PRE-MILLENNIAL ADVENT.—No. 3.
In my last I commenced to show that “to deny the pre-millennial coming of Christ you must spiritualize every ‘promise’ of his coming’ connected with millennial descriptions, in the Bible.” 2. Let any one attentively consider the 45th and 46th Psalms, in illustration of this point, and ask if they do no not appropriately describe the millennial era? Christ is here described as triumphantly riding forth. The people fall under him. His throne is for ever and ever. At his right hand stands the queen, “The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife.” The marriage festival is celebrated. And scarce a feature of the whole description can fail to be recognized as belonging to the millennium; that blessed era when “he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth.” But, in this millennial Psalm, are there no passages to which St. Peter might have looked as “promises of his coming”? Indeed, are there any which do not sustain that character? Is not this the glorious approach of one not “more marred than any man,” “without form or comeliness,” but now at length “fairer than the children of men”? Does he not come to sit, not at the right hand of the Father’s throne, but upon what is here proclaimed His throne, for ever and ever? And is not the burden of triumph this “Jehovah of hosts is WITH US”? And do we not hear him quell the tumult of the nations by saying, “Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted IN THE EARTH”? Are not these promises of his personal return? Or must these fade before the waving of the allegoric wand? But what reason is there for spiritualizing the advent here described? Is a triumphal procession, and a marriage festival, a fit emblem of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Is it the third person of the adorable Trinity, which is the Bridegroom and must espouse the church? Or is it the second? And what good reason can be assigned for perverting these symbols from their usual, their obvious, meaning, except that it is necessary to escape the belief of the pre-millennial advent? Will not this be a second step in eliminating every “promise of his coming” from the millennial prophecies of the Bible? 3. Consider next, Psalms 96, 97 and 98; all three closely related in spirit. Do not these manifestly allude to millennial times? When but in the millennial jubilee shall they “say among the heathen, the Lord reigneth, let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad, let the sea roar and the fullness thereof, let the field be joyful and all that is therein, then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice”? “Confounded be they that serve graven images, that boast themselves in idols, worship him all ye gods.” “O sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things, his right hand and his holy arm have gotten him the victory, his righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen, he hath remembered his mercy and truth toward the house of Israel. ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH HAVE SEEN THE SALVATION OF OUR GOD.” But if these Psalms manifestly describe millennial times, what shall be thought of the solemn enunciation: “Let the floods clap their hands, let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, for he cometh! FOR HE COMETH: TO JUDGE THE EARTH. With righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.” If this be not a “promise of his coming,” thrice so solemnly repeated, to which St. Peter might refer, as a coming TO JUDGMENT, where can such promise be found? How is his coming described? “Clouds and darkness are round about him.” “A fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about.” “HIS LIGHTNINGS ENLIGHTENED THE WORLD, THE EARTH SAW AND TREMBLED.” Compare with this what Christ says, Matt. 24:27: “As the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth unto the west, SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE.” “The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.” Now if St. Peter could not refer to this as that day when the “elements shall melt with fervent heat,” to what passage could he allude? And if this be wrested from his grasp by modern spiritualizing, well might the scoffer ask, “Where is the promise of his coming?” and the apostle be puzzled for a reply. What answer could he give but, “Nowhere: these spiritualists have given all those passages I used to rely on a different meaning.” And what reason for this spiritualizing? What reason for divesting these solemn Psalms of their obvious meaning? What, unless it be because the coming here described is evidently a coming at which the earth rejoices, and millennial glories begin? If this be his personal coming, it is pre-millennial. Therefore spiritualize it, and so add another step to that process of eviscerating any promise of his coming from the whole millennial writings of the prophets.—Charles Beecher, in Letter to Henry Ward Beecher.