9. § 55. The Second Coming of Christ.

9. § 55. The Second Coming of Christ.

§ 55. The Second Coming of Christ.

. Just as it is appointed for man to die once, so there must also once come an end to the history of the world. Not only religion, but also science was at all times convinced of that. Some, such as Aristotle in antiquity and Czolbe, Friedrich Mohr et al. in more recent times, have indeed thought that this world was eternal and had neither beginning nor end. But the untenability of this opinion is now generally conceded; there are many considerations which raise the finite duration of the world above all doubt. The rotational speed of the earth decreases according to calculation by at least one second in 600,000 years; however little this may be, after billions of years it nevertheless brings about on earth a reversal in the relation of day and night, which puts an end to all life. Furthermore, the rotation of the earth is continually slowed by the influence of ebb and flood, because these displace the parts of the earth and diminish the supply of kinetic energy; the earth therefore constantly approaches the sun and must finally disappear into it. Next, the space in which the planets move is not absolutely empty, but filled with ether or rarefied air, which, however weak,

impedes the motion, diminishes the rotational speed, causes the orbit of the planets to contract and thus brings them ever more into the vicinity of the sun. Further, the sun too cannot last forever; whether it produces its heat by falling meteorites or by continual contraction or by chemical workings, it gradually consumes that heat, diminishes its size, contracts, and goes toward its [423] end; according to Thompson the diameter of the sun would decrease annually by 35 meters and, since it had already shone for 20 million years, it could exist for only another 10 million years. Kinetic energy, to be sure, can be converted into heat, but heat no longer into kinetic energy, unless it flows out upon a colder body. If the temperature therefore will once be equal everywhere, the conversion of heat ceases and the end of things is reached. The question therefore is only, which of the two, the sun or the earth, will hold out the longest; if the sun, then the earth is finally devoured by it and everything ends with burning; if the earth, then once all heat ceases and life perishes in the death of rigidity. In addition there are still all kinds of other grounds for the finitude of the world; the water of the earth must, because of its chemical affinity with the minerals, continually decrease; water and oxygen are increasingly bound to solid substances; the products of the earth, coal, wood, peat, foodstuffs, diminish; the earth, however rich, is once exhausted, and this the more quickly, the more the human race increases and the danger of overpopulation threatens.

For an optimistic expectation concerning the future there is therefore, from the standpoint of science, absolutely no place. Yet many have surrendered to that and dreamed of a steady progress and a future paradise of humanity in the Diesseits. Humanists and materialists vie with one another in cherishing such illusions, consider their bread-prophecies guaranteed by the principle of cosmic evolution, and judge that through the increase of ideal

goods, such as science, art, morality, or through progress in material prosperity, through abundance of food and shelter and clothing, the happiness of humanity will once be fully attained. Kant, Lessing, Herder,

Fichte, Schelling etc., considered a future impending, in which the ethical Kingdom of God would include all, the Aufklärung would be the share of all and humanity would be the principle of all life. Even Darwin at the close of his book on the Origin of Species and in the last chapter of his Descent of Man expresses the hope that man, who from his animal origin has already climbed so high, is going toward an even higher destiny in a distant future. In that future, according to [424] Pierson, Eene Levensbeschouwing

269, marriage will no longer be desired by the noblest, but the man will associate with the woman as with his sister and lust will no longer be the death of the zest for life, or according to others marriage among a highly civilized people will in time assume the form of a double marriage and two friends jointly marry two women. Still more extravagant are the expectations of the socialists, these chiliasts of unbelief, who think that in the future state according to their model all sin and struggle will have disappeared and a carefree, contented life will be everyone's privilege. But, as has been said, there is not much ground for such expectations. And even if a time of greater prosperity and greater happiness for humanity were to dawn, what would be the advantage of that, if nevertheless all development, as science teaches, must finally perish in death? Fr. van Hellwald at the close of his Kulturgeschichte knows, to the question what everything has been for, what also man with his struggling and striving, his civilization and development has existed for, not to give the least answer. And Otto HenneAm Rhyn ends his Kulturgeschichte with the prediction that all humanity with its culture will once disappear without a trace; einst wird Alles, was

wir gethan, nirgends mehr aufzufinden sein; and over against that he can comfort himself only with the thought that it will still take a long time before it comes to that. He who lives without God and without Christ, and must expect everything from the Diesseits, from immanent, cosmic forces, is also without hope in the world. Even culture is not to be thought endless.

Billions of years can in the past or in the future of the world indeed be arbitrarily assumed but not concretely, filled with history, thought. If, e.g., humanity once became a thousand million years old, a textbook on world history, which treated a century in ten pages, would form no fewer than two hundred thousand volumes, each volume reckoned at five hundred pages, or still twenty thousand volumes, if to each century only one page, or still five hundred volumes, if to each century no more than one line were devoted.

And so it would be with all that forms the content of our culture. Man and humanity are finite, and therefore their civilization too is not to be thought endless. An infinite [425] time is for the earth as well as for our race an absurdity, which is still more tangible than the folly of the millions of years, known to us from pagan mythologies. From the standpoint of science there is much more ground to accept the pessimism of Schopenhauer and Ed. von

Hartmann, that the redemption of the world consists in the combating of the alogical will by the logical representation, in the absolute Willensverneinung, that is, in the destruction of the world itself. But even then there is not the least guarantee that the absolute will does not pass over to another world-process and, into the infinite, always begins again from the beginning. Many Greek philosophers held it for certain that many other worlds had preceded this one and that many others would follow it; indeed the Pythagoreans and the Stoics were of the opinion that everything would return exactly as it existed in this world and had existed earlier; and also

now many, e.g. Haeckel, Die Welträthsel 430, have returned to such feelings, although Windelband, Geschichte und Naturwissenschaft,

Strassburg 1900 S. 22 rightly calls it a painful thought, that in der periodischen Wiederkehr aller Dingen auch die Persönlichkeit mit allem ihrem Thun und Leiden wiederkehren soll. Cf. Lange, Gesch. des

Materialismus4 552 f. Pesch, Die grossen Welträthsel2 II 352 f.

Mühlhäusser, Die Zukunft der Menschheit Heilbron 1881. Reiff, Die Zukunft der Welt2 Basel 1875. Fürer, Weltende und Endgericht, Gütersloh

1896. Siebeck, Religionsphilos. 1893 S. 399-427. Caro, La question du progrès, in zijne Problèmes de morale sociale, Paris 1887 p. 251. Orr,

Christian View 369.

2. Religion has never reconciled itself with this idea of an endless development or of a total downfall of the world. Various reasons held it back from adopting these philosophical theories. For it is beyond all contradiction, that all such representations fall short of the value of personality and sacrifice it to the whole. Further, they fail to recognize the significance of the religious-moral life and place this far below culture. And finally, for the present and for the future they build only on the forces that are immanent in the cosmos and take absolutely no account of a Divine power that governs the world and at [426] last, by direct intervention, causes it to correspond to the goal set by it. All religions therefore have a different expectation for the future. They all know, in a more or less clear degree, a struggle of good and evil; all cherish the hope of the victory of the good, whereby the virtuous are rewarded and the godless are punished; and mostly they also consider that future not otherwise attainable than through a revelation of supernatural powers, cf. deel III 229. In the Persian religion, indeed, at the end of the third world-period the appearance of the third son

of Zarathustra, Sosiosh, was expected, who would introduce a thousandyear kingdom of peace and would complete the work of redemption of his father, Saussaye, Religionsgesch. II 51. Hartmann, Rel. I 239. Herzog2 11,

239. And among the Mohammedans, alongside the belief in the return of Jesus, there gradually also arose the expectation of a Mahdi, who would lead the believers back again into the golden age of the "four righteous

Khalifs", Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, Der Mahdi, Separatabdruck von der „Revue Coloniale Internationale" 1885. With Israel the expectation concerning the future was built on the foundation of the covenant that God had established with Abraham and his seed. This covenant, after all, bears an eternal character and is not nullified by man's unfaithfulness, deel III 195. Already in the law God repeatedly testifies to the people of Israel, that He, when it transgresses His covenant, will visit it with the heaviest punishments but afterwards will nevertheless again have mercy upon it.

When Israel, on account of its sins, shall be scattered among the nations and its land shall be laid waste, then the Lord in that time, by the adoption of other nations, will provoke Israel to jealousy and thereafter convert it and bring it back into its land, bless it with all kinds of spiritual and material blessings and execute vengeance upon all its enemies, Lev. 26, Deut. 4:2331, 30:1-10, 32:15-43. After the promise to David's house, that it would be enduring and his throne would be firm unto eternity, 2 Sam. 7:16, 23:5, 1

Chr. 17:14, in the expectation concerning Israel's future this element receives more and more significance, that the conversion and the restoration of Israel will not come to pass otherwise than through the anointed king from David's lineage. In prophecy these thoughts are developed more broadly and, notwithstanding the peculiarity [427] that they bear with each of the prophets, they assume ever firmer forms.

In the expectation which the Old Test. cherishes concerning the future of the people of God, the following moments are clearly to be distinguished.

All prophets proclaim 1o to Israel and Judah a day of judgment and of punishment. The יום יהוה, that is, the time in which the Lord will have compassion on his people and will avenge himself on his enemies, was conceived by the prophets wholly otherwise than by the people. The people abused this expectation and thought that Ihvh, irrespective of its spiritual condition, would protect it against every danger, Am. 5:18, 6:13, Jer. 29,

Ezech. 33:23v. But the prophets said that the day of the Lord would also for Israel be a day of judgment; the people would go into exile and its land would be given over to devastation, Am. 2:4v., 5:16, 18, 27, 6:14 etc., Hos.

1:6, 2:11, 3:4, 8:13, 9:3, 6, 10:6, 11:5, 13:12, 14:1, Joël 2:1v., Mich. 3:12, 4:10, 7:13, Zef. 1:1-18, Hab. 1:5-11, Jes. 2:11v., 5:5v., 7:18v., Jer. 1:11-16 etc. But yet, that punishment is 2o temporary. There comes an end to it after many days, Hos. 3:3, after a few days, that is after a short time, 6:2, after seventy years, Jer. 25:12, 29:10, after three hundred and ninety years for Israel and forty years for Judah, Ezech. 4:4v. God chastises his people with measure, Jes. 27:7v., Jer. 30:11, He forsakes it only for a little time; his wrath is small, but his lovingkindness is eternal, Jes. 54:7, 8. He loves his people with an eternal love, and will therefore have compassion again,

Mich. 7:19, Jer. 31:3, 20. He cannot destroy his people, even though He also shakes it as in a sieve, Am. 9:8, 9. His repentance is kindled within Him, Hos. 11:8. He remembers his covenant, Ezech. 16:60. He will redeem his people, not for Israel's sake, but for his name's sake, for his renown among the Heathen, Deut. 32:27, Jes. 43:25, 48:9, Ezech. 36:22. At the end of the time of punishment God sends 3o the Messiah from David's house.

Obadiah still speaks in general of saviors, who protect the escaped

congregation on Zion, vs. 17, 21, cf. Jer. 23:4, 33:17, 20, 21, 22, 26. Amos says that God after the judgment over Israel will raise up again the fallen hut of David, 9:11. Hosea expects that the children of Israel will repent and seek the Lord and also David their king, 1:11, 3:5, cf. Jer. 30:9, Ezech.

34:23, 24, 37:22-24. Micah prophesies that Israel will not [428] be delivered from the power of the enemies earlier than until from the Davidic royal house at Bethlehem the Ruler will be born, 5:1, 2. That He will not come forth from Jerusalem but, like David himself, from Bethlehem, proves that the Davidic royal house has lost the throne and has fallen into a state of lowliness. Isaiah therefore also says that a shoot will come forth from the hewn-down trunk of Jesse, 11:1, 2, and Ezekiel expresses the same thought thus, that the Lord will take from the topmost branch of the high cedar a small, tender twig, 17:22. God will cause him to spring forth as a sprout to David's house, Jes. 4:2, Jer. 23:5, 6, 33:14-17, so that accordingly he also bears the name of Sprout, Zach. 3:8, 6:12. Born in Israel's time of suffering, this Davidide will grow up in poor circumstances, Jes. 7:14-17; He is a king, but righteous, gentle, humble and therefore riding on the foal of a sheass, Zach. 9:9; with the royal he unites the prophetic, Deut. 18:15, Jes. 11:2,

40-66, Mal. 4:5 and the priestly dignity, Jes. 53, Jer. 30:21, Zach. 3, 6:13, Ps. 110; the kingdom which He comes to found is a kingdom of righteousness and peace, Jes. 11, 40-66, Mich. 5:9, Ps. 72, 110; He is and himself acquires the righteousness and the salvation for his people, Jes. 11,

42, 53, Jer. 23:5, 6, Ps. 72 etc. His appearance therefore does not first take place after the day of judgment, but precedes it; Judah is first delivered when God will grant to David a sprout, Jes. 9:1-16, 11:1v., Jer. 23:5, 6,

33:14-17. Among the benefits 4o which by this Anointed One will be bestowed on his people, belongs first of all the return from the land of exile.

Land, people, king and God belong together; the restoration of Israel therefore begins with return from the exile, Am. 9:14, Hos. 11:11, Mich.

4:6, Joel 3:1, Jes. 11:11, Jer. 3:18, Ezech. 11:17 etc. That return will according to the depiction of Isaiah be extraordinarily glorious; the wilderness will bloom like a rose, mountains will be leveled and valleys filled; there will be a highway, on which even the blind cannot go astray,

35:1-9, 41:17-20, 42:15, 16, 43:19, 20 etc. In that return both Israel and Judah will share, Am. 9:9-15, Hos. 1:11, 14:2-9, Jes. 11:13, Jer. 3:6, 18,

31:27, 32:37-40, Ezech. 37:17, 47:13, 21, 48:1-7, 23-29. But to this [429] expectation the return from the Babylonian captivity corresponded only very partially. The post-exilic prophets therefore see in that return only a beginning of the fulfillment of the promises, detach their expectation from a return from the exile, and speak, except Zach. 8:13, no more of the ten tribes; the returnees regarded themselves as the representation of the whole

Israel, Ezr. 6:17. Moreover, all the prophets 5o also apprehend the return from the exile at the same time in an ethical sense, as a conversion of Israel.

Gathering from the peoples and circumcision of the heart go together, Deut.

30:3-6. By no means all will return and convert to the Lord; many, the most, will perish in the judgment which the day of Ihvh will also bring over Israel. The Lord will indeed not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, but He will nevertheless shake it as in a sieve and cause the sinners to die by the sword, Am. 9:8-10. When the Lord brings back Israel and Judah, He will first lead them into the wilderness and there judge with them and purge out the godless, Hos. 2:13, Ezech. 20:34v. Many men will then fall, so that seven women will seize one man, Jes. 3:25-4:1. The destruction is firmly decided, only a remnant will return, Jes. 4:13, 6:13, 7:3, 10:21, 11:11. The Lord will thresh the children of Israel and then gather them up one by one,

Jes. 27:12. He will destroy the proud, but cause a poor and needy people to remain, Zeph. 3: 21, and preserve his work in life, Hab. 3:2. One from a city and two from a clan will be brought back, Jer. 3:14, two parts will be cut off but the third part will be refined, Zach. 13:8, 9. But these remaining ones will then be to the Lord a holy people, which He betroths to himself for eternity, Hos. 1:10, 12, 2:15, 18, 22, Jes. 4:3, 4, 11:9. The Lord forgives them all iniquity, washes them from all their uncleanness, gives them a new heart, pours out his Spirit upon all, causes all idolatry and sorcery to disappear from her midst, and establishes a new covenant with them, Mich.

5:11-14, Joel 2:28, Jes. 44:21-23, 43:25, Jer. 31:31, Ezech. 11:19, 36:25-28, 37:14, Zach. 13:2 etc. An unclean person will no longer be among them,

Jes. 52:1, 11, 12; all of them are his righteous ones, Jes. 60:21, who, taught by God, know Him, trust in his name [430] and do no injustice or speak lies, Jes. 54:13, Jer. 31:31, Zeph. 3:12, 13. Everything will be holy there, even to the bells of the horses, Zach. 14:20, 21. For the glory of the Lord has risen over them, Zach. 2:5, Jes. 60:1, and God himself dwells among them, Ob. 21, Joel 3:17, Hos. 2:22, Zach. 2:10, 8:8 etc. These spiritual benefits 6o for Oldtest. prophecy include the expectation of the restoration of temple and worship. According to Obadiah there will be deliverance on Zion; there dwell the saviors, who will protect Israel and judge its enemies, vs. 17, 21. Joel prophesies that the Lord will dwell on Zion, his holy mountain and that Jerusalem will be a holiness, which will no longer be accessible to strangers and will be of eternal duration, 3:17, 20. Amos expects that the cities of Palestine will be rebuilt and inhabited and that Israel will nevermore be driven out of it, 9:14, 15. Micah proclaims that, although Zion will also be plowed like a field and Jerusalem will become a heap of stones, 3:12, yet the mountain of the house of the Lord will be

established on the top of the mountains, that from Zion the law will go forth and the Lord's word from Jerusalem, and that the Lord will dwell on Zion,

4:1, 2, 7, 7:11. The same thought is expressed by Isaiah, 2:2, who moreover adds to it that Zion and Jerusalem, kingship and priesthood, temple and altar, sacrifices and feast days will be restored, 28:16, 30:19, 33:5, 35:10,

52:1, 56:6, 7, 60:7, 61:6, 66:20-23. Likewise Jeremiah expects that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, the Lord's throne established there, and the worship in the temple renewed, 3:16, 17, 30:18, 31:38, 33:18,21. Haggai predicts that the glory of the second temple will be greater than that of the first, 2:6-10, and Zechariah proclaims that Jerusalem will be rebuilt and expanded, that priesthood and temple will be renewed and that God will dwell in Jerusalem in the midst of his people, 1:17, 2:1-5, 3:1-8, 6:9-15,

8:3v. But by none of the prophets is this image of the future worked out so minutely as by Ezekiel. After he in chap. 34-37 has said that Israel and Judah will again be gathered by the Lord, accepted as his possession as one people under the one shepherd from David's house and endowed with a new heart and a new spirit, and then in chap. 38 and 39 has predicted that Israel, returned to its land, has yet to endure one last attack of Gog from Magog, he gives in chap. 40-48 a developed delineation of the Palestine of the future. The land on the west side of the Jordan will be divided by parallel lines into almost equal strips. The upper seven are inhabited by the tribes Dan, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Ephraim, Reuben, Judah, and the lower five by Benjamin, Simeon, Issachar, Zebulun and Gad. Between these upper and lower parts of the land a strip of land is set apart for the Lord. In the middle of this strip 25000 cubits wide and long lies a high mountain; and upon it is built the temple filled with the glory of the Lord, which amounts to 500 cubits square and is surrounded by a space of 500 cubits on

each side. Around it the priests, who all must be sons of Zadok, receive in the south and the Levites in the north their dwelling-place of 25000 cubits length and 10000 cubits breadth, while in the east and west a portion of the holy strip is assigned to the prince. The city Jerusalem is separated from the temple and lies to the south of the land that is assigned to the priests, in a plain of 25000 cubits length and 5000 cubits breadth. On each side of the city there are in the wall three gates, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. At the great feasts all Israel comes to the temple to sacrifice, but to the Heathen access to the temple is forbidden. If Israel thus lives according to God's ordinances, it will enjoy rich blessing; from under the threshold of the temple door flows a brook, which continually deepens itself, makes the land fruitful and even makes the water of the dead sea wholesome; and on its banks stands tree-growth, whose fruits serve for food and whose leaves serve for healing.

With these spiritual benefits there come 7o all kinds of material blessings.

Israel will dwell in safety under the prince of peace from David's house.

There will be war no more; bow and sword are broken, Hos. 2:17, horses and chariots destroyed, fortresses demolished, Mich. 5:9, 19, swords beaten into spades and spears into sickles, and all will sit down under their vine and fig tree, Jes. 2:4, Mich. 4:3, 4, for the kingdom is the Lord's and He is their strength, Ob. 21, Joel 3:16, 17. The land will receive an extraordinary fertility, so that the mountains drip with sweet wine and the hills [432] flow with milk; a fountain, going forth from the house of the Lord, will moisten the dry land and recreate the wilderness into an Eden; the evil beast will have been driven away, enemies will no longer rob the harvest, and all the trees, refreshed at the right time by gentle rain, will bear fruit abundantly,

Am. 9:13, 14, Hos. 2:17, 20, 21, 14:6, Joel 3:18, Jes. 32:15-20, 51:3, 60:17,

18, 62:8, 9, 65:9, 22, Jer. 31:6, 12-14, Ezech. 34:14, 25, 26, 29, 36:29, 47:112, Zach. 8:12, 14:8, 10. There will even take place a great reversal in the whole of nature; the animals receive another nature, Jes. 11:6-8, 65:25, heaven and earth are renewed and the former things are no more remembered, Jes. 34:4, 51:6, 65:17, 66:22; sun and moon are changed, the light of the moon becomes like the sun and the light of the sun is strengthened sevenfold, Jes. 30:26; indeed sun and moon cease, it becomes one single day, for the Lord will be for an everlasting light, Jes. 60:19, 20,

Zach. 14:6, 7. And also in the world of men the change will be great. When Israel shall have been gathered, Palestine will resound with people, Mich.

2:12, 13; the seed of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, and especially that of David's house and of the Levites will be multiplied, Hos.

1:10, Jes. 9:2, Jer. 3:16, 33:22. Because of the multitude of men and of beasts Jerusalem will not be measurable and will have to be inhabited village-wise, Zach. 2:1-4. This wondrous increase has various causes. Many

Israelites will, when a portion has already been brought back, come to Jerusalem and wish to share in the blessing of Israel, Zach. 2:4-9, 8:7, 8,

Jer. 3:14, 16, 18; indeed, when the messengers of the Lord make that blessing known among the Gentiles, these will bring the Israelites still dwelling among them in wagons and sedan-chairs, with horses, mules, and swift runners to Jerusalem, Jes. 66:19, 20. Further, the deceased Israelites also will share in those blessings. All Israel can be said to have been brought back from death into life, Hos. 6:2, 13:14, Jes. 25:8, Ezech. 37:114, but specifically Isaiah, 26:19 and Daniel, 12:2, proclaim that also the slain Israelites will rise and at least in part will awake to eternal life. And finally, all citizens of the kingdom of God will reach a great age. There will no longer be there an infant of [433] only a few days, nor an old man who

does not fill up his days, for he who dies as a lad will be a hundred years old, and the sinner who dies a hundred years old will be regarded as having been struck by a curse on account of his sin and therefore as having died so early, Jes. 65:20, cf. Zach. 8:4, 5. Also there will be no more sickness and no mourning and crying, 25:8, 30:19, 65:19, indeed the Lord will destroy death and swallow it up unto victory, 25:8. Finally 8o the Gentiles also will share in that blessing of the kingdom of God. Through the whole Old Test. prophecy runs the thought that God will avenge the blood of His servants upon His enemies. Therefore the prophets announce God's judgments upon various peoples, Philistia, Tyre, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Asshur, Babylon.

But those judgments nevertheless do not tend to destruction but to the salvation of the Gentiles; in Abraham's seed all the peoples of the earth are blessed. To be sure, with one prophet more the political side of this subjection of the Gentiles under Israel comes to the foreground, and with another the religious, spiritual side. But all nevertheless expect that the dominion of the Messiah will extend to all peoples, cf. Ps. 2, 21, 24, 45, 46,

47, 48, 68, 72, 86, 89, 96, 98 etc. Israel will possess the Gentiles as an inheritance, Am. 9:12, Ob. 17-21; they will indeed be judged, Joel 3:2-15, but whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved, for on Zion there is deliverance, 2:32. The Ruler from Bethlehem will be great unto the ends of the earth and will protect Israel against his enemies, Mich. 5:3v., but the Gentiles will nevertheless go to Zion, in order to learn the ways of the Lord, 4:1, 2. After the Lord has destroyed all the gods of the peoples, Zef.

2:4-11, 3:8, the islands of the Gentiles will bow before Him, and He will give all peoples pure lips, to call upon His name, 2:11, 3:9. Ethiopia will bring the Lord gifts in Zion, Jes. 18:7, Egyptians and Assyrians will serve

Him, 19:18-25, Tyre will hand over her wages to the Lord, 23:15-18, and

for all peoples He will prepare on Zion a fat meal, 25:6-10; indeed the servant of the Lord will also be a light of the Gentiles, make the glory of the Lord known through his messengers also among the peoples of the earth, and also be served by these; the house of the Lord will be a house of prayer for all peoples; all will bring sacrifices there, worship the Lord and call themselves by [434] His name, and pasture Israel's flock and build his fields, while the Israelites can devote themselves as priests wholly to the service of Ihvh, 40-66 passim. When Israel is restored and Jerusalem will be the Lord's throne, all the Gentiles will there be gathered for the name of the Lord, bless themselves in the Lord and glory in Him, Jer. 3:17, 4:2, 16:1921, 33:9. All peoples will at the end acknowledge that the Lord is God,

Ezech. 16:61, 17:24, 25:5v., 26:6, 28:22, 29:6, 30:8v. All the Gentiles will bring their precious things to Jerusalem and fill the house of the Lord with glory, Hagg. 2:7-10. They will come and say: let us go, to entreat the face of the Lord; and ten men will grasp the skirt of a Jewish man and wish to go with him, because God is with him, Zach. 2:11, 8:20-23, 14:16-19. The people of the saints receives the dominion over all nations of the earth, Dan.

7:14, 27. Cf. the literature, listed part III 232 and for the Messianic expectations among the Jews in Jesus' time: Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes im Zeitalter J. Chr. 3te Aufl. II 496-556.

3. These Messianic expectations of the Old Testament bear, as everyone immediately sees, a very peculiar character; they confine themselves to a future blessedness on earth. In the O. T. the believer may on a single occasion express his hope that after his death he will be received into eternal glory, this expectation is individual and stands by itself; generally the eye of prophecy is directed toward that future in which the people of Israel under the king from David's house will dwell safely in Palestine and

will rule over all the nations of the earth. Of a taking up of the believers at the end of the times into the heaven of glory there is no mention, blessedness is expected not in heaven but on earth. In connection with that,

Old-Test. prophecy knows only one coming of the Messiah. Indeed it knows that the Anointed One will be born from David's house, when this house has fallen into decay, and that He will have a share in the suffering of his people, yes that He as servant of the Lord will suffer for his people and bear their iniquities; He will be a wholly different king than the princes of the earth, humble, meek, doing justice, protecting his people; He [435] will be not only king but at the same time prophet and priest. But Old-Test. prophecy never separates in the life of the Messiah the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation from one another; it comprehends both in one image; it distinguishes no first and second coming and does not place the latter, which is for judgment, a long time after the first, which serves for salvation. It is one coming, in which the Messiah bestows righteousness and blessedness upon his people and brings it to dominion over all the peoples of the earth. The kingdom, which He comes to found, is therefore also the completed Kingdom of God. He Himself will indeed reign as king over his people but He is then nevertheless nothing more than a theocratic king, who does not rule arbitrarily but in the absolute sense realizes God's government. Old-Test. prophecy makes no distinction between a Christgovernment and a God-government; it does not expect that the Messiah from David's house, after having ruled temporarily, hands over his kingdom to God; it does not regard the future, which it depicts in the Messianic kingdom, as an intermediate condition, which at the end must give way to a God-government in heaven; it considers the Messianic kingdom as the final state and clearly lets the judgment over the enemies, the repelling of the last

attack, the transformation of nature, the resurrection from the dead precede the founding and confirmation of this kingdom. And this kingdom is sketched by all the prophets in paints and colors, under forms and images, which are all borrowed from the historical circumstances under which they lived. Palestine will be retaken, Jerusalem rebuilt, the temple with its sacrificial service restored, Edom and Moab and Ammon, Assur and Babel subdued, to all citizens a long life, a quiet sitting under vine and fig tree will be granted; the image of the future is through and through OldTestamentary, it is wholly and entirely historically and nationally determined. But into those earthly, sensuous forms prophecy lays an eternal content; the shell becomes bearer of an imperishable kernel, which also in the O. Test. sometimes breaks through it. Return from the exile and true conversion coincide; the religious and the political side of Israel's victory over the enemies are most closely connected; the Messiah is an earthly prince but also an eternal king, a king of righteousness, an eternal father for his people, a prince of peace, a priest-king; [436] the enemies are subjected to Israel but recognize therein that the Lord is God and serve Him in his temple; this temple with its priesthood and sacrificial service are the visible proof that all citizens of the kingdom with a new heart and a new spirit serve the Lord and walk in his ways; and the extraordinary fertility of the land presupposes an entire transformation of nature, the creation of a new heaven and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Later Judaism introduced all kinds of modifications into these Old Test. expectations. Deprived of its political dominion and scattered among the peoples, it began more and more to take account of the future lot of individuals and extended its horizon to humanity and to the whole world.

Israel would indeed one day, on the ground of its own legalistic

righteousness, be brought by the Messiah to a political dominion over all peoples; but this Messianic kingdom bore a provisional, temporary character and at the end would make way for a kingdom of God, for a blessedness of the righteous in heaven, which was introduced by the resurrection of all men and by the general judgment of the world. The political and the religious side, which in the prophetic image of the future were most closely united, were in that way torn apart. Israel in Jesus' days expected a sensuous, earthly Messianic kingdom, the condition of which was described in the forms and images of Old Test. prophecy. But these images and forms were now taken in a literal sense; the shell was exchanged with the kernel, the thing with the image, the essence with the form; the Messianic kingdom became a political dominion of Israel over the peoples, a period of outward prosperity and flourishing. And at the end of that, only after the general resurrection, the world-judgment took place, in which each one was judged according to his works and either received the blessedness in heaven as reward or the torment in the gehenna as punishment for his deeds. In that way the doctrine of Chiliasm arose. To be sure, a great portion of the Jewish apocryphal literature still remains with the Old Test. expectations. But often, especially in the Apoc. of Baruch and in the fourth book of Ezra, the representation nevertheless occurs, that the glory of the Messianic kingdom is not the last and the highest, but after a definite time, which is many times [437] calculated and in the Talmud e.g. set at 400 or at 1000 years, will make way for the heavenly blessedness of the kingdom of God. Chiliasm is therefore not of Christian but of Jewish and furthermore also of Persian origin, above p. 426. It always rests on a compromise between the expectations of an earthly and of a heavenly blessedness and attempts to let Old Test. prophecy come into its own in that

sense, that it deems an earthly Messianic kingdom to be predicted by it, which after a determined time will be replaced by the kingdom of God. The strength of Chiliasm now seems indeed to be the Old Testament, but in fact this is not so; the Old Testament is decidedly not chiliastic, it depicts in the Messianic kingdom the completed kingdom of God, which is without end and endures eternally, Dan. 2:44, and which is preceded by judgment, resurrection, and renewal of the world. Nevertheless it found belief among the Jews and also among many Christians and repeatedly came up again, when the world developed its God-hostile power and caused the church to suffer under persecution and oppression. In the oldest time we encounter it with Cerinthus, in the testament of the XII patriarchs, with the Ebionites, with Barnabas, Papias, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Apollinaris, Commodianus,

Lactantius, Victorinus. But Montanism admonished to caution; Gnostics, Alexandrian theologians and especially also Augustine opposed it most strongly, and the changed condition of the church, which had overcome the world-power and held itself more and more for the kingdom of God on earth, caused it gradually to die out entirely. Anew it came up before and during the Reformation, when many began to regard Rome as the false whore and the pope as the antichrist; it revived with the Anabaptists, the Davidjorists, the Socinians, and since then has no longer died out, although the official churches rejected it. The political commotions, the religious wars, the persecutions, the sectarian movements repeatedly granted it new life. In Bohemia it was preached by Paul Felgenhauer and Comenius; in Germany by Jakob Böhme, Ezechiel Meth, Gichtel, Petersen, Horche,

Spener, J. Lange, S. König; in England by Joh. Archer, Newton, Joseph Mede, Jane Leade and many Independents; in the Netherlands by Labadie,

Ant. Bourignon, Poiret etc. Even Reformed theologians inclined to a

moderate Chiliasm, such as Piscator, Alsted, Jurieu, Burnet, Whiston, Serarius, [438] Coccejus, Groenewegen, Jac. Alting, d'Outrein, Vitringa,

Brakel, Jungius, Mommers e. a., cf. H. Brinck, Touchstone of truth and opinions 1691 p. 656v. Voetius, Disp. II 1266-1272. Maresius, Syst. Theol.

VIII 38. Moor VI 155. M. Vitringa IX. Marck, Exspectatio gloriae futurae Jesu Christi, 2 tomi, L. B. 1730. In the 18th and 19th century, under the pressure of the social and political revolutions, it found acceptance not only with the Swedenborgians, the Darbyists, the Irvingians, the Mormons, the Adventists etc., but after the realistic direction, taken up by Bengel,

Oetinger, Ph. M. Hahn, J. M. Hahn, Hasenkamp, Menken, Jung-Stilling, J.

F. von Meyer etc., it was also embraced by many theologians in the churches of the Reformation, such as Rothe, Theol. Ethik § 586 f.

Hofmann, Weiss. u. Erf. II 372 f. Delitzsch, Die bibl. proph. Theol. 6 f.

Beck, Christl. Gl. II. Auberlen, Der Prophet Daniel und die Offenb. Joh. 2e Aufl. 1857 S. 372 f. Martensen, Dogm. § 280. Lange, Dogm. II 1271 f.

Luthardt, Die Lehre v. d. letzten Dingen3 1885. Komp. d. Dogm. § 76.

Frank, Chr. Wahrh. II 463 f. Vilmar, Dogm. II 307. Ebrard, Dogm. § 572 f.

Oosterzee, Dogm. § 146. Saussaye, cf. my Theol. v. Ch. d. l. S. 71. Bogue, Speeches on the thousand-year kingdom, Gron. 1825. Guers, Israel's future and restoration together with a sketch of the thousand-year kingdom Amst.

1863. John Cumming, The great tribulation Amst. 1861. Id. Deliverance near 1862. Id. The thousand-year rest 1863. Id. Considerations on the thousand-year kingdom 1866 etc. Seiss, The coming Christ, Brussels 1892.

Art. Chiliasmus in Herzog3 3, 805-817 and the literature cited there.

4. The fundamental ideas of Chiliasm are virtually the same in almost all; they come down to this, that a twofold return of Christ and a double resurrection are to be distinguished; that Christ at his first return will

overcome the antichristian power, bind Satan, raise the deceased believers, gather the church, in particular the church of the converted Israel brought back to Palestine, around himself, rule over the world from out of that church, and will cause for his people a period of spiritual flourishing and material prosperity to dawn; and that He at the end of that time will return once more, in order to raise all men from the dead, [439] to judge them before his judgment-seat and to determine their eternal lot. But these fundamental ideas nevertheless allow all kinds of modifications. The beginning of the thousand-year kingdom was determined differently; following the Epistle of Barnabas many church fathers and later also the Cocceians taught that it would begin with the seventh millennium of the world; the Fifth-monarchmen had it begin after the fall of the fourth worldkingdom; Hippolytus set its beginning in the year 500, Groenewegen in 1700, Whiston in 1715 and later in 1766, Jurieu in 1785, Bengel in 1836,

Stilling in 1816 etc. The duration was fixed at 400 (4 Ezra) or 500 (Evang. van Nicodemus) or a thousand (Talmud etc.) or twice a thousand (Bengel) or only 7 (Darby) or also an indeterminate number of years, so that the number in Op. 20:2, 3 is taken symbolically (Rothe, Martensen, Lange etc.).

Some think that for the establishment of the thousand-year kingdom there will be no return of Christ (Kurtz); or at least no visible return (Darby), or a return visible only to the believers (Irving) will take place, and that no resurrection of the believers before the millennium ought to be assumed

(Bengel). Many do assume that Christ after his first return remains on earth, but others are of the opinion that He only appears for a moment, in order to establish his kingdom and thereafter withdraws again into heaven. The government of Christ in the millennium takes place according to Piscator,

Alsted etc. from out of heaven. In that dominion then share the risen

martyrs, who either were taken up into heaven (Piscator) or remained behind on earth (Alsted), or all the risen believers, who remain here on earth (Justinus, Irenaeus etc.) or who at his appearing in the clouds are led to meet Christ in the air (Irving), or especially the people Israel. For generally the chiliasts expect a national conversion of Israel, and most imagine that the converted Israel will be brought back to Palestine and there will be the principal citizens of the thousand-year kingdom (Jurieu,

Oetinger, Hofmann, Auberlen etc.). If one assumes a remaining of Christ on earth after his first return, one usually designates the rebuilt Jerusalem as his dwelling-place, although the Montanists formerly thought of Pepuza and the Mormons now think of their Salt Lake Valley. Restoration of temple and altar, of priesthood and sacrifice was as a rule, as all [440] too clearly in conflict with the New Testament, rejected, but nevertheless still found defense among the Ebionites and in more recent times with Serarius,

Oetinger, Hess and others. Of the character and condition of the thousandyear kingdom one forms very different conceptions. Sometimes it is described as a kingdom of sensual enjoyments (Cerinthus, Ebionites etc.); then again it is conceived more spiritually, and all enjoyment of food and drink, all marriage and procreation removed from it (Burnet, Lavater,

Rothe, Ebrard). Most often the millennium is regarded as a transitional state between the Diesseits and the Jenseits; it is a kingdom in which the believers are prepared for the vision of God (Irenaeus); in which they enjoy rest and peace, without yet being wholly delivered from sin and raised above death; in which nature (Irenaeus) and also men (Lactantius) will be extraordinarily fruitful; and in which, according to a later favorite thought, the church will especially accomplish her missionary work to humanity

(Lavater, Ebrard, Auberlen etc.). All these modifications formulate just as

many objections against Chiliasm; already before the prophecy of the Old Testament, to which it preferably appeals, it cannot stand. For, apart from the fact that, as has already been said above, the Old Testament in the Messianic kingdom sees not a preliminary, temporal condition but the final result of world history, Chiliasm in the explanation of prophecy makes itself guilty of the greatest arbitrariness. It doubles the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, without the Old Testament knowing anything of it.

It lacks every rule and method in interpretation and arbitrarily comes to a halt, according to the subjective opinion of the interpreter. The prophets all proclaim just as loudly and just as powerfully, not only the conversion of Israel and of the nations, but also the return to Palestine, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the restoration of temple, priesthood and sacrificial service etc.

And it is nothing but arbitrariness to take one feature of this picture literally and the other spiritually. It is one picture of the future that prophecy draws for us. And this picture is either to be taken literally, as it presents itself, but then one breaks with Christianity and falls back into Judaism; or there is to be given of this picture a wholly different explanation than Chiliasm attempts. Such an explanation is [441] given to us by Scripture itself and must by us be derived from it.

5. Already in the Old Test. there are many indications of another and better explanation than Chiliasm offers of the prophetic expectations. Even the modern historical view of Israel acknowledges that the Jahvism of the prophets, by its moral character, distinguishes itself from the naturereligions and gradually has bestowed upon the religious laws and usages in Israel a spiritual significance. The true circumcision is that of the heart,

Deut. 10:16, 30:6, Jer. 4:4; the sacrifices that are pleasing to God are a broken heart and a contrite spirit, 1 Sam. 15:22, Ps. 40:7, 50:8v., 51:19,

Hos. 6:6, Am. 5:21v., Mich. 6:6v., Jes. 1:11v., Jer. 6:20, 7:21v. etc.; the true fasting is the loosening of the bonds of ungodliness, Jes. 58:3v., Jer. 14:12; for a great part the struggle of the prophets is directed against the external, self-righteous cultus of the people. The essence of the dispensation of the future therefore consists in this, that the Lord will establish a new covenant with his people, that He will grant them a new heart and will write his law therein, and that He will pour out his Spirit upon all, so that they love Him with their whole heart and walk in his ways, Deut. 30:6, Jer. 31:32, 32:38v.,

Ezech. 11:19, 36:26, Joel 2:28, Zach. 12:10. And indeed that future is now depicted in images borrowed from the historical circumstances, so that Zion and Jerusalem, temple and altar, sacrifice and priesthood continue to occupy a great place therein. But 1o let one consider that we too do the same and cannot speak of God and divine matters, of spiritual and heavenly things, otherwise than in earthly, sensible forms. The Oldtest. worship-service has also been instituted by God for this purpose, that we might be able to speak truly of the heavenly things not in self-made but in correct images given to us by Him himself. The New Test. therefore also adopts this manner of speaking and speaks in the future Kingdom of God of Zion and Jerusalem, of temple and altar, of prophets and priests; the earthly is an image of the heavenly, Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichniss. Let one 2o not forget that all prophecy is poetry, which must be explained according to its own nature. The error [442] of the exegesis formerly prevailing consisted not in its spiritualizing as such, but rather in this, that it wished to convert all details serving for illustration into a spiritual sense and thereby, as also with the parables of Jesus, often lost sight of the main thought. If, e.g., it is said that the Lord will raise up a twig from the hewn-down trunk of Isaiah, that He will exalt the mountain of Zion upon the top of the mountains, that He

will bring back of the banished one out of a city and two out of a family, that He will sprinkle clean water upon all and cleanse them from their sins, that He will cause the mountains to drip with sweet wine and the hills to flow with milk etc., then everyone feels that he has here to do with a poetic description, which cannot or may not be taken literally. The realistic explanation here comes into conflict with itself and fails to recognize the character of prophecy. Nor is it 3o correct that the prophets themselves would have been absolutely not conscious of the distinction between thing and image. Not only are the above-mentioned poetic circumlocutions without doubt understood by the prophets as image, but with the names of Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom, Moab, Philistea, Egypt, Assur, Babel they more than once designate the power of the heathen world, which will once be subjected to Israel and will share in its blessings, Ob. 16, 17, Jes. 34:5,

Ezech. 16:46v., Dan. 2, 7v., Zach. 14:21. Zion is often the name for the people, for the congregation of God, Jes. 49:14, 50:1, 51:3, 52:1, 54:1. And although Oldtest. prophecy cannot imagine the future Kingdom of God without temple and sacrifice, yet it repeatedly goes beyond all national and earthly relations and proclaims that there will no longer be an ark of the covenant, because all Jerusalem is God's throne, Jer. 3:16, 17, that the kingdom of the Messiah will be eternal and will encompass the whole world, Ps. 2:8, 72:8, 17, Dan. 2:44, that all inhabitants will be prophets and priests, Jes. 54:13, 61:6, Jer. 31:31, that all uncleanness and sin, all sickness and death will be banished from it, 25:8, 33:24, 52:1, 11, Zach. 14:20, 21,

Ps. 104:35, that it will be established in a new heaven and on a new earth, and will no longer have need of sun or moon, Jes. 60:19, 20, 65:17, 66:22.

Even the realistic picture of the future of Ezekiel contains elements that make a symbolic explanation necessary; the equal portions that are assigned

to all [443] tribes, although very different in numerical strength; the measured strips that are destined for priests, Levites, and prince; the separation of temple and city, the high situation of the temple on a mountain and the brook that flows from under the threshold of the eastern temple door to the Dead Sea; and finally the artificial composition and the practical unfeasibility, they oppose a so-called realistic interpretation. Finally 4o in the exegesis of the Old Testament the question is not whether the prophets were wholly or in part conscious of the symbolic character of their predictions, for even in the word of classical writers there lies more than they themselves have thought of it or have meant by it. But rather the question is what the Spirit of Christ, who was in them, wished thereby to testify and to reveal. That is now decided by the New Testament, which is the completion, the fulfillment and therefore the explanation of the Old, for in the fruit the nature of the tree becomes manifest. Even modern criticism acknowledges that not Judaism but that Christianity is the full realization of the religion of the prophets.

On this there can surely be no doubt, that the N. Testament regards itself as the spiritual and thus as the perfect and true fulfilment of the Old

Testament. The spiritualizing of the O. T., provided it is understood in a good sense, is not an invention of Christian theology, but has taken its beginning in the N. T. itself. The spiritualized Old Testament, that is, the Old Testament stripped of its temporal, sensuous form, is the New

Testament. The peculiarity of the old dispensation was precisely that the covenant of grace was presented under perceptible images and clothed in national, sensuous forms. Sin was symbolized in Levitical uncleanness.

Atonement was effected by the offering of a slaughtered animal. Cleansing was foreshadowed in bodily washings. Communion with God was bound to

going up to Jerusalem. Need of God's favour and nearness expressed itself in a longing for his courts. Eternal life was conceived as a long life on earth etc. All that was spiritual, heavenly, and eternal was, in accordance with the capacity of Israel, which as a child was placed under the discipline of the law, veiled in earthly shadows. Although the great mass of the people [444] often remained with those outward forms, just as many Christians in the sacrament remain stuck to the sign, the pious Israelites did indeed penetrate with their hearts to the spiritual kernel that was hidden in the shell, but yet they too saw that spiritual only in shadow and image. Therefore the New

Testament says that the Old was σκια των μελλοντων, το δε σωμα Χριστου, Col. 2:17, ὑποδειγμα και σκια των ἐπουρανιων, Hebr. 8:5. The shadow is not the body, but nevertheless points to the body, and falls away when this itself has come. The New Testament is the truth, the essence, the kernel, the actual content of the Old Testament; Vetus Test. in Novo patet, Novum Test. in Vetere latet. Therefore in the N. Test. there is so often mention of the truth. Over against the law, which was given through Moses, stands the truth, which has come in Jesus Christ, Joh. 1:14, 17. He is the truth, Joh.

14:6; the Spirit, whom he sent out, is the Spirit of truth, Joh. 16:13, 1 Joh.

5:6; the word of God, which he preached, is the word of truth, Joh. 17:17; the saving good promised and foreshadowed under the O. Test. has in Christ become manifest for all as eternal, true reality; all the promises of God are in him yea and amen, 2 Cor. 1:20; the Old Testament has not been abolished but has in the new dispensation come to its fulfilment and in it still always continues to come to fulfilment up to the parousia of Christ. Christ is therefore the true prophet, priest, and king; the genuine servant of the Lord, the true propitiatory sacrifice, Rom. 3:25, the true circumcision, Col. 2:11, the true pascha, 1 Cor. 5:7, the true offering, Ef. 5:2, and his church is the

true seed of Abraham, the true Israel, the true people of God, Mt. 1:21, Luk.

1:17, Rom. 9:25, 26, 2 Cor. 6:16-18, Gal. 3:29, Tit. 2:14, Hebr. 8:8-10, Jak.

1:1, 18, 1 Petr. 2:9, Op. 21:3, 12, the true temple of God, 1 Cor. 3:16, 2 Cor.

6:16, Ef. 2:22, 2 Thess. 2:4, Hebr. 8:2, the true Zion and Jerusalem, Gal.

4:26, Hebr. 12:22, Op. 3:12, 21:2, 10; her spiritual offering is the true religion, Joh. 4:24, Rom. 12:1, Phil. 3:3, 4:18, cf. deel III 217. All concepts of the Old Testament lay aside their outward, national-Israelite meaning and become manifest in their spiritual, eternal sense; the Semitic no longer needs, as Bunsen wished, to be [445] translated by us into the Japhetic; the N. Test. itself has given to the particularistic ideas of the O. Test. a universalistic, cosmic meaning. Completely wrong, therefore, is the view of Chiliasm, according to which the N. Test. with the church from the Gentiles is an intermezzo, a side-path, which God has taken because Israel rejected its Messiah, so that the actual continuation and fulfilment of the Old

Testament would only begin at the second coming of Christ. Rather, the reverse is true. Not the New, but the Old Testament is an interlude. The covenant with Israel is temporal, the law has been inserted between the promise to Abraham and its fulfilment in Christ, in order that it might increase the transgression and as a tutor might lead to Christ, Rom. 5:20,

Gal. 3:19. Therefore Paul always goes back to Abraham, Rom. 4:11v., Gal.

3:6v., and attaches his gospel to the promise that was made to him.

Abraham is the father of the believers, of all believers, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles, Rom. 4:11; the children of the promise are his seed; Rom. 9:6-8; the blessing of Abraham comes in Christ to the Gentiles, Gal. 3:14; those who are of Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise, Gal. 3:29. The people of Israel are in the days of the O. Test. chosen temporarily, in order that salvation would presently, in

the fullness of time, come to the benefit of the whole world. Israel is not chosen to the detriment but to the benefit of the nations. The promise to Adam and Noah had from its first beginning a universalistic tendency and has this, after laying aside its temporal, legal form under Israel, in Christ fully revealed for all nations. The veil has been torn, the dividing wall has fallen, the handwriting of the law has been nailed to the cross; and now the believers from the Gentiles are with those from the Jews co-heirs, fellowcitizens of the saints, members of God's household, brought near in Christ, and built upon the same foundation of apostles and prophets, Ef. 1:9-11,

2:11-22. The New Testament is therefore no intermezzo, no interlude, no side-path, no deviation from the line of the O. Covenant, but the longforeseen goal, the direct continuation, the true fulfilment of the Old

Testament. Chiliasm, judging otherwise, comes into conflict with Christianity itself. In principle considered, [446] it is one with Judaism and must come to ascribe to Christianity, to the historical person of Christ, to his suffering and death, a temporal, passing value and to expect the actual salvation only from Christ's second coming, from his appearing in glory.

Just like Judaism, it subordinates the spiritual to the material, the ethical to the physical, stiffens the Jews in their fleshly disposition, excuses their rejection of the Messiah, makes heavier the veil that lies upon their face in the reading of the Old Testament, and promotes the imagination that the fleshly descendant of Abraham will still as such have a prerogative in the kingdom of heaven. Scripture, however, says that the true reading and explanation of the O. Test. is to be found with him who has been converted to the Lord Christ, 2 Cor. 3:14-16, that he is a Jew who is one inwardly and partakes of the circumcision of the heart, Rom. 2:29, that in Christ there is no male or female, no Jew or Greek, but that they all are one in Christ

Jesus, 1 Cor. 12:13, Gal. 3:28, Col. 3:11. The Jew who becomes a Christian, was not but became through his faith a child of Abraham, Gal. 3:29. Cf. against Chiliasm: Augustine, de civ. XX c. 6-9. Luther in Köstlin II 564 f.

Gerhard, Loc. XXIX c. 7. Quenstedt, Theol. IV 649. Calvin, Inst. III 25, 5.

Walaeus, Op. I 537-554. Voetius, Disp. II 1248-1272. Turretinus, Theol. El.

XX qu 3. Moor VI 149-162. Hengstenberg in his comm. on the Revelation of John. Keil on Ezekiel 1868 S. 495 f. Kliefoth, Eschatologie 1886 S. 147 f. Philippi, Kirchl. Gl. VI 214 f. Hodge, Syst. Theol. III 805-812. 861-866.

Kuyper, Heraut 981-1003 etc.

6. Although with this, in general, the result already stands completely established, that the New Testament is antichiliastic, Kuenen, Prof. II 271, this must nevertheless still be demonstrated more closely in particulars.

Chiliasm includes the expectation that, toward the return of Christ, a national conversion of Israel will take place, that the Jews will then return to Palestine, and from there will rule over the nations under Christ. In this there is among the chiliasts a difference as to whether the conversion will precede the return or this will precede that, [447] cf. e.g. Guers, Israels toekomst en herstel 171. Because it is difficult to think that the scattered

Jews would first be converted successively and then together conceive the plan to go to Palestine, some think that the Jews will first gradually return to Canaan and then later be converted to Christ there jointly, or others try to unite both views in such a way that first a great part of the Jews move to Palestine, and that these, after first restoring city and temple and worship and thereafter being converted to Christ, are gradually followed by their other fellow-nationals. And they point out that this expectation is already being fulfilled initially. There are already thousands of Jews in Palestine; the Eastern question is approaching its solution, for Turkey owes its

existence only to the mutual jealousy of the great powers; and if Turkey is once destroyed, then there is every chance that Palestine will be assigned to the Jews, to whom it rightfully belongs; furthermore, in many Jews, as appears from the Zionism that has arisen in recent times, there works a desire to return to Palestine and to form an independent kingdom there; and finally the great improvement of the means of transport, which one already considers predicted in Nah. 2:3, 4, Jes. 11:16, 66:20, also makes such a return simple and easy. However one may now judge about these political combinations, the New Testament offers not the least support for such an expectation. When the fullness of time had come, the Jews, considered as a people, stood on one line with the Gentiles; they were together condemnable before God, because they sought to establish a righteousness of their own from the law and rejected the righteousness that is from faith,

Rom. 3:21. Therefore God sent John to them with the baptism of repentance and had it announced to them in it that they, although being circumcised and baptizing proselytes, themselves stood guilty and unclean before his face and, just as much as the Gentiles, had need of regeneration and conversion in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven. By baptism John already separated the true Israelites from the mass of the people. And Jesus continued on this track; He took over the baptism of John and had it administered by his disciples. Indeed, like John, He at first came forward with the preaching that the kingdom [448] of God had come near. But He conceived that kingdom quite differently from his contemporaries; He understood by it not a political but a religious-ethical dominion and taught that no fleshly descent from Abraham but only regeneration from water and spirit opened access to that kingdom of heaven, part III 232v. Thereby He gradually gathered around himself a crowd of disciples, which

distinguished itself and separated itself from the people of the Jews. And these were the true ἐκκλησια, the genuine people of God, as Israel ought to have been but now in its rejection of the Messiah showed not to be. This separation between the people of the Jews and the Newtest. ἐκκλησια became sharper and sharper. Indeed there were many who believed in Christ, but the people, led by the Pharisees and scribes, rejected Him.

Although for some unto a resurrection, He was for many unto a fall and unto a sign that was spoken against, Luk. 2:34. He came to his own, but his own have not received Him, Joh. 1:11. Jesus himself says that a prophet is not honored in his fatherland, Mt. 13:17. Time and again He experiences that the Jews do not want to come to Him, Joh. 5:37-47, 6:64; He testifies that they will die in their sins, 8:21, that they are children of the devil, 8:44, plants not planted by the Father, Mt. 15:13, 14, and sees in their unbelief no accidental, unforeseen circumstance but fulfillment of prophecy, Mt.

13:13v., Joh. 12:37v. But not only has Jesus nothing to hope from the Jews in the present, also in the future He expects nothing for them. On the contrary He announces the complete destruction of city and temple, so that no stone will be left upon another, Joh. 2:18-21, Mt. 22:7, 23:37-39, 24:1v.,

Mk. 13, Luk. 21:6v. At his entry into Jerusalem He weeps over the city, Luk. 19:41-44. On the Monday before his death he curses on the way to Bethany the fig tree, which in that it had not yet fruits but indeed already leaves, was an image of the hypocritically pious, self-righteous Israel, and said that no one would eat any fruit from it any more unto eternity, Mk.

11:12-14. On his way to the cross He commands the women not to weep over Him but over Jerusalem, Luk. 23:28. He even preaches that salvation, rejected by Israel, will become the portion of the Gentiles. The kingdom of God will be taken from Israel [449] and given to another people that brings

forth its fruits, Mt. 21:43; the vineyard is rented out to other husbandmen, Mt. 21:41; to the wedding are called those who are at the exits of the roads,

Mt. 22:9; the lost son goes before the eldest son, Luk. 15. And thus He says that many will come from East and West and will sit down with Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, Mt. 8:10-12; that He has yet other sheep that are not of this fold, Joh. 10:16; and rejoices in it that, when some Greeks desire to see Him, He must now fall as a grain of wheat into the earth and die and thus bear much fruit, Joh. 12:24. After his resurrection

He therefore also commands his disciples to preach the gospel to all nations, Mt. 28:18. And we encounter the same judgment about Israel with all apostles. Indeed, as Jesus' witnesses they must begin their labor from Jerusalem, but then continue it to the uttermost part of the earth, Hd. 1:8.

Peter therefore brings the gospel immediately to the Jews, Hd. 2:14, 3:19, 5:31, but sees in a vision that henceforth no one is unclean, but that acceptable to God is everyone who fears Him, from whatever people he may come, Hd. 10:35, 43. Paul always begins his preaching first with the Jews, but turns, when these reject it, to the Gentiles, Hd. 13:46, 18:6, 28:2528. First the Jew, but also the Greek, is the rule that he observes on his missionary journeys, Rom. 1:16, 1 Cor. 1:21-24. For Jews and Gentiles are both condemnable before God and have need of the same gospel, Rom.

3:19v. There is for all only one way to salvation, namely faith, as that was already practiced by Abraham before the law and reckoned to him for righteousness, Rom. 4, Gal. 3. Those of the Jews who reject Christ are no true, genuine Jews, Rom. 2:28, 29; they are not the circumcision but the concision, Phil. 3:2, they are disorderly ones, speakers of vanity, deceivers of minds, whose mouth one must stop, Tit. 1:10, 11; they have killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, they persecute the believers, they do not

please God and are against all men, they hinder the apostles from speaking to the Gentiles, and fill up the measure of their sins, so that wrath has come upon them to its utmost limit and now discharges itself over them, [450] 1

Thess. 2:14-16. The Jews who slander the church of Smyrna indeed say that they are Jews, but they are not, they are much rather a synagogue of Satan,

Op. 2:9, 3:9. Genuine Jews, true children of Abraham are those who believe in Christ, Rom. 9:8, Gal. 3:29 etc. Thus the N. Test. judges about the Jews; the church of believers has in all respects replaced the national, fleshly

Israel; the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New.

7. Only a few passages seem to be in conflict with this continuous doctrine of Scripture and to contain something else. The first passage is Mt.

23:37-39, Luk. 13:33-35, where Jesus says to the inhabitants of Jerusalem that their house will be left desolate, and that they will not see Him until they will say: blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Here Jesus indeed expresses the expectation that the Jews will once, namely at His return, acknowledge Him as Messiah. If now from elsewhere a thousandyear kingdom and a conversion of Israel coinciding with it were established, this passage could be explained accordingly. But since this is not the case, not even in Op. 20, as will appear later, one can here think only of the Messiah-acknowledgment of the Jews at Christ's return for judgment. And until then, Jesus says expressly, Jerusalem will be left desolate; a rebuilding of city and temple is therefore in any case not expected by Jesus before His return. Secondly, Luk. 21:24 comes into consideration, where Jesus says that Jerusalem will be trampled by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled. The conjunction ἀχρι οὑ does not yet include that, at the dawning of the term thereby indicated, the opposite, namely the being rebuilt and inhabited of Jerusalem

by the Jews, will take place. But even if this were so, then Jesus still does not thereby say that an end will come to the trampling of Jerusalem before His parousie, for He immediately, after having pronounced the judgment over Jerusalem, passes over to the discussion of the signs before and at His return, Luk. 21:25v.; the times of the Gentiles continue until His return.

Again, if the N. T. taught a twofold return of Christ, this passage could be interpreted in accordance [451] with it, but it will soon become clear that no ground for that is present in the N. T. The third text that comes into consideration here is Hd. 3:19-21. There Peter exhorts the Jews to conversion, in order that their sins may be blotted out and in order that καιροι ἀναψυξεως, moments of refreshment, may come from the side of the face of the Lord and He, namely God, may send the Christ Jesus destined for you (the Jews), whom heaven must receive until the times of the restoration of all things. Some think that the times of refreshment of which mention is made here will then dawn when the Jewish people are converted and all things are restored again to their original destination in the thousand-year kingdom, and that they will then last until the second return of Jesus. But against this interpretation there is great objection. The χρονοι ἀποκαταστασεως παντων are difficult to understand as the restoration of the natural and moral relations that is expected by the Chiliasts in the millennium, for it is stated clearly that these times are the end point of the sojourn of Jesus in heaven; until then Jesus therefore remains at the Father's right hand, and since Scripture knows only one return of Christ, the times of the restoration of all things coincide with the consummation of the world; moreover, ἀποκαταστασις παντων is far too strong an expression for that restoration of the Jewish kingdom which Chiliasm expects. The times of refreshment are therefore not identical with but precede the times of the

restoration of all things. For Peter indicates a twofold purpose of the conversion of the Jews, in order that times of refreshment may dawn for them and in order that God may send them the Christ destined for them.

The times of refreshment fall before the return of Christ and then refer either to the spiritual peace that is the consequence of conversion and forgiveness of sins, or to certain future times of divine blessing and favor.

The latter is the most probable, because the times of refreshment are connected not immediately with the blotting out of sins but with the sending of Christ. And the thought which Peter here expresses is then this: be converted, O Jews, to the blotting out of your sins, in order that there may also for you as a people, who have delivered up, denied, and killed Christ, vs. [452] 13-15, times of refreshment from God's face dawn and God thereafter may send from heaven that Christ, who in the first place is destined for you and therefore also came first to you, vs. 26, in order also for your salvation to restore all things again. Whether such times will ever dawn for the Jews, Peter does not say; that depends on their conversion, and whether this is to be expected is not mentioned here with a single word.

The last passage is Rom. 11:11-32. In Rom. 9-11 Paul deals with the tremendous problem of how God's promise to Israel is to be reconciled with the rejection of the gospel by the vast majority of Israel. The apostle gives, in the first place, the answer that the promise of God applies not to the fleshly but to the spiritual seed of Abraham, and he works this out at length,

Rom. 9 and 10. And secondly he observes that God also within Israel still always has his elect, and thus has not rejected that people; he himself is proof of this, and many with him; however many may be hardened and blinded, the elect have nevertheless obtained salvation; there is always a remnant according to the election of grace, Rom. 11:1-10. But this

hardening, which has come upon the greater part of Israel, is nevertheless not God's final goal; rather, it is in his hand a means to bring salvation to the Gentiles, in order that these, accepting that salvation in faith, may in their turn provoke Israel again to jealousy, 11:11-15. After having admonished the believers from the Gentiles not to exalt themselves on this account, vv. 16-24, Paul develops this thought still further and says that hardening has come upon a part of Israel, until the pleroma of the Gentiles, the full number of those destined for salvation from among them, shall have been fulfilled. And in that way all Israel shall be saved according to God's promise. The unbelieving Jews are therefore now indeed hated by God in relation to the gospel, so that the salvation rejected by them might come to the Gentiles; but according to the election they are beloved for the fathers' sake, for God's promises are irrevocable. As it has thus gone with the Gentiles, so it will also go with the hardened Jews; the Gentiles were first disobedient and have now become objects of mercy, and so also the Jews are now disobedient, in order that they too, through the mercy shown to the Gentiles, may receive mercy [453]. For God has shut up all, Gentiles and Jews, under sin, in order that He might have mercy on them all, vv. 25-32.

Most interpreters think that the question whether God has rejected his people, 11:1, is not fully answered by the fact that God always preserves his elect within Israel, who are successively brought in in the course of the centuries, 11:1-10, and they therefore judge that everything that follows in chap. 11 is not merely a further explication, but a supplement to the answer given in vv. 1-10, a new answer, which only then fully removes the objection as though God would reject his people. Under πας Ισραηλ in v. 26 they therefore understand the national whole of Israel, which will be converted in the last days. But however general this explanation may be,

there exist weighty objections against it. a. If it were the apostle's intention to give in 11:25-32 a new, supplementary answer, he would bring his reasoning at the end into conflict with its beginning and point of departure.

For he has said in 9:6v. that the promises of God have not failed, because they apply to the spiritual seed of Abraham, and in this spiritual seed still always attain their fulfillment, 11:1-10. A priori it is very improbable that Paul would later have returned to this reasoning and would have supplemented and improved it in this sense, that the promises of God do not come fully to their fulfillment in this salvation of the spiritual Israel, but are then only completely realized when in the last time a national conversion of Israel takes place. b. In any case, in chap. 9:1-10:11 there is not a single word about such an expectation for the people of Israel, and there is not a single expression that suggests it and prepares for it. And chap. 11:11-24 also still contains nothing that points to such an expectation. Indeed 11:1115 is understood in that sense by many. But even if these words are not hypothetical, as an element in the reasoning, but are to be understood as a description of a fact, then they nevertheless contain only this thought: the rejection of Christ by Israel has been a great gain for the Gentiles, for thereby the reconciliation brought about by Christ's death has become the portion of the Gentiles; a much greater gain than that will the acceptance of Israel by God be for the Gentiles, for when Israel has reached its pleroma, its [454] full number of elect, and the pleroma of the Gentiles has also entered in, then that will have as its consequence the life from the dead, the resurrection from the dead of the new humanity. To Israel's ἡττωμα the Gentile world owes, mediately, its reconciliation; to Israel's πληρωμα it will one day owe its life from the dead. c. If Paul in 11:25 wanted to communicate a new fact, the manner in which he does this is most

surprising. For he does not say: and then, thereafter, namely after the fullness of the Gentiles has entered in, shall all Israel, but: και οὑτως πας

Ισραῃλ σωθησεται, and in that way all Israel shall be saved. That cannot mean anything other than: in that way, as described in the preceding verses.

Immediately before, in v. 24, Paul has said that the hardening has always come upon Israel only in part, ἀπο μερους. The believers from the Gentiles could indeed begin to think, as Israel formerly did, that they alone were the elect people of God, and that Israel was wholly rejected. But Paul says that this is not so. No, Israel is not as such rejected; there is always among them a remnant according to the election of grace; there are indeed some branches broken off, for which the wild olive tree of the Gentile world has come in their place, but the trunk of the cultivated olive tree has remained; the hardening has come upon Israel only in part; while the pleroma from the Gentiles enters in, the pleroma from Israel is also being brought in; and in that way all Israel is saved. d. This fact, namely that the hardening has come upon Israel only in part, Paul calls a μυστηριον, 11:25. Elsewhere he so often calls the fact that the Gentiles are now co-heirs and fellow-citizens of the saints and members of God's household, and here he designates with the same word the fact that the Jews are hardened only in part and that God continually brings many elect from among them into his church. For that partial hardening will last until the pleroma of the Gentiles shall have entered in. Never, until the end of the ages, will God wholly reject his ancient people; always, alongside a part from the Gentile world, a part from Israel will also be brought to faith in Christ. The Gentiles, but also the Jews, had deserved something wholly different. But this is the great mysterium, that God is rich in mercy, that He gathers his elect from every people, also from the people of the Jews, who rejected Him [455], that He shut up all

under sin, in order that He might have mercy on all. That mysterium brings the apostle into rapture and causes him, in admiration, to worship the depth of God's wisdom and knowledge, 11:33-36. e. Πας Ισραηλ in 11:25 is therefore not the people of Israel, which at the ends of the days will be converted en masse; it is also not the church from Jews and Gentiles together, but it is the pleroma that in the course of the centuries is brought in from Israel. Israel remains as a people, so Paul predicts, existing alongside the Gentiles; it will not perish nor disappear from the earth; it remains until the end of the ages, supplies its pleroma for the kingdom of God just as well as the Gentiles, and retains for that kingdom of God its special task and place; from all peoples and nations and tongues the church of God is gathered. f. How great that pleroma from Israel will be, Paul does not calculate. It is quite possible that the number of the elect from Israel in the last times will be much greater than it was in Paul's or in later or in our days; there is not a single reason to deny this; rather, the spread of the gospel among all peoples leads one to expect that both from Israel and from the Gentiles an ever greater number will be saved. But that is not what Paul intends to say; he does not count, but he weighs. From the Gentile world the full pleroma will come, and also from Israel, and that pleroma will be πας

Ισραηλ. In that pleroma all Israel is preserved, just as in the church in its entirety the whole of humanity is rescued. g. Another conversion of Israel than in the manner indicated by Paul is also difficult to conceive. For what is a national conversion, and how and when will it take place in Israel?

There is of course nothing against it; rather, the fact of the continued existence of the people of Israel in connection with the prophecy pleads for it, that also from Israel a very great number will still be brought to faith in Christ; but however great this number may be, it remains a remnant

according to the election of grace. Even the strongest chiliast will surely not think that once at the end all Jews without exception will be converted. And even if he assumed that, thinking that only thus Rom. 11:25 would be fully fulfilled, then such a national conversion at the end would nevertheless not benefit the millions of Jews who through the centuries up to that end-time

[456] have died away in unbelief and hardening. If one really thinks that God's promise to Israel is only then truly fulfilled when not an ἐκλογη out of the people, but the people itself is brought in, then one comes into conflict with history. Always, through all centuries, also in the days of the O. T., when the national Israel was God's people, it was only a small part of the people that in truth served and feared God. And so it is not only among the Jews, but so it is also among the Gentiles. Always it is a remnant according to the election of grace that from the Christian peoples becomes partaker of salvation in Christ. Moreover, for such a national conversion of Israel as the Chiliasts expect, no place remains in Paul's sketch of the future. For he says expressly that the hardening has come upon a part of Israel until the pleroma of the Gentiles has entered in, and that not thereafter but that in that way all Israel is saved, Rom. 11:25, 26. The hardening upon a part of Israel thus lasts as long as until the pleroma from the Gentile world has been brought in, and according to the Chiliasts the national conversion of Israel must then fall thereafter. But is there then still a span of time between the entering in of the pleroma of the Gentile world and the end of the ages? If so, are there in that time then also still Gentile peoples, and is not a single one more converted from among them? The entering in of the pleroma of the Gentiles cannot be conceived as temporally preceding the being saved of all Israel. Rom. 11:26 does not name a new fact that takes place after the entering in of the fullness of the

Gentiles. But the entering in of the fullness of the Gentiles and the being saved of all Israel run parallel, because the hardening has come upon Israel only in part. Finally, one should also note that, even if Paul at the end also expected a national conversion of Israel, he nevertheless with not a word makes mention of a return of the Jews to Palestine, of a rebuilding of city and temple, of a visible reign of Christ; in his picture of the future there is no place for all that. Cf. on the conversion of the Jews, besides the commentaries on Rom. 11, Voetius, Disp. II 124 sq. Witsius, Oec. foed. IV 15, 20-32. Moor VI 127-130. Hodge, Syst. Theol. III 805. Kliefoth,

Eschatologie 147. [457] 8. In discussing the expectations which the N. Test. cherishes for the future with respect to the people of Israel, it was still left undecided whether the N. Test. perhaps in other places than those there discussed teaches an intermediate state between this dispensation and the consummation of the ages. If this, it was acknowledged, were the case, then Mt. 23:37-39, Luk.

21:24 and Hd. 3:19-21, although in themselves they gave absolutely no occasion for assuming such a transitional period, could nevertheless be interpreted and explained in that sense. Now therefore the question arises whether, according to Jesus and the apostles, a time of power and glory is to be expected for the church, which precedes the general resurrection and the judgment of the world. If this were so, we would expect clear mention of it in the eschatological discourse which Jesus held to his disciples in the last days of his life, Mt. 24, Mk. 13, Luk. 21. But there is not a word in it, not even an allusion to such a kingdom. The Chiliasts attempt to insert their millennium at one place or another in this discourse, and say, e.g., that the first coming of Christ is mentioned in Mt. 24:27 and the second coming in v. 30, but this exegesis nevertheless lacks all foundation. In his

eschatological discourse Jesus gives answer to two questions which his disciples put to him, namely, when the things will happen which he has spoken concerning Jerusalem, namely, that not one stone of the temple will be left upon another, and what the sign will be of his coming and of the consummation of the world. Jesus answers first the first question, and indeed in such a way that he first deals with the portents, Mk. 13:1-8, cf.

Mt. 24:1-8, Luk. 21:5-11, then with the lot of the disciples, Mk. 13:9-13, cf.

Mt. 24:9-14, Luk. 21:12-18, and finally with the catastrophe in Judea, Mk.

13:14-23, cf. Mt. 24:15-26, Luk. 21:20-24. The second question concerning the parousia of Jesus and the consummation of the world is answered in Mk. 13:24-31, cf. Mt. 24:29-35, Luk. 21:25-33; and in doing so Jesus immediately connects his parousia with the destruction of Jerusalem; in the fall of this city he sees the announcement and the preparation of the consummation of the world; Mt. 24:29 εὐθεως, Mk. 13:24 ἐν ἐκειναις ταις ἡμεραις. He even says that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things shall have happened, [458] Mt. 24:34, Mk. 13:30, Luk.

21:32. However this expectation of his speedy parousia, following immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem, is to be understood in Jesus

(about which more later); in any case it is clearly evident that in this discourse there is no place for a thousand-year kingdom. Jesus first enumerates, Mk. 13:1-8, some general portents, by which the disciples can see that everything together, namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, is approaching; and these signa communia are: the arising of false Christs, wars and rumors of wars, commotion and uprising of the nations with earthquake, famine, etc., further the preaching of the gospel in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, Mk. 13:10, and finally, as prelude to the final drama, what takes place in Judea and Jerusalem, Mk.

13:14-23. Thereafter follow the portents immediately preceding the parousia, the signa propria, namely, darkening of sun and moon, falling down of the stars, movement of the powers in the heavens, Mk. 13:24, 25.

With the parousia of Christ the judgment, the separation of good and evil, the consummation of the world, is then immediately connected, Mk. 13:26,

27. This corresponds to what Jesus says in Mt. 13:37-43 and 47-50; the growing up together of tares and wheat, and the bringing together of all kinds of fish, continues until the consummation of the ages, until the time of the harvest and of the judgment of the world. Jesus knows only two aeons, the present and the future. In the present age his disciples have nothing but tribulation and persecution to expect and must leave everything for his sake.

Nowhere does Jesus predict to his disciples a glorious future on earth before the consummation of the world; on the contrary, as it went with him, so it will also go with his church; a disciple is not above his master and a servant not above his lord; only in the future age do his disciples receive everything back with eternal life, Mt. 5:3-12, 8:19, 20, 10:16-42, 16:24-27, 19:27-30,

Joh. 16:2, 33, 17:14, 15 etc. When, then, the disciples in Hd. 1:6 ask Jesus whether he will at this time restore the kingdom to Israel, he does not deny it but tacitly concedes that this will happen once; yet he says that the Father has set the times or seasons for that in his own power, and that the disciples in this time have the calling, [459] to act as his witnesses from Jerusalem to the uttermost part of the earth. In this same spirit the whole New Testament speaks, which is written from the standpoint of the cross-church. The believers, who are not many wise and powerful and noble, 1 Cor. 1:27, have here on earth nothing but suffering and tribulation to expect, Rom. 8:36,

Phil. 1:29, they are guests and strangers, Hebr. 11:13, their citizenship is in the heavens, Phil. 3:20, they do not look at the things which are seen, 2 Cor.

4:18, but set their mind on the things which are above, Col. 3:2, they have here no abiding city but seek the coming one, Hebr. 13:14. But they are nevertheless saved in hope, Rom. 8:24, and know that, if they suffer with Christ, they will also be glorified with him, Rom. 6:8, 8:17, Col. 3:4.

Therefore with the whole groaning creation they stretch themselves out eagerly toward the future of Christ and toward the revelation of the glory of the children of God, Rom. 8:19, 1 Cor. 15:48v. etc., against which glory the suffering of the present time does not weigh up, Rom. 8:18, 2 Cor. 4:17.

Nowhere in the N. Test. does any hope shine through that the church of Christ will yet once come here on earth to power and dominion. The highest that it imagines is that it may lead a quiet and tranquil life among the kings and all who are in high position in all godliness and propriety, Rom. 13:1v.,

1 Tim. 2:2. And therefore the N. Test. does not in the first place commend those virtues which enable one to conquer the world, but, while avoiding all false asceticism, Rom. 14:14, 1 Tim. 4:4, 5, Tit. 1:15, names, as fruits of the Spirit, the virtues of love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, Gal. 5:22, Ef. 4:32, 1 Thess. 5:14v., 1 Petr.

3:8v., 2 Petr. 1:5-7, 1 Joh. 2:15 etc.

Even the continuing expectation of the N. Test. is that, as the gospel of the cross spreads, the enmity of the world also becomes manifest. Christ is destined to be for many unto a resurrection but also for many unto a fall and to bring their hostile deliberations to revelation; He has come into the world unto a crisis, in order that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind, Mt. 21:44, Luk. 2:34, Joh. 3:19-21, 3:39, Rom. 9:32, 33,

1 Cor. 1:23, [460] 2 Cor. 2:16, Hebr. 4:12, 1 Petr. 2:7, 8. In the last times, in the days that precede the return of Christ, the godlessness of men will rise to a terrifying height; the days of Noah return; lust, love of pleasure,

debauchery, greed, unbelief, pride, mockery, blasphemy will break out in a dreadful manner, Mt. 24:37v., Luk. 17:26v., 2 Tim. 3:1, 2 Petr. 3:3, Jud. 18; also among the confessors the apostasy will be great; the temptation will become so powerful that it, if it were possible, would even bring the elect to a fall; love will grow cold in many and watchfulness will so decrease that the wise fall asleep with the foolish virgins; it will become such a general apostasy that Jesus can ask the question whether the Son of man at his coming will still find faith on earth, Mt. 24:24, 44v., 25:1v., Luk. 18:8, 1

Tim. 4:1. The book of the Revelation of John agrees with that. The letters to the seven churches do indeed treat concrete conditions, as they then existed in those churches, and are indeed addressed first of all to those churches, to exhort them to watchfulness and to prepare them for the impending persecutions and the return of Christ. But they nevertheless clearly have a much further scope. The sevenfold number, which in Revelation always has such great significance, already points to that; it is the number of perfection and makes the seven churches, which have here been selected from the many churches in Asia Minor, appear as types of the whole Christian church. The letters, addressed by John to her, did not first exist separately, and were not each by itself first sent to the respective church, but they belong together, have been composed together and joined to one another, and are addressed to the whole church; whoever has ears, let him hear what the Spirit says to all the churches. But even though the letters thus undoubtedly have a significance that extends much further than to the seven named, then existing in Asia Minor, yet this does not lie in this, that they would describe successive periods in the history of Jesus' church and would be a small compendium of the whole church history. But they depict ecclesiastical conditions that were then present and that are at the same time

typical for the whole church of Christ, which thus can occur repeatedly in the church and which especially [461] will return at the end of the days. For it is clear that they are all written under the impression of the impending persecution and the speedy return of Christ. All of them contain a reference to the parousia, and with a view to that exhort the churches to watchfulness and faithfulness. They serve to call back to the first love the Christianity that was becoming more and more conformed to the world, to awaken it out of indifference, and with a view to the crown that awaits it, to gird it for the struggle and to cause it to persevere with unbroken faithfulness unto death.

For the day of the Lord draws near; after John has first described the conditions that in his time, and later, especially toward the end of the world, exist in the church of Christ, he proceeds to mention what will happen after this, 4:1. The book of God's decree of counsel concerning the end of things is opened in heaven by the Lamb, chapters 4 and 5, and in particular that is shown by an angel to John, what has reference to the very last time, chapter

10, and concerns all peoples of the earth, 10:11. Alternately John now transports us on earth and in heaven. In heaven, there everything is already decided and determined, there honor is already brought to God and the Lamb, as if the struggle were already fought and the victory achieved, chapters 4 and 5; there the souls of the martyrs are already clothed in long white garments and wait only for the fulfillment of their number, 6:9-11; there John already sees proleptically the whole multitude of the redeemed standing before the throne, 7:9-19; there the prayers of the saints have already been heard by God, 8:1-4; there have already, also proleptically, been taken up the 144000, who were sealed, 7:1-8, who as firstfruits go before the others, 14:1-5, and have achieved the victory over the beast and his image, 15:1-4; there the whole multitude of the redeemed already brings

glory and honor to God, because the wedding of the Lamb has come, 19:18. The church on earth therefore need not be afraid of the judgments with which God visits the world at the end. The 144000 servants of God out of all tribes of the children of Israel are sealed beforehand, 7:1-8; the temple and the altar and those who worship therein are not given over to the Gentiles and the two witnesses, who have prophesied there, are indeed killed but also raised and taken up into heaven [462] , 11:1-12, and the Christian church, though for Christ's sake persecuted by Satan, finds in the wilderness a place of refuge, 12:1-14. In principle the struggle is already decided. For Christ has been taken up into heaven, 12:5; and Satan has been overcome by Michael and his angels and cast out of heaven onto earth,

12:7-11. Now he has on earth only a short time, 12:12. But that time he makes use of. He causes the arising of the beast out of the sea or the abyss,

13:1, 11:7, 17:8, and gives it power and glory. This beast is the Roman empire, 13:1-10, is supported by another beast, the beast of the earth, that is, the false prophet, the false religion, the antichrist, 13:11-18, realizes itself fully in one person, who himself therefore can be called the beast,

13:3, 12, 18, 17:8, 10, 11 and has its center in the city Babylon, that is Rome, the great whore, which rules over all peoples, chapters 17 and 18.

But all this development of power is vain. By the opening of the seven seals, by the blowing of the seven trumpets, by the pouring out of the seven bowls God reveals his wrath, visits nature and humanity with his judgments, and prepares the final judgment. First Babel falls, chapter 18.

Then Christ appears, 19:11-16, overcomes the beast out of the sea and the beast of the earth, 19-21 and soon also Satan, 20:1-3.

9. Now it is very strange that this final victory over Satan takes place in two tempos. First he is bound for a thousand years and cast into the abyss,

and thereafter he again seduces the peoples, wages war against the congregation, and is then overcome for good and cast into the lake of fire and sulphur, 20:1-10. The advocates of Chiliasm find, apart from in the Old

Testament, in this pericope their strongest support, and the opponents are in no small measure embarrassed by it and have tried all their exegetical art upon it. The thought that after the victory over the world-kingdom yet a final attack of the peoples had to be repelled is undoubtedly borrowed by John from Ezekiel. This prophet expects that Israel, after it will have returned into its land and will dwell there securely, will yet once be attacked by Gog from the land Magog, prince of Rosch, Meschech and [463] Tubal, that is, by the people of the Scythians, in connection with all sorts of other peoples from the north, east and south. The attack ends, however, with this, that God himself will destroy these peoples upon the mountains of Israel in his wrath, c. 38 and 39. In hoofdst. 38:17 the Lord says that He has already earlier spoken of those peoples through the service of his prophets. And indeed earlier prophets already proclaimed that not only those historical peoples, in whose midst Israel lived and with whom it came into contact, but also all far-dwelling Heathens would be judged by the Lord in his day,

Joel 2:32, 3:2, 11v., Mich. 4:5, 11, 5:6-8, Jes. 25:5-8, 26:21, Jer. 12:14-16, 30:23, 24. Very clearly similar prophecy occurs with Zechariah, who in hoofdst. 12-14 sketches how toward the day of the Lord Jerusalem will be besieged by the peoples, and these will then be judged by the Lord. And Daniel sees not only in Antiochus Epiphanes the embodiment of the Godhostile world-kingdom, but also expects that this God-hostile power will yet once exalt itself and thus become ripe for judgment, 11:40v. Twofold, therefore, was the expectation of prophecy, first of a victory of the people of God over the peoples, in whose midst it dwelt, and thereafter of a triumph

over the peoples, who up to now had not yet appeared upon the stage of world history. This double expectation passed over into the apocryphal literature, Schürer, Gesch. des jüd. Volkes II3 532. 551, but also into the New Testament. Naturally the first expectation stands in the foreground.

The appearance of Christ awakens the antichristian principle. Jesus speaks of ψευδοπροφηται and ψευδοχριστοι, who will set themselves over against Him and his kingdom, Mt. 7:15, 24:5, 24, Mk. 13:21, 22, Luk. 17:23. In order to temper the impatience of the Thessalonians in their expectation of Jesus' speedy return, Paul points out in 2 Thess. 2 that that day of Christ does not dawn unless first the apostasy comes and the man of sin is revealed. This one cannot now yet come, because there is something that restrains him. Indeed at present also already active is το μυστηριον της ἀνομιας, but yet the man of sin cannot come before he who restrains him is taken out of the midst. Thereafter only will the ἀνομος be revealed, but also immediately be brought to nothing by Jesus. The Apocalypse sees the antichristian power [464] embodied in the beast from the sea, that is, the Roman empire, which has the city of Rome as centre and a definite emperor as head, and besides that in the beast of the earth, that is, the false prophecy, which seduces to homage of the world-kingdom and its emperor. This opponent of Christ John then in his letters is the first to call with the name of αντιχριστος, in 1 Joh. 2:18 probably even without article; and he sees his essence realized in those who in principle deny the coming of Christ in the flesh, 1 Joh. 2:22. 4:2, 3, 2 Joh. 7. The representations of the antichrist in Scripture are thus different. Daniel sees his type in Antiochus Epiphanes;

Jesus loosens the antichristian principle from the Old-Test. opposition of Israel and the peoples and sees it embodied in many false Christs and many false prophets, who will arise after and against Him; Paul lets the man of sin

arise out of a general apostasy and calls him the ἀνομος and the ἀντικειμενος, namely of Christ, but also depicts him, with traits borrowed from Daniel, as the one who exalts himself above everything that is called

God and that is venerated by men, so that he in God's temple seats himself as a God and presents himself as a God. John in his letters deems the antichrist to have come in the heretics of his days. And the Apocalypse sees his power develop in the world-kingdom, which is supported by the false prophecy. From that it appears that with the antichrist one must not think exclusively of one person or of a group of persons, e.g. the heretics of the first centuries, the Roman empire, Nero, the Jews, Mohammed, the pope,

Napoleon etc. Scripture teaches clearly that the antichristian power has its history, in different times reveals itself in different ways and finally develops itself fully in a general falling-away and breaking of all natural and moral bonds, which now still hold back such an apostasy, and then embodies itself in a world-kingdom, which takes the false church into service and in the deification of the head of that kingdom apotheosizes itself. To this antichristian power in its highest and last development Christ himself then by his appearance makes an end. Cf. the more recent litt. on the antichrist: Lünemann in his comm. on Thess., 3te Aufl. S. 219-225.

Rinck, Die Lehre der H. S. von Antichrist. 1867. Boehmer, [465] Zur Lehre vom Antichrist, Jahrb. f. d. Th. 1859 S. 405-467 F. Philippi, Die bibl. kirchl.

Lehre v. Antichrist 1877. Kliefoth, Eschatologie 205 f. Renan, L'antéchrist 1877. Bousset, Der Antichrist 1877. Wadstein, Die eschatol. Ideengruppe

Antichrist, Weltsabbat, Weltende und Weltgericht, Leipzig 1896. Ebbes, Der Antichrist in den Schriften des N. T. (Theol. Arb. aus d. rhein. westf. Pred.

Verein. N. F. Heft 1 S. 1-57). Art. in Herzog3 van Seuffert.

But with that the complete victory has not yet been achieved. The antichristian principle can, of course, appear only among those nations that have known the gospel and in the end have rejected it in conscious and deliberate enmity. But there have always been, there are still, and there will be until the end of days, peoples who, like severed branches, stand outside the history and the culture of humanity. Jesus does indeed say, Mt. 24:14, that the end comes only after the gospel has been preached in the whole inhabited world as a testimony to all nations. But this prophecy nevertheless does not include that Christianity will once be the dominant religion among all peoples, or that it will be known to every human being, head by head; for history teaches that millions of people and many peoples, even in the centuries after Christ's coming to earth, have died out without having had any knowledge of the gospel. But Jesus' word only implies that the preaching of the gospel will penetrate to all peoples and in no way determines precisely the degree in which, nor the boundary up to which, this will take place. The prophecy is also not fulfilled all at once but successively through the course of the centuries, so that many peoples who formerly walked in the light of the gospel have later again been deprived of it. While in this nineteenth century the gospel is spreading among the Heathen, among the Christian peoples apostasy increases by leaps and bounds. And therefore it is more than probable that toward the time of the parousia again many peoples on earth will be deprived of the knowledge of Christ. And with this fact the twentieth chapter of John's Revelation reckons. Because there there is mention of a thousand-year binding of Satan and of a living and reigning during that time of the martyrs with Christ, many have thought that here clearly and incontrovertibly the so-called thousand-year kingdom was [466] taught. But in fact this is an explaining of

Op. 20, not according to the analogy of Scripture, but according to the analogy of apocryphal literature. Op. 20 contains in itself nothing of all that belongs to the essence of the chiliastic faith. For, 1o with not a single word is mention made of a conversion and a return of the Jews, of a rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem, of a restoration of temple and worship, of an initial renewal of the earth. Rather, all this is excluded. For even if the 144000 in chap. 7 were to be understood of the pleroma from Israel and were distinct from those in 14:1, then thereby nothing else and nothing more would be meant than that also many Christians from the Jews will stand firm in the great tribulation and will occupy a place of their own among the multitude before God's throne; but it is absolutely not said that they will rise and dwell in Jerusalem. The Christians are the true Jews, and the Jews who harden themselves in their unbelief are a synagogue of Satan, 2:9. Even if perhaps the earthly Jerusalem is still once or twice called the holy city and the temple there the temple of God, 11:1, 2, yet that Jerusalem is in a spiritual sense called Sodom and Egypt, 11:8; the true Jerusalem is above,

3:12, 21:2, 10, and there also is the temple of God, 3:12, 7:15, 11:19 etc., and the ark, 11:19 and the altar, 6:9, 8:3, 5, 9:13, 14:18, 16:7. And that Jerusalem does not descend to earth already in Op. 20 but only in Op. 21.

2o The living and reigning of the believers who remained faithful in the great tribulation takes place not on earth but in heaven. Of the earth there is not a word. John sees the angel who binds Satan come up out of heaven,

20:1; the thrones which he beholds, 20:4, are located in heaven, 4:4, 11:16; and the souls of the martyrs are seen by John here, 20:4, just as everywhere else in heaven, 6:9, 7:9, 14, 15, 11:12, 14:1-5, 18:20, 19:1-8. The believers have already on earth been made by Christ to God kings and priests, 1:6; they are this in heaven, 5:10, and expect that they will once also be this on

earth, 5:10, but this expectation is fulfilled only in the new Jerusalem, which descends from above; then they will be kings unto eternity, 22:5.

Now, however, in heaven, their kingship is temporary; it lasts a thousand years. 3o Nor does John know of a [467] first bodily resurrection, which would precede the thousand-year kingdom, and a second, which would follow it. Nowhere in Scripture is such a first resurrection taught. There is indeed mention of a spiritual resurrection from sin, Joh. 4:25, 26, Rom. 6:4 etc. There is also an ἀναστασις ἐκ νεκρων, which looks to some cases, such as the resurrection of Christ, 1 Petr. 1:3, cf. Hd. 26:23, 1 Cor. 15:23, or has reference only to the believers, Luk. 20:35, 36, Hd. 4:2, but in this case is absolutely not temporally distinguished by a thousand-year kingdom from the general αναστασις νεκρων, Mt. 22:31, Joh. 5:28, 29, Hd. 24:15, 1 Cor.

15:13, 42. To be sure, one has thought to find this in 1 Cor. 15:20-28 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18, but wrongly. In 1 Cor. 15:20-28 Paul very certainly deals only with the resurrection of the believers, while he does not speak at all here of that of the ungodly and does not need to speak of it; but of that resurrection of the believers he says clearly that it will take place at the parousia of Christ and that thereafter the end will be, in which He hands over the kingdom to the Father, vs. 23, 24. One could from this passage by itself indeed infer that there is no resurrection of the ungodly according to Paul, but it is impossible that this is separated by a thousand-year kingdom from that of the believers. For upon the resurrection of the believers the end follows immediately and the handing over of the kingdom, because all enemies have been conquered and the last enemy, that is death, has been done away with. Nor is there anything of such a first, bodily resurrection of the believers in 1 Thess. 4:13-18. In Thessalonica one became uneasy about the lot of those who had died in Christ. Of what nature that uneasiness was,

we do not know. The Chiliasts think that the Thessalonians did not doubt the resurrection and the eternal life of those fallen asleep in Christ, but that they believed in two resurrections, one before and one after the thousandyear kingdom, and were now concerned that the believers already dead would rise only at the second resurrection and thus would have no part in the glory of the thousand-year kingdom. But this opinion is far-fetched and finds absolutely no support in the text; if there were a first resurrection of the believers, one would precisely expect that the congregation in Thessalonica would not make itself anxious about the lot of the dead, [468] for these would then precisely share in the privilege of that first resurrection. And if one answers that precisely in Thessalonica one did not know that there was a first resurrection of the believers, then the apostle could have told them that simply with a few words. But he does not do that at all; he does not speak of a first and a second resurrection; he only argues that the believers who at Jesus' coming have remained alive will have no advantage over those who have already earlier fallen asleep in Christ. In what the Thessalonians thought that the latter would fall behind the former is unknown to us. But this also does not matter; the fact stands firm that one judged so in Thessalonica. And over against that Paul now says that this is not the case, for God will, by means of Jesus, who will raise them, cause the sleeping believers to be at once with Him (with Jesus) in His coming, so that He as it were brings them along, and the believers remaining alive will absolutely not be ahead of them, for the resurrection of the dead precedes, and thereafter all believers, both the risen and the changed believers, together are caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord. The text thus contains nothing of a first and a second resurrection. If now nowhere in Scripture such a twofold resurrection occurs, one will do well not to find it all too

quickly in Op. 20. And in fact it does not occur there either. There in verse 4 and 5 only this is stated, that the souls of the believers who remained faithful in the great tribulation live and reign as kings with Christ a thousand years and that this is the first resurrection. John says clearly that he saw the souls, τας ψυχας, of the martyrs, cf. 6:9, and makes no mention of a resurrection of their bodies. He further says that those souls did not rise or were raised or entered into life, but that they lived and that they at once lived and reigned as kings with Christ a thousand years. He further speaks of the rest of the dead, οἱ λοιποι των νεκρων, and thus presupposes that the believers whose souls he saw in heaven also still in a certain sense belong to the dead, but nevertheless lived and reigned; over against that he says of the rest of the dead, not, as it stands in the Statenvertaling, that they did not become alive again, but that they did not live, οὐκ ἐζησαν. And finally he adds with emphasis that this living and reigning of the [469] souls of the faithful believers in contrast with the not living of the rest of the dead is the first resurrection. One feels as it were the contrast: that is not the first resurrection, which was assumed by some, already also in John's days, as if a bodily resurrection of the believers would precede the thousand-year kingdom; but the first resurrection consists in the living and reigning of the faithful believers in heaven with Christ. The believers to whom John writes and who will soon face the tribulation must not think that they will first be saved at the end of days. No, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on, ἀπαρτι, 14:13; they receive at once rest from their labors; they are immediately crowned at their death; they live and reign with Christ in heaven from the first moment after their death; and therefore they can go encouraged to meet the tribulation, the crown of life lies ready for them,

2:10. John repeats here, 20:4, 5, in brief, what he earlier wrote to the seven

churches. The promises which there were given to the believers, if they persevered to the end, all came down to this, that he who overcomes would be crowned. He who overcomes receives to eat of the tree of life, 2:7, of the hidden manna, 2:17, receives power over the Heathen, 2:26, receives the morning star, 2:28, is clothed with white garments, 3:5, is made into a pillar in God's temple, 3:12, holds supper with Jesus, 3:20. In one word, he who overcomes, I will give him to sit with me in my throne, 2:21. What John first saw in the promise, he now sees in chap. 20 in the fulfillment; they who remain faithful unto death live and reign at once with Christ in His throne in heaven; and that is the first resurrection. But John adds something more to it, and thereby confirms the explanation given above. Namely, he says: blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection; over him the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with Him the thousand years. The second death is according to 20:14 nothing else than being cast into the lake of fire.

Whatever now the lot of the rest of the dead mentioned in vs. 5 may be, in any case the faithful believers who live and reign with Christ are safeguarded against that second death. They already have the crown of life and already eat of the manna of life, and therefore need not fear the later following judgment; he who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death, which enters in at the final judgment, 2:11. If John understood the first resurrection in a chiliastic sense, as a bodily resurrection of the believers before the thousand-year kingdom, then he would not have needed to give such a consolation to the believers. He could then have contented himself with saying that they would rise even before the thousand-year kingdom. But no, the believers remain in a certain sense belonging to the dead until the final judgment; yet no need, if they persevere to the end, then

they are at once crowned and can, even though the first death still rules over their bodies, not be harmed by the second death.

10. Against this explanation one may, however, object that John nevertheless clearly speaks of a thousand-year dominion of the believers with Christ, be it also in heaven, and that he places this after the return of Christ, 19:11-16, and the fall of the world-kingdom and of the false prophet,

19:20. Yet this objection does not weigh as heavily as it seems. For 1o the placing of the vision in Rev. 20 after that in chap. 19 in itself by no means at all decides the chronological order. In general the art of the word, in distinction e.g. from the art of painting, can relate that which takes place simultaneously only successively, the one after the other. Scripture makes no exception here and often relates one after another what in reality occurs alongside one another. With the prophets it happens many times that they successively see and describe what takes place simultaneously or even in an entirely different order, or will take place. Especially is that, as is more and more recognized, the case in the book of Revelation. The letters to the seven churches are not descriptions of ecclesiastical conditions following one another in that same order. The seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls form no chronological series but run parallel and lead us each time to the end, to the last struggle of the antichristian power. And thus there is in itself nothing against assuming that what is related in Rev. 20 runs parallel with the [471] events of the earlier chapters. 2o It must be acknowledged that John, with the world-kingdom that he depicts, thinks of the Roman imperium. Prophecy, in the Old and also in the New Testament, does not move high in the air but stands on historical ground and sees in the concrete powers, in whose midst it lives, the struggle embodied of the world-kingdom against the kingdom of God. The book of Daniel e.g. runs

up to Antiochus Epiphanes and sees in him the personification of the enmity against God and his people. And so also John derives the features for his world-kingdom from the Roman empire of his days. Although all that was written before was also written for our instruction, yet the Revelation of John is in the first place a book of consolation for the church under the cross of his time, to urge her to perseverance in the struggle and to encourage her by the sight of the crown that awaits her. If John for himself thought that in the Roman empire the very last development of the worldkingdom had appeared and that Christ would come within a few years to put an end to it, then there would be nothing unusual to be found in that, nothing that would be in conflict with the spirit of prophecy. We are not bound to John's personal opinion, but to the word of his prophecy; and the prophecy, which casts its light over history, is in its turn also explained and unveiled by history. 3o If John really for himself believed that the Roman empire would be brought to nothing within a few years by the appearance of Christ, then in any case he thought that the history of the world was not thereby finished, for in that case there would be no place for the dominion of the believers with Christ in heaven alongside it and this would have to begin only after that time. But this zeitgeschichtliche conception, however much truth it may contain, does not reproduce the complete thought of John's Revelation. For it clearly appears that in chap. 19 the history of the world has reached its end. Babylon has fallen, chap. 18, God reigns as king,

19:6, the marriage of the Lamb has come, 19:7-9, Christ has appeared, 19:11-16, the last battle of all the kings of the earth and of their armies has been fought, 19:17-19, the world-kingdom and the false prophet have been destroyed and cast into [472] the lake of fire, which as the second death is first opened after the judgment, 19:20, cf. 20:14, and the rest were killed,

19:21. The 19th chapter thus clearly runs through to that same world-end that is depicted in 20:10-15. There is no material left for the continuation of world history. The zeitgeschichtliche exegesis leaves the origin of the peoples, who appear in 20:3, 8, unexplained or otherwise comes into conflict with 19:17-21. But just as the letters to the seven churches and likewise the seven seals, trumpets, and bowls first of all refer to the conditions and events in John's days yet then have a further scope for the church of all ages and for the whole history of the world, so it also holds of the world-kingdom depicted in Revelation that it has its type in the Roman empire of the first centuries but in it nevertheless does not yet receive its full realization. It rises up again and again and must always anew succumb to the appearance of Christ, until it finally exerts its utmost powers, exhausts itself in a last gigantic struggle, and then is destroyed forever by the coming of Christ. 4o If this conception is correct, the vision of John 20 does not intend to relate to us what in chronological order after the events that occurred in Rev. 19 will happen, but it has an independent place and reports to us what runs parallel with the preceding. There are namely two kinds of end of the history of the world to relate, one of the historical peoples, among whom Christianity appears, and another of the wild peoples, who, as Rev. 20:8 so clearly says, dwell in the four corners of the earth, and thus have lived outside the center of the history and the culture of humanity. Among the former only the world-kingdom and the false prophecy could appear, for antichristianity presupposes familiarity with the gospel; these bring it only to a savage attack on the church of Christ. But it is nevertheless the same Satan who works there and here. Each time that he is pushed back and defeated among the culture-bearing peoples, he organizes in the wild peoples a new instrument for the struggle against

Christ. First he is cast out of heaven; thereafter he works on earth and there sets up his world-kingdom against Christ; and finally he causes the wild peoples to appear on the breadth of the earth, to fight the last battle against Christ. But all this not in a time-reckoning but [473] in a logical, spiritual sense. 5o The thousand years are a symbolic number, as is now generally acknowledged; they stand over against the few days during which the faithful believers here on earth have been oppressed and persecuted, 12:14, but also over against the completed glory, which is eternal, 22:5. They are an indication of the holy, blessed rest of the deceased believers in heaven with Christ and at the same time of the longing with which they look out for the day of the avenging of their blood, 6:9, while on earth the struggle of world-kingdom and world of peoples against Christ still continues. And when John then in Rev. 20:1-9 has related the history of the wild peoples up to that end to which also that of the culture-bearing peoples in 19:17-21 has run out, then the thread of both visions is taken up and the very last end of the entire world history is related. There, in 19:21, the people were killed by the sword of Christ; here in 20:9, they are consumed by fire from heaven.

But after world-kingdom, false prophet, and Satan have been condemned and cast into the lake, 19:20, 20:10, all the dead rise and are judged according to their works, 20:11-15.

11. The doctrine of Scripture developed thus far clearly brings to light that the course and the outcome of world history are quite different from what people usually imagine. If anywhere, then it applies above all with respect to the end of things, that God's ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than our thoughts. The kingdom of God, although like a mustard seed and a leaven and a seed that sprouts and grows long without the knowledge and doing of man, Mt. 13:31, 33, Mk. 4:27, nevertheless

does not reach its completion in the way of gradual development or of an ethical process. Rather, the history of humanity, both among the culturebearing and among the cultureless peoples, according to the incontrovertible testimony of Scripture, runs out into a general apostasy and into a dreadful final struggle of all satanic powers against God and his kingdom. But then the end is also there; the world, in time and with the power granted to it by God, has done nothing other than, as in the days of Noah, make itself ripe for judgment; at the height of its power, [474] it suddenly collapses at the appearance of Christ. A catastrophe, a drastic act of God, finally puts an end to the dominion of Satan here on earth and brings about the completion of the immovable kingdom of the heavens. As with the believer perfection is not the fruit of a slowly progressing sanctification but enters in immediately after death for them, so also the perfecting of humanity and world does not come about gradually but suddenly through the appearance of Christ. Specifically it is Christ, who has been appointed by the Father to bring an end to the history of humanity and world. And he has been appointed to that, because he is the Savior, the perfect Savior. The labor that he accomplished on earth is only a part of the great work of redemption that he has undertaken; and the time that he spent here is only a small portion of the ages over which he has been appointed as Lord and King. Anointed from eternity by the Father, he began at once to exercise his prophetic, priestly, and kingly activity after sin had come into the world; he continued that activity through all the revolving ages; and he will once complete it at the end of the times. What he acquired on earth through his suffering and death, that he applies from heaven through the power of his word and the working of his Spirit; and what he has thus applied, that he maintains and protects against all attacks of Satan, in order

once at the end to present it, wholly perfect, without spot or wrinkle, to his Father, who is in the heavens. The return of Christ for judgment is therefore not an arbitrary addition that can be detached from his preceding work and set by itself; but it forms a necessary, indispensable constituent of that work, it brings that work to its completion and sets the crown upon it; it is the last and highest step in the state of his exaltation. Because Christ is the Savior of the world, he once returns as its Judge; the κρισις, which he brought about by his first coming, he completes at his second coming; the Father gave him power, to κρισιν ποιειν, because he is Son of man, Joh.

5:27. Eschatology therefore is rooted in Christology and is itself Christology, doctrine of the final, perfect triumph of Christ and of his kingdom over all his enemies. Even [475] we can with Scripture go back still further. The Son is not only on account of sin mediator reconciliationis, but also apart from sin mediator unionis between God and his creature. He is not only the causa exemplaris, but also the causa finalis of creation; the world has in the Son its foundation and example and therefore it has in him also its goal; it has been created through him and also unto him, Col. 1:16.

Because creation is his work, it cannot and may not remain a prey of Satan; the Son is Head, Lord, and Heir of all things. Summed up in the Son, gathered under him as Head, the creatures return again to the Father, the fountain of all good things, part II 408. The second coming of Christ is thus demanded by his first; it is included in this, flows from it in due time necessarily, brings it to its full effect and completion and was therefore by the Old Test. prophecy comprehended with the first coming in one image.

And not only does the second coming hang together with the first ideally and logically, but there also exists between the two a real connection. As the Old Testament was a continual coming of God to his people, until he in

Christ came to dwell bodily among them; so also the dispensation of the New Testament is an always continuing coming of Christ to his inheritance, in order finally to take it into his possession for good. Christ is not only the one who in the days of the Old Test. would come and in the fullness of time has come; but he is also the coming one, ὁ ἐρχομενος, and the one who will come, ὁ ἐρχομενος ἡξει, Hebr. 10:37, cf. Op. 1:4, 8 etc. The second coming of Christ is the complement of the first.

12. This ideal and real connection of Christ's first and second coming also explains the manner in which the N. Test. speaks about the time of his parousia. A whole series of passages places this parousia very near. Jesus immediately links the prophecy of the consummation of the ages to that of the destruction of Jerusalem, Mt. 24:29 c. parall. Paul considers it possible that he and his fellow-believers will still experience the parousia of Christ,

1 Thess. 4:15, 1 Cor. 15:51. And all the apostles say that they are in the last time, that the coming of the Lord is near, and derive from that an urgent exhortation to watchfulness, Rom. 13:11, 1 Cor. 10:11, Hebr. 3:14, [476]

6:11, 10:25, 37, Jak. 5:7-9, 1 Petr. 1:6, 20, 4:17, 5:10, 1 Joh. 2:18, Op. 1:3, 3:11, 20, 22:7, 10, 12, 20. In the interpretation of this Newtest. expectation concerning the speedy return of Christ, error has been made both on the one side and on the other. The N. Testament contains absolutely no doctrine about the time of Christ's return. It in no way establishes that that return will take place still before or immediately after the destruction of Jerusalem. Indeed, this has been derived by many from Mt. 10:23, 16:28,

24:34, 26:64 c. parall., but wrongly. For it is not open to any reasonable doubt that Jesus spoke of his coming in different senses. In Joh. 14:18-24, cf. 16:16-24 he speaks to his disciples of his coming in the Spirit after the day of Pentecost or, according to other interpreters, of his coming after the

resurrection, when he will again appear to his disciples for a short time. In Mt. 26:64 Jesus before the high council not only confirmed his Messiahship with an oath, but he also said that he would convince them of this, in that they would from now on, ἀπαρτι, see him sitting at the right hand of God's power and would see him coming on the clouds of heaven. Such a coming in his glory is also spoken of elsewhere. Mt. 16:28, cf. Mk. 9:1, Luk. 9:27, raises this above all objection. Jesus says there that some of those standing around him will not taste death until they have seen the Son of man coming in his kingdom. Immediately before that he had admonished them to be especially intent on the salvation of the soul; and he pressed this admonition by saying that the Son of man would come, clothed with divine glory, and would then repay each according to his works. But so long, he adds in vs.

28, as it were by way of explanation, this will not even last, for even before all those standing around him have died, the Son of man already comes in his kingdom, ἐν τῃ βασιλειᾳ αὐτου, that is, with the royal power and dignity which the Father will give him. For by his resurrection and ascension Christ is appointed by the Father as Head, King, Lord, Hd. 2:33,

5:31; and from that moment on he continually comes in his royal dignity, in proportion as his kingdom is founded and extended on earth. And therefore in Mk. 9:1 and Luk. 9:27 the expression is thus explained, [477] that many will not taste death until they have seen the kingdom of God or have seen it come in power. In the same way Mt. 10:23 is to be explained: the disciples would not have completed their journey through the cities of Israel until the Son of man should come; although the coming is not further explained here at all, the parousia nevertheless cannot possibly be meant, since Jesus would then come into contradiction with himself; in Mt. 24 he in any case has his parousia follow upon the destruction of Jerusalem. How long after

this dreadful event it would take place is not said by Jesus. Indeed he immediately ties it in his prophecy to the fall of Jerusalem; the translation of εὐθεως in Mt. 24:29 by suddenly instead of by immediately, also advocated by van Leeuwen, De Parousie-verwachting in het N. T. Utrecht

1898 bl. 37, makes no change in that, for it is clearly added that the signs of the parousia will begin εὐθεως after the tribulation of those days, in those days, after that tribulation, Mk. 13:24, cf. Luk. 21:25-27. This is confirmed by Mt. 24:34 cf. Mk. 13:29, Luk. 21:32, where Jesus says that this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened. The words ἡ γενεα αὑτη cannot be understood of the people of the Jews, but undoubtedly refer to the generation then living, cf. Cremer s. v. On the other hand it is clear that the words παντα ταυτα do not include the parousia itself, but only refer to the signs that precede and announce it. For after Jesus has predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the portents and his return and even the gathering of his elect by the angels, and thus has actually ended his eschatological discourse, he proceeds in verse 32 to apply it practically and says that, just as the sprouting of the leaves on the fig tree announces the summer, so also παντα ταυτα are portents of the fact that the end is near or that the Messiah is near at the door. Here παντα ταυτα without any doubt refers to the portents of the parousia, not to this itself, for otherwise it would be absurd to say that, when παντα ταυτα will happen, the end is only near. In verse 34 the words παντα ταυτα have the same sense; and Jesus therefore does not say that his parousia will still take place within the time of the generation now living, [478] but that its portents and announcements, such as would be seen in the destruction of Jerusalem and the events taking place therewith, would still begin within the time of the generation now living. And of that Jesus is so certain that he says that

heaven and earth will indeed pass away, but that his words will by no means pass away. But otherwise Jesus refrains from all further determination of time. It is not his concern to make his disciples know the exact moment of his parousia, but to urge them to watchfulness. And therefore he does not say when he will come, but what the signs of the times are that announce his coming. Paying attention to the signs of the times is a duty for Jesus' disciples; calculating the exact time of his coming is forbidden to them and also impossible. The first requires that Jesus let his light fall on the events that will take place; and so he does, just as before him all the prophets and after him all his apostles have done. Therefore he also does not say that many centuries would still elapse between the destruction of Jerusalem and his parousia; that would at once have again rendered the admonition to watchfulness powerless. Just as prophecy at all times does, Jesus announces in the events of his time the approach of the end. And the apostles follow his example and depict for us in heresy and lie, in the judgments and judicial acts, in Jerusalem's fall and Rome's imperium the forerunners of Christ's return and the initial fulfillment of his prophecy. For all believers ought at all times to live as if the coming of Christ were imminent. Die

Nähe der Parusie ist gewissermaassen nur ein anderer Ausdruck für die absolute Gewissheit derselben, Baldensperger bij Holtzmann, Neut. Theol. I 312. But therefore also the second, that is, the calculating of the exact moment of the parousia, is not becoming to Christians. For Jesus has intentionally left this wholly undecided. His coming will be sudden, unexpected, surprising like that of a thief in the night, Mt. 24:43, Luk.

12:39, cf. like a snare, Luk. 21:35. Many things must happen before the end is there, Mt. 24:6. The gospel must be preached in the whole world, Mt.

24:14. The bridegroom delays and the lord of the servants departed abroad

for a long time, Mt. 25:5, 13, 19. [479] Weeds and wheat must grow up together until the day of harvest, Mt. 13:30. The mustard seed must become a tree, and the leaven must leaven everything, Mt. 13:32, 33. Yes, Jesus expressly says, on the occasion that he deals with his parousia, that the day and the hour of his coming is known to no one, to angels nor men, yes not even to the Son, Mk. 13:32, and testifies even after his resurrection that the Father has set the times and occasions for the establishment of his kingdom in his power, Hd. 1:7. And likewise all the apostles speak; Christ comes as a thief in the night, 1 Thess. 5:1, 2, 2 Petr. 3:10, Op. 3:3, 16:15; he does not appear until after the antichrist has first come, 2 Thess. 2:2v.; the resurrection takes place in a fixed order, first that of Christ, thereafter that of the believers at his coming, 1 Cor. 15:23; and that coming delays, because the Lord has another standard for time than we do and in his longsuffering wills that all come to repentance, 2 Petr. 3:8, 9.

Just as soberly as about the time, Holy Scripture speaks about the manner of Jesus' return. The second coming of Christ is in the N. T. often designated by the name of παρουσια, either absolutely, Mt. 24:3, or more closely defined as παρουσια του υἱου του ἀνθρωπου or παρουσια του κυριου ἡμων Ιησου Χριστου, Mt. 24:27, 37, 39, 1 Thess. 3:13, 4:15, 5:23 etc., or παρουσια της του θεου ἡμερας, 2 Petr. 3:12. The word properly does not include the concept of return, but indicates that Jesus, after having been absent and hidden for a time, Hd. 3:21, Col. 3:3, 4, and thereafter having come anew, Mt. 16:27, 24:30 etc., cf. Luk. 19:12, 15, will again be present and in attendance and will then remain present. Therefore it also alternates with ἐπιφανεια, Mt. 24:30, 1 Tim. 6:14, Tit. 2:13, ἀποκαλυψις,

Luk. 17:30, 1 Cor. 1:7, 2 Thess. 1:7, 1 Petr. 1:7, 13, φανερωσις, Col. 3:4, 1 Petr. 5:4, 1 Joh. 2:28; in 2 Thess. 2:8 there is even mention of ἡ ἐπιφανεια

της παρουσιας αὐτου. This parousia is a work of God, insofar as he will send his Christ and for that determines the times and occasions, Hd. 1:7,

3:20, 1 Tim. 6:14-16, but it is also an act of Christ himself, as Son of man, to whom by the Father the judgment has been given and who as king must reign, until all enemies are laid under his feet [480], Joh. 5:27, 1 Cor. 15:25.

Because at his departure from the earth he was taken up into heaven, at his parousia he comes again from heaven, Phil. 3:20, 1 Thess. 1:10, 2 Thess.

1:7, Op. 19:11; and just as a cloud at his ascension took him up and hid him from the sight of his disciples, Hd. 1:9, so in Old Testament language he is also described as returning on clouds of heaven, which as a chariot of triumph bear him hither to this earth, Mt. 24:30, 26:64, Mk. 13:26, 14:62,

Luk. 21:27, Op. 1:7, 14:14. For he does not return in the form of a servant, but with great power and with his and his Father's glory, Mt. 16:27, 24:30,

Mk. 8:38, 13:26, Luk. 22:27, Col. 3:3, 4, 2 Thess. 1:9, 10, Tit. 2:13, as a King of kings and Lord of lords, Op. 17:14, 19:11-16, surrounded by his angels, Mt. 16:27, 25:31, Mk. 8:38, Luk. 9:26, 2 Thess. 1:7, Op. 19:14, by his saints, among whom perhaps also the already blessed are included, 1

Thess. 3:13, 2 Thess. 1:10, Jud. 14. Although his parousia, because of the unexpected, corresponds with the breaking in of a thief in the night, it will nevertheless be visible for all people over the whole earth, will be like a lightning flash that gives light from the one side of heaven to the other, Mt.

24:27, Luk. 17:24, Op. 1:7, and be announced by the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of the angels, Mt. 24:31, 1 Cor. 15:52, 1 Thess. 4:16. In connection with their doctrine of the ascension, part III 414, the Lutherans said that the return of Christ was not subject to any succession of moments but consisted in nothing other than the sudden becoming-visible of the body of Christ, which at the exaltation had once become invisible and

omnipresent. Although one generally acknowledged that the return of Christ was visibilis and localis, one nevertheless understood by that only that the human nature of Christ, by a singularis Dei dispositio, for the special purpose of the judgment, became visible for a time in a certain place, without thereby abandoning its presence in other places, Gerhard, Loc.

XXVII de extr. jud. n. 35. Quenstedt, Theol. IV 614. Hollaz, Ex. 1249. But the Reformed ascribed to the return of Christ a bodily, local, temporal character; they even acknowledged that that return, even if it should [481] be very sudden, was nevertheless successiva, subject to a succession of moments; even at the highest stage of his exaltation, at the return for judgment, Christ retained his truly human nature, cf. M. Vitringa IV 160.

Cf. on the return of Christ in general, besides the works already cited above, also: Thomas, S. Theol. III qu. 59 art. 2 Suppl. qu. 90 art. 1. 2. Oswald,

Eschat. 234 f. Jansen, Prael. III 1038. Atzberger, Die christl. Eschat. 300 f.

Simar, Dogm. § 166. Gerhard, Loc. XXVIII de extr. jud. c. 3. Quenstedt, Theol. 649. Hollaz, Ex. 1249. Polanus, Synt. VI c. 65. Voetius, Disp. II 51 sq. Marck, Exspect. Jesu Chr. I c. 1-24. M. Vitringa IV 160. Kliefoth,

Eschat. 228 f. Nitzsch, Ev. Dogm. 607 f.

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