The Coming of Christ.—No. 5.
By S. F. Griswold
PROCEEDING in our examination of Scripture teaching on the coming of Christ, in Matt. 13: 47–50, we read: “The kingdom of Heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” By the kingdom of Heaven here is meant the true Christian church, from which would be expelled every worker of iniquity. The time was at the closing up of the Jewish dispensation, αἰῶνος, age. Christ was speaking of the establishment of his kingdom then, as being near at hand. But, as if to leave no doubt about his meaning, Christ explicitly shows what he meant by the kingdom in Matt. 21: 33–45, in the parable of the vineyard. “There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a wine-press in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country; and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.” That this parable referred to the Jewish nation cannot be denied. The cause of God was the vineyard—the kingdom of God. This kingdom of God was to be taken away from the Jews, and given to the Christians. This took place at the close of the Jewish dispensation, called the end of the world; in which the angels, messengers, human and angelic, were to aid in separating the chaff from the wheat, and the good from the bad, so that the righteous might shine forth in this new kingdom of their Father. It was in this new kingdom that Christ was anew to drink of the fruit of the vine, the Lord’s supper. At this last supper, Christ partook of the cup in the old kingdom, under the Jewish dispensation; but after the kingdom of God was transferred to the Christian dispensation, he drank anew in his Father’s new kingdom. The parable of the vineyard settles the question as to what the kingdom of God was; and, also the time when it was to be set up. Now, as the coming of Christ was synchronical with the setting up of the kingdom, and as the setting up of this kingdom was synchronical with the overthrow of Judaism it follows that the coming of Christ and the overthrow of Judaism were synchronical events; And as the destruction of Judaism was the end of the world, or dispensation, and as Christ’s coming was to take place at the end of the world or that dispensation, it follows that the coming of Christ is, as to its beginning, an event of the past. And, as he did not come personally, thus far our research goes to show that the Scriptures do not teach his personal coming. The parable of the king’s marriage of his son, as recorded in Matt. 22: 1–14, is of similar import to the time then passing. The Jews were the first invited, but as they declined to accept the invitation, it was extended to the Gentiles. The coming, then, of the Son of man, was his coming in his kingdom; an event then commencing to transpire—an event then about to be. When Christ was interrogated by the high priest as to whether he was the Messiah, the Son of God, Christ answered that he was, and added, “I say unto you, Hereafter, ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matt. 26: 64; Luke 22: 69. The time here mentioned was immediately to commence, when the Son of man was to sit on the right hand of power, and to come in the clouds of heaven. Henceforth, from that time, literally, from the now, (ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν), apo ton nun, from the now, from that time the high priest was to see (not with his literal eyes), to understand that the prisoner before him, Jesus, was to be elevated to a seat of power, in the divine administration; and to a coming in the clouds of heaven, the dispensations of the divine providence, to establish the kingdom of God. To this throne of power Christ was elevated at his resurrection out from among the dead ones, those who had finished their earth-life and were denizens of the spirit-world (see Romans 1: 4), and became the Son of God with power. I have thus examined some of the prominent references to the coming of the Son of man as contained in the gospels; and they all, undoubtedly, had and are having their fulfillment in the overthrow of Judaism and in the establishment of the gospel of the kingdom, viz., the Christian dispensation.—There evidently is no reference to an end of this material globe, the personal coming of Christ, or the popular idea of the Judgment-day; but to that administration of the divine government, which Christ, as mediator and king was to execute. The time when such language as, The kingdom of God being near at hand, as coming, as come, the coming of the Son of man, the end of the world, were all synchronical, and all began to have their fulfillment at the ascension of Christ, and the destruction of Judaism. Thus far we find nothing in support of the second-advent theory, but all in direct opposition to it. So far as pertains to the ground covered by the foregoing article by Bro. Griswold, the question which divides us is, To what dispensation does Christ in the parables of Matt. 13 refer? Bro. G. says, The Jewish. We say, The Christian. That the term, “The kingdom,” sometimes refers to the arrangement that has been put in operation for the salvation of men, may be admitted. In this sense the kingdom of Heaven, or kingdom of grace, has existed ever since such an arrangement was established, and has passed, and is passing, through several stages, the patriarchal, the Jewish, the Christian. The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. This was spoken to the Jews, and was a prediction of their rejection as the especial people of God. There was to be a transfer from them to another people of the agencies God had instituted to save men. It has been fulfilled in the giving of the gospel to the Gentiles. The vineyard is now in the hands of other husbandmen. But the work in their hands constitutes the kingdom just as much as it did in the hands of the Jews. And its work is still in progress; and to this work the parable of the sower, the wheat and tares, the mustard seed, the leaven, the net of fish, &c., &c., beyond any question have their application. To show that it is not possible that these parables, some of them at least, like the wheat and tares, and the net of fish, were not fulfilled at the transfer from the Jewish to the gospel age, it is only necessary to consider that these parables bring to view the completion and end of the work which they are given to illustrate. Therefore they were not fulfilled at the end of the Jewish age; for the kingdom, in the sense of God’s arrangement for saving men, did not there finish its work, and come to an end, but was only transferred to another people. Hence to say that these parables which illustrate the completed work of this kingdom, were all fulfilled when this kingdom simply passed from one of its stages to another, is altogether erroneous. But this work is to come to an end. Christ is not always to officiate as priest. Mercy will not be offered forever, nor probation always last; for the time is coming, and that too in close connection with the second advent of Christ, when the sentence will go forth, “He which is filthy, let him be filthy still, and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Rev. 22: 11. Christ is to take the throne of his father David, and then reign as king forever and ever. This will constitute the future kingdom of glory which we are to seek, Matt. 6: 33; which the church in this life, the “little flock,” do not possess, but which is to be given to them, Luke 12: 32, 33, for the coming of which we are ever to pray, Matt. 6: 10; and into which we are to enter through much tribulation. Acts 14: 22. This is the kingdom which is ushered in by the second coming of Christ in glory, the destruction of the living wicked, and the resurrection of the righteous dead. It is by unnecessarily confounding the reign of Christ as priest on the throne of his Father, Zech. 6: 12, 13; Rev. 3: 21; with his reign as king on his own throne, 1 Cor. 15: 24–28; Luke 1: 32, 33, and mixing up these kingdoms of grace and glory, that all this confusion exists in relation to the second coming of Christ, and the supposed necessity has arisen for making that coming a mystical affair, and giving the language a spiritual meaning; a practice which Brooks in his Elements of Prophecy, p. 97, calls a device of Satan to render the Scriptures virtually useless. That the separation between the good and bad spoken of in the parable of the net and fishes, is future, is evident from Matt. 25: 31, 32: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” Christ has used the future tense to express the time of this gathering and separation; and it is to be when he shall come in his glory. At what point in all our world’s history thus far have the nations been gathered before the Son of man, more than another? None whatever. They were gathered before him just as much before his advent as at that time, or as at any time since. If it refers to anything that has transpired in the experience of the race thus far, the text should have read, Before him are gathered all nations; for they have been before him just as much at one time as another. But no, they shall be gathered, different from anything before the advent of Christ, different from anything at that time, different from anything since; they shall be gathered and separated, and the righteous shall, as the result, go into everlasting life, and the wicked into everlasting punishment. Then the gospel net will have been brought to shore, the good fish preserved, and the bad cast away. “The Judgment! the Judgment! the thrones are all set,
Where the Lamb and the white-vested Elders are met;
There all flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord,
And the doom of eternity hangs on his word.”