J. N. Darby.
<31002E> 75
{*The Second Death and the Restitution of all Things. By Andrew Jukes. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. Third Edition.}
This book denies all true sense of what sin is; that men must be born again; and the cross, as Christ bearing our sins. We die as He died; and that is all. And, I judge, there is more behind, which he says, aping Paul, he cannot utter (p. 75). I should add that guilt is never thought of or recognised, nor Christ's work as meeting it in any way.
The book is written in the form of a letter to a friend. On page 2 he says, "Your difficulty is, How are we, as believers in Scripture, to reconcile its prophetic declarations as to the final restitution of all things with those other statements of the same scripture which are so often quoted to prove eternal punishment?" There are no such prophetic declarations as to the restitution of all things absolutely. He leaves out, as all such do, the words "which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21), "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began," Acts 3:20-21. The "all things" refer solely to those things of which the prophets have spoken. The reading of the passage dissipates the notion based on it by leaving out the end.
Again, "scripture, you say, affirms that our God (whose?) is a Saviour full of pity towards the lost, seeking their restoration so loving that He has given for man His only-begotten Son, in. and by whom the curse shall be overcome, and all the kindreds of the earth be blessed; and yet that some shall go away into everlasting punishment, where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched. How is it possible, you ask, to reconcile all this? Are not the statements directly inconsistent?" No. There is nothing to reconcile, no opposition whatever. Suppose He has been rejected — found none to answer? "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him," John 3:36. Those in hell are not kindreds of the earth.
76 Nature and providence are said to veil as much as they reveal. "We must confess to some veil or riddle here. It is precisely the same riddle which we find in every other revelation … Providence surely is a revelation of God; and yet is it not, like nature, a veil quite as much as a revelation?" Why so? All this is confusion and error. Nature and providence are under the effects of the fall, and the fruits of sin are there. If these last are in the word, I must cull out what is and what is not. But the word is perfect as Christ was. It is want of intelligence in me — unbelief in me — that hinders my understanding it, not the effect of sin in it. It is quite wrong then to say that "Scripture, as it appears to sense, makes out God to be just as far from what He really is as nature and providence seem to make Him."
Again, "Even so it is with those other two revelations which, much as they have been gainsaid, the church has received and yet believes in I mean the flesh of Christ and holy Scripture." "The church": what church? He quite treats it all through as some known adequate authority.
What he concludes regarding nature, providence, and Scripture at page 14 is all false, as we have just shewn; and the esoteric referred to has been discovered by him!
That God was willing, in revealing Himself, to seem inconsistent by giving the law, is utter nonsense and confusion. There was no seeming inconsistency, for the law was the just measure of what the child of Adam ought to be, so as to convict him of sin; not the revelation of what God was at all. "If men are in the flesh, God comes to them in flesh," etc. All are in the flesh (not disembodied) when God comes to them. All this section (pp. 14, 15) is a denial of the truth, where it is not pretty nonsense. "Why have men always heard God first speaking in law before a gospel dawned on them? Why must it be so, or at least why does He allow it? Is it a mistake of His which we must avoid when we attempt to make Him known?" etc. We may use law to convict of sin; but all up to Christ was a testing of man, not a revealing of God, save promise and prophecy. Then, in the fulness of time, God was revealed in Christ; light shining in darkness, and no man received Him because men were darkness. Then grace wrought to lead to it.
77 The concluding sentence of this paragraph is totally false; for God never revealed Himself till Christ came. "It was needful that He should shew Himself under the forms and limitations of that creature in and to whom He sought to reveal Himself, that is, by shadows before light, by law before gospel, by a letter before a quickening spirit — in a word, by the humiliation of His eternal Word stooping to come out of man's heart and in a human form." Where? Nowhere in Scripture. When he says this "could not be done without truth" stooping "to come in human form, out of the heart of man, even as Christ came forth from Mary," we ask, Is man's heart the birthplace of truth, as Mary's womb of Christ? Man's heart indeed! And yet he says "this word is no stranger to me!" Also "knowing that it has many things to say which we cannot bear at first." Who? The disciples before Pentecost (John 16:12), or the little children whose sins are forgiven, who know the Father, and have an unction from the Holy One and know all things? (1 John 2.)
At page 19 he begins to consider the question, "What then does Scripture say on this subject? Its testimony appears at first sight contradictory … there are direct statements as to the results of these [law and gospel] which at first sight are apparently irreconcilable." He first states the results as to law and condemnation, and at the close says: "Words could not well be stronger. The difficulty is that all this is but one side of Scripture, which in other places seems to teach a very different doctrine. For instance there are, first, the words of God Himself, repeated again and again by those same apostles whom I have just quoted, that 'in Abram's seed all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed' (Gen. 12:3; chap. 22:18; Acts 3:25; Gal. 3:8); words which St. Peter expounds to mean that there shall be a 'restitution of all things'; adding that, 'God hath spoken of this by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began,"' Acts 3:21. This is utterly false, and a deliberate misquotation of Scripture. It is achri chronon apokatastaseos panton on elalesen o Theos. Then our author quotes more passages, but Paul in Colossians 1:16 leaves out ta katachthonia, the "things under the earth." They are neither re-headed, reconciled, nor delivered. This is introduced in Philippians 2:10, where bowing to Jesus' name is spoken of. The whole created scene is to be restored, but what is cast out of it is left out.
78 But the deliverance of a groaning creation in Romans 8 is at the revelation of the sons of God. The liberty of glory the creature will have part in, not the liberty of grace; Rom. 8:21. And when he quotes, "through death to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil," it is all right, but not to restore him. When he quotes, "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself," mark "was"; but the world, instead of being reconciled, hated both Him and His Father, and shewed their incorrigible enmity by crucifying Christ. The passage from Romans 5:15 ("If by the offence of one [the] many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto [the] many"), when quoted as now given, proves the contrary of Mr. Jukes' doctrine. It is the many connected with the one respectively. "The many" connected with Adam are all his race; "the many" connected with Christ all His race, that is, all believers. The English translation of verse 18, as he gives it, is wholly false. It should be: "So then as [it was] by one offence towards all men for condemnation; so by one righteousness towards all men for justification of life." He says: "To another church he states the same doctrine, that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.'" I do not accept the use made of the words. I have no doubt it is all in Adam, and all in Christ, at any rate "the same doctrine." It speaks of the resurrection of the body. The reading of the passage will dissipate his view of 1 Corinthians 15:24-26: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death": and this is at the resurrection of the wicked, so that no enemy is destroyed after it. He quotes further Ephesians 1:9-10, "That … he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth, even in him."
But in Philippians 2:10 there is a third class. And this gathering together is in the millennium, "the fulness of times," when confessedly the wicked are not restored. "That at [or, in] the name of Jesus [that is, Saviour] every knee should bow," etc. The gloss, "that is, Saviour," is wholly unwarranted in the passage noted. Again he quotes, "Who is the Saviour of all men," 1 Tim. 4:10. But mark two things: first, "Is the Saviour"; and, second, it is providentially Saviour as the passage plainly proves.
79 Again, "will have all men to be saved." No doubt thelei, but this is now in the day of salvation; 1 Tim. 2. It is all wholly a present thing. That Christ was a ransom for all, I believe. As to Romans 11, "that he might have mercy upon all" is, as he quotes it, the merest abuse of words. The Jews are come under mere mercy as Gentiles by rejecting Messiah and the promises. "That the world through him might be saved" it is too bad in the author to quote for his purpose, for that passage distinguishes believers as alone profiting, and the rest judged. "He is the propitiation … for the whole world." So He is. "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." So He will. "That he might destroy the works of the devil." So He will; but all this proves nothing at all as to the rejection of rejectors. Destroying the works of the devil rather implies that the devil stays where he was, and that as a result "there shall be no more death," etc.; and then without are "the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars," who "shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death," Rev. 21:8. His quotation for universal salvation of John 6:37-39; chap. 12:32, is too bad. The first passage spoken of carefully teaches that only those will be saved whom the Father has given Him: look at verse 36, and indeed at the whole chapter. The other passage — "draw all men unto me" — is the present effect of the cross in contrast with a Messiah to the Jews.
After giving several sets of passages, with the confusion indicated in the few we have remarked upon, he asks: "Now is not this apparent contradiction, few finding the way of life, and yet in Christ all made alive? God's elect a little flock, and yet all the kindreds of the earth blessed in Abraham's seed? mercy upon all, and yet eternal punishment? the restitution of all things, and yet eternal destruction? the wrath of God for ever, and yet all things* reconciled to Him? eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, and yet the destruction through death, not of the works of the devil only, but of him** that has the power of death — that is, the devil? the second death and the lake which burneth with fire, and yet no more death or curse, but all things subdued by Christ,*** and God all in all? What can this contradiction mean? Is there any key, and if so, what is it, to this mystery?" The conclusive answer is, There is no "contradiction," nor "mystery." The above references are all falsely cited apart from their context. This makes the apparent contradiction. Then he mentions the common answer, "That some are saved and some are lost for ever"; that therefore the words, "in Christ shall all be made alive,"**** only mean that all who are here in Christ shall be made alive; that the Lamb of God, though willing to be, is not really, the Saviour of the world, but only of those who are not of the world, but chosen out of it; that, instead of taking away the sin of the world, He only takes away the sin of those who here believe in Him;***** that all things therefore shall not be reconciled to God;****** and that "the restitution of all things," whatever it may mean, does not mean the reconciliation to God of all men.
{*Only all things in heaven and earth, not the things under the earth in Philippians 2.}
{**katargese, which is not destruction but annulling his power. The word used as to the works is an entirely different one: luse.}
{***But then all things are not restored.}
{****"All in Christ" is the real force; and, at any rate, it refers to resurrection.}
{*****All these passages have only to be read in their connection.}
{******We have already seen it is the state of things in creation, while those under the earth (infernal, katachthonia), mentioned in Philippians, are omitted; and further, the reconciliation of believers is spoken of as a distinct thing.}
80 This (he says) is the approved teaching of Christendom; this is the orthodox solution of the mystery: the simple objection to which is, that in asserting one side of scripture it is obliged not only to ignore and deny the other side, but to represent God in a character absolutely opposed to that in which the gospel exhibits Him (pp. 26, 27).
The Lamb of God is "the taker-away of the sin" (not sins, a very different thing), true in the new heavens and the new earth. "All things" here are the things spoken of by God through the prophets, and hence things on the earth.
Mr. Jukes then affirms that "the truth which solves the riddle is to be found in those same scriptures which seem to raise the difficulty, and lies in the mystery of the will of our ever-blessed God as to the process and stages of redemption.
81 "First, His will by some to bless and save others; by a firstborn seed, 'the firstborn from the dead' (Col. 1:18), to save and bless the later-born." This is pure invention. Christ alone and the church are spoken of, in contrast with general restitution of the state of things.
"(2). His will therefore to work out the redemption of the lost by successive ages or dispensations, or, to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages,'" Eph. 3:11. This, too, is mere imagination. We have only to read the passage to see that there is not one word about it. Nor has the "therefore" any ground, for he is concluding from his own fancy, and not from Scripture. Ephesians 3:11 is speaking solely of the church now.
"(3). Lastly, His will (thus meeting the nature of our fall) to make death, judgment, and destruction the way to life, acquittal, and salvation; in other words, 'through death to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil, and to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,'" Heb. 2:14. But this is through Christ's death, and, as to sin, ours with Him. All is confusion. We have only to read the passage to see it. The power annulled is not that which dies.
The author's simplicity is rare. He adds: "These truths throw a flood of light on Scripture, and enable us at once to see order and agreement where without this light there seems perplexing inconsistency." "Truths!" They are no truths at all, but false "therefores" from falsely used passages. His questions a little farther on — "What was the object of the incarnation? … What was intended to be accomplished by the first and second death?" etc., are all presumptuous folly, not revelation. When he writes, "inquire" what is the breadth and length, and depth and height "of their heavenly Father's purpose." It is not of this. Of what it is, is not said in Scripture; but it very certainly is not "the restitution of all things," as Mr. Jukes interprets that phrase. Again, we have a misuse of 1 Timothy 4:10, when he says: "By this light we see more fully God's purpose in Christ, and how He is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe"; for it is obvious that it means nothing about the future at all, but that Paul labours and suffers reproach because, as a present thing, God is providentially caring for all, but specially for "those that believe"; as says the word, "The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers," 1 Peter 3:12 .
82 But our author is caught with the mere sound of a passage, regardless of the sense; or uses a mere change of sleight of hand to effect his purpose, as when he says: "While others not partakers of the first resurrection of judgment; that is, by the judgment of the coming age of ages." "That is," etc., is a mere gloss of his; entirely outside of all Scripture. It is very tedious to "look in order at each of these three points," when one has proved they are mere fancies. But it will only shew his false use of Scripture. "(I). First, the purpose of God by the firstfruits or firstborn to save the later-born. This, which is in fact the substance of the gospel, like all God's secrets, comes out by degrees; scarcely to be discerned in the first promise of the woman's seed; then 'in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed'; for the seed in which all the kindreds of the earth are blessed must be distinct from, and blessed prior to, those nations to whom, according to God's purpose, in due time it becomes a blessing." All clearly false; unless it be Christ, and then the whole argument fails. As a scripture the contrary is here — the elder serves the younger; the Gentiles come in before the Jews. But the "seed" is declared to be Christ (Gal. 3:16), not "some" as he has said, "His will by some to bless and save others" (p. 27). The reference to Romans 11:16 will shew what is spoken of and what is done. Again, "Christ, says the apostle, is the promised seed (Gal. 3:16) and the firstborn (Col. 1:18), and in and through Him endless blessing shall flow down to the later-born." But this says nothing to his purpose. Believers are the seed in Him: not unbelievers; Gal. 3.
When he says "Christ, as Paul shews, is firstborn in a double sense: firstborn from above, first out of life," etc., it is all false. Nor is Christ ever called "first-fruits of the creature." When he says, "All things are of God; but it is no less true that all things are by man, as it is written, 'Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead'; therefore, as by one firstborn death came into the world, so by another firstborn shall it be for ever overthrown," it is not true that all things are by man. Where is it so said? What he says is not "written." The resurrection came by man; it is nowhere said by a firstborn. When he says of Christ, "who by a birth in the flesh has come into our lot," it looks like positive error. When he speaks of its being "ever the firstborn from the grave that the law speaks of" (where?) and that is the woman's, not the man's firstborn, the whole thing is a rhapsody of nonsense. But the only proof he alleges is false; Christ is not called "firstfruits of the creature." All things are not by man; He who makes all becomes a man.
83 Again, "According to the law the firstborn had the right, though it might be lost, of being priest and king; that is, of interceding for, and ruling over, their younger brethren." Quite false. They might be offered to God and redeemed, but had no rights as such. It is totally false about being priests. Aaron and his family alone had the right of being priests. In the passages quoted or referred to — Exodus 13:2; chap. 24:5; Numbers 3:12-13; chap. 8:16; 1 Chronicles 5:1-2 — there is not a word about the matter. It is all a rhapsody in pages 32, 33 spun out of the writer's own mind, even when quoting Scripture. When he says, "God's purpose is by the firstborn from the dead to save and bless the laterborn," Scripture says they are quickened by Him.
"But the truth goes farther still; for there are others beside the Lord who are both 'firstborn' and 'Abraham's seed,' who must, therefore [why?] in their measure share this honour with and under Christ, and in whom 'as joint-heirs with him' [God's heirs?] the promise must be fulfilled that in them* shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed … As if Christ and His body only should be saved, instead of rejoicing that they are also the appointed means of saving others." Saving others! What does that mean? He applies the promise in Christ to us. It is folly, or it would be blasphemy. Ministers of blessing we may be; but does he mean to say that we, quickened and redeemed, when in glory shall shed our blood for them? Was ever such stuff?
{*Paul carefully insists it is only in one, Christ.}
Again, the references he relies on and gives on page 33 are all false; that is, there is nothing about a firstborn in them. "Even of the elect, few see they are elect to the birthright, not to be blessed only but to be a blessing; as firstborn with Christ to share the glory of kingship and priesthood with Him, not only to rule and intercede for their younger and later-born brethren, but to avenge their blood, to raise up seed to the dead, and in and through Christ, their life and head, to redeem their lost inheritance." It is all utter stuff. "Later-born": how born? How "avenge their blood"? "Redeem!" What is raising up seed to the dead? "to redeem their lost inheritance?" Nobody did this, or had to give it up in the jubilee.
84 Mr. Jukes dwells on "firstfruits," and affirms that the sheaf at Passover, and the other at Pentecost in the form of cakes, were both called firstfruits. "Both in the law are distinctly called 'firstfruits,' though they are distinguished by a separate name, the ears at Passover being called Reeshith, the leavened cakes at Pentecost Bicourim." This is inexact; both are called Reeshith, both Bicourim, but Reeshith Bicourim is applied to the sheaf only. Reeshith is put first. But the words give no ground for the alleged analogy. The church or assembly of the firstborn calls us simply "firstborn." Christ only is called "the firstfruits of them that slept." It applies solely to the resurrection, and only Christ's are spoken of — "they that are Christ's." The wicked will be raised; but the passage has to do with resurrection only, and has nothing to do with any general restitution — not even with wicked men. It is "the resurrection of the just." The parties are Christ, the first fruits of them that slept, and they that are Christ's at His coming; none else. "The offering of the firstfruits to God being accepted as the sanctification and consecration of the whole coming harvest." What "harvest"? At the "harvest" our Lord refers to (Matt. 13:40) the tares are cast into the fire. Scripture knows of no "harvest" in Mr. Jukes' sense, or general restoration. "Who share the honour with and under Him of being the Pentecost first fruits." "With" is not said, but "they that are Christ's." "Who with Christ are through Christ Abraham's seed?" Galatians 3 says believers baptised to Christ; those sealed with the Holy Ghost.
Nothing he says of Scripture can be trusted; not even when he says in a note — "Saul, whose name means death or hell." It is not so; yod and vau are not the same. Saul means "demanded."
He goes on to say that the conversion of the nations will be accomplished by Israel, "who at their conversion converted, like Paul, who is their type, not by the knowledge of Christ in humiliation, but by the revelation of His heavenly glory, shall, like Paul, become apostles to the Gentiles, 'priests to the Lord and ministers to our God' to all the earth."* This is a mistake. The testimony goes out before to both, and the remnant then own Christ coming in glory. Paul in his conversion is a type of the Jewish remnant, but there is no ground for the exclusion of others; he was one of the pre-trusters.
{*The footnote about the seventy Hebrews that went down into Egypt, the seventy heads of nations, and the sending out of the seventy by Christ, is all wrong.}
85 When he says (p. 38), "The church is also Abraham's seed," it is not so. We are, as Christ's; not in our church character. He adds: "To the church, therefore, belongs the same promise as firstfruits with Christ." In the firstfruits of the day of Pentecost there was leaven. When he speaks of the church with Christ being a blessing in its own heavenly and spiritual sphere, the statement is without foundation. The leaves of the tree, of which we eat the fruit, are for blessing down here. Full of his own thoughts, he mistakes when he says the church will act as priests; for a priest is for those out of the way, to minister to those who are out of the way; for a priest did not minister to any but for accepted blood-washed ones.*
{*Hebrews 5:2 does not apply at all, nor does Revelation 1:6, or chapter 5:10. In Hebrews we are not kings; in Revelation we are not for those out of the way.}
"This is the church's calling … with Him to be both prophet, priest, and king; and this not here only, in these bodies of humiliation, but when changed in His presence to bear His image, and do His works with Him." But we are never said to be prophets then. Priests and kings we are. But Christ Himself must give up the mediatorial kingdom. We reign over the earth, and, as priests, offer up the prayers of the saints; Rev. 5. At the end the wicked are "without."
It is a fable, as it is nowhere written in Scripture, that believers' "death and resurrection shall only introduce them to fuller and wider service to lost ones, over which the Lord shall set them as His priests and kings, until all things are restored and reconciled to Him." There is not a hint of such a thing in Scripture; it is a stupid romance. "To whom, I ask, shall the church after death be priests?" We answer, In resurrection to those on earth. Not to those "who have departed hence in ignorance," nor "to 'spirits in prison' such as those to whom after His death Christ Himself once preached."
It is said in Revelation 5 as kings we reign over the earth; as priests we present the prayers of the saints. We are not to be prophets then. All the rest is imagination. When Mr. Jukes says, "The words distinctly assert that our Lord went and preached unto the spirits in prison, who once had been disobedient in the days of Noah," we affirm that they certainly do not; that is, it is not said He preached "in prison." Not only so, but God declares, in Genesis 5, His Spirit should yet strive but those 120 years. And yet they would tell us that with these only He strove afterwards. He speaks as if we comfort the lost where they are, in Gehenna! How they pass the "great gulf fixed" he does not say; Luke 16.
86 "I may add here, that this same truth that the first-blessed must save* others is set forth, though in a slightly different form, in the kindred law of redemption touching the firstlings of beasts, whether clean or unclean. The lamb redeems the ass. So it must be." No such thing! the owner redeemed it with a lamb. It is well that English is ambiguous. Firstblessed may be plural or singular. To say that we are going to save others, because we are joint-heirs, is too monstrous to listen to. It is really awful to read of our joy "to be like Christ — that is, to be channels of blessing to viler, weaker souls — for all higher and elder beings serve the lower and younger. The firstborn, therefore, must serve and save others … like Christ, channels of blessing and life to thousands of later-born." Is Christ no more than a channel, or do we bless as redeemers? Yet he dares say so.
{*How?}
When he speaks of the two leavened cakes being offered up together in "that great coming Pentecost," we ask, Which is that? and surely in glory they will not be "leavened cakes" at all. When he says, "Oh, glorious day, when our Lord and Head shall give of His treasure to His Firstborn, that they may with Him redeem all lands and all brethren!" we say, It is infamous to link them and the Lord in redeeming. "Then shall the laver be multiplied into 'ten lavers,' till the water of life become a 'sea of crystal' large enough for even Babylon the Great to sink into it, and be found no more at all for ever." This is senseless sentiment dissipated into mere air. When we ask, Who were cleansed in the lavers? Only actual priests, already consecrated, being washed!
87 So when we ask, Where is such a sea as he describes into which Babylon could sink? There is no such sea. The "sea of glass" was solid, and there was no sinking into it, and no purifying; Rev. 4, 15, 21. Were it so, this is the kingdom given up, while "without" are the wicked. Then we have a quotation from the Apocrypha, which has nothing to say to the matter either: "Then shall the elect run to and fro as sparks among the stubble." And when he romances about "Christ's members judging the world with Him, and consuming the evil with that same fire which Christ came to cast into the earth, and with which He is yet pledged to baptise all nations," we ask, Where is He so pledged? The Spirit is not for the world. No doubt the fire is, but it is "everlasting fire."
It is a mere assertion that the firstborn, though first delivered from the curse, have a relation to the whole creation, which shall be saved in the appointed times by Christ and His body, for there is no scripture; and to end the sentence with bring about "the restitution of all things" is false quotation, as is also what follows; for Ephesians 1:3-10 has not a word about it, nor has Ephesians 2:4-7. Ephesians 1:3 is falsely connected with verse 10, and this is given up too. "The church, like Christ its Head, is itself a great sacrament," etc. This is all romance and nonsense. So when he says the blessing of the elect is "but the means and pledge, as the apostle says, of wider blessing," it is not true, and the apostle does not say it. The reading of 1 Corinthians 1:27-28, will shew that he misuses it for the future when it means the present. And so is it to utterly confound the day of salvation and the day of judgment to say that, when He comes in judgment on persons, it is "a priestly work of judgment and purification by fire which must be accomplished that all may be 'subdued' and 'reconciled.'" All this is before the "fire" save as "the perdition of ungodly men." Then it is clearly not purification. What he says of Moloch is blasphemy, and as applied to us monstrous.
"But Scripture never says that these only shall be saved, but rather that in this 'seed' whose portion as the firstborn is double, 'all the kindreds of the earth shall be blessed.'" This is a shameful abuse of Scripture. Christ is the "Seed"; and specifically one; and the blessing is of "the kindreds of the earth," not of the lost in Gehenna.
As for his reference to the church ordaining "All-souls' Day" as well as "All-saints' Day," and thus "may have been teaching more than some of her sons may yet have learnt from her," and that "she believed that, like her Lord, she is truly linked to all, and with Him is ordained at last to gather all, we ask, Where did she learn it? and to keep days? (Gal. 4:10-11). And to deduce such a conclusion from the unscriptural action of the church can only impose on those who are willing to be deceived by gratuitous assertion. But it were positive wickedness, if it were not absolute nonsense, to say only by the cross* can the change be wrought in us which conforms us to Christ and His image — which makes us, like Him, lambs for the slaughter, and as such fitted to bless and serve others. His misapplication of Scripture is very painful: so he says, "And, indeed, so narrow is the way and so strait is the gate that leadeth to the life and glory of the firstborn, who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth,'" etc. — a misapplication of what is wholly unconnected.
{*What cross?}
88 (2). "I pass on to shew that God's purpose by the firstborn from the dead to bless the later-born — as it is written, 'so in Christ shall all be made alive,' is fulfilled in successive worlds or ages; or, to use the language of St. Paul, 'according to the purpose of the ages,' so that the dead are raised not all together, but every man in his own order. 'Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming'; which latter resurrection, though after Christ's, is yet called the resurrection from among the dead,' or the first resurrection. All this about God's purpose is false. Scripture states no such purpose. If "so in Christ shall all be made alive, be the true translation, which I do not think, it is resurrection. But what does "raised" mean, as applied by Mr. Jukes to the dead"? Does it not mean restoration in his sense of all? But mark the eras of resurrection as given by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15: (1) Christ the firstfruits; (2) Afterwards they that are Christ's at His coming; (3) Then cometh the end, gegone,* when there is a within and a "without as Revelation 21:8, 27; chap. 22:14-15, clearly teach. At the "end" the wicked are "without." The dead are not "raised" but to "judgment"; the result of which is not blessing, saving, and restoration, but to "be cast into the lake of fire," Rev. 20:11-15. This is the express testimony of Scripture.
{*Or as Lachmann, gegonan (Rev. 21:6).}
89 It is vain to reason because Christ was raised before the members of His body — also called firstfruits — "who will not be all gathered till the (fancied) great Pentecost," that it is plain the purpose of God is wrought not all at once but through successive ages, and that this fact gives us a hint of further mysteries, and some key to "the ages of ages." Firstfruits, and the morrow of the Passover sabbath, or Christ's resurrection (Lev. 23:9-22), is all one period. Moreover, it is not said that the saints share Christ's glory as heirs of God, in subduing all things unto Him. This is nowhere said; nor that "all have been made alive in Him by His resurrection," but only all in Christ, all believers, and Christ gives up the kingdom when the wicked are "without," as we have already pointed out. And there is no scripture for their being "subdued." It is also false to affirm that there is "nothing in the gospel the figure of which is not in the law, nor anything in the law the substance of which is not found in the gospel," for there was only a shadow not the image (Heb. 9); and the church was "hid in God," Eph. 3:9. As to Pentecost and Tabernacles (p. 50) we say, no doubt; but it is now or the age to come.
Where is it said that the "mystic periods are all different times for cleansing and blessing men; sevens and seven times seven; the former of which are figures of the ages, the last of the ages of ages in the New Testament"?
We ask for proof of this, or where it is so said, and why so? It is mere imagination. When he says of those who could not go free as some did at the sabbatic year, that they might at the year of jubilee "regain what had been lost, and find full deliverance," he ignores, what makes it wholly fallacious, that they were already the rightful heirs, are restored to their own inheritance. What he says of the jubilee is totally false (see Lev. 25:16), so that the proof is exactly of the contrary. "Not of persons only," it was not of persons at all. To what is Acts 1:7 applied? To what is quite different from that to which our Lord applied it. The Scriptures are everywhere pressed out of their express and obvious meaning, in order to have some show of scripture for the creation of his own fancy.
Besides, one grows sick of exposing nonsense like the following: "For the woman is our nature, which — if it receive seed, that is, the word of truth — may bring forth a son, that is, the new man." Our nature brings forth the new man! In which case nature, or the mother which brings it forth, is only unclean during the seven days of this first creation." Here again all is false. The old man must die. "And then in the blood of purifying till the end of the forty days, which always figure this dispensation." Always? Genesis 7 is not the figure of it: Moses in the mount is not: Ezekiel 4 is not. It is all imagination. "But, if instead of bearing this 'new man,' our nature only bear its like, a female child," etc. Bears it through the quickening word! Miserable trifling!
To those too who believe that the church was divinely guided in the order and appointment of the Christian year, etc., the apostle's word is, "I stand in doubt of you," Gal. 4 8-20.
90 The statements as to the incarnation are, to say the least, extremely hazarded, and bear the stamp of some of the worst current errors, and the fact is quite false. The new man does not spring out of the weak nature into which the eternal Word is come, if indeed there is any sense in the passage. At the end of this purification of women he adds: "There is like teaching in every time and season of the law, and its days and years figure the 'ages' of the New Testament"; but he gives no proof, but expects, I suppose, "that there is some teaching here, though he cannot understand it."
When he refers to such nations as Moab and Ammon being ejected in an earlier age and saved in a later, it is true of them no doubt; but what proof is there that it is a figure of others? And when he adds: "For them also must there be hope in the new creation according to the promise, 'Behold I make all things new'; for Christ, who, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in Spirit, went in Spirit and preached to the spirits in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah,"* is "Jesus Christ (that is, Anointed Saviour)** the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"; we must remind our readers that it is at the time when He makes all things new — this part of his statement is not honest — that Scripture tells us that the wicked "shall have their part in the lake of fire," Rev. 21:8. His allusion to Christ passing over the sea and healing the man possessed with devils fails utterly; for they would not have Him. It is a picture of the world's rejection of Christ when some were healed. It gives no countenance to his notion that Christ "casts out devils also on the other side of the deep waters." "Such is the light which the law and prophets give us as to God's purpose of salvation through successive ages!"
{*The Spirit spoken of was in Noah (see 1 Peter 1:11), "a preacher of righteousness," who "prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world." God had said: "My Spirit shall not always strive with man; for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years," Gen. 6:3. Christ by His Spirit in Noah then preached to the spirits now in prison; and note that the only persons spoken of are those of whom it was said, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man. His days shall be an hundred and twenty years." With these only He is said to strive again!}
{**It is not.}
91 Creation and regeneration are next referred to, and said to "tell no less clearly, though more secretly, the same mystery." "In creation each day has its work to bring back some part of the creature, and one part before another, from emptiness and confusion, to light and form and order." This is utterly false; for so it was not creation, but bringing back something — reconciliation rather than creation. When he continues: "These first works act on the rest, for of God's will this 'heaven' is a fellow-worker with God's word in all the change which follows, till the whole is very good"; we ask, Where is that? His note from Parkhurst, in which he says that "heavens" means the "arrangers," because the heavens have been the great agents in disposing all material things, shews us that Parkhurst had about as much childish fancy as Mr. Jukes. He was a strong Hutchinsonian, and held this interpretation. It is all stuff.
It is equally false to say, as he does, that the quickening of the body will be in any way effected by our quickened souls. Scripture says (Rom. 8:11), zoopoiesei kai ta thneta somata umon dia to enoikoun autoi Pneuma en umin. "For our spirit is to our body what the spiritual are to this world" is distinctly false — and the conclusion false. "So surely shall the quickening and manifestation of the sons of God end in saving those earthly souls who are not here quickened." This is not only imagination, but deadly false doctrine.
But he is as unhappy in pressing "for ever" and "for ever and ever," into his service, and telling us that the word is literally "for the age," or "for the ages of ages": eis ton aiona does not mean "for the age," nor is aionios not eternal. See 2 Corinthians 4:18: what is seen is pros kairon, what is not seen is aionios. It is definitely what is opposed to for a time in its absolute proper sense. "Ages" no one denies. But, when he says that "God's wisdom was ordained before the ages to our glory," means God's bringing glory to the fallen creatures, accomplished through successive ages, we reply, Nothing of the kind. It was the mystery Paul preached ordained for our glory, and which he states to be what is now — not in the future.
92 Then he says, "We are told distinctly of the 'purpose of the ages,' shewing that the work of renewal would only be accomplished through successive ages"; it shews nothing of the kind. Paul writes the wisdom of God in the church kata prothesin ton aionon; Eph. 3:10-11. "By the Son, God made the ages" (Heb. 1:2) is quite false, even as to translation; and the reason given is also invented and false — that each age was made by what the word gave of God's mind. It is "worlds," not "ages"; also in Hebrews 11:3. It means in both places the universe. When he quotes "the end of the ages," and that on us "the ends of the ages are met," it does appear strange to say "words which … seem to imply that other ages are approaching their consummation." How so, if it is in sunteleia ton aionon, the "end of the ages"? It is positively the contrary: we are in the sunteleia (the end), though the things are not fulfilled till Christ comes. And when he speaks of God's shewing His grace in the "ages to come," there is no restoration spoken of, but solely and expressly His kindness "towards us."
"Now, what is this 'purpose of the ages' which St. Paul speaks of," etc.? Paul states it expressly to be the church; Eph. 3:10-11. Our author answers: "The ages are the fulfilment or substance of the 'times and seasons' of the sabbatic year and jubilee under the old law." And we have seen that the Gentiles remained slaves for ever; Lev. 25:46. Again: "They are those times of refreshment from the presence of the Lord, when he shall send Jesus Christ." But this brings in the end. It is strange to read that then cleansing and rest will be gained by those who now are without their rightful inheritance. What made it their rightful inheritance? Is God bound to save the lost?
When he affirms that in "the ages," and in no other mystery of the gospel do we find those good things to come of which the legal times and seasons were the "shadow"; we must say that it is quite differently applied in Hebrews. One has to come as to fulfilment: for this (the church) is not one (p. 59). When he identifies those ages to come with "times and seasons which the Father hath put in his own power," we ask our readers to turn to Acts 1:7, and read the passage. It speaks of restoring the kingdom to Israel, and not of saving those who died impenitent.
93 What he says of the book of Revelation is entirely false. It does not speak of these "ages of ages," but the contrary. It goes through judgment; then says, "It is done." There is no opening out of the processes and stages of the great redemption. But when the end comes, all is done (gegone); and sinners (as has been already noted) are "without." There is no redemption of those who are judged. Mr. Jukes' quotations or references are not to be trusted. He says the book of Revelation, more than any other, speaks of the ages, and he refers us to Revelation 1:6, 18; chap. 4:9-10; chap. 5:13-14; chap. 7:12; chap. 10:6; chap. 11:15; chap. 14:11; chap. 15:7; chap. 19:3; chap. 20:10; chap. 22:5. Look at them; never believe a quotation or reference till you do. Paul does no such thing as speak of "the ends" of some; but absolutely "the ends of the ages," ta tele ton aionon.
When he says Christ's mediatorial kingdom, which is for ages of ages, is one delivered up, he refers to a passage which only upsets his argument as to ages. The kingdom of the world, of our Lord and Saviour,* is come," Rev. 11. It is one state or dispensation shewing the vague general use of ages (p. 61). He says the inspired writers, "when they had in view a greater or more comprehensive age wrote eis aiona aionon, that is, "to the age of ages." We ask, Where but in Ephesians 3? "When they intended the longer 'age' alone, without regard to its constituent parts, they wrote eis aiona aionos ='to an aeonial age'; this form of expression being a Hebraism exactly equivalent to eis aiona aionon, like 'liberty of glory' for 'glorious liberty' (Rom. 8:21), and 'body of our vileness' for 'our vile body,' Phil. 3:21. When they intended the several comprehensive 'ages' collectively, they wrote eis tous aionas ton aionon, that is, 'to the ages of ages.' Each varying form is used with a distinct purpose and meaning." This is all wrong: aiona aionon would be only one age so characterised. "Glorious liberty" does not give the sense; it is "liberty of glory" in contrast with liberty of grace, of which the mere creatures, not even our body, could not partake; and it is "body of humiliation," not "humble body." God lives, eis t. ai. t. ai. Does this mean "ages" collectively? The whole scheme of precision is a delusion. eis ton aiona by itself is "for ever," "eternal." There is an object in the change, but very often just borrowed, as Hebrews 1:8, from the LXX olam we-ed. His quotations are incorrect, leaving out the article which is most commonly inserted. The only place where eis ton aiona toi aionos, is (I believe) in Hebrews 1:8, and he quotes without the article to make it "an age," which is quoting it falsely in words and sense. eis tous aionas ton aionon is said of God (Rev. 4:10, and elsewhere), "who liveth," e. t. ai. t. ai. Does God only live for the comprehensive ages? Is that what the passage means? The saints reign eis t. ai. t. ai. In Daniel we have (chap. 7:10) eis aiona ton aionon. In Chaldee, "unto [the] age, and age of ages." What does that mean? There is, according to Mr. Jukes, glory to Christ in the church for certain collective ages viewed as one, but that is all. He compares 1 Corinthians 15 — Christ giving up the kingdom — and Revelation 11:15. But he forgets that the last enemy which shall be destroyed is death, and Satan is cast into the lake of fire with the beast and false prophet, and they are tormented for ages and ages; but the next thing to the resurrection of the saints is (eita to telos) the end. So the rest of the dead lived not again till the thousand years were finished. Then the wicked dead are raised, and Christ gives up the kingdom, the saints having lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years; and when the dead are raised and cast into the lake of fire it is the end, it is gegone. So that his confounding the ages of ages and the giving up of the kingdom denies plain Scripture. There is one thing singular, that Mr. J. never alludes to the commonest and simplest form of expression eis ton aiona, an expression which, according to him, must mean the age. Now, with "this," it may mean age; but when used abstractedly, it constantly means simply "for ever."
{*Or, according to the now more received reading, "of our Lord and of his Christ." [This seems strangely obscure, as there never was a doubt about the text here, but as to the plural form of the phrase instead of the more correct singular: "there is come the world. Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ." — Ed.]}
94 The fancy that Alpha and Omega seem to imply an end of the peculiar manifestation of Christ as King and Priest, under which special offices revelation shews Him, because there will be an end of lost ones to be saved, is all a delusion. (Compare Isa. 44:6.) He thinks it would have been more respectful to the word of God, if our translators had been content to give the exact meaning of the words they render "for ever," or "for ever and ever," but which are simply "for the age," or "for the ages of ages." But I deny it to be the exact sense. (See Rev. 4:10, and other places; and the passage in 2 Cor. 4.) Does Peter (2 Peter 3:1) wish Christ glory "for an age"? It is important to hold them fast on these proofs, that their statements as to it are false. The note on page 62, as to 2 Peter 3:18, is quite false: eis emeran aionos is not an exact literal translation of the words in Micah 5:1, mimei olam, and which in our authorised version are translated "from everlasting." me is not eis, not "to," but "from," and it is "days," not "day."* But if they were, what do they mean? The passage is, on the contrary, a proof of the use of aion for eternity, in contrast with time. "The 'ages,' therefore, are periods in which God works." "Therefore": why? His conclusion is drawn without any solid reasoning, as has been shewn. The end is next after the first resurrection, as Revelation proves. (Page 63.) It is totally false to say that "Christ, by whom all things are wrought in the ages, goes back to the glory which He had 'before the age-times,' 'that God may be all in all,' for the Son Himself is then subject," 1 Cor. 15:28. Nor does "Jesus Christ" mean Anointed Saviour, but Jehovah the Saviour, the Anointed, or Christ. To apply Hebrews 13:8 to prove salvation through the ages, translating "for ever" for the ages, is very bad. And the scripture gives another reason for the name, which exactly sets aside this, "for he shall save his people from their sins." Thus Mark 11:14, or Matthew 21:19; John 4:14; chap. 6:51 - 58; chap. 8:35, 51, 52; chap. 10:23; chap. 11:26. So eis tous aionas--Romans 1:25; chap. 9:5; chap. 11:36; chap. 16:27. Now these, and many others, it is absurd to say mean "ages," as if God was to be glorified only for certain ages. So Philippians 4:20; 2 Timothy 4:18.
{*[So in the LXX we have ex emeron ai.--Ed.]}
95 The same may be said of "It will, I think, too, be found that the adjective founded on this word, whether applied to 'life,' 'punishment,' 'redemption,' 'covenant,' 'times,' or even God Himself, is always connected with remedial labour, and with the idea of 'ages' as periods in which God is working to meet and correct some awful fall." (Page 64.) Romans 16 shews, with other passages, exactly the contrary. There were "aeonial times" in which God was testing man till he rejected Christ. "Now," says the Lord, "is the judgment of this world," and the sunteleia ton aionon is come on us. But all is not fulfilled. Christ came in the end of the world to offer Himself; and then the things are reported by the gospel preached with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; and we wait for them to be brought when Christ is revealed; 1 Peter 1:12-13. Of this the prophets spoke. When He gives up the kingdom, "it is done." And it is false to say that eternal life is aeonial life: "but the end everlasting life": "this is life eternal": and as to God Himself "who liveth for ever and ever." There is nothing about the "ages"; and his assertion, "ages during which Jesus Christ is the same, that is, a Saviour," is a mistake. The word is unto, eis,* not during: Yesterday, to-day, and for ever, eis ton aiona. Mr. Jukes' statement is wholly unfounded. "For ever" does not mean aeonial (p. 65): "The aeonial God" — the God who works through these "ages." Instead of this, it is in contrast with temporal or repeated workings. And so of the rest, "redemption," "spirit," "fire," or "inheritance," all which in certain texts are called "aeonial." All false! So again: "As the context of Romans 16 shews God as working through aeonial times." How? There is not the smallest allusion to it.
{*In note to page 64, what he affirms is incorrect. In Genesis 21:23 it refers to Abraham's confidence in the promises. Isaiah 26:4 has nothing to do with the matter. He is the Rock of Ages — abiding ground of confidence. Nor, indeed, has Isaiah 40:23. "In Exodus 2:15 we read of God's onoma aionon, that is, His name as connected with deliverance." It is nothing of the kind; it is His constant name with Israel. His comment on 2 (or chap. 4:17, p. 67) is puerilely false. The connection of the word baros with aionon shews it plainly. Again, the use of akatalutos with punishment would have no sense, if I should say indestructible judgment or punishment.}
96 Redemption was by a work done once in the end of the world (sunteleia ton aionon), or He must often have suffered; Heb. 9. It was the Father our Lord addressed when He said, "This is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God." The rest is not there — that this marks the renewed life peculiar to the ages. It astonishes by its rashness to read "Aeonial or eternal life therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on for ever and ever," when we read in Scripture that Christ is the true God and eternal life which was with the Father. "He that hath the Son hath life: he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." When he gives as the Lord's explanation of the word eternal, a life that has to do with a Saviour, and is part of a remedial scheme, we ask where? "Aeonial is simply of the ages" (p. 66). That is the question. "And the 'ages,' like the days of creation, as being periods in which God works, witness not only that there is some fall to be remedied, but that God through these days or ages is working to remedy it." Creation proved nothing of the kind: I wholly deny it as a universal proposition. "The adjective aeonial or age-long cannot carry a force or express a duration greater than that of the ages or aeons which it speaks of." If it means it! But the positive use of it in Scripture confutes all this. It is not even said they are partakers of Christ's endless life: their life is only and always aionios, and if, for whatever reason this means endless, then aionios does mean endless duration, for that is the word always used for this life, as it is exactly in the same position for punishment. "By death, and by death only, that He destroys," etc. Whose death? His citation and use of John 12:24 is the grossest misapplication. It is fruit in others, the saving of souls by the death of Christ, as He who gave His life a ransom for many. He could have had twelve legions of angels. "Advance" of what, and of what character, was it in Christ? (Page 69.) Christ has shewn us the way, we are told. He has shewn us we must take up the cross and follow Him, though to do it till He had dried up the swollen waters of Jordan was impossible. But is that the meaning of Christ's death bearing fruit? that we have to tread the same path? The elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress; and this he calls salvation, the way they are saved. This is a fatal denial of the truth of God and Christ's glory.
97 As to the passages quoted, page 69, "goes from strength to strength" and "from glory to glory," neither of them applies to death or any like change. "Christ has shewn us all the way down from" the lowest parts of the earth, "from the virgin's womb," etc. This is all donner la change sur la parole. "The elect yield themselves to the same great law of progress through death." Then Christ did not go through death for them; they do the same! "Others may think they will be saved in another way than that Christ trod." To save whom did He die, if all save themselves by going through the path Christ trod? All this contains abominable false doctrine, and denial of real Christianity.
98 "Nature and sin must be judged and die." Judged in whom? Scripture says it was condemned when Christ was [a sacrifice] for sin. Mr. Jukes complains of some "seeming to think that Christ died that we should not die, and that their calling is to be delivered from death, instead of by it and out of it; because the meaning of Christ's cross is not understood, but rather perverted, and therefore death is shrunk from instead of being welcomed as the appointed means by which alone we can be delivered from him that has the power of death, who more or less rules us till we are dead, for sin reigns unto death, and only he that is dead is freed from sin; because this, which is indeed the gospel, is not received, or if received in word is not really understood. Even Christians misunderstand what is said of that destruction and judgment which is the only way for delivering fallen creatures from their bondage, and bringing them back in God's life to His kingdom." First, Christ's death for us, as guilty, is ignored; next, that sin in the flesh was condemned in Christ's death; next, sin must reign, more or less, till we actually die, and our own dying is the gospel, not Christ's dying for us! That we reckon ourselves to be dead in the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and so are delivered as crucified with Christ; and that Christ lives in us, are equally ignored. We are delivered by our own death, and sin reigns till we die! Christ has not made the Jordan dry for us, destruction and judgment delivering us by our going through them ourselves! I may add "freed" (though we are made free then, chapter 8:2-3) is not the true word in the passage cited; it is "justified." This is very bad. Whose "destruction and judgment"? That we reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ died is true.
But if we examine Scripture and compare the contexts, we shall find the whole scheme, giving the clue to all the judgments of Him who killeth and maketh alive, Mr. Jukes' fancy, and confuted by the connecting of the passages with the Lord's coming and reign, and "Then cometh the end." But it is a doctrine worse than mere fancy. He adds: "As this is a point of all-importance, lying at the very root of the cross of Christ and of His members, and giving a clue to all the judgments of Him who 'killeth and maketh alive,' I would shew, not the fact and truth only, that for fallen creatures the way of life is and must be through death, but also the reason for it," not that Christ died for our sins and to sin on the cross, and that we reckon ourselves dead to sin as well as justified, but the cross of Christ and ours!
99 Now, if we weigh this linking "the cross of Christ and of His members," he shews that he has no thought of the atonement — guilt is ignored; but as He died thus, they die and so live. This he says is "the root of the cross of Christ." He then goes on to say why this is. The cross is not a fact only, but power — God's power and God's wisdom, to set heart and mind free! Scripture says He was crucified in weakness, but liveth by the power of God; and it is not said that the cross is God's wisdom and power, but that Christ is. His word ascribes peace, propitiation, forgiveness, to the cross, of which Mr. J. says nothing: what Mr. J. says, it does not. Finally, we do not actually die. We have not to die to sin, but to reckon ourselves dead, then to mortify and carry about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. Death is ours, and gain. The whole system is unscriptural and false.
"For both to head and heart life is a terrible riddle, which neither Greek nor Jew, the head and heart of old humanity, could ever fully solve … To both God's answer was the cross of Christ, which gave to each, to head and heart, what each was longing for: power to the one to escape from that which had tied and bound it, for by death with Christ we are freed from the bondage of corruption, and from all that hinders the heart's best aspirations; wisdom to the other to see why we must die, or what is the reason of all present suffering." Is this all that the cross is? Is there no thought of guilt which is met by it? No craving of the conscience of convicted sinners? The very reading of such a quotation will deliver the simple that know what the cross is. The way to life is not for fallen man through judgment, or he is condemned. (Page 72.) His teaching of the cross is only dying with Christ; of which Scripture always says as to believers that they died, not that as He died so we die — as the same path of life. There is no dying for us in his perfect cross. Here are his texts — Matthew 16:25; Galatians 2:20; Romans 6:3-4; 2 Timothy 2:11-12; Romans 8:12-13. This is significant; atonement there is none.
"Why is the way of life for us through the cross?" Whose? He says that the way man got away from God must be retraced, if by grace we come back to Him. But Scripture says, No: it is "by a new and living way." (Page 73.) He says "… poisoned and destroyed the divine life in man's soul." What divine life? Equal nonsense is talked about Eden being the paradise called by Paul the third heaven. Did Paul go back to Eden? "It was by death to God we fell out of God's world." (Page 74.) We did not fall out of God's world. Man was a guilty transgressor and driven out by God. Though we reckon ourselves dead to sin by Christ's death (Rom. 6), all our author says is hollow. What "spiritual world" are our souls living in? All is vague and loose. "Christ died this double death for us, not only 'to sin,' but also to 'the elements of the world.' And to be free we also must die with Him to both." I repeat Scripture says we have died; and was He in nature and in the world of darkness?
100 On page 75 all is nonsense about quickening God's life again in man. "As the life of hell was quickened by a lie, so the life of God is quickened by the truth." What is that? "Even by the Word of God, who came where man was to raise up God's life in man, in and by which, through a death to sin and to this world, man might be freed perfectly." "In Christ the work has been accomplished." What work? He adds — "In Him by God's word and Spirit God's life has been again raised up in man," etc. God's life was not in man at all. There is the life, a new one, when man has received Christ; and he reckons himself dead as crucified with Christ; but, for all this, all that Mr. Jukes says is false, as "God's life" and living in the heavenly paradise are spoken of as to Adam.
The note to page 75 is also a mistake. He says, "Not without a deep and wondrous reason is bahsahr both goodness and flesh in Hebrew." It is nothing of the kind. Besorah is good news, from Baser, to bring good news. Basar is flesh. If he applies it to Christ, as it would seem he does, it is yet worse. What does he mean by "again raised up in man in Christ"? In Him was life. He was eternal life come down. There are things concealed here which, as he says, "it is not lawful for a man to utter": he is concealing thoughts he dares not state. "Come back out of darkness." Is that of Christ? What work "in Christ"? does he mean on page 76? "Die to that which keeps him far from God." Was that so of Christ?
101 There is the most absurd misapplication of passages of Scripture, using them in a sense they do not bear: "Kills to make alive," "turneth man to destruction, that He may say, Return, ye children of men." This is God's judgment to bring about the death to that which keeps man far from God! Satan's double lie was that God grudges and is untrue, and that by self-will man may be as God, and God's two methods, law and gospel, meet this state of things. "By the one God's life is quickened in man": What is that again? It is not a new one then, anothen. By the other, through present or future judgment, "the hellish and earthly life is slain and overcome." I ask: What judgment? for if saints were crucified with Christ, and no longer live, they have not to die, but to reckon themselves dead. "Is man as God? The law settles this." It does not; it settles that he is not as man ought to be. "The law" … ."to be abolished": this he quotes as if scripture; but Scripture does not say "to be" but "is abolished," Heb. 10:9; 2 Cor. 3:13. "He taketh away the first." His use of Scripture is not to be trusted; his whole book is built up out of a misuse of it.
His reference to promise to Abraham not being disannulled by the intervention of law to prove that, though men are judged, condemned, and sent to hell for their sins, the judgment thus endured "cannot disannul the previous covenant," is a specimen of this absurdity. (Page 78.) And law is not judgment, but death and condemnation; 2 Cor. 3. "But this killing is to make alive." There is no such thought or expression in Scripture. Where is it so written? His theory requires such a passage, and there is none, and yet this for him is the whole point; for he is going to make damnation do it. "Judgment therefore (?) must end in blessing." Why?
"God our Father judges to save." Scripture tells us (the Lord Himself says), "The Father judgeth no man." It is a name of grace and relationship; and Christ the Son, to whom judgment is committed, does not judge to save. The Father judges in chastising His children here; 1 Peter 1:17. Christ died to save. Mr. J. says: "He only saves by judging what is evil." Is that true as fully judging it in the persons guilty, and if by that means, what did Christ do for them? "The evil must be overthrown; and through death God destroys him that had the power of death." Whose death? The devil's?
For in Mr. J.'s system it is the death of him in whom the power of the evil is. This is utter perversion.
102 "A new creation, which is only brought in through death, is God's remedy for that which through a fall is held in death and bondage." (Page 79.) This is totally false, confounding two distinct truths; in Ephesians and in Romans. A new creation is not brought in through death, or it is not a new creation. When we were dead in sins, says Ephesians. Romans teaches us to reckon ourselves dead to sin because Christ has died. When he says we die more quickly to sin through the burdens and infirmities of "this vile body," than those will who reject God's judgment here, and meet it in a more awful form in the resurrection of judgment, it is all totally false, both as affirmed of us and them; for Scripture nowhere teaches that believers die to sin, in their own proper persons: Christ died to sin because He had none.
"Such is the reason for salvation by the cross." Is it that Christ had to be saved through dying? Or whose death or cross does he speak of? If we are dead to sin by Christ's cross, all his system denies the truth. Whose is he speaking of? And note how guilt and bearing sins are left out. "But the great illustration, here as elsewhere, is to be found in the law, that appointed 'shadow of good things,' which in all its varied forms of sacrifices asserts the same great truth, that only by the fire of God and through death can the earthly creature be changed, and so ascend to God." (Page 80.) But these sacrifices were the substituted death of a victim for others. How can this apply to those who have rejected salvation, and for whom the scripture tells us there is no more sacrifice for sins? Hence for Mr. J. it is personally dying to sin, which Scripture never speaks of — save as to Christ; carefully the contrary.
As to the sacrifices shewing that the creature cannot be changed through death, were they not types of Christ, and therefore spotless? Had He to be changed? What he says of the sacrifices is all wrong as to fact. Only very rare ones were burned: most were eaten. The fat only of some was burnt: as a whole the sacrifice did not "perish in its first form to rise in another as pillars of smoke before God. If then all this was 'the pattern of things in the heavens,' we have another witness that a transformation wrought by fire is yet being carried on in the true heavens, that is, the spiritual world." There is no such witness. They prefigured Christ, and no one else. There is no question of "our nature not being spared any more than the animal was not spared by the priest."
103 Mr. J. tells us that "no divine change can be wrought even on God's elect, save by passing through the waters and through the fires." They are born with a wholly new life. He says, as the Lord "fulfilled the types of suffering, so will He fulfil the same in the bodies of those who are His members." How so? we ask. Are they to do that same work which Christ did? Or what was He doing in dying? anything as to Himself? All he says on page 81 of the uniting power of fire and of fires for the elect is idle and false. And his use of Scripture, as of casting fire into the earth, and salting with fire being the baptism of the Holy Ghost, and fire which Christ desired to be kindled, mingles the most opposite thoughts together, so as to make falsehood and error of all. What is united? Bathing with fire is not baptising with the Holy Ghost and with fire. The baptism with the Holy Ghost took place on the day of Pentecost. Fire is always judgment. Christ does not say He desired the fire to be kindled.
His theory is salvation by chastening; and a denial of divine life given, and atonement for sin. But chastening is another matter. There must be life and relationship for that. And reconciliation is not transmutation of our nature "by the fire of God into partakers of Christ's flesh and blood." And what is "partakers of Christ's flesh and blood"? Is there no new life? "In and through Christ we have received this transmutation; and through His Spirit which is fire, is this same change accomplished in us." Same change with what? Says Scripture, "Through whom now we have received the reconciliation," and katallage (Rom. 5:11) is not "transmutation," but an entirely different thought and thing. And the footnote to page 82 completes the absurdity, where, founding his remark on a false reading of the Hebrew,* he affirms — "His purpose to the creature is through destruction to perfect it, and by fire to make it a bride to the Lord." How unlike His purpose as expressed in God's word; Ephesians 5! "The Christ also loved the church, and delivered Himself up for it, in order that He might sanctify it, purifying it by the washing of water [not fire] by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it might be holy and blameless."
{*Page 82. His note about Hebrew words is not true. The reason why the first two mean also perfection is because it is complete or finished. What he says of ishah is not true. Esh is fire, once Keth (Jer. 4 • 29) eshah. Ishah is from ish or more fully enesh.}
104 "And as with the firstfruits, so with the harvest" ("This same change!") Was Christ really changed? "The world to be saved must some day know the same baptism." Will it be saved? For "the Lord," Mr. Jukes adds, "will come by fire," and "by fire and by His sword will He plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." It is also mere trifling with words to affirm, as he does, "The promised baptism of the Spirit must be judgment, for the Spirit cannot be poured on men without consuming his flesh to quicken a better life." But the Spirit is given only when we believe. As to "consuming his flesh to quicken a better life," whence is the life thus quickened, and what is a quickening like? Is it a life already there in embryo? Besides, Christ says, the world "cannot receive" the Holy Ghost. Where in Scripture do we read that God's "warfare and wrath … works both righteousness and life"?
On page 84, while he rejects the Annihilationist doctrine, "that those who abuse their day of grace will be utterly annihilated,'' he asserts that God's plan is, with regard to man, "out of, and through the fall, to raise him to higher and more secure blessedness, as it is written, 'As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive'; not all at once, but through successive ages, and according to an appointed order, in which the last, even as the first, shall be restored by the elect," etc. Read the passage "as in Adam," etc., and see of what and of whom it speaks. There is not a word of all this in Scripture, but the contrary (as we have shewn already). It is the same blasphemous nonsense I have already spoken of in which he makes us save others as Christ did. As to 1 Corinthians 15, it is altogether about the righteous dead.
Page 85, the answer Mr. Jukes gives to What is conversion? is all false. It is not at all, as he says, "a change involving a death unto sin," etc. He has purposely made it vague or false. Where do the condemned get their new life, and when? "There is but one way to bring seed out of the earth … Nothing is done without the water and the fires." But the life is already in the seed, to be quickened and eventually ripened. "Conversion is only wrought through condemnation." All is fundamentally false here. Instead of conversion being through condemnation, condemnation of self is through conversion. "The law condemns and slays us, not to annihilate, but to bring forth a better life." How? Law did not, and could not, give or bring forth a better life. To confound (p. 86) my spiritual judgment of sin and self with God's judgment of guilty sinners, is stupid and senseless. The way in which Christ's passing through death, which he calls the baptism which awaits Him, and a baptism of the same kind for us, so that we may say, too, "How am I straitened till it be accomplished," is as unscriptural as it is shocking, and disgraceful trifling with Scripture. We are baptised to His death; and we have only to read Acts 2 to see that his appropriation of baptism for the remission of sins is the grossest abuse of words to suit his purpose. Christians are baptised to Christ's death, died with Him, and have received the Holy Ghost.
105 "And that therefore, and to the same end, those not so baptised here must know the last judgment." Who says this is to be to "the same end"? It is the folly of confounding dying to sin and God's final judgment. "Judgment which is to meet the greater hardness and impenitence of the reprobate." Miserable! Not an idea of Christ and of a new life, nor of peace through grace? "It is, therefore, simply because God is what He is, that He is through love, and because He is love, the curse and destruction of the impenitent." (Page 87.) Was it love, we ask, that Christ experienced on the cross when He was made a curse for us? He was made sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. All this and bearing sins is wholly left out; and also wrath revealed from heaven. Christ went by the cross, and so got the blessing; and so must we; and so must the wicked for themselves!
No one denies chastisement, but we are chastened that we should not be condemned with the world.
Paul does not tell the church to deliver to Satan. "Souls are taught not to blaspheme by being delivered to Satan"; why withhold "for the destruction of the flesh"? "What does this not teach us as to God's purpose towards those whom He also delivers to Satan and disciplines by evil, since they will not learn by good?" He does no such thing. Satan is there then himself!
In page 88, "for man bears God's image" is never said in Scripture. 1 Corinthians 11:7 is man contrasted with woman. The rest is utter nonsense. In the judgment of the great white throne (Rev. 20), there is not the smallest intimation of salvation or recovery. The judged go into the lake of fire, the second death. And in quoting Revelation 21:5-8, why does he leave out gegone, It is done? The becoming is over. "What does He say here but that all things shall be made new?" It is contrast with the former state of things, and all is finished, gegone, and the wicked, in contrast with the overcomers, are in the lake of fire. Yet He does not say so, but "I make." He says their "part" is there. The accomplishment of the earthly promise to Abraham is past, and the promise does not refer to that time when gegone by his own shewing is there (p. 90) *
{*A. L. Newton. — She never thought a right thought on this subject. The curse did not involve the blessing. The second Man, not the first, was to overcome.}
106 As to Paul's two passages, "wished himself accursed for them," and have "hope," not fear, "that there should be a resurrection of the dead," etc. The first has no connection with the subject. He had loved them as Moses, who had said, "Blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which Thou hast written." Then he also says that the saints are said to have died to sin, "that is, the dark spirit world": we ask, Where is this said?* As to the second, he expresses his convictions and hope of resurrection, adding, as part of it, this important fact, "both of the just and of the unjust." The rest are within the limits of that dark and fiery world, the life of which (p. 91) is the life of their spirit — a strange idea, whose value is to shew that he feeds on German notions, which can identify clairvoyance and animal magnetism with the life of Christ in man as man, owning withal his fall.**
{*It is borrowed from the Germans, I think from Lange, who is as wild as he is full of error.}
{**See Lange's Life of Christ.}
They get out of the dark world by the second death! "Even if we have not light to see this, ought not the present to teach us something as to God's future ways; for is He not the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?" Why "for ever" here, when elsewhere only "for the ages"? "We know that in inflicting present death His purpose is through death [whose?] to destroy him that has the power of death, that is, the devil." Not at all. Christ became a Man to do it. This is totally false, and it confounds, as elsewhere, Christ's dying for us, and the person's getting free through his own death. Our reckoning ourselves dead to sin with Christ is, for him, the same thing as the judgment of sinners by God in wrath! "How can we conclude from this that in inflicting the 'second death' the unchanging God will act on a principle entirely different from that which now actuates Him?" On whom would the second death, in order to save, be inflicted? On Christ? It must be so to have any show of truth, for that it was in the first case. "Or shall the greater foe (the second death) still triumph, while the less, the first death, is surely overcome?" Satan, the great foe, does not, but is judged and in the lake of fire. Being judged is not "triumph." The resurrection of the wicked is the destruction of death, "the last enemy." Who has taught us to limit the meaning of the words, "Death is swallowed up in victory"? Scripture: "Then shall come to pass that which is written." It is at the resurrection of the just; 1 Cor.15 .
107 "Is God's will to save all men?" (1 Tim. 2:4). The word used for "will" in Greek does not mean purpose. "His appointed means for our deliverance" is not our death, as he speaks of it, but Christ's. The last sentence of page 92 is filled with dishonest quotations, for the passages which he cannot but know refer to the Lord's coming are dishonestly applied to another time. Why not add, "of which the prophets have spoken" to "the restitution of all things," and thus honestly declare that it refers to this earth? "He shall save his people" is the scriptural application of the name of Jesus, his last reference.
As to freeing bondsmen and debtors, as a type it proves the contrary. Only Israelites were set free (p. 93); as to the heathen the bondage was for ever. It is therefore the contrary to what Mr. J. says, "Fallen still are his children." They are not. Scripture says we are the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; Gal. 3. Where there is no faith, there the person is not a child of God. "A larger mercy from our Father in heaven." Whose Father? All this on page 94 denies sin and guilt, judgment and righteousness. And judging sin is not being overcome of evil. And the whole of his closing remarks are without one word of sins, guilt, responsibility, or righteous judgment! His whole system is a mere dream of his own imagination, outside of Scripture and against its plainest teaching. His view of Job, too, is wholly wrong; but I do not pursue the question here. His "testimony of scripture" we have now examined, and next come to his examination of
108 "POPULAR OBJECTIONS"
It is said that this doctrine [of restitution] is opposed to the voice of the church, to reason, and above all to Holy Scripture. "For the rest, if the church speak with God, woe to those who disobey her." What is "the church"? Who set her to teach? And where is her teaching? "Where then, I ask, and when has the Catholic church ever authoritatively condemned this view of restitution?" Who set her to do it? What council had any warrant? The church teaches not. "It [the doctrine of endless torments] can never be classed under 'Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus.'" Nor can anything else. All that he says of the Fathers east or west I leave. What matters it who held it, or who did not? Is it in Scripture? is the question. Mr; Jukes appeals to this, and asks, "What does this prove if the doctrine is really taught in Scripture?" Nothing, assuredly. If it was from the beginning, it would be.
But what he says immediately after is unfounded. "Many things have been hid in Scripture for ages. Paul speaks of the revelation of the mystery which had been hid from ages and generation, some part at least of which, though hidden, had been spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." Utterly unfounded, or Paul was all wrong. This is ignorance, but I fear I must say wilful ignorance. "But when have God's people as a body ever seen or received any truth beyond their dispensation?" Only Mr. Jukes, then, we are to believe. The ways of Israel are not examples to us. The things happened to them for ensamples. (Page 98.) The doctrine of the union in one body is never spoken of. The call of the Gentiles is expressly spoken of in the scripture, which Paul uses. It is a false suggestion of Scripture's silence where it speaks plainly. That is, Scripture spoke plainly, and Paul used it. It was absolutely silent on another point, and it required a positive revelation to declare it. Both were the word of God. God's unerring word is final. "But when I see the church's blindness," etc. (Page 99.) Where is the church's teaching now? "For if the flesh that bore Christ was not ours, His incarnation does not profit us." I thought there was something at bottom as to this. I quite think "that the church's judgment cannot decide a point like this, if that judgment be in opposition to the word of God." But the church is a mere deception — where is it? For Mr. Jukes, the papal system "is its widest branch." And who gave her authority to teach? God teaches finally as to doctrine in the Holy Scriptures.
109 The church has nothing whatever to do with even the teaching of the truth. It is not hers to teach, but to be taught. What is truth is all in the Scriptures. But it is natural, with what he makes of the church, to flatter it. (Page 100.) "Transubstantiation is a mistake built on Christ's very words, and the doctrine of endless torments is a like misunderstanding." Poor work is this! Did He wish His disciples to believe that He held Himself in His hands when He took the bread, as indeed Augustine says we must, in a manner, believe, and when He was not crucified? But the words were used when He was alive in the body, so that the disciples could not have mistaken Him. So much the more when we think of His saying "My blood," and even, "This cup is the new covenant." They could not have misunderstood Him then; no more could any now who were not wilfully ignorant. The words which declare everlasting punishment are, if possible, plainer still.
Then, on pages 101-2, he takes up the objection that "this doctrine militates against the atonement, for if men shall at length be saved, God became man to redeem from that which is equally remedied without it." But how "saved"? According to Mr. Jukes they are saved by their own suffering and death. Atonement in its scripture sense is everywhere left out; and guilt too. Salvation is only the change of a nature by dying. His teaching as to the fall and its consequences is not scriptural. God drove out the man. Guilt and judgment are ignored. Here, too, we have this German semi-infidelity: "In this fall God pitied man and sent His Son, in whom is life, to be a man in the place where man was shut up, there to raise up again God's life in man, to bear man's curse, and then through death [whose?] to bring man back in God's life to God's right hand," etc. Was He in the distance, away from God, dead in sins, raising up God's life in man in His own Person? Or did He go into man's place and suffer death as made sin, bruised for our iniquities? "Obtain the life by which these shall rise." Not so. They do not rise by that life. They are raised. Of what was Christ the firstfruits? Of those "that are Christ's." But how does it follow hence (from this doctrine) that those who are not firstfruits, if saved at all, are saved without Christ's redemption? "God's word could quicken and deliver us out of the horrible pit, that we might be firstfruits of His creatures; why should we say He cannot bring back others out of death though they miss the glory of being firstfruits?" Redemption by bearing sins in death and forgiveness are wholly ignored! Mr. Jukes uses the Bible terms in another sense than they mean in Scripture: even hell is used in another sense. (Page 103.) "The other part of the objection that none believe in redemption who do not believe in hell, is true"; but this is donner la change. "Hell" is used in another sense from the objector's. So going to hell is not delivery to Satan — he is in it himself. It was prepared for him.
110 The second objection, "It is further argued that, if grace does not, judgment cannot, save man; How can damnation perfect those whom salvation has not helped? Can hell do more for us than heaven? The answer to this lies simply in what has been said above as to the reason why the way of life for us must be through judgment … judgment therefore to shew us that what we are is as needful as grace," etc. Then we must all go to hell, and that by judgment. But life-giving and judgment are contrasted, and those who have life do not come into judgment (krisis). "If we want further examples, Nebuchadnezzar shews us how judgment does for man what goodness cannot. The remedy is to make him a beast." This begs the whole question, in making the chastening of the living the same as the final judgment of the adversaries of God. Besides, chastening itself does not change the heart unless grace work.
"Let the nature of the fall be seen, and the reason why we are only saved through judgment is at once manifest." This is utterly false to say "only"; and the whole question remains. By whose stripes are we healed, how was peace made? So the statement, "The firstfruits from Christ to us are proofs that by death, and this alone, our salvation is perfected," raises the question — By whose death, Christ's in atonement, or ours in judgment? That this is his meaning appears from his saying, "unbelievers who will not die with Christ are lost because they are not judged here." But suppose that "by the ministry of death and condemnation in another world the work of judgment to salvation were accomplished," what puts away their sins? For unbelievers die in them, and there is no more sacrifice. He has perfected that work, and He came to do it once. Hebrews 9 and 10 are urgent on this point. It was in the end of the world He appeared once to put away sin. He dies no more. Mr. Jukes makes our death and condemnation here what saves us, and so of the lost afterwards!
111 (3). "But it is further objected that this doctrine gives up God's justice; for if all are saved there will be no difference between St. Peter and Nero, virgins and harlots, saints and sinners." The objection if so made, and the answer ignore Christ's atoning death. His error is not that he saves the condemned without redemption; he denies all redemption as Scripture states it, though the word 'atonement' may be thrown in to blind people. Christ's own case he is afraid to utter. (See page 75.) It is absurd, he alleges, to say, "God's justice is given up because He saves by judgment." But do we get what our sins deserve from justice? We do not come into judgment. He says "the elect being first quickened by the word, and then judging themselves in this world, or being judged by a death to sin are freed from Satan." Even death to sin was Christ's; Rom. 6. We reckon ourselves dead, and if all are freed by our own dying, what, then, did Christ do for them? But Mr. Jukes goes farther. "What scripture teaches is that man is saved through death … that others not so dying [as the elect] to sin remain in the life and therefore under the curse and power of the dark world, and are therefore delivered to Satan* to be punished, to know, since they will not believe, their fall and their need of God's salvation. But all this simply asserts the justice of God." This is dreadfully bad, and sets aside Christ's work altogether, save as the first dier! It is, in fact, a purgatory which does the whole work.
{*This, as we have seen, is a gross perversion of the words of Scripture.}
As to "no distinction," he asks, "Is there no distinction between reigning with Christ, and being cast out and shut up in hell with Satan?" But then that is all; and in the long run one is saved as much as another, only in another world, having rejected Christ. Receiving a wholly new life and guilt are both ignored in Mr. Jukes' notions. He falsely uses and indeed translates Romans 9. And it is merely slurring over the real question to talk of an outwardly pure and blameless life needing the blood of the cross.
112 (4). The fourth objection he answers is from analogy — that, as many creatures in this world fail to attain their proper end and perfection, so thousands of our race may miss their true end, and be for ever cast away. This is mere reasoning with which I do not meddle. Assertion may be met by counterassertion; but where Scripture is claimed for anything, it needs to be examined. But then he says: — "Why not go further, and argue that death, and not life, must be the final ruler of the universe?" Through sin it is so of this present world. Nor does he deny it, but declares apparent death is only a change of form, the change being a witness of present imperfection, but not of eternal bondage in that form, nor of destruction or annihilation when that form perishes. He insists on change, and that analogy shews that what appears worthless or destroyed may contain what is precious. But all this remains the same nature. But Christianity depends essentially on our receiving a new life, anothen, not a mere change, which in mere nature may take place. (Pages 108-9.) We know there is nothing precious. "I know that in me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." And "he that believeth not the Son shall not see life."
(5). "The greatest difficulty of all is that which meets us from the existence of present evil." "Was He not infinitely wise, and holy, and powerful, when the earth was without form and void? Why, then, should this state ever have been changed by Him till all was very good?" Here creation is ignored, and whatever judgment brought it into the ruined state. No recognition of sin bringing in the misery and evil of the present state. Then, on page 3 he speaks of the "Day of Judgment, and the promised Times of Restitution." Judgment is not restoration, and there are no promised times of restitution of the wicked, as he makes it. It is positively false, and not in Scripture; and it is equally false, as he means it, that the Father will go on working till all things are made new, and everything is very good. When God makes all things new, He leaves the wicked "without," and "everything very good" is never said but at creation.
As to Romans 8:20-21, he has quoted it falsely in saying "through Him." It is "on account of him who has subjected [it]," dia ton. It was not the creature's own will, but on account of another; and Adam, not God, is the "him" referred to. And "the creature into the liberty of glory of God's children," has nothing to do with restoring the wicked spiritually, for which Mr. J. falsely uses it; and the deliverance of the creature is when His children are glorified and judgment is on their adversaries. Evil subserving some good purpose (otherwise God would never have permitted it), or, say, "I form peace, and I create evil," just shews the false use he makes of Scripture. He does not create moral evil: it is temporal evil as contrasted with peace--not with good. Again, "Prophecy announces a day when there shall be no more curse or death, but all things made new. In this witness we may rest, spite of the fact and mystery of present evil." This is before the final judgment; a settled fallacy that runs through the book. "No curse" is the millennial state (Rev. 22:3); "all things new" after it, and then the wicked are without, outside the scene where there is no more crying, pain, or death; Rev. 21:2-8. "Curse" is not spoken of as no longer the question. In Revelation 21:1-4 are new heavens and new earth, and in verses 5-8. These passages prove just the contrary of what Mr. Jukes affirms.
113 (6). He says truly, "What saith the scripture?" is the only question on this subject. Mr. J. speaks of sin creating an antagonistic world. Sin creates nothing. It is always enmity. It is judged; this is not equal power. "Willed" is falsely used; and will in this passage is not purpose. "And all this (antagonistic world) in opposition to the word of God, which says that God's Son 'was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil,' who, if the so-called orthodox views be right, will succeed in destroying some of the works of the Son of God for ever." So the Son of God does; He destroys the works of the devil. The judgment of Satan is not Satan's work, nor that of wicked men. He has morally destroyed them already.
On page 115 he tells what his reason concludes, as to those being punished for their sins with everlasting punishment. He gives no scripture for it, but exculpates the sinner as much as possible, and speaks of weakness, the tempter, strong passions, conscience not helping him, failing to avail himself of mercy. The Lord says "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father"; and Paul, of the least enlightened, "that they are without excuse." There is no true sense of sin; no power of the word of God in the conscience. "I cannot say my reason would conclude on his ground," and this is the root of all these reasonings. "Once God's child," he says. Only in nature and at the outset, as His created offspring, and that is exactly what makes it eternal misery. "Even nature teaches … to act more generously." That is "nature" is to judge God, instead of having a sense of sin deserving judgment! As one said, "God condemned men for eating an apple." The truth is, man gave up God for an apple, believing Satan, not God!
114 Mr. Jukes represents man only as unfortunate, like a child which has hurt itself, and God as indulgent. But God is a holy and righteous Judge, which is all left out (p. 116), for death and hell are only to save — not judgment of sin or exclusion from evil. His statements are a mere expression of natural human kindness, as it may be found in an animal, and a totally false representation of both God and man; nature's reasoning, but not the Holy Ghost's. A child falling or hurting itself is all his thought of man's sin, and human pity for man's misery is all his idea of God. All this is nothing but the absence of the just sense of guilt. Have we deserved to be forsaken of God? or why was Christ? He thanks God we have revelation. Thank God we have; but he adds, "That word declares man's final restitution." Not so; it does the contrary. It says, "Hath never forgiveness," and see Revelation 21, as already quoted. God seeking the lost till He find them is the grace of the present time; and the elder brother would not go in, and did not get in.
(7). "But it is said," he says, "certain texts of holy scripture are directly opposed to the doctrine of universal restitution. We have already seen that, taken in the letter, text clashes with text on this subject." I do not admit it. To say that all those texts which speak of "destruction" and "judgment" have been explained by what has been said by him above as to the way of our salvation, is simply lying against the truth.
What he says (p. 117) of Romans 2:12 — that it is the state of all by nature — is utterly false. It is expressly said, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men's hearts. It is very bad thus to pervert God's word. Again, 2 Corinthians 4:3 refers to those who are being lost, in contrast to being saved — apollumenoi — sozomenoi, those to whom the gospel is hid when preached, not their mere common natural state. In all the quoted texts, it is so. In Luke 15 and 19 it is apololos or os. There is actual state, so that the force of the passages against his argument is very strong. "For the Good Shepherd must go after that which is lost until he find it." Where is this said? It is according to him God's duty, and the point of the parable is that it is His sheep. Page 118, "By faith Isaac," etc., is a temporal prophecy.
115 When he affirms (p. 119) that "there is scarcely a doctrine of our faith which, at first sight, does not seem to dash more or less with some other plain scripture," we reply, only when man's mind is at work. After much more human reasoning he speaks of a superior intelligence overruling all, according to a scheme of perfect love; a statement never made in Scripture, which tells of judgment of sin, not of overruling in result. But when perfect love was manifested, for His love Christ had hatred: "They have both seen and hated both Me and My Father."
The texts chiefly relied on as teaching the doctrine of everlasting punishment are then looked at by Mr. Jukes. The first is what is said of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost: "shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in that which is to come," Matt. 12:32; Mark 2:29; Luke 12:10. Of these he says that, so far from teaching that sin can never be forgiven, they teach the opposite: "first, all sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; secondly, that some sins can be forgiven as against the Son of man in this age; and thirdly, that other sins against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven either here or in the coming age, which last words imply that some sins, not here forgiven, may be forgiven in the coming age, the sin or blasphemy against the Holy Ghost not being of this number. This is what the text asserts." As to what he says in the note (p. 120), the words, two ages being specified, prove that the passage could have only an absolute sense.
But the whole statement is all a blunder. This age is before Messiah, "the coming one" when He is revealed, but two only are admitted in the passage. It is Olam haze and Olam ha vo. Certainly in Messiah's age there was forgiveness larger than under the law. What does he mean by saying, "Man cannot reject or speak against the Spirit until the Spirit comes to act upon him"? There is no question of rejecting the Spirit. They blasphemed in saying Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub. The Spirit did not act on them but by Christ. In Stephen's case (Acts 7) it did act on the Jews; the conscience reached, with the will unchanged, led to his stoning by them. "To reject this last [the Spirit] cuts man off from the light and life of the coming world." His whole statement as to the Spirit convincing the heart, and then being rejected, is false. "This sin, therefore, is not forgiven, neither in this age nor in the coming one. But the text says nothing of those ages to come, elsewhere revealed to us; much less does it assert that the punishment of sin not here forgiven is neverending." Scripture says, it is not forgiven under the Messiah — hath never forgiveness, ouk echei aphesin eis ton aiona — shall not be forgiven unto men absolutely. This age and the coming being mentioned, the words shew the absolute force of eis ton aiona. With two ages specified it could have no sense but as absolute. As to the ages to come, all is unfounded and hypothetical. In Ephesians 2 it is expressly "His kindness towards us" — not others, that we read of.
116 It is all fancy and false on page 122 about the mystic seventy weeks. One is amazed at the utter absurdity. Daniel's prophecy of "the seventy weeks" is quite clear, and so is what it refers to, ending with the Lord's coming, and applying to Jerusalem. There is nothing about a jubilee. "I believe in the forgiveness of sins even to the end, as long as God is a Saviour." And what, when He is a judge? Are to be sentenced, and to be forgiven, the same thing?
(2). A second text, "The wrath of God abideth on him." His plea is that it says that "Man, so long as he is in unbelief, cannot see life," "but an unbeliever, though while he is such God's wrath abides upon. him, may pass by faith out of the wrath to life and blessedness." It is not a question of nature, but that, when in the state of sin and ruin by nature, and Christ presented to them in grace, they rejected Him and grace; then they should not see life. Christ does not say cannot, but "shall not see life," etc. Nor does it say so long as he is in unbelief. It is a broad statement that he who does not believe "shall not see life," and the Son is referred to as having all in His hands. The wrath of God (for there is wrath) abides on him; John 3:36. "If it were not so, all would be lost," he says. This is a proof that all is false. It is totally untrue that, if this text bears the meaning we affirm it does, an unbeliever could not have any hope of life or deliverance, for it puts the turning-point on faith, and he that does not believe shall not see life. (Compare 1 John 5:12.) The text is as plain as possible. Some do believe; some do not. If not, they shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on them.
117 (3). Another text is, "Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," Mark 9:42-50. "For every one shall be salted with fire," etc. That is, all shall be judged — the saints, that they may not be condemned with the world — the rest by final judgment; but salt, separation from evil, belonged to sacrifices thus given to God. "And every sacrifice must be salted with salt." Those who were consecrated to God, whose life was an offering to Him, should not lack the power of holy grace which binds the soul to God, and inwardly preserves it from evil. Mr. Jukes' explanation of it from the law really shews nothing but a total want of spiritual understanding. Making the meat-offering duty to one's neighbour, when it was a sacrifice by fire to God, and Christ's leavenless Person, shews a mind away from all truth.* Page 126 is all wrong, from beginning to end, in every point. The bodies of the sinoffering were not burnt as unclean; nor, generally, were they burnt at all: only very particular ones referring to the people or the high priest were. Those parts which were not burnt were eaten. What does he mean by "worm," alluding to the consumption of those parts? They were eaten. On page 127 we have a continuance of the same absurdity. It would seem the altar was hell; and yet he says the sin-offerings were burnt outside! It is all conflicting nonsense. The fire never being quenched** "typifying the preservation of that spiritual fire, which it is Christ's work as priest to kindle and keep alive." That is in hell! The passages he quotes just state that nothing should intervene to stop or arrest the judgment; the fire would not be put out. The words "the fire never shall be quenched" have the same sense in Mark as in all the rest — that nothing shall avert or suspend the judgment of God. It was not chastening, but final judgment. In Isaiah it refers to the valley of the son of Hinnom, hence Gehenna; where the fire was kept up continually to consume the filth of Jerusalem, and the carcases of the rebellious remained a constant spectacle. Was the burning of the sin-offering without the camp a fire never quenched? (Page 128.) Was ever greater nonsense?
{*The footnote about the sacrifices is incorrect; the fat was consumed on the altar; and only when the blood went into the sanctuary was the body burned without the camp: otherwise it was eaten by the priest.}
{**It is no more "quenched" than "go out," save in one place; perhaps "let go out" would be the truest. But "not go out" is quite right.}
118 (4). All that he says about everlasting, as not being neverending in Matthew 25:46, proves that he has nothing to say. Nor does the word translated "punishment" ever mean in the New Testament a corrective discipline, as he alleges. It is only twice used; and the verb twice. (Page 129.) If the bliss of the righteous be eternal, so must be the punishment of the wicked. If Scripture be examined, there remains no question as to the word kolasis, that it is judicial torment, or torment, where the verb is used — never correcting. The other place where the word is used is 1 John 4:18 — the verb in Acts 4:21; 2 Peter 2:9, in neither of which is there any other thought than "punishment."
(5). Another text: "Good were it for that man if he had not been born." As to what was said to our first parents, it was only what came on earth. If Judas' fall end in the restoration of the fallen one to more secure blessedness, then it would have been good for him to have been born — the highest witness of grace. What he says, "It is surely significant that one and the same awful prophecy is by the inspired writers of the New Testament applied to Judas and Israel," is not the case. Psalm 69 and Psalm 109 are both quoted in Acts 1:20, but the part of the prophecy used in Romans is not that quoted in Acts. That Israel came under the same judgment as Judas in this world is quite true; but this has nothing whatever to do with what the Lord says of him. This is a mere come-off. The words, "Let his habitation be desolate," are founded on Psalm 69, and Israel never will be restored as they stood on the old covenant. They are cursed as the fig-tree was, never to bear any fruit. What is said of Judas is absolute — good not to have been born. And to say that Luke 19:42 is in substance the old man and the new is tampering with the Lord's words. Is that what the Lord means?
Page 134 is too gross perversion of the Lord's words. "Good* not to have been born" means better through this very wickedness!
{*In the footnote, page 134, he says it is kalon, not agathon, that the kalon may be missed, while the agathon may be by grace obtainable. Now agathon would have no sense.}
119 "For all that rose in Adam falls in Christ, even as all that fell in Adam rose again in Christ." Where is this in Scripture? The quotation of Psalm 37:35-36, is an absurd use of it. "I sought him, but he could not be found." That is, he rose again, and was blessed!
His interpretation of the rich man and Lazarus is all wrong. It shews a change of dispensation, and the introduction of eternal and unseen things, as to which Christ withdraws the veil, in contrast with earthly things; and to say that the gulf was impassable for man, but that Christ might pass, is trifling with the word of God. Abraham says, "they that wish cannot pass," but this only means they can pass in another way not named. Dives did not so understand it; that is, the Lord who makes him say, "I pray thee," etc. "It is no use," says Abraham; "if the word will not do it, a man going from the dead will not." Yet we are to believe it can be done after all, and saying that, because man cannot make himself good, it does not follow God cannot. He does not change the flesh, but gives a new life, and the unbeliever shall not see life.
He next takes up the objection (p. 140) that it is opposed to the obvious sense of Scripture, and Scripture being written for simple and unlettered men, the simplest sense must be the true one. There is no such testimony in Scripture as that all death shall be done away; it is never said of the second death, which is the whole point. On this point Scripture contains no "apparent contradictions."
He quotes Romans 5:14-21, and then asks what is the obvious meaning of these words: "Can a partial salvation exhaust the fulness of the blessing which St. Paul declares so unequivocally?" Certainly. It is carefully stated to be "the many" connected with the obedient One. "Why, then, not receive the teaching in its plain and obvious sense?" This is just what we have to do; only one verse in our English version is utterly mistranslated: "Therefore, as by one offence toward all men to condemnation, even so by one righteousness toward all men to justification of life," Rom. 5:18. This is what has happened for justification of life and so reigning in life, which he admits they lose. "The many," not "all," are constituted righteous. This passage, instead of teaching Mr. Jukes' doctrine, carefully teaches the opposite. All connected with Adam have sin, condemnation, and death, and are lost; all connected with Christ have righteousness, justification, and life, and are saved. Surely we need the Spirit to understand the revelation; but it is not Scripture, that the death we see, and this only, is the way to fuller blessed life: we shall not all die. He takes up this objection next: "If you indulge the hope of the final restoration of all men, why not lost spirits also? Why should not the judgment of angels be their restoration?" "Why," he asks, "if He died for all, that by His death He might destroy that evil nature, and deliver them?" Through all this he drops atonement, and only looks for change, for which he absurdly quotes Hebrews 1:11-12. I answer, the thought sets aside Christ's work. He does not take up angels at all; He does not take up their cause. The flesh is never changed.
120 Mr. Jukes says, after giving more than two pages to it, "I confess I cannot see that God would be dishonoured by such a conclusion of the great mystery." And on his principles the restoration of devils is necessary; and then we have this rhapsody: — "When I see that man contains all worlds, and is indeed the hieroglyphic of the universe … but hell and heaven, and the life of each in him!"* How is the life of heaven in him? "Ye are of your father, the devil," said our Lord. "Lucifer and Adam, the two first great offenders, the one in his male, the other in his female property!" Simple truth is worth a good deal of this kind of trash. That "the hellish life can be transformed," he says. It never is. All these interpretations and answers to objections only shew that scriptural proof is against him, and his answers are the best proof that he is wrong. As to the case of Jonah (p. 148), grace individually, without promise, has nothing to do with natural judgments.
{*This is pretty exactly Swedenborgianism.}
(4). "CONCLUDING REMARKS." — "Then cometh the end" settles the question as to receiving truth beyond our dispensation; it is error we reject — not truth. "It is humbling to proud spirits that all their pride and rebellion must be overthrown." Are they saved, not being born again? "For teachers to learn is to unlearn!" No doubt ye are the men! "We are saved by hope," not by fear (p. 150), is an entire abuse of the words of Scripture perverted by what he adds. We are saved en elpidi, not we are saved dia. "I rather believe that, if the exactness of final retribution were understood, if men saw that so long as they continue in sin they must be under judgment, and that only by death to sin are they delivered, they could not pervert the gospel as they now do, nor abuse that preaching of the cross, which is indeed salvation." As to "exactness of final retribution," we ask, exact to what measure? And his statement leaves out the gospel, or rather sets it aside. "God consigns," he says, all but a few to endless misery. (Page 150.) They are enmity against God, and have rejected His love; they have both seen and hated both Him and His Father.
121 "Can such a doctrine be true? If it be, let men declare it always, and in every place." (Page 153.) So they do, and it is a powerful means of conversion. "If we think Him hard, we become hard." Does he think he deserves to be shut out from God? "The Gospels," he says, "shew that God is love," and that as manifested in Christ. But when Jesus came, how was He received? "Wherefore when I came, was there no man?" He came in the fulness of grace, reconciling; but they drove Him out of the world; they killed the Prince of Life, and preferred a murderer! "Because we were in the flesh, He came in the flesh." He expatiates on His grace coming "to bear our burden, break our bonds, and bring us back in and with Himself to God's right hand for ever,"* but never one word of His bearing our sins. "How He did it, with what pity, truth, patience, tenderness, and care, no eye but God's yet sees fully." But what effect had all this? Christ's own testimony is, "Now they have both seen and hated both Me and My Father." Of what he says (p. 156), "Will the coming glory change all this?" — that is, the love which seeks the lost. The reply is — Christ as a Judge is different from Christ as a Saviour in what He is to others, in what He is doing in bearing sins, and judging men for them. The grace manifested did not change men, nor does it now without quickening grace. And "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." When judgment comes on men, it is not the time of saving them. (See Heb. 6 and 10.) Christ cannot then die for their sins; it is too late. And who says that "with Christ in heaven believers will look upon the torments of the lost in hell"? (Page 157.) It is not true that those who know the love of God are indifferent to the case of the lost. Known love acts as love; but there is no great need if all are to be saved at any rate. But Christ, through an unwearying love when on earth, did not win men to God. For His love He had hatred. All this denies the need of being born again.
{*This is quite unscriptural.}
122 It is wretchedly false to say, "With their views they can only judge the evil." This is not true — they can serve in grace. "They do not believe it (evil) can be overcome by good." Nor can it. "Salvation through the cross — that is, through dissolution, above all in the face of Jesus Christ* — tells out the great truth that solves the great riddle, and shews why man must suffer while he is in sin, that through such suffering and death he may be brought back in Christ to God, and be remade in His likeness." I pray the reader to mark this passage; it shews clearly what Mr. Jukes' system is, and propounds a gospel wholly different from and subversive of the gospel of God. It is through a man's suffering while he is in sin he is brought back in Christ to God. Christ's dying for our sins, His atoning work, is left out, as is our receiving a new life in Him. All that constitutes the gospel and truth of God as our salvation by grace, and God's gift of eternal life in Him, and we are saved by our own suffering death while we are in sin. Nothing can be worse. "The cravings abroad," of which Mr. J. speaks, are not "the work of God's Spirit," but of man's restless mind, and those which the Spirit of God does produce cannot be met by Mr. Jukes' speculations, which contradict the word of God.
{*This again is a gross perversion of Scripture. It is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, then when He is in glory.}
On the page (159) where he says, "I conclude as I began. The question is, What saith the scripture?" He misuses and misapplies Scripture, as he has done from the beginning. He says, "the question is, in fact, whether God is for us or against us; and whether, being for us, He is stronger than our enemies?" This is set aside by asking, Of whom is Paul speaking, believers or unbelievers? All this is heedless of truth.
"POSTSCRIPT." — The extract from William Law (pp. 161-168) denies what is said of God in Scripture: "Vengeance is mine, I will recompense, saith the Lord." There is not one word either in Jukes or Law of guilt, bearing sins, forgiveness, justification by faith, or of the blessed Lord Jesus' work for us. A work in us both speak of in the same way.
123 "APPENDIX, NOTE A," attempts to give the scripture use of the words "death" and "destruction," in order to combat annihilationism. This deadly and anti-scriptural doctrine, which upsets atonement, repentance, and responsibility, I repel more absolutely than Mr. Jukes; but this is not the place to go into the question.
"NOTE B." — Extracts from the fathers. Where do you find Christianity in them? I never did, and it is denied in some of these extracts. None except Diognetus, and perhaps Irenaeus, were sound on the divinity of Christ. The believer can receive only what was from the beginning, that is, what is in the word of God. "He that is of God heareth us." The abuse of Scripture in Mr. Jukes' book is flagrant. The remarks from page to page in what precedes will shew this.