things is at hand." Matthew xxiv. 6, " The end is not yet ; " verse 14, " Then shall the end come." So in Mark xiii. 7, Luke xxi. 9. In all these passages the " end " means the end of the world. (2.) The equivalent expressions serve to explain the meaning of the term. The disciples asked our Lord, " What shall be the sign of Thy coming and of the end of the world ? " In answer to that question Christ said that certain things were to happen, but, " the end is not yet ; " and afterwards, " then cometh the end." (Matt. xxiv. 3, 6, 14.) The same expression occurs in the same sense, Matthew xiii. 39, xxviii. 20, and elsewhere. (3.) What immediately follows in verse 24, seems decisive in favour of this interpretation. The end spoken of is when Christ shall have de- livered up his kingdom ; that is, when the whole work of redemp- tion shall have been consummated. (4.) It is further to be re- marked that in 1 Corinthians xv. Paul does not make the slightest reference to the resurrection of the wicked, from the beginning to the end of the chapter. The whole concerns the resurrection of believers. That was what the errorists in Corinth denied ; and that was what the Apostle undertook to prove to be certain and desirable. Christ certainly rose from the dead ; so all his people shall rise ; but each in his order ; first, Christ, then they who are Christ's ; then comes the end ; the end of all things. To make this refer to another and general resurrection, would be to intro- duce a subject entirely foreign to the matter in hand.
Meyer, although he makes reXos in the 24th verse refer to the resurrection, nevertheless says 1 " That it is the constant doctrine of the New Testament (leaving the Apocalypse out of view), that with the coming of Christ the 4 finis hujus sseculi ' is connected, so that the Second Advent is the termination of the ante-messi- anic, and the commencement of the future world-period."
Luthardt says,2 " Then, not before the resurrection, . . . comes the end ; the end, not of the resurrection, that is the resur- rection of others than believers, but the absolute end ; the end of history." Whether the end of all things is to follow the resurrec- tion of believers immediately, or long afterwards, is, in his view, a different question. He admits that the common view is that the coming of Christ, the general resurrection of the dead, the general judgment, the end of the world, and the new heavens and new earth, are to occur contemporaneously. His own view is different.
That the New Testament does teach that the general resurrec- tion is to occur at the time of the Second Advent appears : —
1 Commentar uber das Neue Testament, 2d edit., fWfttingen, 1849, vol. v. p. 323.
2 Lehre von den letzten Dingen, Leipzig, 1861. »« 1*7
840 PART IV. Ch. IV. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
1. From such passages as the following ; In the passage in Daniel, quoted above, it is said, that the righteous and the wicked are to rise together ; the one to life, the other to shame and everlasting contempt. This passage our Lord reiterates, saying that " the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." (John v. 28, 29.) In Matthew xxv. 31, 32, it is said, that when the Son of Man shall appear in his glory all nations shall stand before him. The same is said in Revelations xx. 12, 13. In 2 Thessalonians i. 7-10, it is taught that when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, it will be to take vengeance on those who obey not the Gospel, and to be glorified in all them that believe. In all these passages the resurrection of the righteous is declared to be contemporaneous with that of the wicked.
2. There is another class of passages which teach that the res- urrection of the righteous is to take place at " the last day," and, therefore, not a thousand years before that event. Thus Martha, speaking of her brother Lazarus, said, " I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day." (John xi. 24.) Our Lord, in John vi. 39, says that it is the Father's will u that of all which He hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." This declaration is re- peated in verses 40, 44, 54, comp. xii. 48 : " The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." It is true that the expressions " the last time," "the last day," " the end of days," " the end of the world," are often used very in- definitely in Scripture. They often mean nothing more than " hereafter." But this is not true with the phrase *v rrj i<rx°-Ty rifiepa as used in these passages. " In the last day," is a known and definite period. It is to be remembered also that what is predicted to happen on " the last day," is elsewhere said to take place when Christ shall appear in his glory.
3. A third class of passages teach that the resurrection of the saints is to take place at the day of judgment and in connection with that event. According to the common representations of Scripture, when Christ shall come the second time, the dead are to rise, all nations are to be judged, and the present order of things is to cease. The heavens are to retain Christ, " until the times of restitution of all things." (Acts iii. 21.) This dTi-oKa-mo-rao-is is " die Wiederherstellung aller Dinge in ihren friihern vollkomm-