THE Bible teaches that God will ultimately
triumph over all sin and rebellion in the earth. This is stated in many
passages; notably 1 Cor. 15:24-28:
"Then cometh the end, when he shall
have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put
down all rule and authority and power.
For he must reign, till he hath put
all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall he
destroyed is death.
For he hath put all things under his
feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he
is excepted, which did put all things under him.
And when all things shall be subdued
unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all
things under him, that God may be all in all."
Thus does the divine record predict the
restoration of this universe to its primal blessedness under the unchallenged
authority of God, when the Son shall have put down all authority and banished
every foe. This purpose, as recorded in the Bible, appears in various stages, or
aspects, all leading with the certainty of the Infinite to the glorious
consummation.
The reestablishment of the
authority of God is first mentioned in Gen. 3:15, where it is stated that the
Seed of the woman should bruise the head of Satan, the file leader of all the
permitted present confusion in the government of God. In this mighty
undertaking, too, Satan must bruise his heel. There are successive methods and
various degrees of divine government in the earth following this first reference
in Genesis and leading up to the eternal kingdom covenant made with David. In
the Davidic Covenant the final consummation is again foreseen in that this
covenant is unlimited in respect to time. It is the detail and duration of this
covenant that gives it preeminent value as the logical starting-point for all
kingdom study in the Scriptures.
The portion of the Davidic Covenant
which has to do with eternal rule and government is as follows:
"Also the LORD telleth thee that he
will make thee an house.
And when thy days be fulfilled, and
thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which
shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build an house for my name,
and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.
I will be his father, and he shall he
my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and
with the stripes of the children of men:
But my mercy shall not depart away
from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee.
And thine house and thy kingdom shall
be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for
ever."
2 Sam. 7:11-17.
This covenant, as herein stated,
secures an established kingly order which will continue for ever. The element of
perpetuity in this kingly rule was not conditioned in Jehovah's oath by sin in
the Davidic house. Chastisement was provided in case of disobedience, -
chastisement which fell upon the nation in the captivities and the dispersion, -
but the eternal purpose of the covenant is not abrogated: "Thy throne shall be
established for ever."
Of this eternal covenant and the one
condition of chastisement it is written in Ps. lxxxix. 20-37:
"I have found David my servant; with
my holy oil have I anointed him:
With whom my hand shall be
established: mine arm also shall strengthen him.
The enemy shall not exact upon him;
nor the son of wickedness afflict him.
And I will beat down his foes before
his face, and plague them that hate him.
But my faithfulness and my mercy
shall be with him: and in my name shall his horn be exalted.
I will set his hand also in the sea,
and his right hand in the rivers.
He shall cry unto me, Thou art my
father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.
Also I will make him my firstborn,
higher than the kings of the earth.
My mercy will I keep for him for
evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him.
His seed also will I make to endure
for ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.
If his children forsake my law, and
walk not in my judgments;
If they break my statutes, and keep
not my commandments;
Then will I visit their transgression
with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless my loving kindness will
I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.
My covenant will I not break, nor
alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.
Once have I sworn by my holiness that
I will not lie unto David.
His seed shall endure for ever, and
his throne as the sun before me.
It shall be established for ever as
the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven. Selah."
The certainty of this covenant is again
stated in Jer. xxxiii. 20, 21:
"Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break
my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should
not be day and night in their season;
Then may also my covenant he broken
with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his
throne..."
Peter, by the Spirit, in his
pentecostal sermon reveals also that it was the eternal element in this
covenant, to which Jehovah had sworn with an oath, that led David to foresee the
Lord always before his face and to demand in his faith, even the resurrection of
Christ, that the oath of his God should not fail. Thus Peter spoke of
David:
"For David speaketh concerning him, I
foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I
should not be moved:
Therefore did my heart rejoice, and
my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
Because thou wilt not leave my soul
in hades, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see
corruption.
Thou hast made known to me the ways
of life: thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Men and brethren, let me freely speak
unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his
sepulcher is with us unto this day.
Therefore being a prophet, and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his
loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his
throne;\
He seeing this before spake of the
resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hades, neither his flesh
did see corruption" Acts ii. 25-31.
So, yet again, when the reign of peace
through David's Greater Son is pictured to the House of Jacob, over whom he is
to rule, the same eternal covenant is mentioned with a chastisement:
"In a little wrath I hid my face from
thee for a moment," which moment, however, has already extended at least
twenty-four centuries; but what is this compared with that which follows: "But
with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy
Redeemer" (Isa. liv. 8)?
The history of the kings from David on,
with the sin of the nation, is too familiar to need description. Their complete
apostasy ended in chastisement in which they were taken off from the land and
scattered among the nations and there was a cessation of the line of kings.
These exact events Moses had prophesied a full thousand years before. This
prophecy forms a part of the farewell address of Moses to the nation for whom he
had wrought, and with whom, because of the judgments of Jehovah, he could not
enter the land. Moses foresaw the national apostasy, the chastisement by exile,
and on beyond a period already extended 3,500 years, to that nation's blessings
which are yet future, when their chastisement shall have ended and they are
regathered into their own land under the unchanging covenant of Jehovah. These
prophecies are recorded in Deut. xxvi. 1 to xxx. 20. Only a portion is here
given:
"And it shall come to pass, that as
the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord
will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall
be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
And the LORD shall scatter thee among
all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there thou
shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even
wood and stone.
And among these nations shalt thou
find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall
give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of
mind:
And thy life shall hang in doubt
before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance
of thy life:
In the morning thou shalt say, Would
God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for
the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine
eyes which thou shalt see.
And the LORD shall bring thee into
Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see
it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and
bondwomen, and no man shall buy you" Deut. xxviii. 63-68.
"And it shall come to pass, when all
these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set
before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither
the LORD thy God hath driven thee,
And shalt return unto the LORD thy
God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day,
thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;
That then the LORD thy God will turn
thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee
from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.
If any of thine be driven out unto
the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee,
and from thence will he fetch thee:
And the LORD thy God will bring thee
into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he
will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
And the LORD thy God will circumcise
thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all
thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
And the LORD thy God will put all
these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted
thee.
And thou shalt return and obey the
voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this
day.
And the LORD thy God will make thee
plenteous in every good work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in
the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD
will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over your
fathers:
If thou shalt hearken unto the voice
of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are
written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with
all thine heart, and with all thy soul." Deut. xxx.
1-10.
There is no more important Scripture
relating to Israel than this, and every word of this prophecy covering the time
to the present hour has been literally fulfilled. Shall it not be so to the end?
Shall they not be regathered as actually as they have been scattered? And that
in relation to, and by virtue of, a "return," or second coming (xxx. 3) of the
divine Person to the earth? Is there any other explanation of the miraculous
preservation of that nation than that Jehovah's oath cannot be broken?
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