GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE
II.--Hope Long Deferred Now Reviving
BY C. T. RUSSELL
Pastor Brooklyn Tabernacle
ONE OF THE MOST
remarkable things in history is the perseverance of Jewish hopes; and this confirms the
inspiration of the Bible, which sets forth that hope, tells of its long-delayed fruition
and assures us that Israel's hope will persist until its realization. In subsequent
articles we will consider the Jewish prophecies and types, which show that the Israelitish
dreams of world-wide influence as God's peculiar people are speedily to be realized. We
will also show from the Hebrew Scriptures why the fulfillment of the glorious promises
made to Abraham and his posterity have been so long delayed--the necessity for the delay
and the advantages accruing therefrom. For the present we content ourselves with the bare
statement that, according to the Bible, Palestine will be flourishing with a large
population of Jews at the close of the year 1914. The Scriptures indicate that the
gathering will be "out of all nations," and with considerable wealth and general
prosperity. We are not to understand that this means that all the Jews of the world will
go to Palestine, but that some of the most pious and zealous from every quarter will
gather there. At that time will occur what the Bible terms "Jacob's Trouble," in
conjunction with a world-wide trouble, financial, religious, political, social,
eventuating in anarchy, and, later on, in Israel's exaltation as the earthly exponent of
Messiah's spiritual Kingdom.
Let none think of us as prophesying, but
merely as announcing our interpretations of prophecy, which we have been presenting to the
public for the past thirty-four years. In 1874, Socialism had scarcely been born, and
Zionism was not dreamed of until twenty years later. Now Socialism is the great menace of
all the Governments of the civilized world, including Japan, and Zionism is forging ahead
with great strides.
In God's province the doors to Palestine
as a home have been barred against the Jews for the past sixteen years. And it is during
this period that the Jews have begun to specially long for their home land. The Zionist
movement is their cry to Heaven, and to each other and to the world. The barring of the
doors to Palestine undoubtedly made the Jews more anxious to re-enter it. The embargo was
not lifted until Turkey's peaceful revolution put into power men of more modern thought,
who have canceled the prohibition and made the Jews welcome to Palestine on the same terms
as other peoples.
Six months passed under the new privileges
with apparently small results, causing astonishment to those who had expected a speedy
influx of the exiled people to the Land of Promise. The Zionist Congress, which closed its
session in Hamburg, Germany, on the last day of 1909, disclosed the secret of the delay of
the Jews to avail themselves of the opened door. It appears that Dr. Max Nordau, the great
leader of the Zionists and President of the Association, has been exerting all of his
great influence to hold back the Israelites from entering Palestine, until he could bring
pressure to bear upon the new Turkish Government to secure from it Charter rights making
of Palestine a Jewish State. Dr. Nordau reasoned that the Turkish Government would be
greatly advantaged by the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish Government tributary to
Turkey-- autonomous, but under the Turkish suzerainty. Such a charter the Turkish
Government has continued to refuse, reiterating, however, its Welcome to the Jews, to all
parts of the empire including Palestine, with the general privileges of Turkish
citizenship. Moreover, they reminded the Jews that Turkey is one of the few nations which
had never persecuted the children of Abraham.
The
Pent-Up Hopes Irresistible.
At one time it was feared that the Zionist Congress just
closed in Hamburg would mark a breach in the society, because Dr. Nordau, its President,
with many of its influential members, insisted that the Zionist movement must halt until
its demands of an autonomous Government for Palestine should be granted, and because the
masses of the Zionists were restive and insisted that the opened door should be promptly
entered, leaving the results to God's providence. They reasoned that God, who had promised
the regathering of Israel, and who had opened the way, is abundantly able in his own time
to fulfill all the other provisions of the great promise made to Abraham-- that his seed,
his posterity, should yet bless all the nations of the earth. Sentiment ran high at the
Congress, and, notwithstanding the love and esteem in which the Society's President was
held and the weighty influence of other leaders under him, the Congress with kind
preambles and resolutions of respect for its leaders, passed over their heads a resolution
ordering the gradual transfer of all the interests of the Zionists to Palestine. Thus the
future center of Zionism is decreed to be the Holy Land. The funds which have been in
process of collection for banking purposes, etc., are to be centered there-- the words
"gradually transferred" are understood to signify as prompt a transfer as wisdom
could sanction in dealing with the various interests and assets of the institution.
Witnesses present at that last Zionist
Congress tell of the earnestness and intensity of manner manifested by the delegates
representing Israelites in all parts of the world. America, by virtue of donations,
membership in Zionist Societies, etc., would have been entitled to a sufficiency of
representatives in the Congress to have constituted a majority. But the representation was
comparatively small, the cost of travel, no doubt interfering-- perhaps, also, a desire to
save the expense in favor of further donations to the work. It is remarkable that so few
wealthy Jews have contributed either their influence or money to further the patriotic
efforts of their poorer brethren, some of whom so greatly need just such a homing place.
However, since the Scriptures indicate the accumulation there of wealth, we have no doubt
that during the next few years circumstances will be so shaped providentially that wealthy
Jews, as well as poor ones, will congregate there. Meantime, in full accord with
prophecies, the climate of Palestine is greatly improving, by reason of greater rainfalls.
And a Hebrew named Aaronson has discovered a new kind of wheat, similar to our own, but
specially adapted to the soil and climate of Palestine.
Coincidentally, Turkish despatches inform
the world that the Turkish Government has commissioned Sir William Wilcox, of the Royal
Geographical Society of Great Britain, Chief Engineer of the Survey of the
Tigris-Euphrates Delta, to proceed with the reclaiming of Mesopotamia, the valleys of the
Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, presumably the site of the Garden of Eden, the cradle of the
race, and the home land of Abraham before he removed to Canaan. This considerable work, it
is estimated, can be accomplished in about three years. It will tend to bring modern
civilization and wealth to that quarter, and will doubtless co-operate in the rejuvenation
of Palestine.
Thus, gradually, the geographical center of
the earth, the Jerusalem vicinity, is resuming importance in the eyes of the world. Those
who view the matter through the prophetic telescope foresee the time when "the Law
shall go forth from Mt. Zion (spiritual Israel on the heavenly plane) and the Word from
Jerusalem, the To-Be Capital of the world under the Millennial
Kingdom arrangements. Thither all the nations of earth will send their ambassadors and
from thence take their laws. Upon such as will conform to these arrangements the Divine
blessing will rest, uplifting them gradually from sin, ignorance and superstition to
mental, moral and physical perfection. Thus, according to the Scriptures the whole earth
will gradually become the Garden of the Lord--Paradise. And those times or years of
restitution will bring the willing and obedient of mankind back again to the full
perfection of being, mental, moral and physical, which God intended and exemplified in
Father Adam. Thus eventually all the terrible results of Adam's disobedience and fall will
be blotted out through the long-promised Kingdom of Israel, the Kingdom of God under
Messiah the Mediator of Israel's New Law Covenant, whose gracious provisions will be open
to all the nations of the earth.-- Acts 3:19-23; Jer. 31:31; Zech. 14:1-6,14-20.
World
Empire Ambitions.
Everybody knows that since the days of Nebuchadnezzar, King
of Babylon, many of the nations of earth have cherished the ambition that the fates had
decreed their superiority above other nations, and that all other nations should submit to
their rule for their own advantage. This conceit prompted Nebuchadnezzar to be the first
conqueror of the world. Cyrus the Mede concluded that he was still more fit to be the
world's emperor and established the dominion of the world-wide Empire of the Medes and
Persians. A little later the conceit was grasped by a young man scarcely out of his teens,
and Alexander the Great conquered the world and gave its scepter to Greece. Later on the
Caesars wrested the power and made Rome Empress of the world. Still later, the Popes
became the virtual rulers of earth, under a claim of spiritual authority. Napoleon ended
the papal empire of earth and sought to appropriate the honors of world domination to
himself and France. History shows us that he almost accomplished his designs. The Bible
explains that he failed, not because of incapacity, but because of the Divine
foreordination that the fifth universal Empire of earth will be that of Messiah--a
spiritual and invisible reign of Christ and the saintly elect members of the church, his
Bride, operating through fleshly Israel, then to be restored to Divine favor and made
chief of the nations of earth and the channel of Divine blessing.
It is not so generally known, even to
Christian Bible students, that the Jews entertained this idea of world empire long
centuries before Nebuchadnezzar grasped earth's scepter. Fourteen hundred years before
Nebuchadnezzar became the world's Emperor, God promised this honorable station to Abraham
and his seed--to a nation from his loins. For Abraham's assurance and for the assurance of
all afterward interested in that promise, God made oath to him, so that by two immutable
things, His Word and His Oath, we and all in accord with the Divine Purpose might know of
a surety that the promise or Covenant is not a conditional one--that it could not fail,
that the fulfillment, though long deferred, would be sure.-- Hebrews 6:18.
Those who have wondered at the indomitable
spirit of the Jew which has preserved his nationality for more than thirty centuries,
while other nations in many lands have bloomed and faded and died. The Chinese, indeed, do
show a great persistency, yet they have no acceptable history connecting them definitely
with the remote past and with creation, as have the Jews alone. The secret of this history
and national persistency is found in the relationship between Israel and God. And the
beginning of that relationship and dominating hope is marked by God's promise and oath to
Abraham, "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." The
thought of blessing the world was not with Israel, as with other nations, merely a
dream of imperial power, dignity and rich revenue. Their ambition based upon this promise
made to Abraham was that they as a nation consecrated to God and accepted by God as his
peculiar people would be used by the promised Messiah as his agency or channel for
bringing the whole world into subjection to the Divine Law--for their moral as well as
their physical blessing and uplifting out of sin and death conditions. And this hope is
soon to be realized.
This hope, this ambition to be God's people,
to be God's servants, to be God's channels of blessing to the remainder of mankind,
attached itself to the Hebrew mind in its every contact with the promises of God, the Law
and the prophecies, and with all their experiences under Divine provisions, which were
accepted as necessary instructions of God to qualify them for their foreordained service
to mankind. Thus their early experience in reaching Canaan through the wilderness were
accepted as lessons necessary for their development. Their experiences under the Judges
were disheartening, but accepted as necessary instructions and preparations. Then came the
Kingdom Epoch in their history, when the reign of Saul, David and Solomon marked periods
of progress in the direction of their long-cherished hopes. Especially in Solomon's day
they felt that the promises to Abraham was about to be fulfilled. Notwithstanding the fact
that Solomon conscripted the labor of the people for the construction of his great temple,
and notwithstanding the fact that he taxed them heavily for internal improvements, etc.,
they submitted in a measure of cheerfulness, because the wisdom, the riches and the
greatness of that king attracted world-wide notice and seemed to be leading on to the
grand climax of their hopes--the establishment of the seed of Abraham as the chief nation
of earth, from whose capital, Jerusalem, the Law would go forth to every nation, people,
kindred and tongue. Indeed, it is quite probable that Israel's boast of Divine promise of
the rulership of the world spread abroad amongst the other nations and awakened in them a
rival ambition. It should be noticed, however, that Israel sought its dominion of the
world under Divine supervision and not through conquering armies and ambitious generals.
Solomon extended the boundaries of his kingdom merely to the limitations which had been
outlined in the Divine assurances and, instead of seeking to conquer the world, his was
known as the "kingdom of peace."
From the time of Solomon's death, Israel's
history is a record of disappointments as respects their great hopes of world domination.
The division of the nation into two parts, Judah and Israel, and subsequently their
overthrow by Syria and Babylonia shook the conceit of many in respect to the Divine
Promise, so that when in the days of Cyrus, in harmony with Divine Providence, the
millions of Israelites who had gone into captivity as settlers in other lands, preferred
to remain where they were, when given the opportunity of returning to the promised land.
Less than fifty-five thousand out of the many millions had so great a love for God and so
strong a hope in the Abrahamic promise as to brave a return to the desolated land from
which their fathers had been forcibly removed. And just so, we believe, it is to-day. The
Jews who would regather to Jerusalem now, according to Hebrew prophecy, will be the
devout, the faithful, who still trust in that Abrahamic promise. The masses now will
prefer to remain in symbolical Babylon, as the masses in the day of Cyrus preferred to
remain in literal Babylon.
During the 536 years from the time of the
return of the faithful fifty thousand under the decree of Cyrus, down to the time of the
building of Herod's Temple, more gorgeous than that of Solomon, the Israelites had a
variety of trying experiences, all of which should have tended to keep them very humble
and near to the Lord. As a matter of fact those trying experiences did make of the Jews a
peculiar people, a religious people, more advanced along moral and religious lines than
any other nation on the earth. But, naturally enough, the religious nation was not
composed of the pure in heart only. Their priests became to a considerable degree Higher
Critics and politicians of the sect known as "Sadducees" or Reform Jews who
believed merely in the present life and doubted the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise--hoping
vaguely that possibly Israel might some day attain an influential position, not by Divine
interposition, but by human wisdom and politics. On the other hand, there was a strong
holiness party at that time amongst the Jews known as the Pharisees, who went to the
opposite extreme and magnified the letter of the Law to such a degree that they entirely
lost sight of its real spirit or intent. Nevertheless as between these two great extremes
there was then, as we should expect, a minority in heart-harmony
with the Lord and his Promise, and still "waiting for the consolation of
Israel," --"Israelites indeed" in whom was no guile.
Natural
Israel--Spiritual Israel.
It was at the climax of Israel's second attainment of
national importance and dignity as a subordinate kingdom, under the Roman Empire in the
days of Herod, that a great transaction occurred, which few of the Jews then understood
and which few since understand, and which few even of Christians understand Scripturally.
The Divine Purpose contemplated a greater
Kingdom and a greater blessing of all the nations of the earth than the most hopeful of
the Jews had even dreamed of --a blessing and uplifting to perfection and harmony with God
and eternal life. They did not see that their sin-offerings were merely typical, and that,
according to the Law, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, signified that a man's
life would be necessary to redeem a man's life --to redeem Adam and his race from the
sentence of death. They did not see that before Messiah could legally bless the world and
emancipate them from sin and death and secure to them eternal life, he must first redeem
them through the sacrifice of himself--typified in various of the typical sacrifices of
their law. Hence they expected Messiah's manifestation in power and great glory (now soon
to be revealed), and this hindered them from accepting as him the lowly One who submitted
himself to a death and crucifixion--although he was holy, harmless and undefiled, separate
from sinners, the anti-typical Passover Lamb.
The intervening period of nearly nineteen
centuries has greatly perplexed the Jews. They perceive their cast-off condition --that
they have been without prophet or priest or other mark of Divine favor all these
centuries, subject to persecution. Had they seen what we are now about to relate the
situation would have been clear and easily understood; but God did not wish to have it
understood until his "due time." The Jews perceived nominal Christendom confused
in doctrines and practices, "a cage for every unclean and hateful bird." (Rev.
18:2.) They could not believe that God had cast off their nation and had accepted instead
as his peculiar people the nations styled Christendom. They reasoned that much of the
theology and many of the practices of nominal Christendom were heathenish, pure and
simple. They did not see that in that great mass of nominal Christians there were here and
there saints of God, and that these alone from the Divine standpoint composed the
spiritual Israelites--a little flock, containing not many rich, not many great, not many
wise, not many learned, not many noble, according to worldly estimation.
The explanation of this matter, which the
Scriptures term the "mystery hidden from past ages and dispensations," is this:
It is the Divine Purpose to have two Israels --both of them specified in the promise to
Abraham. First, a spiritual Israel whose destiny is to share in the "first
resurrection," and be like unto the angels, spirit beings invisible to men. As
Messiah was typified by Isaac, Abraham's son, this spiritual class, intended to be his
joint-heirs on the spirit plane, were typified by Rebecca, Isaac's wife. This spiritual
Messiah, Jesus and his Church exalted through suffering and as a reward for faith and
obedience and self-sacrifice, must first be completed and exalted to the heavenly
condition before the earthly blessing can come to natural Israel, fulfilling to her all
the gracious promises which have encouraged the hearts of her children these many
centuries. And the fulfillment, when realized, will far exceed all anticipation.
Thus the promise to Abraham was divided
into two portions; for God said to him: "Thy seed shall be (1) as the stars of heaven (spiritual Israel), Messiah
and his elect Bride," and (2) "Thy seed shall be as the sand
of the sea shore"--natural Israel and the multitudes of mankind who shall
receive the Divine blessing through both spiritual and natural Israel. For the Scriptures
indicate that as all nations are privileged to come to the United States and become
citizens, so during the reign of Messiah all nations will be privileged to become
Israelites and thus to share in the blessings of Israel's New Covenant. (Jer. 31:31; Rom.
11:27.)
Thus ultimately all the willing and obedient
of the human family will be adopted into Abraham's family. At the conclusion of Messiah's
reign of a thousand years, the whole earth will be filled with Abraham's seed or
posterity, and lifted up to full perfection and harmony with God; because all the
unwilling and disobedient will ere then have been utterly destroyed by Immanuel in the
Second Death.
ONLY A LITTLE WHILE
ONLY a little while to walk with weary feet,
Only a little while the storms of life to meet,
Only a little while to tread the thorny way,
Only a little while, then comes the perfect day.
Only a little while to spread the truth abroad,
Only a little while to testify for God,
Only a little while, the time is fleeting fast,
Only a little while, earth's sorrows all are past.
Only a little while, then let us do our best,
Only a little while, then comes the promised rest.
Only a little while, oh, what a word is this!
Only a little while, then comes the perfect bliss.
Only a little while, then death shall be withdrawn,
Only a little while, then pain and tears are gone;
Only a little while, then by the Crystal Sea,
Only a little while, then we shall dwell with Thee.
Only a little while, Lord, let Thy Kingdom come!
Only a little while, Thy people sigh for home;
Only a little while, the City bring to sight,
Only a little while, come end earth's dreary night!
