I know that the effects of human apostasy from God are very deep and far-reaching, perhaps much more so than we sometimes think. The whole earth has been involved in it. “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain” in consequence of it. But with the deep depths of the distress which has been struck into all the pulsations of sublunary nature by reason of man's iniquities, the Scriptures do furnish the sublime hope that it shall all be again extracted. There is a time of restitution coming. There is a day of deliverance at hand. That universal wail, which has been going up for the past 6,000 years, shall yet be hushed and lost amid strains of “hallelujah” that shall never end. Luther says: “It is important for us to recur to Adam's original condition, as we expect all things to be brought back again to that.” “All things are now disordered and decayed; whence Peter says that the heavens must receive Christ until the time when all things shall be restored again to what they were in Paradise, thus agreeing with Paul that the whole creatureship has been made subject to vanity, and that it is to be hoped that not man only, but the earth and heaven, shall be again brought back to their Edenic state.”
“In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD; and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar.” “The creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; the lion shall eat straw like an ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand upon the cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain.” “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, 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.” “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.” “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” “And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.” “And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.”
These are glad and glorious descriptions; and they are given by the Spirit of God. Whatever meaning people have attached to them, all agree that they set forth a condition of things which is yet to be realized upon this earth. Some say we must take them literally; others interpret them figuratively. . . . But one thing is settled and incontrovertible,—they include a physical as well as a moral redemption. They describe the lifting off of the curse from all creation around us, as well as from the souls within us. They exhibit suffering and disordered nature once more free, harmonious, congenial, restored, and forever at rest. They portray vast and happy changes in things spiritual and things physical, animate and inanimate, human, animal, vegetable, and elemental. They show us the earth with its deserts fertilized, its elements harmonized, its inhabitants made congenial to each other, its products rendered abundant and sanatory, and its possessors invested with perfect happiness and immortality. Some have looked for their fulfillment in a fancied millennium previous to the Saviour's coming. They would have us believe that these sublime predictions relate only to the universal triumph of political freedom, general wisdom, and exalted piety. But how will the mere reign of righteousness and love in the hearts and conduct of mankind extend redemption into the physical world, or work a deliverance to the animal and other kingdoms? Knowledge, holiness, and liberty combined, and spread over the earth from one end thereof to the other, can not save a man from bodily aches, decay, and death. They can not take the taint from the atmosphere, nor the malaria from the earth. They can not cover Sahara with fertility, nor hush the storm and tempest, nor close the volcano's crater, nor stop the maelstrom's whirl, nor stay the earthquake's giant tread, nor relieve the creature of its groans. Make every meal a sacrament, and every day a Sabbath, and every thought a prayer to God; and all that, of itself, can not take away the curse with which God has cursed “the ground” for man's sake, nor relieve these dying bodies from their many ills.
The case calls for greater changes in earth, air, and sea, and in the whole present constitution of terrestrial things, than can by any possibility result from existing processes, or from mere natural developments. We must have special electric influences to quiet the atmosphere and adapt it better to the wants of humanity. We must have volcanic or some other action in and upon the earth, to change some of its surface, consume its impurities, and renew its wastes. We must have a complete revolution in the present order of things. In a word, we must have another putting forth of divine power upon this world. It must be retouched by the hand that made it. It must come under a renewing potency which can raise the dead. And all this shall be only when the Son of God shall again come from the heavens.
Accordingly, we read that when the times of restitution come, “God shall send Jesus Christ.” “And then shall they see the Son of man coming with power.” And “he shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people.” “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” “He shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity,” and “destroy them that corrupt the earth.” “The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war; he shall cry, yea, roar; he shall prevail against his enemies.” “The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake.” “They that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and come forth.” “Them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” “Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is even able to subdue all things unto himself.” “Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” “And there shall be no more curse.”
“Write,” says the Son of God, “for these words are true and faithful.” It is not a poetic dream, but a divine revelation. God hath spoken it by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. It was the hope of Adam as he went forth an exile from Eden. It was the light that illumined the tents of the pilgrims of old with a sweeter halo than the recollections of Paradise. It was the stay of faithful Abraham as he sojourned in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. It shone in the serene imagination of Isaac, and supported the dying head of Jacob, and caused Joseph to turn away from Egypt's mausoleums, and ask that his bones might be carried up to the land of the redeemed. It shortened the centuries in which the Lord's chosen toiled in servitude, and cheered the house of affliction with songs. It kindled glad expectations amid the darkness of gentile apostasy, and taught even the heathen to prophesy of deliverance. It fired the hearts and tongues of all Judah's minstrels, as they swept from the harps of inspiration those lofty anthems which filled the home of the Shekinah with praise. And thousands upon thousands have not counted their lives dear unto them for the excellency of this hope, and were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain the better resurrection. —Extracts from a sermon by J. Seiss, D.D., Lutheran.
