EVERY one conversant with the New Testament is aware that the Second Coming of Christ is a theme that occupies an all-important place in the teaching of the Apostles. There has been, on this account, practical unanimity among Christians regarding the fact that Christ will come again in His own Person, in a bodily sense, and in the glory of His Father. But when we pass beyond the fact, and enquire as to the time and as to the significance of the Second Coming, there is found among Christians anything but unanimity. This, on the face of it, is lamentable; although, at the same time, we have no doubt that the Adorable Head of the Church has not permitted this long-persisting diversity of judgment on an all-important matter without His, at the same time, so ordering all things connected with the visible Church, as that even this diversity should have some fruitful results. So far as Scotland as a whole is concerned, it may even yet be asserted that the Christian people have interpreted the Biblical references to the Second Coming in a post-millennial sense; but, even here, pre-millennialism has of late years been gaining ground, and, if one goes outwith Scotland, and mingles with the Christian people of England, and of America, one will fall in with many whose views regarding the Second Coming are pre-millennial.
Holding, as we do, the erroneousness of pre-millennialism, it gave us great pleasure to have quite recently, through the kindness of a friend, made the acquaintance of a little book on the Second Coming of Christ, by Dr. M’Knight of Wilkinsburg, Pa., U.S.A., the full title of which, with the publisher’s name, will be found at the foot of this page. There is not much, to be sure, to be found in Dr. M’Knight’s booklet that may not be found, say, in the late Principal David Brown’s volume concerning the second Coming of Christ. At the same time, Dr. M’Knight, who acknowledges his indebtedness to Principal Brown, and to others, is a writer who takes up his theme after quite an independent fashion, and his brochure, which is spiced throughout with not a little good-natured humour, is eminently readable. And, moreover, one may read M’Knight’s booklet in little more than an hour, whereas, the ordinary reader, in order to an intelligent reading of Brown’s book, would find it necessary to devote some days to a perusal thereof.
Let me summarise a booklet which I should like to recommend strongly. To begin with, in order to bring out the exact state of the question, our author points out that some exegetes hold “that Christ will return to the world at least a thousand years before the end of time, and that He will establish a terrestrial
* “The Second Coming of Christ: is it Pre-millennial?” By R. J. G. M’Knight, Ph. D. Wilkinsburg, Pa., U.S.A., 10 cents a copy (5d.).
kingdom ; that the Jerusalem of Palestine will be the seat of His government, and that there the throne of David will be re-established ; that upon this throne Christ will sit in visible, bodily form, and He, together with those of the saints who shall have been raised, will reign over a world peopled by men who are still in the flesh, and who continue to follow the usual pursuits of mankind, and finally, that this earthly reign of our Lord will continue for a thousand years, or for a millenium.” Others, however, who believe just as firmly as those former in the fact of the Second Coming, hold “that Scripture teaches that the Second Coming will mark the end of time, that the millenium and all other events which concern the earthly existence of man shall have then passed into history, and that the purpose of His coming will be to give to every man according as his work shall be.”
These, it is pointed out, are the two main divisions into which the opinions of Christians regarding the Second Coming become divided, and the question therefore arises, “Which is the true view?” Dr. M’Knight, by way of answering this question, antagonises the first view and supports the second. In the main, however, his brochure consists of a trenchant criticism of the pre-millennial view. It is pointed out that the view here antagonised is Judaic, and not properly Christian, in origin ; that although for some reason that view gained very considerable currency in the early sub-apostolic period of Church history, even then it never came to form a part of the general creed of the Church ; and that at the Reformation period of Church history the great Protestant confessions expressly condemned pre-millennialism. As to the direct biblical warrant of pre-millennialists, it is pointed out that, by their own confession, their sheet-anchor is Revelation xx. 4-6. Post-millennialists interpret this passage, however, as being figurative in sense, whereas pre-millennialists attempt to take the entire passage literally. Dr. M’Knight is, we think, very successful in his undertaking to show that the figurative interpretation is in perfect harmony with the analogy of the Christian faith, as expressed in every other place of Scripture, whilst the literal sense is obviously not in such a harmony, and in fact simply breaks down—even in the hands of pre-millennialists themselves—when they wish to avoid the plainly absurd.
In the remainder of his booklet Dr. M’Knight dwells on the revolting consequences of a consistent pre-millennialism. The unity of believers, as constituting one body, is, by virtue of this teaching, broken up ; the awesomeness of the Great Day of a general judgment is dissipated into fritters ; the abolition of material sacrifices—prefiguring the one Great Sacrifice—is incomplete ; the present dispensation of the Gospel is robbed of its glory ; and, naturally, the Christian outlook becomes in the main pessimistic.
The impression, in a word, which a perusal of this brochure makes upon one’s mind is that, in whatever way the word of
prophecy concerning Christ’s kingdom and Coming find fulfilment, it will not be in the sense of pre-millennialism.
And yet one would like to own that pre-millennialism has done some service in the emphasis which its upholders have always put on the fact of the Second Coming. At least, let it be said that there is need of a word of warning lest, when we rightly oppose pre-millennialism, we go to an opposite extreme of failing to give to the Second Coming that place in our thoughts and affections which it evidently occupied in those of the Apostles and the Apostolic Church. It is quite plain that the Apostles taught the Church not to rest in any event, short of Christ’s Second Personal Coming, as the consummation of their hope. Nor, if we regard the blessedness of believers, need we wonder at this attitude of soul towards the Second Coming.
(1) Christ is the direct and immediate object of the believer’s faith and love, and that although he has never seen Him save in the looking glass of the Gospel. But would it not be much better to see Him face to face, see Him as He is? Yet it is certain that, be the prosperity attending gospel preaching here below what it may, it will always be a case of a believer’s beholding his Beloved only darkly as through a mirror here, and not at all face to face. The Second Coming will bring them face to face.
(2) The Second Coming means more to believers than even their departure at death, so as to be with Christ. For this reason: It is something unnatural for human beings to be in a disembodied state. Christ is the Saviour of our bodies as well as of our souls. But our bodies He will not save until the Second Coming; nor can we, before then, realise fully what is implied in our adoption; therefore, says He, “we wait for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (1 Cor. xv. 42-3; Phil. iii. 21).
(3) At Christ’s Second Coming believers will have an experience of the power of the Holy Ghost which will be entirely new to them. In connection with a preached gospel the Holy Spirit quickened their souls in time. They came to know him, and as they knew Him they loved Him. But although in virtue of their union with Christ in time, the Spirit (or spirit?) in them is life, yet their bodies have not yet experienced the Spirit’s life-giving power in the same way. The day, however, is awaiting believers, and that is the day of Christ’s Second Coming, when the same Holy Spirit that dwelt in them in respect of their soul in the world, will quicken their mortal bodies; and although one would like to guard against saying anything that would seem to deify a creature or to obliterate the essential distinction between the Creator and the creature, yet there is a true sense in which it may be said that the Holy Spirit will, from the day of Christ’s Second Coming and for evermore, be the life both of the souls and bodies of the saints. Is not that an additional reason why we should desire the Second Coming?
(4) It is not until Christ comes again that, in the full sense of
the expression, believers will begin to receive that exceeding and eternal weight of glory which consummates their happiness. All these things, and others besides, make the Church long for the Second Coming, and yet it may not be amiss to say that, just as Paul was in a strait betwixt departing (at death) in order to be with Christ, and abiding in the flesh for the Church’s comfort, so the Church, as a whole, is as yet in a strait betwixt longing for the Second Coming and looking for more fruit of His death appearing in the world. They (I mean those who are not pre-millennialists) know that when the Second Coming becomes a fact there will be no more conversions, no more translations from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. On this account they reckon that the long-suffering of the Lord, in the sense that His Coming is not immediate, means salvation. They would like to see a greater fruit of Christ’s death than they have yet seen. And their desire will not be disappointed. I hold it, in fact, as a matter of private judgment, that, like as Christ Himself will be satisfied with the fruit of the travail of His soul, so also, ere Christ come again, will His Church be; and that, like as Abraham died satisfied with days, so the Church will end her course in time satisfied with results.
J. R. M.