Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

comes to gather his saints; in the other to smite his foes. And the saints are instructed as to the one, that they may know assuredly that they are exempt from the terrors of the other. "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness." Already, in our hopes and destinies and in the spirit of our minds, children of the day, ere the day actually bursts on the sleeping world, drunken with its carnal joys, we shall have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air, and we shall be with him when his appearing affrights and overwhelms his foes. Such is the doctrine of this first epistle. May it be written indelibly on our hearts and exert there all its consolatory and sanctifying power.

Between their reception of the first and the second epistle, the deceiver had been at work. Either by leading them to misconstrue the first epistle, or by means of another forged epistle, he had succeeded in perplexing them, as though this " day of the Lord" had actually arrived. The persecutions under which they laboured had evidently continued, and become fiercer and hotter, and they had begun to confound these troubles with "the day of the Lord," as though it had really come. No wonder that they should be troubled by such a thought, when they had once entertained it. To be still in unchanged bodies, not having met the Lord in the air, and their departed brethren still in the grave, while, as they supposed, the terrors of the day of the Lord actually surrounded them, it is no marvel that they were shaken and troubled. All the apostle's arguments in the second epistle are directed against this mistake. In the first chapter he shews them the difference between their present troubles and persecu tions, and those overwhelming troubles which are to characterize "the day of the Lord." Now it is the saints who are in trouble; then it will be the world. Now the saints suffer at the world's hands: then the world will be

punished by the Lord's hand. "So that we ourselves," he says, "glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure; which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer: seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us;

when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day." Thus does he fortify their souls against the terror and distraction sought to be inflicted upon them. "Why be distracted, as though "the day" had come? You now have trouble, and the world has rest. When "the day" comes, the world will have tribulation, and you shall

have rest. The day will not come till the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven, and then it is to be glorified in his saints-in you-and to take vengeance on his adversaries.”

26,

66

In chap. ii, he expressly refers to the delusion sought to be practised upon them. "Now we beseech you, breth ren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us, as that the day of Christ is present." We render this word "present," and not “at hand," and for this reason. The word is enesteeken, and occurs in the New Testament seven times. Five times it is rendered "present." Rom. viii, 38, "nor things present." 1 Cor. iii, 22, 66 or things present." In these instances it is the more remarkable for being used in contrast with "mellonta," or things to come." 1 Cor. vii, "the present distress." Gal. i, 4, "this present evil world." Heb. ix, 9, "a figure for the time then present." In 2 Tim. iii, 1, "This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come," the meaning is obvious to all. It is not that when the last days have arrived, perilous times shall afterwards come, but that in the last days there shall be perilous times, that is, they shall be present. When the last days are present the perilous times are also present. Such being the evident meaning of the word six times out of the seven that it occurs in the New Testament, why translate it otherwise in the seventh? Especially when in this, its own proper and only sense, it so entirely harmonizes with the whole doctrine of both epistles. It is on this passage, mistranslated thus, that so many found their arguments for the inevitable delay of the Lord's coming. They say that the apostle reproves

the idea that the Lord's coming was at hand. The answer is, No, it is not of the Lord's coming but of his day— that he writes; and it is not the idea even of "the day" being "at hand" that he rebukes, but the idea that it was "present"-that it had actually come. And he guards them against this delusion in two ways. He beseeches them "by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him," not to be shaken or troubled, as though the day were present. The coming of Jesus and our gathering together to him in the air, is the church's portion: the day comes upon the world. He beseeches them by the one, not to be distracted about the other. The day cannot burst with its terrors on the world, till the saints have been gathered to the Lord Jesus in the air. Then he further shews that "the day" cannot come, till there come a falling away first, (literally, the apostacy,) and that man of sin be revealed, that wicked whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth and destroy with the brightness of his coming. It is on the man of sin that the judgments of the day of Christ first fall. It is by the epiphany of his coming, or presence, that the man of sin is destroyed. Clearly then "the day" cannot come till the man of sin has come. But the apostle does not say that CHRIST cannot come till then. He distinguishes between "the coming (parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ," and "the brightness (epiphany) of his coming" (parousia.) It is his parousia that gathers the saints in the air. It is the epiphany of his parousia that destroys the man of sin. The day commences with the epiphany of Christ's coming-that is with his appearing to the world. The day therefore comes not till the man of sin has come. But we have no warrant to say this of the parousia of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him. That may be any day, any hour. Nothing that has been considered presents any necessary obstacle to that. May our hearts be ready for it! "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." Amen.

LONDON PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, Paternoster-Row.

DUBLIN

ROBERTSON, Grafton-Street.

(Price One Penny.)

No. 13.] Plain Papers on Prophetic [Jan. 1854.

and other Subjects.

ECCLESIASTICAL CORRUPTION AND APOSTACY.

The subject of our last paper was "the privilege of the Church to be always expecting her Lord." It was our endeavour to shew, and we trust that we succeeded in shewing, that the hope of the church is not dependant on the course of events on earth. Several passages regarded by many christians as predicting the inevitable occurrence of important intervening events, or even the necessary lapse of ages ere Christ could return, were considered at length, and shewn to have no such force or intention. The commission to the eleven, Matt. xxviii, 18-20, was thus examined, and the inference sought to be drawn from it in favour of the inevitable postponement of Christ's coming, shewn to be not only without foundation, but contrary to numerous, express testimonies of scripture elsewhere. The parables in Matt. xiii, unfolding "the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," were also examined; and we saw that early in the apostolic age these mysteries had been so far evolved, as that no one could conclude on their account, that the coming of Christ must necessarily be delayed. We examined at length the two epistles to the Thessalonians; and while we found that the English translation of 2 Thess. ii, 2, does seem to affirm that "the day of Christ was not at hand," we saw this to be a mistranslation, and that the notion opposed by the apostle, was not the nearness of the day of Christ, but its actual presence. They were not to be troubled as though the day of Christ were present. Then finally, we saw how the apostle distinguishes between the parousia (coming) of Christ, when the saints, whether raised or changed, shall be translated to meet him in the air, and the epiphany of his coming, by which the man of sin is to be destroyed. The latter cannot be till the man of sin has come. The former is not dependent on any event, or series of events, on earth. The completion of Christ's

[ocr errors]

body, the church, according to the counsels and good pleasure of the Father, is all for which it waits. It is this which is the hope of the church. For this we are to wait continually. The Thessalonians were converted to this waiting posture of heart. The apostle waited for it as the epoch of his full joy in them as the fruit of his labour in the Lord. They supposed indeed that their departed brethren would be excluded from this joy, but he assures them it should be otherwise. The dead in Christ should rise first. Along with those waiting on earth, these risen saints should meet the Lord Jesus in the air. He takes care to maintain in their souls the posture of present expectancy by saying, "We which are alive and remain." How easy to have said "they" if it had been certain that centuries would intervene ! They needed no instruction as to "the day." It was for the world, and they knew that on the world it would come suddenly as a thief in the night. When deceivers had troubled them as though "the day were present," the apostle varies not his doctrine. He repeats to them that the day and its terrors are for the world; the coming of the Lord Jesus and our gathering together to him, the portion of the saints. He beseeches them by the latter to dismiss all distracting thoughts of the former. And while keeping thus the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ before their souls as the immediate hope, he further instructs them as to "the day," that it cannot come, till the man of sin has come, on whom the first stroke of the threatened judgments of that day is to fall. Blessed be God for the harmony of scripture throughout. It does not contradict in one place what it affirms in another. It does not exhort us in a multitude of passages to be always waiting and looking for our Lord, and then in another, caution us against this posture of heart. It instructs us indeed as to the course of the world, and the progress of evil within the professing body, and the judgments which are to overtake both; but it never, in instructing us thus, interposes aught between our souls, and the one, proper, heavenly hope, of the descent of the Lord Jesus into the air, and our gathering together to him there. It is happy thus to recur to that which is our own proper hope, ere entering on a subject, necessary indeed to be considered, but calculated to solemnize rather than to gladden our hearts; namely, the predicted progress of evil on the earth-the steps by which human iniquity and Satanic corruption reach that height of daring rebellion against

« ZurückWeiter »