READINGS ON DANIEL (5)
READINGS ON DANIEL (5)
JT This chapter is very full, and full of great things. Perhaps no part of the book is so full of great things. No doubt the brethren will be looking up that the Lord might, from moment to moment as we are engaged in the chapter, help us that we may get the general outline of the chapter and then the details. First, there is the great fact of the intervention of the angel Michael, standing up, as it says, for the children of Daniel’s people, and then, the terrible thought of the suffering, the affliction that is about to come. “There shall be”, as it says, “a time of distress, such as never was since there was a nation until that time”. And then the first thing is, “And at that time thy people shall be delivered”. That is to say the definite hope is held out for the deliverance of Daniel’s people, which are the Jews, the children of Israel, and, then, further in verse 2, a very striking matter that no doubt will require more attention than most of the things mentioned, or any of them, and that is “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt”. Now, without going further, I think we should perhaps come on to this matter of eternal life. Other things, of course, will be touched in their place, but it seems to me that this is a matter that requires great attention by all of us, for the subject of eternal life is only very vaguely apprehended, especially as it is seen in the Old Testament and in this chapter. It is presented in a most striking way in this chapter. It says further, I should mention, before that, “At that time thy people shall be delivered”, and it says, “Every one that is found written in the book”, without mentioning what the book is, but clearly it is the book of the remnant of Israel in [p. 293] the account of God. That is to say, the purpose of God must come into all of this. And as I have already mentioned, “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt”. Now as I was remarking as to eternal life, it is one of the most important subjects and has had great place within the last fifty years. It was the particular thing that arose at the time of the so-called Bexhill division, late in the last century, and the Lord gave great help on it and, no doubt, He would give further help about the question if we are interested enough and intelligent enough, as having gone into matters that are already known, so that we can analyse the facts that may come out presently; that is to say, the position of eternal life, as seen in this passage, is related to the earth, and that many slept in the dust of the earth, which is not exactly burial, although it might seem so; it is simply they are lost already in their histories, but now they are coming to life, awaking to the truth and especially to the great fact of eternal life. Some will go into eternal life; others will not, they will awake to shame and everlasting contempt.
RWS Does the end of Matthew 25 correspond? In verse 46 the Lord said, “And these shall go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into life eternal”.
JT Very fully, I would say. Matthew corresponds more with the Old Testament than any of the gospels. Matthew, under the Spirit of God, carries through the prophets in certain relations and the subject of eternal life; although we shall see presently that John takes it up differently, not as a thing here, as in this chapter, or in the Old Testament, but more in relation to the assembly, or rather to those who belong to this present dispensation.
SMcC [p. 294] I have wondered, in following you in the three-day meetings in recent years, because of your constant allusion to eternal life and the way you have brought the Spirit forward, if there is not a link between the two. John’s ministry makes much of them.
JT He does. This is not John’s line, it is more the Old Testament and Matthew — not John, but Matthew. And I think the Lord would help us to see what the peculiar presentation of the great subject of eternal life is in John’s gospel. He makes the most of it and enters into the great subject of it in his gospel.
SMcC You mean John gives us more the heavenly bearing of eternal life?
JT Yes. That is, it is connected with the Spirit, the Spirit is the power of it. So that it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. Another thing we have to see in John is that there is much said as to the Lord coming down, not only to individuals, but to the world. We have to see what that may mean.
SMcC At Washington you remarked that the bearing of eternal life in John 6 is in relation to the earth; it is the Lord coming down.
JT We have to see that it is an immense subject we cannot fully touch. We have only, we may say, an hour together over it. And I think we might as well begin with this chapter, and see the bearing of it and what else is said in the Old Testament as to it.
FRA Is there a difference between life and eternal life?
JT There is a difference, of course, but not so very great as it might appear, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”. That would surely be eternal life. So that there would not be so much difference in regard to life and eternal life. We will come to [p. 295] that in detail.
JP Is your thought that eternal life in chapter 12 is future?
JT Yes, it is a prophetic thought as we said, “Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame, to everlasting contempt”. Well, I would say the Psalms say much about it, and it is hinted at in many parts of the scriptures, but it says, in Psalm 133, “There hath Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore”. It is a command, it is mentioned. It is hinted at many times in the book of the Psalms.
LES Would the prophet Hosea fit in? In chapter 6 he says, “After two days will he revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before his face; and we shall know — we shall follow on to know Jehovah, his going forth is assured as the morning dawn; and he will come unto us as the rain, as the latter rain which watereth the earth”.
JT Very good. All that enters into what we say. It is a great subject, eternal life in the Old Testament, just prophetically viewed in the prophets and in the Psalms.
EJM It says, “At that time”. Keeping in mind the thought of what is moral going through, would they expect deliverance in the sovereignty of God at the same time as there is this distress?
JT What God will enable them to go through! We shall find hints as to it in the Old Testament and the way of escape for the remnant of the Jews.
LES We have another remarkable scripture in Isaiah 4. “And it shall come to pass that he who remaineth in Zion, and he that is left in Jerusalem, shall be called holy — 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 scoured out the blood of Jerusalem [p. 296] from its midst, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning”.
JT Quite so. These are all most helpful, bearing on what we say, but now to come down to the thing actually, we ought to see that eternal life is a matter of the earth. It is intended for the earth, and the Old Testament saints who sleep in the dust of the earth awake to it; and what they are awaking to is something continuous on the earth. Therefore, the millennium has to be taken account of as a period. The millennium is an age of great blessing on the earth and the principle of blessing in it is eternal life.
JMcK Is eternal life here a feature of the kingdom at that time? In relation to this deliverance that comes in at that time, “thy people shall be delivered, every one that is found written in the book”, I was wondering if eternal life then is connected with the kingdom, the features of it seen in those people. You connected it with Matthew, and we have the kingdom there.
JT Quite so, and the kingdom and the King Himself, too, are spoken of in Matthew.
CHH Does eternal life have any actual fulfilment in the Old Testament? You quoted Psalm 133. If those conditions existed, they would be in the enjoyment of eternal life in anticipation?
JT I do not think it ever took form in the Old Testament because it requires certain conditions; it remains a prophetic idea that they have to wait for. So that we have to seek to calculate what the millennium will be, a time of unprecedented blessing on the earth. People will be living, death you might say a foreign thing, a rare thing. The people on the earth in the millennial day will be said to be living; they will have entered into eternal life and that requires a great deal of care as to what is said about it, but in result. God would bring about things when men are on the earth enjoying eternal life. We shall [p. 297] have to see that they will have to merge into the final condition, that is the heavenly condition, for flesh and blood [p. 304] shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The kingdom that our brother alludes to is a millennial kingdom, but, even if it refers to us, flesh and blood does not inherit it. There must be a change to bring about the eternal conditions and, therefore, men are viewed as in eternal life. They will have to merge into conditions fit for eternity so as to make it really eternal.
JMcK Does Ezekiel 37 fit in? When he prophesied to the wind the “breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army”. “Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, O my people, and bring you into the land of Israel”. And in verse 14, “And I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I will place you in your own land, and ye shall know that I Jehovah have spoken, and have done it, saith Jehovah”.
JT In a very real way that enters into it.
CAM I would like to ask a question about the dust of the earth. Will a change come in our present bodies?
JT I do not think the allusion is to that.
CAM I was wondering if eternal life is connected with another order as to our bodies?
JT I do not know what order you mean, what we are now is in mind.
CAM Yes, I see.
JT As entering into it, the immense army is seen; and there they are standing alive, but it is just in a figurative sense, a great army.
RWS Chapter 37 brings in the Spirit. Does that open the way for the Spirit’s activities in the millennium and in the change which will come in in view of the eternal conditions?
JT [p. 298] Quite so. He is bound to have part in it and, in fact, what Peter quotes from Joel indicates what the sons and daughters would come into.
CHH Would you say that in eternal life people will eventually emerge into what we enjoy, on the same platform that we now anticipate?
JT I am saying that more from my own point of view, because flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom, because it is a spiritual idea and it involves the eternal condition into which we are now come.
CHH You mean that would involve eventually every family named in heaven and on earth?
JT I think so.
EBM Would it involve the church?
JT Oh, yes. The church comes into everything. The assembly is the first family and comes into everything. It is the great leading family.
EBM I was thinking of the scripture, “And this is the eternal life, that they should know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”.
JT That does not go the full length as to what is heavenly. It is not a thing that, in a characteristic way, enters into heaven at all; it is here on the earth. You cannot avoid seeing that if you see how the truth is definite in the Old Testament and then according to Matthew. Then if we are wont to come to John, of course, we have to touch what belongs to ourselves. We must deal with the Old Testament and see what the divine thought was, and how it has worked out in the prophets and then how it comes into Matthew. We have to see that the world to come of which we speak, as we were saying yesterday, includes the idea of eternal life on the earth, to which men awake. It is to be seen by itself; what all that means. Then we have to understand what John means and what the Spirit of God would teach us in the gospel of [p. 299] John.
SMcC So will the seventh period you have alluded to show what God can do in flesh and blood conditions?
JT That is the idea, what God can do. We make a great deal, of course, of the gospels and what the gospels speak of as to eternal life, but we must not forget there is a millennial day, the seventh day. All the period of time from Adam has to be finished, and it will be finished, and that is what is meant, I believe, in the millennial day.
SMcC So that in the very scene into which death has entered — by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin — God will display his triumph in an age marked by this blessing.
JT That is what I understand exactly.
ASC Am I right that faith enters into this?
JT It will not be the time of faith, but the time of sight will be the millennium. Men will see and believe. Blessed he that has not seen and has believed. But men will see and believe in the millennium. It is not exactly what is of faith, in the sense that we have it, but what is to be seen, and what they enter into as here on the earth. Of course, the Spirit of God would be working and coming upon them rather than dwelling in them, so that we are dealing really with another dispensation now in what we are speaking of.
CHH Could eternal life in its earthly aspect be in consciousness of association with divine Persons?
JT I think so. I think God would be wonderfully near to men and would influence what is below; we will influence what is below ourselves.
CHH We speak of it as an out-of-the-world heavenly condition. That is ours.
JT Out-of-the-world in a moral sense, but He has the world to finish yet. The Lord speaks of coming down and giving life to the world; that is [p. 300] the world in which the millennium will be and eternal life will be.
JP Does Isaiah 11 depict that?
JT Pretty well. That will be a wonderful time as we think of what will be on the earth. The question is, are we going to get at it and see how things are going to be in the millennial day, because the millennial day is going to succeed our day and we shall be transferred to heaven.
SMcC Ezekiel would help us to see, on the earthly side, the nearness of God; the name of the city is “Jehovah is there” (Ezekiel 48: 35). Would that not show, on the earthly side, how near God is?
JT Very good.
CCT So we find in this chapter, in the day to come, those who are wise, “The wise shall understand”. Is that the thought of being near divine Persons in that day that you are speaking about?
JT This chapter greatly helps us. Read it again, Mr. B., from the fourth verse on, to refresh our memories.
NB “And thou, Daniel, close the words, and seal the book, till the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased. And I Daniel looked, and behold, there stood other two, the one on this side, on the bank of the river, and the other on that side, on the bank of the river. And he said to the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, How long is it to the end of these wonders? And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, and he held up his right hand and his left hand unto the heavens, and swore by him that liveth for ever that it is for a time, times, and a half; and when the scattering of the power of the holy people shall be accomplished, all these things shall be finished”.
JT So all this is going to happen on the earth.
NB “And I heard, but I understood not. And I said, My Lord, what shall be the end of these things? And he said, Go thy way, Daniel; for these words are closed and sealed till the time of the end”.
JT Notice the personal touch here in the communications with Daniel, “Go thy way, Daniel”. Think of it, showing what men will be on the earth, what favour they will come into from God in the coming dispensation because all this is prophetic. It has not come yet, “These words are closed and sealed till the time of the end”. Put off, as it were, “Many shall be purified, and be made white”. Some were speaking about what will be going on. These are the things; men purified, made white, and the wicked shall do wickedly, but there are those purified, made white and refined.
NB “Many shall be purified, and be made white, and be refined; but the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. And from the time that the continual sacrifice is taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand, two hundred, and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days! But do thou go thy way until the end; and thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”.
JT We see men purified, made white and refined; that gives you the idea of what is going to be on the earth presently in what we call the millennial day. In what we have been saying as to the times, three years and a half, so much is yet to be fulfilled.
DrCP The Lord sits as a refiner of silver.
JT The question is what is meant in the Old Testament. It is so full of these things in connection with the kingdom, the earthly side of it. We are on the threshold of all this. We cannot continue very long now with the great subject of eternal life. We [p. 302] shall have to consider how John presents it; we cannot go into that today, we have not time, but we all see how much there is to go into.
WHC Amos had this in mind: “They shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God”.
JT An immense amount of instruction is in the Old Testament as to what I am talking about; the coming glorious kingdom called the millennium, what God is going to do with men and women. God is going to do wonderful things, but Satan will be bound before this happens and the power of evil will be broken. God will have His own world to work in and men will be in it in blessing, wonderful blessing.
SMcC Might I ask if the introduction of the expanse in this chapter suggests that the power of evil is broken, evil having invaded the expanse? “And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse”.
JT That will bring up another point. The expanse was on the second day in Genesis 1; an enlargement for God to operate in and, alas! Satan got into it. That has to be kept in mind. Satan will be cast out, he will not be allowed to stay there. Michael will interpose on behalf of Daniel’s people.
SMcC That is very interesting. You mean Michael will have something to do with the clearing of the expanse.
JT Oh, I think so. As you know, there will be the great battle when the devil is cast out of heaven. God is not talking about unreal things, they are all real and almost at our door.
SMcC Then you see a link between this and Revelation 12?
JT Revelation 12 indicates that which Michael has to do with.
RWS I was wondering if God’s thought is shown victorious in the expanse before He does [p. 303] away entirely with it in view of the new heavens and the new earth.
JT We have not touched that point, we will have to wait for that. The millennium does not contemplate the new heavens and new earth. That is a new thing. It is what is here on the earth now that is contemplated in the millennium, what God can do with what is on the earth now.
FW Do you mean to say the millennial period will be the display of eternal life?
JT It is in a sense. We are speaking of it, but then we consider certain statements in John as, “Whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal”. We have to think of that, we have to look into that, but we have not time to look into it now, we only have time to indicate that it is a very real thing and will happen almost immediately.
EJM Does Isaiah 65 give a description of eternal life? “And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thenceforth an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not completed his days; for the youth shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed”.
JT That is all eternal life, just indicating what eternal life is. The prophets are really full of it and I believe we have been neglecting the prophets.
EJM I was thinking of it; it is a marvellous thing. “Before they call, I will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hear”.
FW Would you say something further about what you said concerning merging?
JT Only to clarify the whole position and show what is coming in. The idea of merging is to show what there must be. I use that word because the scripture requires it. Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom. The condition we are in now shall not inherit the kingdom of God and so there must be the merging.
SMcC It says in Luke 20: 35, “But they who are counted worthy to have part in that world, and the resurrection from among the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for neither can they die any more, for they are equal to angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection”.
JT That is what I am trying to get at; that is what I mean by merging. We will have to come to that because human conditions as we know them will not last. They will not do for God eternally, but they will do for God in the thousand years. Old men and women will be seen there and young children. We had that yesterday, what the conditions will be, old people and young people.
WMcK Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians 15, “For this corruptible must needs put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality”, would bear on the change in the condition of the millennial saints in view of eternity.
JT Just so. We cannot go into it now; the thing must be there because the conditions we are in now cannot go beyond flesh and blood, beyond what we call the millennial condition, men and women, as we are now, made to live here on the earth. Satan being bound and sin being broken. So that you can see what a different condition it will be and that condition of things is called eternal life.
JMcK I was wondering if this would fit in: “And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: and they shall walk in mine ordinances, and keep my statutes, and do them ... . And I will make a covenant of peace with them, it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever”, Ezekiel 37: 24, 26.
JT [p. 305] That is just what we are talking about, the millennial condition that is in mind. That is not proposed in relation to the assembly because we go up into heaven. Will someone read that well-known passage? That means in their tombs, not in the dust of the earth.
CHH 1 Thessalonians 4: 14 - 16: “For if we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again, so also God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For this we say to you in the word of the Lord, that we, the living, who remain to the coming of the Lord, are in no way to anticipate those who have fallen asleep; for the Lord himself, with an assembling shout, with archangel’s voice and with trump of God, shall descend from heaven; and the dead in Christ shall rise first”.
JT That is not the dead here in the dust of the earth, that is the dead in their tombs. Some came out and appeared to many in the holy city; that sort of thing.
CHH “Then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we shall be always with the Lord”.
JT That is the heavenly side; in the air, not on the earth. That is not a question of eternal life at all; that is what we are to be, those of us who belong to the assembly.
CHH Would the understanding of this blessed condition fill our hearts with admiration to God, worshipfully, so that we will love His (Christ’s) appearing, to see it all brought about?
JT That is the very word used, those who love His appearing. That is the heavenly side of things that we are going into. I beg you to read the passage.
CHH 2 Timothy 4: 8: “Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will render to me in that day;
[p. 306] but not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing”.
JT I only bring that forward to show what the general picture is. Now we should confine ourselves to this one thing, eternal life in the millennial condition, a wonderful world that is shortly to come. Men will be alive, some will live a thousand years, and then they have to merge with eternal conditions. God can do that too, but He can do the other; and it is a wonderful thing that He can do the other in our times.
EJM I was wondering if the dust of the earth is in contrast to the tomb.
JT I was using it as a figure of certain Jewish people who had gone out of sight; they come into evidence, not actually dead, just coming into evidence. They are shrouded somewhere in Asia.
VL Is not this, therefore, a wonderful triumph of God, for even in the antediluvian day no man lived a thousand years? The whole thing waited to the blossoming out in that wonderful period, the millennium.
JT God would say to us, in effect, what He can do with men and women as they are on this earth. Now that is what He can do, and the millennium is when He will do it. Then Satan and his angels will all have to be cast into the lake of fire. God will bring a world into existence and it will be called a new world. He will not have all the conditions that are in the world at the present time. He will have a world of His own.
SMcC Daniel uses a word here which bears on what you have been saying. In the end of verse 6, “How long is it to the end of these wonders?”. Interesting that he uses that word.
JT Yes, wonderful, I have used it several times.
RWS “The kingdom of the world of our Lord and of his Christ”. His world, not [p. 307] this world.
LES I was wondering in reference to your remark, whether the Songs of Degrees would help us if we understood them more.
JT I think they would. There is progress in them. I do not know them very well; you mention them.
LES Flowing out of the 119th Psalm, they start at the 120th and run through to the 134th. You quoted the 133rd.
JT Even life for evermore. That comes in there.
RWS Do these two periods, a thousand, two hundred and ninety days; and then the forty-five days, making a thousand, three hundred and thirty-five days bring in the millennium?
JT “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days!”. That is the utmost limit. That is to say, if we are patient, we will come to it. What our brother has been remarking, “And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse”.
RWS Why are the forty-five days added?
JT I think to induce patience at this particular juncture. We ought to learn patience. Daniel had to learn patience. “Do thou go thy way until the end”. Daniel had to learn patience “and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”. “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days”. No doubt Daniel would come to that.
CHH In verse 9, “These words are closed and sealed till the time of the end”. Would there be any bearing on us in that? We anticipate the meaning of that in the book of the Revelation.
JT I think so. What we quoted from 1 Corinthians 15, as to being raised in incorruptibility, then cometh the end, the Son shall be subjected, and God shall be all in all, [p. 308] is the idea.
CHH But, as to Israel, it is hid for the time. We come into the light of it.
JT I think so. We know all things, even little children know everything.
JP Are we to understand there is only one eternal life, and the millennial aspect is given in what we have had?
JT There is one kind in quality and character. It is there and has to be taken account of. It is eternal life; it is upon the earth.
CHH Has it not been said that eternal life is on different platforms?
JT Yes, I think, so, “Lay hold of eternal life”. You or I have to do it. That is a different thing from what we are talking about, that is not the millennium.
CHH Would the epistle of John help as to the individual understanding? “No murderer has eternal life abiding in him”.
JT It says, “He is the true God and eternal life”. That is a blessed thing. The Lord is said to be that personally. “He is the true God and eternal life”.
JGH Would you say that eternal life always assumes moral conditions, which you have been stressing in these meetings?
JT It does, but what we are dealing with now is not exactly moral conditions, but physical conditions. We have to have physical conditions in men to live a thousand years; not simply moral, but something physical. It is even greater than what they had in the days of Noah.
RWS The moral side is not stressed so much in Revelation.
JT So that it is more physical, though I do not ignore the moral altogether. God has to change conditions physically in men. We cannot live that length of time, but God can make us live. It is what God can do, the victory of God, which Satan [p. 309] would like to deny. God has said it can be done in the millennial dispensation. Certain things will be done that never were done before. It is the victory of God.
JMcK “The sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed”.
JT The general thought is that men will live on and, if they are the subjects of the work of God, they live on eternally. Their condition will be changed to make them suitable for eternity.
CHH There will be a vast number that will not experience that change, but will be susceptible to the wiles of Satan who will be loosed for a season.
JT Not for very long.
CHH Will these who are ensnared ever have enjoyed eternal life?
JT Oh, no. They are amenable to Satan’s temptations, but that will be only for a moment. Fire will come down, showing what He can do; and it is for us to believe what He can do and believe in the scripture.
CCT Does verse 10 show us what God can do? “Many shall be purified, and be made white, and be refined”.
JT Just so.
JK It goes so far in Ezekiel as to say, “And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, when I have opened your graves, and have caused you to come up out of your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit in you, and ye shall live”, showing what God can do.
JT That is just a figure of what God can do in a nation, even in Israel. It is for us to believe that He can do it.
CHH There will be need of a change in the physical, but there will be the need for the moral too.
JT The Spirit of God will be operating in us. He [p. 310] is now.
EJM Would it be right for us to say despite death and sin coming into the world, death by sin, that God coming in, men live beyond any expectation?
JT Beyond any expectation, in fact, they live, and live, and live, and really will be changed to make them live eternally.
RWS Will that be Jews or men generally?
JT Men generally; it contemplates the nations too.
CHH Revelation tells us out of every tribe, and tongue and nation.
JT Quite so. “Go thy way until the end; and thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”. Jerusalem above, that is the heavenly side. It is remarkable that rest continually is found. It is a question of rest; thou shalt rest.
DrCP The seventh period is characterised by rest.
JT Yes, rest.
RQ “They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse”. And then, “Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased”.
JT That is all detail, there is hardly time to go into it. I was going to continue the thought of rest, what God is going to bring in for men, the conditions in the millennial day, there remaineth a rest for the people of God. Joshua did not give men that; it is Christ that does that for them. It remaineth for us, and I believe it reaches out to the millennium.
NB Why does the thought of rest precede the thought of standing?
JT Just that. He stands as he would desire to have a part in the whole matter and be a witness to it. He is going to be a witness to all this. Daniel is going to be a witness of all these things. He is going to be honoured and blessed. “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and thirty-five days!”.
DrCP Is Noah’s sacrifice in view of the rest?
JT I think so. That is what it means, that he should bring rest in after the flood.
CHH In Hebrews 4, “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you might seem to have failed of it”. That would be a Jewish thought and later on anticipated by the assembly.
JT The assembly is changed. We shall be like Him. John says when we see Him we shall be like Him. Then there is a question of the earthly people.
CHH We have entered into this rest, those who believe. It is a higher level.
JT Nevertheless, it is a Jewish position in mind in Hebrews.
CHH Will not that rest be especially glorious in view of the sorrow they passed through?
JT I think we must close. I believe we have been helped to bring out what is really in mind. It is for us to go over. It is at our door. This generation will in no wise pass away until these things have come to pass, it says.
RWS Daniel is to rest.
JT Daniel is a man to be noted, “Go thy way, Daniel”. “And thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”. He is left free. Loose him and let him go, the Lord said of Lazarus.
RWS He that is righteous let him be righteous still.
JT It is found here and in the book of Revelation.