SYNOPSIS OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Continued

THE NEW COVENANT OF THE KINGDOM.

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.” The “house” here signifies their country, or territory of the kingdom. “And it shall come to pass that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord.” “If the ordinances of the sun, moon, and stars, depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” The ordinances of the heavenly bodies cannot depart from before Jehovah; heaven cannot be measured; nor the foundations of the earth discovered: therefore, Israel, though widely scattered and peeled, are not cast off for ever; but are certain to be restored, and thenceforth to continue always a nation before God—Jeremiah 31.

Under the Mosaic Covenant the Twelve Tribes were divided into two nations under two distinct kings from the fourth of Rehoboam to the sixth of Hezekiah, being 256 years. But when they shall cease to be cast off, and instead of being called Lo-ammi, shall become a nation before Jehovah, “they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all;” for “thus saith the Lord God, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations (goyim) whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them unto their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all”—Ezekiel 37: 21-22.

When the two houses of Israel, or the Twelve Tribes, are brought into their own land again, the Law, or New Covenant is delivered to them from Mount Zion by their Lord and king; “for out of Zion is to go forth the law,” by which their organization as a kingdom is to be accomplished. Referring to this time Jehovah saith, some 470 years after David’s decease, “My servant David shall be their prince for ever. And I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my temple (miqudashi) in the midst of them for evermore. My dwelling (mishkani) also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the nations shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my temple shall be in the midst of them for evermore”—Ezekiel 37: 25-28. From this testimony it will be seen, first, that the Covenant is not yet made with Israel and Judah; second, that they are in the Lo-ammi state; and thirdly, that they are not yet sanctified, or made holy: for the declared reason that the temple of Jehovah is not yet in the midst of them—and cannot be there until they are restored, and the Lord returns to build it.

Israel and Judah cannot be sanctified until the temple is rebuilt; for in carrying out the mercy of the New Covenant, when “the Lord will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more,” a bullock for a sin offering is to be prepared for the prince and for all the people of the land at the celebration of the Passover, when it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. This appears from the testimony of Ezekiel 45, where it says, that the Prince shall give a meat offering, and a burnt offering, and peace offerings to make reconciliation for the House of Israel; and these must be offered upon the altar when it shall be purged and purified for the purpose, and the temple shall have been reconciled, or expiated.

The everlasting covenant of peace with the Twelve Tribes which Jehovah promises to make, is termed a New Covenant, being an improvement upon the Old. “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel, and with the House of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, &c.; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least unto the greatest of them; for I will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more”—Jeremiah 31: 31.

The New Covenant is to be made with the two houses of Israel some time subsequently to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldees when the promise was made. It cannot have been made with them yet; for from the time it is made their iniquity will have been forgiven and forgotten. Will any man in his right mind affirm that the sin and iniquity of the house of Judah is forgiven? Can Judah be forgiven their treatment of their King so long as they continue in unbelief? No; the grafting of the Twelve Tribes into their own Olive is predicated on their not continuing in unbelief—Romans 9: 23. The Covenant is not yet made with Israel, or we should behold every Israelite a living tablet of the new law, full of the knowledge of God, and in disposition like their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Mosaic Covenant was engraved on stones; but the New is not to be recorded thus; it is to be inscribed upon their hearts by the spirit; for, saith Jehovah, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God”—Ezekiel 36: 27. And again, “I will hide my face no more from them; for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord”—chapter 39: 29. No sophistry can make this applicable to the past. God’s face is now hid from them, and because of the hiding thereof, they are wanderers among the nations, not walking in his statutes, nor observing his judgments to do them.

By the New and everlasting covenant of peace, the Twelve Tribes will be brought into legal possession of their country; Jerusalem will be safely inhabited; it will become the Lord’s throne; and the nation will be constituted holy with an everlasting righteousness in the Lord their king; for “in the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory”—Isaiah 45: 25. They will be justified in the Lord by faith in him, and because they believe in him, they will glory in him. But before they can be justified in him, they must be introduced into him; the nation must put him on as “the Lord its righteousness.” During the interregnum, an individual believer in Jesus and the things of the covenant, is introduced into Jesus as the Christ that he may be “justified in the Lord,” by baptism into his name; so the believing nation will be baptised in the Red Sea into Jesus, as it was before into Moses, when all its sins will be cast into the depths of the sea, and it will come to Zion to receive the law, or Covenant of peace. In proof of this second passage of Israel through the Red Sea see, —Psalm 68: 22; Isaiah 11: 15-16; Zechariah 10: 10-12; and Micah 7: 19. Thus is the nation introduced into the name of the Lord, in which its “new heart and new spirit,” and its faith in Jesus, are granted to it for repentance and remission of sins; and they are accepted. Henceforth, “they shall walk up and down in his name.” They shall be “settled after their old estates.” “Their land that was desolate shall become as the garden of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities, fenced and inhabited.” As for Jerusalem it shall be called “a city of truth,” and “its name from that day shall be JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH, the Lord is there”—Ezekiel 36: 26; Acts 5: 31; Ezekiel 48: 35.

By faith in the promises, belief in Jesus, and baptism into him as its Lord, High Priest, and King, the nation is “saved from its enemies, and from the hand of all that hate them.” Thus saved, it will have become strong and powerful, “serving God without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of its life,” or mortal career. Immortality is yet before it; for it is a nation destined to exist and flourish for ever. Immortality and glory, honor and rank, in the kingdom, are now accessible, and have been for ages past, to individuals of the nation; but they judge themselves unworthy of it. When, therefore, the kingdom comes, they can rejoice only in common with the nation in its territorial, civil, spiritual, and social blessedness. If they would live for ever, they must wait with patience till death shall be abolished from the earth, and “every curse shall cease”—Revelation 21: 4; 22: 3. Then, at the end of the thousand years, all, both Israelites and Gentiles, who shall be accounted worthy of exaltation to the higher, or angelic, nature, will become immortal; and as one nation, subject to Jesus and the saints, will constitute an everlasting kingdom on the earth, when “all things shall be created new,” and “the sea shall be no more.”

In the present interregnum, believers of the Gospel of the Kingdom when justified in the Lord, and so made holy, and saved from their past sins, are still required to offer sacrifice, or to do service to their Father who is in heaven. The doing of service is indispensable so long as human nature is “sinful flesh.” If when believers are justified and sanctified morally and constitutionally, they were also physically cleansed, or purified from that evil principle which brings them into death and corruption, religious service would be unnecessary. When they rise from the dead, they will be free from this evil; nevertheless they will perform religious service; but it will be for nations and individuals subject to this evil and not for themselves. Now the same analogy obtains in regard to the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Although justified in the Lord, and constituted a holy nation, they are still a nation of generations subject to mortality because of the evil in their flesh, which nothing but the creative energy of omnipotence can eradicate. So long therefore as the nation is perpetuated by a succession of generations, there must be a national religious service connected with the memorials of death, and performed for them by a priesthood such as the blood of the covenant of their sanctification demands. When death shall be destroyed, generations will cease to be born and to pass away; and the life of the nation will be sustained, by a generation that shall consist of individuals who shall have all become immortal, or “equal to the angels.” The nation will then be free from the death-principle. It will be intellectually, morally, and physically perfect. Its sin, as well as the sin of the world, will be thoroughly removed; so that no vestige thereof will remain. There will, therefore, be no ground for a service in which gifts and sacrifices are offered for the erring and the ignorant. “The law of sin and death” being extirpated from the nature of man, the good he would do will not be beset by evil. He will not err, nor be the sport of ignorance. “God will be all and in all” as he now is in Christ; so that his will will be as loyally and acceptably performed, as though he were to execute it himself. No service therefore will be needed to remind men of the impurity and mortality of their nature, their inherent sinfulness and ignorance, and that their acceptedness is predicated upon the perfect obedience of another even unto death, whom God had set forth as a propitiatory through faith in his blood. But until this consummation be attained, a service will be necessary memorialising these very things. And this necessity urges us on to the brief consideration of the

PRIESTHOOD OF THE KINGDOM.

This is an order in the State composed of men who shall have become priests “after the power of an endless life,” having been during the interregnum washed in baptism, sanctified by the anointing spirit, and consecrated by the blood of the covenant. These are “priests to God,” who, saith the Lord, “shall enter into my temple, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge”—Ezekiel 44: 16. They are then the priests of Zion clothed with righteousness and salvation—Psalm 132: 9, 16, —the meek whom the Lord hath beautified—Psalm 149: 4. They are representatively styled “the sons of Zadok;” and are kings also as well as priests, and therefore priests “after the order of Melchizedec.” The priesthood of the kingdom is consequently a Royal Priesthood; and as it is “for ever,” its officials are immortal and “equal to the angels.” They are perfect as their Father who is in heaven, having no evil in their flesh, or impurity of character. Such are the priests of the kingdom when the saints shall possess it “under the whole heaven.”

The Royal Priesthood is an order under one chief, who is called High Priest. He is the elder brother of the order, all the rest being “his brethren.” He was once like them in the days of their sinful flesh, “a little lower than the angels;” but being also “made after the power of an endless life,” he enjoys the spiritual, angelic, or higher nature, and sits as high priest for ever on his father David’s throne, and bears the glory. The sons of Zadok, or Jesus and his brethren, are constituted a priest forever by “the word of the oath;” so that the royal priesthood of the kingdom is without predecessor or successor. Its officials do not derive their inheritance from Aaron and his sons; nor from the old covenant of the kingdom. They inherit under the New, which gives them all the privileges and honors they possess. The word of the oath made their Chief, though a son of Judah and of David, High Priest contrary to the Mosaic law which created Aaron; it makes them priests also of the same order by constitution, when in the interregnum they were “made the righteousness of God in him.” Being in him they are “complete in him,” and “joint-heirs” with him of all his titles, honors, and real and personal estate.

Contemporary with this order of priests there will be in the kingdom a class of priests who are not royal, nor priests after the power of an endless life. This inferior class is Levitical. They will be mortal and corruptible men of the tribe of Levi, degraded from their former rank under the old constitution to an inferior station under the new, to minister before the people instead of before the Lord as in the days of old. The reason of this degradation is the misconduct of their order under the Mosaic covenant. When the people turned to the worship of idols, the Aaronic Levites became their ministers, instead of vindicating the honor and institutions of Jehovah; therefore, says he, “they shall even bear their iniquity”—“they shall not come near unto me to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come near to any of my holy things in the most holy place: but they shall bear their shame, and their abominations which they have committed”—Ezekiel 44: 10, 13. Let the reader give heed to this, and note that these Levitical priests under the old covenant officiated at the altar, entered the Holy Place and burned incense and ate the shew-bread at the Lord’s table, and their chief also passed into the Most Holy with the blood of the atonement. This was coming near to Jehovah, and ministering unto him. But their order had caused the people to serve idols, and had officiated as idol priests. They had done this while the kingdom existed under the Mosaic code, and the punishment of the offence is decreed to fall upon the order in its degradation when the kingdom shall be restored under the New or amended constitution. They may not approach the altar to offer the fat and the blood of the sacrifices, nor enter the Holy and Most Holy to stand before the Lord. In this state of affairs, the High Priesthood is vacated, and the altar and Holy places are devoid of ministers. There are the nations, and the Twelve Tribes, and the ministering Levites, who minister to the worshippers, but cannot approach to the Lord. What is to be done in this case? Does not the reader perceive a vacancy here? A space to be occupied by an order, that may appear before the Lord? That may burn the fat and sprinkle the blood upon the altar, and enter the Holies, and minister for the world as priests to God, and not to the people? The chain is complete when the order is introduced between the people’s priests and Jehovah. Counting the links from the remotest, there is first, the nations; secondly, Israel; thirdly, the Leviticals; fourthly, the sons of Zadok; fifthly, the High Priest, or Prince of Israel; and sixthly, Jehovah. This is the chain that connects the ends of the earth to the throne of the Eternal when the kingdom shall exist in the Age to Come.

It is evident that the sons of Zadok are resurrected men. Ezekiel is testifying things which had not existed previously to his day, could not exist contemporarily with him, and have not existed since. They are at variance with the Mosaic law, and could not therefore exist so long as it continued in force. But they are things foretold while the temple was in smoking ruins, & affirmed of God as certain to come to pass. There is no question therefore but they will be hereafter. The reason given why the sons of Zadok shall burn the fat and sprinkle the blood on the altar, and appear before Jehovah in the Holy place, is, because “they kept the charge of his sanctuary, when the children of Israel went astray from her.” But these faithful men have been dead for ages. It is necessary therefore for them to rise from the dead, that they may perform the service to which they are appointed.

THE TEMPLE.

In the covenant made with David, Jehovah declared, that he would “raise up” one of his sons, who should be also Son of God, and that he should build a temple for his name. While the foundations only of a temple existed in Jerusalem, Jehovah sent Zechariah to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, to say to him, that “the man whose name is THE BRANCH,” which he had said should grow up unto David, “should build the temple of the Lord.” He emphasised this message, saying, “Even He shall build the temple of the Lord.” He also gave him to know, that “the sons of strangers from afar should come and assist in its erection; when the glory of Lebanon, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box, together should be brought” to Jerusalem to beautify the place of the temple—Zechariah 6: 12-15; Isaiah 60: 10, 13. —When the flocks of Kedar, and the rams of Nebaioth should also come up with acceptance on its altar, and the temple itself should be glorified with his glory. When this should come to pass, Zechariah likewise testified that “THE BRANCH should bear the glory, and should sit and rule upon his throne; and be a priest upon his throne.” Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah under the Persians, was at that time rebuilding the temple and finished it in the sixth year of Darius. But Zerubbabel, though a type of Messiah, who was then, so to speak, in his loins, was not named “The Branch;” nor did he ever sit and rule upon a throne, as king or priest; therefore the temple he finished was not the temple referred to. The temple built by Zerubbabel was finally destroyed by the Romans; since which no temple has existed in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus is admitted on all hands to be “the man whose name is the Branch;” but as yet he hath built no temple to the Lord. It is true, Christ’s mystical body, the church, is styled “a holy temple in the Lord, for a habitation of God through the Spirit.” He also called his natural body “the temple” which he would rebuild in three days; and in the Revelation, it is said, that “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of the New Jerusalem.” This is all admitted. But what is that temple, and who is the builder of it, even that which Ezekiel describes in his fortieth, forty-first, and forty-second chapters? No such temple, mystical or architectural, has ever existed in Jerusalem, or elsewhere, since men have dwelt upon the earth. The building, in its Courts, and internal compartments, with its furniture, and ordinances, are different from the Tabernacle, and temple built by Solomon and Zerubbabel. It is a structure, then, hereafter to be erected in Jerusalem Restored, not in Jerusalem the New; and the builder of it is the Lord; for, he saith, “I will set my temple in the midst of Israel for evermore”—He will set it there by “The Branch,” whom he hath appointed to build it.

Solomon, Zerubbabel, and “the Branch” are the great temple builders of the kingdom. The third temple which Jesus shall erect on Moriah, will be more magnificent than any building that has yet adorned “the City of the Great King.” It will be renowned throughout all the earth, and will be frequented as “the House of Prayer for all nations,” who shall “flow unto it.” “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the temple of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem”—Isaiah 2: 3. “Because of his temple in Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto God”—Psalm 68: 29. St. Peter’s at Rome, St. Paul’s at London, St. Sophia at Constantinople, &c., will all be deserted for the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem.

Six things are abolished from the future temple which were indispensable to those under the law—these are the Laver, the Branching Light-bearer, the Ark of the Covenant, the Cherubim, the Veil, and Golden Altar of Incense. These are all unnecessary to a service performed by Jesus and his brethren, the sons of Zadok. Having been washed in baptism before their resurrection, they have no use for the Laver like the sons of Aaron under the law. The light bearer of seven branches is superseded by their own anointing. They shine like the sun by the Spirit glory with which they are invested. They are the many light-bearing branches of the Holy Places, which need no artificial illumination in their presence. The Melchisedec high priest is himself the Ark of the New Covenant, and with his brethren, the Cherubim of glory. He is the Mercy Seat, sprinkled with the blood of the New Covenant, which is his own. The law, the manna, and the almond rod is He, the way, the truth, the bread of heaven, the resurrection, and the life. What need has the Most Holy Place of a temple of the Mosaic ark and its contents, with winged Cherubim, in the presence of a personage so august as He, the very substance of those shadowy things! The Veil was rent when his body was broken on the tree. The future temple is neither historical nor typical. It foreshadows no details; but by the building, and “the separate place,” both west of the Most Holy Place, indicates that there is a state beyond the thousand years into which they shall be received, who may be accounted worthy of eternal life when sin and death, and every curse, shall be abolished from the earth. Being no monument of the past, the rent-Veil repaired is seen only in the scarred substance of the Prince of Israel, which it prefigured. He being the antitype of the Veil, the type is excluded from the future temple, which will be illustrated by the presence of his glorious body which can be rent no more. “In every place, from the rising to the setting sun, incense shall be offered to the name of the Lord, even a pure offering”—Malachi 1: 11. The burning of incense, therefore, will not be restricted to the temple, as in the days of old. Prayer is the voice of supplication seeking assistance in times of need. It ascends as incense before the Lord, burned by the necessitous. Prayer will be made for Israel’s king continually, and will ascend as incense in every place. But Christ and his Saints will not be necessitous. They will have no wants unsupplied; for they will possess all things. Praise, not prayer, will ascend from the Holy Place; therefore there will be no golden altar there on which to burn incense before the Lord. Having said enough concerning the future temple of the kingdom for the comprehension of the subject, we shall proceed now to say a few words respecting

(Continued)