PART VI
Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal Kingdom of Christ is to be Realized
The twentieth chapter of the Revelation is one full of the most important matter. It describes the stages through which the kingdom of Christ must pass in order to attain its ideal state. The key to its solution is to be found in a careful and close study of the prophecy of Ezekiel, between which and it so exact a parallelism exists that neither can be understood without a comprehension of the other. A just appreciation of this fact would have precluded many of the ingenious but untenable hypotheses which have based themselves upon this section, and will now serve to throw light upon what seems obscure and almost undecipherable.
The Book of Ezekiel consists of two distinct parts, the dividing line between which is the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The earlier part of the book is a record of the many and gross idolatries and sins into which Israel had been tempted and fallen. The sum of these amounted to a spiritual infidelity and adultery which justly deserved the anger of Jehovah. And it was the sad and painful task of the prophet to repeat the solemn warnings with which he had been intrusted of impending and terrible doom.
Succeeding this are denunciations by the prophet of severe and crushing judgments upon the surrounding nations, from whose intercourse Israel has received deadly harm, being corrupted by contact with them, both in peace and war, and more especially in a lowered spiritual life. This part of the Book of Ezekiel comes to an end in chapter xxxiii, 21, where the mournful announcement is made to the prophet that the predicted blow had fallen: “One that had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, The city is smitten.” It was a conclusive proof of his authority to be considered a true prophet of God, but not less deplorable on that account.
The remaining part of the book is taken up with brighter themes. Out of the nettle, danger, God has plucked the flower, safety. The fall of Jerusalem, which seemed to involve its disappearance from history, is the means of its salvation. The pages of the prophet are bright with his predictions of an Israel raised to a new and higher ideal, and restored thereby to the favor of God. The steps by which this happy condition is to be brought about are successively unfolded to us and occupy the book to its close. The false shepherds (chapter xxxiv), the unworthy and unfaithful rulers who, like the thieves and hirelings of whom Jesus spake (John x), fed themselves and cared naught for the flock, are to be removed; and God offers himself to be a shepherd to Israel, searching his sheep, seeking them out in the cloudy and dark day, binding up that which was broken, and bringing again that which was lost—a beautiful predictive type of the Messiah, the good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.
In addition to this, the false prophets and unsafe guides whom Israel had followed are to be taken out of the way, and God promises in their stead to put his Spirit within Israel, cleansing them from all their filthiness and their idols and giving them a new heart and a new spirit (xxxvi, 25–27). This promise of spiritual regeneration is illustrated by the vision of the valley of dry bones (xxxvii, 1–14). At the word of the prophet “the bones” which lay whitening in the valley “came together, bone to his bone,” assuming the form and appearing in the likeness of men. But something more than human preaching was required, for as yet the forms were without life. Then the “breath” of the Holy Spirit entered into them, like the wind whose sound was heard on the day of Pentecost, “and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army” of actual and real men.
The first and closely following result of the spiritual resurrection thus wrought by the Holy Spirit was the reunion of Judah and Ephraim (verses 15–28). These two branches of Israel, unhappily disunited, always suspicious of each other, often in actual hostility, had by their division brought reproach upon God’s cause and had subjected themselves to the disasters, oppressions, and captivities which had marked their history. Now the schism was to be healed. They were to become one, so that God could say again, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God.” Then shall follow a new era of unexampled peace, prosperity, and productiveness. “David my servant shall be king over them,” “their prince forever.” “My tabernacle also shall be with them; yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel.” The fulfillment of part of this prophecy is distinctly declared by the angel of God who announced to the Virgin Mary concerning Christ (Luke i, 32), “The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Now it is a remarkable fact, of which use will hereafter be made to clear up the mystery of one of the obscurest parts of the Revelation of John, that the reign of David and his descendants over the throne of Jerusalem was exactly one thousand years. In the year 1063 B. C. David was anointed king by Samuel and won his first triumph in his memorable overthrow of Goliath; and in 63 B. C. Judea became subject to Rome, and the royal supremacy of David’s line came to an end.¹ The “scepter” then departed from Judah, and the “lawgiver from between his feet.”
Immediately following this remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel is that concerning “Gog, the land of Magog” (chapters xxxviii, xxxix). He is instructed to say to Gog, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword” (xxxviii, 8); “Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm” (xxxviii, 9); “Thou shalt come up against my people of Israel” (xxxviii, 16); nevertheless, in the thirty-ninth chapter it is recorded, “I am against thee, O Gog” (xxxix, 1); “Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured” (xxxix, 4); “Then shall they [that is, Israel] know that I am the Lord their God” (xxxix, 28); “Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God” (xxxix, 29).
Ezekiel closes his prophecies (chapters xl–xlviii) with his pictures of restored Israel, its new ideal temple, and city, and land.
The lines of thought thus laid down by the prophet of the Old Testament are so closely followed by the author of the Apocalypse that there seems no other conclusion left to us than that the parallelism of subject is intended to be as exact as is that of language and imagery.
In the Apocalypse, too, “the faithful city” (Isaiah i, 21) has forfeited her faith and “become an harlot.” The dire catastrophe which the seer of the old dispensation saw falling upon corrupt and apostate Jerusalem has also fallen upon Babylon, the unfaithful Church of the new. So, also, before the eyes of the apostle, as well as those of the prophet, there gleamed a vision of a restored Church, pure and clean, descending from God out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband. How this vision is to be made real, how that splendid city is to be brought into existence of whose glories the eloquent figures of the closing chapters inspire such lofty conceptions, it remains for him to tell us, in order that in all ages to come Christian men may discern the paths along which they must labor and the steps through which they must ascend if their efforts are to be crowned with favor and success.
How valuable a help the study of Ezekiel affords us in the interpretation of the Apocalypse may be seen in the light which it throws upon the subject of the “thousand years.” The foundation of those theories of a millennium which have taken such hold upon the minds of men as to have perceptibly modified language and to have made the word one of the commonplaces of thought lies in the few verses which make up the first half of the twentieth chapter. There must be something peculiarly attractive about these theories and very much in them accordant with our instinctive hopes, since the paragraph in the text furnishes but a narrow basis upon which to build a superstructure so large. It is not easy, moreover, to understand why, in a book so allegorical as is the Apocalypse, this paragraph should enjoy the exceptional distinction of demanding a literal interpretation, as would be the case if these theories are admitted. Nevertheless, it is true that, from very early ages in Christian history until now, a belief in and expectation of a personal and visible appearance and reign upon earth of the Lord Jesus Christ, inaugurating with his saints a period, stretching through a thousand years, of inconceivable peace and prosperity, has been entertained by many of his purest and most zealous followers, and has even been made the distinguishing tenet of large bodies of men. Whether these opinions are legitimately based upon the text and how far a correct exegesis compels us to accept them we must now inquire, endeavoring in all fairness and candor to so interpret the inspired words as to make the various details of the paragraph consistent with each other and with the rest of the sacred Scriptures.
Referring once more to the prophecy of Ezekiel, we find the order of events there described to be, first, a resurrection of dry bones and a vivification of them into men, then a united Church and people of God, an undefined period of happy prosperity, a restoration of the kingdom of David, a combined assault upon this kingdom by hostile nations under the name of Gog and Magog, and the complete and final victory of the kingdom over them.
In the Apocalypse the same order is followed, with variation only in some details of the picture. The only feature which can be called new is that of the binding and loosing of Satan; and even this, by implication, at least, is in Ezekiel. It is certainly a reasonable presumption that the same truths, whatever they are, were in the mind both of the prophet and the apostle, and were intended to be taught by both.
Now, if anything in the interpretation of the Apocalypse may be relied on as valid and beyond question it is that the reign of Christ is not a future event, to be expected at some day which has not yet dawned upon earth, but is a present and existent fact. That kingdom was inaugurated when the Lord Jesus, having risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, led captivity captive and bestowed upon his followers the gift of the Holy Spirit. When St. Paul in writing to the Corinthians says, “He must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet,” surely the meaning is that he does now reign and shall continue so to do until the result is accomplished.
The mediatorial sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ is, indeed, the one theme of the whole book of Revelation. The consummation and undisputed supremacy of the kingdom has not been reached. It is in its militant, not triumphant state. But imperfection within and hostility without no more affect the reality of its being, although they may militate against its well-being, than did treason within and war without contravene the fact of the sovereignty of David and his house over Judah. Into this kingdom not a select number, but all the true followers of Jesus are introduced. They are “a royal priesthood.” They are “joint heirs with Christ.” “We see not yet,” indeed, “all things put under him;” but we see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor;” and “he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.”
Again, it may be accepted as almost an axiom of interpretation that the resurrection referred to in the words, “They lived and reigned with Christ,” means a spiritual change, and not a physical or bodily one. It is synonymous with that epoch in the Christian’s life when he is delivered “from the power of darkness” and translated “into the kingdom of God’s dear Son,” that crisis of spiritual existence which is called conversion or regeneration, when one is “born from above” and raised with Christ into newness of life. The resurrection spoken of is stated to be that of “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image.” It is also called “the first resurrection,” thus differentiating it from another and subsequent resurrection of “the rest of the dead.” This first resurrection, moreover, exempts those who partake of it from the power of “the second death,” which is defined as the being “cast into the lake of fire.” It separates them from “the rest of the dead”—those who are dead “in trespasses and sins,” as they themselves once were—who live not again until “the thousand years” are finished.
We are now on sure ground. The meaning of this vision is that the mediatorial kingdom of our Lord is to be established on the earth, and that by the proper use of those instrumentalities which have been given into our hands, namely, the word of God and the blood of the Lamb, it shall advance in spite of all opposition and hindrances, until all worldliness and false prophetism shall be eliminated, until Christ “shall have put down all rule and all authority and power,” until “the kingdoms of this world” shall become “the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ,” and “he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father,” and the prayer shall be fulfilled which daily ascends to the throne of grace, “Thy kingdom come.” The millennium is now. We are living in it. Its light shines but dimly, it is true, but it will shine more and more until the perfect day.
The period during which the saints shall live and reign with Christ is stated to be “a thousand years.” Conjecture has been rife as to why this number should be selected. Manifestly, here, at least, the year-day theory, that which makes every day mentioned in the book the symbol of a year, breaks down. Otherwise, the period would be too long; and none have been found to maintain the opinion that the millennium is to last three hundred and sixty-five thousand years. Yet, to interpret the expression literally, as if it meant exactly a thousand of our years, would be to depart entirely from the rule of the Apocalypse, in which numbers are taken as symbols of epochs, not as a measurement of duration. There is no reason given why in this case exception should be made to the constant and unvarying use of days and months and years in this book.
Here, again, reference to the book of Ezekiel will dissolve the obscurity and present us with an explanation simple, consistent, and entirely in accordance with the usage which elsewhere prevails in the Apocalypse.
In the description which Ezekiel gives of the happy results which were to follow the resurrection of the dry bones and the reunion of Israel, one of the particulars which tenderly touched every Jewish heart was, “David my servant shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd.” Whether the prophet was himself conscious of the full meaning of these words or not, it is nevertheless the fact that it was not in any merely earthly descendant of David that this prediction was to be realized, but in the Messiah, “great David’s greater Son.” So, doubtless, the apostle of the Apocalypse accepted it. And, inasmuch as the sovereignty of David’s house was, as has previously been said, just one thousand years, what more natural than that John should see in this number the signature and symbol of the reign of Christ? He does not mean that the duration of that reign shall be limited to a thousand years, but that, be it longer or shorter, this number is its symbol and emblem. Whatever he mentions as taking place during the thousand years is to be understood by us as occurring during the progress of the mediatorial kingdom of Christ from its commencement to its culmination. In the sight of the divine Being the period between the establishment of the kingdom and its complete and final triumph over all its foes, be it longer or shorter, is the day of Christ, and “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
The moments or stages in the growth of the kingdom are now to be specified.
1. Restraints upon the Power of Satan.—There is one item in the revelation made to John, and through him to us, which is peculiar to him. It is, indeed, implied in the book of Ezekiel, but is not explicitly communicated. This is the restraint which is put upon the power of Satan. An angel is seen to “come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit [the same mentioned in chapter ix, 1–11] and a great chain in his hand [see 2 Peter ii, 4; Jude 6]. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.” “When the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations;” but this loosing of him, it is said, will be for only “a little season” before his final destruction. As the thousand years are a synonym for the reign of Christ, the meaning is that during the existent mediatorial sovereignty of Christ Satan is debarred his full liberty. His judgment has not, indeed, come, and he still exists, but his activity is circumscribed, and his power to hurt is limited and curbed.
It will be remembered that in the twelfth chapter Satan was described under the emblem of the dragon and his futile hostility toward the woman was depicted. At the close of the chapter we were told that “the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.” Since that time he has seemed to disappear from mention and is directly alluded to only occasionally. His place in the drama of warfare has been taken by the two wild beasts, his emissaries, in whom all enmity against Christ and his followers has been concentrated. Now that these have been judged and consigned to their doom and have in turn passed from the stage, the apostle reverts to the evil one behind and within them, whose subordinate agents they were.
One of the noteworthy facts of the universe brought to light mainly by this book of Revelation, but fully corroborated by other scriptures when attention is directed to its quest, is the ambition of Satan to copy and travesty the divine Being, both in modes of manifestation and methods of work. His abilities seem to lie, not in the direction of originality, but of imitation. He is not a creator or inventor, but a consummate actor and a master of the art of mimicry. As the Deity is revealed to us in the triune personality of Father, Son, and Spirit, so also there is a trinity of evil—the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.
And, again, during the continuance of the mediatorial sovereignty of Christ established for the elimination of sin from the universe the Father does not directly interpose, but has delivered all things into the hands of the Son, and through him to the Holy Spirit, whose instruments are the cross and the Bible, and whose witnesses and memorials are the two sacraments. In like manner, there is an attempted imitation of this on the part of Satan. His personal agency in human affairs is confined within narrow limits, not of his own will surely, but by reason of him who hath subjected him. Whatever influence his malignity and deep-seated hatred of God can exert in order to defeat the plans and purposes of redemption is wielded mainly through his subordinates, the two wild beasts. He himself is incarcerated in the abyss of darkness at the will of his Master and Lord. He seems to have been allowed personally to tempt Christ; but his arts were wasted, he lost the field of battle, and must pay the penalty of defeat. Referring to this, the Lord Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven;” and again, “Now is the prince ♦of this world cast out;” and again, “The prince of this world is judged.”
While, therefore, the opposition which the Christian encounters, the temptations which beset him, the evil against which he must struggle proceed incipiently from the great adversary, it is only the emissaries and agents of the ruler of this world’s darkness whom he is called on personally to encounter. As God, in order to save man, must become incarnate in human flesh, so must Satan, in order to tempt, embody himself in some earthly form.
The comforting assurance which Paul administered to the brethren of Corinth was, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common [that is, moderated] to man.” The work of the Lord Jesus Christ extends some of its blessings to all the race of mankind, to the disobedient as well as to the faithful, and tempers the vicissitudes of our mortal state to our capacity of enduring them. It exempts us, though it did not him, from exposure to Satan’s unshackled power. Satan himself is bound and shut up in the pit. God’s seal is on him, for he, too, is the property of the divine Being. And he deceives “the nations no more” till the thousand years are fulfilled. Then he is to be “loosed a little season,” as we shall see, prior to his overwhelming discomfiture and irretrievable defeat.
2. Outpouring of the Holy Spirit under the Emblem of Resurrection.—What has already, in the interpretation of this part of the Apocalypse, been said upon this question will obviate the necessity for any long discussion of it. Holding the prophecy of Ezekiel in mind, we cannot but conclude that what was meant to be taught by the resurrection of the bones in the valley of vision is likewise indicated by the expression, “They lived and reigned with Christ.” “This is the first resurrection.” As the resurrection spoken of in Ezekiel was a striking emblem of the power of the Holy Spirit to effect spiritual regeneration, so are the words to be taken here. The usage of describing regeneration by the emblem of a resurrection is so common in the Scriptures that there is no need to adduce illustrations of it. Nor is there any need to dwell upon the analogies between the two or to draw out the important lessons suggested thereby.
One truth, however, is so vital that it must detain us a moment, namely, the absolute necessity for the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit in the inception of spiritual life. No one who believes in an actual resurrection—that is, in one that is more than figurative and spiritual, in a resurrection which extends to man’s complete being, in a resurrection of the body, and not a mere continuance of the life of the soul—conceives that any natural agents in existence, or, at least, within our knowledge, are competent to produce it. The bodies we have here are “terrestrial,” brought into and continued in existence by the operation of natural laws. The body of the resurrection, whatever its connection and continuity with the present one, is confessedly “a spiritual body.” No forces within the realm of nature are able to create life or to restore it to that which has lost it. The experience and observation of all the centuries fully establish this truth. Whether our present bodies or souls come into existence by traduction or direct creation is another question; but all Christians are agreed that the resurrection of the body must be effected by the direct action of God.
So, likewise, analogy would teach, must it be with regeneration of the soul. That change by which we are raised from the death of sin to the life of God, that transformation by which we cease to be merely citizens of earth and become citizens of heaven, can be effected only by the direct and supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. No material, earthly, or human forces are sufficiently mighty to bring it to pass. Here God must specifically act—not as in other modes of his work, but by a distinct exercise of power. Nor are we allowed to conceive of entrance into the spiritual kingdom of God as the resultant of any process of evolution or growth; whatever preparation is made for it, the spiritual life of the soul begins in a special operation of the Holy Spirit as specific and distinct as that by which God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The closing chapters of the sacred Scriptures are in unison with the opening ones of Genesis, and from the prelude to the final “amen” there is one harmonious melody.
It must be remembered that John was a witness to and a participant in the extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He speaks, therefore, of that which he knew and testifies to that which he had seen. While the results of the transformation wrought in him are apparent to us, the fact of it was to him a matter of consciousness. It is because he had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit that he declares the necessity for its exercise. And the stress laid upon this regenerating agency of the Spirit in order that we may be made to live and reign with Christ is no slight evidence that the man who wrote the Apocalypse and he who recorded the words of Christ, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” were one and the same person.
There is no warrant in Scripture for the assumption that the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the band of disciples in Jerusalem was intended to be an anomalous event and incapable of repetition. In the form of manifestation possibly it was, and in the accompanying signs; but not in its spirit and power. Our Lord plainly promised to his disciples the abiding presence of the Comforter to the end of the ages. But that promise was and is conditional. The Holy Ghost was not given until Jesus was glorified, neither can he be now. The recognition and reception of Christ as our only hope and Saviour is the measure according to which the Spirit now imparts his life. Nor can any definition or theory of Christianity be accepted as correct in which the atonement of Christ does not hold the place of central principle. And in proportion as the crucified Christ is believed on and accepted as the only name “given among men, whereby we must be saved,” may richer and more abundant outpourings of the Holy Spirit in his offices of regeneration and sanctification be expected.
3. Union of Christian Believers.—There is one particular and important item relating to the coming of Messiah’s kingdom which is described with greater minuteness and fullness of detail by Ezekiel than by the writer of the Apocalypse. This is the unity of the Church of God—a point upon which the older prophet lays great stress. This unity is set forth both as a direct result of spiritual resurrection and as an essential element of preparation for the final conflict with evil. By symbol and in word he strongly emphasizes the declaration that, as the sticks which he took became one stick in his hand, so should Judah and Ephraim be made one in God’s hand. “I will make them one nation.... They shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” All the wounds of division shall be closed and the scars of schism healed.
It cannot be said that this same truth is so patent in the Revelation, but it is there by justifiable inference. The fact that the saints live and reign with Christ implies that the kingdom is a united one. The union and fellowship of the saints with each other, without division or alienation, is assumed. The obviousness of the truth was sufficient reason for less explicitness of statement. At any rate, if the apostle can be accused of any omission here he made ample amends in the prominence given to the subject in the fourth gospel, in which he records the prayer of our great High Priest, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
The subject which thus opens out to us is one of such absorbing interest as to demand ample consideration. If it be true, as the words of the prophet and, indirectly, of the apostle seem to indicate, that one result of that spiritual quickening by the Holy Spirit called conversion or regeneration is to bring about union between all who call themselves disciples of Christ, then that regeneration cannot be regarded as complete or normal which does not produce fellowship with all other believers; neither can any Church be said to have attained a state in any great degree approaching its ideal which is not in union with the whole Church of Christ. And, in addition, any instrumentalities we may employ in order to bring about the conversion of the world must be ineffectual, or, at least, greatly shorn of their influence, until there exists in the Christian world a unity which finds its example and the source of its power in the divine nature.
Upon this important question there is entire consentience of opinion among the inspired evangelists and apostles of the New Testament. They record their conviction that Caiaphas was speaking as a true prophet of God, however faulty his motives in so doing, when he said that Jesus should die in order to “gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” Appreciating the immense loss of power which had resulted from the schism between Judah and Ephraim, a loss felt even more severely in the moral than in the political world, they strove with all their might to prevent a like division between the Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ. Nor did they cease their efforts, although laying themselves open to the imputation of inconsistency, until finally the matter became one of life or death to Christianity. With a tenacity which appears to us akin to obstinacy, they clung to the hope that the Jewish nation would accept Christ as Messiah and King, that the old Church would, under the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, merge into the new as the dawn melts into the day, and that thus the continuity of history would be preserved.
There can be no question that the rejection of Jesus as Saviour by his own people was a serious disaster. It created a division among those who believed in a living God, a personal Providence, and broke the unity of their testimony in the court of mankind. It sent Christianity out to its work heavily handicapped; and acute opponents, like Celsus and Porphyry, were not slow to avail themselves of the advantage it gave them. Nor has the loss of power therefrom accruing been recovered to this day. The event is sufficient justification for the wise conservatism which marked the actions of the apostles.
As little room can there be now for question that the divided, distracted, segmentary condition of Christendom, with the animosities, envies, sectarianism, undue exaltation of non-essentials, concentration of efforts upon things of minor importance, and cultivation of bigotry caused thereby, operates as a most active factor in shearing the religion of Christ of its legitimate influence. Nor could increase of power within and superiority to the world without be brought about so quickly by any means as by a unity of believers—such unity as the New Testament inculcates. This statement in no degree conflicts with the uniform declaration of the Scriptures that the word of God and the blood of Christ are the two all-important and all-sufficient agencies for the furtherance of the kingdom; it only asserts that the Bible and the cross will not have accomplished their purpose until such unity shall have followed their acceptance.
Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, no less emphatically affirms with all his authority the necessity of this union. A careful study of his epistles will show that he divides the religious history of the world into three distinct periods—Judaism, Gentilism, and a final period in which these shall be united.
First was Judaism, which began with Abraham, the pioneer and father of such as believe in a living, personal God. It ran its course, fulfilled its mission, and had attained what Paul calls “the fullness of times” when “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law.” The office of Judaism in the rôle of redemption was to bear witness to the supernatural. The Jew believed thoroughly in God as the Creator, the Providence over nature, the Ruler and Judge of mankind; in God as a person distinct from nature and supreme over it. He fully recognized the obligation of the commandment, “The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” But he exalted the supernatural so highly as to put an impassable chasm between God and his creatures. The immanent presence of God in nature was lost sight of in the conception of his transcendency over it. An incarnation of the Deity and, above all, any such contact of God with humanity as to admit of the possibility of his suffering was abhorrent to the mind of the Jew. And so when Christ came to his own as the Word “made flesh” his own received him not. And, with his foot almost upon the throne of the world, the Jew stumbled and fell.
Following this period, in Paul’s conception, was that of Gentilism, which has also its peculiar mission, runs its destined course, and has its times of fullness toward which it tends (Romans xi, 25). This was also the conception of Christ himself; for he had said, “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke xxi, 24).
The mission of the heathen Gentilism lay in the sphere of nature and humanity. With all the beauty, grace, order, motion, and life of the world the Gentile was in sympathy. His defect was that he rose no higher. The gods he believed in were simply human and natural forces personified and exalted. His need was to be impressed vividly with the conception of the reality of the supernatural and to recognize the divine Being above and beyond man and the world.
To meet the needs of all classes of humanity God has employed those two great instrumentalities to which reference is so constantly made in the Revelation of St. John—on the one hand, the Bible, the written word, the sword of the Spirit, with its intense realization of the presence and power of God in nature and history; on the other, the cross, the blood of the Lamb, with its rich testimony to the fact that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
It was Paul’s confident and inspiring belief that when the fullness of the Gentiles should have come there would be a union of all believers in God; “and so all Israel shall be saved.” And this is the truth to which the writer of the Apocalypse bears witness in his vision of the saints who “lived and reigned with Christ” in one united and concordant kingdom.
If, then, the attainment of so desirable and blessed a result as that of the consummation of Christ’s kingdom upon earth is contingent upon the unity of believers it surely behooves the disciples of Christ to labor more earnestly than ever before for this unity. The magnitude of the result is worth the sacrifices needed to gain it.
In what this unity shall consist, in what sense believers are to be one, is a question upon which lawful difference of opinion may be allowed, and it is to be settled only by a sympathetic and careful study of the Scriptures. But as to the mode of its attainment and as to what must precede its realization the Bible is sufficiently precise and ♦explicit. It will not be secured by a conventional agreement to accept any common and universal symbol, sacrament, or organization; unity means something too vital for that. It will not be founded upon the basis of any past fact, upon any historical creed or institution or order of ministry; unity is something akin to life, and life is progressive, anticipative, not retrospective. The Jewish people were of one common lineage, having the same fathers, the same oracles, the same institutions, but it was by no chain descending from past times that they were held in unity; as soon as the hope of a future Messiah vanished their past associations became a rope of sand.
The Lord Jesus Christ has himself most plainly and authoritatively announced to us the processes by which alone this unity can be attained. In the ever memorable words of his prayer as our great High Priest he said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” and then almost immediately added, “That they all may be one.” The unity which he anticipated and now desires is one that must be preceded by sanctification. This is fully in accordance with the prophecy of Ezekiel, for the union by which Judah and Ephraim were made one was preceded by the resurrection to life which occurred when the dry and withered bones had been breathed upon by the Spirit. And, in the paragraph of the Apocalypse now under consideration, it was only after the souls of the witnesses and followers of Jesus had been raised by the first resurrection that they lived and reigned with Christ. Nor can any unity be real which is not preceded by a spiritual resurrection from the death of sin into newness of life through the power of the Holy Spirit.
What is here said of unity as applied to the body of believers is equally applicable to each individual. The kingdom of Christ does not reach its designed consummation in the individual until the heart is united to fear the name of the Lord. The exclusion or omission of any part of our composite nature from the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit in so far mars the integrity and concord of the kingdom and is below its ideal. Entire sanctification is, as has been said by John Fletcher, a constellation made up by the union of all the graces in a glorious galaxy. And St. Paul teaches us that it is only when we shall “come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,” that we shall have attained “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”
4. Final Triumph over the Carnal Mind, or Barbarism. Emblem of Gog and Magog.—With this glorious picture of the outpouring of the Spirit and the complete union of the Church of Christ in his mind, the apostle passes on to the decisive conflict and crowning victory of the kingdom. “When the thousand years are expired,” he says, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations.”
It is worthy of note that the word which is used by St. John for “expired” is the same used in the fourth gospel in several important and significant places, although differently translated. It is found in the prayer of Jesus (John xvii, 23) in connection with the thought of unity, as in the section of the Revelation just considered, and is there rendered “may be made perfect.” It is found in the same prayer (John xvii, 4), and is used by our Lord in speaking of his active work upon earth, being there translated “have finished.” It is also recorded by St. John as being one of our Lord’s exclamations while on the cross (John xix, 30), and is there also rendered “finished.”
From these uses of the word the inference is very reasonable that it signifies, not so much the termination of a period of duration, as the completion of a process. The thousand years may be said to have expired, not at the close of any number of years of time, but whenever the ends for which the kingdom of Christ is established are attained. Until those purposes are accomplished the power of Satan is restrained and he is not allowed to exercise the full measure of his strength. He who makes “the wrath of man” to praise him, while “the remainder of wrath” he restrains, guards his Church and his servants as “a garden inclosed.”
History and experience furnish many an example of the providence that shelters and shields the infancy and immaturity of Churches and believers until adult strength has acquired power to resist. The storm that bends the reed will not move the sturdy oak; and one “rooted and grounded in love” can withstand blasts that would be disastrous to the growing and tender shoot. All progress in human laws, in fact, tends to surround the evil-disposed with increasing restraints, in order that the weak and helpless and inexperienced may have an equal chance to develop their individuality.
But at the expiration of this period, we are told, Satan is allowed to go forth to deceive the nations. The writer of the Apocalypse describes the final assault of Satan upon Christ’s kingdom under the emblem, so often quoted and so much misunderstood, of Gog and Magog. In so doing he draws again upon Ezekiel; and if we wish to ascertain the meaning of both the apostle and the prophet we must revert to the circumstances under which the prophecy was originally given, and must, in this instance, have recourse to history.
Not long prior to the time of Ezekiel there had occurred a sudden and terrible irruption of barbarians into the civilized parts of the world, which had caused widespread alarm and terror and shaken to its base the fabric of society which had through preceding centuries been laboriously built up. An immense horde of Scythians, in the rudest stage of savagery, without pity or regard for class, sex, age, or condition, with intense contempt for and hatred of those arts of refinement which they were incapable of appreciating, broke loose from their primitive home and, sweeping down through Asia, overwhelming cities and empires, threatened to destroy every vestige of literature, order, and religion and to turn the world back to chaos and anarchy. Happily their onward course was arrested before the injury they caused had become irreparable. From this circumstance the name Gog, which was that of the horde, became the symbol of barbarism, and was used as such both by the prophet of the Old Testament and the apostle of the Revelation.
The truth which is intended to be presented is the possibility of an inroad of that barbarism from which no age is free and from which the most imminent peril to Christianity is to be dreaded. There is in every human being, however civilized, a germ of barbarism, a strain of savagery, which though repressed by education, by culture, or by law, is not destroyed by them, and which under favoring conditions may become the ruling principle of life. In every community of men there will be found some who represent the highest stage which the community has reached; but there will be found some who remain in the most rudimentary condition of barbarism. It is the struggle between these opposing elements which makes the life of the community.
Gog and Magog do not represent heathenism, which is simply a lower form of religion capable of being improved by the increased light of the Gospel. They represent the spirit of barbarism, which opposes itself to every form of religion, lurking as the dark shadow which waits upon all civilization, ready to manifest itself whenever the power which hinders its manifestation relaxes its vigilance. And unhappily there are, even in civilized and Christian countries, institutions allowed to remain whose only result is to foster the tendency toward barbarism, whose purpose is to feed the lower sensual appetites and passions that are at war alike with law, education, culture, and religion, and between which and the kingdom of Christ must be perpetual antagonism until one or the other shall be exterminated. The study of history will reveal the fact that times occur in the life of nations when the tendency to revert to barbarism asserts itself in unusual strength, when the normal movement upward and onward is arrested, and the forces which drag men downward predominate temporarily.
It is such times and conditions of which Satan avails himself to show his most malignant power. With all such tendencies he is in closest alliance, and in the effort to intensify them finds his most congenial employment. It is a mournful fact that the impulse toward the higher and better is not the only one to be found in man or in any creature; we must take into the account the opposite fact of the tendency to revert to lower and baser levels. Indeed, it is not uncommon to notice that an unusual movement in one direction seems to originate an almost equal one in the opposite. Nor can there be any guarantee that the higher and purer faculties shall assert their legitimate sway except in the promised guidance and help of God. In individual experience, even after long and faithful service and growth, there will come at times sudden suggestions and temptations which reveal the existence of desires and passions we had supposed extinct, but which have been kept down only by God’s grace and our unceasing watchfulness; such also is the case with the larger aggregations of men into communities and societies. And the price we must pay for liberty is eternal vigilance.
The barbarian is, indeed, a man; the essential elements of humanity lie in him as in all men. But there are properties which belong to the lowest states of society which constitute a differential characteristic and which disappear or, at least, become dormant when growth and culture take place.
The barbarian is an intense realist. He dwells in the region of facts—such facts as are discoverable by his physical nature only. Of sentiment, of ideals, he knows nothing and cares less. Such things as these are spiritually discerned, and he is a natural man only. Of that unseen ether which lies around the bare and bald facts of life, connecting them with the divine and eternal source of things, of those loftier visions of the true, the beautiful, the good which fill the mind of the cultured with intensest delight, he has no conception. His delights and employments are sensual and low, and the end of all of his energies is to gratify them. Arcadian simplicity fades away with increased geographical and ethnological knowledge.
The only forces which the barbarian appreciates, therefore, are the mechanical and physical. With him might is right. Of the power of spiritual forces he has the most inadequate notions until he finds how weak his cunning and artifice are in the presence of civilization. Of that sacrifice and renunciation of self for the sake of love of which the cross of Christ is the summit and crowning example and in which is the demonstration of the power and wisdom of God he is incapable of appreciation until the Holy Spirit breaks the chain with which Satan has bound him; and then he ceases to be a barbarian. Clovis spake the real feeling of the savage, even when baptized, in exclaiming, “Had I been there with my Franks they should not have nailed Jesus to the cross.”
By profession the barbarian is a soldier. He knows somewhat of the power of weapons of war and but little else. The mechanical and industrial pursuits by which society is bound together are objects of scorn to him. He has profound contempt for labor as beneath his pride. The aristocracy he admires is built on idleness and bloodshed, not on toil or skill or honest work.
Barbarians divide themselves on national lines alone. The broad humanity which overlaps territorial boundaries, or a patriotism which can embrace all mankind and recognize a universal brotherhood, the barbarian is not able to comprehend, or else he despises the notion as silly and puerile. He has no consideration of any ties save those of kinship, if, indeed, fully of these. All within this limit may not be friends; but certainly all without are enemies, for whose welfare he need have no regard and whose rights he does not recognize.
And because of these things the stage of barbarism is politically that of socialism, of that form of it in which the individual has no value or right of independent thought or action, except as the clan or tribe or community may confer them. The discernment of the real worth of man is the gift of the religion of Jesus. In its teaching that the blood of Christ has been shed for the redemption of all mankind, that the manifestation of the Spirit has been given to everyone, and that, therefore, it is not allowed to call any man common or unclean, it has laid the only solid foundation upon which true liberty, independence, self-respect, and the highest enjoyments of life can be based.
How rife this spirit of barbarism is, even in societies and States called civilized and Christian, a moderate degree of observation will prove. It is to be understood, of course, that to say a tendency exists in mankind to revert to barbarism is far from saying that such a tendency is likely to predominate. In pointing out the dangers which beset civilization the Bible does by no means countenance despondency or encourage doubt as to the future of history. It indicates perils for the purpose of inciting us to the use of the means which it suggests for avoiding them. The spirit of the Bible is one of most cheerful hope as to the outcome of the conflict between good and evil; and nowhere is the tone of assurance stronger than in the Revelation.
But we shall be very unwise if we shall neglect to guard against those symptoms of danger which are manifesting themselves. The persistent attempts to reduce literature and poetry and art to a barbaric realism, dragging into light lusts and passions which modesty, culture, and religion hide from view; the disposition, which seems to increase, to make the boundaries of States and empires coincide with kinship of race, and thus to limit men’s interests and aspirations to their own nationalities; the multiplication of armies and the conversion of kingdoms into camps, in which every citizen must be a soldier; the fearful increase of destructive dynamitism and anarchy; the employment of the most advanced science and education in the invention and improvement of machines of war; the growth of that form of socialism which denies all individualism of property, family, and labor—these are indications of that proneness to barbarism from which mankind is not yet free, and from which it will not be free until the world comes into the enjoyment of the liberty of Christ.
The keen eye of the apostle discerned, even in the apparently secure age in which he lived, the signs of coming perils and dangers; and against these, men and Churches of all ages have had to struggle. The battle of Christ with Magog is part of that conflict with the carnal man that rages in the heart of every Christian, as well as in the world at large. Happily, however, we know from the pen of inspiration the full measure of danger to be apprehended, and may rest in the assurance that Satan has no other appliances of mischief in reserve when these are exhausted.
It will be noted that the apostle says, in describing the assault of Gog and Magog upon the kingdom of Christ, “They went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city.” A distinction is made between the “city,” which symbolizes the Church, and the circumjacent “camp,” which is interposed as a bulwark between it and the enemy, and which may be regarded as representing law, education, government, and other conservative forces of the world. There lies in this a thought characteristic of the profound mind of the beloved apostle. In a sense most true and deep, Christians are “the salt of the earth.” The interests of humanity are bound up with the welfare of the kingdom. In fighting the battles of God the Church is guarding the welfare of mankind. The bark of Christianity carries man and all his fortunes. Barbarism is the common enemy of government and of religion, and in striving to injure one strikes at the other. Gog and Magog are antagonistic to the “city” and the encircling “camp” alike. In resisting the emissaries and allies of Satan Christianity is struggling for the benefit of civilization and safeguarding all earthly good, even as its Master died not for his own nation only, but for all men dispersed over the globe. For its own sake, if not out of regard for religion, society should jealously prohibit any infringement of divine law. “Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.”
On the other hand, it is a matter of profoundest importance to the cause of religion that it shall maintain the order and prosperity of the community. No Christian can be indifferent to the welfare of the State in which he lives. As he dares not allow himself in his own personal experience to watch without concern any indications of the growth of the carnal mind, neither can he be listless or apathetic when opinions destructive to society are spreading abroad. The attacks upon governments are but the prelude to assaults upon religion. Again and again has “the earth helped the woman,” and resistance to lawlessness and anarchy been preservative of the existence of the Church. However far any established government may fall below the ideal, it is yet better than none. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” although Nero may wield the scepter. Forms of government are subject to change and may be altered in order to conform to higher ideals; but the existence of government itself is essential to the fulfillment of the purposes of God.
But, however formidable the assault, the apostle does not allow any fears of defeat to eclipse his hope for the future. Victory, however long deferred, is sure to come at last to the Christian and to the Church. “Be of good cheer,” the Lord said; “I have overcome the world.” The weapons he has put into our hands are amply sufficient for our needs, nor are any agencies necessary beyond those with which he has supplied us.
“Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” The “fire” here is undoubtedly the fire of the Holy Ghost, the baptism from above of which John the Baptist spake when he said, “He [the Christ] shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” There came, it may be, to the apostle, when he wrote these words, memories of an incident of his life (Luke ix, 51–56). In his anger at the inhospitable Samaritans, with a spirit of vindictiveness at the insult to his Master, he had said, “Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?” How quickly followed the sharp rebuke of the Lord Jesus, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” The weapons Christ uses are not carnal, but spiritual. The fire which is to devour Gog and Magog is the Holy Spirit who descended upon the Church at Pentecost. The destruction which awaits them is that of their sins and animosity, not of their persons. The Spirit of truth when he comes reproves the world “of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”
And both the struggle and the victory are for each individual believer, as well as for the Church at large. “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.” “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
Thus the consummation to which the apostolic seer looked forward is reached at last. The Lamb into whose hands the dominion of all things was committed has prevailed. He has “put down all rule and all authority and power.” “He [that is, God] hath put all things under his feet.” Principalities and powers are “subject unto him.” He who was lifted up upon the cross is now on the “great white throne.” The Father, he himself had said, gave him “authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” The time of the fulfillment of this promise has come. Death, “the last enemy,” is destroyed. The gates of Hades have no longer power to resist the forces of the kingdom of Christ. Nothing that is hostile to him can look upon his face. Daniel’s prophecy has been brought to pass. “The iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold” are “broken to pieces together,” and become “like the chaff of the summer threshing floors;” and the wind has “carried them away,” that no place is “found for them.” The kingdom which the God of heaven has set up has consumed all other kingdoms and stands for ever (Daniel ii, 35, 44; vii, 13, 14).
But there is one thought developed in the closing paragraph of chapter xx which deserves a moment’s consideration. It is that in the relation which men and things sustain to the Lord Jesus Christ lies the true test of character and the standard of future, as well as present judgment. “Set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel,” through him “the thoughts of many hearts” are revealed (Luke ii, 34, 35). He is, as has been aptly said, the touchstone of human hearts. And it will be by the “inasmuch as ye did” or “did it not” unto him that the final sentence on men will be determined.
This truth is set forth in the expression, “the book of life.” “Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” In the prophecy of Daniel, to which there is evidently reference in this paragraph, mention is made of “books” that “were opened.” The writer of the Apocalypse also alludes to the “books” that “were opened.” But he adds to this that “another book was opened, which is the book of life;” and in chapter xxi, 27, he calls it “the Lamb’s book of life.” It is apparent that this additional standard of judgment belongs to the New Testament dispensation and is something having relation to the specific work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has this in mind in saying (1 Corinthians xvi, 22), “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.” The Saviour had given a foreshadowing of the same truth in telling his disciples, “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” We hear an echo of this in the epistle to Sardis (Revelation iii, 5): “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” The same truth is indicated by John in his first epistle (1 John v, 12): “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
The character of men is not to be estimated solely by their actions, and to make destiny depend upon them would hardly be just. Every act, whether of word or deed, has its own standard of judgment. That which determines its quality as good or bad is its fitness or unfitness to its designed end; in this consists its conformity with its ideal. A moral agent has, however, another standard of judgment. Goodness or badness in his case is determined by the conformity of his motives, purposes, and intentions with his ideal, which is the fulfillment of the will of his Creator. Not only what he does, but why he does it, enters into the estimate of his moral character. A perfect man would be one in whom faith in the Son of God and experimental knowledge of him are in unison, one whose conduct springs out of a living faith, and in whom a correct faith is translated into actual and complete righteousness of conduct.
It is a fact that upon the fundamental principles of ethics the great religions of the earth do not differ so much from each other as presumption leads us to anticipate. This agreement of the moral codes occasions surprise and even perplexity upon the first appreciation of the fact. But the explanation is simple and easy. These codes are largely the result of observation upon the established and permanent laws of the universe, deductions from facts with which testimony, reason, and consciousness make men acquainted. The data being the same, the conclusions reached are closely similar.
It is the motive power which they bring to bear upon men in order to induce them to actual realization of and conformity to their moral convictions that determines the superiority or inferiority of religions. That which constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of Christianity and gives it its immense preëminence over all other forms of religious belief is that it reveals to us the cross of Christ as the greatest motive power that can operate in human nature. To depreciate or ignore the atonement is to leave out the differentiating element of the religion of Jesus. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him” (John iii, 36). “We must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body” (2 Corinthians v, 10, Revised Version). Wherever, indeed, the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ has not been given to men they are to be judged by “the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans ii, 15). But where the revelation has been made it is in likeness to him that the test of character lies. And for the final determination of destiny there must be, not only the books of words and deeds, but also the “Lamb’s book of life.”