Untitled article by Charles Beecher

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1875

Pre-Millennial Advent.—No. 2.

By Charles Beecher

To deny the pre-millennial coming of Christ, you must spiritualize every promise of his coming, connected with millennial descriptions, in the Bible.

Fully to show this, I should be obliged to notice every case of such connection. But as this would task your patience, I shall select a few cases, and challenge any opponent to produce an exception.

1. How often, dear brother, have we heard our father, and other venerable ministers of the gospel, apply to millennial passages from the 102d Psalm: "Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion, for the time to favor her, yea, THE SET TIME is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favor the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory." A little further on, we read that this refers to a time "when the people are gathered together, and the kingdoms, to serve the Lord." That these are millennial times, I suppose all agree. And if I mistake not, our respected father is one of those who does not spiritualize the prophecies of the restoration of the Jews, and who believes that at that time God will truly "hear the groaning of the prisoner, and loose those appointed unto death, to declare the name of the Lord in Zion and his praise IN JERUSALEM.

But whether this be literal or not, is immaterial. It is confessedly millennial. If it is not the restoration, it is at least the conversion of the Jews. Now the question is, Have we here any "promise of his coming"? If we have, it is probably in verse 16: "When the Lord shall build up Zion, HE SHALL APPEAR IN HIS GLORY."

Now the apostles have well instructed us that at his first "APPEARING" to set up the gospel dispensation, these words could not apply. It "behooved him then to SUFFER," and to "enter into his glory" afterward, when he should "appear the second time, without sin unto salvation." This "appearing in glory" then, of which the Psalmist speaks, and which is still future, is it here made to stand before or after the millennium? Evidently before. It is "when the Lord shall build up Zion." It is "when the set time is come." Suppose now, like our father, we believe in the literal rebuilding of Jerusalem at that time, I ask, Will not the Lord then "appear in glory"? And if so, is not this pre-millennial? And even if you deny the literal rebuilding of Jerusalem, and mean only the conversion of the Jews, will not that equally identify the TIME of such "appearing"?

To deny the pre-millennial advent then, what is necessary? You must spiritualize this "appearing in glory."

Now the word "shall appear" is the Niphal of the verb Raah, and refers, if not exclusively, yet appropriately, to visible manifestation. For example:—

Ex. 16:10: "They looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud." Gen. 12:7: "And the Lord appeared unto Abraham." 2 Chron. 3:1: "Mt. Moriah, where Jehovah appeared unto David." And what good reason can be given for here divesting it of its usual meaning? Is it not a well-ascertained rule of interpretation that the literal and common sense of a word is always to be taken, unless some reason exists for substituting another? But what reason is there here, unless it be partiality for a certain theory? But is that a good reason? That is making your interpretation bend to your theory, rather than obtaining your theory by interpretation. Will you find any reason in the context? "In his glory"? But these are the very words to which the "Shekinah" of the later Jews corresponds, and which when united with Jehovah denote (says Prof. Robinson), "that fiery effulgence surrounded by dark clouds in which Jehovah is represented as appearing, or God himself surrounded by this effulgence from which lightnings proceed." e. g., Lev. 9:2, 3: "And the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people." Compare Num. 16:35; Ps. 18:10-13; Ex. 16:7-10; Ex. 24:16, 17; 33:18; Lev. 9:6, 23; Ex. 40:34; 1 Kings 8:11; Ezek. 43:2, 5, &c.

Let me request you to examine these passages, and then answer this question— When David says that "at the building up of Zion," "the Lord shall appear in his glory," what reason have I for denying to these words their obvious and usual signification? Why, unless it be that only thus then can I escape the doctrine of the pre-millennial advent? But if this be spiritualized, then is that unhappy process begun, by which every "promise of his coming," connected with millennial descriptions, will be eradicated from the Bible.—Charles Beecher, in letter to Henry Ward Beecher.