Some of the early professed Christians gloried in the Jewish nation with all its traditions and every thing Jewish, and tried to bind these on Gentile Christians. Concerning their attitude and his own ideal Paul said, “For not even they who receive circumcision do themselves keep the law; but they desire to have you circumcised, that they may glory in your flesh. But far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world hath been crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” (Gal. 6:13-16.) These Judaizers gloried in the flesh, gloried in the fact that they were Jews: and they were prototypes of those who now encourage the Jews to glory in the fact that they are Jews; but Paul gloried only in the cross of Christ, and pronounced peace upon all who followed his rule. Disturbance and strife followed those ancient Judaizing preachers, as it does those today who glory in the modern version of that nation. The Judaizers did so much harm in the churches of Galatia where Paul had done so much labor, that it so stirred Paul’s feelings that he said, “I would that they that unsettle you would even go beyond circumcision,” or as the marginal reading has, “Greek, mutilate themselves.” (Gal. 5:12.) Concerning this same class of men, he said to the Philippians, “beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision,” and then adds, “for we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” The context shows plainly that Paul had no confidence in his Jewish flesh—no confidence in the fact that he was a Jew, even though he had more grounds for such confidence than did the Judaizing disturbers. “... if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more.” And then Paul gives the grounds on which he might, if it were worth anything, have more confidence in the flesh than his Judaizing enemies: “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews.” In his fleshly relations he had all the advantages that any Jew could have had. “Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yet verily, I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him.” (Read Phil. 3:2-11.) Paul gave up his fleshly connection and all that pertained to it, as refuse, or dung, that he might gain Christ; he could not gain Christ and justification by faith in him without so doing. And yet all over this country, in the press, in the pulpit and over the radio, men are teaching that to the Jew belongs the glory of that supposed kingdom. In that kingdom only the Jews will be citizens; other people will be subservient to them, and will have to come to the Jews for favors! That really teaches the Jew to have confidence in the flesh—to glory in the fact that he is a Jew. It cannot develop in him a spirit of humility, and therefore hinders his conversion. He must, as Paul did, give all that up, or he can never gain Christ.
Recently I heard David L. Cooper, who, Dr. Weber said, is the greatest living Bible scholar, answer some questions in a radio speech. In giving answer to a question as to the setting up of the kingdom, he said that the spiritual kingdom which John announced as at hand was set up on the first Pentecost after the resurrection of Christ, but that when Christ returns to earth he will set up his visible kingdom, and that there would be no peace on the earth till that was done. In answering another question he said that Christ will not come till national Israel confess their national sin of rejecting him. If this last statement is true, then the coming of Christ is not imminent, but likely it is far in the future, for there are no signs now that the Jews will ever make such a confession. And if Cooper is right the Jews have the peace of the world in their keeping; for according to him the peace of the world depends on Christ’s second coming, and his coming depends on the conversion of the Jews. So Christ’s second coming is not imminent, and the Jews hold the destiny of the world in their hands! And I see no chance for the Jews to act nationally in anything—how can they?
Pointed Paragraphs:
Here is one lesson that Israel never did learn, nor has the world yet learned it: “O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (Jer. 10:23.)
FUTURE-KINGDOM DOCTRINES
A brother in Tennessee wants to know the difference, if any, between the church and the kingdom of Christ. A brother in Florida writes an article about long enough to fill my page, seeking to prove that the prophets foretold a kingdom yet future. Occasionally a brother over in Arkansas has written me along the same lines. The scheme argued by these two brethren is along the same lines argued by other future-kingdom advocates.
In its broadest sense the church is that body of people who have been called out of sin into the service of Christ. As Jesus rules over this body of people, it is his kingdom.
“Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent his disciples, and said unto him, art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?” In similar fashion let us ask, Is Christianity the scheme of redemption that was to come, or look we for another? The future-kingdom advocates have answered, No, we must look for another. On that point they speak in no uncertain terms. It is argued that, though Jesus came to establish his kingdom in Jerusalem and to deliver the Jews from oppression, they rejected him, and he postponed the establishment of his kingdom till the time of his second coming. On this assumption their use of the prophecies is a puzzle. If the prophecies foretold the establishment of his kingdom at his first coming, then they did not foretell its establishment at his second coming; and the future-kingdom advocates discredit the prophets by seeking to make it appear that their prophecies can be shifted from one period to another. And yet they have the audacity to tell us that if things do not work out according to their theory, no dependence can be placed in what the prophets say. Well, half of their theory has failed—the kingdom was not established, we are told, at his first coming! Now they must shift the prophecies to some future date.
Arthur Pink represents F. W. Grant as saying, in the “Numerical Bible,” that Matthew shows, that because Israel rejected Christ, the kingdom of heaven would be taken from them, “and assume the mystery form in which it was unknown to the prophets of Israel.” (page 2). Again (p. 13) Pink says, “But the Old Testament knows nothing whatsoever of Christianity!” All future-kingdom advocates from whom I quote hold this same idea. In fact their theory makes it necessary for them to deny that any Old Testament promise or prophecy referred to the scheme of redemption preached by the apostles. In the Word and Work (January 1945) J. Edward Boyd says, “The prophets had clearly seen and foretold the kingdom gloriously triumphant, all opposition crushed, universal in its sway; but this present aspect of the kingdom, the church, although in the mind of God all along, they had not been permitted to see.”
It is a well known fact that the Jews expected the old kingdom to be restored and enlarged with the Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem; and R. H. Boll says, “Their expectations and conceptions of the king and kingdom had their origin in these Old Testament prophecies.” (Kingdom of God, p. 25.) “They saw in him that promised Coming One of David’s line who would free his nation from the Gentile’s yoke and reign over the house of Jacob, and through it over all the nations of the earth. For so it was promised.” (p. 26). “The Old Testament prophecies and promises of the kingdom were the theme of our preceding studies.... By such predictions as those was the kingdom-hope of Israel created; and that most justly and nationally. When John the Baptist lifted up his voice in the wilderness of Judea and announced ‘the kingdom at hand’ he used a phraseology which was already common and current among the Jews, and which was perfectly understood by all.” Read that again. If the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” was “common and current among the Jews,” it was a phrase of their own invention, for no Old Testament prophecy contains the phrase. Matt. 3:2 is the first place it occurs in the Bible. Again (p. 34): “But if the Jewish expectations had been utterly wrong (which, as we have seen in our former articles, was not the case), even then a sense of justice would suggest that God would not have left the people under such misapprehension without a clear protest and correction.” Read that again. Does he mean to say, that if God announced a kingdom different from what the Jews expected without telling them so, he did not have a proper sense of justice? Or does he mean that his own sense of justice would suggest that God should have made the explanation suggested? In either case, he crosses himself up; for he says that Jesus began in Matthew thirteen to talk about the mystery form of the kingdom. But Jesus did not give any hint, that as the Jews had rejected him, the kingdom they expected was now postponed and an entirely new sort of kingdom would be presented. And strange to say, he kept on using the term “kingdom of heaven,” without telling them he was now using the term in an entirely new sense. In fact the Jewish idea remained with the disciples up to the ascension of Christ. Now, what about that sense of justice?