p. 216 | THE AGE TO COME

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · April 1, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 14

THE AGE TO COME.

QUESTIONS ANSWERED.

1. It is asked how the Father subdues the enemies of Christ unto him before his coming, when it is not until the end of the thousand years, that is, after the second resurrection, that Satan and his followers are destroyed. We answer that the great decision is made in this conflict between the forces of darkness and light, between truth and error, at the time when probation ends. Then God gives all power and all judgment into the hands of his Son. From that time the powers of darkness have no influence over God’s people, no opportunity to hinder or mar his work. At present they are in a measure free. They are working against Christ; they are warring against his cause. It is undecided who will be saved. All this is changed when probation ends; the people of Christ are then forever delivered from Satan’s opposing influence. “The last enemy” of Christ and his people “that shall be destroyed is death;” and that, so far as it relates to the people of the Lord, is destroyed when they are made immortal. Then Satan is cast into the bottomless pit; the wicked are in their graves; the work of subjugation is completed. They now only wait their execution. They are like the culprit who is shut up in prison, his career of crime and transgression of law restrained, and he only waiting his execution. So with the devil and his followers after Christ comes. The scene at the end of the thousand years is not the arrest of the criminal, or the subjugation of an opposing power, but simply the execution of the sentence.

2. We are asked, also, to explain Acts 15 : 14–17: “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things.”

Beyond controversy, this scripture refers to the work of the gospel among the Gentiles. Verses 15 and 16 are thrown in parenthetically to show the prophecy by which this work is pointed out. If we

read verses 14 and 17 in connection, we have this declaration: “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all those things.” The language plainly implies that no further work is to be done after this work among the Gentiles, introduced at the beginning of this dispensation; for the object of this is to gather out the residue of men, or the last that will be saved of the human family. The only difficulty is, to determine in what respect this is building again the tabernacle of David, which has fallen down as described in the 16th verse. That it does not refer to any future literal restoration of the throne of David in Jerusalem, is evident from the prophecy; for Peter applies it to the work of the gospel at the present time. And it is the building of the tabernacle of David in this respect: it is the filling up of the tribes of Israel which are to be saved, and constitute the redeemed in the future eternal kingdom of glory. The literal seed fell through unbelief and disobedience. The requisite number could not be found from them to make up the nations of the saved. Hence, if the work had not been extended to the Gentiles, there must have been a failure in these prophecies which speak of the kingdom of David, using that as a representation of the future kingdom of Christ. Hence this work which is to make the fulfilment of these prophecies possible may justly be called the building of the tabernacle of David, and setting up the ruins thereof.

3. It is also requested that the 38th and 39th of Ezekiel be explained, especially those passages which speak of the destruction of Gog and Magog, in the land of Israel, of their burial, of the burning of their weapons of war for seven years, and the cleansing of the land in this manner from all those enemies of God’s people.

In the 40th chapter of Ezekiel and onward to the end of that book, we have a description of a remarkable sanctuary which God offered to the people on certain conditions. The conditions were that the people should be ashamed of their iniquities and put away their transgressions; Eze. 43 : 11; but we have the declaration of another prophet, Jer. 6 : 15, that they did not comply with these conditions by being ashamed of their iniquities, and hence the prophecy was never fulfilled. Had they complied with it, it would have been fulfilled; but its fulfilment, as is certain from the specifications given, must have been in the former dispensation. This is plainly shown in the work on the Sanctuary, pp. 162–166.

Chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel are evidently a part of the same vision, hence resting on the same conditions; but the conditions never having been complied with, that prophecy is not to be fulfilled.

Without doubt, had ancient Israel heeded the invitations sent them of God through his prophets and messengers, instead of rejecting and persecuting his servants, he would have gathered from them a sufficient number to people the earth made new. Then this conditional prophecy given by Ezekiel would have been fulfilled; the enemies of God’s people under the names of Gog and Magog would have been gathered to that land, and would have been destroyed in the manner he had described; the sanctuary promised would have been built; and that people would have been placed in that position of exaltation and glory which is here set forth. But they made a disastrous failure; and God was obliged to reject them on account of their hardness of heart and blindness of mind.

He then goes to the Gentiles with his offers of mercy, and gathers from them the number required to make up the company of the redeemed. This, in Romans 11 : 25, is called the “fullness of the Gentiles.” This is the building of the tabernacle of David, and restoring the ruins thereof, spoken of in Acts 15 : 17; and when this is done, then we shall have all of the substantial features of Ezekiel’s prophecy fulfilled, only in another manner. A call is made, when Christ comes, to the fowls of the heavens to come to the supper of the great God as described in Rev. 19. This is the same that would have been fulfilled as described in Ezekiel 39 : 17 if Israel had complied with the conditions. At the end of the one thousand years, the enemies of God’s people again appear upon the stage of action under the names of Gog and Magog, just as given us in the book of Ezekiel. This is carrying out substantially the same purpose there brought to view; namely, the destruction of all the enemies of his truth and his work; only this is a dispensation later, and accomplished in a different manner.

It was the failure of ancient Israel through unbelief, and their provoking God by lack of faith in his word, which has made all this extension of time, and these new features in the plan of salvation, necessary. But the end will be accomplished at last as God proposed in the beginning; all Israel will be saved, the number being made up by believers in Christ from all nations; the throne of David [Christ] will finally be established. The earth will be purified from sin and the curse, and made a fit dwelling-place for the people of God. The enemies of the great King will be blotted from existence, and the universe will be pure and holy and happy, without a pang of suffering, or a stain of sin. But this end is to be reached, as the proof in this and previous numbers plainly shows, by a process far different from that involved in the doctrine called the “Age-to-Come.”