On the Millennium
James Dodson
[from The Reformed Presbyterian, Vol. VII., No. 1. March, 1843. pp. 1-13.]
The prevailing characteristics of the present age in the visible church, are active effort and eager expectation. These signs of the times point to great moral and intellectual changes in the social and individual character of man, and give confirmation to hopes afforded by the sure word of Prophecy, that a happier period is approaching in the history of the human race. Efforts however, so greatly diversified and often contradictory, as those are which now prevail, must in many instances be misapplied, and expectations at variance with each other, must terminate at least in the disappointment of some. It is proposed to consider in a few brief articles, some leading features in the character of the Millennium predicted in the Holy Scriptures, and more especially to examine and refute some erroneous apprehensions, which have acquired a degree of popularity only surpassed by their mischievous tendency and their entire deviation from the Scriptures on which they are maintained to be founded.
Of these the most conspicuous, only perhaps because the most specious, is a system which, with variously modified details, asserts, as its leading features, that the Millennium is to be preceded by the visible and personal descent of the Lord Jesus from heaven to earth, the literal resurrection of the bodies of all the saints, and the establishment of his kingdom in Jerusalem, whence in great glory and, power he is to reign with his saints over all the earth. His descent to earth, as it is to be attended with the resurrection of the bodies of his saints, so it is also to be attended with the execution of judgment upon the wicked.—And then his reign, undisturbed, is to continue for a period of a thousand years; or each day in this thousand years, in prophetical language, signifying a year, this period is by others extended to three hundred and sixty-five thousand years.
Without applying any special attention to the several arguments in detail by which the advocates for this system profess to sustain and commend it; and without regarding as of any material importance, the various adjunct particulars into which the system is expanded, it is proposed to shew the utter fallacy of an expectation, that the Millennium will be preceded either by the personal, corporeal descent of the Lord Jesus from heaven to earth, or by a literal resurrection of the bodies of the just, and of consequence the fallacy of the expectation that he will then reign visibly on earth over the nations during the period of the Millennium which shall follow.
While the advocates of this system (which makes the Church a worldly sanctuary in its worst form,) adjust with. specious accuracy an extensive frame of prophecy to exhibit and confirm their expectations, there are a few passages of the Scriptures which constitute their leading and fundamental evidence. This testimony we shall more minutely examine, leaving the rest to fall by its own weight, from which we hope to make it appear, that the whole is a miserable congeries of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the word of God.
One of the principal testimonies by which this wresting of the Scriptures is supposed to be supported, is the remarkable prophecy contained in the book of Revelation, chap. xx. 1—5, “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season. And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast; neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived, not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” In this quotation we have marked in italics what is presumed to relate immediately to the matter, in hand, the whole passage being given that the prophetical event intended may be better understood. The resurrection here spoken of is maintained by our errorists, to be a real or literal and corporeal resurrection. The descent of Christ from heaven, and. the reign of his saints on earth with him, are also maintained to be literally intended and are to be so fulfilled. And in this his appearance, and the resurrection of the saints, are presumed to be accomplished other predictions such as the following: “The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” “Every man in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterwards they that are Christ’s at his coming.” 1 Thess. iv. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 23. And thus it is argued, that as the Scriptures certainly and clearly teach that the Lord Jesus will appear the second time, and that at his appearing there shall be a resurrection, therefore the appearing of Christ and the resurrection of the dead spoken of by the prophet John in the book of Revelation, are the real and literal appearing and resurrection taught throughout the Scriptures.
Without professing to be minutely and critically acquainted with this system and the entire train of reasoning by which it is maintained, an acquisition which furnishes prima facie evidence that it is not worth the labor, it is believed that a sufficient view is here given for an honest and sober investigation on scriptural principles. And we now propose to shew how devoid of foundation it is in the first passage cited, and ho w irreconcilable with the whole tenor of divine revelation; it bears strong marks of being the effort of men, who, despairing of attaining themselves to an habitation in the kingdom of God and of Christ in the highest heavens, are determined to draw that kingdom down to the earth, and thus secure to themselves a possession which otherwise they are conscious they will never reach. It is marked by characteristics, worldly, carnal, sensual; and, with equal casuistry, art and success, throws a dim and impenetrable cloud over the terrors of an “eternal judgment,” and “the everlasting kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and “an inheritance in the heavens, incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away.”
“They lived and reigned with Christ—this is the first resurrection.” This prophecy it is maintained must be understood, interpreted and fulfilled literally. Now it is remarkable that the whole passage is replete with language, figurative and prophetical in its form, and which will not allow, but actually forbids a literal interpretation; and it is highly probable that there is but one expression in the entire prophecy which will be so, that is literally fulfilled, viz. the period of time, which from its term and extent perhaps hardly admitted of any other description. Had the prophetical term “days” been employed, “a day for a year,” it might have been considered inconsistent with the solemnity and magnificence of the entire prophecy; and there is besides abundant collateral evidence coinciding with, and confirming the literal import of the language used. But independently of this, all is figurative and replete with prophetic imagery and language. “I saw an Angel, coming down from heaven,” &c. The whole series of events is described under the emblem of a vision, in which persons, and acts and things, pass in review before the actual vision of the prophet. It will not surely be asserted by any person who wishes to retain the credit of a sane mind, that the principle of literal interpretation is to be applied here. Will it be asserted that the Prophet saw, in real and living subsistences, an angelic being, holding in his hand a real and literal key, and a real chain, seizing and binding a living dragon and serpent, &c. Or is it not perceived at once that all this is only a vision of objects, unreal in their very nature, passing before, not the corporeal eye, but the intellectual vision of the Prophet, and representing to his mind, by apt and significant emblems, persons and events of which they were the representations? Besides this fact, so plain that like axioms in mathematics, it neither requires nor admits of demonstration, it is evident that the entire series of objects themselves portrayed in the vision presented to the mind of the Prophet and described in the prophecy, whilst they are unreal in their nature and neither have nor ever had any subsistence literally in fact, it is evident we observe that the entire series of objects is composed of things only employed as symbols of persons, things and events. “The angel” seen, an apt emblem of the Angel of the Covenant, the essential Word and eternal Son of God in our nature, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was sent of God, and, as our exalted Mediator, is thus represented as exercising his glorious dominion over all created beings. “The key,” the emblem of his power over the victims of the just but fearful wrath of God. for he has the “keys of hell and of death.” “The chain,” appropriately representing the actual execution of that “judgment” committed to him by the Father, and which he exercises with omnipotence. “The bottomless pit,” the irrecoverable and interminable, the absolutely endless doom of horror to which wicked men and fallen angels are destined.—The names, “dragon, serpent, devil, satan,” all significant of the cruelty, subtlety, malicious accusations and relentless enmity, of the arch fiend, who now with myriads of fallen angels deceives the nations. Indeed every circumstance with which this remarkable passage is crowded, discovers its prophetical and figurative character, and places in the clearest light the folly of any attempt to explain and interpret it upon what is called “literal signification.” And by the way we ma y observe that such is the singular and highly wrought imagery of the whole passage that it does itself afford a reason why the one exception exists in respect of the time, to which we have already referred. There could have been no emblem employed to represent the period intended to be described, which would have been analogous to all the other parts of the vision, and which would have been at the same time as easy of interpretation; therefore the Holy Spirit, in that particular, at once and entirely drops the figure, and declares at once the period during which the glorious and blessed events thus represented should endure and prevail. Moreover, this figurative language is continued in immediate contiguity and connection with the intimation of the predicted resurrection. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them.” Here again it were idle and even profane, to suppose that the eye of the prophet beheld “thrones” literally erected and occupied. No pious and discreet mind will hesitate to acknowledge that here is meant a vision, representing under the emblems of “thrones” and “judgment,” exercised by those who occupied them, the righteous administration of government and of judgment in the earth preparatory and introductory to the momentous events which follow. Again, “And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded,” &c. Spirits are invisible to the corporeal eye. Is there any man living who can credibly attest that he has seen the souls of the departed. Have we not all painful evidence of this truth who watch at the bed side of dying friends? “We see the calm sleep of death come over the mortal frame, or the agonized expression of countenance which indicates the last struggle, and the testimony in each case of the departure of the soul, but of that soul no eye takes cognizance, or witnesses its mysterious movement as it withdraws from the clay tenement. So also the allusion to the “Beast”—the symbol used throughout the book of Revelation to represent the modern kingdoms of Europe united under papal Rome—“his image,” the papacy, blasphemously and arrogantly claiming all civil and ecclesiastical power in the community of kingdoms growing out of the ruins of the Western Roman Empire—his “mark in their foreheads and in their hands”—indicating the professed and active subjection of men to the Beast and his image.
Now if the whole passage throughout thus abounds in figurative language, in forms the most diversified, why shall not the Resurrection also spoken of be understood in the same manner? And especially when the resurrection of the dead is often employed as the emblem of great moral or spiritual 'benefits conferred upon mankind. As in the instance of Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection in the valley of dry bones, representing the restoration of Israel from their desolate and captive condition—the restoration of the prodigal son, “who was dead and was made live again”—the restoration of the Jews to their ancient covenant relation to God. “If the casting away of them be,” says Paul, “the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” Ezek. ch. xxxvii. Luke xv. Rom. xi. Other instances might be produced wherein the same figurative use is made of the resurrection of the dead, and in which no considerate mind resorts to a literal interpretation; particularly in prophetical language, in which future events are purposely, and indeed necessarily shadowed forth in the partly obscure imagery of symbol, emblem, or figure.
In the present instance the figure chosen is most apposite and significant to represent the event which perhaps by almost common consent is believed to be predicted in this memorable prophecy. It is the restoration of the witnesses who through a long succession of ages had been persecuted and reduced by anti-christian cruelty and tyranny—it is the restoration of these witnesses subsisting in an unbroken succession through all ages and through all vicissitudes of accumulating adversity down to the final catastrophe of their apparent destruction and extinction—it is the restoration and elevation of these witnesses at last to eminence, influence and power.—There is a remarkable correspondence in this brief but significant prophecy with two equally obscure but significant predictions.
1. The prophecy of Malachi respecting John, the forerunner of our Lord. “Behold, I will send you, Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord,” &c. This same also is intended in a previous prediction, “Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple,” &c. Malachi iii. 1, 4, 5. Now this had been understood literally among a large part of the Jewish teachers and people previous to and at the time of the coming of our Lord, and it was believed that Elijah, or (according to the more modern and Greek pronunciation of the name) Elias, would literally and personally appear, being, for that purpose, sent from heaven to earth. Hence, when the Jews sent priests and levites from Jerusalem to enquire of John the Baptist who he was, and what and whence his ministry, this enquiry is particularly mentioned, “Art thou Elias?” John i. 21. And it appears that our Lord’s disciples were much perplexed with the prevalence of this very belief in their time, that Elijah or Elias should personally appear as the forerunner and herald of the promised Messiah. After the heavenly display of his divine majesty on the mount of transfiguration, which appears to have overwhelmed them with the conviction of the truth, though it did not clear up every objection, they enquire, “Why then, say the Scribes, that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered, and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed.—Likewise also shall the son of man suffer of them. Then they understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” Matt. xvii. 10—13 . Again, we have the same interpretation given by the same supreme authority plainly designed to correct a literal but mistaken interpretation of the same prophecy. “And Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, what went ye out into the wilderness to see?—A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.—For this is he of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. He that hath ears to ear let him hear.” Matt. xi. 7-14. In all this it is plain that the name of one person is applied to another by prophecy from some analogy or correspondence in their character, ministry or work. Such analogy prevailed between Elijah the prophet, and John the forerunner of our Lord. Both were sent as the messengers to a guilty apostatizing generation. Both were sent to denounce and give warning of merited and impending judgments, to call to repentance and reformation, to restore religion fallen and corrupted. Both were marked by singular zeal, austerity, and fervor in their ministry. And hence the explanation of the use of Elijah’s name in its application to John the Baptist removes all obscurity from the prophecy. When the angel announces to Zacharias, the father of John, in the temple, the birth and ministry of this remarkable child, to be born to him in his old age, he says of him, “He shall go before him (the Lord God) in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,” &c. Luke i. 17. A testimony which at once applies and explains the prediction.
In like manner, “the resurrection” that precedes and introduces the Millennium is to be understood. It signifies the restoration and elevation to power, influence and dominion of a race of men who through a long succession of ages had been despised, persecuted, oppressed, and reduced, towards the close of their testimony, well nigh to utter extinction. They were the martyrs, the witnesses of Jesus, slain for his testimony, or through a toilsome and suffering life, had been living, active, and efficient witnesses for the truth. It cannot be pleaded that because their violent death had been literal, therefore their glorious resurrection must in the present instance be also literal. It is indeed cheerfully admitted, and confidently and joyfully asserted, that such a resurrection awaits them in the great and last day, when “the times of refreshing shall fully come from the presence of the Lord,” and a full and everlasting recompense of reward shall be bestowed, in a crown of righteousness from the Lord the Righteous Judge. But this is not the resurrection contemplated and declared by the prophet John in the language before us. For it is certain that multitudes of the martyrs of Jesus closed their honored, useful, and accepted testimony, not by a violent, but by a natural and peaceful death. This must be admitted unless we shall exclude such men as Luther, Calvin, Knox, Beza, and a noble army less known, but like them in spirit, testimony, and life and death. Indeed it has afforded a most signal display of the sovereign power and dominion of the Head of the Church over his servants and over the world, that whilst he has allowed multitudes of his people to fall by the violent hands of the ungodly as witnesses for his truth and name, he has upheld and preserved numbers of others against the rage, cruelty and craft of Satan and the world, through a long life of peril to a tranquil and happy death; and thus held them up before the nations in their life and future history, not only as honored and accepted witnesses for the truth, but also as living illustrations and witnesses of his own almighty power and constant providence to the end.—The description of them therefore, “those who were beheaded for the witness or testimony of Jesus,” is not to be literally interpreted so as to maintain an argument from a literally violent death, to a literally glorious resurrection, intended in this prophecy. For, in truth, this form of death, “beheaded for the testimony of Jesus,” constitutes a very small item in the forms of suffering endured by the dying martyrs, and was rarely literally fulfilled, when compared with the multitudes who expired singly at the stake, or were consumed in crowds by flames in burning buildings, or suffocated in caves and prisons, or who perished through famine, or were drowned in floods, or who fell by midnight assassination, or perished in captured towns, villages and cities, abandoned to the lust and cruelty of a remorseless soldiery, or unknown, expired amidst the torments and dungeons of the Inquisition, whose tale shall not be told till “the earth shall disclose her blood and no more cover her slain.” Isaiah xxvi. 21.
A popular writer observes that the valleys, plains, and mountains of Greece are peopled with the memory and memorials of her departed sages, heroes, poets and artists.—The valleys, plains and hills, seas, lakes and rivers, of all Christendom, are peopled with the memorials of the toiling, suffering, slaughtered witnesses of Jesus. These dead shall live again. Crushed, but not subdued, oppressed, but not destroyed, not mute in a real, though unheard in an imaginary death, on account of which the ungodly world abandons itself to a brief and wide spread triumph—they shall rise in the persons, witness and ministry of men of like spirit, testimony and mould. As the prophet Elijah lived in the person, spirit, power and ministry of John, so shall these departed witnesses live in the persons, spirit, power and ministry of their true and genuine successors. “They shall live,” intimating the widely extended animation, and incalculably augmented numbers and influence in which they shall reappear—when all lands, which now contain the memorials of the witnesses, scattered in their toils and testimony, shall at once be peopled by their living and legitimate representatives, in character, doctrine and worship. All the claims instituted by the martyrs for the glory of God, for the person, grace and dominion of Christ, which have been either interrupted, suppressed or driven from place to place, now lying dormant, forgotten, and almost unknown, shall then be proclaimed by voices too loud to be unheard, by multitudes too numerous to be disregarded. “They shall live and reign.”
That it is the spirit, character and testimony of the witnesses which the Prophet intends is further manifest by the phraseology which is employed, “I saw the souls of them that were beheaded,” not the bodies. Men actuated by the same principles, engrossed by the same aspirations of soul, identified by the same spirit. The analogy therefore of this prophecy to that of John the Baptist, as bearing the name, sustaining the person, because like in the ministry and coming in the spirit and power of Elijah, makes it abundantly evident that as there was no literal interpretation to be admitted in the one, so there can be none required in the other.—The witnesses live again, in a succession of men actuated by like principles, represented by like testimony, and identified as one and the same class of men by a like spirit. “This is the first resurrection.”
2. This is further confirmed by a corresponding prophecy which will not, as all agree, admit of a literal but requires a figurative interpretation, and that is the prophecy of the witnesses contained in the Book of Revelation, chap. xi. 7—12, which is still more to the point, and may also now be examined and applied with more despatch and certainty. “And when they,” (the two witnesses, ver. 7,) “shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations, shall see their dead bodies three days and a half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven, saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.”
Without entering upon a detailed exposition of the prophecy, it is proper and sufficient for our present purpose to offer the following remarks. The “witnesses” signify not any two particular persons or things, but in general all, who, during the period (1260 years) contemplated in the prophecy, distinguished themselves by bearing faithful testimony to the truth of God and of Christ. The number “two” is employed because it represents a number of faithful and suffering men small in comparison of the multitude of the truly devout who passed through life in comparative obscurity—but which, according to the law of evidence, was sufficient to substantiate the testimony given on trial; “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.” Matt. xviii. 16. They are not limited to any generation or any age, but represent a succession of devout and faithful men living throughout this whole period, and according to their several circumstances, testifying to divine truth, and however diversified their particular testimony, always animated by the same one spirit of truth, always abiding in the church, and furnishing the faithful with the spirit of prophecy, the testimony of Jesus. This according to the promise of Christ, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the spirit of truth.” These witnesses are, in like communication of divine influences, directed and supported throughout the whole period of their testimony. “I will give power unto my two witnesses,” ver. 3. And further we assume as granted, what indeed does not bear materially on the question now at issue, that the slaying of the witnesses predicted at the close of their testimony, is yet to be fulfilled.
Now it will be evident that in this prophecy death and resurrection are both figuratively employed in prophetical language, and yet it is evident that though death literally be in part contemplated, a literal resurrection is neither described nor designed. It is the design of the prophecy to exhibit the successful efforts of their enemies at the close of their testimony in its entire interruption and suppression, at or about the termination of the 1260 years, and that the interruption and suppression shall last for three and a half years, indicated in the prophetical language of three and a half days. The very nature of such an emblem or such a representation demonstrates that it is not designed to be literally fulfilled—besides the whole passage is made up of a profusion of prophetical imagery. As their bodies lay dead in the street of the great city, “the spirit of life from God entered into them and they stood upon their feet.” How analogous and almost parallel in fact and substance with the prophecy we are considering, although diversified in details and distinct perhaps in their specific design. “I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God—and they lived and reigned with Christ.” In both there is death, in both there is resurrection, yet in that very prediction in which the death of the witnesses is most directly asserted, the resurrection is forbidden to be literally understood or designed, and thus furnishes another evidence that the entire prophecy refers not to a literal, but to a figurative resurrection. An awful judgment passes over the world, the voice of truth is silenced, the witnesses are fallen before the combined efforts of earth and hell, deceit and violence have succeeded in crushing their testimony, and as a body they are no longer recognized, or known, or heard. But they are restored to life, by a renewed display of divine power, their influence and their power is augmented; they are exalted to a higher sphere of action in the world, and their numbers multiplied—their enemies regard them with fear. “And they heard a great voice from heaven saying, come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them.”
Such too we infer is the proper import of the resurrection of those who “were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, who lived and reigned with Christ.”—No other resurrection is designed by the Spirit of God, than the restoration and elevation of the saints to increased numbers, more extensive influence, and to such dignity and power as give preponderance and dominion over all the earth.
We trust it has been shewn that as this interpretation is perfectly analogous to the only system of interpretation capable of application in two other portions of prophecy very similar in their character—so it is the only interpretation which the prophecy under examination does itself admit when carefully and soberly investigated.
ON THE MILLENNIUM.
[from The Reformed Presbyterian, Vol. VII., No. 3. May, 1843. pp. 65-70.]
That there shall be on the earth a long continued period of purity an d prosperity enjoyed by the Church of God, then extended over the whole world, and an attendant state of moral order and great happiness among the nations, is clearly foretold in the Scriptures, and at a very early period was made known in promises and prophecies to the people of God. This event, so consonant to the goodness of God, so becoming the glory of the Saviour of mankind, and so replete with consolation to the faithful in all the conflicts through which they pass in maintaining the testimony of Jesus, requires, for various reasons, to be well understood both as to its characteristic properties, and the general period when its commencement may be expected. The mere establishment of truth might be a sufficient consideration, but it is required moreover by the effect which a proper understanding of its true nature must have in directing to present duty and preparatory efforts, as well as informing reasonable anticipations and imparting a character of unity and truth, unchanged throughout all ages, to the declared expectations of the Church of God.
The present age has witnessed the revival of an old heresy on this subject, and a revival of it with unusual Zealand success in its diffusion. This heresy maintains that the millennium consists in the personal descent of the Lord Jesus from heaven, to take up his abode at Jerusalem, and there to reign with his saints on earth for the period of a thousand years; that his appearance from heaven is to be immediately attended with the resurrection of all the righteous who have died, and the execution, of judgment on the wicked, which last are no more to trouble the earth, then to be occupied during the period mentioned by the risen and living righteous, who are to share in the glory of this earthly kingdom. This unscriptural and unreasonable hypothesis is pretended to be founded mainly on a prediction contained in the book of Revelation ch. 21, v. 1—6. “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand” &c. &c. To this are of course subjoined various misinterpreted and misapplied testimonies of the prophets, and numerous testimonies garbled and gathered from early writers among the fathers of the primitive church. This last is a class of evidence of little weight. It may be produced by partial quotations, in which injustice is done to faithful advocates of the truth, or by selections from writers as deep in the heresy as its modern patrons. At best it is only human testimony and requires to be corroborated and supported by the word of God. To this therefore we refer, and in a former article endeavored, to show, as we hope successfully, the preposterous nature of an attempt to give a literal interpretation to the main evidence pleaded from the prophecy of the book of Revelation. The whole passage in its various details was shown to be necessarily figurative, except the definite period of time, and intended to exhibit, the moral and spiritual effects of Christ’s kingdom in the subversion of the cruel, tyrannical and infidel systems of misrule among the nations; in the restoration and elevation to power and influence of principles, which had been long pleaded, resisted and oppressed, embodied in the persons of the righteous, then to be multiplied over all the earth, and the consequent suppression of the power and influence of the wicked, during a spiritual reign of the Redeemer in truth, righteousness and peace over all nations for a thousand years. This was shown to be analogous with other prophecies; as in the spiritual resurrection of the witnesses, Rev. xi. 3—12; and most clearly in the person of John, the forerunner of our Lord; who had been predicted under the name of Elijah the prophet, who was therefore erroneously, as in the present instance, expected to descend from heaven and resume his ministry on earth. The prophecy nevertheless in that instance, as in the present, was shown to be fulfilled by the appearance of another, animated by the same zeal, severity and power, which had distinguished his great predecessor. “John came in the spirit and power of Elias.” So the righteous dead, at the millennium, will reappear, and live again, in the persons of multitudes of the same character, who will succeed and imitate them in their testimony, principles and spirit, and will be multiplied and spread in power and influence over all the earth.
We now proceed to consider this heresy in another light, and shew its inconsistency with various cardinal doctrines and properties of divine truth.
1. It is strikingly at variance with the benevolent character and blessed fruits of the true millennium exhibited in the scriptures. Of the properties of that event and state of the church and the world, we do not now speak in detail, purposing a future discussion for that particular subject. But it is necessary and seasonable to observe, that that event as portrayed in the scriptures of truth, exhibits a period of one thousand years, in which the church shall be diffused in great purity and power over all the world, and that then the nations, brought to the service of God, and submission to the Messiah, shall be no more agitated and ravaged: by ambitious schemes, by cruel and desolating wars, and the demoralizing influence of infidelity, impiety and crime. Pestilence and famine, often the natural offspring of national disorders and wars, and the righteous judgments with which the Most High visits the nations, for their sins, will be unknown. The arts of peace will be mainly, perhaps exclusively cultivated, the usages and implements of war being.no longer required. And in this condition, the human race being suffered to propagate and expand by its natural, law of increase, the world, will be peopled by successive and multiplying generations, unparalleled and unknown it may be safely believed in any former period of its existence. That the true church of God has expected, does still, and with assured confidence may anticipate such a happy period among the nations, is evident from multiplied testimonies of the Holy Scriptures. Of these we select a few.—The very covenant that was established with Abraham, on which the visible church is founded in its existence on earth, has interwoven with it promises to this effect. At an early period, God promised to Abraham, Gen. xii.3, “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Again, he assures him in the very covenant itself, Gen. xvii. 4, “wherein he is a father not according to the flesh, but according to the promise,” Rom. ix. 8, “thou shalt be a father of many nations,” which Paul interprets, Rom. iv. 13, to mean “a promise that he should be the heir of the world.” Again, “In thy seed (“which is Christ,” Galatians iii. 16,) shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,” Gen. xxii. 13. So that if words have any meaning, that very religion established in the person and illustrated in the faith of Abraham, amplified and purified by the increasing light of the New Testament, is to pervade at some future period, “all families and all nations of the earth.”—And that moreover when the world shall still be peopled by families and nations, in that natural order of succession and propagation, and society wherein the promise found them when first given; not in a state wherein after the resurrection pretended, they shall be like the angels of God which neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” And to exhibit still more fully the moral and spiritual magnificence and splendor of that event, Paul reasons concerning the restoration of the Jews and the fulness of the Gentiles, brought into one common covenant relation to the God of Abraham, now and then more gloriously known as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. “Now if the fall of them,” (the Jews,) “be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead. For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.” Rom. xi. The prophetic eye of the Apostle glanced over the long period of desolation to the ancient Israel, but of grace and compassion to a long succession of generations among the Gentiles; this is the riches of the Gentiles, and the reconciling of the world. He sees that period of desolation to the one and favor to the other, succeeded by a brighter to both, still through along vista of ages, replete with mercies to be diffused by the same covenant over all the world. Transported with the blessed vision, he exclaims at the close of his discussion, “O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” Rom. xi. And well might he thus exclaim. The prophets before him dwell in strains of surpassing splendor on this holy theme and shew it to be replete with long continued, wide spread and universal manifestations “of glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will to men.” Then, “they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” Isaiah xi. 9. “The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” Isaiah lii. 10. “Thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day nor night; that men may bring to thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought.” Isaiah lx. 11. “His name shall endure forever; his name shall be continued so long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed.”
These predictions appear plainly to contemplate the same natural and social order in which the families and nations of the earth are now, but reformed, enlightened, and elevated by the holy and blessed effects of the gospel of Christ. We very much misunderstand the providence of God if they have been fulfilled. It remains, therefore, that a period far other than the world has yet passed through, awaits the human race, in a long succession of ages, during which the gospel of Christ, in a degree of purity and power, in all probability yet unequalled, (for the works of God are always on the advance,) shall be preached in all the world.
Now, if, as we have seen, during this period, all the usual lets to the increase of the human race, by war, pestilence and famine be removed—if the sterility of the earth in yet uncultivated regions be made by the divine blessing to yield to the industrious cultivation, of the increasing multitudes of the human race—if to along series of numerous generations succeeding each other in the world, thickly peopled with nations, blessed with light, knowledge and peace, the gospel of our salvation be powerfully and efficiently preached, what must its blessed fruits be in gathering into its inheritance redeemed and regenerated men?[1] How shall we estimate the multitudes of these successive generations, brought into being and passing from this life, not to perish in ignorance as now, but to be brought under the efficient administration of mercy and grace in the gospel of Christ, and, by its healing virtue, prepared for everlasting life? By what system of computation shall we attain even the most distant idea of those myriads of myriads, that may, and, we have surely reason to believe, will, in that long, prosperous and happy period of the church be gathered as an abundant harvest out of the nations of which the first fruits only have as yet been offered? How shall this vast throng add, at the last great day, when that shall come indeed, lustre to the crown of God our Saviour, “when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and admired in all them that believe.” 2 Thess. i. 10.
But the tendency of this heretical scheme is to close at once the flood gates of divine mercy against the human family, and ere the tree of life shall have spread its leaves for the healing of the nations, to put a sudden period to the administration of mercy from heaven to the human race. It is a system repugnant to humanity, to piety—it impeaches the goodness and benevolence of the Most High—it limits and impiously contracts the administration of Christ’s gracious kingdom over the human race—it mars and obscures the glory of his great salvation—and all in the face of plain, express and literal testimonies from the prophets, who with one voice announce this glorious development of the love and kindness of God our Saviour towards man. It is therefore to be rejected as it is inconsistent, and strikingly at variance with the benevolent character and blessed fruits of the true millennium exhibited in the Holy Scriptures. (To be continued.)
ON THE MILLENNIUM.
[from The Reformed Presbyterian, Vol. VII., No. 4. June, 1843. pp. 108-115.]
In a former article we demonstrated that the millenarian scheme, which teaches the personal reign of Christ, in bodily presence with his saints, on earth, for the period of a thousand years, was strikingly at variance with the benevolent character and blessed fruits of the true millennium exhibited in the scriptures. We now proceed to show that—
2. It corrupts and degrades the hope of an inheritance eternal in the heavens, undefiled and that fadeth not away, into a low, sensual and earthly portion in the world which we now inhabit.
There is every reason to believe that this world was not designed as a permanent habitation for man, and that the purpose for which it was made was no other than an abode in transitu, a temporary and transient dwelling wherein he should remain for a time and undergo his preparation for another and far more glorious state. The garden of Eden, the Paradise, a spot selected out of the earth, too limited to be the habitation of more than the smallest fraction of the human race, and adorned with a beauty and profusion that distinguished it from all the world beside, gave, together with the prohibitory limitation of its enjoyments, intimation to ma n that his supreme good and highest glory lay in another, more extensive and elevated state of being. It is in its natural limits too contracted. Even in the present state of mankind, were the constant diminution of the number effected by death to be suspended for a few generations in succession, the present ordinary increase would accumulate a multitude which the earth itself could not contain, much less support. God has decreed a higher destiny for man. That “heaven of heavens,” “the third heaven,” “the majesty in the heavens where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God,” and which is moreover said to be “far above all heavens,” is the state of being to which “the spirits of just men made perfect” are conveyed at death, and whither “they depart to be with Christ.”
There is a beautiful and glorious symmetry in all the works of God: analogy prevails throughout the natural and the spiritual world, the old and the new creation. The earth we inhabit is full of his riches replenished beyond our entire investigation with the fruits of his power, wisdom and goodness. But the visible heavens with which we are surrounded far surpass the earth in magnificence, extent and glory; so far as to forbid almost comparison, and to overwhelm the mind with its contemplation. Why should not the heavens unseen to us and still far above these that are visible, as far surpass them in magnificence, glory and extent, as the visible heavens themselves surpass the earth? We are assured that “eye hath not seen not ear heard, nor hath the heart of man conceived the things that God has prepared for them that love him.” What is this but that the whole visible creation, vast, magnificent and glorious as it is, furnishes no data by which to judge of the extent, magnificence and glory, of the habitation of the redeemed in a future state of existence; any more than, nor even as much, as this little world furnishes data to conceive of the extent, magnificence and glory of the visible heavens, wherein the sun, moon and countless planets and stars daily and nightly proclaim the glory of their author? The eye moreover hath seen that sun, and that moon, and those countless planets and stars—they have been daily and nightly contemplated by the human race, since the world began. These glorious orbs and the equally glorious firmament in which they are fixed, or in which they revolve, are not the abode in whole or.in part of them that love God—for that abode, eye hath not seen. Oh how much less this vile earth, seen to be scathed with the wrath of God revealed from heaven in righteous judgments; seen to be moistened and even saturated with the tears and blood of the righteous; this the eye hath seen, this therefore cannot be the final inheritance of the redeemed. The very faith which now actuates and supports the pious, is conversant with objects far other and far beyond this world, or the magnificent and glorious heavens above and around. “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.”
The scriptures teach us that the Lord Jesus is ascended into a state of being as well as of authority, blessedness and glory, far surpassing any conceptions we can entertain from the extent of the visible creation around us. He is said to have “passed into or thro’ the heavens,” Heb. iv. 14: “to be made,” i.e. exalted and established in a state of being “higher than the heavens,” chap. vii. 26. to be “set down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens;” chap. viii. 1. Now all these expressions,—and many of similar import might be added, indicate that that state to which he is exalted in his glorified human nature, is far removed beyond the ken of human vision or conception, both as it respects the remoteness of its location, and its extent; magnificence and glory. But it is unto this state that the souls of the pious depart at death. When we are “absent from the body we are present with the Lord.” 2 Cor. v. 8. “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God; an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Ibid. v. 1. “I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” Phil. i. 23. “The hope set before us, is as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that which is within the veil;” (beyond these visible heavens which as a veil conceal from our vision, the heavenly sanctuary beyond.) “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus.” Heb. vi. 19, 20. There is the true mount Zion among the everlasting hills, there “the true city of our God, the heavenly Jerusalem within the gates of which the righteous only who keep the commandments of God, have a right to enter, an innumerable company of angels, the general assembly and church of the first born whose names are written in heaven, God the Judge of all,” (in unveiled glory,) “the spirits of just men made perfect, Jesus the mediator of the new covenant.” Heb. xii. 22, 24; Rev. xxii. 14. Whatever communion in foretaste by the earnest of the spirit the righteous have in this life it is evident, that it is only at death, but at death that they certainly enter upon the immediate vision and fruition of all that glory and blessedness in the highest heavens. “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now we know in part; but then shall we know even as we are known.” 1 Cor. xiii. 12. At the moment of the great and solemn change in which they pass from this to the future world, the truly pious and faithful have “ministered unto them abundantly an entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2 Pet. i. 11. Here they suffer “joyfully the spoiling of their goods,” when called upon in the providence of God to endure persecution for the truth, “knowing in themselves that they have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” Heb. x. 34. For they are begotten again, unto this very hope that as children and heirs, they shall at death, enter upon “an inheritance incorruptible and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for them.” 1 Pet, i. 4.
It is difficult to conceive what words, what language, what thoughts, what figures should be employed to convey to the soul of renewed and enlightened man the hope of a future state infinitely beyond this world, both as to its locality, blessedness, magnificence, extent; and everything indeed in which one condition of being can differ from another. The change which takes place at the true final and only resurrection of the great day, instantaneous in its nature, for it shall be done “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” is only to prepare them for entering immediately after the grand and final assize of the universe, upon a continued, enlarged, and fuller fruition of the glory and blessedness, of which in unembodied spirits, they have already so largely enjoyed. For then shall the whole assembly of the righteous enter into that same heaven of heavens, of which Moses, Elijah, and all the prophets and faithful who had previously departed this life, had already partaken in spirits there made perfect, or in bodies previously glorified, “then and forever to be with the Lord.” 1 Thess. iv. 17.
But how is all this ineffably glorious and blessed hope degraded, by recalling the whole assembled, redeemed, and glorified throng from mansions and thrones in the heavens, again to take up their habitation on this narrow earth. A vain attempt to confound heaven and earth, nay, worse, to substitute earth for heaven, to annihilate and extinguish heaven from the hopes of the faithful, and fill them up once more with that earth from which it was their last and best consolation to believe they had forever escaped. An attempt too unreasonable and preposterous in its nature long to mislead the truly pious, too unscriptural in its origin and foundation, too much at variance with the gracious operations of that Holy Spirit, who is the earnest and the seal of an inheritance truly heavenly and eternal, and who, as such, dwells in the hearts of the faithful. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One and ye know all things—ye know that no lie is of the truth, and ye know in yourselves that ye have in heaven an enduring substance, and an everlasting inheritance.” 1 John ii. 20, 21. Heb. x. 34, ix. 15.
Indeed the faithful may entertain a hope both reasonable and scriptural; that this world will not, literally and without a figure, be able to contain the multitudes of the human race redeemed from sin and wrath. When we consider what has been done from righteous Abel downward through the antediluvian period—thence forward from Noah to Abraham—thence to the Sinai Covenant; thence the multitudes gathered out of the heirs of that covenant to the coming of the Messiah, and after that the extended progress of the New Covenant dispensation among the called of the Gentiles, and finally during the long period of its administration when Jew and Gentile shall constitute one fold, and not one limited territory be the theatre of the dispensation of divine grace as once it was, nor even many lands, but the whole earth, for a long period, and with signal power; what effects shall have been produced in gathering in the election of grace no human mind can compute. Then “a little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.” “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be seven fold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”
It becomes us indeed to think and speak with modesty, sobriety and reverence of the future providence of God with respect to the human race; yet so far as we are conducted by the clear light of the sure word of prophecy and promise, we may proceed with confidence. And enough of that has been produced we trust to shew, how utterly at variance this heresy is with the hopes of the true church of God, and how it tends to degrade that hope from an inheritance eternal in the heavens, and contract and debase it into a low, sensual and earthly portion in the world we inhabit.
The last objection I mention to this worldly system is, that it presents itself in the light of a vain and wicked expedient to shut out the scriptural hope of the final resurrection, of quick and dead and hide from man that most important and practical expectation of the judgment of the great day, when “we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one ma y receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad.” 2 Cor. v. 10.
In the system we are exposing, the only prominent view presented is that of the judgment which precedes the thousand years of reign on earth, or which endures simultaneously with that period. But of an “eternal judgment” it is silent, or throws that judgment so far in the shade, that its properties and interests are unknown, and its very truth uncertain.—Let the advocates of this system speak out boldly and honestly on this subject, and affirm or deny a general judgment of angels and men at the end of the world. The truth assuredly is that in private intercourse, in public discourses, in printed dissertations, the attention is always absorbed by the preeminent magnitude of this pretended first resurrection, and Christ’s reign, with his saints a thousand years on earth. Of what follows, these witnesses are so silent, that not a whisper is heard. Now the truly all absorbing facts in this awful matter, are, not what is to become of us for a thousand years, but what is to become of us through a never-ending eternity. And it is for this reason that the scripture denominates the final judgment there revealed, an “eternal judgment,” (Heb. vi. 2.) and speaks of it throughout, as being one and only one. It declares that at the coming of Christ to judge the world, “all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of G od and shall come forth, they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation.” John v. 28, 29. And this “life” and this “damnation,” are in parallel passages declared to be eternal or everlasting. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and all nations shall be gathered before him. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Then shall he say also unto them on his left hand, Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And. these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.” Math. xxv. 31, 46. In like manner the apostle Paul encourages the pious to a patient endurance of the persecutions of the wicked, from a consideration of the retributive justice of God, at the second and final coming of Christ. “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; and to you who are troubled, rest with us, when, the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.” 2. Thess. i. 6-9. See also 2 Peter iii. 7-10. Ho w clear, and ho w explicit are these testimonies to one eternal judgment to take place with the resurrection of all the dead, at the end of the world, and to issue in the eternal destiny of men and angels, let them judge who truly believe and revere the word of God. But let them also judge, how all this awful and transporting anticipation is excluded by the weak and wicked heresy, that here obtrudes itself to hide the glory of God in that great day, to extinguish the consolation of the pious, and to. withhold from the wicked a faithful warning of their doom. Indeed in this last respect, it likens itself to the first temptation in taking from sin one of its most powerful restraints, whilst it conceals the terrors of an eternal judgment; and gives strong reason to dread that of its advocates some are the seed of the old tempter at their former work in another form, doing service to “Satan himself transformed into an angel of light,” and the rest their deluded victims. For if we are commanded to “try the spirits whether they be of God,” (1 John iv. 1,) to what other origin shall we attribute a doctrine which threatens with premature baste to close the flood gates of divine mercy to the human race; which substitutes for a spiritual and eternal inheritance in the heavens, carnal succession of enjoyments for a brief period on the earth; which in fine, shuts out of view the consolation tendered to the righteous, and the warning denounced to the wicked, in that only true final, universal, and eternal judgment of the great day, and the end of the world.
NOTE:
[1] The population of the world is at present estimated at 800 millions. In such a condition of the world us the millennium presents, it would be naturally 1280 millions. In one century, three generations of the human race are born and pass away in succession; so that in that state of the gospel of Christ, in the course of one century it is no unreasonable computation that 3.600,000,000 of the human species will have been under its pure and powerful administrations—and this to continue and increase for 1000 years.