3220.—The Final Separation
What does Luke 17:34-37 mean? And when does it take place? Please explain. G. N. The passage in question refers to the time when probation shall close and a division will take place between those who are the Lord's and those who are not. It is the time referred to in the parable of the wheat and the tares in Matthew 13, when the harvest is ready for the reaping, when the tares are bound in bundles. The tract "The Great Day of the Lord" shows us just when this time will occur in relation to the Lord's coming. Probation will close, our Lord will have done all that can be done in His priestly ministrations for humanity, about one year before He comes the second time. During that year the plagues will be poured out upon those who have rejected Him and His Gospel; and it is to this time, when our Lord leaves His mediatorial work, because there is nothing more that He can do, that He refers in the passage in question. "I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left." Taken by what? How taken? The last verse of the passage throws light upon this: "And they answered and said unto Him, Where, Lord? And He said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together." The margin of the Revised Version is "vultures." The wicked are likened to dead carcasses; the vultures to the plagues. The "seized" or "taken" will be the seizing or taking by the plagues. The thought is that there will be just as decided division then among classes as is shown in the illustration. Two women shall be together; the one shall be seized by the plagues, the other will be left to be gathered a little later by the angels when the Lord shall come. See Matt. 13:38-43. It will be noted in that explanation of the parable and the tares that the tares are first gathered. It is then clearly evident that the division can be made. It is later than that and in a different way altogether that the Son of Man shall send forth His angels and gather the righteous. See also Matt. 24:31, "And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."