Here we may have something most definite. Indeed it is as definite as it is cheering and consolatory. "I will come again." He does not say, I will send for you. Still less does He say, "You will come to me when you die." He says nothing of the kind. To send an angel, or a legion of angels, would not be the same thing as coming Himself. No doubt it would be very gracious of Him, and very glorious for us, if a mult.i.tude of the heavenly host were sent, with horses of fire and chariots of fire, to convey us triumphantly to heaven. But it would not be the fulfilment of His own sweet promise. And most surely He will do what He promised to do. He will not say one thing and do another. He cannot lie or alter His word. And not only this, but it would not satisfy the love of His heart to send an angel or a host of angels to fetch us. He will come Himself.

What touching grace shines in all this! If I am expecting a very dear and valued friend by train, I shall not be satisfied with sending a servant or an empty cab to meet him; I shall go myself. This is precisely what our loving Lord means to do. He is gone to heaven; and His entrance there prepares and defines His people's place. Amid the many mansions of the Father's house, there would be no place for us if our Jesus had not gone before; and then, lest there should be in the heart any feeling of strangeness at the thought of our entrance into that place, He says, with such sweetness, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also."

Nothing short of this can fulfil the gracious promise of our Lord, or satisfy the love of His heart.

And be it carefully noted that this promise has no reference whatever to the death of the individual believer. Who can imagine that, when our Lord said, "I will come again," He really meant that we should go to Him through death? How can we presume to take such liberties with the plain and precious words of our Lord? Surely if He meant to speak of our going to Him, through death, He could and would have said so.

But He has not said so, because He did not mean so; nor is it possible that He could say one thing and mean another. His coming for us, and our going to Him, are totally different things; and being different ideas, they would have been clothed in different language.

Thus, for example, in the case of the penitent thief on the cross, our Lord does not speak of coming to fetch him; but He says, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." We really must remember that Scripture is as divinely definite as it is divinely inspired, and hence it never could and it never does confound two things so totally different as the Lord's coming and the Christian's falling asleep.

It may be well, at this point, to remark that there are but four pa.s.sages in the entire New Testament in which allusion is made to the subject of the Christian pa.s.sing through the article of death. The first is that pa.s.sage in Luke xxiii. already referred to: "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise." The second occurs in Acts vii., "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." The third is that most familiar and lovely utterance in 2 Corinthians v., "Absent from the body, present with the Lord." The fourth occurs in that charming first of Philippians, "Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better."

These most precious pa.s.sages make up the sum of Scripture testimony on the interesting question of the disembodied state. There is a pa.s.sage in Revelation xiv. often misapplied to this subject: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord _from henceforth_: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them."

But this has no application to Christians now, though no doubt all such who die in the Lord are blessed, and their works do follow them.

The reference, however, is to a time yet future, when the church shall have left this scene altogether, and other witnesses make their appearance. In a word, Revelation xiv. 13 bears upon apocalyptic times, and must be so viewed if we would avoid confusion.

We must now resume our subject, and proceed with our proofs, and in so doing we shall ask the reader to turn to the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The blessed Lord had just gone up from this earth, in the presence of His holy apostles. "And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by him in white apparel; which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (verses 10, 11).

This is intensely interesting, and furnishes a most striking proof of our present thesis. Indeed it is impossible to avoid its force. Alas!

that any should seek or desire to avoid it! From the manner in which the angelic witnesses speak to the men of Galilee it would seem like tautology; but, as we well know, there is--there can be--no such thing in the volume of G.o.d. It is, therefore, lovely fulness, divine completeness, that we see in this testimony. From it we learn that the self-same Jesus who left this earth, and ascended into heaven, in the presence of a number of witnesses, shall _so_ come _in like manner as_ they had seen Him go into heaven. How did He go? He went up personally, literally, actually, the very same person who had just been conversing familiarly with them--whom they had seen with their eyes, heard with their ears, handled with their hands--who had eaten in their presence, and "showed himself alive after his pa.s.sion by many infallible proofs." Well then, "He shall so come in like manner."

"He who with hands uplifted, Went from this earth below, Shall come again all gifted, His blessing to bestow."

And here we may ask--though it be rather antic.i.p.ating what may come before us in a future paper--Who saw the blessed Lord as He went up?

Did the world? Nay; not one unconverted, unbelieving person ever laid his eyes upon our precious Lord from the moment that He was laid in the tomb. The last sight the world got of Jesus was as He hung on the cross, a spectacle to angels, men, and devils. The next sight they will get of Him will be when, like the lightning flash, He shall come forth to execute judgment, and tread, in terrible vengeance, the winepress of the wrath of Almighty G.o.d. Tremendous thought!

None, therefore, but His own saw the ascending Saviour, as none but they had seen Him from the moment of His resurrection. He showed Himself, blessed be His holy name! to those who were dear to His heart. He a.s.sured and comforted, strengthened and encouraged their souls by these "many infallible proofs" of which the inspired narrator speaks to us. He led them to the very confines of the unseen world, just so far as men could go while still in the body; and there He allowed them to see Him ascending into heaven; and while they gazed upon this glorious sight He sent the precious testimony home to their very hearts. "This same Jesus"--no other, no stranger, but the same loving, sympathizing, gracious, unchanging friend--"whom ye have seen go into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."

Is it possible for testimony to be more distinct or satisfactory?

Could proof be more clear or conclusive? How can any counter argument stand for a moment, or any objection be raised? Either those two men in white apparel were false witnesses, or our Jesus shall come again in the exact manner in which He went away. There is no middle ground between those two conclusions. We read in Scripture that, "in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established;" and therefore in the mouth of two heavenly messengers--two heralds from the region of light and truth, we have the word established that our Lord Jesus Christ shall come again in actual bodily form, to be seen by His own first of all, apart from all others, in the holy intimacy and profound retirement which characterized His departure from this world. All this, blessed be G.o.d, is wrapped up in the two little words "_as_" and "_so_."

We cannot attempt, in a brief paper like the present, to adduce all the proofs which are to be found in the pages of the New Testament. We have given one from the Gospels and one from the Acts, and we shall now ask the reader to turn with us to the Epistles. Let us take, for example, the First Epistle to the Thessalonians. We select this epistle because it is acknowledged to have been the earliest of Paul's writings; and further, because it was written to a company of very young converts. This latter point is valuable, inasmuch as we sometimes hear it stated that the truth of the Lord's coming is not suitable to bring before the minds of young believers. That the Apostle Paul did not think it unsuitable is evident from the fact that of all the epistles which he wrote not one contains so much about the Lord's coming as that which he penned for the newly converted Thessalonians. The fact is, when a soul is converted and brought into the full light and liberty of the gospel of Christ, it becomes divinely natural for such a one to look for the Lord's coming. That most precious truth is an integral part of the gospel. The first coming and the second coming are most blessedly bound up together by the divine link of the personal presence of the Holy Ghost in the church.

On the other hand, where the soul is not established in grace; where peace and liberty are not enjoyed; where a defective gospel has been received, there it will be found that the hope of the Lord's coming will not be cherished, for the simple reason that the soul is, of necessity, occupied with the question of its own state and prospects.

If I am not certain of my salvation--if I do not know that I have eternal life--that I am a child of G.o.d--I cannot be looking out for the Lord's return. It is only when we know what Jesus has done for us at His first coming that we can with bright and holy intelligence look out for His second coming.

But let us turn to our epistle. Take the following sentences from the first chapter: "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much a.s.surance.... So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.

For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to G.o.d-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to G.o.d from idols to serve the living and true G.o.d; and _to wait for his Son from heaven_, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come" (verses 5-10).

Here we have a fine ill.u.s.tration of the effect of a full clear gospel, received in simple earnest faith. They turned from idols, to serve the living and true G.o.d, and to wait for His Son. They were actually converted to the blessed hope of the Lord's coming. It was an integral part of the gospel which Paul preached; and an integral part of their faith. Was it a reality to turn from idols? Doubtless. Was it a reality to serve the living G.o.d? Unquestionably. Well then it was just as real, just as positive, just as simple, their waiting for G.o.d's Son from heaven. If we question the reality of one, we must question the reality of all, inasmuch as all are bound up together and form a beauteous cl.u.s.ter of practical Christian truth. If you had asked a Thessalonian Christian what he was waiting for, what would have been his reply? Would he have said, "I am waiting for the world to improve by means of the gospel which I myself have received? or, I am waiting for the moment of my death when I shall go to be with Jesus?" No. His reply would have been simply this, "I am waiting for the Son of G.o.d from heaven." This, and nothing else, is the proper hope of the Christian, the proper hope of the church. To wait for the improvement of the world is not Christian hope at all. You might as well wait for the improvement of the flesh, for there is just as much hope of the one as the other. And as to the article of death--though no doubt it may intervene--it is never once presented as the true and proper hope of the Christian. It may, with the fullest confidence, be a.s.serted that there is not so much as a single pa.s.sage in the entire New Testament in which death is spoken of as the hope of the believer; whereas, on the other hand, the hope of the Lord's coming is bound up, in the most intimate manner, with all the concerns and a.s.sociations and relationships of life, as we may see in the epistle before us. Thus, if the apostle would refer to the interesting question of his own personal connection with the beloved saints at Thessalonica, he says, "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? For ye are our glory and joy."

Again, if he thinks of their progress in holiness and love, he adds, "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you; to the end he may stablish your hearts unblamable in holiness before G.o.d, even our Father, _at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ_ with all his saints"

(chap. iii. 12, 13).

Finally, if the apostle would seek to comfort the hearts of his brethren in reference to those who had fallen asleep, how does he do it? Does he tell them that they should soon follow them? Nay; this would have been in full keeping with Old Testament times, as David says of his departed child, "I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me" (2 Sam. xii. 23). But it is not thus that the Holy Ghost instructs us in 1 Thessalonians--quite the reverse. "I would not," he says, "have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will G.o.d bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that [not they which shall be, but] _we_ which _are_ alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [come before or take precedence of] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of G.o.d: and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then _we_ which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words" (chap. iv. 13-18).

It is impossible for any proof to be more simple, direct, and conclusive than this. The Thessalonian Christians, as we have already remarked, were converted to the hope of the Lord's return. They were taught to look out for it daily. It was as much a part of their Christianity to believe that He _would_ come, as to believe that He _had_ come and gone. Hence it came to pa.s.s that when some of their number were called to pa.s.s through death, they were taken aback; they had not antic.i.p.ated this; and they feared lest the departed should miss the joy of that blissful and longed-for moment of the Lord's return. The apostle therefore writes to correct their mistake; and, in so doing, he pours a fresh flood of light upon the whole subject, and a.s.sures them that the dead in Christ--which includes all who had or shall have fallen asleep; in short, those of Old Testament times as well as those of the New--should rise first, that is, before the living are changed, and all shall ascend together to meet their descending Lord.

We shall have occasion to refer to this remarkable pa.s.sage again, when handling other branches of this glorious subject. We merely quote it here as one of the almost innumerable proofs of the fact that our Lord will come again, personally, really, and actually; and that His personal coming is the true and proper hope of the church of G.o.d collectively, and of the believer individually.

We shall close this paper by reminding the Christian reader that he can never sit down to the table of his Lord without being reminded of this glorious hope, so long as those words shine on the page of inspiration, "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till"--when? Till ye die? Nay; but--"_till he come_" (1 Cor. xi. 26). How precious is this! The table of the Lord stands between those two marvellous epochs, the cross and the advent--the death and the glory. The believer can look up from the table and see the beams of the glory gilding the horizon. It is our privilege, as we gather, on each Lord's day, round the Lord's table, to show forth the Lord's death, to be able to say, "This may be the last occasion of celebrating this precious feast; ere another Lord's day dawn upon us, He Himself may come." Again we say, How precious is this!

THE DOUBLE BEARING OF THE FACT

Having, as we trust, fully established, in our last paper, the fact of the Lord's coming, we have now to place before the reader the double bearing of that fact--its bearing upon the Lord's people, and its bearing upon the world. The former is presented, in the New Testament, as the coming of Christ to receive His people to Himself; the latter is spoken of as "The day of the Lord"--a term of frequent use also in Old Testament Scriptures.

These things are never confounded in Scripture, as we shall see when we come to look at the various pa.s.sages. Christians do confound them, and hence it is that we often find "that blessed hope" overcast with heavy clouds, and a.s.sociated in the mind with circ.u.mstances of terror, wrath, and judgment, which have nothing whatever to do with the _coming_ of Christ for His people, but are intimately bound up with "The _day_ of the Lord."

Let the Christian reader, then, have it settled in his heart, on the clear authority of holy Scripture, that the grand and specific hope for him ever to cherish is the coming of Christ for His people. This hope may be realized this very night. There is nothing whatever to wait for--no events to transpire amongst the nations--nothing to occur in the history of Israel--nothing in G.o.d's government of the world--nothing, in short, in any shape or form whatsoever, to intervene between the heart of the true believer and his heavenly hope. Christ may come for His people to-night. There is actually nothing to hinder. No one can tell when He _will_ come; but we can joyfully say that, at any moment, He _may_ come. And, blessed be His name, when He does come for us, it will not be with the accompanying circ.u.mstances of terror, wrath, and judgment. It will not be with blackness and darkness and tempest. These things will accompany "the day of the Lord," as the Apostle Peter plainly tells the Jews in his first great sermon, on the day of Pentecost, in which he quotes the following words from the solemn prophecy of Joel, "And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood and fire and vapor of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before"--what? the coming of the Lord for His people? Nay; but before "_that great and notable day of the Lord_ come."

When our Lord shall come to receive His people to Himself no eye shall see Him, no ear shall hear His voice, save His own redeemed and beloved people. Let us remember the words of the angelic witnesses in the first of Acts. Who saw the blessed One ascending into the heavens?

None but His own. Well, "He shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." _As_ was the going, _so_ shall be the coming, if we are to bow to Scripture. To confound the day of the Lord with His coming for His church is to overlook the plainest teachings of Scripture, and to rob the believer of his own true and proper hope.

And here perhaps we cannot do better than to call the attention of the reader to a very important and interesting pa.s.sage in the second Epistle of Peter: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from G.o.d the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also the word of prophecy more sure [or confirmed], whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts" (chap. i. 16-19).

This pa.s.sage demands the reader's most attentive consideration. It sets forth, in the clearest possible manner, the distinction between "the word of prophecy" and the proper hope of the Christian, namely, "the morning star." We must remember that the great subject of prophecy is G.o.d's government of the world in connection with the seed of Abraham. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance"

(Deut. x.x.xii. 8, 9).

Here then is the scope and theme of prophecy--Israel and the nations.

A child can understand this. If we range through the prophets, from the opening of Isaiah to the close of Malachi, we shall not find so much as a single line about the church of G.o.d--its position, its portion, or its prospects. No doubt the word of prophecy is deeply interesting, and most profitable for the Christian to study; but it will be all this just in proportion as he understands its proper scope and object, and sees how it stands in contrast with his own special hope. We may fearlessly a.s.sert that it is as utterly impossible for any one to study the Old Testament prophecies aright who does not clearly see the true place of the church.

We cannot attempt to enter upon the subject of the church in this brief paper. It has been repeatedly referred to and unfolded elsewhere, and we can now merely ask the reader to weigh and examine the statement which we here deliberately make, namely, that there is not so much as a single syllable about the church of G.o.d, the body of Christ, from cover to cover of the Old Testament. Types, shadows, ill.u.s.trations, there are which, now that we have the full-orbed light of the New Testament, we can see, understand, and appreciate. But it was not possible for any Old Testament believer to see the great mystery of Christ and the church, inasmuch as it was not revealed. The inspired apostle expressly tells us that it was "_hid_," not in the Old Testament Scriptures, but "in G.o.d," as we read in Ephesians iii., "And to make all men see what is the fellowship [or rather the administration] of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been _hid in G.o.d_, who created all things by Jesus Christ" (verse 9). So also in Colossians we read, "Even the mystery which _hath been hid_ from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints" (chap. i. 26).

These two pa.s.sages establish the truth of our statement beyond all question, for those who are willing to be governed absolutely by the authority of holy Scripture; they teach us that the great mystery--Christ and the church--is not to be found in the Old Testament. Where have we in the Old Testament a word about Jews and Gentiles forming one body, and being united by the Holy Ghost to a living head in heaven? How could such a thing possibly be, so long as "the middle wall of part.i.tion" stood as an insuperable barrier between the circ.u.mcised and the uncirc.u.mcised? If one were asked to name a special feature of the old economy he would at once reply, "The rigid separation of Jew and Gentile." On the other hand, if he were asked to name a special feature of the church, or Christianity, he would as readily reply, "The intimate union of Jew and Gentile in one body." In short, the two conditions stand in vivid contrast, and it was wholly impossible that both could hold good at the same time. So long as the middle wall of part.i.tion stood, the truth of the church could not be revealed; but the death of Christ having thrown down that wall, the Holy Ghost descended from heaven to form the one body, and link it, by His presence and indwelling, to the risen and glorified Head in the heavens. Such is the great mystery of Christ and the church, for which there could be no less a basis than accomplished redemption.

Now we entreat the reader to examine this matter for himself. Let him search the Scriptures to see if these things be indeed true. This is the only way to get at the truth. We must lay aside all our own thoughts and reasonings, our prejudices and predilections, and come, like a little child, to the holy Scriptures. In this way we shall learn the mind of G.o.d on this most precious and interesting subject.

We shall find that the church of G.o.d, the body of Christ, did not exist, as a fact, until after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and the consequent descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost. And further, we shall find that the full and glorious doctrine of the church was not brought out until the days of the Apostle Paul (compare Rom. xvi. 25, 26; Eph. i.-iii.; Col. i. 25-29).

Finally, we shall see that the actual and unmistakable boundary lines of the church's earthly history are Pentecost (Acts ii.) and the rapture or taking up of the saints (1 Thess. iv. 13-17).

Thus we reach a position from which we can get a view of the church's proper hope; and that hope is, most a.s.suredly, "the bright and morning star." Of this hope the Old Testament prophets utter not a syllable.

They speak largely and clearly of "The day of the Lord"--a day of judgment upon the world and its ways (see Isaiah ii. 12-22 and parallel Scriptures). But "the day of the Lord," with all its attendant circ.u.mstances of wrath, judgment, and terror, must never be confounded with His coming for His people. When our blessed Lord comes _for_ His people there will be nothing to terrify. He will come in all the sweetness and tenderness of His love to receive His loved and redeemed people to Himself. He will come to finish up the precious story of His grace. "To them that look for Him shall He appear (?f??seta?) the second time, without [that is, apart from all question of] sin, unto salvation" (Heb. ix).[24] He will come as a bridegroom to receive the bride; and when He thus comes none but His own shall hear His voice or see His face. If He were to come this very night for His people--and He may, for aught we know--if the voice of the archangel and the trump of G.o.d were to be heard to-night, then all the dead in Christ--all who have been laid to sleep by Jesus--all the saints of G.o.d, both those of old Testament and New Testament times, who lie sleeping in our cemeteries and graveyards, or in the ocean's depths--all these would rise from their temporary sleep. All the living saints would be changed in a moment, and all would be caught up to meet their descending Lord, and return with Him to the Father's house (John xiv. 3; 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17; 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52).

[24] The clause "Them that look for him" refers to all believers. It does not mean, as some suppose, those only who hold the truth of the Lord's second coming. This would make our place with Christ at His coming dependent upon knowledge, instead of upon our union with Him by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of G.o.d, in the above pa.s.sage, most graciously takes for granted that all G.o.d's people are looking, in some way or another, for the precious Saviour; and verily so they are. They may not see eye to eye as to all the details.

They may not all enjoy equal clearness of view or depth and fulness of apprehension; but, most surely, they would all be glad at any moment to see the One who loved them and gave Himself for them.

This is what is meant by the rapture or catching up of the saints, and has nothing to do directly with Israel or the nations. It is the distinct and only proper hope of the church; and there is not so much as a single hint of it in the entire Old Testament. If any one a.s.serts that there is, let him produce it. If there be such a thing, nothing is easier than to furnish it. We solemnly and deliberately declare there is no such thing. For all that respects the church--its standing, its calling, its portion, its prospects--we must turn to the pages of the New Testament, and, of those pages, mainly the Epistles of Paul. To confound "the word of prophecy" with the hope of the church is to damage the truth of G.o.d, and mislead the souls of His people. That the enemy has succeeded in doing all this, throughout the length and breadth of the professing church, is, alas! too true. And hence it is that so very few Christians have really Scriptural thoughts about the coming of their Lord. They are looking into prophecy for the church's hope--they confound "the Sun of righteousness" with "the Morning Star"--they mix up the coming of Christ _for_ His people, and His coming _with_ them--they make His "coming" or "state of presence" to be identical with His "appearing"

or "manifestation."

All this is a most serious mistake, against which we desire to warn our readers. When Christ comes with His people, "every eye shall see him." When He is manifested, His people will be manifested also. "When Christ our life shall appear [or be manifested], then shall ye also appear with him in glory" (Col. iii. 4). When Christ comes to execute judgment, His saints come with Him. "Behold, the Lord cometh _with_ ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all" (Jude 14, 15). So also in Revelation xix., the rider on the white horse is followed by the armies in heaven upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. These armies are not angels, but saints; for we do not read of angels being clothed in white linen, which is expressly declared, in this very chapter, to be "the righteousness of saints" (verse 8).

Now, it is most evident that, if the saints accompany their Lord when He comes in judgment, they must be with Him previously. The fact of their going to Him is not presented in the book of Revelation, unless it be involved--as we doubt not it is--in the catching up of the man child, in chapter xii. The man child is, most surely, Christ; and inasmuch as Christ and His people are indissolubly joined in one, they are most completely identified with Him, blessed for ever be His holy and precious name!

But, clearly, it does not at all lie within the scope of the book of Revelation to give us the coming of Christ _for_ His people, or their being caught up to meet Him in the air, or their return to the Father's house. For these blessed events or facts, we must look elsewhere, as, for example, in John xiv. 3; 1 Corinthians xv. 23, 51, 52; 1 Thessalonians iv. 14-17. Let the reader ponder these three pa.s.sages. Let him drink into his very soul their clear and precious teaching. There is nothing difficult about them, no obscurity, no mist or vagueness whatever. A babe in Christ can understand them. They set forth, in the clearest and simplest possible manner, the true Christian hope, which--we repeat it emphatically, and urge it upon the reader as the direct and positive teaching of holy Scripture--is the coming of Christ to receive His people, all His people, to Himself, to take them back with Him to His Father's house, there to remain with Him, while G.o.d deals governmentally with Israel and the nations, and prepares the way, by His judicial actings, for bringing in the First-begotten into the world.

Now, if it be asked, "Why have we not the coming of Christ for His people in the book of Revelation?" Because that book is pre-eminently a book of judgment--a governmental, judicial book, at least from chapter i.-xx. Hence even the church is presented as under judgment.

We do not see the church in chapters ii. and iii. as the body or the bride of Christ; but as a responsible witness on the earth, whose condition is being carefully examined and rigidly judged by Him who walks amongst the candlesticks.

It would not, therefore, comport with the character or object of this book to introduce, directly, the rapture of the saints. It shows us the church on the earth, in the place of responsibility. This it gives us, in chapters ii. and iii., under the head of "the things that are."