CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 14
I have already spoken of ‘the supremacy and glory of the Gentiles up to Christ’s coming to earth.’ The unqualified statements as to it seem to me unfounded. They have been smitten, sorely smitten of God; commerce destroyed — that is, the whole system on which it is based, according to the author. There have been wars, earthquakes (public overthrowings, I doubt not), as well as literally men’s hearts have been failing them for fear, and for looking for those things that are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven will be shaken: days in which men will seek death, and not find it, and desire to die, and death depart from them, nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. That the Gentiles will be pre-eminent, and the oppressive and warlike wilful king have+ a host of willing followers as of oppressed subjects, is true. But the picture drawn is not scriptural. Besides, this lingering Christianity embraces all Christendom except the Roman empire, according to the author’s system, which is just the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. So that this undisturbed supremacy is a very confined one. I do not desire to weaken the idea of the wickedness of this lawless one, nor his ascendancy by various motives over the minds of those who are given up to his power. This is every way dreadful. But his pretensions do not secure the glory and peace of the earth. As regards Israel, the seat and scene of these statements, according to the author, we know that there shall be great tribulation, such as never was since there was a nation, no, nor ever shall be. Israel, by the uniform testimony of the prophets, shall be in the utmost distress in general. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble. I might refer to chapter after chapter, but will quote only Isaiah chapters 18, 24, 27 to 33; Deuteronomy 32:6; Leviticus 26, Zechariah 11:16,17; Joel 3:1-7. Even as to Gentiles, Luke 21 does not seem like great prosperity and comfort, though this may be towards the close of the period — Isaiah 24:6; and verse 4, where the Hebrew word Tebel (earth) is used, and therefore I apprehend it must go beyond the land of Israel. These statements seem to shew a different state of things from what is alleged about Antichrist’s reign.
+This assumes the identity of the beast and Antichrist, which I note as before. It does not effect the argument in any way.
But to proceed. The scripture “reveals the earthly seat of that new and heavenly power whereby the earth and all things therein will be ordered.” But where is it taught that the heavenly power has an earthly seat? I know it is sought to settle it there. Scripture has given the heavenly Jerusalem as the seat of the church’s glory, not earthly Jerusalem. This latter, or Zion, which as to this is the same, is not the mountain of God for the heavenly church, nor the church’s seat of authority, but of Christ as Son of David.
“The purpose of the Lamb in again visiting the earth is to bring into it, and finally to establish in it, the glory and the holiness and the happiness of heaven.” Again, “yet it is in this world that the glory and holiness and happiness of heaven is to be manifested and established.” I hardly know why or how it should be called the glory and happiness of heaven, if it is to be established in the earth. It may be alleged that in the new heavens and the new earth, when Christ has given up the kingdom, and God is all in all, the blessing of the human redeemed family made perfect with Christ will take place, or that there is no longer the same distinction, and even contrast. The beginning of Revelation 21 and the expressions in 2 Peter 3 may be alleged, with possibly some others, for one or other of these thoughts. I do not affirm or deny either here. But in any case, Christ will have given up the kingdom, and that is not the thing in question here. That will be a new earth and must not be confounded with this; and the Son will then Himself be subject, having subdued all. It is not what He establishes, nor properly speaking in this earth. And certainly the seat of the holiness and happiness of heaven is not on the earth during the kingdom, as it is stated here. “Even in the millennium” “there is one spot in the earth where the righteousness and joy and blessedness of heaven will be perfectly found, and that spot is the height of Zion.”
[p. 194] Is the reader prepared for this? Is the joy and blessedness of heaven to be perfectly found on earth? its seat there? For it is not that individually they carry the happiness in their hearts, because serving God’s glory, when going to the earth from the heavenly city. According to the author, the whole hundred and forty-four thousand, the church as such, is found on Mount Zion, and the joy and blessedness of heaven perfectly found there. Are the golden streets transparent as glass there? Is it there they walk with Christ in white? Is it there that the Lord God and the Lamb are the temple and the light of the blessed inhabitants of that city, which has the glory of God, and descends out of heaven? Is it there that they see His face? Is it there Christ has received them to Himself, that where He is, there they may be also, meeting Him in the air, and so being ever with the Lord? Alas, alas! where are we come to? But indeed it is no wonder, when we read in the notes, “Just as Peter and James and John, on the mount of transfiguration, were just as blessed, and as secure as Moses and Elias.” I suspect Peter and James and John had another thought than that, about their comparative blessedness, and that what they saw awakened desires which seem to me sadly dimmed in these pages, and which the presence of the Holy Ghost did not diminish when Peter wrote his epistle, and referred to it. Fellowship with the royalty of the Son of David is not the heavenly glory of the saints: nor indeed, though they share in the power which He exercises over the nations when seated in Zion, do they ever share His earthly royalty as Son of David, though we delight in it, and minister ourselves on earth.
[p. 195] Further, the statements are a string of mistakes. There is no statement in Scripture, that Jerusalem is to be built around Mount Zion. Indeed the statement in Isaiah 66 as to the carcases in Hinnom would render it impossible. As to the note about citadel too, I suppose, no one can doubt it is wrong. The castle in the Acts (chapter 21: 34, etc.) was undoubtedly the castle of Antonia, adjoining the temple, and was not on Mount Zion. I do not know that it has much to say to the matter. Its importance is only to shew that the whole tissue of statement, page after page in this book, is the mere fruit of an unbridled imagination.
Who ever heard of seeking the protection of Sinai? Or “the tents clustering round it”? It is true neither in fact nor in spirit. They were forbidden to approach it, man or beast, but to keep afar off. The glory is over Zion, and people dwell in it. See Isaiah 4. Or how were the people “disappointed in that shelter” of Sinai? And where is Zion “spoken of as the place of manifestation of the better and abiding glory”? Nowhere in Scripture. “We are come to Mount Zion”; to the place of Christ’s royal grace, the undying Son of David; and not to the fiery law of Sinai. But it is never hinted that this is the place of manifestation of the better and abiding glory of the church — nowhere. The heavenly Jerusalem is distinguished from it in the passage, and that is where the church’s abiding glory is seen. That this glory may be specially over Zion and Jerusalem, as the cloud and light covered the camp, is very possible, as in Isaiah 4 referred to. But this supposes Zion the dwelling place of men, not the seat of the abiding glory of the church. I see no intimation of Zion’s being miraculously exalted above the hills (i.e., physically). In page 143, these same words are used as the emblems of authoritative power, and explained as the rightful pre-eminence of Christianity. Besides, the truth is, it is not Zion that is spoken of, but the mountain of the Lord’s house. And everyone knows that this was not Zion. “The house of the God of Jacob” was not in Mount Zion at all.
All this is one string of mistakes. That the glory of the Lord Jesus will be manifested in Mount Zion — that it will be the scene and seat of His earthly rule, I believe; for Scripture is plain enough as to it. That there will be hence a peculiar connection there between heaven and earth, I do not at all deny, and special glory. That is not the question, but the church having its seat there — the glory, joy, and blessedness of heaven being perfectly there. In the Psalm where Sinai is spoken of as in the holy place, i.e., angelic glory, the temple at Jerusalem is spoken of, and His excellency is over Israel, and His strength is in the clouds. That the Lord dwells in Zion, I doubt not, and at Jerusalem. The question is, does the church? As to “one grade of glory to another — appear in Zion before God” — is the valley of Baca a grade of glory? Can there be a more thorough perversion of a passage? Is it not Israel, plain, fleshly, though now returning Israel, going up to Zion?
[p. 196] And now as to the chapter itself. These hundred and forty-four thousand stand with the Lamb in Mount Zion; they are associated in the Spirit’s thought with the suffering of Him who is then glorified as the royal Son of David, made Jehovah’s firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth. If they learn and repeat, it is not for others to learn from them; for none could learn it but they. But while different figures may be used for the church, as bride, sons, body, and so on, yet it seems very strange if these hundred and forty-four thousand are the church who sing in heaven, that they should be learning from those who sing there. A new song is sung before the throne, the beasts, and elders, a new occasion of joy and praise being given; and these one hundred and forty-four thousand, who are there above these very beasts and elders, in another place are remarked as alone able to learn it. I do not believe the same persons are described by different figures in different places, in heaven and earth at the same time, and learning in one character, and remarked as being alone able to learn what is celebrated where they are in the highest place, in another. It seems clearly a different class of persons. Nobody doubts that heavenly feet will tread this lower earth. That this is the scene here revealed is another question. It is not treading the earth as Moses and Elias, but the “better and abiding glory” of the whole church which is stated to be here revealed. “It is in this world that the glory and holiness and happiness of heaven is to be manifested and established.”
[p. 197] That they are in contrast with those who receive the beast’s mark, I believe; and just in this marked as a special class. This is not the church’s place; Christianity, according to the author, is withdrawn during the beast’s reign from the Eden of this world. But these are in contrast with the beast’s followers; they are associated with the lamb-like character of Christ. But then, when it is said that “such are the new persons into whose hands the authority of the earth is transferred,” it is a mere invention of his own: there is not a syllable about it in the chapter. We do not find in them the new and living centre of the earth’s power. They are the firstfruits from the earth thus heaved up to God. But evidently the first-fruits and the harvest are connected (i.e., the judgment of the earth down here).
The general idea of the chapter in page 200 I have nothing to object to, only remembering that the connection of the first verses with it so very plainly proves that the one hundred and forty-four thousand belong to this scene, and have therefore nothing to do with the church at large. The character of redeemed from the earth as first-fruits to God and the Lamb shews their connection with the new world, though as firstfruits offered to God from it.
Further: “and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people” is clearly more than the apostate earth. The dwellers there, save the elect, were worshippers of the beast, and apostate, but that was not true of all nations. As to the period not being fixed, as to a day or a date, it is not; but, morally, it clearly is. “The hour of his judgment is come.” So that it is just before the close — a further proof of what the one hundred and forty-four thousand are. And the statement of the writer, that it is the apostate nations who are preached to, confines it at any rate to the last three years and a half. It is clearly a new testimony in mercy, not confined, I believe, to the earth, for the understanding of which the order of Psalms 95 to 100 (here referring to Psalm 96 particularly) will furnish us with a good deal of assistance.
It might be supposed that I should have difficulty as to what is stated as to verse 13. But, though the manner of its expression is adapted to the theory of the author, yet I believe this verse does designate the time when the killing power of the beast being to be put an end to, the whole company of saints can enter into their proper place of reward. So that in general I agree with the statement. It is not the rapture of the church, for it only concerns those who die, a condition which now closes; and hence the harvest of the earth which follows has nothing to do with this, for the Lord does not reap the dead upon the earth. It is quite another thing, the harvest of the earth — that earth from which the one hundred and forty-four thousand had been redeemed as first-fruits.
As to the everlasting gospel’s being the opening of exhaustless grace, unshaken and unchanged throughout every age, the answer is simple. The gospel that the angel carries forth is, “Fear God, and give glory to him: for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” That there will be deliverance and mercy for them who listen, I doubt not, when the judgment announced arrives. But surely this is not what we have to preach to sinners. Though we admit fully its truth, there is something more than this. Is calling from idols, because the Creator God is just going to judge, that which characterises the heavenly gospel of redemption which we preach? There is not even mentioned what finds its necessary place in what is most like it, the preaching of Paul at Athens. There Jesus and the resurrection form the topic which gives its weight to his discourse, and which tells on the assembled hearers, and brings things to a point with them. Here there is nothing of it.
The writer is then obliged to contradict himself and the chapter too, because of his system — himself, because the apostasy “will not take place apart from the personal manifestation of the man of sin” (page 125). But during the time of the man of sin, no such testimony is allowed, Christianity is withdrawn, and yet (page 200) this testimony is among the apostate nations, and consequently during the manifestation of Antichrist who allows no professed Christianity at all. Yet, if it be among the apostate nations, it cannot be in the period which precedes the full development of the Antichristian blasphemy, because before that the author says they are not apostate. It is contrary to the chapter, because the angel could not say “the hour of his judgment is come,” when the thing to be judged was not yet manifested. But it was necessary to his system, because he cannot allow the gospel during the apostasy; though here (except that other people had so applied it, and the unwillingness to allow any gospel other than the church testimony) there be no reason why he should not leave it (as he does, page 203) among the apostate nations, at any rate in part. The mention of Babylon also afterwards makes it necessary to his system.
[p. 199] I know not why the author makes this statement as to Babylon a prophetic statement. In page 203, “The events follow in the order in which they are stated” — this therefore among the rest. Nor is there anything that I see at all to contradict the statement, which seems to me very plainly the case. There is the testimony — the fall of Babylon — the warning not to worship the beast — Babylon being then set aside, which was the previous snare, and judgment approaching; then a period or close put to the death of the saints — then the harvest — and then the vintage, which closes all. It is very evidently from one end to the other the closing scene of the earth. Those redeemed from the earth — a testimony against idolatry, the hour of God’s judgment being come — Babylon fallen — a closing warning not to worship the beast, because of the torment that awaited him — the death of the saints put a stop to, and the rest of those who had died announced — the harvest of the earth — and the vintage of the earth. It is earth’s closing scene.
I suppose the testimony as to Babylon is made future in order to urge such a testimony now. Whereas, if it be the announcement of events according to page 201, all this falls. I confess I think page 201 more right than page 203. It is clear that, if it be merely a prophecy of the future which ought even to be going on now, it has nothing to do with the order of events.
If there are saints under Antichrist, and Christianity is withdrawn, and chased into uncivilised darkness, and that the obedient have escaped according to Christ’s word, there are saints who have the faith of Jesus who are not Christians, at any rate Christians not having on earth the place of the church and Christianity according to the mind of Christ; for that has been driven away, and the sphere of its testimony is gone. That there will be such saints, I doubt not; though the faithful will be kept from the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth — a passage which the author himself applies to the latter day.
The author then goes on to urge that the judgment of the harvest does not apply to the prophetic earth at all, but to Christendom. But first, the harvest of the earth and the vintage of the earth apply to the same scene of judgment, and also the testimony to the dwellers on earth. But these two apply to apostate Christendom, or the prophetic earth. Then we have merely “the earth was reaped”: no gathering up into the garner stated here, as in Matthew 13.
The author states that “the wheat-field will not represent those who will, when the Lord returns, be found in the open rejection of the name of God and of Christ, and worshippers of a man.” But Jude states the contrary. After speaking of false brethren crept in unawares, he says, “these are they” — denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ — perishing in the gainsaying of Core — hard speeches they had spoken against the Lord — and they had men’s persons in admiration — twice dead — though they feasted with the saints. In a word, the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God, identifies absolutely and positively the tares, those who were sown while men slept, who crept in unawares, with the judgment of blaspheming apostates. Enoch prophesied of these. The statement of the author seems to me to be contradicted in terms by the express testimony of Scripture; and with it his whole system of judgment and of the earth, and of Christendom (his very names of things) falls entirely. I believe the harvest here a much more confined thing, not involving the heavenly saints at all. Those who had been killed under Antichrist, and who are certainly, according to chapter 20, to have a part in the first resurrection, had been disposed of in verse 13; and then comes the harvest of the earth, and the earth is reaped; discriminating judgment is executed then to introduce (when the vintage is finished) the feast of tabernacles. And is it not singular that the vine of the earth, which has ever been the symbol of God’s plant on the earth, should have nothing to do with such a scene? That it is apostate and under Antichrist is clear; but still they must have some analogy, some pretence to be, or be historically, the people of God, though anything but that really. The great king of the earth is Antichrist, we are told. But then, of what earth is the harvest? There are other details here, which I leave, because we shall meet with them again.
To turn to the notes. We have here the express statement that the one hundred and forty-four thousand learn the song of heaven from themselves, that is, they learn on earth from themselves in heaven. Is this a reasonable interpretation? There are grades of glory which belong to Christ, but is it scriptural to suppose that the church is with Him in these grades, or that it has its own? Does it vary its glory, and have sometimes earthly, sometimes heavenly? Is it not more simple to suppose that there are different bodies in these different glories of Christ, when such different bodies are spoken of? It is certainly true of Israel. It is never said that we are joint-heirs of Christ’s glories. We are glorified together with Him. But we are not united with Him as Son of David: we are not sons of David — and this is the place of Christ in Zion. And the church has not its centre of government on earth. It belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem. “It would be very strange,” we are told, “not to find the church anywhere represented in connection with Zion, the seat of power.” Well, I suppose then this is the only place in Scripture; but then it must be proved to be the church. And it is just a confession that the church is nowhere said to be in the seat of earthly power. The author may think it strange; but there are those who are content with their heavenly place of power, and better blessings too, and who do not seek to find Scriptures to bring the church down to an earthly seat and centre of government, because they know God has given it another and a better place. And to say that man in this mortal body is “as blessed” as in glory, and to insist on finding some earthly place for the church, is just in a few words, as here plainly stated, the whole gist and object of this book.
[p. 201] First-fruits of the earth is not the church’s title; and the harvest of which this was the first-fruits was of the earth. Besides, though I do not believe it is here the whole body of the nation of Israel, yet Israel is called first-fruits; Jeremiah 2: 3. Nor is there the least possible analogy with Sinai, save by way of contrast: and to talk of “heavenly persons on the earth admitting into their presence persons who yet were in earthly bodies.” Is that a description of Sinai? what heavenly persons admitted them?
As to the article, while I admit that the Revelation in the instances given uses the article or omits it, as other Greek authors do, because it would make nonsense otherwise (as when I say, the house fell, it is clear I mean some house spoken of to which I refer; and so if I say, the one hundred and forty-four thousand, I mean some one hundred and forty-four thousand already mentioned, or no one would know what it meant), yet, though thus far speaking as usual so as to make sense, the Revelation is very irregular as to the article, as it is in every part of grammar, as every Greek reader well knows. I do not say reasons may not be given which shew it to be the mind of the Spirit, as is to me clear in the case “thou art the wretched and the miserable and poor and blind and naked” (chapter 3: 17); but as to chapter 4: 7, “having the face as of man,” I understand the phrase; but no one can say it is the regular use of the Greek article. So compare chapter 4: 11, chapter 5: 12 and this latter with verse 13. As to the grammar in general the reader may read chapter 7: 9, which is by no means a single instance; chapter 8: 3; so chapter 9: 15. But I need go no farther.
[p. 202] However, I admit the difference of the hundred and forty-four thousand. When the author speaks of men serving God in the earth where we have failed, we shall serve Him in the earth again; but in Scripture that is connected with the heavenly, not the earthly Jerusalem. The passage is merely using human feeling to divert from direct divine teaching.
A heavenly character is thus given to Zion. But Zion is not heavenly, nor ever represented as heavenly in Scripture, anywhere or in any manner; nor is a passage adduced to prove it, in which Zion is mentioned. Our hymn-books are quoted; that is, we are led back to that confusion of Old and New Testament hopes out of which God in His mercy had delivered us. That the song is heavenly, I do not deny: but it could not, I repeat, be learnt by those that were singing it from themselves. As to the next note: the hundred and forty-four thousand are represented as a female company. It is just nonsense for anyone that has read the passage.
We have only to compare the rest of the note with page 77 to find one of those incessant total contradictions of self, which it really (when occurring at nearly every page) is a miserable task to follow. Here it is the earthly state and glory; there it is the full excellency of a heavenly calling, maintained and manifested on earth. If it be not a contradiction, then a heavenly calling is nothing at all, because its full excellency is on earth as to glory, Messiah’s glory, when the church is not mentioned but in another character in which the earthly Jerusalem is not at all. I do not agree in the interpretation of virgins her companions. I judge they are cities of Judah, or at most of Israel. But this is only a matter of interpretation, as to which I am ready to listen to anyone taught of God.
The note on “worship him that made heaven,” etc., is a most strange departure from sound interpretation, in pursuance of the author’s false system as to the Psalms. He quotes a Psalm as after the Lord has come and forgiven Israel, which the apostle expressly quotes as addressed to them, for fear they might fail of entering into the promised rest. But such is the effect of a system. And it may be remarked that it is in the following Psalm we have announced what answers to the everlasting gospel here commented on. I understand that the author may found himself on those being forgiven to whom the apostle writes: but such a plea would, I confess, to me, make the matter worse. The apostle addresses those who professed to look for the coming of the Lord, and believe that Jesus was He, proving to them that they should endure in trial because a rest remained to God’s people, and therefore exhorts them to hold fast as others who had not received the promises. But when the Lord has come, and forgiven Israel, would such an appeal to hold fast because the rest had not come yet, or they would fall in the wilderness, like Israel of old, and not get the promise, have place? It is either singular a want of spiritual understanding in the interpretation of Scripture, or a most bold defiance of the apostle’s use of Scripture.
“Who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14: 13), I believe to be, not the whole church, as the author says (because we shall not all die), but all, as a class, who die in the Lord. It prescribes the time of blessing, not of dying. The Holy Spirit gives such a testimony to the then realised blessing of those who die in Jesus, that they could be called from that hour, blessed, even supposing they died after this moment. I do not say they will: but the passage pronounces nothing on it. As the author has said elsewhere, it denotes the abstract fact, and has no reference to time.
From the author’s system of the apostate earth and Christendom, etc., I dissent entirely. It is an assertion, like so many others, of which no proof is attempted to be given. That there is an apostasy we all recognise. That there is a man of sin, and head of the beast, we all own. That the Roman earth will be the scene of especial evil and judgment, all hold. It is not the exclusive sphere of it, even as to the prophetic earth; because the whole image becomes like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor, by the blow that smites the feet. Moreover, Gog, I have no doubt, is Russia and its dependencies, and is not in the Roman earth, or what is included in the four beasts of Daniel — but it is in the prophetic earth in the full sense and in Christendom. If this be so, the whole system falls; because the author thinks as I do, that he comes up after. Yet he would have had to be previously judged as Christendom or of the prophetic earth. Further, we have already seen Jude affirms the direct positive contrary of the author’s theory. And it would suppose that ripe tares had ceased to be tares at all — that that mystery of iniquity which was working in Christendom, secretly sown of Satan, when grown up into open apostasy and wickedness, had ceased to be the tares ripened for judgment. Teaching errors as Balaam for reward, though not the position in which they perish, leads on to the gainsaying of Core, in which they do. And Jude affirms that they are the same identical objects of judgment.
[p. 204] Besides, who says that Christendom is the kingdom? The author does, I know: but would it not be better to prove it in some way? In the sense in which he exceptionally uses it, I deny it entirely. The field is the world. In the same scene in which they were sown the tares were reaped when they were ripe. Such is the plain statement of the parable. It is monstrous to suppose that their ripeness makes them cease to be tares. 2 Thessalonians 2 and Jude both identify the earliest work and final judgment as one progressive matter. Besides, it is a great mistake to suppose that the harvest of Matthew 13 is a momentary act. It is no such thing. “In the time of harvest” the Son of man says to the reapers, Gather together first the tares in bundles to be burned. This in page 207 the author is careful to omit, and puts the tares last as cast into the burning, and the wheat first gathered into the garner, omitted the first gathering the tares.
Now see how this applies to his system. Christ has the tares gathered out of His field into bundles first, so that He disposes of the whole field, as thus mixed, by first separating the wicked into bundles, whatever that means, and then deals with the wheat thus left clear. But, according to the author, no such process takes place at all in the apostate Roman earth. It is in vain to give a vague idea that the harvest is a gathering in of saints, who could be smuggled (so to speak) out of the dens and caves where they are supposed to be hid, and then say it is from Christendom that the harvest is mainly gathered. This is a wholly incorrect representation of the matter, and merely slurring it over to suit his views. In the harvest of Matthew it was not merely gathering from. The first thing done was gathering the tares. Is that done in the Roman apostate earth? I suppose it will not be denied that this dealing with the tares applies to the wicked on the earth who were growing in this world. Christendom, we are told, is His kingdom, and to that the harvest applies. But then it does not apply to the Roman apostate earth, and not to wheat more than tares. It is not the field which is the subject of the harvest at all. The harvest in Matthew is a dealing with the field, and the state of the field — not the judgment of individuals according to the secret knowledge of God who judges the heart; and therefore, to speak of Christians belonging to a geographical division, and apostates to another, and to be picked out by the secret judgment of God when the field is not judged, is a subversion of the whole object and statement of the parable; which is that He would let indeed both grow together until the harvest, but that then He would clear the whole field, and first deal publicly with the tares, then take in the wheat and burn the tares in their day. Ripened apostates having ceased to be tares, there is no harvest for what is now the field where they grow, though wheat may be hidden in it.
[p. 205] Further, it must be remarked, that according to this, the tares in Christendom (i.e., ripened+ wickedness of men) is judged on the earth before Christ comes at all, and before He appears; according to the system of the author, burned as tares in the fire. For Antichrist is destroyed by His appearing. Moreover, the church is taken away before His appearing, at least from Christendom, where the harvest takes place — it does not appear exactly when: consequently, also, before Christ rises up, for then the age ends, as we have been previously told; and, as I have already remarked, the harvest is the end of the age. So that really it is not Christ’s judgment at all, nor does He come to receive us. In page 204, it is said, “He comes in glory and divine majesty, seated in the clouds.” But then, “whenever [page 11] the Lord Jesus quits His present place on the throne of God, our dispensation ends, and the new age begins.” So that the age is already quite ended in the harvest in Revelation — for He is come. But it was in the end that the harvest in Matthew takes place. So that the two harvests cannot be the same at all. And moreover, on the other hand, the judgment of the wicked on the earth must precede Christ’s coming, not be His judging at all as Son of man: for then God is acting on the throne for Him, that is, till that age ended. All that can be said is that the contradictions are endless, because the author has framed a system which is not Scripture at all.
+Though indeed they are not ripe in Christendom — that will be true only in the beast’s dominions.
He says (page 205), “neither will the wheat field represent those who will,” etc. The wheat-field is the world, not people. But this is put to avoid the plain evident revelation of a judgment on the earth, which clears the place judged from tares in order to take in the wheat. For, if once it is a judgment of the field, it is clear all his system is wrong, because the hidden Christians left in the Roman earth would not be gathered up, or else the Roman earth would be judged in the harvest.
It is indeed, on account of the time by which he closes the age, quite clear that on the author’s system the harvests in Matthew and Revelation are different. There is no vintage in Matthew, because the harvest is a general thing, the result of the Son of man’s and Satan’s sowing in the world. And to suppose that the Son of man’s kingdom, when He executes judgment, coming as King of kings and Lord of lords, is only what professes His name previously in the earth (i.e., what has continued to do so where He was not shewing His power) is perfectly fallacious. He has no right as King to more than His kingdom: and where do we learn [p. 207] that Christendom is the kingdom of the Son of man? It is not what is given Him in Daniel 7 and in the parable. It is carefully taught that the field in question is the world. We may fail in making it good, or maintaining it by the power of the Spirit; but when He comes to assert His title, it is not limited to that. He asserts it to the whole field. And, “all things that offend and them that work iniquity,” is universal. Were this the judgment of Christendom merely as such, we should have no inhabitant left at all in those countries.
The writer says that “Matthew 13 and 25 are especially devoted to the history of Christendom.” As to Matthew 13 I leave it aside here. I have said sufficient on the parable referred to. The first three parables are; and, perhaps I may add, the last. But then the writer must remember that he has described the leaven as working in the Roman earth. But Matthew 25 most surely does not. The first two parables may be, in a certain partial and particular sense, perhaps, said to be so (that is, to consider certain things which will take place within the sphere of Christendom, or apply to Christians, real or professing); where, note, the going out to meet Christ during the night, as coming to the wedding (to Jerusalem down here, if it be followed out) is what gives the virgin character to the church, whose only thought was meeting the Bridegroom, being ready for Him (though they might forget it). Service accompanied it, but that was settled when He returned. It was the display in glory, owned — fully, blessedly owned — but an inferior thing. It was reckoning with servants. Infinite honour to be His servant! It will be recompensed with rule and honour. It will be joy with his Lord to the servant. But it is not exactly going in with Him to the marriage. I do not mean here that both may not be to the same person; most surely they may. We ought to wait, and we ought to serve: and to separate one from the other is evil. But the first thing the Lord has put forward is waiting, yea, going out to meet Him. He Himself is the object; and it is joy. May those who wait for Him be found serving!
[p. 208] I will add here what seems to me the evident structure of these chapters. Chapter 24: 1-31 gives the consequences of the Lord’s rejection as to Judah and Jerusalem, and directions to those who listen to Him, till He comes. In a word, it gives the history of the Jews, with instruction for the disciples in their relationship with them, to the end (the gospel to the Gentiles being merely given as a sign and necessary preliminary to the end). This is in two parts: general, verses 1-14; details at the end, verses 15-31 all as instruction to the disciples. Christ comes in great glory, and gathers the elect Jews, or rather Israel, from the four winds. Then come moral remarks. They are to learn certain things. And on to chapter 25: 30 we have instruction for the disciples, in which their proper condition relative to Him (not to Jerusalem) during His absence is brought out in three parables, which follow the warnings. All these are a sort of parenthesis, and relate to the heavenly people. And then His being come (taught in chapter 24: 31) is resumed (chapter 25: 30) in reference to earth; and, as He had treated the Jews and Jerusalem before, and the church’s position in the parenthesis, now the judgment of the Gentiles is given.+
+I have run through the “Thoughts on the End of the Age,” published since on these two chapters. I cannot answer here in detail a tract of near forty pages; but I examined it to see if there were any answers to the objections I have stated briefly here. But it only makes the matter a great deal worse. It is taught there that those who depart as cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels, are to come out of it again to stand with the rest of the dead before the great white throne mentioned in the Revelation, and be judged according to their works (Matthew 25 being no more a judgment than any sinners dying). (See pages 22, 23.) I would only ask any person taught of God to read the passage referred to, and see how truth is dealt with to maintain a system. It is well to mention here that everything is changed in the teaching of the author. The wheat were risen saints staying, however short a time, on the earth previous to their ascension; now they are living ones in Christendom. The saints were to be in the tribulation, and it was a blessing from God to be prepared for it. The consciences of the saints well know this. Now I read of “escaping the tribulation as the saints will” (page 25 of the tract) — a statement which led me to make these remarks. We were to be on earth till Jesus appeared, and to go up to meet Him when we saw Him; and 2 Thessalonians 1, and the Greek word for rest, or respite, as it was alleged (another unfounded criticism, by the by), with other passages, were quoted to prove that the tribulation was closed for the saints by the Lord’s appearing. They then got respite. All this is given up, though many saints are still under the influence of this teaching. The tribulation, properly speaking, they are not in. And in fact they do not await His appearing at all, Christendom being reaped, and the saints caught up before the judgment of Antichrist, in which as a flash of lightning He appears in destruction. Judgment, we are told, begins at the house of God. The reader must not ask me to reconcile this with other contradictory statements which subsist. There seems to me no attempt at consistency in the author’s statements, more than with the point he is at the moment upon, though here, perhaps, I am wrong. I suspect the secret of a good deal is that, having made his system, and having been forced to correct particular parts year after year because it was evidently contrary to Scripture, it ceased to agree with the other parts of his own system. At least this would explain a good deal of the contradiction. But this is the effect of having a system to maintain.
[p. 210] I cannot enter here into the enquiry of the scene or scenes (for it is evident, I think, that there are more than one of the judgment and destruction of the nations) this being one particular judgment called the vintage. I do not think the vintage at all the only judgment. It is properly and peculiarly that of the positive apostasy. The use of the same terms in Joel 3, where Jehoshaphat is spoken of, proves nothing, because it is also called harvest there, which the author does not apply here. They are merely general figures in Joel. In Isaiah 66 we have a judgment which would seem to include the vintage, though there is no reference to it here. Several escape, and declare the glory they have seen — the carcases of the slain being in a sort of Hinnom.
In Isaiah 63 we have the winepress connected with Edom. This judgment in Idumaea is spoken of as the grand one in Isaiah 34. There is, besides this, evidently the judgment of the Assyrian in Micah 5, where Jesus Messiah is already their peace, and, if it be distinct, Gog also. Zechariah 14 would seem to connect itself with Joel. As to Edom, see also Psalm 83. It is because of the evident extent of this subject, that I do not pursue it here. The vintage has its own proper place — apostate Israel, and Antichrist with his followers. The attempt to explain with a forced literality the figure used seems to me, as is many such examples, only injurious to truth. That there will be dreadful carnage and destruction of sinners, I do not doubt; but “blood came out of the winepress” merely says it is a question here of men that are trampled in fury. Because it is clearly not a winepress; and as to flowing from the valley of Jehoshaphat, it is not said in the Revelation to be there; and if it were, a river of blood, deep and wide, would not (let it be ever so exaggerated) “really” meet the case, because it must flow sixteen hundred furlongs, that is, two hundred miles. I confess it seems to me only degrading Scripture, to force it in this way — making all absurd to make half accurate, according to the narrowness of man’s mind, and the rest consistent neither with the other part nor with anything else.