By James H. Brookes
NO MILLENNIUM TILL CHRIST COMES. -
PART 5
The discussion which occupies the preceding
chapter, although far from exhaustive, has been so extended, but little space
can be given to other Scriptures that demand, at least, a passing notice. It was
necessary, however, to consider at some length the passage that has been
examined, because upon a natural and fair interpretation of its words,
Pre-millennialists are willing to rest their case. It is not denied that it was
the precise object of the Apostle to warn the Thessalonians against the error of
supposing that the literal and personal advent of Christ was at hand, or had
come. He goes on to show them that this literal and personal advent could not
be, until an apostasy first comes, terminating in the revelation of the man of
sin, or the lawless one, who shall be destroyed by the brightness of His coming.
As it is admitted by all that the Apostle had in view the literal and personal
advent, in correcting the mistake into which his brethren had fallen, and as it
is admitted by all that he predicts what must occur before the literal and
personal advent can take place, is it not perfectly obvious that he refers to
the literal and personal advent when he speaks of the brightness of Christ’s
coming? If a community were thrown into violent agitation by a rumor that a
distinguished personage was about to arrive or had already arrived, and a herald
of this personage should announce that he would not appear until certain events
had transpired, surely it would not be admissible to suppose that the herald
meant by his appearing some sort of spiritual coming, or something wholly unlike
a personal presence.
But suppose the herald, in his proclamation, should
refer to the coming of this personage twelve distinct times, and in eleven of
these instances it is universally understood and admitted that the coming is
literal and personal. Surely it would not be admissible to take it for granted,
without the authority of the herald himself, that in the twelfth instance he did
not allude to a real coming, but to an influence exerted through the agency of
another. Yet this is what we have in the Epistles to the Thessalonians. Twelve
times reference is made to the coming of Christ, and in eleven of these
instances, all agree that the coming is literal and personal. It is certainly a
dangerous principle of interpretation which leads so many to say that, in the
twelfth instance, the coming is not to be taken in this sense; and especially
when it has been proved that the word “brightness” as elsewhere used in the New
Testament invariably means
appearing, and the word “coming” as elsewhere used in the New Testament
invariably refers to a personal presence. Add to this that the mystery of
iniquity at work in the Apostle’s day would increase until its culmination in
the man of sin who is to be
destroyed, not converted, but destroyed by the appearing of Christ, and
it seems impossible that the Millennium can intervene before the second advent
of our Lord.
(5). Glancing backward a little through the Sacred
Scriptures, we are told that “the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth
for the manifestation of the sons of God. . . . For we know that the whole
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they,
but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body,” (Rom. viii; 19-23). Dr. Hodge says the word here translated “creature”
and “creation” means “the creation, in the popular sense of that word—the earth,
with all it contains, animate and inanimate, man excepted;” and he also says
this “is the opinion of the great majority of Commentators of all ages.” Haldane
says, “Creatures destitute of intelligence, animate and inanimate, the heavens
and the earth, the elements, the plants and animals, are here referred to.”
Lange says, “even the poor creatures, whose heads are bowed toward the ground,
now seized by a higher impulse, by a supernatural anticipation and longing, seem
to stretch out their heads and look forth spiritually for a spiritual object of
their existence;” and at the close of the discussion, the American translator
adds, “it is so natural to refer this phrase to the glorification of the body at
the coming of Christ, that it is unnecessary to state arguments in favor of this
reference.”
That the redemption of the body will not take place
until the literal and personal advent of Christ is a truth held fast by every
Church and by every class of expositors. The whole creation, therefore, is said
to be looking forward with sad, longing gaze and outstretched neck, not to an
impersonal reign of righteousness, but to the redemption of our body, and hence,
to the coming of Christ as the end of its travailing throes. But if inanimate
creation will not be delivered from the curse until the second coming of Christ,
how certain it is that there can be no Millennium before His personal advent!
What incongruity there would be, what shocking disharmony would prevail, if the
songs of regenerated mankind, rejoicing in the knowledge of the glory of God
that shall cover the earth as the waters cover the seas, must mingle for a
thousand years with the groans of suffering creation! Alford says, “the idea of
the renovation and glorification of all nature, at the revelation of the glory
of our returned Saviour, will need no apology, nor seem strange to the readers
of this commentary, nor to the students of the following, and many other
passages of the prophetic word: Isa. xi; lxv; Rev. xxi; 2 Pet. iii: 13; Acts
iii: 21.” Dr. Chalmers says of the creation mentioned in the passage under
consideration, “Meanwhile it is in sore labour; and the tempest’s sigh, and the
meteor’s flash, and not more the elemental war than the conflict and the agony
that are upon all spirits—the vexing care, and the heated enterprise, and the
fierce emulation, and the battle-cry both that rings among the inferior tribes
throughout the amplitude of unpeopled nature and that breaks as loudly upon the
ear from the shock of civilized men—above every thing the death, the sweeping,
irresistible death, which makes such havoc among all the ranks of animated
nature, and carries off as with a flood jts successive generations—these are the
now overhanging evils of a world that has departed from its God.” But if these
evils are to continue until the second coming of the Lord, surely there can be
no Millennium except one that will fill the heart of the Christian with constant
sorrow, before the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ. Then, and not till
then, according to the plain testimony of the Apostle will come the millennial
rest of the creature that “was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by
reason of one who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty
of the children of God.”
(6). We read, in Peter’s address to the Jews soon
after the day of Pentecost, “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your
sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the
presence of the Lord: and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached
unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all
things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the
world began,” (Acts iii: 19-21). The word translated
when in the first verse of this passage occurs more than fifty times in
the New Testament, and is never elsewhere rendered as it is here. Dr. J. A.
Alexander says “when corresponds to a compound particle in Greek, which
always elsewhere, like the uncompounded form when followed by the same mood,
denotes the final cause or the effect (so that, in order that).” He adds
that the English version, “besides its violation of a uniform and constant
usage, has the grave inconvenience of postponing their repentance, or at least
their absolution, to some future time, if not to what we are accustomed to call
Christ’s second advent.” Alford says, “it can have but one sense—in order
that.”
The Apostle, then, does not call upon the Jews to
repent when the times of refreshing shall come, but
so that, in order that the times of refreshing may come from the presence
of the Lord, and He may send Jesus Christ, whom the heaven must receive until
the times of restitution of all things. In other words, just as in his sermon on
the day of Pentecost, he leaps forward in the eagerness of his desire to the
close of the dispensation of which lie was then witnessing the commencement, and
declares that “the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before that great and notable day of the Lord come,” so here, in his own
striking language, he would hasten the coming of the day of God, by urging the
Jews to repent, so that the times of refreshing might come, and the heaven might
give back Jesus who must remain away until the times of restitution or
restoration of all things, which had formed the theme of all the holy prophets
since the world began. What impression would this language make upon an
unprejudiced reader of the Bible, who had never heard of any theory concerning
the Millennium.? When he learns that the heaven must receive Christ
until the times of restitution of all things, would he infer that Christ
will be in heaven until the end of these times, or until the
beginning?
Suppose an absent friend, for whose presence you
are longing, should write that he must stay where he is until Spring, or the
times of the renewing of nature after the sleep of winter, would you suppose
that he meant the beginning, or the end of Spring.? Is it not apparent that the
very purpose of sending Jesus Christ from heaven is to bring about the
restitution of all things, instead of appearing at the close of these times.?
Those who reject this view insist that the restitution of all things means the
fulfillment of all things; but in the first place, the argument proves too much;
for among the all things to be fulfilled are the resurrection of the dead, and
the final judgment; and it will not be said by any that Christ must stay away
until a period subsequent to these events. It is certain, therefore, that He
will come in person before all things are fulfilled. In the second place, the
word translated “restitution” does not mean fulfillment. Robinson’s Lexicon of
the New Testament defines it as “a full establishment; hence restoration,
restitution from decay or ruin.” Bagster defines it as “a restitution or
restoration of a thing to its former state; hence the renovation of a new and
better era.” Liddell and Scott’s Classical Lexicon defines it as “a complete
restoration, re-establishment, restitution.” Alford says, “Certainly,
to restore is its usual import, and most strikingly so, accompanied
however with the notion of a
glorious and complete restoration, in chap, i: 6. To render our
word
fulfillment, and apply it to all things which God hath spoken by the
mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began, is against all precedent.
And in the sense of
restoration, I can not see how it can be applied to the work of the
Spirit, as proceeding, during this the interim-state in the hearts of men. This
would be contrary to all Scripture analogy.”
It seems clear that the Apostle Peter is referring
to the same period mentioned by the Apostle Paul, when he represents the whole
creation as groaning and travailing together in pain, waiting for the redemption
of the body at the coming of Christ. Every thing connected with man shared in
the curse pronounced against our first parents on account of their sin. It is
not true that the threatened penalty of death was arrested, or even delayed
after their transgression, but the moment they plucked the forbidden fruit, they
became dead; not injured merely, not retaining a spark of divine life, as it is
sometimes said, not placed on the ground of a new probation; but they became
dead in trespasses and sins, and the pall of that death reached to their
remotest posterity, and to all that had been subject to their dominion. Where
sin abounded, however, grace did much more abound, and it pleased God to send
His Son, “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil,” and “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” In
virtue of His mediatorial work. He acquired, as Head of the new creation in whom
believers have life, an indefeasible title to that province of His boundless
empire which revolted from His authority; and here upon the arena of His
adversary’s choosing. He will win a glorious triumph over Satan. This is the
object of the millennial dispensation. All the departments of nature, involved
in the consequences of the first man’s shameful defeat, must exhibit the fruits
of the second man’s magnificent victory; and to inaugurate the restoration,
again will it please God to send His Son, whom the heaven must receive until the
times of restitution of all things. When those times begin He will come, and
therefore, there can be no Millennium worthy the name before His return to the
earth.
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