CHRIST IN THE EARTH AGAIN
. . . Continued . . .



CHAPTER TWELVE: The New Worship

There are special times for the people to take part in the worship. "The people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate (the eastern gate of the inner court) before the Lord on the Sabbaths and on the new moons" (46:3). When they do so, they observe a particular method of coming in and going out. They enter and depart in two streams, north and south, none returning by the way he came (verse 9). By this all the confusion to which the movements of immense multitudes is liable will be avoided. By this arrangement, also, the Prince and his attendants are secured from mob embarrassment. The people use the north and south entrance exclusively. The east side is set apart for the Prince; but the people in their passage, at the appointed seasons, from north to south, or vice versa, pass by this east side by the inner face of the gate of the inner court, yet outside the temple proper, which encloses the most holy (circular) limits of the mountain (43:12). This gives the point of contact between the prince and the people. This gate is "shut on the six working days. On the Sabbath is shall be opened, and on the day of the new moon it shall be opened" (46:1). When the people muster at these appointed times, the Prince, who is described as "in their midst, "enters the sanctuary also (verse 10), but not in the same way: "When the prince shall enter, he shall go in by the way of the porch of that gate, and he shall go forth by the way thereof" (verse 8). By the way of the porch of what gate? Verse 1, 2 supplies the answer: "The gate of the inner court that looketh toward the east shall be shut the six working days, but on the Sabbath and on the day of the new moons it shall be opened, and the Prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate without (or outside)." This is quite intelligible when we understand that the Prince on these occasions enters from without on the east side.

The outer and the inner gates require to be distinguished to prevent confusion. Both are involved in these descriptions. "The gate of the outward sanctuary that looketh toward the east" -- (that is, the outmost gate on the eastern side) -- is never opened to the people at all. "No man shall enter in by it, because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it. Therefore it shall be shut. It is for 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" (44:1-3). The whole eastern side and the buildings and court belonging to it are in the exclusive occupation of the Prince and his companions. But he is not there at all times. he is often in "the Prince's portion" which lies east and west of the holy oblation, and comprises as before said, an ample domain of many thousands of square miles, in which he assigns special inheritance to his sons for ever (46:16). Here he spends oft-recurring seasons of delightful communion with them in the rural delights of Paradise restored. But at the appointed seasons, he repairs to the sanctuary to lead the worship of rejoicing multitudes. How does he then enter? He enters both by the outer and the inner gate (44:3 provides the first; 46:1, 2 for the second). His entrance by both is necessary, for he meets the people who are in the inner court in front of the temple proper (46:10, 1, 3); and to meet them he must pass through both outer and inner court gates. If it be said that Christ would not need to have doors opened to him, we have to remember that while all miracle is possible, miracle is not the normal exercise of divine power. It is special for special ends, as in every case where it has been performed. The Kingdom of God is the accommodation of immortal rulers to mortal needs while the human race is in process of being brought back to union with God; during such a process, faith is, doubtless, as much a necessity for the mortal population as it now is for the saints. It is, therefore, according to the fitness of things that all should be apparently natural, and that the institutions proposed for obedience should be such as have authority only for their basis, as in the case of all kinds of sacrifice and offering. The express provision for the entry of the Prince, first by the one gate, then by the other is, therefore, in keeping with the whole institution and its objects.

Imagining him having entered by the outer gate, as provided for by chapter 44:1-3, he is in the gate buildings, or, it may be, in the court among his brethren, the sons of Zadok. In this situation, we understand what happens to fulfil the description of 46:2. He crosses the outer court and enters the outer porch of the inner gate opposite. This, which is shut the six working days, is now thrown open, and the Prince passing through, finds the people massed at the door of that gate on the other side, that is , the inner. He then offers the required offerings and leads the worship offered by the people (verses 2-3), in which we know glorious singing forms a part (11:44). The gladsome stirring exercises complete, the Prince retires by the way he came, but the inner gate at which he stood is left open all the evening (46:2). The outer gate is always kept closed and used only by the Prince and his own. The change to take place at the close of the thousand years may include the removal of this restriction. We cannot be sure of details that have not been revealed; but it is likely when all are immortal and the kingdom given up to the Father, that all the barriers implying a distinction between the immortal and the mortal will be abolished. But while the thousand years continue, the whole eastern side of the sanctuary is closed, except to the Prince. The inner gate is open sometimes, and notably on the days which the Prince has offered sacrifice in the presence of the people. It is no imagination that fancies the streaming reverent multitudes, lingering a little as they pass, to contemplate the spot made holy by the Lord's actual appearance earlier in the day.

The sanctuary in its entirety, with all its arrangements and ordinances, is the topstone of the new political edifice that would be reared upon the earth when the God of heaven has set up the kingdom that He hath promised to them that love Him. It is the most conspicuous feature of the tabernacle of David re-built in the times of the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His prophets since the world began.

David himself is there as one of the prophets and the fathers whom Jesus has plainly indicated as then present (Luke 13:28). But THE PRINCE is David's son, for this is promised -- that David's son shall sit on David's throne in David's presence (Luke 1:35; Acts 2:29; 2 Sam. 7:16; Psa. 39:3,4; 34-36). The title "Prince" has lost some of its meaning in modern times. It has come to signify a secondary dignity, as defining the heir to the throne rather than the occupant of the throne. It was not so in ancient times; it signified the sovereign ruler, as the reader will discover in consulting all the instances of its use in the Scriptures. It is with this sense we must read it in the prophecy of the temple. Reading it thus, the identity of the Prince is settled beyond question; for who is sovereign ruler in the Kingdom of God but Christ, the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the Son of David and Son of God? The He should be the chief in things pertaining to God -- that he should be high priest as well as the sovereign ruler -- is one of the exquisite beauties of the coming government, as contrasted with present governments.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Sacrifice in the New Era

The central principle of the Kingdom of God is the worship and service of God as distinguished from human governments, which propose merely the repression and regulation of man. What more befitting than that the head of the kingdom should appear most conspicuously in connection with exercises and appointments that have direct and open reference to God?

This is the case with sacrifice. Sacrifice gets its whole meaning from God's existence and God's claims. Nothing could bring Him so distinctly before the mind. In the case of the heirs of the kingdom, it is the sacrifice of God's own Son -- the real Lamb of God -- whose spotless offering up "through the Eternal Spirit" is memorialised every first day of the week in the breaking of bread. Enlightened intelligence never engages in this memorial act without having God opened to the view, who required this sacrifice at the hands of His Son, that we might be "redeemed unto God by his blood." What if some eat and drink unworthily, undiscerningly; the true nature of the institution remains.

But in its political bearings, the recurring actual sacrifice of the typical animal is more effective. Hence, under the law, it was the type that was kept in the front, with faith behind; and hence, under the kingdom restored, the typical animals are again employed in leading the population into an acceptable attitude to God. This will not be questioned by those who know the testimony in the case. Some such may think it incongruous that the Prince (being Christ and none other) should offer these sacrifices, which include sin-offerings; but the incongruity disappears and actually changes into a suitability that is ravishing when we realise that the offerer of these typical and memorial offerings in the temple restored, is the very Lamb of God who offered his own body on the cross in his character as the antitypical high priest.

There is something sublime in the arrangement by which, in the day of his headship over all the people on earth, he will thus publicly identify himself with the one acceptable offering, in a performance which was typical under the old covenant, and is again typical under the new, "in lambs and bullocks slain." In such recurring exercises of service, immortal strength in Jesus and the saint finds scope for congenial and constant activity. Christ is to eat the passover and drink the memorial wine with his disciples in the Kingdom of God: for so he said (Luke 22:16-18). What is there more out of keeping in his also offering the memorial sacrifices which derive their chief meaning from himself? It is revealed that he will do this: and all human objections, advanced on whatever ground, are only so many high thoughts, exalting themselves against the knowledge of God.

The whole drift of prophecy involves the temple idea amplified in Ezekiel. If God is to set up a kingdom in which He will govern the nations by His appointed and anointed king (Dan. 2:44; 7:15; Micah 4:1-4), and if this kingdom is to be the kingdom of David restored (Amos 9:11), worship must necessarily be its governing feature, and this involves the apparatus of worship; for though worship is of the heart, and an act for every place, yet it seeks appropriate forms and times of expression, especially in national life. And this it is purposed to provide in a new temple, eclipsing all previous erections. This is declared in such forms as these: -- Many people shall go and say, "Let us go up to . . . the HOUSE of the God of Jacob" (Isa. 2:3). The nations "shall go up from year to year unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Hosts . . . In that day there shall be upon the bells of the horses, HOLINESS to the Lord, yea, the pots in the LORD'S HOUSE shall be like the bowls before the altar" (Zech. 14:16, 17, 20). "The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former" (Hag. 2:6). "Because of thy temple at Jerusalem, kings shall bring presents unto thee" (Psa. 68:29). "He (the Branch) shall build the temple of the Lord" (Zech. 6:12). "I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore" (Ezek. 37:26, 28). "I will make the place of my feet glorious" (Isa. 60:13).

All this is opposed to the current of religious public opinion. But it cannot be contradicted where the Bible is known and accepted. Whatever God appoints must be suitable and beautiful. He has appointed that restored sacrifice shall be a feature of the provisional dispensation of the age to come; and He has appointed that Christ and the saints shall be the kings and priests, who shall , in that age, rule mankind, and offer those sacrifices; we have but to enquire reverently what may be the object of such an arrangement. We are informed what the object is. "From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen" (Mal. 1:11). It is not possible to conceive a better method of exalting the name of God among the populations of the earth than by requiring a ceremony which has not meaning apart from the supremacy of God, and the utter humiliation of man. Ceremony is usually shaped with a view to human honour or human comfort; but here is a ceremony which has nothing to do with either. It is not merely for the happiness of man that Christ reigns, but first for the honour of God; and the happiness of man requires that his dependence on God and the headship of God be kept before his attention in some special way. Sacrifice is the way, and no better could be imagined -- sacrifice on every approach.

Sacrifice not only brings the supremacy of God into the foreground: it goes back to the breach that separated man from God, and plunged him into all the evils resulting from self-management. This is perhaps the most beautiful of all the beautiful features of the kingdom of God -- this feature of reminiscence in the kingdom -- this going back upon the past -- the justifying of the ways of God during the dark history through which the world is now passing.

In all human changes of fortune for the better, the past ignominies are covered out of sight and forgotten as fast as possible; because those ignominies were not part of any plan on the part of those suffering them. They were in the chapter of accidents: they stood related to no principle. In the Kingdom of God, it is different in every way. Not only the deliverance, but the evil from which deliverance has taken place, is of God, and is therefore kept in sight as having a reason in them while at the time appearing to outrage all reason.

That the world should suffer is a mystery apart from its explanation: that the friends of God should be in affliction is a dark enigma, if looked at without reference to its object: above all, that the sinless Son of God should have been called upon to endure such contradiction of sinners against himself, and to submit to such a terrible end, looked at by itself, is an inexplicable violation of every principle of righteousness. Yet all is righteous and all will be understood in the happy day that is coming when "the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea."



CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Sunrise

When Christ has returned to the earth to take charge of its distracted affairs, the sun will have risen upon our long and dark night, and the day will have begun.

This is the figure made use of by the Spirit of God in David in his "last words," wherein he refers to this coming reign of Christ, as "the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a MORNING WITHOUT CLOUDS" (2 Sam. 23:4). The figure is beautiful and entirely applicable. A beautiful morning is always a joy, but how much more after a night of special trouble. Who that has endured the horrors of a prolonged night in circumstances of danger by land or sea, has not felt gladness when the sun has risen in brightness, and filled the sky and earth with beams of healing warmth and light? The very sparkle of the dewdrop and the brilliant emerald of Nature's smiling face, as it opens to the effulgence of the advancing King of Day, seems to thrill the heart with delight. Thus, in a sense inexpressible, it will be at the end of the earth's troubled history.

The scriptures speak of the present state of things upon the earth as "the night" and Christ as the sun. How dark that night is -- gross darkness -- we do not realise at first, because we naturally belong to the night, and owls and bats do not think the night oppressively dark. When our minds open to the light, then we see how dark is the night that has for so many ages oppressed the earth. Even men whose eyes have not been opened are aware that there is something terribly anomalous and evil in the present state of things. The sufferings of all classes, and the efforts of every kind to bring mitigation to the state of man, bear witness to the terrible truth. Even after so many thousand years, men are discussing whether life is worth living. What hope is there of any change if the instrumentality continues the same?

There has been improvement in the appliances of material comfort. We can travel more quickly, communicate more rapidly, manufacture more easily, and labour more cheaply. The employment of machinery in every department of human effort would seem to promise an age of rest and amelioration for all. But the promise is as far as ever from fulfilment. The blessedness of mankind is not increased by these advantage. Why? For lack of that supreme direction in the application of them which is necessary to get the blessedness out of them. This requires a governing will superior to man's -- a will that not only knows what is good for man, but with wisdom and power to enforce it even against man, like a father in his own family.

So long as law rests with man, he will legislate in harmony with the inclinations and tendencies of man under whatever form of government he may devise them, and there must necessarily always be failure. It is not in the capacity of man to recognise the glory of God as the chief end of human life, and kindness to man as the chief law of human behaviour. There may always be a minority of exceptions: but it is not in their power to devise, still less to enforce, a system of law among men that will give these things their scope and effect. And even if the feeble minority were to become a majority, they could never protect any good system from the disintegrating effects of ceaseless change and the inevitable "decline and fall" that comes to the best and most powerful of human institutions.

The one element that is needed can never be provided from human resources -- the element of stability that would result from deathlessness and irresistibility in the administration of a divine system of law. There is, therefore, no hope in human directions. Human politics are but the restless heavings of a turbid sea, on which governments become more and more what Carlyle used to call the drowned carcases of animals floating in the current. The waves rise in response to the spouting gales, and there is plenty of activity, but no progress towards real human weal. The man who knows and believes the Bible is emancipated from the necessity and pain of a vain looking in this direction for hope.

The messenger of good tidings will come; but never from the tumult of human chaos. He will come from the shining heights of Heaven's prevailing purpose. "God shall send Jesus Christ whom the heavens must hold until" -- (Acts 3:20-21). This is the hope, and the only hope. The past is the pledge of the future in the matter. Christ has been in the earth. The earth is already filled with his name. Let him come again, and all will be well. He was a blessing when he was here; he will bless as never before when he is in the earth again; for he comes to fulfil the long-standing promise that "all families of the earth shall be blessed in Abraham and his seed." He will do this in the only way in which it can be done, as even meditative intelligence now perceives: by setting up a single government that will absorb all others, and such a government as the world has never seen before -- a government that cannot be successfully resisted, a government that cannot err, and a government that cannot be changed by decay or death; a government governing in the fear of God, and in the love of man and in the practice of truth and mercy and justice; without respect of persons or permission of the people.

This is the promise and pledge of divine wisdom and power. It is the true goal of human hope -- the true end of human history. The world-wide tradition of "a good time coming" has no other foundation than this. It can never, in the nature of things, be realised apart from it.

They were no empty words in which Jesus proclaimed himself "the Light of the World," yet the fulness of their meaning will not be manifest till the day contemplated in the last words of David -- "He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds." Many other beautiful declarations of the scriptures on the subject will then have their full illustration, of which the following are a few examples: --



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