Page 36 - Watchman- What of the Night
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imminent.
To those of us who now live, the sense of the coming of Christ as impending is
stronger than ever, because the concatenation of prophesied events and scriptural
signs forces the conviction that the advent may well be within the expectancy of life
of those in youth or even middle age. This writer wonders how it can exceed two
decades. It is overwhelmingly impending but still not immediately imminent.
The Apostle Paul certainly did not look for the coming of Christ at any moment, or
before his own death. The words, ―I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my
departure is at hand,‖ show beyond peradventure of doubt that he expected to be
martyred, not raptured. It is, moreover, deeply significant that he could at the same
time expect to die for Christ‘s sake and yet classify himself as one who loved Christ’s
appearing! (II Tim. 4:6-8). Even though he knew he world die, he had the ―blessed
hope‖ of the ―appearing of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ‖
(Titus 2:13). The word ―epiphaneia‖ is used in both these scriptures. It is the
―outshining of the glory of Christ‖ to which the devoted Christian looks primarily and
witch constitutes his ―blessed hope,‖ above and beyond any thought of his own
participation in it, or his own escape from suffering.
How different was Paul from the modern hothouse plants, nurtured on the doctrine
of rapture – without suffering, whose ―blessed hope‖ is that their own physical frames
shall be snatched away from tribulation without any appearing or vindication of Christ
Himself, whatever. Never was an error so charmingly and thrillingly ―dressed up‖ and
dramatized as in Sidney Watson‘s ―In the Twinkling of an Eye.‖ That graphic and
exciting romance of the rapture, has probably had more to do with inculcating the
fiction of the pre-tribulation translation, than all other books written on it put together.
But not only Paul expected to die, but also Peter, who warned the saints to ―give
diligence to make their calling and election sure…knowing that shortly I must put off
this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will
endeavor that ye may be able after my decease, to have these things always in
remembrance.‖ Where upon he proceeds to set forth ―the power and coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.‖ The knowledge of his own approaching death did not deter him
from affirming the fact of the parousia of Christ. (II Pet. 1:10-16). Again in chapter 3,
verse 12, he classifies himself with the other saints in ―looking for and earnestly
desiring the parousia of the Day of God…‖
With both of these great worthies, the most prominent men of the early church, the
certainty of their own physical death, did not prevent them in the least from ―loving‖
and ―looking for‖ the coming of Christ. It was a sure and blessed hope, but not
imminently expected.
There is another point to be noted about Paul and Peter in their writings. They both
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