who ventures to deny, seeing that there are so many tilings in this description of Ezekiel which not even the most shameless Jew has dared to argue that we are to interpret according to the letter," etc. — The literal interpretation remained for a long time peculiar to the Jews, who expect from the Messiah not only their own restoration to the earthly Canaan, but the rebuilding of the temple and the renewal of the Levitical worship in the manner described by Ezekiel, and the establishment of a political kingdom generally; whereas Christians have founded the expectation of an earthly kingdom of glory in the form of the millennium, more upon the Apocalypse than upon Ezekiel's prophecy. It has only been in the most recent time that certain scientific defenders of chiliasm have not shrunk from carrying out their views so far as to teach not only the restoration of the Jews to Palestine on their conversion to Christ, but, according to their literal explanation of our prophecy, the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem and the renewal of the Levitical worship in the millennial kingdom. Auberlen has only hinted at this, so that from his words quoted already, " when once priesthood and monarchy are revived, then, without impairing the Epistle to the Hebrews, the ceremonial and civil law of Moses will unfold its spiritual depths in the worship and in the constitution of the millennial kingdom," we cannot see how far he assumes that there will be a literal fulfilment of Ezekiel's prophecy. M. Baumgarten (art. " Ezekiel" in Herzog's Cyclopaedia) says, more plainly, that u the restoration of all the outward reality, which Ezekiel saw in vision, will be not so much a repetition of what went before, as a glorification of the outward, which had perished and been condemned," since this " glorification " will simply consist in "extensions and intensifications" of the earlier precepts of the law. "For," he adds, in support of this opinion, " when Israel as a nation turns to God, how can, how should it manifest its faith and its obedience in any other way than in the forms and ordinances which Jehovah gave to that people? And is it not obvious (!?) that the whole law, in all its sections and portions, will not receive, till after this conversion, that fulfilment which in all ages it has hitherto sought in vain? And how should temple, priesthood, sacrificial service, Sabbath, and new moon, in themselves be opposed to faith in the perfect and eternal revelation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?" In consistency with this, Baumgarten is therefore of opinion that eventually even the Gentile community will enter again into the congregation of Israel, and find its national organization in the law of Israel according to the will of God. — Hofmann, on the contrary (Schriftbeiveis, II. 2, pp. 577 sqq.), finds only so much established with certainty in the revelation of Ezekiel, viz. that Israel will serve God again in its own land, and Jehovah will dwell in the midst of it again. He therefore would have the several parts interpreted in relation to the whole'; so that what Hengstenberg calls the ideal interpretation of this prophecy remains. But he does not say precisely what his view is concerning the temple, and the Levitical rite of sacrifice to be performed therein. He simply infers, from the fact that a stream of water issuing from the temple-mountain makes the Dead Sea sound and the lower Kedron-valley fruitful, that the land will be different from what it was before; and this alteration Volck calls a glorification of Palestine.
In our discussion of the question concerning the restoration of Israel to Canaan, we have already declared ourselves as opposed to the literal interpretation of the prophecy, and have given the general grounds on which the symbolico-typical view appears to be demanded — namely, because the assumption of a restoration of the temple and the Levitical, i.e. bloody, sacrificial worship is opposed to the teaching of Christ and His apostles. AVe have now to assign further reasons for this. If, then, in the first place, we fix our attention upon the vision in ch. xl.— xlviii., we cannot find any conclusive argument against the literal and in favour of the figurative interpretation of the vision in question, either in the fact that Ezekiel does not give any building-plan for the temple, but simply ground arrangements ami ground measurements, and does not say that a temple is ever to be built according to his plan, or give any instructions for the restoration of the Israelitish worship, or in the fact that the division of the land, the bounding off of the Urumah and the arranging of the city, cannot be practically realized. The omission of any command to build the temple might be simply accounted for, from the design to let the prophet merely see the restoration of the destroyed temple in a more perfect form, and cause this to be predicted to the people through him, without at present giving any command to build, as that was only to be carried out in the remote future. The absence of elevations and precise directions concerning the construction of the several buildings might be explained from the fact that in these respects the building was to resemble the former temple. And with regard to the distribution of the land among the tribes, and the setting apart of the ierumah, it cannot truly be said that u they bear on the face of them their purposelessness and impracticability." The description of a portion of land of definite size for priests, Levites, city, and prince, which was to reach from the eastern boundary of Canaan to the western, and to be bounded off in a straight line by the tribe-territories immediately adjoining, contains nothing impracticable, provided that we do not think of the boundary line as a straight line upon a chess-board. But wre may infer from the Mosaic instructions concerning the districts, which were to be given to the Levites as pasture grounds for their cattle round about the cities assigned to them to dwell in, that the words of the text do not warrant any such idea. They are described as perfect squares of a thousand cubits on every side (Num. xxxv. 2-5). If, then, these Mosaic instructions could be carried out, the same must be true of those of Ezekiel concerning the terumahj as its dimensions are in harmony with the actual size of the land. And so also the separation of the city from the temple, and the square form of the city with three gates on every side, cannot be regarded in general as either purposeless or impracticable. And, finally, in the statements concerning the territories to be distributed among the twelve tribes, viz. that they were to lie side by side, that thev were all to stretch from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, and that they were to be of equal size, there is no ground for supposing that the land was to be cut up with the measuring rod into abstract oblongs of equal measurements, with an entire disregard of all the actual conditions. The only thing which causes any surprise here is the assumption on which the regulation, that one tribe is to receive as much as another, is founded, namely, that all the tribes of Israel will be equal in the number of families they contain. This hypothesis can hardly be reconciled with the assumption that an actual distribution of Palestine among the twelve tribes of Israel returning from exile is contemplated. Even the measuring of a space around the temple for the purpose of forming a separation between the holy and the common, which space was to be five times as large as the extent of the temple with its courts, contains an obvious hint at a symbolical signification of the temple building, inasmuch as with a real temple such an object could have been attained by much simpler means. To this must be added the river issuing from the threshold of the eastern temple gate, with its marvellously increasing flow of water, and the supernatural force of life which it contains; for, as we have already pointed out, this cannot be regarded as an earthly river watering the land, but can only be interpreted figuratively, i.e. in a symbolico-typical sense. But if the stream of water flowing from the temple cannot be regarded as a natural river, the temple also cannot be an earthly temple, and the sacrificial service appointed for this temple cannot be taken as divine service consisting in the slaying and offering of bullocks, goats, and calves; and as the entire description forms a uniform prophetic picture, the distribution of the land among the sons of Israel must also not be interpreted literally.
But m different supporters of the chiliastic view have defended the literal interpretation of the picture of the temple spring by the assumption of ■ glorification of nature, i.e. of a glorification of Palestine before the new creation of the heaven and the earth, and this assumption is of great importance in relation to the question concerning the fulfilment of this prophecy ( Ezek. xl.— xlviii.), we must examine somewhat more closely the arguments used in its support.
I. Is the glorification of Canaan before the last judgment taught in the prophecy of the oil Testament? — According to Yolrk ("Zur Eschatologie," Dorpat, Zeitechr. vii. pp. 158 sqq.), the idea of such a glorification is very common throughout the Old
Testament prophecy. " When/' he says, u Isaiah (ii. 2-4) sees the mountain of the house of Jehovah exalted above all the mountains, and the nations flowing to it, to walk in Jehovah's ways; when he prophesies of a time in which the Lord will shelter Israel, now saved and holy in all its members, and fill its land with glory, and Canaan, under the rule of the righteous prince of peace, with its inhabitants once scattered over all the world brought back once more, will be restored to the original, paradisaical state of peace, whilst the world is given up to judgment (Isa. iv. 2-6, ix. 1-6, and 11, 12); — when Jeremiah prophesies that Jerusalem will be rebuilt, and a sprout from the house of David will rule well over his people, upon whose heart Jehovah will write His law (Jer. xxxi. 31-44, xxxiii. 15); — when Hosea (ii. 16-25) sees the house of Jacob, which has returned home after a period of severe affliction, as a pardoned people to which its God betrothes Himself again; — when Joel (iv. 16-21) sees a time break forth after the judgment upon the army of the world of nations, in wdiich the holy land bursts into miraculous fruitfulness; — when Amos (ix. 8-15) predicts the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David that has been overthrown, and the restoration of the Davidic kingdom; — when, according to Zechariah (xiv. 8 sqq.), Jerusalem is to be the centre of the world, to which the nations flow, to celebrate the feast of tabernacles with Israel: — it is impossible, without introducing unbounded caprice into our exposition, to resist the conclusion, that in all these passages, and others of a similar kind, a time is depicted, when, after the judgment of God upon the power of the world, Israel will dwell in the enjoyment of blissful peace within its own land, now transfigured into paradisaical glory, and will rule over the nations round about."
But that all these passages do not contain clear scriptural statements " concerning a partial glorification of the earth " during that kingdom of glory, is apparent from the fact that it is not *;U after writing this that Volck himself raises the question, " Are there really, then, any distinct utterances of Scripture upon this point?" and he only cites two passages (Joel iv. 18 sqq. and Mic. vii. 9—13) as containing an affirmative answer to the question, to which he also adds in a note Isa. xxiv. 1-23 as compared with Isa. xiii. 9 and Zech. xiv. 8-11. But when Joel foretells that, after the judgment of Jehovah upon the army of nations in the valley of Jehoshaphat, the mountains will trickle with new wine, the hills flow with "milk, and all the springs of Judah stream with water, while Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom a barren desert, he announces nothing more than that which Isaiah repeats and still further expands in ch. xxxiv. and xxxv.; where even Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, II. 2, p. 563) admits that Edom is a symbolical designation, applied to the world of mankind in its estrangement from God. Joel merely mentions Egypt as well as Edom as representatives of the world in its hostility to God. But if Egypt and Edom are types of the world in its estrangement from God or its enmity against Him, Judah is a type of the kingdom of God; and this passage simply teaches that through the judgment the might and glory of the kingdoms of the world at enmity against God will be laid waste and destroyed, and the glory of the kingdom of God established. But in nowise do they teach the glorification of Palestine and the desolation of Idumaea and the country of the Nile; especially if we bear in mind that, as we have already observed, the trickling and flowing of the mountains and hills with new wine and oil cannot possibly be understood literally. We meet with the very same antithesis in Mic. vii. 9-13, where the daughter of Zion, presented under the figure of a vineyard, is promised the building of her walls and the flowing into her of numerous peoples from Egypt, Asshur, and the ends of the world, and the desolation of the world is foretold. Micah does not say a word about a partial glorification of the earth, unless the building of the walls of Zion is taken allegorically, and changed into a glorification of Palestine. But if this is the case with passages selected as peculiarly clear, the rest will furnish still less proof of the supposed glorification of the land of Israel. It is true, indeed, that we also find in Isa. xxiv. 1-23 " the antithesis between Zion, the glorified seat of Jehovah, and the earth laid waste by the judgment" (cf. Isa. xiii. 3), and in Zech. xiv. 8 sqq. the prediction of an exaltation of Jerusalem above the land lying round about; but even if a future glorification of the seat of God in the midst of His people, and, indeed, a transformation of the earthly soil of the kingdom of God, be foretold in these and many other passages, the chiliastic idea of a glorification of Palestine before the universal judgment and the new creation of the heaven and earth is by no means proved thereby, so long as there are no distinct statements of Scripture to confirm the supposition that the future glorification of Zion, Jerusalem, Canaan, predicted by the prophets, will take place before the judgment. Even Volck appears to have felt that the passages already quoted do not furnish a conclusive proof of this, since it is not till after discussing them that he thinks it necessary to raise the question, u Does the Old Testament really speak of a glorification of Canaan in the literal sense of the word? " To reply to this he commences with an examination of the view of the millennium held by Auberlen, who finds nothing more in the statements of the Old Testament than that " even nature will be included in the blessing of the general salvation, the soil endowed with inexhaustible fruitfulness, all hostility and thirst for blood be taken from the animal world, yea, the heavens bound to the earth in corresponding harmony," so that we should be reminded of the times of the world before the flood, when the powers of nature wrere still greater than they are now. To this the intimation in Isa. Ixv. 20-22 alludes, where men a hundred years old are called boys, etc. (der Prophet Daniel, pp. 402, 403). But Yolck objects to the literal interpretation of such passages as Isa. Ixv. 20, on the ground that " the consequence of this assumption leads to absurdities, inasmuch as such passages as Isa. xi. 6, lx. 17, 19, Ixvi. 25, would then also have to be taken literally, to which certainly no one would be so ready to agree " (see also Luthardt, die Lelire von den letzten Dingen, p. 78). On the other hand, he defends the canon laid down by Hofmann (p. 5QQ), " that in the prophetic description of that time of glory we must distinguish between the thoughts of the prophecy and the means used for expressing them; the former we reach by generalizing what is said by way of example, and reducing the figurative expression to the literal one." The thought lying at the foundation of these prophetic pictures is, in his opinion, no other than that of a blessed, blissful fellowship with God, and a state of peace embracing both the human and the extra-human creation. a To set forth this thought, the prophets seize upon the most manifold figures and colours which the earth offers them." Thus in Isa. Ixv. 20—23 we have only a figurative description of what is said in literal words in Isa? xxv. 8: He swalloweth up death for ever, and Jehovah wipeth away the tears from every face. So also the figurative expressions in Isa. xi. 6-8, Ixv. 25, affirm nothing more u than that the ground will be delivered from the curse which rests upon it for the sake of man, and the extra-human creation will be included in the state of peace enjoyed in the holy seat of God. But where there is no death and no evil, and therefore no more sin, where the glory of the Lord shines without change (Isa. lx. 19, 20), not only has the world before the flood with its still greater powers of nature returned, but there is the world of glorification." We agree with this view in general, and simply add that this furnishes no proof of the glorification of Canaan before the last judgment. Before this can be done, it must be conclusively shown that these prophetic passages treat of the so-called millennial kingdom, and do not depict what is plainly taught in Isa. Ixv. 17 sqq. and Rev. xxi. and xxii., the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem upon the new earth. Volck also acknowledges this, inasmuch as, after examining these passages, he proposes the question, " Are there really clear passages in the Old Testament prophecy which warrant us in assuming that there will be an intermediate period between the judgment, through which Jehovah glorifies Himself and His people before the eyes of the world, and a last end of all things?" An affirmative answer to this question is said to be furnished by Isa. xxi v. 21 sqq., where the prophet, when depicting the judgment upon the earth, says: " And it will come to pass in that day, that Jehovah will visit the army of the height on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth; and they will be gathered together as a crowd, taken in the pit, and shut up in the prison, and after the expiration of many days will they be visited. And the sun blushes, and the moon turns pale; for Jehovah rules royally upon Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and in the face of His elders is glory." Here even Hofmann finds (pp. 566, 567) the idea clearly expressed " of a time between the judgment through which Jehovah glorifies Himself and His people before all the world, and a last end of things, such as we must picture to ourselves when we read of a rolling up of the heaven on which all its host falls off, like dry leaves from the vine (Isa. xxxiv. 4), and of a day of retribution upon earth, when the earth falls to rise no more, and a fire devours its inhabitants, which burns for ever" (Isa. xxxiv. 8, 9, xxiv. 20). But if we observe that the announcement of the judgment upon the earth closes in Isa. xxiv. 20 with the words, a the earth will fall, and not rise again;" and then vers. 21 sqq. continue as follows: "And it comes to pass in that day, Jehovah will visit," etc., — it will be evident that the judgment upon the host of the heavens, etc., is assigned to the time when the earth is destroyed, so that by the Mount Zion and Jerusalem, where Jehovah will then reign royally in glory, we can only understand the heavenly Jerusalem. An intermediate time between the judgment upon the world and the last end of things, i.e. the destruction of the heaven and the earth, is not taught here. Nor is it taught in ch. lxv. 17-19, where, according to Hofmann (p. 5G8), a glorification of Jerusalem before the new creation of the heaven and the earth is said to be foretold; for here even Volck admits that we have a picture of the new world after the destruction of heaven and earth and after the last judgment, and concludes his discussion upon this point (p. 166) with the acknowledgment, u that in the Old Testament prophecy these two phases of the end are not sharply separated from each other, and especially that the manner of transition from the former (the glorification of Jehovah and His church before the world in the so-called thousand years' reign) to the last end of all things, to the life of eternity, does not stand clearly out," though even in the latter respect there is an indication to be found in Ezek. xxxviii. If, then, for the present we lay this indication aside, as the question concerning Ezek. xxxviii. can only be considered in connection with Rev. xx., the examination of all the passages quoted by the chiliasts in support of the glorification of Palestine, before the new creation of the heavens and the earth, yields rather the result that the two assumed phases of the end are generally not distinguished in the Old Testament prophecy, and that the utterances of the different prophets concerning the final issue of the war of the world-powers against the kingdom of God clearly contain no more than this, that Jehovah will destroy ajl the enemies of His kingdom by a judgment, over- throw the kingdoms of the world, and establish His kingdom in glory. Isaiah alone rises to a prediction of the destruction of the whole world, and of the new creation of the heaven and the earth. — But what the Old Testament leaves still obscure in this respect, is supposed to be clearly revealed in the New. To this question, therefore, we will now proceed.
II. Does the New Testament teach a glorification of Palestine and a kingdom of glory in the earthly Jerusalem, before the last judgment and the destruction of the heaven and the earth? — In the opinion of most of the representatives of millenarianism, there is no doubt whatever as to either of these. " For, according to Rev. xx., the overthrow of the world-power and the destruction of Antichrist are immediately followed by the establishment of the kingdom of glory of the glorified church of Jesus Christ for the space of a thousand years, at the expiration of which the war of Gog and Magog against the beloved city takes place, and ends in the overthrow of the hostile army and the creation of the new heaven and the new earth" (Volck, p. 167). But this assumption is by no means so indisputable. Even if we grant in passing, that, according to the millenarian view of the Apocalypse, the events depicted in ch. xx. are to be understood chronologically, the assumption that Palestine will be glorified during the millennium is not yet demonstrated. Auberlen, for example, who regards the doctrine of the thousand years' reign as one of the primary articles of the Christian hope, pronounces the following sentence (pp. 454, 455) upon Hofmann's view of the millennial reign, according to which the glorified church is to be thought of, not as in heaven, but as on earth, and, indeed, as united with the equally glorified Israel in the equally glorified Canaan: " It appears obvious to me that the whole of the Old Testament prophecy is irreconcilable with this view, apart from the internal improbability of the thing." And according to our discussion above, we regard this sentence as perfectly well founded. The prophets of the Old Testament know nothing of a thousand years' kingdom; and a glorification of the earthly Canaan before the end of the world cannot be inferred from the picture of the temple spring, for the simple reason that the resumption of this prophetic figure in Rev. xxii. 1 and 2 shows that this spring belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth. Even in Rev. xx. we read nothing about a glorification of Palestine or Jerusalem. This has merely been inferred from the fact that, according to the literal interpretation of the chapter, those who rise from the dead at the second coming of Christ will reign with Christ in the " beloved city," i.e. Jerusalem; but the question has not been taken into consideration, whether a warlike expedition of the heathen from the four corners of the unglorified world against the inhabitants of a glorified city, who are clothed writh spiritual bodies, is possible and conceivable, or whether such an assumption does not rather " lead to absurdities." Nor can it be shown that the doctrine of a glorification of Palestine before the end of the present world is contained in the remaining chapters of the Apocalypse or the other writings of the New Testament. It cannot be inferred from the words of the Apostle Paul in Rom. xi. 15, viz. that the restoration of the people of Israel, rejected for a time after the entrance of the pleroma of the heathen into the kingdom of God, will be or cause u life from the dead; " since u life from the dead " never really means the new bodily life of glorification beginning with the resurrection of the dead (Meyer), nor the glorification of the world (Volck); and this meaning cannot be deduced from the fact that the TraXiyfyeveaia (" regeneration," Matt. xix. 28) and the XP°voi <*7ro~ KaTaardaeco^; (" times of restitution," Acts iii. 19-21) will follow the " receiving" (7rp6aXr)yfrc^) of Israel.
And even for the doctrine of a kingdom of glory in the earthly Jerusalem before the last judgment, we have no conclusive scriptural evidence. The assumption, that by the " beloved city " in Rev. xx. 9 we are to understand the earthly
Jerusalem, rests upon the hypothesis, that the people of Israel will return to Palestine on or after their conversion to Christ, rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, and dwell there till the coming of Christ. But, as we have already shown, this hypothesis has no support either in Rom. xi. 25 or any other unequivocal passages of the New Testament; and the only passages that come into consideration at all are Rev. vii. 1-8, xiv. 1-5, and xi., xii., in which this doctrine is said to he contained. In Rev. vii. 1 sqq., John sees how, before the outbreak of the judgment upon the God-opposing world-power, an angel seals " the servants of our God " in their foreheads, and hears that the number of those sealed is a hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel, twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes mentioned by name. In ch. xiv. 1 sqq. he sees the Lamb stand upon Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand, having the name of his Father written upon their forehead. And in ch. xi. 1 sqq. a rod is given to him, and he is commanded to measure the temple of God and the altar, but to cast out the outer court of the temple, and not to measure it, because it is given to the heathen, who will tread under foot the holy city, which has become spiritually a Sodom and an Egypt for forty-two months. From these passages, Hofmann (II. 2, p. 703), Luther, Volck, and others conclude that the converted Israelitish church will not only dwell in Palestine, more especially in Jerusalem, before the coming (parusia) of Christ, but will be alone in outliving the coming of Christ; whilst the rest of Christendom, at all events the whole number of the believers from among the Gentile Christians, will lose their lives in the great tribulation which precedes the parusia, and go through death to God. This conclusion would be indisputable if the premises were well founded, namely, that the passages in question treated only of Jewish Christians and the earthly Jerusalem. For, in the first place, it is evident that the hundred and forty-four thousand whom John sees with the Lamb upon Mount Zion in ch. xiv. 1 sqq. are identical with the hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed from the twelve tribes of Israel in ch. vii. The omission of the retrospective article before e/carbv, k.t.\. in ch. xiv. 1 is to be explained from the fact that the intention is to give prominence to the antithesis, in which the notice of it stands to what precedes. " Over against the whole multitude of the rest of the world, subject to the beast and his prophet, there stands upon Zion a comparatively limited host of a hundred and forty-four thousand" (Volck). And in the second place, it is quite as evident that in the one hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed (ch. vii.), the total number is contained of all believers, who have been preserved in the great tribulation, and kept from perishing therein; and in ch. vii. 9-17 there is placed in contrast with these, in the innumerable multitude out of all the heathen, and nations, and languages standing before the throne of God clothed in white robes, and carrying palms in their hands, who have come out of the great tribulation, the total number of believers who have lost their temporal lives in the great tribulation, and entered into the everlasting life. The mode in which Christiani (u Uebersichtliche Darstellung des Inhalts der Apokalypse," Dorpater Zeitschr. III. p. 53) attempts to evade this conclusion— namely, by affirming that the separate visions never give a complete final account, but only isolated glimpses of it, and that they have mutually to supplement one another — does not suffice. Volck has correctly observed, in answer to the objection that the vision in ch. vii. 9—17 does not set before us the entrance of all the believing Gentile Christians of the last time into heaven through death, that although we simply read of a u great multitude" in ch. vii. 9, this expression does not permit us to infer that there will be a remnant of Gentile Christians, inasmuch as the antithesis upon which all turns is this: " on the one side, this compact number of a hundred and forty-four thousand out of Israel destined to survive the last oppression; on the other, an innumerable multitude out of every nation, who have come to God through death." Nevertheless, we must support Cbristiani in his opposition to the assumption, that at the par usia of Christ only Jewish Christians will be living on earth in Jerusalem or upon Mount Zion, and that all the believing Gentile Christians will have perished from the globe; because such a view is irreconcilably opposed not only to Rev. iii. 12, but also to all the teaching of the New Testament, especially to the declarations of our Lord concerning His second comincr. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, consisting of Gentile and Jewish Christians, iv \07co Kvpiov: " we who live and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not anticipate those who sleep" (1 Thess. iv. 15 sqq.), and when he announced as a fivarrjpiov to the church at Corinth, which was also a mixed church, consisting for the most part of Gentile Christians: " we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (1 Cor. xv. 51), he held the conviction, based upon a word of the Lord, that at the time of Christ's coming there would still be believing Gentile Christians living upon the earth. And when the Lord Himself tells His disciples: u the Son of man will come in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory, and will send His angels with sounding trumpets, and they will gather His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other" (Matt. xxiv. 30, 31), He treats it as an indisputable fact that there will be eickeKTOL, believing Christians, in all the countries of the earth, and that the church existing at His coming will not be limited to the Israel which has become believing in Jerusalem and Palestine.
If, therefore, the Apocalypse is not to stand in direct contradiction to the teaching of Christ and the Apostle Paul in one of the principal articles of the truths of salvation, the exposition in question of Rev. vii. and xiv. cannot be correct. On the contrary, we are firmly convinced that in the hundred and forty-four thousand who are sealed, the whole body of believing Christians living at the parusia of our Lord is represented; and notwithstanding the fact that they are described as the servants of God a out of all the tribes of the children of Israel," and are distributed by twelve thousands among the twelve tribes of Israel, and that in ch. xiv. 1 they stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, we can only regard them, not as Jewish Christians, but as the Israel of God (Gal. vi. 16), i.e. the church of believers in the last days gathered from both Gentiles and Jews. If the description of the sealed as children of Israel out of all the twelve tribes, and the enumeration of these tribes by name, prove that only Jewish Christians are intended, and preclude our taking the words as referring to believers from both Gentiles and Jews, we must also regard the heavenly Jerusalem of the new earth as a Jewish Christian city, because it has the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel written upon its gates (Rev. xxi. 12), like the Jerusalem of Ezekiel (ch. xlviii. 31); and as this holy city is called the bride of the Lamb (Rev. xxi. 9, 10), we must assume that only Jewish Christians will take part in the marriage of the Lamb. Moreover, the Mount Zion upon which John sees Lamb and the hundred and forty-four thousand standing (ch. xiv. 1), cannot be the earthly Mount Zion, as Bengel, Hengstenberg, and others have correctly shown, because those who are standing there hear and learn the song sounding from heaven, which is sung before the throne and the four living creatures and the elders (Rev. xiv. 3). The Mount Zion in this instance, as in Heb. xii. 22, belongs to the heavenly Jerusalem. There is no foundation for the assertion that this view is at variance with the connection of this group, and is also opposed to the context (Christiani, p. 194, Luther, and others). The excellent remarks of Diisterdieck, with regard to the connection, are a sufficient refutation of the first, which is asserted without any proof: " Just as in ch. vii. 9 sqq. an inspiring look at the heavenly glory was granted to such believers as should remain faithful in the great tribulation which had yet to come, before the tribulation itself was displayed; so also in the first part of ch. xiv. (vers. 1-5) a scene is exhibited, which shows the glorious reward of the conquerors (cf. ch. ii. 11, iii. 12, 21) in a certain group of blessed believers (ver. 1: 'a hundred and forty-four thousand:' ver. 4: ' the first - fruits'), who appear with the Lamb upon Mount Zion, and are described as those who have kept themselves pure from all the defilement of the world during their earthly life." And this assumption would only be opposed to the context if vers. 2-5 formed an antithesis to ver. 1, i.e. if those in heaven mentioned in vers. 2, 3 were distinguished from the hundred and forty-four thousand as being still on earth. But if those who sing the new song are really distinguished from the hundred and forty-four thousand, and are il angelic choirs," which is still questionable, it by no means follows from this that the hundred and forty-four thousand are upon the earthly Mount Zion, but simply that they have reached the Zion of the heavenly Jerusalem, and stand with the Lamb by the throne of God, serving Him as His attendants, seeing His face, and bearing His name upon their foreheads (Rev. xxii. 1, 3, 4), and that they learn the new song sung before the throne. Still less can we understand by the holy city of Rev. xi. the earthly Jerusalem, and by the woman clothed with the sun in Rev. xii. the Israelitish church of God, i.e. the Israel of the last days converted to Christ. The Jerusalem of Rev. xi. is spiritually a Sodom and Egypt. The Lord is obliged to endow the two witnesses anointed with His Spirit, whom He causes to appear there, with the miraculous power of Elias and Moses, to defend them from their adversaries. And when eventually they are slain by the beast from the abyss, and all the world, seeing their dead bodies lying in the streets of the spiritual Sodom and Egypt, rejoices at their death, He brings them to life again after three days and a half, and causes them to ascend visibly into heaven, and the same hour He destroys the tenth part of the city by an earthquake, through which seven thousand men are slain, so that the rest are alarmed and give glory to the God of heaven. Jerusalem is introduced here in quite as degenerate a state as in the last times before its destruction by the Romans. Nevertheless we cannot think of this ancient Jerusalem, because if John meant this, his prophecy would be at variance with Christ's prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem. " For, according to the Revelation, there is neither a destruction of the temple in prospect, nor does the church of Jesus flee from the city devoted to destruction " (Hofmann, p. 684). The temple with the altar of burntoffering is measured and defended, and only the outer court with the city is given up to the nations to be trodden down; and lastly, only the tenth part of the city is laid in ruins. For this reason, according to Hofmann and Luther, the Jerusalem of the last days, inhabited by the Israel converted to Christ, is intended. But the difficulty which presses upon this explanation is to be found not so much in the fact that Jerusalem is restored in the period intervening between the conversion of Israel as a nation to Christ and the establishment of the millennial kingdom, and possesses a Jewish temple, as in the fact that the Israel thus converted to Christ, whose restoration, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Rom. xi. 25, will be "life from the dead" to all Christendom, should again become a spiritual Sodom and Egypt, so that the Lord has to defend His temple with the believers who worship there from being trampled down by means of witnesses endowed with miraculous power, and to destroy the godless city partially by an earthquake for the purpose of terrifying the rest of the inhabitants, so that they may give glory to Him. Such an apostasy of the people of Israel after their final conversion to Christ is thoroughly opposed to the hope expressed by the Apostle Paul of the result of the restoration of Israel after the entrance of the pleroma of the Gentiles into the kingdom of God. Hofmann and Luther are therefore of opinion that the Israelitish-Christian Jerusalem of the last times is called spiritually Sodom and Egypt, because the old Jewish Jerusalem had formerly sunk into a Sodom and Egypt, and that the Christian city is punished by the destruction of its tenth part and the slaving of seven thousand men "as a iudjiment upon the hostile nationality;" as if God could act so unjustly in the government of Jerusalem as to give up to the heathen the city that had been faithful to Him, and to destroy the tenth part thereof. This realistic Jewish interpretation becomes utterly impossible when ch. xii. is added. According to Hofmann, the woman in the sun is that Israel of which Paul says, u God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew " (Horn. xi. 2), i.e. the Israelitish church of the saved. Before the birth of the boy who will rule the nations with a sceptre of iron, this church is opposed by the dragon; and after the child born by her has been caught up into heaven, she is hidden by God from the persecution of the dragon in a place in the wilderness for twelve hundred and sixty days, or three times and a half, i.e. during the forty-two months in which Jerusalem as a spiritual Sodom is trodden down of the heathen, and only the temple with those who worship there is protected by God. But even if we overlook the contradiction involved in the supposition that the Israel believing in Christ of ch. xi. has sunk so deep that Jerusalem has to be trodden down by the heathen, and only a small portion of the worshippers of God are protected in the temple, we must nevertheless inquire how it is possible that the Israelitish church of believers in Christ should at the same time be defended in the temple at Jerusalem, and, having fled from Canaan into the wilderness, be concealed " in a place of distress and tribulation." The Jerusalem of the last times does not stand in the wilderness, and the temple protected by God is not a place of distress and tribulation. And how can the Israelitish church of God, which has given birth to Christ, be concealed in the wilderness after the catching up of Christ into heaven, or His ascension, seeing that the believing portiou of Israel entered the Christian church, whilst the unbelieving mass at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem were in part destroyed by sword, famine, and pestilence, and in part thrust out anions the Gentiles over all the world? From the destruction of Jerusalem onwards, there is no longer any Israelitish congregation of God outside the Christian church. The branches broken off from the olive tree because of their unbelief, are not a church of God. And Auberlen's objection to this interpretation — namely, that from the birth of Christ in ver. 6 it makes all at once a violent leap into the antichristian times — still retains its force, inasmuch as this leap not only has nothing in the text to indicate it, but is irreconcilable with vers. 5 and 6, according to which the flififht of the woman into the wilderness takes place directly after the catching away of the child. Auberlen and Christiani have therefore clearly seen the impossibility of carrying out the realistic Jewish interpretation of these chapters. The latter, indeed, would take the holy city in ch. xi. in a literal sense, i.e. as signifying the material Jerusalem; whilst he interprets the temple " allegorically " as representing the Christian church, without observing the difficulty in which he thereby entangles himself, inasmuch as if the holy city were the material Jerusalem, the whole of believing Christendom out of all lands would have fled thither for refuge. In the exposition of ch. xii. he follows Auberlen (Daniel, p. 460), who has correctly interpreted the woman clothed with the sun as signifying primarily the Israelitish church of God, and then passing afterwards into the believing church of Christ, which rises on the foundation of the Israelitish church as its continuation, other branches from the wild olive tree being grafted on in the place of the branches of the good olive that have been broken off (Rom. xi. 17 sqq.). — In Rev. xiii. and xv.-xix. there is no further allusion to Judah and Jerusalem.
If, then, we draw the conclusion from the foregoing discussion, the result at which we have arrived is, that even Rev. i.-xix. furnishes no confirmation of the assumption that the Israel which has come to believe in Christ will dwell in the earthly Jerusalem, and have a temple with bleeding sacrifices.