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

The fitness of things requires this. "To whom much is given, of them is much required." The first-century believers enjoyed the privilege of the Spirit gifts and the company of personal acquaintances of the Lord; and they were required to prove their faithfulness in confiscation and prison, and at the executioner's block. We of the latter days have no open vision or witness of the Spirit in its wonder-working power. We have but the written and historical evidence of God's operations in the past. Having received "less" than our brethren of old, we are not called upon, like them, to go to prison and to death, but have times of liberty and peace wherein to manifest our love. In the age to come, privileges such as have never fallen to the lot of mortal man will be enjoyed by the peoples, nations, and languages, who will rejoice in the rule of Christ and the saints. Instead, therefore, of their position calling for exemption from death, it rather requires that their faith and obedience should be developed and tested by its prevalence until the time for its destruction as the "last enemy" arrives, in the resurrection and glorification of all who in that blessed age secure the approbation of God.

The performance of sacrifice in that age (Zech. 14v 21; Mal. 3v 4; Isa, 9v 7; Ezek. 44v 29, 30), involves the conclusion that death is in operation among the offerers. The existence of priesthood (for the saints are priests as well as kings) carries with it the same conclusion; for priesthood arises out of the existence of sin, and sin brings death. If there were no death, it would argue the absence of sin--a fact which would exclude sin-offerings from the office of priesthood. But death continues until it is destroyed at "the end."

There is express recognition of the existence of death in Ezekiel's description of the temple service of the future age. Thus, of one order of priests it is said, "They shall come at no DEAD PERSON to defile themselves" (Ezek. 44v 25). Again, in the selection of wives, they are prohibited from marrying "a widow or her that is put away," but may take "a widow THAT HAD A PRIEST BEFORE" (22), from which it follows that death is a common occurrence at the time.

It cannot be suggested that the dead in these cases die for contumacy for the people shall be all righteous (Isa. 60v 21). Death prevails in common, whence springs the necessity for resurrection at the end--that is the end of the thousand years; for how otherwise are the highly responsible dead of those times to be dealt with according to their deeds? "Old men that have not filled their days" belong to that time (Isa. 65v 20) with staff in their hands for very age (Zech. 8v 4), which argues death at the completion of their natural term without any idea of judicial infliction. Children DIE an hundred years old (Isa. 65v 20). The time of judgment for those then in probation for eternal life is "when the thousand years are expired." The dead, small and great, come forth multitudinously--we may say universally, as times of universal knowledge will have required. The sea gives up the dead: death and hades give up the dead which are in them, and they are judged every man according to their works (Rev. 20v 12-13). Every one not found written in the book of life is given over to the second death (15). We can understand, on this principle, how it is that the casting of the rejected into the lake of fire is the casting of death and hell (hades--the grave) there; for with the rejected will for ever perish from the earth all trace of death and the grave.

This post-millennial resurrection is mentioned in connection with the resurrection of the first fruits--those who "live and reign with Christ a thousand years," and who are, therefore, raised at the beginning of that period. John seeing them enthroned after their resurrection, says, "But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished" (Rev. 20v 5).

Some think the idea of a post-millennial resurrection of the righteous is excluded by the next statement: "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years." They understand this to mean that all are cursed who rise at the end of the thousand years. A close consideration of the verse, however, will show that the statement bears exclusively on those who rise and are approved when Christ comes, and not at all on those who rise at the third and last stage.

Some read this "first resurrection" as "resurrection of the first fruits." No doubt, those who rise then are "the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb," but this is not a translation of John's words. John wrote "the first resurrection." Whichever way this is treated, it implies another resurrection besides itself. Understood as first in rank, it points to another lower in rank. "Resurrection of the first fruits" would refer by implication to resurrection of harvest. First in order would necessitate another or others in order. So that no sublimation or modification of the phrase can dispense with the conclusion that John contemplated another resurrection besides the one represented before his eyes in the enthroned multitude of accepted saints.

A true construction would combine all these ideas, and point to the resurrection that takes place at the coming of Christ as the one that will exceed in blessedness all other resurrections. It will introduce those who have part in it to the highest honour in store for mortals--the honour of leading mankind from their present miseries to the blessedness promised in Abraham. As Christ will always be the head of his people in the endless ages, so, doubtless, the saints that govern the millennial age will always occupy a position of glory and dignity over the ransomed multitude that will by their means enter into eternal life at the close of the thousand years.

Rev. 21v first four verses, introduces to view the post-millennial blessedness on earth, when death is abolished. "No more sea" points to this, whether taken symbolically or literally. There will be both literal ocean and "many waters" of nations during the thousand years. After the thousand years, there is no more sea of nations, for there is then but one nation, and that the immortalised multitudinous Israel of God.

But even supposing these verses were held to be descriptive of what takes place at the beginning of the thousand years, they could not be used to sanction the idea that there is to be no resurrection at the close of the thousand years. The proclamation, "There shall be no more death!" could in that case only be understood as an intimation that the abolition of death would be the ultimate effect of the New-Jerusalem government of men. The cases already cited of death during the millennium, and above all, the wholesale infliction of death on myriads at its close--(see Rev. 20v 8-9)--would preclude the absolute significance which the argument in question would seek to attach to it. It would in that case be on a par with the proclamation of the angels at the birth of Christ: "On earth peace, and goodwill toward men," which, taken by itself, would seem to intimate that peace was to begin immediately Christ was born; but, as experience has taught us, it only meant that peace would come on earth at last through the Deliverer then cradled at Bethlehem. But the wording of the glorious verses in question clearly relates to a time when "the former things" of sin and sorrow shall have passed for ever from the face of the earth.

We have to note another feature of the change that takes place at the end, indicated by Paul in the following words:--

"Then cometh the end, when he (Christ) shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule, and 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 and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be all in all" (I Cor. 15v 24-28).

From this we learn that Christ at the end of the thousand years is to abdicate the position of absolute sovereignty, which he occupies in the earth during that period. It would seem as if, on the accomplishment of his mission in the complete redemption of the world, that God Himself is manifested (without a medium) as the only eternal Governor. The idea will be apprehended in the light of Paul's statement that "the head of every man is Christ, and the head of Christ IS GOD." During the thousand years, it is Christ's headship that is the institution of the day: after that, it is the headship of the Father in some specially manifested form. The headship of the Father is the fact now, but it is in the background. The state of things upon the earth does not admit of its manifestation or even its recognition. During the thousand years, the headship of the Father is a visible fact in the headship of Christ. But at the end of the thousand years, the headship of the Father is manifest direct.

It, therefore, seems that the change to take place then is more a change in the aspect of things as they appear to man, than as they exist in themselves. Though no longer the supreme ruler of the earth, Christ will continue in his position of peculiar preeminence as "Captain" of the "many sons" whom he will have been instrumental in "bringing to glory." God will be "all in all." He will be manifested as the power, and supporter, and constitutor of all, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending, the only self-Almighty one. He will no longer work by interposition. He will no longer deal with man mediatively: He will establish direct communication with His perfected children; and the world--freed from sin and death--will become a happy, loyal, glory-giving province in that already universal dominion which extends to the utmost bounds of space, reflecting the wisdom and the goodness of the Highest. The divine scheme of redemption will then have been consummated: and earth's glorified inhabitants in holy gratitude--exalted employment--and an eternity of unbroken felicity lying before them, will realise the perfection and glory and gladness of life as it is in God.

It will thus be seen that the kingdom of the thousand years is but a transitional period between the purely animal and purely spiritual ages. It will blend the elements of both. It will exhibit the perfection of the eternal ages in the Lord Jesus and the saints who will be immortal and incorruptible, and the imperfection of the human. age in the mortal population who will constitute the subjects of their rule. Both will co-exist for a thousand years, and will constitute a state of things as superior to the present dispensation as it will be inferior to the glory ages beyond. The Kingdom of God will lead us by a bridge of a thousand years from the age of sin and death defection to the age of restoration to the bosom of the Deity, in righteousness and life eternal.