By James H. Brookes
THE APOSTLES TEACHING.
Our risen Lord had appeared on many
occasions to His disciples, “to whom He presented Himself living after his
suffering: by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and
speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” This naturally led
them to ask of Him, “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to
Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons, which the Father hath placed in His own authority.” As Jews, familiar
with their prophets, they expected the cessation of Gentile dominion, and the
restoration of the Kingdom to Israel; and the Lord gave them no hint that their
expectation was vain, but only that it was not for them to know the times or
seasons, which, in the office work of redemption undertaken by the persons of
the Godhead, specially fell under the authority of the Father.
Then followed the promise of the gift and power of
the Holy Ghost, and the great commission, “Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of
the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken
up; and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked
steadfastly toward heaven, as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white
apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
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. Then returned they unto Jerusalem
from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day’s journey.”
Luke adds in his Gospel, “They worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with
great joy.” Lu., xxiv:52.
We are not told who these two men were, but it is
worthy of notice that the same inspired writer mentions the appearing of two men
in white at two other momentous periods in the earthly history of our Lord. On
the mount of transfiguration, “as He prayed, the fashion of His countenance was
altered, and His raiment was white and glistening. And, behold, there talked
with Him two men, which were Moses and Elias; who appeared in glory, and spake
of His exodus which He should accomplish at Jerusalem.” Lu., ix:29-31. On the
morning of the resurrection, when the women went to the sepulchre to anoint the
body of their crucified Friend, “they found the stone rolled away from the
sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it
came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by
them in shining garments: and as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to
the earth, they said unto them, “« Why seek ye the living One among the dead?”
Lu., xxiv:2-5.
It is not an improbable conjecture, therefore, that
the same two men in white or lustrous clothing who spake of His exodus at
Jerusalem, and who heralded His exodus from the tomb, were also sent to proclaim
His second coming. Nor is it improbable that the same two men in white are the
two witnesses who shall appear during the dreadful reign of the Antichrist; “and
they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and three score days, clothed in
sackcloth.” Lev. xi:3. But whoever the messengers nay have been, whether Moses
and Elias, or angels in human form, the message itself was of sufficient
importance to summon them from heaven, and it forms one of the three great
announcements——the death, the resurrection, and the return of the Lord to the
earth. Nor is it possible to mistake its meaning. This same Jesus who bore the
marks of the nails in His hands and of the spear wound in His side; this same
Jesus who said to His disciples, “Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as ye see me have;” this same Jesus who ate and talked with
them; this same Jesus who ascended from their midst bodily, and personally and
visibly, “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.”
Bengel has well said, “Between His ascension and
His coming in glory, no event intervenes equal in importance to each of these
two events. “There fore these two are joined together, and it accords with the
majesty of Christ that during the whole period between His ascension and His
advent He should without intermission be expected.” Rev. A. Maclaren, D. D., of
Manchester, England, one of the ablest and most accomplished among living
expositors, truly remarks, “He will “so come in like manner as’ He has gone. We
are not to water down such words as these with anything short of a return
precisely corresponding in its method to the departure; and as the departure was
visible, corporeal, literal, personal and local, so, too, will be His return
from heaven to earth. And He will come as He went, a visible manhood, only
thronged, amidst the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. This is the
aim that He sets before Him in His departure; He goes in order that He may come
back again.”
Hence we are not surprised to find that the
prediction and promise of the two men in white became a prominent theme in the
preaching of the apostles. “Thus a few days after the ascension, Peter said to
the people, “Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be
blotted out, so that 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 His holy prophets since the world began.” Acts,
iii:19-21. The heaven, then, must give back Jesus at the times of the
restitution of all things, and this has been the subject of divine revelation
through the prophets since the world began. It is wild exegesis which imagines
that the heaven must receive Him until the end of the times of the restitution
of all things. If a friend writes to another that he will stay where he is until
Spring, it would be foolish to fancy that he means until the end of Spring. But
the exegesis proves too much, for if Christ will not come until the end of the
times-of the restitution of all things, he will not come at all, since the times
of the restitution of all things include the final judgment, and the new heavens
and new earth. It is obvious to every unprejudiced reader that Christ comes from
heaven to inaugurate and introduce these times.
The possible nearness of this personal return from
heaven is shown by the fact that in the first epistle Paul was directed by the
Holy Spirit to write, he does not hesitate to describe the Thessalonians as
those who had “turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and
to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which
delivered us from the wrath to come.” 1 Thess., i:9, 10. That this is a personal
return cannot be doubted, for neither the Holy Spirit, nor death, nor the
destruction of Jerusalem, nor any other providential event is ever called Jesus,
nor were they raised from the dead, nor did they deliver us from the wrath to
come. It is certain, therefore, that believers eighteen hundred years ago were
taught by inspiration to wait for God s Son from heaven.
Then comes another statement in the next chapter:
“What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?” 1 Thess., ii:19. Then comes
another statement in the next chapter: “The Lord make you to increase and abound
in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: to the
end He may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our
Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.” 1 Thess.,
iii:1213. Then comes” another statement in the next chapter: “The Lord Himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout.” 1 Thess., iv:16. No one pretends to
make out of these passages’ anything except a literal and personal return of
Jesus, and the ingenuity of the keenest criticism fails to discover a reference
in them to any other event whatsoever.
Then comes another statement in the next chapter:
“Of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in
the night.” 1 Thess., v:1, 2. How did the Thessalonians, who had but recently
turned to God from idols, know this so perfectly? Plainly because the Apostle
during his brief visit had taught it to them. It was not, then, a subject of no
practical value in his estimation, as so often affirmed now, and it cannot be
right to dismiss it from the field of contemplation and discussion, as preachers
and people generally do at present. No matter whether he is a pre-millenialist
or post-millenialist, every ambassador for Christ is bound to testify of the
Lord’s persona return from heaven; and to substitute or it the manifestation of
the Spirit’s power, the progress of the church, or the advance of Christian
civilization, is a dangerous and deplorable departure from the truth of God.
Well may we join in the apostle’s prayer, “The very God of peace sanctify you
wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thess., v:293.
Turning now to the second epistle to the
Thessalonians, and the second the apostle was inspired to write, we find the
same great truth prominently brought forth. Thus to the persecuted Christians it
is said in the first chapter, “Io you who are troubled rest with us when the
Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire
taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come to be
glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our
testimony among you was believed) in that day.”
In the second chapter he says, “Now we beseech you,
brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together
unto Him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit,
nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of the Lord is at hand,”
or “is now present,’ as the Revised Version renders it; or “hath arrived,” as
Dr. Young translates it; or “is come,” as Alford gives it; or “has set in,”
according “to Rotherham. Our post-millennial brethren tell us we are solemnly
forbidden to believe that “the Lord is at hand”; but surely they forget that the
same Holy Spirit, by the same apostle, elsewhere declares that “the Lord is at
hand.” Phil, 1v:0. Would they make the inspired writer contradict himself in
this fashion? Dr. John Lillie in his admirable lectures on the epistle truly
says, “The phrase
is at hand occurs twenty times elsewhere in the New Testament, and not
once does it stand for the Greek word so rendered here. The word translated
is at hand
occurs seven times, and is always rendered “is present’ but once.” It is simply
impossible that those who were taught in the first epistle to look with delight
for the coming of Christ, could be violently agitated by the thought that he
might be at hand. “Their trouble arose from a rumor that He had returned to the
earth, and if this was true they knew that they had not been caught up in clouds
to meet Him in the air, and hence their distress was extreme, as the Greek
implies.
In the third chapter the apostle writes, “The Lord
direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for
Christ,” or “into the patience of Christ,” who is patiently waiting the times
and seasons which the Father hath put under His own authority. So overshadowing
is the doctrine of our Lord’s second coming in the two epistles, it is not
strange that the translators of our common version speak of “the patient waiting
for Christ.” It is the theme of every chapter, and no one pretends that the
passages quoted refer to anything but His personal advent. It is impossible that
any one of them was designed to teach the destruction of Jerusalem, or the
descent of the Spirit, or the death of the believer.
It is surely also His personal coming that is in
view when the same apostle writes to the Corinthans, “Ye come behind in no gift,
waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. i:7; “Therefore Judge
nothing before the time, until the Lord come,” 1 Cor. iv:5; “As often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.” 1
Cor. xi:26. All expositors no doubt would fully agree with Dr.
Charles Hodge on the first of these passages: “The
second advent of Christ, so clearly predicted by Himself and by His apostles,
connected as it is with the promise of the resurrection of His people and the
consumation of His kingdom, was the object of longing expectation to all the
early Christians. So great is the glory connected with that event that Paul in
Rom. viii:18-23, not only represents all present afflictions as trifling in
comparison, but describes the whole creation as looking onward to it with
earnest expectation. Comp. Phil. iii:20; Tit. ii:13. So general was this
expectation that Christians were characterized as those ‘who love His
appearing,’ 2 Tim. iv:8, and as those ‘who wait for Him.’ Heb. ix:28.”
Mr. Barnes, too, certainly expresses the views of
all kinds and classes of commentators, when he says on the same verse, “The
earnest expectation of the Lord Jesus became one of the marks of early Christian
piety. This return was promised by the Saviour to His anxious disciples when He
was about to leave them. Jno. xiv:3. The promise was renewed when he ascended to
heaven. Acts i:11. It became the settled hope and expectation of Christians that
He would return. Tit. ii:18; 2 16 Pet. iii:12; Heb. ix:23. And with earnest
prayer that He would quickly come, John closes the volume of inspiration. Rev.
xxii:20.” Both of these eminent expositors were post-millenialists, as is Prof.
Beet who says of the words here expounded, “The Corinthians already possessed
spiritual gifts which were a proof of God’s favor; while at the same time they
were eagerly looking forward to that day when Jesus will visibly appear to bring
in the final glory.” Upon the next verse he remarks, “lo the day of Christ’s
return the early Christians looked forward, as Israel did ages before to the day
of Jehovah.”
But leaving for the present the inspired writings
of Paul, it will be found that each of the apostles dwells upon the great
subject of our Lord’s personal return. Thus James says, “Be patient therefore,
brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” Jas. iv:7 Peter writes to his brethren,
“that the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that
perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found into praise and honor
and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,” 1 Pet. i:7; “looking for and
hastening the coming of the day of God, or as the Revised renders it, “earnestly
desiring the coming.” 2 Pet. iii:12. John says, “And now, little children, abide
in Him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed
before Him at His coming.” 1 John ii:28. Jude says, “Enoch also, the seventh
from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold the Lord cometh with ten
thousands of His saints,” Jude 14; and John opens the Apocalypse with the
announcement, “Behold, He cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see Him, and
they also which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of
Him. Even so, Amen.” Rev. i:7.
Not a text thus far quoted can be forced to refer,
even by the wildest license of the most audacious criticism, to any event
whatever except the literal and personal return of the Lord Jesus. The
thoughtless habit of skimming over such testimony with a passing impression that
it may relate to death, or the destruction of Jerusalem, or the outpouring of
the Spirit, or some striking “providential event, is little less than trifling
with the sacred Scriptures, and betokens a state of mind far from intelligent,
and a condition of heart far from reverential. If Christians will ask themselves
why they believe that Jesus was born, that He performed miracles and uttered the
sayings ascribed to Him, that He died upon the cross and rose from the grave,
they can easily see that they have precisely to, the same evidence, only
multiplied ten-fold, to convince them of His coming again.
It is the one object set before us, the “one hope
of your calling.” Eph. iv:4, As Graham on Ephesians, a capital book issued by
the Presbyterian Board of Publication, well says on these words, all other hopes
are “united in the one great hope which has animated the church from the
beginning—the hope of the coming and kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is therefore
called, by way of eminence, “that blessed hope.’ Tit. ii:13. I think, therefore,
that this is the one hope of our calling, and includes all the others. The Jews
had the coming of Christ in the flesh as their great national hope, and we
Christians look for His coming in glory as the substance of things hoped for.
This is the hope of the New Testament as distinguished from that of the Old, and
the Gospels and Epistles are full of it. It animated the early Christians in
their contendings, it is embodied in the Lord’s Prayer, it is the cry of the
widowed church and the groaning creation: Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. . . .
The cross and the crown, the coming of Christ in the flesh and His coming in
glory, being the historical and the prophetical, and so the proper food for
memory and hope, are the two centres of the divine word and the divine
administration around which all the systems of grace and providence revolve.
“There is one faith in the dying Lamb, and one hope in the coming King.”
“For the vision of the Bridegoom For the coming of
the Bridegroom, For the light
beyond the darkness, |
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