And to Come Again

He apprehension of the doctrine of Christ’s second advent came eariier than the realization of the other doctrine, that of his abiding presence in the church in the Holy Spirit. But its discovery constituted a no less distinct crisis in my ministry. “This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen hitn go into heaven,’’ is the parting promise of Jesus to his disciples, communicated through the two men in white apparel, as a cloud received him out of their sight. When after more than fifty years in glory he breaks the silence and speaks once more in the Revelation which he gave to his servant John, the post-ascension Gospel which he sends opens with, ‘’Behold, he Cometh with clouds,” and closes with ’ ‘Surely I come quickly. ‘’ Considering the solemn emphasis thus laid upon this doctrine, and considering the great prominence given to it throughout the teaching of our Lord and of his apostles, how was it that for the first five years of my pastoral life it had absolutely no place in my preaching? Undoubtedly the reason lay in the lack of early instruction. Of all the sermons heard from childhood on, I do not remember listening to a single one upon this subject. In the theological course, while this truth had its place indeed, it was taught as in most theological seminaries of this country, according to the post-millennial interpretation; and with the most reverent respect for the teachers holding this view I must express my mature conviction that, though the doctrine of our Lord’s second coming is not ignored in this system, it is placed in such a setting as to render it quite impractical as a theme for preaching and quite inoperative as a motive for Christian living. For if a millennium must intervene before the return of our Lord from heaven, or if the world’s conversion must be accomplished before he shall come in his glory, how is it possible for his disciples in this present time to obey his words:” Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord shall come ’ ‘?

I well remember in my early ministry hearing two humble and consecrated laymen speaking of this hope in the meetings of the church, and urging it upon Christians as the ground of unworldliness and watchfulness of life. Discussion followed with these good brethren, and then a searching of the Scriptures to see if these things were so; and then a conviction of their truth: and then? The godly Wilham Hevvitson declares that the discovery of the scriptural hope of our Lord’ s second coming wrought in him a change amounting almost to a second conversion. What if another, not presuming to be named in company with this consecrated saint, should nevertheless set his hand and seal to the affirmation that the strongest and most permanent impulse of his ministry came from his apprehension of the blessed hope of our Lord’s second coming?

But how is it that this doctrine, so plainly and conspicuously written in Scripture, could have remained so long undiscovered? In answering this question we see how little ground we have for glorying over the Jews. They did not recognize Christ in his first advent because they discerned in Scripture only those predictions which announced him as a reigning and conquering Messiah. This conception they wove into a veil of exposition and tradition so thick that when Jesus appeared as the lowly and humble Nazarene they knew him not, but “hid as it were their faces from him.” And this strong prepossession still obscures their vision so that “even unto this day when Moses is read the veil is upon their heart.

With the larger mass of Gentile Christians the case is just the reverse. They know Christ crucified, and believing that the Cross is to conquer the world and that the preaching of the gospel in the present dispensation is to bring all men to God, they see no need of the personal coming- of the Christ as king to subdue all things under his feet and to reign visibly on the earth. This conception in turn has been woven into an elaborate veil of tradition for Gentile believers and” until this day, remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the New Testament.

It was not so in the beginning. For three hundred years the church occupied the position of a bride awaiting the return of the bridegroom from heaven — she, meantime, holding herself free from all alliance with this world, content to fulfill her calling in witnessing for Christ, in suffering with Christ, and so to accomphsh her appointed work of the gathering out of the elect body for the Lord “until he come.” A strange and almost grotesque conception to many modern Christians no doubt. But it was while maintaining this attitude that the church moved on most rapidly and irresistibly in her missionary conquests.

Then came the foreshado wings of the great apostasy. The world which had been a foe to the church became her friend and patron; Constantine, the emperor of Rome, became her head, and thus the eyes of Christians began to be withdrawn from him who is “Head over all things to his church.” The great and good Augustine yielded to the seduction and was among the first to teach that in the temporal triumph of Christianity the kingdom had already come, though the

King with whose return the primitive church had been wont to identify the appearing of the kingdom was still absent. Little by little, as the apostasy deepened, this early hope of Christians became eclipsed till, in the words of Auberlin, “when the church became a harlot she ceased to be a bride who goes forth to meet her Bridegroom,” and thus chiliasm disappeared. What moreover would have been deemed an apostasy in the primitive church grew into a tradition and a creed in the post-Nicene church, which creed until this day largely rules the faith of Christians.

Within fifty years, however, there has been a widespread revival of the early teaching on this point, especially among the most eminent evangelists and missionary promoters, until to-day in a great company of devout Christians, the uplifted gaze is once more visible, and the advent cry “Even so come. Lord Jesus,” is once more heard.

“But tell me,” we hear some one saying, “how it is that this doctrine can have such an inspiring and uplifting influence as you claim for it?” We answer, in more ways than can be described in a single chapter.

“The doctrine of the Lord’s second coming as it appears in the New Testament,” says an eminent Scotch preacher,” is like a lofty mountain which dominates the entire landscape.” An admirable illustration! For in such a case, no matter what road you take, no matter what pass you tread, you will find the mountain bursting on your vision at every turn of the way and at every parting of the hills. What first struck me now, in reading the New Testament, was something like this: Whatever doctrine I was pursuing, whatever precept I was enforcing, I found it fronting toward and terminating in the hope of the Lord’s second coming. Is watchfulness amid the allurements of the world enjoined, the exhortation is: “Watch therefore; for ye kiiozv not what hour your Lord doth come’’ (Matt. 24: 42). Is patience under trial and injustice counseled? The word is: “Be patient therefore, brethren, imto the coming of the Lord’’ (James 5: 7). Is an ideal church presented concerning whose deportment the apostle” needs not to speak anything “? Its commendation is: “Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven” (i Thess. i: 9, 10). Is holy livingurged? This is the inspiring motive thereto: “That, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2: 12, 13). All paths of obedience and service lead onward to the mountain. Our command to service bids us “Occupy till I come” (Luke 19: 13). In observing the Lord’s Supper we” shew the Lord’s death

//// he come’” (i Cor. ii: 26). In the injunction to fidelity the word is that we “keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (i Tim. 6: 14). Let any candid reader collate the texts in the New Testament on this subject, and he will see that our statement as to the pre-eminence of this doctrine is not exaggerated.

To pursue the figure farther. As all the roads lead toward the mountain, so conversely the mountain looks out upon all the roads. Take your stand in the doctrine of the Lord’s coming and make it your point of observation for viewing Scripture, and your map of redemption will very soon take shape, and the relation of part to part will become apparent. Just as Christ crucified is the center of soteriology, so Christ coming again is the center of eschatology. Place the Saviour where the Scriptures place him, on the cross — “who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree” — and all the teachings of the ceremonial law become intelligible, and its types and offerings fit together into one harmonious system. God forbid that we should by a grain’s weight lesson the emphasis upon Christ crucified. This is the central fact of redemption accomplished. Even so put Christ coming into his scriptural place and all the prophecies and Messianic hopes of the Old Testament and the New become intelligible — the establishment of the kingdom, the restoration of Israel, the renewing of all things. These two centers — Christ crucified and Christ coming — must be rigidly maintained if all the Bible is to be utiHzed and all its teachings harmonized.

So the writer bears joyful testimony that the discovery of this primitive doctrine of the gospel, the personal pre-millennial coming of Christ, constituted a new era in his study of the word of God, and gave an opening-out into vistas of truth hitherto undreamed of. And moreover, apart from the question of eschatology, it was the means af the deepest and firmest anchoring in all the doctrines of the evangelical faith. Why should not this be the case? If it is true, as one has said, that “when the smallest doctrine in the body of truth is mutilated it is sure to avenge itself upon the whole system,” why should it not be even more certainly the case, that one of the mountain truths of Scripture being recognized, all neighboring doctrines should be lifted into distincter prominence around its base? At all events, I confess myself so indebted to this hope in every way, that I cannot measure the loss it would have been to have passed through a ministry of twenty-five years without knowledge of it.

And as to the relation of this truth to Christian life: Is not an unworldly and single-eyed ministry the supreme need in these days of a materialized civilization and a secularized church? And where shall the most powerful motive to such a ministry be found? No one who reads the New Testament carefidly can deny that our Lord has lodged it in the hope of his second coming. We may not see how the doctrine should have that effect; but if he has so ordained, it will certainly be found true in actual experience. I recall a lecture which I heard some years since from a scholarly preacher in which he aimed to show that Christ’s second coming so far from being personal and literal is a spiritual and perpetual fact; that he is coming all the time in civilization, in the diffusion of Christianity, and in the march of human progress. He closed his argument by questioning seriously what practical influence upon Christian life the anticipation of an event so mysterious and so uncertain as to time and circumstance can have. Being asked to speak, 1 related a little household incident which had recently occurred. Having gone into the country with my children for a few weeks’ vacation, I had planned with them many pleasant diversions and engagements for the holidays, when almost upon my arrival I was summoned back to the city on an important mission. In the disappointment of the children I said to them; “Children, I am going to the city to-day. But I shall soon be back again. I may come to-morrow, or the next day, or the day after, or possibly not till the end of the week, but you may expect me any time.” It so happened that I was detained until Saturday. But when I returned I learned that in

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their eagerness to welcome me back the children, contrary to their natural instincts, had insisted on having their faces washed every day and upon having on their clean clothes and going down to meet me at train time. “A good stoiy,” exclaimed the lecturer, “but it is not an argument.” Ah, but is it not? Human life is often found to be the best expositor of Scripture. He who put his sublimest doctrines into parables drawn from common experience can often be best understood through some homely household incident. He would have his servants always washed, and clothed in white raiment during his absence. If we believe that he will not return till hundreds of years have elapsed, we may reasonably delay our purification and make no haste to put on our white raiment. But what if his coming is ever imminent? Let this truth be deeply realized and let the parables in which he affirms it become household words to us, and who shall say that it will be without effect? One at least may with all humility testify to its influence in shaping his ministry. Without imparting any sombre hue to Christian life; without” replacing glory with gloom” in the heart which should rejoice evermore, it is enough to say that when” the solemn MaraiiatJia resounds constantly through the soul, the most powerful impulse is awakened toward our doing with all diligence what he would have us do, and our being with all the heart what he would have us be.

“Then your dream came true, did it?” No; rather it had been true before it was dreamed, and the vision was a kind of resume of a quarter-century ministry. Here now in the Holy Spirit and to come again in person! These were two discoveries which, added to the fundamental truths already realized, brought unspeakable blessing into one Christian experience. We reiterate emphatically that that night-vision has never been regarded as anything supernatural or extraordinary in itself. Nevertheless there it stands to-day in the hall of memory, a dream-parable as clean-cut and distinctly outlined as a marble statue, with the legend inwrought in it, ‘’Hereto-day and to come to-morroiu,’’ so that in spite of knowledge to the contrary it comes back again and again as an occurrence of actual history. Call it a dream of mysticism? What if rather it might be named a vision of primitivism? The most eminent living master of ecclesiastical history, Harnack, photographing in a single sentence the church of the earliest centuries, says: “Originally the church was the heavenly Bride of Christ, the abiding place of the Holy Spirit.’” Does the reader not see that here is the same twofold conception — Christ in-resident in the church by the Spirit; and Christ expected to return in person as the Bridegroom for his bride? This was the church which moved with such rapid and triumphant progress against ancient heathenism. With no power except “the irresistible might of weakness”; with no wealth except the riches of glory inherited through her heavenly citizenship; refusing all compromise with the world, declining all patronage of kings and emperors, she nevertheless went forth conquering and to conquer, till in a few years she had undermined the whole colossal fabric of paganism. And might not the church of Christ do the same to-day if she were to return to this primitive ideal? and if renouncing her dependence on human resources — wealth and power and social prestige, she were to inscribe upon her banner that ancient motto:” Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” Such is the train of questioning started by a dream.