Now, it is most evident that, if the saints accompany their Lord when He comes in judgment, they must be with Him previously. The fact of their going to Him is not presented in the book of Revelation, unless it be involved—as we doubt not it is—in the catching up of the man child, in chapter xii. The man child is, most surely, Christ; and inasmuch as Christ and His people are indissolubly joined in one, they are most completely identified with Him, blessed for ever be His holy and precious name!
But, clearly, it does not at all lie within the scope of the book of Revelation to give us the coming of Christ for His people, or their being caught up to meet Him in the air, or their return to the Father's house. For these blessed events or facts, we must look elsewhere, as, for example, in John xiv. 3; 1 Corinthians xv. 23, 51, 52; 1 Thessalonians iv. 14-17. Let the reader ponder these three passages. Let him drink into his very soul their clear and precious teaching. There is nothing difficult about them, no obscurity, no mist or vagueness whatever. A babe in Christ can understand them. They set forth, in the clearest and simplest possible manner, the true Christian hope, which—we repeat it emphatically, and urge it upon the reader as the direct and positive teaching of holy Scripture—is the coming of Christ to receive His people, all His people, to Himself, to take them back with Him to His Father's house, there to remain with Him, while God deals governmentally with Israel and the nations, and prepares the way, by His judicial actings, for bringing in the First-begotten into the world.
Now, if it be asked, "Why have we not the coming of Christ for His people in the book of Revelation?" Because that book is pre-eminently a book of judgment—a governmental, judicial book, at least from chapter i.-xx. Hence even the church is presented as under judgment. We do not see the church in chapters ii. and iii. as the body or the bride of Christ; but as a responsible witness on the earth, whose condition is being carefully examined and rigidly judged by Him who walks amongst the candlesticks.
It would not, therefore, comport with the character or object of this book to introduce, directly, the rapture of the saints. It shows us the church on the earth, in the place of responsibility. This it gives us, in chapters ii. and iii., under the head of "the things that are." But from that to chapter xix. there is not a single syllable about the church on earth. The plain fact is, the church will not be on earth during that solemn period. She will be with her Head and Lord, in the divine retirement of the Father's house. The redeemed are seen in heaven, under the title of the twenty-four crowned elders, in chapters iv., v. There, blessed be God, they will be, while the seals are being opened, the trumpets sounded, and the vials poured out. To think of the church as being on the earth, from Revelation vi.-xviii.—to place her amid the apocalyptic judgments—to pass her through "the great tribulation"—to subject her to "the hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth"—would be to falsify her position, to rob her of her chartered privileges, and to contradict the clear and positive promise of her Lord.[25]
No, no, beloved Christian reader; let no man deceive you, by any means. The church is seen on earth in Revelation ii., iii. She is seen in heaven, together with the Old Testament saints, in chapters iv., v. We are not told, in the Revelation, how she gets there; but we see her there, in high communion and holy worship; and then, in chapter xix., the rider on the white horse comes forth, with His saints, to execute judgment upon the beast and the false prophet—to put down every enemy and every evil, and to reign over the whole earth for the blissful period of a thousand years.
Such is the plain teaching of the New Testament, to which we earnestly invite the attention of our readers. And let no one suppose that our object is to find an easy path for Christians in thus teaching, as we do most emphatically, that the church will not be in "the great tribulation"—will not come into "the hour of temptation." Nothing of the kind. The fact is, the true and normal condition of the church, and therefore of the individual Christian, in this world, is tribulation. So says our Lord: "In the world ye shall have tribulation." And again, "We glory in tribulation."
It cannot, therefore, be a question of avoiding that which is our appointed portion in this world, if only we are true to Christ. But the fact is, that the entire truth of the church's position and prospect is involved in this question, and this is our reason for urging it so upon the prayerful attention of our readers.
The great object of the enemy is to drag down the church of God to an earthly level—to set Christians entirely astray as to their divinely appointed hope—to lead them to confound things which God has made to differ, to occupy them with earthly things—to cause them to so mix up the coming of Christ for His people with His appearing in judgment upon the world, that they may not be able to cultivate those bridal affections and heavenly aspirations which become them as members of the body of Christ. He would fain have them looking out for various earthly events to come between them and their own proper hope, in order that they may not be—as God would have them—ever on the very tip-toe of expectation, looking out, with ardent desire, for the appearing of "the bright and morning Star."
Well doth the enemy know what he is about; and surely we ought not to be ignorant of his devices, but rather give ourselves to the study of the word of God, and thus learn, as we most surely shall, "the double bearing" of the glorious fact of the Lord's coming.