Prepared from an excellent copy at Harvard University Library with all abbreviations expanded, bible citations standardized, and spelling modernized. Complex footnotes are shown below the text, and referred to in the reading.
ISRAEL AND THE HOLY LAND:
“THE PROMISED LAND.”
IN WHICH AN ATTEMPT IS MADE TO SHOW THAT THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS ACCORD IN THEIR TESTIMONY TO CHRIST AND HIS CELESTIAL KINGDOM, AND IN THEIR TESTIMONY TO HIS PEOPLE, ISRAEL, AND ALSO TO THE PROMISED HOLY LAND.
BY HENRY DANA WARD.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY JOSHUA V. HIMES,
14 Devonshire Street.
1843.
ISRAEL AND THE HOLY LAND:
“THE PROMISED LAND.”
In the number of the Methodist Quarterly for last April, A. D. 1842, was submitted to the public an article on The Hope of Israel, which some have been pleased to commend, and to regard as proving great ability in the writer surely, however it succeeds in proving the hope of Israel to be identical with the resurrection of the dead. Before entering upon a kindred topic in the present article, the author reverently acknowledges the divine goodness which enabled him to speak a word in season to his brethren, who are the Israel of God in Christ; and while he is most grateful for the partiality of those readers who approve of the execution of his work, he is at the same time desirous to caution them against the danger of deadening in the slightest degree the power and grace of holy truth, by imputing its own eloquence and natural force to the ingenuity, talents, or learning of an humble mortal. These gifts, so far as they may be entrusted to man, are wholly inadequate to the full exhibition of the Christian’s claim to all Israel’s promises; and on them the writer relies no farther than to set forth in their proper order the proofs which the Bible furnishes,—that Israel are the people of God, chosen out of every nation under heaven; that Christ is the eternal King of Israel; and that his kingdom and their promised holy land are not of this world, but of the habitable world to come with the resurrection of the dead.
Far removed are these glorious truths from the reach of human ingenuity. As the heavens are above the earth, so are these gracious truths above the invention and above the natural aspirations of man. The Lord be praised that man has a faculty to discern them in the firmament of divine revelation, and distinctly to point them out in the word of God to the faith of the humble and devout believer.
The Old Testament bears witness to the coming King and kingdom of Israel, in the language of the children of Abraham; but the New Testament bears witness to the same things in a language common to the Gentiles. Hence arises a wide difference in the mode of expression, suited to the peculiar idiom and genius and customs of the different people through the medium of whose languages the revelation is made, which makes an apparent difference in the testimony of the two books; and which makes the Old Testament welcome to the Jews who reject the New Testament; while the Gentiles, in their preference for the Gospel, grow indifferent toward the Old Testament. The aim of what follows is to show, that the witness of the two Testaments is one and the same testimony; that the difference of their testimony is apparent, not real; but that the language of each is its own native expression and description of the same coming events. Three axioms are offered for consideration.
“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” No matter where the prophecy is found, whether in the Old or New Testament, one spirit animates the page; the testimony it bears is still to Jesus; and that interpretation of all prophecy is to be preferred which testifies of Jesus.
The Old Testament ought always to be interpreted in holy conformity to the New Testament.
The Old Testament doctrine of the resurrection should be received in harmony with the Pharisees, as Christ taught; and not in harmony with the Sadducees, whom the Lord put to silence.
The first of these axioms rests on the word written in Revelation 19:10. The great Author of prophecy hereby announces what is the spirit of prophecy. The prophets were of the flesh of Abraham, and their language and nation were employed to make known to the world the things that are to come to pass; and that the Gentiles need not be deceived by the national costume of the prophets,—that the Gentiles need not think they are excluded from any portion in the kingdom of Messiah, and in the promised holy land, as foretold in the prophets,—the Holy Spirit gives this word of universal explanation: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The testimony of Jesus is the life, aim and end of prophecy. Though concealed under the garb of the Mosaic ritual, the spirit which animates the prophet is the testimony of Jesus. Though arrayed in terrors of judgment against Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Edom, and the nations of antiquity, the spirit of the prophecy is to testify of Jesus. Though decked in the splendor of Solomon, on the throne of David, ruling over the house of Jacob forever, the spirit of the prophecy is the testimony of Jesus; and this spirit is by no means to be limited by the national Hebrew in which it is clad; but it is a spirit embracing all languages and people and time, testifying of the coming and kingdom of Christ.- In this way we may read the ancient prophets with personal edification, being ourselves warned and admonished of the work of the Lord; but, on the contrary, if we take the ancient prophets in the Bible to be only foretelling of things which have been long since fulfilled and finished, we alike empty their words, for the most part, of the testimony of Jesus, and of any personal warning to the present age of the world. That their prophecies have a fulfillment in the names and nations of antiquity, is true; and so sure as the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, another and larger fulfillment remains to be accomplished in Christ and his people and their foes: as Isaiah named Cyrus and meant the king of Persia, while Jesus is understood in the spirit; and as the Lord himself foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, and therein testified of his own coming, as in the days of Noah, in the end of the world, to make desolate the whole earth. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
Second axiom: The Old Testament ought always to be interpreted in holy conformity to the New.
This second axiom rests on the word of the Lord enjoining the search of the Scriptures, for they testify of him; (John 5:39.) which was, when spoken, applicable only to the Old Testament. A similar assurance is found in 2nd Timothy 3:15: the holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation:— which intends only the Old Testament. The Lord darkly veils those things in the law and the prophets which he fully reveals in the Gospel. Colossians 2:17. Hebrews 8:5, and 10:1. It is therefore the dictate of common sense, as well as of revelation, to make the plain a light for interpreting the obscure; it is common law, as well as the law of the Lord, to expound the first part of the will in accordance with the plain import of the latter part of the will; the former will and Old Testament by the more recent will and the New Testament:—the mind, purpose, and the will of the blessed and holy God not having changed in respect to his Christ and to his Israel, from the Old Testament times to the New; but only his will in the Old being more clearly developed in the New Testament. The promises, from the days of Adam to the end of the book of Revelation, regard the recovery by the seed of the woman of the dominion, bliss and immortality, which, by disobedience in Eden, were lost: the promises have respect to the destruction of the devil and of his works, and to the restitution of the children of the second Adam, by Christ our Savior, to the everlasting kingdom of the renewed earth. This is the burden of the prophets; this is the object of Adam’s desire, of Abraham’s faith, of David’s aspirations, and of Immanuel’s agony, passion, and death. The Old Testament veils it, and the New reveals it; therefore the Old Testament should be read without a veil, under the economy of the New Testament, and should be interpreted in holy conformity with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Third axiom: The Old Testament doctrine of the resurrection of the body should be received in harmony with the Pharisees, and not in harmony with the Sadducees.
The Pharisees learned from the law and the prophets to believe in the resurrection of the body, and our Lord approved of their faith. The Pharisees understood by Isaiah: “Thy dead men shall live;” and by Ezekiel: “Behold, I will open your graves;” and by Daniel: “Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake;” and by other like passages, the literal and actual resurrection of the dead: while the Sadducees turned these and all similar passages into figures of speech, and interpreted them politically and carnally; as if the men of Israel were dead in a national point of view, and were buried under Gentile oppressors; and the promised resurrection means their recovery of supreme power under the victorious arm of Messiah, and their imperishable dominion with him over the wide earth, so long as the sun and moon endure.
[See footnote 1.]1 Many Christians fall into the same snare with the Sadducees, and interpret these promises politically. They turn the texts on which the Pharisees founded their glorious hope of a resurrection, into rhetorical figures of a secular empire of the Jews. They empty the Old Testament of the plainest proofs of the resurrection of the body; they remove the pillars of the Pharisees’ faith; they break the staff of Israel’s hope; they cast out of the prophecy the testimony of Jesus, and fill it instead with the spirit of Judaism, with the hope of the kingdoms of this world becoming subservient to the Jews in Syria and Jerusalem. Our third axiom reproves this error. Christians ought to understand the Old Testament doctrine of the resurrection as the Pharisees did, and not as the Sadducees did, whom the Lord Jesus put to silence.
We have no controversy with those who believe the Jews must, in order to fulfill the holy Scriptures, be led back bodily to Palestine; though we seek to show them a better way; for that doctrine is nothing to the Gentiles—we have neither part nor lot in it. We do not deny that the Jews will be restored; but we maintain that the restoration of them is nothing but the life of the dead. Romans 11:15. We maintain the apokatastasis of all things which God hath spoken. And most frequently by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began hath he spoken of the restitution of the Jews. We maintain their restoration; and that their return on the wings of many winds, in chariots, in ships, on horses and camels and dromedaries, and in litters, with joy and singing from all nations whither the Lord has scattered them, is a feeble description of the glory of their restoration; and falls far below the magnitude of the event itself, as it will be manifested in the great and notable day of the Lord. It would often seem as if they must go back nationally in the flesh and blood; and we will not dispute with such as believe it; but we have no part in such a return, except we be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Far other is the return we delight to contemplate, and proceed more fully to illustrate under the following heads of inquiry.
Who are the Jews, the Israel of God, and the heirs of the promises?
Who is their King and Savior?
Where is the promised holy land?
1. Who are the Jews, the Israel of God, and the heirs of the promised land?
The purposes of the holy God are a great deep which no man can fathom: his thoughts are above our thoughts; man cannot find them out to perfection. In rehearsing his promises and revealed purposes, we must take them as he has expressed them, not refusing to believe what seems to be inconsistent or apparently impossible; for in the word, as in the works of the blessed God, some things, at first sight incredible, and contrary both to experience and to common sense, (as the world’s turning over and not spilling out the lakes,) come at length to be understood by children, and to be clearly demonstrated by man. Not only the rustic, but the learned philosophers did mock at Galileo, and imprison him for teaching that the rising and setting of the sun is the result not of the sun’s diurnal circuit of the earth, but of the earth’s daily revolution on its axis. It is possible to mistake the divine economy in matters of revelation, as much as the learned mistook in matters of astronomy two or three centuries ago.
In presenting a theory somewhat new, to this enlightened age, in explanation of the divine economy toward the Jews, it were vain to expect it will fare better with some of the devout, than Galileo’s did with a majority of his learned contemporaries; or that this revived theory is not liable to objections conclusive as the unspilled lakes, to disprove the earth’s revolution on its axis; liable to some objections as plain and visible to every reader, as that the sun does travel up and down the sky daily. Nevertheless, having in ourselves no confidence in ourselves, we confess the mystery of the holy word, with the deference due to him who gave it, and we proceed humbly to show our opinion even to those who have the keys of knowledge.
Again: Who are the Jews, or Israel, that shall inherit the promised land?
Neither good Adam nor righteous Noah peopled the earth with a holy race. Faithful Abraham in due time was taken out of idolatry, and separated from the world, to be the friend of God and the father of many nations. Neither did his offspring prove all faithful. He had eight sons, but Isaac only succeeded to the promises. Isaac had two sons, but Jacob was chosen to be the father of the house of Israel, while Esau, his elder brother, became a type of unbelievers: Israel and Edom being prophetic names of the two great classes of mankind, the faithful and the unbelieving, to this day. Moses led up the seed of the house of Jacob from the land of Egypt, with assurance of entering the land that Jehovah had promised with an oath to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; but that generation did not set foot in the land. They died in the wilderness, pilgrims seeking a country, as Abraham had sought “a better country, even an heavenly;” and so they became a type of believers, the church, the true Israel in this world, travelling through the wilderness in all time to the passages of Jordan, and to the promised holy land of everlasting rest. Joshua gave to the tribes their inheritance; but the Canaanites dwelt in the land, and the days of the Judges were centuries of calamity, in which the offspring of Jacob were brought under tribute and bondage to Ammon, Moab, Canaan, Midian, Gath, and others. Under Saul and David they were continually embroiled in wars. Under Solomon alone they had peace. From his time Judah and Israel were constantly at war with each other or with the surrounding nations, until the Assyrians removed them from Palestine, and made Jerusalem as Samaria, a heap of ruins. From the dominion of Assyria, after seventy years, Judea passed under the yoke of Persia; and with the dominion of Persia passed, after two hundred six years, under the yoke of Grecia; and with the dominion of Grecia passed, after one hundred sixty-three years, under the yoke of Rome, by the hands of Pompey the Great, B.C. 63. From the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey to that by the Saracens, A.D. 637, was just seven hundred years; and from that day to this hour the Mahommedans have ruled Judea, only with such interruptions as the crusaders gave, which added nothing to the possession of the Jews. Such is a sketch of the dealings of Providence with the land of Judea and the offspring of Jacob in the flesh.
Can this people be that seed of Abraham to whom the promise of the land was given? The promise runs thus: “I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.” Genesis 17:7. Abraham had it transiently, and only so have his posterity had it; but no ingenuity can make a transient possession satisfy the promise of an everlasting possession. It was promised to him forever, not in his seed, but to him and his seed. His offspring, however, do not possess Judea, neither have they had it, “for an everlasting possession therefore, if we say they were intended in the promise, the oath of the Lord Jehovah would seem to fail, which is impossible. This is an important view of the subject, which may be illustrated by an example.
There is a sense in which a negro is an African, wherever he may be born, and Africa is his country, though he never set foot in it: but were the blacks driven out of Africa now above seventeen hundred years; had the entire continent been fairly swept of them, and colonized by the whites during all that time; so that, though sometimes attempting it, they obtained no foothold on the continent, owned neither town nor settlement on the continent, never held a public meeting, nor appeared except rarely by stealth one among a thousand, and then in the greatest contempt, under tribute and the yoke of hard masters,—we should not say the negroes had Africa for their possession, though we might say Africa was their country. And had they a holy promise of it “for an everlasting possession,” would not the promise to them by this time seem to have failed for at least seventeen centuries, unless they should be hereafter raised from the dead, and restored to Africa in immortal bodies? Then, they might have the promise of an “everlasting possession” literally fulfilled to them individually and nationally. In the same way, and no other, does it seem the promise of Judea, the land of Canaan, can be fulfilled to Abraham and to the seed of the house of Jacob: the true Israel and heirs of the promised holy land, “for an everlasting possession.”
Palestine is the country of the Jews: though born in Poland, they regard Judea as their own land; but they cannot be said to have it for their possession. It belongs to the Turks, and it has belonged to the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, and Mohammedans, (in uninterrupted succession, so far as the offspring of Jacob are concerned,) for the space of twenty-three hundred and sixty years: and, for above seventeen hundred years, since Adrian Caesar, A.D. 130, it has been swept of all Jews as clean as arbitrary power, imperial authority, and the bitterest zeal of persecution united could possibly sweep it. It was made death for a Jew to step into Judea: not an Israelite was allowed there. Never did they so effectually expel the Canaanites, as they were themselves expelled from Judea by the Romans; and never since have they obtained any foothold in the country. It is believed today that more Jews live in the city of New York, 10,000, and fare better, than in all Palestine.
Can this be the fulfillment of the promise made with an oath to Abraham and his seed?
With one voice Jews and Christians exclaim, “No; the fulfillment is yet to come.” The Jew lives in hopes his posterity will yet possess the land, and that the tabernacle of David will be erected again in Jerusalem, and give the law to this world. Should it be, David’s tabernacle is David’s body, “which is fallen down,” and when the Lord “returns and builds again the ruins thereof, and sets it up,” Acts 15:16 it will be in the Jerusalem of the world to come. The sum total of the years since the promise was made to Abraham is three thousand seven hundred and fifty years nearly, and the portions of that time during which his offspring did not possess the land were, first,
400 years in Egypt,
70 years in Babylon,
1712 years since Adrian Caesar.
2182 [years total]
Making a total of twenty-one hundred and eighty-two years in the three thousand seven hundred fifty, during which the offspring of Abraham had not even a qualified possession of Judea, besides six hundred years of Persian, Grecian, and Roman bondage, while yet inhabiting the country. [See footnote 2.]2 Therefore, the event demonstrates the true meaning of the promise to be as the New Testament explains it, for the seed of the woman, for the first begotten of the dead and his brethren; and the promise to Abraham and his seed neither intended Abraham’s offspring according to the flesh, except as a type, nor this world’s Canaan, except as a type; [See footnote 3.]3 but the true heirs of the promised holy land are an immortal race of the first resurrection, on whom the second death has no power; they are a holy nation which the blessed God will bring again from the dead with Jesus our Savior, when he comes in clouds, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, to give his saints their everlasting possession in the habitable world to come. This is the testimony of Jesus in the spirit of prophecy; and this is the interpretation put by the New Testament on the language of the Old: “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of promise are counted for the seed.” Romans 9:8. “Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” Galatians 3:7. “Then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians. 3:29. This is enough to establish the claim of all the faithful in Christ to the name, to the promises, to the hopes, the privileges, and immunities of the house of Jacob. Were any poor mortal to stumble upon evidence equally explicit to prove his right to the name and inheritance of some royal line or princely estate, he would not be slow in consulting a lawyer about the prosecution of his claim; and he would be certain to think it was gospel, “glad tidings,” to his starving family, and broken fortunes, and despised name. He might be expected to say to himself while he reflected on the new testimony,— “My common name is Gentile; but this faithful and true Witness informs me that my proper name is Israel: that I am a child of Abraham, and an heir of the promise made of God unto the fathers; especially of the holy land which Jehovah promised to Abraham and to his seed after him, for an everlasting possession. Let him who disputes my right confront the Witness. I trust wholly to Him and to the word of his grace. He has redeemed both me and my inheritance, with his own blood paying the costly price; and in his time he will bestow the purchase for an everlasting possession.”
Therefore, the true Israel is a people whose first born are reckoned not according to the letter of a carnal commandment, but according to the spirit of truth; a people whose father Abraham did not inherit the promise in this life, and it is impossible they should inherit of him what he did not possess; a people whose King lived a pilgrim in the land, without inheriting so much as where to lay his head, and surely they cannot expect to possess forever this perishing world. They will look for their country in that world where Jesus, our Forerunner, is gone. Heirs in common with Abraham, and joint heirs with our Lord Jesus Christ, they will expect to inherit with Christ, not in this land of death, but in the resurrection of the dead and eternal life,—not in these clay-tabernacles, but in immortal bodies.
Israel in the flesh has another hope than this, even the same they cherished when they slew Jesus. They expect Messiah to come and save them; to deliver them from their oppressors; to gather their dispersed among the Gentiles, to lead them like some great warrior victorious over their enemies through hard-fought battles; to end the contest in the field of Armageddon, and to establish the dynasty of David in triumph at Jerusalem, swaying his scepter over the subdued nations forever in this world! This was their hope; this is their hope. The children of the flesh cherish it in all their dispersions to this day, with some modifications that individuals make each for himself; and this prevalent modification among the most distinguished for piety, viz., that when Messiah brings back bis people, the dead of the house of Jacob will rise and be restored with them. Unlike Abraham, however, most Jews and many Christians depart from the faith and hope of “a better country,” and of “a better resurrection,” while they live in the hope of a better kingdom in Palestine before they die. Their eyes turn toward Palestine. They watch for the decay of the Ottoman Porte, and for the national political resurrection of the Jews; and, eager in the pursuit of the riches.of this world, its glory, honor, and dominion, they, the Jews, expect to rule over the nations, and to make the Gentiles their tributaries.
Taken with the letter of the promises, as men are taken with the apparent motion of the sun about the earth,[See footnote 4.]4 many Protestants expect this Jewish empire, and pray for its coming, and they search among the nations to find the lost tribes of Israel, with this confidence, that, in order to be restored, the ten tribes must be found somewhere on the face of the earth: accordingly, Doctor Buchanan’s Star in the East pointed to their residence in the east; and Doctor Boudinot’s Star in the West pointed to their residence in the west; Mr. Wolfe, the missionary, personally hunted for them in the four quarters of the globe; and Doctor Grant, the missionary, thinks he has found them, “where they were lost,” an uncircumcised race of Christians, in the mountains of Armenia, called Nestorians.
Suppose for one moment that the lost ten tribes are found in Afghanistan, or the Rocky Mountains, in Armenia, or the islands of the sea, and were to be led back to Canaan “for an everlasting possession that would not fulfill the promise for seventeen hundred years past. The promise broken so long may be broken again for two thousand years; and, if broken at all, it is treacherous, and cannot be trusted in the time to come. But the promise is not broken. It was made to Abraham and his seed. “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, to thy seed, which is Christ.” Galatians 3:16. It was fulfilled to Christ in the resurrection from the dead: and it will be fulfilled to all the true Israel in a similar glorious manifestation of the sons of God. Abraham sojourned in the land of promise which he was after to receive for an inheritance; (Hebrews. 11:8;) but has he ever possessed it otherwise than by faith? The promise to him yet lies unfulfilled upon the sacred page.” [Noel’s Brief Enquiry., p. 53.] Then he must rise from the dead to receive it. And though his offspring, under Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah and David, had uncontrolled possession of Judea, yet the New Testament assures us they received not the promise. Hebrews 11:39. Therefore, the promise of the land, and of their restoration to it, does not belong to this world’s inheritance; and if the natural Jews were transplanted to-day to Palestine, they must die in the faith, and be buried, as Abraham was, and must be raised from the dead as Christ is, before they could inherit the promise.” He plucked up the temporal ambition of his followers by the roots, and told them if they were to be great, it must be through the grave.” [Noel’s Brief Enquiry., p. 40.] The Son of man is the Messiah of the world to come, and not of the Jews in the flesh only. They must go with all mankind over Jordan with Jesus our risen Savior, before they can inherit the promised holy land. In this world they cannot have it any more than Abraham and David had it: therefore, no future political resurrection of Israel, if made, can be anything but a type of the true heirs of the promise in the kingdom of God. And the answer in brief to our first inquiry, Who are the Jews, the heirs of the promised land?—is—They are the saints, “the people of the saints of the most High God,” the elect church of Jew and Gentile, joint heirs with Christ in his kingdom, children of God chosen out of every nation from Adam to the end of the world, children of the resurrection, to whom it is spoken from the throne of judgment, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
2. It is time to inquire, Who is the King of the Jews?
“And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross: and the writing was: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” John 19:19. This is our answer, without cavil. Another form of answer is but music of discords; for the carnal Jew replies, “He is the Messiah to come;” the Judaizing Christian replies, “He is the Messiah to come;” and the catholic Christian replies, “He is the Messiah to come;” which is perfect harmony of sounds; yet each respondent has a discordant interpretation of the harmonious sound. The natural Jew boldly blasphemes the name of Jesus, and charges on him the calamities of the race. Jesus is not the Messiah of the carnal seed. The Judaizing Christian knows and honors Jesus as the King of the Jews, and expects him as the King of the carnal seed in the flesh, to give them the dominion of the earth, and to reign over them in Jerusalem of Judea. The catholic believer in Christ knows no man according to the flesh; “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.” 2nd Corinthians 5:16. The apostles at one time regarded Christ as the Savior of the natural seed of Abraham only. They had no idea that he was the Savior of the Gentiles also. For years after his ascension they confined their ministry to the circumcision; and Paul confesses that the time had been when he knew Christ after the flesh, and looked upon him as the Messiah promised to the Jewish nation, in whom the Gentiles had no part. The Jews were a holy people; the Gentiles were unclean. The Jews had the promises; the Gentiles were strangers to the commonwealth of Israel. Peter and all the congregation of Christians were astounded at the discovery that Jesus is Messiah of the Gentiles as well as the Jews; that Jesus is the King of the Israel of faith, and not of the flesh. [See footnote 5.]5
When the Lord promised to David,—“I will set up thy seed after thee—and I will establish his kingdom: he shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever,” (2nd Samuel 7:12.) he says, “Moreover, I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as before time.” 2nd Samuel 7:10. The import of the promise has respect to Solomon and Israel in form and flesh; but in spirit and in truth it respects Christ and his saints. Christ builds the house for the Lord’s name, and his people are the lively stones of the heavenly structure. He is the seed of David, the throne of whose kingdom is established forever. “He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” Luke 1:33. The same thing is promised and foretold in the Old Testament, and recognized as fulfilled by the Lord Emmanuel in the New Testament. “God, according to his promise, raised unto Israel, a Savior, Jesus.” Acts 13:23. “It is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.” Acts 10:42. “To him give all the prophets witness;” and that witness is so veiled in Jewish attire, that his own disciples misapprehended the nature of his kingdom, and confined the promises of his glorious dominion entirely to their own nation in the flesh for years after his ascension, even as the Jews do now. “They had expected life without suffering, a crown without a cross; to go straight forward to glory, as those who had never fallen: whereas, God’s pathway to glory, for a fallen creature, is through discipline and suffering. The suffering of Christ was the rock on which the Jews fell; his humiliation, his degradation in the eyes of man was the stumbling-block to Israel.” [M’Neile, Second Advent, page. 77] They disown and hate the name of the Son of David, whose title was put on his cross,—“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews:” yet he is the Savior of the world, and their Savior; the King of kings, and their King; the Judge of quick and dead, and their Judge. He is a King, and his kingdom is not of this world: his people are a peculiar people, raised in his likeness from the dead. God has appointed a place for them, “a place of their own,” where the children of wickedness shall afflict them no more. But that place is not in this world of change and death; that place is not in the world under the curse, where our King was crucified; it is not in Jerusalem which is Sinai and Hagar, but it is in the Jerusalem above, which comes “down from God out of heaven.”
We do not propose to reason with the Jew here in proof that Jesus is the Messiah, or with the Judaizing Christian in proof that in Christ “there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.” Romans 10:12. This is not the place to dispute; and if any reader supposes that our Lord Jesus Christ is to bestow peculiar honor, and supreme power over this world, on the carnal seed of Abraham, we would simply advise that reader, as he loves the honor and is ambitious of the power of this world, to put himself forthwith in a lawful way to attain to it. If the carnal Jews have a promise of God not in Christ, we Gentiles have no part in it, unless we become Jewish proselytes; and if we come under the law we fall from grace; if we go after a promise not in Christ, we forsake Christ. Any blessing of heaven to man out of Christ may well be some carnal good, not worth a Christian’s aim; let the carnal Jew have it. No Jew can be more an heir of Abraham than the Christian is, except his claim rests on some foundation not in Christ, the Jews’ King. It would be singular, if the natural seed were preferred above the spiritual seed; if the Jew has a better promise through Abraham, than the Gentile has through Jesus Christ. Such, if we mistake not, some take the promise of a restoration of the Jews to be. They think the kingdom will be restored to Israel in the flesh; the natural Jews will be the free people; the Gentile nations will be their servants and tributaries. [See footnote 6.]6
If these things are so,—if the natural seed have this preeminence,—if they are to be princes, and the Gentiles their servants and maids of honor, the policy of the wise seems to dictate that the believer of this Jewish supremacy in the flesh should early take the first step toward securing for himself and his offspring the freedom of the Jewish empire, and the highest place of honor within the court of the King of the Jews. If the circumcised have all the promises in Christ, and some more exceedingly precious and important to the Jews, they have advantage, not “chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God;” but because that unto them will be committed the empire of the world!
Plain it is that the Jews in the flesh reject Christ and his cross; that they feel the high importance of having Abraham for their father, and also feel a contempt for the Gentiles; and that they cherish proud hopes of the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them, which Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, rejected. The King of the Jews preferred the death of the cross to the kingdom of this world. Him we would humbly follow; and by faith in his name walk in his steps down to the silent tomb, hoping for the redemption of the body in the resurrection of the dead, and for eternal life with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. Let the Jews in the flesh have the kingdom of this world; let this Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children, reign paramount between the seas; let the humble outcasts of Judea have endless dominion on Mount Zion. When the heavens make the circuit of the earth, they may; when the sun, moon and stars revolve daily around our planet we shall see it; and the Lord can make windows in heaven that this thing may be; and many things we admit, do greatly favor the hope of it. Yea, it is as plain on the sacred page, as the rising and setting of the sun in the heavens; and we blame no man for believing it, as the sure word of the Holy One. Nevertheless, we have a way to prove and to demonstrate that the sun is the firm center of the solar system, about which our globe revolves; and we think we have also a way to prove and to demonstrate that the King of the Jews is the glorious Sun of righteousness in the firm center of the holy promises, about whom the covenant made with Abraham and with the Jews revolves, and on whom all the divine promises depend. In him all our hopes center; he is our life, our Savior, the King of the Jews, by whom all Israel shall be saved; “for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” Romans 11:25. He is the King of the Jews, whom God “raised from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly place,” whom God will send, when the times of refreshing or anapsyxis, [See footnote 7.]7 shall come from the presence of the Lord, together with “the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken, by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.” Acts 3:19.
If it please him to introduce the children of the flesh into the kingdom of God in mortal bodies, his will be done; though we are unable to conceive how this would consist with his word,—“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 1st Corinthians 15:50. Let the King of the Jews reign; let him rule; let his will be done: our groans unite with all creation’s prayer for the coming of her rightful and eternal Lord, and “for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body;” (Romans 8:23;) which is the resurrection of the body: “ourselves groan within ourselves for the resurrection’s bliss.” [See footnote 8.]8 With holy reverence we would exclaim, in the language which the chief priests used in mockery, “Hail, King of the Jews!”—our king!— With humble hope we would say, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.”
CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS AND STANDARDS OF FAITH.
Positions so fortified by the holy word, do not admit of being strengthened by the hand of men; nevertheless, the manner of the primitive church in defending them may be instructive even to this enlightened age. This manner is displayed in her creeds. Until the fourth century the church managed her triumphs without any distinct formula of faith known to us. The Apostles’ creed, so called, is not found in any work earlier than the fourth century. Then creeds began to be multiplied. We have searched them out, and find in none a contradiction on the subjects of the Lord’s resurrection, ascension, and coming again with glory, to judge the quick and dead in the kingdom without end. In a note we subjoin them on this point, to show what sort of a kingdom and people the ancient church were expecting for the Lord. If Christians of the fourth century supposed the natural Jews were to reign on earth with Christ in Jerusalem, we might naturally expect to find the evidence of it in the lectures of the eminent Bishop Cyril, of Jerusalem, on the creed. But the creed of Jerusalem admits no such thing, nor does Cyril, A.D. 350. The Nicene creed says of the Lord’s kingdom, “He is coming in glory, to judge the quick and dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end.” This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, “who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, buried, arose from the dead on the third day, ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, whence he is coming in glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end.” [See footnote 9.] 9
Our inquiry is, Who is the coming King of the Jews? Our answer is, The crucified Jesus; and our inference is, that the Jews, over whom he is King, are of the seed of Abraham, by the faith of Abraham, and not by the flesh of Abraham. We have deduced this inference from the Holy Word; we have confirmed it from the primitive creeds. Those creeds do not fail to take hold of Jesus as our King, and to maintain the eternity of his dominion, and to point out the risen dead as his subjects: but they do fail every one to recognize his kingdom as of this world, and the natural Jews as his subjects. This was not an oversight. It did not arise from ignorance of the Jews’ claims. Both Jews and Judaizing Christians were on the alert to maintain, in the fourth century, the preeminence of the circumcised; and the total neglect of it in all the creeds is proof that the assembled councils regarded it as unworthy of the least notice. Bishop Cyril, of Jerusalem, in a course of lectures on the creed of Jerusalem, A.D. 350, makes no allusion to the doctrine of the Jews’ return to that city, and to their reign over the Gentiles; but zealously he discourses of Jesus and his kingdom, according to the Nicene creed and to the positions taken in this article.
The King of the Jews is not a monarch of this world, nor are his. Jews a carnal race. Though they have Abraham to their father, they must be born again, or they cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The King of the Jews is the glorified Jesus, and his Jews are a people raised from the dead and glorified with him. Not only do the creeds of the fourth century recognize this doctrine, but all creeds of all ages of the church recognize it. And now we appeal directly to the age of the reformation. Every creed of every reformed sect, framed in the sixteenth century, so far as our information extends, is framed in harmony with this doctrine; and some of the earliest, staunchest, and most celebrated among them openly rebuke and publicly repudiate the contrary doctrine; to wit, that the restored Jews are to have the dominion of this world. The Lutheran creed, or Augsburg confession, is the most ancient of these, and renowned. That expressly condemns “those who circulate the Judaizing notion, that prior to the resurrection of the dead, the pious will engross the government of the world, and the wicked be everywhere oppressed.” [Augsburg Confession, Article 17.]
These were great men, Luther, Melancthon, and company, in presence of a great emperor, Charles V., on a trial of the Protestant faith; and this article was a part of the plea put in by the Reformers in the deference of their faith. The article rejects not only a Jewish form of government of this world under Christ, but every form of government of this world by the pious, “prior to the resurrection.” It condemns to the grade of a “Judaizing notion,” the idea that the pious will engross the government of the world prior to the resurrection. This does not forbid that the impious Jews may do it; but if once the unbelieving race become pious, it condemns the notion of their engrossing the government, as a carnal doctrine.
The creed of the Church of England may be considered next in authority on this point. It was framed by martyrs, in the form of forty-three articles, A.D. 1552. The forty- first article reads as follows: “Qui millenariorum fabulam revocare conantur, sacris literis adversantur, et in Judaica deliramenta sese precipitant: they who seek to restore the millenary fable oppose the Holy Scriptures, and plunge into Jewish fanaticism.” Now, what was “the millenary fable?” This was it: a notion that the glorified Jesus would lead the Jews back to Jerusalem in the flesh, and reign with them a millennium in this world. The same is understood to be condemned by the makers of the thirty- nine articles, though for the sake of brevity this forty-first was omitted, with three more, when the present creed was settled, A.D. 1558.
The Presbyterian confession of faith and the Congregational Platform both receive and teach the Westminster catechism, which expounds the words in the Lord’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” after this manner, in the shorter catechism: “We pray that Satan’s kingdom may be destroyed, and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced; ourselves and others brought into it, and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened;” which the larger catechism explains among other ways thus: “We pray that Christ would hasten the time of his second coining, and our reigning with him forever.” This seems to leave no room for a kingdom of the Jews in the flesh: the transition is direct from the kingdom of Satan, through grace, to our reigning with Christ in glory.
The Dutch Reformed creed, article 37, is framed in the same faith. The Baptist confession, preserved in Crosby’s history of that sect, with Bunyan and Gill, is in the same faith. Tillinghast, Jeremy Taylor, Baxter, Mather, and a great company, died in the same faith.
The Methodist Discipline enjoins the Nicene creed, which is explicit on this point: teaching us that the same Jesus who was born King of the Jews, and who was crucified King of the Jews, is coming again in glory, to judge the quick and the dead, whose kingdom is without end. It makes no provision for a kingdom of the natural seed of Abraham in this world; and any brother who attempts this indulgence to the lineal descendants of Abraham, does it without any countenance from the book of Discipline. But it is not by the creeds of churches, venerable as they are, that we defend our position in relation to the natural seed of Abraham. We only appeal to them, both ancient and modern, to show how the church has been wont to maintain her own position. We rely on the holy word alone: and no portion of that remains to be considered at this time, save the eleventh chapter of Romans. To some minds our views seem unanswerable, and yet not easily to be reconciled with the doctrine of that chapter.
We are not dogmatists; we are far from understanding all mysteries; we desire to hold our views with a deep consciousness of the unfathomable and irresistible power of the holy word. We speak, as the Lord gives us utterance, and have no strength in us, but to hold to the Bible. Some things in the eleventh chapter of Romans rejoice the heart of the natural seed of Abraham with a peculiar hope. We would not rob them of it; but rather win them, through it, to the hope of the Savior, not of the Jews only, but of all men, especially of such as believe.
Romans, Eleventh Chapter.
Our views, as already expressed, are drawn from the pure fountain of truth, the holy Scriptures: and if there seem to be any novelty in the sparkling movement of the limpid element, or any peculiar savor in the fresh taste, the creeds of both the primitive and of the Protestant ages here quoted are enough to show that the church, both Catholic and Protestant, have, by their formulas of faith, recognized the same opinions, and expressed the same views; though the Protestant views of this subject are sometimes contradictory amongst themselves. All ages and sects of the church agree with the Thessalonians: “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven;” 1st Thessalonians 1:10; “who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.” 2nd Timothy. 4:1. The most renowned ages and sects of the church make small account of any kingdom of the natural Jews, and so do we. The New Testament makes very small account of their kingdom. We question whether it so much as names it. The New Testament, like the ancient church creeds, takes no notice of any such kingdom; and we hope no Christian brother will allow himself to speak lightly of us for treating the subject of the kingdom of the natural Jews, just as the New Testament does, with great indifference.
Their falling away (paraptoma, trespass or transgression)* and their fullness, (pleroma,) are treated of in the eleventh chapter of Romans; where pleroma, “fullness,” being put in antithesis with paraptoma, “falling away,” must be taken in a moral sense. “Fullness” is of different kinds; it may be of quantity, number, or quality. The “fullness” here intended is undoubtedly the fullness of quality, or perfection, as opposed to transgression. “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be?”—For their paraptoma they were cast away, and this opened the gospel of reconciliation to the world, which gospel had previously been preached only to Jews. If the world gained so much by the casting away of them, what would its gain be in the receiving of them? This seems to imply their carnal restoration. If “the casting away of them” means their national rejection from the divine favor, and from their own land, “the receiving of them” must be taken to mean their national restoration to the divine favor, and to their own land. But this is the question: “what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead?” What shall the national restoration of them be, if not the life of the dead? So it is implied that they shall be restored, and on that it is positively affirmed in what the said restoration shall alone consist, to wit, the life of the dead—or “life from the dead”—which is the resurrection of the dead. The language of the apostle carries in it the idea of the Jews’ nationally recovering the divine favor; and that we may not mistake the heavenly and eternal character of their restoration, the apostle at the same time declares absolutely that such recovery is life from the dead. Men often quote it, “as life from the dead,” but that is a corruption. The expression εἰ μή, ei me, never means as; nor does the apostle here institute a comparison between the restoration of the Jews and the resurrection; but he positively affirms the restoration shall be nothing but* the resurrection, or the life of the dead.
This form of affirmation with ei me, translated “if not,” or “but,” is very common in the New Testament. Many of the most solemn and positive declarations are made with these very words, a few of which are as follows. In Mark 2:7: “Who can forgive sins, ei me, but God only?” that is most positively to affirm that God can forgive sins. Again, Mark 2:26: “Not lawful to eat, ei me, but for the priests:” which affirms that it was lawful for the priests to eat.— Again, Matthew 19:17: “There is none good, ei me, but one, that is God:” which is to affirm beyond all contradiction that God is good. And so in this text: “What shall the receiving of them be, ei me, but life from the dead?”—this is to affirm that it shall beyond all dispute be life from the dead, neither more nor less, or the life of the dead;—that is only the resurrection of the dead. A multitude of similar affirmations of plain truth are found in the New Testament; they abound; though to save time, we quote only three, and they show that the receiving of Israel again must be “life from the dead,” as clearly as that God is good and can forgive sins.
The pleroma, or “fullness” of the Jews corresponds with the receiving of them, or with their resurrection. It accords also with the pleroma, or “fullness of the Gentiles,” mentioned verse 25,—“until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” When the fullness of the Gentiles” is in, no more can come in, otherwise fullness is not fullness. When the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, then will be the end of their times, the end of their race; the times of the Gentiles will be fulfilled. See Luke 21:24: “Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled:” that is, to the end of the Gentiles’ time, and to the time of the end of the Gentiles: which also accords with the end of this world, and with the resurrection. Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gentiles, and it will be trodden down by them, until the end of this Gentile dispensation; until the receiving again of the Jewish nation; which receiving is pronounced by the apostle to be nothing “but life from the dead.” And so, he continues, “all Israel shall be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” Romans 11:26-27. This also accords with the resurrection. Not until then, since the day Paul wrote, “shall come out of Sion the Deliverer.” Not until the death of death shall ungodliness and sin be turned and taken away from Jacob. Not until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in,— not until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled,— not until the Deliverer comes out of Sion, and all Israel shall be saved,* will the pleroma, or the fullness, or the restoration of the Jews, or the resurrection of the dead, take place. “And so all Israel shall be saved” in the resurrection of the dead: the fullness of both Jews and Gentiles will have come in when the King of the Jews comes again “the second time, without sin, unto salvation.” Hebrews 9:28. Since Jesus is the King and the Savior of Israel, we cannot think of Israel’s embracing only the children of the flesh. Our King is “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews;” and when the Jews are restored, their King will go before them, “the first fruits of the dead.” Our King is not a king of this world, but of the next world; our king’s people, the Jews, belong with the king to the next world; it were strange if they belonged to this world, while their peculiar king belongs to the other world. The people are sometimes called Jews, sometimes Christians, and sometimes believers; but this does not imply that they are different people. It is common and proper that great nations should have more names than one. All Frenchmen are Gauls, Englishmen are British, Austrians are Germans, Spaniards are Iberians, Irishmen are Hibernians, New- Yorkers are Americans, and so are Christians Israelites; not in name only, but in rights, privileges, and hopes. The promises to Israel are their promises, and among others this: “So all Israel shall be saved.” That does not intend the carnal seed, any more than the name of the King implies that he is the Savior of the carnal seed. It means all Christians circumcised of heart. Like the King are the people; such as Jesus is, his people are, whom he will restore to their own land, over which he will reign forever and ever. He arose from the dead a spiritual body. They will awake in his likeness. He is become the first fruits of the dead: they will be the plenteous harvest. He is the head of the body, his people are the members; but the head and members are one and the same body. “He is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence.” Colossians 1:18. He is the Father of the righteous nation which have the promise of the world to come, as Adam is the father of the sinful race which possess this world. “He took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” Hebrews 2:16. He took on him our nature, he bore our infirmities, and became obedient unto death; wherefore God hath highly exalted him; and when he bringeth again the first begotten into the world he saith, “Let all the angels of God worship him.” Hebrews 1: 6. Even so, come, Lord Jesus, King of the Jews, come quickly.
3. Where is the promised Holy Land?
It is plain that the holy people are not a carnal race. The Israel of the blessed God are a chosen generation, chosen, not in Jacob which is Judaism, but chosen in Christ, which is Christianity. It is plain that their King and Savior is risen from the dead, and in order to be united with him, they must likewise be restored from this land of death to the holy land, that the king and his people may dwell together in eternal life. Where, then, is the promised holy land?
First, we observe where it is not. It is not in the sun; for although a glorious luminary, the King of the Jews was not born there; and his inheritance is of the land where he was born. Again; it is not in the moon or starry heavens; for the root and the offspring of David is robed in a glorified portion of the land of his inheritance; he is clothed in a body like our own, which is a body of this earth; and not of regions unknown. Again; it is not in this world; though on many charts it is laid down in this world,—for this world is under a curse from Adam down; from the upper skies to ocean’s deepest caverns. No part of this world is excepted from the curse; no country on the face of the earth is exempt from the calamity of Adam’s fall. How can the holy land be in this world, except a holy thing is also a cursed thing; which is impious to suppose, and equally profane and absurd? Were the holy land in this world, that which is holy cannot be found: “The whole world lieth in wickedness,” John 5:19, and lieth also under the curse. It is far from the blessed God to curse a holy thing, or a holy creature; and much less a holy land containing many things and creatures. The promised holy land is laid down on the map of this world, in Syria; but surely this is a very great mistake. Syria is far from containing the holy land, or the holy people. It is a very hard country, whose people get their living by the sweat of their brow, as we do here. It is a distressed land, in which our missionaries preach the Gospel of the kingdom to an oppressed people, and point away to America for a pattern of the promised holy land. Not to Jerusalem trodden down, but to the rising cities of the New World; not to oppressed Judea, but to free America; not to Mohammedan Palestine, but to Christian America, they direct the attention of their hearers for an idea of the promised holy land. That holy land is free. The tyrant of this world has no dominion there; the wicked are forever cut off from its face; the righteous dwell in immortality on Mount Zion, the city of our God. The King of the restored Jews has a goodly inheritance; its rivers flow with wine and milk, its mountains drop with honey, its waters never fail; its inhabitants are all righteous; sin and death have no dominion, have no palace, have no hiding-place in all that land: even sorrow and sighing shall flee away. O happy, holy land, whose very creatures rejoice in the liberty of the sons of God; whose animal tribes feed peaceably together; whose reptiles are devoid of all venom; whose fowls and fish obey the voice of man, as once of Adam in Eden! Holy, heavenly land! Abraham sought it, and died in the faith. Moses had a glimpse of it, and died also in the faith. David fondly desired it; he died also in the faith. But Jesus, the Son of God, bought it with his most precious blood; he is gone to receive the kingdom and having received it, he will come again to reckon with his servants. From his Father’s throne he gives the Holy Spirit, “the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.” Ephesians 1:14. This earth is sold under sin now to Satan and death, whose reign has been unbroken, save by Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, from Adam to this day. The price of its purchase was Adam’s sin. The second Adam has ransomed it from the power of the devil. By obedience even unto death, Jesus ransomed it eighteen hundred years ago. It seems a long time to wait yet for the possession. However, the times and the seasons the Father hath put in his own power. Acts 1:7. Waiting for the times of the restitution of all things, our King sits at the right hand of God, until the King’s enemies are made his footstool,— (Hebrews 10:12.) when he will come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, and then shall he sit on the throne of his glory. Matthew 25:31. Then he will fold up these heavens as a vesture, and they shall be changed; Hebrews 1:12; he will destroy the wicked that destroy the earth; Revelation 11:18; he will take the possession of his purchased inheritance and he will make all things new. Revelation 21:5. The New Earth is the promised Holy Land.
Having ascertained that the promised holy land is not in the sun, nor in the moon or starry regions; and also that it is not, though it is commonly said to be, “in this present evil world,” (Galatians 1:4) we proceed a second time to search for it, “where it was lost” as Dr. Grant did for the lost tribes of Israel.
One may find land in the mid-ocean; but it is land still under the plague of sin and death. One may find land under the polar snows; but it is a barren country. One may find a land between the seas, called “The Holy Land;” but it is a land of thorns and briers, inhabited by a miserable people, under dominion of death and of the false prophet. In neither of these places particularly did Adam lose the holy land, and it is not wise to expect to find it in either of them. In Paradise was the loss. In blissful immorality Adam lost the holy land, and was expelled from it. By transgression he passed away from it. For his sin, the earth of which he was made was cursed under his feet, and he passed with it under the yoke of death. We must return to immortality for the Holy Land. We must look for it in Paradise, where it was lost. We must look for it where Abraham did, in “a better country, even an heavenly.” We must look for it where all the patriarchs and prophets did, in “a better resurrection,” and in eternal life. By perfect obedience the second Adam regains what the first lost. For his righteousness the curse is removed, and the earth, of which also he condescended to be made, passes with him, through the resurrection from death unto life; from the scepter of coils to a right straight scepter; from the dominion of the God of this world, to the everlasting dominion of the people of the saints of the Most High God, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.
But who can find this promised holy land? Who can ascend and dwell in the heavenly hill? Who can search out Paradise, can pass by the flaming sword unscathed, and enter into the walks and bowers of immortal Eden? Who can disarm the cherubic guards, and open the gates of Paradise, and give to eat of the tree of life, which stands in the midst of the garden? Adam could not: he was a sinner, and he hid himself. Noah could not; though saved from the flood, he perished at last. Abraham could not; though he sought for it, and by faith saw it afar off. He was a great man, and had the promise of it; but he could not enter into it, even so much as to set his foot there. So likewise Moses had a distant view of it, but could obtain no more footing there than Abraham. Nor could David, with all his mighty men; nor Solomon with all his wisdom. But Jesus, the Son of David, the King of the Jews, the Savior of Israel, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the second Adam, the Lord from heaven; he has triumphed over sin and death, he has brought life and immortality to light; he has opened the way to the garden of God; he has paid the sinner’s ransom; he commands the cherubic guards; he turns away the flaming sword; he throws wide open the gates; he invites the transgressor to return, to dwell with him in the holy land, and to reign with him in the kingdom of heaven forever. “Thou, Lord, art worthy, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; and we shall reign on the earth!” Revelation 5:9,—the New Earth, “the land of the living and not of the dead.” [First Council of Nice.] Jesus, born and crucified the King of the Jews, is the appointed heir of all things; Hebrews 1:2; and we, with the primitive church, and the Reformed churches of every evangelical denomination, look for and wait for his glorious appearing to take the possession of his inheritance, not for the carnal Jews, but for the people of the saints of the Most High. The first thing to be done by the King on coming into possession, may be understood by a perusal of the last chapter of the second Epistle of Peter. Peter describes the catastrophe “of this present evil world,” and its heavens; and he points our hope to the New Heavens and Earth, in which dwelleth righteousness. That is the promised land. “There shall be no more curse; but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it: and his servants shall serve him.”
Revelation 22:3. God himself shall dwell with men; and “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21:4.
Contention is seldom profitable, especially with men who openly give the preference to the circumcision; who admit the Jews to all the Christian’s hopes and privileges, and to some more. They are honest in this, as the men are who believe the earth is fixed in the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon, and stars revolve daily around it. Appearances are very much in their favor. The Bible is so full of favor and of promise to the Jews and Israel, that men, not considering who is the King of the Jews, are confident of a preeminence of the natural seed, and carnal offspring of Abraham over the Gentiles. No rustic is more confident that the earth stands still, and does not spin around the sun like a top in the great circle of the heavens. It is impossible to reason with one on the perfection and beauty of the solar system, if he gravely opposes you with first appearances of the earth and the skies. He has much to unlearn, before you can discourse with him on the visible heavens. The laws of gravitation, of motion, and of light, must be examined, before he can well reconcile appearances with the truth of the Copernican system. Then he may be made to understand how fast light travels, how the sun’s eclipse is accurately foretold, how deceitful are the appearances of motion, how certain are the influences of gravitation: and he will pursue with delight the learning he once despised, even to distrust the honesty of the men who could preach a system so contrary to manifest appearances and to common sense.
Are we, therefore, philosophers, and our readers ignorant men? Far from it; we are only babes in knowledge, and have no confidence in ourselves. If the reader finds any wisdom in our pages, it is not of our learning, but of the Lord’s truth. And so vast is his truth, that we do not pretend to understand it perfectly, and to know and tell all about it; but only to present some of the glorious outlines and blessed forms in which it presents itself with deepest interest to our own minds. We will not dispute about the claims and hopes of the natural Israel; they cannot be important to us. We will not dispute whether the Palestine of this world be the holy land; for we have no portion of inheritance there. Not from that did Adam fall; not to that will the second Adam restore his race. He is the Redeemer of Israel, even of the Gentiles, “which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God.” 1st Peter 2:10. He is the Savior of “the people of God;” them he will restore in his likeness to their own promised holy land; to “a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God,” and to “a better resurrection,” in a “better country, even an heavenly,” where Jesus our forerunner is gone, to prepare a place for his people. The Old Testament promises and foretells it for Abraham and his seed; the New Testament explains who is that seed, and preaches the kingdom of God and the resurrection of the dead through that seed, which is Christ, the Son of God and the King of the Jews. Tell the name of the King, and we will tell you the name of his people. Is it Cesar? The Romans were his people. Is it Christ? The circumcised of heart are his people; “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible;” 1st Peter 1:23; and though we call them Jews, it does not alter their character. They retain their character, one and the same, however various or diverse their names may be, Judah, Israel, Jacob, Christ. Therefore, the “glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again;” Acts 13:32; these “glad tidings” make perfect harmony of the Bible, by declaring to us how the promised seed of Abraham is Christ and his risen saints, and their promised land is the habitable “world to come, whereof we speak;” which world is not put in subjection to angels, but to our King Jesus. Hebrews 2:5. His people are his disciples, believers, followers, Israel, and the Jews, “which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead—and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection Luke 20:35; even now “begotten again to a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in the heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1st Peter 1:3. “For you,” not for carnal Jews; “reserved in heaven for you,” not in miserable Palestine; by faith now, but to be revealed when faith is swallowed up in the vision, “in the last time.”
This view of Israel, of Israel’s King, and of the promised land, comports with itself; no inconsistency is discoverable in it. Also it comports with the axioms laid down in the commencement of this article, and with the first principles of Christianity, and with the ancient creeds of all denominations. It sustains the Pharisee against the Sadducee in the matter of the resurrection; it interprets the Old Testament in holy conformity to the New; and it preserves throughout the testimony of Jesus in the spirit of prophecy, even of “Jesus and the resurrection.” We humbly present it to our readers, in the name of our crucified and exalted Lord, hoping it accords with his royal word, and will rejoice the soul of the faithful. Were it even a vision, it is one of glory, where Christ is, and not of this world, where death reigns. But it is the word of the Great King, and no vision; it is the language of the primitive, catholic, and reformed churches: Israel are all saints, the ransomed of the Lord, who are bought with his most precious blood: they return and come from the land of their dispersion and approach with everlasting joy upon their heads, and are restored to the Paradise of God, and to Jerusalem, the city of the great King, the metropolis of the promised holy land in the habitable world to come, of which the crucified Jesus is the bright and morning star, and the glorified Jesus is the everlasting King. For “the kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him.” Daniel.7:27.
Bishop Horsley’s Sermons. Rev. and Hon. Gerard T. Noel’s Brief Inquiry. The paramount dominion in the New Jerusalem will be in Christ and the immortal saints; “and the subordinate dominion of the regenerated earth is reserved, not for the risen Jewish saints, but for the restored Jewish nation.” Rev. Hugh M’Neile’s Prospects of the Jews. (Literalist. p. 51.)
“According to the chronology of our most learned writers, about 3740 years have elapsed since the promise first made to Abraham, that the land of Canaan should be given to him and to his seed forever. During these 3740 years, it will be found, that the whole period, during which any part of the posterity of Abraham have possessed the promised land, has not exceeded 1481 years;—and as the ten tribes were carried captive into Assyria in the year 721 before Christ, this part of Abraham’s seed have possessed the land of promise only 730 years out of the whole period of 3740 years. If there be no national restoration of Israel to the land of their fathers, we may well ask what is to become of the promises so often repeated, that God would give unto Abraham and his seed the land of Canaan forever?” [Jewish Expositor quoted by M’Neile, p. 87. Literalist.] We reply, that a national restoration will not fulfill the promise to Abraham and his seed, “which is Christ;” but only the resurrection can do it.
“The nation was a type of the church; the promises of the land of Canaan to the nation, were typical of the promises of final salvation, body and soul, to the people of God: and the whole history of the nation was typical of the experience of New Testament believers.” [M’Neile's Prospects of the Jews, p. 82. Literalist.]
“The restored Jewish nation shall have national preeminence in the earth.” [M'Neile’s Prospects of the Jews, p. 112. Literalist.] Mr. Bickersteith makes the restoration of the Jews “The crisis of ail nations, the fulfillment of the largest hopes of the church, the momentous event on which all the kingdoms of this world are suspended.” [Time to Favor Zion, p. 11. Literalist.] But again he says: “All believers in Jesus are partakers of his promises.” [p. 19.] Again: “What is every believer in Jesus, but a son of Abraham? What are all the churches of Christ among the Gentiles, but the seed of Abraham?” [p. 25.]
Jerome, on Isaiah 54:1—Sing, O barren, &c.—says: “This and the following, the Jews and Judaizers refer to Jerusalem, which they say is to be renewed in the 1000 years reign; and is the same which once had, and then ceased to have a husband; and that divorced one will have more sons than when she had a husband. Nor is this strange of the Jews, whose eyes and ears are shut; but what to say of the Christians I know not, who transfer the things spoken allegorically by the apostle, and by him referred to Sarah and Hagar, the two Testaments, Old and New, to the Jews, for a hope of terrestrial pleasures for a thousand years!”
“Where the church catholic is considered simply in its totality, the whole church is taken as the wife; but where it is considered as consisting of two great branches, the church of the natural Israel, and the church of the Gentiles, (of which the whole was composed in the primitive ages, and will be composed again) then the former is considered as the wife, or queen consort, and the Gentile congregations as her daughters or ladies of honor of her court.” [Horsley's Sermons, p. 73.] Astonishing! the natural Israel the wife, the queen, and the Gentile Israel maids of her honor! This is putting a great difference in Christ between Jew and Greek.
Saint Chrysostom, on this word, says the apostle “speaks obscurely of the resurrection, for these truly are the times of refreshing,” or of recovering breath again. John Milton, the poet, translates it, the times of “respiration,” or breathing again; and the original word, which perplexes the commentators, has the natural force of the English word resuscitation.
Saint Chrysostom, on Romans 8:19-23.
A second council convened at Antioch, A. D. 341, say, “Venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos: et Rex ac Deus in sacuta permanere: He is about coming to judge the living and the dead, and he will remain King and God forever.” [Bar. Annals, A.D. 341, Sec. 10.] Or, as another version of the same author gives it, “Eundemque iterum venturum esse cum gloria et potentia ad judicandum vivos et mortuos, eundemque permanere in saecula: and the same is about coming again with glory and power to judge the quick and dead; and the same will abide forever.” [Bar. Annals, A. D. 341, Sec. 23: Socr. Lib. 3, Cap. 7.1 Another version of the same creed is furnished by Athanasius, (De Synodo Arimin) in the following words: “Et venturum esse in consummatione, nt judicet vivos et mortuos, red daique singulis secundam opera sua. Cujus regnum inde- structibile pennanet per infinites states. Sedet enim ad dexteram Patris non solum in hoc ssculo, sed etiam in futuro. And in the end of the world he is coming to judge the quick and dead, and to give to every one according to his works; whose imperishable kingdom endures through eternal ages: for he sits at the right hand of the Father, not only in this world, but also in the world to come.” [Bar. An., A. D. 341, Sec. 26.1 From all this it is very plain that the council believed the coming Lord will remain King and God of the risen dead, in a kingdom imperishable, dispensing to every man the just reward of his works to eternity.
A third council was held at Sardis, A. D. 347. Their creed says: “Venturas judicare vivos et mortuos, et red- dere unicuique secundam opera ejus; cujus regnum sine cessatione permanet per immense saecula; sedet enim in dextera Patris non solum in hoc smculo, sed etiam in futuro. (Hilar. Lib. de Synod.) He is coming to judge the quick and dead, and to render to every man according to his works; whose kingdom, without ceasing, remains throughout immeasurable ages; for he sits at the right hand of the Father not only in this world, but in the future also.” [Bar. An., A. D. 347, Sec. 68.] In the general letter of this council to the churches, preserved by Hilary, Frag. Lib. 2, the council repeat in the following words: “Venturus in fine mundi judicare vivos et mortuos et reddere unicuique secundam opera sua; cujus regnum incessabile permanet in aeterna saecula; est enim sedens in dextera Patris non solum in isto saeculo, sed et in fu turo.” [Bar. An., A. D. 347, Sec. 95.)
The next council, whose creed Baronius gives, is that of Sirmia, but it varies from the foregoing in no point, and, therefore, it is now passed by with only a reference to Bar. An., A. D. 359, Sec. 9. Athenag. Lib. de Synod.
The great council of Constantinople, held A. D. 381, by the command of Theodosius the Great, is the last whose creed is given in the fourth century, and the last to be noticed of the ancients here. “Et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos et mortuos, cujus regni non erit finis: and is coming again with glory, to judge the living and the dead, of whose kingdom there shall be no end.” [Bar. An., A. D. 381, Sec. 29.]
The above are the words of all the creeds of the councils of the fourth century, relative to the nature of his kingdom who was born “King of the Jews,” and was crucified “King of the Jews.” Matthew 2:2, and Matthew 27:37. Does any one say: This only teaches the Lord’s final coming to judgment? We assent: that is the only coming and kingdom of our Lord which the creeds recognize as taught in the New Testament. They had no conceptions of any other kingdom of Christ and of the natural Jews.
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