"Behold the Judge standeth before the door." 1 66 Hope to the end (Teλeiws) [compare "Then shall the end come "2] for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation (dokaλve) of Jesus Christ."3 "The end of all things is at hand (йyYIKE).” 4 "Who shall give account to him that is ready (T Étoiμws EXOVT) to judge the quick and the dead." 5 "The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not," &c.6 “The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night.”7 "The Lord is not slack (ov ẞpadúvai), delays not—concerning his promise." 8 "The Lord is at hand (ò Kúpios eyyus).” 9 "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha,” let him be accursed at the coming of the Lord.10 « We which are alive and remain (οι ζῶντες οι περιλειπό μevo) unto the coming of the Lord." 11 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up .. to meet the Lord in the air. 12 "We shall not all sleep." 13 "Little children, it is the last time; and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come; even now are there many antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time." 14 Nothing can be more evident than that our Lord's disciples implicitly believed the declarations which he had made to them respecting his advent during the lifetime of the then existing generation. Nothing can be more evident than that they held and taught the doctrine of Christ's coming close at hand. They never dreamed of thousands of years intervening between his first and his second coming. They never dreamed that this coming, like the sword of Damocles, was to be continually suspended over the church. They never mixed up two homogeneous sets of predictions flowing together in artless parallel. They never spoke of it in connection with the return of the Jews to their own land, or with any of the wild phantasies of the present age. They never associated it with the idea of a millennium, or a personal reign of Christ on earth. On the contrary, they believed and taught that this coming would take place ere the term of their natural life had expired; they connected it with the destruction of the Jewish people, as their Lord had said. They anticipated with joyful expectation the time of their being gathered together into the barns of eternal rest, and from day to day were looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."1 And as the night became "FAR SPENT," and their salvation appeared "NEARER" than when they first believed, and as by the unmistakable tokens preceding that mighty advent they "SAW" "the day approaching;" then still more distinctly and decidedly did they speak of the immediate character of this second coming. The veil seemed rent away-the mists withdrawn. "That day and that hour of which no man knew, no, not the angels in heaven, nor the Son," is now proclaimed to be near at hand. God gives to his Son the knowledge of his speedy Apocalypse, and "the Revelation, 'ATTокaλús, of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly be done," is "sent and signified by his angel unto his servant John.” Then poured forth the full blaze of light conveying to the churches the announcement that "THE TIME IS AT HAND,' Then the prophecy was to be left UNSEALED because of its immediate accomplishment. Then he was pronounced BLESSED who kept the sayings of these impending judgments. Then he that was unjust and filthy and he that was righteous and holy, was to be taken or left, WITHOUT PLACE OR TIME FOR FURTHER CHANGE; and the first blast of the trump of God sent forth its note of deep and solemn warning, "THE Lord IS AT HAND." Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye1 shall see him, and they also which pierced him." 2 Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me." 3 "Behold, I come quickly. Blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this Book." 4 "Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth." 5 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."6 "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely, I come quickly."7 "Amen, even so come, Lord Jesus." 8 Then was unequivocally manifested the nature and the object of his coming, when the beloved Apostle to whom alone the promise was made, "If I will that he tarry till I come,” beholds "A white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the SON OF MAN. . . . in his hand a sharp sickle9; . and he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth (Judæa), and the earth was reaped." Then was revealed unanswerably the connection between his coming and the wrath upon disobedient Israel. When "The angel gathered the vine of the earth [Judæa], and cast it into This is explained by the subsequent parallel clause, "All the kindreds of the earth,” πãσai ai poλaì rñs yñs, the tribes of Palestine, "shall wail because of him." "Then shall all the tribes of the earth - Judæamourn."-Matt. xxiv. 30. Compare “ Διὰ γὰρ τὸ πάσχα συνεληλύθασι πãoαι ai quλai μetà kaì tŵv ¿0vwv,”—Eus. Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. 23., where the tribes, puλal, are put into apposition with the Gentiles, čovŋ. 2 Rev. i. 7. 4 Rev. xxii. 7. 6 Rev. iii. 20. 8 Rev. xxii. 20. 66 3 Rev. xxii. 12. 5 Rev. xvi. 15. 7 Rev. xxii. 20. 9 Compare "éμ↓ov тò dρéñavov σov kaì dépiσov," —Rev. xiv. 15., with “ Καὶ ἐν τῷ καιρῷ τοῦ θερισμοῦ ἐρῶ τοῖς θερισταῖς.”—Matt. xiii. 30. the great winepress of the wrath of God, and the winepress was trodden WITHOUT THE CITY, and blood came out of the winepress even unto the horse-bridles." 1 Then, in accordance with the previous declaration, "Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man," did the disciple to whom the Apocalypse was most appropriately sent behold, as Stephen had done before him, " Heaven opened," and lo, " a white horse, and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and his name is called THE WORD OF GOD." Then was revealed to him, in characters of living light whose radiance should be reflected in the Church for ever, the specific aim and purpose of that advent of retribution, and an angel is heard crying "with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men both free and bond, both small and great. . . . and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.2 Here is no strained interpretation. Here are no shifts resorted to, to defend a system. Here is no patching of the word of God, no miserable defence of a position which is plainly untenable. The glorious truth is written as with a sunbeam, and the whole body of the Scriptures coincides with it. The analogy of faith flows in one uniform direction, and never for a moment deviates from the right channel. The prophecies which went before, the definite statements of our Lord in the Gospels, the confirmation of the Epistles, and the symbols of the Apocalypse, proclaim with one voice the same grand and continuous truth which it has been the object of this chapter to demonstrate; that the second coming of our Lord is an event which has already taken place; that he came then, as he said, to destroy the nation and city, and to close the age; that no other coming is in any way alluded to in the Scriptures, except that advent of judgment and mercy which is here portrayed in the Revelation of St. John. |