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QUESTION CORNER

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 21, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 37.

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QUESTION CORNER

By Milton C. Wilcox

CONDUCTED BY MILTON C. WILCOX, MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA
NOTE.—This department is for the purpose of helping Bible students. Answers must of necessity be brief, often only suggestive, never exhaustive, never infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. Such questions only will be answered as seem to minister to the mission of the paper. Questions of the same import cannot be answered repeatedly in the same volume. Name and address must be given, not for publication, but as evidence of good faith and to insure reply by letter if thought best. It is well always to inclose stamp, not stamped envelope, unless answer is desired by letter alone.

173 — QUESTION ON THE RETURN OF THE JEWS

To my mind, the following scripture indicates that the Jews must accept the Christian religion before the final wind-up can come, whether that be of a certain age or of the world. You, of course, know that the Greek word aion in Matt. 24: 3, rendered “world,” means “age”; that the Greek word for “world,” as you understand that term, is cosmos.
In Dan. 8: 13, the question is asked of one of the saints, “How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?” In the following verse we have the answer, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” On these I ask the following questions:
(1) Is not a prophetic day one year? (2) Does not the he-goat mean Alexander the Great? (3) Has not the sanctuary been trodden down since his reign, or since B. C. 334? That would place the cleansing of the sanctuary in A. D. 1966. (4) Does not the cleansing of the sanctuary mean the return of the Jews into God’s favor, or their accepting Christianity? I do not mean their restoration to temporal power as a nation. (5) Does not Paul state, in the eleventh chapter of Romans, beyond a doubt, that the Jews as a people shall come back into God’s favor before any change in the present order of things takes place? You will notice that Paul represents the chosen people, or Israel, by the olive tree. In Christ’s time, the native branches, or the Jews, were broken off on account of unbelief, and the gentiles were grafted in because of belief. In process of time, the gentiles will be broken off, and the Jews grafted in again. The gentiles will be rejected, and the Jews reelected. Verse 27: “This is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” At the rate the gentile church is going away from God into indifference, I think that about 1966 A. D. would be the proper time for the cleansing of the sanctuary at the rejection of the gentiles and the reelection of the Jews. B. L.
Yes, the word aion means “age,” and the term cosmos refers to this world in its present arrangement. We have other Greek words which refer to the world also—ge, the earth, and oikoumene, the inhabited earth. The world has consisted of a series of ages, and by and by the great eternal age will come. This is the teaching of the Scripture. Now as to the questions:
1. A prophetic day is one year. This seems to be clearly taught by Eze. 4: 4-6. As God symbolizes long-existing kingdoms by short-lived beasts, He symbolizes the time of the existence of these kingdoms by shorter periods of time, of which one day stands for a year.
2. The he-goat refers to Grecia, but not to Alexander the Great. The great horn is the first king, and the horn represents Alexander; the goat means more—Grecia.
3. The sanctuary has not been trodden down since his reign. Really, that is not the question. The question is not, How long from that time will it be? but, “At what time shall the sanctuary be cleansed? Until what particular time in the future does the vision reach? The answer is, “Unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.” The definite beginning of that is not indicated in that immediate connection, because the vision was not then explained. We must go to the ninth chapter to get the explanation of this; and there we learn, in verses 24-27, that a definite portion of the two thousand and three hundred days was cut off upon the Jewish people—marked off upon them. That portion marked off upon the Jewish people was cut off from the twenty-three hundred days, and forms a part of the great period. The seventy weeks would be seventy weeks of years, or four hundred and ninety years. At that time, God would be through with the Jewish people as a special people. The beginning of that period, and therefore of the twenty-three hundred days, is marked by the decree or commandment which goes forth to build and restore Jerusalem. This decree is made up of three decrees of the Persian kings—Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes (Ezra 6: 14)—which did not go forth until the last and fullest of the decrees of these kings was issued, in the seventh year of Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra 7: 7). The decree is given in full in that chapter. It provided not only for the restoration of the temple, but for the restoration of Jerusalem itself, of its worship, of its government, giving the Jews the privilege to control and govern, and even to inflict capital punishment if necessary. The seventh year of Artaxerxes the king was 457 B. C. Two thousand and three hundred years from that time would reach to A. D. 1844. The definiteness of that period is marked by our Lord’s coming, manifested as the Messiah in A. D. 27, dying upon the cross in A. D. 31, and by the cutting off of the Jews in A. D. 36, leaving 1,810 years, which ended in 1844. (See Bible Students’ Library, No. 128, “Christ Our Advocate, His Ministry in the True Tabernacle.” 10 cents.) The vision extends from the restoration of God’s true worship under Ezra and Zerubbabel to the restoration of His true worship under the great threefold message of Rev. 14: 6-12.
The sanctuary therefore cannot refer to the earthly sanctuary. That has long since been destroyed. It must refer to the sanctuary where the ministration of the true priesthood is carried on. During that age, the center of worship was in Jerusalem; but after the crucifixion of our Lord, He ascended on high, and began His work as High Priest in the sanctuary above. See Hebrews 8 and 9. Consequently the sanctuary to which the prophecy refers cannot be the Old Testament sanctuary, where were offered the sacrifices of bulls and goats and the blood of beasts, but must refer to the sanctuary that was typified by those things, where our Lord Himself ministers the virtue of His own precious life.
The cleansing of that sanctuary must refer to the same thing as the cleansing of the ancient sanctuary—the putting away of the sin of God’s people, and the deciding as to who are the people of God and who are not. The ancient cleansing of the sanctuary, as told us in Leviticus 16, was literally a judgment day among God’s people yearly. It typified the great judgment once for all in the closing days, which began its investigation in 1844. It therefore does not have reference in any way to the Jewish people or to any people, but to the closing of our Lord’s work. When Christ comes, the dead will not be raised and then judged. They will have been judged before they are raised from the dead. This is shown in Luke 20: 35 and in 1 Cor. 15: 51-54. Before the righteous are raised, they are accounted worthy to be raised, which shows that judgment has passed upon them before they are called from the sleep of death. Thus we read in 1 Corinthians that the righteous dead are raised incorruptible.
4. Therefore the cleansing of the sanctuary cannot mean the return of the Jews into God’s favor, or their accepting Christianity. Our querist says, “I do not mean their restoration to temporal power as a nation;” but if the prophecies that are often cited as evidences of the return of the Jews are to be literally fulfilled, they do mean the restoration of the Jewish people as a nation in their own land. But this would set aside all the work that our Lord and Saviour Himself has done.
5. It is impossible to take up fully, in this department, the question of the return of the Jews. However, we will state briefly some of the principles involved. First of all, some of the prophecies regarding the Jews and their restoration are conditional. These conditions are very clearly and emphatically stated by one of God’s own prophets to the Jews:
“At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it; if it do evil in My sight, that it obey not My voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.” Jer. 18: 7-10.
These conditions are abundantly confirmed in other prophecies.
Secondly, some of the promises which God gave to that people were fulfilled in the restoration from Babylon, and would have been fulfilled in far larger measure if the Jews had only complied with the conditions. Take for instance Ezekiel, chapters 36 to 48. God would have restored all His people at that time, would have brought back those who were scattered throughout all the nations of the world, would have restored them to the mountains of Israel, would have dwelt among them with such glory as they had never seen; a new and far greater sanctuary would have been built, they would have been victorious over their enemies, and God’s glory would have been manifest among His people in the sight of the nations; but the Jews failed to meet the conditions on which the promises were based, and the result was that only about forty thousand returned from the captivity, and God’s promises in their fullness were not realized.
It is true, as our querist says, the Jews were cut off because of unbelief. The gentiles came in because of faith. That is the teaching of Romans 11, and that is the teaching of the whole New Testament wherever these things are mentioned. Another consideration worthy of note here is that when the gentiles accept of Jesus Christ, they are no longer gentiles, but Israel; and just as long as they fail to accept of the promises and covenants to Israel, they have no place in God’s great plan of salvation; for all the blessings to the world come through Israel. See Rom. 9: 4, 5: “Who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever.” Therefore without Christ, the gentiles are separate, “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Eph. 2: 12. And the same connection shows us that when they do accept of Christ, they are “no more strangers and sojourners, but . . . are fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief corner stone.” Verses 19, 20.
Further, these blessed privileges are not told us in the ancient prophets, and he who reads from the ancient prophets alone is bound to go astray; for the apostle expressly tells us, in this same epistle, that God had made known to him the mystery by revelation, “which in other generations was not made known unto the sons of men, as it hath now been revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to wit, that the gentiles are fellow heirs, and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” See Eph. 3: 5-6. This makes it very clear that there is absolutely no distinction between Jew and gentile in Christ Jesus. All are the true Israel of God. This too is stated in Rom. 9: 6-8: “For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel; neither, because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed.” And in the tenth chapter, the eleventh and twelfth verses: “For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him.”
Consider the original meaning of “Israel.” It had come to mean to the Jews simply a descendant from Jacob, but that was not the divine meaning. The divine meaning was, one who had faith in God, who prevailed with Him. The fleshly heir of Isaac was Jacob, the supplanter.The true heir of the promise was Israel, the prevailer. Read the story in Gen. 32: 22-30.
Now this is the thought throughout Romans 11. First of all, the apostle wants it understood that “God did not cast off His people which He foreknew.” And he gave as a proof of this that he himself, a Christian, was an Israelite of the seed of Abraham and of the tribe of Benjamin. He also shows that God had a remnant in the time of Elijah, even though the vast mass of the Hebrews were cast off because of their sins. But in the fifth verse he tells us on what the remnant is based: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.” But it is by grace and not by works; it is by promise and not by the flesh.
The prediction of the breaking off of Israel is given by Jeremiah. The fulfillment came at last when every tribe, as a tribe, turned from the Lord. But the Jews as individuals were not broken off. Paul demonstrates that in his own life. About one third of them accepted of Christianity, and they were God’s remnant; and all those who came in from the gentiles were equally God’s children, as the scriptures before quoted prove, as does also Gal. 3: 29: “If ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.”
What is meant then by the “fullness” of Rom. 11: 25? It certainly cannot mean that all the Jews would be saved; and yet if the fullness referred to the Jewish people as a people, it would naturally include them all. You could not call this a fullness which took in only about a third.
As regards the fullness of the gentiles, if it referred to men, it must take in all the gentiles; but no one claims that. To what, then, does the “fullness” refer? Read the verse: “For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the gentiles be come in.” This hardening did not include all Israel, as before remarked; for about one third of the Jews at the time of Christ accepted of the gospel. But the nation itself rejected Him, and the nation itself was cut off. But what was the fullness? The fullness is found in Christ Jesus. This is expressly stated in Col. 1: 19: “For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell.” Therefore through Him the reconciliation is made by the blood of the cross, through Him, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens. He is the one hope of all, whether Jews or gentiles. Thus we read in John 1: 16 of the Jews, “For of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace.” All who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ, as did the early disciples, received of His fullness. In Col. 2: 9, 10 the same thing is taught regarding the gentiles—“For in Him”—that is, in Christ—“dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full.” In Him therefore is found the fullness of the gentiles.
In God’s great overruling wisdom and power, the very rejection of the Jewish nation was used as a means of extending His gospel to all the world, and to every one on an equal basis. No longer was it necessary to keep that people together after the Seed had been manifested. The gospel was offered to all the world, and all who accepted it became the Israel of God. “Salvation is of the Jews.” John 4: 22. The receiving of that salvation makes one himself a Jew, a true Jew, Rom. 2: 28, 29. The only hope there is for the Jews, then, is for them to come to God by simple faith. They have the same hope as the gentiles, and nothing else; consequently the apostle’s warning in Romans 11, verse 20. He declares that the Jews were broken off because of unbelief, not that the gentiles might be grafted in, but because the Jews let go of the life of God. Hence the gentiles should not be high-minded, but fear; for if Israel, the natural branches, were not spared, the scions that had been grafted in, if they rejected the stock, could not be spared; and if the Jews continued not in their unbelief, they should be grafted in again. The twenty-sixth verse tells us that all Israel must come in in that way, and “so all Israel shall be saved,” that is, by faith. Verse 20. There is no other way. God wants all the world—Jew, gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free. All are lost without Him. All can come in on the same basis. Therefore the last great message that God sends out to the world goes to every kindred and nation and tongue and people—Jew as well as gentile, black as well as white; for there is no distinction with Him. Christ died for all.