Miscellaneous
Writings Vol. Two
HOPE OF THE MORNING STAR
6. SECRECY, MANIFESTATION, AND SIGNS OF
IMMINENCE.
ALL that remains to be considered can be stated in few
words. As to the secrecy of the rapture of the saints, it is a point of small
importance, reached only by inference, and need not be discussed at all. It is
"when Christ our Life shall appeal-," that "we shall appear, (or be manifested)
with Him in glory" (Col. iii. 4). Thus we may argue that we shall not be
manifested before. But it affects no point of all that we have been looking at,
so far as I am aware, however it be decided.
As to the manifestation,
or appearing, or revelation of Christ, it is that which is most largely spoken
of in Scripture, as we might expect, for various reasons.
i. It is that
which connects itself with prophecy and the blessing of the earth. It is the
rising of the Sun of righteousness in contrast with the simple heavenly
radiance of the Morning Star.
2. It connects thus with the rights of Christ
as to the earth, the place of His rejection.
3. It connects with the
rewards given to His people, so far at least as these have to do with the
kingdom and its displayed glory. And thus we can understand that we are to
"wait" for it, as that in which every one will "receive his praise from God."
Timothys being exhorted to "keep the commandments without spot,
unrebukable, until the appearing of Jesus Christ" (i Tim. vi. 14), while often
urged to the contrary, in fact shows how such things are to be taken. The
appearing is the goal of responsibility; the time between this and the end of
the path here would not affect the matter of the exhortation; and no one would
contend that the apostle meant to guarantee that Timothy would live until the
appearing.
Signs are all connected with the appearing necessarily, but
yet so far as they are manifested, will only be more forcible for those who are
expecting to be with the Lord before it. We are not taught that we need them,
but are not certainly to ignore what is before our eyes. Times we cannot
reckon, inasmuch as we are in that gap of prophetic time in which all
Christianity has its place. Our Lord has also given us warning with regard to
this (Acts i. 7). In the same passage we find Him telling His disciples that
they were to he His witnesses "to the ends of the earth." That this and other
declarations implied some lapse of time before His return is undoubted. We must
remember, of course, that this did not imply for them what it does for us, and
that Augustus Caesar could command "all the world" to be taxed (Luke ii. i). In
the parables of the talents (Matt. xxv. 19) "after a long time" the absent lord
returns and reckons with his servants; but it is with the same servants whom he
left when he went away. Nothing hints to us as a delay of generations long. We
are in other circumstances, in a world that widens no more, looking back over
the Churchs history as Revelation has at last unfolded it to us, and
finding ourselves certainly near the close, and how near we cannot say. Is
there another page yet to be written? We do not know; but certainly of all men
that ever lived we should be "as men that wait for their Lord."
A
clear view gained of what is prophesied as to the end, with the knowledge of
what the Church of God is, and its place amid the dispensations, will make all
else clear as to what in this respect may not have been considered.
F.W.G.
Home | Links | Literature