LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ©Iptp ©apijrigfjtlo Shelf .-.. UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA. ■ l«G PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. REV. J. H. PARMELEE. BOSTON: a. J. STILES, PRINTER, 2 \ Franklin Street. 1SS6. 3>W pa Copyright, 1886, By REV. J. H. PARMELEE. The L t—. ■■ ■ PREFACE. Is there any real necessity for a restatement of Christian doctrine ? That is a question which in these days is often asked. Many reasons for both a positive and a negative answer to that question can be furnished. One of the best evidences that the Bible is of divine origin, that it came from the mind of God, is found in its adaptation to all ages, to all classes of society, to all grades of mental ability and culture. Men who are wholly ignorant of the works of God in nature, find in the Bible an all-sufficient guide to conduct them to the shores of a blissful immortality ; while the men versed in all knowledge derived from a study of God in creation, equally need the instructions of the sacred Scriptures to lead them in the same heavenly way and to the same happy destiny. The truths of revelation and of science are abid- ing, but the human statements of those truths may, and do differ. That is necessarily so. The variations in the attain- ments of theological learning and scientific research compel revisions and restatements of theories propounded and advo- cated in other days by other men ; and even the authors of those theories are sometimes obliged to surrender positions which they themselves once firmly held as sound and im- pregnable. Whatever significance may be attached to the word " day," as used in the first chapter of Genesis, the one supreme fact is clearly enough revealed that God is the creator of all things. A larger and more thorough knowledge of creation may yield clearer views of the meanings couched in the language of a divine revelation. Broader and more accurate knowledge in the department of philology may modify the PREFACE. accepted interpretations of some passages in the Bible, and even new truths may be discovered in that same old book. New disclosures in archaeology may demand other modifica- tions in the direction of Biblical exegesis, and of theology even. So also advance in the science of astronomy and in the study of geology may call for a restatement of many cur- rent opinions in the sphere of religious belief. When Galileo affirmed that the earth turned on its axis, the priesthood — the expounders and champions of the sound orthodoxy of the day — were about to sever his head from his body as the penalty for his heresy. But who of to-day finds heresy in the Copernican system, or is embarrassed by any difficulty when he attempts to reconcile that system with the language and doctrines of Scripture? Geological research claims to find evidence of prehistoric man. If the claim be made good, that may call for a new or a much modified statement of the current belief as to the Biblical days of creation, and of the high moral condition of man as he came from the hand of his Creator. So, also, facilities for research and advanced views in the moral government of God over man may require a restatement of the doctrines of Eschatology. Not many decades ago, for a man to be theologically sound, it was necessary for him to believe that " In Adam's fall We sinned all." But to-day the personal relation to the once crucified and now living Christ is considered a better claim to soundness of religious faith. The deeper we draw the waters from the wells of true philosophy and science, the clearer and purer will be the waters from the wells of God's holy book. The Bible and the religion taught therein have nothing to fear, but much to gain, in the way of exposition and enforcement, from genuine philosophy and science. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Foreshadowing of Creation upon the Work of Redemption 5 CHAPTER II. The Kingdom ........ 45 CHAPTER III. The Parousia 67 CHAPTER IV. Resurrection 113 CHAPTER V. Judgment 144 CHAPTER VI. The Apocalypse 163 Conclusion ........ 197 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. CHAPTER I. THE FORESHADOWING OF CREATION UPON THE WORK OF REDEMPTION. The book of nature and the book of revelation, when both are correctly interpreted, are equally true and are in perfect harmony. Revelation was given by inspiration of God, and is as God would have it for all the ages. Man must turn over the leaves of the book of nature, and slowly learn the truths of science. The revelations of science sometimes require a modification of our former in- terpretations of revelation. In the first chapter of Genesis, and the first three verses of the second chapter, there is a succinct account of creation, sufficient to teach the truth needed to be revealed, viz., that God is a personal be- ing, and is the creator and fashioner of the universe. By the plural form of the word God, Elohim, there also seems to be an intimation of the creator as the triune God. The manner of fitting up the earth and the universe has not been revealed, but left tc 6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. man to discover by slow processes. Man, by the use of the telescope, enlarged and perfected as it has been, and by the researches in geology, has, in later years, made wonderful progress in discovering the processes of the formation of the universe. While much remains to be learned, and while some views now held to be true may, by subsequent light, need to be modified, yet enough has been set- tled to throw much light on the account of creation given in Genesis. The nebular system, held by La Place, and de- veloped by others, is the one now adopted by the best scientists. It is sufficient for our purpose briefly to hint at what this system is. Following the nebular theory, let us note the harmony which exists between the first chapter of Genesis and the discoveries of scientists. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." This declares the origin of matter, of which the universe is constructed, and asserts that God is the creator of it. This matter, as it came forth at the divine mandate, was a dark, uniform, inactive, exceedingly diffused gaseous fluid. All was emptiness and desolation. The Spirit of God, then brooding over this vast, dark, gaseous mass, imparted to it an energy, causing it to move and FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 7 act in accordance with uniform laws. That energy was developed in the form of attraction, contrac- tion, and chemical affinity, resulting in motion. As bodies were formed by contraction, there was imparted to them a motion, causing them to revolve on their axes ; also a projectile, centrifugal motion imparted, causing them to move in orbits around a great attracting central body. Science has proved that light results from motion, the vibrations of ether. The contraction taking place in the dark created mass would evolve light, just as God said, " Let there be light : and there was light." There was light long before the sun was established as the greater light to rule earth's day. " And God divided the light from the darkness." Light was one thing, darkness another. Some places were light and others were dark. " And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters " By this is meant the broad expanse above us, the limit of human vision more or less distant, it matters not, which, like an imaginary partition, separates the mass of world material beyond from that which is this side, with which we have to do. The mass of original gaseous matter, under the divine brooding, and by laws well ascertained, has formed into spheres around nuclei or great sun S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. centres, held in their places by the all-pervading law of attraction. Leaving now, as the Bible does, that which is beyond the expanse where fixed stars reign as suns, let us confine our- selves to our sun system, and see the process of its formation, which may possibly be but a sample of other systems which have been constructed out of the nebulous gaseous matter which God created in the beginning. At first the almost inconceivable amount of original gaseous matter by attraction and contrac- tion formed the sun. The greatness of its mass makes it not only the source of light and heat, but also the controlling force in the motions of all the bodies belonging to the system. Being in a state of fluidity, its revolution on its axis would cause it to assume a greater equatorial than polar diameter. This excess of matter at the equator would at length detach itself from the main body and form a ring around it, like the rings now seen around the planet Saturn, which are in a gaseous state. This ring, breaking up, would, by the power of attraction, form itself into a sphere, and by the motion given it by the sun would begin to revolve on its axis, and also in an orbit around the sun. Thus Neptune became a planet. Then in like manner another ring was formed around the sun, broken up and attracted into a sphere, and another child, Uranus, was born into the family of the FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 9 great sun system. So on, successively, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan ; those farthest from the sun being formed first, coming to that nearest the sun, which was formed last. It may be that some sun-child may yet be hid in the mists, and that the first-born may have gone so far from home that we have not yet dis- covered its wanderings. Some of the planets have moons revolving around them, being thrown off from the planets when in a state of fluidity, in like manner as the planets were thrown off from the sun. Science has also shown that the substance of the sun, earth, and stars is much the same, varying in pro- portion, salt, iron, hydrogen, barium, copper, zinc, cronium, nickel, etc. Excessive flames of nitrogen are sometimes seen in the sun. Some stars are without perceivable indications of hydrogen, while Sirius has it in abundance. Such discoveries are a confirmation of the nebular theory. The earth, once luminous, the cooling process going on grad- ually, contracted and at length lost its photo- sphere. Chemical action continually going on, and the heavier portions being ' drawn nearer to the centre of the earth, the crust of the earth was formed. When sufficiently cool, the hydrogen and oxygen united, and formed water, which, being lighter, completely enveloped the solid crust of the earth. When the oxygen and nitrogen became IO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. sufficiently cooled, they united and formed the at- mosphere, which, being lighter, completely envel- oped the waters of the earth. As the cooling pro- cess still went on, the earth contracted, and the crust, in the state of semi-hardness, or in a degree plastic, some parts rose and other parts settled, like a hoop when pressed on opposite sides. The waters which once enveloped the whole surface are now divided and thrown together, and the inner crust, appears. " And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear. And God called the dry land Earth ; and the gathering to- gether of the waters called he Sea." Note the apt language with which Moses describes the process. The crust of the earth was comparatively thin, and easily bent and broken, but slowly became thicker and more firm. In process of time the earth cooled sufficiently for vegetation to flourish. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed, and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." Here is first men- tioned the grass and herb, a lower order of vegeta- ble life ; then the fruit tree, a higher order ; and it may have been ages from the time grass began to grow before the fruit tree yielded the fruit after its kind. In the earlier stages of the earth's his- tory, the atmosphere was humid and warm, and FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. II vegetation rapid and abundant. Then the coal- beds were formed. The luxuriant plant growth and decay at length formed a soil, fitting the earth for a higher order of existence. In the mean time the sun, with its immense mass of matter, had come into such a chemical state, that it was fitted to be a luminary of the earth, and the centre and controller of the whole solar system. The moon, sufficiently condensed and cooled, was at length fitted to reflect light on the earth. " And God said, Let there be lights in the firma- ment of the heavens, to divide the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years : and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And God made two great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser lights to rule the night."* Not that they were created at this time, but that, in the process of constructing the universe, they now come to per- form the office of giving light upon the earth. In the passing of the ages, " God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly, the moving crea- ture that hath life, and fowl that they may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heavens. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind." Science teaches us 12 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. that the first creations of animal life were of a low order, and as time went on, these became extinct, and those of a higher order of animal functions took their place ; that animals most useful to man were the last that held sway in the earth. Reve- lation asserts that fish and fowls were created on the fifth day, but beasts and cattle and creeping things did not appear till the sixth day. At last, God said, " Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him : male and female created he them." A remark on the words created and made may help to a better understanding of the account of creation. The word created is translated from the Hebrew word bara, a word with very different meaning from the word from which made is translated. The one means to bring into existence ; the other means more to fashion and mould what has been created. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The matter of the universe was brought into existence. The word made means more the fashioning process going on in the matter after it had been created. Animal life is so different from the material world, from anything in the mineral and vegetable kingdom, that it cannot proceed out of it, so " God created great whales, and every living thing that moveth." So when God determined to make man in FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 3 his image and likeness, it is said : " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him : male and female created he them." Here is amoral nature allying man to God, something so different from mere animal life that it cannot be developed from it. It is a new creation. In the revealed account of creation, we have succession and progression clearly revealed, both in the words created and made. There were suc- cessive creations, and there was constant progress in fitting up the universe. Astronomy and geology teach the same truth. The earth's crust, miles in thickness, holding the raging fires within, proves that ages must have passed in the process of its formation. The suc- cessive geologic formations, azoic and zoic ; the prints of vegetable and animal remains in the rocks formed far below what is now the surface of the earth ; the substances which have been formed by chemical action in the crust of the earth ; the slow process of abrasion of the surface, the carrying of the sediment into the sea, hardening into rocks ; the up- heaval of the rocks, bringing to light fossil remains ; the upheaval of mountains ; the formations of rich prairie lands, where the waters once held sway ; the deep gorges cut by rivers like Niagara for many miles, advancing only a few feet in a century, — all prove that vast periods of time have been consumed since the earth lost its photosphere. Who, then, 14 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. shall attempt to go back and count the years since God said, " Let the dry land appear" ? Yea, who shall undertake to trace the ages since the creative fiat went forth, " And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep " ? God, in arranging his moral government over mankind, has seen fit to measure time by weeks of seven days each. He has commanded men to work on six days, and to rest from labor on the seventh day, — to hallow that day unto the Lord as a holy day, a day of worship, a day of moral improvement and spiritual refreshment. God has taken a week of seven days as a kind of mould into which to cast a revelation of his work of creation and redemption; not that just so much work was done on each day, independent of what was done on other days, for the sun was being fitted for a sun, and the earth for an earth, and the moon for a moon, — all suitable for man's need, in the same ages of time, — but that God might reveal to man his work of creation as a process of development, of succession and pro- gression, however slow or rapid, he has used the period of seven days, leaving man to discover the process as best he can. Six days are used in which the creation and formation of the universe and the development of the earth's crust take place, while the seventh day is devoted to bringing into existence and preparing spiritual beings who shall FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 5 proclaim the praise and glory of the Creator. The distinction should be kept clear in mind between man's week and God's week. Man's week is a short and definite period of time divided into equal days of definite length. God's week is a period of indefinite length divided into long days of indefi- nite length. It is said at the close of each of the days, " And the evening and the morning were the first day," second day, etc. More literally, " It was evening and it was morning, one day." "And it was evening and it was morning, a second day." This expresses constant progression. The shades of evening are dark compared with the dawning of the day, the rising sun, and noonday splendor. Thus the evening of one day glides into the morning of the next. God expresses the passing from the work of the six days to that of the seventh in such language as follows : " Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it ; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." God blessed the seventh day. He made it the best of all the days, a day in which his most blessed work was to be done, a day most blessed in the enjoyments it would bring to the universe. 1 6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. God sanctified the seventh day. He set it apart as a day better than any of the previous ones ; a day devoted to making saints or sanctified ones. This seventh day's work is the culmination of the work of creation. The account given in the second and third chap- ters of Genesis, of man being put on probation in the garden of Eden, the account of the origin of institutions by divine authority, the giving of re- vealed law in commands and prohibitions, man's speedy fall and expulsion from the garden, and the immediate promise of a Redeemer and Life-giver, reveals the divine design, that man was not to live in a condition as first created, nor in a state of in- nocence simply, but of redemption and of new created spiritual life, that thereby the divine attri- butes might be the better known, and man be drawn into closer relation to God as the divine Father, and thus the universe be made to resound with loftier notes of praise to the Creator. The seventh day of God's week is the redemption, the life-giving day. This life-giving aspect of the work was so prominent in the mind of the Apostle John, that, in his gospel, he almost omits the mention of repentance and forgiveness. It is a new-created life by the Holy Spirit, bringing man into higher and more intimate relation to the Father of spirits than ever before, that the apostle makes promi- nent. FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. I 7 In ascertaining the meaning of some of the earlier chapters of Genesis, we need to recognize the claims of true science as an important factor of interpretation, as well as philology and gram- mar. From modern investigations, what does science claim ? It claims that the popular chronology of our Bible, taking us back some twenty-five hundred years to the Noachian deluge, or four thousand years from the birth of Christ to the creation of man, does not give sufficient time for the ethnic, or race distinctions which exist. Scientists claim that the difference in structural form, the complex- ion, the woolly and straight hair, and all the varied characteristics between the Negro, the Indian, the Mongolian, the Dravidian, and the Caucasian or white man, requires vastly more time to be effected by any known causes than is found since the deluge, if in that deluge the whole human race was destroyed, save eight persons, and that the earth was repeopled by Noah and those saved with him in the ark, or even since Adam was placed in the garden of Eden. This, indeed, has been the puz- zle of many a one who has laid no claim to being versed in science, and to solve it they have fallen back upon the almost miraculous working of the Creator. There is evidence that the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth did not soon spread over the 2 • I 8 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. whole earth, but were confined comparatively to the region of the Mediterranean. Science claims that, with the comparative stability of the crust of the earth, and the relative position of the conti- nents, islands, oceans, and seas, that it would be impossible for the earth to be peopled in all its continents and so many of its islands by people having so little knowledge of the arts of life, dur- ing a period of four thousand years before the birth of Christ, if the cradle of the race was the garden of Eden, and the world's progenitors a sin- gle pair. Science claims preadamites. To substantiate the claim, it brings forward human bones found in the surface of the earth among bones of animals, the mammoth, the reindeer, the cave bear, and other species now extinct, and which must have lived in a geologic period prior to the Adam in the garden of Eden. Science has found in caves, and buried deep in the surface cf the earth, implements fashioned from stone, stone arrow-heads, spear-heads, ham- mers, axes, knives fastened into bone handles, ornaments of stone and bone perforated and strung together, all kinds of rude implements used in securing a livelihood, in bettering their condition, in contending with fierce animals for the posses- sion of caves, and in slaying them for food. Science calls up the Mound-builders in the western FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. ig hemisphere to testify of their ancient works. It brings forward evidence of the existence of man in the Quaternary period, a geological period preced- ing our own. Science has its rude and its polished Stone epoch, showing human advancement in the arts of life. Then comes the Bronze age, when man had learned to use brass by combining the metals of copper and tin. Succeeding the Bronze was the Iron age, when man had learned how to secure this metal from its ore and work it into implements of defence and husbandry, — learning these things as best they could, just as we learn, as best we can, how to harness steam and electricity for the ad- vancement of our civilization. Science claims that man was in the beginning rude and uncultured, and that he has worked his way up in the arts of civilization and comforts of life, learning by experience as we do now. It claims also that, if the first created pair were placed in the garden of Eden in an advanced state of knowl- edge and civilization and happiness, there has been degeneration in his whole condition, which is con- trary to the acknowledged order of God's working, which is progression, and contrary to man's expe- rience. It is held as scientific truth that the lower races could not have descended from the Mediterra- nean stock, because there exists such a wide differ- ence in the race characteristics, some so greatly 20 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. inferior, and that this difference existed in the early dynastic periods of Egypt, as shown by their paintings and sculpture on their monuments. It is claimed that the chronological position of Noah or even Adam is far too recent for the possi- bility of such a change since their era. Besides, that the universal degeneracy of all races is scien- tifically inadmissible. Does science conflict with the account of man's creation, given in the first chapter of Genesis ? Nay, rather does not the Biblical account call for these truths which science proves ? We read that the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, and the sea-monsters, the lower orders of creatures in their structural development, were created in the fifth day. Geology finds fossil remains of these and the imprint of their forms in the rocks of an earlier period. But on the sixth day, cattle, creeping things, and beasts, animals needful for man's wel- fare, were created. These included mammals, or milk-giving animals. With their creation we might reasonably expect man to be created, for whose use they were created. So in the sixth day, we read, God said, " Let us make man after our image, after our likeness." "And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him : male and female created he them." Mark the lan- guage : God created them male and female, as he did other animals. This statement should suffice FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 21 for what God says about man's creation. Whether all animals of the same species descended from a single pair, or whether God created the same spe- cies in different centres of the earth, it matters not. Whether the human race all sprung from a single pair in a single centre, or whether God created different types in different centres, all of one blood, all possessing the prime characteristics of manhood, it matters not. We hardly need say that we dis- claim all belief in evolution, that man was devel- oped from an ape or chimpanzee or anything else. God created him a man. Here, then, we have the creation of man in the sixth day. " God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it : and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The language is not to be taken like statute law or verbal com- mand, for part of the command is given to fish and fowl incapable of understanding it. It is the law of man's nature, his conscious need and conscious superiority prompting to this. The power to know, to think, to reason, to remember, to devise, to improve his condition, — this image of God is man's Magna Charta to the dominion of earth. Man goes forth to subdue the earth, and gain dominion over the whole animal kingdom. He finds obstacles, but he must fight his way through. 2 2 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. He must devise implements to use, and contend with the bear for a morsel of meat, and for the possession of a cave, until he learns how to con- struct a better dwelling. Since man possesses an animal organism, subject to the same physical laws as other animals, death included, we might nat- urally expect to find human bones and implements of art mingled among the bones of those animals known to have roamed the earth in the Quater- nary epoch, a period of the sixth day of God's week. If we bear in mind the cooling process of the earth, and that the crust of the earth was for- merly thinner and less fixed than now, and that the elevation and subsidence of portions of the land were more extensive and frequent than at the present, and consequently the changes on the sur- face greater, though these are going on at present, and that God instituted vegetable and animal life while these changes were rapid and great, it will relieve us from adopting the opinion of the exceed- ing great age of man's existence on the earth which some scientists claim. Six or ten thou- sand years suffice to carry us back to a condition of things as described in the latter part of the sixth day of God's week. Does not the Bible itself give us direct intima- tions of preadamites ? If in the third and fourth chapters of Genesis we have an account of the first human pair, it is difficult to understand the Ian- FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 23 guage. When Cain slew his brother, and the curse was pronounced upon him, he said, " My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground ; and from thy face shall I be hid ; and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth ; and it shall come to pass that whosoever findeth me shall slay me." Why need he to be a fugitive ? His parents would not kill him, and he had slain his only brother. Where did he find his wife ? where find the people to build a city? Is it not clearly implied in the record that there were pre- adamites ? Cain being a tiller of the ground, and Abel a keeper of sheep, implies a more extensive use of these products than the four, whose record we have, would need. It implies more than an abso- lute primitive condition of these employments, as does Jabal, who was the father of such as dwell in tents and have cattle ; and his brother Jubal, who was the father of all such as handle the harp and pipe ; and Tubal-cain, the forger of every cutting instrument of brass and iron. This denotes a state of civilization somewhat advanced when that people had passed their Stone age, and were in possession of some of the arts of the Bronze and Iron age. These things serve to fix the date in the world's progress when God called the Edenic Adam. 24 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. We now come to the seventh day of God's week, a condensed summary of which is given in the first three verses of the second chapter of Genesis. " And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it ; because that in it he rested from all his work, which God created and made." Note carefully this language. It can hardly be that God has recorded three times in two verses the fact that he had closed the work of creation. " And the heaven and the earth were -finished," does not express the ceasing from the work, but the performance of the work. " The heaven and the earth prevailed." Then in the second verse the word finished is repeated, meaning that he finished up or completed the work which he had created. Then it is asserted that he rested from the work of creation. God works on his Sabbath day. But it is a day in which he brings moral forces to work on human hearts. So as the first moral human institution God gives man a Sabbath day, and most closely associates the duty and work of man's Sabbath with the work he does on his own Sabbath. In commenting on the events recorded in the earlier chapters of Genesis, we need to enlarge FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 25 the title of this chapter so that it shall embrace the foreshadowing of giving of law on the work of redemption. At the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, God commences the record of his seventh day's work. The first work is to man under re- vealed moral law. If we will read the language used for what it is, and not for what it is not ; not as a revelation of how God has done things, not as a narration of history, nor biography, but as lan- guage which the Creator thought wisest to use in establishing new institutions, revealing truth, and recording moral lav/ for use in all future time, we shall save ourselves no little perplexity and error. The garden of Eden is described as embracing a section of territory in Western Asia, watered by four rivers, the principal of which is the Euphra- tes. A man is chosen through whom to reveal law, as was Abraham and Moses in after time. As this is the first of revelation of law, his name is called Adam, the generic name of the race, but henceforth to be his proper name. This»is the Biblical Adam. In the Scriptures he stands, not as the first of the race, but the first to whom moral law was given. As revealed moral law was for peo- ple from his time onward, so no mention is made of any previous to him, except simply of their creation. In tracing back the line of his descend- ants, we have evidence that he was of the Cau- 26 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. casian or white race. And we have already seen that he was called at a time when those among whom he lived had made some progress in the arts of life. In the latter part of the second chapter is a record of the institution of marriage. The lan- guage clearly sets forth the divine sanction, the mutual relation of the two, its holy character, the oneness of the wedded pair, and the obligation to care for each other. " Adam was first formed, then Eve." The man is the head of the family. The rib taken from man pertains to the marriage relation, and is not to reveal how woman was formed, for God created them male and female, and that in the sixth day. Let the rib be kept in the right place. The account of the trees of the garden is doubt- less an allegory, containing the highest law in the moral universe, — obedience to God. It is all-em- bracing in its application, deep enough for the pro- foundest philosopher, and yet so simple that a child can understand it. " The tree of knowledge of good and evil " is a symbol of obedience, and the self-approval resulting therefrom, and the con- demnation resulting from disobedience. Physical death is a natural law to the animal creation. Man possessing an animal nature, like other animals has his infancy, matures, grows old and feeble, and dies. Physical death is the basis of the meaning FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 2 J of the penalty for sin. " In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." They understood the meaning of natural death, and by the threat- ened penalty understood something evil, and soon came to know by experience the meaning of spirit- ual death. When Adam had eaten of the forbid- den fruit, he felt strangely, and hid himself; he knew not how to express his strange sensation, and when called to an account, he said he was naked, expressing indeed a greater truth than he under- stood. Adam dies. Conscious guilt is spiritual death. It is a condition of soul called death in all succeeding revelation. The language and symbols used in pronouncing the penalty upon Satan, for tempting man, and upon Eve and Adam, individ- ually, for their transgression, could not fail to teach them, and all future generations, God's great dis- approbation of sin; just the moral lesson they need first to learn. In pronouncing the penalty upon the woman, the first to transgress, God prom- ises a Messiah to come, the seed of the woman, the Son of God indeed, yet born in the flesh, who would be man's Redeemer and Life Giver. " The tree of life in the midst of the garden is the symbol of this new spiritual life, as we may infer from what Christ says to the seven churches." " To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." Rev. 2 : 7. Also from the 25 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. " tree of life," which stood upon the banks of the river of life, which "proceeded out of the throne of God and the Lamb." Rev. 22 : 1. " God drove out the man ; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden, the Cherubim, and the flame of the sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." As the cherubim of beaten gold, looking toward the mercy seat in the holy of holies, symbolized the way of life to the Jews, so we may infer that the cherubim set to " keep the way of the tree of life " were the divine messen- gers or symbols of the divine messengers of mercy to point the way through the promised seed to the tree of life, "and the flame of a sword which turned every way " proclaimed most significantly that there is no other way but through the promised seed, to the tree of life. Here, then, in the second and third chapters, we have a wonderfully con- densed compact of divine revelation, of which the rest of the Bible is but an expansion. In the fourth chapter is a record of the way God sets his seal on. the scheme of salvation through the blood of the promised Messiah. Cain, a " tiller of the ground," and Abel, a "keeper of sheep," both bring an offering unto the Lord of what each pos- sessed, and perhaps with equally right motives. God rejects Cain's offering, and accepts Abel's. He sets his seal upon Abel's offering, because there is blood and the sacrifice of life in it. FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 2 Q This is the first typical offering, made so by the divine sanction. It is the revelation needed to be made as pointing to the great sacrifice to come. Cain is angry and slays his brother, the first murder under revealed law. In the penalty pro- nounced, and in the anguish of Cain, we see the penalty for murder. The murderer is a fugitive in the earth, not staying long enough in one place for the earth to yield her strength to him. Here, too, is the first great lesson of God to man, of the sacredness of human life. Soon Seth is born of the spiritual line of Abel, and " to him also there was born a son ; and he called his name Enos, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.'' Here is a spiritual seed, men born of God through faith in the promised Messiah, and called "sons of God," as we shall soon see. There is communion between man and God, resulting from the new-cre- ated spiritual life. Generations succeed each other and Enoch is born. "And Enoch walked with God ; and he was not, for God took him." Here is obedience and fellowship with God, and a new revelation of a future life. Other generations succeed, and Noah is born. "Noah was a righteous man, and perfect in his generations ; Noah walked with God." But another scene opens, another revelation is to be made, and that is, God's abhorrence for sin. " And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face 30 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair ; and they took them wiv.es of all that they chose." " The sons of God," those spiritually born, inter- married with the ungodly and worldly, and terrible degeneracy followed. " And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and grieved him at his heart." This language reveals not only the greatness of man's sin, but also the depth at which God finds it, and his utter abhorrence of it. He commands Noah to build an ark for the preservation of him- self and family. The ark is a type of Christ, who saves all that come unto him. The declaration, " My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for that he also is flesh ; yet shall his days be an hundred and twenty years," expresses not the time Noah was building the ark, but man's proba- tion, his time for repentance, probably the average age alloted to man in those days. God said to Noah, "But I will establish my covenant with thee ; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee." This is the covenant of salvation through the appointed way. When Noah had brought the FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 3 1 animals into the ark, and made provision for them according to direction, and when he and his family were safely enclosed within, then " were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights." The deluge was doubtless local, and did not destroy all the people from the face of the earth, but it extended over sufficiently wide extent to be a revelation to all the world, and to teach all future generations of God's ha- tred to sin, and of the certainty and severity of his judgments. The language in the narration is to be taken as in the New Testament, where it is said that " there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be enrolled." This meant only the Roman Empire, for Csesar had no right or power to tax the rest of the world. It was doubtless effected by those natural causes which have been shaking and breaking up the crust of the earth in all the past ages. " The foundations of the great deep were broken up." It is just what an earthquake does when it takes place under the ocean, and when, from internal causes, there is effected a sudden subsidence of land, and then an upheaval. It was such a calam- ity, only of wider extent, as came upon the island of Scio in 188 1, when five thousand of the people were suddenly buried under the rubbish, and soon 32 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. four thousand more, and in less than an hour Scio was in utter ruin. A similar calamity took place in Ischia, July 28, 1883. So, also, in the southern part of Andalusia, in Spain, fifty-six towns were devastated in less than ten seconds, and nearly twenty of these places were entirely destroyed. It speaks all the louder as a revelation to men, as being produced by natural causes, for it shows that as the physical laws are so under the direction of God as to bring judgments when deserved, so are the moral laws of his government so adjusted to the conduct of men, as to bring the just retribu- tion for sin, as by a natural consequence. This was a fearful revelation to the wicked in the world's future, as was the saving of those in the ark a joyful revelation to all them who will put their trust in Christ and obey him. When Noah came forth from the ark, he built an altar and offered a sacri- fice of burnt offerings. And God confirmed the covenant with him, saying, " This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for per- petual generations : I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of the covenant between me and the earth." That " bow in the cloud," seen for thousands of years before, and become perma- nent in their expectations, is now made a token of the divine faithfulness. " And the bow shall be in the cloud : and I will look upon it, that I may FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 33 remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." The bow is the token of the divine faith- fulness in supplying the natural wants of man and all living creatures, but more especially of the cove- nant of grace, established with Noah as he entered the ark, which covenant was to find its fulfilment in the great antitype of the ark, Jesus Christ, who saves with an everlasting salvation all who come to him. Whenever the bow appears, let us learn to read in it, God is faithful. When Noah and his sons came forth from the ark, God again enforced the value of human life, the worth of man, and incorporated the lesson in revealed law, that whatever or whoever takes the life of man, forfeits his own life. " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." The reason is given, " For in the image of God made he man." This was not simply for the wel- fare and security of society, but to reveal to man the value of man, to teach his exalted position among all created beings. The account of the building of the tower of Babel is not simply a narration of history, but stands as an object lesson in revealed law for all nations to read. " And it came to pass, as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar ; and they dwelt there." " And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top 3 34 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. may reach unto heaven, and let us make a name ; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." It was in the spirit of Nimrod who " began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord." The name Nimrod signifies rebel. They were for set- ting up for themselves, independent of Jehovah, relying upon their wisdom and strength. All at once their language is confounded, they do not un- derstand one another's speech. Their work ceases, and they are scattered abroad. The language of Jehovah is, Behold how easy I can thwart all your undertakings. Learn, then, your dependence on me. It is like the language of Jesus to the man contemplating pulling down his barns to build greater : " Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee." When we read that "all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty and nine years ; and he died," it causes no little perplexity to account for the great apparent longevity of man before the flood, and the great shortening of human life soon after, and as we see at present that the age of man, seems to be fixed at threescore years and ten by a physical constitution. This seeming lon- gevity may be only apparent. It may be put in such language for the purpose of giving us a chronology which is important, and not to state the age of men when they die, which is unimportant. The age of FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 35 the father may be given at the time when the son was born in whom the line of descent was to be traced ; afterward the father's name may be used as a family or tribal name. At the time at which death is stated, the family or tribe may have been merged in others, so as to have lost its distinct characteristics as a tribe or nation. It is said of the descendants of the sons of Noah, " after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations." This shows the manner of tribal life in those days, each designated by the name of the head of the family. Judah and Ephraim are tribal as well as individual names. We do well to read the fifth chapter for just what God says it is, "This is the book of the generations of Adam." In the eleventh chapter the genealogy is given from Noah, through the descendants of Shem to Abraham. In the New Testament we have the genealogy from Abraham to Christ and from Adam to Christ. The genealogy is of great value as lay- ing one of the chief corner-stones of evidence that the Bible is the revealed word of God. It enables us to trace back the centuries to the time when God began to make verbal revelations to man, which culminated in the revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, and the fulfilment of the law and the prophets ; to trace the time from the first Adam, under whom men began to die a spiritual death through disobedience 36 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. of revealed law, to the second Adam, in whom they are made alive by the power of God through a revealed gospel. There are some passages in the New Testament which confirm this view of the Edenic Adam. Adam and Christ are contrasted with, and are complements to, each other. Adam represents Law, Christ the Gospel. Through Adam we see the penalty of disobedience, through Christ the blessedness of obedience. Through Adam came spiritual death, through Christ comes spiritual life. "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." The two are so related that Christ is called the second Adam ; also Adam the figure of Christ. To the first Adam was given law ; the second fulfils it. Christ is the end of the law to believers. When Paul healed the impotent man at Lystra, the priests and the multitude could scarcely be restrained from doing sacrifice unto him ; but he said, " We are men of like passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye should turn from these vain things unto the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them is ; who in the generations gone by suf- fered all the nations to walk in their own ways. And yet he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave you from heaven rain and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 37 and gladness." Acts 14: 15-17. Here is an intima- tion at least that there was a time in the genera- tions gone by when they were without revealed law, when all the nations were suffered to walk in their own ways, their only revelation being God's providence giving them fruitful seasons. So also when Paul walked the streets of Athens and saw the inscription, "To the unknown God," he said, "The times of ignorance, therefore, God over- looked ; but now commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent ; inasmuch as he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained." Acts 17 : 30. Here also is an intimation of the condition of preadamites when men were without revealed law, and consequently God did not call them to an account. So Paul again says to the Christians at Rome, " For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law ; and as many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law." Rom. 2: 12. This passage shows that men are to be judged according to the light they have had, and it implies that there is such a thing as being entirely without a knowl- edge of God's law. " Through the law cometh a knowledge of sin." Rom. 3 : 20. Through the re- vealed law, actions which may have appeared to men without moral quality, come to be seen as sinful. So Paul speaks " of the passing over of the 3S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God." And Paul declares plainly that " the law worketh wrath ; but where there is no law, neither is there transgression." Rom. 4:15. It is through revealed law that action becomes sinful. So when a law was revealed to Adam, he became conscious that certain actions were sinful; as Paul says, " Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin ; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned ; for until the law sin was in the world ; but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression." Rom. 5:12, 13, 14. The Edenic Adam, through violation of revealed law, sinned and brought upon himself spiritual death ; so it has been ever since. The same actions, done before the law was revealed, were not sinful, sin is not imputed ; but after the law is revealed, they become sinful, because they become a violation of law. Many actions are sinful, any one of which brings death, and those who had not committed the same violation of law which Adam did, yet in some other act had violated law, so death reigned over them who had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression. Does not this passage reveal the moral condition of preadamites ? They had no revealed law, and sin was not imputed to FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 39 them. As Paul again says, " Is the law sin ? God forbid ; howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law ; for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ; but sin finding occasion, wrought in me through the commandment all manner of coveting : for apart from the law sin is dead." Rom. 7 '. 7, 8. Most clearly Paul here asserts that sin and spiritual death are brought about by violation of revealed law. A single glimpse at the law reveals sinful- ness, and brings death. But the law also " is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" And Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that belieyeth." It is not therefore a " Para- dise lost " that we should sigh over, and pray to have regained ; not a " Paradise regained " that we should covet ; but a Paradise gained, — something vastly better than Eden ever knew, a new and higher life, not lost in Adam, but gained by a new spiritual life created in Christ. God's seventh day's work, therefore, is not simply recovering lost souls from an apostasy, but raising them through revealed law and apostasy, and the gospel, to a spiritual likeness to himself, to be "sons of God," which prepares them for the presence, appreciation, and enjoyment of God, giving them not only a clearer intellectual percep- tion of God as creator, but a heart appreciation of God as a loving Heavenlv Father. 40 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. While each of the creative days of God's week was an indefinitely long period of time, does it not afford, if not absolute proof, yet very strong presumptive evidence, that the redemptive Sabbath day of his week will also be a long period of time ? Shall the last, the rest, the redemptive, the best day, be less in duration than each of the other days, which seem to be but a preparation for the redemptive day ? ■Does not the glory of the divine plan culminate in what takes place on the redemptive day? The slowness of the discovery of the vastness, beauty, and grandeur of creation ; the slowness of the development of the work of redemption during the four thousand years from the time of the promise of a Redeemer to the time when the Son of God was revealed on earth as Son of man, and crucified, laying down his life as an offering for sin, very strongly suggests that those centuries were but the dawn of the Sabbath day of God's week. And as the sun advances slowly to the zenith of light and glory, and as slowly descends to the hori- zon, will it not make a day corresponding in length to the other days of God's week ? And as there was constant progress from inferior to superior, from less perfect to more perfect, so that the last of each of the days was better than the first of it, so, also, we may believe it will be in the Sabbath day ; and by this our hearts may be inspired with high hopes of the work to be done amid the noon FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 4 1 and afternoon glory. Does not this greatly mili- tate against the idea that the New Testament writ- ers taught, or that the early disciples expected, that Christ would soon come and put an end to the redemptive work? Should it not also guard us against the belief that he will soon close the Sab- bath of redemption, while the earth is still shrouded in moral darkness ? Should it not rather encourage the hope that such may be its length that the gospel shall completely triumph over every form of moral evil, and that in the mid-day splendor and after- noon of God's Sabbath, the masses of earth's inhab- itants, as they pass over the stage of action, shall come under the power of redemption, and that the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel, which John saw in the Apocalyptic vision, be but a prelude, a few drops in the bucket, "to the great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindred and peoples and tongues, which stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God, who sit- teth upon the throne and unto the Lamb," calling forth the response from the angels who stood about the throne, saying, "Amen: Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen " ? Rev. 7. 42 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. The order of creation throws light, we think, on the doctrine of the resurrection. The constant progression from a lower to a higher order in the structure of the earth's crust ; in the flora of the earth, advancing from the simplest fern to the "tree bearing fruit after his kind" ; in the fauna, proceeding from the polyp clinging fast to the bot- tom of the sea, to the mammalia, useful to man ; the metamorphosis of some animals, always with higher bodily functions ; the pre-natal state of man, succeeded by natural life, — strongly suggest that when man shall shuffle off the mortal coil, there shall be developed at once a spiritual body more perfect for his use than anything which is in the grave or could ever come from the grave, all suffi- cient, fitting man for the spiritual realm to which he goes, and if adequate for a thousand years, so also for a million and good for eternity. Does not God's law of progression preclude the idea of the soul ever coming back to pick up a body from the earth ? Besides, if the redemptive day is as long as the other days of God's week, it would seem a long time for the soul to wait for a body to fit it for its legitimate work in eternity. It looks unreasonable that the soul should be without a body, and thus cramped and hampered and compelled to wait an indefinitely long period before being fully fledged for its eternal flight. FORESHADOWING OF CREATION. 43 The same argument affords a presumptive ground of belief that man's judgment is passed upon him, and his destiny for weal or woe fixed, as he passes from this world ; that the saints are attuned and fully equipped for glory, and enter at once upon the grand work of filling creation with praise ; and that the unredeemed are sensible of their failure, folly, and sin, and come under the pangs of bitter regret and condemnation ; all passing to a greater develop- ment of joy or sorrow, and not waiting, it may be, for a million of years, more or less, for a judicial determination of their state and their awards. The successive creations during the creative week, culminating in man, created in the image of God, foreshadow the design of God to glorify him- self by placing man in the nearest and highest possible relation to himself. This is a state of redemption. This, too, is a new creation. "Born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God." " Born of the Spirit." "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." God's "workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." " If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature." This state cannot be fostered by human culture, no power of man can produce it, any more than man in the image of God can result from mere animal life. It is a new creation. This new life created in Christ •Jesus brings man into closer kinship with God 44 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. than ever before, and secures to him a divine life. We should not close this chapter without a word in regard to moral obligation. Our whole duty- lies within the sphere of revelation. And revela- tion, aside from the first chapter of Genesis, covers the period of God's Sabbath. The future condi- tion of preadamites does not concern us. Nor is there any probation after death revealed. In all Christendom there is sufficient law revealed so that spiritual death reigns. In most of the heathen na- tions, the idolatry, sacrifices, and religious observ- ances show that law has been handed down to them by tradition, so that spiritual death reigns among them. Everywhere, men are found without spiritual life. Many are sighing for light and life. Such facts call for the most earnest efforts of all, who have risen to spiritual life in Christ Jesus, to extend the triumphs of the gospel to earth's remotest bounds. THE KINGDOM. 45 CHAPTER II. THE KINGDOM. The Old Testament Scriptures, in themselves, do not teach a complete system of religion. They are introductory to what follows in the New Tes- tament, which is called the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. It is a kingdom present on the earth during the New Testament dispensation, a kingdom to abide forever. Christ is king of this kingdom. The king and kingdom are foretold in the Old Testament. In the vision which Daniel had, of the image of gold, silver, iron, brass, and clay, representing the kingdoms of the earth, he beheld another kingdom. " And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall not be left to another people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." " The stone cut out of the mountain" by divine wisdom and power shall break in pieces " the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold." Dan 2 : 44, 45. Moses declares, " The Lord thy God shall raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy 46 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. brethren, like unto me ; unto him shall ye hearken." Deut. 18: 15. Isaiah beheld the king in vision when he said, " For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and the government shall be upon his shoulders ; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even forever." Is. 9 : 6, 7. The peaceable principles of the kingdom are also foretold in connection with the king. " The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf, and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the suck- ing child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which will stand for an ensign of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious." Is. 11 : 6-10. Zechariah foresaw the triumphs of this king. "Rejoice greatly, O THE KINGDOM. 47 daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold thy King cometh unto thee ; he is just, and having salvation ; lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." " And he shall speak peace unto the heathen, and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea ; and from the river even to the ends of the earth." Zech. 9 : 9, 10. David sang of the dominion of the coming king. The types and shadows of the Old Testament point forward to the grand realities of the king- dom as recorded in the New. The temple was a type of the kingdom. The holy of holies was a type of the visible dwelling-place of God. No other place on earth was so sacred. All thoughts of atonement and holiness converge toward it. There was the mercy seat, before which the high priest ministered, sprinkling the blood before and upon it. There the incense was burnt and the smoke arose. Toward the mercy seat, the cherubim, the emblems of God's messengers of mercy to man, turned their faces while the high priest, the type of Christ, sprinkled the blood of the sin offering, the type of the Lamb of God. This was the place where God and man could meet. Before the holy of holies stood the altar of incense, showing that only as the blood precedes, can prayers be answered or worship accepted. At one side of the holy place stood the golden candlestick, typifying Christ as the light of the world. On the other 48 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. side was the table of showbread, typifying Christ as the bread of life. Before the holy place stood the laver of brass, where the priests must wash to secure ceremonial purity ; and the brazen altar where the sacrificial victims were offered, and where the priest ministered, typical of Christ sac- rificed for us, and Christ our great high priest, Christ the Daysman between God and us. In the ceremonial observances about the altar and temple, the blood and water were both alike significant. The blood typified the work of Christ, the water the work of the Spirit. To be consecrated as priest, the sons of Aaron must change their gar- ments and wash at the laver. The water was sprinkled as well as the blood to indicate holiness. " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean ; from all yourfilthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away your stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them." Ezek. 36: 25, 27. The Passover is a type of Christ, as the great atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Moses leading the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and the paschal lamb, whose blood, sprinkled upon the THE KINGDOM. 49 door-posts, saved the first-born from death by the destroying angel, prefigure Christ, our great High Priest, the Lamb of God, whose blood, sprinkled upon the conscience, enables us to draw nigh to God with confidence ; " Christ, our Passover, sac- rificed for us." There are three kinds of offerings described in Leviticus, distinguished from each other and yet closely related, — the Sin, the Burnt, and the Peace Offerings. The Sin Offering de- noted atonement for sin. An animal without blemish was to be slain, and the blood sprinkled upon the horns of the altar of sweet incense, and all the blood poured out at the foot of the altar where the burnt offering was made, and the fat burned on the altar. The whole ceremony was most significant of atonement. In making a Burnt Offering, a male without blem- ish from the herd or flock must be taken, " and he shall offer it of his own voluntary will, at the door of the congregation, before the Lord. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt of- fering ; and it shall be accepted for him, to make an atonement for him." The victim was to be killed and flayed, and the blood sprinkled before the altar, and those parts of the animal liable to be affected by dirt or filth were to be washed in water and then burnt. "And the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savor unto the Lord." 4 5 the omnipresent God, and manifests himself to the world by blessings and judgments. He is the one " who holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, and who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." Let us examine the Greek word Parousia. It is composed of the two words, para and eimi. Prof. Robinson, in his Greek Lexicon of the New Testa- ment, gives the meaning of the preposition para, "beside, near by." The preposition is devoid of the idea of motion ; rest, near by, is the legitimate idea of the word. The word eimi is our neuter verb to be, to exist. From these two words is derived the noun Pa- rousia, almost uniformly translated coming in the King James version, as if identical with the word erkomai, meaning, / come. Such a translation is most evidently incorrect and misleading in es- chatology. In the Canterbury version, the word is translated coming, but the real meaning, presence, is uniformly put in the margin. Three times it is correctly translated presence. Presence is the leading meaning, and should have been put in the text. There may be a secondary, or derived mean- ing of motion sometimes in the word. We find the word translated correctly in two places in the au- thorized version. In 2 Cor. 10 : 10, " For his let- ters, say they, are weighty and powerful ; but his bodily presence (parousia) is weak, and his speech 74 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. contemptible." Also in Phil. 2: 12, "Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence (parousia) only, but now much more in my absence {apousia), work out your own salva- tion with fear and trembling." Also in Phil. 1 : 26, in the revised version. These passages are very significant of the meaning of the word denoting presence and not motion. Some passages claim our attention as prophetic of Christ's coming to be present in power, to put an end to the Jewish economy. He said to the disciples, " When they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another ; for verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of man be come." Matt. 10 : 23. Indicating that though he might leave them for a time, yet the time should not be far distant when he would reveal himself in their behalf. When the Saviour was in the re- gion of Cesarea Philippi, to encourage the disciples in self-denial and stability amid persecution, he said to them : " Whosoever will save his life shall lose it ; and whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it ; for what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul ; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father, with his angels : and then shall he reward every man according to his works. Verily, I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall THE PAROUSIA. 75 not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Matt. 16 : 26-28. Mark records the same discourse thus, "Whosoever there- fore shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. And he said unto them, verily, I say unto you, that there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power." Mark 8: 38; 9:1. Luke gives his version of it in the following words : " For whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death till they see the king- dom of God." Luke 9 : 26, 27. Note here three things : First, the coming of Christ in the power and glory of the Father, with the holy angels ; second, the establishment of the kingdom of God with power; third, that this should take place while some standing there should yet be living. Such language would cause the disciples to live in expectation of these events. We turn now to the place where the word pa- ronsia is first used in the New Testament, Matt. 24 : 3, 27, 37, 39. Read carefully Matt. 24, Mark 13, j6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Luke 21, bearing in mind that they are a record of the same events by the three different evangelists. It was on the third day of the last Passover week ; Jesus had uttered his last warnings to the Jews in the temple. As he passed out of the temple, "one of his disciples saith unto him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here ! And Jesus, answering, said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings ? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." This greatly astonished the disciples, and four of them, Peter, James, John, and Andrew, follow him directly to the Mount of Olives, and ask him about it, saying, " Tell us when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign of thy coming (fiarousia), and of the end of the age ? " The word kosmos is the word used to denote the earth, this lower world, as the abode of man, but (eon is here used, which means the duration or flow of time, and may be applied to a person's lifetime, or any period, as the Jewish age. The disciples doubtless had in mind the Jewish age. Mark and Luke record the question thus : " Tell us, when shall these things be ? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled ? " They do not use the word parousia, and yet, doubtless, all three evangelists intend to record the same ques- tions in substance. The circumstances and form THE PAROUSIA. JJ of the questions show that they inquired concern- ing the events which clustered about the destruc- tion of the temple. It is not a Tittle absurd to think that the dis- ciples should ask Jesus about the closing up of the new dispensation and the end of the world, when, as yet, the old one had not closed. Nor had he intimated, so far as recorded, anything about the end of the world. But he had said that he would come in power to put an end to the Jewish dispensa- tion, and to fully inaugurate his kingdom. Christ and his disciples were yet struggling to get a foot- hold for the new dispensation, and the great strug- gle was yet to come against Jewish prejudice and custom, and against Jewish and pagan persecu- tion, before the new order of things should be fully inaugurated. The foundation stone upon which the kingdom of God was to be built was yet to be laid in the death of Christ, The severest of the birth-pangs of the kingdom were yet to be endured. Why, then, again we ask, should the disciples ask about the end of the world ? The answer that Christ gave shows that the events inquired of were soon to take place. He warns them first against being deceived, because many shall come, " Saying, I am Christ ; and shall deceive many." History in- forms us that there were many in those days who pretended to be Christ. He informed them that 7$ PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. the days preceding the event should be days of great commotion. " Nation shall rise against na- tion," " they should hear of wars and rumors of wars," and famine and pestilence and earthquakes. A few years before the destruction of Jerusalem, when Gessius Florus was governor in Palestine, the Jews were aroused to rebellion against the Roman power. Vespasian was sent with a Roman army to quell the rebellion. Many of the Jews were put to death. Just the state of things that Christ foretold actually existed in Palestine. " All these are the beginning of sorrows," "but the end is not yet." Then Christ forewarns them of the persecutions they must endure. " Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake." This also describes the exact state of things which ex- isted under the Neronian persecution, A. D. 64- 68. To avert from himself the odium of burning Rome, Nero charged it upon the Christians, and every effort was made to make them a hated and detested people. Persecution raged terribly at Rome, and extended into the provinces. To en- courage them to fidelity, Christ said, "There shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls." " But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." Christ also said to them, " And this gospel of the kingdom THE PAROUSIA. 79 shall be preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." Does this mean that as soon as the gospel is proclaimed to the last nation on earth, then the end of the world shall come ? We had supposed that the gospel was for the gathering in of the na- tions into the kingdom, and not as soon as the nations all hear that there is a Christ, they must be cut off. It means, rather, that while the Jews, God's chosen people, had been scattered 'among all nations, the gospel should be preached among all nations, that the Jews might have the offer of salvation, as a witness of Christ's fidelity to " his own," before he should reject them as a nation in the destruction of their temple and city. The Roman army was years in making its way through the rebellious provinces, subduing them, and encamping about Jerusalem. Christ would save his people from the calamities which were to overwhelm the Jewish nation, so he utters another warning to them : " When ye, therefore, shall see the abomination spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand), then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains ; let him who is on the house-top not come down to take anything out of his house ; neither let him who is in the field return back to take his clothes." The abomination spoken of is the Roman army. The disciples were to flee be- So PROBLEMS in theology. fore it. The facts of history are that the disciples took refuge in Pella, in Perea, and were saved from the destruction which overtook the unbeliev- ing Jews. Christ foretells the great suffering that will be endured. " But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days ! And pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be." Christ again warns them not to follow them who shall say, " Lo, here is Christ ! or, Lo, he is there ! " lest they should be deceived and perish. He tells them, too, of the suddenness in which Jerusalem should be destroyed : " For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto the west ; so also shall the coming (fiarousia) of the Son of man be. For wheresover the car- cass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Jerusalem is the carcass, the Roman army the eagles. Then comes a description of the final catastrophe : " And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power THE PAROUSIA. 8 1 and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." The significance of the event described in this graphic language is not fully appreciated in our time. The winding up of that system of religion which had called the Jews to Jerusalem, year after year, for fifteen centuries, the removal of obstacles which were greatly impeding the progress of the gospel, the full inauguration of the kingdom of God on the earth, was an event of no small import. The sentence, " And then shall they see the Son of man, coming in a cloud (' in the clouds of heaven,' Matt.) with power and great glory," is often quoted to prove the second coming of Christ at the end of the world, or end of the gospel age. Bat a careful examination of the language will show that this is foreign to the meaning of the whole passage. Matthew says, " Immediately after the tribulation of those days," this event should take place. Mark says, " In those days, after that tribulation." Immediately following the passage quoted is re- corded the parable of the fig-tree, to impress the minds of the disciples that all the events were near at hand, "even at the doors." "Behold the fig-tree, and all the trees ; when they now shoot forth ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand." " So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye 82 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away till all be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." Matthew also says, " Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." And Mark records it, " Verily I say unto you, That this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done." No language could make it more def- inite that all the things spoken of should come to pass while some of that generation would still be living. Christ's " coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory," is included in the "all things." Then is given another admonition to watch : " For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away ; so shall also the coming (parotcsia) of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch, there- fore : for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." There was need of this charge to watch, lest the disciples should remain among THE PAROUSIA. 83 the unbelieving Jews, and suffer the same calami- ties which overtook them in the siege and destruc- tion of Jerusalem. The Saviour having shown the disciples of the destruction of the temple, and of the end of the old economy, discourses to them concerning the principles of the kingdom, as recorded in Matt. 25: "Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened," etc. Note that in Matt. 25 : 13, the phrase "wherein the Son of Man cometh " is wanting in the Canterbury version, and also that of the American Bible Union. May not the meaning of the phrase " Christ coming in the clouds of heaven," as used in Matt. 24, and so definitely fixed as referring to the dis- solving of the old economy, be a key with which to unlock the meaning of the like phrases in other parts of the New Testament ? When Jesus, after his betrayal, was arrayed before the council, by night, Caiaphas, the high priest, said to him, "I adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ the Son of God." Jesus sairti unto him, "Thou hast said ; neverthe- less I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26:64. There is very little pertinency in the answer if we make Christ mean that he will come in a distant future when Caiaphas and his associates will have been dead for centuries ; but there is force if he 84 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. means that he will soon come in power to destroy the very altars and temple where Caiaphas officiated, as he did at the destruction of Jerusalem. And this is most evidently the meaning, for he says, " Ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power," — something to take place in that gen- eration. Christ, after his resurrection, met seven of his disciples at the Sea of Galilee. Peter was very soli- citous about what John should do. Christ rebuked Peter, saying, " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou me." It is supposed that John is the only one of .the twelve apostles who did live till after the destruction of Jerusalem. Christ undoubtedly refers to what he had taught the disciples of his "coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," as fulfilled in A. D. 70. Let us here examine other passages in the New Testament, which in the Greek have the word parousia, using the key of Matt. 24, and having in mind that the word is translated presence inva- riably in the Canterbury version as placed in the margin. In 1 Cor. 16: 17, we read, "I am glad of the coming (parousia) of Stephanas, Fortunatas, and Achaicus." I apprehend that it was not the journey thither of these good brethren that made Paul glad, but their presence after they had arrived, that made him so. Paul says in 2 Cor. 7:6," Never- THE PAROUSIA. 85 theless God comforted us by the coming {parousia) of Titus." The comfort was by the presence of Titus, and not the journey. In Phil. 1 : 26, Paul, a prisoner at Rome, expressed his hope that the rejoicing of the Philippian brethren might be more abundant in Jesus Christ by his coming {parousia) to them again. It was his presence, not the jour- ney thither, that would conduce to their rejoicing. Paul uses this word in 1 Cor. 15 : 23 : " But every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits ; after- ward, they that are Christ at his coming" (in his parousia). A careful examination of the first half of the chapter will show that the word resurrection means a blessed future life, rather than a particular manner and form of the resurrection of the body. Paul's argument requires it. Robinson, in his Greek Lexicon, defines ev, which so definitely means in, first of place with its subdivisions, then second of time, (a) " a definite point or period in which anything takes place ; (b) of time how long, i. e., a space or period in which anything takes place." This we think is the meaning in this passage ; those that are his during his parousia or personal presence in the church in the Gospel age. In 1 Thes. 2 : 19, we read, " For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus at his coming " (in his parousia) ? Paul writes to the Thessalonian Chris- tians to comfort and strengthen them amid perse- S6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. cutions. He tells them that they are his hope, joy, and crown of rejoicing when Christ shall manifest himself present in his kingdom, an event that would take place during their lifetime as we have seen in Matt. 24. 1 Thes. 3:13, the word is again used: "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you. To the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming {parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints." There is something incompatible in the argument, if Paul, in the use of parousia, refers to an event two or ten thousand years hence. Their hearts were to be established for something which would take place in their lifetime. This is shown in the next chapter, 4:15: " For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive, and remain unto the coming (eis tan parousian) of the Lord, shall not prevent (precede) them which are asleep." Paul speaks here by the word of the Lord. Christ had uttered in word what Paul asserts. He doubtless refers to what Christ had said, as recorded in the twenty-fourth of Matthew. Christ said it should take place in that generation. Paul speaks of some who would be " alive and remain when the parousia should take place.' Some of them now living, "we who are alive.' THE PAROUSIA. 8 J This passage has reference to the time when Christ would appear in power, to put an end to the old dispensation, in the destruction of Jerusa- lem and the temple, and fully inaugurate the king- dom in which the personal, living, spiritual pres- ence of Christ would be a grand characteristic. Paul goes on, in the next chapter, to show that the event would take place in the lifetime of some of those then living. " But of the times and sea- sons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety ; then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child ; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are the children of light, and the children of the day ; we are not of the night, nor of the darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others ; but let us watch and be sober." 5:1-6. This language accords perfectly with what Christ said of the parousia, as recorded in Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21 : "Ye know perfectly." Christ had told them so. Paul most clearly intimates that some then living would be overtaken and overwhelmed in that event, the "children of darkness," but the " children of light " would escape. We have the word again, in verse 23 of this chapter: "And SS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. the very God of peace sanctify you wholly ; and I pray God your whole soul and spirit and body be preserved blameless unto the coming {parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here the translation is as if the word parousia were in the accusative case, after eis or pros, whereas it is in the dative after en or in 9 in or at the parousia. Paul under- stood truth too well to pray that their bodies might be preserved two thousand years, which have nearly expired since the prayer was offered, if this refers to a second advent in the yet future. He did pray that in those terrible scenes which some of them then living would pass through, in the Jewish wars and the destruction of Jerusalem, they might be preserved, spirit, soul, and body, and that, as subjects of the parousia dispensation, they might not be discouraged and overcome by perse- cution. Pass now to 2 Thes. 2 : I, 8, 9, where parousia is three times used : " Now we beseech you, brethren, touching the coming {parousia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together unto him ; to the end that ye be not quickly shaken from your mind ; nor yet be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle as from us, as that the day of the Lord is just at hand ; let no man beguile you in anywise ; for it will not be, except the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, he that THE PAROUSIA. 89 opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God, or that is worshipped ; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things ? and now ye know that which restraineth, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season. For the mystery of lawlessness doth already work ; only there is one that restraineth now, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nought by the manifestation of his coming {parousia), even he whose coming (parousia) is, according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteous- ness for them that perish." Christ had told the disciples on Mount Olivet about the parousia ("day of the Lord," it is called in this passage quoted), and Paul had told the Thessalonians about it while he was yet with them, and written about it in a pre- vious epistle, and they expected it was "just at hand." We cannot believe that Paul was so deceived as to think the end of the world was at hand. He did teach them that some event was close at hand. In his second epistle he teaches them that the event will not come until there is first a falling away, and the man of sin be revealed. The cause 90 TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. of the apostasy is a man, "the man of sin," "the' son of perdition." Had there been a man made to order for this prophetic passage, he could hardly have filled the bill better than Nero, the Roman emperor, whom many think is here meant. His character conforms well to the description given. He sought to be worshipped. "Thou August," " Nero the Apollo," " Eternal One," are some of the worshipful epithets given to him. One writer says, " Now, as a matter of fact, the persecution began in November, A. D. 64, and ended with his death in June, A. D. 68. That is as near as possible three years and a half." Another writer says that " he was hurled from his throne and died like a dog in the sewers of Rome." It is certain that he died suddenly and disgracefully. With his death, the first great persecution of the Christians ceased. (See Chapter VI., where Nero figures as the beast of the Apocalypse.) Under the severe persecutions there would naturally come "a falling away." False professors, the weak and unstable minded, the severely tried, would be likely to yield to the power of persecution under Nero, " whose presence is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceit of unrighteousness." Closely fol- lowing this apostasy came the destruction of Jeru- salem and the end of the old economy. In James 5 : 7, 8, the wcrd is twice used: "Be THE PAROUSIA. 91 patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming (pa- rousid) of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient over it, until it receive the early and the latter rain. Be ye also patient ; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord (parousia) is at hand." The writer is not delivering a general homily on Christian patience, but exhorting them to be patient under persecution, till the Lord shall appear for their deliverance. And he declares plainly that the event is " nigh at hand." If there is any force in the argument, it must refer to some- thing which was to take place in their lifetime. To exhort them to be patient, because Christ would come two or more thousand years after death had relieved them from their hardships, is not in ac- cordance with good sense. Besides, we cannot believe that James, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, either believed or would teach the disciples that an event was nigh at hand, which would not take place for two, and might not in ten thousand years. James might not have been one who listened to Christ's prophetic discourse on Mount Olivet, but the disciples who did listen must have told him, and he understood the parousia to be something which would take place in the life- time of some who heard it. It was nigh at hand. Peter was one of the four disciples who followed Christ to the Mount of Olives. He uses the word 92 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. three times in his second epistle. He evidently does not write to instruct the disciples how the new dispensation was to be terminated, while as yet the old one was not yet fully abolished ; and while the disciples were struggling, amid the scoffs and per- secutions of the Jews and pagans, to establish the new one. In 2 Peter 1: 16, he says: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming (parotisia) of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye- witnesses of his majesty." Peter, we think, does not speak here of a future advent, but something already past, as we see by the context, in which the presence of Christ was the power, the power of his presence. Peter in the following verses alludes to the scene of the transfiguration, as the time when this occurred. In 3:3, 4, we read, " Knowing this first that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming {paronsid)} for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." Does this mean, that when the gospel has gone along the centuries, from "con- quering and to conquer," and about fulfilled its mission, that there shall be scoffers who shall tauntingly say to the disciples, "Where is the promise of his coming " ? We do not so understand the promises, the power, and genius of the gospel. THE PAROUSIA. 93 " The last days " are the last days of the Jewish economy. When Peter wrote this epistle, it was only about four years before the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jews were going along with all their rites, ceremonies, and festivals, now almost forty years since Christ made the promise to the disciples, and the Jews tauntingly say to them, "Where is the promise of the parous ia ?" Then Peter goes on to say, not how the earth and the heavens shall be dissolved, and new heavens and earth appear, but to describe in most vivid, figurative language what the Saviour uttered, as recorded in Matt. 24 : 29 : " Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun 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," which most evidently refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, and with the destruction of that city, the closing up of the Jewish economy. In verse twelve we read, "Look- ing for and earnestly desiring the coming (parousia) of the day of God, by reason of which, the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." This was something they were looking for in their lifetime. Peter therefore exhorts them to " give diligence that they may be found in peace." The Jews un- derstood the meaning when their wars came, and 94 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. in the siege and destruction of their city, when a million of the people perished. There is one more passage in which the word parousia is found. It is in the First Epistle of John. Before noticing this, we need to consider the rela- tive dates of John's writings. Not a little miscon- ception of the truth has been caused by reading the Scriptures on the same level, without regard to dates and events, and purpose of the writer ; also seeking to harmonize passages of Scripture, rather than to harmonize the fundamental doctrines and events around which the passages crystallize. Let us look at the relative dates of some of the writings of the New Testament, confining ourselves to the internal evidence. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, who wrote before the destruction of Jerusa- lem, speak of that signal event which put an end to the Mosaic economy, the significance of which is hardly appreciated in our day. They deal with the facts and miracles, the external evidence which proves the gospel true. Their writings are the vessels which contain the water of life ; while John's gospel has been called the heart of Christ. It unfolds the deeper spirituality of the gospel, the proof of its truth from the inner life, the work- ing of sin upon the soul and its consequences, and the power of Christ to give spiritual life. " He that believeth on the Son hath everlast- ing life, and he that believeth not the Son shall THE PAROUSIA. 95 not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." John 3 : 36. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, in the twenty-fourth, thirteenth, and twenty-first chapters, respectively, warn the disciples of the perilous times coming, " when they shall deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall arise, and shall deceive many, and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." John alone of the evangelists heard Christ's discourse on Olivet con- cerning the perils that would come upon them in the last days when Christ would judge the nation and put an end to the Jewish economy by the tragic destruction of their temple and city. It was, therefore, given to John to speak the words of warning and encouragement needful for the disciples. This he did in the wonderful vis- ions he had in the Isle of Patmos, as recorded in the Apocalypse, and addressed to the seven churches of Asia. He warns the disciples against the seductions of Satan, and the false doctrines which would lead many astray. To each of the seven churches he says, " to him that overcometh," and adds a signal blessing as a reward for their 96 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. fidelity in the faith. Seven times is that phrase used, and seven different blessings are named as the crown of reward. We here assume the earlier date of the Apocalypse, written about the begin- ning of the Neronian persecution (See Chapter VI.) It is generally conceded that John wrote his gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem. This fully accounts for the absence in his gospel of those strong assertions in the other gospels, of Qirist's coming in power and great glory. But if Christ's coming in his bodily presence at the end of the world is meant in the other gospels, it is so connected with the whole gospel plan, that John's gospel would be incomplete and imperfect without it. This is seen, as John's gospel is the most complete embodiment of spiritual truth, adapted to all time, that we have. But its absence in his gospel goes to show that those vivid descriptions of the other evangelists have their fulfilment en- tirely in other events. As to the date of the First Epistle of John, the internal evidence favors that brief period of some two years between the close of the Neronian persecution and the destruction of Jerusalem. Nero died June 11, 68, and Jerusalem was de- stroyed A. D. 70, the temple being fired on the 15 th of July, and the destruction of the city being consummated in the following September. It is THE PAROUSIA. 97 not directly asserted in the epistle to whom it was written, but we think there is strong internal evi- dence that it was addressed to the same churches to which the Apocalypse had been. It would be natural for John to do so, and the language strongly indicates it. They had endured the per- secutions from Nero, but the end of the Jewish age, the full extent of the perilous times, had not quite come. John writes again to them, and urges them to abide in the faith, to hold on firmly a little longer. He unfolds to them more of the inner life and power of the gospel, those prin- ciples of religion which find root in love to God and to one another. Notice here the language in 2: 12-14. "I write unto you, my little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye know him who is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the evil one. I wrote unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I wrote unto you, fathers, because ye have known him who is from the be- ginning. I wrote unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the evil one." In verse 21, also, " I wrote unto you, not because ye have not known the truth, but because ye know it." In verse 26, also, "these things I wrote unto you con- cerning them that would lead you astray." 7 9S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. The word egrapsa (I wrote), used five times in this chapter, is in the aorist tense, and cannot cor- rectly be translated by a perfect tense, nor stand- ing as it does in the first part of the epistle, can it with any consistency be made to refer to the con- tents of the whole epistle. But if John refers to what he had said to them in the Apocalypse, the solution is natural and easy, In that he exhorts them to " overcome." Now he writes to them because they "have overcome the evil one." By the evil one, ton poneron, is not meant the devil, only as he is personated in Nero, the instigator of the persecutions. He is the same as the lawless one, " whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying won- ders," of whom Paul speaks in 2 Thes. 2 : who would cause a " falling away " among the professed followers of Christ. When John means the devil or Satan, he does not hesitate to call him by name, as in 1 John 3 : 8, 10, and other places. John writes, " They went out from us, but they were not of us ; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us ; but they went out, that they might be made manifest how that they all are not of us. And ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things." 2 : 19, 20. This is just as Jesus, on Olivet, told John it would be in the end. "For there shall arise false Christs THE PAROUSIA. 99 and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect." Matt. 24 : 24. In 2 : 18, John says, "Little children, it is the last hour, as ye have heard that antichrist cometh, even now have there arisen many antichrists ; whereby we know that it is the last hour." The Jewish econ- omy is on the very eve of dissolution. The hour is at hand. We come now to the last use of the word parousia in Scripture. It was concerning Christ's parousia, when he would be present in power to destroy the temple, that the disciples in- quired. John says, 2:28: "And now, little chil- dren, abide in him ; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming {parousia)!' John's use of the term "little children" can hardly be proof that John was an aged man when he wrote this epistle. The triplet, children, young men, and fathers, is a frequent and favorite expres- sion, showing his ardent love for the disciples, as Paul calls Timothy, "my son in the faith." Nor is there evidence in the epistle that the gospel of John had already been written. It is quite evident that the gospel and epistle were written by the same author. The same words and forms of expression are used to express the life- giving and soul-sustaining power of the gospel. " Abide in him " is a favorite expression. John IOO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. unfolds the heart of the gospel in love to God and love to one another. In both the gospel and the epistle he writes from a forty-years' knowledge and experience of the gospel. The gospel may as well presuppose the epistle, as the epistle presuppose the gospel. Let us here briefly inquire what is meant by the 'Mast days " and the "last times." Do they not mean the last days of the old dispensation, rather than the last days of the new, to which they are so often applied ? The disciples had heard Christ predict the end of the old economy. Peter with John heard Christ's discourse on Olivet concerning the de- struction of the temple. Paul had learned the gos- pel through them, and the direct teaching of Christ through the Spirit. All save John were to do all their preaching before the close of the old dispen- sation, so we might expect to hear them make allusions to the 'Mast days." We must also bear in mind that the epistles were not written, like the gospels, expressing the truth in an abstract form, and equally applicable to all the future, but for present emergencies, warning and correcting in doctrine and conduct, and com- mending the gospel. When Paul advised Timothy to "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities," he did not prescribe for all men in all the future, THE PAROUSIA. IOI nor even for all Timothies, but for the one Timothy, his " own son in the faith," whose stomach at that time required just that cordial. The prophecy of Joel, of the outpouring of the spirit, is interpreted in the New Testament in the following language : " And it shall come to pass in the last days (saith God) I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh ; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my hand- maidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit ; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath ; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved." Acts 2: 17-21. This is precisely what took place in the last days of the old dispensation. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that God " hath, in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son." This is in contrast with his speaking in " time past unto the fathers, by the prophets." Heb. 1 : r, 2. Evidently the last days of the Jewish economy, as distinguished from ear- lier times. James says to the rich in his day, " Ye have laid 102 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. up your treasure in the last days." 5:3. He ex- horts Christians then living to be patient, until the coming of the Lord, which would end that dispen- sation, and many of the perils incident to it. Peter speaks of Christ, "who was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." 1 Pet. 1 : 20. He also warns the disciples that " there shall come in the last days scoffers." 2 Peter 3 : 3. And declares their signal overthrow, and says to the disciples then living, " Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blame- less." 3 : 14. This was something to occur while they might be living, showing conclusively that the last days were those of the old dispensation. Jude reminds the disciples, verse 18, how they had been told that " there should be mockers in the last time, who would walk after their own ungodly lusts," and exhorts them " to keep themselves in the love of God," showing that the mockers would come while they themselves might be living. If the allusions to the last days, found in the epistles, refer to the last days of the gospel age, it would be disappointing to Isaiah in his glowing hopes of the triumph of the gospel. But if they allude to the last days of the old dispensation, they agree with the literal fact of what Jesus said should take place, and what history tells us did take place, and THE PAROUSIA. IO3 harmonize with the specific warnings and encour- agements given to the then living disciples. Paul says to Timothy, " Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall de- part from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." 1 Tim. 4:1. As he says to the Thessalonians, " there shall come a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed." But Paul goes on to say, " If thou put the brethren in mind of these things, thou shalt be a good minis- ter of Jesus Christ," verse 6 ; showing that the latter times were while Timothy might still be living, and instructing him what to do. Also, in his Second Epistle to Timothy, Paul says, " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come," when wickedness should abound, when there would be those " having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof." He instructs Timothy in his duty. "From such turn away." " But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them." Such passages show most conclusively that the "last times " refer to the last days of the old dispensation, and describe the condition of things which Christ told the four disciples on Olivet would exist, ere their temple should be destroyed, and cannot, as is so often done, with any degree of justice, be referred to the last days of the gospel age. Nor can the " last 104 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. days," " last times," with any correctness in the use of terms, be made to embrace the whole gos- pel age. For this, another term is used. " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world " (czon), age. Matt. 28 : 20. Paul speaks of Christians being " raised up and made to sit in heavenly places, that in the ages {cBdns) to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace." Eph. 2 : 7. Nor can we believe, as is sometimes affirmed, that the Revealer of truth has so put the matter in the Scriptures that in all the succeeding ages men should live in constant expectation of a second coming of Christ to the earth, in bodily form, to put an end to the gospel age, or to be present per- sonally on the earth as in the days of his incarna- tion. Shall he who rules in righteousness, rule with the rod of deception ? But that men may be called into his presence individually, at any moment, to give their account to him, is presented as a constant motive for doing the things pleasing in his sight. We have examined the passages which speak of the coming of Christ as translated from parousia, twenty-four in number, in the New Testament, which so significantly means presence, and find that they almost uniformly refer to the presence of Christ in power to destroy Jerusalem, thus putting an end to the Jewish economy, or to some display THE PAROUSIA. IO5 of power to establish his kingdom. It will be seen that we reject the double meaning sometimes given to the language in Matt. 24 ; making a part find its fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem, and a part in a second advent of Christ at the end of the world. The double meaning impairs the integ- rity of the Bible as a revelation to men. Who shall say how much finds its fulfilment in the first, and how much in the last event ? This is evi- dently not the way God makes a revelation. He reveals great principles which find their application all along human history. Moses could say to the people, if they were disobedient, " Be sure your sins will find you out," — a truth applicable in all ages to all people. It finds its full application in the Jews, also in the Gentiles ; not a partial fulfil- ment in the Jews, and a more complete one in the Gentiles. We come now to examine some pas- sages which speak of Christ's coming, as translated from erkomai, which means " I come," and the sy- nonymous expressions, " the appearing of Christ," "the revelation of Christ," " Christ as manifested," and the like. A careful examination of the pas- sages will show that they refer sometimes to the advent of Christ to this world to die for the sins of men ; sometimes to his coming in power at the destruction of Jerusalem ; sometimes to his coming or manifesting himself in blessings and judgments along life's journey ; sometimes to his 106 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. coming by the Spirit as on the day of Pentecost ; sometimes to his coming to the soul by spiritual manifestations ; and sometimes to the events which cluster about death, when the soul, untrammelled by its earthly body, will behold Christ in his glory. Christ will then appear to the saints as never be- fore. When these passages are rightly interpreted, we think the Bible will be silent about a second advent of Christ in bodily presence at the end of the world. A passage recorded in Acts I : 1 1, is quoted with much confidence in favor of Christ's future return in bodily form, and therefore demands care- ful examination. The apostles themselves had not very clear views of the kingdom of Christ. Just prior to the crucifixion, Christ, in order to comfort the disciples, addressed them in language recorded in John 14: 17, saying, among other things, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you." But when he was crucified and laid in the tomb, they were depressed in spirit, their hope was well-nigh gone. They needed just the reas- surance which his appearance among them gave after his resurrection. When about to ascend to the Father, he led the disciples to Olivet. Their minds were not very clear yet, for even there they ask, " Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the king- dom to Israel ? " Having addressed a few parting words to them, " He was taken up and a cloud THE PAROUSIA. IO7 received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." As the disciples were bereft of the presence of their Lord, they needed assurance and comfort. Two angels were sent to give this. Was it by as- suring them that Christ would come two or four thousand years hence, or at some indefinite future time, however distant, and that they should see him descending ? The time when they would need consolation would be centuries past. Was not the meaning rather this, " I am not going to forsake you " ? Was not the fulfilment of the promise in the " Lo, I am with you always " ; "I will come unto you " ; "I and my Father will make our abode with you " ? May not the apparent literal- ness of the language be to make the assurance strong ? The real meaning of the passage is, that as sure as you have seen him go up into heaven, so sure shall he be with you in his personal spirit- ual presence. It is the expression of true Chris- tian consciousness of Christ, not afar off, but nigh at hand. " Christ in you the hope of glory." The correct interpretation of Christ's sayings gives no ground for believing that he taught them 108 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. that he would come bodily and visibly at the end of the world. The words hon tropon mean not so much the particular manner, as they do the cer- tainty of his spiritual presence. He will not for- sake them. If it is insisted on that the words "in like manner" mean his return as he went, it conflicts with other passages ; for he went up quietly and alone. Other passages quoted repre- sent him as coming " in glory, and all the holy angels with him." " For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God," — a very different manner from that described in Acts i : ii. Besides, he parted from the disciples with his maimed physical body. Has he worn it all these centuries, and shall he return with it ? We think not. When the disciples next view their Lord, it will be in his glorified body. They " shall see him as he is and be like him." Rev. I : 7 assists in the interpretation of this passage : "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they who pierced him ; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over him." This passage would seem to express the literal re- turn of Christ in bodily form as strongly as the other. Yet John tells us plainly that the revela- tion he makes is that "which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants the things which must shortly come to pass," and says, "the time is at THE PAROUSIA. IO9 hand." It will be seen that we assume the earlier date of the writing of Revelation. This passage most evidently refers to what Christ teaches as recorded in Matt. 24. The reader's attention is called to some other passages quoted in favor of the return of Christ at the end of the world. In Acts 3 : 20, 21, we read, "And that he may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus : whom the heaven must receive, until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been from of old." Very soon after the day of Pentecost, as Peter and John were going into the temple at the hour of prayer, they met a lame man and healed him ; and as the people ran into the porch of the temple, greatly wondering at what was done, Peter preached unto them, assuring them that the marvellous cure wrought upon the lame man had been made through Him whom they had rejected and crucified, and also assuring them that all those things which God " had showed by the mouth of all his holy prophets that Christ should suffer he hath so fulfilled." He calls on them to repent, "that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord." He enunciated to them one, of the fundamental princi- ples necessary to have the presence of Christ and for the advancement of his kingdom ; that is, re- pentance towards God and forgiveness of their I I O PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. sins. The sending of Jesus, " whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restoration of all things," does not mean, we think, that he shall send him at the end of the world, thousands of years hence, but rather it was the assurance of Christ present with them, a reiteration of what Christ had said to his disciples, " Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world " ; also of those comforting words in Christ's last discourse to the disciples before the betrayal : " I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." It was the key-note of the kingdom, the parousia dispensation, a present Christ. And not only a Christ present in spirit and power, but in heaven also, as the intercessor for his people, at the right hand of God, even until the " restoration of all things, whereof God spake by the mouth of all his holy prophets." Christ's consoling words in John 14 : 3, " And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also," find a fulfilment at death when the soul shuffles off its mortal coil, and goes to be with Christ, as Paul " desired to depart and be with Christ which is far better." Paul said, "when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we appear with him in glory." Col. 3 : 4. THE PAROUSIA. I I I When mortal eyes shall give place to spiritual vision at death, then shall Jesus appear. Then will the saint appear with him in glory. In 2 Thes. I, we read, " When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels. . . . When he shall come to be glorified in his saints." The context shows that this refers to his coming in power to destroy Jerusalem and the Jewish economy, and fully inaugurate the gos- pel kingdom. In I Cor. 1 1 : 26, we read, "For as oft as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." This pas- sage finds an easy and natural solution, if we re- fer it to Christ coming for the saints at death. So long as they lived were they to observe the ordi- nance of the supper. "Waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Cor. 1:7. In the Canterbury version it reads, " Waiting for the revelation!' This reve- lation was for the purpose of confirming them unto the end, "that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." They were to be confirmed by the coming, for something still future in their lives on the earth, so that the coming could not be at the end of the world. Paul exhorts Timothy to " keep this command- ment without spot and unrebukable, until the ap- pearing of our Lord Jesus Christ ; which in his times he shall show, who is the blessed and only I I 2 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Potentate, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords." I Tim. 6: 15. This is Paul's version of what Christ said to the high priest who had asked the Saviour whether he were the Christ the Son of God, and he answered, " Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." Matt. 26 : 64. The proof to the Jews of Christ's right to reign was his appearing in power to destroy their city and temple. In Revelation we find the word " come," referring to Christ's manifesting himself unto his people. ■' Repent, and do thy first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly," 2:5, 16. "Hold fast till I come," 25; " I will come as a thief," 3:3; " Behold I come quickly," 3:11; "I will come in to him," 3 : 20 ; " And behold, I come quickly," 22 : 12. " Surely, I come quickly : Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus." These assertions were to be fulfilled soon, and can- not with propriety be referred to a second advent of Christ at the end of the world. They were to be fulfilled in Christ's spiritual presence and power. " Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book ; for the time is at hand." 22 : 10. We close this chapter in the words of an emi- nent theologian : " On the whole, the tone of the New Testament teaching regards the Day of the Lord, His coming, and eternal reign as at hand always." RESURRECTION. 113 CHAPTER IV. RESURRECTION. The different views concerning the resurrection, held by Christians, show that it is still a subject for prayerful investigation in the study of the Scriptures. Some hold to the simultaneous rais- ing from their graves of the bodies of both the righteous and the wicked, at the end of the world. Others hold that the righteous dead will be raised a thousand years before the wicked. And others hold that the wicked will not be raised at all. Some believe that the soul, the whole man, lies unconscious in the grave till a general resurrec- tion. There is held also what is termed the inter- mediate state, the time between death and a gen- eral resurrection, that the righteous are in para- dise, a semi-heaven, and that the wicked are in a semi-hell. To get the souls safely through this intermediate state, some have intimated that they might be provided with provisional bodies. Others hold that man receives his spiritual, resurrection body at death, either directly given of God, or developed by the energizing forces already in man. Surely such conflicting opinions justify and demand 8 114 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. a careful investigation to ascertain what the Scrip- tures do teach. Job, speaking of things as they appear, says, " Man that is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. Hecometh forth like a flower, and is cut down ; he fleeth also as a shadow, and con- tinueth not." " There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again." " But man dieth, and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he ? " And asks, " If a man die, shall he live again ? " Job 14. This has been the question of the ages, and is vital to man : What is beyond this mortal life ? The ancients could answer it but faintly. All the learning of the Greeks and Romans could not set- tle it. Many of the heathen have believed in the transmigration of souls, finally ending in Nigban, or annihilation, as the chief good. Among the Jews, the Pharisees believed in a future life, the Sadducees disbelieved in it. And to day many have a bright hope of a life beyond, while not a few say, "I don't know about the future ; no one ever came back from the dead to tell us ; and I think when we die that is the end of us." It may be helpful to a correct understanding of the meaning of the word " resurrection," to ascertain how the Jews understood it. Josephus says, speak- ing of the Pharisees, " They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that under RESURRECTION. 1 1 5 the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life ; and that the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again." " But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this, that souls die with the bodies." Ant. of the Jews, Vol. II., Book 18, chap. 1, sec. 3, 4. Again he says of the belief of the Pharisees, " They say, that all the souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment." Speak- ing of the Sadducees, he says, " They also take away the belief of the immortal duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in Hades " Jewish War, B. II., chap. 8, sec. 14. Again Josephus says, "This is the discourse concerning Hades, wherein the souls of all men are confined until a proper season, which God hath determined, when he will make a resurrection of all men from the dead ; not procuring a transmigration of souls from one body to another, but raising again those very bodies which you Greeks, seeing to be dissolved, do not believe (their resurrection). . . . And to every body shall its own soul be restored. And when it hath clothed itself with that body, it will not be subject to misery ; but being itself pure, it will continue with its pure body, and rejoice with it ; with which it having walked righteously now in Il6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. this world, and never having had it as a snare, it will receive it again with great gladness. But as for the unjust, they will receive their bodies not changed, not freed from diseases or distempers, nor made glorious, but with the same diseases wherein they died ; and such as they were in their unbelief, the same shall they be when they shall be faithfully judged." Art. Hades, sec. 5. From these extracts it appears that the majority of the Pharisees believed in a resurrection of a material body from the grave for the righteous only, that for the soul to obtain a material resurrection body was one of the rewards to the righteous, while the souls of the wicked should be forever deprived of such a body ; though it would seem that Jqsephus himself believed that both the righteous and wicked would receive a resurrection body, that of the wicked being greatly inferior to that of the right- eous. It must be borne in mind that the term " resurrec- tion," when referring to the issue between the Phar- isees and Sadducees, means future life, in distinc- tion from annihilation of soul and body. Whether there should be raised up a material body for the soul or not, was not an issue between them. The phrase " the resurrection of the body " is not found in the New Testament, while the phrase " the res- urrection of the dead " is quite frequent and may mean quite different from the resurrection of the RESURRECTION. 1 1 7 body as commonly understood. Neither is the phrase " resurrection day " or " day of resurrec- tion " found as if all were to come forth from their graves on some day already determined. There are strong intimations of a future life given in the Old Testament Scriptures in the prom- ised rewards to the righteous, and the threatenings denounced against the wicked. Paul tells us Christ has " abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." Natural death yet reigns, but Christ has shown that it does not end life ; the man still lives. Much that we know of each other is in intimate relation with the mortal body. Hence we speak of the body as em- bracing the whole man. The body dies, we say the man is dead. The body is buried, and we say the man is buried. But this is not true. The real man, the soul, is not dead or buried. The man has simply " shuffled off his mortal coil," " put off this tabernacle of flesh." Every aspiration of faith and hope abhors the thought that the real man is dead. The Scriptures speak in the same natural and unguarded manner. They speak of the dead as being in their graves. They teach that the real man is not dead, nor in the grave. It is perfectly natural that the doctrine of a future life should be taught under the semblance of the resurrection of the body. As the end of man is at the grave, so far as we can see, so there could be no more forcible IlS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. manner of teaching of a future life than to speak of it as a resurrection from the grave. The term "resurrection" in Scriptures sometimes means a rising up of the soul on the other side of the grave, a coming forth into future life. This is the more common meaning. Sometimes it means rising into spiritual life, as where Paul wished to know the power of Christ's "resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conform- able unto his death : if by any means he might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Phil. 3 : II. A resurrection out from among the spiritually dead. A final separation from them. So Christ is said to be " set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel." The resurrection to spiritual life. Sometimes it means future life. " Then came unto him the Sadducees, who say that there is no resur- rection." Matt. 21 : 23 ; Mark 12 : 18 ; Luke 20 : 27. Sometimes the word means reanimation, as in the case of Jairus' daughter, the widow's son at Nain, Lazarus at Bethany, and those raised at the cruci- fixion of our Lord. Matt. 27 : 52. These cases prove nothing as to the form and manner of re- ceiving the spiritual resurrection body. Christ's body was reanimated on the third day after the crucifixion. It is prophetically said of Him, " My flesh shall rest in hope ; For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ; neither wilt thou surfer thine Holy One to see corruption." Ps. 16: 9, 10. RESURRECTION. H9 Peter quotes this in his sermon at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, and expressly declares that David "spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption." This could not have been his spiritual body, because the flesh is particularly spoken of, that which is corruptible and decays, but this was preserved from corruption, for the purpose of being raised up, as a proof of Christ's power over death and the grave, and to prove his identity. It was Christ's flesh-and-blood body, and " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." There were the same wounds in his body after, as before his resurrection. . If it proves anything as a model of the resurrection body, it proves too much. It shows that the wounded and maimed bodies here will be wounded and maimed in the resurrection. The resurrection body is said to be a glorified body. Christ " shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." There was apparently no more glory about Christ's body after the resurrection than before. It was the same body reanimated. It needed to be the same body, that the disciples might know that it was the Christ who was buried that had risen again. Christ did not intend that his resurrection should be a type and model of man's resurrection body. Christ by raising Lazarus and others, and by him- 120 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. self coming forth from the grave, showed what man needs and longs to know, that natural death has not dominion over the man ; there is a life beyond. Death may seem mighty, and cut down the body and consign it to corruption. Christ is mightier, and by death has conquered death and brought life and immortality to light. Christ said, " I am the resurrection and the life." " And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." The disciples might believe it on the authority of his words, but when they beheld him risen from the dead, they had evidence before their eyes of its truth. It spake loudly of future life. It was not so much the physical characteristics of a resur- rection body that Christ needed to teach, as the certainty that there should be a resurrection body. He needed to bring life and immortality to light. Jesus gives us light on this subject, at Bethany, when he raises Lazarus from the dead. When Martha met him, she said, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. But I know, that even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God wilt give it thee." Jesus saith unto her, "Thy brother shall rise again." Martha said unto him, "I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection at the last day." She might have had in mind the resurrection of the body at a general resurrection of the righteous dead, according to the belief of RESURRECTION. 121 the Pharisees. Whether so or not, Christ neither corrected nor approved of her saying, but takes advantage of the occasion to teach a grander truth, what man needs so much to be assured of, a blessed future life for the righteous. He says, " I am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live : And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die " John n : 25, 26. He speaks of spirit- ual life, but underlying this, he asserts a grander truth, — a perpetual future existence, which makes a perpetual spiritual life possible. There is a remarkable passage recorded in Matt. 22: 23-33; Mark 12: 18--27; Luke 20: 27-40. The account is similar in the three evangelists. It was spoken on the third day of the last Pass- over week. The Pharisees and Herodians had attempted to entangle Jesus in his talk, by a question about the tribute money. They . were confounded by his answers and left him. The Sadducees next attempt it. " The same day came to him the Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were seven brethren : and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother ; Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the 122 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her." "The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit, but the Pharisees confess both." Acts 23 : 8. Paul often divided the assembly by asserting his belief in the resurrection. The distinction is not that the Pharisees believed that the bodies of the dead would be raised, which the Sadducees denied. This mattered little, be- cause future life would be as possible one way as the other. It was something more vital to man.* The distinction was between future life and anni- hilation. Resurrection, affirmed by the Pharisees, means future existence ; denied by the Sadducees, means no existence beyond the grave. The puz- zling question which the Sadducees put to Jesus is this. Taking the view of the Pharisees, that we continue to live on after the body ceases here, and the spirit enters into the body again, whose wife shall the woman be who had had seven husbands in this life ? Mark the answer : " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." They do not marry in the future world, and in that respect are like the angels. Then he unfolds to them the truth concerning the resur- rection : " But as touching the resurrection of the RESURRECTION. 1 23 dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abra- ham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the multitude heard this, they were as- tonished at his doctrine." They were Jews, de- scendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They believed in Moses, and so Christ makes the appeal ; " Have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the •God of Jacob ? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living : ye do therefore greatly err." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were then alive, they had received their resurrection, and we think were clothed in their spiritual bodies. Their mor- tal bodies were yet mouldering in the grave ; and whatever resurrection meant, Christ told them plainly that these men had already received ; for they were then alive. It was a new doctrine to the multitude, and so different from what they had believed, that they were greatly astonished. Let us now glance at 1 Cor. 15. In the first part of the chapter, Paul assures us of the resurrec- tion of Christ on the testimony of eye-witnesses. Resurrection is here used in the sense of reanima- tion. He links the truthfulness of the gospel with the resurrection of Christ. " If Christ is not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are yet in your sins." 124 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. He "bases the resurrection of the dead, or their future life, on the resurrection of Christ. If Christ is not raised, they " who are fallen asleep, have perished." They have already perished. That is the end of them. If their spirit was happy in paradise, they would not have perished, though their mortal body might not be raised. But Paul say§, " But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first-fruits of them that are asleep." As the first-fruits were the assurance of the harvest, so the resurrection of Christ from the dead w d s the assurance of a future life, not that the bodies of the dead should be raised as was Christ's body, for his was reanimated as we have seen. Christ's resurrection was in no sense the first-fruits, as a model of the resurrection body, but was an assurance of a resurrection body and of a future life. It was an answer to the question, " How say some among you that there is no resur- rection of the dead ? " Just what the Sadducees were asserting. In verses 20-28 inclusive we have a digression, showing the working of redemption under the parousia dispensation. Christ is working in his saints, that every thought may be brought into obedience to him, that God may be all and in all to the individual saint. Thus Christ delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, as he brings sub- jects, one by one, to obedience to him. " The last RESURRECTION. 1 25 enemy that shall be abolished is death." Death makes the victory complete. In these few verses, Paul states the position of each saint before God in the entireness of his history. Death by sin, resurrection to life through Christ, discipline into full submission to God and meetnessfor the higher kingdom, then death, when the saint takes his place in heaven. Let it be borne in mind that Paul is speaking particularly of the resurrection of the saints. " For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order." The saints will be raised each in his own order. "Then cometh the end," the outcome of redemp- tion with each here, where Christ has had all things put in subjection to him. Then they pass on through death, their last enemy, to. the better kingdom, where, forever subject to the Father, Christ, in his glorified, spiritual body, will be the visible manifestation of God to the saints, the visi- ble manifestation of the invisible, the visible object of divine authority, the visible object of adoration in the u new song." Verses 29-32 are logically connected with verse 19. " Else what shall they do who are baptized for the dead ? If the dead are not raised at all, why then are they baptized for the dead ? " Why do they submit to baptism, which symbolizes death and resurrection, — that ordinance which symbol- 126 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. izes the death and resurrection of Christ, once dead but now living, and who liveth forever ; death of the old man, but life in the new man, and that eternal ; death of the mortal body, but yet life beyond the grave, a resurrection of the man on the other side of the veil ? If there be no future life, the ordi- nance symbolizes what is false, why then do they submit to it ? The argument is cumulative, and Paul goes on to say, " Why do we also stand in jeopardy every hour ? I protest by that glorying in you, brethren, which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If after the manner of men I fought with beasts at Ephesus, what doth it profit me ? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." If there is no future life, why endure all this suffering ? Mark the form of expression, "if the dead are not raised." It is not in the future tense, and may mean, but the ex- pression does not necessarily imply, that the dead are already raised. Paul then discusses the nature of the resurrec- tion body, in answer to the question, "But some one will say, How are the dead raised ? and with what manner of body do they come?" Verses 35-58. He illustrates in the use of grain, " Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quick- ened, except it die ; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other RESURRECTION. 12 J kind ; but God giveth it a body, even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own." When the grain sown in the earth dies, there is developed other grain, which in due time appears. So the mortal body dies, moulders away in common dust, death being the occasion of the development of a spiritual body adapted to the soul's future need. "Thou sowest not the body that shall be." Paul clearly asserts that the body shall not be raised. Then he asserts, " All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fishes." By this he illustrates the fact that the future body may be very different from the present. Then he takes an advanced step. " There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another." Here men and angels are contrasted. He shows that the future body is to be very different from the present, and does he not intimate that it may be similar to that of an- gels ? " There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars : for one star differeth from another star in glory." Here he expresses the difference of the glory of the body here and hereafter. " So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor, I2S TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural, psychical body, it is raised a spiritual body." Here Paul as- serts essential facts concerning the spiritual body, contrasting it with the mortal body at death. The future body of the saints will be incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. His reasoning shows conclusively that Christ did not show to his disciples, after his resurrection, his spiritual body, but the same body he laid down. " If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, The first man became a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural : then that which is spirit- ual. The first man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is of heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the .image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." The contrast in this passage is made between the body here and in the next world. Three times the word natural is used. In the margin of the Can- terbury version it is psychical, from the Greek psy- clrikos, an adjective from the same root as the word psyche, which is translated soul, "what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'' RESURRECTION. I 29 Paul means more by that term than flesh {sarx) and blood. He means the body, with all its vital and energizing forces, which adapt it to life here. He gives us the assurance that we shall have a body suited to the spirit world. Does he not say that we have it already ? " If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." May it not be that there is a spiritual body to which the psychical adheres, or that all the vital elements and energizing forces of a spiritual body are pres- ent ? That the psychical is the tabernacle in some way enclosing the spiritual. " The first man is of the earth, earthy." This is our earthy body, which crumbles back to earth. " The second man is of heaven." God-given, directly from heaven, inde- pendent of any gross earthly material. Surely, in the face of such language, we cannot believe that the spiritual body comes up from the grave. Paul then asserts the broad and decisive fact, that " flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." By this assertion he forever sets aside the idea that this earthy body is the material from which the spiritual body is formed, or that it is in any way earthy in its formation. This earthly body, this " tabernacle of flesh," must be put off, not made over into a spiritual body, but laid aside for- ever. Paul does not leave us in the dark. He tells, so far as he is able, of the mysterious change 9 I30 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. that takes place at death. " Behold, I tell you a mystery : we all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on im- mortality. But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O ! death, where is thy victory ? O ! death, where is thy sting ? " This passage, especially v. 51, should not be rel- egated to some future period, and made applicable to a class that might never taste natural death, for Paul is continuing his argument of the resurrection body. When he asserts that " flesh and blood can- not inherit the kingdom of God," he goes on to tell of the mysterious change that instantaneously takes place with every saint when the mortal body dies. He assumes his spiritual body " in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." When it is said "it is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption," "this mortal must put on immortality," it does not follow that the mortal body is to be changed into a spiritual body, any more than it means that the soul, the whole man, goes to the grave when Job says, "so he that goeth down to the grave shall RESURRECTION. 131 come up no more," or the Psalmist prayed that "the wicked might be silent in the grave." The sounding of the "last trump" is an oriental- ism. Great events were ushered in by the sound of the trumpet. The sound of the trumpet called the people to war. The sound of the trumpet pro- claimed the end of servitude and the ushering in of the year of Jubilee. The death of the body is one of the great events of man's existence. Death to the Christian ends all servitude and accompany- ing suffering, and ushers in the jubilee of heaven. How fitting, then, that Paul should speak of it in connection with the sound of the trumpet ! An important passage is found in 2 Cor. 5 : 1-9 : " For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For verily in this we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven : if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For, indeed, we that are in this tab- ernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life. Now he that wrought us ^for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the spirit. Being, therefore, always of good courage, and knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, 132 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. not by sight) ; we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord. Wherefore, also, we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing unto him." "The earthly house," which is the mortal body, is here contrasted with " the house not made with hands," which is the spiritual body. Paul longed to put off the one and take on the other, and expected as soon as he put off the one to be clothed upon with the other. He did not expect to go a disembodied spirit, but to be immediately clothed with his house from heaven. He did not anticipate any intermediate state, or provisional body, or to wait at a distance, but to go home at once and be with his Lord, clothed in his spiritual body. He very closely associated life here with life hereafter, and sought to be well pleasing to his Lord. This appears the most natural mean- ing of the passage. It may not harmonize with the view of eschatology which many hold, but it does harmonize with Christian sentiment drawn from the doctrines of Christ. We express the truth when we sing, — " E'er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, And shall be till I die. Then in a nobler, sweeter song I '11 sing thy power to save, When this poor, lisping, stammering tongue Lies silent in the grave." RESURRECTION. I 33 With Paul, we rightly comfort ourselves that our departed, sainted friends are not waiting for a spiritual body, in a half-conscious, half-happy state, but have gone to be with their Lord, and are enjoy- ing the bliss of heaven. Paul says to the Philippians, 1 : 21-24: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ ; for it is very far better : yet to abide in the flesh is more needful for your sake." Paul expected, as soon as he put off his body of flesh, that he would go immediately to live with Christ. For him to complete his work here, it was necessary to abide in the flesh. He speaks as if all that would be essential for him to have, to dwell in the presence of Christ, he would possess when he should have put off the flesh. This surely must include a spiritual body. In the light of this passage, we should interpret what is recorded in 1 Thes. 4: 13-18: "But we would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that fall asleep ; that ye sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also, that are fallen asleep in Jesus, will God bring with him. For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, 134 FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. that we who are alive, who are left unto the coming (parousid) of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : and the dead in Christ shall rise first : then we who are alive, who are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." We have already shown in Chapter III. that the com- ing of the Lord, spoken of in v. 15, refers to some- thing which was soon to take place, evidently the closing of the old dispensation by the destruction of Jerusalem, and the full inauguration of the new, in which the parousia is a chief characteristic. Paul writes to instruct and comfort the disciples in those trying times. Some whom he addressed would die before that event, others would be still alive. Would those who had died previous to that event be dropped out and lost ? "No," says Paul, •' them also who are fallen asleep in Jesus will God bring with him." They will be in heaven before we are, who, perchance, may live to see that event. We shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. "The dead in Christ shall rise first." They will have obtained their resurrection before we do. If we receive our spiritual body, when we put off the fleshly one ; or in other words, if we re- ceive our resurrection body at death, this is the RESURRECTION. 1 35 exact truth expressed, the dead in Christ shall rise first, before those who had outlived them. " Then those who are alive, who are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we ever be with the Lord." This expresses not what took place, or shall take place, as one grand event, but what has been and is taking place constantly in the parousia dispensation, as the saints, one by one, abandon their earthly tabernacle, and become " clothed upon " with their spiritual body, and rise and go home to be forever with the Lord. Does not this view throw light on Rom. 8 : 19-23, allowed to be a difficult passage to explain ? " For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us-ward. For the ear- nest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subject to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the chil- dren of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only so, but ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." I3'5 FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. The word rendered creation here is the same as in Mark 16: 15, in the great commission, " Go preach the gospel to every creature" and may prop- erly be rendered in the same way. By creature may be understood the whole man, the body as well as the soul. The apostle says that the suffer- ings we endure while in the body are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us-ward. He affirms the universal truth that every creature suffers from its connection with an earthly body. Not only is this true of the world in general, but even we who are Christians, who have the first-fruits of the spirit, we suffer, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. Paul is not longing for a body to be raised up from the grave eighteen hundred or ten thousand years hence, but for that redemption of his body which he shall receive when his eyes open on eternal things, and the sons of God shall be revealed to him in their glorious liberty, and when he shall be like them. Notice also how Peter speaks of his speedy death : " And I think it right, as long as I am in this tab- ernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remem- brance ; knowing that the putting off of my taber- nacle cometh swiftly, even as the Lord Jesus Christ signified unto me." 2 Pet. 1:13, 14. He speaks of the body as the frail tenement of the soul, which he must soon put off. The ego, the self, the real RESURRECTION. 1 37 man, would continue to live. Death seemed to him a small thing, simply the dropping of a tabernacle, something that would not interfere with active life. May we not then infer that he expected with Paul to be clothed upon with his spiritual body? There is a passage in 1 John 3 : 2, to be noted here : " Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him even as he is." It is Christian sentiment and Bible truth also, that when Christ shall appear or be manifested, we shall be like him. " Our citizenship is in heaven ; from whence also we wait for a saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ : who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory." Phil. 3:21. This most evi- dently refers to the spiritual body. It is revealed truth, and was the expectation of the apostles that Christ would appear or be manifested to them when they should put off their tabernacle of flesh. This fixes death as the time when the saints receive their spiritual body, if indeed Christ now possesses his spiritual body, and undoubtedly he does, hav- ing, ere he entered the heavens, put aside his earthly tabernacle. This view is confirmed by Christ's declaration to the dying thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." The thief received at death all that was essential for him to I38 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Jiave, to be in the presence of Christ in paradise. He had just as much need of a spiritual body that day as he ever would have. And we may infer that he was already clothed in it. There is a remarkable scene in the life of our Lord, to which we may now call attention. Jesus leads Peter, James, and John up into a high moun- tain. They are there met by Moses and Elias from the other world. Moses and Elias were talking with Jesus. They " spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem " Matthew and Mark tell us that Christ was transfigured before the three disciples. Luke says that " as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistening." These three disciples were permitted to look upon the glorified countenance of Jesus, and to see also Moses and Elias in their glorified bodies. While this scene serves to impress the three favored disciples, and through them the world, with the divinity and authority of Christ, as announced from the voice in the overshadowing cloud, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him " ; does it not also give to them, and through them, to the world, some idea of the nature and glory of the spiritual body of the saints ? Christ charged those disciples " to tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of man were risen from the dead," most intimately associating this scene with his resurrec- RESURRECTION. 1 39 tion, and through that with their resurrection. What more rational explanation of this passage than that, so far, at least, as his countenance was concerned, Christ showed to the disciples his spir- itual, glorified body, a body of such glory that it made the very raiment glisten ; and that Moses and Elias, who had already received their resurrec- tion, appeared in their spiritual bodies to give some knowledge and assurance of the glorified body of the saints ? The view of the resurrection advocated, harmon- izes with some of the broad declarations of Scrip- ture. In the first sentence pronounced upon man, it is said, " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return." Gen. 3 : 19. The language is as if the whole man was taken from the earth, and should return thither, obliterating the whole being of the man, except as it might exist in unconscious dust of the earth. This is not true of the soul, but may it not be absolutely true of the body ? That which is of the earth, earthy, shall return to the earth and remain there forever. Solomon reiterates this broad truth when he says, " desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets ; or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern ; then I4O FROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it." EccL 12:6, 7. David, speaking of the frailty of man, says, " His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth." Do not these passages, and others upon which we have commented, show conclusively that what we place in the grave, remains there ; that there is nothing there necessary to make up the spiritual body, and do they not preclude the very idea of bodily resurrection from the grave ? When Paul says that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the king- dom of God," some have tried to get over the res- urrection difficulty by assuming that as Paul did not say bones, that there will be a resurrection of the bones. This is too unphilosophical to be en- titled to a moment's credence. We think the more rational and Biblical view is that at natural death the man throws off this earthly body, and his spiritual body at once comes into use. As there is in some mysterious way the germs and energiz- ing forces in man, for the development of the phys- ical body, so also there may be in him the germs and energizing forces to produce the spiritual body, or there may be a spiritual body already developed, of which the physical is the semblance, in some way adhering to or enclosing it. Paul says "there is a spiritual body and there is a natural body," as though both already existed. RESURRECTION. 141 Men often appeal to nature to illustrate and sub- stantiate the resurrection of a body from the grave, vegetation decaying in autumn, and coming forth in verdure in spring, the butterfly and moth and other insects in their chrysalis state. Nature much better illustrates it, if the soul takes on the resur- rection body at natural death, than it does if there be thousands of years intervening. There is some- thing in the tree, which sheds its faded flowers and leaves in autumn, that enables it to put forth its buds and bloom in spring. The vital energy re- mains in the tree. If the tree be dead, there is no verdure in the spring. Or if the seed be cast into the earth, the vitalizing force is there and causes the seed to germinate and grow. There is an identity between the caterpillar and the butterfly as it passes through its chrysalis state. Following out the analogy of nature, as Paul does in 1 Cor. 15 : 37, in regard to the grain, there is the development of the new body in close relation to the old one. Should the caterpillar be dissolved in its chrysalis state into nature's original ele- ments, it would never become a butterfly. So if the body, the " dust, returns to the earth as it was ; and the spirit to God who gave it," the analogy of nature would give little hope of a res- urrection body from the grave, in some future period. Moreover, if any physical elements are necessary to the spiritual body, it is certainly just 142 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. as easy for the Divine Architect to construct that body when the natural body dies, as at any future period, and we think it vastly more consistent with the Scriptures and harmonious with the analogies of nature. The view of the resurrection advocated, avoids the difficulty involved in a simultaneous resurrec- tion in an indefinite future time. For there is a difficulty. Not that men wish to be skeptical, but when the body has been cremated, or devoured by wild beasts or fishes, eaten of worms or mouldered in the dust for centuries, it is difficult to see what there is to be raised. To get over the difficulty, men fail back on the power of God, as " nothing is impossible with Him." But it is doubtful whether God can reconcile all the absurdities of man. It avoids all necessity for any provisional body, as some have suggested, in order to bridge over the difficulty. It precludes all necessity of any intermediate state, which we have to interject into the Bible, when we assume a future general resurrection. A question, natural to thoughtful minds, and often asked, is, "What do you think is the condi- tion of men between death and the resurrection ?" " Where are they, and are they happy ? " If there is to be a simultaneous resurrection at the end of the world, the intermediate state becomes an im- portant element in man's existence. The thou- RESURRECTION. 143 sands of years that Abraham, David, Paul, and the hosts of mankind are to exist in that state, would be of sufficient interest to be a matter of revela- tion, and the revelation would be framed in a man' ner to recognize the truth of it, and we should expect to find allusions to it. But the Bible is en- tirely silent about it. It never intimates any such thing as such. It does speak of man's conscious existence immediately after death, and of the saints being happy with their Lord. By interject- ing a general resurrection of a physical body, and cutting off a piece of eternity, men get an inter- mediate state. But why ? Has not Paul, present and happy with his Lord, got along well with the body he has had for nearly two thousands of years, and if so, can he not for thousands more, and so on indefinitely, eternally ? In order to bridge over the period of an intermediate state, some consistently believe in the sleep of the dead, until a general resurrection. They find it logically necessary, in order to preserve consistency, assuming, as they do, a future general resurrection. But if God has provided a spiritual body to come into immediate use when the earthly one fails, it gives meaning to the phrase " eternal life " which Christ gives to every believer. 144 TROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. CHAPTER V. JUDGMENT. That man must give an account of himself to God, requires here no extended discussion. Solo- mon voiced the universal conviction when he ex- claimed, " I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked." And every Bible reader feels that Solomon sums up the teaching of Scrip- ture in his exhortation, " Let us hear the conclu- sion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments : for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." And the Apostle Paul gives the principle upon which the judgment proceeds and the verdict is rendered : " And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? But, after thy hard- ness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thy- self wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation JUDGMENT. I45 of the righteous judgment of God ; who will ren- der to every man according to his deeds ; To them, who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life : But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness ; indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : But glory, honor, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile : For there is no respect of persons with God." Rom. 2 : The work of judgment is committed to Christ. " For neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son." John 5 : 22. " And hath given him authority to execute judg- ment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this," that is, that he is authorized to exe- cute judgment at present ; " for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth : they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of dam- nation." This text, so often quoted as a proof of the resurrection of the body, has, we think, more reference to judgment. Christ is universal judge. Peter, preaching at Cesarea, asserts of Christ, that " he was ordained to be the judge of the I46 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. quick and dead." Acts 10:42. "In the day," says Paul, " when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel." Rom. 2 : 16. Twice Paul affirms "that we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ." In the closing of Revelation, Christ says, " Behold I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." Paul asserts that " God now commands men everywhere to repent, Because he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained : whereof he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Acts 17: 31. Judgment is often spoken of in the Scriptures, under the figure of an earthly tribunal, and if we interpret the figure too literally, we shall be misled. The manner of procedure in Christ's judgment is very different from that of an earthly tribunal. The expression, the judgment seat of Christ, means more than that he will preside and decide the case according to principles of righteousness. Christ, as God mani- fest in the flesh, is the standard by which men will be judged. He is an embodiment and personifica- tion of moral law, truth, and righteousness. Our personal relation to him will decide our destiny. When the man is brought face to face with Christ, if the life be wicked, the conscience will feel con- demnation, and the man, like Judas, will go to his JUDGMENT. I47 own place. If a man has lived a life of penitence and faith in Christ, the conscience will have its own approval, and a consciousness of Christ's ap- proval, and will come in heart nearer to Jesus than ever before. As the life has conformed to Christ's life, or has run counter to it, so will be the judgment. As the motives have been drawn from Christ, as men have acted for Christ's sake, so will be the im- press of character, and so the decisions of judgment. "Therefore, whosover heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man who built his house upon a rock : And rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house : and it fell not : for it was founded upon a rock : And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand : And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house ; and it fell : and great was the fall of it." " He that gives a cup of cold water to a disciple because he is a disciple, shall not lose his reward." And he that suffers persecution for Christ's sake, great shall be his reward in heaven. In the judgment scene depicted in Matt. 25 : 31- 40, the whole world is gathered into two classes, and the sentence passed according to their per- sonal relation to Christ. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my breth- I48 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. ren, ye have done it unto me." " Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me." The teachings of Christ, the precepts, the doctrines, the promises, the warnings, will be the standard by which men will be judged. " I am come a light into the world, that whosoever be- lieveth on me, may not abide in the darkness. And if any man hear my sayings and keep them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my sayings, hath one that judgeth him ; the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12 : 46-48. As men keep the sayings of Christ, so will they find their destiny. Paul, while longing "to be ab- sent from the body and to be at home with the Lord," said, " Wherefore, also, we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing unto him. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5 : 9, 10. Christ at the judgment will be as a mirror in which we may see ourselves as we are, and thus be manifest in our own eyes, whether we have aimed to be well pleasing unto him or not, and so approval or guilt will fasten itself upon the con- science forever. In the light of this do we not see an explanation JUDGMENT. I49 of Paul's assertion, "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world ?" The godly life of Christians makes manifest the deformity of char- acter in the wicked, and sends guilt to their con- sciences. Noah, by preparing an ark to save his house, condemned the world. Time of Judgment. This is too often decided by phrases referring to the coming of Christ, assuming that they mean a second bodily coming at the end of the world. But we have seen that these phrases do not mean that, but refer to something then near at hand, the parousia. (See Chapter III.) Consequently Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, must be ruled out in decid- ing the question ; also passages with similar im- port, as 1 Thes. 4, latter part. Matthew 25 : 31 and following, would seem to indicate it as at the end of the world. But are the righteous to be brought back from heaven and the wicked from hell to receive a formal sentence ? Why have they gone to their respective places, unless they have been already judged and assigned to the place and condition for which they were fitted? A critical examination of the passage shows that it cannot be taken literally. The language is in a sense para- bolic. May we not take the passage as a graphic description of a judgment scene, showing Christ to be the judge, the separation of the world into two I50 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. classes, and the principles upon which judgment will be made, and the eternal condition fixed ? In an important sense the Son of man does come at the death of every individual, when probation ends, and the soul is called into the presence of God. Teaching of Jesus. " For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels, and then shall he re- ward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here who shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Matt. 16: 27, 28. As this would take place while some then living and standing before him would still be alive, it cannot refer to the end of the world, but to the consummation of the Jewish age, at the destruction of Jerusalem, when Christ's kingdom would be fully inaugurated, and himself be the king and judge, and from henceforth to reward every man accord- ing to his works. The parable of the wheat and tares, recorded in Matt. 13, requires careful atten- tion, for it would seem to fix the judgment at the end of the world. When Christ had spoken several parables to the multitude at Capernaum, he sent them away and went into the house, and his disci- ples came unto him, saying, " explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, he that soweth the good seed is the JUDGMENT. I5I Son of man ; the field is the world ; the good seed are the children of the kingdom ; but the tares are the children of the wicked one. The enemy that sowed them is the devil ; the harvest is the end of the world ; and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire ; so also shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity. And shall cast them into a furnace of fire ; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." The word " world" in the 38th v. is translated from kosmos, meaning world as the dwell- ing-place of the race, while in the 39th and 40th vs. the word " world " is translated from ceon, meaning duration, the course or flow of time, in various relations as determined by the context, — put some- times for human life. Taking this natural mean- ing of the word, the passage shows that the end of this mortal life, the end of the world to us, is the time when it is to be determined whether we are to be as tares or wheat. The real meaning of the passage shows that judgment follows immediately on the end of probation. The parable of the labor- ers in the vineyard is to the same import. Matt. 20: 1-16. "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who went out early I52 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard." " So when even was come the lord of the vineyard saith unto the steward, Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first." The point to be noted is that the laborers wrought up to the time of settlement. So, also, in the parable of the talents. Matt. 25 : 14-30. The man delivered to his servants the talents, to one, five talents ; to another, two ; to another, one. " After a long time the lord of those servants com- eth and reckoneth with them." They occupied till the time of reckoning, when their reward was given them. The parable of the pounds teaches the same truth. Luke 19: 11-27. The ten servants who had received the one pound each, were to use that pound till the nobleman returned, and a settlement was made, and their reward assigned. This char- acteristic of the parables teaches that the judgment, the reckoning, takes place at the close of our earthly probation, when man must give an account of "the deeds done in the body." Else, if we rele- gate the judgment to a day in the distant future, does it not follow that there is probation after this life, and that man must be called to an account not only for the deeds done in the body, but for those also done out of the body ? We ask the reader's careful attention to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31. "And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the JUDGMENT. I53 angels into Abraham's bosom." Resting in Abra- ham's bosom is a figure of rest in heaven. " The rich man also died, and was buried ; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." Each were assigned their place immediately after death, and of course must have been judged to their re- spective places, or they would not have been sent there. Between them there was a great gulf fixed which they could never pass over. The rich man prayed to Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brethren who were yet living in the world, lest they also come into this place of torment. While we must not get more out of a parable than there is in it, we submit it to the candid reader, if what we have stated does not lie upon the face of the para- ble as the truth intended to be taught. When Christ said, " To-day shalt thou be with me in para- dise,'' it was the sentence that adjudged the peni- tent thief to paradise forever. And when Judas, conscience smitten at the betrayal of the Lord, went out and hanged himself, it was that he might go to his own place at once. Teaching and Expectation of the Writers of the Epistles and Revelation. To make the phrases the " revelation of Jesus Christ," the " appearing of Christ," and the like, refer so generally to a second coming of Christ at the end of the world, is manifestly incorrect, as will 154 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. be seen by a careful examination of the original words. The same words in the original are trans- lated often manifested. It is a Christian sentiment, and a truth also, that at death Christ will be manifested to the saints as never before. The writers of the epistles looked forward to the time of this manifestation as the time when they should receive their reward. When Stephen was stoned to death, he looked up and saw the heavens opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God, and he prayed, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Paul said, " For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh, — if this shall bring fruit from my work, then what I shall choose I know not. But I am in a strait betwixt the two, having the desire to de- part, and to be with Christ ; for it is very far better ; yet to abide in the iesh is more needful for your sake." Phil, i : 21-24. The plain import of this language is, that as soon as his work was finished here, he would go to his reward, and be with Christ. So he said when daily expecting death at the hands of Nero, " For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord the right- eous judge shall give to me at that day ; and not only to me, but also to all them that love his ap- pearing." 2 Tim. 4 : 6-8. JUDGMENT. I55 The word translated departure is used of ships weighing anchor, and of prisoners being loosed from prison. He looked upon the day of his being loosed from the prison bonds of this life and taking his departure, as a ship weighs anchor and sails away, as that day when the Lord the righteous judge would give him a crown of righteousness. And not to him only, but to all whose hearts are knit to Jesus in sympathy and love, will he give a like crown, when they shall be loosed from earth, and Christ shall be manifest unto their spiritual vision. Paul charges Timothy "in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word," etc. 2 Tim. 4: 1. The Greek construction shows that Christ is about to judge, on the point of judging. It was some- thing very soon to take place. This would be true, if he refers to the judgments at the destruction of Jerusalem. It is true continually if judgment takes place at death, or is taking place by the for- mation of character under the light of the gospel. Christ is about to judge those having spiritual life and those spiritually dead. This constitutes the strong reason why Timothy should " preach the word ; be instant in season, out of season ; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." Heb. 9 : 27, 28, is to the same import. "And in- asmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, I56 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. and after this cometh judgment ; so Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him, unto salvation." This passage intimates strongly that judgment follows hard upon death. It is condemnation to the wicked, but salvation to those whose hearts are waiting for Christ. The passage implies that " he shall appear" to the saints in a very different man- ner from what he will to the wicked. The passage does not assert that Christ will appear to the wicked at all, so that it should not be quoted to prove Christ's second coming at the end of the world. Peter speaks of the grace and salvation to be made known at the appearing, " the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet. 1 : 7, 13. " Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings ; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy." I Pet. 4: 12, 13. "And when the chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 5 : 4. Peter looked for the consummation of blessedness at the revelation of Christ which would take place at death. John ex- presses his hope in such words as these : " Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, JUDGMENT. I57 if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him even as he is." 1 John 3 : 2. Did not John expect this additional glory when his spiritual vision should open upon the manifestation of Christ ? If Paul, Peter, and John expected their rewards soon, it implies that their judgment was soon to take place, that it might be known what those rewards should be. This finds confirmation in Rev. 14: 13: " And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Write, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; for their works follow with them." So, also, 22 : 10-12: " Seal not up the words of the prophecy of this book ; for the time is at hand. He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still ; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still ; and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. Behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is with me, to render to each man according as his work is." Are not thes6 passages an expression of the broad principle that the righteous enter at once upon their state of blessedness, and that the wicked are confirmed in their state of alienation from God, which is outer darkness forever ? In an important sense, judgment takes place in this world, prior to natural death. The destiny becomes fixed by the fixedness of moral character, I58 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. and by the nature of the penalty, which is death. Believers become confirmed in their love to Christ and abiding spiritual life, and unbelievers in their alienation from God and spiritual deadness. Christ said, "Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me." The antagonistic forces fixing men's destiny are already at work. When the infant Saviour was first taken into the temple, Simeon exclaimed, " This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel : for a sign which shall be spoken against." Afterwards Jesus himself said, " For judgment am I come into this world, that they who see not, might see, and they who see might be made blind." Some are drawn by the power of the gospel to Christ, their attach- ment to him becomes stronger as the years go by, their character becomes more and more assimi- lated to the divine likeness. Their redemption comes to be a settled matter in their own con- viction. Others say in their hearts, "We will not have this man to reign over us." The enmity of their hearts increases with the increase of the num- ber of years. A character in opposition to Christ is developed and fixed. They have lived in dark- ness, and have approached very near the border of outer darkness. There needs no formal judgment to make it clear to them, that they belong on the JUDGMENT. I59 left hand. Their judgment has virtually taken place. Death is the penalty for sin. " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." "The wages of sin is death." It is spiritual death. A life of sin has confirmed this sentence. This spiritual deadness has already become inwrought . in the very being of the sinner. It is sometimes asserted that there must be a judgment day that God may vindicate his character and righteous judgment before an assembled uni- verse. Such reasoning implies that God will make known to each individual, just how He has treated every other individual, which is an absurdity, if not an impossibility. Besides, the Bible shows that the object of judgment is to determine re- wards and penalties, rather than to vindicate the character of God. It is also said that the judg- ment must be at the end of the world, in order that the extent of each man's influence may be seen, and thus a right judgment be determined. We reply, that Christ, the Omniscient Judge, can just as well look forward and see the extent of influence, as to look back, and can just as easily determine at the close of our* earthly career what would be the just award, as at a judgment day at the end of the world, even were an end of the world revealed to us. We may here inquire the meaning of the word " day," as used in connection with judgment. Does l6o PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. it mean that there is a special day of twenty-four hours in length fixed upon, or even one special time fixed, when all the inhabitants of the earth shall be judged ? The expressions found in the Bible, "the day of judgment," "the judgment of the great day," "the day of the Lord," "the great day of his wrath," and the like, have naturally led the mind, to think of it as one special day in the future. The manner of the judgment is not necessarily thus any more than the expressions of the punishment of the wicked in a "lake of fire," " and to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched," denote the absolute method of the punishment by literal fire. The one im- presses the mind with the idea of punishment, the other with that of judgment. The wrong use of the article before the words "day" and "judgment" has served to produce this impression of a particular day fixed. There is a difference between the day, and a day ; the judgment, and judgment. The former points to some special day ; the latter is more indefinite. Peter said " thou art the Christ," that is, the special one promised. A Christ would imply that there might be other Christs. The fol- lowing passages are noted, where the article is used in English before the word "day," but not in the Greek : Matt. 1 1 : 22, 24 ; Matt. 12 : 36 ; Rom. 2:16; 2 Pet. 2:952 Pet. 3:7; Jude 6. The passages denote judgment, rather than that it will be on a fixed day. JUDGMENT. l6l The phrase "ihe day of the Lord" is often in- correctly referred to as a judgment day at the end of the world. The meaning of the phrase is to be learned from the prophecy of Malachi, who proph- esied of the end of the Jewish and not the Christian age. He foretold the terrible calamities that would end that dispensation. " For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble : and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Mai. 4. "And ye shall tread down the wicked : for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts." "Be- hold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." This was fulfilled when Christ came in his in- carnation to end the Jewish dispensation and set up his kingdom. This interpretation is made cer- tain by the Saviour's saying that the Elijah spoken of is fulfilled in John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ. Bearing in mind that the New Testa- ment writers had only the Old Testament Scrip- tures, we can well imagine that "the day of the Lord " would have a wonderful impression upon their minds, and we need not be surprised to find the phrase incorporated into their writings, in their speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem. 1 62 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Here there is some definite thing to be accom- plished, on some day or time spoken of, hence we should expect to find the definite article used be- fore the word "day." Note the following examples : Luke 17 : 30 ; 1 Cor. 1 : 8 ; 1 Cor. 5:552 Cor. 1 : 14 ; 1 Thes. 5:252 Peter 3 : 10. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." 2 Peter 3:12; Heb. 10 : 25 ; 1 John 4:17; Rev. 6:17. The word " day " is used in an indefinite manner, sometimes, as in Gen. 2:4. " In the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens " ; " the day of trouble" ; "day of visitation" ; "Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." Following the analogy, the day of judg- ment need not refer to one day for all to be judged, but mean rather the time when each shall be judged for himself. Christ spake in parables in order to make the truth more impressive ; so judgment is spoken of, under the form of an earthly tribunal, to impress the mind with the reality and certainty of it. In closing this chapter we may remark, that while in previous periods God judged men according to the light they, had, the parousia dispensation is em- phatically one of resurrection and judgment ; res- urrection from darkness and death, to light and life; of judgment in righteousness according to the light of Him who now " walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." THE APOCALYPSE. 1 63 CHAPTER VI. THE APOCALYPSE. It is no object of the writer to make a com- mentary on the Apocalypse, or to unravel and make plain what has been the puzzle of the cen- turies. It is simply to give some hints which may be helpful, by showing to whom some of the sym- bols refer, and, if possible, assist the reader to take the right track, that, as he shall become better ac- quainted with the history of the times in which the book was written, he may better understand it. The diversity of opinion concerning the book makes grateful any attempt to throw light upon its contents. Date of Writing. Placing the date of the writing in the reign of Domitian, after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the terrible persecutions under Nero, the Roman emperor, has undoubtedly occasioned much fog to gather about the contents of the book in the minds of commentators, and caused the making of many an ingenious puzzle beyond the possibility of any but the writers themselves to unravel. The reason why it has puzzled so many is because they have 164 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. fixed the date after the occurrence of the events referred to. Fixing the date prior to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem, perhaps near the beginning of the Neronian persecution, will greatly assist in making the book a revelation. Dr. J. M. McDon- ald, who commented on the life of John, unhesi- tatingly pronounced for the earlier date, as does Sir Isaac Newton, and Guericke, the church his- torian, and Dr. S chaff, and Canon Farrar, writing upon "Early Christianity." The later criticism generally inclines to the earlier date. The internal evidence from the book itself strongly confirms this opinion. Those who take the earlier date make the contents of the book refer to the Nero- nian persecution, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the persecutions which followed, up to the reign of Constantine, A. D. 306. Those who take the later date, make Revelation a running pro- phetic history of the Church to the end of time. The introduction to the book consists of chap. 1 : 1-8. "The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show to his servants things which must shortly come to pass." Thus it is an- nounced in the very first verse that the things shown were soon to come to pass. If these things were to be strung upon a line thousands of years in length, they would not very soon come to pass. Nor is it said that they would begin to come to pass, thus allowing a long time for them all to THE APOCALYPSE. I 65 be fulfilled. But all the things shown were soon to come to pass. It is also said, " Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein ; for the time is at hand." The whole structure of this sentence, as well as the direct assertion, goes to show that the things written were soon to come to pass. In addressing the seven churches it is separately said, " Behold I come quickly " ; " If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come as a thief." In verses 1:19, 2 : 10, 3 : 10, the Greek word mello is used, which denotes that the action is about to take place. When the angel, commissioned to show John the things that must shortly come to pass, had delivered his messages in the visions John saw, almost the last thing he says is, " These sayings are faithful and true ; and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to show unto his servants the things which must shortly be done. Behold I come quickly : blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." Rev. 22 : 6, 7. When John was about to worship the angel, he forbade him and added, " Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book : for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still ; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still," "and be- I 66 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. hold I come quickly," is reiterated, and again, verse 20, " Surely, I come quickly." These strong as- sertions at the beginning and close of the book would seem to settle it forever that the things con- tained in the book were soon to come to pass. They were so soon to take place that there was no need to seal the book, because the seals must so soon be broken. If we place the date of the book near the com- mencement of the first great persecution which raged under Nero, and look at the events as they occurred for a few years, we shall find an easy and natural solution of much of the Apocalypse. Not that we can understand every part of the symbols employed in detail, but we can gather something of each symbol as a whole ; and if the book is a revelation, it is to be understood, and not to be to us a riddle for every one to guess, with none able to say who has rightly guessed. The Events. The disciples of Christ had become numerous, scattered through Palestine, Asia Minor, Rome, and other parts of Europe. More than a quarter of a century had elapsed since the Saviour on Mount Olivet had predicted the overthrow of the temple. Many of those who worshipped Christ as divine, and obeyed him as their King, still observed the Mosaic law, and went up to the temple to worship THE APOCALYPSE. 1 67 with other Jews. The Mosaic and Christian dis- pensations were intermingled or running parallel, putting a double burden on the devout Jewish Christian. But the time was hastening when this must end by the destruction of Jerusalem, and with it the temple and temple worship ; when the nation which had crucified the Lord of Glory should meet its doom. Things were fast ripening for it. The hostile Jews had been a scourge to the followers of Christ. The scourge was already in process of preparation for the Jews. Rome had lost its integrity. Its pristine glory was gone. Nero was emperor, led to the throne through blood by Agrippina, his mother, who stopped not for murder if she might but accomplish her object. He in his baseness cast her away, and finally succeeded in plotting and securing her murder. He murdered his own brother. His character was such that if ever the appellation of beast could be given to any human being, he might well lay a pre-eminent claim to it. To gratify a morbid de- sire, he set fire to Rome, about A. D. 64, when a large part of the city became a heap of ashes. The suspicion of the citizens was upon him as the author. To avert the suspicion, he basely charged the crime upon the Christians. Then arose the first fiery persecution against them. They were made to endure the severest sufferings. Women were sewed up in skins of wild beasts and l6S PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. thrown to the dogs to be mangled till death should come to their relief. Others had their clothing first covered with pitch, and then set on fire. The hatred of the people was so turned against them, that no torture they could invent was too great to satisfy their madness. From November, A. D. 64, to June, 68, three years and a half, the fires of persecution raged with fury. At the latter date, Nero, forsaken, hated, hunted, fled to the suburbs of Rome, and full of fear and cowardice, committed suicide. He died like a detested dog. He stands as the representative head of the pagan persecut- ing power. Paul called him " the lion." 2 Tim. 4:17. He may well be called the beast of the Apocalypse. Much of the language and many of the symbols in Revelation point most directly to him, and the pagan power of which he was the representative head at the time of the writing. In the mean time there was trouble in the East. The Jewish provinces were under the dominion of Rome. The Jews were oppressed. They hated the Romans, and many of the cities and provinces had revolted. Vespasian was sent at the head of the Roman army to quell the revolt. Gessius Florus, who well deserves to be called a little beast, was appointed procurator, A. D. 65, over the Jewish provinces in the East. The first overt Jewish re- bellion was under him. The war broke out A. D. 66. It was three years and a half, from the time THE APOCALYPSE. 1 69 he began his dreadful work in Judea, to September, A. D. 70, when the city and temple perished in flames. These were the days of " wars and rumors of wars," of suffering and bloodshed. After the death of Nero, Vespasian was called to Rome, and Titus his son became the head of the army. As he subdued the provinces, he drew near to Jerusa- lem. For four months his army besieged that city. The sufferings of those in the city were terrible. So great was their hunger that it is on record that a mother ate her own child. So intense was their hunger that, if they could not steal, they would fight for morsels of food. Then were fulfilled the Saviour's words uttered on Olivet, " For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the be- ginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Josephus reckons 97,000 captives in the Jewish wars, and the number of those who perished during the siege at 1,100,000; and the number who perished in the whole war he puts at 1,337,490. Prisoners were taken to the number of 101,700. The Christians, as they watched and saw the Ro- man army approaching and surrounding the city, withdrew and crossed the Jordan, taking refuge in Pella in Perea, where they were saved from the rav- ages of the Roman army, and the terrible sufferings that fell upon them in Jerusalem. Hardly could there have been a more complete fulfilment of 170 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Christ's discourse to the four disciples on Mount Olivet, than the history of these few years affords. These Jewish wars were already sounding the death knell to the temple worship. These suffer- ings were the dying groans of the old dispensa- tion, the travailing pains of the new, when the kingdom of God should stand forth as the one reli- gion adapted for all time and for all spiritual wants. This was the conflict with the Jewish power, while the conquest with the Pagan power was not yet over. From the reign of Nero to that of Con- stantine, the first Christian emperor, A. D. 306, we count ten or more emperors under whose reign the fires of persecution burned. Some of them were terrible in their hatred towards Christians. Among the worst persecutors, we name Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, Galerius, the two latter most violent. To invent modes of torture would seem to have taxed the ingenuity of men and devils to the utmost. Concerning their work, one has well said, " Never was such a regular and systematic attempt made, in Satanic madness, to utterly ex- tinguish the gospel." For the Christians amid these eventful times, the Apocalypse was written. The Key. If we try to unlock the Apocalypse with the wrong key, we shall be let into a dark room, or at least into one neither light nor dark ; but with THE APOCALYPSE. 171 the right key, we may unlock the meaning, so as to get the force and benefit of what is written, though we may not understand all the symbolism in detail. Let it be borne in mind that the two dispensa- tions were yet to some degree running parallel. Christ, while preaching the "gospel of the king- dom," observed the Jewish rites, so did the disci- ples. Nor had they yet ceased to do it. The Jewish economy was to be done away, the kingdom was to be established. The death-agonies of the one and the birth-pains of the other were yet to be endured, so far as the disciples were concerned. The key to the Apocalypse is, to consider it an expansion and fulfilment of Christ's discourse to Peter, James, John, and Andrew on Olivet, as re- corded in Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21. As Malachi was the last of the prophets, it seems fitting that he should prophesy of the closing of that dispensation and the ushering in of the new. Through him swift judgments are pronounced on faithless Jews. In the last chapter the end is fore- told, and the rising of the " Sun of Righteous- ness." " For behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven ; and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be as stubble : and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "Behold I will send you Elijah, the 172 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. prophet, before the coming of the great and dread- ful day of the Lord." Christ takes up this pre- diction and enlarges upon it, as recorded in the chapters above noted. Any one familiar with the history of the early days of Christianity, will see in it a very striking fulfilment of these predictions. Christ said, "This generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled." Some of them whom Jesus addressed lived to see those eventful years which witnessed the overthrow of Jerusalem, and the kingdom of Christ inaugurated as the one system of religion. To understand the Apocalypse, we need to have in view the purpose for which it was written. It is not a prophetic compendium of church history, but rather, as the peroration of a sermon is to en- force what is taught in the sermon, so the Apoca- lypse is placed at the close of the New Testa- ment Scriptures, to encourage the disciples in obedience to the faith. It has a first and special application to the disciples, who were very soon to endure, perhaps already suffering, the terrible per- secutions under Nero, called the beast, and the Jewish wars, which culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish economy. It also finds an application in all subsequent trials and persecutions which the disciples might be called to endure. It enforces the great princi- ple that it shall go well with the righteous, but ill THE APOCALYPSE. I 73 with the wicked. It shows that however dark the surroundings, or severe the sufferings, be they from persecution or other causes, they that are loyal to Christ and endure to the end shall gain a glorious victory ; while Satan and all enemies to Christ shall meet with overwhelming ruin. It serves for all the future, to admonish disciples against error and faithlessness ; it urges to fidelity in duty, and encourages to victory in all spiritual conflicts with the powers of darkness, by the hope of a crown of life. It also must be borne constantly in mind that much of the language in the Apocalypse consists in very bold figures. Symbolism is necessarily so. The basis of a figure is always true, but the figure itself, interpreted literally, is not true. While great truths underlie the language used, much allowance must be made for the drapery and the making up of a complete picture. Such parts can have no interpretation. The mistake in making our inter- pretations too fine spun may be illustrated by the manner of interpretation of an eminent commen- tator, long since gone to his rest. A lamb in the Old Testament is a type of Christ. As lambs have tallow from which candies are made, so the tallow of the typical lamb is a type of Christ as the light of the world. In the parable of the man who fell among thieves, in going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and the good Samaritan who rescued him, 174 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. and gave the host two shillings for taking care of the unfortunate man, the same commentator is at a loss to determine whether the two shillings signify the Old and New Testaments, or the two ordi- nances of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. This is altogether too fine. The parables of the Prodigal Son and the Rich Man and Lazarus, when interpreted literally, lead from the truth, but interpreted freely, they forcibly impress the truth. So in the Apocalypse, if we interpret the symbolism too literally, we get into the mist ; but getting upon the line of the truth, and without attempting to find a meaning in all the subordinate parts of the symbols, we shall see the truth most graphically expressed. We say we see a man walking on the street, yet the drapery that encloses the body is the most we see ; nor is the body the real man ; it is soul, enclosed by both body and drapery. So the symbols enclose the truth, and we should not seek too much in what may be mere drapery. This brings us to consider the main body of the book. We shall only attempt to give a brief analy- sis, putting the reader on the line of the truth, hoping it may assist him in the study of it. John " was in the isle called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus." The form of expression does not necessarily indi- cate that he was banished to that place, but he THE APOCALYPSE. I 75 might have gone there, directed by the Spirit of God, to receive the word of God, and to give tes- timony of Jesus. The first thing shown him is the parousia of Jesus, — his personal presence among the churches. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and sees one like unto the Son of man, walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. Chap. 1 : 9-20. What he sees he is to write and send it unto the seven churches of Asia. The message is to be sent to the seven churches, not because these seven need to be ad- 'monished more than others, but seven is a number which in the Scriptures shows completeness, hence all through the Apocalypse the symbols are ar- ranged according to the number seven. John was to send the message delivered to him unto Ephe- sus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadel- phia, and Laodicea. These seven messages are to be taken as a whole, and not simply as a particular warning to each church ; and together they con- stitute a mirror for the churches, not only then, but for all future time, in which they may see themselves and correct their conduct. Some things are commended, and for other things the churches are admonished and exhorted. A church adopting all those things commended and approved, would constitute a model church. Those things for which they are admonished con- stitute the dangerous things to a church. Several Lj6 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. of the churches are called upon to repent speedily, showing that penitence is a characteristic of a true church. To the church of Ephesus it was said, " I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love." The church of Laodicea is sharply admonished for being lukewarm, showing that fervent love to Christ is the normal condition of a church, and essential to prosperity. The church at Pergamos was admonished, because some held false doctrine, showing it to be all-important to have true doctrine, forever refuting that per- nicious sentiment so prevalent, that it makes no difference what a man believes, if he is only sin- cere. The church in Thyatira was admonished for laxity of discipline, showing the need of right con- duct. The church in Philadelphia is commended in all things, " for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name," and to it is said, "behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it," indicating the condition of success. And the motive held before them is " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," and "to eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God " ; " to eat of the hidden manna"; "to be clothed with white raiment " ;"to be a pillar in the temple of God " ; and to sit with Christ on the throne. The exhor- tation to each church is, " He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the THE APOCALYPSE. I 77 churches." Here then is a mirror in which the churches of that day could see themselves, and suitable for all time. The fourth and fifth chapters record John's prep- aration to see things in the near future, in the opening of the seven seals. He beholds a door opened into heaven and beholds the throne of God and Him that sat upon it, and sees those before the throne worshipping and casting their crowns before the throne, saying, " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power ; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." God is about to bring terrible times upon the earth ; sufferings such as never had been, neither would be again. To prepare him and the disciples for such scenes, John sees a book in heaven. In the book, held in the right hand of him who sits on the throne, are sealed up the judgments which are soon to come on the earth. He sees the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ, as the only one able and worthy to open the book. He sees a great multitude of the redeemed, saying with a loud voice, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing " This vision is eminently suited to inspire confidence in the saints. Though persecutions might rage, yet Christ reigns and shall triumph and a great host of redeemed ones be gathered home to heaven, IjS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. even " ten thousand times ten thousand and thou- sands of thousands." In the sixth chapter is recorded the opening of the seals. The first seal is opened, and "behold a white horse ; and he that sat on him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto him ; and he went forth conquering, and to conquer." This is another assurance to the disciples that Christ's cause shall triumph. Another seal is opened and a red horse appears ; war, with its desolations. Another seal opened and a black horse ; famine. Another seal, and a pale horse ; pestilence. These things are terribly significant of the condition of things under Nero's reign, and accompanying the destruction of Jerusalem. Many of the saints suffered martyrdom. But lest they should become disheartened, the fifth seal is opened, and there were seen "under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held." "And white robes were given to every one of them." Then the sixth seal is opened, and " there was a great earthquake ; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood : And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven de- parted as a scroll when it is rolled together ; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great THE APOCALYPSE. I 79 men, and the rich men, and the chief captains and the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every free-man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountain; and said to the mountains and the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb : for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand ? " This is John's way of reiterating what Jesus told the four disciples on Olivet. " Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven ; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Matt. 24 : 29, 30. Peter, who heard the same discourse, reiterates it in such language as this : " But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up." . . . " Looking for and hasting unto the com- ing of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ? But according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:10, 12, I SO PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. 13. That this passage teaches no physical catas- trophe of the earth and the heavenly bodies, at the end of the gospel age, but rather refers to the com- motion incident to the change from the Jewish to the gospel age, is evident from the fact that Peter admonishes them to a holy life because it might come in their day. " Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, give diligence that ye maybe found in peace, without spot, and blame- less in his sight." It is evident, also, by the way Peter refers to Paul's epistles, " speaking in them of these things ; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unsteadfast wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, unto their own de- struction." The Jews not only wrested the way of salvation by faith to their own destruction, but " these things," viz., the change from the Jewish to the gospel economy, which Paul had spoken of in his epistles, they had wrested to their own de- struction. Paul had nowhere spoken in his epistles of the destruction of the heavens and the earth. Peter speaks of the change from the Jewish to the gospel age as a "day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." It was such to the Jewish nation when a million and a quarter of people perished in their unbelief. Peter speaks of three different stages of religious light under the name of " heavens and earth." He contrasts the heavens and the THE APOCALYPSE. i8l earth of the antediluvians with the heavens and the earth of the Jews, and as the one perished by water, so the other is reserved for fire. It was fire indeed, the fires of war and famine and literal fire, which swallowed up their temple. Then suc- ceeds the " new heavens and a new earth " of the gospel age. Besides, at the commencement of this remarkable passage, Peter says he writes this and the former epistle also as a remembrancer of those things that the prophets and apostles had said should come to pass in the last days of the Jewish age. Nowhere had they spoken of the destruction of the heavens and the earth. But Malachi had portrayed in vivid language the closing of the Mosaic economy. Christ foretold it on Olivet; the apostles had preached it. Christ admonished his disciples to "watch; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." Peter reiterates it. " But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." And his last ex- hortation is, " ye, therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from your own steadfastness." These considerations leave hardly a doubt that this whole passage, vivid and strong as the language is, finds its fulfilment in the closing scenes of the old economy. What shall sustain the disciples amid the perse- cutions, famine, and calamities that were coming I 82 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. upon the earth ? John tells in the seventh chap- ter. Under the symbol of four angels holding back the four winds, that they should not hurt the earth ; there comes forth another angel to seal the ser- vants of God, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Here is a definite number, put for an indefinte, showing that there would be a multitude of the Jews sealed of the Spirit and saved. " After this John beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all na- tions and kindreds, and people and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands ; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb." This denotes the great multitude saved from the gentile world. What could better cheer and sustain the faith of the disciples than such visions portraying such glorious triumph ? At the beginning of the eighth chapter we have the opening of the seventh seal, and under this seal we have the seven angels sounding the seven trumpets. The sounding of the seven trumpets occupies the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters. We must understand this, not as pro- gressive, but reiterative and expansive. The sev- enth seal and seven trumpets cover the same ground as the six seals, depicting more graphically the sufferings which cluster about Rome during the • THE APOCALYPSE. 1 83 Neronian persecution, and about Jerusalem at the time of its destruction, and the Jewish wars which preceded it. As the angels are sounding the trumpets expressive of the woes to come upon the earth, the saints are not left without their sources of comfort and encouragement. In the eleventh chapter John is commanded to measure the temple of God, and assurance is given that they that worship therein shall not be hurt; "if any will hurt them he must in this manner be killed." Two witnesses are spoken of who "shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed in sackcloth." This is three years and a half, just about the length of the time of the Neronian persecution, and also about the length of the Jewish wars. Who shall say positively who these two witnesses were ? May we not under- stand them to be Peter and James ? Paul calls them with John the pillar disciples. They certainly were faithful witnesses of Christ at Jerusalem and other places, and may well stand as representatives of fidelity to Christ. Though slain by persecutors, they triumphed. They are seen in the vision to stand up again. " And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud ; and their enemies beheld them." How significant of glorious triumph ! In verse seven is seen the " beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit, who shall I 84 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." This well describes Nero, shown to be the beast, as we shall see further on. "And when the seventh angel sounded, there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdom of this world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ ; and he shall reign for ever and ever." This is significant of the fall of Jerusalem and of the temple and temple worship, the end of the Mosaic dispensation, and the full inauguration of the king- dom of which Daniel and Isaiah prophesied, which John the Baptist said "was at hand," which was meant when Jesus "went preaching the gospel of the kingdom," and when he said, "This gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations, then shall the end come." The vision ends with a grand jubilee in heaven over the triumph of Christ's kingdom. The twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth chapters are to be taken together. The visions are laid in the same region of history as the former ones, and to the same end. In chapter twelve the sun-clad woman represents the church of Christ, the red dragon represents the pagan power, Rome the mystic Babylon as its head. The dragon made war with the woman, and to " her was given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times and half a time, from the face THE APOCALYPSE. 1 85 of the serpent." This three years and a half de- notes the time of the Neronian persecution. The wings denote God's protection, and suggest the refuge in Pella, to which Christians resorted for safety in those bloody days when Jerusalem was destroyed. The casting down of the great dragon may denote the overthrow of Nero as the repre- sentative of the pagan power, and also the more complete overthrow of the pagan power at the end of the reign of that terrible persecutor Diocletian, when Constantine, the first Christian emperor, as- cended the throne. In the thirteenth chapter there is a more specific vision of Nero as the beast, rising up out of the sea. "And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast ; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies ; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months." This is the length of the persecution under his reign. The character given to the beast wonderfully accords to the real character of Nero. " Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast ; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six" (666). Here resort is had to designating a name by numerals. These numerals in the Hebrew designate Nero Caesar. I 86 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. John desired to tell the disciples whom he meant, but dare not mention his name outright, lest he might compromise his own and their safety, so he calls on them to use their wisdom in deciphering the name: "Here is wisdom." "And behold another beast cometh up out of the earth ; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon." This may refer to Vespasian, who led the Roman army in the Jewish wars, and sought to bring all into subjection to the pagan power, and so prolong the power of the beast. (See Canon Farrar, " Early Christianity," Apocalypse.) Or it may possibly refer to Gessius Florus, proconsul over the Jewish provinces. His whole conduct showed that his great object was to give life to the Roman power, of which Nero, the beast, was the representative. In chapter fourteen a vision is seen on Mount Zion. This complements those seen in the sun and by the seaside in chapters eleven and twelve. In those is seen the power of the enemy and the suffering of the saints. This on Mount Zion shows the deliverance and triumph of the saints, and the overthrow and punishment of their enemies. John sees those on Mount Zion "who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," a great multitude upon whose foreheads was written the name of the Lamb. He heard them as with their harps they " sing the new song before the throne." THE APOCALYPSE. 1 87 The scene is one of grand triumph to the saints, as they behold the downfall of their enemies, when " there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." This denotes the fall of Rome, the mystic Babylon, the pagan power. Those belong- ing to mystic Babylon are " tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." In this vision of the Son of man on the white cloud, with a sharp sickle, and the angels with sickles, is seen the com- plete triumph of Christ over his enemies. This graphic description is not intended to show the closing scenes of this earth, the final harvest, but rather the issue of condition as it is between the faithful followers of the Lamb and their persecut- ing enemies ; having special application for the en- couragement of Christians under the first great persecution, but applicable also for the comfort and encouragement of Christians under like circum- stances in all the future. In chapter fifteen John sees in heaven the seven angels with the seven last plagues, and to each of the angels is given a vial of God's wrath which he; is to pour out. This symbol of the seven plagues and vials extends through the sixteenth chapter ; the two chapters are, therefore, to be taken to- gether. The vision portrays the persecutions under iSS PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. Nero, and the Jewish wars culminating in the de- struction of Jerusalem. It portends calamities such as had never before been witnessed on the earth. But what shall become of the saints ? John be- holds a "sea of glass, mingled with fire ; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." This is a glorious assurance of the protection and safety of the saints. In chap- ter sixteen is an account of the angels pouring out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. These vials are symbols of dire calamities and fear- ful sufferings. In verse 2 reference is made to those who had the mark of the beast, pointing to Nero. " The fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast ; and his kingdom was full of darkness ; and they gnawed their tongues for pain." This is strikingly significant of the moral and political con- dition of Rome at that time. "The sixth angel poured out his vial on the great river Euphrates, that the way of the kings of the east might be pre- pared." This points to the east as the scene of conflict, — to the Jewish wars. Three unclean spirits came out of the mouth of the dragon and THE APOCALYPSE. 1 89 out of the mouth of the beast, and " go forth unto the kings of the earth, to the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Al- mighty." John seems to have in mind what the Prophet Malachi says, "Behold I will send you Elijah be- fore the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Mai. 4: 5. The coming of John the Baptist, who is the Elijah, was to be the sign of the coming of the great day which would end the old dispensation. He also has in mind the warning given on Olivet to watch, because that day should come upon them as a thief. " Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked and they see his shame." " And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." Megiddo was a part of the great plain of Esdraelon, north of Jerusalem. This indicates the vicinity of the place where the Jewish wars were carried on with great slaughter before the final catastrophe in the overthrow of Jerusalem. The seventh angel poured out his vial and there followed the calami- ties so graphically described in verses 17-21. It is the fulfilment, we think, of Luke 21 : 22-26. " For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days ! for there shall be great dis- I9O PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. tress in the land, and wrath upon the people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ; and Jerusa- lem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars ; and upon the earth distress of na- tions, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves roaring. Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." The remaining six chapters must be taken to- gether. In them Rome, the pagan power, and Jerusalem, the holy city, are contrasted. In the first four chapters, we have Rome, the seat of the beast, the mystic Babylon, the overthrow, and final wretched condition of the enemies of Christ, with the welfare of the saints incidentally thrown in ; while in the last two chapters, referring to Jerusa- lem as the Zion of God, and under the figure of the New Jerusalem, the burden of thought is the glorious condition of the saints, with the miserable condition of the wicked incidentally thrown in. Keeping this simple analysis in mind will greatly help to understand it. In the seventeenth chapter, Rome, the seat of the beast, is depicted as a great harlot. Her sway over other nations is described. Upon her fore- THE APOCALYPSE. 19 1 head was a name written : " Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth!' " The woman was drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the mar- tyrs of Jesus." This is descriptive of Rome, not only under Nero, but also under Domitian, Decius, Diocletian, and Galerius, who were most violent persecutors These are referred to in verse 7 and following : " And there are seven kings : five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come ; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition." If we commence reckoning at Augustus, Nero would be about the fifth ; the others were to come. The language would indicate that they would reign but a short time. Some would be of like spirit of Nero, the beast, and some would not. This was the exact state of things up to the time of Con- stantine. Diocletian and Galerius were violent persecutors. " Never was such a regular and sys- tematic attempt made, in Satanic madness, to ut- terly extinguish the gospel." "These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast." They sought to carry out what Nero had begun. "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them." This was true to the letter. Their reign ended 192 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. A. D. 306, when for the first time a Christian em- peror sat upon the throne of the Caesars. These persecutions were among the birth-pangs of the kingdom of Christ, in its struggle with the pagan power, to get a safe and sure standing-place on the earth. In the eighteenth chapter we have the fall of the pagan power described. The angel which John saw " cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and the cage of every unclean and hateful bird." This, and the graphic language which follows, shows the fall of Rome, the mystic Babylon, and the desolation of them who were in sympathy with her, or had given themselves to the riches and the pleasures of the world. In the nineteenth chapter there is given a de- scription of a jubilee in heaven over the downfall of the pagan power. " And after these things I heard a great voice of much people, in heaven, say- ing, Alleluia ! salvation, and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God," etc., verses 1--10. The remaining part of the chapter consists of a vision of Christ. " The Word of God " ; " the King of kings and Lord of lords," sitting upon a white horse and going forth to the conquests of the earth. All that oppose him are cast alive into a lake of fire and brimstone, which signifies the THE APOCALYPSE. 1 93 triumph of Christ, and the overthrow of all who had said in their hearts, " we will not have this man to reign over us." This is most eminently- suited to encourage the Christians who were to pass through the terrible years of conflict. John, in vision, has seen the beast utterly over- thrown. But there is one more enemy, the insti- gator of the beast, the one from whom he derives his inspiration, the great hostile power standing back of all persecution, " the dragon, that old ser- pent, which is the devil, and [even] Satan." In the twentieth chapter, John sees his power restrained, and sees him finally " cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are." John sees him bound a thousand years. This definite period, put for an indefinite one, de- notes the restraint of Satan over the followers of Christ in this world. He who got the victory over Satan in the wilderness of Judea will give victory to all that put their trust in him. Such are they who are truly born of the Spirit, which is to " have part in the first resurrection." They do, in an important sense, reign with Christ in this world. His will is their will ; they rejoice with Christ in his victory, in every conquest made in this world. They are children of the kingdon. In the twentieth chapter, verses 1-6, John sees the martyrs of Christ and all who have a part in the first resurrection reigning with Christ. No 13 194 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. such interpretation should be given to this passage as to make a millennium. This is not prophetic his- tory to be interpreted literally, but a vision seen in the sky, clothed in abundant drapery. This pas- sage, so very figurative in its nature and structure, is hardly sufficient upon which to found the doc- trine of a millennium, whatever views of it men may take. It does however show this grand truth, the restraint Satan is subjected to by Christ, over all that trust in Christ for power to overcome his temptations. It accords with human experience. The restraint is not all. John sees a great battle (verses 7-15) of Satan and all his hosts, all whose names are not in the book of life, arrayed against the followers of the Lamb. This is by no means a description of a general judgment of the righteous and wicked. It is the disposal of the wicked that is here seen. Satan leading on his host, Gog and Magog, is cast down into a lake of fire and brimstone. This denotes putting Satan beyond the reach of ever again having any power over the saints ; just the state of things beyond this world. His followers, the dead, are seen, not all the righteous and wicked dead, but the dead in trespasses and sins, the spiritually dead, all, both small and great, on land and in the sea, are judged according to their works, and put forever beyond the power to molest in the least those whose names are in the " book of life." THE APOCALYPSE. 1 95 John now turns from Rome, the seat of the beast, to Jerusalem, the city of the great King, from mystic Babylon to the New Jerusalem, from the punishment of the wicked to the happy condi- tion of the saints. In the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters the blessedness of the saints on the other side of death is the burden of thought. John saw a new heaven and a new earth. He saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the symbol of blessedness, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Its walls are of magnificent and costly stones, its gates of pearl, and its streets are of gold. In the midst is the river of the pure water of life. The banks of the river are lined with the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. The light of the city is the glory of God and the Lamb. Nothing could exceed this vision in splendor. This is the symbol of heaven, the final habitation of all who trust and follow Christ and prove faith- ful to the end. Interpreting this description too literally, we are led away from the truth, and de- rive low and false views of heaven ; but keeping it as a vision which John saw, a symbol of heaven, we form some proper conception of the blessed- ness of the saints in glory. It is incidentally thrown in that the wicked are forever shut out from the city, showing their deplorable condition 196 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. in contrast with that of the saints. Here we have the glorious outcome of a life devoted to Christ. We cannot but see how admirably adapted it was to sustain the hearts of the early disciples in their conflicts with Judaism and paganism, when the fires of persecution fiercely burned, and also to en- courage and cheer the hearts of the saints in all subsequent ages, lifting them toward heaven and God. Looking now at the combined effect of all the visions which John had, as recorded in Revela- tion, we cannot but see how well adapted they are to animate and encourage the hearts of all Chris- tians to " fight the good fight of faith," and get the victory over all spiritual enemies. It is worthy of note, that, appended to this inimitable descrip- tion of the heavenly city, is the invitation to all to come and have a home in it. " And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that hear- eth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." CONCLUSION. 197 CONCLUSION. The writer is well aware that the views ex- pressed in this volume differ from those held by many Christians, as they have been handed down in their form of expression from generation to gen- eration. But it must be borne in mind that much of the best of truth in Scripture is expressed in figurative language. The prophecies are full of it. Read Isaiah and Jeremiah. "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them." This will never be literally ful- filled, but it shows the mighty transforming power of the gospel over men's hearts. Christ spoke much in parables. Underneath the parabolic lan- guage lay the real truth. John in the Apocalypse saw the truth in visions. Inside of the drapery of language is the absolute truth. The more we can divest the truth from the drapery of the lan- guage, the better understanding of the truth we get. But if one cannot conceive the truth with- out the drapery, then let him hold on to the dra- pery. Christ is present reigning in his kingdom, and will be more visibly present to the saints after I98 PROBLEMS IN THEOLOGY. death. But if one cannot conceive of his pres- ence otherwise than by his personal coming and presence, then let him conceive of it thus, for better so than not at all, for the saints are now and forever shall be under the eye of their beloved Lord. If one cannot conceive of a future life otherwise than by a literal resurrection of the body from the grave, let him believe that ; better so than not to have a firm assurance of future life. If one cannot conceive how God can judge all men according to the deeds done in the body, only as he conceives of it as taking place on a general judgment day, and under the process of a civil court with which he may be familiar, then let him conceive of it thus, for God will surely judge the world. If one cannot conceive of the retributive justice of God only as he conceives of it under the figure of the " gnawing of the worm that dieth not," and the "burning of the fire which shall not be quenched," of a "lake of fire and brim- stone," of "outer darkness," of "being shut out of the holy city," then let him hold on to these figures of speech as literal truth, for this truth is in them, God will surely and terribly punish the wicked. If one cannot conceive of heaven other- wise than through the medium of a holy city with its jasper walls, pearly gates, and golden streets, then let him cling to a literal New Jerusalem, for Christ will surely bring the redeemed to glory, CONCLUSION. 199 But let us not forget that God's thoughts and ways are as much above ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth. Besides the belief that the view given in this treatise is scriptural, we cannot but think it pref- erable to the one which relegates the coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the judgment to a future period, called the end of the world, because it gives a clearer consciousness of a present Christ reigning in his kingdom, in the hearts of his people. It dispels the uncertainty of resurrection and judgment which arises from phys- ical difficulties and distance in time. It brings heaven nearer to the saints as a source of hope and joy, and hell nearer to the wicked as an object of dread It makes destiny, either among the good or the bad, close at hand. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proces! Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: July 2005 PreservationTechnologie A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATIO 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township. PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111