THE CHURCH IS NOT THE SUBJECT OF THE APOCALYPSE.
This is the fundamental principle to understand the Book.
Let us say at once that we believe, and must believe:
(1), that God means what He says; and
(2), that He has a meaning for every word that He says. All His works and all His words are perfect, in their choice, order and place: so perfect, that, if one word or expression is used, there is a reason why no other would have done.
THE CHURCH NOT THE SUBJECT OF OLD TESTAMENT PROPHECY.
The book is Hebrew in character, and intended specially for Hebrews. The Church of God is not the subject of the Old Testament, either in history, type, or prophecy.
Passages, &c., may be found there and used to illustrate what is subsequently revealed. But this can be done only by way of application, and not by way of teaching or of interpretation.
Because of the "Mystery" or the secret concerning the Church of God, we are told that it "was kept secret since the world began" (Rom. 16. 25). That "in other ages it was not made known unto the sons of men" (Eph. 3. 5). That, "from the beginning of the world, hath been hid in God" (Eph. 3. 9). That it "hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to the saints" (Col. 1. 26).
These statements are "the true sayings of God," and not our own. We have no choice but to believe what He says. If any hold that, in spite of all this, the Church was not "hid in God," but was the subject of Old Testament prophecy, then we have nothing more to say to them; for, if they will not believe God, it is not likely they will believe us.
But, believing God, we ask whether the Church is likely to be the subject of prophecy in the Apocalypse, especially when its future is clearly foretold in the Epistles which contain the revelation of the Mystery. There we learn what is to be the future and end of the Body of Christ. The members of that Body are merely waiting to be "received up in glory" (1 Tim. 3. 16). They are waiting for their "calling on high" (Phil. 3. 14). They are looking for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change their vile bodies that they may be fashioned like unto His own glorious body (Phil. 3. 20, 21).
But all this, we submit, takes place before the Apocalypse opens. There we have, not the coming of the Lord to take away His Church, but, the revelation of the events which shall take place after the Church has been "received up in glory." These events will take place during "the day of the Lord," when He shall come not in grace, but in judgement; not in mercy, but in wrath.
THE HEBREW CHARACTER OF THE BOOK.
Though this may be considered by some as a minor point, it is so important that it must not be passed over.
Most critical commentators have to deal with it: because from the earliest times the enemies of the Book have made use of this undeniable fact in order to argue that it has no right to a place in a Canon of the other Greek Books of the New Testament!
The Hebrew character of the book is shown in its use of idioms, expressions, words and phrases, which cannot be called Greek; and indeed is (wrongly) called by many "bad Greek."
Professor Godet in his Studies on the New Testament, says, p. 331: "The only serious objection that can be urged against the authenticity of the Apocalypse, lies in the difference which is observable between its style, and that of the fourth Gospel. The latter is free from Aramaic expressions, the former is saturated with them." And again (p. 351), "the Apocalypse bears, from one end of it to the other, the character of a Hebrew prophecy."
The argument based on this fact by the opponents of the Apocalypse is dealt with by scholars in various ways. But the subject is not one which would be of general interest to grammar. Those who wish to see the subject exhaustively treated are referred to the Commentary on the Apocalypse, by Moses Stuart, who devotes over twenty pages to it (pp. 190-210).
There is however another side to the question: and that is, that, while the enemies use the fact against the Book itself, we use it against the popular interpretation of it. Though the language is Greek, the thoughts and idioms are Hebrew; and this links it on, not to the Pauline epistles, but to the Old Testament, and shows that its great subject is God's final dealings with the Jew and the Gentile; and not the Church of God.
Connected with this fact there is another, that emphasizes it in a remarkable manner. It is not only Hebrew in character as to its linguistic peculiarities, but especially in its use of the Old Testament. Only those who have most intimate acquaintance with the Old Testament can properly understand the Apocalypse. But all who know anything of old Testament history cannot fail to detect the almost constant reference to it.
All the imagery - the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, the Altar, the Incense, the heads of the twenty-four courses of Priests (the pattern of which David's was a copy, 1 Chron. 28. 19, see chap. 25., and compare Heb. 9. 23, etc), all this belongs peculiarly to Israel.
The same may be said of the judgments, which follow on the lines of the plagues of Egypt, and therefore are to be just as real: indeed they are to exceed in dread reality those which were executed in the Exodus from Egypt. For it is written (Ex. 34. 10) - "And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all they people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the Word of the Lord; for it is a terrible thing that I will do with thee." It is the fulfillment of this covenant with Israel which is the great subject of the Apocalypse.
But it is when we come to look at the literary connection between the Old Testament and the Apocalypse that we find evidences of the most striking kind.
If we count up the number of Old Testament passages quoted or alluded to in the New Testament,* we find that the gospel of Matthew has a very large number, amounting in all to 92. The Epistle to the Hebrews comes higher still with 102. Now both these books are connected in a special manner with Israel. Matthew, it is universally admitted, stands out among the four Gospels as being specially Jewish in its character. And the Epistle to the Hebrews was specially written to Hebrews, and they are addressed as such.
* We take the lists as given in Bagster's Bible.
Now, when we turn to the Apocalypse, what do we find? The result which to our mind is overwhelming. No less than 285 references to the Old Testament. More than three times as many as Matthew, and nearly three times as many as the Epistle to the Hebrews.
We ask whether this does not give the book of Revelation a very special connection with the Old Testament, and with Israel? It is undoubtedly written about the people of the Old Testament who are the subjects of its history. These will understand it as Gentile Christians can never hope to do.*
* It is most remarkable that in 1900, a movement has been commenced in Palestine to overcome the difficulty arising from the fact of Jews assembling in Palestine speaking different languages. Hebrew is to be made and to become the common vernacular! It is not only to be taught in all the Jewish schools, but all other subjects are to be learnt in Hebrew. With this fact must be stated another, and that is the recent wide-spread publication of the Salkinson-Ginsburg Hebrew New Testament by the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Mildmay Mission to the Jews, amounting to some three-quarters of a million copies.
We are merely stating certain important facts which must be taken into account by any who are seeking to find out what the Book of Revelation is all about. The facts exist, and the question is, what do they say to us?
Not until we discover this, and thus learn the scope of the book, can we hope to understand it.
THE FIVE-FOLD DIVISION OF THE BIBLE.
The whole Bible is divided into five great divisions, each determined by its subject-matter.
1. The Old Testament has for its subject the King and his coming Kingdom, in promise and prophecy.
2. The Four Gospels the Kingdom offered and rejected. The King crucified by Israel in the Land.
3. The Acts and earlier Pauline Epistles; the King and Kingdom re-offered (3. 19-21); and rejected, by the Dispersion in Rome (Acts 28. 25, 26).
4. The Later Pauline Epistles. The Kingdom in abeyance. The King made Head over all things to the Church.
5. The Apocalypse. The Kingdom set up with Divine judgment, in Power-Glory. The King enthroned.
Then, during the fourth of these, we have the Epistles relating to the Mystery - the Church of God - during this present interval, while the King is in heaven and His Kingdom is in abeyance; and, while the preaching of "the gospel of the kingdom" is suspended, and "the gospel of the grace of God" is proclaimed. Of course, if there is no difference between these two pieces of "good-news," and the kingdom is the same thing as the Church or Body of Christ, then there is an end of the whole matter; not merely of our task, but of the Bible itself. For, if words do not mean what they say when used of a plain, literal, matter of fact like this, then words are useless for the purposes of revelation altogether. We have concealment and confusion in its place; and an Apocrypha instead of an Apocalypse.
But, believing in the perfection of God's words, and not merely of his Word, we submit that we have here a great reason for our proposition, that the Church (the body of Christ) is not the subject of the Apocalypse.
It will be easier to receive this when we come to accumulate the evidence. We submit this first reason, simply asking our readers to believe what God says.
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