For to refer this promise to the present time, in which the saints are reigning with their King a thousand years, seems to me excessively barefaced, when it is most distinctly said, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no more pain." And who is so absurd, and blinded by contentious opinionativeness, as to be audacious enough to affirm that in the midst of the calamities of this mortal state, God's people, or even one single saint, does live, or has ever lived, or shall ever live, without tears or pain, --the fact being that the holier a man is, and the fuller of holy desire, so much the more abundant is the tearfulness of his supplication? Are not these the utterances of a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem: "My tears have been my meat day and night;" (4) and "Every night shall I make my bed to swim;with my tears shall I water my couch;"(5) and " My groaning is not hid from Thee;"(6) and "My sorrow was renewed?"(7)Or are not those God's children who groan, being burdened, not that they wish to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life?(8) Do not they even who have the first-fruits of the Spirit groan within themselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of their body?(9)Was not the Apostle Paul himself a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, and was he not so all the more when he had heaviness and continual sorrow of heart for his Israelitish brethren?(10) But when shall there be no more death in that city, except when it shall be said, "O death,where is thy contention?(11) O death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin."(12) Obviously there shall be no sin when it can be said, "Where is "-- But as for the present it is not some poor weak citizen of this city, but this same Apostle John himself who says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."(13) No doubt, though this book is called the Apocalypse, there are in it many obscure passages to exercise the mind of the reader, and there are few passages so plain as to assist us in the interpretation of the others, even though we take pains; and this difficulty is increased by the repetition of the same things, in forms so different, that the things referred to seem to be different, although in fact they are only differently stated.But in the words, "God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, but there shall be no more pain,"there is so manifest a reference to the future world and the immortality and eternity of the saints,--for only then and only there shall such a condition be realized,--that if we think this obscure, we need not expect to find anything plain in any part of Scripture.
CHAP.18.--WHAT THE APOSTLE PETER PREDICTED REGARDING THE LAST JUDGMENT.
Let us now see what the Apostle Peter predicted concerning this judgment.
"There shall come," he says, "in the last days scoffers....Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."(1) There is nothing said here about the resurrection of the dead, but enough certainly regarding the destruction of this world.And by his reference to the deluge he seems as it were to suggest to us how far we should believe the ruin of the world will extend in the end of the world.For he says that the world which then was perished, and not only the earth itself, but also the heavens, by which we understand the air, the place and room of which was occupied by the water.Therefore the whole, or almost the whole, of the gusty atmosphere (which he calls heaven, or rather the heavens, meaning the earth's atmosphere, and not the upper air in which sun, moon, and stars are set) was turned into moisture, and in this way perished together with the earth, whose former appearance had been destroyed by the deluge."But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."Therefore the heavens and the earth, or the world which was preserved from the water to stand in place of that world which perished in the flood, is itself reserved to fire at last in the day of the judgment and perdition of ungodly men.He does not hesitate to affirm that in this great change men also shall perish:
their nature, however, shall notwithstanding continue, though in eternal punishments.Some one will perhaps put the question, If after judgment is pronounced the world itself is to burn, where shall the saints be during the conflagration, and before it is replaced by a new heavens and a new earth, since somewhere they must be, because they have material bodies? We may reply that they shall be in the upper regions into which the flame of that conflagration shall not ascend, as neither did the water of the flood;for they shall have such bodies that they shall be wherever they wish.Moreover, when they have become immortal and incorruptible, they shall not greatly dread the blaze of that conflagration, as the corruptible and mortal bodies of the three men were able to live unhurt in the blazing furnace.
CHAP.19.--WHAT THE APOSTLE PAUL WROTE TO THE THESSALONIANS ABOUT THEMANIFESTATION OF ANTICHRIST WHICH SHALL PRECEDE THE DAY OF THE LORD.
I see that I must omit many of the statements of the gospels and epistles about this last judgment, that this volume may not become unduly long; but I can on no account omit what the Apostle Paul says, in writing to the Thessalonians, "We beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,"(2) etc.