. This is the sense in which the summons is “the last trump.” The church's testimony below will have been finished, the dead in Christ will have been raised “for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible” —then, “we [the living] shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” That it is not the last trump in the popular acceptation is certain, for the wicked dead will not be raised until the second resurrection, more than a thousand years after this. “The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5).
Nor is there any reason to suppose that this trump will be heard by others than those for whom it is intended. In our understanding of such passages we are too much limited by our natural ideas, and think that because there is a loud sound all must hear it; but even with the human voice, only those who have the requisite faculty will hear. If deaf, they do not hear. That trump will be of a nature and have a direction by which it will reach all for whom it is intended, while the self-engrossed world will be going on, building and planting, buying and selling, oblivious to divine and heavenly transactions taking place above their heads. Even now the voice of the Son of God is sounding in the gospel, and they that “hear” it live, but all do not “hear” it (John 5:25). They hear indeed the preached gospel, but the divine voice in it they have no faculty to perceive. Like the soldiers who were with Saul at his conversion, they heard a sound (Acts 9:7), but, as Paul states, “they heard not the voice of him that spake to me” (Acts 22:9).
The analogous passage in 1 Thessalonians 4 has been similarly misunderstood; but many misapprehensions of scripture arise from lack of close attention to its words. Thus, verse 16 says that “the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout.” But the expression in the original (κελεύσμα) means a particular kind of shout. “It is used for a general's call to his soldiers, for an admiral's to his sailors, or sometimes more generally as a cry to incite or encourage.” Obviously the last is not the sense, while the former—a general or an admiral calling to his men—suits the case exactly. Dr. Weymouth translates it “a loud word of command,” which, though periphrastic, gives the sense better than the hare word “shout” in the Authorized or Revised Versions. Mr. Darby's rendering is “an assembling shout"; Mr. Kelly's “a shout of command.”
From all this it will be plain that the word in the text does not at all convey the idea of a shout that will be heard through the universe. Just as a general's command is heard by his own forces, but not by the foe, so will be the blissful shout which will be heard by the redeemed. The Lord will descend into mid-air and gather His own, dead and living, to Himself, leaving the world to proceed in its course. Archangel's voice will also be there, probably marshalling angelic hosts who will attend that wondrous pageant.
To create the orbs that roll in space was glorious, but to exhibit in heavenly splendor countless millions of souls who had fallen under the dominion of death through sin, this is surpassing glory! Their sins cannot bar them, for they are without blame in the presence of Him who died for them. “It is God that justifieth! Who is he that condemneth?” Death cannot now retain them! At the “keleusma” of Christ they will burst its bonds; “the gates of hades shall not prevail against” His church. It was to this event that Christ's words pointed forward, not to the earthly success of the Church of Rome. Outwardly the true church may seem to be defeated. Men may point in scorn at Christianity. But the church will yet be seen in glory, and in glorious unity. Then, and in heaven, will be the church's triumph, not now and upon earth. Reader, where are you and I looking for success? Upon earth or in heaven? “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God... When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:1-4).
Let us now endeavor to seize what the state of things on earth will be after the church will have gone to heaven. No doubt the unexplained absence of a considerable number of persons must cause remark. In the catalog of Adam's descendants in the fifth of Genesis, the phrase “and he died” is the melancholy close to the mention of each individual except one. Death was the universal sentence upon the race. But even so early there was proof of divine power over death. Grace exempted Enoch from the common lot. He “was translated that he should not see death, and” (it is significantly added) “he was not found” (Hebrews 11:5). He had not died, yet was he not to be found!—in this a type of the church. In the similar type furnished by the translation of Elijah there was, except on the part of Elisha, perplexity as to the event, and search for him was made upon the mountains. There will come a day on earth when there will be the mysterious absence of a number of known persons, and who yet will not have died! This puzzling occurrence, however, may soon be forgotten, and the more so as, from the intense earthliness of the time, there will be every motive to put it out of mind. It may perhaps be a nine days' wonder, leading only to a deeper plunge into ungodliness. In the world too at this time there will probably be a short period of delusive peace, as already stated.
Without asking the reader to go at all deeply into the Revelation, it may be useful to explain just so much of its construction as is almost necessary to elucidate the present subject. The strictly prophetic part of the Apocalypse begins with chap. 6, the first five chapters being introductory. There are two main ways of interpreting the prophecy, each of them true in principle. That is, the prophecy has an inchoate as well as a complete fulfillment, and may be interpreted with reference to either. This is so with other prophecies as well. For example, Peter in the 2nd chapter of Acts applies Joel's prophecy of the outpouring of the Spirit to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now Joel's prophecy goes on to events which have not yet happened— “wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath,” etc.—and it will be noticed that Peter does not say that the prophecy was then fulfilled. He says, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.” It was of the character and nature of that prophecy. An incipient accomplishment, the fulfillment is even yet future. So with the Revelation. The announcement, for example, in chap. 11:15, that “the kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,” may refer in the first instance to that great event, the public acknowledgment of Christianity under Constantine, and the formal expulsion of idolatry from the imperial nation. But the proper, the full accomplishment, is yet to come, and will not be until Christ reigns over the whole world in the millennium. Thus the Revelation has a legitimate application to past history, while its full accomplishment is yet to be. The former has unfortunately given rise to much speculation, because the allocation of historical events to the prophecies affords scope not only for proper and sober consideration, but also for mere ingenuity and imagination, and it is these latter that have brought a measure of discredit on the study of the book. The past application of the Apocalypse may be, and indeed is, an interesting study, but that which is of living importance to the church to-day is what lies yet in the future—how near a future we do not know.
The division of the book, on its own authority (chap. 1:19), is into three parts, viz.—
1.—The things which thou hast seen” —i.e. the vision already given in chap. 1.
2.—The things which are” —i.e. the existing things of the church period, shown under the figure of the seven churches in chaps. 2, 3.
3.—The things which shall be after these (μετὰ ταῦτα)” —i.e. the really prophetic part of the book from chap. 4 to the end.
Now in the latter view of the Revelation just referred to, sometimes called the Futurist, the seven churches of chaps. ii., iii., cover the whole period from Pentecost to the rapture of the church. That is, the beginning of the church is the first-love of Ephesus; and subsequently varying phases of church history are represented until in Laodicea the dead profession is spued out by Christ, the living saints having been caught up to heaven. It follows from this that the whole of the third division of the Revelation is yet future, consisting, as it avowedly does, of things which shall be after the “things that are.” Chapters 4, 5 are introductory to the last division of the book (as chap. 1 is to chaps. 2, 3.). When the Lamb takes the book in chap. 5 then only does the roll of events upon the earth commence to be unfolded.
In this view then of the Revelation, the point of interest for us in connection with the prophecy in Matthew is, that both these prophecies have their commencement after the rapture of the church. The first events to happen upon the earth are contained in a book “sealed with seven seals.” The seven are divided into two parts—four and three. On the opening of each of the first four a horse with a rider is seen, and the color of each horse gives the character of the vision. The horse as a prophetic figure always denotes conquering power, while the throne indicates power in session. The horse in ancient times was used almost exclusively for war, not as a beast of burden, and hence the significance of the figure. Be it observed that the judgments of the seals are not direct inflictions by God, but occur providentially. The rising of a great leader, such as we shall see under the seals, might occur without any outward indication that it was ordained by prophecy. The Lord's interposition is not visible, though the first seal is introduced by a voice of thunder, which may possibly intimate the voice of the Almighty to him who has “an ear to hear” (Psalm 18:13; John 12:29).
The first seal has a specially interesting character, not only because of its being the first in the series of the events, but because of the peaceful time which it foreshadows. A remarkable personage arises—a rider on a white horse—who goes forth conquering and to conquer, that is, he has a career of astonishing and continuous success, his victories being distant as well as near, and comparatively peaceful, as has been already explained. He does not appear to be a royal personage at first, but a crown is given to him; this in striking contrast with the next seal, where the horse is red, and to the rider was given not a crown but a great sword, and it was given to him to “take peace from the earth.” Thus, succeeding the rapture of the church, there appears to be under the first seal a momentary hush over the world. Men will not know the reason of this. Christianity as a vital force being got rid of, and this great statesman or conqueror having arisen, they may think that a millennium of prosperity without God is dawning on the world. But Scripture shows us that the winds of judgment are restrained until the servants of God have been scaled in their foreheads. That is the reason of the calm. “God is behind the scenes, but He moves the scenes which He is behind.” So far, however, there will have been no divine interference with the world's material prosperity: possibly, indeed, that prosperity may be enhanced by the political measures of the rider on the white horse; certainly it may be favored by the restraint of judgment during the sealing of the remnant of Israel in Revelation 7.
It should be observed that the two visions of Revelation 7 form no part of the sequence of the seals. The sixth seal has been opened, and the seventh seal is not come to until the 8th chapter these visions being introduced as something separate, as it says: “After this I saw,” etc. They are a parenthesis or intercalation between the sixth and seventh seals. Indeed they could not form part of the seals, for they are different in nature. The seals are judgments; these visions are visions of remarkable grace—to Israel first, and also to the Gentiles. There is a moral beauty in this interruption. The seal judgments are rolling on; the sixth has been reached; but the Lord stops the procession to exhibit this magnificent display of grace—in wrath He remembers mercy. But this obviously leaves quite open the question of where, chronologically, the two visions of Revelation 7 have their place. Their occurrence between the sixth and seventh seals is not decisive. But the command, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads,” seems to assign the sealing to the quiet time of the First Seal, or possibly even before. The ingathering of the Gentile multitude, however, would probably be continuous until the coming of the Son of man.
[E. J. T.]
(To be continued)