The Far-Off Divine Event
“Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power.” — 1 Cor. xv. 25.
The end is always coming. Nothing that pertains to our mortal life is unending. So soon as anything begins beneath these heavens, with more or less speed it hastens towards its end.
The young man enters a great commercial house. Slowly he rises from post to post, until he becomes one of its partners, and finally the sole proprietor. His name is known and honoured through the world. His cheque is taken for cash, his word is a certain security. Years of honour and wealth pass quickly onward, till one day he shuts his desk for the last time, slams and locks his safe, says “good afternoon” to the porter, and goes out on the street, never to re-enter the premises which have known him for fifty years.
A young girl enters the house which her husband has prepared for her, and where she is to reign as hostess and mistress. Children are born and grow up, servants get grey - headed in her service. She lives to see her silver, her golden, and her diamond wedding day. But at last the end comes, and all that is mortal of her is carried down the steps up which she tripped so merrily as a laughing bride.
An end comes at last for the poor patient in the cancer ward, one of whose chief comforts is the knowledge that there is an inevitable time-limit beyond which the terrible suffering cannot pass.
The end comes to the long separation between the parted lovers. Whilst the one goes to the front, or travels round the world on some commercial quest, the other is comforted by remembering that every throb of the travelling clock is one nearer reunion. An end comes to the longest, saddest, weariest life. The shadow on the dial at last reaches the lowest step. The Angelus chimes out in the tower; the last rook joins the noisy brotherhood in the tall trees.
Be the day dreary, or be the day long,
At last it ringeth to evensong.
There is great comfort in this thought of finality. We would not live always We are quite glad to reach the inn, and realise that the long trudge is done, even though new and difficult experiences may be awaiting us on the morrow. Some of our fellow-travellers desire the end because they are wearied with the greatness and difficulties of the way; others because they shrink from its perils and dangers; others because in buoyant hope they anticipate the new and untrodden experiences that lie hidden behind the hills. Perhaps, for the most part, there is more desire than dread at the thought of the inevitable end; yet some dread it. “It is better,” they say, “to bear the ills we have, than to fly to others that we know not of.” But whether we desire or dread, the great ship is bearing us all forward to the harbour where the voyage shall end, though what shall transpire then, apart from this Book, who knows!
The meaning of this verse becomes clear as soon as we understand the reference to the pronouns. “Then cometh the end, when He ( i.e ., Christ) shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He (i.e., God the Father) hath put all His enemies under His feet.” From this it is clear that our Lord has come forth from the Father to put down all the evil forces that are making havoc of the original creation; that the Father is pledged to set Him as King upon His hoiy7 hill; and that all the Divine energy is at work, never to stay or diminish the force of its mighty operation, until the Divine character is justified, and God shall be All in All.
The Christian Church is therefore filled with a great hope. We do not minimise the forces by which God’s purpose is opposed. It is impossible to speak lightly of the pressure of evil as we meet it in all classes of our civilisation — in the highest circles of society and the lowest depths — but we can look forward with unhesitating confidence to the issue. There can be no doubt that light and love will conquer darkness and hate; there is no doubt that all things shall at last be made new, and that the anthem will ring out as a sound of many waters, and as a voice of mighty thunder, saying, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the xllmighty. reigneth.”
We may turn aside here to learn the lesson taught by the discovery of the geologist, which shows that through ages of conflict, cataclysm, storm and apparent anarchy, God’s purpose has pursued its path towards the order and beauty of the natural world. Often during those long dark ages we might have despaired, had we watched some terrific outbreak of natural forces that seemed to defy the hand of the Creator. Sometimes when our planet was robed in a garment of vegetation, which covered the valleys and hills with the exquisite beauty of fern and flower, of shadowing tree and spreading shrub, some outbreak of volcanic disturbance would plunge these fair forms into the dark cellars underground, and it would seem as though God had wrought in vain; but had we been able to wait long enough to watch the advance of the Divine plan, we should have found that these apparent drawbacks were but steps of the mighty process of preparing man’s future home. Can we expect it to be otherwise in the moral and spiritual world? Do not the same laws rule there? Is it not true there also, that the stormy wind fulfils God’s word, and that earthquake, tempest, and revolution are bringing about the coming of the kingdom and the performance of His will — “as in heaven so on earth?”
It is impossible to believe that God can have put His hand to anything that shall ultimately defy His will. The fact that Jesus our Lord shed His blood upon the soil of our earth shows to what expenditure the infinite God is prepared to go to undo the evil causd by sin. The coming of the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that the eternal Trinity has put Its hand to the plough, from which there can be no looking back. Before the creation of all things, God considered whether He was able with ten thousand to meet him that came against Him with twenty thousand, and, because He was well assured of the result, did not hesitate to go forward. God — using the speech of man — has embarked too much capital in the history of our race to be able to afford to lose it. He knows what He is doing; nothing has fallen out which was not anticipated in His eternal plan; nothing with which He is unable to cope; nothing that shall not subserve His purpose. Be of good cheer, fellow disciples; the night is stormy, but daybreak is at hand; the waves threaten to engulf the boat, but the Master at the predestined moment will come walking on the waves as though they were a pavement of alabaster!
The Apostle, in looking forward to the great future, anticipates the end being put to three of the most familiar circumstances of Christian thought and experience.
1. Christ will abolish all rule and all authority and power. The rebellion which is in the moral world against the will and rule of God is often compared to the waves that surge across the ocean, lifting their crests of foam high in the air: “The floods have lifted up, 0 Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice.” Look where you will there is the yeasty foam, the rush and roar of the breaker, the thunder of the surf as it hurls itself upon the beach. Both earth and heaven seem to be involved in the conflict of will against the government of God. Men fancy themselves to be free; first they mutter, and afterwards say more boldly and defiantly, “Let us break His bands asunder, and cast away His cords from us.” And God appears sometimes to sit still in silence whilst they work on; and, as their designs seem to prosper, human hearts begin to fail them for fear.
But “the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters; yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” “Thou stillest the noise of the waves, and the tumult of the people.” “The Lord sitteth upon the floods; yea, He sits King for ever.” The great Armada comes in its pride across the waters, and the motto that England struck upon its medal, when that proud fleet was baffled, serves for an epitaph over all antagonism to God’s Kingdom: “The Lord blew upon them, and they were scattered.” Men may work against God’s kingdom, as the waves rave and rage, but as the moon commands the proud waters into tidal waves, so God will have His way at last. In the meantime the Ark of God moves on the face of the waters.
Christ must reign until all enemies are made the footstool of His feet. He shall abolish all rule and all authority and power. The universe may be filled with the armies of the foe marshalled for fight, but the decisive victory was won on the Cross, which has rea’ly settled the final issue. Having put off from Himself the principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in His Cross, His Grave, His Resurrection, and His Ascension to the right hand of power. And when the drama is played out to the end, we shall find that all ungodly power and rebellious opposition shall be hushed down into dead silence, never again to revive.
What is true of the universe shall be realised also in our hearts. There also Christ puts down all the rule and authority and power of tyrannous passion and unruly desire. It seems too much to hope for.
Yet shall it be, We know it shall.
Jesus, look to Thy faithfulness.
And this not after years have elapsed, and the power of our nature is subdued and tempered by the softening touch of time, but now, and here, to-day. The mistake with so many of us has been that we have endeavoured by resolutions, and in the fervour of our own self-will, to master ourselves, instead of quietly opening the windows of our souls God-ward. God’s action is quiet, soft, gentle, but omnipotent as light. Offer your whole being to Him. Radium is not more irresistible in its effect. Be content for the X-rays of the Divine nature to play on the cancerous growth which has struck its fangs into your being, and believe that He will bring into captivity every imagination o* thought that rears itself against His supremacy. “Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory, strong and mighty, mighty in battle, shall enter in.”
2. Christ shall abolish death. “Tue
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death,” for all enemies are to be put beneath His feet.
The word translated “destroyed” is the same as is used in Rom. vi. of the destruction, or setting aside, of the body of the sins of the flesh in the Cross and Resurrection of our Lord.
It seems as though we are encouraged to believe that Christ is going to give us back all that death has deprived us of, so that its effects shall be absolutely annulled. Death has severed us from our loved ones, broken our close-knit intercourse, compelled us to spend our years in solitariness and loneliness. We shall go to them whom we have loved long since and lost awhile, though they cannot return to us, and it appears as though the joys of the days that are dead shall never come back.
But they shall come back, more certainly than the flowers of next spring. Have we been severed from fond hearts? We shall feel their pulse again next our own. Have we missed the familiar intercourse? We shall see eye to eye, and know as we are known. Have we been lonely and desolate? We shall come to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of iust men made perfect. Whereas thou wast desolate and solitary, thy heart shall be called Hephzibah and Beulah, for thy God delighteth in thee, and thou shalt find thyself in the midst of solemn troops and sweet societies and loving companions. Has death marred thy body, disfiguring and spoiling its beauty? All traces of its havoc shall be removed — the body of the Resurrection shall be far fairer and more quickly responsive to the east wish of the soul than the body of mortality. In the incorruptible we shall be able to traverse spaces and perform labours for which the body of this corruptible is altogether inadequate. Then shall death be swallowed up in victory, then the poison of its sting shall have been eliminated from the system, then shall the victory of the grave be reversed. Whatever death has done shall be undone. It shall be as when all traces of the storm that raged yesterday are absolutely obliterated and wiped out, and the birds of peace sit placidly on the tranquil and sparkling wavelets.
3. Christ shall bring to a close His mediatorial reign. He shall give up the Kingdom to God, even the Father. He assumed it for a definite purpose and time, and when He has finished all that is in His heart, He will give it back to Him from Whom He received it. It was the Father’s Kingdom originally — “Our Father which art in heaven, Thy Kingdom come.” It was entrusted to His hands as the Father’s Vice-gerent. It is being administered for Him in His Father’s interests, and for His Father’s glory. It will be continued until the Father is universally acknowledged, and then He shall deliver it up to God, even the Father, Who shall be All in All. There will be no further need of the Mediator, because He will have brought us to God. There will be no further need for the putting forth of His might to subdue all things to Himself, because they will be subdued. “Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ.”
There is a sense in which the Lord Jesus Christ is also doing this in our hearts. There also He is accomplishing the work of Mediator, which is to be consummated when His own words shall be fulfilled: “I say not that I will pray the Father for you, fox the Father Himself loveth you.” He is able to keep us from falling, and present us faultless before the Throne of His Father’s glory with exceeding joy. Then to us also God shall be All in All.
It is good to know the end or goal at which our blessed Lord is aiming, because it is so much easier to co-operate with Him for the accomplishment of His purposes. We remember His words, and how He said: “I have not called you servants, but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father, I have made known unto you.” Let us desire and seek that He shall say as much to us. Let us ask to be taken into the circle of His inner friends, and to be informed as to what He is set to accomplish.
Then, as the full glory of His mighty plan is revealed to us, piece by piece, like the tabernacle in pattern to Moses on the Mount, we shall go back to the plain with so true a conception filling our hearts that we shall no longer work with the drudgery of the day-labourer, but with the intelligence of the skilled artisan, who has seen the full plan of the great Architect’s design. Be of good cheer. “He shall not fail, nor be discouraged” (no dim wick nor bruised reed is He — see R.V. margin ), “till He have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for His law.”