Pastor David B. Curtis
Pastor David B. Curtis
Since the second edition of The Christ Has Come was published the author's belief on the subject of the past Second Advent has undergone certain changes. These changes he now proceeds to indicate, and he is not without hope that they will help to commend to a much larger number of Christian people the main truth for which be contends.
The Translation of the Saints -St. Paul predicted that at the "Parousia," or Second Advent of the Lord Jesus, the saints who had remained on earth until that time would pass straight to Heaven. The apostle also declared that this statement was no mere opinion of his own, but that it rested on divine authority - the fact had been definitely revealed to him by Christ. " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord : that WE (necessarily including some at least of those to whom he was writing) that are alive that are left unto the coming of the Lord . . . shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be. with the Lord" 1 Thess. iv. 15, 17). Jesus also had expressly declared that before the generation of men to whom He spoke had passed away the Son of man would send forth His angels with the sound of a great trumpet, and that they Would gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. On that day, two men, for example, would be at work in the field, or two women would be grinding at the. mill : one would be taken, and one would be left (Matt. xxiv. 31, 34, 40, 41).
So too when our Lord's apostles were saddened by the announcement that He was soon going to leave them, He comforted them with the certainty that His visible presence would only be withdrawn from them for a short time, and that when He had fully prepared a home for them in the Father's house of many mansions He would Himself come back to fetch them away from the earth. ("And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again and will receive you unto Myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also "John xiv. 3.) In the first two editions of The Christ Has Come, it was assumed that this removal of watchful and consecrated believers to Heaven at the time of the Parousia in 70 A.D. necessarily involved a great physical miracle in the sudden and total disappearance of their earthly bodies. This, in itself, would have been quite as possible and credible an event as the translation of Enoch and Elijah (Gen. v. 24; Heb. ix. 5; 2 Kings ii. 11), and the ascension of the Lord Jesus (Mark xvi. 19 ; Luke xxiv. 51 ; Acts i. 9). Only the most saintly Christians (corresponding to the Wise Virgins of the parable, Matt. xxiv.) were then to be withdrawn from the world. The early church was composed mainly of women, of slaves, and of the poor, in that age of fierce social and political tumult, when human life was held very cheap, the act that in every part of the known world a few members of a despised and hated religious sect were thus suddenly missing from their homes might easily escape record by the secular historian, while the break or gap which undoubtedly occurs at this point in the Christian annals would go far to explain the silence of Church history. But in the present day the progress of Science has created so keen a prejudice against physical miracles that the idea of the disappearance of the bodies of these early believers is altogether repugnant even to the majority of Christian people. It is therefore with no small sense of relief that the author has now reached the conviction that the teaching of Jesus and his apostles does not necessarily imply that any such a physical miracle was to take place. In other words, in all likelihood the "rapture" or "translation" of the saints presented, to those left behind, the outward appearance of sudden death. They (i.e. their spirits) were suddenly caught up to meet the Lord, but their earthly bodies perished. These believers did not " sleep," for surviving as they did till the coming of the Lord they were entirely exempted from the intermediate state of Hades or Paradise into which God's people had hitherto passed at death (Luke xvi. 22; xxiii. 43; John iii. 13; Acts ii. 34; Heb. xi. 39, 40). In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, a great change came over them (1 Cor. xv. 52). And then, without interval or delay, they passed with Jesus away from earth to share the glory and blessedness of His heavenly Kingdom. Revelation xii. illustrates the true meaning of the words "caught up," if, as Dr. Stuart Russell, the author of The Parousia, believed, the man-child who was "caught up unto God and unto His throne" denotes the martyrs of the Jewish-Christian Church.
They, of course, did not escape physical death. And St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians xii. 2-4, manifestly regards it as a possible thing that a man should be "caught up " into Paradise, without his body sharing in the rapture. "Whether in the body or apart from the body, I know not," he says. It is also an historical fact that at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the mortality among both Jews and Christians throughout the known world was very great. And thus it may well be that physical death completely hid, from those left behind, the solemn truth that in accordance with His oft-repeated promises Jesus personally and visibly returned to the earth to deliver His saints and judge His foes, ere the generation of men to whom He spoke had passed away. Until He came, and until they had seen Him coming, many of them did not taste of death (Matt. xvi. 28), but immediately afterwards they did. (1)
Matthew xxiv. 29, 30. The astronomical marvels recorded by Josephus (War vi. 5. 2), as having been witnessed at the destruction of Jerusalem, appear to afford an adequate explanation of our Lord's prediction in Luke xxi. 25, that at that time there would be "signs in sun and moon and stars." But it now seems probable that Matthew xxiv. 29, 30 describes what Christ's watchful saints and Christ's inveterate foes subjectively experienced in their own consciousness in articulo mortis at His coming -- an event which primarily and directly concerned them, and them alone. The Kingdom of God being thus strictly within them (Luke xvii. 20), its advent could have no merely outside spectators and reporters, and was independent of any particular locality. In that case, Matthew xxiv. 29 ("the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken") denotes the complete darkness which came over these persons, In the moment of death, as the result of the closing up of all their ordinary, earthly senses. Verse 30, on the other hand, describes the opening of their spiritual eyes to behold the Lord when He then came. (Compare Mark. xiii. 24, 25.) As they were dying, but before their spirits were actually parted from their bodies, the faith of His people gave place to sight, and His enemies also saw Him. The interpretation, now suggested, of verse 29, appears to be the more feasible because it is equally applicable to the parallel predictions in Isaiah xiii. 10, 13 ; xxxiv. 4 ;-passages which describe the overthrow of the inhabitants of Babylon and Edom in the utter darkness of death.
In issuing this edition of The Christ Has Come, the author asks the reader's special attention to pages 93-96, where a chapter has been inserted, dealing with the question of why all knowledge of the past Second Advent has hitherto been hidden from the vast majority of mankind. Chapter iv. is also an entirely new one, and is made up of quotations from three writers who express in vigorous and eloquent language conclusions which for the most part are identical with those arrived at in the present volume.
(1) See also Note on John xxi. 21--23, page 92. b
E. H. C.
October 1904.
This book has been issued as a humble contribution to the cause of truth and of social and practical Christianity. Two thousand copies are already in circulation. The demand for a second edition is gratifying as an indication of the deep and wide-spread interest which is being awakened in the great subject of the past Second Advent. The author tenders his thanks to the many critics who have reviewed the book in the newspaper press and elsewhere. He also avails himself of the present opportunity briefly to restate certain points in the argument, and to endeavour to answer certain objections.
The Christ Has Come is an appeal on the one hand to undoubted facts, and on the other hand to a reasonable Christian faith. The Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament are not poetry, but plain, practical prose. Common-sense, therefore, requires that their language should be interpreted not indeed literally, but in accordance with the usages of every-day life. Not a few of the unhappy divisions of Christendom may be directly traced to the neglect of this principle. For endless diversity of religious opinion has arisen, because, by processes of 'allegorising' and 'spiritualizing,' men have found it possible to explain away whatever ran counter to their own beliefs, and to read into Scripture almost any meaning which fancy or prejudice may have suggested. Systems of 'double' interpretation, and of 'partial' and 'complete' fulfilments, have been at once the delight and the shame of traditional theology. It is surely time for such systems to be renounced, as being utterly foreign to the real meaning and intention of the original speakers or writers. 'Far be it from us to make God speak with two tongues, or to attach a variety of senses to His word, in which we ought rather to behold the simplicity of its divine author reflected as In a clear mirror.' (Maresius.)
History, of course, is constantly repeating itself, and great events may present a striking analogy to one another. Yet, although the illustrations of a passage of scripture may be many, the meaning intended to be conveyed by it is in every case direct and simple. 'The judgment of Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem, may be a type of every other similar judgment, and is a warning to all nations and ages. But this is very different from saying that the language in which that judgment was predicted was fulfilled only partially when Babylon, or Nineveh, or Jerusalem fell, and is yet awaiting its complete fulfilment.' (Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics, p. 385.) 'Scripture, like other books, has one meaning - [that] which it had to the mind of the prophet or evangelist who first uttered or wrote it to the hearers or readers who first received it. [This meaning] is to be gathered from [the Scripture] itself without reference to the adaptations of fathers or divines, and without regard to a priori notions about its nature and origin. The office of the interpreter is not to add another [signification], but to recover the original one : the meaning, that is, of the words as they struck on the ears, or flashed before the eyes, of those, who first heard and read them.' (Jowett Interpretation of Scripture, 1. 3, 4.) Now, unless words do not mean what they say, it is certain that not only in the Apocalypse and the Epistles, but also in the Gospels, the Second Coming of Jesus had very narrow limits of time assigned to it. These coincide unmistakably with the winding up of the Jewish age, at the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The New Testament writers were entirely of one mind as to the speedy advent of the heavenly King and the heavenly kingdom. In the four gospels Christ's own predictions on the subject are numerous and emphatic, and are expressed in great variety of language The words attributed to Him are free from all ambiguity. To deny (as some do) that His utterances are correctly reported is to strike a fatal blow at the integrity of the Gospel records, and to make it uncertain what His real teaching on any subject was.
Therefore, to begin with, the following pages call attention to the undoubted fact that throughout the New Testament the Second Advent is represented as an event which 1860 years ago was near at hand. If the New Testament records are trustworthy it is certain that this was the teaching not only of the apostles but also of Jesus Christ. On such lofty and unimpeachable authority we may reasonably believe that the event took place within the time previously specified for its accomplishment.
This faith does not rest merely on the divinity of Jesus. What appears to be a just and rational view of the great eschatological discourse recorded in Matt. xxiv., Mark xiii., Luke xxi., may be illustrated as follows. Suppose that thirty or forty years ago a man claiming to be a teacher sent by God had predicted a series of events which were to happen about the present time in some country remote from our own, and with which we have few means of communication. The news now comes to us that very many of his predictions have been strikingly realised. This would at once establish the fact of his superhuman foresight. But when we ask whether on a certain occasion he himself was present and was seen, the country is so remote from our own, and our means of communication are so few, that the sources of our information fail us, we cannot obtain any sort of an answer to our enquiry. Under such circumstances the fact that very many of the predictions had been realised would make it an act of perfectly reasonable faith to believe that they had all been realised.
The Silence of History - In Chapter IV, certain facts are emphasised which throw light upon the absence of historical proof of the past Second Advent. Stupendous as is the admitted character of the event, there is much in the New Testament to indicate its secrecy and its restriction to a limited number of persons on whom alone were bestowed the faculties competent to take cognizance of it. It is in the highest degree unlikely that men ever have gazed, or ever will gaze, with ordinary mortal eyes upon the unveiled glory of the risen Jesus. As Saul, the persecutor, journeyed to Damascus the light which shone upon him from heaven blinded him. It had a brightness above that of the noon-day sun and be could not see for the glory of that light (Acts ix. 8; xxii. 2; xxvi. 13). "Faint indeed would be the splendour of Christ's divine appearance, and dim the lustre of His glorious advent, were it a splendour of which the perception could be borne - or a lustre of which a glimpse could be caught by any terrestrial eye ! An appeal to the [ordinary] senses, or to history founded on information through them, would be an appeal to evidence perfectly incompetent." (J. A. Stephenson, Christology, vol. ii. p. 132.)
And even if it were otherwise, to disbelieve in the past Parousia because of the lack of historical proof would not be as reasonable as at first sight it might appear to be.
Dr. Stuart Russell, who believed that the "rapture" or translation to Heaven of the saints in 70 A.D. involved the physical miracle of the removal and exemption from death of their earthly bodies, speaking of the event more particularly as it concerned the land of Palestine, has said:
"We have to consider the peculiar circumstances of the time, of the country, and of the people as they then existed. We are apt to measure things by the standard of our own time, and of our own experience, and to suppose that the same rule will apply to all times and circumstances. We naturally enough say, were such an event as the sudden and simultaneous disappearance of a number of prominent persons from our town, or village, or neighbourhood, to take place, what a sensation it would cause, what alarm and consternation. It would be reported all over the land, it would be the topic of conversation in every company. Very true; but suppose all this occured when the country was in the occupation of a foreign army, when the invaders were marching through the land, leaving devastation and ruin everywhere in their track. Suppose the metropolis in a state of siege, captured, burnt to the ground; fire, famine and slaughter raging, in every quarter; all social order convsulsed amid the agonies of an expiring nation.
What sensation would the disappearance of some, of the members of a despised sect excite in such circumstances? Would they be missed? Or if missed would it be thought unaccountable? Amidst the fearful signs and portents of that tremendous crisis the disappearance of the Christians might pass without notice."
Outside of Palestine the early Christian Church was an obscure consisting mainly of women, and of slaves, and of the poor. In the sight of God these were of priceless worth, bid if, amid the terrific confusions and convulsions of the almost uninterrupted wars which characterised that age, the most saintly of them suddenly died, we may be sure that their passing away was little regarded or mourned by the world. Yet in the mysterious hiatus of 70 A.D. to 150 A.D. it has left an indelible mark upon the records of the Church.
In some cases the demand for historical proof of the past Second Advent proceeds from a misconception of the real nature of history, and is based on the unwarrantable assumption that, from the creation onwards, God in His providence has appointed means for the systematic chronicling of all great events, and for the careful preservation of the records. In reality, very much of the world's story has never been written; innumerable records of human affairs have accidentally perished by fire and from other causes; innumerable records have been intentionally destroyed through the folly or bigotry of the persons into whose hands they fell. All history, indeed, and especially ancient history, is more or less accidental in origin, and extremely fragmentary in character.(See Appendix E, page 194.) Often it has been penned with a partisan object in view, and for this and other reasons is strongly biased. In any case it embodies a mere selection of events strung together at the fancy or caprice of the individual writers. As Macaulay (Quoted by Bagehot, Literary Studies, vol. ii. p. 242.) has naively remarked, "By judicious selection, rejection and arrangement [a perfect historian] gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction . . . In [a perfect historians] narrative a due subordination is observed - some transactions are pro - others retire." Certain it is that few historians have been content to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even to the extent to which it has lain in their power so to do. In considering the question of the coming of Jesus in 70 A.D. we have to remember that Josephus was a writer who was far from being pre-disposed to favour Christianity. Instead of demanding, as some do, that the solemn event (if it occurred then) should have been recorded in his history, we ought rather to marvel that, in spite of his bias against his own nation and against the Christian Church, his pages afford such striking evidence of the historical verification of many of the predictions contained in the Apocalypse and the Gospels.
The Millennium - It is commonly supposed that the "Millennium" or Kingdom of God is still entirely future, and will be visible and earthly in character. The belief contended for in the following pages that it is an unseen and (as the name "Kingdom of heaven " implies) heavenly sovereignty which has been in existence ever since 70 A.D. is repugnant to many Christians. Yet, as has been well said by an able writer:
"Let us not forget that once in the Church's history it was the common belief that John's 1000 years were gone. Dorner bears witness that the Church up to Constantine understood by Antichrist chiefly the heathen state, and to some extent unbelieving Judaism (System iv.,390). Victorinus, a bishop martyred in 303, reckoned the 1000 years from the birth of Christ.
Augustine wrote his magnum opus 'the City of God' with a sort of dim perception of the identity of the Christian Church with the new Jerusalem. Indeed we know that the 1000 years were held to be running by the generations previous to that date, and so intense was their faith that the universal Church was in a ferment of excitement about and shortly after 1000 A.D. in expectation of the outbreak of Satanic influence. Wickliff, the reformer, believed that Satan bad been unbound at the end of the 1000 years, and was intensely active in his day. That this period in Church history is past, or now runs its course, has been the belief of a roll of eminent men too long to be chronicled on our pages of Augustine, Luther, Bossuet, Cocceius, Grotius, Hammond, Hengstenberg, Keil, Moses Stuart, Philippi, Maurice." (Alexander Brown, Great Day of the Lord, p. 216.)
The fact is that bad as the world still is, yet morally it is a vastly better world than it was when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. It is said for example that at the present time there are not anywhere on the earth outside of Christendom ten square miles where the life of a man or the honour of a woman is safe. But this, which is now true of only part of the world, was probably true 1,860 years ago, of the whole world. Few people in these days have any adequate conception of the misery and degradation which were then the common lot of almost all mankind, owing to the monstrous wickedness of the times, to continual war, and to the cruelties of political despotism, and of the everywhere-prevailing slavery.
In Rom. i. 26-32, the Apostle Paul gives a terrible picture of the condition of things which prevailed throughout the Roman empire. Secular history fully bears out his statements, and proves that that empire Perished from sheer vice ! Life on this earth was then, to the great mass of humanity, the unspeakably sad and hopeless thing which today, happily, it is to only an ever decreasing, number of people.
Perceiv'st thou not the change of day? Ah, carry back thy ken! What, some two thousand years! Survey The world as it was then ! Like ours it look'd in outward air. Its head was clear and true, Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare, No pause its action knew. Stout was its arm, each thew and bone. Seemed puissant and alive But, ah, its, heart, its heart was stone, And so it could not thrive ! On that hard Pagan world disgust. And secret loathing fell. Deep weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell." (Matthew Arnold, Obermann once more.)
Oh, if only we lived for a decade under those old heathen heavens of Persia, Greece or Rome, peopled with their wicked, quarrelsome, licentious deities, until we felt the curse of them aright; and were then brought from under their gloomy terrors into the bright and happy sky of Christian faith, we should know whether or not a new heaven has been created. Does the reader know what sort of earth was that old Roman world in which the Apostles shed their blood? Conceive of an empire in which there were 60,000,000 slaves, where infanticide was practised even by wealthy families, where human sacrifices were offered to the gods, where emperors were deified, where suicide was counted virtuous, where fornication and adultery were religious rites, where men were kept to fight with swords, and prisoners were thrown to lions for public sport, where the poor man had no rights nor charities, where almost all the rich were dissolute and princes almost all oppressive! We say, look upon that world and then - 'How soon a smile from God can change the world!' look at the world which Christianity has created, and with all its shortcomings acknowledged, tell us if, thank God, we are not living in a new earth today.
We are so accustomed to magnify the evil in the world that we forget to give God thanks for the evils which His Gospel has extirpated. One may well exclaim in the eloquent language of Farrar:- 'What need to tell you again how it purified a society which was rotten through and through with lust and hate, how it rescued the gladiator, how it emancipated the slave, how it elevated manhood, how it flung over childhood the aegis of its protection, how it converted the wild, fierce tribes from the icy steppes and broad rivers of the North, how it built from the shattered fragments of the Roman Empire a new-created world, how it saved learning, how it baptized and recreated art, how it inspired music, how it placed the poor and sick under the angel-wings of mercy and entrusted to the two great archangels of reason and conscience the guidance of the young! ' " (Quoted by Alexander Brown, Great Day of the Lord. pp. 217,231.)
High cause had they at Bethlehem, that night. To lift the curtain of Hope's hidden light, To break decree of silence with Love's cry, Foreseeing how this babe, born lowlily, Should-past dispute, since now achieved is this - Bring Earth great gifts of blessing and of bliss, Date, from that crib, the Dynasty of Love; Strip his misused thunderbolts from Jove; Bend to their knees Rome's Caesars ; break the chain From the slave's neck ; set sick hearts free again, Bitterly bound by priests, and scribes, and scrolls And heal, with balm of pardon, sinking souls; Should Mercy to her vacant throne restore, Teach Right to Kings, and Patience to the Poor Should by His sweet name all names overthrow, And by His lovely words, the quick seeds sow Of golden equities, and brotherhood, Of Pity, Peace, and gentle praise of good Of knightly honour, holding life in trust For God, and Lord, and all things pure and just; Lowly to Woman ; for Maid Mary's sake Lifting our sister from the dust, to take In homes her equal place, the household's Queen, Crowned and august, who sport and thrall had been! Of arts adorning life, of Charities Gracious and wide, because the impartial skies Roof one race in; and poor, weak, mean, oppressed, Are children of one bounteous Mother's breast, One Father's care: emancipating man, Should, from that bearing cave, outside the Khan, Amid the kneeling cattle, rise and be Light of all lands, and splendour of each sea, The Sun-burst of a new Morn come to Earth, Not yet, alas! broad Day, but Day's white birth Which promiseth; and blesseth, promising." (Sir Edwin Arnold, The Light of the world Inserted by permission of the author.)
This earth of ours is a new world compared with what it was two thousand years ago. Let anyone who doubts it read C. L. Brace's Gesta Christi, or Dr. R. S. Storrs' Divine Origin of Christianity indicated by its historical effects Whence has come the change for the better? There can be no reasonable doubt that it is largely due to the fact that the supreme spiritual influence which has been at work in men's hearts and lives during that long period has been the influence of the Lord Jesus Christ. The New Testament plainly teaches that His resurrection from the dead carried with it a great victory for humanity over evil, and introduced into the world a new moral and spiritual force (Phil. iii10; Rom. viii. 2). One reason why the Son of God had clothed Himself with flesh and blood was that, through death, He might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (Heb. ii. 14). "For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living " (Rom. xiv. 9). Accordingly, at His ascension He sat down at the right hand of God (Eph. i. 20-22), all authority in heaven and over the earth having then been given to Him (Matt. xxviii. 18). In 70 A.D. the heavenly Kingdom was fully established over the earth. For it was then that the ringleader of evil was cast into the abyss, and the saints began to reign with Christ.
A recent author, speaking of the power which the glorified saints of God exert over the world, has said,
"Little as we think it, the world's best work is done, in the main, by these unseen workers. They who seem to do it, the visible agents, are but the channels of unsuspected influences. It is the Christ and those who bear Him company who really regulate the events of Time. To us, in the midst of the tumult and the struggle it may seem as though all depended upon ourselves. So, too, to the soldier, in the confusion of the battle, it may seem as though the victory were dependent on his courage. But here, as elsewhere, the appearance is deceptive. It is the commander who secures success. The aides-de-camp who bear his orders from post to post, through the fluctuating conflict, these are they who know the secret--it is these who are the commander's best auxiliaries. So, too, Christ's aides-de-camp in His age long warfare-unseen, perhaps unnoticed by the troops whom they direct-yet inspire the leaders and prepare the victory. Each soldier has his own attendants-the armies of earth have their counterpart in heaven. No individual is left alone ; for each there are those told off to help him. Each, in so far as lie fights God's battle, is upheld and encouraged by these Unseen friends." (C. A. Goodhart, Our Lord's Promise to Nathaniel, page 21.)
The people who are alive on the earth at any given time, form only the thin outer rind, or husk of humanity. The great majority of the human race are in the unseen world. Our contention is that the "Millennium," or Kingdom Of God, denotes the now-existing sovereignty of Christ and His saints not merely over the earth, but also over all mankind who are in the unseen world; and that there the patience of immortal love out-wearying human sin is, by means of this sovereignty, causing the victory of good over evil to proceed pari passu with the same slow, but sure, victory in this world. The term Millennium itself is derived exclusively from the "thousand years" of Rev. xx. There is absolutely no scriptural foundation for the popular fancy which identifies it with a time of perfect earthly peace, innocence and bliss. Nowhere do the Scriptures teach that when the Christ should become King all sin and sorrow would immediately cease. On the contrary, the very purpose for which His Kingdom exists is the gradual diminution and extinction of evil. He must reign until God has put all His enemies under His feet. And as soon as this is accomplished the raison d'etre of His Kingdom ceases, and He surrenders the sovereignty to God - even the Father. I Cor. xv. 24, 25). Why should it be deemed incredible or absurd that the "Millennium" or "thousand years" of Rev. xx. denotes a constantly-improving condition of things, rather than a state of realised earthly perfection? All Christians believe in the good time that is yet to be. Most speak of this good time as the Millennium, and expect it to be inaugurated by the Lord's Second Advent. But with far better scriptural warrant, we may call it "the new heaven and the new earth" (Rev. xxi. 1), and may believe that it will be inaugurated by Christ's Third Advent, when, all His foes being at last under His feet, He will surrender the now-existing Kingdom to God- even the Father; that God may be all in all. If this view be correct, human history is simply a step further advanced than is commonly supposed. In that case the gain is great.
"The Blessed Hope," - The suggestion urged by many, that if the Second Advent took place in 70 A.D., the best and brightest hope of the Christian Church vanishes, is an entirely mistaken suggestion. The hope of the Church in every age has been to attain to the beatific vision of God-transformation into the perfect likeness of Christ and deliverance from all evil, and a share in the Redeemer sovereignty over the whole human race, both here and in the unseen world. What difficulty or danger is there in believing that this hope has been destined to be realised by different portions of the Church at different times and in successive stages? The Old Testament saints and the saints of the primitive Church entered the heavenly kingdom at the coming of the King in 70 A.D. Then, for the first time in the history of the world, the spirits of just men were made perfect, and the fully-prepared home in heaven was thrown open to all truly Christ-like sons of earth. A peculiar blessedness has belonged to those who have died in the Lord from that time onward (Rev. xiv. 13). In their case there has been no delay. At death they have been delivered from all evil, and have attained at once to the beatific vision of God, and to a share in Christ's universal sovereignty.
The past Second Advent destructive of "the blessed hope" ? No suggestion can be more false or misleading. In reality the belief contended for in the following pages strengthens the blessed hope and brings it nearer and causes it to burn more brightly. If the second coming of the Son of man is still future, then of all earth's sin-stricken, sorrowing myriads, not a single individual has yet attained to the rest and the inheritance which belong to the people of God. In that case it will be vain to resist the inevitable conclusion that the promises of the Lord Jesus were not fulfilled within the very narrow limits of time which He Himself had expressly assigned to them. At this the true believer cannot fail to be filled with distress and misgiving. For some inscrutably mysterious reason the redemption of prophets, saints and martyrs which Jesus and the apostles long ages ago declared to be then near at hand has already tarried for nearly two thousand years. In that case, for aught we know to the contrary, it may tarry for two thousand years longer.
But if, as we confidently believe, the Second Advent really took place within the narrow limits of time assigned to it by Christ Himself, then, in 70 A.D., the Old Testament saints and the saints of the primitive Church entered into the joy of their Lord and shared to the utmost in the twofold victory which He, as man and on man's behalf, bad, at His resurrection, gained over the grave and over all the powers of evil. In every succeeding age His faithful people have attained at death to the same great joy and the same perfect deliverance. And if, when the summons comes to us, we are found to be living prayerful and consecrated lives, we also shall go at once to share His glory and to have bestowed on us a crown of life and of gladness. This may happen at any moment. In any case there is no possibility of a long delay, for the past Second Advent has brought that glory and that crown very near to us. Heaven is now ready for all who at death are ready for heaven !
The Scriptures - It has sometimes been asserted that if the Second Advent is past, it deprives us of our share in the Bible and in the promises of God. The statement is based on a curious misconception of the facts of the case. Is fulfilled prophecy worthless ? Is not the past a great revelation of God and of human nature, and as such has it not deep and eternal significance? Or is history mere waste paper simply because it relates to the past and not to the future ? In reality the record which the Scriptures embody of God's dealings with His ancient people the Jews from the call of Abraham down to their destruction as a settled nation constitutes a stupendous object-lesson for all succeeding generations. It reveals a God who in His severity towards sin, His compassion to the sinner, and His mercy to the penitent, is the same yesterday, today and for ever. To the end of time it makes sure to the humblest believer the living presence and the undying sympathy and love of the risen and triumphant Christ. Need any man be spiritually poor and destitute, who by personal experiment can find out for himself the truth of this? Surely not.
The Bible did not come only yesterday straight from heaven, but like other ancient books it has had a history, and originated at periods of time and under circumstances far remote from our own. With effects disastrous to the intelligibility and credibility of the book this simple and obvious fact has been persistently ignored by Christian people. It will not be a loss but an immeasurable gain when for the supposed unchangeable book we substitute the real unchangeable God. Each ancient promise will then be recognised as part of a revelation of God's heart and character. In applying the promise to ourselves we shall need to make allowances for differences of time and circumstances-as we already do in the case of many Old Testament promises. But since God is still God and we are human beings, and the promise was part of a revelation of God's disposition towards His creature, man, tile spirit of the promise will for ever hold good, and will avail for our comfort and encouragement.
July 1895. E. H. C.
The belief that the second coming of the Son of man is still future cannot be reconciled with any reasonable interpretation of the New Testament as a divinely-inspired message and record. The error is none the less in error because for centuries it has remained undetected. The truth which must sooner or later supersede it formed part of the most ancient, faith of the Christian church. The most ancient faith of the Christian church associated together the destruction of Jerusalem, the winding up of the Jewish dispensation, and a personal return of Christ to the earth, as events which were certain to happen at one and the same time. Jesus and His apostles believed and taught that the Second Advent would take place in the lifetime of some who had been His earthly contemporaries. Confident that the founders of Christianity were neither deceived nor mistaken we joyfully accept on their authority the fact that the Christ has already come the second time.
Throughout the following pages the author is under the deepest obligations to Dr. Stuart Russell's "The Parousia." He also owes much, to the "The Berean" by John Humphrey Noyes, and to the works of Henry Dunn, the author of "The Destiny of the Human Race."
February 1891. E. H.C.