Page 40 - Watchman- What of the Night
P. 40
vs.6: ―. … but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a
thousand years.‖
Two points would seem clear, beyond cavil, from these categorical and
unmistakable scripture. The saints will suffer under Antichrist and will reign with
Christ. They refute the wishful thinking and flesh-salving rapturist who contends that
the saints will be translated before antichrist appears and they refute the
a-millennialists who deny the period of the earthly reign and kingdom of Christ with
His saints, which will merge into the eternal kingdom of the New Heaven and New
Earth.
The saints are the cleansed, purified and holy people of God, and the
Hebrew-Chaldee ―Kaddeesh‖ and the greek ―Hagioi‖ are identical in meaning, and
are properly translated ―saints.‖ Any attempt to make the words have exclusive
reference to Jewish believers or saints of a special period called ―tribulation saints‖ is
a part of the persistent casuistry that characterizes the dispensational school in their
attempt to force the scriptures to conform to their false and artificial scheme of things.
For further light on the question of whether saints and disciples will be here when
antichrist appears, let us consider the words of the Savior in the discourse on Olivet,
as recorded in Matt. 24. Let us remember that He spoke to His disciples, as disciples,
and not as Jews: as saints who would found His church, and representatives of a
―Jewish remnant.‖
We have the words of Christ to these disciples, typical of Christians to the end of
the period of Satanic domination, ―When ye therefore shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let
him understand:…‖ Without going further, Christ‘s words make it clear that there
will be Christian disciples who will see the abomination of desolation, Antichrist
himself, establish himself in the ―holy place.‖) The solemn parenthesis, ―whoso
readeth, let him understand‖ clearly implies that the Christians who ―see‖ this
abomination are to be later ―readers‖ rather than His immediate listeners. If Christian
disciples are all to be raptured before antichrist, how would any be here to see it and
need to be warned of it? This is just another link in the long chain of evidence that
gives the lie to that fantastic, modernistic theory.
Let us note another verse, Rev. 20:4. Here we have a description of those who have
been raised up to reign and judge with Christ─the participants in the first resurrection.
This first resurrection—the resurrection of all the just─includes those who have been
beheaded by antichrist for refusing to worship him or receive his mark. Now consider,
gentle reader, since the first resurrection and the rapture of surviving saints is
simultaneous, and the first resurrection includes many who have been killed under
Antichrist, how can there possibly be resurrection and rapture before Antichrist
40