The Second Death and the Restitution of All Things. Andrew Jukes
of being veils as well as revelations, and are therefore open to the charge of inconsistency, as read by sense, seeming to declare what is opposed to fact, may we not conclude that they have all come from the same Hand, especially when it is seen that the apparent contradictions, which are found in any of these revelations, like the tabernacle veil, invariably cover some deeper truth, which cannot safely be expressed, to fallen men at least, in any other way.
(3) The deeper question, why God has thus revealed Himself should not be passed by; for it opens the heart of God. God alone of all teachers has had two methods, law and gospel, flesh and spirit,— one working where we are, the other to bring us in rest where He is, — one to be done away, the other to abide,2— which at least looks like inconsistency. The reason is that God is love, and that in no other way could He ever have reached us where we were, or brought us where He is. God therefore was willing to seem inconsistent, and for awhile to come into man's likeness, to bring man back to His likeness. Here is the reason for law before gospel,
for Christ's flesh before His Spirit, for all the different dispensations, and for all the types and shadows which for awhile veiled while they revealed God's living Word. Here is the reason for the human form of the Divine Word in Scripture. Had that Word come to us as it is in itself, we should no more have apprehended or seen it than we see God. Had it come to us even in angelic form, only a very few, the pure and thoughtful, ever could have received it. But it stooped to reveal itself to creatures through a creature, and to come to us out of the heart of man in truly human form, so that all men, Gentile or Jew, polished or savage, might through its perfect humanity be able to receive it. God more than any of His most loving servants has become a Jew to gain the Jews, and weak to gain the weak, and under law to gain those under law; because He is love, and love must sacrifice itself, if by any means it can save and bless others. If therefore men are in the flesh, God comes to them in flesh; if they are in darkness and shadows, God comes for them into the shadows; because they cannot comprehend the light, and because the darkness and light are both alike to Him.1
If this is not the way of His revelation, how, I ask, has He ever revealed Himself? Will any dare to say that He has not revealed Himself? Has God who is love been content to leave poor man in perfect ignorance? Or if He has told man what He is, as most surely He has, how has He done so? Did He, does He, can He, plainly tell out to all what He is? And if He did not, why did He not? 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; or shall we be wise, if, in doing what He is doing, that is, in revealing Him, we imitate His way of revelation? Surely from the days of Adam, seeing what man is, and our delusions about Him, God must have desired, and we know has desired, to make Himself known; and being Almighty, All-wise, and All-loving, surely He has taken the best method of doing it. Again I ask, how has He done it, how must He do it, man being what he is? Could God consistently with our salvation have done it otherwise than it has been done? To shew Himself as He is would to man be no shewing of Him. 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 human form. And yet this could not be done without the Truth by its very humanity laying itself open to the charge of being merely human and not divine, and to the humiliation of being rejected for having our infirmities upon it. Love can bear all this, and God is love, and the truth can bear it, for truth must conquer all things. And therefore while it submits to take a human form, in which it can be judged and die, (for it must die and to some of us has died, in the form we first apprehended it,— a trial of faith sooner or later to be known by all disciples, who, like apostles of old in the same strait, are sorely perplexed at this dying, for they have trusted that this is He which should have redeemed Israel,— ) it must also live and rise again, and glorify that human form forever. But because it has thus stooped to come in human form, out of the heart of man, even as Christ came forth from Mary, for us, therefore like Him it shall be stripped and mocked. But those who are stripping it know not what they do.
§ II. The Testimony of Scripture.
I pass on now from the nature of Scripture to its teachings as to the destiny of the human race, and more especially of those who here either reject or never hear the gospel. I feel how solemn the enquiry is, not only because no subject can be of greater moment, but because what appears to me to be the truth differs from those conclusions which the Church has stamped with her authority. Believing, however, that the Holy Scripture, under God and His Spirit's teaching, is the final appeal in all controversies,— regarding it as the unexhausted mine from whence the unsearchable riches of Christ have vet still more to be dug out,— acknowledging no authority against its conclusions, and with the deepest conviction that one jot and one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled,— I turn to it on this as on every other point, to listen and bow to its decisions. And knowing, for by grace this Word is no stranger to me, that like Christ's flesh it is a veil as well as a revelation,— knowing that it has many things to say which we cannot bear at first, and that, if taken partially or in the letter, it may appear to teach what is directly opposed to Christ's mind and to its true meaning;— in this like not a few of Christ's own words, as when He said, “He that hath no sword, let
him sell his garment and buy one;”1 and again, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up;”2 and again, “He that eateth me shall live by me;”1 and again, “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth;”2 all of which were misunderstood by not a few of those who first heard these words from Christ's own mouth; — knowing too that the words of Holy Scripture, in many places where they seem contradictory, and in its “dark sayings,”3 and “things hard to be understood,”4 ever cover some deep and blessed mystery, I see that the question is, not what this or that text, taken by itself or in the letter, seems to say at first sight, but rather what is the mind of God, and what the real meaning in His Word of any apparent inconsistency. If I err in attempting to answer this, my error will, I trust, provoke some better exposition of God's truth. If what I see is truth, like His coming who was the Truth, it must bring glory to God on high and on earth peace and good will to men.
What then does Scripture say on this subject? Its testimony appears at first sight contradictory. Not only is there on the one hand law, condemning all, while on the other hand there is the gospel, with good news for every one; but further there are direct statements as to the results of these, which at first sight are apparently irreconcileable. First our Lord calls His flock a “little flock,”5 and states distinctly that “many are called, but few chosen;”6 that “strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth
unto life,7 and few there be that find it;”8 that “many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able;”9 that while “he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life,10 he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him;”11 that “the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment,”12 “prepared for the devil and his angels;”13 " the resurrection of damnation,”14 “the damnation of hell,”15 “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched ; "16 that though “every word against the Son of Man may be forgiven, the sin against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, neither in this world,17 nor in that which is to come;”18 and that of one at least it is true, that “good had it been for that man if he had not been born.”19
These are the words of Christ Himself, and they are in substance repeated just as strongly by His Apostles. St. Paul declares thawhile some are “saved” by the gospel, others “perish;”1 that “many walk whose end is destruction;”2 that “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction3 from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come