THE Church is not to be the means of the conversion of the world at large. It is a company of people gathered out of the world, pilgrims and strangers always in it, a heavenly people, partakers of a heavenly calling, with a hope laid up for them in heaven, and an inheritance reserved in heaven for them also. The course of this world is against them always. Watchers during the night-time of their Master’s absence, no day dawns for thorn until He comes, and when. He comes their home is to be where He is, in the Father’s house, according to His promise.
From these, the simple Scriptural assurances, Christians have departed in two different directions. Some have substituted the hope of the world’s conversion for the expectation of the coming of the Lord from heaven; while others (and their number is increasing in the present day) imagine for themselves an earthly portion and inheritance after the Lord’s coming. Many of the early Christians no doubt held this view; and it gave but too much occasion to those who “spiritualized” away the “blessed hope.”
Strange enough it is, that those words of our Lord to His disciples upon His departure front them, which are found in John 14:3,3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. (John 14:3) should not be enough to settle the question forever with all his own. For plainly He tells them there of His going away to prepare a place for them in His Father’s house, and that then. He will come again, and receive them to Himself — surely after He has prepared it — and not only so, but that He will come for them, that where He is — His own eternal dwelling place — there they may be also. Could that be an abode on earth? It is impossible, if words are capable of any distinct and certain meaning.
No, our home is above. No “reigning upon the earth” will hinder that. It is much to be feared, however, that with many, the thought of where we are to reign has but too much displaced the thought, the more precious thought, of that blessed home, where surely the affections of the saint should center. Yet it is easy to see, that if I say, “the Queen of Great Britain reigns in Canada,” I do not mean to say “she lives there,” which would be contrary to the fact. So with us, this is no real opposition between a home in heaven and a reign on earth. Both are Scriptural truths, and in nowise contradictory.
Want of clearness as to this has led many into the very same system of interpreting Scripture upon some points, which they are foremost to condemn when it is applied to others. The hope of Israel is the possession of the earth, and that as the foremost people upon it, in the day of millennial blessing. It is Israel that is to blossom and bud, and fill the face of the earth with fruit (Isa. 27:66He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit. (Isaiah 27:6)). The blessing yet in store for them is as plainly spoken of throughout the pages of the Old Testament prophets, as is the judgment under which they lie at this present moment. But the cry is, with many who would utterly reject such interpretation of the Lord’s coming (and rightly too), “Oh, you must: not take it literally”. Why, if I take such a passage as Micah 3:9-12,9Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. 10They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. 12Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest. (Micah 3:9‑12) the curse is literal enough — confessedly so — and has been literally fulfilled. Zion has been “ploughed as a field;” Jerusalem is “become heaps;” the “mountain of the house” has been given over to idolatrous, worship like “the high places of the forest.” Am I to believe, that when I pass on to chapters 4, and read how “in the last days” the mountain of the house shall be exalted, the law go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, that now it is another mountain of the house, another Zion, another Jerusalem, that the prophecy without break or pause has brought me to? Am I to believe that the blessing shall not be as literal as the curse?
Or again, when the Lord, by Jeremiah, assures us that the sun and moon shall as soon cease from the heavens as Israel cease from being a nation before him forever; and when he prophesies the restoration of their city “from the tower of Hananeel to the gate of the corner,” not to be plucked up or thrown down any more forever verses, 35-40), — am I to believe that the substitution of the Gentile church’ for the people of Israel will in no wise touch the truth of this prophecy, nor contradict that assurance so solemnly and positively given?
If I may take then what the Word of God so simply and fully declares here, Israel, so long dispersed and downtrodden, will be the people so blessed of the Lord in the earth, in that day when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover it. To them, the very people for whose unbelief at that time, he so mourns, the apostle tells us these Old Testament “promises” belong (Rom. 9:44Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; (Romans 9:4)).
How completely this is true, through the whole course of this first division of the inspired Word, from Genesis to Malachi, we may, if we will, easily convince ourselves. The prospect for the future, however bright and blessed, is through all these books an earthly one. No promise of the Father’s house greets us there. No heavenly inheritance beckons us above. Nowhere do you get bond the utterance of the Psalmist: “The heaven, even the heaven of heavens, is the Lord’s; but the earth has He given to the children of men” (Psa. 115:1616The heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men. (Psalm 115:16)).
A fair inheritance, doubtless, that would be, if freed from the rack of human evil. Nor is it a Scriptural thought that the earthly condition, is one that is ever utterly to cease. Beyond the passing away of the heavens and earth that now are, there remain for eternity “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:1313Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13)). So we are plainly told, and this, if weighed, would surely correct many a hasty thought about a future which God alone is competent to reveal to us. If there is to be “a new earth” in the eternal state, there must certainly be inhabitants for it, and those inhabitants doubtless also men, as Revelation 21:33And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (Revelation 21:3) clearly implies. Still, as I have already said, earth is not that “Father’s house” which the Lord has gone away from earth to prepare for us. Our blessings as Christians are not only “spiritual blessings,” but “in heavenly places” also, those same heavenly places where God has set Christ our Representative at His right hand, and where He has thus “made us sit together, in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 1:3,20; 2, 63Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: (Ephesians 1:3)
20Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:20)
20And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; (Ephesians 2:20)
20For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:20)).
There are then plainly, not only for the future, but for the eternal future, as well earthly as heavenly promises. The earthly promises are those of which the Old Testament, so far as its plain language goes, only speaks. They are Israel’s promises; though the nations of the Gentiles will enjoy them also in the end, as the Word of God fully declares. On the other hand, no less than ourselves, the saints of the Old Testament times will find their eternal home in the heavenly places. To such a heavenly home Abraham with others plainly looked forward, and their hope is not to be disappointed. This, however, as to them the New Testament alone plainly declares.
You may live to yourself as religiously as possible, and Christ be outside it all.