“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning” (Psa. 30:55For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favor is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)). In the progress of Scripture, we have several infant seasons, as I may express myself, or mornings.
Creation
That, of course, was the birthday of the works of God the morning of time. And when the foundations were then laid, “the morning stars sang together” (Job 38:77When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)).
The Exodus
This was a morning when the nation of Israel was born, or in its early infancy. “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt” (Hos. 11:11When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. (Hosea 11:1)). The year started as though it were new born; the month of the Exodus was the beginning of months (Ex. 12:22This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. (Exodus 12:2)). Life from the dead, a resurrection morning, was celebrated in the song of Moses and the congregation on the banks of the Red Sea.
The Birth of the Lord Jesus
That blessed event rose upon the world like the light of morning. A long and dreary night had preceded it. Israel was captive and in the dust; there were no signs; the voice of the prophets had been silent for centuries. There was no Urim or Thummim, no ephod of the priest, no delivering oracles or answer from God, and no glory filled the temple.
Nothing distinguished the city of peace, the favored seat of God on earth, save now and again the angel-stirring of Bethesda’s waters though unexpected and scarcely welcomed.
But the birth of the Lord Jesus, like the morning, awakened the creation and the lights of many other days broke forth together to tell that the long, dark night had given place to a very bright and exceedingly cheerful morning.
Heaven rejoiced, like the sons of God at the creation. Angels, once so well-known in Israel, reappeared. The grace that had acted in infant, patriarchal days again displayed itself. Promises to Abraham and to David, which anticipated the new birth of the people and the kingdom, are cited and rehearsed.
All this is seen on this great occasion, this fresh morning hour when the Child born in Bethlehem is welcomed by the seer of God as “the dayspring from on high,” the sunrise or morning (Luke 12).
The Resurrection of the Lord
This morning came after the gloomiest night ever known in creation. But it was light indeed, the pledge and harbinger of an eternal day. Then the shadow of death was turned into morning, for “it began to dawn toward the first day of the week” when this great mystery disclosed itself (Matt. 28).
The Kingdom
This will be another glorious morning Christ’s day after a night of sin and death, Christ’s world after man’s world. “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain” (2 Sam. 23:3-43The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. 4And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. (2 Samuel 23:3‑4)). These words of David are written of this coming kingdom.
The New Heaven and the New Earth
Mornings Fading Into Evenings
How sweet it is to see morning after morning thus rising as we pass down the ages which Scripture measures. But we have another sight to consider. Man has been ever turning God’s morning into the “shadow of death.” Creation, which came forth from God so fair and full of joy, quickly was turned into a wilderness of thorns and thistles. The ground was cursed, though its morning-hour witnessed the joy of the Lord over it and the blessing of the Lord on it.
Israel, who sang the redemption song at the Red Sea, became a captive in the dungeons of Babylon, the land of glory left wasted and desolate under the foot of uncircumcised oppressors.
The Sun that in the morning of Bethlehem rose on the world as the light of it and on Israel as the pledge of a renewed day set in the night of Calvary for man was a sinner and rejected Him.
The same blessed Jesus who rose a second time upon the world and upon Israel as life from the dead, bringing light and life for eternity to us with Him, now has to see the waning, fading, evening shades of Christendom, which are soon to close in the midnight of Apocalyptic judgments.
The kingdom which is about to break forth as the light of “a morning without clouds” is to close in the great apostasy of Gog and Magog, in the judgment of death and hell, and all not written in the book of life, and in the fleeing away of the heavens and the earth from the face of Him who sits on the great white throne.
A Morning Forever
The morning, however, of the new heaven and the new earth God will maintain in its first beauty and freshness forever. There will be no evening shades of man’s corruption and revolt, no night of judgment in its story. It shall be maintained as one eternal day, the sun of which shall never go down.
What sights are these which pass in vision before us! The blessed God begins again and again to lay His foundations, as in the freshness of morning, and man again and again turns His morning into the shadow of death. But God cannot dwell in darkness. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, and, therefore, though man may not join Him in maintaining the light, but plunge the whole scene in darkness again and again, He Himself will make good His own glory and secure His own joy. Having at the beginning called forth light from darkness in the morning-hour of the first creation, God will maintain in eternal beauty the morning of the second creation.
J. G. Bellett (adapted)