Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
HOPE OF THE MORNING STAR
5. THE SAINTS IN THE TRIBULATION, WHO ARE THEY?
WE have already briefly considered the structure of
the book of Revelation, and the evidence that it gives us as to the change of
dispensation that is impending. The argument is a connected one of many
arguments combined. We have in the first chapter the Lord in the midst of the
candlesticks, the Christian assemblies. In the addresses to these which follow
in the next two chapters, emphasized in each case by a solemn appeal for our
attention, we find what is in fact the history of the Church of God on earth.
As they progress from the address to Thyatira onwards, the promise or the
warning of His coming is more and more enforced; ending with the threat of
Laodicea being spued out of His mouth, and immediately after this a Voice as of
a trumpet calls, and the apostle is caught up to heaven. There he sees thrones
around the throne of God, - a throne of judgment circled by the bow of
Gods covenant with the earth; and, while the company of kings and priests
sing their redemption song to the Lamb slain, he is told that this is
Jndahs Lion - the King of the Jews - who has prevailed to open the book.
We look upon the earth again as the book is being opened; judgments are being
poured out upon it; there are saints there still and martyrs; presently a
company sealed out of all the tribes of Israel; then an innumerable company of
Gentiles also, but who have all come out of the great tribulation; by and by we
see the actors in this, - the last beast of Daniel, and the lamb-like,
dragon-voiced beast who leads men to worship him; times are reckoned, the
half-weeks of the last week of Daniel; and looking on beyond the judgment of
Babylon the Great, we see the marriage of the Lamb is come, and presently the
Lamb Himself, with a glorious train of saints who follow Him, descends to the
judgment of the earth.
Now this is simply the story of Revelation, with
scarce a word of comment, and none needed, one would think, to make it plain.
Through all this latter part we hear nothing of the Church of God on earth. The
Lion of Judah opens the book; the book gives us Jewish scenes, Israel,
Jerusalem, the time of Jacobs trouble, the instruments of it, the false
woman and her doom, until after the marriage of the Lamb, He comes with His
saints from heaven. Does this fit with Mr. Newtons views, or Mr.
Browns, or Dr. Wests, or with that view which they all oppose? What
have they to say about it? What arguments do they use against it? I can only
speak as far as my knowledge goes, but as far as I know, they use no arguments;
they simply ignore it. They give us proofs of their views, or what they
conceive proofs, from Revelation, as from other parts of Scripture; but face
this long line of witnesses they do not. We have seen what has been so far
offered; we are going on still to see what Mr. Newton offers; but it is well to
keep in mind how much of positive testimony for the views they are opposing
they leave aside.
Mr. Newton hopes he may now assume, upon the warrant
of the parables of the Tares and of the Fishes, and the Lords parting
words in Matthew, that saints marked by the characteristics of the present
dispensation will be found on the earth until the end. He urges that their
testimony will be most needed, and suffering most glorious in the times
preceding the end. He finds that "On all past occasions of destroying
judgments, whether on Sodom, or the world at the flood, or on Egypt, or on
Jerusalem, some testified and suffered, though all were removed before the
threatened judgment fell". He urges also that "all who have thus testified have
not been either ignorant of or enemies to the truth peculiar to the
dispensation that was closing in; for how then could they have testified at
all?"(P. 25.)
He does not notice the Lords assurance to
Philadelphian overcomers that He would keep them "out of the hour of temptation
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth"
(Rev. iii. io), nor that the tribulation to come at the end is "Jacobs
trial," although it may involve others also, as we have seen. He does not
understand that the end of the age is not part of the present dispensation, but
the time of darkness covering the earth, and gross darkness the peoples, when
the light begins to dawn on Israel (Isa. lx), and that Gods testimony for
that time is an Elias one (Mal. iv. 5; Rev. xi. 3 - 6,) and not that of the
Church. He does not know that he can "find with any degree of accuracy the
extent of this testimony"(!), and that on account of that of which he does not
know the signification, that "the recorded facts of prophecy have always
Jerusalem for their centre;" and he needs to remind us that "a Christian in
Jewish circumstances is a Christian still"!
Another strange thing is
that he has to go to Old Testament scriptures for the main part of his proof of
Christians giving this testimony, and to justify what seems strange in this, he
has to refer to Rom. xvi. 26, taking, as many do, the "prophetic scriptures"
there, as being those of the Old Testament prophets. (Comp. Eph. iii. 5.) He
illustrates this by types, however, which we should all admit, and some other
passages which show a singular lack of knowledge of the calling of the Church
which he says they reveal. But I cannot dwell on this. From the Old Testament
he brings forward Daniel. Here he interprets for us the "wise," who "instruct
many" among the Jewish people, without being able to prevent their fall "by the
sword, and by flame, by captivity and by spoil many days." This he calls,
though we may well doubt it, "the moment of Jerusalems ratified
desolation," and thinks we can be therefore at no loss to understand them to be
"Christ and His servants; nor from that time forward would the Holy Spirit give
the name of understanding ones to any but those who acknowledged
Him and had received His Spirit."
But on the contrary, most
commentators refer this to the Maccabees, and with apparent reason. We have not
time to argue as to it, it is plain; but proof-text it can hardly be when all
depends upon a very questionable interpretation. The "wise" or "understanding
ones," with this special meaning forced upon them, are then found by him in the
time of Israels great tribulation following; and so his point is proved.
But to merge Christ among the "understanding ones" is certainly not the way of
the Spirit of God; and the presence of Christians depends entirely upon this.
On the other hand "the two witnesses" of Rev. xi. would certainly have this
character of "wise," while as certainly they are not what we should now call
Christians. All here is mere rash assertion and not proof. That these
understanding ones (as illustrated by the witnesses) will be worn out by the
Little Horn, (identified at the last with the Beast itself,) is seen in
Revelation, and being raised from the dead they will have a heavenly place
contrasted with Israels earthly one. That these are, in fact, the saints
of the high places, of whom Daniel speaks, and who are Mr. Newtons next
and remaining proof of Christians in Jerusalem, we have no need to question. He
makes no distinction between "heavenly" and "Christian"; but he must certainly
know that those he is opposing do make one, and that for them all that he gives
for proof is entirely futile.
This closes his argument from the Old
Testament: he passes on to Revelation, which he rightly takes as in its
"central part" relating to the same period as (much of) Daniel. Here his first
argument is from persons being mentioned "who keep the commandments of God and
the testimony of Jesus"; and again in chap. xiv. : "here are they that keep the
commandments of God and the faith of Jesus." No doubt there is difficulty in
defining in any perfectly satisfactory way what either expression may mean.
"The testimony of Jesus" is said, in the book of Revelation itself, to be "the
spirit of prophecy" (xix. in), and this will be found in the saints of those
days. There is no excuse for confounding this with Church testimony. "The faith
of Jesus will be, no doubt,imperfect enough in the darkness of days from
which the light of Christianity has disappeared, and the Spirit itself as now
known and enjoyed in Christianity. I presume He will be known as Messiah, not
in His own proper glory as Jehovah; and this will be the discovery that will
bow them in humiliation and repentance, when they look upon Him whom they have
pierced. The next text (chap. xiii. 7), if parallel with Dan. vii. 20, is
nevertheless also, as we have seen, of no importance whatever for his argument.
Again, those on the sea of glass (chap. xv. 2) are saints martyred
under the beast, and having got victory over him in this way, and the passage
in chap. XX. 4 - 6, which Mr. Newton rightly associates with the former one,
shows that such have their part in the first resurrection, and reign with
Christ for the thousand years of the Kingdom. All this is very familiar truth
to those whose views he is opposing; and he certainly must know it. There is
nothing about the Church in either passage. As a specimen of what a more minute
interpretation would give, he adduces chap. xi. i, to urge that the worshippers
in the temple of God (the sanctuary) must be Christians. In his argument he
says rightly enough that the temple consisted of two inner courts, but speaks
as though this were proof that for worshippers in it, the holiest of all must
be accessible. There is no proof of it whatever. For the priest in Israel the
veil was not rent, but he could worship in the temple in the outer holy place,
and once a year the high priest went into the holiest. There is absolutely no
token of Christian worship: the "clear evidence" of it, of which he speaks,
does not exist.
But while all this is to him clear, the witness of the
whole book of Revelation, as I have briefly given it, passes absolutely
without notice. And yet when he wrote this he must have known quite well that
it stood at least to be accounted for. Of the Jewish remnant of the last days
which according to Mr. Newton exists side by side with the Christian one he
says:- "They must have an intermediate standing: not Antichristian, for they
would be consumed; not Christian, for then as suffering with and for Jesus,
they would also reign with Him, and stand upon the sea of crystal in heavenly
glory; whereas they are destined, after having passed through the fires from
which the Christian remnant are altogether delivered, to be Gods
witnesses on the earth: . . . I now request your attention to the following
passages which show that this remnant is not owned by the Lord, nor has the
spirit of grace and supplication poured on it, until after the Lord has
appeared, and they have been carried through the day of His judgment" (Pp. 43,
44). He quotes for this, first, Isa. x. 12, 20 - 22; of which he says: - "The
passage teaches us that they are not regarded as returning and
staying themselves' upon the Lord, until after He has accomplished all
His work upon Mount Zion and Jerusalem." (P. 15.)
I can only answer
that to me it says nothing of the kind. It does say that in that day there will
be no going back on the part of the saved remnant, to repeat the sad story of
declension, so often recurring in the past. They "shall no more again stay upon
him that smote them, but stay upon the Lord." Then the truth of their return is
affirmed: "The remnant shall. . . unto the Mighty God. For though thy people
Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall return." There is nothing
about their only returning after God has accomplished His work. It does not
mean that He delivers them in an unbelieving condition, and then they believe.
That is certainly not Gods ordinary way of delivering, but to wake up a
soul to faith and then answer it. Nothing contrary to that is said here. The
next passage is from Zech. xiii.: "And it shall come to pass that in all the
land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third
shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and
will refine them as silver is refined . . . they shall call on My name and I
will hear them: I will say, It is My people, and they shall say, The Lord is my
God."
This expresses only the full confidence reached as the result of
purification; but it is because they are "silver" He refines them. No one ever
refined into silver what was not silver; and that is not what is done here. The
third passage, Zech. xii. 9 - xiii. i, shows undoubtedly that an amazing
discovery is made by them when they look upon Him whom they have pierced; and I
think that will be, as before said, when they realize their rejected Messiah to
be Jehovah Himself. That they own Jesus as Messiah seems clear from the
guidance given to them in His own prophecy of the end of the age (Matt. xxiv.);
but the "Man, Jehovahs Fellow" may be yet unknown. As to what is said
about their having to believe nationally, and the nation being born in a day,
Zion travailing and bringing forth, he is surely wrong in taking that as new
birth, a truth of which as such the Old Testament never speaks. That at the
time of their deliverance, the remnant will come to the birth, as the new
nation of Israel, is true, and is what is meant by this. The implication that
as individuals they were not born again before is unwarranted and false.
Again, the principle is a very simple one, that in the Psalms and
prophetic Scriptures, we may take out all that is bright and happy and
confident, and apply it to a Christian remnant, while we relegate all that is
gloomy and querulous to a co-existing Jewish one. It is a short road to
interpretation, but a most unsafe one, The Psalms, for instance, are expressive
of the whole education and purification of a Jewish remnant, through all the
trials of the latter days, until they are brought into full blessing. Of this
the five psalms, from Ps. iii. to vii., are an introductory epitome, which
shows this very clearly. But they begin with faith (Ps. iii.), the joy of which
they can contrast with the restless seeking of "any good" on the part of the
ungodly around them (Ps. iv.). Here they reason and plead with these, but in
the next, as the evil grows more determined, plead against them (Ps. v.),
assuring themselves of the distinction God will make between them and the
wicked. But the gloom darkens and the shadow falls upon their own souls (Ps.
vi.). The prevalence of the evil makes them dread divine displeasure, and the
confidence they have had changes into a cry for mercy. In the seventh psalm the
shadow passes, they can maintain again their innocence as far as their
persecutors are concerned and look for divine intervention; which in the eighth
is come.
This is only an introduction, of course, but it shows the
character of the book, which the arbitrary invention of contrasted remnants
completely destroys. All these fruitful exercises become but the wailings of
unconverted men; all the expressions of faith belong to another people! This is
indeed a "higher criticism" of a peculiar kind, which by taking texts here and
there and applying the moral test, putting in juxtaposition passages of diverse
character, from different places, and apart from their context, can make it at
least a tedious and difficult thing to expose its unsoundness. And this is made
worse by misleading comments scattered here and there throughout, in which
truth itself can be so applied as to give apparent countenance to what is
error. Who would not agree, for instance, that "to suffer for
righteousness sake in conscious fellowship of spirit with God, is
something very different from suffering penalty under the rebuke of His heavy
hand"? But apply this to the case before us, - a remnant of converted people
making part of a nation which as such is away from God, and going on to
complete apostasy; suffering penalty thus, and involving these in their
sufferings, who from sharing their guilt at first have been gradually awakened,
with the light increasing for them, but allowed of God for their good to be
thoroughly exercised as to everything. Plowed up as to their sin, they find
their way amid the promises and threatenings of His word, without firm footing
as to the gospel; and in a time of trouble such as never was !
These
various exercises, the conflicts of faith with unbelief, the many forms of
trial, are given for their help, and for the help of multitudes in any similar
ones, as poured out in the utterances of the Psalms and prophets. Think of a
criticism like Mr. Ns, which ignores these varied and subtle differences,
and makes it all a question of the highest Christian communion or of suffering
penally! Why the Psalms are a human resolution largely - under the control and
guidance of God - of problems of the most difficult character. Are they
suffering penally? there is sometimes their perplexity. They reason upon it all
round: the clouds break and return; but no: we are to use the scissors, it
seems, separate what is not fit for the Christians, and give it to these poor,
unconverted Jews and the practical use and beauty of the Psalms are largely
gone for us. How much shall we value the miserable experiences of mere
unconverted men!
We may close then with this: for here is the rest of
his argument, and we have no interest in following Mr. Newtons further
account of how, according to his thought, a Christian remnant is not found in
Jerusalem at the last, which we have not been persuaded exists there at all.
But it may not be without profit to have seen how destructive of Scripture at
large is this system which makes hypothetical differences which do not exist,
only to ignore those that are real and vital. There is only one more point,
therefore, that we need to consider in this connection, and that is his
argument from the eleventh of Romans. He says: - "I would briefly notice these
things: -"
i. That it speaks of Israel as blinded for a season by the
judicial infliction of the hand of God. It is important to notice the
judicial character which attaches to their being broken out of their
olive-tree.
2. The blindness thus judicially inflicted has never been, and
never will be anything more than in part; that is, it has never
rested on every individual in Israel, but there has ever been a seeing remnant.
Some, not all, the Jewish branches, have been broken off.
3. The fact of
there being a seeing remnant during the blindness of Israel, is a proof that
Israel as a nation is still under the infliction of the hand of God.
4.
That this judicial infliction cannot be continued after the fulness of the
Gentiles has come in." Thus, he says, "it is proved beyond a doubt that
Israels Antichristian period (when as a nation they will be emphatically
blinded, though there will be even then a seeing remnant) cannot be after the
fulness of the Gentiles has come in. Observe, I do not say that as soon as all
the elect Gentiles have been gathered in, all Israel will instantly be filled
with light and knowledge; but this I affirm that the positive action of the
hand of God in blinding them will not be continued after the period which He
has been pleased to fix - i. e., when the fulness of the Gentiles shall have
come in. Consequently, the period of their deepest and most fatal blinding
cannot be after the period which He has fixed for the ceasing of His wrath
against them. There can be no seeing remnant in judicially blinded Israel; no
election out of Israel, and therefore no Antichristian period to Israel, after
the fulness of the Gentiles has come in; therefore all such conditions of
Israel must be before the fulness of the Gentiles has come in." (Pp. 63 - 65.)
Now, I apprehend that the writer has spoiled his own argument. For if
he had maintained that, as soon as ever the fulness of the Gentiles had come
in, all Israel would "instantly be filled with light and knowledge" that would
have been consistent at least. But he could not say so; only that the positive
action of the hand of God in blinding them will not continue. But that would
seem to infer that there would or might be still a seeing remnant for awhile
among them after the judicial blinding was removed. Let us see then what in
fact takes place. The beginning of the "end of the age" or the last week of
Daniel, shows that the fulness of the Gentiles has indeed come in; it shows
also that the judicial hardening of Israel is at an end by this week being the
return of times determined upon her to bring in her blessing. Israel is now
going to be saved; and as a pledge of this, those now converted are no more
brought into the Church, but remain Israelites, grafted back into their own
olive-tree. Yet this is the time of Antichrist, as Daniel and Revelation unite
to show us, and the nation that is to be is refined and purified in a furnace
of affliction. It is the remnant that becomes the nation, the rebels and
apostates being separated and purged out. It is a mistake, surely, to look at
Antichrist as a sign of the "nation "being "emphatically blinded," when in
fact, it is Israels travail-time; and presently it will be found, when
the followers of Antichrist have received their judgment, that "he that is left
in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every
one that is written among the living in Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have
washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood
of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit
of burning" (Isa. iv. 3, 4).
The fulness of the Gentiles having come
in, and so the end of the Church-period, is the very thing which allows this
remnant to be formed, which is the nation.in embryo, and to which Antichrist in
Jerusalem is Satans power in opposition. The man of sin in the temple of
God there, instead of showing that the judicial blinding of the nation is going
on, shows that God is taking up Israel once more, and that the determined times
are bringing on her blessing. Christianity and Judaism, hopes heavenly and
hopes earthly, the body of Christ in which is neither Jew nor Gentile,
alongside of Jews and Gentiles (if the sheep and goats apply to these last),-
all this owned of God alike and going on at one and the same time: this is Mr.
Newtons theory; the very statement of which might assure us that it is
only theory. Scripture condemns it in every particular.
6. SECRECY, MANIFESTATION, AND SIGNS OF IMMINENCE.
Home | Links | Literature