April 1930
181
T h e
K i n g ’ s
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of Bethphage and Bethany. In fulfillment of Zechariah 9: 9, our blessed Lord rode over Olivet, preceded by the mul titude which acclaimed Him the Messiah. We can visualize Him riding down the Mount of Olives, weeping over Jeru salem, crossing the Kidron and coming up into the Tem ple Area through this now barred and walled-up gate. But is it possible, after the tempestuous history of Jerusalem, that this is the identical gate through which our Lord entered nearly nineteen centuries ago? Con cerning this gate, McMillan’s Guidebook of Palestine and Syria says on page 36: “The present structure cannot be older than the sixth or seventh century and , . . it is essentially Byzantine in its character. There is little doubt, though, that a gate stood here from the earliest period of the Temple Area; and it was probably through this gateway that our Lord passed when He made His triumphal entry from Bethany.” The gate has been some what remodeled since the seventh century. On page 33 of “Palestine Old and New” by Albert Hymanson, F. R. Hist. S., we read: “Inside the Golden Gate are vestiges of the earlier gate through which Jesus must have.passed.” But who shut the gate ? It may have been that Chris tians closed it in reverence of our Lord’s entrance. How ever, a Moslem tradition that some day a Christian con queror will enter Jerusalem through it .on a Friday, their Sabbath, and deprive them of the Temple Area, is now responsible for the gate’s closed condition. Since the Temple Area is revered next to Mecca as a Moslem sanc tuary, this tradition is a matter of real anxiety. Hence, the bars, the walled-up gateways and the guards on Fridays. • . • , T h e F uture of T h e E astern G ate As Jewish Messianic expectations have a relationship to this gate, we turn to Ezekiel 43:1-4 to find its future: “Afterward he brought me to the gate, even the gate that looketh toward the east: and, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east, and his voice was like the sound of many waters: and the earth shined with His glory.” . Before we examine the rest of this passage, we should note the identity of the “glory of the God of Israel.” This is settled by Rev. 1 :15. It is our glorified Lord whose voice is like the “sound of many waters,” and who is the “brightness of his glory” {Hebrews 1:3). Hence, we con clude that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Glory of the God of Israel who dwelt above the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies; who departed from the cherub, from the thresh old, from the eastern gate of the Temple, and from the city of Olivet. In this prophetic page we see Him returning from the east “as the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west” (Matt 24:27). The angels said that He will “so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11), i.e., physically, to Olivet. Zechariah tells us (Zech. 14:4-8) that “his feet shall stand in that day on the Mount of Olives which is before Jeru salem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. . . . And in that day shall living waters go out from Jerusalem.” The forty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel gives the location and the size of this river: a great stream flowing east from south of the Temple and the altar; i.e., probably from just south of where the Dome of the Rock now stands and flowing out of the
Temple Area south of the Eastern Gate. Then our Lord will once more descend the Mount of Olives, cross the Kidron, and He will reenter Jerusalem. We return to the first four verses of the forty-third chapter of Ezekiel to find which gate He will use : “And the glory of the Lord came into the house, by the way of the gate whose pros pect is toward the east.” As we stand here among Moslem graves studying the Eastern Gate, we realize that at least a part of the Mos lem tradition is right : the walled-up gate shall be opened, the bars shall be removed, and the gate through which the Lord once entered, acclaimed by the crowd but to be re jected by the rulers of Israel, shall yet see Him, the Great Conqueror, entering in irresistible triumph over the armies of the Antichrist to take to Himself the Temple Area and to establish His reign from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. During the Millennium this gate will be used by the Prince. “He shall sit in it to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate and shall go out by the way of the same” (Ezek. 44:3). ' “When the prince shall prepare a voluntary burnt offering or peace offerings voluntarily unto the Lord, one shall then open him the gate that looketh toward the east, and he shall prepare his burnt offering . . . then he shall go forth; and after his going forth one shall shut the gate” (Ezek. 46:12). What a glorious future lies before the Eastern Gate ! Before us is a stone witness of the truth of the Bible and of the Lord’s return. The prophecies of the closing of the gate were given about 2,500 years ago. As surely as they have been minutely fulfilled, the predictions of the opening qf the gate and of the Lord’s return will be ful filled in like manner. Is it not significant that as our Lord rode toward this gate He said, concerning those who ac claimed Him the Messiah, “I f these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out”? Where shall we be when the Lord enters in genuine triumph? We who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ will come in with Him, for it is written : “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 14). It is true that we shall “meet . . just inside the Eastern Gate.” Before we go back to our hotel, resolving to more diligently purify ourselves, “even as he is pure,” let us read together the glad welcome of the last part of the twenty- fourth Psalm. Brother Milton Lindberg pointed out that the word translated “everlasting” in this Psalm, which lit erally means “age-lasting,” is translated in the Arabic by the Arabic name for the Eastern Gate. The first six verses of this Psalm have a reference to the Temple Hill; may not the last four have an application to the Eastern Gate on that hill? This gate, though remodeled from time to time, is surely “age-lasting.” Therefore, let us read the last of this Psalm as pertaining to the coming of the Glory of the Lord, the God of Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Conqueror. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates ;
And be lift up, ye everlasting doors: And the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates;' Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors : And the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory?
;
The Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.”
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