His Coming Draweth Nigh!
By REV. FREDERICK A. TATFORD, of Sutton, Surrey, England
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W ITH the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ by His earthly peo ple, God suspended His dealings with Israel and commenced the calling out of a company of people to be indwelt by His Spirit and linked inseparably with His Son. National distinctions now disappeared. By a spiritual baptism, Jew and Gentile alike became members of a mystic body of which Christ was the Head. This was a mystery hidden in previous ages and revealed to the Apostle Paul only after the ascension of Christ (Eph. 4:1-10). Therefore, no reference is made to it in the Old Testament, and the whole of the church age is a paren thetical period in the divine program for earth. The 69 “weeks” (or 483 years) of Daniel 9:25, 26 expired on the day on which the Messiah rode in triumph into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-10); the last “week” (of 7 years) has still to run its course, the whole of the present dispen sation having been interpolated as a parenthesis between the end of the 69th week and the beginning of the 70th. It was the confident expectation of the early church that the parenthesis would be relatively brief and that the Lord would speedily return to earth again to meet a repentant Israel and to set up His earthly Kingdom (Acts 3:19- 21 ). Apart altogether from His return in glory, the Lord had intimated that, if He returned to His Father’s house, it would be to prepare for His loved ones and that He would come again to re ceive them to Himself (John 14:3). The early Christians accepted the assurance in all its simplicity, and of the young converts at Thessalonica, for example, it was recorded that they “ turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:9, 10). Moreover, to that little band, who stood gazing up into Heaven into which their Master had just disappeared, the angels had re vealed that the One who had departed should in like manner reappear. Yet nineteen centuries have elapsed and the promise has not been fulfilled, nor can any say how long its fulfilment will still be delayed. It has been sug gested frequently, however, that the letters to the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 give in broad outline the course of ecclesiastical history, and that the marked similarity of the con ditions described in the last letter to those of the present day is an indica tion that the present dispensation is nearly complete. Second Timothy 3:1-7 N O V E M B E R , 1 9 5 1
and Second Peter 2 detail the charac teristics of the last days, many features of which are already in evidence at the present moment. In addition, reflections of many events foretold in Old Testa ment prophecy may be seen in current happenings, and it seems extremely prob able that the Lord’s coming for His church cannot be much longer delayed. No specific event awaits fulfilment be fore His advent and that glorious mo ment might well occur TODAY. The Thessalonians, who had so eagerly waited for the Lord after their conver sion, became somewhat concerned as the years slipped by and many of their friends were laid in the grave. It ap peared to them that those who had died had forfeited the joy of welcoming the Lord on His return and might even have lost their part in the church’s blessing. But the Apostle Paul dispelled their doubts and explained that their fears were groundless. When the Lord re turned, the dead believers would be raised to meet Him and would, in fact, precede by a moment those who still lived. Sometimes it is suggested that Christ’s coming is at the believer’s death, but the Thessalonians had no illusions of this kind. They looked for a personal return of their Master. The redemption of the body—not death—is the Christian’s hope. It has also been suggested that the Lord’s coming will not occur until the end of the world, but when He referred to the possibility that John might tarry until He returned (John 21:22), He ob viously did not intend to convey that John might live until the end of the world. In First Thessalonians 4:15-17 and First Corinthians 15:51-53, the Apostle revealed that not all Christians would pass through the gates of death. The Lord would personally descend from Heaven into the air (literally, as Bishop Lightfoot points out, “ the immediate re gion of the earth” ) , the dead should rise first (taking on incorruptibility), and the living saints .(putting on immortal ity) should be caught up with them into the air to meet the Lord. The whole event would happen “ in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” when “ the last trump” sounded. Often there is a little confusion regarding this trumpet. It is not, of course, one of the trumpets re ferred to in Revelation, since that book was not written until thirty years later. As Dr. Ironside stated, the expression “was in common use in connection with. (Continued on Page SO)
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