W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New

CHAPTER 7

VIGNETTES  TOWARDS THE END OF THE AGE

THE VIEW

    Human history is beginning to grow old, but God does not grow old.

The Age of the Christ, the Messiah, the Crucified King, the Gospel of the Sacrificed Saviour, is coming to an  end, and entirely expectedly, HE is at the end. He is the sparkling light at the end of the tunnel of trial, indeed the Builder of the Embankment through which the train of traffic is moving.

What is to happen next then ? The general outline is exceedingly simple. God who made man,  has witnessed man's fall, experienced his rebellion,  watched his decline in heart and his shivering into segments in spirit, seen the spectacle of his woeful wars and endless schemings, political enterprise and psychological decay. He also has seen man's mental ebulliences, and how often these have been like destructive lava, how seldom like beneficial streams of cool and blessed water. Yet it is He who loved him, who has served him in His own person, and it is He who has often spoken to man.

He has even provided a book in which all the prophets given thoughts of His divine mind and all the exponents given the words of His wisdom, all those who as executives received His orders and as loving, gave them out to man, are used in one total unity, to present His word and His will*1. According to this book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), He planned a number of major entries into this earth. Of these two major and definitive ones are now past.

One is by His specific word, the book of the Lord, and in this a whole variety of entirely diverse people are used with an entirely consolidated and actively unified message and thrust, to proclaim, to predict, to appeal and to confront. God is the speaker, man is the auditor, events are one of the expressions of the divine diction, and man's heart and mind are another.

There is however definitive provision to be found. In the midst of this, the book of the Lord, and a vast nucleus, He has given  one special theme, that of His personal coming to this earth, with business in hand for man. You see this most clearly in such scriptures as Isaiah 28:16, 48:16, 43:10-11 with 53, Micah 5:1-3, Psalm 22, 40, Ezekiel 34,  Hosea 13:14, in Psalm 102 and in Isaiah 40, 42, 50-56, in Zechariah Chs. 2-3,and 12 and in Malachi 3-4.

He indicates whether in Isaiah 41 and 51, or in Ezekiel 22:30, as in Romans 1, that mankind does not have what it takes to 'make up the gap' or fill the breach, that there is 'none to guide' and "for I looked and there was no man; I looked among them, and there was no counsellor, who, when I asked of them, could answer a word..." What of the provisions of man for man  ? Where this is the gift for need before God, those concerned become 'worthless' and 'their works are nothning' (as in Isaiah 41:28-29)

Man has fallen, and there is none able to lift the soggy mass of mankind to the elevated mountainous heights where the light strikes and the radiance of heaven shines unpolluted.

God then decided, indeed from eternity resolved (Ephesians 1:4 shows the result already, before the earth was founded), to come and do it Himself. ONLY HIS PROVISIONS serve for man's restoration. You see this most emphatically, not to say dramatically in Hosea 13.

                           Pity is hidden from My eyes."

Why is pity hidden from His eyes in the contemplation of such a procedure ? It is because it will hurt profoundly, is a thing of the most profound impact, that what is needed is necessary and horrendous, gracious and galling, the epitome of love and the pit of the terrible.

In other words, God exhibits here His intention, around the 8th century B.C., not only to come as in Isaiah 48:16, God the Sender despatching God the Sent in the presence of God the Spirit, for God is trinity by nature, but to come and be seen and be tender to His erring creation in His image, by name, mankind.

Indeed He assigned the date for His massive act, the crucifixion in Daniel 9:24-27 (as shown in Highway of Holiness Ch. 4); and He duly performed what He said, on time. What however was the purpose ? It was to bear the sins of many, as Isaiah 53 tells us, and in the process, to become processed in His human format, by sin's guilt and penalty, so that He would have a face virtually unrecognisable as human, as part of the treatment to come to Him as if He were a criminal; for if anything is criminal, sin is, and if anything destroys, sin does. He bore it.

Not however like a prodigal millionaire did He so act, but with intelligence and direction He offered Himself, actually a sacrifice to justice, a focus for judgment, so that what was transferred to Him in the way of sin, He took, and what was not, man kept. You see this in John 8:24, 6:50ff., I Peter 2:22ff., Galatians 3, Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-11, in the last of which you discover that those who are healed by His help are those whose sins He bore. These too are those who believe the report (Isaiah 53:1), and by faith these make of His sacrifice for man, the specific target of their sin, so that it now rests on Him (as in Isaiah 53:10 cf. Bible Translation No. 8, II Corinthians 5:17ff., Galatians 3, Matthew 20:28, John 5:24, 6:40, 6:47ff.).

It is rather like the interim action of putting your hands on a lamb, and following its sacrifice for you, having the blood as a symbol of its life (Leviticus 17:11, 4:1-7, 16:14), placed by sprinkling as later in water baptism on the body, so here on the altar (cf. Ezekiel 36:25, Exodus 24:4ff.cf. Hebrews 9:13ff., 10:22).

The water is a symbol, just like the blood of the animal sacrifices, of being covered; but since Christ's blood is not available now, nor in those quantities, since truly God (Philippians 2:10ff.), He was incarnated as truly man, water is used as expression. Of what is it an expression ? It is of the cleaning or pardon or change which this cover produces, not in itself, but in symbol (I Peter 3:21), as token of the work God does by virtue of the blood of Christ. Simply, His LIFE covers YOUR LIFE (Romans 3:24-25, 5:1-11), and justice is met (Romans 3:23-25,30), so that vicariously, by providing what is the 'gap' between you and perfection, God covers you.

How ? it is something received by faith, for without this, you are simply at war with God, like some unruly, and possibly psychopathic child, refusing to trust his parents when very young.

Thus did God fulfil in the vicinity of AD 30, as pre-announced for that time, His will for making up the need of man and actually changing him, through that same divine dynamic with which He made him in the first place. Man thus at peace with God, is transformed in status, as in state, regenerated like a factory car not simply panel beaten, though in some ways it resembles this, but RE-GENERATED in heart and spirit. By analogy, it was not simply panel beating, but re-casting the metal.

However, God also knew and forecast that the nation to which He came, for this world advent (cf. Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6), namely Israel to whom He had given the book of the Lord in the first place, would not receive Him nationally in this work, or believe in Him. This would be, and was so,  even though they had a divinely given apparatus of worship of this same God. It was, when He came, like an employee not only not recognising his boss, but pelting him with rotten eggs first, and then killing him with a viciously slow method of torture. This was not entirely surprising in view of their failure, as a people, in former times, not seldom, to KNOW their God (as in Isaiah 1:3ff., and in Jeremiah 8:7-9, and especially 9:3).

They tended to keep the outside, and forget the inside (cf. Ezekiel 14:6-7), even to set up idols in their hearts, God declared, thereby becoming futile as a nation, in this field (Isaiah 1 specialises in this aspect! in the 8th century B.C.). God deals with this at large in Ezekiel 34, the folly of the leadership, the futility of the ministrations wrought for personal power or profit, without sincerity and faith; and here He  also is predicting that HE HIMSELF would come and do what was required for the salvation, deliverance, restitution, acceptance, restoration of man. By contrast with such 'shepherds', He announced, "I Myself will search for My sheep and search them out" cf. Luke 19:10.

Many would believe in Him,  as so recorded,  and so acting, in the Gentile nations (Isaiah 65:13-15), He foretold; and as He said, so it came to pass, the very Gospel or good news He had given in advance, becoming the "Gospel" of the other nations for two thousand years or so, at this time. This has been available then for millenia, for all to note, to observe, to see and sagely to ponder.

At this time ? His plan, as announced in Matthew 24:12, is that this same Gospel (and not another - Galatians 1:6-9,  but changeless as God is changeless - Psalm 102:27) should surround the world, reach the diverse languages of man; and it is then that the end comes, as Christ put it (Matthew 24:12). In this, this same Jesus (and not another, Acts 1:7ff., II Corinthians 11) will return to the world of His sacrifice. In divine procedure, there is first the withdrawing from this earth of His "elect", those who believing, are His, known before all our time so much as began (Ephesians 1:4); and this is for a ceremony comparable to 'marriage' in which as sacrifice He is received no less as Lord, in heaven.

With ALL His saints or those made holy by Him, through His redemption, the price of the process on the Cross and all that it entailed in suffering and life, He is duly to return to that same Jerusalem which killed Him in the first place, in the human format which He adopted for this well planned and perfectly executed divine mission (Zechariah 14:5ff., Romans 11:25ff.).

First, two things were to be built into the planning and fulfilled. Jerusalem was to be destroyed (Daniel 9:24ff., Matthew 24:1ff., Luke 19:42ff.), and the Jews were to be scattered to other lands (as in Leviticus 26, as the extremity to which continual revolt and rebellion against their Lord and Creator would bring them).

After many horrors, detailed there, and after becoming a laughing stock in the eyes of many, since they had forsaken the fountain of living waters, as God puts it in Jeremiah 2:13, and turned from a refreshing reality like snow water from the mountains (Ezekiel 36:15, 39:23, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32, cf. SMR p. 761), this people were by plan to return to their own land. This was as proclaimed in Ezekiel 36-39, and seen in Isaiah 42,49 (cf. Heart and Soul... Ch.  5) and implied in Luke 21:24 (cf. SMR Appendix A), and there a mixed reception would await them.  On the one hand, they would be gloriously restored, and would win amazing wars against impossible seeming statistical odds (Zechariah 12:1ff.), yet they would endure many efforts to dislodge them, in which, however, the assailants would not be successful (loc. cit.).

In the process, Jerusalem would be cut in two (as occurred in their restoration of Statehood, in May 1948 in one of the most remarkable and seemingly impossible victories of all time, for any people, in any situation, a feat duplicated in 1967, itself a source for study by military experts, something which staggered the world).

That many of them had suffered enormously (as in Jeremiah 30's prediction), in fact in Nazi concentration camps, made the triumph all the more amazing. That the Jews had been a target for grabbing of wealth, even to the gold in their teeth in Europe, for several years in World War II, made it yet more staggering: that is except for one thing. As God said it would happen, happen it did. This is always the ways with God, who being the truth, His deeds being correlative to His words, and both to His will, and all by means of His power (cf. Romans 11:33, Ephesians 1:11, Isaiah 44:25ff., 48:6-16, 41:21-24). It is of the utmost importance for believers to realise (as in Ephesians 1:19) that the mere apparent statistical, psychological or social impossibility of some course of action is far from excluding it from triumph. With God, ALL things are possible, what He wills can be done. It is of course crucial to wait upon Him and His word to find His will (Mark 11:23ff., Isaiah 28:16, 64:4-5).

Meanwhile, with Jerusalem restored as forecast to the Jews, this becomes a time signal, like that for the exact time available on the telephone, for the END OF THE GENTILE PERIOD, which means simply the end of the innings for the Gentiles as the specialised repository of the Gospel, just as the Jews, in the format of Israel, had been the people of the book of the Lord, until they had repudiated their own Messiah. It is good, on this, to ponder the divine dynamic in Isaiah 65:13-15, and the coverage through Paul in Romans 11, in terms of the parable of the olive tree (cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3, and Ch. 3, *1).

This then comes near to the return of Christ, who, having come at the interval between the first period, that of the Jew, and the second, that of the Gentile, now comes at the termination of BOTH, as in Romans 11:25ff..

How Paul is there inspired to rejoice in the balm of blessing. How wonderful! he cries, and how deep is God's divine counsel, that He first chose and used Israel, and then, on its unbelief, as if a branch in a tree, cut it out, until He then grafted in the Gentile bodies who believed, only to restore the cut off 'branch' of Israel at the end, by its re-grafted INTO the tree! How simply marvellous! is Paul's thrust from the Lord in Romans 11, that God should have used this processive partnership, Jew in, Jew out, with Jew out, Gentile in, with Gentile falling and failing, Jew back in, all to one tree, one Gospel, one God, one covenantal essence, one sacrificial setting, one pardoning provision.

If the removal of Israel as the custodian and company, if there was a blessing in this, so that the Gentile world became a vigorous focus for the faith, then how monumental is the wonder and joy in the restoration of Israel, so that ALL may rejoice in the ONE GOD, the ONE LORD and the ONE WISDOM of that God!

It is, overall then, a simple outline and is given in more detail in such sites as News 87, and in Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, and TMR Ch. 3, to mention but three. It is now that we come to our vignettes, which, in terms of chronological series, will require attention.

VIGNETTES AND VISTAS

It is, to say no more, exceedingly clear that Paul's analogy to an olive tree, and grafting and re-grafting in Romans 11, is a scene of intense stress on UNITY, and on BEING THE SAME at length, on VICISSITUDES leading on to the one GLORIOUSLY SAME ENDING, all in one tree.

He is not, for example, portending that the tree would be removed from the garden before the Jewish branch were re-grafted. He is rather rejoicing that ALL is to become blessedly and abundantly, indeed transfixingly made a scene of companionship, which was once diversity, of joint heirdom which had been, by contrast, severed and disjoined exclusion zones. The severed would become re-united in Gospel terms, and the preparation of dispersion would lead to the consummation and culmination of restoration as one. What had preparation with agony would now have conclusion in ONE, in the very same tree on the very same ground as before, grown to its maturity and beauty.

Thus the restoration of the Jews to the 'tree' is not to be an abstract exercise in spatial dynamics, as if the tree is simply not there for the new affixing, and the branch to be re-grafted, as said of Puck, catches but air. No it is a real tree, that is the whole point, where a real dissection, or cutting removed Israel from its hallowed premises, as shown with such aweful and arresting drama and emphasis in Isaiah 65:13-15, a real entry of a vast and blooming branch of non-Jew, that is Gentile believers, and then a magnificent re-entry of the cut-off branch. Brought in a glorious addition, which had faced exclusion, it is now the subject of a consummate culmination.

This ? After all the long ignorance of God of many of the fallen  race, in the Gentile form, had duly turned to knowledge of the Lord personally (cf. Colossians 1:27), and that after Israel had long first been used to disseminate the covenant of God, but had failed to the point of killing their own Lord, even if it was on His carefully planned sacrificial mission and as deliberately planned, there was this most blessed conclusion. Then, with Israel the butt of horror for long on its absentee spree, a wandering far from such joy in actuality, there was a RESTORATION and a UNION in the midst of a profound rejoicing. The JEWISH contingent, consignment, it was back. The Gentile one too had become too top-heavy, but there were believers in both times, in both innings, in both ages; and now they were ALL TOGETHER.

The point then is clear. The tree is still there, and it is this fact which is the basis of the analogy, the glory of the rejoicing, the practical outcome of the Lord's action when many in Israel are awakened to their unbelief. Repenting as in Zechariah 12:10ff., of the crucifixion their nation had occasioned, they would realise the sacrifice God had made, and that He had turned to them so that they might receive Him with all their hearts in the most private and faith-filled manner. Thus, in unity on repentance, they are now grafted into this still existing structure, and all are together to be seen in this, one 'peculiar people' or special people, one race, one regenerated Christian race, a nation of priests as I Peter 2 puts it.

Hence when Israel has this outpouring of the Holy Spirit which Zechariah expressly forecasts, and see the Saviour whom their people had pierced, as the true Lord and actual God AFTER ALL they had done to Him, they are received back spiritually, grafted back in again. So do they form, with the people God specified in Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, 65:13-15, the Gentile believers, ONE body in ONE tree with ONE basis and ONE background, now made perfect in clarity and consummation in Christ, the Jewish Messiah. In sum, it was He who as God in flesh, was first rejected by His people, and then received, first by Gentile believers and now - at last! by a mass of converted Jews, coming to their spiritual senses in their assigned land of Israel.

No wonder Satan does all he possibly can to demean them, to laugh at them, to defeat them and to slay them, using at the present time, not Hitler and the philosophy of Nazism for the purpose, as earlier, not the Inquisition as outrageously was done in former times, but Islam and the Palestinian catspaw, transformed into a nearby bomb segment. What a cat that whisks in only to blow up paw and people together! Yes, a people become literally in this, an explosive segment arrayed for their outrageous murder. Often it is not with horror for the indiscriminate nature of such slaughter-house methodology,  but with reproach for Israel that reaction comes, as if the world itself had an obsessive fixation on killing them.

This restoration spiritually, then, it is the impending event, prophetically. It will happen just like the rest. WHEN it happens, then, the Gentile followers of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, will be re-united SPIRITUALLY with the Jewish followers who en masse, come to Him, even in the midst of wars and turmoil for their land, as you see so clearly both in Zechariah 12-14 and in Ezekiel 36ff.. Thus the tree will still be there for the purpose, and so in reality, the Gentile Church will still be there, for it is occupant of the tree as the grafted-in 'branch'.

HENCE the Lord will not at that time in His coming day,  have called to heaven to Himself HIS OWN PEOPLE, both of the first order from the past, now modern and returned to their land, and of the second order of Gentiles. Whether from Germany, so forthright in the Reformation with its Luther, or England so glorious in the Gospel in the same period, or France with its Protestant glory using Geneva, or USA, or any other land of the Gentile spread, they will be there awaiting the re-grafting, with the tree, not in heaven while a daft branch seeks a flown tree for its re-grafting.

However, it may well be that this consummation and culmination past, the re-grafting done, Christ will come very soon afterwards. Indeed, ALREADY we know that it is to be soon, that His return for His people is near, as shown in considerable detail from the suitably objective criteria and data of the Bible,  in SMR Ch.  8 and Answers to Questions Ch. 5. In Zechariah indeed, just two chapters on, after dwelling on the famous 'fountain filled with blood' of Zechariah 13, to be found in Jerusalem - that is Christ, the Saviour to be received by faith in His vicarious sacrifice, the substitutionary atonement which bears the sins of His people, offered no less to all, you see His COMING WITH ALL HIS SAINTS, not just some of them, and coming to Mount Olivet (14:5) in something to make MacArthur's "I will return" to the Philippines look like a mere mime by comparison.

Yes, HE, THE LORD WILL RETURN to the very place where He was crucified and there rule.

VIGNETTE ONE, therefore, is the CONVERSION of many in Israel, to come in a direct spiritual eye-opening which will lead to a deep and unmistakable conversion, with a grievous repentance, accompanied by much private sorrow of heart for their waywardness. Indeed, Daniel 9:1ff., and Nehemiah 9 prepare us for such an occurrence, from the times past, when Israel suffered its 70 year exile and was about to return from this, in what appears like a trial pre-run of the 1900 year exile which has so recently (1948) been finished, with Jerusalem restored (as implied in Luke 21:24 and evidently occurring by 1967),  so marking the end of the GENTILE section of history, relative to the Gospel of God's grace in Christ.

VIGNETTE TWO is the REMOVAL of this unitary being, this olive-tree if you will, ALL of it in one conglomerate, or actually, one living tree: that is, of ALL Christians to heaven, while the earth engages in its literally earth-shattering revolt to the end, actually daring to make war on God (Revelation 19:19). That gruesome and unholy proceeding is so easily done when taking Israel over in a Gentile way is the apparent opportunity. With the entire assemblage of God's chosen people, gone, the prospect of a secular grab for the place, or even a spurious pseudo-religious one, would presumably seem MOST appealing to the faithless imposters left.

Willing the world to be their own, all its lands, all its religions

(cf. Tender, True, News 121, 122, 152, 82, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8, Galloping Events Ch. 7, Joyful Jottings 14, Regal  Rays of Revelation Ch. 10,
SMR pp. 750Bff.),

they would seek to stop at nothing. It is not, however, nothing which stops them, but the Lord!

VIGNETTE THREE is the 'marriage' in heaven, when all of the people of the Lord participate, before their proceeding with Christ for His vindication on earth, and His indication of glory in a rule not of the prince of this world, but of the prince of heaven (cf. Isaiah 9:7). Christ upbraided some of His disciples for their slowness (Luke 24) in not realising the sufferings He had to endure, and the glory which would follow. This, then is that.

When Christ with His 'bride' returns to this earth, we obtain, as in Revelation 19, a sense of massive and immeasurable impact, devastating with the brightness of the light of truth, to the evil powers that sought in vain to be 'god'.

The battle is sharp (VIGNETTE FOUR) as seen in that chapter, and the result is catastrophic. It is especially so for the culminating format of evil, the devil's messiah, the beast of national incorporation of illicit power and godless domination, and the false prophet of spurious religion. They go to their appointed place.

John in Revelation 20 then shows us a millenium. We have considered this at length in such sites as Repent or Perish Ch.  6, pp. 128ff.,  The Biblical Workman Ch.  1 , esp. Excursion  at End-note 3,  Appendix on Faith, pp. 165-172; SMR pp. 506ff., Sparkling Life ... Ch.  10 (cf. Index). This phase of life on this earth represents an exposé of righteousness in the midst of power, so that the time of testing is culminated in a time of triumph and depiction.

What does it depict ? the glory of God covering the earth without compromise, qualification from testing or trial, so that even the blind are confronted as if by eye-ball massage, with what their closed eyes had recklessly disregarded. It appears in some ways rather like a Class assessment of the paper, after an examination. The earth, we are told both in Habakkuk 2:14 and in Isaiah 11:9, will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and though sinners remain, yet their world is not for their domination, but the Lord's exaltation (Isaiah 65). They shall not hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain (Isaiah 11, 65:20ff.)

This comes, and the impenitent hearts of some, the ultimate in perversity (as in principle to be seen in Isaiah 26:7-9), finally ignite at the end of this period, leading to the entire dismissal of both heavens and earth (Revelation 20, Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 24:35), so that the platform is bare of hiding, and the judicial proceeding, in a word, JUDGMENT ensues. It is good that Christ who became man is judge (John 5:19ff., Acts 17:31), since in Him is all wisdom and into Him came grief in large measure as He yielded Himself to receive the scorn of sinners, even the sin, in His atoning sacrifice at Calvary.

We shall now return to aspects of VIGNETTE TWO.

THE SECOND VIGNETTE -
THE REMOVAL OF THE 'BRIDE' TO THE TRIUMPH IN HEAVEN

BEFORE THE RULE ON EARTH

It has been seen that the total tree unification, involving the restoration of the first, pruned branch with the now extended beauty of the whole, was wrought before the tree went: not leaving the branch, if you will, panting for its base, no longer on earth. In other words, Israel's predicted mass conversion of MANY is to come before the Rapture. The latter is a term signifying the removal of the entire Christian body from the earth, prior to the final assault on God by the paranoid 'little horn' or ruler, fancying himself as God (II Thessalonians 2) in a way far easier to imagine in our day, with the aid of the witless woes of Mao worship actively inculcated for so long in poor stricken China.

This order of events is clear no less from the fact, noted in Revelation 6, that when the saints in heaven, who have suffered and found their rest, are shown concerned at the delay before the final judgment on the corruption and cruelty of the earth, they are told to wait, and given white garments (signifying the purity of the heart assigned and enabled by God, because of the cover in Christ and the reconciliation with divine beauty and power which this entailed).

What is the relevance of this waiting then ?

It is this. It is to occur, with patience, UNTIL the "the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who would be killed as they were, was completed."

In passing, we note the wide-awake state of these saints, their knowledgeability and their activity, in heaven, before the resurrection. As Paul put it, to depart and be with Christ is FAR BETTER than having the walk by faith on this earth (Philippians 1:23), even though the marvel of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" as in Col. 1:27, is a delight and an ineffable joy (I Peter 1:8) during ordinary Christian life on this earth.

In continuing, it must be conspicuous that there is, as it were, a full ship's complement, an actual number of God's people (of course there is, since God can count, and knew before the foundation of the world, who were to be His as in Ephesians 1:4). There is a precise multitude of the saint arm of the Almighty, of the Christians to come. UNTIL this arm is complete, there is no end to the time of patience. WHEN however it comes, then patience is sated and action occurs. Since Revelation 19,  the return of Christ with His saints, is the terminus of waiting, except for the preliminary COME UP HERE, of Revelation 11, when the saints are raptured to heaven (cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 5, Matthew 24:29), then this is the time by which all are duly completed, and the scene is duly set. UNTIL then, they wait.

When this comes, they wait no more, for the cover of the case now actually happens, and the Lord acts in the desired judgment, Himself, and that directly. Indeed, the coming up to heaven of the elect obviously ends their sufferings, and hence puts a terminus to the waiting of those in heaven, and so implies that the whole body of His people is now in principle complete.

Thus, since the full number is obtained before the action removes the need for more patience on the part of the saints seen in Rev. 6, the full number it is.

There is no question of the full number of the brethren LACKING a major component. Revelation 7 shows the symbolically construable 144,000 PLUS the uncountable multitude of the Gentiles as one massive concourse of delighted complementarity converted Jew and Gentile alike.

There is no question of the 'bride', or the believers in Christ, figuratively as husband or LORD, being consigned limb by limb to heaven. It is ONE BRIDE, one Lord, and one Marriage, not something all but savouring of the bigamous. It is the ONE which over-rides all attempts at differentiation, being a massive emphasis in whatever form or image, or whether indeed here, literally. Indeed, when He comes WITH ALL His saints, by this time there is in view a weed and wheat differentiation (Matthew 13:24-30)! There is nothing provisional in view at this point.

It is similarly literally so in both Zechariah 14:5 and I Thessalonians 3:13, where Christ comes with ALL His saints. If one wishes to contradict ? But here it is revelation which we are considering, in order to be instructed, and either adding to or subtracting from the word of God is not encouraged (Revelation 22:18-19, Matthew 5:17-20, Proverbs 30:6, Deuteronomy 12). Nor is it apposite in interpretation!

On the contrary (Matthew 4:4), man is to live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God. It is an important distinction, that of the divine and the human mouth! It is emphasised repeatedly, and not unexpectedly in view of false prophets (as in Ezekiel 13-14, Jeremiah 23, Jude and II Peter 2). THEIR words are swelling; HIS are swell! They are true, sustained, coherent and consistent both with history and with each other. Over this time, no other word of man is both this and verified. There is no slightest difficulty in recognising the word of the living God.

Again, in Matthew 25:1-10, in the parable of the virgins, we see people OSTENSIBLY Christian waiting for Christ's return as King, and some sleep while others stay awake, their lights burning, being kept so by the life of the Christians concerned, who are actual believers, not formalised ceremonialists.

When in this parable in Matthew,  the Bridegroom, the LORD returns, as for the wedding noted in Revelation 19:8, and the sleepers are not in time to respond, not being awake, but later come pounding on the door for entry, what happens to them  ? It is this: they are excluded.  They cannot not get, attend, be part of the wedding.

Some might imagine that this is inapplicable to the point of the rapture of the Jewish and Gentile arms of the Bride, who is better not wrested in two: since it deals with another topic, that of the distinction between formal and functional faith. However, while it is true that this is the scope of the topic's personnel, it is equally true that the major and central fact is that ONE Lord comes at ONE time for ONE wedding which is His ONE advent for the purpose, in the most stringent of realities, and that once this wedding occurs, then the time is up for all the earth. There is no question of some major category being added. If any are to be, as it were, born out of due time, like Paul as an apostle, at least this could not be relevant to any major reality such as the wedding of ONLY TWO major contingents, consignments of Christians.

Again, the Lord, as we learn in Matthew 24, SHORTENED the time of the tribulation on this earth, as the devil's messiah has his 'go', and why did He do so ? We do not need to imagine, since He tells us in Matthew 24 that it is for the "sake of His elect", and as Mark 13 adds, "His chosen ones" by way of emphasis in understanding. Now is the elect not the elect ? If it is for this CATEGORY He comes, and for this CATEGORY that He comes SOONER rather than later, does it not matter at all that SOME of them would still have to endure much more pain, in the interstices of the Man of Sin rule of the Prince of this World ?

Such would be the case if the vast conversion change in Israel was to occur AFTER HE CAME! It would imply a ditching for deliverance purposes, of the divine motivation to protect His elect. It would be fuzzed, fuddled, even foozled. It would in short be a ridiculous distortion to imagine that He did not mean what He said, or perform on the basis of His own stated will.

There is simply no way around this fact. IF they were to have to endure after He comes for His elect, and that in its time LEST they should suffer more through His not coming, then He would be thwarted, His work incoherent with His will, an impossible result (Isaiah 43:13, Ephesians 1:11). Indeed,  SINCE His elect are not the same as converted people at any given instant, but are simply assigned to be His in the end, Saul of Tarsus at one time being anything but converted, yet always elect: it follows yet again that NONE are left to suffer more AFTER He comes to this Age.

What then ? Otherwise, it would not be for His elect, His chosen ones, that He so shortened the time, but for some other criterion, of which SOME of the elect would be the beneficiary, not all. However, His word specifies without qualification or hindrance, the category, which is, in addition, one of highly distinct definitive kind as in Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.. His elect are HIS PEOPLE, those whom He has chosen. This is the category, divinely defined, for which time is not allowed to continue, indeed shortened.

If some would like, for some reason, that some of this category are overlooked in the stated, divine assignment of ground for a shortened time before His return, so be it. God has spoken differently. It is best not to add to His word, or to distil His categories, since they are divinely donated. If you want wisdom, fear Him and keep to His words, and live by every one of them, not more, not less.

HIS CHOSEN ONES to Him dictate that He comes SOON to rescue them; hence these are those whom He rescues. If a mother comes to rescue her children, we must not imagine that she has no interest in some of them: the category is clear, the language unambiguous. His chickens, He knows their chirruping, and they know their 'hen'. His sheep, they know His voice, and He ? He knows them (John 10:27-28), and does not leave any out.

Does a father leave funds in his will to his children, and mean only some of them! If so, he would have to specify the omission, for his children are what they are, and not something else. In short, the elect are not part of the elect, but those chosen before time, and a sum of persons who have even a number assigned to them for this entire Age.

For this body He comes; with this motive on their behalf He arrives; for these as a category He shortens the time, and when God acts, He does what He says. Elect are a concern ? the result is the satisfaction of that concern for that designated category, spur to action.

Again, we find in I Thessalonians 1:7-9, that Christ's return is in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, even those who do not obey (heed) the Gospel. There is no scope in that for some later arrival of grace to the heedless godless. The categories are contra-distinct and contrary in disposition, to say no more!

AS He comes, SO He does. Certainly, this implies knowledge and not ignorance, but then mere recalcitrance is hardly ignorance! The ONE bride escapes the PEREMPTORY judgment because she has COME, and been called, COME UP HERE! (Rev. 11), as the elect. She does not have some other dame loitering around on the earth.

Further, we find that the Ezekiel 38-39 invasion, after the return of Israel to its promised land, and not long after that return (Ezekiel 38:8 cf. SMR Appendix A), is to follow a script of no small impact. The army of this assault is to be demolished by divine means, not able to be confused with human ones. Hence the following blessedness is not millenial, as if this occurred in that period, since that time of peace contains no power for evil, except at the end when it is overthrown. It cannot be at the end of the millenium, since this is a world-wide assault (Revelation 20:9), a focused fact, and not one from the North, a far more limited affair, as is the Ezekiel 38ff. case. In addition, the final assault of Rev. 20 leads directly to judgment, whereas here there is much time left, for example in the burying of the corpses.

It is certainly at the time of the end of the Age, for it is in the context of a never-to-wander-any-more Israel (Ezekiel 37:23-38), one assured by the royal presence of the Shepherd and King, the Messiah who came into flesh through the line of David (cf. Isaiah 11), in whom they trust. His sanctuary He will set in their midst "for evermore" at this time. Indeed HE is their sanctuary, and there is to be no more disjoining.

This of course cannot occur BEFORE the Gentile era is finished, since as in Romans 11:25, blindness continues for the Jewish people (not all of them, but substantially for the nation) UNTIL it IS finished. 

What then ?  It cannot occur IN the millenium, a domain of peace till its finale. It cannot even occur upon the COMING of Christ FOR His people, as an aftermath, since the evil powers are centred in the North for this invasion of Israel, not in Europe as scripturally provided for the culmination of evil on this earth (cf. SMR pp. 886ff., 905ff., 912ff., 922ff., 928ff., Cascade of Truth … Ch. 12). Indeed,  it is, as in II Thessalonians 2:7, at this culmination that what restrains is removed, and this even ministers to it, by suffering it yet further! The REMOVAL OF RESTRAINT is not at all the same as the devastation of an anti-God force marauding! It is the exact opposite. It cannot therefore be in the period, however short, between the coming of Christ FOR His elect, and His coming with them to this earth, in judgment. Moreover, there is no such intimation of vast change, in the Ezekiel reference to the clean-up after the assault is frustrated. It cannot therefore be then.

Not IN the millenium, not at the END of the millenium, not BETWEEN the coming for His own and with them, this assault must therefore be placed BEFORE HE COMES, yet at the era of the end of the age, simply because, as in Luke 21:24, Israel now has its land back, and that IS the signal for the end. That concurs most heartily with the unity for the whole tree, all in place.

Thus, Satan being bound IN the millenium (Rev. 20), not outrageously active, since the unity precedes this coming, and the conversion of Zech. 12:10 being in the midst of real conflicts, not serene peace, this staggering audacity of the invasion of Israel comes in our Age, before the Lord claims His 'bride'.

Accordingly, it precedes the coming of Christ, and succeeds the coming back to their land of Israel. It is at least co-ordinate with Zechariah 12:10, which likewise leads after the 'washing' in the fountain of blood in Jerusalem,  right onto the personal coming back to rule, of the Christ amidst scenes of much earthly conflict, as seen in 14:5.

SEQUENCE

This massive VIGNETTE of a converted mass in Israel the nation, becomes therefore a preliminary to VIGNETTE 2, the rapture of the WHOLE bride! This leads on to VIGNETTE THREE, the 'marriage of the bride in heaven', to the Lord, and FOUR, their coming back to manifest His glory in the millenium,  in which under His divine rule, evil will not lift up its head, and they shall not hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain (cf. Isaiah 11:9). In its last flash dash at the millenium's end, comes its inveterate judgment, for even in the land of uprightness, it will not behold the majesty of the Lord (cf. Isaiah 26:10, Revelation 20:7-10).

When God speaks, it is well to listen, and when He divulges a mystery, to heed.

VIGNETTE FIVE comes as the earth and heavens are removed, their pangs and pains done, and a new heaven and earth supervene. The SIXTH is seen in His eternal company, in His gloriously creative presence, near to the One who created the heaven and the earth, the salvation for man, the new heavens and the new earth, whose face to behold is of the utmost inspiration and splendour of majesty (Rev. 22), needing no adornment, for the infinite is without need of addition.

NOTES

*1 See for example I Corinthians 2:9ff., Matthews 4:4, 5:17-20, I Peter 1:10ff., II Peter 1:19ff., Revelation 22:18ff., Isaiah 44:24-28, and 6, Jeremiah 23, Isaiah 34:16, and consult SMR Appendix D with   C.