The Kingdom of God The Final Instrumentality In The Great Scheme of Human Redemption, continued

Here we have a predicted insurrection at the close of the millennium, which is allowed to gather strength, and come to a head, and which is then to be summarily suppressed by an outburst of divine judgment at "the beloved city "--Jerusalem. This is followed by a general judgment. Now who are arraigned at this judgment? It cannot be the saints who have been associated with Christ in government during the previous thousand years, who at the beginning of his reign have been welcomed as "good and faithful servants" into his joy. These have been judged already. They appeared before his judgment-seat at his coming, and gave an account, and were dealt with accordingly.

Who, then, are thus to be judged at the close of the thousand years? Obviously those who have lived during the thousand years. The subjects of Messiah's kingdom will be placed under a different system from that which we are connected with, and no doubt it will be of such a nature as to call for the exercise of faith, notwithstanding the visible manifestation of divine power among them, for, "without faith it is impossible to please God." However that may be, the result of their judgment is that many of them are found "written in the book of life," and receive eternal life.

But what becomes of the remainder? The answer is, "Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." This lake of fire is one of the symbols employed in the Apocalypse. The Apocalypse is full of symbol. It is "the revelation of Jesus Christ . . . SIGNIFIED by his angel"--a revelation indicated by sign, as the sequel shows. The prophetic facts intended to be communicated are portrayed in symbol, and an occasional hint of interpretation is dropped to enable "his servants" to decipher the hieroglyphs employed. The hint dropped in this case is this (chapter 20v 14): "This is THE SECOND DEATH"; or, to make the matter more certain (Rev. 21v 8), "All liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, WHICH IS THE SECOND DEATH." Here, the lake of fire is introduced to us as a symbol signifying the second death.

What is the second death? "Second" implies a first. We cannot conceive of a second without the antecedent figure---one. Where, then, shall we look for the first death? Obviously to that "accident of life" which overtakes all the living; "It is appointed unto men ONCE to die." A wicked man dies in the natural course of events; but, if amenable to judgment, he is raised again--restored to life for punishment. And what follows judgment? Condemnation---few stripes or many stripes. And what after the stripes? Death a second time; but a death different to the first, inasmuch as it is directly inflicted by divine displeasure, and consigns its victims to an oblivion from which there is no reclaim by resurrection. It is a death that wipes away every vestige of their being from God's creation. "The day that cometh," says Malachi (chapter 4v 1), "shall burn them up, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." And David's declaration is, that "The enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs. They shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away" (Psa. 37v 20).

How appropriate a symbol of such a fate is a lake of fire. The only conception we can have of such a thing is supplied by the pools of incandescent iron to be seen at blast furnaces. Throw an animal into one of these pools, and what is the result? Instant annihilation. Not a vestige of the creature's substance survives the action of the destructive element. Complete, and immediate, and irretrievable destruction, then, is the idea suggested by a lake of fire; and how appropriate is such a symbol to signify the second death, which will destroy, with double destruction, even "soul and body" (Matt. 10v 28).

When every one not found written in the book of life is cast into the lake of fire, what remains but the fulfilment of Paul's statement, that "death shall be destroyed?" All that are sinful, and, therefore, deathful, are destroyed, and death is, therefore, literally destroyed with them, because there will then be none left upon whom it can prey. And, death being destroyed, what is the picture? A population of deathless beings, reclaimed by God's intervention from the sin and death which now curse our planet. With these considerations in view, the following testimonies will be fully appreciated:--

"The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth" (Psa. 34v 16).

"Let the wicked be ashamed and let them be silent in the grave" (Psa. 31v 17).

"For evil doers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth; for yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be; but the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace" (Psa. 37v 9-11).

"Wait on the Lord, and keep His way, and He shall exalt thee to inherit the land; when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it" (Psa. 37v 34).

"Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked BE NO MORE" (Psa. 104v 35).

"The upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it; but the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it" (Prov. 2v 21, 22).

"As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous is an everlasting foundation .... The righteous shall never be removed, but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth" (Prov. 10v 25, 30).

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (Matt. 5v 5).

The idea has been suggested that although the subject-inhabitants of the kingdom will not be immortal, the obedient among them may "live on" to the end of the thousand years, and then be immortalised. This idea assumes that the judgment scene of Rev. 20v 11-15, is at the beginning and not at the end of the thousand years. Even if this were granted, it would not remove the general objections to the idea of no death during the thousand years.

The work of immortalising mankind is spoken of as a harvest in its final form. This being so, analogy would require us to find the nature of the harvest in the first fruits--Christ and his brethren. They are the "sample of the bulk." Are the first fruits produced on the principle of "living on" till the time of change?

He (Christ) was the first of the ripe fruit of the life-harvest which God proposes to raise for His own glory in the earth (I Cor. xv 23: see the shadow in Lev. 23v 10-20, in the presentation of the first sheaf of fruit, which coincided in point of time with Christ's ascension). Now the rest of the harvest must follow in the same process of raising. Christ attained to life by faith and obedience (Phil. 2v 9; Heb. 5v 7). His brethren of the present dispensation attain it in the same way through him. They do not "live on to the end" of the times of the Gentiles. They die as other men. The principle observed in the process of their development requires this. This principle is faith, which is confidence in the promise of God. If, the moment a man believed in the gospel, his mortal life were made sure till the coming of Christ and the change to the incorruptible, the principle of faith, by which a man honours God, "against hope, believing in hope," would be destroyed: for all the world would "see" that there was advantage in the way of the gospel, and they would flock to the gospel, not because God had promised, but because they perceived an actual present advantage in believing. It is, therefore, an absolute necessity for the exercise of faith that there should be no present apparent difference between those who serve God and those who serve Him not, but that this difference should only be perceived in the day of recompense (Mal. 3v 18).

Now, what is true of the "called" in the time of the Gentiles is true of the called of the millennial age. It is necessary that they should not "live on to the end" of their particular dispensation, for faith is just as necessary for them as us, and if they did not die like other men, there would be no scope for faith and they would be an exception to Abraham and all who have gone before. They would not be of the same harvest. It would be a different crop altogether, raised upon a different principle. Though men will live longer than they do now, death will continue indiscriminately, as the law of faith requires, till the grand final triumph, when the great enemy will be destroyed for ever, and every inhabitant of ransomed earth be able to say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"

There is this difference between the introduction of death and the introduction of resurrection unto life: death passed upon all men at once, whereas in resurrection, there is a gradual order of development, marked by three stages. Paul states this order in the following terms: "But every man in his own ORDER: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming: then the end ('cometh' is not in the original), when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Cor. 15v 23-26).

Here we have a "first," an "afterwards," and a "then," as the "order" of resurrection. The introduction of the word "cometh" interrupts the "order." There is resurrection at "the end," for the end is introduced expressly in connection with the order of the resurrection, and not only so, but Paul makes the reign of Christ result in the putting down of all enemies, including" death," which he makes the" last."

That this destruction of death involves resurrection, is illustrated in the case of "those that are Christ's at his coming." Death in their case is "swallowed up (or destroyed) in victory," in their being raised from the dead no more to see corruption. The nature of the case demands that there should be resurrection at the close of the thousand years; for when Christ comes, those only are immortalised who are his own. And if the rest are not immortalised, they must die as Abraham and all the saints have died, for it is the nature of mortality to die. And dying in faith, how are they to receive the promise if they rise not? And when should they rise but at "the end" of the millennial dispensation, where Paul places it? The figure that likens the 144,000 to "first fruits," requires that they should be followed by a harvest in the resurrection of all who come to moral ripeness in the age, but physically fall asleep, as all the fathers have done.