Arguments Against the World's Conversion.
It is often charged that the arguments of the Pre-Millennialists on this subject rest chiefly, if not entirely, upon the more obscure and symbolical portions of the Scripture. It is even said by some that their case rests chiefly, if not entirely, upon a certain interpretation of Rev. 20, touching the first and second resurrection. It is proposed, therefore, in the present inquiry to waive reference to the prophecies of the Old Testament and the symbolical portions of the Bible generally. We shall all agree that in our interpretation of the Bible, the interpretation of that which is obscure or symbolical is to be determined by that of those portions which are evidently to be taken in a literal and didactic sense. Especially must the New Testament be ever allowed to determine the interpretation of the Old, and not the reverse. On these principles all wise interpreters of every school must agree. What, then, saith the Scripture on the subject before us? 1. The first notable fact bearing on the decision of the question before us is the utter absence of any statement in the New Testament that any such period of universal conversion and long-prevailing righteousness is to be witnessed previous to the coming of the Lord. This fact is peculiarly notable and significant in the case of the apostle Paul. In our day the expected conversion of the world is constantly held up as the great motive and incentive to missionary labor. We are even told by many who ought to be able to judge, that if through the prevalence of the contrary view people shall come to doubt this, a sad decline in missionary activity of the church must be expected as the inevitable result. But here is the very chief and prince of all missionaries, holding his commission direct from the Master, taught, as he tells, not by any fallible or even inspired man, but directly by the Lord himself and His Spirit. More than once he tells us of the motives that urged him on, and filled him with a zeal for the salvation of men which has been rarely equaled and never excelled. But never does he state that his motive was found in the expectation that the world was to be converted by his preaching or that of any other man. He speaks, indeed, of a time when all Israel shall be saved. But that does not affect the precise fact which we now urge, that nowhere does he represent the subjugation of the world to Christ as the motive which was the inspiration of his unequaled labors and sufferings. On the contrary, when he states his motives, he does it in language like the following: "Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; the love of Christ constraineth us." 2 Cor. 5 : 11, 14. "Endure all things for the elect's sake, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." 2 Tim. 1 : 10. "I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some," 1 Cor. 9 : 23. Nor does it appear as if he expected the conversion of the world as the final result of such labors by his successors in the future. "The last times" he tells, shall differ from the times before only in that they shall be "perilous times." 2 Tim. 3 : 1. On one occason in particular the apostle had very special reason, if he expected a millennium of peace and holiness before the coming of the Lord, to refer to the fact. When the Thessalonian Christians on one occasion were greatly troubled because they had been led to believe that the day of the Lord had already come, Paul quieted their apprehensions—how? By telling them, as was most natural if the modern doctrine were true, that "the day of the Lord would not come except the world should first be converted unto God?" If this were the truth, it was the very thing to say. It were, indeed, simply inconceivable that the apostle, if he knew anything about this coming conversion of the world as the necessary antecedent of the Lord, should have said so. But the fact, simply unaccountable upon the truth of the modern theory, is that he did not. Nay, so far from this, he told them the exact reverse; not that the millennium must come first, the world be converted, but that "the man of sin" must first be revealed, whom the Lord would "destroy with the brightness of his coming." 2. But we may go yet farther. Not only does the New Testament nowhere state that the intended result of the preaching of the gospel in this dispensation is the conversion of the world to God, but when that object is formally stated, as it is in two places, it is stated in terms which imply the exact reverse of this. The first passage we may note is in Acts 15 : 14. The Jewish Christians were greatly scandalized that Peter should have preached the gospel to the Gentiles, or heathen as we should call them, and received them into the church along with the circumcision. Peter, it appears, felt it necessary to justify himself for this before the council of the church in Jerusalem. How natural it were, again, if that preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles were for the conversion of the whole of the Gentiles to God, that Peter should have said so. But here again we have no hint from him of such an issue, though, if he knew about it, it was evidently the very thing to say. His language, on the contrary, seems rather to exclude any general conversion. For read, : "God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name." But some one may ask, is it not possible that the preaching should go on until all mankind, in an age to come, should be numbered among the people of God? This question is explicitly answered in the other passage, where according to the usual understanding, the object of the present ministration of the gospel is formally stated, viz: Matt. 24 : 14, where we read: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world," not for its conversion. Why did not the Lord say so if that were indeed the object?—but "for a witness unto all nations and then"—without waiting for a general conversion of the nations—"then shall the end come, all nations must hear, and then shall the end come." To sum up this argument, we may safely say that in the whole Bible, among the formal statements of the object of the preaching of the gospel by Christ's ministers, there is not a single one which states that object to be the conversion of the world to God. If we are to expect a millennium of righteousness before the Lord's return, how is this fact to be accounted for? 3. Again, any theory which, like the modern Post-Millennial doctrine, interposes a period before the Advent so long that it should be known as impossible within the lifetime of any individual generation of believers is irreconcilable with the repeated statements of the Scripture that we know not the day "when the Master will return from the far country" whither he has gone; whether His coming will be "in the first watch or in the second watch, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning." According to these words, it was far from being certain that He would not come until almost the morning of a watching; that it was represented as likely enough, for anything that his people knew to the contrary, that He might come even in the first watch of the night. So far from there being any revelation which should warrant any generation of believers in assuming that the coming of the Lord was a thousand years or more away, this postponement, as it were, of the coming of the Lord, is in utter opposition to all those statements of the word of God that we know not the day of Christ's appearing. On this subject Archbishop Trench has well and truly said, "It is a necessary element of the doctrine concerning the second coming of Christ, that it should be possible at any time, that no generation of believers should regard it as impossible in theirs." Those, therefore, who fix a time in the distant future before which Christ cannot come, equally with those who fix a time in the near present by which he must come, place themselves in conflict with the word of the Lord: 4. And this argument becomes even more forcible when we consider the duty which, in view of this utter uncertainty of the time of the advent, is everywhere urged upon the disciples of Christ in all ages to watch continually. Matt. 24 : 42, etc. We cannot refer these words to death, as is sometimes done, because in no place where these words occur is there the slightest reference to death in the whole context, but only to the return of the Lord Jesus. Not an instance can be adduced in the whole Bible where the phrase "the coming of the Son of Man" can be proven to refer to death. Nor can we expect that exegesis which in certain places, at least, refers the phrase to the destruction of Jerusalem. For although undoubtedly the chapter in Matthew's gospel, to which reference has been made, does contain a prophecy of that event, yet that coming of the Son of Man for which Christ bids his disciples to watch cannot possibly be understood of the destruction of Jerusalem, for the simple reason that the coming in question is expressly said to take place "after" that event, and therefore cannot be the same thing. It can only be that glorious coming of the risen Jesus in the clouds of heaven which the universal church expects sooner or later, of which in the passage cited we are told that no man knows the time, and for which all believers in all ages are therefore bidden to watch until He shall come. Now, on the common hypothesis that the entire world is to be converted and continue in that happy state for centuries before the Lord can come, how is it possible for any generation of believers receiving that theory as certain truth to watch for the coming of the Lord till that expected Millennium shall have come and gone? It is too often forgotten that theories as to the interpretation of prophecy should never be allowed to affect our attendance to plain precepts. It is quite safe to say that any interpretation of prophecy which makes obedience to any command a moral impossibility is ipso facto proven to be erroneous. But is it a possibility for a believer who is assured that the coming of the Lord is at least a thousand years away, to watch for that coming in his lifetime? If, for example, I take a journey to another country, and on departing tell my son that I shall not return for ten years, or for any other fixed and definite time, and then tell him to watch for me every day, would I not seem to him utterly inconsistent? If, on the other hand, he believes my assurance that I will not return before a certain appointed time, will it not for that very reason become impossible for him to watch for me till that time is up? And on the other, would not my charge to watch for me every month and year inevitably suggest to him a doubt whether after all I am sure that I will not return much sooner than I had said? For it is plain that the mental state or act of watching for a person implies not only a general expectancy that the person will come sometime, but beyond a doubt involves as a necessary condition the belief that the person may come at any time. Inasmuch, therefore, as no candid person will deny that the Lord does command his disciples in all ages to watch for his coming, it follows irresistibly that the Lord intended that we should think of his advent as always possible, and forbids us to interpose any such fixed period of time between us and his coming as shall make it impossible for us to believe that he may come in our own day.—Dr. S. H. Kellogg, in Prophetic Conference.