It is unreasonable, therefore, as it is agreed, to expect anything like a literal fulfilment of these New Testament prophecies. To this it may be answered, (1.) That in the Old Testament the Messianic period is described as a whole. The fact that the Messiah was to come and establish an everlasting kingdom which was to triumph over all opposition, and experience a glorious consummation, is clearly foretold. All these events were, so to speak, included in the same picture ; but the perspective was not preserved. The prophecies were not intended to give the chronological order of the events foretold. Hence the consumma- tion of the Messiah's kingdom is depicted as in immediate prox- imity with his appearance in the flesh. This led almost all the Jews, and even the disciples of Christ themselves, before the day of Pentecost, to look for the immediate establishment of the Mes- siah's kingdom in its glory. Such being the character of the Old Testament prophecies, it cannot be fairly inferred that they have as yet received their full accomplishment ; or that they are now being fulfilled in the silent progress of the Gospel. They include the past and the present, but much remains to be accom- plished in the future more in accordance with their literal mean- ing. (2.) The character of the predictions in the New Testa- ment does not admit of their being made to refer to any spiritual coming of Christ or to the constant progress of his Church. They evidently refer to a single event ; to an event in the future, not now in progress ; an event which shall attract the attention of all nations, and be attended by the resurrection of the dead, the complete salvation of the righteous, and the condemnation of the wicked. (3.) A third answer to the objection under considera- tion is, that the Apostles, as is conceded, understood the predic- tions of Christ concerning his second coming, in the way in which they have been understood by the Church, as a whole, from that day to this.
2. A second objection to the common Church view of the eschatology of the New Testament is, that our Lord expressly says that the events which He foretold were to come to pass dur- ing that generation. His words are, " Verily, I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." This objection is founded upon the .pregnant discourse of Christ recorded in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth chapters of Matthew. It is to be remarked that those chapters contain the answer which Christ gave to three questions addressed to Him by his disciples; first, when the destruction of the temple and of
798 PART IV. Ch. HI. — THE SECOND ADVENT.
Jerusalem was to occur ; second, what was to be the sign of his coming ; and third, when the end of the world was to take place. The difficulty in interpreting this discourse is, to deter- mine its relation to these several questions. There are three methods of interpretation which have been applied to this pas- sage. The first assumes that the whole of our Lord's discourse refers but to one question, namely, When was Jerusalem to be destroyed and Christ's kingdom to be inaugurated ; the second adopts the theory of what used to be called the double sense of prophecy ; that is, that the same words or prediction refer to one event in one sense, and to a different event in a higher sense ; the third assumes that one part of our Lord's predictions refers exclu- sively to one of the questions asked, and that other portions refer exclusively to the other questions.
The rationalistic interpreters adopt the first method and refer everything to the overthrow of the Jewish polity, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the inauguration of the Church which is to do its work of judgment in the earth. Some evangelical interpreters also assume that our Lord answers the three questions put to Him as one, as they constituted in fact but one in the minds of his disciples, since they believed that the three events, the de- struction of Jerusalem, the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world, were all to occur together. Thus Luthardt says : " There are three questions according to the words ; but only one in the minds of the disciples, as they did not consider the three events, the destruction of Jerusalem, the second coming of Christ, and the end of the world, as separated chronologically ; but as three great acts in the final drama of the world's history." J In this sense our Lord, he adds, answered their inquiries. He does not separate the different subjects, so as to speak first of one and then of another ; but he keeps all ever in view. " It is the method," he says, "of Biblical prophecy, which our Lord ob- serves, always to predict the one great end and all else and what is preparatory, only so far as it stands in connection with that end and appears as one of its elements." 2 Although, therefore, the prophecy of Christ extends to events in the distant future, He could say that that generation should not pass away until all was fulfilled ; for the destruction of Jerusalem was the commencement of that work of judgment which Christ foretold.
1 Die Lehre von den letzten Dingen in Abhandlungen und Schriftauslegungen dargettelli von Chr. Ernst Luthardt, der Theologie Doktor und Professor zu Leipzig. Leipzig, 1861, p. 87.
2 Ibid. pp. 87, 88.