By James H. Brookes
NO MILLENNIUM TILL CHRIST COMES. -
PART 7
(10). The discourse of our Lord in the twenty-
fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew, although previously noticed, is so
important in its bearing upon the question before us, that it demands renewed
consideration. It does not seem to be the same discourse which is recorded in
the twenty-first chapter of Luke. In the twentieth chapter of the latter gospel
we find that “He taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel.” So
in the twenty-first chapter He is seen in the temple, where “He looked up, and
saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.” It further appears that
while still there, “as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly
stones,” He delivered the discourse recorded by Luke, which refers, as has been
shown, so largely to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and to its continued
desolation, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled, and the Son of Man
shall come in a cloud with power and great glory. Accordingly Luke tells us what
was said by our Lord while He taught in the temple, and of course before He left
the city.
Matthew, however, tells us what He said on the
Mount of Olives to a few of His disciples after He had withdrawn from public
view, sorrowfully exclaiming, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the
prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her
wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say
unto you. Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord,” (Matt, xxiii; 37-39). personal ministry,
therefore, was ended at the time of the discourse lecorded by Matthew, and He
had gone forth in deep grief from the doomed city, whose inhabitants shall see
Him no more until they shall look upon Him whom they pierced, and mourn for Him,
as one mourneth for an only son, and be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in
bitterness for his first born.
“And Jesus went out and departed from the temple:
and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And
Jesus said unto them. See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There
shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be throw^n down.
Subsequently “As he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him
privately, saying, Tell us when shall these things be.? and what shall be the
sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world.?” Strictly speaking, there are
three questions here, though probably the disciples, with Jewish pride in the
stability of their magnificent temple, regarded its destruction as possible only
at the second coming of the Lord, and at the end of the world, or of the age, as
the word should have been rendered. Or it may be they had in view what He had
previously said in the temple about its overthrow, and He is led to repeat
substantially the discourse they had already heard, as He frequently did, only
applying it differently to other circumstances and objects. However this may be,
Peter and James and John and Andrew, as Mark informs us, came to Him privately,
as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, saying, “Tell us, when shall these things
be.? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world
[age].?” The answer which follows touches so lightly the destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus, if it touches it at all, that Alford does not hesitate to
entitle the discourse a “Prophecy of His coming, and of the times of the end.”
Lange also says, “in harmony with apocalyptic style, He exhibited the judgments
of His coining in a series of cycles, each of which depicts the whole futurity,
but in such a manner that with every new cycle the scene seems to approximate
to, and more closely resemble the final catastrophe. Thus the first cycle
delineates the whole course of the world down to the end, in its general
characteristics, (verses 4-14).”
He tells them of attempts that will be made to
deceive them; of wars and rumours of wars; of nation rising against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom; of famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes in divers
places, which He declares to be but the beginning of sorrows; of afflictions,
and persecutions, and the scorn of all nations coming upon them; of many among
His professed disciples who shall be offended, and betray one another, and hate
one another, while many shall be deceived; of iniquity abounding, and the love
of many waxing cold; and closes the sad description by saying, “this gospel of
the kingdom shall be preached in all the world [the habitable earth, as the word
means] for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” Truly there
is nothing here that looks like a Millennium, and this state of things shall
continue, we are told, until the end shall come. It is important. too, to
notice, that our Lord does not say that the gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in all the habitable earth for the conversion of all nations, but for a
witness unto all nations, or as Mark has it, “the gospel must first be published
among all nations,” and the end will be at hand.
Such is the first section, or cycle as Lange calls
it, of the discourse, bringing us to the time of the end when, as may be shown
hereafter, the Church of the present dispensation will be caught up to meet the
Lord in the air, although there will be a faithful remnant of believing Jews
still waiting for the consolation of Israel. To these our Lord next addresses
His warnings, saying, “When ye therefore shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso
readeth let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea flee unto the
mountains: . . . but pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on
the Sabbath day: for there shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those
days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s
sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here
is Christ, or there; believe it not For there shall arise false Christs, and
false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it
were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. . . . For as the
lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even
unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” Truly there is
nothing in this section, as there was nothing in the former, that looks like a
Millennium, but precisely the reverse. There shall be great tribulation, such as
the world never before saw, so severe and wide-spread, that all flesh must be
destroyed except for the shortening of those days; and false Christs and false
prophets shall arise, showing great signs and wonders, which we are told in
Revelation will be witnessed during the reign of the Lawless one; and thus it
will continue up to the lightning-like coming of the Son of Man.
Turning to the passage in Daniel to which our Lord
refers, we read, “At that time [the time of the reign of Antichrist] shall
Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy
people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was
a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people [the Jews] shall be
delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them
that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting contempt. . . . And from the time that the daily
sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up,
there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days [ literal days, as may be
shown]. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and
five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till the end be: for thou shalt rest,
and stand in thy lot at the end of the days,” (Dan. xii).
It is plain, then, that the judgment upon the Jews,
to which both Daniel and our Lord allude, is still future, for at that time
Michael, the great prince, shall stand up in their behalf, and they shall be
delivered; and then too, to adopt the literal rendering of Tregelles, “Many from
among the sleepers of the dust of the earth shall awake; these shall be unto
everlasting life; but those [the rest of the sleepers] shall be unto shame and
everlasting contempt.” It is needless to say that the Jews were not delivered
when they were slaughtered and sold into captivity by Titus, nor was there
anything like the resurrection, mentioned by the prophet, at the destruction of
their sacred city. The reference, therefore, is to a period yet to come, when
the Lawless one so often predicted in the Old and New Testaments, shall have
full sway, and when it will be seen that the overthrow of Jerusalem by the
Romans was only a faint shadow of another and greater tribulation, such as was
never known before and shall never be known again. Jeremiah, for example,
predicts the sufferings that shall then be endured by God’s ancient people, and
exclaims, “Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore
do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all
faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is
like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of
it,” (Jer. xxx: 6, 7). Zechariah also tells us, as previously noticed, that all
nations shall be gathered against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be
taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; but the Lord shall go
forth, and fight against those nations, and His feet shall stand in that day
upon the Mount of Olives.
Many other passages of Scripture speak of this
second and unequalled visitation of wrath that is to fall upon a people still so
inveterate in their prejudices, and so obstinate in their rejection of the
Messiah; but according to the testimony of our Lord what is to occur
immediately after the unparallelled tribulation? A thousand years of
temporal and spiritual prosperity without His personal presence? Let Him answer.
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and
the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken: and then shall appear the sign of the Son
of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great
glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they
shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to
the other,” (Matt, xxiv: 29-31).
It is useless to object that, following these
words, the Saviour says, “this generation shall not pass, till all these things
be fulfilled,” for the objection has- already been effectually set aside; and
surely no intelligent Christian will assert that all these things, including the
mourning of all the tribes of the earth, and the coming of the Son of Man in the
clouds of heaven, and the gathering together of His elect from the four winds,
occurred in the life time of the men then living. The coming is obviously
literal and personal, for the question of the disciples, all admit, was
concerning His literal and personal return to the earth; and twelve times in the
entire discourse does He allude to His second advent, in every instance in a
literal and personal sense, as even post-millennialists agree, unless it be in
the passage last quoted. Does this passage, then, form an exception to the rule?
If not it is certain there can be no Millennium till He comes, for not only is
there a total absence of all allusion to a thousand years of triumph for the
Church, but there is no possible space for such triumph up to the very day that
shall witness the appearing of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven. Each
section or cycle of the discourse running to the close of the present age is
crowded with predictions of continuous trials, and immediately after the great
tribulation Jesus Himself shall come. Hence the remainder of chapter twenty-
four is occupied with solemn admonitions to watchfulness, because of that day
and hour know- eth no man; only we know that the world will be as it was just
before the flood, wholly devoted to the cares of business, the enjoyment of
wealth, and the pursuit of pleasure, and not to the cause of Christ, when He
shall return.
(11). At the beginning of chapter twenty-five we
read, “Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took
their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise,
and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil
with them: but the wise took oil in their Tessels with their lamps. While the
bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.” The particle “then” with
which this passage begins is not a mere connective, but it properly means, as
Alford translates it in his revised New Testament, “at that time.” He also says,
“The obvious question there to ask is, ‘at what time?’ And it will be
best answered by referring to what went before. On doing so, we find that our
Lord had just been speaking of the time during which He, the Master of the
household, should be absent, and His coming expected. . . . And thus in the case
before us we may, if it seem best, regard the time described by Christ as
covering the whole of the period intervening His removal from us and the second
advent; the time during which it might be said by the servant, ‘My Lord delayeth
his coming’; the time, in short, in which we live. The chief and strict
application of the parable may be, and I believe, is, to one portion of that
long interval; but unquestionably, it is not applicable to that portion only,”
(The Coming of the Bridegroom, pp. 6, 7).
But admitting that our Lord had in view, as
probably He did, the state of the Church just before His second advent, it is
said, they all slumbered, or nodded, and slept. Where is there the slightest
intimation that at any time during the entire period of His absence, they shall
be alert and active, covering the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God
as the waters cover the seas, and securing the universal reception of the true
religion for a thousand happy years? It is the merest assumption to assert that
a spiritual Millennium precedes the slumbering at the close, for if this were
true, it is inconceivable that there should not be a hint of it in all tills
remarkable discourse, nor anywhere else in the New Testament. It may well humble
the pride and abate the boastful spirit of the Church to remember that not only
some, but that all slumbered and slept, plainly with reference to our Lord’s
second coming; and it seems that this profound insensibility has already set in
as the result of the dreadful reaction which must necessarily follow the rash
predictions and reckless speculations of so many pre-millennial writers who
confidently asserted that Louis Napoleon was the Antichrist, or who fixed the
very year of our Saviour’s return.
It does not fall within the purpose of this work to
discuss the question whether the foolish virgins represent those who barely have
spiritual life, and, therefore, shall in the end be saved, yet so as by fire; or
whether they are types of hypocrites and self-deceived persons found in the
Church. It is enough to know that the entire number, wise and foolish alike,
nodded and slept, and that when the midnight cry was heard, “Behold the
bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him,” all the virgins had to be aroused
from their slumber to trim their lamps; while one-half of them discovering that
their lamps had gone out, or rather were going out, were unprepared to receive
the Lord, and were consequently excluded from the marriage. It is quite certain,
then, that at the time of His coming the professing Church as a body will not be
in a state of millennial expectation and righteousness and joy; nor can such a
state precede His coming, for in a lengthy discourse confessedly treating of the
last times there is not a word that can be tortured into the remotest allusion
to a spiritual Millennium in the twenty-fourth chapter; while in the
twenty-fifth, after speaking of the slumbering virgins who need to be awakened,
the next scene presents the family settlement which our Lord has with His own
servants, and the next His judgment upon the living nations.
Men may argue ably against the pre-millennial
advent of our Lord, as does Dr. David Brown, but after all, the question
remains, “what saith the Scripture?” He may prove, at least to his own
satisfaction, that “the Church will be absolutely complete at Christ’s coming”;
that “Christ’s second coming will exhaust the object of the Scriptures”; that
“the sealing ordinances will disappear at Christ’s second coming”; that “the
intercession of Christ, and the work of the Spirit, for saving purposes, will
cease at the second advent”; but all this, with much more that he says, does not
prove that there will be a Millennium of holiness and happiness before our
Lord’s return. In the nature of the case it can not be proved by human
reasoning, human prejudice, human pride in our ecclesiastical organizations; and
when we find in the extended remarks made by the Saviour in response to a
question concerning His second advent, that He does not once even whisper of the
triumph of the Church, but on the other hand fills the entire interval of His
absence with predictions of sorrows and sufferings, we are forced to the
conclusion that there will be no Millennium at all, or, as the only alternative,
that there can he
NO Millennium till Christ comes.
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