<page 1>
THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS
&c.
MY DEAR C-----
The account you give of your perplexity, and of the answers with which
it has been met by some around you, reminds me, (if one may refer to it
in such a connection,) of what happened some months ago in a Sunday-school.
The boys in one of the classes were reading the chapter which records how
David, as he walked on the roof of his house, saw Bathsheba. One of the
boys, looking up through the school-room window at the steep roofs of the
houses opposite, after a pause, said,--"But, Teacher, how could David walk
on the roof of his house?" The teacher, on this point as ignorant as his
scholar, at once checked all enquiry by saying, "Dont grumble at the Bible,
boy." Meanwhile the teacher of an adjoining class had overheard the conversation.
Leaning over to his fellow-teacher he whispered, "The answer to the difficulty
is, With men it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things
are possible." Such was the solution of "the difficulty;" too true a sample,
I fear, of the <page 2> way in which
on the one hand honest doubts are often met, as though all enquiry into
what is perplexing in Scripture must be criminal; and on the other, of
the absurdities which are confidently put forth as true expositions of
Gods mind and word.
Your difficulty is, how are we, as believers in Scripture, to reconcile
its prophetic declarations as to the final restitution of all things, with
those other statements of the same Scripture, which are so often quoted
to prove eternal punishment. Scripture, you say, affirms that God our Father
is a Saviour, full of pity towards the lost, seeking their restoration;
so loving that He has given for man His Only-Begotten Son, in and by whom
the curse shall be overcome, and all the kindreds of the earth be blessed;
and yet that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, where their
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. How is it possible, you ask,
to reconcile all this? Are not the statements directly inconsistent? And
if so, must not the statements of the Bible, as of other books, be corrected
by that light of reason and conscience, which is naturally or divinely
implanted in every one of us?
Now I grant at once that there is a difficulty here, and further that
the question how it is to be solved is one deserving our most attentive
consideration. I entirely agree with you also, that "though indifference
or devout timidity, calling itself submission, may set aside such enquiries
as unpractical or even dangerous, though indolence under the guise of <page
3> humility may refuse to look at them, and spiritual selfishness,
wrapt in the mantle of its own supposed security, may forbid such investigations
as presumptuous, Christ-like souls can no more be unconcerned as to what
may or may not be Gods mind as to the mass of humanity, than they can stand
by unaffected when the destitute perish from hunger, or the dying agonize
in pain." All this to me seems self-evident.
But agreeing with you in this, I cannot grant that the difficulty you
urge is unanswerable, or that, even if it were, you would be wise for such
a reason to reject the Scriptures.
Is there any revelation which God has given free from difficulties?
Are there not even difficulties as to the present facts of life which are
quite inexplicable? Is it not a fact that man comes into this world a fallen
creature; and yet that God who made man is just, holy, and merciful? But
how do you reconcile the facts? You think that man is not a sinner only
because he does evil. You rather believe that he does evil because he is
a sinner, and that, guard and train him as you will, evil will come out
of him because it is already in him; that in the best there is an inability
to do the good they would; that in all there is a self-will and self-love,
the pregnant root of sin of every kind. And yet you say that God is good.
Say that the evil came through Adams disobedience; yet how is it just to
make us suffer for a trespass committed thousands of years before we were
born? That there is a difficulty here is <page
4> evident from the many attempts which have been made to solve it.
Yet you and I believe both sides of the mystery. We believe that man by
nature is corrupt, his heart wrong from his mothers womb, a dying sinful
creature, who cannot change or save himself, utterly hopeless but for Gods
redeeming mercy; and yet that God is good, and that He does not mock us
when He declares that not He, but we are blameable.
Why then, see in that life is such a mystery, and that there are contradictions
in it which seem irreconcilable, and for the true answer to which we have
often to wait, should you take the one difficulty you urge as a sufficient
reason for hastily rejecting those Scriptures, which you have often found
to be as a light in a dark place? Rather look again and again more carefully
into them. Then you will see, as I think I see, how these Scriptures, rightly
divided open out far more exalted and glorious hopes for man than his own
unaided imagination or understanding has ever yet dared to guess or been
able to argue out.
I. The Nature of Scripture
But before I come to the testimony of Scripture, let me clear my way
by a few words as to its nature and inspiration. The mystery of the Incarnate
Word, I am assured, is the key, and the only sufficient one, to the mystery
of the Written Word; the letter, that is the outward and human form, of
which <page 5> answers to the flesh
of Christ, and is but a part of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Eternal
Word. The Incarnation, instead of being, as some have said, different in
principle to the other revelations of Himself which God has given us, is
exactly in accordance with, and indeed the key to, all of them, in one
and all the unseen and invisible God being manifested in or through His
creatures, or in some creature-form; and this because thus only could God
be revealed to creatures like us. Whether in Nature, or Scripture, or Christs
flesh, the law is one. The divine is revealed under a veil, and that veil
a creature-form.
(1) Let me express what I can on this subject, though in these days
what I have to say may lie open to the charge of mysticism. The blessed
fact, which we confess as Christians, is that the Word of God has been
made flesh,--has come forth in human form from human nature. Jesus of Nazareth
is Son of God; not partly man and partly God, but true man born of a woman,
yet with all the fullness of the God-head bodily.
So exactly is Holy Scripture the Word of God; not half human and half
divine, but thoroughly human, yet no less thoroughly divine, with all treasures
of wisdom and knowledge revealed yet hidden in it. And just as He, the
Incarnate Word, was born of a woman, out of the order of nature, without
the operation of man, by the power of Gods Spirit; so exactly as the Written
Word come out of the human heart, not by the operation of the <page
6> human understanding, that is the man in us, but by the power of
the Spirit of God directly acting upon the heart, that is, the feminine
part of our present fallen and divided human nature. It is of course easy
to say this is mere mysticism. God manifest in the flesh is a great mystery.
And the manifestation of Gods truth out of mans heart in human form is
of course the same, and no less a mystery. And those who do not see how
our nature like our race is both male and female, may here find some difficulty.
But the fact remains the same, that our nature is double, male and female,
head and heart, intellect and affection. And it is out of the latter of
these, that is the heart, that the letter of Scripture has been brought
forth, the human form of the Divine Word, exactly as Christ was conceived
and born of the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Ghost, without an
earthly father. In no other way could Gods Word come in human form. In
no other way could it come out of human nature. But it has humbled itself
so to come for us, out of the heart of prophets and apostles; in its human
form, like Christs flesh, subject to all those infirmities and limitations
which Christs flesh was subject tothoroughly human as He was; yet in spirit,
like Him, thoroughly divine, and full of the unfathomed depths of Gods
almighty love and wisdom.
Now just as the fact that Jesus was man, and as such grew by degrees
in wisdom and stature here, and lived our life, which is a process of corruption, <page
7> and had our members of shame, and was made sin for us, by no means
disproves that He was also Son of God, but is only a witness of the love
which brought Him here in human form; so the fact that Holy Scripture is
human proves nothing against its being divine also, exactly as Christ was.
I would that those who are now dissecting Scripture, and finding it under
their hands to be, what indeed it is, thoroughly and truly human, would
but pause and ask themselves, what they could have found in Christs flesh,
had they tortured it as they now are torturing the letter. Had it been
possible for them to have dissected that Body,--I must say it when I see
what men are doing now,--would they have found, with the eye of sense at
least, anything there which was not purely human? The scourge, the nails,
the spear, the bitter cry, and death at last, proved that that wounded
form was indeed most truly human. The Bishop of Natal has dissected the
letter of Scripture till it is to him as the flesh of Christ would have
been to a mere anatomist. It is not to him a living thing to teach him,
but a dead thing to be dissected and criticized. He has proof that it is
human; he has proof that it has grown; he has proof that death works in
it, or at least touches it; he has seen its shameful members; he does not
wish to lead any to despise the true teachings given by this human form;
for he says it has been the channel through which he has received much
blessing; he only wishes men to see that it is really human, which of <page
8> course it must be, seeing it came out of the heart of man; but,
consciously or unconsciously, he is leading men, not from the letter to
the spirit, which would be well, but merely to reject and judge the letter,
not seeing how that letter, like Christs flesh, is incorruptible and shall
be glorified. After all, this too perhaps must be done: it was needful
that Christ should suffer and be put to death; but woe to him who rejects
and slays the human form, in which, for us, Gods truth has been manifested.
Yet for this, too, mercy is in store, for they do it ignorantly in unbelief.
The Bible then resembles, yet differs from, other books, just as the
flesh of Christ, resembles and yet differs from the flesh of other men.
All the utterances of good and true men are in their measure aspects of
the mystery of the Incarnation, being partial revelations in human form
of Gods eternal Truth and Wisdom; even as every good and true man also
in his measure is another aspect of the same mystery, for God has said,
"I will dwell and walk in them," and so human forms and flesh and blood
are by grace Gods tabernacles. But the Incarnation and Manifestation of
the Divine Word in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ was pre-eminent,
and infinitely beyond what the indwelling of the Word is in other good
men, though Christ took our flesh and infirmities, and we may be filled
with all the fullness of God. In like manner the Incarnation and Manifestation
of the Word of God in the <page 9> letter
of Scripture is pre-eminent, and differs from other books exactly as the
flesh of Christ differs from the flesh of other men. Instead of believing
therefore, that, because Scripture is human, and has grown with men, and
has marks of our weakness and shame and death upon it, therefore it must
perish and see corruption, I believe it can never perish or see corruption.
I see it is human; I see that it has grown; I see it can be judged and
wounded. I believe too that it has in its composition exactly so much of
perishableness as Christs flesh had when He walked here with His apostles.
But it is like Christs body, the peculiar tabernacle of Gods truth. And
those who walk by it day and night know this, for they have seen, as all
shall one day see, it transfigured.
(2) I proceed to shew that like Christs flesh, and indeed like every
other revelation which God has made of Himself, the letter of Scripture
is a veil quite as much as a revelation, hiding while it reveals, and yet
revealing while it hides; presenting to the eye something very different
from that which is within, even as the veil of the Tabernacle, with its
inwoven cherubim, hid the glory within the veil, of which nevertheless
it was the witness; and that therefore, as seen by sense, it is and must
be apparently inconsistent and self-contradictory. Both these points are
important; for if Gods revelations of Himself are veils, even while they
are also manifestations; and if therefore they are and must be open <page
10> to the charge of inconsistency and contradiction; this fact will
help us to understand, not only why Scripture is what it is, but also how
to interpret its varied truths and doctrines.
And here, that we may see how all Gods revelations are alike, let us
look for a moment at those other revelations of Himself, the books of Nature
and Providence, which God has given us. Are they not both veils as well
as revelations, the first sense-readings of which are never to be relied
on?
First, as to Nature, which has been called Gods formed word, and which
beyond all question is a revelation of God. Yet how does it reveal Him?
Is it not also a veil, hiding quite as much as it reveals of Him? Is it
not a fact that our sense-readings, even of the clearest physical phenomena,
such as the rising and setting of the sun, are opposed to the truth, and
need to be corrected by a higher faculty? Is it not further a fact that
Nature hides almost more than it reveals of God our Saviour? Does it not
seem even to misrepresent Him? Does it not seem also to contradict itself,
with force against force, heat against cold, darkness against light, death
against life, its very elements in ceaseless strife everywhere? On one
side shewing a preserver, on the other a destroyer: here boundless provision
for the support of life; there death reigning. We know that this contradiction
has been so strongly felt by some, that on the ground of it they have denied
that the world is the work of one superintending mind, <page
11> and have argued that it must be either the result of chance or
the work of eternally opposing powers. Are there not here exactly the same
contradictions and the same difficulties which we find in Scripture? Either
therefore we must say, Nature is an inconsistent and lying book, and therefore
we will not believe the testimony either of its barren rocks or smiling
cornfields; or else we must confess some veil or riddle here. It is precisely
the same riddle which we find in every other revelation.
For the book of Providence, which I may call Gods wrought word, has
the very same peculiarity. Providence surely is a revelation of God; and
yet is it not, like Nature, a veil quite as much as a revelation? Look
not only at those things which David speaks of, that Gods servants suffer,
while the wicked are in great prosperity and not plagued like other men;
but look at born cripples and idiots, the deaf and dumb and blind, who,
as far as we know, cannot be suffering for their own sake;--look at the
fact that in one instance crime is punished, in another unpunished, here.
Is not this inconsistent? Where is the justice of it; and where, as judged
by sense, is the love of sending souls into the world whose life throughout
is one of suffering? Certainly here is a text in Gods providential book
of rule, (which I may say answers to the books of Kings, or Rule, in Scripture,)
quite as hard as any of those texts in the book of Kings, which some would
cut out of Scripture, as presenting us with false and unworthy views <page
12> of Him. But can these critics blot the selfsame text out of Gods
book of rule in Providence? There it stands, just as it stands in the book
of Nature also. Shall we therefore say that the revelation of God in Providence
is an inconsistent one? Nothe fact is, it is a veil as well as a revelation,
and all its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions can be cleared
up, if not to sense, yet to faith, in the light of Gods sanctuary (Psa.
lxxiii. 3-17).
Even so it is with those two other revelations, which, much as they
have been gainsaid, the Church has received and yet believes in, I mean
the flesh of Christ and Holy Scripture. The flesh of Christ, the Incarnate
Word, is beyond all question a veil (Heb. x. 20). How much did it hid,
even while to some it revealed God. How few knew what He was: how many
misunderstood Him. And how inconsistent did that feeble form appear with
the truth that it was Gods chosen dwelling-place. The apparent inconsistency
may be gathered from the fact that those to whom He came stumbled at it.
And from that day to this that human form, that birth of a woman, that
growth in years and stature, those tears, that sweat, that weariness, those
bitter cries, those members of shame, that dying life, all this, or part
of this, has to the eye of sense seemed so inconsistent with divinity,
that thousands have denied that that Form was or could be a revelation
of God, even <page 13> while they
allow that it has done what mere humanity never did. The fact is, it was,
and was intended to be, a veil as well as a revelation: and as such there
could not but be apparent contradiction.
The same is true of Scripture, that is, the written word, which like
Nature has gone through six days of change, and like Christs flesh has
grown in wisdom and stature. Throughout it is a veil while it is a revelation;
and therefore, like Nature, Providence, and the flesh of Christ, it is
and must be open to the same reproach, not only of inconsistency, but of
setting forth unworthy and even untrue statements of God. For indeed Scripture
is a veil, which when taken in the letter, that is, as it appears to sense,
makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as Nature and Providence
seem to make Him; and yet all the while it reveals Him also, as nothing
else has ever revealed Him. For though in Christs flesh the revelation
is complete spite of the veil, its very completeness and compactness keep
us from seeing the various parts, which are set before us in Holy Scripture
piecemeal (Heb. i. 1.), and in a way that neither Nature nor Providence
at present shew Him to us. For the law and the prophets tell us more of
God and of His purposes, as to the restitution of all things and the promised
times of rest and Sabbath, than Nature yet declares to our present understanding;
though indeed Nature may <page 14> be,
and probably is, saying far more to us than any mere human eye or ear has
yet apprehended.
Now if Nature and Providence, Christs flesh and Scripture, have all
this same characteristic peculiarity of being veils as well as revelations,
and are therefore open to the charge of inconsistency, as read by sense,
seeming to declare what is opposed to fact, may we not conclude that they
have all come from the same Hand, especially when it is seen that the apparent
contradictions, which are found in any of these revelations, like the tabernacle
veil, invariably cover some deeper truth, which cannot safely be expressed,
to fallen men at least, in any other way.
(3) The deeper question, why God has thus revealed Himself should not
be passed by; for it opens the heart of God. God alone of all teachers
has had two methods, law and gospel, flesh and spirit,--one working where
we are, the other to bring us in rest where He is,--one to be done away,
the other to abide (2 Cor. iii. 11),--which at least looks like inconsistency.
The reason is that God is love, and that in no other way could He ever
have reached us where we were, or brought us where He is. God therefore
was willing to seem inconsistent, and for awhile to come into mans likeness,
to bring man back to His likeness. Here is the reason for law before gospel,
for Christs flesh before His Spirit, for all the different dispensations,
and for all the types and shadows which for <page
15> awhile veiled while they revealed Gods living Word. Here is the
reason for the human form of the Divine Word in Scripture. Had that Word
come to us as it is in itself, we should no more have apprehended or seen
it than we see God. Had it come to us even in angelic form, only a very
few, the pure and thoughtful ever could have received it.
But it stooped to reveal itself to creatures through a creature, and
to come to us out of the heart of man in truly human form, so that all
men, Gentile or Jew, polished or savage, might through its perfect humanity
be able to receive it. God more than any of His most loving servants has
become a Jew to gain the Jews, and weak to gain the weak, and under law
to gain those under law; because He is love, and love must sacrifice itself,
if by any means it can save and bless others. If therefore men are in the
flesh, God comes to them in flesh; if they are in darkness and shadows,
God comes for them into the shadows; because they cannot comprehend the
light, and because the darkness and light are both alike to Him (Psa. cxxxix
12.).
If this is not the way of His revelation, how, I ask, has He ever revealed
Himself? Will any dare to say that He has not revealed Himself? Has God
who is love been content to leave poor man in perfect ignorance? Or if
He has told man what He is, as most surely He has, how has He done so? <page
16> Did He, does He, can He, plainly tell out to all what He is?
And if He did not, why did He not? Why have men always heard God first
speaking in law before a gospel dawned on them? Why must it be so, or at
least why does He allow it? Is it a mistake of His, which we must avoid,
when we attempt to make Him known; or shall we be wise, if, in doing what
He is doing, that is, in revealing Him, we imitate His way of revelation?
Surely from the days of Adam, seeing what man is, and our delusions about
Him, God must have desired, and we know has desired, to make Himself known;
and being Almighty, All-wise, and All-loving, surely He has taken the best
method of doing it. Again I ask, how has He done it, how must He do it,
man being what He is? Could God consistently with our salvation have done
it otherwise than it has been done? To shew Himself as He is would to man
be no shewing of Him. It was needful that He should shew Himself under
the forms and limitations of that creature in and to whom He sought to
reveal Himself, that is by shadows before light, by law before gospel,
by a letter before a quickening spirit, in a word, by the humiliation of
His eternal Word stooping to come out of mans heart and in human form.
And yet this could not be done without the Truth by its very humanity
laying itself open to the charge of being merely human and not divine,
and to the humiliation of being rejected for having our <page
17> infirmities upon it. Love can bear all this, and God is love,
and the truth can bear it, for truth must conquer all things. And therefore
while it submits to take a human form, in which it can be judged and die,
(for it must die, and to some of us has died, in the form we first apprehended
it,--a trial of faith sooner or later to be known by all disciples, who,
like apostles of old in the same strait, are sorely perplexed at this dying,
for they have trusted that this is He which should have redeemed Israel,--)
it must also live and rise again, and glorify that human form for ever.
But because it has stooped to come in human form, out of the heart of man,
even as Christ came forth from Mary, for us, therefore like Him it shall
be stripped and mocked. But those who are stripping it know not what they
do.
II. The Testimony of Scripture
I pass on now from the nature of Scripture to its teachings as to the
destiny of the human race, and more especially of those who here either
reject or never hear the gospel. I feel how solemn the enquiry is, not
only because no subject can be of greater moment, but because what appears
to me to be the truth differs from those conclusions which have been received
by the majority of Christians. Believing, however, that the Holy Scriptures,
under God and His Spirits teaching, is the final appeal in all controversies,--regarding
it as the unexhausted mine from <page 18>
whence the unsearchable riches of Christ have yet still more to be
dug out,--acknowledging no authority against its conclusions, and with
the deepest conviction that one jot and one tittle shall in no wise pass
from the law till all be fulfilled,--I turn to it on this as on every other
point, to listen and bow to its decisions. And knowing, for by grace this
Word is no stranger to me, that like Christs flesh it is a veil as well
as a revelation,--knowing that it has many things to say which we cannot
bear at first, and that, if taken partially or in the letter, it may appear
to teach what is directly opposed to Christs mind and to its true meaning;--in
this like not a few of Christs own words, as when He said, "He that hath
no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one;" (S. Luke xxii.36.) and
again, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;" (S.
John ii.19.) and again, "He that eateth me shall live by me;" (S. John
vi.57.) and again, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;"
(S. John xi.11.) all of which were misunderstood by not a few of those
who first heard these words from Christs own mouth; --knowing too that
the words of Holy Scripture, in many places where they seem contradictory,
and in its "dark sayings," (Psalm lxxviii, 2; Prov. i.6.) and "things hard
to be understood," (2 S. Pet. iii.16.) ever cover some deep and blessed
mystery, I see that the question is, not what this or that text, taken
by itself or in the letter, seems to say at first sight, but rather what
is the mind of God, and what <page 19>
the real meaning in His Word of any apparent inconsistency. If I
err in attempting to answer this, my error will, I trust, provoke some
better exposition of Gods truth. If what I see is truth, like His coming
who was the Truth, it must bring glory to God on high and on earth peace
and goodwill to men.
What then does Scripture say on this subject? Its testimony appears
at first sight contradictory. Not only is there on the one hand law, condemning
all, while on the other hand there is the gospel, with good news for every
one; but further there are direct statements as to the results of these,
which at first sight are apparently irreconcilable. First our Lord calls
His flock "a little flock," (S. Luke xii.32.) and states distinctly that
"many are called, but few are chosen;" (S. Matt. xx.16, and xxii.14.) that
"strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few
there be that find it;" (S. Matt. vii.14.) that "many shall seek to enter
in, and shall not be able;" (S. Luke xiii.24.) that while "he that believeth
on the Son hath everlasting life, he that believeth not the Son shall not
see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him;" (S. John iii. 36) that
"the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment," (S. Matt. xxv.
46) "prepared for the devil and his angels;" (S. Matt. xxv. 41.) "the resurrection
of <page 20> damnation;" (S. John
v. 29.) "the damnation of hell," (S. Matt. xxiii. 33.) "where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" (S. Mark ix. 44.) that though
"every word against the Son of Man may be forgiven, the sin against the
Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, neither in this world, nor in that which
is to come;" (S. Matt. xii. 32.) and that of one at least it is true, that
"good had it been for that man if he had not been born." (S. Matt. xxvi.
24.)
These are the words of Christ Himself, and they are in substance repeated
just as strongly by His Apostles. St. Paul declares that while some are
"saved" by the gospel, others "perish;" (2 Cor. ii. 15.) that "many walk
whose end is destruction;" (Phil. iii. 19.) that "the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God,
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished
with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the
glory of His power, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and
to be admired in all them that believe in that day." (2 Thess. i. 8-10)
To the Hebrews he says, "If we sin willfully after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which
shall devour the adversaries;" (Heb. x. 26,27.) that "it is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands of the living <page
21> God," (Heb. x. 31.) for "our God is a consuming fire." (Heb.
xii. 29.) St. Peter repeats the same doctrine, that "judgment must begin
at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be
of them that obey not the gospel of God; for if the righteous scarcely
be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (1 St. Pet. iv.
17,18) He further says of "false teachers," who "deny the Lord that bought
them," that they "shall bring upon themselves swift destruction," and,
like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, "shall utterly perish in their own
corruption." (2 S. Pet. ii. 1,3,6,12.) St. Johns words are at least as
strong, that "the fearful, and unbelieving, and murderers, and whoremongers,
and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their place in
the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death;"
(Rev. xxi. 8.) and that "those who worship the beast, and his image, shall
drink of the wine of the wrath of God, and shall be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the
Lamb, and they have no rest day and night, and the smoke of their torment
ascendeth up for ever and ever." (Rev. xiv.9,10,11.)
Words could not well be stronger. The difficulty is that all this is
but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very
different doctrine. For instance, there are first the words of God <page
22> Himself, repeated again and again by those same Apostles whom
I have just quoted, that "in Abrahams seed all the kindreds of the earth
shall be blessed;" (Gen. xii. 3; xxii. 18; Acts iii.25; Gal. iii. 8.) words
which St. Peter expounds to mean that there shall be "a restitution of
all things," adding that "God hath spoken of this by the mouth of all His
holy prophets since the world began." (Acts iii. 21.) St. Paul further
declares this wondrous "mystery of Gods will, that He hath purposed in
Himself, according to His good pleasure, to rehead and reconcile unto Himself,
in and by Christ, all things, whether they be things in heaven," that is
the spirit-world, where the conflict with Satan yet is, (Rev. xii. 7.)
"or things on earth," that is this outward world, where death now reigns,
and where even Gods elect are by nature children of wrath, even as other
men. (Eph. i. 9,10; Col. i. 20; Eph. ii. 3.)
Further St. Paul asserts that "all creation, which now groans, shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty
of the children of God." (Rom. viii. 19-23.)
In another place he declares, that "God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto Himself," (2 Cor. v. 19.) and that Christ "took our flesh and
blood, through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is,
the devil;" (Heb. ii. 14.) that "if by the offence of one many be dead,
much <page 23> more the grace of
God and the gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded
unto many:" (Rom. v. 15.) that "therefore as by the offence of one, or
by one offence, judgment came on all to condemnation, even so by the righteousness
of one, or by one righteousness, the free gift should come on all unto
justification of life," while "they which receive abundance of grace, and
of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ;"
(Rom. v. 17,18) that "as sin hath reigned unto death, so grace might reign
unto eternal life," yea, that "where sin abounded, grace did yet much more
abound." (Rom. v. 20,21.) To another church he states the same doctrine,
that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive;" (2
Cor. xv. 22.) and that "the end" shall not come "till all are subject to
Him," that "God may be," not all in some, but "all in all; for He must
reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet; the last enemy that
shall be destroyed is death." (1 Cor. xv. 24-28.) So he says again, "Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, . . . that in the
dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even
in Him." (Eph. i. 3-10.) To the same purpose he writes in another epistle,
"that at, [or in, (S. John xiv. 13,14; and xvi. 23,24.)] the name of Jesus, <page
24> (that is Saviour,) every knee shall bow, of things in heaven,
and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father;"
(Phil. ii. 10,11.) "for to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived,
that He might be Lord both of the dead and living." (Rom. xiv. 9.) He further
declares that "for this sake he suffers reproach, because he hopes in the
living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those who believe;"
(1 Tim. iv. 10.) that this God "will have all men to be saved, and to come
to the knowledge of the truth;" that therefore "thanksgivings as well as
prayers should be made for all," because there is "a ransom for all, to
be testified in due time;" (1 Tim. ii. 1-6.) and lastly that "God hath
concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all." (Rom. xi.
32.) The beloved Apostle St. John repeats the same doctrine, that "the
Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world;" (1 S. John iv. 14.)
for God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that
the world by Him might be saved;" (S. John iii. 17.) further he teaches
that the Only-Begotten Son "is the propitiation, not for our sins only,
but also for the sins of the whole world:" (1 S. John ii. 2.) that He is
"the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," (S. John i.
29.) and "was revealed for this very purpose that He might destroy the
works of the devil," (1 S. John iii. 8.) <page
25> and that, as a result, "there shall be no more death, nor sorrow,
nor pain, because all things are made new, and the former things are passed
away." (Rev. xxi. 4, 5; and see Rev. v. 13.) For "the Father loveth the
son, and hath given all things into His hand:" (S. John iii. 35.) and the
Son Himself declares, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me;
and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And
this is the Fathers will, which hath sent me, that of all which He hath
given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up on the last day."
(S. John vi. 37-39.) And again He says, "And I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men unto me." (S. John xii. 32.)
Now is not this apparent contradiction,--few finding the way of life,
and yet in Christ all made alive,--Gods elect a little flock, and yet all
the kindreds of the earth blessed in Abrahams seed,--mercy upon all, and
yet eternal punishment,--the restitution of all things, and yet eternal
destruction,--the wrath of God for ever, and yet all things reconciled
to Him,--eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and yet the
destruction through death, not of the works of the devil only, but of him
who has the power of death, that is the devil,--the second death and the
lake which burneth with fire, and yet no more death or curse, but all things
subdued by Christ, and God <page 26> all
in all. What can this contradiction mean? Is there any key, and if so,
what is it, to this mystery?
The common answer is, that these opposing words only mean, that some
are saved and some are lost for ever; that the saved are the elect of this
and other dispensations, who as compared with the world have hitherto been
but a little flock; but that, though as yet few have found the strait and
narrow way, all nations shall be saved in the Millennium; further that
though we read, "There shall be no more death," yet, since the wrath of
God is for ever, there must be eternal death, (words by the way not to
be found in all Scripture,) and that this death consists in never ending
torments, so endless that after the lapse of the ages on ages the punishment
of the wicked shall be no nearer its end than when it first commenced;
that therefore the words, "In Christ shall all be made alive," only mean
that all who are here in Christ shall be made alive; that the Lamb of God,
though willing to be, is not really the Saviour of the world, but only
of those who are not of the world, but chosen out of it; that instead of
taking away the sin of the world, He only takes away the sin of those who
here believe in Him; that all things therefore shall not be reconciled
to God, and that "the restitution of all things," whatever it may mean,
does not mean the reconciliation to God of all men.
This is the approved teaching of Christendom; this is the orthodox solution
of the mystery; the simple objection to which is, that in asserting one <page
27> side of Scripture, it is obliged, not only to ignore and deny
the other side, but to represent God in a character absolutely opposed
to that in which the gospel exhibits Him. Nor does it meet the difficulty
to say, as some have said, that though a large proportion of mankind are
lost for ever, the greater part will probably be saved, inasmuch as at
least one-half of the race die in infancy, whose sin is perfectly atoned
for by Christs sacrifice. What is this but saying, that, if evil has fair
play, it will overmatch all that God can do to meet and remedy it? Is this
indeed the glad tidings of great joy? Is this the glorious gospel of the
blessed God? Is it not simply a misapprehension of Gods purpose, arising
out of some mystery connected with the method of our redemption? But "the
Scripture cannot be broken" thus. (S. John x. 35.) Not a few therefore
have confessed that there is some difficulty here, which as yet they cannot
solve or reconcile. Is the mystery beyond our present light? Or is there
any, and if so, what is the key to it?
The truth which solves the riddle is to be found in those same Scriptures
which seem to raise the difficulty, and lies in the mystery of the will
of our ever blessed God as to the process and stages of redemption:--
(1) First, His will by some to bless and save others; by a first-born
seed, "the first born from the dead," (Col. i. 18.) to save and bless the
later-born:--
<page 28> (2) His will therefore to
work out the redemption of the lost by successive ages or dispensations,
or, to use the language of St. Paul, "according to the purpose of the ages:"
(Eph. iii. 11.)and
(3) Lastly, His will (thus meeting the nature of our fall,) to make
death, judgment, and destruction, the means and way to life, acquittal,
and salvation; in other words, "through death to destroy him that has the
power of death, that is the devil, and to deliver them who through fear
of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb. ii. 14.)
These truths throw a flood of light on Scripture, and enable us at once
to see order and agreement, where without this light there seems perplexing
inconsistency. We should of course get deeper views, if, instead of starting
from the fall, and merely asking what is declared as to its results and
remedy, we began with God, and enquired what He has revealed as to His
end in making man, and how far, if at all, His purpose in creation is or
has been frustrated in any way. Did the entrance of sin change or affect
Gods plan? Was redemption only an after-thought to meet an undersigned
or undesired difficulty? What was the object of the Incarnation? On what
grounds, and for what end, is judgment committed to the Son of Man? What
was intended to be accomplished by the first and second death? These are
questions which must meet us, if we think of God and of His thoughts, and
give Him credit for having had a <page
29> purpose in creation. Christ is the answer to them all; and His
Word contains, though under a veil, the perfect key to these and all mysteries;
though in His Word, as in His works, the open secret is unseen, and His
wisdom, as in the wondrous laws of light, may be all around us and yet
for ages undiscovered. For Gods sons still think it strange and even unbecoming
to enquire "what is the breadth and length and depth and height" of their
heavenly Fathers purpose. But for our present object we need not ask all
this. It is enough to begin with ourselves as fallen, and to enquire what
Scripture reveals as to the results of our fall, and of the remedy. We
shall see how Gods will, as witnessed, first in the "law of the first-fruits"
and "first-born," then in the "purpose of the ages," and lastly in the
mystery of "death" and "judgment," as it is opened by Christs cross and
resurrection, clears away all that looks like contradiction between "mercy
upon all" and yet "eternal judgment." By this light we see more fully Gods
purpose in Christ, and how He is "Saviour of all men, specially of those
that believe;" (1 Tim. iv. 10.) how "to those who overcome He will grant
to sit with Him on His throne," (Rev. iii. 21.) and make them partakers
of the first resurrection, are only brought to God by the resurrection
of judgment, that is by the judgments of the coming age or ages. But till
God opens, all is shut. A man can receive nothing <page
30> except it be given him from above. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear
hear, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God
hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them to us
by His Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things
of God. For who knoweth the things of man but the spirit of man which is
in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God."
(1 Cor. ii. 9-11.)
Let us look then in order at each of these three points:--
(1) First, the purpose of God by the first-fruits or first-born to save
and bless the later born.
This, which is in fact the substance of the gospel, like all Gods secrets,
comes out by degrees. Scarcely to be discerned, though contained, in the
first promise of the Womans Seed, (Gen. iii. 15.) it shines out brightly
in the covenant made with Abraham:--"In thy seed shall all the kindreds
of the earth be blessed;" (Gen. xxii. 18.) for the seed, in whom all the
kindreds of the earth are blessed, must be distinct from, and blessed prior
to, those nations to whom according to Gods purpose in due time it becomes
a blessing. This purpose is then revealed with fuller detail in the law
of the first-fruits and the first-born, (Rom. xi. 16.) though here the
veil of type and shadow hides from most the face of Moses. But in Christ
the purpose is unveiled for ever, and the mystery, by the first-born to
save <page 31> others, is by the
Holy Ghost made fully manifest. Christ, says the Apostle, is the promised
Seed, (Gal. iii. 16.) the First-born, (Col. i. 18.) and in and through
Him endless blessing shall flow down on the later-born.
Now Christ, as Paul shews, is first-born in a double sense. He is first-born
from above, first out of life, for He is the Only-Begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds; "for by Him were all tings created,
which are in heaven and which are in earth, visible and invisible, whether
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things
were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him
all things consist." (Col i. 15-17.) But He is more than this, for He is
also "first-born from the dead," first out of death, "that in all things
He might have the pre-eminence;" (Col i. 18.) and it is in this relation,
as first-born from the dead, that He is the head of the Church, and first-fruits
of the creature. All things are indeed of God, but it is no less true also
that all things are by man; as it is written, "Since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor. xv. 21.) Therefore
as by one first-born death came into this world, so by another first-born
shall it be for ever overthrown. Herein is love indeed, that the whole
remedy for sin shall come through one man, even as the sin did. Thus not
only is there salvation for man, but by man, for the Eternal Son is Son
of Man also; who by a birth <page 32> in
the flesh has come into our lot, that by another birth out of the grave
He might also be the first-born from the dead; and it is in virtue of this
relation that He fulfils for us all those offices which are included in
the word Redeemer. The law of Moses is most instructive here: for while
it is true that the letter of that law cannot be explained but by the gospel,
it is no less true that the gospel in its breadth and depth cannot be set
forth save by the figures of the law, each jot of which covers some blessed
mystery.
What then does the law teach us of this First-born from the dead; for
be it observed it is ever the first-born from the grave that the law speaks
of,--therefore the womans, not the mans, first-born, "the male which first
openeth the womb," (Exod. xiii.12; xxxiv.19; Numb. iii.12,13.) who might,
though not necessarily, be also the fathers first-born.
For the law, as made for sinners only, (1 Tim. i. 9.) needed not to
speak of the First-born as proceeding out of God, but only of the First-born
as raised up by Him out of the grave and barren womb of this present fallen
and unclean nature. According to the law, the First-born had the right,
though it might be lost, of being priest and king, that is of interceding
for and ruling over their younger brethren; (Exod. xiii. 2; xxiv. 5;
Numb. iii.12,13; viii 16; 1 Chron. v. 1, 2.) on him devolved the duty
of Goel or Redeemer, to redeem a brother who had waxen poor, and sold himself <page
33> unto a stranger; to avenge his blood, to raise up seed to the
dead, and to redeem the inheritance, if at any time it were lost or alienated.
(Lev. xxv. 47,48; Deut. xix. 4-12; Gen. xxxviii. 8; Deut. xxv. 5-10; Ruth
iv. 6-10; Lev. xxv. 25; Ruth ii. 20.) To sustain these duties God gave
him a double portion. (Deut. xxi. 17.) Need I point out how Christ fulfils
these particulars; how as first out of the grave, that "barren womb, which
cries, Give, give," (Prov. xxx. 15,16.) He is the First-born through whom
the blessing reaches us? In this sense no Christian doubts that Gods purpose
is by the First-born from the dead to save and bless the later-born.
But the truth goes further still, for there are others beside the Lord
who are both "first-born" and "Abrahams seed," who must therefore in their
measure share this same honour with and under Christ, and in whom, as "joint-heirs
with Him," (Rom. viii. 17.) the promise must be fulfilled, that in them
"all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen. xxii. 18.) This
glorious truth, though of the very essence of the gospel, which announces
salvation to the world through the promised seed of Abraham, is even yet
so little seen by many of Abrahams seed, that not a few of the children
of the promise speak and act as if Christ and His body only should be saved,
instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of saving others.
Even of the elect, few see that they are elect to the birthright, not to
be blessed only, <page 34> but to
be a blessing; as first-born with Christ to share the glory of kingship
and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger
and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, to raise up seed to
the dead, and in and through Christ, their life and head, to redeem their
lost inheritance. Thank God, if the elect know not their double portion,
God knows and keeps it for them, and will in due time, spite of their blindness,
fulfill His purpose in and by them. But surely it is a reproach to the
heirs, that they know not their Fathers purpose, and that through not knowing
it they bear so imperfect a testimony as to His good-will to all His fallen
creatures.
The whole old law beams with light upon this point, not only in its
ordinances and appointments as to the first-born and their double portion,
but also in the details of the oblation of the first-fruits, which is only
another aspect and presentation of the same mystery. The seed of nature
figures the seed of grace, and the first-fruits of the one are but the
shadow of the other, that "seed of the kingdom" which is first ripe for
heaven, ripened by the true Sun (Psa. lxxxiv. 11.) and Light (S. John viii.
12.) and Air, (S. John iii. 8.) of which the sun and light and air of present
nature in all their wondrous workings are the silent but ceaseless witnesses.
The type is very full and striking here; for the law, which required the
first-fruits, speaks of a double first-fruits. (Lev. xxiii. 10, 17.)
<page 35> The first, the sheaf or handful
of unleavened ears, the first to spring up out of the dark and cold earth,
which lay the shortest time under its darkness, soonest ripe to be a sacrifice
on Gods altar, was offered at the first great feast of the year, the feast
of unleavened bread, which is the Passover. (Lev. xxiii. 10, 11; S. Luke
xxii. 1.) The other, which are also called "first-fruits," were offered
in the form of leavened cakes, fifty days later at Pentecost. (Lev. xxiii.
17.) Both in the law are distinctly called "first-fruits," though they
are distinguished by a separate name, the ears at Passover being called
Rashith, the leavened cakes at Pentecost, Bicourim;
(NOTE: Rashith, or "the beginning," the title
given in the law to the Paschal first-fruits, is the very word used by
St. Paul of Christ in the passage already quoted,--"He is the head of the
body, the Church, who is the beginning, the first-born from the
dead," &c.Col. i. 18. )
to which the gospel exactly agrees, saying, "Christ the First-fruits,"
(1 Cor. xv. 23.) and "we a kind of first-fruits:"
(S. James i. 18. See also Rev. xiv. 4.) Christ "the First-born," (Col.
i. 18.) and we "the church of the first-born;" (Heb. xii. 23.) words which
carry with them blessings unspeakable, "for if the first-fruit be holy,
the lump is also holy," (Rom. xi. 16.) the offering of the first-fruits
to God being accepted as the sanctification and consecration of the whole
coming harvest.
Need I say Christ is the Paschal first-fruits and first-born. The day
of His resurrection was the very <page
36> day of the offering of the first first-fruits.
(NOTE: These first first-fruits were offered
"on the morrow after the Sabbath" after the Passover, (Lev xxiii. 11,)
that is the very day "the first day of the week," on which Christ rose
from the dead. I may, perhaps, add here, for it is most noteworthy, that
in 2 Sam. xxi. 9, we are told that "all the seven sons of Saul fell together
in the days of harvest, in the first day, in the beginning of barley harvest;"
that is they fell on the day of the first first-fruits. The books of Kings,
where this is recorded, are the books of Rule shewing out in mystery all
the forms of Rule under which Gods elect have been either in bondage or
liberty. The first form of rule is Saul, whose name means Death or Hell.
He is the figure of the rule under which we are at first, while "death
reigns" by Gods appointment. (Rom. v. 14, 17.) All his seven sons, that
is, the fruits of death, fall in one day, under the reign of David, that
is the Beloved; that one day being the sacred day of the Paschal first-fruits,
the day of Christs resurrection.)
But who are those, who, as leavened bread, share the honour with and under
Him of being the Pentecostal first-fruits? Who with Christ and through
Christ are Abrahams seed?
First, the Jew is Abrahams seed,--"the people that dwell alone, and
are not reckoned among the nations;" (Numb. xxiii. 9.) and though "all
are not Israel who are of Israel," (Rom. ix. 6.) Scripture will indeed
be broken, if Israel is not again grafted in; when, if the casting away
of them has been the riches of the world, the receiving of them, as St.
Paul says, shall be life from the dead. (Rom. xi. 15.) "Israel is my son,
my first-born, saith the Lord." (Exod. iv. 22.) All nations, therefore,
shall yet be blessed in them. They are indeed only the earthly first-born,
but as first-born, though of the <page
37> least-loved wife, they must in their own sphere possess the double
blessing; (Deut. xxi. 15, 16.) being not blessed only, but made blessings
to the nations, whose conversion the Church is rightly looking for, but
whom the Church shall not convert; for the conversion of the nations is
already promised to Israel, who, dwellers among all nations, yet not of
them, are even now being trained and prepared for this, and who at their
conversion, converted like Paul, who is their type,
(NOTE: 1 Tim. i. 16; literally, "for a type
of those who shall hereafter believe." Paul is not a type of "the first
trusters in Christ," (see Eph. i. 12,) that is of believers now, but of
"those who shall hereafter believe," when Christ reveals Himself in glory;
and his peculiar experience, for he was "as one born out of due time,"
(1 Cor. xv. 8,) as well as his conversion in an extraordinary way by a
sight of Christs glory, were earnests and figures of what should be wrought
in Israel, who shall be converted to Christ in a similar and no less sudden
manner. Isa. lxvi. 8, 12, 18, 19.)
not by the knowledge of Christ in humiliation, but by the revelation of
His heavenly glory, shall like Paul become apostles to the Gentiles, "priests
to the Lord and ministers to our God," (Exod. xix. 6; Isa. lxi. 6.) to
all upon the earth.
(NOTE: Very wonderful
is the statement in the Song of Moses, (Deut. xxxii. 8,) addressed both
to the heavens and earth, which declares that, "when the Most High divided
to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He
set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of
Israel." Now the number of the children of Israel, when they went down
to Egypt, was seventy; (Gen. xlvi. 27; Exod. i. 5; Deut. x. 22;) and, answering
to this, in Gen. x., which gives the account of the peoples to whom the
earth was divided after the flood, we read of seventy heads of nations.
Surely there is a secret here, connected with Christs mission of the Seventy,
which was distinct from and followed the mission of the Apostolic Twelve,
by whom and under whom the Church is gathered out. See S. Luke x. 1.
<page 38> But (and this concerns us) the
Church is also Abraham's seed; for, as St. Paul says, "If you be Christ's
you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal. iii.
29) To the Church therefore belongs the same promise, as first-fruits with
Christ, not to be blessed only, but to be a blessing, in its own heavenly
and spiritual sphere. For if the Jew on earth shall be a "kingdom of priests,"
what is our hope but to be heavenly "kings and priests," (Rev. i. 6,10)
as "kings," for the Lord shall say, "Be thou over five cities," to rule
and order in the coming age what requires order; not only with Christ to
"judge the world," (1 Cor. vi. 2.) but to be "equal unto the angels" and
to "judge angels;" as "priests," for a priest is "for those out of the
way," (Heb. v. 2.) to minister to those who yet are out of the way. This
is the Church's calling, to do Christ's works, as He said, "He that believeth
on me, the works that I do shall he do also;" with Him to be both prophet,
priest and king, and this, not here only in these bodies of humiliation,
but when changed in His presence to bear His image and do His works with
Him. Christ barely entered on His priestly work till He had passed through
death <page 39> and judgment; (Heb.
iv. 14; vii. 15-17; viii. 4, 6.) so with those who are Christ's, their
death and resurrection shall only introduce them to fuller and wider service
to lost ones, over whom the Lord shall set them as priests and kings, until
all things are restored and reconciled unto Him. It is, alas, too true
that of the Church's sons, some like Esau shall sell their birthright for
some present good thing, and that in this age as in the last some of the
children of the kingdom shall be cast out, while others from the east and
from the west press in and win the crown and kingdom; yet an elect first-born
shall surely be preserved, who are sealed to this pre-eminence, to be priests
to God and rulers of their brethren.
To whom, I ask, shall the Church after death be priests? Shall it be
to that great mass of our fellow men, who have departed hence in ignorance?
Shall it be to "spirits in prison," such as those to whom after His death
Christ Himself once preached?
(NOTE: 1 S. Pet. iii. 18-20. This passage,
I know, is called "difficult," that is, it is one which it is hard and
even impossible fairly to reconcile with the views called Orthodox. The
words, however, are not difficult. They distinctly assert that our Lord
went and preached to the spirits in prison, who once had been disobedient
in the days of Noah. The "difficulty" is the Protestant orthodoxy has decided
that there can be no message of mercy to any after death. Protestant commentators
therefore have attempted to evade the plain statements of this Scripture,
and their forced and unnatural interpretations shew how very strong the
passage is against them. Any one who wishes to see a summary of these interpretations
may find them collected in Alfred's Greek Testament, in loco. His
own comment is as follows;--"I understand these words to say, that our
Lord, in his disembodied state, did go to the place of detention of departed
spirits, and did there announce His work of redemption, preach salvation,
in fact, to the disembodied spirits of those who refused to obey the voice
of God, when the judgment of the flood was hanging over them." The fact,
that in the Prayer-book these verses are appointed to be read as the Epistle
for Easter Even, that is for the day after the crucifixion, and before
the resurrection of our Lord, shews plainly enough the judgment of the
English Church as to the true sense and interpretation of this passage.
The Early Fathers, almost without exception, understand it to speak of
Christ's descent into Hades. )
Shall not His saints, made like Him, do the same works, still following
Him, <page 40> and with Him being
priests to God? Will not their glory be to rule and feed and enlighten
and clothe those who are committed to them, even as Christ has fed and
clothed them? For He is "King of kings and Lord of lords," (1 Tim. vi.15.)
words which indicate the many kings and rulers under Him, of whom He is
head, and whom He makes heads to others.
I should perhaps be going beyond my measure were I to follow in detail
all that the law says further as to the first-fruits and the first-born;
but I may add here, that this same truth, that the first-blessed must save
others, is set forth, though in a slightly different form, in the kindred
law of redemption touching the firstlings of beasts, whether clean or unclean.
The lamb redeems the ass. (Exod. viii. 12,13.) So it must be. The clean
are called, and content, to be sacrifices. For the law of redemption, which
is the law of love, if this, that they who are first redeemed and blessed
must bless others. And this is their joy, <page
41> to be like Christ, that is to be channels of blessing to viler,
weaker souls. For all higher and elder beings serve the lower and younger.
The first-born therefore must serve and save others. Their calling is to
be, like Christ, channels of blessing and life to thousands of later-born.
Such glories are in store, to be revealed when the two leavened cakes
of first-fruits, then completed, shall together be offered up, in that
great coming Pentecost, of which the fiery tongues of old, and the rushing
wind, in the upper room were but the type and earnest; when the elect,
Christ's mystic body, being raised with Him, the Head not born alone, but
all the members with it, the Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh,
and, the first-fruits being safe, the harvest, already sanctified by the
first-fruits, shall all begin to be gathered in. Oh glorious day, when
our Lord and Head shall give of His treasure to His first-born, that they
may with Him redeem all lands and all brethren; (Lev. xxv. 25, 47, 48)
when with Him they shall judge their captive brethren, who through their
unbelief have lost their own inheritance.
Then shall the laver be multiplied into "ten lavers," (compare Exod.
xxx.18, which speaks of the wilderness, with 1 Kings vii. 38,39 which describes
the far larger provision made for cleansing in the glorious reign of the
Man of Peace, the true Son of David.) till the water of life become a "sea
of crystal," large enough even for Babylon the great to sink into it, and
to be found <page 42> no more at
all for ever. Then shall the elect "run to and fro as sparks among the
stubble;" (Wisdom iii. 7, 8) and as all sparks or seeds of light, though
they may come forth at long intervals from one another, are yet congenial,
if they have come out of a common root,--as they can not only mingle rays
with rays and embrace each other, but in virtue of a common nature have
the same power of consuming and purifying that they come in contact with,--so
shall Christ's members judge the world with Him, and consume the evil with
that same fire which Christ came to cast into the earth, and with which
He is yet pledged to baptize all nations. For our Lord, who gave Himself,
with Himself will give us all things, grudging His children nothing of
that inheritance He has obtained for them.
Here then is the key to one part of the apparent contradiction between
"mercy for all," and yet "the election" of a "little flock;" between "all
the kindreds of the earth blessed in Christ," and yet a "strait and narrow
way" and "few finding it." Here is the answer to the question, "Wilt thou
shew wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise thee? Shall thy
loving-kindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in destruction?
Shall thy wonders be known in the dark, and thy righteousness in the land
of forgetfulness?" (Psa. lxxxviii. 1-12.) The first-born and first-fruits
are the "few" and "little <page 43> flock;"
but these, though first delivered from the curse, have a relation to the
whole creation, which shall be saved in the appointed times by the first-born
seed, that is by Christ and His body, through those appointed baptisms,
whether by fire or water, which are required to bring about "the restitution
of all things." St. Paul expressly declares this when He says, "Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,...that in the dispensation
of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ,
both which are in heaven and which are in the earth, even in Him." (Eph.
i. 3-10...the same doctrine is stated in almost the same words in Eph.
ii. 4-7) The Church, like Christ its Head, is itself a great sacrament;
"an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace given unto
men; ordained by God Himself, as a means whereby they may receive the same,
and a pledge to assure them thereof;" and "blessing" of the elect, "with
all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ," is but the means
and pledge, as the Apostle says, of wider blessing; the means by which
"in the dispensation of the fulness of times" God designs to "gather together
in one all things in Christ, whether they be things which are in heaven
or which are in earth, even in Him;" and the pledge that He both can and
will do it, as He has already done it in some of the <page
44> weakest and worst; for "God hath chosen the base things of the
world, yea and things which are not;" (1 Cor. i. 27, 28.) to shew to all
that there are none so weak but He can save, and none so vile, but He can
change and cleanse them. Thus when "He comes with ten thousands of His
saints," He will not only by them "convince all ungodly sinners of all
their hard speeches, which they have spoken against Him;" (S. Jude 14,15)--for
if the thief be saved, and the Magdalene changed, who shall dare to say
that the lost are uncared for or beyond the reach of God's salvation;--but
He will by them also, as His royal priests, joint-heirs with Christ, fulfill
all that priestly work of judgment and purification by fire, which must
be accomplished that all may be "subdued" (1 Cor. xv. 28) and "reconciled."
(Col. i. 20) To say that God saves only the first-born would be, if it
may be said, to make Him worse than even Moloch, whose slaves devoted only
their first-born to the flames, founding this dreadful rite upon the true
tradition that the sacrifice of a first-born should redeem the rest; a
requirement, tender, as compared with that which some ascribe to the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus, who, according to their view, accepts the
elect or first-born only, and leaves the rest to torments endless and most
agonizing. The gospel of God tells us of better things, of a sacrifice
indeed, even of God's Only-Begotten Son, who <page
45> because we were dead, came into our death to quicken us, who
took on Him the darkness, and death, and curse, which bound and would have
forever held us, and broke through it in the power of His eternal life,
not only reconciling us by His blood, but also shewing us by His death
the way out of the bondage of sin and this world, and who having thus in
His own person, as Man, broken through death, gives Himself now to as many
as will receive and follow Him, that in and by His life they also in the
same path may come forth as first-fruits and first-born from the dead with
Him. But Scripture never says that these only shall be saved, but rather
that "in this seed," whose portion as the first-born is double, (Deut.
xxi. 17) "all kindreds of the earth shall be blessed."
I fear that the elect, instead of bearing this witness, have too often
ignored and even contradicted it. And yet the fact, that the Church for
many hundred years has had an All-Souls Day as well as an All-Saints Day
in her calendar is itself a witness that she may have been teaching far
more than some of her sons as yet have learnt from her. For why did the
Church ordain a celebration for All-Souls as well as for All-Saints, but
because, spite of her children's contradictions, she believed that like
her Lord she is truly linked to all, and with Him is ordained at last to
gather all. And why does All-Souls Day follow All-Saints, (November 1st
is All-Saints Day: November. 2nd, All-Souls.) but to declare
that <page 46> All-Saints should
reach All-Souls, going before them indeed, yet going before to be a blessing
to them. For indeed All Saints are to All Souls as the first-born to their
younger brethren, elect to be both kings and priests to them; or as the
first-fruits to the harvest, the pledge of what is to come, if not also
the means to bring it about in due season. I know of course, that, through
the abuse of masses for the dead, All-Souls Day has since the Reformation
been dropped out of the calendar of our English Church. I neither judge
nor defend our Reformers for what they did in a time of very great difficulty.
I only say that the truth once taught by All-Souls Day, if ever a truth,
must be a truth for all generations. And I thank God that the Church had,
and yet has, such a day; and that, if not with English saints now living,
yet "with all saints," as the Apostle says, "we may be able to comprehend
the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with (or into) all the fulness
of God." (Eph. iii. 19.) And in faith of that love and fulness I look for
the day when All-Souls shall become the inheritance and prize and glory
of All-Saints, who by grace have gone before them.
Our knowledge however of this or any other mystery will serve us nothing,
yea be far worse than nothing, if, instead of running for the prize which <page
47> the Gospel sets before us, we sit down content merely to understand
how the apparent contradictions of Scripture can be reconciled. Not so
do the first-born win the prize. Christ has shewn the way, and there is
no other. He died to live--He suffered to reign--He humbled Himself; therefore
God hath greatly exalted Him. (Phil. ii. 8, 9) If we be dead with Him,
we shall live with Him,--if we suffer, we shall reign with Him, (2 Tim.
ii. 11, 12.)--joint-heirs with Christ, if so be we suffer with Him, that
we may be glorified together. (Rom. viii. 17.) Only by the cross can the
change be wrought in us, which conforms us to Christ and His image,--which
makes us, like Him, lambs for the slaughter, (Rom. viii. 36.) and as such
fitted to bless and serve others. And as corn does not grow by any thinking
of the process; as gold is not melted by any speculation of the nature
of the fire, but by being cast into it; so the change required is only
wrought in us through the baptism of fire, which is so sharp that even
the blessed Paul could say, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we are of all men most miserable," (1 Cor. xv. 19) a trial very different
from that of the mass of professors, who suffer no more than the common
lot of humanity. And indeed so narrow is the way, and so strait is the
gate, that leadeth to the life and glory of the first-born, who "follow
the Lamb withersover He goeth; (Rev. xiv. 4) so entire is the loss and
renunciation of the things dear to the <page
48> old man, whose will is entranced by the things that are seen
and temporal; so bitter is the cross that few can bear it, and pass willingly
through the fires which must be passed to win that "high calling." (Phil.
iii. 8-14) Here is the patience of the saints, to bear that fire in and
by which the old Adam is dissolved and slain, out of which they rise, through
"blood and fire and pillars of smoke," that is the Pentecostal offering,
(Acts ii. 19) as sacrifices to God, to stand as kings and priests before
Him.
(2) I pass on to shew that God's purpose, by the first-born from the
dead to bless the later-born,--as it is written, "So in Christ shall all
be made alive,"--is fulfilled in successive worlds or ages, or to use the
language of St. Paul, "according to the purpose of the ages," (Eph. iii.
11.) so that the dead are raised, not all together, but "Every man in his
own order--Christ the first-fruits--afterwards they that are Christ's at
His
coming;" (1 Cor. xv. 23) which latter resurrection, though after Christ's,
is yet called "the resurrection from among the dead," (Phil. iii. 11.),
or "the first resurrection." (Rev. xx. 5).
Now it is simply a matter of fact, that Christ, the first of the first-fruits,
through whom all blessing reaches us, rose from the dead eighteen hundred
years ago, while the Church of the first-born, who are also called first-fruits,
(James i. 18; Rev. xiv. 4) will not be gathered <page
49> till the great Pentecost. Some are therefore freed from death
before others; and even of the first-fruits, the Head of the body, as in
every proper birth, is freed before the other members. So far it is clear
that this purpose of God is wrought, not at once, but through successive
ages. But this fact gives a hint of further mysteries, and some key to
the "ages of ages," which we read of in the New Testament, during which
the lost are yet held by or under death and judgment, while the saints
share Christ's glory, as heirs of God, in subduing all things unto Him.
The fall here gives us some shadow of the restoration.
For just as in Adam, all do not come out of him or die at once, but
descend from or through each other, and die generation after generation,
though all fell and died, as part of him, and therefore partakers of his
sad inheritance; so in Christ, though all have been made alive in Him by
His resurrection, all are not personally brought into His life and light
at once, but one after another, and the first-born before the later-born,
according to God's good pleasure and eternal purpose.
The key here as elsewhere is to be found in the details of that law,
of which "no jot or tittle shall pass till all be fulfilled;" (Matt. v.
18) the appointed "times and seasons" of which, one and all, are the types
or figures of the "ages" of the New Testament; for there is nothing in
the gospel, the figure of which is <page
50> not in the law, nor anything in the law, the substance of which
may not be found under the gospel; God's once oppressed and captive Israel
being the vessel, in and by which He would shew out His purpose of grace
and truth to other lost ones.
Observe, then, not only that the first-fruits are gathered, some at
the feast of the Passover, and others not till Pentecost, while the "feast
of ingathering," is not held until the seventh month, "in the end of the
year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field;" (Exod.
xxiii. 16; Lev. xxiii. 39; Deut. xvi. 13.) but how no less distinctly both
cleansing and redemption are ordained to take effect at different times
and seasons. I refer to those mystic periods of "seven days," (Lev. xii.
2; xiii. 5, 21, 26; xiv. 8, &c.) "seven weeks," (Lev. xxiii. 15.) "seven
months," (Lev. xvi. 29; xxiii. 24; Numb. xxix. 1.) "seven years," (Lev.
xxv. 4; Deut. xv. 9, 12.) and the "seven times seven years," (Lev. xxv.
8, 9.) which last complete the Jubilee, which are all different times for
cleansing and blessing men,--the former of which are figures of "the ages,"
the last, of "the ages of ages," in the New Testament; under which last
blessed appointment all those who had lost their inheritance, and could
not go free, as some did, at the Sabbatic year of rest, might at length,
after the "times of times," that is the "seven times seven years," regain
what had been lost, and find full deliverance.
For in the Sabbatic <page 51> year
the release was for Israel only, not for foreigners; (Deut. xv. 1, 3) while
in the Jubilee, liberty was to be proclaimed to all the inhabitants of
the land. (Lev. xxv. 10.) What is there in the ordinary gospel of this
day, which in the least explains or fulfills these various periods, in
and through which were wrought successive cleansings and redemptions, not
of persons only, but of their lost inheritance? And if in the gospel, as
now preached, no truth is found corresponding with these figures of the
Law, is it not a proof that something is at least overlooked? God knows
how much is overlooked from neglect of those Scriptures, which Saint Paul
tells us are needed, "to make the man of God perfect," (2 Tim. iii. 16,
17) but which by others are openly despised, and by others are neglected,
as the useless shadows of a by-gone dispensation. In them is the key, under
a veil perhaps, of those "ages" and "ages of ages," during which so many
are debtors and bondsmen under judgment, without their true inheritance.
And though indeed it is true, that "it is not for us to know the times
and the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power," (Acts i.
7.) it is yet given us to know that there are such times and seasons, and
in knowing it to gain still wider views of the "manifold wisdom of God,"
and of the "unsearchable riches of Christ," our Lord and Saviour.
It would far exceed my measure to attempt to shew how the law in all
its "times" figured the <page 52> gospel
"ages." But I may give one more example to prove, that in cleansing, as
in giving deliverance, Gods method is to accomplish the end through appointed
seasons, which vary according to a fixed rule,--I refer to the different
periods prescribed for the purification of a woman on the birth of a male
or a female child. (Lev. xii. 1-5. A similar distinction of times is to
be seen in the cleansing of the leper; Lev. xiv. 7, 8, 9, 10, 20; and of
those who were unclean by the dead; Numb. xix. 12.) If a son is born, she
is unclean in the blood of her separation seven days, after which she is
in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days, making in all forty
days; but if she bear a maid child, she is unclean for twice seven days,
and in the blood of her purifying six and sixty days, in all eighty days;
that is double the time she is unclean for a man child. For the woman is
our nature, which if it receive seed, that is the word of truth, may bring
forth a son, that is "the new man;" in which case nature, or the mother,
which brings it forth, is only unclean during the seven days of this first
creation, and then in the blood of purifying till the end of the forty
days, which always figure this dispensation; (The number "forty," wherever
found in Scripture, always points to the period of this dispensation, as
the time of trial or temptation; e.g. Gen. vii. 1; Exod. xxiv. 18;
Ezek. iv. 6; Deut. xxv. 2, 3; S. Mark i. 13; Exod. xvi. 35; Numb. xiv.
33; 2 Sam. v. 4; 1 Kings xi. 42; Acts i. 3; and xiii. 21, &c.) for
wherever Christ is formed in us, there is the hope that even "our vile
body" shall be cleansed, when we reach the end of this present <page
53> dispensation. But if, instead of bearing this "new man," our
nature only bear its like, a female child, that is fruits merely natural,
then it is unclean for a double period, till twice seven days and twice
forty pass over it. Here as elsewhere the veil will I fear hide from some
what is yet revealed as to the varying times when cleansing may be looked
for; but even the natural eye can see that two different times are here
described; and those who receive this as the Word of God will perhaps believe
that there is some teaching here, even if they cannot understand it. Those
too, who believe that the Church was divinely guided in the order and appointment
of the Christian Year, ought surely to consider what is involved in the
fact that the purification of the woman after forty days is kept as one
of the Churchs holy days, under the title of "The Purification of St. Mary."
(Forty days after Christmas, that is on Feb. 2.) The Church of course reckons
among her greatest days the conception and birth of that New and Anointed
Man, who by almighty grace and power is brought forth out of our fallen
human nature; but she does not forget to mark also the cleansing according
to law, at the end of the mystic forty days, of that weak nature into which
the Eternal Word has come, and out of which the New Man springs. There
is like teaching in every time and season of the law, and its days and
years figure the "ages" of the New Testament.
<page 54> The prophets repeat the same
teaching, still further opening out this part of Gods purpose, in a later
age to visit those who are rejected in an earlier one, and so to work through
successive worlds or ages. Thus though at the time they wrote Moab and
Ammon were under a special curse, and cut off from the congregation of
Israel, according to the words, "Thou shalt not seek their peace or prosperity
for ever," and again, "Even to the tenth generation shall they not enter
into the congregation of the Lord for ever; (Deut. xxiii. 3, 6.) in obedience
to which law both Ezra and Nehemiah put away, not only the wives which
some Israelites had taken from these nations, but also the children born
of them; (Ezra. x. 2, 3, 44; Neh. xiii. 1, 23, 25, 30.) though the prophets
further declare the judgment of these nations, that "Moab shall be destroyed,"
(Jer. xlviii. 42.) and "Ammon shall be fuel for fire, and be no more remembered;"
(Ezek. xxi. 28, 32.) yet they declare also that "in the latter days the
Lord shall bring again the captivity of Moab and of the children of Ammon."
(Jer. xlviii. 47, and xlix. 6.) Similar predictions are made respecting
Egypt and Assyria, (Isa. xix. 21, 25.) Elam, (Jer. xlix. 39.) Sodom and
her daughters,
(NOTE: Ezek. xvi. 53, 55. Compare with this
S. Jude 7, where we are told that Sodom is "suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire." And yet of this very "Sodom and her daughters" the prophet
declares, that they shall "return to their former estate.")
and other nations, who in the age of the <page
55> prophets were "strangers to the covenants of promise, having
no hope, and without God in this world," who yet are called to "rejoice
with Gods people," (Deut. xxxii. 43; Rom. xv. 10.) and of whom even now
an election, "though sometime far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ."
(Eph. ii. 12, 13.) These nations in the flesh were enemies, and as such
received the doom of old Adam; yet for them also must there be hope in
the new creation, according to the promise, "Behold, I make all things
new." (Rev. xxi. 5.) For Christ, who, "being put to death in the flesh,
but quickened in spirit, went in spirit and preached to the spirits in
prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of
God waited in the days of Noah," (1 S. Pet. iii. 18-20.) is "Jesus Christ,
(that is Anointed Saviour,) the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."
(NOTE: Heb. xiii. 8. I may perhaps add here,
that to me the scene recorded in S. Matt. viii. 28-34, and in the parallel
passages of the other Evangelists, is most significant. Our Lord calls
His disciples to "pass over to the other side," and there heals "the man
possessed with devils, who had his dwelling among the tombs, exceeding
fierce, whom no man could bind, no, not with chains." Christ not only heals
all forms of disease in Israel, but casts out devils also on the other
side of the deep waters.)
Such is the light which the law and prophets give us as to Gods purpose
of salvation through successive ages. But even creation and regeneration,
both works of the same God, tell no less clearly, though more secretly,
the same mystery. God in each shews <page
56> how he works, not in one act, but by degrees, through successive
days or seasons. In creation each day had its own work, to bring back some
part of the creature, and one part before another, from emptiness and confusion,
to light and form and order. All things do not appear at once. Much is
unchanged, even after "light" and a "heaven" are formed upon the first
and second days. (Gen. i. 4-8.) But these first works act on all the rest,
for by Gods will this "heaven" is a fellow-worker with Gods Word in all
the change which follows, till the whole is "very good."
(NOTE: The firmament was called "heaven,"
or "the arrangers," because it is an agent in arranging things on
earth. "This appellation was first given by God to the celestial fluid
or air, when it began to act in disposing or arranging the earth and
waters. And since that time the heavens have been the great agents
in disposing
all material things in their places and orders, and
thereby producing all those wonderful effects which are attributed to them
in Scripture, but which it has been of late years the fashion to ascribe
to attraction, gravitation, &c."Parkhurst, sub voce.)
What is this but the very truth of the first-born serving the later-born?
So in the process of our regeneration, there is a quickening, first
of our spirits, then of our bodies, the quickening of our spirits being
the pledge and earnest that the body also shall be delivered in its season.
(Eph. i. 13, 14; Rom. viii. 11.) What a witness to Gods most blessed purpose;
for our spirit is to our body what the spiritual are to this world. And
just as the quickening of our spirit must in due time bring about a quickening
even of our dead and vile bodies; <page
57> so surely shall the quickening and manifestation of the sons
of God end in saving those earthly souls who are not here quickened. Thus
does the microcosm foretell the fate of the macrocosm, even as the macrocosm
is full of lessons for the microcosm.
But even had we not this key, the language of the New Testament, in
its use of the word which our Translators have rendered "for ever" and
"for ever and ever," but which is literally "for the age," or "for the
ages of ages," points not uncertainly to the same solution of the great
riddle, though as yet the glad tidings of the "ages to come" have been
but little opened out. The epistles of St. Paul will prove that the "ages"
are periods, in which God is gradually working out a purpose of grace,
which was ordained in Christ before the fall, and before those "age-times,"
(2 Tim. i. 9; Tit. i. 2.) in and through which the fall is being remedied.
So we read, that "Gods wisdom was ordained before the ages to our glory,"
(1 Cor. ii. 7.) that is, that God had a purpose before the ages out of
the very fall to bring greater glory both to Himself and to His fallen
creature; then we are told distinctly of the "purpose of the ages," (Eph.
iii. 11; translated, in our Authorized Version, "the eternal purpose.")
shewing that the work of renewal would only be accomplished through successive
ages. Then we read, that "by the Son, God <page
58> made the ages," (Heb. i. 2; and xi. 3.) for it was by what the
Eternal Word uttered and revealed of Gods mind in each successive age that
each such age became what it distinctly was; each age, like each day of
creation, being different from another by the form and measure in which
the Word of God was uttered or revealed in it, and therefore also by the
work effected in it, the work in each successive age, as in different days
of creation, being wrought first in one measure, then in another, first
in one part, then in another, of the lapsed creation. Then again we read
of the "mystery which has been hidden from the ages," (Eph. iii. 9.) and
again that "the mystery," (for he repeats the words,) "which hath been
hid from ages and generations, is now made manifest to the saints, to whom
God hath willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery;
which is, Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Col. i. 26.) In another place
the Apostle speaks of "glory to God in the church by Christ Jesus, unto
all generations of the age of ages." (Eph. iii. 21.) He further says, that
Christ is set "far above all principality, and power, and every name that
is named, not only in this age, but in the coming one;" (Eph. i. 21.) and
again, that "now once in the end of the ages He hath appeared to put away
sin by the sacrifice of Himself;" (Heb. ix. 26.) and that on us "the ends
of the ages <page 59> are met;" (1
Cor. x. 11.) words which plainly speak of some of the ages as past, and
seem to imply that other ages are approaching their consummation. Lastly,
he speaks of "the ages to come," in which God will "shew the exceeding
riches of His grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus."
(NOTE: Eph. ii. 4-7. I may add here that in
all the following passages aion is used for this present or some
other limited age or dispensation:--S. Matt. xii. 32; xiii. 39, 40; xxiv.
3; S. Luke xvi. 8; xx. 34, 35; Rom. xii. 2; 1 Cor. i. 20; ii. 6, 8; iii.
18; 2 Cor. iv. 4; Gal. i. 4; Eph. i. 21; ii. 2; vi. 12; 1 Tim. vi. 17;
2 Tim. iv. 10; Tit. ii. 12.)
Now what is this "purpose of the ages," which St. Paul speaks of, but of
which the Church in these days seems to know, or at least says, next to
nothing? I have already anticipated the answer. The "ages" are the fulfillment
or substance of the "times and seasons" of the Sabbatic year and Jubilee
under the old law. They are those "times of refreshment from the presence
of the Lord, when He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached;"
(Acts iii. 19.) and when, in due order, liberty and cleansing will be obtained
by those who now are without their rightful inheritance. In the "ages,"
and in no other mystery of the gospel, do we find those "good things to
come," of which the legal times and seasons were the shadow." (Heb. x.
1.) Of course, as some of these "ages" are "to come," <page
60> being indeed the "times and seasons which the Father hath put
in His own power," (Acts i. 7.) we can as yet know little of their distinctive
character, except that, as being the ages in which God is fulfilling His
purpose in Christ, we may be assured their issue must be glorious. Yet
they are constantly referred to in the New Testament, and the book of the
Revelation more than any other speaks of them, (Rev. i. 6, 18; iv. 9, 10;
v. 13, 14; vii. 12; x. 6; xi, 15; xiv. 11; xv. 7; xix. 3; xx. 10; xxii.
5.) for this book opens out the processes and stages of the great redemption,
which make up the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gives Him; and this
Revelation is not accomplished in one act, but through the "ages" and "ages
of ages," foreshadowed by the "times" and "times of times" of the old law,
the "age-times," again to use the language of St. Paul, in which the Lord
is revealed as meeting the ruin of the creature. And the reason why we
sometimes read of "ages," and sometimes of "the age," when both seem to
refer and speak of the same one great consummation, is, that the various
"ages" are but the component parts of a still greater "age," as the seven
Sabbatic years only made up one Jubilee. But because the mind of the Spirit
is above them, men speak as if the varied and very unusual language of
Scripture, as to the "ages" or the "age of ages," contained no special
mystery. They will see one day that the subject is <page
61> dark, not because Scripture is silent, but only because mens
eyes are holden.
(NOTE: Every scholar knows that the expressions,
"ages," "to the ages," "age of the ages," and "ages of the ages," are unlike
anything which occurs in the heathen Greek writers. The reason is, that
the inspired writers, and they alone, understood the mystery and purpose
of the "ages." They, or at least the Spirit which spake by them, saw that
there would be a succession of "ages," a certain number of which constituted
another greater "age." It seems to me that when they simply intended a
duration of many "ages," they wrote "to the ages." When they had in view
a greater and more comprehensive "age," including in it many other subordinate
"ages," they wrote "to the age of ages." When they intended the longer
"age" alone, without regard to its constituent parts, they wrote "to an
aeonial age"; this form of expression being a Hebraism, exactly equivalent
to "age of the ages:" like "liberty of glory," for "glorious liberty,"
(Rom. viii. 21,) and "body of our vileness," for "our vile body." (Phil.
iii. 21.) When they intended the several comprehensive "ages" collectively,
they wrote "to the ages of ages." Each varying form is used with a distinct
purpose and meaning.)
At any rate, and whatever the future "ages" may be, those past (and St.
Paul speaks of "the ends" of some,) are clearly not endless; and the language
of Scripture as to those to come seems to teach that they are limited,
since Christs mediatorial kingdom, which is "for the ages of ages," must
yet be "delivered up to the Father, that God may be all in all." (Compare
Rev. xi. 15, and 1 Cor. xv. 24.) And the fact that in Johns vision, which
describes the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gives Him, our Lord
is called "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," (Rev. xxi. 6.)
seems to imply an end to the <page 62>
peculiar manifestation of Him as King and Priest, under which special
offices the Revelation shews Him, offices which, as they involve lost ones
to be saved and rebels ruled over, may not be needed when the lost are
saved and reconciled. Would it not have been better therefore, and more
respectful to the Word of God, had our Translators been content in every
place to give the exact meaning of the words, which they render "for ever,"
or "for ever and ever," but which are simply "for the age," or "for the
ages of ages;" and ought they not in other passages, where the form of
expression in reference to these "ages" is marked and peculiar, to have
adhered to the precise words of Holy Scripture? I have already referred
to the passage of St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Ephesians, which in our
Version is rendered "throughout all ages, world without end," but which
is literally, "to all generations of the age of ages." (Eph. iii. 21.)
But even more remarkable are the words, in St. Peters Second Epistle, which
our Version translates "for ever;" but which are literally "for the day
of the age;"
(NOTE: 2 Pet. iii. 18; this phrase, which,
I may add here, is an exact literal translation of the words in Micah v.
2, and which in our Authorized Version are translated "from everlasting.")
the key to which may perhaps be found in a preceding verse of the same
chapter, where the Apostle says, that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day." (Verse 8.) These and other <page
63> similar forms of expression cannot have been used without a purpose.
It is, therefore, a matter of regret that our Translators should not have
rendered them exactly and literally; for surely the words which Divine
Wisdom has chosen must have a reason, even where readers and translators
lack the light to apprehend it.
The "ages," therefore, are periods in which God works, because there
is evil and His rest is broken by it, but which have an end and pass away,
when the work appointed to be done in them has been accomplished. The "ages,"
like the "days" of creation, speak of a prior fall: they are the "times"
in which God works, because He cannot rest in sin and misery. His perfect
rest is not in the "ages," but beyond them, when the mediatorial kingdom,
which is "for the ages of ages," (Rev. xi. 15.) is "delivered up," (1 Cor.
xv. 24.) and Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back
to the glory which He had "before the age-times,"
(NOTE: 2 Tim. i. 9; and Tit. i. 2; translated,
in our Version, "before the world began." The Vulgate translation here
is, "Ante saecularia tempora," which is as literal a rendering as possible.)
"that God may be all in all." (1 Cor. xv. 28.) The words "Jesus Christ,
(that is, Anointed Saviour,) the same yesterday, to-day, and for the ages,"
(Heb. xiii. 8.) imply that through these "ages" a Saviour is needed, and
will be found, as much as "to-day" and <page
64> "yesterday." It will I think too be found, that the adjective
(aionios) founded on this word, whether applied to "life," "punishment,"
"redemption," "covenant," "times," or even "God" Himself, is always connected
with remedial labour, and with the idea of "ages" as periods in which God
is working to meet and correct some awful fall. Thus the "aeonial covenant,"
(Heb. xiii. 20.) (I must coin a word, to shew what is the term used in
the original,) is that which comprehends "the ages," during which "Jesus
Christ is the same," that is, a Saviour; an office only needed for the
fallen, for "they that are whole need not a physician." The "aeonial God,"
language found but once in the New Testament,
(NOTE: Rom. xvi. 25, 26. In this passage we
read, first, of "the mystery kept secret from the aeonial times,
(translated in our English version, "Since the world began,") and then
of "the aeonial God," "by whose command this mystery is now made
manifest." Is it not reasonable to conclude that the same word, twice used
here in the same sentence, must in each case have the same sense. But as
applied to "times," passing or past, aeonial cannot mean never-ending.
In the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the epithet aionios
is only applied to God four times, in one of which the corresponding
____ of the Hebrew is not to be found; though in all the reference is direct,
either to "the age of ages," or to Gods redeeming work as wrought through
"the ages." The passages are Gen. xxi. 33, where after the birth of Isaac,
the type of Christ, God is known by this name _____; then Isa. xxvi. 4,
and xl. 28, in both which the context shews the reason for the epithet;
and lastly Job xxiii. 12, in which passage the LXX. have given us aionios
for ____ or Elohim, in the original; which name, as we see from a comparison
of Gen. i. and ii., (in the former of which God is always Elohim, in the
latter Jehovah Elohim,) refers to One who is working through periods of
labour to change a ruined world, until His image is seen ruling it; a title
not lost when the day of rest is reached, but to which another name, shewing
what God is in Himself, is then added. In Exod. iii. 15, we read of Gods
__________, that is, His name as connected with deliverance. I believe
the word is never used but in this connection. See further below, Note
1, page 66.)
refers, as the context shews, to God as <page
65> working His secret of grace through "aeonial times," that is,
successive worlds or "ages," in some of which "the mystery has been hid,
but now is made manifest by the commandment of the aeonial God," that is,
(if I err not,) the God who works through these "ages." And so of the rest,
whether "redemption," (Heb. ix. 12.) "salvation," (Heb. v. 9.) "spirit,"
(Heb. ix. 14.) "fire," (Jude 7.) or "inheritance," (Heb. ix. 15.) all of
which in certain texts are called "aeonial," the epithet seems to refer
to this in the well-known words, "This is life eternal, (that is, the life
of the age or of the ages,) that they may know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent"? (S. John xvii. 3.) Does He not
say here, that to know the only true God, as the sender of His Son to be
a Saviour, and to know the Son as a Saviour and Redeemer, mark and constitute
the renewed life which is peculiar to the ages? Aeonial or eternal life
therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on for ever and ever.
It is rather, as our Lord defines it, a life, the distinctive peculiarity
of which is, that it has <page 66> to
do with a Saviour, and so is part of a remedial plan. This, as being our
Lords own explanation of the word, is surely conclusive as to its meaning.
But even had we not this key, the word carries with it in itself its own
solution; for "aeonial" is simply "of the ages;" and the "ages," like the
days of creation, as being periods in which God works, witness, not only
that there is some fall to be remedied, but that God through these days
or ages is working to remedy it.
(NOTE: As to the Old Testament use of the
word "age" or "ages," (translated "for ever" in the English Version,) a
few words may be added here. We have first the unconditional promise of
God, that "the seed of Abraham shall inherit the land for ever; Exod. xxxii.
13. The same words are used of the Aaronic priesthood; Exod. xl. 15; of
the office of the Levites; 1 Chron. xv. 2; of the inheritance given to
Caleb; Joshua xiv. 9; of Ai being a desolation; Joshua viii. 28; of the
leprosy of Gehazi cleaving to his seed; 2 Kings v. 27; of the heathen bondsmen
whom Israel possessed, of whom it is said, "They shall be their bondsmen
for ever;" Lev. xxv. 46. The same words are also used of the curse to come
on Israel for their disobedience:--"These curses shall come on thee, and
pursue thee till thou be destroyed; and they shall be upon thee for a sign,
and upon they children for ever;" Deut. xxviii. 45, 46. so of Ammon and
Moab it is said:--"Thou shalt not seek their peace for ever;" Deut. xxiii.
6; and again, "They shall not come into the congregation of the Lord for
ever;" Deut xxiii. 3. In all these and other similar instances, the Hebrew
word Olam and its equivalent aion mean the age or dispensation.
In Exod. xxi. 6, where the ear of the servant, who will not go free, is
bored, and he becomes a "servant for ever," the sense must necessarily
be much more limited; as also in 1 Sam. i. 22. It is to be observed also
that not only the singular, as in 1 Kings ix. 3, and 2 Kings xxi. 7, but
the plural is used in 1 Kings viii. 13, and 2 Chron. vi. 2, in reference
to the temple at Jerusalem. The double expression is variously translated
by the LXX.; sometimes ________ as in Dan. xii. 3, where it is used of
those "that turn many to righteousness;" sometimes ________ as in Exod.
xv. 18, where it is used of God; sometimes _________ as in Psalm xlv. 2,
where it is used of Christ and His kingdom; while in Micah iv. 7, the same
Hebrew words here are translated by the LXX., and here only, by the plural.
More commonly, however, ________ is rendered simply _________ by the LXX.,
as in Gen. xiii. 15, Joshua iv. 7, and elsewhere. Lastly, in dan. vii.
18, we have both the singular and the plural form together. The adjective
aionios is used continually by the LXX.,--in reference to the Passover,
Exod. xii. 14, 17,--the tabernacle service, Exod. xxvii. 21,--the priestly
office of the sons of Aaron, Exod. xxviii. 43,--the meat-offering, Lev.
vi. 18,---and other things of the Jewish dispensation, all of which are
called aionios. So in Jer. xxiii. 40, we have _____________ , and
______________, used of the corrective judgments on Israel, whose restoration
is also foretold. I will only add that the very remarkable language of
S. Paul, (2 Cor. iv. 17,) seems intended to add to the force of the word
aionios,
which could scarcely be, if aionios meant eternal. Bezas
comment here is, _________________. See too Corn. A Lapide, in loco.
<page 67> Be this as it may, the adjective,
"aeonial" or age-long, cannot carry a force or express a duration greater
than that of the ages or "aeons" which it speaks of. If therefore these
"ages" are limited periods, some of which are already past, while others,
we know not how many, are yet to come, the word "aeonial" cannot mean strictly
never-ending. Nor does this affect the true eternity of bliss of Gods elect,
or of the redeemed who are brought back to live in God, and to be partakers
of Christs "endless life,"
(NOTE: See Heb. vii. 16. The word here used
of Christs resurrection-life, which we share with Him, is __________, translated
in our Version "endless"; literally "indissoluble"; a word never
used in Scripture respecting judgment or punishment, but only of that life
which is beyond all dissolution.)
of whom it is said, "Neither can they die <page
68> any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the children
of God, being the children of the resurrection;" (S. Luke xx. 36.) for
this depends on a participation in the divine nature, and upon that power
which can "change these vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto
Christs glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue
even all things unto Himself." (Phil. iii. 21. See also 1 Cor xv. 53; Rom.
viii. 29; Heb. vii. 16; xii. 28; 1 S. Pet. i. 3, 4, 5; 1 S. John iii. 2.
(3) It yet remains to shew that this purpose of God, wrought by Him
through successive worlds or ages, is only accomplished through death and
dissolution, which in His wisdom He makes the means and way to life and
higher glory; for it is "by death," and by death only, that He "destroys
him that has the power of death, that is the devil, and delivers them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." (Heb.
ii. 15.) Nature everywhere reveals this law, though the divine chemistry
is often too subtle to allow us to see all the stages of the transformations
and the passages or "pass-overs" from life to death and death to life,
which are going on around us everywhere. But the great instance cited by
our Lord, that "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone, but if it die, it <page
69> brings forth much fruit," (S. John xii. 24.) forces the blindest
to confess that all advance of life is through change, and death, and dissolution.
The seed of the kingdom, which is above all kingdoms, and the seed of the
Son, who is above all sons, does not, anymore than the seed of wheat or
the seed of man, come to perfection in a moment or without many intermediate
changes, but "goes from strength to strength," (Psa. lxxxiv. 7.) from the
bursting of one shell of life to fuller life, from the opening of one seal
to another, and "from glory to glory," (2 Cor. iii. 18.) till all is perfected.
Christ has shewn us all the way, from "the lowest parts of the earth,"
(Psa. cxxxix. 15.) from the Virgin's womb, through birth, and infant swaddling
clothes, to opened heavens, through temptation, and strong crying and tears,
and the cross, and grave, and resurrection, and ascension, till He sits
down at God's right hand to judge all things. And the elect yield themselves
to the same great law of progress through death, and "faint not though
the outward man perish, that their inward man may be renewed day by day."
(2 Cor. iv. 16.) Others may think they will be saved in another way than
that Christ trod. His living members know it is impossible. To them, as
the Apostle says, "to live is Christ;" (Phil. i. 21.) and they cannot live
His life without being "partakers of His sufferings. (2 Cor. i. 5; Phil
iii. 10; Col. i. 24.) Therefore "we which live are always <page
70> delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus
might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (2 Cor. iv. 11.) Because this
is so little seen, -- because so many take or mistake Christ's cross as
a reprieve to nature, rather than a pledge that nature and sin must be
judged and die, seeming to think that Christ died that they should not
die, and that their calling is to be delivered from death, instead
of by and out of it;
(NOTE: Our translators have sometimes rendered
the Greek words here by the English words "from death;" as in Heb.
5:7; but the force of the original is always "out of death.")
--because in a word the meaning of Christ's cross is not understood, but
rather perverted and therefore death is shrunk from, instead of being welcomed
as the appointed means by which alone we can be delivered from him that
has the power of death, who more or less rules us till we are dead, for
"sin reigns unto death," (Rom. v. 21.) and only "he that is dead is freed
from sin;" (Rom. vi. 7.)--because this, which is indeed the gospel, is
not received, or if received in word is not really understood, even Christians
misunderstand what is said of that destruction and judgment, which is the
only way for delivering fallen creatures from their bondage, and bringing
them back in God's life to his kingdom.
As this is a point of all importance, lying at the very root of the
cross of Christ and of His members, and giving the clue to all the judgments
of Him, who <page 71> "killeth and
maketh alive," who "bringeth down to the grave and bringeth up," (1 Sam.
ii. 6; Deut. xxxii. 39.) I would shew, not the fact and truth only, that
for fallen creatures the way of life is and must be through death, but
also the reason for it, why it must be thus, and cannot be otherwise. For
the cross is not a fact or truth only, but power and wisdom also, even
God's power and wisdom; (1 Cor. i. 18-24.) as power, meeting the craving
of our hearts for deliverance; as wisdom, answering every question which
our understanding can ask as to the mystery of this life. For both to head
and heart life is indeed a riddle, which neither the Greek nor Jew, the
head and heart of old humanity, could ever fully solve, though each people
by its special craving shewed its wants; the Jew, as St. Paul says, requiring
signs of power, for the heart wants and must have something to lean upon;
the Greek, man's head or mind, seeking after wisdom, for it felt the darkness
and asked for some enlightening. To both God's answer was the cross of
Christ, which gave to each, to head and heart, what each was longing for;
power to the one to escape from that which had tied and bound it, for by
death with Christ we are freed from the bondage of corruption and from
all that hinders the heart's best aspirations; wisdom to the other to see
why we must die, and what is the reason for all present suffering.
As to the fact and doctrine, a few words may <page
72> suffice, for in one form or another it is the creed of all Christendom,
that for fallen man the way of life is and only can be through death and
judgment. The cross the way to life--this is confessedly the special teaching
of the gospel. But what is the cross? Does Christ's death save us unless
by grace we die with him? Our Lord distinctly says, "If any man will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me; for
whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his
life for my sake shall find it." (S. Matt. xvi. 25.) "This is a faithful
saying, If we be dead with Him, we shall live with Him: If we deny Him,
He also will deny us." (2 Tim. ii. 11, 12.) The saint must say, "I am crucified
with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."
(Gal. ii 20.) "We are debtors, not to live after the flesh, for if we live
after the flesh we shall die; but if we through the Spirit do mortify the
deeds of the body, we shall live." (Rom. viii 12-13.) In baptism therefore
we profess our death with Christ, that dying with Him we may also live
with Him. (Rom. vi. 3, 4.)
Such is the doctrine we all receive. But what is the reason for it?
Why is the way of life for us through the cross, that is through death?
Why cannot it be otherwise? If we see the way by which man got away from
God, we shall see the way of his return, and why this must be through death;
for <page 73> indeed the way, by
which we came away from God, must be retraced if by grace we come back
to Him.
How then did man depart from God, and die to Him, and fall from His
kingdom? By believing a lie. By the serpent's double lie,--a lie about
God, that God grudges and is not true, and a lie about man, that in disobedience
he shall be as God,--the divine life in man's soul was poisoned and destroyed,
and man was separated from God, and died to God's world. (Gen. iii. 1-5.)
And because to a being like man, made in God's image, death cannot be
the end of existence, but is only a passing out of one world into another,
by this death to God, man who is a spirit, lost the place which God had
given him, the Paradise, called by Paul "the third heaven," (2 Cor. xii.
2, 4. Paradise is the word used by the LXX. in Gen. ii. 8, 9. Compare Rev.
ii. 7.) and was driven out, and fell into the kingdom of darkness, his
inward life of ceaseless aching restlessness; to escape which he turns
to outward things, hating to come to himself even for a moment, unconsciously
driven by his own inward dissatisfaction to seek diversion from himself
in any outward care, pleasure, or vanity; while his body became like that
of the beasts, subject to the elements of this world, and to all the change
and toil which make up "the course of this world."
Such was the fall of man, and it explains why death is needful for our
return to God. Death is the <page 74> only
way out of any world in which we are. It was by death to God we fell out
of God's world. And it is by death with Christ to sin and to this world
that we are delivered in spirit from sin, that is the dark world, and in
body from the toil and changes of this outward world. For we are, as Scripture
and our own hearts tell us, not only in body in this outward world, but
in our spirits are living in a spiritual world, which surely is not heaven,
for no soul of man till regenerate is at rest or satisfied; and being thus
fallen, the only way out of these worlds is death: so long as we live their
life, we must be in them. To get out of them, therefore, we must die: die
to this elemental nature, to get out of the seen world, and die to sin,
to get out of the dark world, called in Scripture "the power of darkness."
(Col. i. 13.) And since the life of the one is toil and change, and the
life of the other is dissatisfaction and inward restlessness, we must die
to both if we would be free from the changes of this world, and from the
restlessness and dissatisfaction in which by nature our spirits are. Christ
died this double death for us, not only "to sin," (Rom. vi. 10.) but also
"to the elements of this world." (Col. ii. 20.) And to be free, we also
must die with Him to both. Only by such a death are we delivered.
In pressing this point however, that death is needful for the sinner's
deliverance, I need scarcely add, that death, alone, and without another
life, is not and <page 75> cannot
of itself be enough to bring us back to God's world. We need death to get
out of this world and out of the power of darkness; but we also need and
must have the life of God, which is only perfected in resurrection, to
live in God's world. (S. John iii. 3, 5.) Just as without the life of this
world, we could not enter this world, or without the life of hell, enter
or live in hell; so without the life of heaven we cannot enter or live
there; for we cannot live in any world without the life of it. And therefore
as the serpent's lie kindled the life of hell in man, before he could fall
into the power of darkness, so God's life must be quickened again in man,
before he can live again in God's kingdom. And, blessed be God, as
the life of hell was quickened by a lie, so the life of God is quickened
by the truth, even by the Word of God, who came where man was to raise
up God's life in man, in and by which through a death to sin and to this
world man might be freed perfectly.
(NOTE: Not without a deep and wondrous reason
is _____ both Good-news and Flesh in the Hebrew; for by the
one as by the other the captive creature is reached and quickened. Great
indeed is the mystery of the flesh of Christ, touching which there are
indeed many unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.
Yet the mystery is revealed from faith to faith.)
In Christ the work has been accomplished. In Him by God's Word and Spirit
God's life has been again raised up in man; and in the power of this life
man in Christ has died both to sin and the world, and so, through death,
resurrection, and ascension, by steps we yet know little <page
76> of, has come back out of darkness to God's right hand. Through
Christ the self-same work is yet accomplished, to bring lost man by the
same process to the same blessedness. But whether in Christ, or in us,
the work is only wrought through death. Man to be saved must not only be
quickened by God's life, but must also die to that which keeps him far
from God. And the way to bring about this death is God's judgment,
who, because He loves us, kills to make alive, and "turneth man to destruction,"
that He may say, "Return, ye children of men." (Psa. xc. 3.)
And this explains why God alone of all teachers has had two methods,
and must have them, namely, law and gospel, which appear opposed, for law
condemns while the gospel justifies, each to meet one part of our need
and of the devil's double lie. For man is yet held by both parts of this
old lie, that God grudges and is untrue, and that man by self-will may
be as God; and he needs not only to have God's life quickened again in
him, whereby he may be prepared to live in God's world, but no less to
have the life of hell and of this world slain in him, by which he may be
delivered out of that power of darkness and of this present world, which
hold him captive, that so he may come back again to God's kingdom. To meet
the first, we have the promise or gospel, long before the law, though only
fulfilled after law has done its work; to meet the second, we have the
law <page 77> which condemns, and
proves that man is not as God, but a fallen, ruined creature. By the one,
God's life is quickened in man; by the other, through present or future
judgment, the hellish and earthly life is slain and overcome. Does not
God love? The gospel is the answer. Is man as God? The law settles this.
Christ's cross is the seal of both, revealing that God is love, for He
gives His Son for rebels; and that man is not as God, but a sinner under
death and judgment.
But while the law condemns us and shews what man is, this "ministry
of condemnation," needful in its place, is not and cannot be God's end.
The gospel, the "ministration of righteousness and life," is God's proper
work, and, therefore, as St. Paul says, "remaineth;" (2 Cor. iii. 11.)
but the law, the "ministration of death and condemnation," God's "strange
work," (Isa. xxviii. 21.) is only a means to the end, and therefore, "to
be abolished" and "done away." (2 Cor. iii. 11, 13.) St. Paul's teaching
on this point is most express, though spite of his teaching, and spite
of the gospel, not a few even of the Israel of God cannot yet steadfastly
look to the end of that which is abolished. No less clear also is his witness
as to God's promise to Abraham's seed, that it is not and cannot be altered
or disannuled by the law, or by that curse and wrath and judgment which
the law worketh. (Rom. iv. 15; v. 20; vii. 9, 11; Gal. iii. 10, 19.) So
in his Epistle to the Galatians, having <page
78> first shewn that God's promise to Abraham included all nations,
and that the law necessarily could only bring judgment, he proceeds to
argue that "this covenant of promise which was confirmed before of God
in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot
disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect; for if the inheritance
be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by
promise." (Gal. iii. 8, 15, 17, 18) The law, which is and must be judgment
to men, is needed to slay and overthrow them in their own eyes.
But this killing is to make alive. The judgment or condemnation cannot
in any case disannul the previous covenant. "Though it be but a man's covenant,
yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto." Judgment
therefore must issue in blessing, not blessing in judgment. But for most
the veil is yet on Moses' face, so that in looking at the "ministry of
condemnation" men cannot see "the end of the Lord," and that the Lord is
very pitiful and of tender mercy. (2 Cor. iii. 13; James v. 11.)
I have dwelt the more on this, because so few now seem to see why for
us the way of life is and must be through death; and because, if this be
seen, God's end and purpose and the reason of His judgments will be more
evident. God our Father judges to save. He only saves by judging what is
evil. The evil must be overthrown; and through death God <page
79> destroys him that has the power of death. A new creation, which
is only brought in through death, is God's remedy for that which through
a fall is held in death and bondage. Therefore both the "earth and heavens"
must "perish and be changed." (Heb. i. 10-12.) Therefore God Himself "turns
us to destruction" that we may "return" as little children. (Psa. xc. 3.)
And God's elect accept this judgment here, that their carnal mind may die,
and the old man be slain with all his enmity. The world rejects God's judgment
here, and therefore have to meet it in a more awful form in the resurrection
of judgment in the coming world. For while here, through the burdens and
infirmities of "this vile body," (Phil. iii. 21.) our fallen spirit is
more easily broken, and we die to sin more quickly; though even here we
need both fires and waters, to make us die to that self-willed life which
is our misery. Who can tell how much harder this death may be to those,
who, having gone hence, have not the burden of "this vile body" to humble
the pride of that fallen spirit, which, while unbroken, is hell, and which
must die in us if we would reach God's rest.
Such is the reason for salvation by the cross, that is through death;
but the great illustration here as elsewhere is to be found in the law,
that appointed "shadow of good things," (Heb. x. 1.) which in all its varied
forms of sacrifice asserts the same great truth, that only by the fire
of God and through death can the <page
80> earthly creature be changed, and so ascend to God. The offerings
were indeed of different kinds, some of a sweet savour, which were offered
on the altar in the tabernacle; (Lev. i. ii. iii.) while others not of
a sweet savour were burnt on the earth, in some place outside the camp
of Israel; (Lev. iv. v. vi.) figuring the varied relations in which men's
works and persons might stand to God, and the varying place and manner
of their acceptance to Him. But in either case, whether offered in obedience
voluntarily, or required penally for trespass and disobedience, the offering
was made by fire, and so perished in its first form to rise in another
as pillars of smoke before God. If then all this was "the pattern of things
in the heavens," (Exod. xxv. 40; Heb. ix. 23.) we have another witness
that a transformation wrought by fire is yet being carried on in the true
heavens, that is the spiritual world. For no Divine change can be wrought
even on God's elect, save by "passing through the waters and through the
fires" which are appointed for us, waters and fires as real, though not
of this world, as those which burnt on the altar of old, or moved in the
laver of the tabernacle. Our Lord can no more spare our nature than the
animal was spared of old by the priest who offered it.
And as He in His own body, made under the law, did not shrink from,
but fulfilled, the types of suffering, so will He fulfill the same in the
bodies of those who are His members, that "being made conformable <page
81> unto His death, they may attain unto the resurrection from among
the dead." (Phil. iii. 10, 11.)
In any case the way for all is through the fires, for fire is the great
uniter and reconciler of all things; and things which without fire can
never be united, in and through the fire are changed and become one. Therefore
every coming of Christ, even in grace, is a day of judgment. Therefore
there are fires even for the elect both now, (1 S. Pet. i. 7, and iv. 12.)
and in the coming day; (1 Cor. iii. 13, 15.) for "our God is a consuming
fire;" (Heb. xii. 29.) and to dwell in Him we must have a life, which,
because it is of the fire, for fire burns not fire, can stand unhurt in
it. Therefore our Lord "came to cast fire into the earth," and desired
nothing more than "that it should be already kindled;" (S. Luke xii. 49.)
therefore He says, "Everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice
shall be salted with salt." (S. Mark ix. 49.) For this is the very "baptism
of the Holy Ghost and fire," (S. Matt. iii. 11.) that "spirit of judgment
and burning," promised by the prophet, "with which the Lord shall purge
away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and cleanse the blood of Jerusalem;
after which He will create on every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and on
all her assemblies, a cloud of smoke by day, and the brightness of flame
of fire by night; and upon all, the glory shall be a defence; (Isa. iv.
4, 5.) for "He is like a refiner's <page
82> fire, and like a fuller's soap; and He shall sit as a refiner
and purifier of silver, and He shall purify the sons of Levi as gold and
silver are purged, that they may offer to the Lord an offering of righteousness."
(Mal. iii. 3). And as by the hidden fire of this present life, shut up
in these bodies of corruption, we are able by the wondrous chemistry of
nature through corruption to change the fruits and flesh of the earth into
our blood, and from blood again into our flesh and bone and sinew; so by
the fire of God can we be changed, and made partakers of Christ's flesh
and blood. In and through Christ we have received this transmutation; (Rom.
v. 11.) and through His Spirit, which is fire, is this same change accomplished
in us.
(NOTE: It is surely a significant fact, that
the two words used in Hebrew to express destruction, signify also,
and are used to express, perfection; and that the word for a sacrifice
by fire in Hebrew is the same as that for a bride or wife;
e.g. Numbers xxviii. 6. By this double sense a veil covers the letter,
veiling yet revealing God's purpose; for His purpose to the creature is
through destruction to perfect it, and by fire to
make it a bride unto the Lord. For a kindred reason some of the
angels are called Seraphim, that is burning ones; for like the Lord,
whose throne is flames of fire, (Dan. vii. 9,10.) they also are as fire;
as it is written, "He makes His angels spirits, His messengers a flame
of fire." (Heb. i. 7, and Psalm civ. 4.)
<page 83> And as with the first-fruits,
so with the harvest. The world to be saved must some day know the same
baptism. For "the Lord will come with fire," and "by fire and by His sword
will He plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many."
(Isa. lxvi. 15, 16.) The promised baptism or outpouring of the Spirit must
be judgment, for the Spirit cannot be poured on man without consuming this
flesh to quicken a better life;
(NOTE: Isa. xl. 7; and compare Rev. viii.
6, 7, which describes the effect produced by the breath or spirit of the
Lord sounding through the trumpets of the heavenly sanctuary.)
and "His sword, which cometh out of His mouth," (Rev. xix. 13, 15.) is
that Word, which kills to make alive again. God is indeed "a man of war;"
(Exod. xv. 3.) but His warfare and wrath, unlike the "wrath of man, which
worketh not the righteousness of God," (S. James i. 20.) works both righteousness
and life, and is set forth in that "warfare of the service of the tabernacle,"
(See Numbers iv. 23, 30, and viii. 24, 25; margin: and compare 1 Tim. i.
18.) by which that which was of the earth was made to ascend to God through
fire a sweet sacrifice.
The view therefore which has been accepted by some believers, as more
in accordance with Scripture <page 84>
than the popular notion of never-ending torments, that those who
abuse their day of grace will, after suffering more or fewer stripes, according
to the measure of their transgressions, be utterly annihilated by the "second
death,"
(NOTE: I refer to the view advocated in such
works as Eternal Punishment and Eternal Death by the Rev. J. W.
Barlow; and Endless Sufferings not the Doctrine of Scripture, by
the Rev. T. Davis.)
though a great step in advance of the doctrine of endless woe, is not a
perfect witness of the mind of God, nor the true solution of the great
mystery. God has not made man to let him fall almost as soon as made, and
then, in a large proportion of his seed, to sin yet more, and suffer, and
be annihilated; but rather out of and through the fall to raise him even
to higher and more secure blessedness; "As in Adam all die, so in Christ
shall all be made alive;" (1 Cor. xv. 22.) Not all at once, but through
successive ages, and according to an appointed order, in which the last
even as the first shall be restored by the elect; for Christ is not only
the "First," but also "with the last," (Isa. xli. 4.) and will surely in
the salvation of "the last" bring into view some of His glories, not inferior
to those which are manifested in the salvation of "the first-born," who
are His Body." (Eph. i. 23.) He is the "First," both out of life and out
of death, (Col. i. 15, 18.) and as such He manifests a peculiar glory in
His elect first-born. But He is also the "Last," (Isa. xliv. 7; Rev. i.
11, 17.) and "with the last," and as such He will <page
85> display yet other treasures hid in Him, for "in Him are hid all
treasures," (Col. ii. 3.) and "riches unsearchable," (Eph. iii. 8.) which
He will bring to light in due season. Their own conversion ought to give
believers hopes of this. But indeed the whole mystery of regeneration and
conversion, and the absolute needs-be for the cross, in its true ground
and deep reason, is so little seen even by converted souls,--so ignorant
are they, that, as first-fruits, they are called, not only to be "fellow-workers
with God," (1 Cor. iii. 9; 2 Cor. vi. 1.) but to be a pledge and pattern
of the world's salvation,-- that they misunderstand the plainest words
which are spoken as to God's dealings in judgment with those who miss the
glory of the first-born. For what is conversion but a passage, first through
waters, then through fires; (Isa. xliii. 2; S. Matt. iii. 11.) a change
involving a "death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness;" the death
not annihilating the fallen spirit, but rather being the appointed means
for bringing forth and perfecting the new life. And though the harvest
may, and does, need a greater heat than the first-fruits,--the one being
gathered in autumn, in the seventh, (Lev. xxiii. 39.)--the other in spring,
in the first and third months, (Lev. xxiii. 6, 10, 12, 16, 17.)--there
is but one way to bring forth seed out of the earth, and but one means
of ripening that which is brought forth. Nothing is done without the waters
and the fires. Conversion is only wrought through condemnation. The law <page
86> condemns and slays us, (Rom. vii. 9-11.) not to annihilate, but
to bring forth a better life. And those souls, who do not know this condemnation,
never fully know the "justification of life" (Rom. v. 18) in resurrection.
Why then should the judgment of the "second death," which is the working
of the same ministry of condemnation on the non-elect, be annihilation?
Will not the judgment, because God changes not, in them, as in the elect,
be the means of their deliverance? To me all Scripture gives but one answer;
that there is but one way; "one baptism for the remission of sins;" that
"baptism wherewith we have been baptized," and of which we may say with
our Head, "How am I straightened until it be accomplished;" (S. Luke xii.
50.) that "burning in us, which," St. Peter teaches, "is made to prove
us," and at which we should "rejoice, inasmuch as we are thus partakers
of Christ's sufferings;" (1 S. Pet. iv. 12.) that "therefore we are buried
by baptism into death;" (Rom. vi. 4.) and therefore we look to be "baptized
with the Holy Ghost and fire;" not surely to annihilate, but rather through
judgment to perfect us; and that, therefore, and to the same end, those
not so baptized here must know the last judgment, and "the lake of fire,
which is the second death." (Rev. xxi. 8.) And indeed if one thinks of
the language of the true elect, and of all the "fiery trial" which they
are called to pass through,--when we hear them say, or say ourselves, <page
87> "Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps;
thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and Thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves,"
(Psa. lxxxviii. 6, 7.)--we shall not so easily misunderstand what is said
of that judgment, which is required to melt the greater hardness and impenitence
of the reprobate. (See Appendix, Note A.)
It is therefore simply because God is what He is, that He is, though
love, and because He is love, the curse and destruction of the impenitent.
But as even in this fallen world He is able, not only to turn our blessings
into a curse, (Mal. ii. 2.) but curses into blessings;--as we see strength,
and health, and wealth, and talents, which are blessings, all turned to
curses through disobedience; and pain, and want, and sorrow, and death,
which are curses, turned to real blessings;--so in other words, because
God changes not, curses by Him may yet be turned to blessings; and they
who now are turning blessings into a curse may, and, I believe, will, find
that God can make even curses blessings. Paul's words should help us here.
He who could say, "To me to live is Christ," (Phil. i. 21.) and whose ways
were therefore a true expression of God's mind, bids the Church "to deliver
some to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh and saving of their spirit,"
(1 Cor. v. 5.) and further tells us that he himself has done this, and
"delivered" certain brethren "to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme."
(1 Tim. i. 20.) Oh wondrous <page 88> ways
of God! Souls are taught not to blaspheme, by being delivered to Satan;
and the spirits of Christian brethren are saved, and their flesh destroyed,
by being put into the hands of God's adversary. What does this not teach
us as to God's purpose towards those whom He also delivers to Satan, and
disciplines by evil, since they will not learn by good. "Whoso is wise
and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness
of the Lord." (Psa. cvii. 43.)
I cannot even attempt here to trace the stages or processes of the future
judgment of those who are raised up to condemnation; for it "the righteousness
of God is like the great mountains, His judgments are deep;" (Psa. xxxvi.
6.) but what has here been gathered from the Word of God, as to the course
and method of His salvation, throws great light on that "resurrection of
judgment," (S. John v. 29.) which our Lord speaks of. Of the details of
this resurrection, of the nature and state of the bodies of the judged,--if
indeed bodies in which there is any image of a man, and therefore of God,
(for man's form bears God's image, (1 Cor. xi. 7.) then are given to them,--and
of the scene of the judgment,--very little is said in Scripture; but the
peculiar awfulness of the little that is said shews that there must be
something very fearful in it. And indeed, when one thinks of the eternal
law, "To every seed its own body," (1 Cor. xv. 38.) one can understand
how terrible must be the judgment on all that grows <page
89> in a future world from the seed which has been nourished here
of self-love and unbelief; a judgment in comparison with which any present
pain is light affliction. It is thus described:--"And I saw a great white
throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven
fled away; and there was not place for them. And I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, which is the book
of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written
in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which
were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them;
and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and
hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death." (Rev.
xx. 11-14.) And yet, awful as it is, who can doubt the end and purpose
of this judgment, for "God, the judge of all," (Heb. xii. 23.) "changes
not," (Mal. iii. 6.) and "Jesus Christ" is still "the same, yesterday,
to-day, and for the ages." (Heb. xiii. 8.) And the very context of the
passage, which describes the casting of the wicked into the lake of fire,
seems to shew that this resurrection of judgment and the second death are
both parts of the same redeeming plan, which necessarily involves judgment
on those who will not judge themselves, and have not accepted the loving
judgments and sufferings, which in this life prepare the <page
90> first-born for the first resurrection. So we read,--"And He that
sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto
me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And He said unto me,
It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give
to him who is athirst of the fountain of life freely. He that overcometh
shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and
whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their
part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second
death." (Rev. xxi. 5-8.) What does He say here but that "all things shall
be made new," though in the way to this the fearful and unbelieving must
pass the lake of fire. And does not the fact that the threatened judgment
comes under, and is part of, the promise, "I make all things new," shew
that the second death is not outside of or unconnected with it, but is
rather the appointed means to bring it about in some cases. Those who overcome
inherit all: they are God's sons and heirs. Like Abraham, they are "heirs
of the world;" (Rom. iv. 13.) "the world is theirs," (1 Cor. iii. 22.)
to bless it. But the judgment of the wicked, even the second death, is
only the conclusion of the same promise, which, under threatened wrath,
as in the curse of old upon <page 91> the
serpent, involves the pledge of true blessing.
(NOTE: Gen. iii. 14-19. "How mysterious are
God's ways...Neither to Adam nor to Eve was there one word of comfort spoken.
The only hint of such a thing was given in the act of cursing the serpent.
The curse involved the blessing"--The Eternal Purpose of God, by
A.L. Newton, p.10.)
What but this could make Paul, who so yearned over his brethren that he
"wished himself accursed for them," "have hope," not fear, "that there
should be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." (Compare
Rom. ix. 3, and Acts xxiv. 15.)
The "second death" (Rev. xx. 14.) therefore, so far from being, as some
think, the hopeless shutting up of man for ever in the curse of disobedience,
will, if I err not, be God's way to free those who in no other way than
by such a death can be delivered out of the dark world, whose life they
live in. The saints have died with Christ, not only "to the elements of
this world," (Col. ii. 20.) but also "to sin," (Rom. vi. 10.) that is,
the dark spirit-world. By the first they are freed from the bondage of
sense; by the second, from the bondage of sin, in all its forms of wrath,
pride, envy, and selfishness. The ungodly have not so died to sin. At the
death of the body therefore, and still more when they are raised to judgment,
because their spirit yet lives, they are still within the limits of that
dark and fiery world, the life of which has been and is the life of their
spirit. To get out of this world there is but one way, death; not the first,
for that has passed, but the <page 92>
second death. Even if we have not the light to see this, ought not
the present to teach us something as to God's future ways; for is He not
the same yesterday, today, and for ever? We know that, in inflicting present
death, His purpose is through death to destroy him that has the power of
death, that is the devil. How can we conclude from this, that, in inflicting
the second death, the unchanging God will act on a principle entirely different
from that which now actuates Him? And why should it be thought a thing
incredible that God should raise the dead, who for their sin suffer the
penalty of the second death? Does this death exceed the power of Christ
to overcome it? Or shall the greater foe still triumph, while the less,
the first death, is surely overcome? Who has taught us thus to limit the
meaning of the words, "Death is swallowed up in victory"? Is God's "will
to save all men" (1 Tim. ii. 4.) limited to fourscore years, or changed
by that event which we call death, but which we are distinctly told is
His appointed means for our deliverance? All analogy based on God's past
ways leads but to one answer. But when in addition to this we have the
most distinct promise, that "as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all
be made alive,"--that "death shall be destroyed,"--that "there shall be
no more curse," but "all things made new," and "the restitution of all
things;"--when we are further told that "Jesus Christ is the same," <page
93> that is a Saviour, "yesterday, today, and for the ages;"--the
veil must be thick indeed upon man's heart, if spite of such statements
"the end of the Lord" is yet hidden from us.
To me too the precepts which God has given are in their way as strong
a witness as His direct promises. Hear the law respecting, bondmen, (Deut.
xv. 12-15.) and strangers, (Exod. xxii. 21; Lev. xix. 33,34.) and debtors,
(Deut. xv. 1,2,9.) and widows and orphans, (Exod. xxii. 22; Deut. xxiv.
17.) and the punishment of the wicked, which may not exceed forty stripes,
"lest if it exceed, then thy brother should seem vile unto thee;" (Deut.
xxv. 2,3.) yea even the law respecting "asses fallen into a pit:" (Exod.
xxi. 33,34; and xxiii 4, 5.)--hear the prophets exhorting to "break every
yoke," to "let the oppressed go free," and to "undo the heavy burdens:"
(Isa. lviii. 6.)--hear the still clearer witness of the gospel, "not to
let the sun go down upon our wrath," (Eph. iv. 26.) to "forgive not until
seven times, but until seventy times seven," (S. Matt. xviii. 22.) "not
to be overcome of evil, but to overcome evil with good:" (Rom. xii. 21.)
to "walk in love as Christ has loved us," and to "be imitators of God as
dear children:" (Eph. v. 1,2.)--see the judgment of those who neglect the
poor, and the naked, and the hungry, and the stranger, and the prisoner;
(S. Matt. xxv. 41-43)--and then say, Shall God do that which He abhors?
Shall He command that bondmen and debtors be freed, and <page
94> yet Himself keep those who are in worse bondage and under a greater
debt in endless imprisonment? Shall He bid us care for widows and orphans,
and Himself forget this widowed nature, which has lost its Head and Lord,
and those poor orphan souls which cannot cry, Abba, Father? Shall He limit
punishment to forty strips, "lest thy brother seem vile," and Himself inflict
more upon those who though fallen still are His children? Is not Christ
the faithful Israelite, who fulfills the law; and shall He break it in
any one of these particulars? Shall He say, "Forgive till seventy times
seven," and Himself not forgive except in this short life? Shall He command
us to "overcome evil with good," and Himself, the Almighty, be overcome
of evil? Shall He judge those who leave the captives unvisited, and Himself
leave captives in a worse prison for ever unvisited? Does He not again
and again appeal to our own natural feelings of mercy, as witnessing "how
much more" we may expect a larger mercy from our "Father which is in heaven"?
(St. Matt. vii. 6-11.) If it were otherwise, might not the adversary reproach,
and say, Thou that teachest and judgest another, teachest Thou not thyself?
Not thus will God be justified. But, blessed be His Name, He shall in all
be justified. And when in His day He opens "the treasures of the hail,"
(NOTE: Job xxxviii. 22. The two questions
of the book of Job are, How can man, and How can God, be justified? Jobs
complainings in substance, amount to this,--How can God be justified in
treating me as He does? His three friends, who cannot answer this, urge
him rather to ask, How can man be justified? Elihu answers this latter
question; and God then answers Jobs question by asking him if he knows
what God can bring out of things which at present are dark and crooked.
Jobs question is not the sinners question, but that of the "perfect man;"
(ch. i. 8.) a question not unacceptable to God, who declares of Jobs three
friends, that "they have not spoken of me the thing which is right, like
my servant Job." ch. xiii. 8.)
and shews what sweet waters He can bring <page
95> out of hard hailstones; when He unlocks "the place where light
now dwells" shut up, and reveals what light is hid in darkness and hardness,
as we see in coal and flint, those silent witnesses of the dark hard hearts,
which God can turn to floods of light; when we have "taken darkness to
the bound thereof," (Job. xxxviii. 19,20.) and have seen not only how "the
earth is full of God's riches," but how He has laid up the depths in storehouses;
(Psa. civ. 24; and xxxiii. 7.) in that day when "the mystery of God is
finished," and He has destroyed them which corrupt the earth," (Rev. xi.
18.)--then shall it be seen how truly God's judgments are love, and that
"in very faithfulness He hath afflicted us." (Psa. cxix. 75.)
III. Popular Objections
I have thus stated what I see of God's purpose and way; and it is, I
believe, the key to all the difficulties and apparent contradictions of
Holy Scripture on this subject. There are, however, certain current objections,
which have weight with those <page 96>
who tremble at God's Word. It is said that this doctrine is opposed
to the voice of the Church, to Reason, and above all to Holy Scripture.
If this last be true, the doctrine cannot stand. God's Word is the final
appeal on this and every other subject. For the rest, if the Church speak
with God, woe to those who disobey her. But if by reasonings or traditions
she make void the Word of God, "let God be true, and every man a liar."
(Rom. iii. 4.)
Let us look at these objections: --
(1) First, it is said that the Church has never held, but on the contrary
has distinctly condemned, this doctrine. But is this true? Where then,
I ask, and when, has the Catholic Church ever authoritatively condemned
this view of restitution? At what council, or in what decrees, received
by East and West, shall we find the record and the terms of this condemnation?
Of course I am aware that individuals have judged the doctrine, and that
since Augustine's days the Western Church, led by his great authority,
has generally received his view of endless punishment. I know too that
Theophilus of Alexandria, the persecutor of Chrysostom, (For
details, see Neander, Church Hist. Vol. Iv. pp. 474-476.)
and then Anastasius of Rome, who, according to his own confession, until
called upon to judge Origen, knew little or nothing about him, (Id.
Ibid.
p. 472.) and later on the bishops at the "home synod" summoned
by the patriarch Mennas <page 97> at
Constantinople, the latter acting under court influence, two hundred years
after his death, condemned Origen.
(NOTE: Both Neander and Gieseler shew, that
this condemnation of Origen was passed, not at the 5th General Council
of Constantinople, in 553, as some have supposed, but at the "home synod"
under Mennas, in 541. See Neander, Church Hist. vol. iv. p. 265;
and Gieseler, Eccl. Hist. Second Period, div. ii. ch. 2, par. 109;
and notes 8 and 20. And even this "home synod," though under court
influence, it condemned some of Origen's views, would not consent to condemn
the doctrine of Restitution, spite of the Emperor's express requirement
that this doctrine should be anathematized.
But so have certain bishops in council asserted Transubstantiation, and
condemned all those who on this point differed from them; and yet it would
be most untrue to say that the Universal Church asserted this doctrine,
or that a rejection of it involved a rejection of the Christian faith.
It is so with the doctrine of endless torments. It can never be classed
under "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." Many have held it; but
the Catholic Church has nowhere asserted it; while not a few of the greatest
of the Greek Fathers distinctly dissent from it. The Creeds received by
East and West at least know nothing of such a doctrine, and in their assertion
of "the forgiveness and remission of sins," seem rather to point to another
belief altogether.
But suppose it were otherwise,--suppose it could be shewn that the Church,
instead of asserting "the forgiveness of sins," had taught the reverse,
and had <page 98> judged the doctrine
of restitution,--grant further, what I admit, that the Church generally
has seen, or at least has taught, comparatively little, especially of late,
respecting universal restoration,--what does this prove, if, though yet
beyond the Church's light, the doctrine is really taught in Holy Scripture?
Many things have been hid in Scripture for ages. St. Paul speaks of "the
revelation of the mystery, which had been hid from ages and generations;"
(Rom. xvi. 25, 26; Eph. iii. 5.) some part of which at least, though hidden,
had been "spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world
began." (Acts iii. 21.) There are many such treasures hidden in Scripture,
open secrets like those in nature which are daily opening to us. But when
have God's people as a body ever seen or received any truth beyond their
dispensation? Take as an instance Israel of old, whose ways, "ensamples
of us," (1 Cor. x. 6.) prefigure the Church of this age. Did they ever
receive the call of the Gentiles, or see God's purpose of love outside
their own election? A few all through that age spoke of blessings to the
world, and were without exception judged for such a testimony:--"Which
of the prophets have not your fathers slain?" Was God's purpose to the
Gentiles therefore a false doctrine: or, because His people did not receive
it, was it not to be found in their own Scriptures? The doctrine of "the
restitution of all things" is to the Church what <page
99> "the call of the Gentiles" was to Israel. And if the Church,
like Israel, can see no truth beyond its own, and has judged those who
have been witnesses to a purpose of love far wider than that of this age,--which
is not to convert the world, as some suppose, but only "to take out of
the nations a people for God's name,"
(Acts xv. 14.. Compare S. Matt. xxiv. 14:--"This gospel
shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations.)
--is God's purpose, though declared in Scripture, to be damned as a
false doctrine, simply to teach us nothing? Are men's traditions as to
God's purpose to be preferred to His own unerring Word? When I see that
if I bow to the decisions of its widest branch, I must receive not Transubstantiation
only, but the Immaculate Conception also,--the last of which cuts away
the whole ground of our redemption, for if the flesh which bore Christ
was not ours, His Incarnation does not profit us,--I can only fall back
on that Word, which in prospect of coming apostasy is commended to the
man of God, as the guide of his steps and the means to perfect him.
(2 Tim. iii. 14-17. Compare the connexion of this passage
with the opening words of the chapter.)
It is indeed a solemn thing to differ with the Church, or like Paul
to find oneself in a "way which they call heresy," simply by "believing,"
not some but, "all things which <page 100>
are written in the law and in the prophets." (Acts xxiv. 14.) But
the path is not a new one for the sons of God. All the prophets perished
in Jerusalem. (S. Luke xiii. 33, 34) And, above all, the Lord of prophets
was judged as a Deceiver, (S. Matt. xxvii. 63.) by those whom God had called
to be His witnesses. The Church's judgment, therefore, cannot decide a
point like this, if that judgment be in opposition to the Word of God.
But is it possible that Christians should have been allowed to err on
so important a point as the doctrine of future judgment? Would our Lord
Himself have used, or permitted others to use, words which, if final restitution
be true, might be understood as teaching the very opposite? I say again,
look at the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Has, or has not, one large
section of the Church been suffered to err as to the meaning of the words,
which are at the very foundation of her highest act of worship? Did not
our Lord, when He said, "Take, eat, this is my body," (S. Matt. xvi. 26.)
know how monstrously the words would be perverted? Yet though a single
sentence would have made any mistake almost impossible, He did not add
another word. Why? Because the very form in which the Word is given is
part of our discipline; and because without His Spirit, let His words be
what they may, we never really understand Him. Transubstantiation is a
mistake built on Christ's very words; and the <page
101> doctrine of endless torments is but another like misunderstanding;
which not only directly contradicts many other Scriptures, but practically
denies and falsifies the glorious revelation of Himself, which God has
given us in the gospel, and in the face of Jesus Christ. Both shew the
Church's state. And though thousands of God's children have held, not these
only, but many other errors, only proves the grace of Him, who spite of
such errors can yet bless and make His children a blessing.
2) It is further said that the doctrine is opposed to Reason. Several
arguments are urged by those whose opinions are entitled to the most respectful
attention. I confess I care little to answer these, because to me the question
simply is, "What saith the Scripture;" because, too, I know that those
who urge these reasons would instantly abandon them, if they believed Scripture
spoke differently; for I am sure I may answer for them and say, that no
reasons if opposed to Scripture would weigh with them; because, too, if
it be made a question of reasoning, as much may be said against as for
the doctrine of never-ending punishment. Still, as some of these reasons
are perplexing simple hearts, I may notice those which are most often heard.
(i) The first is, that this doctrine militates against the atonement,
for if all men shall at length be saved, God became man to redeem from
that which is equally remedied without it. Surely, Christ did <page
102> not die to save us from nothing. But never will any believe
the redemption by Christ, who do not believe in hell also.
(Puseys Sermon on Everlasting Punishment,
p. 29; and Cazenoves Essay on Universalism, p. 13.)
Now what does it say for the state of the Church, when men can argue,
that if all are saved at last by Christ, they are saved as well without
redemption. The objection only proves the confusion of thought which passes
current for sound doctrine, and how little the nature of the fall, and
the redemption by Christ, are really understood. What the Scripture teaches
is, that man by disobedience and a death to God fell from God under the
power of death and darkness, where by nature he is for ever lost, as unable
to quicken his soul as to raise again his dead body; that in this fall
God pitied man, and sent His Son, in whom is life, to be a man in the place
where man was shut up, there to raise up again God's life in man, to bear
man's curse, and then through death to bring man back in God's life to
God's right hand; that in His own person, Christ, the first of all the
first-fruits, as man in the life of God, broke through the gates of death
and hell; that those who receive Him now, through Him obtain the life by
which they also shall rise as firstfruits of His creatures; that "if the
firstfruits be holy, the lump is also holy," and that therefore "in Christ
shall all be made alive." But how does it follow hence that those who are
not firstfruits, if saved at all, are saved without Christ's <page
103> redemption? Christ is and must be the one and only way, by which
any have been, or are, or can be, saved. But if when we were "dead in sins"
and "children of wrath, even as others," God's Word could quicken and deliver
us out of the horrible pit, that we might be "firstfruits of His creatures,"
why should we say He cannot bring back others out of death, though they
miss the glory of being "firstfruits ?" To say that if this be true, God
became man to redeem us from what is equally remedied without it, and that
if "in Christ all are made alive," their life is not through Christ's atonement,
but independent of it, is simply misapprehension of the whole question.
But the objection shews how much, or how little is understood even by masters
of Israel.
The other part of the objection that "none believe in redemption who
do not believe in hell," is true, and shews why some at least are only
saved by being "delivered to Satan." For none are saved till they know
or believe their ruin. Like the Prodigal, we must come to ourselves before
we come to our Father. (S. Luke xv. 17, 20.) If therefore yet bound by
the lie, "Ye shall be as Gods," men will not believe their fall, and that
there is, and that their souls are in, a dark world the necessary result
is they cannot believe in redemption, for till they believe their fall
they will neither believe nor care for deliverance. If they will not believe
it, they shall know it. And if belief in hell <page
104> makes belief in redemption possible, what if the knowledge of
hell should also lead those who will not believe, to the knowledge of their
state and of their need of Christ's redemption?
(ii) It is further argued, that, if grace does not, judgment cannot,
save man. How can damnation perfect those whom salvation has not helped
? Can hell do more for us than heaven? What more could God do for us, that
He has not done for us? (Puseys Sermon, pp. 9, 10.)
The answer to this lies simply in what has been said above, as to the
reason why the way of life for us must be through judgment. We are held
captive by a lie. One part of that lie is that we are as Gods. The remedy
for this is to shew us that we are ruined creatures. Till we believe or
know this, we cannot return to God. Judgment, therefore, to shew us what
we are, is as needful as the grace which meets the other part of the serpent's
lie, and shews what God is. Therefore God kills to make alive. Therefore
He turns man to destruction, that He may say, Return, ye children of men.
Therefore He delivers even Christians to Satan, for the destruction of
their flesh, that so they may learn what grace has not taught them. If
we want further examples, Nebuchadnezzar shews us how judgment does for
man what goodness cannot. Loaded with gifts, through self-conceit he loses
his understanding. The remedy is to make him as a beast. Then as a beast
he learns <page 105> what as a man
he had not learnt. (Dan. iv. 29-34.) Let the nature of the fall be seen,
and the reason why we are only saved through judgment is at once manifest.
Grace saves none but those who are condemned; nor till we have felt "the
ministry of death and condemnation" do we fully know "the ministry of life
and righteousness."
The firstfruits from Christ to us are proofs, that by death, and thus
alone, is our salvation perfected. Unbelievers, who will not die with Christ,
are lost, because they are not judged here. God cannot do more than He
has done for man. Law and Gospel are His two covenants. But why may not
the Lord, seeing that He is " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day,
and for the ages," by the ministry of death and condemnation in another
world do for those, who have not here received it, that same work of judgment
to salvation, which in the firstfruits is accomplished in this present
world? Blessed be His name, we know He will subdue all things unto Himself;
and though our sin can turn His blessings into curses, He can no less turn
curses into blessings, by that same power which through death destroys
the power of death.
(iii) But it is further objected, that this doctrine gives up God's
justice; (Cazenoves Essay, pp. 22-24.) for if all are saved, there will
be no difference between St. Peter and Nero, virgins and harlots, saints
and sinners. (Jerome, on Jonah iii. 6, 7; quoted from Huets Origeniana,
in Puseys Sermon, p.29.)
<page 106> This again is misapprehension
or worse. God's justice is given up, because He saves by judgment. The
conclusion is absurd; but it arises from the common notion, that we are
saved by Christ from death, instead of
by it and out
of it. What Scripture teaches is, that man is saved through death; that
the elect, being first quickened by the word, and then judging themselves
or being judged in this world, (1 Cor. xi. 31-32.) by a death to sin are
freed from Satan; that others, not so dying to sin, remain in the life
and therefore under the curse and power of the dark world, and are therefore
delivered to Satan to be punished, to know, since they will not believe,
their fall, and their need of God's salvation. But all this simply asserts
the justice of God, that if men will not be judged here, they must be in
the coming world.
For the rest, the statement that according to this view no distinction
is made between St. Peter and Nero, virgins and harlots, saints and sinners,
is not only untrue,--for is there no distinction between reigning with
Christ and being cast out and shut up in hell with Satan?--but is too like
the murmur of the Elder Son at his brother's return, (S. Luke xv. 29-30.)
to need any answer with those who know their own hearts. It is the old
objection of the Pharisee and Jew, who thought God's truth would fail if
sinners of the Gentiles shared their good things; an objection deeply rooted
in the natural heart, which is slow to believe that an outwardly pure and
blameless life needs as <page 107> much
the blood of the cross as the most depraved and open sinner. The objection
only shews where they are who urge it; and whatever support it may seem
to have from a part of God's Word,--as a part of God's Word, taken against
the rest, seemed to justify the Jew, and was indeed the very ground on
which he rejected the call of the Gentiles,--more light will shew that
it rests on partial views, and on a systematic disregard of all those truths
of Scripture, which are beyond the dispensation. Some day we shall see,
that "all have come short," (Rom. iii. 23.) that as to sin and failure
"there is no difference between the Jew and Greek," (Rom. x. 12.) that
the elect are "by nature children of wrath, even as others," (Eph. ii.
3.) that if saved at all, first or last we must be "saved by grace;" (Eph.
ii. 8.) and this truth will justify all God's ways, "who hath concluded
all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.'' (Rom. xi. 32.)
(iv) The last argument I notice is that from analogy. It is said that
as unnumbered creatures in this world fail to attain their proper end,
as a large proportion of seeds never germinate, as many buds never blossom
or reach perfection, so thousands of our race may also miss their true
end, and be for ever castaways. "For as the husbandman soweth much seed
upon the ground, and planteth many trees, and yet the thing that is sown
good in his season cometh not up, neither doth all that is planted take
root; even <page 108> so it is of
all them that are sown in the world; they shall not all be saved." (2 Esdras
viii. 41.)
Now that countless creatures in their present form fail to reach that
perfection, which some of their species reach, and which seems the proper
end of it, is a fact beyond all contradiction. Present nature is both the
witness and mirror of man's present state. But to say that nature out of
this failure or destruction cannot and does not bring forth other and often
fairer forms of life,--that what here fails of its due end is therefore
wholly lost, or for ever shut up in the imperfect form in which it dies
and fails here,-- is opposed to fact and all philosophy. While therefore
it may be fairly argued that many of our race fail to attain that perfection
which is reached by some as the end of this present life, analogy will
never prove that those who miss this are hopelessly destroyed, or for ever
held in the ruined form or state which they have fallen into. If this indeed
were the conclusion to be drawn from the failure of some seeds, why not
go further and argue that since death overcomes every form of life in this
world, death and not life must be the final ruler of the universe? A sad
and most partial reading this of the great mystery. The truth is, nature
is a mirror of the two unseen worlds. Every form of death, all disease,
decay, and failure, every fruitless seed, each ruined life, is the shadow
of hell, and of the working of that spirit <page
109> which destroys and mars God's handiwork. On the other hand all
life and joy, every birth, all that quickens and supports and helps the
creature, is a reflection of the world of light, and a witness that God
is meeting the disorder. Even death itself, as seen in nature, does not
declare annihilation or never ending bondage in any given form of evil.
Quite the reverse. Nature says, matter cannot perish: it may seem to perish,
but the apparent death is only change of form; the change, call it death
or what you will, being indeed the witness of present imperfection, but
not of eternal bondage in that form, nor of destruction or annihilation
when that form perishes. Nature must be strangely read to draw this lesson
from it; but in this argument the conclusion depends upon the extent or
limit of our view, and our capacity to read the book of nature, imperfect
readings of which will always lead us, as in the phenomena of sunrise and
sunset, to conclusions the very opposite to reality. Analogy, so far from
proving that the lost are for ever shut up in the form of evil where they
now are or may be, declares not only that all things may be changed, but
that what to sense appears destroyed and worthless, may contain shut up
in itself what is most beauteous and valuable. Think of the precious things
which chemistry brings out of refuse,--of the flavours, scents, and colours,
which are every day being extracted from what appears worthless. Who can
tell what may yet be wrought by fire? Fire can free and transform what
water cannot touch. <page 110> All
things shall be dissolved by fire. (2 Pet. iii. 12.) And even those most
fair and least corruptible, as the precious stones, which are the shadows
of the things of Christ's kingdom, (Exod. xxviii. 17-21; Rev. xxi. 19-21.)
shall, like that kingdom, one day give up their present beauty for a higher
glory, that God may be all in all.
(v) The greatest difficulty perhaps of all is that which meets us from
the existence of present evil. "The real riddle of existence," says an
acute thinker, "the problem which confounds all philosophy, aye, and all
religion too, so far as religion is a thing of man's reason, is the fact
that evil exists at all; not that it exists for a longer or a shorter duration.
Is not God infinitely wise and holy and powerful now? And does not sin
exist along with that infinite holiness and wisdom and power? Is God to
become more holy, more wise, more powerful, hereafter; and must evil be
annihilated to make room for His perfections to expand? (Mansels Bampton
Lectures, lect. vii. p. 222.) "No doubt the existence of evil is a
difficulty; but surely this kind of reasoning about it proves too much;
for by the same reasoning it might be shewn, that God could never have
done anything. Was He not "infinitely wise and holy and powerful" when
"the earth was without form and void"? Why then should this state ever
have been changed by Him till "all was very good"? Why should not the darkness,
which once reigned, have remained for ever? Was the <page
111> change needed "to make room for God's perfections to expand"?
And why, when the earth was again corrupt, should God judge it with a flood;
and then again bring it forth from its destruction? Why should He work
for the deliverance of His people in Egypt, or "triumph gloriously" over
their oppressors? Was He not "all wise, all holy, and all powerful," even
while His people were oppressed? Did He become "more holy and wise and
powerful" by their deliverance? If such reasoning as this is good, why
should we look either for a day of judgment or the promised times of restitution?
Why, but because, mysterious as the fact is, there has been a fall. All
things do not continue as they were from the beginning. And therefore the
Father "worketh hitherto," (John v. 17.) nor rests till "all things are
made new," (2 Cor. v. 17; Rev. xxv. 5.) and "everything is very good."
And as to evil, granting that its existence is a difficulty, is it one
which is so utterly incomprehensible? Is it not plain that the knowledge
of evil is essential to the knowledge and experience of some of the highest
forms of good; and cannot even man's reason see that sin may be a means
of bringing even into heaven a meekness and self-distrust and knowledge
of God, which could be gained in no other way? Does not all nature shew
that while the origin of evil is unspeakable, death and corruption may
both be means to bring in better things? The seed <page
112> falls into the ground, and dies, and becomes rotten; but the
result is a resurrection with large increase. So the juice of grapes or
corn is put into the still, and thence by decomposition and fermentation,
both forms of corruption, is evolved a higher and more enduring purity
and spirituality. The existence of evil therefore is not so much the difficulty,
as the question, whether, if evil be essential now, it may not be always
needful for the same end. And to this question our reason as yet can give
no answer. Scripture however has an answer, that, though a fall has been
permitted, evil shall have an end, and the creature through God's wondrous
wisdom even by its fall be raised to higher glory. Scripture distinctly
teaches that "the creature was made subject to vanity, not by its own will,
but through Him who subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself
also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious
liberty of the children f God." (Rom. viii. 20, 21.) What St. Paul says
too of an election of grace before the foundation of the world, according
to a predetermined purpose of redemption through Christ's precious blood,
(Eph. i. 4-12.) proves that God's purpose involved and could only be wrought
out through a fall, for without a fall there can be no redemption. And
the fact that God, with the full foreknowledge of man's sin, chose yet
to encounter all this sin, with its attendant misery, out of it to bring
forth and give <page 113> to man
His own righteousness, shews that in His judgment it was worth while to
suffer the evil in order to arrive at the appointed end. Evil therefore
must subserve some good purpose-- otherwise God could never permit it,
or say, "I form peace, and I create evil." (Isa. xlv. 7.) And though as
yet we cannot fully see why evil is allowed, what we know of God and of
His ways, that there is perfect wisdom and economy in every part of them,
assures us that there can be no error or mistake, even in that which seems
to cause the ruin of the creature. Meanwhile those who believe that some
now bound by death by it are being brought into more perfect and secure
blessedness, by such a creed practically assert that present evil need
not be eternal, since in some at least it shall be done away. If in some,
why not in all? Besides, even supposing we could not tell whether evil
might or might not be done away,--supposing it were proved that it would
exist for ever, as essential to the training of certain creatures,--this
existence of evil for ever would be a very different thing from the idea
of the infinite or never-ending punishment of a finite being. But, thank
God, we are not left to guesses. Prophecy announces a day when there shall
be no more curse or death, but all things made new. In this witness we
may rest, spite of the fact and mystery of present evil.
(vi) I have thus noticed what Reason is supposed <page
114> to say against the doctrine of final restitution. But to me
this is a question only to be settled by the Word of God; for with our
knowledge or lack of knowledge of all the mystery of our being, we are
not in a position to argue this point, or to say exactly what is, or what
is not, reasonable. What saith the Scripture? This is the question,
and the only question I care to ask here on this subject. At the same time
I confess that the restitution of all things, so far from appearing to
me unlikely or unreasonable, seems, spite of the mystery of the origin
and existence of evil, more consistent with what we know of God than the
doctrine of never-ending punishment. To say that sin, assuming it to be
opposed to God, has the power of creating a world antagonistic to God as
everlasting as He is, attributes to it a power equal at least to His; since,
according to this view, souls whom God willed to be saved, and for whom
Christ died, are held in bondage under the power of sin for ever; and all
this in opposition to the Word of God, which says that God's Son "was manifested
that He might destroy the works of the devil," (1 S. John iii. 8.) who,
if the so called orthodox view be right, will succeed in destroying some
of the works of the Son of God for ever.
When I think too of God's justice, which it is said inflicts, not only
millions of years of pain for each thought or word or act of sin during
this short <page 115> life of seventy
years,--not even millions of ages only for every such act, but a punishment
which when millions of ages of judgment have been inflicted for every moment
man has lived on earth is no nearer its end than when it first commenced;
and all this for twenty, forty, or seventy years of sin in a world which
is itself a vale of sorrow;--when I think of this, and then of man, his
nature, his weakness, all the circumstances of his brief sojourn and trial
in this world; with temptations without, and a foolish heart within; with
his judgment weak, his passions strong, his conscience judging, not helping
him; with a tempter always near, with this world to hide a better;--when
I remember that this creature, though fallen, was once God's child, and
that God is not just only, but loving and long-suffering;--I cannot say
my reason would conclude, that this creature, failing to avail itself of
the mercy here offered by a Saviour, shall therefore find no mercy any
more, but be for ever punished with never-ending torments.
Natural conscience, which with all its failings is a witness for God,
protests against any such awful misrepresentation of Him. For even nature
teaches that all increase of power lays its possessor under an obligation
to act more generously. Shall not then the Judge of all the earth do right?
(Gen. xviii. 25.) Shall we say that sinful men are selfish and guilty,
if with wealth <page 116> and power
they neglect the poor and miserable; and yet that God, who is eternal love,
shall do what even sinful men abhor and reprobate? For shall we, if one
of our children fall and hurt itself, or be lost to us for years, bitterly
reproach ourselves for want of care, and be tormented with the thought
that with greater watchfulness we might have saved the child,--shall we
if at last he is found, even among thieves, a sharer of their crimes, still
love him as our own child, make every possible excuse for him, and do all
we can to save him,--shall we, though he be condemned, plead for him to
the end, urging the strength of those temptations with which he has been
so long surrounded,--and shall not God have at least the like pity for
His lost ones? Has He left any of His children in peril of being for ever
stolen from Him? Can He, if through the seduction of a crafty tempter some
wander for awhile, be content that they should remain miserable slaves
for ever lost to Him? He would not be a wise man who risked even an estate,
nor a good man who obliged any one else to do so. Can God then ever have
exposed His children to the risk of endless separation from Him? All the
reason God has given me says, God could not act thus; and that if His children
are for ever lost, He even more than they must be miserable. But, as I
have said, we have, thank God, a better guide than our reason, even God's
blessed Word, with its "more sure" promise; and because that Word declares
man's final restitution, and that God <page
117> will seek His lost ones "till He find them," (S. Luke xv. 4,
8.) and that therefore a day shall come when "there shall be no more curse
or death," I gladly accept God's testimony, and look for life and rest,
spite of present death and judgment and destruction.
(3) But it is said, certain texts of Holy Scripture are directly opposed
to the doctrine of universal restitution. That they seem opposed is granted.
We have already seen that, taken in the letter, text clashes with text
on this subject. All those texts which speak of "destruction" and "judgment"
are explained by what has been said above as to the way of our salvation,
and that by death alone God destroys him that has the power of death. Those
passages also which speak of the "lost," as for example St. Pauls words
at the commencement of his epistle to the Romans, that "as many as have
sinned without the law shall perish without law, and as many as have sinned
in the law shall be judged by the law," (Rom. ii. 12.) are not the declaration
of the final lot of any, but of the state of all by nature, till through
union with Christ they are made partakers of His redemption. In this lost
state some are held far longer than others, and therefore are in a special
sense "the lost," (2 Cor. iv. 3; ________ sometimes translated
"them that perish," as in 1 Cor. i. 18, and 2 Cor. ii. 15.) as
compared with the firstborn, who are made partakers of the first resurrection.
But all the saved have once been lost; (S. Luke xv. 24, 32.) <page
118> for the Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost.
(S. Luke xix. 10.)
The fact therefore that of these lost, some are lost for a longer or
shorter period, proves nothing against their final restoration; for the
Good Shepherd must "go after that which is lost, until He find it."
There are however other passages which are relied on as unquestionably
affirming never-ending punishment. That they do teach us that those who
here reject the gospel do by their present rejection of Christ lose a glory,
which, if now lost, is lost for ever, and do further bring upon themselves
a judgment of darkness and anguish unspeakable, is, I believe, the positive
teaching of the New Testament. Once let us, who hear the gospel, while
we are in this life sell our birthright, and then though like Esau we may
cry "with a great and exceeding bitter cry," the glory of the first-born
is for ever gone from us, and we shall find no place or means for reversing
our choice, though when too late we seek to do so carefully with tears.
Once lost, the birthright is for ever lost. But I do not on this account
believe that even the Esaus have therefore no blessing; for I read, "By
faith Isaac blessed both Jacob and Esau concerning things to come;" (Heb.
xi. 20.) and will one day get a blessing, though never the blessing of
the despised <page 119> birthright.
Only if we here suffer with Christ shall we reign with Him; only if like
Him we lose our life, shall we save it for the kingdom. Still these solemn
texts, which speak of grievous loss, do not, I believe, countenance or
teach the current doctrine of never-ending torments. I confess I cannot
perfectly explain all these texts. The exact sense of some of them may
yet be open to question. But all who are familiar with Biblical controversies
know that this is not a difficulty which is peculiar to the question of
eternal punishment, for there is scarcely a doctrine of our faith which
at first sight does not seem to clash more or less with some other plain
scripture; the proof of which is to be seen in the existence of those countless
sects, which have divided and yet divide Christendom. And when I remember
how the opening of Gods method of salvation has already solved for me unnumbered
difficulties,--when I think how the further mystery of the firstborn unveils
yet deeper depths of Gods purpose,--I can well believe that what yet seems
contradictory will with further light be found in perfect accordance with
the tenour of the gospel. And just as evil in Nature and Providence, which
is inexplicable, does not shake my faith that God is love, or that Nature
and Providence are the work of One Supreme Intelligence, who is overruling
all apparent anomalies in accordance with an unerring scheme of perfect
love and wisdom: so the yet unsolved difficulties of Scripture do not shake
my faith <page 120> in that purpose
of God which plainly is revealed to us. One part of Gods Word cannot really
contradict another.
Let us then look at the texts which are chiefly relied on as teaching
the doctrine of everlasting punishment. It is remarkable that they are
in every case the words of our Lord Himself.
(i) There is, first, the passage respecting the sin against the Holy
Ghost, which our Lord declares "shall not be forgiven, neither in this
world, nor in that which is to come."
(NOTE: S. Matt. xii. 32; S. Mark iii. 29;
S. Luke xii. 10. The words in S. Mark, which our version renders, "hath
never forgiveness," in the original are, "hath not forgiveness to the age.")
From this it is concluded that the punishment for this sin must be never-ending.
But does the text say so? The whole passage is as follows:--"Wherefore
I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto
men; but the blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven unto men.
And whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven
him, neither in this age (aion), nor in the coming one." These words,
so far from proving the generally received doctrine, that sin not forgiven
here can never be forgiven, distinctly assert,--first, that all manner
of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men,--secondly, that some sins,
those, namely, against the Son of Man, can be <page
121> forgiven, apparently in this age,--and thirdly, that other sins,
against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven either here or in the coming
age; which last words surely imply that some sins not here forgiven may
be forgiven in the coming age, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost
not being of this number. This is what the text asserts: and it explains
why God has so long withheld the general outpouring of His promised Spirit;
for man cannot reject or speak against the Spirit, until the Spirit comes
to act upon him. God has two ways of teaching men; first by His Word, the
letter or human form of truth, that is the Son of Man, in which case a
man may reject Gods call without knowing that he is really doing so; the
other, in and by the Spirit, which convinces the heart, which therefore
cannot be opposed without leaving men consciously guilty of rejecting God.
To reject this last cuts man off from the life and light of the coming
world. This sin therefore is not forgiven, "neither in this age, nor in
the coming one." But the text says nothing of those "ages to come," (Eph.
ii. 7.) elsewhere revealed to us; much less does it assert that the punishment
of sin not here forgiven is never-ending.
When therefore we remember how our Lord has taught us to forgive, "not
until seven times, but until seventy times seven;" (S. Matt. xviii. 22.)
and when we see the length and breadth of this commandment, that is bidding
us forgive as God forgives, not only till <page
122> seven times seven, that is the "seven times seven years," which
make the Jubilee, (Lev. xxv. 8.) but "unto seventy times seven," that is
a decade of Jubilees, the mystic "seventy weeks," which "are determined
to finish transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation
for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up
the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy;" (Dan. ix. 24.)words
which surely have had an inceptive fulfillment in the first coming of our
Lord, but which, like so many other prophecies of His coming and kingdom,
wait until another coming and another age for a yet more glorious accomplishment;--when
we remember that this is the forgiveness which God approves, we may be
pardoned for believing that the threatening, "It shall not be forgiven,
neither in this age, nor in the coming one," does not measure or exhaust
the possibilities of Gods forgiveness. "I believe" indeed "in the Holy
Catholic Church, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting;"
but I also "believe in the forgiveness of sins," even to the end, as long
as God is a Saviour and there is any sin to need forgiveness.
(ii) Again we are referred to the text, "The wrath of God abideth on
him," (S. John iii. 36.) as another proof of never-ending punishment. But
the words do not prove it. The context is, "He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life, but the wrath of God abideth <page
123> on him."
The passage speaks of mans state by nature and grace, and of the results
of being possessed by faith or unbelief. Faith receives eternal life: unbelief
rejects it; and man so long as he is in unbelief cannot see life, but has
Gods wrath still resting on him. But an unbeliever, though, while he is
such, Gods wrath abides upon him, may pass by faith out of the wrath to
life and blessedness. If it were not so, all would be lost; for the lie
of the serpent has possessed us all, and we are all "by nature children
of wrath even as others." This text therefore cannot bear the sense some
put upon it. If it could, no man once an unbeliever could have any hope
of life or deliverance. All gospel-preaching would be in vain, if the unbeliever
could not become a believer. That this text however should be quoted on
this subject is significant, and shews the measure of light which has decided
this question.
(iii) Far more difficult is the very awful passage which speaks of hell,
"where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." (S. Mark ix.
42-50.) But both the context of the passage, and the Old Testament use
of the words, convince me that the ordinary interpretation cannot be the
true one. As to the context, the words which are relied on as teaching
the doctrine of never-ending punishment are directly connected by the conjunction
"For" with a general statement as to <page
124> sacrifice. The whole passage runs thus:--"and whosoever shall
offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him
that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the
sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut if off: it is better for thee to
enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the
fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better
for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into
hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck
it out; it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one
eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire; where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire,
and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the
salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in
yourselves, and have peace one with another." Take the ordinary interpretation,
and there is no connection between never-ending punishment and the law
here quoted respecting salt in sacrifice. But as spoken by our Lord the
fact or law respecting the Meat-offering is the reason and explanation
of what is said respecting hell-fire,--"For every one must be salted with
fire, and every sacrifice must <page 125>
be salted with salt."
Here as elsewhere the law throws light on the gospel, nor can these
words be understood until the exact nature of the offering which our Lord
refers to is apprehended. Salt, in its nature sharp and biting, yet preserving
from corruption, was expressly required in every Meat-offering; (Lev. ii.
13.) this Meat-offering itself being an adjunct to the Burnt-offering,
and, like it, not a Sin-offering, but a "sweet savour," and offered for
acceptance;
(NOTE: The offerings appointed by the Lord
were (as I have already noticed,) divided into two distinct classes,--first,
the sweet-savour offerings, which are all offered for acceptance; and secondly,
those offerings which were not of a sweet savour, and which were required
as an expiation for sin. The first-class, comprising the Burnt-offering,
the Meat-offering, and the Peace-offering, were offered on the brazen altar
which stood in the court of the Tabernacle. The second class, the Sin and
Trespass-offerings, were not consumed on the altar, but were burnt on the
earth without the camp. In the first-class the faithful Israelites gives
a sweet offering to the Lord; in the other the offering is charged with
the sin of the offerer. In the Burnt-offering, the Meat-offering, and the
Peace-offering, the offerer came for acceptance as a worshipper. In the
Sin and Trespass-offerings, he came as a sinner to pay the penalty of sin
and trespass. Unless this distinction be understood, the force of our Lords
words as to the "salting with fire" will not be apprehended.)
the Burnt-offering shadowing the fulfillment of mans duty toward his neighbor;
both of which have been fulfilled for us in Christ, and are to be fulfilled
by grace in us His members, as it is written, "That the righteousness of
the law might be <page 126> fulfilled
in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit." (Rom. viii.
4.) The passage which we are considering begins with this, mans duty to
his neighbour, and the peril of offending a little one. "It were better
that a millstone were hanged about ones neck, and that the life which offends
were even destroyed, than that we should offend or hurt one of these little
ones." Then comes the exhortation to sacrifice "hand," or "foot," or "eye,"
lest we come into the worse judgment, which must be known by those who
will not judge themselves. "For," says our Lord, thus giving the reason
for self-judgment, "every man," whether he likes it or not, if he is ever
to change his present form and rise to God, "must be salted with fire."
This may be done as a sweet-savour to God; though even here "every sacrifice
is salted with salt,"for even in willing sacrifice and service there is
something sharp and piercing as salt, namely, the correction which truth
brings with it to those who will receive it. But if this be not accepted,
the purgation must yet be wrought, not as a sweet-savour, but as a sin-offering,
where the bodies are burnt as unclean without the camp; "where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched;" (the "worm" alluding to the consumption
of those parts which were not burnt with fire;) "for" in some way "every
man must be salted with fire," even if he be not a sweet-savour "sacrifice,"
which <page 127> is "salted with
salt." But all this, so far from teaching never-ending punishment only
points us back to the law of sacrifice, and to the means which must be
used to destroy sin in the flesh, and to make us ascend in a new and more
spiritual form as offerings to Jehovah.
And the Old Testament use of the words, "The fire shall not be quenched,"
is still more conclusive against the common interpretation. The words occur
first in the law of the Burnt-offering, where we read "The fire shall ever
be burning upon the altar: it shall never go out;"literally, "it shall
not be quenched," (Lev. vi. 13.)the words being exactly the same as those
our Lord quotes here. Here, beyond all question, the words can have nothing
to do with never-ending punishment, or indeed with wrath of any kind; for
the Burnt-offering was one of "sweet-savour" offerings: they speak only
of the one means, namely, the "fire of God," by which that which was offered
to and accepted by Him as "a sweet savour" could be made to ascend upon
His altar, in token of its acceptance by Him.
To keep this fire ever alive was one of the priests first duties, typifying
the preservation of that spiritual fire which it is Christs work as Priest
to kindle and keep alive, for by it alone can we "present our bodies a
living sacrifice." (Rom. xii. 1, and compare S. Luke xii.49.) The other
places where the words occur are the following. They are twice spoken of
the overthrow of the <page 128> first
Jewish temple built by Solomon: (2 Kings xxii. 17, and 2 Chron. xxxiv.
25.) then of Edom; (Isa. xxxiv. 10.) then of Jerusalem, (Jer. vii. 20,
and xvii. 27.) and of the king of Judah, (Jer. xxi. 12.) and the forest
of the south; (Ezek. xx. 47.) and lastly in the passage here quoted by
our Lord from the prophet Isaiah, (Isa. lxvi. 24.) which speaks of the
punishment of the wicked at the period of the latter-day glory. In all
these cases the words express such a destruction as was figured in the
Sin-offerings, which were cast out and burnt without the camp as unfit
for Gods altar. These are the only places in the Old Testament where the
words occur, and in every instance except the last they manifestly cannot,
and confessedly do not, involve the idea of endless suffering. Why in this
one place only is a sense to be put upon the words, which is not only untenable
in every other similar passage of the Old Testament, but would make one
part of Scripture contradict another.
(iv) But the passage which is perhaps most often quoted on this question
is that which speaks of the life of the righteous and the punishment of
the wicked alike as "everlasting":--"These shall go away into everlasting
punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." (S. Matt. xxv. 46.) The
word used here, and which in our Version is translated "eternal" and "everlasting,"
is in either case the same in the original. (aionios.) Hence it
is <page 129> argued, that "whatever
be the meaning of the word in the case of the lost, the same must be its
meaning in the case of the saved; and our certainty of never-ending bliss
for penitent believers is gone, if the word bears not the same signification
in the case of the impenitent and unbelieving."
(NOTE: Pastoral Letter of the Archbishop of
Canterbury, dated March 14, 1864, p. 7. A similar statement is to be found
in the Pastoral Letter of the Archbishop of York, p. 14.)
This at first sight seems to have some weight. Yet if it can be shewn,
as we have shewn, that the word here used is in other Scriptures applied
to what is not eternal, we may be pardoned for thinking it cannot mean
eternal here; the rather as, if it did, this text would contradict other
plain statements of the same Scripture. Nor, as I have said, does this
affect the true eternity of bliss of the redeemed, which is based on participation
with Christ in His risen life, and is distinctly affirmed in other plain
Scriptures, such as, "Neither can they die any more, but are children of
God, being children of the resurrection." (S. Luke xx. 36.) The truth is
that this word describes not the quantity or duration, but the quality,
of that of which it is predicated. I need not here repeat the proofs of
this. But I may add that the word which in this passage we translate "punishment,"
(kolasis) and which in its primary sense means simply "pruning,"
is that always used for a corrective discipline, which is for the improvement
of him who suffers it. <page 130> Those
who hold the common view of the endlessness of punishment are obliged to
confess this;
(NOTE: Of the two words, timwria and
kolasis," (says the present Archbishop of Dublin, in his Synonyms
of the New Testament, p. 30.) "in timwria, (used in Heb. x.
29.) according to its classical use, the vindictive character of
the punishment is the predominant thought; it is the Latin ultio; punishment
as satisfying the inflicters sense of outraged justice, as defending his
own honour, and that of the violated law; herein its meaning agrees with
its etymology, the guardianship or protectorate of honour. In kolasis,
on the other hand, is more the notion of punishment as it has reference
to the correction and bettering of him that endures it; (see Philo,
Leg. Ad. Cai. 1) it is castigatio, and has naturally for the most part
a milder use than timwria. Thus we find Plato (Protag. 323
E) joining kolasis and _______ together: and the whole passage to
the end of the chapter is eminently instructive as to the distinction between
the words; . . . . with all which may be compared as instructive chapter
in Clement of Alexandria, (Strom. Iv. 24; and again vii. 16,) where
he defines _______________________ and _______________________. And this
is Aristotles distinction. (Rhet. i. 10.) . . . It is to these and
similar definitions that Aulus Gellius refers, &c. (Noct. Att.
Vi. 14.)"
Having thus clearly stated and proved what the exact
meaning of kolasis is, the Archbishop proceeds as follows:--"It
would be a very serious error however to attempt to transfer this distinction
in its entireness to the words as employed in the New Testament;" that
is, it would be a serious error to give the word its proper sense. To such
shifts are even learned and good men driven by their traditional views
respecting endless punishment.)
and this of itself proves that their doctrine is untenable; for any punishment,
be it for a longer or shorter time, would not be corrective discipline,
but quite another thing, if it left those who were so corrected unimproved
and lost for ever. May we not then from this very passage prove, that,
while they are doubly blessed who go away at the first resurrection into
eternal life, <page 131> they are
not wholly unblessed whom the Lord yet cares to punish; (Heb. xii. 6, 7.)
the rather as He has shewn us, from the first fall till now, that His changeless
way is to make even the curse a blessing.
(v) Another text often quoted on this question is,--"Good were it for
that man, if he had not been born." (S. Matt. xxvi. 24.) This it is said
is a proof of never-ending punishment, since it would be good to be born,
if, even after ages of suffering, men could at last be restored to see
God. Surely the words declare an awful doom: an awful warning too they
are to those now near Christ. And yet as in the doom pronounced upon our
first parents, which as far as it was addressed to them had not one ray
of light or word of promise in it,--for all that God said to the woman
was sorrow, pain, humiliation; all that He said to the man was curse, death,
ruin, desolation; and only in His curse upon the serpent was any promise
of the womans seed given, (Gen. iii. 14-19)this woe upon Judas, which seems
as dark as night, may yet consist with purposes of mercy, of which in these
words we find no intimation. The fall of Judas, even as that of our first
parents, which in Gods wisdom opened a way for the fulfillment of that
"purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began," (2 Tim. i. 9.) spite of its attendant judgment may not only bring
in higher good, but like Israels fall, which has been "the riches of the
world," (Rom. xi. 12.) may <page 132> even
end in the restoration of the fallen one to more secure blessedness. It
is surely significant that one and the same awful prophecy is by the inspired
writers of the New Testament applied to Judas and Israel.
(NOTE: Compare Psalm lxix. 23, 25, with Rom.
xi. 10, and Acts i. 19, 20. The same passage is applied by S. Paul to Israel,
and by S. Peter to Judas.)
If therefore the one is not a type or figure of the other, the two are
in some way connected most intimately. And yet Israel, of whom it is said,
"Let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back
always," (words which in the Psalm immediately precede the passage which
is quoted by St. Peter in reference to the traitor Judas,) though hated
for awhile, and "as concerning the gospel enemies for our sakes, are yet
beloved for the fathers sakes," (Rom. xi. 28.) and shall be restored one
day, and "brought up out of their graves," (Ezek. xxxvii. 12.) "for the
gifts and calling of God are without repentance." (Rom. xi. 29.) And so
the betrayer here, of whose "fall," like Israels, has been the "riches
of the world," may yet more shew the Lords riches. It is no unreasonable
inference, that, as the same prophecy applies to both, their ends shall
not be wholly dissimilar. Certainly some of the threatenings upon Israel,--such
as, "I will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you;" (Jer. xxii. 39.
See the yet stronger language in Deut. xxx. 18.) nay even <page
133> such words as those of our Lord Himself, "If thou hadst known
in this thy day the things which belong to thy peace; but now are they
hid from thine eyes," (S. Luke xix. 42.)if less awful than the woe pronounced
on Judas, are dark enough, had no other light been poured on them. And
so these words to Judas might forbid all hope, were there no other words
of the same Lord to make us hope for all men. It is because there are such
words, that I hesitate to put a sense upon this woe on Judas, which shall
make it contradict other no less true and weighty words of the same Saviour.
Let us then look again more closely at these words. While surely applying
first to Judas, like all Christs words they have a wider meaning. In the
passage referred to,--"The Son of Man goeth, as it is written of Him; but
woe to that man, by whom the Son of Man is betrayed: it had been good for
that man if he had not been born,"two men, and only two, are spoken of;
the "Son of Man," and "that man" by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. Are
not these in substance "the old man" and "the new," "man" and "the Son
of Man," of whom the one is always the betrayer of the other. Of these
the one is the man of sin, the son of perdition, who cannot be saved, but
must die and go to his own place; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. <page
134> Good had it been for this man, if he had not been born; but
better is it that he has been born, that God might bring in better things.
(NOTE: It ought not to be overlooked, too,
that in the passage under consideration, "Good were it for that man if
he had not been born," the word we translate "good" is kalon, not
agathos.
This surely is not by chance. And I think I see an obvious
reason for the choice of the word kalon here rather than agathos.
The
kalon
may be missed, while the agathos may by Almighty
grace be yet obtainable.)
Good had it been, if there had been no sin and fall, but better is it that
there has been a fall, "for where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."
(Rom. v. 20) The evil shall work for good, and pass away; while the results
shall be for ever glorious. For all that rose in Adam falls in Christ,
even as all that fell in Adam rose again in Christ. The evil is only for
awhile. "I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself abroad
like a green bay-tree; yet he passed away, and lo, he was not: yea, I sought
him, but he could not be found." (Psa. xxxvii. 35, 36.)
(vi) There is yet another text sometimes quoted on this subject. The
words to the Rich Man in hell that "there is a great gulf fixed, so that
they cannot pass who would come from thence," (S. Luke xvi. 26.) are said
to shut out all hope for a lost soul, when it has once entered into the
place of torment. But is it so? Disciples have before now misunderstood
the Lord. The question is, Are those, who thus interpret these words, <page
135> understanding or only misunderstanding this most solemn parable?
What is its aim? It is a similitude of something; for all the parables
are similitudes, even though, like the parables of the Prodigal Son, and
the Unjust Steward, both of which are in direct connection with this one,
they are uttered, as is usual with St. Luke, like simple narratives, always
beginning with, "A certain man," or "There was a certain man." Of what,
then, is this parable of the Rich Man a similitude? Whom does the Rich
Man represent? Who is the poor neglected beggar full of sores, to whom
the very dogs without shew more pity and kindness than the Rich Man? Both
the connection of the parable, and its particulars throughout, shew that
its awful warning is addressed, not so much to the godless world, as to
those who here enjoy the greatest of privileges. Observe the particulars
stated respecting the Rich Man. He was one of Abrahams seed, one who even
in hell could not forget his election, but still cried, "Father Abraham."
He was "clothed in purple and fine linen," the raiment of the kingdom,
and, as a child of the kingdom, he "fared sumptuously every day," while
Lazarus, whose name means simply "needing help," was lying at his
door a mass of sores, loathsome, and in want, and yet uncared for and unpitied
by him who enjoyed many blessings. Who are these two men? If, with Augustine
and other great leaders of the early Church, we take the dispensational
view, the Rich Man is the Jew; the poor beggar at his gate is the <page
136> lost Gentile. In the one we see the children of the kingdom,
who as such were clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day, and yet cared nothing for the Gentile world, lost, full of sores,
and lacking everything. The one, even in hell, yet claiming to be Abrahams
seed, and of whose brethren Abraham says himself, "They have Moses and
the prophets," and "If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead;" the other, brought
through death, as dead sinners, into Gods rest into those very privileges
of which the good fare and fine raiment of the Rich Man were but the type
and figure. Such substantially is surely the lesson of this parable, though
I could never confine it, or any other parable of our Lords to the old
Jew and Gentile only, first, because "no prophecy of Scripture is of private
interpretation," and also because the Jew, as Abrahams son, is himself
the type of those who by grace have now been brought into the place of
children of the kingdom, while the poor Gentile beggar is yet the pattern
of those, who, though full of sores, are yet the "poor" and the "mourners,"
whom Christ calls "blessed," and who "shall be comforted." What the parable
teaches therefore is just that truth, which the elect are so slow to believe,
that the <page 137> children of the
kingdom, if unloving, shall spite of all present privileges be cast into
outer darkness, while lost ones, now without, shall through death come
and rest with Abraham. The Jews would not believe it in their day. How
could God be faithful if they were cast out? The children of the kingdom
now, those who judge their state Godwards, not by their love, that is their
likeness to their Lord, but by their privileges, by the fact that God has
given them such rich and precious blessings in Christ Jesus, are slow to
believe, that, spite of their blessings, they may be cast out. Yet this
is the solemn teaching of the parable. It is one of Abrahams seed who is
in hell: one of the elect people, and not a poor outcast.
And yet "the great gulf fixed," which severs those who once were nigh
but are now cast out, though utterly impassable for man, is not so for
"Him who hath the key of David, who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth
and no man openeth, who hath the keys of death and hell;" (Rev. i. 18,
and iii. 7.) and who, as He has Himself broken the bars of death for men,
can yet "say to the prisoner, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew
yourselves." (Isa. xlix. 9.) Who are we, to say that the gulf, impassable
to man, cannot be passed by Christ, or that He cannot bring the last prisoner
safely back, even out of the lowest prison? As well might we argue that
because "the Ethiopian cannot change his skin, or the leopard his spots,"
(Jer. xiii. 23.)because <page 138> the
evil man can never by his own act make himself good,--therefore God can
never change him. The firstfruits are a proof what God can do. I know what
He has done for the elect, who were "by nature children of wrath, even
as other men;" (Eph. ii. 3.) and He has said, "O death, I will be thy plagues;
O hell, I will be thy destruction;" (Hos. xiii. 14.) and therefore this
parable, awful as it is to me, as one who by grace am now called to eat
of the fat things of Gods house and wear the fine raiment,--because it
shews how all these blessings may be abused, and only aggravate my condemnation,
if I am selfish and unloving,--yet by no means prove that, awful as the
judgment is, there is no hope for those who suffer it. There surely is
hope for the Jews, though of them, and as a warning to them, this word
was first spoken. And so surely, because God is God, there yet is hope,
even for those who shall suffer the sorest judgment.
(NOTE: I subjoin what Stier, one of the most
approved and spiritual of modern commentators, and himself and advocate
of the doctrine of endless punishments, says respecting this parable. Having
shewn that this hell and torment of the Rich Man cannot refer to "the place
and condition of the eternally damned," as it only describes the state
before the resurrection, (Words of the Lord Jesus, vol. iv. p. 222:
there is more to the same effect, p. 233,) he says of Abrahams words, "The
repelling answer hints at the justice and well-adjusted design of love
in the torments which for the present" (the italics are Stiers)
"are rigidly fixed." (Id.
ibid. p. 209.) He then sums up the general
teaching of the parable as follows:--"The enigma of the buried Rich Man,
unrightly called wicked, and of Lazarus, covered with sores and with contempt,
is well worth the attentive notice of all whom we too readily term worthy
and estimable people. It is especially intended for them. The external
riches are a figure of the internal, and the sores, by which the body is
purified, signify something analogous in regard to the soul. . . . .Those
who are warned in this parable . . . are the proud sitters in our most
holy Christian sanctuary. How many a Menkenian,"
(this would be better understood in England if he had said, "a Darbyite,")
. . . . . . "clothes himself in such priestly and royal attire, looking
down upon the poor around who can go no higher than to pray for the forgiveness
of sins! . . . Such people have repented once, and therefore they are Abrahams
children. But they have gradually come to neglect daily repentance and
contrition, till the complete old man emerges out of their regenerate state
once more, and now acts his pride in the garments
of a Christian. . . . . Happy the sinner whose sins break out for his spiritual
healing. Thrice happy would that proud and rich sinner be if he could become
in time a poor Lazarus in Gods sight, before his rich garments are torn
off, and his full table disfurnished for ever. Woe to the converted sinner,
if the poison still remaining should break out in the disease of spiritual
pride, and he too should become a rich man." (Words of the Lord
Jesus, vol. iv. p. 248.) And he adds in a note, "In the carnal-spiritual
life a man lives in honour and joy, and is clothed in purple like the
Rich Man. Dying to this higher life of carnality he becomes poor, hungry,
full of sores and tribulations like Lazarus." (Id. ibid. p. 249.)
This witness is true. May Abrahams sons give ear to it. )
<page 139> Meanwhile Abrahams words have
surely a solemn lesson for those "brethren of the Rich Man who have not
yet come into the place of torment." "They have Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." We can apply
all this to the brethren of the Jew, who would not believe or imitate Gods
love to Gentile sinners, whom they had condemned, rose from the dead and
gathered sinners to Him. But does it <page
140> not equally apply to those who at this day, though children
of the kingdom, through their blind self-love are in danger of the second
death, and who will not hear of any possible resurrection for any out of
it? Is it not written, "They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear
them"? What do Moses and the prophets say of the redemption of the lost,
and of those whose inheritance does not come back at the Sabbatic year
of rest, but only at the Jubilee? What says the law in all its teaching
as to the firstfruits, and in its appointments for cleansing and redemption
to be wrought at different seasons? And what say the prophets as to the
restoration of Sodom and her daughters, and other lost ones, who when they
wrote were "aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants
of promise, without hope, and without God," who yet in due time should
be visited? What is the answer when Moses now is quoted on this point,
or when some promise from the prophets are so obscure that we can base
no certain doctrine on them." So the brethren of the Rich Man will not
hear. But if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they be
persuaded though one came to them even from the second death.
(vii) But all this, it is said, is opposed to the obvious sense of Scripture;
and Scripture having been given for simple and unlettered men, the simplest
sense must be the true one: at all events any sense <page
141> which is not obvious cannot be relied on. This objection is
urged by some as though it were unanswerable. But is the so-called obvious
sense of our Lords words always the right one? Let any one consider the
New Testament quotations from the Old, and say whether the passages so
quoted are applied or interpreted in their obvious sense. Have we not seen
also that again and again, as in our Lords words respecting leaven, and
eating His flesh, and buying a sword, and the sleep of Lazarus, and the
destroying and rebuilding of the temple,--not to speak of His usual parabolic
style, which was expressly used to hide even while it revealed heavenly
mysteries, (S. Matt. xiii. 10-14.)the so-called obvious or literal sense
is beyond all question not the true one. Besides the difficulty on this
point, as we have seen, is that Scripture seems to bear two different testimonies,
here saying that the wicked shall be condemned and perish; there declaring
that all death shall be done away. Gods two ministrations of law and gospel,
and the reason for each, if we understand His purpose in them, explain
the difficulty. But understood or not, the fact remains, that Scripture
on this point contains apparent contradiction. Those therefore who speak
so glibly of "the obvious sense of Scripture" forget how many texts must
be ignored, before the doctrine of never-ending punishment can be shewn
to be the mind of God. What, to take one instance, is the <page
142> "obvious meaning" of such words as these:--"Death reigned
from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude
of Adams transgression, who is a figure of Him that was to come. But not
as the offence, so also is the free-gift. For if through the offence of
one the many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift of grace,
which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto the many.
And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment
was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences to justification.
For if by one mans offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive
abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life
by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free
gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one mans disobedience
the many were made to be sinners, so by the obedience of one shall the
many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered that the offence might
abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin
hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign, through righteousness,
unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom. v. 14-21.) What, I
ask, is the "obvious meaning" of these words? Can a partial salvation exhaust
the fullness of the blessing which St. Paul declares so unequivocally?
Must we not <page 143> distort his
teaching if we try to make it say that the redemption in Christ is less
wide in its results than the fall of Adam? Is not the argument of the passage
just the reverse? Does not the Apostle, by his repeated "much more," (Verses
15, 17, 20.) shew again and again that the redemption and salvation is
far greater than the ruin? The language seems chosen to obviate the possibility
of misapprehension. Why then not receive the teaching in its plain and
obvious sense? Because other words of Holy Scripture speak just as plainly
of a "wrath to come" and a "lake of fire" for "ages and ages." And the
Churchs children, since her fall, having like Israel of old despised prophesyings,
and lacking therefore the necessary light, which this "key of knowledge"
(Luke xi. 52.) would have given them, have cut the knot they could not
untie, by denying one half of Scripture to uphold the other half; choosing,
as was natural, (for men under law can only know God as inflicting its
penalty,) that half which spoke of condemnation. For indeed the Word alone
will never open out Gods mind. We may even be hardened by the letter in
some wretched misapprehension. Only by His Spirit can we really understand
Gods thoughts. Thus, and thus only, can we be "made able ministers of the
New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit;" able to shew how
while "the letter killeth, the spirit giveth life." (2 Cor. iii. 6.) For
it is in Scripture as in the books of Nature and <page
144> Providence. Sense-readings will never solve the difficulty.
Who, as he looks for the first time at death, would believe, that this
and this only is the way to fuller, better, life? The fact is, it is not
enough to have a revelation. We need eyes also and hearts to read that
revelation. And those, who have most studied any of the books which God
has given us, know that so far from the obvious sense being in every case
the true one, all our sense-readings are more or less fallacious and untrustworthy,
and must be corrected again and again, if we would possess the real truth.
Some have proved this in one field, some in another. All must prove it
if they will go onward to perfection.
(viii) There is yet one other objection. It may be said,--If you go
so far as to hope for the final salvation of men, irrespective of what
they have done or have been here, why not go further, and say that devils
may be saved, for if Old Adam can be redeemed, why not lost spirits also?
Have not bad men the devils nature in them? Are they not called "the children
of the wicked one"? (S. Matt. xiii. 38.) Is not the same evil nature in
all Gods children, till it is slain? (Eph. ii. 3.)
Yet has not the Lord died for all, that by His death He might destroy
that evil nature and deliver them? And if this nature can be slain and
changed
NOTE: Notice the language, "perish
AND bechanged," used in reference to present nature, in Heb. i.
11, 12.)
in us, why not in Satan and the fallen angels? <page
145> Shall the Jews be saved, whom our Lord calls "serpents" and
"vipers" (S. Matt. xxiii. 33.) and of whom he says, "Ye are of your father
the devil," (S. John viii. 44.) "How can ye escape the damnation of hell;"
and shall God have no salvation for those, who, though now lost, have once
been "perfect in beauty, full of wisdom"? (Ezek. xxviii. 12.) Was not Satan
"the anointed cherub, which covereth, with every precious stone upon him;"
and is he not, though "his heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and
he has corrupted himself by reason of his brightness," (Ezek. xxviii. 14-17.)
yet a fallen son, against whom "even Michael, the archangel, durst not
bring a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee." (S. Jude 9.)
Where do we read that there can be no hope for such? Is it not rather distinctly
written, that though "the Lord punish the host of the high ones which are
on high, and they shall be gathered in a pit and shut up in prison, yet
after many days they shall be visited"? (Isa. xxiv. 21, 22.) Are not therefore
"the dragons and the deeps" called to "praise the Lord;" (Psa. cxlviii.
7.) yea, are not "the depths laid up in storehouses"? (Psa. xxxiii. 7.)
And who is that king who builds the city of confusion, who has Gods prophet
for his servant and his teacher, who for his pride is as a beast till seven
times pass over him, who yet at last regains his reason and his kingdom;
(Dan. iv. 34-37.) that king of whom the <page
146> Lord says, "Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hath devoured me,
he hath crushed me, he hath made me like an empty vessel, he hath swallowed
me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath
cast me out"? (Jer. li. 34.) The "Lord shall indeed slay the dragon that
is in the sea," (Isa. xxvii. 1.) and "by death destroy him that has the
power of death, that is the devil;" (Heb. ii. 14.) but who can tell but
that as death is the way of life for us, so also it may be with that first
great offender, who "robbed his father, and said, It is no transgression."
(Prov. xxviii. 24.) Who but Adam and Lucifer are the two thieves crucified
with Christ? And though to one only was it said, "To-day shalt thou be
with me in paradise," (S. Luke xxiii. 43.) what proof have we that the
other shall never find mercy? Was not the blood of the Lamb of God shed
on the cross to "take away the sin of the world"? (S. John i. 29.) If so,
what is the sin of the world? When did it commence? And why is not the
sin of "the prince of this world" (S. John xiv. 30.) to be included in
"the sin of the world"? Is not Christ "the Head of all principality and
power," (Col. ii. 10.) as well as "Lord both of the dead and living." (Rom.
xiv. 9.) Nay more, is not even the Church called with her Head to "judge
angels"? (1 Cor. vi. 3.) And if the judgment of the earth shall be its
restoration, (Psa. xcvi. 10-13, and xcviii. 3-9) why <page
147> should not the judgment of angels in like manner be their restoration,
according to the promise, "By Him to reconcile all things unto Himself,
whether they be things on earth or things in heaven"? (Col. i. 20.)
To all this, I have nothing to say in reply; nay more, I confess I cannot
see that God would be dishonoured by such a conclusion of the great mystery.
"For if," as Paul says, "the ministration of condemnation be glory, much
more shall the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory." (2 Cor.
iii. 9.)
And when I think of the change which can be wrought in us,--when I see
that man contains all worlds, and is indeed the hieroglyphic of the universe,--that
not only the seen and unseen, matter and spirit, time and eternity, but
hell and heaven, and the life of each, as well as the life of earth, all
are in him; when I see that Lucifer and Adam, the two first great offenders,
the one in his male, the other in his female, property, are but the prototypes
of the two roots of evil in us, the one of our fallen spirit, the other
of our fallen soul and body, and that in the elect, who are first-fruits,
this hellish life can be transformed, that the selfish, envious, proud,
and wrathful spirit, which hated God, can by a death to sin be brought
back to Gods image, and that this vile body, after all its abominations
and uncleannesses, can be changed like to Christs glorious body, according
to the power whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself;
when <page 148> I know that He who
has this power of Love, I for one cannot limit what God shall do in grace,
or say that this or that lost one shall for ever be cut off from His mercy.
This at least is certain, that the seven nations of Canaan, whom Israel
was called to judge, that they might possess the land beyond the Jordan,
are the appointed figure in Scripture of those "wicked spirits in heavenly
places," (Eph. vi. 12.) with whom the Churchs conflict is throughout this
present age. Yet in a later age they shared a common mercy, and one at
least of this cursed race displayed a faith not to be found in Israel.
(S. Matt. xv. 22-28.) If they, so cursed, and to be judged without pity,
could yet find mercy in a later age, shall not our enemies also, with whom
we fight with the sword of the Spirit, in due time through judgment find
mercy? (See Appendix, Note C.) And though the Church of this age, which,
brought up like Jonah out of the belly of hell, may like Jonah be angry,
because the judgment threatened has not fallen as expected, God will justify
His mercy to that vast assembly, where there are, as He says, so many who
cannot discern between their right hand and their left, not to speak of
those who are as beasts before Him. (Jonah iv. 11.)
IV. Concluding Remarks.
Such then I believe is the testimony of Scripture as to the purpose
and way of God our Saviour. That it will be <page
149> judged as false doctrine by those, who, like Israel of old,
can see no purpose of God beyond their own dispensation, is as certain
as that Israel slew the prophets, and rejected the counsel of God toward
sinners of the Gentiles; that it will be hateful also to fallen spirits
may be seen from the way in which proud souls in every age rebel against
the gospel. Their thought is that they shall continue for ever. Very humbling
is it to think that all their pride and rebellion must be overthrown. Even
with true souls, who have been teaching another doctrine, there must be
special difficulties in receiving a truth which proves them to have been
in error. Now therefore, as of old, Samaritans know Christ as "Saviour
of the world," (S. John iv. 42.) while masters of Israel reject Him in
this character. For teachers to learn is to unlearn; and this is not easy.
Nor can we expect that those, who occupy the chief seats in the synagogue,
will readily descend from them and humble themselves, not only to take
the place of learners, but to be reproached for doing so. How can masters
of Israel eat their own words? Even those who are willing to be taught
are fearful. The consciousness that they are liable to err, and may be
deceived, makes them cling to that which they are accustomed to.
All these things, and still more our natural hard thoughts of God, are
against the spread of the doctrine set forth in these pages. But if it
be Gods purpose, it <page 150> shall
stand, and each succeeding age shall make it more manifest. God will at
last surely cure all men of their mistrust in Him.
Meanwhile He says, "He that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord." (Jer. xxiii. 28.) I do
not fear therefore that the declaration of Gods righteousness and love
will lead men, as some suppose, to think less of Him. "We are saved by
hope;" (Rom. viii. 24.) not by fear. It is the lie, that He is a destroyer
and does not love us, which has kept and yet keeps souls from Him. And
though some argue that the doctrine of final restitution, even supposing
it to be true, ought not to be whispered, except with great reserve, because
men will abuse it, I cannot but think their prudence unwise, and that the
truth, when God has revealed it, may be trusted to do its own work. Of
course this truth, like every other, may be abused. What good thing is
there which may not be perverted? The Bible and the gospel itself may be
wrested to mens destruction, and Christ Himself be made a savour of death
to those He died for. But surely this is no reason for locking up the Bible
or the gospel, or for keeping back or denying any truth which God has graciously
revealed to us. And when I think of past objections to the gospel, that
if grace is preached, men will abuse it and sin that grace may abound,--when
I remember how the doctrine of <page 151>
justification by faith has been opposed, on the ground that it must
undermine all practical godliness,--when I see how Gods election, clearly
as it is revealed in Holy Scripture, is denied by some, who, wiser than
God, think that such a doctrine must be perilous to man and opposed to
Gods love and truth,--I have less faith in the supposed consequences of
any doctrine, assured, that, if only it be true, its truth must in the
end justify it. I rather believe that if the exactness of final retribution
were understood, if men saw that so long as they continue in sin they must
be under judgment, and that only by death to sin are they delivered, they
could not pervert the gospel as they now do, nor abuse that preaching of
the Cross which is indeed salvation.
I cannot but think too that this doctrine of final restitution would
meet much of the hopeless skepticism which is abroad, and which is certainly
increased by this dogma of never-ending punishment. Men turn from the gospel
and from the Scriptures, not knowing what they contain, offended at the
announcement, which shocks them, that God who is love consigns all but
a "little flock," the "few who find the narrow way," to endless misery.
Even true believers groan under the burden which this doctrine, as it is
commonly received, must lay on all thoughtful and unselfish minds. "For
my part," says Henry Rogers, "I fancy I should not grieve, if the whole
race of mankind died in its fourth year. As far as we can see, I do not
know that it would be a thing much to be <page
152> lamented." (Professor Henry Rogers, in Greysons Letters.
Letter vii. To C. Mason, Esq., vol. i. p. 34.) "The same gospel," says
Isaac Taylor, "which penetrates our souls with warm emotions, dispersive
of selfishness, brings in upon the heart a sympathy that tempts us often
to wish that itself were not true, or that it had not taught us so to feel."
(Isaac Taylors Restoration of Belief, p. 367.) Even more affecting
are the words of Albert Barnes, as a witness to the darkness of the ordinary
orthodox theology:--"These and a hundred difficulties meet the mind, when
we think on this great subject; and they meet us when we endeavour to urge
our fellow sinners to be reconciled to God, and to put confidence in Him.
I confess for one that I feel these, and feel them more sensibly and powerfully
the more I look at them, and the longer I live. I do not know that I have
a ray of light on this subject, which I had not when the subject first
flashed across my soul. I have read to some extent what wise and good men
have written. I have looked at their theories and explanations. I have
endeavoured to weigh their arguments, for my whole soul pants for light
and relief on these questions. But I get neither; and in the distress and
anguish of my own spirit, I confess that I see no light whatever. I see
not one ray to disclose to me the reason why sin came into the world, why
the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead, and why man must suffer
all eternity." (Albert Barnes Practical Sermons, p. 123.)
<page 153> Such confessions are surely
sad enough; but they do not and cannot express one thousandth part of the
horror which the idea of never-ending misery should produce in every loving
heart. As Archer Butler says, "Were it possible for mans imagination to
conceive the horrors of such a doom as this, all reasoning about it would
be at an end; it would scorch and wither all powers of human thought."
(Sermons, Second Series, p. 383.) Indeed human life would be at
a stand, could this doctrine of endless torments be realized. Can such
doctrine then be true? If it be, let men declare it always and in every
place. But if it be simply the result of a misconception of Gods Word,
it is high time that the Church awake to truer readings of it.
It is not for me to judge Gods saints who have gone before. Their judgment
is with the Lord, and their work with their God. But when I think of the
words, not of the carnal and profane, but even of some of Gods dear children
in that long night, when "the beast" which looked "like a lamb, but spake
as a dragon," had dominion, (Rev. xiii. 11.)when I find Augustine saying,
that "though infants departing from the body without baptism will be in
the mildest damnation of all, yet he greatly deceives and is deceived who
preaches that they will not be in damnation," meaning thereby unending
punishment;
(NOTE: "Potest proinde recte dici, parvulos
sine baptismo de corpore eruentes in damnatione omnium mitissima futuros.
Multum autem fallit et fallitur, qui eos in damnatione praedicat non futuros,"
&c.De
peccatorum meritis, lib. I. cap. 16, 21. Augustine constantly
repeats this doctrine.)
<page 154> or Thomas Aquinas, that "the
bliss of the saved may please them more, and they may render more abundant
thanks to God for it, that they are permitted to gaze on the punishment
of the wicked;
(NOTE: "Unumquodque ex comparatione contrarii
magis cognoscitur, quia contraria juxta se posita magis elucescent; et
ideo ut beatitudo sanctorum eis magis complaceat, et de ea uberiores gratias
Deo agant, datur eis ut poenam impiorum perfecte videant."Summa,
Part iii. Suppl. Quaest. 94, Art. i.)
or Peter Lombard, that "the elect, while they see the unspeakable sufferings
of the ungodly, shall not be affected with grief, but rather satiated with
joy at the sight, and give thanks to God for their own salvation;
(NOTE: Egredientur ergo electi ad videndum
impiorum cruciatus, quos videntes non dolore afficientur, sed laetitia
satiabuntur, agents gratias de sua libertione, visa impiorum ineffabili
calamitate,"Sentent, lib. Iv. Distinct. 5, G.)
or Luther, that "it is the highest degree of faith to believe that God
is merciful, who saves so few and damns so many; to believe Him just, who
of His own will makes us necessarily damnable;"
(NOTE: Hic est fidei summus gradus, credere
illum clementem, qui tam paucos salvat, tam multos damnat, credere justum,
qui sua voluntate nos necessario damnabiles facit," &c.De servo arbitric,
23, Opp. tom. Iii. fol. 176. Jhanae, 1557.)
--when I remember that such men have said such things, and that words like
these have been approved by Christians, I can only fall down and pray that
such a night may not return, and that where it yet weighs on mens hearts
the Lord may scatter it.
<page 155> For it is not unbelievers
only that are hurt by such teaching. Those who believe it are even more
injured. For our views of God re-act upon ourselves. By an eternal law,
we must more or less be changed into the likeness of the God we worship.
If we think Him hard, we become hard. If we think Him careless of mens
bodies and souls, we shall be careless also. If we think Him love, we shall
reflect something of His loving-kindness. God therefore gave us His image
in His Only-Begotten Son, that "we with open face beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord, might be changed into the same image." (2 Cor. iii.
18.) What that image was the Gospels tell. In word and deed they shew that
"God is love;" "bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things,
enduring all things; never failing," (1 S. John iv. 8, 16; 1 Cor. xiii.
7.) when all around Him failed; to the end, as at the beginning, the life
and hope of lost sinners. Oh blessed gospel"He who was rich yet became
poor, that we by His poverty might be rich." (2 Cor. viii. 9.) He "who
was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
yet made Himself of no reputation, and took on Him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men." (Phil. ii. 6, 7.) He came from life
to death, from heaven to earth; "because we were in the flesh, He came
in the flesh," (Heb. ii. 14; 1 S. John iv. 3.) to bear our burden for us;
to take our shame and curse and death, that He might break <page
156> our bonds, and bring us back, in, and with, and for, Himself,
to Gods right hand for ever. How He did it, with what pity, truth, patience,
tenderness, and love, no eye by Gods yet sees fully. Our unlikeness to
Him proves how little we have seen Him; for "we shall be like Him when
we see Him as He is." (1 S. John iii. 2.) Yet what some have seen has made
them new creatures. Men who lived for self have "laid down their lives,"
(1 S. John iii. 16.) yea have "wished themselves accursed for their brethren,"
(Rom. ix. 3.) because His spirit possessed them, and therefore they could
not but spend and be spent, like Him they loved, to save lost ones. Will
the coming glory change all this? Will Christ there be another Christ from
what He was here? Can He there look on ruined souls without the will to
save; or is it that in glory, though the will is there, the power to save
is taken from Him? And will the glory change His members too,--change them
back to love their neighbour as themselves no longer? Shall a glimpse of
Christ now make us long to live and die for others; and when, by seeing
Him as He is, we are made like Him, shall our willingness to die and suffer
for the lost, be taken from us?
Will this be being made like Him? If what is so generally taught is
the truth,--and I can scarcely write it,--Christ there will be unlike Christ
here: He will, if not unwilling, be yet unable, to save to the uttermost.
Nay more,--so we are taught,<page 157> --instead
of weeping over the lost, as He wept here, He will feel no pang, while
myriads of His creatures, if not His children, are in endless torment.
Then at least He will not be "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) Is this blasphemy? Then who teaches it?
Surely men cannot know what they are doing when they teach such doctrine.
Do they not see how, because it is a lie, it hardens, and must harden,
even converted souls who really believe it? For if with Christ in heaven
it will be right to look on the torments of the lost unmoved, and to rest
in our own joy, and thank God that we are not as other men, the same conduct
and spirit cannot be evil now. Many shew they think so. The world is lost,
and they are saved; but they can live now, as they hope one day to live
with Christ, so rejoicing in their own salvation, that they have no pity
for the crowds, who, if not yet in hell, are going thither all around them.
Even true believers are injured more than they are aware, just in proportion
as they really believe in never-ending torments. If not almost hopeless
about the removal of any very subtle or persistent form of error, they
shew that they have little faith in the power of unwearying love to overcome
it. Why should they not allow some evil to remain if the Lord of all permits
it for ever in His universe; or how should they expect to overcome evil
with good, when, according to their creed, God <page
158> Himself either cannot or will not do so through ages of ages?
Why should they not therefore after a few brief efforts leave the willful
and erring to their fate, since the God of patience Himself, according
to their gospel, will leave souls unchanged, unsaved, and unforgiven for
ever? With their views they can only judge the evil: they do not believe
that it can be overcome by good, or that those now captive to it can and
must be delivered by unfailing love and truth and patience. Even the very
preaching of the gospel is affected by this view; for men are hurried by
it into crude and hasty work and souls,--unlike Him who "stands at the
door and knocks," (Rev. iii. 20.)by which they often prematurely excite
and thus permanently injure the proper growth of that "new man," whom they
desire to bring forth. Blessed be God, His grace is over all; and He is
better than His most loving children think Him; and our mistakes about
Him, though they hurt His people and the world, can never change His blessed
purpose. And His Word,--and men would see this if they searched it more,--in
the "law of the first-fruits," in the "purpose of the ages," and in salvation
through "the cross," that is through dissolution; above all in the face
of Jesus Christ, tells out the truth which solves the great riddle, and
shews why man must suffer while he is in sin, that through such suffering
and death he may be brought back in Christ to God, and be re-made in His
likeness.
<page 159> I conclude as I began. The
question is, What saith the Scripture? If these hard views of God, which
so many accept, are indeed the truth, let men not only believe them, but
proclaim them ceaselessly. If they are, as I believe, only misconceptions
of the truth, idols of mans mind, as false and contrary to the revelation
God has made of Himself in Christ as the idols of stone and wood and gold
and silver were to the law of Moses, may the Spirit of our God utterly
destroy them everywhere, and change our darkness into perfect day. No question
can be of greater moment, nor can any theology which blinks the question
meet the cravings which are abroad, and which I cannot but believe are
the work of Gods Spirit.
The question is in fact, whether God, is for us or against us; and whether,
being for us, He is stronger than our enemies. To this question I have
given what I believe is Gods answer. And my conviction is that the special
opening of this truth, as it is now being opened by God Himself, everywhere,
is an evident sign and witness of the passing away of present things, and
of the very near and imminent judgment of apostate Christendom. A time
of trial and conflict plainly is coming, between a godless spiritualism
on the one hand, and on the other a so-called faith, which has lost all
real experience of spirit-teaching and spirit-manifestations, whose professors
therefore have nothing to fall back on but a letter of tradition, which,
however true, will in carnal hands be a poor defence against a host of <page
160> lying spirits. Alas for those who in such a trial, while calling
themselves the Lords, know nothing of hearing His inward voice or of being
taught by His Spirit. But He yet says, "He that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith," His grace, if sought, is still sufficient for us.
May He more fully guide us into His own truth, and as a means open to us
yet more of His Holy Scriptures, which, like the world around, contain
unknown and undiscovered treasures, even the unsearchable riches of Christ,
which are laid up for lost creatures.
I remain,
Yours most truly,
ANDREW JUKES.
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