CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 7
We have here to deal with some very important points. Some important in themselves, others through the questions raised on them, though of themselves comparatively of little moment.
The general ideas of the way the Gentiles have despised the promises to Abraham, etc., are common to all who hold the personal reign “since the revival of prophetic light.” It is the use of them which is here to be enquired into.
The very word “despise,” taken with what follows, has a very equivocal force, though it would not have struck me perhaps else. It is not reject, or refuse to admit, but “despise,” as something which might be worth our having. And as we read on, the full force of this little word becomes evident, falling in with the earthly character to which Christianity is really reduced always in this book. We are not called upon to own Israel’s ancient promises as belonging to Israel, but to blend them into harmony with the new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles. These ancient promises to Israel being forgotten, the consequence was that Gentiles Christianity became useless for God’s purposes of practical testimony on the earth. And, in fact, before the apostles died, they were boasting themselves against the natural branches of the very tree to which they owed all their own fatness — such is the author’s view.
God makes everything work together for good to those who love Him. It was the attempt to lower our Christian privileges to an earthly measure (so constantly and assiduously made in the system of which this book is the fullest expression, and from which the Spirit of God made one instinctively recoil) — it was this attempt, I say, which led my mind to dwell on the highest and blessed source from which our privileges do flow.
[p. 107] Now, I would ask, do the apostles blend into harmony the ancient promises to Israel with the new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles? Or, while maintaining these hopes, did they confound them with the heavenly glory which belonged to the church? Nay, did Jesus minister these hopes, or did He say that He had many things to tell them, but they could not bear them now, but that when the Spirit of truth was come, He would guide them into all truth, and shew them things to come, glorifying Christ and taking of His things (and all the Father’s were His) and shewing them to them? And as Jesus declares, in direct contradiction of the author’s assertion, that He could not administer these hopes to them then because of their state, but that the Spirit could (because, being in them, He was a capacity of reception as well as power of revelation) — so the apostle declares that it was the Spirit that did so reveal them. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” “So the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things freely given to us of God.” And this (to go no farther in quoting passages on this very important point) was so truly the case, that, precious and blessed as the presence and care of Jesus was, such was the immense difference with the coming of the Holy Ghost, and that to dwell in the disciples, made, that it was expedient for Jesus Himself to leave them.
All this is kept out of sight, and new hopes ministered by Jesus and His apostles brought in together, as if there were no difference. Is this honouring Jesus? Would men think it needful to bring Jesus up to the level of the apostles? They may spare themselves the trouble. His lowliness and humiliation were His glory, His highest and new glory. It is, on the contrary, but despising His own lowly and tender words in that place of humiliation which no living man but Himself could have taken. The Son of God making Himself of no reputation is the eternal wonder of heaven and earth. That Israel’s earthly hopes and glory will be accomplished when the church’s heavenly hopes are, and that thus there will be harmony, is true. All things in heaven and earth will be gathered together in one in Christ. But they will never be blended. Flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God, nor corruption inherit incorruption. If an eternal state be spoken of, then these are not Israel’s ancient promises. What is peculiar to and prophetic of Israel, will then be done with.
[p. 108] The ancient promises made to Israel were of earthly blessings (as God’s people no doubt): but the promises to Israel were of an earthly inheritance, made to them as a people separated from Gentiles. I am not now speaking of individual saints, looking beyond those promises to better things. These were not promises to Israel, but heavenly hopes. And that the hopes ministered by the apostles were different from those promises is clear; for the author calls them new hopes. The question is, how far they are blended. That there may be common things is very possible. No doubt there are. They must be born again. They must be forgiven. And they will have life. But what is the blending of the heavenly and earthly hopes? The olive tree would be referred to; and here it is said that the Gentiles owe all their fatness to it. Now this is merely the sad principle which runs all through this book — namely, reducing the church to the lowest privileges of which it is partaker. Let us consider a little this teaching of the olive tree. The apostle had concluded all under sin without difference, the Jew having only added transgressions under the law: and he had closed the account of the privileges of the saints in Romans 8. Not, it is true, on the ground of the elevation of Christ to be Head of the body (this is the subject of the Ephesians), but on a principle of a headship of Christ going beyond Abraham and David, and extending to a position which answered to that of Adam, the figure of Him that was to come — the new resurrection man. This blotted out the idea of Israel as to distinctive position before God. Lifted up from the earth, He was to draw all men in a new way. God was the God of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews. The free gift had all men for its object. The consequent blessings are then enquired into, the presence of the Holy Ghost; they were called, justified, and glorified, and never to be separated from God’s love in Christ Jesus. This closes chapter 8.
[p. 109] But then naturally arises the question — If Jews and Gentiles are indiscriminately admitted by faith, what comes of the promises made to Israel as God’s people? This question the apostle answers in chapters 9 to 11, shewing that God had foretold that they would be a disobedient and gainsaying people, as they had in fact stumbled at the stumbling stone. The question, then, here discussed is not church privileges, but how to reconcile their being indiscriminate with the distinctive promises to Israel. And therefore (chapter 11) the apostle asks, Hath God cast away His people? And here he comes entirely on earthly ground: for Israel never were, and never will be, and were never promised to be, a heavenly people: whereas the church, in its higher and distinctive and proper privileges, was a heavenly people, and had Christ’s suffering portion for them upon earth. They were sitting in heavenly places in Him. But they were to have a place actually on earth; and here they replaced for a time Israel. But this did not at all set aside the promises to Israel as such: there was no blending of them. A Jew, or circumcision, was nothing now. One displaced the other on earth. In heaven the distinction was unknown. Christ was the Head of the body in heaven, but He was no Messiah of the Gentiles upon earth, though the Gentiles were to trust in Him, so that the apostle could justify himself by the Old Testament.
But then how reconcile these things? God had not cast away His people. First, He had reserved an elect remnant. Secondly, it was to provoke, as He had declared He would, to jealousy, His ancient people; therefore not to cast them off. Thirdly, Israel would be saved as a whole by Christ’s coming again and going forth from Zion.
But this last, instead of blending, was preceded by the threat of utterly cutting off the Gentile branches. Now it is quite clear that this cannot refer to the heavenly body of Christ (for it cannot be so cut off), but to God’s dealings with them on earth. And this is yet more evident, because the Israelites are said to be graffed into “their own” olive tree, which clearly has nothing to do with the church as a heavenly body, because that is not their olive tree any more than a Gentile’s. All were alike here, children of wrath. There was no difference. It was one God, and one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. But there was an administration of promises, and immutable promises, which did naturally belong to them. The Gentiles came in here, inasmuch as, being united to Christ the true Seed of Abraham they come into the promises and blessing of Abraham. But on repentance, Israel down here on earth will be graffed into their own olive tree, where we are now contrary to nature.
[p. 110] But all this naturally, and contrary to nature, has no place in our proper church position: all is beyond nature and contrary to nature there. Yea, though we had known Christ after the flesh (and He was seed of David according to the flesh, and Abraham was the Jew’s father after the flesh) — but, though we had known Christ after the flesh, we were now to know Him no more, though we recognise His title. “The glory of the Messiah of Israel” will be established, but not on the principles, though both be received by grace, on which the church is set in heaven; because there can be no Israel known there. They have their own olive tree down here, and the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. But in Christ as known to the church there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in all. The church of heavenly places has put on Christ and knows nothing else.
And it is because the church at Jerusalem did yet as to earth refer to this special place of Jews, according to the mind of God Himself (and not as if it did not enter into the full heavenly privileges itself), according to the sermon of Acts 3 (where the unbelieving Jews are still treated as the children of the covenant which God made with Abraham) that the Pentecostal church has been spoken of as having a Jewish character. It is not that those who composed it did not form part of the heavenly church and body of Christ; but that God (till Jerusalem had rejected the testimony of the Holy Ghost about a glorified Christ, as she had rejected a humble Christ) did not finally cast her off as having no more hope. She had deserved it, indeed; but God answered the intercession of Christ for that nation upon the cross, by the Spirit in the mouth of Peter in Acts 3 (as indeed as a nation He will hereafter, only in a remnant saved by grace) telling them that now, if they repented, He would send Jesus, and the times of refreshing would come. But when He called, there was still “none to answer”; and judgment, though with long patience, took its course. And Paul appears (Colossians 1), as minister of the church, to fulfil the word of God, and of the gospel to every creature under heaven; and the full heavenly indiscriminate character of the one body is brought out. Nobody ever dreamed that the Jewish saints were not of it; but they justly discerned the blessed patient dealings of God with His ancient and beloved people — the nation for which Christ died, and for which He interceded — and the full bringing out of the doctrine of that heavenly body which knew no difference of Jew within itself at all, nor Christ Himself after the flesh, while it recognised the truth of all the rest.+
+And I am fully persuaded that the more spiritual discernment there is, the more it will be perceived that (while there was the same life, and grace, and salvation for all believers, and all were in the church) Paul held a place in ministry proper to himself — a dispensation or administration of the grace of God committed unto him, in which he was quite alone, and none at all like him. He recognised all the rest; but he stood, called independently into an independent place, for a special and distinct service, and peculiar and distinctive sufferings. None other speaks the least like him in his relationship to the saints and churches; while, there is no doubt, he preached the same gospel of salvation. None were the head of a system entrusted to them in the same manner. The special doctrine was Christ among the Gentiles the hope of glory, and the unity of the body the church, with the gathering of all things into one in Christ, and the glory and principles connected with this. It was his gospel.
[p. 111] And further: the doom of the Gentile nations and beasts, though long foretold, will not have its accomplishment till the Gentile church has lost its own place. “Gentile Christianity” as such — as Gentile — became mighty when Peter’s testimony was useless at Jerusalem; that is, when the blending down here of Jewish promises and Christian hopes closed Jerusalem’s rejection of the gospel, as to practical testimony on the earth. It was as effacing the distinction of Jew and Gentile, and shewing that Israel was cast away for a time from all its hopes, that the testimony of Gentile Christianity was mighty upon earth — not by blending them. That the denial of Israel’s earthly hopes has helped on the ruin of Gentile Christianity is most true: because the church thereon looks for earthly place and position, which is only and contrastedly Israel’s. It was the attempt to blend them+ that did the mischief, and I firmly believe is the grand mischief of this book. Deny Israel’s place and glory with Messiah, and the church will become earthly, rise in its own conceits, and finally, as a system down here, cut off. But it was the distinct and unequivocal maintenance of the church’s proper and separate place, as sitting in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, which maintained its position for Israel; and not blending them in harmony, when God had temporally replaced on earth one by the other, as He will the latter by the restoration of Israel on a new ground, but as a distinct people on its own promises. And if this be not kept clear, the church actually and practically loses its own place and character, and will not long give its testimony in the earth. It cannot blend itself with Israel’s promises, and continue so to do. It is true that the church has taken up the dropped inheritance of the promises down here; but it has taken them up as possessor of a higher and new glorious title, which was no subject of promise — living union with the Lord Jesus as His body, which was no subject of promise — and in accomplishment of a mystery hidden from ages and generations. Israel was judicially blinded to let in the church; as the apostasy and excision will come, and the faithful be in heaven, that Israel may be graffed in again. Is this blending them? The Gentile Christians do not owe all their fatness to the tree. They partake of its fatness, i.e., of the Abrahamic promises. But they owe their highest blessings to their union with Christ — being His own body — a thing never promised to Abraham at all, whatever portion he may be judged to have in it, in his own person.
+The setting aside the metropolitan order of Jerusalem which had been, as far as it went, the blending of the two systems, and which the author compares with Jerusalem’s place in the millennium when this blending will be accomplished, certainly was not what destroyed the power of Gentile Christianity, but, as he himself has stated, set it a going in the person of Paul. The denying the future hopes of Israel, and so blending the earth and heaven in a new popish metropolitan, is quite a different thing from distinguishing the nature of these hopes, and so not blending them. The author has assumed, that not to blend the church’s hopes and Israel’s, is to deny Israel’s; but it is quite the contrary. It maintains them. Whereas, blending them denies what is proper to the church, which is lost when you blend it with Israel: and so does it Israel’s too; for each is what it is.
[p. 112] That Paul recognises the old things and the new we all believe; but, as we here find, the writer does not go beyond old things and new of the kingdom. The church, as the body of Christ, does not enter into the new or old in his statement. I do not the least wish to deny the importance of this question; I implore brethren to weigh anxiously this point: they may be assured it is of the greatest practical importance — I mean the distinctness of the church’s hopes or their blending with the ancient promises to Israel. The life and spiritual energy of a saint depends on his faith in what is proper to his own dispensation. This is so true, that, if he only believed what belonged to the last, it would not be life to him; it has ceased to be the test of faith to him. To Abraham, faith in Almighty God was living faith: is this (though living faith surely owns it) what living faith consists in now? A Jew, not owning Jehovah, would have failed from the covenant. And it is true of power too. If the Holy Ghost be not fully owned, if the proper heavenly place of the church be not fully owned, no general idea of salvation, however true, will give the power, nor form and guide for Christ’s glory those who neglect the former. What is special to the dispensation is the power and testimony of the dispensation, and not what is said to be common to all.
[p. 113] We will now turn to Christianity in Jerusalem. It is well for the reader to remember that all that used to be said as to the church being in the tribulation, the blessedness of our being forewarned and prepared for it, the doctrine of Christ’s appearing before the church’s going up to meet Him in the air (to prove which the “rest with us” when He shall appear was quoted) — all this, I say, which was so much insisted upon, is entirely given up. Many of the disciples of the school still hold it; but the author of these “Thoughts” has entirely relinquished it. A few scattered Christians (and disobedient ones too) may be caught in the storm: but all intelligent and obedient ones will escape it altogether. It is a new testimony, when Christianity is withdrawn, that will be exposed to the malice of Antichrist. This is evidently an important point. The saints well know how much it was insisted on, that they would be there and must be prepared for it. It was urged as one grand delusion to fancy the church would be out of it, whereas God was specially preparing their hearts for it by forewarning them. The mistake (it appears now) was in those who insisted upon it. In page 124 of the “Thoughts” the reader may see that Christianity is withdrawn from Jerusalem. The dragon drives it away into the refuge God has prepared for it out of the limits of the civilised earth (pages 148, 149). The harvest also is reaped in Christendom, and has no reference at all to the regions of the Roman earth, where Christ appears suddenly to destroy Antichrist.
But let us examine these statements. The reader will understand that the answer must be somewhat longer than the statement; because, when a statement is made without any proof — when it is said, that such is manifest from Matthew 24, it does not suffice to say, “It is not manifest,” and increase the phrases only by the word “not.” It would be quite as valid, but very useless.
[p. 114] That Christianity will again exist in Jerusalem is not denied, for it does exist there. But, according to the statement of the author, already referred to (page 124), it will not exist there during the tribulation, or period of the beast’s power. So that what he means by His disciples being destined to witness in that city the great hour of Antichristian triumph, it would be hard to tell: on the first sign of that triumph, they are to leave the country. All is mixed up together here, to say the least, in the most confused manner. He (Christ in Matthew 24) “foretells,” we are told, “the period of unequalled tribulation.” “The Revelation also again and again refers to those who hold fast the testimony to Jesus, and the faith of Jesus, in the midst of similar circumstances to those which Matthew 24 describes.” Now would it be supposed that the author held that there would be no Christianity in Jerusalem during the last three years and a half (that is, during the whole period of anti-Christian triumph, or “period of unequalled tribulation”)? So that all that in the Revelation refers to the beast’s reign, as far as “hopes and testimony of Christianity in Jerusalem” go, must be entirely excluded from all that is said here. The obedient ones, seeing the sign, will be far away. And it is not to be passed over, that the only definite reference to testimony to Jesus, and faith in Jesus, in the prophetic part of the Revelation, refers to the period of the beast’s reign.
And, further, I will assume+ with the writer that it is Christians and Christianity that receive the direction to flee from Jerusalem when the abomination of desolation is set up; because then there would be unequalled tribulation, and that “ye” means in Matthew 24 this same body, the church, all through its “last representatives.” Does he mean to say that they are directed to flee from Jerusalem because the tribulation is setting in, to be in the very same tribulation elsewhere? Is there any sense in that? And if not, what “evil hour” does he refer to as “that evil hour”? He had spoken of “the great hour of Antichristian triumph.” But in Jerusalem they will not suffer from it. They are to flee — not, I suppose, into the identical persecutions elsewhere. So that they will not be in the great tribulation at all. In speaking, therefore, of similar circumstances to Matthew 24, the author must refer to what precedes the day of the beast’s power. So that his doings against the saints in Revelation do not apply to those instructed in Matthew: they are fled “into the bosom of uncivilised darkness.” Very possibly; but they are not in his power. We may remark that the patience of those who “have the faith of Jesus” is referred only to not worshipping the beast. It is an expression used only once. The expression “faith of the saints” is used in reference to the same thing. And so is “testimony of Jesus” in the only place in which it is connected with any persons specifically. Only here it is the dragon who makes war with them.
+In point of fact, I believe the church will be gone up on high.