THE “RETURN OF THE JEWS.”
For anybody to claim, to advocate, or to believe in, the “return of the Jews,” shows that such person has no true conception of the gospel. This is plain from the words quoted in last week’s article,—the Lord’s appeal to all people before this people were scattered,—“What could have been done more, . . . that I have not done?” The final thing which the Lord did, was, as he himself says, to send his Son. And, in his Son, God gave himself; for “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself;” and “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” And whosoever accepts him is, in the nature of the case, “complete in him.” And any Jew can find all this any moment that he chooses, and at any place that he may be in this wide world. He can find it in America as well as in Palestine: he can find it in New York City, in Hongkong, in Calcutta, in London, or anywhere else, just as well as in Jerusalem. Then, what possible need can there be that the Jews should return to Jerusalem? What can God do for them there, more than he did for the Jews before they were ever scattered from there? Has he another Son whom he can give? Has he yet a greater gift than himself that he can bestow? Has he a greater gift than “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” to give, even though he had another Son whom he might send? It is perfectly plain, therefore, that any claim of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, or to Palestine, betrays an utter lack of the true value of the gospel. For there can be no question whatever that what we have here suggested must inevitably be involved in any return of the Jews; but there is no possible place for any such thing as that. God has no other Son to give. He has no greater gift than “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” to give, even though he had ten thousand other sons, greater even than Jesus. Then, as he has already given his only begotten Son; as in him he has given “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;” as all this was given to the Jews while they were yet a people, and was rejected by them, and upon their own judgment was given “to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof,”—as God has thus done all that it can be possible for even him to do; and as the benefit of all this can be had by any Jew, wherever he is on earth, at any moment when he will choose to receive it; so there is neither necessity, nor place, nor yet a possibility, of any return of the Jews to Palestine or Jerusalem, or of their re-establishment there as a nation and a peculiar people for whom and by whom God is to do great things. Another feature of this claim of the return of the Jews, which betrays an absolute lack of knowledge of the gospel, is that those who claim it actually hold not only that the Jews are to return, but that they are to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, to rebuild the temple, and re-establish the temple services, sacrifices, offerings, etc., etc. But since the time of the offering of Christ once for all, the offering of a sacrifice is the denial of Christ. And the establishment of a priestly service on earth is a denial of the priesthood of Christ, which is simply denial of his intercession. To establish a sanctuary service on the earth would be only to deny the sanctuary and its services in heaven. Thus any such scheme as is proposed in the claim of the return of the Jews is a denial of all that God has done in the gift of Christ, and if carried out, would be only a repudiation of all that Christ has done since his ascension to heaven, and all that he is now doing. But this whole subject was discussed, and this whole ground was covered, in the first days of Christianity, in the contest carried on by “the Pharisees which believed,” against the gospel as preached by Stephen in the earliest days of the gospel after the ascension of Christ, and by Paul afterward. And the truth of the question—the truth of the gospel, as against this destructive error—is all made plain in the book of Galatians. There it is made plain that all distinctions in behalf of the Jew are utterly broken down, exactly as Jesus said in the parable; and exactly as the Jews decided in their judgment upon the case as presented in the parable,—that the kingdom of God was taken away from them and9given to others,—and that whatsoever the Jew obtains must be obtained precisely as by any others. Accordingly, over and over it is written: “There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek.” A thorough study, therefore, of the book of Galatians is the best course to an understanding of the truth of the gospel as concerns the Jews, and so is the best refutation of all claims of “the return of the Jews.” From these considerations it is perfectly plain that under the present order of things in the gospel, there can be no “return of the Jews” according to the claims that are made as to the return of the Jews; that the only possible way that there can be any such return of the Jews would be to pass by all the present order of things in the gospel, and for the Lord to set up an altogether new system of things, an absolutely new procedure. Accordingly, to every claim of the “return of the Jews,” there is inevitably attached an “age to come,” in which is involved the millennium. And this is why it is that the subject of the “return of the Jews” and “the millennium” are so intimately connected. And thus we are brought to the study of the truth as to the millennium, as further answer to all claims of the “return of the Jews.”