Hope of the Gospel

WE will now look at the testimony of Jeremiah concerning Rachel, fulfilled in the mothers' weeping at the time Herod slew the children of Bethlehem while seeking to destroy Christ: "Thus saith the Lord, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." See Jer. 31:15-17, and Matt. 2:15. These children were not in Heaven, nor in a hell of punishment, but out of existence. Now notice the consolation which the Lord gives these mothers: "Thus saith the Lord: Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears; for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord: and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." Why, say you, I thought children, when they died, went right to Heaven. Is Heaven the land of the enemy? No; but the grave is, and these are the words of consolation offered to those whose children are in the graves.

How different is the above from that given by those who believe in immediate rewards at death. I will quote a sample from the "Christian Almanac," illustrating the popular consolation given to weeping mothers. "Lady, how many children have you? Two on earth, and two in Heaven. Thou art mother of angels then. They are yet yours, only gone before! Rejoicing in the heavenly pastures, guarded by the Good Shepherd—little lambs of the heavenly fold! Earth, then, is less attractive. These invisible little spiritual cords twine around you, and draw your soul upward. Like 'still, small voices,' ever whispering, 'Come to the world where spirits live.' Mother of cherubs! Walk softly! Little angel-eyes watch thy steps! Spirit forms stoop to listen! Keep thy soul free from earth; thou shalt go to them, though they cannot return to thee!" How different this from the word of the Lord: "They are not." "They shall come again from the land of the enemy," and "There is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border."

Said the woman of Tekoah, when pleading before David, "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person; yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him." 2 Sam. 14:14. Here are several direct statements respecting the dead. (1) They are "as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." (2) They are represented as "banished" from the Lord—a very different sentiment from that which is commonly taught, that God's people go immediately into his presence. (3) In the testimony of this woman of Tekoah, we learn that if God does not devise some means to redeem his people, they will not only remain "banished," but they will be also "expelled from him." The means God has devised is to get the saints out of the enemy's prison, for "He [Satan] lets not his prisoners loose homewards." Isa. 14:7.

This work is to be accomplished by Christ, through the resurrection. Christ says, "Or else, how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house." Matt. 12:29. The strong man spoken of represents Satan.

Notice a corresponding testimony concerning him in Luke: "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace; but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils." Luke 11:21,22. The spoils he (the devil) takes from the army of the saints, he puts into his prison house (the grave). But Christ, a stronger than he, is coming upon him, and he will take the spoil.

According to the testimony of Paul, Christ is to conquer the devil through death. See Heb. 2:14. This work is predicted of Christ by Isaiah. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death," etc. Here it is promised that Christ shall divide the spoil with the strong. When he has bound the strong man, he will raise the saints of God from their dusty beds, while the wicked dead will be left with Satan, to be destroyed with him at last.

We have a view of the fulfillment of this work in Rev. 20:1: "And I saw an angel come down from Heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand." We understand that he who is here represented as binding Satan is Christ. He is called an angel (see 1 Thess. 4:16), and he is the one who has the key of the bottomless pit. "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forever more, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." Rev. 1:18. John proceeds to tell us what Christ will do: "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit." Here the strong man is bound. He is rendered inactive. His power is broken, or as Christ says in Luke, "When a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils." The next thing of which John gives an account after the binding of Satan, is the resurrection of the saints. Verses 4, 5: "And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God;...and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection."

The means God has devised to accomplish the resurrection is the death and resurrection of his Son. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. Christ died, passed into the tomb, into the prison house of "the strong man armed "—Satan. But God has promised not to leave his soul in hell. "Bright angels rolled the rock away, and Christ, the conqueror, rose."

Jesus broke the strongest power of Satan, and rose a triumphant victor over death and the grave. Then he obtained the keys of hell and of death. There he received power to bruise Satan under our feet. In the act of rising from the grave it is fully manifested to all men that Christ has power to conquer Satan and deliver those "who through fear of death were all their life subject to bondage." This is the great work to be accomplished. Christ is "our hope," and, as we have set forth in these pages, it is in and through him that we, if his servants, will receive an eternal victory over death at his coming and the resurrection. Any hope of reward at death, or otherwise than through the resurrection, is not the gospel hope. There is no promise of any such reward in the Bible, and all that is ever urged in its support, at most, is but inference. Of this kind of testimony, Dr. Adam Clarke says: "Let it be remembered that by the consent of all (except the basely interested), no metaphor is ever to be produced in proof of a doctrine. In the things that concern our eternal salvation we need the most pointed and express evidence on which to establish the faith of our souls."—Comment on Matt. 5:26

An eminent English writer says: "But if the proposition is not expressly revealed, the the right of inferring is equal on all sides; and surely those conclusions which are inferred from what is expressly revealed should be at least as just and as strong as those which are inferred from what is not."— Blackburne's History of the Controversy, p. 337.

Dear reader, in conclusion we would express the earnest wish that Christ may indeed be your hope, that we may each receive all that grace and strength proffered to us through him, that we may be complete in him who is the head over all to his church, and that we may share eternal joys with him in the day of his coming. Amen.