2. NEW TESTAMENT
2. NEW TESTAMENT
Matthew 24 up to verse 44 is the judgment of the Jews from verse 45 of the same chapter to verse 30 of chapter 25 it is the judgment of those to whom the Lord Jesus has confided His service during His absence; and from verse 30 to the end of chapter 25 it is the judgment of the nations, not of the dead but of the quick.
2 Thessalonians 2 shews the mystery or secret of lawlessness, even in apostolic days already at work, ending, when the restraining power is gone, in the display of the lawless one in the power of Satan. It is the same personage called in the Epistles of John the Antichrist, who is predicted in Daniel 11: 36 as the king who “shall do according to his will”; that is, his character not moral but political in his relations with the land and people of the Jews.
[p. 167] After that which concerns the seven churches, the Revelation presents the government that the Lord Jesus exercises in the midst of the throne on the earth before His manifestation here below. The general history of this government terminates at the end of chapter 11.
Chapter 12 shews the opposition of Satan to the glory of Christ; chapter 13 lets us see the instruments of that opposition, as chapter 14 the ways of God after He begins to act towards the remnant on the earth until He judges finally the body of the apostasy. These three chapter contribute to give us one vision.
Chapter 15, 16 are another vision shewing us the last judgment of God (not of the Lamb) on the earth. The saints were already before God.
Chapter 17, 18, describe the guilt and judgment of the great harlot, Babylon, the features of her character, and her relations with the beast or Roman empire.
Chapter 19 reveals the marriage of the Lamb, and the judgment of the beast, and the false prophet who is identical with the second beast of chapter 13. Chapter 20 gives us the binding of Satan in the opening verses; then from verse 4 the reign of the glorified saints over the earth for a thousand years; next the loosing of Satan for the last insurrection of the wicked then alive, and their destruction; and then the final eternal judgment of the dead, or all the wicked since the world began, followed by the new heavens and earth when God is all in all, the mediatorial office of Christ being closed, and all evil in the lake of fire. From chapter 21: 9 to chapter 22: 6 is a vision of the state of things in the millennium from verse 7 final exhortations.