Our Lord's Teaching
It is worthy of notice that the chapter in which our Lord hrst announces His purpose to build His church also contains His first distinct promise to return to earth. ‘’The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with His angels; and then He shall reward every man according to his works.” Matt. xvi:27. Not even by the wildest flicrht of the imao-ination can these words be made to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem, to the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, to death, or to any, providential event whatever, because at none of these times has He come in the glory of His Father, with His angels, to reward every man according to his works. Whatever meaning, therefore, may be attached to His second coming in certain other passages, no one will pretend that in His earliest testimony upon this great subject He taught other than His literal and personal advent.
The same thing is true of His next positive teaching with regard to His second advent. The apostles, who had forsaken all to follow Him, wished to know what reward they should receive; “and Jesus said unto them, Yerily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Matt. xix:28. Surely no one will claim that this promise was fulfilled at the destruction of Jerusalem, or on the day of Pentecost, or at the death of the apostles, or at any time in the past, because the apostles have not yet sat on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, nor has the regeneration, the renovation of the world, yet occurred. It looks forward to a glorious change on the earth, for the twelve tribes of Israel are found only on the earth, a change so splendid it is called the regeneration, or new birth, which occurs at “the times of restitution of all things,” when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, and associate the apostles as princes with Himself in the administration of His Kingdom.
Nov can his next allusion to His coming be perverted to mean anything else than His literal and personal return. He answers the question of His disciples concerning the sign of His coming, and of the end of the age, by telling them that during the interval of His absence, “nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” There is the most striking parallel between the testimony of our Lord in His Olivet discourse and the testimony of the Spirit at the opening of the seals. (1). ‘- Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.” Matt. xxiv:5. “And I saw, and beheld a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow, and a crown was given unto him [the stej)hanos of man, not the dladetus of Christ in Rev. xix:12]: and he went forth conqnering and to conquer,” the Antichrist. Rev. vi:2. (2). ^’ And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” Matt. xxiv:6. “And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to taken peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.” Rev. vi:4. (3). “And there shall be famines.” Matt. xxiv:7. “And I beheld, and lo, a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand, and I heard a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny.” Rev. vi:6. (4). “And pestilences and earthquakes in divers places.” Matt. xxiv:7. Of the rider on the ghastly horse, whose name is Death, followed by Hell, it is said, “Power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill wdth the sword, and with hunger, and wdth death, and with the beasts of the earth.” Rev. vi:8. (5). “Then they shall deliver you up to be aitiicted, and shall kill you.” Matt. xxiv:9. “And when He had opened the Fifth Seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain foi the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” Rev. vi:9, (6). “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.” Matt. xxiv:29. And I beheld when He had opened the Sixth Seal, and lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth.” Rev. vi:12. (7). “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:31. “And He cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. And I heard the number of them that were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel.” Rev. vii:2-8. Truly, “all these are the beginning of sorrows.” The word for sorrows here means travailing pangs issuing at last in the regeneration or new birth, but meanwhile going on to a “great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days” — not two thousand nor one thousand years after, but immediately after — “shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powders of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tril)es 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 cue end of heaven to the other.” Matt. xxiv:29 31. Since it is certain that none of these events occnrred at the clestrnction of Jernsaleni by Titns, nor on the day of Pentecost, nor at the death of Christians, it is equally certain that when, our Lord says all the tribes of the earth shall see Ilini coniintr in the clouds of heaven. He refers to His literal, personal and visible advent.
In like nianner He says, “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all. the holy angels* with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all nations.” Matt. xxv:31. It may be objected that it is a waste of time to quote passages, that are so obvious in their bearing upon His literal coming no one disputes their teaching for a moment. But the question is, wdiy accept these as literal, and put a figurative meaning upon passages that are equally explicit in teaching His personal advent? For example, we constantly hear at funerals, or read in funeral discourses, the admonition of our Saviour, ‘’ Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man Cometh at an hour when ye think not.” Luk. xii:40. Kine Christians out of ten have no thought connected with these words beyond the necessity of readiness for death, because they have been so instructed. But why associate them with death any more than in other passages that, confessedly, contain no allusion to death? The Lord is not here referring to death, even in the most distant way, but to His personal return, which formed the most prominent theme of His meditation and discourse. If the verses that contain allusion to it in the four gospels are counted, it will be found that it occupied His attention more than any other one subject; and surely Ave should give to His language its natural and obvious meaning.
It would be well to remember this when we read the familiar words,” If I go and pi-epare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that wdiere I am, there ye may be also.” Jno. xiv:3. In the first place, Jesus frequently mentions his own death, and distinctly speaks of the death of Peter; and hence if death had been the thought in his mind. He would have mentioned it here. In the second place, it was as easy for Him to say, “you shall die,” as it was to say, “I will come again”; and hence the latter, not the former, was the subject of His promise. In the third place, it was a deception if He said “I will com.e again,” and meant ‘’you must die.” If a beloved friend makes us sad by the announcement of his departure, and then cheers our sorrowful hearts with the promise, “I will come again,” leaving us to discover after his departure that he took that method of informing us that Ave must die, we could not think well of his candor. In the fourth place, Jesus does not come again at our death, but the uniform mode of the Ncaa” Testament in describing the death of the believer is to say Ac go to be Avitli Him. In the fifth place He is spiritually present with His people all the time, and hence does not come to them spiritually at death. In the sixth place. His coming after the resurrection, or on the day of Pentecost, or at the destruction of Jerusalem, did not fullill the promise, “I will receive unto myself.” In the seventh place, He no where else speaks of His coming as death, but the opposite of death. The Saviour was in heaven, not on earth, when Stephen died, and the martyr looked up steadfastly with the joyful cry, ‘’Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Acts viii:59. “Willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord,” by going to Him, not by His coming to us. 2 Cor. v:8. “Having a desire to depart, and to be wdth Christ,” not by His coming but by our departure. Peter speaks of putting off his tabernacle, and of his “exodus” out of the world, but neither he nor any other New Testament writer represents death as the coming of Christ. It is strange, therefore, that a vast majority of Christians, without much thought, it is presumed, regard the promise of the Lord, “If I go, I will come,” as only meaning, now that He has gone they must die. If it be said that the promise, taken literally, has not been fulfilied to the apostles, it is true. Their bodies are still waiting in Hope for His Coming.
Dr. I)avid Brown, who is accepted by the postmillenial brethren as the highest authority, quotes the promise, and then devotes five pages of his book to a very successful attempt at proving that it can not refer to death except by way of analogy.” It can never be warrantable, and is often dangerous, to make that the primary and proper interjpre tation of a passage which is but a secondary, though it may be a very legitimate and even irresistible ajpjylication of it.... ‘Let not your heart be troubled (said Jesus to His sorrowing disciples). In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go away’ — what then? ‘Ye shall follow me? Death
TILL HE COMK.
shall shortly l)riiio- us together’?’ Nay, hut ’ if I go away / lolll coDie again and receive yoic unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.’ And how know we that, by putting this event ont of its scriptural place in the expectations of the church, we are not, in a great degree, destroying its character and power as a practical principle? Can we not believe, though unable to trace it, that God’s methods are ever the best; and that as in nature, so perhaps in revelation, a modiiication by us of the divine arrangements, apparently slight, and attended even with some seemino; advantao-es, may be followed by a total and unexpected change of results, the opposite of what is anticipated and desired? So we fear it to be here.”
But our Lord Himself leaves no possible room for the idle conjecture that in llis frequent predictions of His coming lie meant the death of Christians. He plaiidy told Peter “by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this. He saith unto him, follow me. Then Peter, turning around, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following,” unbidden, but followino; because he loved to be with Jesus. “Peter, seeing him, saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die; but, if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” John xxi:19-23e
From this it is as plain as the shining of the sun that the disciples did not understand the coming of Christ and death to mean one and the same thing-. They understood tlieni to mean ju^t tlu’ opposite of each other, believing that the coming of Christ would prevent the death of John, a conviction ‘’ into Avhicli they more easily fell,” as Dr. David Brown informs us, ^’froni the prevalent belief that Christ’s second coming was then near at hand.” Owing to this saying of our Lord a rumor prevailed for a long time in the church that John had not died, and could not die; and Theophylact speaks of a tradition that he is kept alive somewhere, to be slain with Elias by the Antichrist. It is certain, therefore, that the early Christians did not regard the promise, “I will come again,” as fulfilled in their death. It was not death, hateful and hideous death, lie set before them as their hope, nor was it the destruction of Jerusalem, which Gerhard truly says “is never in one instance in Scripture called the coming of Christ,” nor is it even the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, sweet and comfortable as it is to know that He dwells with us and in us forever; but it was the return of the Lord Himself. Although death is a common theme of thought and discourse among Christians now, it is seldom mentioned in the Kew Testament, and in the passages that contain allusions to it, generally the word sleep is employed. “The grave is not the goal “placed before the believer, nor the repose of the disembodied state, nor happy experiences alon the way, l)ut the Saviour’s advent to take body and soul home.” Never do we please Christ so much,” says Dr. David Brown,” as when we ’ refuse to be comforted,’ even with His own consolations, sa-e in the prospect of His Personal Heturny The italics are his own.
Let not my eyos with tears be dim,
Let joy their upward glance illume;
Look up, and watch, and wait for Him-
8oon, soon the Lord will come.
Soon will that star-paved milky way,
Soon will that beauteous azure dome,
Glories, ne’er yet conceived, display — Soon, soon the Lord will come.
Changed in the twinkling ot an eye,
Invested with immortal bloom,
I shall behold Him throned on high,
And sing. -The Lord is come!’
One beam from His all-glorious face
These mortal garments will consume,
Each sinful blemish will efface — Lord Jesus, quickly come!
What will it be with Thee to dwell,
Thyself my everlasting Home!
Oh. bliss — Oh, joy ineffable!
Lord Jesus, quickly cornel”
HIS COMINCr MAY IJE NP:AR. 29